#again its one log with little context to most of the things they say
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the art of war (and other distractions) âą
as a mandatory part of your post-grad program, you're required to log 200 hours as a teaching aideâwhich wouldâve been fine, if you had any say in who you were working with. instead, you're assigned under professor jing yuan: esteemed war historian, charming bane of the faculty lounge, and the one man who makes grading ancient battle essays feel like a tactical skirmish of your own.
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featuring; jing yuan x f!reader
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word count; 11.1k words
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notes; hiiii part two is finally here! quick note that there's a brief timeskip between this and part one, so you might want to read that first although imo it's not necessary. just puts more depth and context into jing yuan and the reader's relationship :3c i was supposed to have this up yesterday but #i forgot lol
MASTERLIST â§ READ ON AO3
II. A (SLIGHTLY) FUTILE RESISTANCE
Youâve been living in Yaoqing for over three years, and the city still surprises you.
Itâs quieter than the Luofu, more groundedâthere are no sky bridges between buildings here, no gilded corridors echoing with history. What Yaoqing has instead are sun-drenched lecture halls with cracked windows, noodle stalls that open at sunrise, and students who never take office hours for granted.Â
You like it. Youâve even grown fond of the bus ride from the apartment you share with Jiaoqiu downtown. Itâs a little far from campus, but the rent is reasonable, and itâs walking distance from the hospital he works at. Your best friend is rarely home, always working rotations or crashing face-first into textbooks. But the place feels lived in and more importantly, shared.
That morning, like most mornings lately, youâd left before Jiaoqiu even stirred. Your coat still smells faintly of the congee stall you passed by on your way to the university gate.
Now, eight hours and three departmental fires later, youâre standing in the symposium planning room. You stare at a whiteboard, or whatâs left of it. Beneath the mess of color-coded arrows, neon post-its, and someoneâs increasingly unhinged handwriting, there might be a white surface. You havenât seen it in three days.
But then again, this is the chaos that typically accompanies inter-campus symposiums at Xianzhou University. They donât happen very often for a reason.Â
âYingyue,â you say slowly, âwhy does the keynote slot just say â??? + prayâ?â
Across the room, Yingyue doesnât look up from her laptop. âBecause weâre still waiting for confirmation from the Luofu guests. And also,â she adds, tapping something out furiously, âbecause prayer is the only action item I can complete on time.â
You squint. âI gave you three backup names.â
âTwo are out of town. One said heâll only accept if we introduce him as a âtranscendent thought architect.ââ
You pinch the bridge of your nose. âAbsolutely not.â
âAgreed,â Lihua chimes in from the corner, crouched over her laptop and what looks like a seating chart for a diplomatic summit. âYou let one person change their job title, next thing you know Zichen will demand we call him an intellectual athlete.â
âI would never,â Zichen says, stepping through the door like heâs been summoned. Heâs holding two cups of coffeeâhe hands one to you before continuing, âThough I do think âscholarly gladiatorâ has a nice ring to it.â
You take the coffee. âYouâre late.â
âYouâre welcome,â he replies. âThe line was twelve people deep and someone ahead of me ordered six oat milk lattes with the emotional weight of a thesis defense.â
The door slams open. You all flinch.
Feixiao storms in with a folder under one arm, a thermos the size of a fire extinguisher, and the kind of expression that makes grown men reconsider their careers. You instinctively straighten up, like all people do in the presence of the Dean of your department.Â
âIf the Facilities Manager tells me one more time that our lighting request is âaspirational,ââ she announces, âI will replace every fixture in Lecture Hall Two with interrogation lamps from my uncleâs militia days.â
Silence.
Yingyue lowers her glasses. âIs⊠is that a real option?â
âNo,â you say automatically. Then, because itâs Feixiao, you add, ââŠProbably.â
Feixiao tosses the folder on the nearest table and points at you. âUpdate?â
You resist the urge to salute. âWeâre still locking in the final keynote, but everything else is on track. Zichenâs confirming the catering, Lihua finalized the panel schedule, and Yingyueââ
âIs praying,â Zichen offers helpfully.
Feixiao exhales. âGood. Because I just got the finalized guest list from the Luofu. And you,â she pauses before pointing another finger, âare going to love this one.â
She slides a printed page across the table toward you. One glanceâand your stomach drops.
Professor Jing Yuan Department of History Luofu Campus
Guest speaker. Confirmed.
And just like that, the air shifts. You hear Zichen humming âTapsâ under his breath. Lihua raises an eyebrow. Yingyue silently writes oh no on the whiteboard, underlining it twice.
Feixiaoâs eyes narrow. âThat bad, huh?â
You press your lips together and manage a steady, âItâs fine.â
She nods once. âGood. Because heâs giving a talk in the same time block as your keynote.â Then your superior smiles, just a little too sharply. âThink of it as healthy competition.â
âHealthy competition,â Zichen deadpans. âSure. Like a knife fight with footnotes.â
You barely hear him. Youâre still staring at the name on the page. The printed letters donât blink, but they may as well. Professor Jing Yuan. You know the cadence of that name too well. Know the quiet weight he always carried into a room. The way he used to lean against the edge of your desk like he had all the time in the worldâ
âRight,â Feixiao says, breaking the silence with a snap of her folder. âGlad thatâs settled.â
You blink. âWhat?â
âOh, I mean I settled it,â she says, casually flipping to the next page. âHe requested the keynote slot opposite yours. Said it would be a nice mirrorâyour work on literature and emotion, his on emotion in wartime. Complementary perspectives. Lovely, right?â
You open your mouth, close it again.
Yingyue is now pretending to type something on her laptop with the kind of focus that means sheâs listening very hard.
Zichen stirs his coffee and doesnât look at you. âSo. Old mentor of yours?â
âSomething like that,â you mutters, shifting your weight. âWe worked together. Years ago.â
âAnd now,â Lihua says, âyouâre crossing academic swords on your home turf. Classic.â
You shoot him a look, but Feixiao cuts in before you can respond.
âHe mentioned you,â she says. Calm. Too calm. âBack when we were coordinating speakers. He asked how you were adjusting to Yaoqing, and maybe mentioned itâd be good to see you again.â
You glance at her. Sheâs not smiling, but thereâs a glint in her eye like sheâs waiting to see whether youâll retreat or dig in. Classic Feixiaoâdirect, but never cruel.
âIâm sure he meant that professionally,â you say evenly.
âMhm,â she replies.
The silence stretches. Everyone is trying their best to look productive.
But Zichen ruins the illusion by coughing into his cup. âSo, any chance heâs hot?â
You nearly drop your coffee. âZichen.â
âWhat? I like to be prepared for these things. If Iâm watching an academic rivalry unfold in real time, I need to know if Iâm rooting for drama or emotional devastation.â
âAcademic riâ? I used to TA for him in grad school, not try to score higher than the guy in every exam. You think Iâm that old?âÂ
Lihua giggles to herself. âOh, heâs an older gentleman, then? I totally understand.âÂ
Sometimes, you think handpicking these idiots for the symposium task-force committee is a grave mistake. But you donât have the energy to argue anymore.
Just when you thought you can get away with your non-rebuttal, Feixiao decides itâs time to give her own input.
âHeâs six-foot-something, speaks like a poem, and has the kind of hair that makes old generals weep.â She smirks. âSo yes, Zichen. Heâs hot.â
Yingyue nods solemnly. âItâs true. I looked him up. Itâs upsetting.â
âGreat,â Zichen says. âSo weâre definitely in emotional devastation territory.â
You groan and shove the folder back toward Feixiao. âCan we get back to the actual symposium planning?â
âYouâre the one who got flustered,â Lihua points out.
You were not flustered. Probably. Maybe. You take a long sip of coffee and start listing panelist names under your breath like a warding spell.
Somewhere deep down, you already know the rest of this week wonât be easy. Youâve worked hard to build something new hereâquiet mornings with students, long evenings working beside the hum of city traffic, lectures given with your own voice instead of someone elseâs echoing behind it.
Youâre not the same person who left the Luofu. And heâs not the same professor you walked away from.
But still.
You feel the shift in the air already. The pull of something unspoken, just ahead. You square your shoulders and reach for your notebook.
Let him come.
You get home just past ten.
The hallway light flickers twice before it steadiesâjust enough to remind you to finally submit that maintenance request. You kick off your shoes and lock the door behind you, shrugging off your coat with a sigh that seems to come from somewhere deeper than your lungs.
Your apartment is dim, save for the warm glow spilling from the kitchen. You catch the faint sound of a rice cooker ticking, something soft playing from Jiaoqiuâs old tablet speaker.
Heâs leaning against the counter, dressed in hospital scrubs, one socked foot tapping gently against the cabinet. His hair is a mess and thereâs a pen tucked behind one ear like he forgot it was thereâwhich, knowing him, he absolutely did.
Jiaoqiu looks up when he hears you. âYouâre late.â
âYouâre one to talk,â you say, dropping your bag onto the chair by the door. âI thought you had a night shift.â
âShift ended early,â he says, holding up a bowl. âI made enough rice for two. The stewâs reheating.â
You pause. âDid you actually make the stew or did you just add ginger to something frozen and call it a day?â
He doesnât answer. Which means youâre right.
You smile a little despite yourself, dropping into the seat across from him. âThanks, Jiao.â
He slides the bowl across the table, then leans on his elbows, watching you like heâs measuring your posture the way he does vitals.
âSo,â Jiaoqiu starts. âYou want to talk about it, or should I guess?â
You freeze for half a second. âTalk about what?â
He raises both eyebrows and flashes you a look that would've made a lesser person shy away from his gaze. Jiaoqiu is much too perceptive for his own good.Â
You stir your rice. âItâs nothing.â
He waits.
ââŠFeixiao confirmed the Luofu guest list today.â
âAh. For that symposium you mentioned.â He nods slowly. âAnd?â
You donât answer. You donât need to.
Jiaoqiu exhales and leans back, resting his head against the cabinet behind him. âHeâs one of the guests in question, isnât he?â
You glance at him, startled. âHow did youâ?â
âIâd have bet money,â he says simply. âYouâve had the same expression since you graduated whenever his name comes up. Like youâre thinking too much and trying not to show it.â
You focus on your bowl. âItâs fine. It was years ago.â
âYou left the Luofu literally a month after you last spoke to the guy,â he says, not unkindly. âAnd you didnât tell me until after you got the Yaoqing offer. That was years ago.â
âI didnât leave because of him.â
âI didnât say you did.â
Silence stretches between you. The rice cooker clicks off.
He turns down the speaker volume and says, a little more gently, âYou okay?â
You nod. Then hesitate. âI think I will be.â
Jiaoqiu watches you for another moment, then reaches for the ginger-stew and starts dishing out a second portion. âIf he says anything dumb, or makes you cry again, Iâm filing a patient complaint.â
âHe doesnât even live here, Jiao.â
âDetails.â
You laughâquiet, but real.
And for a moment, the weight in your chest eases.
Despite the looming symposium thatâs got your attention pulled in ten directions at once, youâre unfortunately still a professor at Yaoqing.
Throughout the week, you had to manage your time between meeting student volunteers, making sure all the necessary permits are in order, as well as showing up to your own lectures with at least a thirty-minute power nap squeezed somewhere in your schedule.Â
But come Thursday, things have started to mellow down and you can at least afford to grade assignments in your office without having to think about the Luofu delegationâs lodging. Yingyue told you she had it coveredâsomething you were somewhat skeptical about, but were too exhausted to insist otherwise.
Just as youâre filing away this batch of papers, you hear a soft knock on your door. You glance at the clockâtechnically after hours, but youâre not the kind of professor who locks her door the moment class ends.
âCome in,â you call.
The door creaks open, and a student steps halfway inside.
You recognize her immediatelyâYinyan, from one of the general lit seminars. Smart. Soft-spoken. Always takes notes like sheâs transcribing scripture.
âSorry to bother you,â she says, already fiddling with the corner of a printed essay. âItâs not for your classâI just... I didnât know who else to ask.â
You motion her in, already reaching for a pen. âIf youâre asking whether Iâll take a look, I will. But you might regret it.â
That earns a nervous laugh. âYouâre just easier to talk to thanâwell. The others.â
You raise a brow but donât push. Instead, you take the essay when she offers it, skimming the title.
âThe Evolution of Strategic Positioning During the Warring Alliance Era.â
Something tightens behind your ribs, but you flip to the first page without thinking.
The dates are off. One of the campaign names is misattributed. Thereâs a common myth included as fact about the Fall of Feilin Pass. You catch all of it, circling details and jotting a few quick notes in the margin before you realize what youâre doing.
Itâs muscle memory. From another life.
From long nights in a military history seminar where the man at the front of the room spoke about tactical retreats like they were poetry. Where you learned to fact-check casualty records like you were tracing footsteps in the snow.
You blink, pen paused above the page.
You donât touch this stuff. Not anymore.
âIâI didnât expect it to be perfect,â Yinyan says, misreading your silence.
You look up, startled out of the haze. âNo, itâs not that. Youâre asking really good questions here. I just...â You set the essay down gently. âI donât want to make learning harder than it already is. Youâve got strong instincts. This? This can be fixed. But I canât go over everything right away. Youâll have to come back tomorrow.â
Yinyanâs shoulders relax, and you think yours do too. She nods, looking genuinely relieved.
âIâll make sure to revise once youâre done,â she says. âThank you, Professor.â
You smile as she leaves, but your fingers linger on the edge of the paper a second longer.
Itâs been over three years since you last held a red pen over a passage about the Warring Alliance. But even now, part of you still knows the terrain.
You sit still long after Yinyan leaves, the door clicking shut behind her like a question mark you havenât figured out how to answer.
The essay rests on your desk, marked in your neat red scrawl. You meant what you saidâher instincts are good. But the familiarity of the content wraps around your thoughts like an old scarf, warm and unwelcome.
The Fall of Feilin Pass.
You remember the first time you heard that name spoken aloud.
Jing Yuanâs voice had filled the lecture hallâmeasured, deliberate, always just a little amused. Heâd paced the front of the room with his hands behind his back, white hair catching the light like a lion in a sunbeam. Youâd been his TA for almost a month by then, already accustomed to the way he made military maneuvers sound like the rise and fall of poetry.
He called it a masterstroke of misdirection, that battle. Pulled up diagrams, quoted journal fragments from commanding officers, invited students to challenge his interpretation like they were strategists themselves.
Not wanting to dwell, you get up and cross to the window like you can outpace the memory.
Outside, the Yaoqing campus is quiet. Students crossing the quad below, jackets pulled tight against the early autumn breeze. Thereâs a flicker of movement near the gardensâsomeone tending to the bonsai by the administration building.
You press your palm to the windowâs cold glass.
Youâve worked so hard to leave all of that behind. And yet the facts still live in your hands. The timelines, the tactics, the battlesâthey never really left.
Just like he never really did.
That night, an unwelcome stranger infiltrates your dreams for the first time in months.
The city hum fades. The streetlight outside your window flickers once, and then youâre no longer in Yaoqing.
Youâre somewhere else.
The light is too gold. The air smells of tea and spring dust. The walls are lined with old maps, books worn soft at the edges, a potted dracaena bending toward a narrow beam of sunlight. The desk is familiar. So is the man leaning against it, arms folded, eyes like liquid amber tracking your every move.
âYouâre early,â Jing Yuan says, like he always did when you arrived exactly on time.
You open your mouth to answer, but your voice doesnât come. You look down at your hands. Theyâre full of papers, disheveled in a way that reminds you of old habits. The syllabus, a half-graded quizâfragments of a life you left behind, scattered at your fingertips.
When you look up again, the room is dimmer.
âYou havenât changed,â he says, his voice softer now, like itâs almost a confession.
You almost laugh. Almost. "Iâve changed a lot."
He doesnât respond immediately. Instead, his eyes linger on you with that same unflinching focus, the kind that has always seen you too clearly. His gaze is unreadable, but his silence speaks louder than words.
âBut not where it counts."
Your throat tightens, a visceral reaction, like thereâs something heâs seen in you that you donât want to face. You donât want to ask what he means. You donât want to know.
The documents in your hands flutter, and suddenly youâre outsideâsame campus, different time. The greenhouse near the old west gate. You recognize the planter box you tended to for a while, filled to the brim with daffodils that seem to mock you.
You donât turn around when you hear footsteps. But he speaks anyway.
âWould it have been easier,â Jing Yuan asks, âif I hadnât acted like I cared so much?â
The question burns in your chest, but you push it down, far down. Instead, you clench your fists, fingers digging into the soil as if you can anchor yourself to this moment, to anything other than the weight of his words. You can almost feel the sharpness of the past, the ache that never really went away.
You say, without turning, âIt wouldnât have mattered.â
The next moment, youâre in the lecture hall. His lecture hall.
Itâs empty, save for the two of you. The rows of seats are abandoned, the air still, save for the faint echo of past voices.
Heâs standing at the podium, his posture poised, authoritative, like he belongs there. Like this is still his domain. And you? Youâre sitting halfway up the stairs, knees drawn to your chest, tucked into the corner of your old spot, as if youâre still his assistant. Still waiting for something from him.
He opens his mouth to speakâ
âand then the scene fades, all of it washing to white like chalk under rain.
You wake to the sound of Jiaoqiu boiling water in the kitchen. The apartment smells faintly of ginger and morning mist. Thereâs sunlight on your curtains and a text from Feixiao already on your phone.
Â
Feixiao: Your keynote segment for Day 2 has been moved an hour earlier.Â
Me: Is it worth asking if that personâs segment has also been moved?
Feixiao: Thatâs a pretty cold way to address your old mentor.
Me: Youâre just reading into it too much.
Feixiao: But, yes. Jing Yuanâs segment was moved as well.
Feixiao: At least the two of you can serve back-to-back cunt right after lunch.
Me: âŠwho on earth taught you how to use those words?
Feixiao: Zichen.
Â
You lie still for a moment. One breath. Then another. Though Feixiaoâs attempt at imitating newer speech steals a chuckle from you, the dream you had still clings like mildew in the back of your head. Because part of it is trueâyou just didnât want to admit it to yourself.
You changed.
But not where it counts.
You arrive ten minutes early and still feel late.
The banners are already upâelegant cream and crimson, catching the wind just enough to look important. A student volunteer is fiddling with a welcome stand, and Zichen is already leaning against the pillar near the humanities building like he got there by accident and decided to stay out of curiosity.
âYou look like,â he says, tilting his head, âyouâre about to face a firing squad.â
âWorse. Iâm facing a university welcome committee,â you reply.Â
He offers you a thermos. It smells like jasmine and guilt. âFeixiao told me to give you this.â
You take it with a sigh. âShe thinks Iâm going to choke, doesnât she?â
âShe thinks youâre going to be too composed and itâll freak everyone out.â He shrugs. âHonestly, she might be right.â
Before you can reply, the last of the expected shuttles pulls up to the curb.
You see the rest of the Luofu delegation stepping out in stages: a couple of assistant professors, a senior archivist you vaguely recognize from an old conference, andâ
Him.
He moves like he always did. Each step measured and easy, like gravityâs just a mere suggestion.
Jing Yuan steps out of the van last, adjusting the collar of his coat with that absent-minded elegance that fools people into forgetting how calculated he really is. His hairâs longer than you remember, gathered low at his nape, a few strands brushing his cheek like they belong there. His expression, as always, is unreadable.
And those eyesâgolden, sharp, too steady for comfortâsweep across the campus like heâs surveying old battlegrounds. Taking stock. Mapping exits. You half expect him to start assigning formations.
Three years.
Itâs been three years since you last saw him.
Then his gaze lands on you.
And for the briefest second, something flickers. Familiarity? Surprise? That strange, quiet relief that feels too much like longing?
You donât know. Because just as quickly, itâs goneâsmoothed away like it was never there, replaced by a polite smile that doesnât quite reach his eyes.
He nods.
You nod back.
Itâs all very professional. Very academic.
Zichen says nothing, but you can feel him staring like heâs watching fault lines splinter beneath centuries of pressure. Something in the stillness holds, but only barely.
Jing Yuan turns away first, speaking low to the assistant at his side. You canât hear the words, but you know the cadence like an old song. That steady rhythm that always made his lectures feel like lullabies and warnings in equal measure.
The welcome committee descends on the group like a well-rehearsed ambush. Hands are shaken. Names exchanged. You feel someone clap your shoulderâitâs Feixiao, brisk and bright-eyed as always.
âBattlefieldâs open,â she says under her breath. âYou ready, soldier?â
You square your shoulders. âAlways.â
Feixiao smirks and marches ahead, calling out greetings to the delegation with the booming energy of a woman whoâs organized half a dozen international symposiums and never once let an itinerary slip by more than five minutes.
You fall into step beside her, thermos still warm in your hand, pulse ticking under your collar. Zichen stays behind, lingering near the edge like a cat who knows better than to step too close to a dogfight.
The introductions begin.
Names pass like ceremonial offeringsâtitles, departments, affiliations. You bow when it's appropriate, shake hands when offered, and smile just enough to seem gracious but not overly eager. Itâs choreography youâve mastered by now.
And still, you feel him.
Jing Yuan is silent at first, content to let the others go ahead of him. But when Feixiao gestures toward you with her customary flourishââThis is the stellar professor whoâs been overseeing logistics from our side. Sheâs younger than she looks and deadlier than she soundsââhe steps forward.
You brace.
âHello,â he says, voice as smooth as ever. âItâs an honor.â
There it is again. That pause. That moment where the rest of the world seems to blur just slightly out of focus, where the air seems to thin.
You extend your hand. âProfessor Jing Yuan.â
His hand is warm. The handshake firm, but not too firm. His eyes hold yours, just long enough to make it feel like a conversation. Just long enough to remember.
Then the moment passes before he turns to speak to one of the archivists, asking about something on the schedule. Feixiao nudges you as she moves ahead, eyes gleaming with something suspiciously close to amusement.
You donât look back at him again.Â
Instead, you fall into line with the rest of the Yaoqing faculty, escorting the Luofu delegation across the stone path that leads to the main conference hall. The banners flap gently in the breeze, just loud enough to remind you that this is happening. That itâs real.
As the group moves ahead, you find yourself walking beside Yingyue and Lihua. The former gives you a look.
âWell,â Yingyue murmurs, âif that was just âprofessional,â Iâm very curious to see what unprofessional looks like.â
âYingyue,â you hiss.
âIâm just saying,â she singsongs under her breath. âThe air around you two felt⊠loaded.â
Lihua nods solemnly. âLike a scene in a film right before someone gets emotionally wrecked.â
You say nothing. You sip from your thermos. The jasmine tea is scalding, but you donât flinch.
âShould we be worried?â Yingyue asks, feigning innocence.
You keep your voice neutral. âThereâs nothing to worry about. Heâs a visiting scholar. Thatâs all.â
Zichen catches up from behind with a smirk that suggests he saw everything.
âRight,â he says. âAnd I suppose Iâm just here for the coffee and not the front-row seat to whatever this is.â
You walk faster.
But you donât deny it.
The panel room is packed.
Faculty from both campuses line the rows, notebooks open, styluses ready. The translator charm hums faintly over the room, a soft shimmer in the air for any non-native speakers.
Youâre seated at the center table beside Lihua and one of the Luofu delegates. There's a placard in front of you with your name and mastery in literature and cultural theory embedded with a glossy print.
You catch Feixiaoâs thumbs-up from the sidelines and roll your eyes just enough to make her grin.
âLetâs begin,â says the moderator. âOur first discussion will be on narrative authority and the reinterpretation of classical texts in post-crisis literature.â
He calls your name, saying the floor is yours, and you stand. The mic hums to life.
You start by thanking everyone who graced the room, and by extension, the symposium with their presence. How honored Yaoqing is to host such a convergence of sharp minds and generous spirits, and how rare it is to see so many brilliant scholars under one roof without a single turf war breaking out over footnotes.
A ripple of laughter follows when you glance toward the back and add, âAnd if all goes well, I might finally convince Zhuming's Department of Humanities to participate next yearâwillingly, I mean.â
Then, you ease the audience into your piece for today's panel. Softly, yet also deliberately.Â
âDonât you think,â you say, letting the pause linger just long enough, âthereâs something quietly liberating about rereading a nationâs pain through fiction?â
You catch yourself smiling when a few heads pop up to look at you. âPost-crisis literature doesnât just record trauma. It reclaims it. It reframes grief into metaphor, and in doing so, it softens the blow. Thatâs not erasureâitâs survival. And survival, Iâd argue, is the most honest form of storytelling we have.â
Your voice is steady. You speak like you belong hereâbecause you do.
Gone is the girl who used to linger in the back of lecture halls, afraid her questions might sound too unsure. You know the shape of your own ideas now. You carry them without apology.
And when you speak, the room listens.
Untilâ
âDo you believe,â Jing Yuan begins from his seat near the back, âthat fiction built on softened truths still holds moral weight?â
The room turns as one. And there it isâJing Yuanâs unmistakable drawl, the one you used to hear more than you care to admit. Itâs not challenging, exactly, but thereâs something wry in his tone, a touch of that old teasing sharpness that used to curl around the edges of every conversation you had. A raised eyebrow, not a reprimand, but an invitation to push back.
You meet his gaze evenly. âI do. Fiction doesnât owe us pain to be powerful.â
His eyes donât leave yours, but thereâs a subtle shift in his posture, a slight lean forward as if testing the ground. âBut doesnât the omission of pain risk distortion?â
The question hangs between you like a weight. You can feel the tension in the room, the way everyone has drawn closer, waiting for the next exchange.
A part of you almost wants to laugh, the absurdity of the situation rising in your chest. Youâd thought this moment would come. Youâd told yourself you were prepared. But facing him againâthis way, in this contextâfeels like youâre falling right back into the rhythm of a dance you didnât even realize you knew the steps to.
âItâs not omission,â you counter, before you can stop yourself. âItâs transformation. Rewriting the aftermath isnât the same as denying the disaster.â
The room holds its breath. Thereâs a beat of silence, and then a quiet murmur ripples through the crowd. Someone behind you murmurs an appreciative âMm,â as though savoring the taste of a well-crafted argument.
Jing Yuan leans back, fingers steepled. âAnd if a nation prefers the transformed version to the truth?â
You smile, and itâs not sweet. âThen the burden falls on the reader to know what theyâre looking at.â
Another pause, this one heavier, stretched thin by the weight of your words. The tension in the air is thick enough to cut with a knife. You could almost hear the collective breath being held in the room.
Then, from somewhere behind you, Zichen mutters, â...Hot.â
The moderator coughs, startled. âErrâthank you, Professors. Letâs open the floor for questions?â
There are questions. Thoughtful ones. Smart ones. You field them with practiced ease, each answer flowing naturally from the previous one. Youâre in your element now, calm and controlled.
But part of your mind stays on him. On that deliberate little push. Those questions with too much timing to be innocent.
Jing Yuan remains quiet for the rest of the discussion, and you canât quite tell if heâs satisfied or just waiting for another opportunity to test you. But every time your gaze flickers toward him, you feel that familiar spark, that old pull that neither of you has ever fully escaped.
After the panel, as the crowd disperses into murmurs and clinks of tea cups, you feel a soft tap on your shoulder.
Itâs him, standing beside you now. Closer than the panel format allowed. You try not to dwell too much on how warm his hand is in the vastly air-conditioned space, but the sensation lingers in your chest, distracting you.
âYouâre scarier than you used to be,â Jing Yuan says, his tone soft, a hint of something almost nostalgic in his words. His smile is small but real, like a shared secret between you both. âI didnât expect that.â
Instead, you arch a brow. âAnd youâre exactly the same.â
âAm I?â His smile is quiet. âThatâs disappointing.â
You donât answer, feeling the weight of those words more than you should. Instead, you take a sip from your water, a small, nervous gesture to buy yourself time, before turning to walk toward the exitâwhere your team is waiting. Zichenâs face is aglow with the joy of watching chaos unfold, and Lihua gives you an approving nod.
But as you pass by them, you can still feel Jing Yuan's gaze on your back, trailing after you like the start of a new chapter you didnât agree to write.
Thereâs a shaded bench under a plum tree that your team has unofficially claimed.
Zichen's sprawled across one end like he owns the place, Lihuaâs nibbling on a red bean bun she definitely smuggled in, and Yingyueâs already pulling up the playback recording from the symposium like itâs a drama she can rewatch at leisure.
You sit with your back against the cool stone ledge and let out a breath you hadnât realized youâd been holding.
âSo,â Zichen says casually, âon a scale of one to scandalous, how inappropriate is it to ask if academic foreplay is a thing?â
Lihua nearly chokes on her bun.
âZichen,â you groan, covering your face. âIâm begging you.â
âWhat? It was electric. That entire back-and-forth was like watching two swordsmen flirt via carefully cited historical examples.â
âI was defending a thesis,â you protest. âNot flirting.â
Yingyue taps her screen. âOkay, but the eye contact? The tone shift? The part where he said âthatâs disappointingâ and you visibly inhaled like you were about to bite back something unholyââ
âYou guys were eavesdropping?â You scowl. âAnd no! I was going to tell him he hasnât changed since he assigned three chapters of military ethics over a long weekend.â
Zichen gasps. âThree chapters? Oh, no. You were in love.â
That gets them both going. Lihuaâs laugh is high-pitched and unfiltered, and Yingyue is practically vibrating. âWait, waitâso is that a yes? Was there, like, a thing?â
You hesitate.
Not long. Just enough to betray yourself.
âHe was a professor. I was his TA. That was it.â You keep your tone light, looking down at your hands. â...But maybe I respected him more than I wanted to. Maybe I admired him a little too much. It wasnât anything serious.â
Thereâs a pause, heavy with understanding.
Then Lihua asks gently, âDid he know?â
You smile. Not sad, exactly. âHe didnât act like it. And I didnât want him to.â
Thereâs a quiet empathy in the air now. They all know that itâs not as simple as that, that itâs not something that can be neatly wrapped up in a few words.
Zichen, always the one to break the tension, swings an arm over the back of the bench, his gesture surprisingly soft. âYou ever think he figured it out anyway?âÂ
You look across the courtyard, past the rustling trees, where the symposium banners are fluttering gently in the breeze, and the familiar silhouette of Jing Yuan can be seen through the glass window of the atrium. Heâs talking to someone, calm and composed, exactly as he always is.
Itâs hard to ignore the way your heart catches in your chest for a split second, or how your breath hitches just a little when you see him.
You shrug. âIt doesnât matter now.â
But it does.
A little.
And they all know it.
Day Two sessions are always where the real academic showdowns begin.
The scholars who flew in just to be seen have already made their exits, leaving only the ones who care too muchâthe ones who take themselves and their work just a little too seriously. You arrive before most of the others, coffee in one hand and your tablet in the other, already reviewing the panel order for the day.Â
This morning was calmâenough time for polite discussions over coffee, for setting the tone. But now, with the afternoon panels, the real program begins to take shape. You can feel it in the air, in the way the faculty members file into their seats, the way the hush of conversation spreads across the room like a slow tide. Thereâs an edge to the anticipation. Todayâs centerpiece? The keynote speeches.
One from the Luofu. One from Yaoqing.
You.
And him.
You move toward the large hall, where the cream-and-crimson banners hang tall behind a dignified podium. Rows of lacquer-backed seats stretch out beneath cool, carefully placed lighting. The hall feels both expansive and intimate, the kind of space where every word carries weight, where every gesture is scrutinized.
As you settle into your seat near the front, you canât help but notice the faint hum of excitement that permeates the air. Most of the audience knows whatâs coming. Thereâs a buzz of whispered names, of scholars shifting in their seats, adjusting their glasses, preparing for the intellectual clash theyâve been waiting for all day.
Then, the doors open, and Jing Yuan takes the stage.
His entrance is the same as alwaysâunhurried, graceful, and deliberate. Itâs as if heâs stepping into a rhythm only he can hear. The murmurs in the room settle almost immediately, like the air itself is being drawn into his orbit. Someone behind you whispers his name in reverence, the tone respectful but edged with a quiet awe.
You donât turn.
His voice fills the room with the same calm authority it always has. âThank you to the organizers, to the faculty members, to my colleagues, and to everyone who has come today.â He nods to Feixiao in the front row, offering a smile thatâs both respectful and distant. Then, he begins, his words measured and steady, like a soldier reciting a well-practiced speech.
His topic: Strategic Retreats in Military History: Calculated Loss, Preserved Legacy.
You want to laugh.
Of course itâs that.
He speaks of war, of victory and loss, of the delicate dance between pride and pragmatism. But what stands out to you, as it always does, is his discussion of restraint. The power of stepping back. The clarity of knowing when to withdraw, not out of fear, but out of a clear-eyed understanding of what matters most.
Itâs a subject heâs always been passionate about, and as he talks, you can hear the deep layers of memory in his voice, the weight of years spent navigating both war and peace.
You try not to dwell on the subtle way he emphasizes âtiming,â âdiscipline,â and knowing when to act, when to hold back. You feel it, though. Itâs there, tucked into the cadence of his words. Meant for you, even if itâs not obvious to anyone else.
Your hands are folded neatly in your lap. Youâre aware of Zichen sitting beside you, his posture a little too eager. He leans in, his voice low enough that only you can hear.
âHeâs quoting your old seminar discussion notes,â he whispers.
You donât answer. You donât need to look at Zichen to know that heâs right.
Of course, Jing Yuan would bring up those discussions. The ones you had, years ago, when the subject of strategic retreats was just a theoretical exercise for you both, a way of dissecting history without fully acknowledging how personal it might feel.
It was one of those days when he got close to converting you into becoming a history major. Luckily, you didn't.
He finishes his speech with a bow, not too deep, nor too distant, the same kind of gesture thatâs both professional and intimate in its simplicity. The applause that greets his exit is raucous, as expected of a seasoned scholar. But you don't let it deter you.Â
Because itâs your turn.
You rise from your seat with practiced grace, your body moving automatically, every step taken with a spine straight and sure. You can feel the gaze of the room settling on you. Every eye is fixed, waiting for your words.
The podium is yours nowânot as a reply, not as a counterstrike to what heâs just said.
This is your space. Your voice. A place for you to carve your own place in the conversation.
Then, without missing a beat, you guide them into the heart of your keynote.
The Intersection of Literature and Human Emotion: Love and Loss as Universal Themes.
Your thesis.
The one that earned you the best dissertation award back in grad school. The one you bled into for months, and stayed with you even years after. Every line of it felt like a scar you chose to wear. You donât need your notes for this. You know it the way you know your own nameâintimately, instinctively.
Because itâs not just an argument you once defended. Itâs a piece of you.
A truth you lived.
You speak of the silence between words, the unsaid things that carry just as much weight as the spoken ones. You discuss the way ancient texts often depict longing, exile, and lossânot as clear-cut emotions, but as complex tapestries woven through silence and space. You talk about the characters who would rather suffer in silence than confess their feelings. You talk about how those unspoken emotions still speak louder than any words ever could.
When you speak of unspoken affection in the epicsâof missed chances and deliberate distanceâyou donât look at him. Not once. But you feel it. The air tightens. The weight of his presence is undeniable. You know exactly what heâs hearing.
Thereâs a subtle power in the silence you speak of, and you feel it intensify when you near the end of your speech.
Itâs not a grand flourish youâre after. No dramatic exclamation. Just one quiet line from a favorite text, a line youâve always held close to your heart:
âSome wars are won not by holding the line, but by stepping away from it.â
The silence stretches after you finish.
It feels more like the world is catching its breath than anything else. The weight of what you just said settles, deeper than you anticipated, heavier than you thought it would feel. You stand there for a moment, just letting the words linger in the air, letting them settle.
Then the applause begins.
At first, itâs hesitant. Measured. But soon, it buildsâslowly, steadilyâuntil it becomes something real. Something you feel in your chest.Â
You bowânot to Jing Yuan, not to anyone in particular, but to the room, to the audience, to the words you just shared. To the fact that youâve made it here, and youâre standing on this stage; that your voice, after everything, is still your own.
You step down from the podium, each movement graceful but touched by a quiet fatigueâthe kind that settles in only after you've laid your heart bare beneath a roomful of lights and eyes.
The stage lights stretch your shadow long across the floor, following you as you make your way down the aisle. You donât look at himânot at first. But you feel the depth of his gaze. Steady, unmistakable, like a thread pulling gently at something deep in your chest.
Against your better judgment, you glance his way.
Just once. Just long enough.
What you find isnât surprise. Not pride or regret either. Itâs something gentler. Something unguarded. A look that holds recognition, yesâbut more than that, reverence. Like heâs seeing you not as you were, but as you are now. And somehow, that means everything.
Maybe, just maybe, he is seeing you for the first time.
And perhaps thatâs the moment youâve both been waiting for all along.
When night falls, so does the final curtain on the symposium.
The function hall glows in soft amber light, casting delicate shadows on ivory linens and polished glassware. Itâs elegant by designâcurated to impress, to invite conversation between brilliant minds across disciplines. But beneath the laughter and clinking glasses, something else simmers: rivalry dressed as camaraderie, nostalgia edged in ambition. A quiet current running just under the surface.
You find yourself by the refreshment table, fingers curled loosely around an untouched glass. The keynote glow has worn off, and whatâs left is a strange sense of dislocation. You were just on that stage, commanding the room. And yet, now, surrounded by colleagues and strangers, you feel slightly out of place. Like youâve slipped back into an old version of yourself, ill-fitting and over-aware.
Youâre still replaying that momentâafter your speech, when everything in the air felt thick with something unspokenâwhen someone steps into your orbit.
Zichen, drink in hand, angles in with that lazy, knowing grin. He doesnât need to say anythingâyou already know that look. But of course, he says something anyway.
âSo,â he says, his voice loud enough to cut through the quiet room, âwas I right? Was it like watching a pair of sparring poets trying to outwit each other with footnotes?â
You donât roll your eyes, but you definitely feel your chest tighten. âI think Iâm going to need a second drink to survive this conversation, Zichen.â
âCanât blame you.â He leans closer, still grinning. âIf I were you, Iâd need several. Honestly, though, I started wonderingâwere you two that in sync, or is there something else going on?â
You sigh, half-laughing, half-groaning. âYouâre infuriating.â
Before he can needle you further, Lihua materializes, her presence like a breeze. Sheâs trailed by Yingyue, who offers you a small smile as she cradles her glass.
âAlright,â Lihua cuts in, no-nonsense and warm, âletâs not corner her before sheâs even had dessert. Weâve pulled off something incredible, and that deserves more than your conspiracy theories.â
Yingyueâs laugh is softer, but no less amused. âHonestly, weâve earned this. Two full days of chaos, zero disasters. Letâs just bask in that.â
You smile, genuinely this time. The four of you raise your glassesâan unspoken toast. To the symposium. To the effort. To being seen and recognized, even if only by each other.
But Zichen isnât one to let the moment pass without his usual jab.
âSo,â he drawls, swirling his drink, ânow that weâve toasted⊠is it safe to ask the real question? You said it wasn't anything serious, but why does it feel like you two were reading off the same script?â
Your stomach twists. The weight of his words lands, heavier than it should.
Your thoughts ricochet backâto that look from Jing Yuan, the stillness between you, the way his gaze lingered like he hadnât meant to.
âIâm getting some air,â you say quickly, voice light but clipped, and step away before anyone can follow.
You step into the evening, where the air is crisp with the kind of quiet that only comes after too much noise. The campus is still now, wrapped in the soft hum of cicadas and far-off footfalls, the faint lights casting long shadows over stone and grass. Out here, the symposium feels a thousand miles away.
You lean against the railing, hands curled loosely around the cool edge of the stone. The stillness should be a relief, but your chest is too fullâof adrenaline, of memories youâd meant to leave behind. You exhale slowly, letting the silence wrap around you.
And then, footsteps.
You donât turn. You donât need to.
âShouldnât you be inside?â Jing Yuanâs voice drifts through the quiet, low and unhurried, like it always is. But thereâs something else thereâhesitation, maybe. Or restraint. It ripples across your skin like a breeze you werenât expecting.
You donât answer. Just breathe in the night and hope that if you stay silent long enough, heâll take the hint and go. That you wonât have to open the door to thisâwhatever this is.
But the footsteps donât fade.
Thereâs a rustle, and then heâs there, beside you, not quite touching, but near enough that you can feel the heat of him. The railing holds both of you now, like a boundary youâre pretending not to lean across.
Neither of you speaks. The silence stretches, but it's not awkward. Just... thick with things unsaid.
When Jing Yuan finally does speak again, itâs softer. Not the voice of a professor or a speaker. Just a man beside you.
âYour friendâs right, you know,â he says, a touch of amusement coloring his words, though itâs tempered by something deeper. âYou and I... weâve always been in sync. Even if only for a short while.â
You let out a breath thatâs almost a laugh, but not quite. Yet another person has eavesdropped into your conversations.
âI think Zichenâs just trying to make something out of nothing.â
âNo,â he says, and thereâs a subtle warmth to his tone that catches you off guard. âIt wasnât nothing.â
You glance at him, finally, but donât quite meet his eyes. The tension youâve been carrying since his keynote, since the moment your speeches mirrored each other, is there. In the air between you. And it feels like a weight you canât lift.
Jing Yuan doesnât press. He simply waits.
And somehow, thatâs worse.
The air hangs thick with unspoken words. You can feel the weight of the moment pressing down on you, as if the entire day has led to this. Itâs not just the speeches, or the research, or the people insideâthe real conversation has always been between you two. You just haven't been able to face it until now.
You finally look at him. Itâs hard to miss the way his expression flickers when he sees you meet his gazeâgolden eyes heavy with anticipation.Â
You exhale slowly, your voice steady despite the turmoil inside.
âYou know, Zichen also said,â you begin, âthat it was like we were reading from the same script today.â
He arches an eyebrow, but doesnât interrupt.
âYou and I⊠weâve always had this thing, havenât we?â you continue, your gaze not leaving his. âThis back-and-forth. This... tension. You could say that some of your habits rubbed off on me while I was your assistant. That I carried them further down my career. But it's always been more than that, isn't it?
"And Iâm tired of pretending it doesnât exist.â
His jaw tightens. The calm façade he always wears is slipping, but you push on.
"Three years," you say, voice barely above a whisper. "Three years of silence and distance and professionalism, and stillâthis. Us. Whatever it is, itâs never gone away. And maybe thatâs whatâs so hard about this."
The quiet between you pulses with meaning, full and sharp.
Jing Yuan finally steps closerânot quite touching, but close enough that the night feels smaller now. His voice, when it comes, is rougher than before, stripped of its usual polish.
âI never meant to make you carry it alone,â he says. âI just... didnât know how to be close without crossing a line.â
Your breath catches. âAnd now?â
His eyes search yours. âNow I'm certain we both crossed that line a long time ago. We just pretended we hadnât.â
The words hit you like a tideârelief and fear, ache and recognition.
You donât know how to answer that. Your throat tightens, and for a moment, you feel the sting of old memoriesâthose days spent working together in his office, when things were easier, but so much more complicated beneath the surface.
Instead of speaking, you just take a slow breath, willing yourself to steady your shaking hands.
âIâve always been good at distance,â you say, your voice steady despite the tremor inside. âI made a whole life out of it. But standing here with you⊠I donât think I want to be good at it anymore.â
And this time, when his eyes meet yours, you feel it. No more games. No more pretending. Just the quiet recognition that something has shifted between you two.
For a long moment, neither of you speaks.
Then, Jing Yuan leans in just slightly, his breath warm against your skin. A large hand cradles the side of your face, and you instinctively lean into his touch.Â
You can feel his lips almost brushing against yours, the tension so thick itâs almost unbearable. He smells like cedarwood and rain and everything you shouldn't even want.Â
But just as it feels like heâs about to close the distance completely...
âAhem!â
You both startle, just slightly. And then she appearsâFeixiao, with that all-too-familiar grin, already stepping between you and the moment like itâs nothing at all.
âIâm not interrupting, am I?â she says, tone breezy as she links her arm through yours and casually steers you away from Jing Yuan. She gives him a polite nod, her eyes sharp with mischief before turning back to you.
âDinnerâs starting soon,â she adds, a playful lilt in her voice, followed by the faintest nudge. âAnd youâre not about to keep me waiting, are you?â
You blink, still caught somewhere between heat and hesitation. âFeixiao, Iââ
You glance over your shoulder. Jing Yuan hasnât moved far, but the look in his eyes says enough: the moment is slipping, and heâs letting it.
Feixiao keeps her arm linked with yours as she walks you a few paces away, lowering her voice just enough to keep it privateâbut not too serious. She never does serious unless she has to.
âLook,â she says, âyouâve always been the type to stay sharp, keep your eyes on the goal. Not a bad thing. But if youâre thinking about sorting things out with him... donât rush it.â
You shoot her a look, still reeling. âWhat are you talking about?â
She hums, thoughtful. âJust sayingâheâs not going anywhere. You donât need to run headfirst into something before youâve figured out what it means to you.â
You pause, the words landing somewhere heavy. Shame creeps up, uninvited and quiet.
âYeahâŠâ
Feixiao softens then, rubbing your shoulder in easy circles, a rare gentleness beneath all the bravado. âI donât know whatâs between you and Jing Yuan,â she says, âbut whatever it is? Itâs been cooking a while. So donât serve it half-baked.â
Her words pull at something deeperâsomething buried. A memory: something Professor Fu Xuan said, years ago, over noodles and pork dumplings.
Heâs not built for half-measures.
Neither are you.
Before you can speak, Feixiaoâs already shifted gears. She pats your arm, a bright smile smoothing everything over.
âAnyway! Youâre still coming to dinner, right? Or would you rather stay out here and stew in all that dramatic tension?â
You hesitate, heart not quite caught up with the rest of you. But sheâs already tugging you gently toward the building, her cheer disguising something more careful beneath it.
You glance back, just once.
Jing Yuan is already gone.
The key clicks in the lock.
You step inside, letting the door fall shut behind you with a soft thud. The lights are low. Your heels echo dully against the floor, and your bag slips from your shoulder with a sigh that feels like it came from your chest.
Then you hear it: bright, canned laughter drifting from the living room.
Jiaoqiu is half-swallowed by a blanket on the sofa, legs tucked under him, a bowl of popcorn in his lap. His eyes are fixed on the TV and you don't have to glance to know he's watching his favorite sitcom.
He jumps a little when he sees you, fumbling for the remote. âHey,â he says, voice too casual, as if you havenât just walked in with the weight of a night trailing behind you. He pauses the episode mid-joke. The room goes still.
âYouâre back.â
You nod faintly. But for a moment, you donât move. You just stand there, the quiet thick between you. Your thoughts are a thousand miles away, still chasing the afterimage of something you almost said. Something he almost did.
Jiaoqiu watches you carefully. âBad night?â
You shake your head. âNot bad,â you say, low. âJust⊠a lot.â
He doesnât ask. Just shifts over and lifts the blanket in silent invitation. âCome sit.â
You cross the room and sink down beside him, shoulder brushing his. The couch cushions exhale. He presses play again without a word, as if the hum of dialogue and background laughter can buffer the ache you brought home.
The screen flickers.
A punchline. More laughter. Someone throws a pillow on-screen. Someone dodges it.
Then, softly, without looking at you, Jiaoqiu says, âYou donât have to talk about it. But if you want toâŠâ
You let out a shaky breath, then press your face into your hands. âJing Yuan.â
He nods impercetibly, like that name holds all the answers to life's curiosities. âYeah?âÂ
âYeah.â
âDid he say anything stupid? Make you cry?â he asks, reaching for the popcorn.
You manage a breath of laughterâthin, but real. âNo. Worse. He didnât.â
That gets a knowing hum out of him. Jiaoqiu holds out the bowl like itâs an offering. âPopcorn therapy. Itâs not peer-reviewed, but Iâve had great results.â
You take a handful, the corner of your mouth twitching. âThanks.â
Finally, he turns to look at you fully, expression careful. âYou okay?â
You pause, leaning your head against his shoulder. âI think so. Or I will be.â
Jiaoqiu doesnât say anything else. The sitcom carries on, voices flickering in and out, but neither of you is really watching.
And thatâs okay. Some nights arenât for talking.
Some nights are just for not being alone.
The final day of the symposium begins with brisk air and brisker goodbyes. Yaoqing runs like clockwork, and the send-off is no differentâefficient, unceremonious, almost surgical in its precision.
Delegates file out one by one, boarding shuttles with handshakes and nods. Youâre stationed nearby, clipboard in hand, checking names against lists, pretending you donât feel the knot in your stomach.
You know heâll be here.
You expect him to be cordial. Maybe even distant. You expect him to act like last night never happened.
But Jing Yuan isnât predictable in the ways that matter.
When his turn comes, heâs not aloneâhis aides beside him, belongings packed. The lines of his coat are as neat as ever, but thereâs something softer about his expression when his amber eyes find yours.
Jing Yuan steps forward, says something low to one of the attendants, then turns to you.
Before you can speak, he holds out a small pouch made of familiar linen. Twine wrapped neatly around it. You donât take it right away, but your fingers brush his when you do.
I've seen this before...
He doesnât explain. Doesnât try to. Just watches you, gaze steady.
Then, just as heâs about to leave, Jing Yuan offers you one last lookâa long one.
And says, quietly, âBe well.â
The words hit harder than you expect.
Because thatâs what he said to you the day you graduated, three years ago. Beneath that shade tree in the Luofu courtyard. Your last conversation, before the silence settled between you like dust.
You donât reply. Canât trust your voice to hold.
He nods once and walks away.
You stand there long after the shuttle door hisses shut behind him, the pouch clutched in your hand and that old goodbye echoing through your ribs like a bell youâd forgotten how to hear.
Later in the day, you hole yourself up in your officeâavoiding your colleagues (even Feixiao) to the best of your ability. Youâd told yourself youâd get started on writing the midterm; outlined three prompts, even booted up the document
But the pouch sits in your drawer like a challenge, and your curiosity, traitorous thing that it is, wins out.
You untie the twine.
Inside, you find once-vibrant blossoms that have faded to a muted violet, their edges curled inward like theyâve been holding their breath for too long. You know these flowers.Â
Scutellaria lateriflora. Skullcap.
You inhale, and there it is againâthat same earthy, herbal scent. He gave you this once before. Years ago, when you were still his teaching aide, and heâd just started that absurd little project at the Luofu campus greenhouse. He's still tending to it, from the looks of it.Â
Your hands are steadier than you expect as you unfold the linen further. Tucked beneath the sprigs is something else.
A calling card.
Itâs plain. Cream cardstock, gold embossed lettering. You find it almost funny.
Jing Yuan used to scoff at these, said they were for pretentious academics and bored aristocrats. âToo performative,â heâd once told you, half-asleep in his office, tea cooling by his elbow.
You flip it over.
There, scrawled in that infuriatingly elegant handwriting of his:
I'd love to speak with youâabout this, and whatever else you've been stockpiling behind that diplomatic smile. On your terms, of course. If you prefer the art of futile resistance, by all means. But if not... I'm just a correspondence away. â JY
You stare at the words for a long moment, unsure how he even squeezed all those words in such a tight space. Only then do you let the card fall flat on your desk.
The dried skullcap rests beside it, patient. Familiar.
And youâ
You sit back in your chair, heart too full of memory to be still, and let the thought bloom quietly in your chest:
He remembered.
Subject: Follow-up on the Symposium From: Me To:Â Jing Yuan
Dear Professor Jing Yuan,
I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to extend my thanks again for your presence at the Yaoqing symposium. Your insight during the panel sessions was both illuminating and deeply appreciated by the faculty and students alike.
If you ever wish to collaborate on a joint lecture or discussion in the future, please donât hesitate to reach out.
Warm regards.
Â
(You stare at the draft for a long time. Then delete âProfessor.â You don't send it. Not yet.)
Â
Subject: About the Gift From: Me To:Â Jing Yuan
Hi,
I wasnât sure whether to write at all. But the pouch you left... I remember it. Of course I do.
I havenât decided what I want to say, or how much. Only that I donât want to pretend it meant nothing.
Â
(âŠYou get this far and stop. You never hit send.)
Â
Subject: Your Dramatic Correspondence From: Me To:Â Jing Yuan
Jing Yuan,
Only you would make dried herbs feel like a grand confession. Should I be flattered, or concerned that you're now resorting to calling cards?
...I havenât thrown it out, if thatâs what youâre wondering.
Â
(You read it back, scoff at yourself, but save it as a draft anyway.)
Â
Subject: Fine. Letâs talk. From: Me To:Â Jing Yuan
You said youâd wait until it was on my terms.
Well... Iâm writing, arenât I?
Just tell me you meant what you said. That it wasnât just leftover sentiment from too many missed chances.
If you do, then maybe we can talk. Really talk.
Â
(You go over it twice, heart pounding. Then close the laptop before you can think too hard.)
Itâs been a month.
The pouch still sits in the top drawer of your desk, tucked beneath a stack of grading rubrics and office supply receipts. You havenât moved it since the day you opened it. Some part of you thinks if you donât look at it too often, the weight of it will lessen. (It hasnât.)
You never sent the emails. Not the formal one, not the funny one, not the almost-brave one. Theyâre still sitting in your drafts folder like ghosts.
And youâwell. You havenât changed as much as you wanted to believe.
You still choose silence when things get too complicated. Still fear the what-ifs more than the what-is. Still worry about what others might say, what the faculty might think, what it would look like to the world if you stepped just slightly out of line.
Maybe you're still that same graduate studentâambitious, yet scared. The one who looked at Jing Yuan like he was both everything she wanted and everything she couldnât let herself want.
The one who left before it could become real.
A knock on your office door brings you back. You straighten, push the drawer closed, and return your attention to your laptop.
You half-expect a student with late homework, but when you glance up, itâs Feixiao, leaning in with a grin and a folder tucked under one arm.
âI come bearing gifts,â she says, stepping inside without waiting for permission. âOr at least, a very polite summons.â
You raise an eyebrow. âAnother invitation?â
She waggles the folder. âGuest lecturer. Luofu campus. Smaller-scale than the last one, but good turnout.â
You sigh. âFeixiaoâŠâ
âI know, I know.â She plants herself in the chair across from you before you can object. âYou were going to say no. Again. But hear me out.â
Your silence is permission enough.
âIt wasnât Jing Yuan,â she says plainly. âNot the invitation, not the event, not the committee. It came from their Literature Department directlyâsomeone named Ying, I think?â
Professor Ying.
The instructor that you were supposed to TA for, before all the administrative mishandlings. You want to laugh. The universe really does have a sense of humor sometimes.
â...He doesnât know?â
Feixiao shakes her head. âNot a clue. And if you go, youâre under no obligation to see him. Iâd bet heâd rather vanish into the stonework than bother you uninvited.â
You study her face. âYou sound sure.â
âI am. Military kids donât grow up without learning who respects a line in the sand.â She pauses, then adds, âBesides, my uncle served with his father. That familyâs got a reputationâlong memory, even longer patience.â
You let that settle for a moment.
Jing Yuan wouldnât push. He never has.
Still, your mind flickers. You remember Yanqing, all sharp edges and earnest questions. Jing Yuan mentioned that he was close to that boy's family through their ties in the military as well. You wonder how old he is now. Then you recall the literature department where you once spent late evenings with your peers, poring over old poetry and marking drafts by hand.
Lastly, you think of Jing Yuan himself.
And howâdespite everythingâyou miss the way he listened when you spoke, how he salutes the dracaena in his office like it's a real person, and the fact that he never once called you foolish for drawing back.
The silence stretches.
Feixiao quirks an eyebrow. âSo? You going to keep saying no to opportunities just because they come from the same direction?â
You look down at the folder, then up at her. âTell them Iâll do it.â
She smiles. Not triumphant, but satisfied. It feels like she knew youâd say yes eventually.
Your superior rises, flicking a casual salute. âKnew you were smarter than you looked. Not that it would've matteredâI already filed your leave request with HR this morning.â
You gape. âYou what?â
Feixiao just grins. âContingency planning. If youâd said no, I wouldâve told you after the paperwork cleared.â
You want to be annoyed. You really do. But instead, you laughâquiet, incredulous, warm.
Sheâs halfway out the door when she glances back. âDonât overthink it, okay? Just go. See what happens.â
The door clicks shut behind her.
You look down at the folder again, fingertips brushing the corner.
Maybe itâs time to stop holding your breath.
MASTERLIST â§ READ ON AO3
© cryoculus | kaientai â§Â all rights reserved. do not repost or translate my work on other platforms.
#honkai star rail x reader#hsr x reader#jing yuan x reader#honkai star rail#hsr#jing yuan#jing yuan smut#hsr smut#honkai star rail smut#cryoculus
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Shaaloani: The Land of Enchantment Part Two
Hello again! First of all thank you so much for your responses to these posts -- I've really enjoyed reading your reblogs. I'm glad folks are enjoying this!
As I mentioned in the first post -- here is the second half! It's covers the plants and animals I thought worth special distinction. By that I mean animals that communicate how much research was done regarding this zone. So no rroneek, no uxtena. It's pretty clear they are both meant to be buffalo and rattlesnakes.
And if you're somebody who hadn't caught that, um... surprise! That's what they're based on.
If you're somehow getting this post without reading or seeing Part One first, here is a link to Part One. I'd recommend giving it a read first.
With that taken care of, let's pick up where we left off before!
Shaaloani Flora
Aside from the cacti, there are a lot of plants I recognize as native to the regions discussed in Part One! First is this scrubby, short and wide tree. It took a few screenshots and a lot of scrutiny. I was torn for a bit thinking it was a creosote bush, but upon zooming in close I'm of the mind it's a redberry juniper tree instead!
The leaves are long and thing, and the shape gives to mind of juniper needles more. Juniper 'leaves' kind of scale over each other and between texture resolution and my horrible eye sight I can't tell if this does the same. Still! There's a photo below my two screenshots for further emphasis:

These are also the trees turned red near the ceruleum fields -- junipers tend to do that when they are dying. They are also incredibly hardy so typically when you've managed to kill one it's likely not good.
I will say when I was out here I noticed the botanist gathering log has mesquite beans on it -- and you harvest them from these trees! Which is too silly for me; so here's a link to the the wiki about honey mesquite, and a photo of the beans on a tree.

It's probably a reach to try and ID this grass in the Yawtanane Grasslands, but given that it caught my eye I felt inclined to make a pitch. For context child me thought a fun and engaging after school club project was to learn how to identify grass and other plants native to Texas. So when I looked at it I wanted to take a guess based on other regional clues:
To me I think it could be cane bluestem, a grass that's drought tolerant and popular for grazing animals. And its seeds are dispersed from these little fluffy heads like this.
I will say as a caveat that a lot of grass in this area can be dispersed by wind. So it might not be cane bluestem -- hell it's a stretch to even try this. But I like to think they also considered the grass.

The bush above I also hmmed and hrmmed about for a bit before positing if it was meant to be black persimmon. It's commonly called Texas persimmon or Mexican persimmon -- and it's found in Coahuila, Tamaulipas and Neuvo LeĂłn. They generally just look like big shrubs instead of trees.


I mentioned this in part one, but I'll go ahead and reiterate here a few things:
One is I think Lake Taori's about the only place that reads as specifically Texas
Two is it's not a bayou. That's an East Texas ecosystem and way too wet for Shaaloani
Three is there are cypress trees west of San Antonio growing along the Frio river, and doing quite well! Garner State Park has quite a few of them
I stand by this because these trees are show to be reproducing by making 'knees' -- offshoots from their root system. Think of it like Pando.
I also feel cypress is correct; the trunks are wider at the base than higher up, and the leaves are the right shape. I also appreciate there's Spanish moss hanging from them, which is also pretty common.
The last plant I want to cover is this flowering bush -- I'm going to admit this one was a struggle because I don't know of a lot of bushes with large white flowers like this. I've seen flowers of this shape, but most tend to be ground cover plants that grow very low to the soil.
What I think it might be, which would feel appropriate, is a take on the datura. They can get a bit higher off the ground than most wildflowers. And they were used by several native tribes for cultural practices.

The flowers are bigger in real life than depicted here -- so this is a reach! If someone has a better suggestion I'm open to it.
Shaaloani Fauna
When Fate farming out here, I've seen several players comment like 'huh, there sure are a lot of dinosaurs on this map'. And you're right! Because a lot of this region is home to some incredibly rich fossil formations.
Big Bend National Park contains part of the Javelina Formation -- home to large creatures such as the Quetzalcoatlus, a pterosaur that boasted a 39 foot wingspan. You can read about fossils found in Big Bend here. The Javelina Formation has its own wiki article that details some of the specimens found within it, including the Bravoceratops and the Torosaurus. The Ojo Alamo Formation in New Mexico is home to the Ojoceratops. Just south of these is the Aguja Formation in the Mexican states of Coahuila and Chihuahua. These formations are home to fossils of all three types of scalekin above -- as well as alligators, who are also on this map!
Other Formations in the Southwest home to great fossil finds are:
Kayenta Formation (Colorado & Utah)
Tepetate Formation (Mexico)
Black Peaks Formation (Texas)
There's even a fun sightseeing lore blurb which acknowledges this!
I think this is a fun addition to the zone that strengthens the real world inspiration sources and have fun with world building -- a lot of the formations near the Permian Basin were along the shore or under the waves of the Permian Sea!
And that's all I have! Thank you all for indulging me, and by all means take any and all of this to do with what you will in roleplay. Have fun with it!
#ffxiv#ffxiv dawntrail#dawntrail spoilers#zone spoilers#shaaloani#ffxiv lore#lore speculation#long post
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on my second listen so here are my actual thoughts on TTPD:
The album got off to a shaky start sonically because the opening tracks are very reminiscent of midnights and I was just like "oh, god, not this again." I don't even hate midnights the way a lot of y'all do but I do honestly hope she moves away from this sound in the next album because I'm tired of it even when it's good, LOL. But the album definitely picks up, even though there are still songs I would make some production changes to. Someone described it as a love-child of midnights and evermore and I really like that description. This thing is gonna go CRAZY live on piano. I cannot wait for the tour to start back up again.
I've seen some people complain about the lyrics, but then the ones they quote as bad I disagree with because I'm the only correct opinion-haver and always will be, I suppose! Except the line about liking Charlie Puth -- the line in context is completely fine, I just don't care much for Puth as an artist, LOL. I'll need to actually get them in front of me before I say anything more, but all the promo of her leaving the glitter pens in the midnights room was right.
The leak I found was the black dog version, and considering the sheer fuckery on that song, I'm VERY anxious to listen to the other bonus tracks. It definitely feels like she cut this song from the standard because it's SO specific to her in a way that is not glossed over with metaphor. And it does make a lot of sense to keep the hottest goss on tracks that only the fans will really care about.
side note: a lot of the discourse going on right now from people who have heard the leaks is that "most of the album is about matty!" And there definitely are matty songs, don't get me wrong, but a lot of the ones I'm seeing being claimed for him are so obviously wrong it's shocking how you guys can call yourself swifties and forget BASIC shit about how Taylor has described joe and their initial dynamic. Hilariously, it's giving "reputation is about karlie kloss because joe couldn't have inspired such evocative lyrics!" -- whatever kind of person joe is IRL, he has such little stage presence and star power that people literally just forget what personality traits he allegedly has and re-assign them to matty because, for better or worse, matty has a very clear and public personality. but if this is gonna be the discourse tomorrow night I'm logging off.
I wonder, however, if many of the songs about matty are inspired not simply by the emotional intensity and the discourse around him, but by joe insinuating that SHE cheated on HIM when it's very fucking clear that he cheated on her and probably more than once. "guilty as sin?" seems to be insinuating she started feeling attraction to other men while her relationship with joe was on its last legs, since she asks if she's really guilty if she only IMAGINED fucking other guys and didn't actually do it. girl i've been there LMAO
EDIT: listening to the song again it feels more akin to songs like "gorgeous" and ESPECIALLY "high infidelity," since those are about leaving someone FOR joe because the current relationship is emotionally unsatisfying. The religion stuff towards the end also connects to songs like 'false god" -- so in this light, Taylor is reflecting on how, if joe cheated on her, is she herself also guilty? Didn't she fantasize about Joe while with someone else? The song ending on "Am I allowed to cry?" is sooooo brain-tickling.
so I gotta just wait for everyone else to listen to this thing huh
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to the stars above | z.
featuring. zhongli (genshin impact)
genre. fluff, angst, smut, ancient-liyue!au
word count. 5.4k
marga's notes. aAAAa look look, it's my first commission!! school has kept me really occupied for like the past month but after pulling a few all-nighters, i've finally finished my responsibilities along with this little baby! once again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you to my bubs @ramannnn for trusting me with this one <33

Nobody knows when the world began, how it came to be and why it continues to be. Even I, whose mind is filled with nothing but wonder for it, have no idea. One thing I am quite sure of... is how mine did.
It all started with himâ a man of many titles, different identities yet at the end of the day, all these monikers are the same; it's all him. He adored Liyue more than anything else, knew it like the back of his hand. He went where the winds lead him, stayed where the moon shines upon him, stood where the golden sun kissed his skin. He found serenity in the walks he travels as he goes about his day, the sceneries his eyes take in and the calm sounds the nature resonates for him. And as if it was fate decided upon by the Celestia, it led him to me. Suddenly, my little world that used to be nothing became everything... quickly and all at once.
An exasperated sigh escapes from my lips, frustration and disappointment filling my whole being as I stare at the blank parchment paper I held in my hands. Another day was again wasted with no progress, I thought, mentally beating myself up for not being productive enough. Before I could further drown myself into such pessimistic ideas, I snap out of it and let my eyes cherish the view that lies ahead of me. Though I feel a little guilty for taking Vermeer's place, I can only whisper an apology with little to no sincerity. Because truly, nothing can beat the picturesque landscape of Luhua Poolâ the crystal clear waters that would most probably reflect my face like a mirror if I were to ever look at it, the ruins that ignited the spark of curiosity within me, wondering about the pasts it holds and the stillness and feeling of peace it gives me as I sit in this cliff. Feeling somewhat a bit better, I place my things on top of the old bag I bring no matter where I go. There's always a better day for writing, I tell myself as a form of consolation, bringing my slim arms up to begin stretching. I've been sitting on this log for quite a long time now, after all.
"It seems like you are in a bit of a dilemma," a deep voice comments from behind me. Out of surprise, I lightly jump and turn my head towards the stranger. Right at that moment, it felt as if all the air circulating inside my body had been depleted. Captivating was an understatement as to how he appeared before me. With the sunlight striking his face and accenting his unique features further, he stood with his hands behind him, head tilted as he looked at me with interest, all while keeping his dignified posture.
"Oh, hello. I am afraid so, yes," I respond, or rather, mutter under my breath since I was not really used to having sudden encounters with other people, nor am I fond of it. I tend to keep to myself, finding it much more peaceful than having to tend to others' overbearing expectations and demands which is partly the reason why I chose to live in the outskirts, far from the center of Liyue that contrasts my comfortable abode, "I apologize. I failed to realize that somebody other than Vermeer liked to stay here," I told him, arching my eyebrows a little when he let out a breathy chuckle.
"Oh, you have no need for such formal apologies. I do not always go here, at least probably not as often as the man you call Vermeer. I was simply taking a walk and I think I got carried away by Liyue's view and eventually, my feet led me here," he explains, a hint of sheepishness present in his tone, "and I guess I'll have to thank my feet for that."
Because it led me to you, interesting one. For many years, it will remain unspoken, kept by the strange man to himself and unveiled once his heart gives up from the resistance he upholds.
For the following hours of lounging around Luhua Pool, I learned a lot about the strangerâ he calls himself "Morax," and like the god of Liyue, he enjoyed history and is extremely knowledgeable about it, aspiring to know and understand everything of the world, he often brews tea, even going as far as inviting me once I am free from any form of work. Just as he shared facts about himself, I did too.
"So, Cheng, you said you have a bit of a dilemma?" he inquires, slightly angling his head towards the direction of the side I'm sitting on. I nod my head up and down, mouth forming into a small pout of disappointment as I remember that today has not been that progressive.
"Yes. I am trying to write a novel, you see. Something that will leave an impact on this world so that even if I may pass, I will still live on the memories of people," I tell him, an ambitious expression present on my face. He hums, eyes going over the terraces that make up the current view we have and the two huge statues standing by the ruins, "Why so?"
I pause for a moment to think of a reply, "I guess I just do not want to let someone alone in this cold world. Wouldn't that be too cruel and sad, to just leave them with nothing?"
If I'm able to write words that will provide comfort to my readers, then maybe... just maybe the world will be less lonely... even for just a little bit. At least, that's what I thought as silence consumed us, the sun setting as if to remind us that finally, another day is nearing its end. Now, what will tomorrow bring?
"Well then, I do hope I will be able to read at least some of your works at least once," he speaks as he stands up, lightly dusting away his clothes, "It certainly has been a pleasure to be your company, Cheng."
As he walks down the slope of the hill, his somewhat broad back facing me, I call out, "Will you be back?"
He stops and turns, a soft smile is plastered on his face as he responds, "Only time will tell."
But time was no friend of mine. At least that's what I have come to realize as many days passed without him returning to this place. Though maybe it's only because it almost felt as if time slowed down and I was only eager to see him again, something I have scolded myself toâ what a fragile heart do I have to already seek a stranger's presence? That is what others call love at first sight, a devilish portion of my mind whispered cheekily within me and I gasped in disbelief, "Absolutely not," I lightly slap both of my cheeks, "I'm just too coped up in my own world. I probably need to go see more people."
That thought remains a simple yearning though because once again, I find myself lounging around the same spot in Luhua, a quiet hope ignited within me, fulfilled when I hear the familiar voice he adorns as he speaks, "You're here."
I release a sound that is between a giggle and a breathy chuckle, "And I see your feet had led you here once more?"
"They were curious, or should I say... I was," he explains as he takes a seat beside me, his posture remaining solid despite the uncomfortable position.
"Of what?" I ask.
"Of you," he simply replies, unaware of the sudden yet unsurprising effect it had on my heart that was already beating rapidly with just his mere presence. I try not to be so showy of it though, too embarrassed to even think of how fast I became fond of him.
But it was no wonder. After all, he himself was an interesting one; from the way he carries himself, the way he speaks, and the way he's just him... all and every action hold so much dignity that it just leaves me almost breathless and in awe every single time my eyes finds their way to his figureâ and to think that this was just our second meeting? My mother would most probably let out the most shameless giggle as I tell her these thoughts, pushing me and teasing me like a normal person in their teens would. I shake my head to get out of these thoughts, listening to Morax as he tells another wonderful tale, almost making me think that he lived it himself with how he knew it, going over even with the smallest details.
"You know, Morax, you have such a good memory to remember all of those things despite simply hearing about it," I suddenly speak up in the midst of the silence that engulfed us while he tries to think of the next story to tell, "I hope I can stay in them too... in your memories, I mean. I know I am far from being the most interesting person but for some reason, I wish for that."
He pauses, eyes trailing slowly towards me, beyond my knowledge, before he lets out a somber smile. You already are, is another one of him that becomes an afterthought.
I heaved out a sigh before shaking my head again, "Ah! Why do I keep having such lonely thoughts? Forget about that. Please do not mind me, alright? I think I really need to stop being stuck in the mountains."
I pick up my small bag and shuffle inside it, letting out a quiet sound of 'aha!' as a sort of celebration when I successfully got a small book out, "Here."
He blinked his eyes in confusion, wondering what it was I handed to him so I spoke in delight, "You told me you wanted to read at least one of my works so, here. I am warning you though, it is not like the ones that sell best in the bookstores. It might bore you, or weird you out like what others say."
"What others say?"
"They say it's too unrealistic, too impossible... but I believe otherwise. We live in a world where gods and adepti watch over us. What makes my story impossible then?" I ponder, him still being confused.
"What is it about anyway?" He asks, having no idea of what the context my book had.
"It's about an archon who began living as a simple man in Liyue."
Our meetings became more frequent after that and eventually, we got comfortable with even just the presence of each other, having no need for long talks and such, but just peace. Today, like any other day, Morax was just reading the book I gave him, while I was thinking of what my next story would be about. Occasionally, he looks at me with an odd expression that is almost equivalent to astonishment, as if I have done something so great that it made him look at me that way.
"What made you think of this plot?" he asks all of a sudden, not forgetting to put a piece of paper that served as a bookmark on the page where he stopped just in case he accidentally closed it.
I hum, thinking about my answer to his question, "Hmm. Truth to be told, it was just a mere wonder for me. Archons and the adepti, although not entirely immortal, live so much longer than an average human does, watching over us as we go about our daily lives, waiting for sudden wars to break out and then fight the enemies that attack us. Growing up, those were the things that all the people around me told me. So I began to wonder, do they ever get tired? Is it not too taxing to keep on doing that? What if... they just lived with us, among the crowds? Because I think it is too lonely wherever they are. Would it not be better if they were with us, rather than above us, so they could at least have memories to live by?"
Morax does not give a response, or rather, he finds it difficult to find one. Still, it does not stop the affection that spreads within him. He does not say it out loud, but for someone who prefers to be alone, Cheng was full of empathy. And somehow, that did wonders to Morax's heart.
"Now that I think about it, I kind of actually want to address my books to them now," I hum once more, "It would be like a message for them: Do not be too lonely even if we pass. Because of your help, through these stories, we can show you that we lived a good life."
I huff as soon as I finish my sentence, "Although one of those who read it said that was impossible, because according to them, why would archons give up their power to live a life where there is only simplicity?"
Morax let out a sound that made it look as if he got offended himself, "Archons can do that, can they not?"
"I know! That was what I was saying to them. Anyway, I am not forcing them to like what I wrote. It's just a story, after all. It can do no harm," I shrug, beginning to fix my belongings as the sun began to set, "I should go now, Morax. It is still quite a long walk to my home."
"I want to live a good life too," he suddenly tells me, making me halt and turn to him in confusion, "With you. The good life and memories you shall tell in your stories, can I be part of them too?"
The universe does not stop for anyone, nor does timeâ science will consistently proclaim this fact matter what timeline we shall live in. No matter how much someone begs to the Celestia to grant their wish of controlling, or stopping time, no one will be able to do such things. But somehow, it seems like when it comes to him, everything is possible as I feel my world stop at his words, just like the way it also began when I met him. And as if planets were colliding with each other, I suddenly felt my heart crash upon him and as if out of instinct, I let go of the truth.
"Of course. It would be the greatest thing to have you."
Life was strange in its own way. That is what I have come to realize in this simple life of mine.
Despite the fact that the "me" of the previous year has never even thought about putting my whole being on my sleeve, it is pleasingly odd how right now, I find myself in this kind of situation with the man who swept me right under my feet and claimed my heart as his.
âYou're cold," I whisper amidst the silence of the night in my abode, my index tracing the ears of the man who had me sitting right on his lap, the shorter strands of his silky hair tucked behind them. So, so alluring.
He takes hold of my wrist, planting a soft kiss on its side, all while maintaining eye contact as he quietly drawls, "Then I suppose you can keep me warm tonight. Will you?"
As if in a trance, I nod my head, letting him take the lead as he laid me down, back against the soft mattress, him following on top with his arms supporting his build. With arising confidence, I circle my arms around him and pull him down, bringing our lips together, a sigh of relief escaping both of our mouths as if to say, "Finally."
I wonder if he thinks the same way as I doâ that this was Celestia in its own way. I felt like I could do anything as long as it was with him. The kiss felt like the power we once suppressed from each other became a supernova that changed our world's course all of a sudden. But despite the tension and heat we both emitted at the moment, there is a warmth that engulfs me the same time he fully wraps his arms around me.
I am here. I will always be here.
No noise disturbs the peace we have created, only the quiet sound of crickets reach our ears but even that fails to distract him from what he's doing. He gently tugs on the sash that keeps my coat tied. Nimble fingers explore the remains of my clothing, loosening all until I am set free from them.
His eyes raked over my body, an expression of awe plastered on his face for so long that it made me somewhat conscious. Because as he unravels his to me, I am enlightened by the fact that my figure is nothing worth comparing to his â not even close. A hint of sweat glints from his skin due to the moonlight, making him look even more ethereal. But who was I to complain?
So instead, I look down, fiddling a little with my fingers as I feel my cheeks heat up. How is it that I only realize now what kind of situation we are currently in? Before I further drown in such shameless thoughts, he lifts my head up by the chin, an amused look on his usually-gentle face, "Are you feeling shy, beloved?"
I meekly nodded, to which he lets out a soft laugh and whispers, "Don't be. You are the epitome of beauty itself. If you don't believe me, allow me to show you nothing but truth tonight, I swear under the moon and all these stars."
He dips down and captures my lips in a kiss once again with more passion, if it was still even possible.
"You are made for me, as I'm made for you," he proclaims as he thrusts inside me after minutes of preparation, soft pants and groans following his statements. I can only whimper in response, pain evident in my tone at first with my hands lightly clawing at his back. I pray to the heavens above that they don't leave awful marks after this.
He halts and utters an apology, thumb caressing the bone of my cheeks while he waits for me to adjust. He scans my face after a few seconds, relief flashing in his eyes when I nod for him to continue.
"I... b..." I try to speak out but the pleasure overwrites any sensical thought that goes through my mind. He slows down a little, looking over my face and smiles, urging me to talk.
"Stay with me, beloved. We still have all night," he tells me, encouraging me to voice what has been on my mind.
"I... I belong to you, always have and always will..." I manage to croak out, voice quite hoarse due to the sounds that I let out previously. Perhaps pleased with what I have proclaimed, he begins going even deeper and at the same moment, I begin falling deeper.
"Yes, yes, you do," he repeats like a mantra, his voice sounding more and more desperate to reach his high. I cry out with him, creating a harmony that even the best bards shall be ashamed.
It was a long nightâ the longest yet most beautiful night I have ever had in this simple life of mine. And in that moment, as we reach the stars together, I knew right there and then that this man is someone who will be etched in my heart for as long as I live, deep into its rootsâ for him, it shall beat and it shall love.
You, who are reading this, most probably have had enough of these teeth-rotting praises I kept on writing. But what can I do except to apologize? These words are the only ones that can flow out of my mind and mouth to show how magnificent it was to be loved by him.
Well, nothing significant really changed. He was still the same gentleman I met, if anything, more gentle. Just like in the beginning, he made my heart flutter every chance he gets, no matter how many years have already passed.
We built a dynasty together.
But maybe I should have known that ours were also bound to crumble like the ones that have long existed even way before us.
Days, months and years went on, I realized that he was actually the opposite of meâ unlike me who was clearly not parallel with time, he held it right on the palms of his hand. I was not blind, nor was I a fool, I can clearly see how he looks like he has not aged a day, all while I was here, maturing more and more each second that passed by, the amount of signs of me aging increasing significantly.
Morax. Knowledgeable of history as if he lived it himself. Time. All these thoughts eventually congest my mind as realization dawns upon me. He was not merely a man named after the god himselfâ Morax was him, he was Morax.
"How appalling," I mutter with a hint of sadness and dismay in my tone. I stood in front of the mirror, fingers hovering over my face, wrinkles appearing as I scrunch it. A pair of firm arms snake its way around my lean waist, chin resting on one of my shoulders as he hums his words, "What has got your beautiful mind occupied, my beloved?"
Taking hold of his arms, I turn my body around to face him, a somewhat melancholic smile etched on my face as I look up at his much taller frame, "You are a sight to behold, even to this day." He arches one eyebrow out of amusement and curiosity, wondering why I suddenly started pouring him compliments. After all, my shyness prevents me from consistently doing so. Nonetheless, I continue speaking, "I wish... I could be with you even when everything changes into a whole new world."
I lifted a hand up to cup his cheeks and began rubbing it lovingly, a lone tear finally dropping from my eye as soon as I closed it, "but I cannot, I do not have the ability to do so... I am but a mere mortal, after all."
His eyes widen as he finally discerns my actions and concerns, immediately opening his mouth in hopes of consoling me but I beat him into speaking, "It's alright, Morax. I have been putting the pieces together for a while now. I am in no way angry. I just..." I pause, gulping hard before my lips start to quiver, "... I cannot imagine how lonely it must have been. And now... I think about it and I... I do not want to leave you alone again."
My cries eventually start becoming louder, something that is very new to the both of us, seeing as I have always been composed. Love can change a person into a whole new being. I remember a book I have read once and at the moment, I can only agree. Maybe it was the way my heart clenches at the mere thought of him walking alone, or the way I can imagine us taking our last breaths together yet I know that will never happenâ but either way, it was painful.
He whispers sweet nothings to my ears, placing light kisses on my temple as he leads us to the bedroom to rest once my tears have finally ceased and I have calmed down. His hold on me gets tighter every time I let out a small hiccup due to crying, almost as if he was telling me that he was feeling the same pain as I was.
Hours pass by as we lay in silence. My tears have long dried up but we remain coped up in each other's arms.
"Would it not be interesting if you bear the name Zhongli?" I ask him in a somewhat croaky voice.
He peers down and tilts his head, "Now where did that thought come from?"
I shrug, or at least try to, and look up at the ceiling as we shift our positions to lay on our back, hands finding one another and intertwining, "Hmm... nowhere. Just a name I wanted to give you in case that you are needing a new one."
"Oh? How come it would be interesting then?"
I look at him with a comforting yet sad smile.
"Because it means it's time to leave, to go somewhere far away... and unfortunately, I will have to leave soon."
He furrowed his eyebrows together, "Do not say that. Who knows? Maybe you will be able to live a hundred years by my side. Besides, I think it sounds lonely. I do not think I would want to get reminded of the fact that you are not here with me."
I hum, "But if you bear the name I gave you, wouldn't it feel like I never went away? That no matter where your feet take you, no matter how far you go, I am and will always be with you, just as I have vowed."
The wooden door leading to my writing room slowly slides open and Morax's head peers in, an adorable smile plastered on his face, "You have been quite busy these days, beloved. I do not wish to disturb you but I am starting to long for your presence."
I let out a shameless giggle, "Alright, alright. Just let me write down a few more words while I still have ideas to input."
He peeks on the parchment paper out of curiosity, taken aback when he finds his name on it, "You are writing about us?"
I nod proudly, "My last piece."
"... But why?"
I smile and approach him, taking his hand and placing my forehead against his after he lowers his head down to my level, "I told you, did I not? I do not wish to leave the person I love with nothing. So that you will not be lonely, my words will be with you. I will be with you, always..."
"... and to tell the gods... to tell you, that I loved every second of my life with youâ that it was, indeed, a good life."
"Who are you, young man? Are you my son?" I speak with a very hoarse voice, squinting my eyes at the figure in front of me, as if my poor vision will allow me to do that.
I hear a melancholic yet gentle sigh come from him before he takes my rough hands and looks afar, "Don't mind me. I'm just someone who vowed to be with you for as long as time lets us."
"Oh.... really? Thatâs quite endearing," I hum, "Well, may I know your name?"
"This⊠I think I may just have an idea to whom this book is for," Paimon trails off, looking over at the traveler who was in the same trance as her, "Paimon thinks we should let the strange person we saw a while ago give this directly to Zhongli!"
Lumine nods, turning around and starting to run towards the direction they were at previously, recalling the person named Cheng who gave them the novel they just finished reading. They were unique, dressed in layers of robes and it was almost as if they lived in the old times of Liyue. Even the way they talked and moved screamed ancient.
Just as they turned the corner, a woman near the Liuli Pavilion called them over, "Traveler! Here!" As they approach, Lumine cranes her neck to look around the area but to no avail, the strange person was long gone.
"Are you two alright?" the woman asks, much to their confusion, "I saw you talking to literal air awhile ago and I was worried you have eaten something strange."
The pair looks at each other in surprise before Paimon replies, "You didn't see anyone? Like a person dressed in the strangest attire? They dressed really anciently!"
The door of the Liuli Pavilion opens and there goes Zhongli, a calm expression morphing to an awkward one when he realizes he barged into an ongoing conversation. He apologizes for the disturbance and despite the curiosity he had upon overhearing bits of Paimon's statements, he starts his walk back to Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. At least not until he hears Paimon call his name, "Zhongli! Wait! A person named Cheng. Do you know them?"
He abruptly stops and turns to the two, eyes wide for a second before it returns to his usual demeanor, "How... how do you know of them?"
"We met them," Paimon says, as if it was the simplest thing to do, "Well, honestly, we don't know because we were apparently speaking to nothing but air! It's so odd!"
He stays still, honestly having no idea of what response he should give them because he himself found it hard to believe.
"Well anyway, they asked us to give you this novâ wait, where is it? It was just in your hands a while ago, Traveler!"
In the midst of the loud chaos made by the two in the middle of Liyue, he thinks he knows what to do and where to go now.
It was the day of the Rite of Parting, an event where he's supposed to be taking part of, even just a part of the audience. But he finds himself hanging around the Wanwen Bookhouse, eyes scanning the shelves until it stops at a familiar name engraved on the cover of a book.
"Oh! Greetings, Mr. Zhongli! I see you took a liking to a very great and romantic novel," Jifang comments as she sees the book in his hands.
He looks at her, "Is it really great?"
She gasps in delight, "Yes, indeed! Almost all of the Liyue folks have enjoyed this story! You can say it is a classic, especially for readers! Cheng definitely outdid themselves with this one! Such a mysterious person yet equally amazing. Imagine? Being able to make such a beautiful love story with Morax? They donât mention the present name they gave Morax though, such a shame. Maybe it was due to old age, they wrote it until the last moments of their life after all. Anyway, I have to get back to work but enjoy reading that masterpiece!"
He feels his heart swell in pride upon knowing his lover had his wish come true. His nimble fingers carefully open the pages of the book and hours later, as he sat inside the Funeral Parlor after taking the novel home, he finds himself absorbing each and every word Cheng have written, the loneliness sitting idly inside him subsiding little by little.
I found solace in the countless cups of tea you brew whenever I encounter distress with my works, the endless stories you tell with a smile so beautiful that not even the most heavenly scenery can vanquish, but most of them all, the feeling of your hand intertwining with mine, providing me with serenity no one else has ever done before. Under the moonlit night of Liyue, I remember your wistful amber eyes, staring deep into my soul as you proclaim your love and desire for me. How foolish was it of me to think that I could live this life without even experiencing such warmth and intimacy?
It is a banality, really â how I wish to become a well-known writer with unique tales and yet the story I am telling is something so common to folks that they have most probably heard similar ones before. But I guess this is what it means to love and to be loved. Everything is like a cycle that just keeps on being repeated, yet we never get tired of it, of the feelings it brings. So, thank you, Morax. Words will never be sufficient to show how grateful I am to you for showing me a whole new world but I suppose this is still a way for me to give back to you.
With this little book of mine, I hope my heart reaches yours regardless of how many eras may have passed before and after us. So, my beloved, do not be too lonely without me. Even if you find yourself longing for my presence, just open this and my heart shall be with you.
This belongs to you, it always will.
And I do, as well.
#genshin impact#zhongli#genshin x oc#genshin impact x reader#genshin x reader#zhongli x oc#zhongli x reader#genshin headcanons#zhongli headcanons#genshin scenarios#genshin fic#genshin fluff#genshin smut#zhongli smut#zhongli imagines
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New to the fandom, Could you explain June? đŻ Love and support her. But homestuck 2 doesn't have her and I'm just confused?
June Egbert precedes the concept of homestuck^2! Iâve seen a lot of people be confused about this because they werenât active on the fandom at the time the epilogues dropped, when reading her as a trans woman got a lot of discussion going and eventually lead to multiple confirmations.
So hereâs an attempt at contextualization:
Throughout Homestuck, a few key ideas about Egbertâs identity and motivation to push forward with her heroâs journey are dropped like breadcrumbs. Sheâs meant to play the default straight-man protagonist. Her defining traits are ridiculously⊠generic, when compared to how all the other kids present themselves and stick to exaggerated bits. Sheâs a perfectly normal, regular suburban kid with normal, suburban issues.Â
She may not leave her room a whole lot. She may not have a lot of real life friends in the neighborhood. She holds a comical irritation for the concept of birthdays, even though her father is extremely supportive, and is delighted to see his son grow up nice and healthy. Thereâs no reason for her to be so irrationally upset at cakes and gifts, and thatâs what makes the setup funny! June doesnât even know why sheâs annoyed with half of the things that annoy her, what the heck.
But under all that playing around there is a sense that her life is so normal, so blasĂ©, so unexciting and limiting and hollow and fake that sheâd give anything to not be herself, even if only for ten minutes. This goes way, way back. Itâs why June needs SBURB to happen.
June lives as though her life hasnât started yet. Sheâs stuck in the Tutorial stage. I would argue while most kids (and trolls) play SBURB to escape a shitty environment or the end of the world as they know it, June plays for a simpler reason: She needs to escape herself, and she needs to do it before it is too late.Â
Being thirteen means crossing the homeric abyss between being a child with no care for the world sporting a generic hand-me-down identity and becoming a Teen (capital T) who needs to figure out how to cope with atrocious bodily changes while building the adult theyâre meant to be AND deciding what the fuck they want out of life, and how theyâre going to work to get it, forever and ever.
When youâre trans, and you donât yet know youâre trans (or that this is a thing youâre even ALLOWED to be) the above feels a lot like serving a life sentence for an intangible crime.
You know what youâre supposed to do. Youâve seen it on tv, youâve heard it from your dad, you know what are the normal trials and tribulations. You know you'll grow a few pimples and stubble and you'll need to learn how to shave, obviously, because it's basically a tradition in your family, and no one is really happy to be a teen. You know at some point you'll find a nice girl and you'll grow a hat out of your skull and then you will have to pay taxes and maybe you will have a baby daughter? You'd like it to be a daughter for no particular reason. And when you get a daughter you're going to name her Casey and she's going to be adorable and this is something you've dedicated a lot of thought to. Maybe its because you thought Nic Cage looked really cool with those long flowing locks in con air, the movie who featured a trans woman as a minor character for a few minutes (and she gets quite a bit of compliments, regardless of how the movie has aged), and he had a really exciting life, but goddamn did he love his daughter. There is no purer love than the bond between a father and his daughter.Â
This absolutely has nothing to do with your father and you, or how you hold no excitement for becoming an adult man, or how your father's excitement for you becoming an adult man in your stead feels a little stifling.

But i digress.
June spends her time on SBURB mostly hassling karkat, and readily following the instructions of zany, dangerous, COOL girls that seem to know what they're doing. June lets Terezi lead her to certain death without blinking. June lets Vriska dress her up as soon as opportunity presents itself. June thinks its really funny to trick this troll Who Types Really Oddly into believing she's Rose, and also into believing that she's a very silly girl. You may even say Homestuck employs a few of jokes pertaining to how her name looks like EGG !

June has a ball playing this game until it starts to get shitty. She's never able to mend her relationship with her dad, as he's one of the first causalities. She has to spend a lot of time waiting around with jade on a ship until things get cool and exciting again, but she never stops growing during those three years. Its fine, though, because there's always more things to be done and more people to fight.
Until there aren't, and they make a new earth, and while everyone cheers and claps for the birth of a new planet June realizes all her excuses are over. Her friends begin to grow up. Rose gets married. Jade is living her best life. Dave has a not-boyfriend glued to his hip. Jane has a job. Jake is on TV for some reason. June doesn't want to leave home. June's birthday is around the corner again. Here come all the congratulations for becoming a strong lad for yet another year! Vriska is gone. Terezi is gone. SBURB is over. Wacky hijinks have been swapped for real-ass, boring-ass Regular life. We watch her unsuccessfully chase after the glory of days gone by when Rose presents her the possibility of going back into the game, when things were cool and mattered, or her flimsy decision to settle down with a nice girl she hasnât really made an effort to know and become a father and be absolutely miserable for four decades as she asserts nothing is real, not anymore, and this is just how it is.
Depersonalization, depression and general apathy towards the world are all pronounced aspects of dysphoria that seem like unrelated incidents for someone who hasn't came out yet. June's trainwreck of a life post-game, specially her feeling of hollowness and chasing after anything that could fill it struck a chord with trans readers who left the epilogues to read HS again and discovered this has always sort of been here. June being a trans woman who doesn't have the proper vocabulary to express she is a trans woman makes a lot of earlier bits from the comic click into place, now in a broader context. We settled in the name "June" because it's what she imagines Vriska is calling her at some point, amid laughs, but even that was discussed for a lengthy period last year. What would she want to be called, what are possible tags for this, etc. But it was mostly for fun and games, because the prospect of the protagonist of a 10 year old beloved cult series being ACTUALLY confirmed as a trans woman just wasn't something that was done.
Until word got around to Andrew Hussie and he was reportedly so pleased with this interpretation of events heâd be making references to it, and some time later, a box of toblerones was left in a cave as a gift for fans to find. The first person to find a toblerone thought it would be funny to dedicate it to June, because now she was an ongoing reference that was fun to make. Instead of it ending there, Hussie logs on twitter for the first time in a long while to say 'Oh yeah, i'll make it happen' and that's when the whole thing exploded. I have a post detailing this made a year ago (with pictures!) so i won't keep you here.
In the year since, June has been vaguely alluded to in Pesterquest (in jade's end card, she's having her nails painted by rose.) Has been widely adopted by the community, those making their own fanventures and continuations, and the team behind Homestuck^2. In every way that matters, she's already thriving within the community that brought her to light a year ago. But her coming out in canon is something that will take time and a proper narrative arc to happen, one that is still being set up. We know it'll come eventually, the only question is âhowâ.
Not that the wind waits for anyone.
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you're the pink in my cheeks (i'm a little bit soft)
summary: "and i know we'll never grow old together / cause you'll never grow old to me / you're the pink in my cheeks / and i love that it means i'm a little bit soft / you're the pink in my cheeks / and i love that it means i'm a little bit soft"
- "monster," marceline (adventure time)
(OR: 5.4k of soft domestic lesbian!analogical, featuring lesbian!moceit, trans male!remus, trans female!roman, and Gay Shenanigans)
a/n: huge thank you to dandie for beta'ing this fic!
i just wanted to write wlw is that so wrong of me? no. no it is not.
CW: alcohol mentions, a few sex jokes, swearing, one implied instance of potential sexual activity (although it doesn't go any farther than making out; if you want to skip that part, skip the section that starts with "Did you get the right kind of popcorn?")
word count: ~5.4k
read it on ao3!!
âI think I may be going insane,â Logan says, squinting at her laptop screen. Virginia, hanging upside-down in the armchair, looks up from her phone and blinks.
âAnd why is that?â
âBecause I am starting to agree with Rosieâs anti-Florida agenda.â
âI didnât realize that there was an anti-Florida agenda.â
âRosie has one, and I have always thought it facetious. However, if this laboratory does not start sending me my requested samples and information in a timely manner, I will be forced to concede that Rosie may have . . . a point.â
âYou, agreeing with a lit major? I never thought Iâd see the day,â Virginia teases. Logan initially resists the urge to stick her tongue out or flip Virginia off, because that would be childish, but then she remembers that Virginia does not care about her childishness, so she sticks her tongue out. Virginia snorts with laughter, and Logan feels warm, fizzy pop-rocks bursting in her chest.
Her phone buzzes next to her, and she picks it up. Thereâs a new message blinking for her attention on the screen.
[from: snesbian (snake lesbian)]
a, b, or c
[to: snesbian (snake lesbian)]
. . . What?
[from: snesbian (snake lesbian)]
*rolls eyes*
[from: snesbian (snake lesbian)]
i need you to make a selection, logan. a, b, or c.
[to: snesbian (snake lesbian)]
I am confused. What am I selecting between?
[from: snesbian (snake lesbian)]
wouldnât you like to know, weather boy
[to: snesbian (snake lesbian)]
Yes. I would like to know. That is why I asked you.
[to: snesbian (snake lesbian)]
Also, I am not a meteorologist. Or a boy.
[from: snesbian (snake lesbian)]
itâs a meme, iâm sure v will be happy to show you the og. but first: make a choice
[to: snesbian (snake lesbian)]
Option B, I suppose?
[from: snesbian (snake lesbian)]
vodka it is!
[to: snesbian (snake lesbian)]
Wait, what?
Her phone buzzes again, another text thread lighting up, and Logan abandons the now-fruitless conversation with Jan to see that her wife has texted.
[from: soda poppy]
y is jan fillin a thermos with vodka and sayin u gave her the go ahead? >:(
[to: soda poppy]
I am unsure. She texted me asking me to make a choice between âa, b, and câ with no context given. When I eventually selected âb,â she excitedly mentioned vodka and logged off.
[from: soda poppy]
her an remy r going 2 a pta meeting tonight an i guess theyâre goin drunk
[to: soda poppy]
Is that a . . . normal occurrence?
[from: soda poppy]
sadly yeah
[to: soda poppy]
Wait, is she even allowed to attend PTA meetings? You two donât have any children?
[from: soda poppy]
sheâs on the school board so she has the right 2 attend. idk if sheâs supposed to or not but its never stopped her b4
âEverythinâ good over there?â Virginia asks.
âI believe I may have just enabled Jan to attend a PTA meeting drunk.â Virginia snorts, swiping at her phone.
âGood for her, honestly. The only reason she and Poppy live in that neighborhood is so that Jan can flaunt her wife in front of all the capital-s Straight people, because sheâs a petty fuckinâ bitch.â
âThat is a strange word choice for your best friend.â
âI hate Jan, sheâs a bitch,â Virginia says, smirking fondly at her phone. Logan knows her girlfriend well enough to know that this statement is disingenuous, so she stands up, stretching her arms above her head, and leans down to drop a kiss onto Virginiaâs forehead.
*~*~*~*~*
Logan blinks awake slowly, feeling for the position of her limbs. Sheâs on her left side, left arm tucked up under her pillow to cradle her head, wrapped in the thick comforter of their bed. Her right arm is slung across Virginiaâs body, and her girlfriend is pressed up against her, head tucked right under Loganâs chin and face nestled into her neck and chest. Virginia breathes, slow and deep and even, and Logan hums, huffing out a soft exhale.
She carefully wiggles out of bed, tucking the comforter around Virginiaâs curled-up form. Virginia grumbles when the cool morning air slips against her skin, because she is a foolish woman who insists upon sleeping in short shorts and a spaghetti-strap tank top no matter the current weather patterns. Logan wraps her up, making sure that sheâs shifted into the middle of the warm divot of body heat, and Virginia settles in, asleep again in a heartbeat.
Logan turns to the corner chair, where her early-morning outfit is already laid out: athletic leggings, a sports bra, a moisture-wicking quarter zip jacket. She changes quietly, lights off, and tugs on a pair of ankle socks before slinking into the bathroom. Once the door is shut, she flicks on the soft lights over the vanity and carefully undoes her sleep braid. Normally, Virginia does Loganâs hair, because Logan is not good at dealing with her wavy, tangled, curly mess, but she wonât wake up her girlfriend for that. She can, at bare minimum, pull her hair up into a high ponytail for running purposes.
They live in a small town only a short walk (and even shorter bike ride) from the beach, full of little two-story brightly-colored beach cottages. Logan steps off her front porch, pulls out her phone, and quickly shoots a text.
[to: ginny <3]
I am headed to the beach for my weekly run. I will likely return before you wake up, but in case I do not: I will be back before 9 AM.
[to: ginny <3]
I love you <3
Logan kicks up the kickstand on her bike, runs her fingers over the glossy dark-blue paint flecked with white and silver and gold to mimic stars, and swings one leg over the bike seat. She carefully pedals out into the narrow road and heads for the beach. The cool early-morning air whips past her face, and she chances a glance up at the dark-blue-turning-light-blue-grey sky and smiles.
Sheâs always been an early-morning morning person, anyway.
*~*~*~*~*
Loganâs sneakers dig into the hard-packed wet sand along the waterâs edge as she runs. Seagulls scatter in front of her, and the podcast Virginia recommended hums in her ear. The sun creeps up, up, up onto the horizon, coloring the blue-grey into streaks of brilliant pink and orange and gold, light reflecting off the water in resplendent diamond sparkles.
Logan runs half a mile down the beach, turns around, runs back to where she started and then runs half a mile in the other direction before turning around and running back to her starting point. By the time sheâs bent over, hands on her knees, huffing out breath while her legs burn pleasantly, the sun has emerged fully from the ocean, and Logan is beginning to wish she had worn a visor.
She takes a moment to appreciate the sensory experiences of being on a nearly-abandoned beach: the scent of salt water, the sound of waves crashing against sand, the errant cries of gulls squabbling over fish. Their little beach is not nearly pristine enough for a tourist attraction, and too far north along the Atlantic coast to be warm year-round. Still, Logan loves it, and cannot imagine living anywhere else.
She hunts along the waterâs edge as she walks, briefly, a cool-down before the bike ride home. She finds a few things worth photographing, a few crabs to shoo back into the ocean, and a few things worth gathering: an intact clam shell whose smooth curve runs unbroken from the heel of her palm to the tip of her index finger when she lays it flat in her hand, a light gray rock worn smooth by the waves that turns dark-gray-almost-black when wet, a small spiral shell that she thinks may have broken off of the top of a snail shell. Logan wraps all three things carefully in a small handkerchief from the little bag she keeps in her bike basket, pulling out her phone to note the time (8:37 AM) and the message notification flashing at her.
[from: ginny<3]
dunno why you insist on being a morning person. stop by the dunkin on your way back and get us breakfast?
[to: ginny<3]
You had Dunkin for breakfast three times this week. You should consume something healthy.
[from: ginny <3]
>:( >:( >:( >:(
[from: ginny <3]
counterpoint: you bringing me dunkin is better than me not eating breakfast at all. which is the alternative because i do not want to get up and prepare anything
[to: ginny <3]
Your womanly wiles will not work on me in regards to Dunkin breakfast.
[from: ginny <3]
bitch (affectionate)
[to: ginny <3]
Would you like me to make you breakfast on my return, beloved?
[from: ginny <3]
. . .
[from: ginny <3]
will you make me an omelette? with all the cheesy goo an shit?
[to: ginny <3]
I will make you an omelette with some degree of âcheese goo.â
Logan slides her phone into her pocket, huffing out a laugh at her girlfriendâs behavior, and hops onto her bike again.
*~*~*~*~*
âYour omelettes are always so much better than mine,â Virginia says, moaning as she sinks her teeth into an enormous bite of egg and cheese. Logan, calmly dicing bell peppers to mix into her own omelette, smiles.
âAll food tastes better when it is prepared by someone who is not you.â
âYouâve clearly never had anything the twins have cooked.â Virginia takes another bite, pops a multivitamin into her mouth, and chases it down with a gulp of milk. âBesides, it tastes better because you made it.â
âI am not the most accomplished chef in the world, certainly, but I am glad you enjoy my cooking.â
Virginia laughs softly. âLo, I like your food because itâs prepared by someone who loves me. I can taste the love in everything you make for me.â
Logan turns back to her peppers to hide her blush. âLove is not a measurable ingredient when cooking.â Virginia laughs again, louder this time; when Logan sets the knife down, she hears Virginiaâs chair scrape out behind her as she stands, feels her arms wrap around her waist, feels the cool skin of her face press into her neck.
âLove you.â
*~*~*~*~*
âStressful day at work?â Logan asks, hearing the door slam.
Virginia kicks off her flats, sending them flying into the wall with a clatter. Logan sets down her crochet project and moves toward the entrance of their house, where Virginia is shrugging off her rainjacket to reveal a mint-green Peter Pan-collared blouse and dark gray dress pants. âThe stressiest.â
Logan takes the jacket and shakes it out on the tiled entranceway before hanging it on the hook. âI am sorry, beloved.â
âLots of assessments, lots of parents who donât understand why Iâm assessing their kid, lots of parents insisting that thereâs nothing wrong with their kid, or that thereâs no way their kid could possibly have the deficits that Iâm seeing. Like, I wouldnât make this shit up, you know? Literally, let me help your child. You came to me, remember? Iâm not in the habit of imposing myself onto people.â
âThat sounds very stressful,â Logan says. She tries to picture a life where she spends all her time interacting with people she doesnât know on a regular basis instead of her little corner of the university biochemistry lab where she only has to interact with three or four known people and her immediate supervisor, mostly by email. It sends icy fingers skittering down her spine.
âIt is, I hate it. I mean, Kittyâs my supervisor until I get my Câs, so if I have problems I can consult with her, but like . . . why are people the way that they are.â
Logan stretches up and presses a gentle kiss to Virginiaâs cheek. âI love you, Ginny.â
Virginia exhales and folds herself around Logan, draping her body over her girlfriend and going limp and boneless. âI donât wanna be a real person for the rest of the night.â
âThat can be arranged.â
âBut itâs my night to make dinner.â
âI do not mind switching and having you make dinner tomorrow,â Logan says. âThis is an acceptable deviation from the routine.â Virginia pushes her face into Loganâs neck, and Logan nuzzles the side of her head, and she sighs like the entire world has lifted off her chest.
*~*~*~*~*
(This is how it starts:
Logan, taking a class on British literature in her sophomore year because she needs to meet her core requirements. Logan, meeting Rosie, disagreeing with her on almost every single point she raises in class, hating when theyâre paired up for their midterm project but earning the best grade in the class overall. Logan, seeing a text from Rosie about how her housemate needs people to participate in a research study for extra credit. Logan, making the long trek down to the health sciences building and seeing Virginia for the first time, thinking that sheâs pretty and not knowing that sheâll be thinking that for the rest of her life.)
*~*~*~*~*
âHello, gorgeous,â Virginia hums.
âAre you talking to me or to the mint plant?â Logan says, aggressively stabbing her pointer finger against the Delete key. It clacks loudly, and she mutters an insult under her breath. âI am going to set myself on fire. I swear to god, I am.â
âObviously the mint plant,â Virginia says, turning and dropping a kiss on Loganâs head. âYou okay, honey?â Logan grumbles more and shoves the laptop away from her with a disgruntled noise. Virginia moves the laptop away and leans over to kiss her forehead.
âI am trying to politely word an email whose essence boils down to, âIf you do not send me my fucking samples in a timely manner, I am going to be forced to commit an Atrocity the likes of which this earth has never seenâ,â Logan says.
Virginia laughs so hard that she sits down on the tiled kitchen floor, wiping tears from her eyes. âYou are so funny,â she wheezes. Logan feels her irritation fade a little under the brightness of her girlfriendâs joy. âLet me see the email, Iâm good at professional bullshitting.â
*~*~*~*~*
âBraid my hair!â Rosie says, throwing herself down onto the couch. Logan lifts her laptop up just in time to keep Rosieâs head from slamming into the keyboard.
âGinny is your best bet for braids, Rosie. I have limited experience.â
âIt doesnât have to be fancy, It just has to be off my neck.â
Logan saves her document and sets her laptop on the coffee table, poking at Rosieâs ribs until she slides onto the floor and settles cross-legged between Loganâs thighs. âA comb and some hair-ties would be appreciated.â
âREMUS!â Rosie shouts.
âWHAT?â
âBRING ME A BRUSH AND SOME HAIR BANDS!â
âGET YOUR OWN!â
âIâm going to kill that man,â Rosie mutters, rolling to her feet. There are suspicious muffled thumping noises from the other room for a few minutes before Rosie emerges, victorious, hair somehow even messier than it was in the first place.
âYou are the single loudest person I have ever met,â Logan sighs, taking the comb and the hair ties and beginning to drag it through Rosieâs curls. Rosie winces, just a little, at the pull of the comb, and Logan tries to be more gentle.
âThank you!â
âI did not say that was a compliment.
âHey!â
*~*~*~*~*
Logan tugs her sweatshirt sleeves down from where sheâd rolled them up previously, shivering a little. Part of her wishes that she had worn leggings instead of capris as she drags the folding chair a little closer to the bonfire, toes dragging through the still-sun-warmed sand. The speaker set up on the food table blasts some sort of current pop music, and Rosie and Poppy dance around each other, chanting the lyrics at each other. They are both very loud and very off-key and, Logan suspects, fairly drunk as well. Remus is in the ocean (definitely buzzed, potentially naked) and Jan is standing at the edge of the ocean, watching to make sure he stays alive.
âHey,â someone says, low and rumbling in her ear. Logan does not flinch (just barely) and turns to see Virginia, holding a plastic cup with a poorly-drawn sketch of the state of Virginia on it. Her hair is starting to come loose from its messy bun, and her sweater sleeves keep sliding down over her wrists and nearly dunking into her drink, and her breath smells sweet and alcoholic. When she lifts her hand to Loganâs cheek, her fingers are cool, and Logan shivers.
âHowâs my girl?â Virginia asks.
âCold,â Logan answers honestly. Virginia laughs, tipping her head back and exposing the long strip of her neck. Logan wants to lick it.
âYouâre adorable,â Virginia says, leaning in and pressing her mouth against Loganâs ear. Her breath is warm and slightly damp. âSo pretty, my Logan, and so smart. I bet you know exactly what chemical compounds are making the flames turn that color, hmmm?â
Logan can feel her face burning hotter than the bonfire, but Virginia just sits languidly in her lap, feet propped up on the armrest. Her toes are painted pale purple, and the glitter sparkles in the firelight.
âHow many drinks have you had?â Logan asks.
âEnough to feel all tingly,â Virginia says, swirling whateverâs in her cup. âHow many have you had?â
âNone,â Logan answers honestly. Virginia leans her head against Loganâs shoulder, and her wispy frizz tickled Loganâs nose. She sneezes, and Virginia giggles in the high-pitched, superficial way she only giggles when she gets really, really drunk.
âYou sound so cute when you sneeze.â
âI do not.â
âOf course you do,â and now Virginia is looking at her, eyes glowing warm in the firelight. âYou sound cute when you do anything. Youâre cute when you exist. Youâre cute no matter what. I love you more than Iâve ever loved anyone.â
Logan hates the taste of alcohol, but she leans in and kisses Virginia anyway.
*~*~*~*~*
âLo.â
âHmmm?â
âPick a color.â
âWhat?â
âIâm painting my toes again. Pick a color for me.â
Logan flops over onto her stomach, staring at the neat row of creme polishes sitting on their ottoman. Virginiaâs bare feet are propped up in front of them, spread apart awkwardly with neon lemon gel toe spreaders, and she studies the nail polish like sheâs trying to determine which vial isnât poisoned.
âI like that one,â she says finally, pointing to a pale pink polish the color of the flowers Virginia brought her on their first date. Virginia hums, picking the bottle up and tilting it critically in the light.
âNot the one I would have picked, but I said you could pick, so I guess weâre doing it.â
Virginia tosses some bottles of toppers (or âtacosâ as she calls them, slang from one of the YouTubers she likes) onto the bed while she paints her toes, and Logan sifts through them to settle on a blue-yellow iridescent one.
âI do not know how you can get behind wearing something called a Unicorn Skin,â Logan says. Virginia just shrugs and plucks the bottle from her hand. Their fingers overlap - Loganâs warm from where theyâve been tucked under her body, Virginiaâs cool from where theyâve been gripping the glass bottle. Impulsively, Logan lifts Virginiaâs fingers and kisses the tips.
âYouâre going to smear the polish,â Virginia mutters, even though she painted her fingers earlier today and theyâve been dry for a while. She doesnât bother to yank her fingers away, either, so Logan kisses them again.
*~*~*~*~*
âLogan!â
Logan is fully aware that the only thing keeping Poppy from crashing into her like a floral-sundress-covered cannonball is the casserole dish in her hands. She counts her blessings and steps aside to let Poppy in.
âWhereâs Jan?â
âGetting something from the car! Itâs my turn to drive us home, so she brought something to drink.â
Jan primly kicks the passenger side door shut with her heeled ankle boots, a bottle of wine grasped by the neck in each hand.
âI hope you do not intend to drink both of those in their entirety tonight,â Logan says. Jan rolls her eyes and offers one of the bottles to her.
âThis one is a gift for you and Ginia. The other one is for me.â
âNone for Poppy?â
âPoppy is the designated driver, so she will not be drinking. And I know she already told you that.â Logan rolls her eyes, and Jan flips her off. âAre you going to invite me in or not?â
âWhat are you, a vampire?â Virginia shouts from the kitchen.
âOnly one of us dresses like the undead, darling, and it isnât me,â Jan calls back, stepping into the house. âAre the twins here yet?â
âThey cannot attend. Remus has orchestra practice and Rosie is teaching a dance class. You already knew both of these facts, because you are in the group text.â
âI am not.â
âYou responded to a message in the group thread fifteen minutes ago.â
âThat was the NSA agent assigned to monitor me.â
âYou are a liar.â
âWhat else is new?â
*~*~*~*~*
groupchat name: be gay do crime
soda poppy: hey every1! DONUT 4get to make ur bakesale goodies and drop them off at r house by 7 am on fri!
lo tide: Please use normal words. I am begging you.
snesbian (snake lesbian): then beg.
lo tide: I do not recall asking for your opinion.
snesbian (snake lesbian): and yet i give it to you anyway. am i not generous
virgin: if you donât stop making fun of my gf i swear to god
virgin: also remus if you donât stop changing my name iâm gonna end you
virgin has changed their name to gin(ny) and tonic!
gin(ny) and tonic: much better anyway
violets are blue rosie is me: i believe you meant anygay
gin(ny) and tonic: i said what i fucking said
ace attorney irl: you changed your name :(
gin(ny) and tonic: every day the Lord regrets giving all of us mod powers in this chat
snesbian (snake lesbian): i have no such regrets
lo tide: Can we circle back to the bake sale, please?
soda poppy: Whatchu wanna kno???
lo tide: I assume it is school related?
soda poppy: yep!
soda poppy: fundraising 4 this yearâs art club field trip! since im the faculty advisor im in charge of approving and setting up 4 the fundraisers
lo tide: I see. And why, exactly, is it our responsibility to make things for this fundraiser? Should it not be the studentsâ responsibility?
soda poppy: they r makin stuff 4 it but also i gotta make sure some of the stuff will b edible yknow
lo tide: I see.
gin(ny) and tonic: listen i know that jan is like. a professional pastry chef an shit. but iâm not making anything fancy like a cheesecake or smthn
gin(ny) and tonic: iâm making like. fuckin brownies
snesbian (snake lesbian): smh donât you care about the Children at all?
gin(ny) and tonic: no. theyâre not my kids
ace attorney irl: i will make cookies
soda poppy: u cannot make them inappropriate shapes
ace attorney irl: :(
violets are blue rosie is me: do not worry, i will make sure they are an appropriate shape
violets are blue rosie is me: iâll make cupcakes!
lo tide: I believe I have a recipe for lemon squares that I can make. Will lemon squares be sufficient?
soda poppy: yeah! just keep ur stuff free of common allergens like tree nuts
gin(ny) and tonic: so my plan to just yeet you a bag of reeseâs peanut butter cups and call it a contribution is out then
*~*~*~*~*
Virginia throws a box of brownie mix into the cart and dusts her hands off. âThere. Done.â
Logan raises an eyebrow.
âDonât give me that look, we have the rest of the ingredients at home. We have tap water, we have oil, we have eggs, we donât need anything else. What do we need for your lemon thingies?â
âLemons, presumably.â
âYouâre a comedian,â Logan deadpans. Virginia flips her off, and then leans in to kiss her cheek. âI do need lemons, though. Lemons, more eggs . . . I have a list in my phone.â
âWhat phone?â Virginia says, dangling Loganâs galaxy-patterned case above her head. âI think youâre too short for this, Lo.â
âGive me my phone,â Logan says, rolling her eyes. Virginia wiggles it above her head, laughing.
âMaybe you should give me something in return.â
âLike what?â
Virginia grins. âLike a kiss, perhaps?â
Logan rolls her eyes again, but she leans in and kisses Virginia gently, swiping her phone back when Virginia lowers her hand to cup her face. âThank you for paying the toll, sweetheart.â
âYou are ridiculous,â Logan says. It doesnât stop her from gently kissing Virginiaâs cheek before pushing the cart down the aisle again.
*~*~*~*~*
groupchat name: be gay do crime
lo tide: What time did you want us to drop off the baked goods, Poppy?
soda poppy: if ur gonna b in the area, u can just drop them off at my house!
ace attorney irl: i made some of the shapes inappropriate but those ones r 4 u and jan
soda poppy: what did u make 4 the bake sale?
ace attorney irl: . . .
soda poppy: what did u make 4 the children, remus.
ace attorney irl: nothinâ too crazy! jan had some normal summer shapes - suns, flip flops, etc. etc. used those
soda poppy: :D thx remus!
ace attorney irl: made some fishies too! but the octopi are just for u an jan.
ace attorney irl: i . . . may have painted dicks on them
soda poppy: well at least u warned me right
*~*~*~*~*
âDid you get the right kind of popcorn?â Logan asks.
âIf by âthe right kindâ you mean âyour favorite kind,â then yes, I did,â Virginia says, coming into the living room with a large yellow bowl full of fluffy popcorn. âWhat are we watching tonight? Itâs your turn to pick, isnât it?â
âGay fish,â Logan says.
Virginia sets the popcorn on the coffee table and blinks at her. âThat is . . . quite the description of Finding Nemo, sweetheart.â
âNot Finding Nemo, Ginny. Luca. Itâs new, and itâs not explicitly gay, but there is a very obvious queer reading. I thought we could watch it together.â
âAnything with you sounds wonderful.â
âSap,â Logan mutters. She leans in to kiss Virginiaâs cheek, but Virginia turns at the last moment and presses their lips together.
âAre you sure you want to watch a movie?â she says. âWe could just make out instead, if you want.â She pushes gently on Loganâs stomach, guiding her to lay on her back on the couch. Virginia lays on top of her, gently sliding a hand to rest warm and heavy on her stomach. She leans forward, pressing a gentle kiss to Loganâs neck, and then her jaw, and then rubbing their noses together.
âTonight is movie night,â Logan says. Virginia presses their mouths together, and Logan hums, gently pressing up into the kiss. âWe should be watching a movie.â
âAre you sure?â Virginia says. âI think we should pursue this avenue a little further.â
Logan squirms a little. âI - I would not - um - no, thank you.â
Virginiaâs eyes, which were hazing over with something, clear as she blinks. âOkay, sweetheart.â She leans back, sits up, pulls Logan into a sitting position. âAre you alright?â
âIâm okay,â she says. âI just - I am not in the mood for that tonight. If that is okay.â
âOf course itâs okay,â Virginia says. She holds out a hand, and Logan takes it. Virginia kisses the back of it before settling herself on the couch. âI am so proud of you for expressing a boundary and telling me you were uncomfortable. I know that expressing boundaries is something that weâre both working on, and you did a wonderful job. Tell me what you want, Lo. Please?â
âI would like a kiss,â Logan says. âJust one. And then I would like to cuddle, and - and I would like us to watch Luca together. Is that acceptable?â
Virgil nods. âOf course, love. Come here, hmmm?â Logan settles next to her, and Virginia gently cups her cheek and presses their mouths together. âI love you, Logan. So much. Of course we can watch Luca now.â
Virginia lays an arm along the top of the couch, allowing Logan to cuddle up against her and rest her head on her chest. âI love you,â Logan says softly.
âI love you too, sweetpea.â
*~*~*~*~*
Logan rolls over, yawning, and feels a small weight displace itself from her thighs. She blinks awake slowly, lifting her head and pushing her curtain of curls aside to reveal a black cat mewing at her grumpily before settling into a sushi roll beside her.
âDid I wake you? I am sorry, Galileo . . .â
Galileo settles against her, purring softly, while the ash-grey cat at the foot of the bed pads slowly up to curl on Virginiaâs back. âThatâs your favorite spot, isnât it, Andromeda?â The cat emits a soft âmrrrpâ before settling back down to sleep. Logan yawns, smiles, and gently strokes her hears. âWhat should we do, girls? Shall we stay awake and be productive members of society?â
Neither cat responds, and Logan looks at Virginia. Sheâs haloed in the morning light, eyes tightly shut, mouth hanging open, drool leaking into a puddle on the pillow. She snores a little - one, two, three snorts before settling back into a deep sleep.
âNo,â Logan decides, âwe shall not.â She lays back down, gently nudging Galileo a few inches over so that she can snuggle up to Virginia. Galileo stretches out, pressing a paw directly into Loganâs cheek. Logan shoves her, and she resettles onto Loganâs feet with an indignant noise.
âYou can sleep by my face when you do not kick my face,â Logan mutters, curling into her love.
*~*~*~*~*
groupchat name: be gay do crime
soda poppy: r u all comin 2 the bake sale 2morrow?!
lo tide: I was under the impression that we were only providing the baked goods. Is it not for the students at the school?
soda poppy: we got waaaayyyy more stuff than we thought so we r havin a 2nd bakesale 2morrow 4 parents an stuff!
soda poppy: we r gonna need sum help with setup though . . .
lo tide: Poppy, please do not even -
soda poppy: đ„șđ„șđ„ș p l e a s e
lo tide: Poppy.
snesbian (snake lesbian): logan
lo tide: If I agree to stop and pick up coffee for everyone, will that motivate you all to turn out?
violets are blue rosie is me: iâm always a slut for free coffee
lo tide: Iâm sorry, where did I say that this would be free?
violets are blue rosie is me: D:<
ace attorney irl: eh iâm down for it. where you swinginâ by?
soda poppy: thereâs a panera p close 2 where the bake sale is!!! itâs gonna b at the morning girlâs basketball game
lo tide: Does anyone have any issues with Panera coffee?
violets are blue rosie is me: nah. large iced coffee, add three ounces of half and half, two pumps of sugar syrup, two pumps of vanilla, and caramel drizzle.
ace attorney irl: complicated bitch much?
violets are blue rosie is me: why must the cain instinct betray me like this
ace attorney irl: the cain instinct started when we stole each otherâs genders in the womb
violets are blue rosie is me: this is true this is true but youâre still a bitch
ace attorney irl: large hazelnut coffee, two sugars, please
snesbian (snake lesbian): large dark roast, black
soda poppy: medium decaf coffee, two ounces of almond milk, and two pumps of sugar syrup!
gin(ny) and tonic: large caramel latte
lo tide: You . . . are going to ride in the car with me to pick up the coffee, we can order our own coffees. I do not need your order, love.
lo tide: But I appreciate the information <3 <3
*~*~*~*~*
âWe come bearing gifts,â Virginia announces loudly. âAnd by gifts, I mean we bought a bakerâs dozen of cinnamon crunch bagels for everybody.â
âWell, there are twelve cinnamon crunch bagels and one plain bagel, bagged separately, for me,â Logan corrects, expertly balancing two coffee trays with a bagel container. âAlso, we made more brownies.â
Poppy looks up from where sheâs instructing two high-schoolers on how to hang a sign properly and grins, waving brightly. Jan is leaning on the table, hand on her head, sipping at a water bottle.
âVodka or whiskey?â Logan asks dryly, handing over Janâs black coffee. Jan blinks at her, flips her off, and drains a long swig from her cup.
âWater. Partied a little too hard with Remy last night, and now Iâm hungover as shit.â
âWe suspected as much, which is why we brought you an extra coffee.â
âLifesaver,â Jan says, knocking back another long drag of coffee before taking a sip of her water bottle. (Logan suspects the bottle is actually Poppyâs, due to the sun-shiney stickers plastered all over it.) âYou and Poppy both. But if you tell anyone that, Iâll gut you like a fish."
âNo, you wonât,â Logan says, turning to hand Rosie and Remus their respective drinks. âYou never do.â
Jan flips her off, but Virginia comes up behind her and leans her forehead against her shoulder. Logan turns, kissing her forehead, and smiles.
Life is good today, she thinks. Life is good.
(screen names!
virgin -> gin(ny) and tonic; ginny <3 = virginia (virgil)
lo tide = logan
snesbian (snake lesbian) = jan (janus)
soda poppy = poppy (patton)
ace attorney irl = remus
violets are blue rosie is me = rosie (roman) (thanks to @rosesisupposes for letting me borrow your screen name for this!)
#starshinewrites#fem!analogical au#analogical#moceit#trans creativitwins#ftm!trans remus#mtf!trans roman#it's just soft domestic lesbian analogical fluff#that's it that's the fic
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AHHHH IM NOT LATE RIGHT??? RIGHT?? đżđżđż can I request pretty please with cherry on top for Jade with the angst prompt âShame on myself for believing you in the first place.â cause i love to hurt myself AHAHA BARK BARK GRRR THANK YOUU AND CONGRATS *sending hugs and kiths*
A/N: The writer would like to apologize since I kinda did change the wording a bit but solely cause I wanted to make this sad for BOTH parties. Hopefully the angst paid off u wuÂ
Jade LeechÂ
âDo I just place them in a bucket or can they grow on a log?âÂ
Jade chuckles as he takes your hand, guiding your wrist towards a small spore.Â
âI think a terrarium would best, Prefect. Mushrooms always need room to grow and if you give them too little a space they may start to die.âÂ
He smiles when he sees your worried look towards the one you had just sliced off from his collection, jotting down the tip that he had given you on the pad of paper on the table. It was rather nice to see the page filled with your handwriting, each line talking about the proper way to take care of a mushroom.Â
How much water to give it.Â
The humidity they needed to be grown in.Â
How many you could grow in one terrarium.Â
The vice dorm leader felt a sense of pride as he watched you listen closely, taking his time in explaining each process so that he could see the way your eyes would shine as you saw just how alive these things were. This sort of thing was exciting for him too, he didnât expect you to come up to him one day and ask if he could teach you how to grow mushrooms but he had been more than eager to let you in on his little hobby.Â
It was a good way to spend more time with you anyway.Â
Jade wanted to say he hated the way he would stare at himself in the reflection of the windows in the greenhouse, fixing his hair a little before looking at you when you asked another question. He didnât necessarily care too much about his appearance before but with the way you would stare at him and compliment whatever happened to catch your eye, Jade would feel a familiar curiosity wash over him and he wondered just what you would say about him the next time you two meet.Â
Your eyes became more discerning the more you two spent time together and the curiosity turned to happiness as you two sought out more ways to hang out with each other.Â
Which was good for him, it gave him the excuse to see your crush on him growing day by day.Â
You werenât exactly the best at hiding your feelings.Â
Still, that was a rather endearing trait about you. He liked the way you were so open about stuff with him despite your first meeting. You didnât view him as the scary Leech twin but just as Jade Leech, the eel merman who happened to have a penchant towards growing mushrooms and going on wilderness hikes.Â
Maybe it was because he had shown you a side of himself that others didnât see that made you fall for him.Â
Not that he was complaining, in fact, he blamed himself for letting these feelings inside of you grow.Â
Jade wouldnât stop them, didnât want to stop them. He wanted to be the first thought you had in the morning and the last thought you had at night. The way your cheeks burned the first time he grazed your hand, he wanted that burning sensation to stay with you always whenever he was close by.Â
He wanted you to think about him and him only and could say with great assurance that it was highly likely that you thought this way about him already...
But you couldnât promise anything.Â
Despite how you two could talk for hours, despite how you many secrets or inside jokes you shared, you wouldnât be able to promise anything.Â
You werenât from around here.Â
The story of the Little Mermaid aside, the one difference between you and him was the one thing that he knew would most likely kill whatever relationship the two of you could have. Land and sea could be easy to overcome, once Jade was dedicated to something he would see it through.Â
And he was more than ready to be dedicated to you.Â
But two different worlds...
âUhm. Jade?âÂ
Your voice calls him back to the present, Jade giving you a smile and asking what you needed help with. Yet you shook your head and pushed the notepad away, taking a deep breathe as you turned to face him with a determined look on your face.Â
âI--Thank you so much for showing me all of this.âÂ
âItâs been a pleasure.â he replies.Â
âI know its not easy teaching me the proper way of doing this and we donât know if these kinds of mushrooms would even grow where I am from but--I still want to try!â you inch closer to him, âI want it to be like a memento from my time here...with you.âÂ
Your hand rests close to his.Â
âSo...â you laugh but there is no joy behind your eyes, just worry, âI just...I know there is still no way for me getting back home and I donât know when I will even be able to go back home but I was thinking that maybe with the time we have now, we could--âÂ
The sound of the fairies in the garden grows quiet as Jade presses his lips against yours, the sound of your nails delicately scraping the wood as you clenched your first far too loud now that all your senses had been heightened. Your eyes were still open, why were your hands still at your sides! Just wrap them---
Jade pulls away before you can make your move, smiling as he cups your cheek with one hand.Â
âYou shouldnât tempt me with your offer, Prefect. Despite how much I want to spend my time with you in a different context...a part of me feels that I might do something rash once it is time for you to go home.â
He knew himself, if he got you in the way he wanted you then he wouldnât dare let you go. It was his first love and to lose it in such a way...well he wouldnât allow himself to lose it in the first place.Â
âBut we could do something! Text! Calling! I just...â you press his hand closer to your face, pressing your mouth on it so that he could feel your lips on his fingers, âI just like you so much it hurts...âÂ
Praise be to the Sea Witch that he was keeping himself in check when all he wanted to do was just take you in his arms once again. âPrefect...â he whispers as he brings you closer, wrapping his arms around you as a sob finally breaks free from you, âIt would be a shame on myself I believed you in the first place...if I believed that this could work...âÂ
âIt can--!âÂ
The way those words left your throat let Jade know that even you didnât believe that. You were smart, you knew that the moment you went back there would be no way to get you back...back to him.Â
So all he could do was hold you close as you wrapped your arms around him, burying your face in his chest and adorning it with your tears. It was the least he could let you do for letting these feelings grow inside of you.
He should have stopped them from the beginning.Â
#twisted wonderland#twst#twst prompt#twst imagines#jade leech#twst mc#//ugh...I shouldnt have made this sad...but at the same time Im so glad I did u wu#short prose
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hi riley! read this recently and would love to get ur perspective on this as a YA author https://tinyletter.com/misshelved/letters/did-twitter-break-ya-misshelved-6
hi anon! yeah, i read this the day it was posted. thoughts/supplementary essay below.
firstly, i'd put a big "I AGREE" stamp across this essay. i think it's well-cited and thoughtful, and i agree with pretty much everything in it. i especially appreciate it for introducing me to the terms "context collapse" and "morally motivated networked harassment" - seeing internet sociology studied and labeled is ... odd, but useful.
i left twitter in 2017, but i keep an eye on things, which seem similar now to the way they were four years ago. the essay describes the never-ending scrutiny, the need to seem perfect, and the pressure on writers to out themselves. all of that is spot-on. twitter is an outing machine. there is so much harassment and anger on the platform that in serious conversations, good-faith engagement becomes something that must be earned, rather than something that's expected. and in order to earn good faith, strangers expect you to offer up an all-access pass to who you are. otherwise, things might take a swift left turn into verbal abuse.
obviously twitter is a cesspit of harassment from racist, homophobic, and transphobic people, but i think the most painful harassment comes from within the community. i, and most people i know, wouldn't give a single minuscule little fuck if ben shapiro's entire army of ghouls came after us and told us we were destroying the sacred values of Old America or whatever. but the community at large does care about issues of racial justice and queer liberation and economic justice. which is why it's painful to see this supposed "community" eating its own over and over again.
how cruel can we be to people and pretend that we are their friends? that's the emotional crux of the essay to me. what we're doing to ourselves - people who do share our values and want to achieve the same goals - because this one platform is built on rewarding the quickest, most brutal, and most public response.
god forbid you don't have your identity figured out. god forbid you have an invisible disability, or are writing a story about something sensitive you've personally experienced but had an off-consensus reaction to. on twitter, if you are not a paragon of absolute and immediate clarity, you may as well be lower than dirt morally, because you're unable to do what the platform requires of you: air every private corner of your identity, up to and including your trauma, to justify not only your everyday actions and opinions but also your art.
(this is all honestly incompatible with interesting art, but i'll get to that in a bit.)
it doesn't take a genius to see how troubling this environment is when combined with twitter as a marketing tool. i remember that around the time of my debut, i'd tweet out threads of private, painful, personal stuff, which felt terrible to recount, but i'd watch the like count increase with this sense of catholic, confessional satisfaction. all of this was tied to the idea of my potential salability as a writer.
i was around 21 at the time. i felt a lot of pressure as a debut. i wanted people to like me and think i was exceptionally mature and confident. i wanted to do my job and build buzz for my book. i saw that all these publishing professionals and authors spent day in, day out angry and exhausted on twitter. every few days, a new person fifteen years older than me would say, "i can't take this anymore, i'm so fucking tired of this, i'm logging off for a while." i thought, well, this must be how online activism feels: like running on a sprained ankle.
i can still remember book after book after book that inspired blow-ups, big explanations, and simmering resentment: carve the mark (whose author was forced to admit that she suffered chronic pain after relentless criticism of that element), the black witch (a book explicitly about unlearning racism that was criticized for depicting ... racism), ramona blue (a book about a bi girl who thinks she's a lesbian but winds up in an m/f relationship, because she's still discovering her identity) ... etc
each book, each incident, followed the same pattern. firestorms of anger, a decision of where to place blame, the desperate need for a single consensus opinion in the community. i think a lot of people on book twitter see these as bugs inherent to the platform, but really, in twitter's eyes, they're features. the angrier and more upset twitter's userbase is, the more reliant they are on the platform.
i wound up leaving around the time i realized that not only was twitter making me anxious - NOT being on twitter was beginning to make me anxious, because of vaguely dread-infused tweets all around like "i'm seeing an awful lot of people who are staying silent about X. ... why are so many people who are so loud about X so silent about Y?" etc.
that shit is beyond poisonous. people will not always be logged on. the absence of someone's agreement does not mean disagreement. actually, someone's absence is not inherently meaningful, because it is the internet and silence is everyone's default position; internet silence in all likelihood means that that person is out in the universe doing other things.
this is already a ridiculously long response, so i'll try to wrap up. firstly, i think that progressive writers and readers have GOT to stop thinking that a correct consensus opinion can exist on every piece of fiction, and on every issue in general, and that if someone diverges from that consensus, they're incorrectly progressive.
secondly, i think that progressive writers and readers have got to uncouple the idea of a "book with good politics" from a good book, because 1) there are books about morally grimy, despicable subjects that help us process the landscape of human behavior, and
2) if, in your fiction, there is only one set of allowed responses for your protagonist, you will write the same person over and over and over again. you see this a lot in religious fiction. the person is not a human being but an expression of the creator's moral alignment. (not entirely surprising that this similarity to religious correctness might crop up with the current state of the movement. i read this piece around the time i left twitter and it shook me really, really deeply.)
i understand that in YA, there's a sensation of immense pressure because people want to model good politics and correct behavior for kids. this is a noble idea - and maybe twitter is great for people who want to be role models. but i've become more and more staunchly against the idea of artist as role model. the role of the writer is not to be emulated but to write fiction. and the role of fiction is not to read like something delivered from a soapbox, or to display some scrubbed-clean universe where each wrong is immediately identified as a wrong, and where total morality is always glowing in the backdrop. it's to put something human on paper, and as human beings, we might aspire to total morality, but we fall short again and again. honestly, that's what being on twitter showed me more clearly than anything.
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The Californian WalkerÂ
Nestled in the small province of Denny California, The Californian Walker is known currently for its niche internet rise to fame. Over the years 1849-2004 sightings had been recorded for this entity. I will be laying out the original report as a small summary and giving small quotes for context.Â
Leslie Toole was a noblewoman in early settled America. Having married Henry Sherman Toole, a wealthy investor in technology, they moved to California in an attempt to participate in the gold rush. In August of 1849, the couple and their maidservant began a long night at what is now Denny.Â
Recorded in the womanâs diary, she details the small campsite they built in an attempt to sleep. In the logs of her diaries she says,Â
âAs we settle here, thee and told to us (by Dr. Garner) I find myself a loss for words. The lodging built by Henry has allowed enough light to see this very page, but gave little else. The wind whistles and cracks with vigor but what it holds has me piqued. On this way, we came across a figure adorned in a dusted brown overcoat. It waxed and waned with the wind, but he says it is merely a trick of the light. Hunger must have gotten to me, I nearly swore it was looking at me.â
In the passage it is clear that Leslie Toole had encountered some sort of figure, or at least suffering from a bad case of dehydration. She goes on to explain her living conditions and the events in her social circle. It is two days later that the diary entries abruptly stop and give way to her most quoted line.Â
âThe figure appeared again today, this time closer than the last, The horses even spook as it groans out into the empty prairie. Henry still refuses it here, though Florence (The maidservant) believes it a native. We pray to the god whom has ordained our trip that we make it alive and in good spirits. I believe that is the only thing we have left now.â
With her lack of prior context in the diary, the entry proposes a few options.Â
An entry is lost to time, presumed stolen or destroyed
There was never a note to begin with
The creature was later identified dozens of times through history with the same description. A few other accounts read as thus;
âIt had an odd weird camel tone to it, the figure shifted and turned all inside itself, like something in the coat wouldn't rest. One might think it wasn't even a coat, almost like a sheet stuck tightly to someone's body.â (Mirrium Rynolds, 1956)
âIt has no eyes. You know its watching you though, its that odd feeling on the back of your neck and when you turn it just stands there⊠and it keeps watching⊠keeps writhing in whatever skin its confined in.â ( Augustus Sharp 1978)
âMy son saw it, he still sees it. He wont let us travel through (Denny) to visit my husbands parents because it cuts through there, an hour into the ride and he just⊠gets so quiet⊠Its so odd, he is the most lively of anyone in our family.â (Jessica Garett, 2003)
As for the nature of the creature, it doesn't seem hostile other than the original account. The main danger of this entity is the feeling that it watches you, or that you get the sense that its near. Attached above is the modern depiction of what the entity may be. As for theories, people often think of it as an entity. A cryptid devoted to an area and to ward anyone away from its land.
The land has no record of native involvement and no colonies during the 1840-50s. Denny is in the later outskirts of California and finds itself very barren and unremarkable from the surrounding wildlife and grounds. Most people who find this tale to be false rely on the narrative of hallucination given by lack of water, food, or a paranoia. While Leslie and any associated parties detailed have no history with mental health disorders, they had been traveling on the road for a few months until this point.Â
My Theory
Demons often have territorial bouts, infesting land, homes, and building on a whim. It isn't incredibly unlikely that a demon unable to take a fully human form is staying put in an area located near a highway, scaring people over time and feeding on that horror it builds. Demons aren't all powerful on land, taking the forms of children or infesting items to give them form. Being under prepared and not powerful enough to fully form would explain the weird skin like sheen.Â
In 1976 a priest named John Acres was recorded to have blessed the land in an attempt to cleanse it seemed unsuccessful. More reports later showed if anything, this stirred up activity even more as sightings became commonplace for the county police to file. Only 14 of these sightings have been confirmed and continue to stay a mystery. (Meaning the parties involved were proved to be in the places they claim when they claim them to happen)
Regardless, the Californian Walker continues to boggle the minds of locals, sleuths, and skeptics alike.Â
Please contact me if you find evidence of more reports or know someone close to the case, any extra information would be greatly appreciated!
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On a more possitive note, Iâve started watching Sword Art Online. Itâs one of the worst things Iâve ever seen (and the last film I saw in cinemas was Cats to give you context for the scale iâm working on here) and I kind of adore it in much the same way I love garbage like Smallville or Twilight. Itâs so stupid on so many levels. You could challenge someone to write the worst anime, and it would almost certainly be better than SAO. Itâs almost hypnotic how terrible it is.
No one should watch this terrible terrible show so I therefore donât feel at all bad that Iâm about the spoil absolutely everything, but honestly if you do also hate-watch this please come talk to me about how terrible it is. I donât know anyone else who watches it.
Highlights of Season 1 include:
everyone is trapped in an MMO, and if you die in the MMO you die IRL. but if you were a beta-tester youâre probably fine because they just let them keep all their levels and items from the testing, so theyâre all massively OP and everyone just accepts this as a normal and non-game-breaking thing
itâs a fantasy MMO but thereâs no races, no magic system, no weapons except swords and maces, and not even an option to dual wield - literally all you can do in this fucking game is stand in front of an enemy and mash the attack button. Iâm pretty sure theyâre trapped there because the devs realised no one would play this post launch-day otherwise because itâs boring as shit
when the villain traps everyone he also just changs all their avatars to look like they do IRL for absolutely no reason, like actually none, he doesnât even say he thinks it would be funny, he just does it and no one questions it and it is literally never mentioned again because this is the worst TV show ever animated.
in the second episode the main character deliberately witholds information about how to defeat a boss, indirectly causing multiple deaths. there is absolutely no reason for him to withhold it, he was just being a jerk because he doesnât like people
in the third episode they reset his entire personality and heâs now a selfless hero pretending to be a lower level than he really is so people will find him more relateable and be his friend because all he wants is to help people. this is not a consequence of episode 2, they just decided they didnt like the character as heâd previously been written.
he makes some new friends who are all objectively terrible people who have decided for no season that the twelve year old who doesnât really know how to play and keeps having anxiety attacks about the very real possibility of death has to be the guild tank. the MC is high enough level to be functionally immortal in like half the levels, but doesnât tell anyone this he just lets them go on bullying this child
none of his friends survive that episode, in the game or IRL. which is also a christmas epsiode. a child dies in battle because sheâs a terrible tank and then a man commits suicide out of guilt, so then the main character murders santa to try and bring them back from the actual dead but it doesnât work because again, this is a video game and they are dead IRL, so then he walks off into the snow alone. Christmas!
we meet the best character in the entire show in episode 4, Rosalia, who has gone evil and started just straight murdering people because sheâs sick of being an attractive adult woman who canât get a date because sheâs surrounded by lolicons who are only interested in the preteen characters (not a joke, that comes up, the show is firmly on the side of the lolicons)
in the same episode we get an extended bra and panty sequence staring an actual fucking child, like canonically this character is maybe 13 at best. this is one of only 2 occaisions when they feel the need to undress a character and itâs the fucking 12 year old, itâs so gross it reads like a parody of itself
literally every single named female character aged over 8 who talks to the MC falls in love with him after like 5 minutes (and in season 2 this includes his actual sister). he shows absolutely no interest in any of them (including his sister, thank god) until...
the main character gets engaged to a girl he only knows from an MMO after a virtual single date (he doesnât actually win her in a PVP match but only because he looses the match, he 100% canonically tries to win her in a match, which she is apparently fine with). he then doesnât bother to ask for her real name until the final episode, he just calls her by her screen name
(thatâs okay though becuase it turns out that this moron of a love interest used her real name, on a local server, in a game where your character looks like you do IRL, because apparently getting doxxed is her hobby)
they then get in-game married off screen. thereâs not even like a still of a wedding photo. nothing. the main character proposes and then the show immediately jumps to the honeymoon, itâs fucking bizarre.
they find a creepy child dressed all in white with no memory alone in the woods a week into their honeymoon who starts calling them mommy and daddy literally seconds after they first meet her, and they donât suspect anything suss is going on and adopt her
for hilarity bear in mind the main character may only be 15 at this point (he says heâs only just turned 16 in the last epsiode, but his actual birthday is never mentioned), and his virtual wifu is 16, but no one ever questions the marriage or the adoption, even though âhey marriage in a video game is as important and meaningful as marriage in real lifeâ is an actual conversation people have multiple times. also they think the child they adopt is an actual IRL 8 year old who thinks these randos she met in an MMO are her mum and dad and everyone just goes with that like itâs a totally normal thing
a character called âThinkerâ agrees to meet an enemy faction leader for peace talks. the âpeace talksâ take place in a high level dungeon and he is told to come alone with no weapons and no fast travel. he does this. no one ever comments that his name is ironic, and in fact they seem to think that being betrayed and trapped in a dungeon with a boss is a totally unexpected turn of events Thinker could never have planned for
they take their new baby into the dungeon to rescue thinker, because they went to the jean grey school of baby rearing, and she imediately reveals that sheâs actually a magical maggufin with infinite power, murders the grim reaper, and then dies. In literally the second episode sheâs in
after she dies the MC hacks the admin account of the game, converts her corpse into an in game item, and saves to the local storage on his console, with the intention of bringing her back to life as a robot once theyâre saved from the game. Iâm not joking, thatâs an actual thing that happens.
the fact that the main character can just access the main admin account and make massive game-breaking changes isnât used again in that game and he never thinks to try and use it to force log people out or give himself infinite life so he can just rush the game and free everyone. nope, convert a corpse into an item and then never think about it again.
thereâs an entire episode where all they do is go fishing. its the only filler episode in the season, and it immediately follows the death of a small child. itâs the most tone-deaf beach episode in writing history
it turns out this game, this game where they didnât bother coding in any difference races, weapons, or any kind of magic system, was intended to have fully sentient AI therapists, because why the fuck not at this point honestly
oh also the game has PVP and you can trick the game into thinking a sleeping player is in PVP with you in order to actually murder a real person without it flagging in-game as a murder making the crime impossible for the real life legal system to investigate even though you just murdered a person. and they expect us to believe this game had actual beta testers. at least cyberpunk wasnât played on microwaves you connected straight to your brain (also not a joke, the VR consoles canonically work by sending microwave radiation into your brain, no wonder VR never caught on)
the set up for the show is that they have to reach level 100 of a dungeon in order to win. At level 75, the writers got bored and the show just ends.
it turns out the power of love allows you to just break the fucking game and the main villain literally has a line about how âlove allows you to remove debuffs, huh, we didnât think to plan for thatâ because again, thereâs no metaphors in this show, everything is 100% literal including the fact that falling in love with another player means youâre immune to the paralysis status effect
power of love also allows you to very briefly become a poltergeist after being killed, but only for like 2 seconds. again not a joke or a metaphor, main character is killed but then gets to hang around as a ghost for a little bit to enable him to defeat the boss. he also doesnât die in real life despite that being the entire fucking premise of the show, again because power of love.
the bad guy literally has no plan, heâs just doing shit for the sake of having something to do. His actions directly cause the deaths of more than 4,000 people, and itâs not even in aid of anything. they ask him why he trapped 10,000 people in an MMO and allowed them to slowly die, and heâs just like âhuh, i forgot i did that, randomâ and then just fucking peaces out
the fact that he committed one of the largest mass killings outside of war never really comes up again, as far as we know he doesnât even go to jail. i think the show actually kind of thinks heâs a good guy, which is a fucking WILD moral stance to take on the deaths of 4000 completely innocent people for absolutely no reason
If this sounds hilari-bad but you donât want to invest the time to watch a show which is objectively garbage, it has an abridged series which is famously better than the show itâs parodying (iâm dead serious, people have character arcs, the getting married after one date thing is properly addressed, the mc has to deal with PTSD because of all his friends dying in epsidode 3, they donât immediately follow the death of a child with an extended fishing montage, the villain has an actual plan). Itâs mostly actually pretty good, but this is the internet and itâs an abridged series, so while there are a lot fewer yikes moments than most it still has enough that Iâm not comfortable recommending it without the caveat. that said I still enjoyed it a lot, although possibly not at much as pointing and laughing at the garbage that is the actual show.
#sao bashing#kirito bashing#sao abridged#good bad shows#i love this garbage show so much#it's one of the funniest things i've watched all year#and none of that is intentional#sword art online bashing#if you also love hate this show please come talk to me about how terrible it is
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Using this tool to determine unique amount of words in a text (and generating a vocabulary list). Since it canât handle a huge amount of input Iâm just going to do maybe a chapter or half a chapter of each story and see the result:Â http://www.zhtoolkit.com/apps/wordlist/create-list.cgi
This tool is useful for figuring out how difficult a text is compared to something else youâve read, and it generates word lists! So you have something to study from (if you arenât using Pleco, want like a Graded Reader experience with intensive reading word lists, etc). You can think of meanU as the âeasiness ratingâ - the higher it is the easier the text is to read.Â
**This list gets long below the cut, but will hopefully help serve as a reference. For a rough estimate Iâd say anything from 1.9+ seems to be manageable for someone who knows HSK 4 words and is using a click-dictionary (like Pleco, Zhongwen Chrome Extension, Mandarinspot.com Annotator Bookmarklet, eReader dictionary, etc). Some ~1.9 ones are easier or harder depending on genre familiarity. For example I think èźșćŠäœéèŻŻć°ć„è·ŻäžäžȘéææäž» is extremely easy if youâre used to wuxia genre as its very simple for the genre, versus something like ééç„ćž, also if wuxia vocab isnât an issue for you then priest novels like ć€©æ¶Żćźą tend to be easier than éé). For easeâs sake, ones 2+ seem to be the most âdoableâ for actual extensive reading though. Again, this depends on which genres youâre more familiar with - but in general the ones scored 2+ below are novels I had more success reading without dictionary lookup in general.Â
Anything marked *** I would recommend as âeasier,â and anything as ** I would recommend as possibly easier depending on your genre familiarity.
Update: I have gone through this list and now most text samples analyzed were generally between 1900-2100 words, so now the scores should be more comparable. While a 1.9 may or may not be easy based on your level, in general if something is scored lower it will still be harder and if scored higher will still be âeasierâ than a 1.9. Your genre familiarity will also affect things. So when looking for âsimilar difficultyâ material and âslightlyâ harder or easier, these scores should hopefully be a bit more useful now.Â
* Unique unknown is the count of the Chinese words not in the public common word filter, nor in your user known word list * meanU is the average frequency of all words. Here, it is the average of the log(10) frequencies. It is a very rough measure of text difficulty. A value of ~1.9 is somewhat difficult, and ~2.6 is probably easier. (Ref: [http://www.soc.cornell.edu/hayes-lexical-analysis/])
First, novels Iâve heard recommended as âeasierâ to read:
***ć°çć
Characters:3196 Word Count:2192 Unique Words:744 (33.9%) Unique unknown*:608 (81.7%) meanU(log10)*:2.004
**So itâs ease rating is 2, fairly easy! That makes sense, at least based on my experience reading it right now.Â
***ć°ćŸ by ćȘćĄ
Characters:3005 Word Count:2094 Unique Words:681 (32.5%) Unique unknown*:551 (80.9%) meanU(log10)*:2.072
**This author was recommended as very approachable on chinese learning forums, sci-fi short stories (around 100 pages per story) for people who know HSK 4+. (Also again shout out to this text analyzer tool because the vocabulary lists it generates are super useful for looking through ahead of a reading to help prepare).
***ä»ä»Źçæ
äș by äžæ čé»çäžćż
Characters:3085 Word Count:2172 Unique Words:730 (33.6%) Unique unknown*:613 (84.0%) meanU(log10)*:2.008
**Score of 2 makes sense, it was the first webnovel I was able to read (with the help of Pleco Reader click-definitions). Itâs definitely on the easier side. If thereâs unknown words in this, a huge portion of them are very common daily life words or simple novel description words so they were worth learning for me.Â
***èźșćŠäœéèŻŻć°ć„è·ŻäžäžȘéææäž»
Characters:2403 Word Count:1766 Unique Words:691 (39.1%) Unique unknown*:565 (81.8%) meanU(log10)*:1.962
**This is The Wrong Way To A Demon Sect Leader and I recommend it hands down as an intro wuxia or bl novel. The reading is actually fairly easy, and if its not then learning any of the words here are pretty basic wuxia genre words you will keep using. (Also its a great listening reading method novel to do since its audiobook matches perfectly to the text, and itâs english translation is pretty literal).
æćæçćäžȘ䌎è by ćšćŻéČéČ
Characters:3587 Word Count:2547 Unique Words:978 (38.4%) Unique unknown*:840 (85.9%) meanU(log10)*:1.899
**Harder rating than I expected it to be given it was recommended to me lol.
éć°æ»æŻèŠæ±æ± by æšäčè
Characters:2633 Word Count:1861 Unique Words:845 (45.4%) Unique unknown*:718 (85.0%) meanU(log10)*:1.901
**I had a hard time figuring out if this is the novel Demon Wants a Hug manhua is based on, or if its another novel. ToT Iâd personally rate this as an âeasierâ read, because after ttwtadsl, I remember this novelâs chapter 1 was doable without a dictionary.Â
èżȘć„„ć
ç by 绿éćéč€
Characters:2564 Word Count:1784 Unique Words:851 (47.7%) Unique unknown*:732 (86.0%) meanU(log10)*:1.835
**Recommended to me as âeasy.â On the upside, its ease rating is better than hanshe.
çąçæç by ćć
Characters:2896 Word Count:2164 Unique Words:879 (40.6%) Unique unknown*:752 (85.6%) meanU(log10)*:1.874
**This was recommended to me as âeasy.â
ćŻè by ć€çŹćźć
°
Characters:2988 Word Count:2027 Unique Words:895 (44.2%) Unique unknown*:777 (86.8%) meanU(log10)*:1.833
**I find it interesting this is marked as a 1.8. I found it easier to read than any priest novels. I am currently reading it with a click-dictionary (Pleco Reader). At first chapters took me 1.5 hours to read, and now they take me 20 minutes. Part of what makes hanshe âeasierâ than it should be, is it has sets of chapters all focusing in one main setting each - so the vocabulary can get specialized but then its repeated frequently and learned fairly easily with context over time.Â
Comparing some well known novels:
éé
Characters:3159 Word Count:2081 Unique Words:954 (45.8%) Unique unknown*:815 (85.4%) meanU(log10)*:1.911
**Scored as theoretically a little easier than hanshe. Almost the same score as Demon Wants A Hug - but Iâd argue zhenhun is a lot more difficult than that novel. So these scores arenât perfect lol. I think hanshe is a little easier than zhenhun - but I do think hanshe was good prep reading for zhenhun.
é»èŻ»
Characters:2963 Word Count:2056 Unique Words:1016 (49.4%) Unique unknown*:881 (86.7%) meanU(log10)*:1.784
**Marked as a bit harder than zhenhun (chapter 1 anyway). I feel theyâre more similar in difficulty. For me they feel similar to read - but modu sometimes has more descriptions (although if youâre less familiar with crime genre novels, this will probably be more challenging - whereas zhenhun is harder if youâre less familiar with supernatural genre).
ç Žäș
Characters:2943 Word Count:2068 Unique Words:998 (48.3%) Unique unknown*:862 (86.4%) meanU(log10)*:1.835
**I have tried to read the first chapter of Poyun and found it a bit harder than hanshe.
**ć€©æ¶Żćźą
Characters:2920 Word Count:2095 Unique Words:874 (41.7%) Unique unknown*:744 (85.1%) meanU(log10)*:1.878
**I personally found tian ya ke a bit harder than hanshe, and a bit easier than guardian and modu. If youâre going to read a priest novel, this is one of the easier ones.
ééç„ćž (MDZS)
Characters:3020 Word Count:2158 Unique Words:952 (44.1%) Unique unknown*:811 (85.2%) meanU(log10)*:1.827
***äșșæžŁćæŽŸèȘæçł»ç» (SVSSS)
Characters:2552 Word Count:1796 Unique Words:905 (50.4%) Unique unknown*:765 (84.5%) meanU(log10)*:1.900
**Iâve read a few chapters and I would say yes 1.9 is a fair estimate. I found it a bit harder than ttwtadsl, but easier than mdzs. If you plan to read this genre more, this is pretty approachable for the genre (as far as xianxia terms, I found this easier to follow than mdzs for example).
äžćć°ç by æźżćæŹą
Characters:2871 Word Count:2119 Unique Words:989 (46.7%) Unique unknown*:855 (86.5%) meanU(log10)*:1.863
æźæŹĄć
Characters:2743 Word Count:1776 Unique Words:940 (52.9%) Unique unknown*:805 (85.6%) meanU(log10)*:1.811
**Can Ci Pin is likely harder than this estimate, since its a sci fi with futuristic words.
***SCIè°æĄé珏äžéš
Characters:2855 Word Count:1986 Unique Words:773 (38.9%) Unique unknown*:645 (83.4%) meanU(log10)*:1.973
**I havenât read any of this, but Iâd recommend it as potentially easier - like ttwtadsl it has a ton of really short chapters, which I think makes each individual section feel a bit easier.
***çćąçŹèź°1 Â
Characters:2954 Word Count:2149 Unique Words:756 (35.2%) Unique unknown*:635 (84.0%) meanU(log10)*:1.992
**Keep in mind the more words I put into the tool, the higher the difficulty gets period. Iâd say dmbj is an easier read like svsss - its somewhat challenging but not like priest novels.
**掻ç
Characters:2866 Word Count:2056 Unique Words:815 (39.6%) Unique unknown*:690 (84.7%) meanU(log10)*:1.895
**Considered one of the âeasiestâ books for people to read starting out in chinese, it did not get the easiest score (compared to the 2+ ones). I have not tried to read it. That said, it is only around ten chapters so its a much more approachable choice than some longer texts.Â
***èźžäžè§ćèĄèź°
Characters:2741 Word Count:2123 Unique Words:499 (23.5%) Unique unknown*:391 (78.4%) meanU(log10)*:2.132
**This is by the same author as above äœć. Iâm recommending this one over the other one though, for two reasons. First, this scored MUCH higher on reading âease.â Second, I just read the first chapter and it IS incredibly easy to read - it felt like the next step after a graded reader, very few unknown words. Pretty much anything on this list above a 2 is probably going to be the easiest.
***äžçș§ćŸćž[æé
] by æšèé
Characters:2558 Word Count:1729 Unique Words:760 (44.0%) Unique unknown*:639 (84.1%) meanU(log10)*:1.956
**This was highly recommended to me, along with modu and poyun as good mystery stories.
**(ç¶éȘćäșș)æè°äžććçćšçœé
+çȘ〠(dmbj fanfic)
Characters:2729 Word Count:1910 Unique Words:808 (42.3%) Unique unknown*:679 (84.0%) meanU(log10)*:1.947
ć€ćèĄŁćŻ by ć€çŹćźć
°
Characters:3085 Word Count:2122 Unique Words:832 (39.2%) Unique unknown*:716 (86.1%) meanU(log10)*:1.875
***仿„äș, èŻ·éçŒ by äžćąš
Characters:2270 Word Count:1615 Unique Words:744 (46.1%) Unique unknown*:614 (82.5%) meanU(log10)*:1.962
**I am happy to report this one has a pretty high âeaseâ score, and this is an author I was highly recommended so maybe Iâll check out their novels for a while.
**ćŠæèçæç±æ
by äžćąš
Characters:2766 Word Count:1968 Unique Words:896 (45.5%) Unique unknown*:762 (85.0%) meanU(log10)*:1.927
çŸäșșäžșéŠ
 by äžćąš
Characters:3175 Word Count:2201 Unique Words:1018 (46.3%) Unique unknown*:891 (87.5%) meanU(log10)*:1.808
**愳ć°ććéżć
Źäž»
Characters:4428 Word Count:3090 Unique Words:645 (20.9%) Unique unknown*:522 (80.9%) meanU(log10)*:1.984
**I havenât read any of Female General and Eldest Princess, but this is a pretty high ease rating, and its the only gl novel I put on the list. So definitely worth checking out if you feel like reading! Also I imagine a lot of hard words will be common ones for the genre since its rating of ease is âhigherâ so theyâre probably worth learning.
**ć
šè·é«æ (The Kingâs Avatar)
Characters:3067 Word Count:2171 Unique Words:772 (35.6%) Unique unknown*:637 (82.5%) meanU(log10)*:1.989
æĄè±ćș (Peach Blossom Debt)
Characters:2828 Word Count:2114 Unique Words:920 (43.5%) Unique unknown*:786 (85.4%) meanU(log10)*:1.858
**I did not expect this one to score as âdifficultâ tbh. When Iâve read pieces of it, its somewhat manageable without a dictionary.
**çççŸäșșç
(The Glass Maiden, Love and Redemption novel)
Characters:2752 Word Count:2004 Unique Words:810 (40.4%) Unique unknown*:678 (83.7%) meanU(log10)*:1.929
**As far as xianxia go, this is the only one Iâve read a bit of, and I did not find it too difficult - not easy, but manageable especially if you use a click-dictionary. (Also for listening reading method, the english translation is pretty literal, the audiobook matches to the text well - it just doesnât match the chapter endings).
ćććć„
Characters:2909 Word Count:2082 Unique Words:761 (36.6%) Unique unknown*:641 (84.2%) meanU(log10)*:1.977
**Generally considered one of the âeasierâ novels to read along with huozhe. When I lowered the word sample it was close to 2, when I increased the word sample it was 1.7.Â
***çŹç«æ„èź°: äŒć±æçç«
Characters:2551 Word Count:1816 Unique Words:587 (32.3%) Unique unknown*:474 (80.7%) meanU(log10)*:2.035
**First: recommending this for easier material - its one of the only other ones to score above 2. I read 3 chapters this week, and it is definitely easier reading material - it feels a little bit easier than ć°çć and decently easier than ä»ä»Źçæ
äș (bl novel not gl manhua). This is one of the novels on this list that truly feels like a ânext stepâ after graded readers. So I highly recommend this one. Also like ä»ä»Źçæ
äș, a lot of its words are daily life words one would find useful about growing up, families, park and nature words, people/objects/places in cities. And its more specific words while a bit niche about animals and plants, so far I have all found very applicable - poodle, parrot, minya bird (which pops up in several cdramas Iâve seen), mouse, cat, gingko tree (one of the few trees I know the name of in english too).Â
Second: How many words you put in definitely affects the toolâs scoring - when I put in around 2000 words this was scored as 2, when I put in 3000 it was scored as 1.9.Â
***æ”æÂ·èŽè¶Â·ć by Gu Long
Characters:2954 Word Count:2188 Unique Words:755 (34.5%) Unique unknown*:629 (83.3%) meanU(log10)*:2.015
**Also highly recommending this as easier material if you want to get into wuxia - I read one chapter of this last night without a dictionary.Â
***éŁäșćčŽæćäžè”·èżœç愳ć©
Characters:2645 Word Count:1844 Unique Words:803 (43.5%) Unique unknown*:660 (82.2%) meanU(log10)*:1.955
**Iâd highly recommend this as easier material - it was one of the readings in a mandarin book club I was a part of, is genuinely SHORT, and is genuinely lower on the difficulty scale.
***äžäžȘéąéćż
Characters:1965 Word Count:1361 Unique Words:580 (42.6%) Unique unknown*:474 (81.7%) meanU(log10)*:2.030
**I havenât read this but marking it as a great choice, it easily scored above 2.Â
***æé
Characters:2911 Word Count:2072 Unique Words:701 (33.8%) Unique unknown*:583 (83.2%) meanU(log10)*:1.980
**I will probably try this one as its scored pretty easy.
éŁäșéąšè±éȘæ
Characters:2409 Word Count:1673 Unique Words:735 (43.9%) Unique unknown*:615 (83.7%) meanU(log10)*:1.885
**This one I wanted to run for fun lol. this was once recced as one of the âeasiestâ novels to read. Well I found it to be extremely hard to read - looks like it wasnât just me. Even at a low word count of text sample, its rating is 1.8.
**ćéè
Characters:2821 Word Count:1952 Unique Words:849 (43.5%) Unique unknown*:718 (84.6%) meanU(log10)*:1.898
Adding The Rebel because Zhu Yilongâs about to star in the show based on it, and an english translation already exists. While its ranked as a bit harder at 1.9ish, this novel is very short (13 chapters I believe). So the time commitment is much shorter (compared to hansheâs 155 chapters).
X
This toolâs score seems HIGHLY dependent on how many words you put in. Iâd say aim around the same word amount for each sample if you want to compare the results better - I clearly did Not do that and I think thatâs part of why thereâs so much variance between 1.7-1.9 between some materials I think the difficulty would be different on. Based on that, Iâd say ones where I put high amounts of text samples in and STILL scored high are probably some of the easiest! And ones with high amounts of text samples that slid down into 1.7~1.8 may not actually be quite as difficult. (EDIT: I have just gone through this and taken ~1900-2100 word length samples of each to try and make the âeaseâ ratings more comparable).
X
I am a bit sad by how few novels actually got a score of 2 or above. Does anyone have any âeasierâ webnovel/novel recommendations I can look into? I could do an analysis for a few more.
#rec list#resource#reference#chinese#chinese reference#chinese resources#reading#wordlist#word frequency#common words#tool#tools#reader tool#reader#readers#april#april progress
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Food Fantasy: An Analysis on what killed a Golden Goose (3/3)
Ladies and gentlemen, we've arrived at our final destination.
Again before we start, we have our obligatory disclaimers. I do not own the game or its characters, nor do I claim to know the true history and likely fate of this game. I am entitled to the thoughts and opinions written within this post. Feel free to agree or disagree with the points being made.
This post also remains untagged from the main foofan tag. Only my followers will see this.
We are in the third and final stretch, and the checkpoint is past the cut.
Community
So... here we are, fellow Master Attendants.
As consumers of this piece of entertainment media, we are free to enjoy it however we wish. Appreciating what is there, creating something new from what exists, playing the game by the meta or however you want to play it (within your means and at your own risk of course). There's no one true and absolute way to experience the game.
However, just as you can enjoy something, doesn't mean you can't also point out flaws or shortcomings of the media in question. As an active veteran player, I've already pointed out the many gameplay design flaws  already. And I'd be pretty dumb to say that Food Fantasy's writing is perfect. Hell, it has a lot of holes from a worldbuilding consistency standpoint.Â
And what of things from the community side? Yes, there will be times you'd see content you consider cringe, or something in fanon you don't agree with. Or there happens to be fan theories and fangirling posts you don't like the take of because of X or Y.
And that's fine. If we all happen to play the same way, like the same thing, agree on the same thing and produce the same thing, well, this would be one helluva boring community, wouldn't it?
But what if someone decides the way you're playing the game is wrong and harasses you over it? What happens if someone decides that their interpretation of the game's flavor text and lore is more important than what anyone else thought about it? What happens if someone decides that they're absolutely right, and you and everyone else who disagrees deserves to be bullied out of the fandom?
As much as I want to say we aren't part of the problem why the game is deteriorating, we are unfortunately, part of the reason why the game is as such even if most of the blame is directed towards Funtoy and Elex themselves.
⊠Whale Authority. Whales will always be part of a gacha game's ecosystem. Without them, the game won't be able to maintain its upkeep costs, moreso  for one that services global regions instead of just one. But when a game decides to cater its decisions of what features should be prioritized and when it should be launched around only its most elite paying players' voices  -even if that influence has since tapered off-, you know there is something wrong with the publisher's management team and priorities.
⊠Interguild drama. While I did not personally follow any of this, this has certainly been the peak of in-game tension back in the day. Poaching good players from both competitive and smaller guilds, guild mergers that often ended up making the annexed guild/s the equivalent of UK colonized India or Australia, suck-ups chummying up to guild leaders to keep a spot in an active, high ranking guild (for bragging rights!) despite never contributing much to overall damage, and just general dislike of certain players' attitudes. Actions like this have disillusioned many players about their playing experience and the reason why many eventually just lost the motivation to log into FooFan.
⊠Cheaters. You know very well about the Hacker-teme I've mentioned before, but that was in context of Elex being incompetent with dealing with them. Here, I would like  to point out the players who are desperate to dominate  the playing field for whatever reason to the point that they would resort to cheating the ranks with forceful modifications of the APK. Whether it is to rank high in catacombs weekly, get a top spot in daily disaster damage, or weasel their way into the competitive whale ranks of a major ranking event, these are the people who have no qualms messing with the code to give themselves an easier time with the game. And if they're caught? Some pretend that they've made a mistake, some quickly sell the account to escape the blame, some others just scamper away into the dark and hide in the lower ranks where they can't be found. Others simply don't care and keep cheating until Elex decides to finally ban them... if Elex ever decides their rebates score isn't worth saving the account.
⊠Ship wars. Ah yes, a staple of drama in any fandom. There doesn't need much explanation to this as we've all had our fair share of running into a battleground in whatever fandom we visit. Someone ships BB52 wholeheartedly? Nope, problematic 'age gaps'. Someone likes Napoleon with Pastel? Someone's bound to misinterpret their bios in order to justify that Napoleon was being abusive. Spaghetti and Borscht? Borscht is minor coded, ship her with Vodka instead. Whiskey and Pizza or Cassata? Cancelled! And I've never heard of the Foe Yay trope or pretend I don't know about it! Rarepairs? Disgusting! No fanon in my canon playground! Turkey and Eggnog? Gasp! How dare you, you pedo-shipper-even-though-you-never-said-you-shipped-them-romantically-but-that-isn't-my-point!
⊠Character Obsession: Bias. On one hand, you love a character so much. Relate to a character so much. You have thus pulled this character into the folds of your bosom and coo at them like a mother dove and get so minutely triggered if someone so much as makes one disagreeable or joking comment about the character that you fly into an overreactive ballistic rage that would make a Canadian goose honk in fear. You don't care what they are in canon. You don't care about the possibility of mistranslation. What matters is the fanon space you carved out for them to exist in and that's all that matters. The problem with this is when this obsession takes over common sense and social etiquette and it steps into harassment territory. You begin to think: I'm the only one who 'understands' the character. I'm the only one who wishes better for the character, everyone else is out to defame them! Oh wait, you like them too? Do you like them the way *I* like them? No? Maybe if you're my 'friend', I'd let it slide. But to everyone else? No one else has the right to like them as much as I do. No one! Never mind that they're completely fictional- No one hurts my bias because in turn, they're hurting *me*!
⊠Character Obsession: Anti. On the other hand, you hate a character so much. This character just makes you see so much red. Their smug little smirk just makes your blood boil. Their fictional backstory makes you recoil in disgust. You hate that someone else loves a character you hate so much.  You cannot *believe* that someone could be so daringly stupid to like a problematic character. They must be problematic too then. They must be hiding real life secrets that are problematic! Yes, yes. That's right. That person's a supporter of abuse. That person's into pedophilia. That person is into military lolita fashion that Japan started the trend of but clearly Japan was part of the Axis Powers! And that... that person... that person... is a roleplayer and a yaoi fangirl properly interacting with minors and adults. How dare they...!
⊠Fan Translations.  Normally it wouldn't be a problem that a group or two or several are translating pieces of the game's lore ahead of the official. But with Elex's very delayed translations and extreme allergic reactions to translating Food Soul bios, people have become dependent on fan-translation groups to get their fix. The problem herein lies... is when the translators get drunk off the power that they are one of a handful in a small community who can magically transcribe the oriental moonrunes into English. The problem starts when the translator starts to have an inclination. The problem starts when the translator loses their professional detachment and start adding in details here and there into the fan translated product that ultimately changes the meaning and direction of the entire story. The problem is also escalated when that translator's embellished product is touted as the truth by their followers. If there was an upcoming character whose backstory is connected to a character they hated (either because of someone or they just don't like the character) and you were hoping to read the fan translation? How would you know that what you get isn't something doctored to the point it's basically fanfiction?
⊠Social Justice Vigilantism. Sometimes someone does not have a character obsession or need it to be annoying. Sometimes, someone just wants to ring the alarm over something they find 'problematic' in order to police and sanitize the enjoyment of the media for 'everyone'. They no longer really take enjoyment out of a new Food Soul design being leaked, they no longer read the lore just to enjoy what it has to offer. Instead, they nitpick bits and pieces of the design and point it out repeatedly as a reason why the whole thing is bad. They point out bits of the story and inject their interpretations of it without really comprehending what they've read in full and react badly to it. What's worse is that they have no qualms publicly posting their reactions and eagerly and hungrily await those likes and echoes of agreement that they were right.
⊠Circles of Influence. Everyone has a group they eventually gravitate to in a fandom. It comes with its own pros and cons. Sometimes you join a group because someone you admire is in there, sometimes you join a group because you just want to mingle and see more content. All valid reasons. Arguments can't be avoided in a group, it has to happen... But you have to take care. You have to take care to feel the change in the air of the group. When someone starts pushing people to agree with them. When your most admired people start to feel overly sensitive about certain characters or issues. When you start to feel obligated to spy on other groups outside of this one for 'nonbelievers', 'traitors' and 'heretics' who do not think the way this group does, and that bringing back bits and pieces of gossip as offerings would somehow make you more favored in the eyes of the inner clique or remain inside it. There is a gripping sense of annoyance when that person comes in to complain but you can't do anything about it but nod and agree. There is a pervading sense of fear and apprehension of overstepping an invisible boundary. There is fear that you might be next on the chopping block, after witnessing one of the others being ganged up on and thrown out without a second thought, their name spat upon like they're worth less than dirt. And so reluctant you are to give up what you have with them that when they push you to do something you are reluctant to do, all in the name of 'harmony and justice'... You do it. Even though it would mean offering yourself up to the mob with no salvation, and the stark realization that... [they] never cared about you as a friend.
And we've come to the end of this analysis trilogy. The writing got a little bit strange in this post, but honestly this is the best way I could put it. I'm aware things can and will be more complicated than the bullet points I've written but I'm just one person and I tried very hard to keep details of all the drama that happened in this fandom as vague as possible. Of course, that wouldn't work if you know what I am talking about.
The community is quiet now for the most part, the game is somewhere between limbo and the living plane. Things could be better for us, but I don't really count on it.
I wish I could leave a bit of a moral warning or something. But rather than do that, I just hope this was an entertaining read into one individual's eyes into Food Fantasy and everything that makes it up.
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COVID-19 Reading Log, pt 18
Man, this past month has been a heck of a year, hasnât it? Iâve still been reading books, but my pace has ebbed and flowed, and I forgot to update this for a while. So hereâs my thoughts on ten of the most recent books Iâve read.

91. The League of Regrettable Sidekicks by Jon Morris. I had no idea this book existed until I was doing image searches for this project for the other âLeague of Regrettable Xâ books. This one covers the sidekicks, minions and goons of comic history. Unlike the other books by Jon Morris, the spread is more even of Gold/Silver/other ages of comic books. After all, the 70s is when Jaxxon the green rabbit appeared in Star Wars, and the 80s had a shape-shifting penguin named Frobisher in the Doctor Who comics. It also feels like itâs a little looser about what makes a character âregrettableâ. Some of the sidekicks in its pages, like Woozy Winks and Volstagg the Voluminous, are legit great characters.

92. Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were by Michael Page and Robert Ingpen. I wanted to like this book; I really did. For one thing, it was recommended to me by @listmaker-lastcityâ, who I was working with on commissions. For another thing, it was fairly pricy used. Thirdly, to its merit, it is gorgeous. Michael Page, the illustrator, is credited first, and rightly so. But for an âencyclopediaâ, it makes up a lot of stuff. It opens with a disclaimer that âthe creators of this book have⊠unlocked their own fantasiesâ, which means that it invents Arthuriana and Greek myths wholeheartedly. Several of the entries do not exist outside this book, and others are so distorted that their actual folkloric origins have been clouded and obscured by people using this as a source. For material Iâm not familiar with the primary sources of, like Gulliverâs Travels, I have no idea if itâs reflecting the source material accurately, or making things up whole cloth. As a fantasy, itâs intermittently fun; some rather nasty misogyny does sneak in and the book is wildly anti-science. As a reference work, itâs useless to the point of actively harmful.

93. Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh. I was a huge fan of the âHyperbole and a Halfâ blog back in the day, and knowing Allie Broshâs history of mental health problems, I was worried when she seemingly dropped off the face of the earth. Her release of a second book was a pleasant surprise, but also showed that some worry was appropriate. This collection of essays, cartoons and heavily-cartooned essays is sadder than the first collection, as it was written during and after a series of family tragedies. It is still very funny in parts, however, and has an overall message of self-care and love that turned out to be extra relevant in the nightmare year that is 2020. Itâs the only book for this project that I read in a single sitting. Highly recommended.

94. Mozartâs Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. This book is half memoir, half biography. The composer Mozart owned a starling during some of his most productive years as a composer, and even wrote an elegy to it when it died. The author used this as a launching point to adopt her own starling, and to examine how this invasive species is seen in American birding culture. The writing is humanistic and charming, and very self-aware (the author worries that her starling is going to die, because thatâs what always happens in âthis animal changed my lifeâ books). The message is one of respecting all other creatures and of valuing the lives of animals, which is not much of a surprise from the authorâs other books (I covered The Urban Bestiary earlier in this project.

95. The Butchering Art: Joseph Listerâs Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris. The subtitle says it all; this is a biography of Joseph Lister, focusing on his research into antisepsis and promotion of sterile technique in surgery. It takes ample digressions to talk about other major surgeons of the time, the state of hygiene and disease theory in Victorian England, France and the United States, as well as things like labor conditions and womenâs rights. These bits and pieces are woven in successfully, so they feel like appropriate context setting. Fitzharris is empathetic despite the often grisly subject matter, but readers with a sensitive stomach and a low tolerance for gore might want to skip this one.

96. Twice the Thrills! Twice the Chills! by Bryan Senn. This is a big book, 400 pages in full sized paper. It is an overview of the horror/SF double feature, covering every movie released initially in that format between 1955 and 1974 in the United States. As such, it reviews more than 200 movies, with behind-the-scenes anecdotes, critical opinion and box office, and general coverage of trends and themes in genre cinema at the time. I enjoyed this book greatly, especially since it covered some movies Iâd never even heard of. The timing is perfect, too, as I read this book just before @screamscenepodcastâ covered the first entries in it, Revenge of the Creature/Cult of the Cobra. My one complaint is that the author seems biased against Japanese films. He discredits the special effects and monster suits in kaiju movies compared to even movies like Attack of the Giant Leeches and The Killer Shrews, and complains about acting and scripts in Japanese films much more than he does for other dubbed films. He also consistently refers to Ishiro Honda as âInoshiro Hondaâ, which is how his name was misspelled in the 60s. That level of disrespect for some of my favorite genre pictures is a constant low-level irritation in what is otherwise a fine resource.

97. Cursed Objects by J. W. Ocker. This is a fun catalog of objects said to be cursed, including the whys, supposed effects and current locations of these artifacts. The book is sorted into categories, like âcursed objects in museumsâ, âcursed furnitureâ, âtechnological cursed objectsâ. It takes a skeptical, folkloric look at the topic, being more interested in the stories than in any legit supernatural powers. It even talks about things that âshouldâ be cursed because of their odd appearances or eerie provenances, but arenât, like the Crystal Skull forgeries. The book is a pleasant and breezy read, and the author has a good sense of humor on the topic. He curses the book itself with an epigram against thieves, and buys a cursed dog statue on eBay that sat on his desk throughout the writing process.

98. Death in the Garden by Michael Brown. This book is wildly misnamed, being light on both the âgardenâ and the âdeathâ. Itâs supposedly a social history of poisonous plants, but is more interested in English herbals specifically. It refers to the authors by name extensively as if we should have all of these memorized, and the only place where the prose has any energy is in the biographical section for these herbalists. Thereâs very little information about the actual plants and their poisons. I would use the word âdodderingâ to describe the prose style, which is simultaneously rambling and boring. The photography is pretty, though.

99. Ripleyâs Believe it Or Not! 1929-1930 by Robert Ripley. IDW puts out lovely volumes of vintage American comics, and this is no exception. Being a kid into weird facts and trivia, and an adult who is still into them, the Ripley franchise was a major part of my childhood. This is the first modern collection organized chronologically, covering the first two years the strip was in national syndication. The strips cover the typical Ripley mix of sports trivia, weird facts, word riddles and puzzles, misleading statements and the occasional outright lie. The book has a warning about the racial attitudes of the time, which is fair, but itâs not nearly as bad as I feared. Ripleyâs habit of drawing from photographic references means that people in ethnic minorities look like real people. But the language is decidedly âof its timeâ, with slurs used to identify foreign ethnicities (particularly Asian ones). So be warned.

100. Unlucky Stiffs: New Tales of the Weirdly Departed by Cynthia Ceilan. Iâm ordering material to pick up from my local library again, which is great! This book was actually recommended by the library website based on the morbid slant of some of the other books I was putting on hold. Unfortunately, this book sucks. Itâs pitched as a âweird deathsâ book, something like a more literary version of the Darwin Awards. But the deaths are often not all that bizarre, instead being typically sad accidents or murders. It just comes off as mean spirited and misanthropic. Not recommended.
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Hello Goldy đ So JK dint post for Jin and so does Tae. Both of them di t post for Jinins bday also. Whats going on here ? I dont understand if JK and Tae have been banned from posting on their boyfriends bday. As u can tell i am both Jikook and Taejin shipper. What do u think is happening or should i say not happening.
This topic...
Hold on, lemme put on my tinfoil hat:
I got nothing. Lol.
Secondly, aaaaah Tae Kook!
Lol. Tae Kook. The evil power duo of BTS, my favorite rageddy boogie men of ship street Avenue, PPP- pathological party poopers of Bangtan fantasyland- stomping on shipper's parade, putting commas in people's hopes and dreams. Y'all didn't get the memo? When we said y'all be snatching hearts, this is not the kind of horror heart snatching we was talking about! Y'all ratchet for this shit. Lol.
Someone give them the memo. Atatatatatat.
Lmho.
I mean for Jk, I've already speculated a few times- several times now, how I feel he's kind off been on a self assertive journey since late 2019 and coupled with a lot of things I felt was happening with him, Jimin and group around that period, that him not posting for the members' birthdays sort of make a lot of sense to me.
I've also speculated on what I felt was going on with Kook, RM and Tae around JM's birthday this year, so Tae not posting for JM also sort of made sense to me?
Tae missed Jimin's birthday as well. It would have been 'problematic' in today's social media climate if he posted for any body else within the group after that. It's the same with JK when he missed Jin's birthday last December- had he posted for anybody else, I'm afraid several trucks would have been sent to BigHit HQ demanding his head on a spike. Chileee.
Can't blame them though. Even the members themselves, during 2017 Festa, descended hard on JK for gifting a present to Jimin and not the others- they pay attention to these things, you know? Jin in his recent VLive had said he had been up waiting for texts and all- or something along the lines of that, and I'm pretty sure he pays attention to who posts what on their Twitter account on his birthday. Well we know Jimin does this too. Lol.
You don't need to be a mad scientist to figure out that one member posting for another and not the others would make the members feel some kind of way about it even if they don't say it out loud.
Frankly, like I said, I feel they set themselves up for this shit- miss one, miss them all or risk solo stans coming for your ass. That's how we roll on these fang gang streets. Lol.
But for Kook, I sort of felt his was deliberate- may be an impulsive decision at the time, but deliberate nonetheless. I mean he had all 24 hours post Jin's birthday to belate that shit- better late than never, but he didn't do that.
Whatever had transpired within that period- which I've speculated on in past posts, I feel that had pushed him to his breaking point and had incentivized him or propelled him to reel back, reevaluate his goals, intentions, purpose, calling- whatever you wanna call it, and eventually had embarked on a journey to reassert himself and take back control of his life all throughout 2020- until recent times...
- Y'all see Jikook's dynamics have flipped again post Jimin's birthday right? Clear your schedules. We gone talk. Soon. Muhahaha.
I don said, Jikook have/had been asserting themselves against eachother and against the group this year. And for Jk, that self assertion would come in the form of him putting up boundaries and reinforcing already existing boundaries among other things, which would in turn require him demanding and demonstrating his independence from anything and anyone he had relinquished his self autonomy to- prior to. In my opinion.
I'm gonna step on a few toes here and regurgitate, JK didn't just take a step back from his life, he took a step back from Jimin as well, in my opinion- I can literally hear temperatures rising. Chilee. Lmho.
It's easy to lose yourself in the process of loving someone. And when you love this person more than you love yourself, in the thick of love, under heavy public and peer scrutiny, where you are being told to change this and that about yourself everyday and everytime as a prerequisite for being able to love this person you want within a group; then you are bound to end up with nothing but the total eradication of who you are at your core or at least a drift away from your true self and the expressions of it... Sigh.
I mean all the, 'try not to be so possessive, he's our friend too' 'operation neutralize Jikook' 'chilee, don't lean too much into him, this is an award' 'I've got Jimin, restrain Kook' 'oh I think you stared too long here' 'look away' 'you got him a present, why didn't you get us any' 'is that your heart eyes?' 'Tuck it away' 'why do you film Jimin a lot?' 'use this person, not Jimin for your GCF if you want the clicks' 'GCF in Tokyo? How about OT7 in wherever mate?' - all these little tweaks and adjustments he's had to make to his personality and his expressions of self in order to hide his relationship within the group climaxes honestly. In my opinion. And late 2019 to me was that peak for JK. Again, in my opinion.
Changes like these don't come drastically. They creep up on you. Its slippery slope till you're caught knee deep in the mud. For instance, notice when the members complained about him not caring for them because he hadn't presented them with gifts like he did Jimin, he had agreed immediately to give them presents in the future in order to not answer to their question of why he had chosen to give just Jimin a present. That compromise to me was one of the early signs of him losing his authenticity. In my opinion.
Jimin and the members were quick to point out that he didn't have to do that because giving and gifting were not obligations and honestly they were right. He doesn't have to do things if he doesn't want to.
That's the paradox of Jungkook. He does the things he wants to do without shame and he is fearless and unapologetic about it. But you see, he is also often very passive when it comes to the things he doesn't want to do and would hesitate in insisting on his boundaries until he is pushed to his limits- from my observation of his interactions with the members and I think Suga and RM have talked about this too.
A classic example of this is his conversation with Jimin about their friendship- when Jimin said they were in between love and friends. His hesitation was a sign he was uncomfortable with that description but he didn't assert himself over it.
Another example would be Jimin saying during their log that he was taking a liking to JK- JK didn't react as much but JM turning to ask him if he was ok with him saying things like that was a sign they had had the talk about 'boundaries.'
JK is a very assertive person but his position as the youngest within the group places a lot of restrictions on his assertiveness I feel.
We talk a lot about Jimin being Kumbaya and sacrificing a lot of their personal happiness for the good of the group- well, I've been talking. Y'all don't say shit much- fuxking lurkers đ y'all suck. Lol. [Delete before you post, you idiot. They don't know you like that]
Anywho, we often talk about Jimin in this context but we- by we, I mean I, don't talk enough about all the ways JK often sacrifices his authenticity for the Kumbaya of the group as well. But unlike Jimin, I feel JK does it so he can keep his glass closet- fucking whippidy whip whipped. Lol.
And it's crazy because that sacrifice he makes of his true feelings and it's expression is what often leads people to question whether he acts exclusively with JM at all.
Often I hear shippers complain about how he did this with Jimin but he did similar thing with another member- listen, if you've heard JK sigh upon seeing RM imitating his mannerisms to try to neutralize his nonverbal gestures around Jimin, you'd understand what exclusivity means for him.
And when, you think about that he had to apologize to and explain himself for choosing to wear his man's bag over another member- it's not hard to see where his authentic self began to erode- It started from the moment the apologies begun. Never apologize for who you are- class dismissed. Lol.
Then he goes on to talk about losing his passions for his GCFs, his music- this is a person everyone within the group had said is or was the most passionate member within the group... You gotta wonder where it all went wrong. Know what I mean? Come on work me. I'm writing this at 2am. Lol.
I think Jimin was right when he said giving should never be a task. You should give from your heart and from your own free will. Not for show, and certainly not to please anyone.
Wishing a member a happy birthday should never be a duty, task or obligation- especially when such moments and expressions of it has become performative over the years rather than as true expressions of the love and affections they have for eachother- ok, I'm dozing off now. Lmho.
I mean let's face it, posting on Twitter for eachother has become more of a culture and an established tradition within the group that sentimental members within the group hold on to.
The birthday twitter post has been hijacked and lowkey/highkey advances the OT7 kumbaya agenda BigHit is bent on pushing and sells the BTS bromance fantasy to us rather than an actual representation of their love for eachother. In my opinion. I could be wrong about this.
JK asserting himself would mean him choosing not to participate in expressions that to him are performative, shallow and lacks depth whatsoever.
I know what you are gonna say- but but Jimin's birthday. But but but nothing. Lol. I have said I felt he was going to post for Jimin's birthday. Dude geared up for it with the 5/8 and everything.
And given as he's been on a journey to do the things he wants to and to pursue meaning in his expressions of self within the group, I feel and I believe he believes wishing his man a happy birthday on social is meaningful- Confirmation bias this shit. Lol.
Not that the act itself is meaningful, but that the act holds meaning to Jimin. I think I've talked extensively about Jimin and how important his birthday is to him. The only reason I feel he wouldn't or didn't post for him was if Jimin had asked him not to- which I believe he did. Posting for Jimin would have been tantamount to outing their relationship gangster style. Lol.
And we all know how the members feel about that. Smirk.
So no, I don't think he's been banned from posting for his man's birthday. I think this is him deciding not to partake in performative expressions of love- perhaps because that has never been him?
I don't know for Tae's Journey. His decision not to post feels very random to me. Who knows, he and JK have been talking a lot lately it seems and getting closer post Sope. So if you ask me, this perhaps is him taking a page out of JK's self help book and pursuing that authenticity of self expressions I've talked about?
I mean he did do awesome things for Jin's birthday so I don't think we can complain much. Getting his friends to wish Jin a happy birthday certainly pulls weight over a second post on Twitter. Jin got a birthday party with the members, RM had the same.....
The thing that bothers me and my friends over here about Jikook's incident is the lack of closure after that traumatizing experience.
With the others JK didn't post for, at least we got to see him in a VLive with them interacting and just giving us moments here and there. So even if he didn't post, we know he was with them and they shared the memory of that day together- which I feel is what we shippers want. For them to show eachother love- whatever way they express it.
With Jimin- Nada. Zero. Zilch. We got nothing my guy. Jimin didn't share any insight or give any details remotely resembling closure for us. We were hoping for a bangtan bomb or Episode but nothing so far. I hate it here.
We didn't get to see JK showing the love we know he feels for Jimin- he's proven time and again he loves that man. We didn't get to see them share the memories of that day together. Not even through narration- Jimin, you sonova bish! Lol.
Would I ever move on from that incident? No.
Do I want to move on from that incident- chileee I've been trying. It would haunt me for the rest of my Jikook life. Lol. I still get get nightmares thinking about it and it's Christmas. Sigh.
I think we would have to observe rather than anticipate how they choose to express and communicate their love for one another- especially Jikook and by extension Taejin- chilee Anon, I respect your hustle. Lol.
I don't blame you though. I mean sometimes Jin be looking like he wants to gobb-ok
What was your question again? Lol. I hope I answered it. Chilee. Keep supporting Jikook.
Signed,
GOLDY
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Welcome to DGâs Listing of Wish These DLC Existed, where I theorize, speculate, and just kinda generally throw ideas at the wall about DLCs for games I love that never happened and never will happen, but damn, Iâd like to see them anyway.
Because I have ideas, I canât get them made as mods, I donât have time to make them into fic, and theyâre never going to happen anyway, so why not put them up in a public place? After all, theyâre tie ins to games I have no control over anyway, so itâs not like Iâll ever make money off of them anyway. And, as Iâm not bound by any hardware limitations in terms of crafting ideas, or production cycles dictating when the gameâs endpoint is, these can and do go on a great deal longer than the standard lifespan of a game.
A review of the format: There will be a name for the DLC, a brief synopsis, a reference to when this hypothetical DLC would become available/if and when it becomes unavailable, and then an expansion/write up of the ideas going in to them. Some ideas will have more expansion than others, because Iâve just plainly put more thought into them - in a lot of cases, I wrote them down just on the basis of âthis idea seems pretty cool,â and then gave them more context later on.
Feedback is welcome! Like an idea? Donât like an idea? I welcome conversation and interaction on these ideas. Keep it civil, remember that these are just one personâs ideas, we can discuss them. Perhaps youâll even help inspire a part two for these write ups! Because I do reserve the right to come up with more ideas in the future - these are the ideas that Iâve had to this point, but the whole reason this series exists is because I come up with new ideas for old stories.
So I HAVE actually been working on my ongoing series of hypothetical DLC to games that I love over the last year (it was the end of January 2020 when my last one of these got posted, this is going up at the beginning of May 2021). Which, yes, some is pandemic related because *screams* but... I was looking over what Iâve been working on, and realized that I was at about the combined length of my first two of these in my present examination, and I was only about a third of the way through the ideas that I had. I could either keep going and do these all at once in a massive post in like another year or two, or I could break it up into chunks.
So instead of waiting, this is going to be Part 1 of (I hope) 3 in an examination at ideas and possibilities of what additional content could have been made for Mass Effect 2, which for some is considered the best of the series. Me, Iâm a little more critical of it. To me, this game is a textbook example of bridge syndrome, of the plot spinning its wheels to hold off on the payoff until the third part of the trilogy - the Collectors are, in practice, an entirely separate threat from the Reapers, even acknowledging the connection in the plot. We see this in the impact that the ME2 characters have in the next game - most are in side missions, all perform roles in the plot that literally can have them swapped out, even if itâs to the ultimate detriment of your War Asset count.
So in my mind, thereâs a lot of room to make these DLCs, these glimpses into further areas of the world of Mass Effect at large. Because for me, what ME2 SHOULD have been was about making the alliances with the galaxy at large, rather than the big set piece of the Suicide Mission. We got some of this in ME2 proper, but thatâs where the core of my focus and attention is with these DLCs.
Admittedly, I am aware of the difficulties of working around ME2 having both optional companions (Thane, Samara, and Tali donât have to be recruited at all, Zaeed and Kasumi are DLC, many missions are available before you necessarily pick up certain companions...) and the ability to hold off on doing the DLC until after the Suicide Mission, where any or all of your companions may end up dying. However, for simplicityâs sake (because these things are long enough as it is without having a dozen variations apiece), we will assume that all companions are recruited and alive for the sake of plot advancement. Minds greater than mine can figure out how these would work without a given character â me, I tend to clear out the quest log before the Suicide Mission (aside from Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival, both of which are minimal on the squadmates from the rest of the game) and rarely let myself lose someone on the Suicide Mission, and since these are my ideas, weâre working in my framework.
Also, timeline note: Like ME2âČs actual DLC, the fact that these would unlock at certain points in the gameâs timeline does not necessarily reflect when they would best be played in the in-game timeline. Like Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival are (as I mentioned above), at least in my personal timeline, post-Suicide Mision content. BUT, they both become available to play after Horizon. Just because they unlock at certain points in the plot, that doesnât mean that they best fit the timeline in that point. It was just a convenient way to organize things in my notes. So there will be ones that unlock at plot point A, but probably play best after plot point B. Players would be able to decide where they fit as it works for them.
Ghost of the Machine
A phenomenon is spreading across colonies in Citadel space. Machine cultists are cropping up on planets. Shortly thereafter, these colonies go dead quiet â often overrun by husks. To Admiral Anderson, this sounds like Reaper tech, and thereâs only one person who he trusts to investigate the truth of the machine cults...
(Post-Freedomâs Progress)
So back to the machine cultists. In our last installment, there was Evolution, which featured them. Here, though, weâre looking at something that kinda resolves this little storyline. Yâknow, since ME3 isnât really going to have the time for this sort of thing. Which, sure, Iâm saying this becomes unlocked before you can unlock this gameâs machine cultist sidequest, but shush â just because it unlocks at this point doesnât mean it has to be played at this point. This time, itâs not just about learning about the problem, but weâre also going to see what we can do to understand it, especially since weâre now acknowledging that this is a recurring problem within the universe and maybe we want to find a proper solution to it before stumbling blindly into it gets more and more people killed.
So this takes Shepard to a planet thatâs making its first steps at colonization, yet again (because I am trying to be cognizant of what practical realities exist in the game development, even acknowledging that this is a hypothetical thing anyway â early colonization means limited extras wandering around out in the open and a self-contained area to play around in). Those seem to be the places where these devices mainly get uncovered, so thatâs why this is here.
Of course, we have a situation where the devices are known about, so thereâs an immediate lockdown, and the reason that Shepard and crew are getting sent out is because Reaper experience is needed â in the event that this colony can have anyone saved, who is it and how do we get them out safely?
I kinda look at this as revealing the process â the previous encounters were the parts that told us the existence of the metaphorical monster of this story, here weâre getting to see the âmonsterâ properly in action. And I feel like this should be about also introducing some of what will become ME3âs foot soldiers among the Reaper armies â we know about the husks from ME1, now weâre going to encounter another for the first time. Probably the marauders. Given that they and the cannibals (who are so numerous in part because of the batarian worlds being first in the invasion path) are the most numerous in ME3 aside from husks, we should at least get to see them be pre-established because of their involvement ahead of time â they donât get any proper introduction as is in ME3, just accepted as being there.
The honest general idea in this one is tying off this thread that was seemingly built, by way of being a repeated thread in both ME1 and ME2, but goes entirely unmentioned in ME3. Obvious reasons are obvious, but thatâs why these hypothetical DLCs âexist,â to address things that the games didnât have time for. (And thatâs a big part of a lot of these, so... buckle up.)
Obviously, we have some of the supplementary material to work off of here â Iâm specifically thinking of the Illusive Manâs comic series, Evolution. (Side note, TIMâs involvement there should probably also be part of the reason heâs quick to send Shepard in here â he knows what these artifacts can do.) You can read the wiki page as easily as this, but to quickly detail the important part, we know what these are through them, artifacts meant to ease the way for the eventual arrival of the Reapers by doing the huskifying work ahead of time, without the need for things like the Dragonâs Teeth (which... I want to bring these into this in some fashion, considering they seemed to have importance in ME1, but as the numbers of husks increased in the later games, they fell by the wayside â ME3 claimed that they were basically just to increase a subjectâs adrenaline and spread the Reaper tech through the victimâs body quicker from the fear of impalement, and that seems like a lot of effort for little reward, since nothing indicates a way to come back after infection anyway).
So why are these on far-flung colonies, especially when the husks definitely donât have the mental capacity to control ships and spread out that way?
Since, again, thereâs no way to come back after infection anyway, thatâs going to be one of the core questions. This seems like a highly inefficient way to set about conquering the galaxy. Why spread this if thereâs no reliable method of getting it to go beyond any singular world? (Obviously, the original idea seems to be a) BioWare shock value and b) something to horrify the audience with no reason attached â so itâs time to add that reason). What is the purpose?
So thatâs going to be a running thread, probably the major subplot of the story. Obviously, though, the first priority is Shepard trying to escape getting caught up in this colony that is descending into Reaper control. Also, since I said weâre introducing the marauders here, I think we need a turian contact on the ground â I almost said make them a female turian, introduce them to the world of Mass Effect well ahead of the DLC for ME3 (a-HEM!), but I also think that weâve got another situation of seeing them get infected and die as a result â it IS a consistent point in this series that coming back from Reaper infections Is Not Done. And repeating that here makes it a consistent theme, considering Nyreen.
So while I still say there should be female turians making their appearance among the turians of the colony, our turian buddy is going to be a guy, just for the sake of not stuffing another named female turian in the fridge. Iâll get to a more proper introduction of a female turian later, promise. (And, I like to imagine, with the number of DLCs Iâm writing up here, thereâs some kind of ability to retroactively introduce female turians into the crowds in the base game as a âpatchâ through at least one of them, as well as into ME3 proper... Hey, this is all fantasy as it is, let me have that one.)
Anyway, the turian contact is going to be frosty with Shepard â he (I donât have a name for him at this point) not only doesnât trust Cerberus, he was also friends with Saren, making him distrust Shepard. While Saren was a traitor, itâs got an element of âguilt by associationâ to have had close ties to him, so Shepardâs kind of a living embodiment of the hit to his good name. Even if he didnât do what he did because of Shepard specifically, theyâre still associated. But he is still on a mission and Shepard is here and willing to assist him, so...
That said, heâs a Cerberus contact â Cerberus may be human first, but, given the ME2 crew, they can cultivate non-human contacts and aid, and under the circumstances of this colony, being a joint endeavor of humans and turians (probably throw in some callbacks to the last edition of these hypothetical DLCs and mention Ambassador Goyle and the Planet of Peace story). Heâs been influenced by Cerberus operatives because hey, itâs good for humanity and turians to make peace if thereâs a greater threat, right? Shepard meets with him on the outskirts of the colony proper â in order not to be influenced, theyâre acting as much outside of the colony as possible. (Come to think about it, it might be a good idea to make recruiting Mordin a pre-req for this, at least handwave him having come up with a measure meant to protect from Indoctrination and the effects of these artifacts.)
The artifact is already influencing colonists, of course, and our turian friend is ready to write them off immediately â theyâve read the reports, and indoctrination canât be reversed. I picture a brief discussion about how horrible indoctrination is as a weapon, making the Reapers enemies into their servants, and so warping their minds and perceptions that theyâd never be able to trust that any thought they have afterwards is their own, even if they could be saved. Because seriously, thatâs one of the most unsettling things for me in this franchise.
The idea is, of course, to get in to where this artifact is and destroy it unseen. That probably means a stealth segment through this colony â honestly, do it like the batarian base in Arrival, I donât think that it would be so bad. That offered some nice variation, if a little spare on interactable things. Here are going to be some interactable things, things you can get to if youâre good, pay enough attention to the line of sights and such, but will still risk discovery.
Those interactable things are going to be some of the background of the artifact and whatâs the whole deal â yâknow, codex stuff, things that arenât essential to the story but good background. Lay some groundwork for the idea of what the Reapers want out of these things being left behind.
Stealth section comes before the inevitable action section, of course. Here, the artifact is in underground caverns (like normal) and our turian buddy sets out to make some quick scans, get the information they need. And, of course, it activates at his approach, zapping him with energy. He tries to shake off any effects but... Well, I already said that he was gonna get infected and die.
So hereâs where we start seeing the husks show up. Itâd be really nifty if we could get them in varying states of their evolution (or devolution, depending how you look at it), some people just having glowing eyes, others being full on huskified.
And, of course, our turian contact is now in the process of becoming a marauder. Iâm thinking weâre having something of the same thing as with Saren here â now that the Reapers made contact with him, theyâre framing him as their âherald,â the one whoâs going to act as their instrument. Shepard rightly gets to point out the comparison, which does at least get some hesitation â heâs being indoctrinated, is in the process of becoming a pure Reaper tool, but isnât all the way there yet, the process isnât 100% immediate.
Also I figure this is a good time to really establish (in terms of ME2âs plot) that the Reapers are so interested in Shepard and why. Like, yeah, sure, we do get Harbingerâs whole thing, but thatâs not really a dialogue where we get to ask questions. Itâs not even an interrogation where Harbinger demands information. Harbinger just spouts out dialogue of âthis hurts youâ and such. Thatâs not really telling us anything. So, yeah, thereâs the basic âShepard defeated a Reaper,â but hey, letâs just get a little more out of it.
I mean, we can intuit what Shepard means for the Reapers, sure, but if itâs important enough to be a major motivation, itâs important enough to say outright, you know? So Shepard is a pinnacle for this cycle â they killed a Reaper, delayed the advancement of the cycle for a few years, thatâs a bit of a big deal when it comes before the harvest proper starts up â and the Reapers (like Leviathan will later) want to better understand what makes them tick. If this is unique to Shepard or the human condition, and, if itâs the later, how to break this down to its basic chemical composition and make it their own.
Turian buddy is also here to mouthpiece the explanation for what the Reapers even expect to gain from this. Slaves who canât operate the mechanisms that theyâll be using are poor servants. I figure itâs as much an intimidation matter as anything â prompt the effective burning of a colony without deeper investigation, sow some fear about the unknown and keep people staying to the comfortable and familiar areas of the space that they live in, corral them in the familiar patterns. Itâs a plan with the intent of intimidation â it isnât until the harvest that they need the servants, so until then, they just want the borders firmly established.
Seems simple enough, sure, but this is still a mystery as far as the game proper is concerned, and I am trying to work within the established structure of the trilogy, rather than come up with some massive reveal that changes our understanding of everything â if I WERE just going to rewrite the franchise, I could do that, instead of writing up synopses of add-ons to the main game, yâknow?
Of course Shepardâs gonna get free â Iâm thinking that itâs a rescue effort by some of the other crew on the Normandy (because it really bugs me that, when the game is focused around Shepard gathering up the âDirty Dozenâ for their âSuicide Squadâ (look, I had to get that out of my system), they only take two members out on missions at a time, so hey, look, they get up to something while Shepardâs busy doing the dirty work. This being ME2, we have to shoot our way out even further to get back to the artifact, which is where our turian âfriendâ waits.
Paragon/Renegade choice here â do we try and reach out to him, get him to help us blow the artifact to hell, or just jump straight to the boss fight? By this point he has some additional help, by way of our introduction to a harvester â these were dropped into ME3, on Menae, with no exploration, and non-Reaper ones were meant to be enemies during the development of this game, so call this the natural evolution of matters. Weâre introducing the marauders and the harvesters ahead of time, explaining the lack of fanfare that these enter the âproperâ storyline with. The difference is if our turian friend is aiding us or the harvester, the harvester being our big end boss for this DLC.
The harvester gets killed, the artifact is blown up with the turian (he chooses to remain if Paragoned, a reminder of the permanent effects of the indoctrination process and how this is something that canât be fixed â hammer home some of the fear and anguish that will be impacting those left behind from the inevitable fighting). Shepard returns to the Normandy for a debrief (I do kinda picture Miranda being involved in that, because, again, squadmates get additional dialogue here, and she IS the ranking Cerberus officer). Also some set up about discussing about Cerberus efforts to better understand indoctrination (foreshadowing for Henry Lawsonâs experiments on Horizon next game).
Post Game Followups:
ME3: Indoctrination has seen further study, providing a war asset. Dialogue changes to reference Shepard having encountered marauders and harvesters before.
 Commander Shepard
The Suicide Mission is coming, and the Illusive Man has asked for all of Shepardâs companions to have their heads cleared. Now itâs Shepardâs turn. Their burdens have remained â the loss of the Normandy, the death on Virmire, and their death at the hands of the Collectors. The rest of the team has to clear their heads, and now so must Commander Shepard.
(Post-Horizon)
Yeah, why is it that, while weâre dealing with having to clear the heads of our crew, our PC, who has canonically been killed and resurrected, does NOT have to do this? So, yeah, Shepard needs a good head clearing. (For the record, I have written a fic of this: Lazarus Risen, and thatâs effectively where Iâm going with this, so if youâre so inclined, check it out instead of reading this, since while the recap is shorter, the fic itself is not too long.)
So, if you donât want to read that, my idea when I made the fic was to explore both the idea of âCommander Shepardâs loyalty mission,â or the one where Shepard clears their head, AND the thought of just what the heck required Shepard to take all their companions on a mission and leave the Normandy vulnerable to the Collector attack after obtaining the IFF. Now, Iâm saying that this mission unlocks after Horizon, but in my mind, thatâs when and where this mission takes place. I just donât know how to implement it within the game design that presently exists, so weâre gonna leave that open to player interpretation.
So the starting point of the fic (and thus, this DLC â like I said, thatâs effectively where Iâm going with this) is that Kelly Chambers, in her role as the Normandyâs official unofficial counselor/therapist, has recognized that Shepard has a lot of trauma associated with their death and resurrection they have not worked through, and so thatâs gone into her reports to the Illusive Man. Mister Illusive contacts the Normandy, declaring that Shepardâs going in to a Cerberus facility, along with their crew, for a full psychiatric workup â the mission is too important to not have all these issues dealt with before going into things.
A bit of fun with this, on the basis of it being why Shepard is taking their whole squad off the ship, is that thereâs the opportunity for some banter and genuine crew interaction, something that is sadly missing from the base game itself. Since Iâm me, and this is about what I want from these, this is also an opportunity for some character stuff with Shepard, both playing referee (maybe getting a chance to recover some of the loyalty divisions from the confrontations if need be?) and getting to be able to better build and display the growth these characters are going through from seeing their loyalty missions resolved (cuz you DO resolve all the loyalty missions before activating the Reaper IFF, right?). The whole point of doing them was to clear their heads, encourage growth, and the thing is, we donât get much of that forward arc in ME2, with ME3 just catching us up later. At least half the point of these is some retroactive continuity to smooth out the trilogyâs edges, after all.
Moving on. The arrival at the Cerberus Station (I am assuming this is the same one from the early part of the game, the one Miranda and Jacob take Shepard after they escape the Lazarus facility, though it doesnât have to be, just a convenient use of model reuse) is uh... complicated. After all, Shepardâs motley crew is not exactly Cerberus approved (even if TIM authorized it â remember how Brooks in Citadel will mention that âCerberus was a human organization bringing in aliensâ?). There is a stir. A handful of situations have to be defused before everything properly gets under way.
This isnât in my fic because that was focused on the one thing, while, as DLC, this would have to fill out some additional content to justify the time spent and the resultant price tag players spend to buy it, but I kinda figure this is where we can start seeing where the dissent is for Miranda in particular (probably Jacob too), given her Cerberus loyalties. This is a Shepard-focused mission, but I do see Miranda having a relatively decent role in any sidequests, character bits, and dialogue, given that we presently have in her a Cerberus loyalist right up to the point that she sees the human Reaper in the endgame. Especially if she isnât part of the endgame squad, I feel we should have some material that connects those dots somewhat. I mean, I expect all the characters SHOULD get some, but Miranda in specific is the one with the almost explicit arc of taking her from Cerberus loyalist to her âconsider this my resignationâ remark to the Illusive Man at the endgame.
The Cerberus station director (my fic said her name is Doctor Nuwali, so weâll be going with that) tries to organize the chaos that is Shepardâs squad (Shepard being as helpful or obstructionistic as the player chooses to allow, because Cerberus and authorities figures are always fun to poke at, and weâre getting both of those rolled up in one). Building off the above point with Miranda, thereâs also clearly tension between her and Nuwali â Nuwali is, in many ways, a reflection of who she was at the start of the game, the pure, uncompromising believer to the cause and the results-driven focus without acknowledging the human cost, while Miranda has been in the position of growing and developing and questioning (Like I said, connective tissue for her character arc).
Nuwali directs Shepard into a private room for their psych evaluation, insisting on the separation of Shepard from the squad. (Just go with it, itâs for plot purposes.) Within is a prothean artifact, and it begins to react at Shepardâs arrival. It flashes-
-and Shepard finds theyâre now in the Virmire facility. This is the requisite combat segment stuff that I can brush past during the recapping. The point is that theyâre making their way through the geth to the area where the bomb was deployed, to find Ashley or Kaidan, whoever was left behind on Virmire (even if they were left with the distraction team and Shepard didnât go back for the bomb, Shepard is guaranteed to have been at the bomb site, not the other area, so...).
They assist Shepard in clearing out the geth and then go into confrontation mode â âyouâre working with Cerberus now, what the hell?â You know all the fan debates about why is Shepard working with Cerberus, given the horrors they uncover in ME1, especially if you roll a Sole Survivor (and, considering that is the default Shepard background, thatâs clearly BioWareâs preference, so itâs not even like this shouldnât come up â DLC is better than nothing, you know?).
Yes, weâre doing a âdefending your lifeâ style thing here. Hey, the game could use that, considering how Cerberus is the bad guy and weâre working with them. We deserve a more critical examination of this concept.
Itâs a bit of a verbal joust â Ashley/Kaidan question what Shepardâs doing, their purpose in working with Cerberus, why they arenât just leaving, how they could have tried to turn them in to the Alliance and the Council after they were given the Normandy and use the information in the shipâs databases as evidence of the Collector threat? There were ways for the story to progress that werenât this deal with the devil. Shepard gets to acknowledge their points, struggle to justify what theyâre doing. Emphasizing that this IS a deal with the devil, and if Shepard doesnât find a loophole out of it, theyâll be condemned alongside Cerberus as well â not blowing them to hell in the here and now can make them culpable for their future activities, especially if Cerberus tries to bank on the idea of âCommander Shepard worked with usâ (like they do with Conrad Verner in ME3).
Call it âpreempting the âwe should have been able to side with Cerberusâ discussionâ that cropped up after ME3 â people, we ARE talking about a xenophobic terrorist group, how were they EVER gonna come out of this series looking like the good guys in the final analysis?
The ultimate point is that this is not a good situation â whatever good might come of Cerberus in general, Cerberus cannot be trusted. Ashley/Kaidan point blank ask can Shepard truly justify staying with them, doing the Illusive Manâs bidding, regardless of their good intentions. And I donât really think thereâs a good answer here â again, in my head, this plays as the mission Shepardâs on when the Collectors attack the Normandy, and, because I make sure to do all the loyalty missions before going to the Collector Base, Shepard is about to cut ties with Cerberus by way of a massive explosion (because Iâd never trust the Illusive Man with the Collector Base), this is basically laying groundwork for that moment.
If you donât do things that way... Well, sorry, but this is my hypothetical DLC, so weâre playing things my way.
Anyway, this sends Shepard on their way to the next installment of âdefending your life.â Because weâre absolutely following the Rule of Three here, so thereâs more than just the one segment. More requisite combat stuff happens, this time fighting through the Citadel tower again. At the end is Saren. Because why wouldnât we have an encounter with him when Shepard is doing questionable things in the name of defending the galaxy?
He, of course, is rather smug about the fact that Shepard is allying with the devil in the name of fighting the Reapers â to him, it comes across as something of a victory, because here Shepard is, the person who came after him for his alliance with Sovereign, having made his own deal with the devil. If Ashley/Kaidan were the angel on Shepardâs shoulder, the voice of their conscience, telling them that they are making a mistake working with Cerberus, Saren is here to be the devil on the other shoulder, pointing out all the value there is in working with them, in doing whatever the mission calls for to put an end to the Collectors and the Reapers.
One would hope that this kind of rhetoric from the villain of the first game would make it very clear that Cerberus are the bad guys. As if to drive the point home, Saren also brings up that Shepard was rebuilt by them â with what is certainly Reaper tech. Shepard has begun the process of ascending to the Reapers level, whatâs some more, melding more with their tech, bringing that melding, that joining, that unification of organic and machine, to the people of the galaxy, of doing the Reapers a favor and acting as their instrument in raising up galactic civilization?
Things of course descend into a firefight (because weâve got to have our action quota). This time, Shepard gets to pull the trigger and personally kill Saren â sure, I get satisfaction out of persuading him to shoot himself, and I can always take the other options if Iâm really pressed to face off against him, but I want the visceral satisfaction of having Shepard standing over Saren themselves and pulling the trigger.
Itâs the little things, you know?
Anyway, because Rule of Three, this proceeds Shepard to the third point. They are back on Lazarus Station. No combat this time, just proceeding through the halls until they find themselves in the spot where they met Jacob in the prologue. Here, they see Miranda and Liara, discussing the act of giving Shepard to Cerberus to rebuild. While at first theyâre talking to each other (whether or not you want to interpret this as Shepard somehow having heard the conversation or this just being Shepardâs interpretation, thatâs up to you â weâre already in the center of Shepardâs mind here, does that really need explaining?), eventually, Shepard gets to speak, raise concerns, raise their voice.
Shepard gets options â do they understand and appreciate what was done to them, the resurrection and effective drafting into Cerberus? Or are they angry and pissed off â they were dead, and then someone else comes along and decides not to let them rest. For me, this has always been an issue of bodily autonomy, where, with Liara using the reasoning, and I quote, that she âcouldnât let [Shepard] go,â SHE is the one deciding what to do with Shepardâs body. Whatever you might say about what that did to make the galaxy a better place... Was it what Shepard would have wanted done with their corpse, to be handed off to a terrorist group culpable in acts of horrific deeds so that they could play Frankenstein with it? This is, in the games proper, just completely ignored â the one option to be angry is about Liara hiding this from them, not about her DOING it, and in ME3, Shepard â without player input â frames Miranda and the Lazarus Project as âgiving them back their life.â
Yeah, no. I can forgive Mirandaâs actions, given her characterization is actively about her going from looking at Shepard as a resource to be tapped to a friend (or possibly lover). Itâs not perfect, but itâs still part of her arc, and she does at least make an apology (even if the writing doesnât focus on the part I want it to, that ME3 conversation being focused on her wanting to implant Shepard with a control chip).
But I NEED to be able to express anger at Liara in some way just to like her, considering her canonical reason for doing this is all about HER â not that she considered Shepard the only one in the galaxy who could stand against the Reapers, but that SHE couldnât let Shepard go. When in my games, she has no right to that. Sheâs not the one my Shepardâs are in a relationship with. So what those who romance her probably see as an act of love and devotion, I, not romancing her, canât see it as anything but an act of obsession. And, even if I have to limit myself to a mental simulacrum of her, because thereâs not a better place to include such a thing in these DLCs, it will help me, because itâs at least acknowledgement that hey, maybe Shepard is kinda pissed about people making decisions about them for them.
*ahem*
Right, so, where were we? Right, the reaction to Miranda and Liara discussing what to do with Shepardâs body. So as Shepard reacts, this prompts appearances from Ashley, Kaidan, and Saren, all of them playing Greek chorus about the decisions made about Shepard and how Shepard is reacting to them all. And yes, now we have both Ashley and Kaidan, regardless of who was left on Virmire, because why not â if we have one of them showing up for this DLC, why NOT include both of them? Youâd have both actors in the studio anyway, so... Basically this is the big character confrontation where they all make the points that fans can debate and nitpick over when they bring up this topic, until finally the question gets put as, effectively, âwell, however you feel about it, it has been done, so what are you going to do now?â
And to answer that, Shepard has to reenter the room they woke up in. Because weâre not quite done here yet.
Yeah, that whole conversation piece? THAT was the third âfightâ or âcombatâ scene of this sequence, done in dialogue. Think the Atris confrontation in KOTOR 2, a verbal standoff. The actual interaction that Shepard has to face in the operating room... is themselves.
And their mirror image is offering similar questions, now wanting Shepard to respond, rather than having other characters voice opinions for them. How do you play Shepardâs reaction to their death and resurrection? To the fact that they are spending this game working with Cerberus, who is responsible for a traumatic event in roughly one third of all Shepard histories? Who Shepard uncovered multiple instances of their mad science in ME1 that crossed every ethical line? Who have it repeated rather consistently, is a humanity-first organization who will put human interests (and Cerberus interests, claiming theyâre the same) ahead of galactic ones? If the Collector Base has (or is) a Reaper weapon, do they legitimately trust the Illusive Man with this power? Does Cerberus or the Illusive Man REALLY deserve any loyalty from Shepard?
Think of this as âstage twoâ of the verbal boss battle.
So, the confrontation with themselves concludes with, effectively, Shepard making their decision for going forward â the idea is that it has all been a mental debate, Shepard talking to themselves and coming to a conclusion that they needed to make. The general idea probably is one that, if youâre an obsessive fan with a penchant for filling in the gaps of canon (hey how are you?), you may have imagined these kinds of thoughts and discussions and conversations happening, but isnât it more satisfying to actually have them take place on screen? And two, Shepard confronting themselves is, in and of itself, always a big deal. As I said at the beginning, this is Shepardâs loyalty mission, done to clear their head. How could it not result in Shepard facing themselves and asking themselves these big questions directly?
When Shepard officially makes their decision for the forward march, you know, figuring out how to handle Cerberus from here on in, which basically come to, effectively, use them for their resources and cut them loose at the end of the crisis or cut ties now and let the chips fall â since, after all, aside from Miranda and Jacob, whose loyalties to Cerberus are already wavering, Shepard has a squad full of the most dangerous people in the galaxy, so they could handle a mutiny of any kind (and, on the player end, thereâs the knowledge that, while all this is taking place, EDI is getting unshackled and effectively is capable of running the ship) â theyâre kicked back to reality.
And yes, those are the only two results of this, because, just to hammer it home, Cerberus is NOT. THE GOOD GUYS. The Illusive Man is not secretly good, heâs just using the âhumanity needs protectionâ line to justify his actions and attitudes that are about seizing power. And anyone who thought that we would, should, or could side with Cerberus come ME3 was kidding themselves.
Granted, with this line of thinking, Iâm not sure what the motivation would be to give Cerberus the Collector Base at the endgame (I mean, I never have, so...). Maybe the idea of âindoctrinate yourself, get taken in by the Reapers, you bastard,â but... That doesnât seem right for Shepardâs characterization. Eh, like I said, much of this is based in how I play in the first place, so if you want to try and figure that out, feel free, but my list, we go by my way of approaching things. Because thatâs just how I roll.
So I havenât explained what, exactly, this prothean artifact is. Well, itâs effectively nothing more than a plot device, but letâs say thereâs a note that becomes interactable, that basically talks up the artifact as being what Iâve called it so far, something that is meant to allow the user a chance to directly interact with themselves, face the truths they deny. Again, this really is a plot device meant to allow the circumstances of the plot, and while I could go into the details of how I assume it works, it really just needs to exist, but thatâs my handwave excuse to justify how it worked. It works very well, thank you for asking. The reality is the how is less important than what it brings up.
So, Shepard is back in the physical world, and sets about putting the ideas into motion â the Illusive Man wanted them here? Yeah, no. Not doing that anymore. Shepard gets their crew out of there, upsetting doc Nuwali (giving the impression that there were some sketchy ideas in mind for Shepardâs companions when they were alone themselves, invasive procedures that theyâd knock them out and see if they could take them apart and put them back together, now loyal to the Cerberus banner that sort of thing) and has a brief chat with Miranda as they fly back to the Normandy.
...You know, which, based on my time table, is currently under Collector attack. Fun times!
Post Game Followups:
ME3: The artifact as a war asset, reports about Nuwali being captured by Alliance officers while in the process of having attempted some of those âsketchy ideasâ sheâd meant to enact on Shepardâs companions.
The Lights of Klencory
The planet Klencory is rumored to hold secrets regarding âthe machine devils.â Admiral Hackett of the Alliance has suspicions these are references to the Reapers, and has been secretly investigating these. Now, a team of Alliance soldiers have vanished out there, and heâs calling in Commander Shepard as a specialist, along with an old friend...
Bonus Companion: Ashley Williams/Kaidan Alenko
(Post-Horizon)
So back on the old days of the BSN, before Arrival came out, the speculation was, after Lair of the Shadow Broker, that the successive DLC would feature Ashley or Kaidan, give them the same treatment Liara got by featuring them in a DLC. One of my favorite ideas featured the concept of the âmachine devilsâ of Klencory. You know, the planet blurb from ME1 where a volus is digging into a planet in search of evidence of âlost crypts of beings of light,â the indication being that heâd had his mind scrambled by a prothean beacon. So, hey, guess where weâre going?
I mean, obviously Illium, duh.
Actually, thatâs not a bad starting point. Illium in general seems to be fairly neutral territory â sure, technically a planet in Citadel space, given its an asari world, but with many Citadel laws relaxed, it makes for a place where âan Alliance operativeâ will meet with Shepard (Weâre starting by way of a letter from Hackett, for the record) without it being considered suspicious behavior by those looking in who are not in the know about the tacit support that both Hackett and Anderson are offering Shepard. Thereâs a lot of questions coming into this on Shepardâs part, given that, at this point in time, theyâre not really an Alliance officer, and yet this is apparently something that is getting them called on? Probably means Reapers.
It gets complicated once Shepard arrives for the meeting and finds Ashley/Kaidan is their contact.
So, before we go further, I want to acknowledge, by the nature of having any real contact between Shepard and Ashley/Kaidan between the encounter on Horizon and the opening of ME3, I am effectively breaking one of my cardinal rules for these, namely the idea of not screwing with the pre-existing structure of the gamesâ plots in allowing Shepard and Ashley/Kaidan SOME form of genuine contact and communication, to the point of a chance for a legitimate conversation about things and where they stand with one another (Yes, the previous entry was bending that rule, but this is an outright breaking of it).
Thing is, this is one thing that really SHOULD have existed in the games proper, I shouldnât have to have built something up to include here, and I will 100% die mad about it. Ashley and Kaidan got shafted by BioWareâs handling of things, and Iâm not willing to forgive it (if you follow my liveblogs of replaying the games, youâll know I frequently complain that Arrival really was gift-wrapped to serve this function, and yet it doesnât so much as mentioned Ashley/Kaidan). So yeah, weâre having an opportunity to address this stuff right off, itâs taking place in the game âproperâ (for a given value, considering all of this is made up, but...). Iâll get into how this will impact their interactions come ME3 in the âPost Game Followupsâ section, for now, weâre just going with this.
Also on the âto noteâ element, I am mostly going to refer to Ashley/Kaidan in the sense of swapping them into place for one another, since, obviously, they are mutually exclusive at this point in the trilogy. But I do want it understood that I am not viewing them as interchangeable characters but as individuals. Just... If I stop to explain all the little differences of how they interact with Shepard in this, the variations of what they say and do on the character level, Iâd basically be writing this out twice, which this is going to be long enough as it is, you donât need to read the plot summary twice, and I certainly donât need to write it twice. Assume that, even if not explicitly indicated, there ARE differences in behavior and dialogue that are reflective of them as separate characters and people, even if the overall plot must go forward regardless of how differently theyâd react as individuals.
And you might want to pay close attention, since there will be a lot of use of âtheyâ pronouns ahead, since Ashley/Kaidan is more awkward to write and I make it a point to not address the player character (in this case, Shepard) by one gender or the other in these write-ups, given that thatâs variable, so things might get a little confusing if youâre not paying close enough attention to the context.
So... The meeting with Ashley/Kaidan begins... awkwardly. Theyâre uncertain how to really react to Shepard â sure, the encounter on Horizon means they know that Shepard is back, but now theyâre really having to deal with this particular reality. So theyâre going to aim to jump to business. Alliance intel has intercepted some messages from mercs hired out near Klencory, which got Admiral Hackett paying attention to things happening out there â like Shepard will acknowledge, between the circumstances of this meeting and the quick summary of the reason for the mercs all being out there, this sounds like itâs connected to the Reapers. Hackett wants to have Shepard as a âspecial consultantâ as the Alliance has someone (re: Ashley/Kaidan) investigate (âconsultantâ since Shepard may not have had their Spectre status restored, so it gives them legitimacy either way). It could, potentially, just all be a massive coincidence. But since when are things ever âjustâ a coincidence?
Ashley/Kaidan are willing to use the Normandy as transport â Hackett figured that, between the stealth systems, and the lack of official Alliance authority in the area, the Normandy is the better option for getting there without being told to get lost. The bigger question is how theyâll be received â itâs not like merc gangs take well to outside interference, and the Alliance having any jurisdiction out there is questionable at best. But they should at least TRY to go in with civility. If this volus billionaire spending all this money on this (his name, for the record, is canonically given as Kumun Shol, so hey, less work for me, having to come up with a name!), then if he hears from someone who seems to be taking him seriously, it might get them invited in explicitly.
Obviously, though, if theyâre hitching a ride on the Normandy, if things remain unspoken, the trip out there will be very awkward and seem longer than it is. So they have to address Horizon. Theyâre not going to apologize for not joining Shepard â Shepard is still operating on a ship flying Cerberus colors, even with good intentions, that is a betrayal of their oaths to the Alliance, Cerberus are terrorists and xenophobes, who want to secure human dominance. But they will acknowledge that they reacted to Shepardâs return in a way that wasnât their best. I am not going all the way to âthey admit that they were wrong,â because based solely on the information that they had, they handled things as best as they realistically could. But they will regret that things ended on the terms that they did.
Shepard gets to respond to that â are they accepting that it was a bad reaction to unexpected information, do they still hold a grudge, whatever. The conversation continues to a point of conclusion â Ashley/Kaidan donât trust Cerberus, they want to trust Shepard, but the connection between the two at the moment makes that difficult, and they donât know how to bridge that gap as things stand, but theyâre going to try this.
We will be coming back to this, never you fear. But, of course, thatâs more for the ending than it is the beginning, and this one conversation is far from the end.
Klencory is a world with a toxic atmosphere, so they first have to gain access to a semi-decent landing zone near where Shol has established himself. Because, naturally, heâs not interested in visitors â the brief communication we get with him is him effectively talking himself into the idea that Shepard is âthe agent of the machine devils,â which... I mean, considering the prothean beacons and communications with the Reapers, itâs not crazy that he goes there, even if (by the rest of his actions), Sholâs gone a little nuts.
Shooty shooty bang bang, fight through the exterior guards and into the facility proper. Ashley/Kaidan are a little uncomfortable about whatâs gone on â this really isnât how they pictured things going, given the legitimate credentials they were supposed to be coming in with, and they can recognize the fighting is because of Shol not giving them an alternative, but it does still make them feel like theyâre acting as little more than the thugs theyâre dispatching.
Call this a reaction to the fact that Shepard doesnât exactly get much of a differentiation in the game themselves. Particularly when they can call out looters on Omega while swiping whateverâs not nailed down.
This is another conversation thatâs going to be part of that âcoming back toâ thing â assume thereâs some kind of tracking metric for all of this in the same vein as how ME3 tracked how Ashley/Kaidan responded to Shepard as a lead in to the confrontation during the coup. Just, Iâll get to how that all plays out at the end.
Because a band of mercs arenât enough to hold off Shepard, Ashley/Kaidan, and the third companion (yay party balance), they reach Sholâs central command. Heâs a little batty, but it finally gets through to him that Shepard is not the agent of the machine devils. He is skeptical of Shepard being the savior from them, though. Instead, he wants Shepard and company to do something for him.
There is a vault. A vault none of his men have come back from. Shol declares that, if Shepard can enter, learn its secrets, and survive, then they will have proven themselves to be salvation from the machine devils. Since this is the advancement of the plot, Shepard will have to go ahead with this, even with the natural objections of Ashley/Kaidan (and, probably, Shepard themselves).
Another pause for a dialogue â Ashley/Kaidan are skeptical of Sholâs motives, and believe it may be too dangerous to just do what he says. Especially considering that heâs clearly not entirely stable. This is a situation that really calls for calling for backup. But thereâs really not the option of waiting, because if they donât do as Shol says, heâll throw all his mercs at Shepard â even if weâre assuming that Shepard versus countless mercs ends well for Shepard (because, after all, itâs Shepard), itâs just a senseless loss of life.
Going in is a set piece of suspense. Think the Peragus mine, with a dash of Korriban for good measure, from KOTOR 2 â lot of littered corpses, this creeping and foreboding unease and feeling of being watched, this overbearing expectation of SOMETHING appearing down every dead end... Build the tension. This is a place that, the littered dead aside, no one has entered in thousands of years, it should absolutely be a place that could chill you to the bone. The examination of anything should feel like itâs disturbing the dead.
You know thereâs some ancient security device active, right? I mean, somethingâs killing the people who trespass here. Obviously, it has to be something that will put up a fight as our end boss, and it needs to be something that is able to last a long time. Iâm thinking an ancient robot (my mind is going in the direction of something similar in design to the ancient droids of KOTORâs Star Forge), a last defense, left behind by a precursor to the protheans.
Yeah, it feels like an underwhelming result to me too, but it makes logical sense all the same â we have some evidence of things from prior cycles, not just the prothean cycle, making it through to the next ones, not the least of which is the plans for the Crucible. Seeing as how that bit of intel is just dropped into our laps come ME3, this is at least making it functionally foreshadowed, if indirectly, by actually showing us ancient technology that is still functional and viable even after more than fifty, a hundred thousand years. Plus the foreshadowing of things surviving to this cycle in the vein of Javik. Things lasting this long in forms beyond just ruins at least makes all of that happening in ME3 at least have some groundwork laid in these prior games â otherwise, we only have a few codex references to ancient civilizations, as opposed to it being an actual component of gameplay, things that the player MUST interact with.
But yeah, the threat may be underwhelming, but the payoff is what it guarded â the last remnants of this ancient culture. The corpses have been preserved, given that itâs a bunker into the planetâs mantle â the toxic nature of the atmosphere now came about because of the Reapers, though, of course, this is only spoken of in the material available as âthe machine devils.â There could be a great wealth of information among this stuff.
Thing is, now that the threatâs dealt with, Shol wants his prize. He spent years of his life and a great deal of his money on this, and now he wants to use it â and, because he still is a paranoid bastard, heâs not particularly inclined to uphold his end of the bargain, having expected to have Shepard and the âguardianâ of the tomb (for lack of a better term) kill each other. He just wants all of this to increase his own fortune â heâll sell everything within to the highest bidder and damn what the Alliance, the Citadel, anyone might be able to get from the archives. Giving it to private collectors â like, say, the Illusive Man, or even any interested faction of capital-c Collectors (as in âthe enemies we fight throughout ME2â) â will enrich him and it doesnât matter what that information might do to help make the galaxy ready for war against the Reapers.
Now, normally you would think this would lead to a Paragon/Renegade choice. BUT, instead, weâre going to have a variation moment for Ashley and Kaidan. Theyâll deal with Shol, but in unique ways. Ashley, having marine hand to hand combat skills (as she mentions in character discussion during the first game), manages to get close and disable the volusâs suit enough to render him unconscious, while Kaidan uses his biotics to get the same result. So they get to have a moment of protecting Shepard (not necessarily âsavingâ them, because a volus getting the drop on Shepard would certainly be an embarrassing way to go, but definitely helping them sidestep a situation).
NOWâS the time for the Paragon/Renegade choice, dealing with Shol himself. He is an obstacle, considering that dealing with the legal claim to this cache of information leaves the door open to some sticky situations as a result â the last thing they need is to have anything that might be useful be wrapped up in the legal battle. But he DOES have a valid claim. Just unilaterally taking this place from him is questionable at best â even if Shepardâs still a Spectre, are they REALLY able to just come in and declare the location to no longer be the property of the individual with the legal claim on it? Likewise, thereâs a lot of sticky issues with the idea of killing him â after all, as mentioned above, he does have a bunch of trained mercenaries on hand, and itâs reasonable to try and walk out without adding to the bloodshed. But if itâs made clear that his madness has overtaken him (which, I mean... it kinda HAS), then thereâs room for the Citadel to be able to legally seize his assets, including his claim on Klencory and its vault. But this still means institutionalizing a person because theyâre inconvenient.
Thatâs the choice â institutionalize Shol and seize his assets, despite the subsequent legal battle that he and his kin can draw everyone in to, or cut through the red tape preemptively, kill him, and claim what amounts to squatterâs rights, since with him dead, no one else is there to take charge of the archive, whatever it contains. Ashley/Kaidan are going to say they have no intention of letting Shepard kill Shol (because that would certainly always be a line for them), but there will be a Renegade interrupt to take that choice out of their hands anyway, and Shepard can make an argument that, if they donât do SOMETHING, Sholâs men will come in and try to kill them, while if heâs dead, that denies them their paycheck (because for one time ever, can we just have the mercs give up and run off once the source of their paycheck is dead?!). Shol certainly isnât going to tell them to back down, and âsurvival instinctsâ have never been at the top of their hiring priorities.
Ashley/Kaidan will have some words about the decision Shepard is making, but they can be swayed to understand Shepardâs motivations, at least, in the moment, though any disagreements they have are more in the âwaiting for a more opportune momentâ than âwhat you say goes, Commander.â More on that shortly. With that matter resolved, Shepard calls for a pickup.
Back on the Normandy, Shepard and Ashley/Kaidan are having an informal debriefing in Shepardâs cabin (save the jokes for the end of the scene everyone, weâll get to that). They do a brief discussion of what the likely followup will be â the fact is, the Reapers are probably already uncomfortably close at the moment already, so thereâs not likely to be much opportunity to examine this place too much before they show. Still, every little bit is going to help.
The big thing is going to be how Shepardâs handled things through to this point. This was an accumulation metric (in the same style as Aria showing mercy on Petrovsky or not during Omega), so the various Paragon/Renegade decisions through to this point will lead to their reaction. Paragon Shepards get Ashley/Kaidan acknowledging that Shepard is still someone they respect, and that perhaps this whole Cerberus alliance was one of necessity. Renegade Shepards are leaving them questioning what Cerberus is doing to them, and are they really the person that they once were.
That leads to the question of where they stand if theyâre a romance â like with Liara in Lair of the Shadow Broker, this leads to a romance rekindling, but only for Paragon Shepard, because thatâs the version that has shown that Shepard is still the person they followed to hell and back, still the person they loved.
Yes, while I try and offer reasonably similar options for both Paragon and Renegade versions of Shepard, this is dependent on that. Because itâs about setting their concerns at ease, about listening to them and allowing them to be angry and upset and come around. Renegade Shepard will have shown they donât care about that, so why WOULD Ashley/Kaidan take them back?
Anyway, insert âdebriefingâ joke here.
And, yâknow, a reminder that, in these DLCs Iâm writing, weâre going with the assumption that Ashley and Kaidan both were bisexual romance options back in the first game, and itâs an option to rekindle for both gendered Shepards.
After the interlude (however it plays out), thereâs the discussion of whatâs coming next for Ashley/Kaidan. Theyâre returning to the Alliance, of course â with Shepardâs official ties still in limbo, taking them out of the official chain, Hackett has made them a floating troubleshooter at points where he suspects Reaper involvement in some fashion, be it machine cultists and husks, Collectors, or what have you. However they feel about Shepard, Hackett is still seeming inclined to trust them on this, so they expect that the intel will still reach Shepard as they do their work. They make it clear they expect this to be the calm before the storm, and when the fight starts, they know Shepard will be on the front line. Paragons get them promising to back Shepard up when the time comes, Renegades get them hoping that theyâll still be on the same side when that happens.
Post Game Followups:
So hereâs the part where, typically, Iâd talk about how this impacts War Assets for ME3. But this is giving the ability to resolve the major Ashley/Kaidan element of ME3 before we even get there (like we should have in the first place...) and that means we have to deal with that. To that end, I obviously have left the door open for the lack of trust by way of Renegade Shepard, and thatâll go through things as they are, the same as if this DLC didnât exist (I mean, it doesnât exist anyway, but... You know what I mean!). The alternative for a Paragon completion is that there will be a distinct lessening of the tension between Shepard and Ashley/Kaidan in ME3, leading to some serious dialogue changes on Mars â more of an acceptance, instead of distrust.
Iâm also thinking that, with the air cleared, thereâs no moment of hesitation among them during the Citadel Coup, that it basically defaults them to trusting Shepard, regardless of how much they interact with them in Huerta and âclear the airâ of Horizon. After all, Shepard already allayed their concerns with their practical involvement, gave them the chance to see them as the person they were, rather than the possibility that they were no longer the person they trusted. This changes the dynamics of their earlier interactions, and if you have rekindled the romance during the debriefing (no Iâm not going to stop using that gag), then the dialogue will have more romantic undertones, the conversations more focused on matters of both them and the future together, trying to figure out if they even have a future, what with the invasion commencing, let alone where they stand with one another in that future.
I feel like I should have more done here, really, but I am really, genuinely TRYING to remain within the basic structures of the games as they are with this, because I totally could trash them and rebuild them from the start, but thatâs defeating the purpose of this as additional material to the games, so thatâs the most Iâm offering on that. I want to do more, Ashley/Kaidan deserve a bigger and better role in ME3âs plot (which Iâll be trying to address further when we get to the ME3 hypothetical DLC, but thatâs not here), but Iâm trying not to totally rewrite ME3 as it is, that would probably be its own long involved project, and this is already ongoing. The original version of events can still be involved in the game proper, as the Renegade version, but that wonât be the only version any more.
Oh, and, weâre getting some war assets out of the place we discovered. That feels like an afterthought here, though. This has been about Ashley/Kaidan and their relationship with Shepard, more than anything, and we really did deserve this as much as Lair of the Shadow Broker.
 The Omega Heist
An old contact of Miranda and Jacobâs draws them â and Commander Shepard â back to Omega, where, with the merc bands decimated, an old threat they thought theyâd dealt with long ago has reemerged. With Commander Shepardâs help, they must try their utmost to put this genie back in its bottle before itâs unleashed on the whole of Omega â and, potentially, the rest of the galaxy!
(Post-Horizon)
Considering Omegaâs status as the dark reflection of the Citadel, the answer to it in the Terminus Systems, I just really want to explore it some more. Tie in to that, Miranda and Jacob have great prominence when theyâre literally your only crewmates, but the second you start picking up the rest of the crew, they start falling off the map. Given that theyâre our viewpoints into Cerberus as an organization, this feels like a mistake. Cerberus spends both the preceding and following game as enemies, and I think we need to spend some time at exploring why either of them would even fall under Cerberus and the Illusive Manâs sway.
It begins with Miranda asking to speak to Shepard. Iâm gonna assume that, considering the unlock pattern of loyalty missions, this is most likely going to be played post-loyalty mission for both of them, since theyâre both the first to unlock. Just to firmly establish where the characterization is going in to this. So both of them are at a point where theyâre starting to question their loyalty to Cerberus (hence why Iâm considering it a default that, in particular, Mirandaâs loyalty has been obtained).
Sheâs heard from a contact on Omega about something that she wants to get Shepard involved in. The meeting moves to her office, where Jacob joins them. This concerns a mission theyâd both undertaken shortly after their first mission together (see Mass Effect Galaxy, the mission Jacob talks to Shepard about having lost his faith in the Alliance over). They had an assignment to dispose of a biological sample â their assignment had been not to âget curiousâ and investigate what it was, just get rid of it. The orders had come directly from the Illusive Man, so they were actually obeyed.
Jacob had been suspicious of the whole thing â when youâre moving something that youâre not supposed to investigate, itâs usually something that could blow up in your face. He opted for a little extra security monitoring, with Miranda agreeing and having kept track of it. Thatâs why this is now coming to her attention. They still donât know what this was, but they canât imagine that it getting let loose where any idiot could stumble across it would be a good thing.
So weâre returning to Omega. Personally, Iâm disappointed that thereâs no real change in Omega as ME2 carries on, even though you have to both clear out merc gangs and an active plague in the course of the game â recruiting Garrus and Mordin are mandatory quests, after all, so their joining the crew, their recruitment missions, these have to happen regardless of anything else Shepard may decide to do. So weâre getting another hub area on Omega besides Afterlife and the Gozu District market place. If Omega is the Citadel of the lawless Terminus Systems, then it can certainly fit in more of this (plus give more life to this place that, we know, will have people threatened come ME3 and the Omega DLC there).
Our central hub sector will be a safehouse established near the Kenzo District (picked because beyond existing as where Garrus had his run-in with Garm, we know nothing specific about it, so it can be used however the plot needs it to be). Under the circumstances â meaning âsince we stored dangerous material on Omega without even speaking with Aria on the subjectâ â the idea here is stealth. Shepard, Miranda, and Jacob arrived via a transient shuttle rather than via the Normandy, and did so hopefully with some element of stealth. Itâs not that Aria is going to be a threat here, just that she wouldnât be happy learning about this going on under her nose and Cerberus is trying to cultivate some of her resources (sort of tie-in to the Cerberus takeover of Omega come ME3).
Their contact is my chance to get that female turian I mentioned a ways back into things â a turian trader who Iâll name Naevia (what, Iâm a Spartacus fan and the reference makes me smile). The biological sample has fallen into the hands of a gang thatâs trying to take up the space left by the biggest gangs of Omega losing their leadership (Iâm thinking one of the gangs from our last edition of hypothetical DLCs, from âThe Clean-Up,â because continuity!).
Itâs around here that Shepard does ask the most important question on the subject that I think weâre all thinking â why the hell was this dangerous and hazardous sample kept rather than destroyed? Naevia admits she thought the same thing, but she was paid enough not to care, just to watch it. Miranda states that there was a possibility of using it for something in the future â this is a sign of her beginning to waver, because she canât really justify the use of this sample, the fact that, though theyâd been told to get rid of it, the âdisposal teamâ had kept it, and were keeping it in a place with a population.
Granted this is a long standing tradition with dangerous science, but still, it needs to be called out.
The important thing is that itâs there, on Omega, and in particular when the station is already in the recovery process of a plague that targeted every race except humanity â there is still a lot of anti-human resentment on Omega, and the last thing that Cerberus should want is a human-spawned crisis breaking out (because no matter where the sample came from, a human organization, known to have a humans-first bent to it, was the group that stashed it here on Omega). Hence our presence.
Weâre gonna have plenty of time to talk with Miranda and Jacob, so assume character conversations sprinkled here throughout (much as I cite it as reason that I donât particularly care for their loyalty missions in comparison to others, that their loyalty missions also only have one ending, that once you start the mission, the only resolution is obtaining their loyalty, makes for a useful method of characterization trajectory here). This is here for the sake of exploring and deepening their character arcs, their division with Cerberus from the endgame, given that theyâre both set against Cerberus come ME3, so weâre going with that.
We also get to spend some time with Naevia and getting a new perspective with the turians â she is a free agent, sort of like Vetra ended up being in Andromeda, in the sense that sheâs a rebel to the status quo of turian military discipline. Sheâs looser and less rule-bound. She lives on the fringe of society and that shapes her reactions. She has no need for the turian rules of combat and prefers to take preemptive action â the rules of combat are a great idea in theory, when you have enemies who will respect them. But the Terminus is full of people who wonât. And, while she hasnât been read into the Reaper matters, she is clearly picking up on the undercurrent between Shepard, Miranda, and Jacob.
Now if youâre assuming that this is leading to Naevia turning out to be involved in matters with this sample... Well, thatâs definitely going to be a thing to follow, but letâs just keep going for now.
And yes, I have been cagey about what this sample even is. Remember, thatâs because itâs a mystery even to Miranda and Jacob â they were still in a point where they were willing to listen to the Illusive Manâs orders without questioning them. The assumption was that the team they were giving it off to was a proper disposal team, and the failure of either of them to investigate it beyond his word. Yâknow, the idea being theyâre both starting to push themselves to look beyond the word theyâre officially given by their boss and question him.
So⊠investigative work. Weâve already been over how in these summaries, thatâs not where I focus on, not having a layout or anything to work with and such. So Iâve given the core ideas of character work and plot that plays out over the course of things, letâs cut to the climax.
The sample is being held by one of the gangs and a member of the Cerberus disposal squad. Because hey, look at that, a Cerberus agent went rogue and started killing all their guys, Commander Shepard, can you take care of that? He explains just what this sample is â a contaminant that can devastate a planetary atmosphere, hence why it was being kept on Omega, a space station. Of course, the problem with it is that it wonât discriminate and a rapid atmospheric dissolution will kill human lives as well. This is one of those things that itâs actually entirely justifiable that the Illusive Man didnât want to use... yâknow, if it werenât for the fact that he still kept it, but...
Anyway, hereâs where we come to Naeviaâs sudden but inevitable betrayal, citing the profit to be earned â itâs easy enough to live on ships instead of a planet, so sheâll come out of this fine. Shepard gets the chance to shoot her with a Renegade interrupt, and look at that! She WASNâT betraying the team, just pretending to in order to slide a knife in the bad guyâs gut. It doesnât kill him, and it still leads to a fight, but itâs easier if you donât take the interrupt (because as much as I like the interrupt system, I think there should occasionally be consequences for taking a quick and reflexive response rather than the more considerate and thoughtful and examinative approach to a situation).
A multi-stage boss fight ensues â basic ground troops, interspersed with standard LOKI mechs, a YMIR mech joining the fight with reinforcements, and then a gunship. Maybe the gunship peels off midway and lets in another YMIR mech, just to really hammer the âboss fightâ element, or at the least let that be a higher level difficulty challenge. I mean you can only do so much with the mechanics of the game to create boss fights, right?
Anyway, Naevia is either dying, laughing at how her turncoat act was too effective, or sheâs made it through with a few scratches and is patching them up as Miranda and Jacob are recovering the sample. Hereâs the expected Paragon/Renegade choice of destroying the sample or storing it somewhere else â I can even see a reasoning for keeping in the idea of âonce knowledge exists, it canât just be destroyed, we need to study this to be able to devise a countermeasure.â Itâs a sucky one, for the record, but itâs a way to justify the Renegade stance.
This is where you see the culmination of Miranda and Jacobâs development. Jacob is open about wanting to correct their prior mistake of leaving this sample around to be used by anyone who might try to actually use it. No matter what, he sees no possible good coming from it and wants it destroyed. Miranda is conflicted. Her trust in the Illusive Man tells her that it would be right to hold on to this, itâs a weapon that could protect humanity if the aliens were to attack them â which is something that canât be discounted as a possibility, considering the batarian hostility and the general aggravation of other races like the turians (see the previous Hypothetical DLC entry for more expansion on why I consider that a thing gets brought up). But she also knows that if this exists, then thereâs a chance humanity canât control it. She is looking to Shepard for guidance on this â sheâs not turning to the Illusive Manâs standing orders here.
When the group returns to their safehouse, they find Aria there. Because this has been happening on Omega, and itâs her business to be fully aware of whatâs happening on Omega. She thanks Shepard for disposing of that little business â if the sample was spared, she does imply that she knows about it, but, so long as itâs leaving Omega, sheâs not going to be concerned about it. After all, she only cares about Omegaâs interests. But, as a reward for what Shepardâs done for Omega, from the plague to Archangel to this (plus, potentially, dealing with Morinth, given that was the presence of an Ardat-Yakshi on Omega), she is offering a reward for Shepard â a penthouse suite.
Yes, Iâm letting Shepard get an Omega apartment. I mean, okay, having one right before the Cerberus takeover of Omega come ME3 is not exactly the most prime real estate, but hey, Shepard deserves a place to relax, right? Plus it also comes with access to a special Omega market, a place where Shepard will be able to purchase any weapons or upgrades they might have been missed in the course of their missions (and any that get added through the DLC, including these). Because really, we should be able to have access to those things somehow, as in the game as is, if you miss it, itâs gone forever.
Anyway, Miranda and Jacob will also have follow up conversations when they return to the Normandy, discuss the way that things have played out and how theyâve evolved as people in the course of the game. Because as I said at the start, the two of them, in terms of their character development, kinda falls off the map in the course of the second half of the game. So they get a little additional content that helps fit them into the big picture of their character arcs.
Post Game Followups:
ME3: If Naevia survived, sheâs an available war asset in regards to her underworld connections and such to send help Shepardâs way. If itâs kept intact, the sample also has some benefit for Alliance scientists in the study of reversing its effects and how to restore ravaged worlds. Also some additional content in the Omega DLC, though Iâm not sure about the details of that right now.
And, yâknow, since Naeviaâs existence means that we have a female turian model built and developed circa ME2, this SHOULD mean that there are female turians scattered throughout both further DLC (as in âassume their existence in further installments, even if it goes unsaidâ) and (because now theyâd âexistâ prior to the release of ME3) there would be numerous turian females in ME3 as assorted extras and such. Should go without saying, but Iâm saying it. There will still be a few important female turian NPCs I introduce in further installments, but these are now part the standard background NPC collection.
 Battle Scars
Alliance officers on shore leave have been disappearing from the Citadel with no trace. Ambassador Anderson suspects thereâs more to this than the standard dangers of a space station thatâs practically its own world. Though Shepard is in a questionable position among the Council, theyâre the one person Anderson can trust to solve this.
(Post-Horizon)
The Citadel being so limited a space in ME2 always bothered me. Yâknow, I get the thematic idea, that ME2 was about exploring the darker underside of the galaxy at large. But I liked the Citadel. There was a lot about it to explore, all things considered â weâre talking about the galactic hub of politics and commerce. This really should be a major location, no matter the game. And as Iâve said elsewhere, there could be a whole game set on the Citadel with room for more. So yeah, weâre doing this here, exploring an area of the Citadel that we never got to see before.
There are Alliance officers going missing and Anderson gets Shepard involved. Obviously, the synopsis covered that bit. The idea here is that weâre going into areas of the Citadel that normally, Shepard has no business in, and in areas that are more like vacation areas. You know what this means? It means weâre going to have non-combat segments, in the same vein as Kasumiâs mission. Thereâs gonna be an extended sequence of Shepard out of combat armor in this one, because Shepard is not being called on to be a soldier but to infiltrate and be seen as a civilian more than a combat fighter. (Iâm thinking this is going to involve a new casual outfit as well.)
And weâre gonna say that this is happening at an exclusive resort, meant to be a location thatâs relaxing â a resort on the Citadel, effectively. Itâs primarily a place for Citadel-aligned soldiers (Alliance and other races) to recover after combat, a therapeutic place for soldiers to get treatment for their PTSD (think a place where theyâd probably have sent the PTSD asari in ME3 to if there wasnât an existential war on). Itâs why itâs a popular place for these Alliance soldiers to be, and weâre also going to rate it as having the highest success rate as a psychological and therapeutic facility in the known galaxy (because, being on the Citadel, why wouldnât a place like this have a reputation of being the best, given how the Citadel is effectively the metaphorical center of the galaxy) and itâs a bit of a mixing bowl of Citadel culture, which allows for the rest of the party to come along.
Iâm going to stick with mandatory companions here for a handful of reasons â one, Shepardâs got an eclectic band, and I feel like if they walk around a Citadel resort with Grunt and Legion, for example, thatâs probably going to blow their cover. For two, I like the idea of mandating some pairings and developing the relationships more. Last entry was about Miranda and Jacob. Here, Iâm thinking... For a resort, I honestly lean towards Samara and Kasumi, characters who, respectively, can blend in with âhigh societyâ and can pass through unseen by others. Kasumi, of course, does her cloaking to accompany Shepard â she does prefer going unseen. Samara, though, is playing at being a Matriarch â given the setting, letâs say that sheâs pretending to be looking for a facility for her rambunctious daughter who is âdisgracingâ the family name â sort of playing on her own history with Morinth (because Samaraâs method that way), while still being a role she plays.
Yes, Iâm aware that Kasumi is a DLC character, not everyone necessarily has her, but hey. If youâre playing DLC in the first place, youâve probably collected other DLC, particularly a new companion, weâre just gonna roll with it, because Iâm not going to develop an alternative without her, so consider them connected â I donât know, say they got packaged in a sale together or something. This is all hypothetical in the first place, remember, does it REALLY matter that sheâs not in the base game?
Shepard, of course, is going in as what theyâre looking for, an Alliance officer looking for leave. This way there can be a solo segment, and the tension of âwill Shepard run into trouble they canât handle on their own before their companions come to their rescue?â Obviously, there does have to be some addressing of Shepardâs fame and notoriety, but itâs not like Shepardâs not doing other things that are putting their famous mug in places they shouldnât be, particularly when it comes to involving Kasumi (The Hock heist, anyone? How, exactly, was the most famous human in the galaxy supposed to keep a low profile there?). So weâre just gonna handwave that, like you do.
As always when these are investigative sequences, Iâm just gonna gloss over that part for the sake of convenience â the basic facts are that we have a lot of suspects with no clear motive at the outset of things. You know, get your basic archetypes wandering around â look at any show that features a recovery center, youâll find them, Iâm not gonna go into detail on the incidental characters.
The trick is that Shepard is going to be doing their initial investigating solo â they have to get entrenched before their companions show up (given that Samaraâs cover is going to have her supposedly only there to look the place over, rather than sign herself in as needing âtreatmentâ and Kasumi is going to be cloaked, searching for the things that Shepard canât get access to â yes, for the record, Iâm setting up for a Big Damn Heroes moment, I would think that would be obvious). Theyâll meet with the above mentioned archetypes, learning details.
The details are more for the flavor â how well does Shepard figure out the scheme (which Iâm getting to) before the villain shows up to explain in a monologue? Because, yâknow, what villain doesnât love explaining their nefarious deeds with a monologue? Shepard figuring out more and more of the plot before they confront the bad guy will impact the way the end fight goes down â figure it all out, you can sidestep the big final confrontation, figure most of it out, the fightâs significantly easier, stick to the bare minimum, itâs the hardest it can be.
This of course gets Shepard caught by our villain of the piece. So, whatâs going on? Well, itâs an attempt by one of the doctors at this facility at cooking up the same shady shit Cerberus has, in the form of cyborg soldiers â the soldiers who have been kidnapped have been converted into these cybernetically enhanced soldiers. Problem is, theyâre mindless automatons â higher brain functions didnât survive the implantation process. So while these six million credit men are superior soldiers for combat, able to shrug off the kind of injuries that would cripple any other organic soldier, probably even have like nano-tech that speeds up any kind of healing and recovery process, theyâre ONLY for combat, there is no human mind, no individual still alive in these shells â theyâll do as ordered because of the computer control chips in their heads, but only because those chips fire off the impulses needed.
âNo glands, replaced by tech. No digestive system, replaced by tech. No soul. Replaced by tech. Whatever they were, gone forever.â
This is a point that I wanted to bring up in Mirandaâs chat about âdisposable soldiersâ â the concept of soldiers being disposable is the kind of thought that cleans up war, something that the very idea is MEANT to be âdirty.â When you have these disposable soldiers, something that replaces the flesh and blood troops, youâre now in a position where going to war is not a difficult choice â youâre not sacrificing anything in the fight, because your best and brightest are safely out of the line of fire. When you donât fear war, youâre going to turn to it as the first option, not the last. And, as pointed out by the use of Mordinâs quote above, at some point, your âdisposable soldiersâ become exactly what the Collectors are, mindless automatons who perform the duties of their masters, and, because of that distance, their mastersâ own humanity erodes, because they never have to get their own hands dirty, while their servants are incapable of arguing with the orders.
This is when we get the aforementioned Big Damn Heroes moment, where Samara and Kasumi rejoin the party â since Iâm assuming Shepard is being restrained at the moment, we have Kasumi Overload the controls and get them loose while Samara covers her by biotically handling the guards (because there are always guards).
So we get to that ending of how the boss fight can go down â Shepard gets to argue about the whole âdisposable soldierâ thing, bringing up and expanding on the above argument. If they uncovered all the details of the plot prior to the point theyâre found out and taken captive, they can talk the doctor out of the inevitable fight (they still can choose to fight, of course, but the option is there to avoid a fight altogether) and have them shut down the project, effectively take their âprototypesâ of these cyborg soldiers off life support and let them all die out (because, again, itâs the cybernetics that are even keeping them alive at this point), they can try and fail because of a lack of information, or they can actually agree with the idea, just that this doctor isnât the one to be controlling them â itâs a valid choice, after all, to have a viable standing army to face the Reapers with.
I did debate making that last an option, just because I am morally opposed to the idea, but I am trying to respect that the Paragon/Renegade division was meant to be more than âgoody-two-shoes versus puppy-kicking-monster,â and approach it from a level of âwin with morals versus ends justify the meansâ â if youâre looking for something that can face the Reapers, like Shepard is aiming for throughout the trilogy, then a pragmatic approach says âwe can use this resource, and Iâll deal with the moral weight of it later.â
Thinking about it, this does kinda make a flaw of the Kasumi-Samara team, because I do struggle with seeing how theyâd just casually go along with Shepard saying âzombie cyborg army? Sign me up!â But maybe the Justicar code says that, regardless of origin, their existence has purpose and use, while Kasumi is horrified at the idea of using â and defiling â the dead like this. Basically, I want there to be a shoulder angel-devil scenario here, but I may not have selected the right companion pairing for this. Still, Iâm not going back and rewriting this to make that work, so weâre just going to acknowledge that and move on â theyâre both on the team, and there are other Renegade choices Shepard has available that they both just accept, so weâll accept that.
And, yâknow, I have a personal preference for Paragon at these decision points, and would probably stick to choosing to wipe out the zombie cyborg soldiers myself, and these are my ideas so I roll with what works for my decision making process, so nyah.
This still leads to the question of what, exactly, should be done with this facility â this is the head of the place weâre talking about as being responsible, with them out of commission (either being killed by Shepard or taken into C-Sec custody, depending on your choice), itâs entirely possible the place will be shuttered, or at least in chaos for a time, and that means all of its current residents are going to be kicked out â this is one of those âwell intentions doesnât change negative resultsâ scenarios. Of course, Anderson will try to step in and do something, but... He can only do so much. Especially with having to clear out the devices and secret lab material and such, thereâs a lot in this that just... is not going to have this place in a condition to be what itâs meant to be. Especially if things turned into a fight with the doctor and trashed the place.
Shepard themselves can only do so much â they can make a recommendation, but ultimately, there will be a board decision. They can offer a suggestion, a way for the staff to try and focus going forward, but itâs going to mean downsizing their care in some fashion â either they focus only on the immediately at-risk patients, going in the way of âif youâre not an active threat to yourself or others, you have to find somewhere else to seek treatment,â or they limit themselves to just the care of a single species, because the psychological experts for multiple species is a resource drain.
And this one is NOT a Paragon/Renegade choice. Itâs playerâs best take on the subject, because there is no ârightâ choice in this scenario. Either way, someone is getting screwed over. You can hope sending the not at-risk patients wonât exacerbate their conditions, but you canât be sure of that â especially when it comes to people who have been there for some time, PTSD and other conditions wonât just go away, they need to be managed and treated, and if you go from one facility and one medical professional to another, that can throw off your recovery. And you can specialize in the treatment and wellness of a single species, but what about the members of the other species? What about the âmelting potâ nature of the Citadel and how, realistically, reinforcing those barriers between species only makes it harder for these species to get along with one another?
Itâs a âno good choiceâ scenario, and I think itâs worth a discussion with Anderson at the end (rather than back on the Normandy with all the companions, just because I donât think the game can really account for everyone there having an opinion). Though letâs also give a follow-up conversation with Kelly â yâknow, the therapist â and let her have more to do in this game.
Post Game Followups:
ME3: If the doctor was taken in to custody, theyâre among the Cerberus scientists during the mission on Gellix â Mister Illusive stepped in to get their work under his banner, and, like Gavin Archer, Shepardâs involvement eventually made them hesitate to do his bidding. If the cyborgs were kept on, theyâre a decent strength war asset.
 The Batarian Connection
A Cerberus vessel goes missing out near the batarian border. While the Collectors are still the first priority for Commander Shepard and company, the Illusive Man is concerned this may be the first stage of a batarian incursion of Alliance space. He tasks Shepard and company with recovering the missing ship. The batarians, however, have other ideas...
(Post-Horizon)
We hear a lot of talk about the batarians making slave grabs throughout the first two games, and the Colonist background has this as a part of the things Shepard has been through. But we donât actually see it. And we probably canât manage to see the absolute worst horrors of the batarian slavers, but thatâs not the full point of this.
No, the point is to start showing another face to the batarians. See, weâre going in with the idea of the batarians slavers weâre after handing off the captives they take â of various races, though krogan and turian are not likely, given their own, more aggressive nature (maybe useful in gladiatorial rings... We might be coming back to that before these DLC are done), and the quarians arenât going to be as numerous, that still leaves humans, asari, salarians, and other batarians. And we know from Mass Effect 3, having the Cannibals being introduced in the first segment of the game, the Reapers have access to a lot of batarian genetic material, so theyâve already spent a lot of time developing how they intend to repurpose the batarians into the servants they need to wage war in this cycle.
Codex material speaks of how the Collectors want certain specific types of people to collect, and that is going to be whatâs happening here â while the Collectors main focus in the game is to gather up humans to turn into Reaper slurry, weâre also looking at the other races, because thereâs a history of the other races being taken by the Collectors for various unknown reasons. It wasnât clear if there would have been an intent to build additional Reapers out of the other races â an asari Reaper, a turian Reaper, etc. - or if theyâd just be left to rot, possibly slurried alongside the humans and just put in the same shell. To build off the idea of âorganic preservationâ of the species who consist of a cycle, Iâm going to assume that they would be fused into a Reaper of their own, though thereâs room to argue they were going to just be pulped into the same Reaper or left as the Collectors of the next cycle. But my ideas, my interpretation of things. And if BioWare wants to fight my interpretation, hey, should have included it in the game.
So yeah, the batarian slavers weâre coming across were going to offer the Collectors more of those captives of various races and such. The idea here is to not just have a look at the horrors of batarian slavery, but also an upfront acknowledgment that the batarians do this to their own people as well. The crappy situation for your average batarian is reduced to codex and one-liners, so we donât actually have this knowledge available for the common players, and this is a thing that needs correcting.
Weâre also going to have an encounter with a different Collector ship (just to avoid too much of the whole âsmall universe syndromeâ of the same ship dogging Shepard for two years â it wasnât until ME3 and Jamesâs backstory that I got the impression that the Collectors had more than the one ship, since they made this one ship out to be this major force). Because, really, if the Collectors taking colonies was something of a plan B when the Citadel didnât open, then they should be readying themselves for more than just humanity to be taken.
Among the batarians is a sense of distrust â batarian propaganda says the galaxy hates them, and, because we get the slavers and mercs running around in the games, the audience is probably not inclined to disprove that theory (particularly if thereâs a Colonist Shepard doing the run â because I say so, there can be plenty of statements from them on the subject that fit the background specifically, because itâs nice that these are all theoretical and I can throw in whatever I like). Still, the general idea is that Shepard does feel a moral responsibility to save them, even if, as in the case of Renegade Shepard, itâs just in the name of preventing the Collectors get their claws on them.
But, thing is, ME2 offers no ship piloting mechanic, and Iâm not bringing that in. And, yâknow, I still get war flashbacks of getting ambushed by Sith fighters in KOTOR. So that means that the Normandy heads off, Shepard ordering them to find help (weâre gonna say that this is taking place somewhere near the batarian-turian border, so the Normandy can go find a few turian ships â going back to my idea of âshaking up companionsâ concept, I donât have any particular choices to go with Shepard this time, but this makes it almost mandatory for a companion other than Garrus to come along, since Garrus can sway the turians to come to the rescue of alien nationals â and this ship ends up crashing, with Shepard and companions still on board â as are the freed slaves.
And weâre not crashing on a habitable planet. Because while thereâs the helmets and all, I feel sometimes like the franchise as a whole underplays how much the atmosphere of planets being conducive to life as we know it is kind of rare. So while the cargo hold, settled in the heart of the ship and surrounded by the various additional decks of the ship, makes it through, there are portions of the ship that have been vented into space.
And the Collectors are coming.
Shepard gets to make a Paragon/Renegade âinspirationâ speech to the captives, recommending that they get to trying to save themselves. Paragon will get a majority on their side, Renegade only a particularly brave soul. This one would be the Paragonâs contact/coordinator, just so that I can have a clearly identifiable person to turn to. And, yeah, weâre punishing Renegades here, but hereâs the thing about this â we have stolen people, taken prisoner, made into slaves, about to be handed off to aliens who are only known to the galaxy as kidnapping and experimenting on people who never return, and then crashed on a deadly planet, with their only shelter pocked with holes letting out the valuable atmosphere that keeps them alive. Iâm sorry, but being an asshole to these traumatized people? Even in the name of saving their asses from said kidnapping and experimenting aliens, they are NOT going to be ready to take up arms and fight. Read the room.
So, it becomes a game of causing enough losses to the Collectors for them to retreat for the Normandy to arrive with rescue vessels. Cat and mouse combat, with interspersed dialogue with our batarian coordinator (Making a name up on the spot... Kahvahr). Thatâs giving the expansion on both him as a character, talking about himself â a political exile, he spoke out against the Hegemonyâs attitudes and practices, that they are so isolationistic that the necessary trade with the Citadel races, trade that could reduce their reliance on slavery, is killing them, which led to him attempting to leave, an attempt that ended up putting him into the hands of the slavers he argued against, and heâs certain that the Hegemonyâs leaders basically gave him up. Talk about the beauty of Kharâshan, as a planet and place, something more tangible for us the audience of this place that we never get to go â he speaks longingly of these natural wonders he doesnât expect heâll ever see again.
The aid of the batarians Kahvahr leads can offer some combat segments getting avoided, but I do want to include some elements of the Collector faction from ME3 in combat segments all the same, the Collector Captain in specific. Because these things never appeared in ME2, so letâs remedy that.
And our end boss is going to be some variant of the Collector drones we see in Paragon Lost, which are these giant sized Collectors. So they get some additional tricks and are a clear case that Shepard is now facing the worst forces the Collectors can throw at them. Because I figure you can give them some interesting additional boss tricks.
The turians arrive and the Collectors withdraw, so Shepard gets to pass on what to do with these batarians â treat them as refugees who are seeking asylum in Citadel space or ship them back to batarian space. Because the thing is... batarians in Citadel space are probably not going to have things pretty well. Like thereâs a reason we see batarians on Omega but not the Citadel. And a lot of these batarians still have families in the Hegemony. So thereâs a very real argument to the idea that theyâd be better off going back. Itâs probably bull, considering the Hegemonyâs leadership (and definitely bull on the basis of the Reapers being about to steamroll the batarians in between games), but... It can be made.
And it also speaks to how well Shepard is responding to Kahvahr â Kahvahr makes it clear, batarian slaves tend to be those who speak out. How much good can they really do going back to the Hegemony? Sure, you can argue that itâs in the name of encouraging rebellion against the Hegemonyâs leadership, but realistically? Itâs signing a death warrant â if this attempt at silencing him didnât work, the Hegemony will likely just go straight to killing him.
And maybe Shepardâs okay with that â the whole reason weâre doing this is because the portrayal of batarians through the rest of the series is almost exclusively them as an always chaotic evil antagonistic force. What do they contribute to the galaxy, right? But this whole thing has been to help paint the batarians in a new light â now, shipping these batarians back to their people isnât a mercy but a death sentence. What can I say, I like that script-flipping. But, as always, it is a choice for Shepard, for the players. Because apparently, people who play these games like the chance to play the asshole. Fine, you can, but youâre definitely getting judged for it.
Post Game Followups:
ME3: If given asylum, a batarian militia will have formed, both the survivors of the crash and of batarian refugees, wanting to aid the Citadel forces, Kahvahr himself as an asset.
 Shadow Dance
Shepardâs connections to Cerberus have not gone unnoticed. A Spectre â Vexx Liranus â has decided that they are a key component to Cerberus plans (not untrue) and that their capture or death would be useful in combatting Cerberus (definitely untrue). With a fellow Spectre nipping at their heels, Shepard has to face what should be a comrade in arms in a deadly game of cat and mouse!
(Post-Horizon)
We meet three other Spectres in the trilogy, and only one of them, Jondum Bau, in ME3, is actually an ally. This is turning that on its head â all things considered, Vexx Liranus should be an ally. After all, weâre talking about a fellow Spectre, working for the Council, and Cerberus IS using Shepard for their plans, so taking Shepard out would make sense.
Itâs just Shepard is a good guy, working with Cerberus as more an alliance of necessity, rather than any ideological alignment. And while Iâm sure if you had a chance to sit down and talk to another Spectre, theyâd probably eventually come around to the idea, well... Whereâs the fun in that.
So Vexx. We had Naevia above in âThe Omega Heistâ as our âfirstâ female turian for the trilogy, though she does potentially get killed. So weâre gonna have another female turian here, just to really sell the âno fridging female turiansâ concept. She is a badass turian soldier, like I want a planet with an ârâ name to say she had a major incident on so that she can be âthe Raptor of [wherever].â Because I love alliteration. I picture her being voiced by Claudia Christian (who was a favorite of mine to voice a female turian back before we knew anything about Mass Effect Andromeda, and while Iâm absolutely a fan of Danielle Rayneâs performance as Vetra, I still regret that lack, so Iâm making this happen here).
As for the actual plot, weâre gonna start on a small waystation location. Itâs a standard resupply place, in the vein of like those Fuel Depots or something, a place like the Citadel but smaller. Because I think that space stations are an underdeveloped aspect of the Mass Effect universe. Like in Star Trek, there are Starbases and Deep Space Stations (such as DS9). Surely the various militaries of the Citadel races are doing the same, building their own stations that act as refuel and resupply, as well as standard rest and relaxation â Spacer Shepard will talk about living on ships, but I donât see a child actually being raised on military vessels. But a space station that acts as a rallying point and home base for a vessel? That Iâll buy.
So this begins with the Normandy pulling in to one of these types of stations. You know, a little bit of a supply run, something simple. Things do not go according to plan, though, because, yâknow, why would they, we wouldnât have a plot if they did.
It begins simply. They settle in for a resupply, Miranda suggesting that the operational crew get a chance for some break time, Kelly adding that crew like Rolston and Hadley should have an opportunity to contact their families. Thatâs how we get here. As Shepard proceeds to look through the market, we get other angles of Vexx monitoring and observing Shepard. Shepard will begin to get that feeling of being watched, and thatâs when she makes her first strike.
Now, yeah, I say right off in the synopsis that Vexx is a Spectre, but in the story proper? This is going to be kept quiet for a while. Sorta like how Vasir gets this intro that kinda clearly marks her as someone who weâre going to have to fight later, Vexx is getting the appearance of being a straight up antagonist. Because in her mind, she IS an antagonist to Shepard. She just believes that sheâs the protagonist of the story, specifically because of Shepardâs ties to Cerberus, coming to this place in a vessel flying Cerberus colors, operating with a Cerberus crew. In her mind, she has discovered a threat to the Citadel and the Council.
While Iâm still on the âgive the companions more of a roleâ train, in this case, weâre going to see Shepard cut off from the crew â they come under fire from Vexx, they give the command to evacuate the station, return to the Normandy, and get out until they give the signal. Paragon Shepard wants to minimize casualties, Renegade Shepard wants to handle this themselves â Vexx interrupts their leave? Itâs on now.
This leads to a chase through the station, and finding that sheâs gotten things pretty well set up for this chase â I figure at some point, Shepard comes across like a secured bunker sheâd been using as a command base, finds logs that have been tracking them since they landed on Omega at the start of the game. (Timeline being what it is, meaning as variable as it is, Iâm gonna say that this is taking place functionally around, say, the Collector ship mission.)
That discovery is also when her Spectre status is made clear. Now, while thereâs a good chance that Shepardâs had their Spectre status reinstated (thank you Dad!miral Anderson), well, we still need a plot here. Vexx doesnât believe Shepardâs claim to have Council approval â after all, she certainly canât just casually check this out while on a mission, Spectres are supposed to function independently of the Council. And sheâs pretty good with the âbetter beg forgiveness than to ask permissionâ approach â Shepard helping Cerberus, even as a double agent, is a threat (for a less competent example of why, see how Shepard helping Cerberus in ME2 leads to Conrad Verner preaching Cerberus values in ME3).
The hunt continues. Iâm basically picturing this functionally working a lot like a lower-levelled version of Arrivalâs Project Base level, just with like security drones and such, and Vexx popping in and out of combat range. This is a hunting mission, on both sides, and the idea is that Shepard (and, by extension, the player) should feel like Vexx or her drones might show up around any corner. If nothing else, call it useful practice and experience.
Now, I said before I wanted to avoid stuffing our first female turian in the fridge. While Naevia could survive, she also could die. So I want to guarantee that at least one female turian of prominence is introduced without killing her off. That means that weâre going to have to find a peaceful resolution, as well as an alternative that allows the bloodthirsty playerbase to be satisfied.
That means an outside agent, a third party, getting in on this. Iâm thinking a krogan merc with a grudge and a krantt and a blood oath against Vexx heâs more than willing to extend to Shepard, the Spectres, and the Council â with Vexx, itâs personal, having tangled with her before, with Shepard, theyâre in the way, and with the Spectres, they work for the Council, and the Council gave the go-ahead on the genophage, so hey, itâs a good day to be him.
This eventually leads to, after some three-way combat, Shepard suggesting a truce for the time being â the krogan (Vargan, for want of a name) is a bigger threat to them both at the moment, since heâs distracting them and endangering the station as a whole. Vexx sees the wisdom in this and is willing to work with Shepard.
This gives a little more time to explore her, now that Shepard can talk to her. Varganâs grudge stems from her disbanding his merc pack a while pack â they had ideas similar to the Blood Pack and Clan Weyrloc (re: Mordinâs loyalty mission), just without the aid of any salarian scientists. Maybe theyâd sought out Okeer (possibly part of the reason that Okeer became a âvery hated name,â as Wrex puts it? I donât know, Iâm spitballing here). Whatever the goal, however, she managed to put a stop to it, enough that Vargan was stripped of his clan name â given the structure of krogan society, I figure that in doing that, a krogan loses all right to even attempt to mate with the females, a big blow to a proud krogan leader, basically leading him to a voluntary exile from Tuchanka. That he still has a krantt after that still speaks to his skill and prowess, but also makes it clear that these are his only allies in the galaxy.
Shoot-y shoot-y stuff happens, yadda yadda... Weâve been over how writing about combat in these write-ups is boring. End result, we learn more about Vexx, develop and establish her further, give her this likeable air now that weâre on the same side, and get to Vargan, taking out his krantt in the process. Now that heâs alone, he is ready to die. He got everyone loyal to him killed, that means heâll never regain a clan name now. He wants to die.
Typically, Paragon/Renegade decisions are a clear binary of âgood means letting people live, bad means letting people die!â But here, Paragon is understanding the krogan mindset â he wants to die because he will never have a place in krogan society if he lives. He got his krantt killed, so he will never be able to gather a krantt again. He will never have that trust again, and so his death is the only way he can have an honorable ending. Meanwhile, Renegade is saying âno, Iâm not going to grant you the mercy of death, live with your failure.â And doing that will likely mean he will strike out and go on some kind of suicide run (indeed, I picture that result being a news announcement overheard on the galactic news points).
Because I like the idea of twisting the Paragon/Renegade assumptions around â the idea behind it is supposed to be more nuanced than âgood = blue, bad = red,â but in context, a lot of the use of the system through most of the series is a lot more binary. So this is showing the flip side of both ideasâ general attitudes â you are saving more lives and respecting his attitudes and beliefs by killing him, while knowingly leaving a threat to others that you KNOW heâll act on by keeping him alive.
Vargan defeated, it comes back to Shepard and Vexx. Sheâs more impressed by Shepard at this point. Paragon Shepard showed an understanding of non-human mindsets, and that more than anything makes her hesitate to paint them with the same brush as Cerberus. Renegade Shepard showed enough martial skill that sheâs concerned that things will only reach the point of a stalemate, and likely do too much damage to the station for it to continue operation.
So she offers Shepard what sheâs going to call a deal â keep to the Terminus Systems, like they have been, and sheâll let things stand as they are, with the added note that, if their Council reinstatement is genuine, sheâll also send a letter with a fuller apology after the DLC concludes. Yeah, itâs basically going back to the status quo, but one, Iâve been clear that my goal is to make these slot in comfortably with the existing game, and two, back to the in-universe justifications, it also means that she can prevent other Spectres from coming after Shepard â after all, we learned with Saren, the only real way to respond to a Spectre going rogue is to send another Spectre after them. If Vexx is in Shepardâs corner, it prevents other Spectres from coming after them later.
Probably should lead to a line or two in reference to Vexx from Tela Vasir, depending on when Lair of the Shadow Broker is played â alternatively, I suppose Vexx should have some comments about Vasirâs death as well, but I did say above that I see this functionally being roughly around the point of the Collector Ship in the timeline, and I always view Lair of the Shadow Broker as taking place after the Suicide Mission, and my write-ups, my timeline. Moving on.
Shepard has to agree to this, because see above: not fridging female turians when the trilogy is so bereft of them in the first place. We donât kill Vexx. Because, really, that would mean that Shepard would have killed three of the four fellow Spectres they encounter in the course of the trilogy, and their numbers are said to only go to about a hundred or so. Thatâs a three percent fatality rate for the Spectres, and a seventy-five percent fatality rate of meeting Shepard. Someone has to think those numbers look bad. So, in accepting the deal, Vexx walks away and Shepard calls the Normandy for a pick up.
Post Game Followups:
ME3: Vexx has a sidequest on the post-Coup Citadel, regarding her work with the unifying of turian and krogan forces. Given Shepard having contributed, sheâs asking them to join in her efforts. Complete that and she gets to be an asset and thereâs a boost for both of those groups as well.
 Underworld
Illium is home to many elite in the galaxy. Itâs called the gateway to the Terminus Systems. But itâs equally a warning that there is as much danger in Illiumâs shadows as on Omega. And now a high-profile Alliance official goes missing there. Ambassador Anderson asks Shepard to investigate as he keeps the disappearance quiet, and Shepard gets drawn into a web of conspiracy...
(Post-Horizon)
Illium seems like it should be a bigger deal, donât you think? I mean, in ME2 we get three hub worlds in Omega, the Citadel, and Illium, but Illium is introduced after Horizon, being locked to (on console) disc two, and, while Lair of the Shadow Broker gave us more of Illium in general... Hey. Letâs explore more. Cuz now we can open up some new areas that can stick around and still be explorable after the DLC ends.
We open with a message from Anderson â âone of our people went missing out on Illium, Iâd like you to look into this as a favor to me,â that sort of thing. This official is an ambassadorial figure from the Alliance to the asari (so, for the sake of a name, Iâm in a Power Rangers mood right now, Iâm gonna call her Kimberly Hart). Sheâs been attempting to shore up some diplomatic ties â Iâd figure this would include matters like getting stronger ties between the asari in the name of gaining access to teachers for Grissom Academy, better relations in the name of biotic rights, that sort of thing.
Illium, being a free trade world, is a place where these kinds of negotiations take place without government oversight â I figure, based on things like the asari on Noveria in ME1 who wants to protect asari patents by getting Shepard to help her engage in corporate espionage, the asari government is extremely strict about their âsecretsâ while humans, who are still struggling to get a handle on what to do with first and second gen biotics, are willing to take on free agents more than like the commandos and such. Also, donât want a repeat of Vyrnnus, so the turians are definitely out. Itâs âasari free agentsâ who theyâre looking at bringing on for this.
But with her having gone missing, thatâs concerning â again, we have the asari being fiercely protective of what they view as their copyrights (which I do want to have a running theme here surrounding the idea âhow do you copyright something that has this melding with the life it is bonded to?â â amps working as they do, mapped to biological systems as they are, this seems like it borders on trying to patent people in the process, since theyâll gain full maps of the people those amps are implanted in). Anderson wants Shepard to go in, since theyâre off the official books.
Now we return to that earlier concept of mandatory companions. Because of the matter of biotics, this feels like a mission that Jack pushes her way in to â both because sheâs been the subject of biotic experimentation, and she wants to ensure that this doesnât turn in to the Teltin facility all over again, and to help give some foreshadowing for her becoming one of Grissom Academyâs teachers next game. Additionally, Iâll go with Thane as the other companion for this â heâs done work in Illiumâs criminal underworld.
Now then, to our central hub of Illium. Weâre on a different city than Nos Astra, but itâs going to have a similar flavor to it, in the same way that Azure still felt like it wasnât all that out of place alongside the trading center. Nos Vidia, Iâll call it (sounds suitably asari, anyway). Itâs not as major a hub of intergalactic trade and commerce, meaning that Shepard and company are going to stand out in the crowd.
This is also one of the more âcrimeâ areas, where the black market has moved in. We have Eclipse symbols on the wall and, while theyâre not wearing the uniform, many of the people around here are obviously in the gang. Which also makes Shepard stand out. Thane, however, manages to bring up a former contact, someone who has been able to stay alive this long, meaning theyâre skilled enough that theyâve survived.
The contact is an asari Iâm gonna call Kassria. Kassria has picked up some Eclipse chatter that references our missing ambassador. That means Eclipse has her, but itâs not clear so much if her being taken is because of her getting in the way of Eclipse as a gang or if the Eclipse are working for some asari company.
We pause for some talk about the various asari copyrights, explore that conversation, with Jack having quite a few words on the subject of trying to make people property. That kind of thinking creates situations that create the same kind of science as Teltin. Thane offers something of the drell perspective â heâs the one who argues that he was raised and trained as a weapon for the hanar, and that he was not responsible for the lives he took. Who owns the abilities, the user or the one calling for their use? (I mean, thereâs an obvious answer, but Thaneâs bringing up the alternative to this â the people who are broken down and made into weapons at the hands of others.)
Like actually, letâs make that aside a point of having Jack and Thane â in Jackâs eyes, Thaneâs attitude towards the people heâs killed is much how Cerberus would have wanted her to have ended up, as a weapon for them to point, pull the trigger, and give no concern for the ways that it impacts the person who acts because of that order.
Itâs the same argument that we have with Miranda â the idea of âdisposable troopsâ does not make it a matter of saving lives, just a matter of how war becomes easier, having these weapons to unleash upon others with no risk to the people who are supposedly being protected by them. Itâs a way of absolving yourself for creating slaves by giving them some higher purpose.
This really is going to be a turning point with Jackâs arc proper, with how it leads to her being a teacher, because she wants to protect the young biotics. Itâs not just about her protecting the kids at the Ascension Project from ending up tortured like the kidnapped victims at the Teltin facility. Itâs also about reclaiming and maintaining personhood.
And while itâs hard for me to really give the separation theory Thane speaks of (we ARE going to come back to issues of the drell in general a few DLCs from here, so consider this to be foreshadowing and set up for that bit), Iâm going to try and offer his point of view â that of âif you hone someone to only be a weapon, to only look at the world from that perspective, is it really on them as an individual that they proceed to see the world from that viewpoint?â
Of course, yes, Iâm aware that the inherent flaw of ALL of this is that weâre not talking about drell youths giving themselves up to the hanar in the fulfillment of the Compact or with âdifferent brain structuresâ to humans. Itâs the tangent that they end up on because theyâre along for the ride, and Shepard eventually has to get them back on track â finding Ambassador Hart. Whether or not the asari corporations are intending to use people as weapons, the Eclipse sisters presently have her held captive, and this means staging a rescue operation.
I want to take this chance to get a better idea of Eclipseâs organization (which, by extension, showcases the ideas that are moving the other merc gangs in the series). Like, what goals do they really have â Blood Pack are basically chaotic berserkers who want the world to burn (which, fitting, considering the general krogan mindset following the genophage and the vorcha having a complete lack of survival instincts because they never needed to evolve them), while Blue Suns have the veneer of respectability, acting as private security. But when we meet Jona Sedaris in ME3, sheâs a raving psychopath, ready to kill anyone in her way. So what does the Eclipse gang want? I mean, besides the obvious of money.
Kassria is a former Eclipse sister, so she offers this insight â Eclipse doesnât even really know itself. The non-asari members are almost leaning towards biotic extremism, given how the other races tend to mistreat and look down on the biotics among them, which makes them angry and want to lash out at those whoâve hurt them. Meanwhile, the asari who join in are often driven by other motivations, given that all asari have biotics â some are outcasts (purebloods, in pureblood relationships, or people with the Ardat-Yakshi mutation â letâs just assume Samara will have shared about her loyalty mission by the time this mission is unlocked so we donât have to have the characters explain this to Shepard), others are maidens looking for glory (think Elnora the mercenary from Samaraâs recruitment mission), some are obsessed with killing (like Sedaris), and some are just looking for a purpose.
She suggests that, if given something better, Eclipse might be a valuable asset for Shepard â not just in biotics, but also in their mechs. Itâd be something to use when the Reapers come calling, not that she knows about the Reapers, just that she can figure that whatever Shepardâs up to, theyâll want an army at their back (because weâre still ME2 here, so this means we donât know that Aria will be assembling the merc gangs under her banner).
This leads to an assault on the Eclipse base and trying to reach Hart before anyone proceeds to try and kill her or worse. As we continue, we find out that there is a high-ranking Eclipse member among this group â Jona Sedaris.
Yes, thatâs right, weâre going to be responsible for her getting locked up come ME3. Obviously, this does mean sheâll survive the inevitable conflict and boss battle, but hey, weâre gonna have other things to deal with in the final analysis, so hold all questions to the end.
The Eclipse sisters and the techs with their mechs are heavy throughout the place, but eventually, we reach the place theyâre holding Hart. Sheâs been roughed up a bit, but sheâs alive. Sheâd made contact with an asari firm whoâd claimed to be willing to trade some âasari patentsâ in the name of cross-cultural cooperation, but Hart got suspicious of what was happening. Turns out, she was being used â the company (a minor company, not one of our major equipment suppliers from the actual games, that she had gone to them in the name of avoiding those big names) was going to give her access, only to revoke it and claim that she had stolen these patents. That would give them an opening to start consolidating biotic patents in a human market, because humans would now be running amps and implants with copyrighted asari material, and, by extension, that would mean the company would own those human biotics.
That, of course, gets Jackâs ire up, and sheâs ready to tear the place apart â people arenât things to be owned. Even Thaneâs ready to join in â even accepting his claims of lacking a responsibility for the lives that his employers hired him to take (again, weâll be digging deeper into this in the future), this is trying to force people to be under the control of this company â based on his reaction when Shepard suggests that the Compact between the hanar and the drell constitutes slavery, Thaneâs definitely not on board with that idea. And even on Illium, a planet with legalized âindentured servitude,â this contract is definitely sketchy â but it would be just legal enough that the company leadership would be able to get their foot in the door, and make it harder for human biotics to be able to exist without âcompany oversight,â giving them access to the human biotics before they have a chance to stabilize their position in human society.
Itâs some further asari haughtiness, the idea of asari like Erinya, the lawyer who holds the contract to the Feros colonists, that the asari are âbetterâ than the other races. The asari in charge of this company are of the belief that only the asari âdeserveâ biotics, and want to keep all biotics in the galaxy under their control. These asari in particular donât see any race other than asari as even deserving of evolving out of the primordial muck. Not a mainstream view, but one that we do have foundation for existing in the universe proper, and, letâs be honest, itâs not hard to imagine this being a thing anyway based on our world (Weâll touch on these themes in more detail later). And this idea, especially combined with the asari willingness to indulge in âindentured servitudeâ on Illium, if no where else, gets taken to its natural endpoint â they see human biotics as little more than pack mules, livestock.
Short step from there to going along with batarian or Collector ideas, but really, itâs not like we donât know exactly where that endpoint is from our history.
Obviously, Shepard is a walking contradiction to those ideas, so combat is the only way through. Sedaris might be an unrepentant murderer, but we do still have to take her into custody â this is where Kassria comes in, taking her down and intending to hand her over to the authorities in the name of getting a slice of the Eclipse pie with her out of the picture. It wonât be a clean takeover, which will justify why Sayn is running things for Sedaris outside of prison instead of Kassria (who would DEFINITELY just leave Sedaris to rot and probably arrange an âaccidentâ for her), but itâs getting her more power.
As for the company, theyâre JUST on the side of legality â the efforts of Eclipse on their behalf were by way of verbal contracts, and no lawyer on Illium is going to take the word of a mercenary over those of these high-ranking business officials. Hart swears that she can make things hell for them, lose them some very lucrative contracts with the Alliance. Thing is, that also makes her job all the more difficult, now that sheâs been found out having attempted to make these grey legality ties for the sake of âgetting an edgeâ in the biotics market â they have the resources to make this a fight that, meanwhile, would set the cause of human biotics back. (Which, as weâve been over in other write-ups, actually is a bit of a thing that has some deeper ties in to the overall universe that the people of this setting are still working on figuring out.)
The Paragon/Renegade choice here becomes the rather obvious âdo we take the option that handles this cleanly but lets the bad guys escape responsibility, or the messy alternative that may not even get the result we want?â choice. Because the thing about asari litigation is that they can afford to tie things up for decades without concern for the âshort termâ consequences. So if this DOES go to courts, they can wrap things up and keep them there for a long time â which will impact how things go for the human biotics, the whole idea of âowningâ people because they have these abilities. Because then their legality, their agency, their right to choose for themselves would be being litigated, and being done so in the court of aliens.
It doesnât feel GOOD to me to have it left like this, honestly, but I donât really see this as something that is supposed to have a conclusion that feels good â weâre talking about issues of corporate ownership of individuals, and the truth is... that exploitation just goes on, it doesnât resolve itself with a few showy displays of violence. It gets caught up in red tape and paperwork, and people lose, even as they win. And the point of this has basically been, at its heart, to show that the âunderworldâ isnât the black and grey markets that scrounge a semblance of society. Itâs the businesses who will crush people underfoot then complain about the mess they stepped in. The design of a lot of the locations introduced in ME2 had this cyberpunk dystopia look to them, but only really focused on the criminal gangs â the core of this is approaching the white collar criminal element that was not shown off as much, how it encourages both further street crime and the depersonalization that comes from treating humans as a commodity.
Jack is pissed either way because this is all kinds of bullshit â itâs Shepard who points out that as angry as Jack defaults to, this is, for once, her being pissed at something beyond herself, where itâs not just that she wants to cause mayhem, but that she wants to make things different for others. To do something to protect future human biotics, kids who are in need. Itâs her actively wanting to find a way to make a different, not just chaos.
As for Thane, he is still drell, still a proponent of the Compact (again, weâll be coming back to this issue), but he does understand how easy it is to see something ostensibly done to the benefit of people turns around and is used by malicious actors to take advantage of them. Itâs one of those things that he certainly understood in the abstract, but itâs another thing to see in practice. He leaves it on the note that âthis has given me much to consider.â
As for Ambassador Hart, she knows that either way, sheâs tanked her chances for getting the instructors that sheâd been hoping for. Basically, the diplomatic ties sheâd wanted from the asari government are off the table, given the combination of asari tied to the company and just general political embarrassment at the fact that all of this even happened â they want to ignore it, paint things over in pastels, and she is a living embodiment of the event to the asari, able to bring up the reality at a time of her choosing. The asari would rather that this go away, rather than have this constant reminder. Still, sheâs grateful for Shepardâs rescue â the Eclipse might not have actively been planning on her death, but it wasnât a good position. And, at this point, she can at least salvage a career going forward. Maybe not with the asari, but thereâs a chance that relations with the turians have thawed out some.
Post Game Followups:
ME3: The fate of the company plays a part in War Assets â being tied up in legal red tape, theyâre not able to contribute to the war effort, or, in a magnanimous show of âinter-species cooperation,â theyâre sharing some patents with the other races. Additionally, Ambassador Hart shows up for a sidequest after the Cerberus Coup, making another go at the effort, now that Grissom is gone and the human biotics are here â might as well make the effort to get these asari instructors anyway, and she wants Shepard to help her out with smoothing the ruffled feathers (since this would still be in that period of time where the asari are still trying to avoid joining the active war effort).
Also, while this wouldnât really impact anything via saved game import, I also figure this would at least tie in to Andromeda, that several human biotics joined the Initiative in the name of getting away from the corporations who want to hold them as âpatented propertyâ and such. Probably would be a way to help at least make Coraâs arc tighten up a little â itâs not just that she thought sheâd only be a âuseful freakâ as a human biotic, as opposed to an asari commando or an Initiative Pathfinder, but that in getting away from Citadel space, sheâd be allowed to just be, to find out who it is that she is beyond her biotics, rather than have to have her biotics âregisteredâ with a corporation whoâd exploit them and her. Not sure how to incorporate that into Andromeda proper, but itâs something that would be acknowledged.
End of Part 1, link to Part 2 forthcoming.
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September 17: 3x07 Day of the Dove
I am incredibly discombobulated todayâusual weekend nocturnal shenanigans I guess! Anyway itâs somehow midnight. Gonna try to write up these note on the Classic episode The Day of the Dove in as efficient a manner as possible.
Hmm, a planet with wavy pink Fraggle plants. I like it already.
But where is Spock? Very suspicious.
I really appreciate Kirk giving a little speech to set up the overall question/issue for us. (I know he does this all the time with the Captainâs logs but this is out loud and so⊠more obviously expository.)
Oh no, itâs our old friendsâŠthe Klingons.
I will admit that this ONE TIME, the Klingon is being reasonable. Like, it is reasonable to think that Kirk and the Enterprise attacked his ship, given that his hip WAS attacked, and who else would it be?
Three years of peace between the Klingons and the Federation? That is inclusive of the show so all this tension must technically be âpeaceâ and also implies there was something more like a direct war going on, like, right before Kirk got the captaincy.
Zoolander voice: What is this, a colony of the INVISIBLE?
âWe have no devil. But we understand the habits of yours.â
No takers? No takers on the torture? No volunteers to be mercilessly tortured by the Klingons?
Star Trek Beyond could have had Kirk and Chekov bond over being brothers! I mean, to other people.
Theyâll kill 100 hostages at the first sign of treachery. He does know there are only 400-some people on the ship right? Maybe you should pace yourself, Kang.
Kirkâs so badass he needs MULTIPLE guns trained on him just to use the phone.
Oh-ho secret message to Spock. Which version of the iPhone will be capable of doing THAT?
The Klingons are âsuspended in transitâ is an awfully nice way of saying theyâre just dematerialized atoms in space. Philosophy major and/or Bones nightmare fuel.
How did Kang not see this coming, by the way? Like, he just says âIâm taking your ship now, me and my 6 men versus your 400-some men, and Iâll do this by simply declaring it to be so. Now letâs beam up to your ship, where Iâll be greatly outnumbered, and there are armed security guards all around me.â Guess heâs been reading The Secret!
WIFE AND SCIENCE OFFICER
Aka the most important part of this whole episode.
Kirkâs face is very ?????? You can have both????
Itâs legitimately not even important for her to be the science officer tbqh. Like that is so gratuitous. Thatâs just in there to drive me insane.
"We're prisoners, somehow, after I demanded to come on the ship, assuming they'd just give it to me without any kind of fight. How DID this happen?â
Federation death camps lolâsomeoneâs been watching Fox News.
I do kind of wonder⊠is this an actual rumor that goes around the Klingon homeworld or is it something that the alien entity put in her head specifically to make her angrier right now? I mean it really could be either.
I also appreciate this episode for being pretty much the only one to actually attempt to give the Klingons a reason for being as they are. The Romulans⊠maybe arenât well-described, but they do have a sort of regalness to them, appropriate for being related to Vulcans, and you can kind of imagine that they are the way they are because theyâre Vulcans without the intense self-control. Plus theyâre literally only in 2 TOS eps and in the second, the Federation are the aggressors. But the Klingons show up a half-dozen times only to be depicted each time as just like Cartoonishly Bad, aggressive, violent, and selfish for basically no reason. And I mean, some people really are!! But TOS has so much nuance in other places, that it always seemed a little disappointing to me that the Klingons are really just like âwell weâre just bad and we hate everyone and we really like killing I guess.â At least in this ep thereâs a little more added to that: that there is poverty on their world, that they feel aggrieved, that they feel unprotected, that taking and conquering is how they look after themselvesâŠ
I think thatâs later in the episode though.
Heâs detaining them in the LOUNGE lol. With their favorite dishes available to them to eat. Absolutely barbarous conditions.
I canât believe Chekov is hanging in the elevator with the cool kids. Like, one of these things really isnât like the others.
Kang is officially sure of himself for someone currently imprisoned in the lounge, that most fearsome of Federation death camps.
Hmm, could the glittery light alien have taken over??
You know what, that's a lot of tasks for Johnson to do all by himself: search the whole ship, fix the engines, and free 400 people.
Sulu would love this: everyone gets a sword!!
âBridge. I gotta show this to Sulu immediately.â
Klingons have maintained a dueling tradition. Thatâs interesting. Finally some characterization going on.
Spock is really living up to his logical nature today. Everyone else has gone off the emotional deep end and heâs like âhave you considered this completely rational explanation that accounts for the actual, observed facts??â
Whoops Chekov is actually an only child. Scratch that previous Beyond headcanon. (Interesting that his dead brother does really resemble Sam thoughâkilled on a research colony??)
Love that Sulu knows that about him though.
Oh, thatâs a pretty schematic picture of the Enterprise. I want that on a t-shirt.
Lol the pan out to the armory, now filled with⊠swords!!
Do ALL of these men have a fetish for swords? Sulu and fencing, Spock displaying swords in his quarters, and Kirk in his San Francisco apartment, and Scotty salivating over this Scottish blade.
âKlingon units.â
Finally Sulu gets his sword! Itâs what he deserves.
Love that the shiny light alien also has a fetish for swords.
Oh no, itâs our old adversary, an alien life force.
What is the alienâs purpose? Um, Iâm pretty sure its purpose is to start shit.
âAn appropriate choice of terms, Captain.â I donât even remember what this is referring to but I think itâs pretty clear that Spock is enjoying himself during a crisis again.
Bones, being so dramatic. Were there atrocities? Heâs talking about the Klingons as if they were literally hacking off limbsâitâs a few stab wounds here and there, chill.
Oooh, time to behave like military menâstrong words. (But I thought it wasnât the military?? @ S**** P****) (This might not even be my best argument, given the context of this episode, but Iâm sticking with it.)
This is like a giant game of capture the flag.
AU thatâs just about the Enterprise crew playing capture the flag with the Klingons.
Sulu in the background standing guard with his sword
Damn, turning on Spock with the slurs now!!
Spock was absolutely ready to kill him. Like he would 100% have taken him out with a blow to the head. And heâd been doing such a good job of not feeling the alienâs effects so far! Admittedly, that was a strong provocation though.
Honestly, I really like this scene. Itâs uncomfortable and tense and you can really see how the alien is bringing out the worst possible influences of their respective races. And I liked how Spock was definitely full on pre-Reform Vulcan for a minute there. It was a more effective portrayal of what that might have looked like than All Our Yesterdays tbqh.
A result of⊠stress?
Kirk got himself out of it first. Heâs so strong. He knows himself so well, he cannot be outsmarted by any alien.
âWeâve been taught to think in terms other than war.â
âThe alien brings out the worst of usâpatriotic drumbeatingâŠeven race hatred.â
Heâs so sad; he canât imagine thinking like that about Spock :(
Sulu in a Jeffries tube! A man of many talents. Itâs okay bb, take credit for turning on the lights.
The alien must have been getting bored. The Klingons must have been doing too well, and the playing field needs to be leveled for maximum shit-stirring.
âLetâs find that alien.â Thatâs how I ALWAYS feel.
Oh, Kang, youâre so closeââWhat power supports our battle but thwarts our victory.â So, so close to getting it.
ALIEN DETECTED.
Spock takes his sword, of course.
âJim.â Obligatory Jim moments hit differently when theyâre not so obligatory.
âJimâstop hitting my protĂ©gĂ©. And put that sword down.â
Kirk looks so sad, picking Chekov up to carry him bridal style.
Also in addition to ârace hatredâ I think we need to add ârape-y tendancesâ to the bad stuff that the alien is inspiring here.
âA brief surge of racial bigotry. Most distasteful.â Spock winning for understatement of the year.
They're assuming the alien is trying to test out their relative powers but I think it just wants entertainment. I mean, doesnât it look like a naughty little thing?
Maraâs outfit is⊠little shorts? Interesting. Usually not my style but she makes it work.
Spock doesnât even look at Johnson as he falls lol. Another one bites the dust.
âIt exists on the hate of others.â
What does this remind me of? Oh, the Vast of Night and the whole âaliens made us do every bad thing everâ conspiracy theory. At least this one makes more sense, in part because it is not quite so overwhelmingly broad!
All hostile attitudes must be eliminated, he says, and there's Mara right behind Kirk giving him a death stare lol.
Kang is so obviously posing. Google Earth, always taking pictures.
Only a few minutes before drifting forever in space becomes inevitable? Good thing Kirk works well under pressure.
âWell⊠do whatever you can, Scotty. You know the drill.â Doesnât even bother giving real directions anymore. Weâve been in this scenario before.
âSo we drift in space, with only hatred and bloodshed aboard.â
And the 392 people below just get toâŠlive in Enterprise prison, I guess.
Star date: Armageddon. So dramatic!
Iâm not even making that up; thatâs an actual quote. Can you imagine being an Admiral listening to this?
âStop the war now.â An actual line, really aired on television.
Spock wants to threaten the wife lol. That's the old pre-Reform Vulcan seeping through. Surak who?
Damn, Kang is cold. âEh, she gets the concept of being killed in battle.â Theyâre gonna need marriage counseling after this.
âThere is another way. Mutual trust and help.â Yes thatâs my hero!!
âNo one can guarantee the actions of another.â Canât remember the context of this entirely anymore, but great line.
The entity is loving thisâmulti-person choreographed sword fight!!
"Those who hate and fight must stop themselves. otherwise it is not stopped.â Another baller line. Spock has a lot of deep thoughts today. And so does Kirk. And Kang.
Kirk tries to reason with the alien. Nice try.
âShoo. Shoo, alien. Off the ship, go away.â
Omg that last momentâKang slapping Kirkâs back way too hard, Spockâs completely ridiculous wide-eyed expression when he does, like some sort of combo of amusement and confusion, and then Sulu just passing on by in the backgroundâŠ.
Then the alien just yeets itself into space. And thatâs the end!
Always feels weird when thereâs no wrap up on the bridge.
Also, what are they going to do with the Klingons? They have no ship. They really did come out of this a lot worse than Kirk and co. No ship, huge casualtiesâand no one to blame even, but the alien.
I feel like the alien messed up a little in killing so many Klingons. Like, it could have accomplished its purpose, angering the Klingons and turning them on Kirk, by attacking the ship a little less violentlyâyou know theyâd react to 5 deaths pretty much the same as 400, and then there would be many more people to fight forever and produce that sweet sweet anger!
Maybe the alienâs powers arenât strong enough to influence 800 people though. Also it wants equal forces and 800 people wouldnât fit on the Enterprise, one assumes. So it still makes sense.
That was, of course, an excellent episode. 100% agree with is classic status, even though the main things I remembered going in were the wife + science officer bit, and everyone laughing at the end in a really forced, fake way, in order to make the alien go away.
I thought the Klingons were a lot better/more interesting today than usual. First, I think Kang is a better character, or a better actor maybe, than the others; he has a certain way about him that is⊠more watchable, more sympathetic. And heâs always saying these really dramatic things that make it seem likely he writes patriotic Klingon war poetry in his off time. Also, including his wife made them seem more⊠not human obviously, but normal. Not just cardboard cut-out villains. And of course the actual lightly specific motivations I earlier mentioned helped too.
Also, the plotting was very good: it built up slowly but surely over time, so at first the alienâs influence wasnât that obvious, and then it became more so, and then it became horrifically obvious and extreme. And then you had to re-evaluate earlier moments: was that the alien changing facts in their heads, or a real part of the animosity between humans and Klingons? And it wasnât always clear, which I appreciated. The tension when the people were at their worst wasnât overdone, like in that moment with Scotty, Spock, and Kirkâor even in Chekovâs assault on Mara, tbh. The various strategies of the different sides were very entertaining too; there was never a dull moment, and they fit in a lot of straight-up actions and twists into 50 minutes.
The possible threat was truly terrifying, also: stuck in a space ship, forever, unable to die, feeling the worst possible emotions all the time, besieged, angered, despairing, fighting a war that canât be won, being injured and suffering only to recover and fight again, and it never stops⊠A perfect nightmare mixture of insanity and violence and pain. And the alien, in encouraging hatred and anger, doesnât discriminate between sides: they turn on each other just as much as on the Klingons, breeding paranoia and infighting. For eternity.
The episode also felt much more strongly anti-war than I remember tbh. Like it was not subtle. Kirk literally says âstop the warâ in so many words. He has a part in his speech where he talks about the possibility of other aliens out there, encouraging other wars. And while I do think âmaybe the aliens are making us do itâ is a cop out explanation, or would be if it were real, the scenario gave the show a lot of room to say, like, pretty ballsy things: to include âpatriotic drum beatingâ along with ârace hatredâ in a list of corrupting feelings they were experiencing; to show how the same instincts that lead to warring also lead to sexual assault and the aforementioned ârace hatred;â to reveal the true horror of an endless war by making the participants unkillable and sticking them in a singular space ship in the middle of nowhere; to imply that the combatants of war gain nothing from it, but outside or third-party entities will pull strings of their own design to profit from the conflict as long as possible; even to make an impassioned plea to camera to stop the endlessness of the conflict. Like I canât even totally unpack this but it is a lot!
Finally, it was also a great Kirk episode, which of course is my most important factor. Heâs smart; heâs strong; heâs so sure of himself and his values that he cannot be manipulated to mindless hatred, he represents the values of the Federation, and the show itself; he treats even his enemies with basic respect and humanity; and ultimately, he saves the day.
Okay I was not efficient in writing this up at all! It is very late!!
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