#but she definitely will be a daughter once again purely for the sake of triggering Ketheric's issues and weaponizing them

[y-rhywbeth2]

Self-indulgent oc moments again. About the brat and the old man and the gender issues and slightly the reproductive horror trauma. I can never quite work out how it works in the details but it makes my brain itch.

Ketheric - and by extension Isobel - sets something off in Vel badly. Like femineity and father-daughter relationships in general fuck them up deep down. Faerûn is still very cisnormative in the sense that the identity of 'woman' is tied to biology and motherhood, and that was all very well and fine until you reach 15 years old and your father is threatening you with life as a breeding mare as punishment and suddenly it all gets very tied in with trauma and you start only identifying with masculinity/as a 'cis'man to feel at least a little safer (and because as an extension of Bhaal, you must be a man too, right?), even though by the cultural values you were raised with (and technically according to Toril at large) you are both.

And then there's Ketheric and his daughter who he loves and mourns and is extraordinarily unhealthily obsessed over, and now the Bhaalspawn is a mess of envy and disgust (on top of the general disgust of a fundamentalist zealot looking at a cyclical apostate who sees the gods through the lens of 'how can you serve me?') who will take every opportunity to dig their claws into any opening they can find and twist and tear.

Not to mention the double daddy-issues because 'hello dead foster father I killed who loved me dearly and whom I still feel crushing guilt and self-hatred over and need to be punished by for being such a horror and a disappointment!' Foster father who was an elf. Hit me harder, O'Su...

And then there's Ketheric with his guilt and pride and disgusted pity-scorn looking at this broken, brainwashed 'child' desperate for parental love and attention. Who reminds him simultaneously of Isobel (even though they're not really alike) and Thisobald, as well as Aylin (spite), and the issue with divinity in general - you might not be able to fight a full god, but choking an upstart quasideity will do. Also the appeal of humiliating the brat and putting it in its place. (You kneel to him at his own hearth, damn you!) But also the sheer blind faith is somewhat reminiscent of Isobel and Selûne...

In some ways I wish I'd made Vel a white-haired moon elf just to make them look a bit more like Isobel. Still there's always breaking into her room/tomb and wearing her old clothes or just using illusions.

[ineffablepjm]

Our Family - One Shot

Word Count: 1k

Jungkook x Reader 

Triggers: FLUFF FLUFF FLUFF

Jungkook as a father and husband, I mean cmon. Plus I wanted something really soft and this was it. Enjoy. Xx.

“Jungkook!” You yelled out to your husband who was upstairs still getting ready for work. You laid out the pancakes in front of your 4 daughters and gave each of them a kiss. You had Katherine, she was your eldest, 15 years old, she was quite the artist, painting, drawing, you name it, she could do it. Next, you had Lacey, she was 13, and quite the sassy girl at that, but she was daddy’s girl and he had the softest spot for her. Rose who was only 8, she was the sweetest little girl and she absolutely loved school and learning new things. And the youngest of the girls’ Daisy, she was 4 years old and your girl, she loved being with you and doing this with you, you were her love. 

Jungkook and you met when you were only 18, the two of you fell in love almost immediately. Your family objected at first saying that things were happening too quickly and that this would be a mistake but they were wrong. Jungkook’s family, on the other hand, adored you and the idea that their boy had met a wonderful girl was amazing to them. Merely a year later Jungkook asked you to marry him and the two of you married 3 months after. It was a small quaint wedding only the family and it was the happiest day of your life. Well one of them. 2 weeks after your 20th birthday you realized that your period had been late. At first, you brushed it off assuming that it was just the stress of getting a new job, a new house and just the married life. It wasn’t until that you had the strange urge to eat pickles which you hated that you realized something was definitely going on. Out of pure curiosity, you took a pregnancy test which came out positive. That day when Jungkook came home from work you showed him the test. The two of you were extremely happy but also stressed because it wasn’t a planned pregnancy and now you had to adjust to the coming of a new baby. Lacey was the planned baby. Jungkook and you wanted the second baby so that Katherine could have someone to accompany her and also a sibling who wasn’t that far in age to her. So you guys made it your mission to get pregnant immediately doing whatever it took. Once you had both girls the two of you decided that 2 kids were enough. Especially since they were so close in age everything would be doubled when buying things. Plus a family of four was something that the two of you could handle. 5 years after Lacey, you were watching Jungkook make some lunch for the girls when you suddenly got nauseous when he pulled out some ham. Almost immediately he made a joke about you being pregnant and you quickly took a test which came out positive. Once again the two of you were excited and so were the girls. You both hoped you’d finally get a boy but not this time. Once again you had another baby girl, Rose. After having 3 children you two decided that this would be it, but accidents happen. That’s when you discovered your pregnancy with Daisy. By this point, Jungkook and you both assumed it would be a girl and you weren’t wrong. “Jungkook!!” You yelled out again. The girls looked at you and giggled. “Mom I don’t think he’s coming down, you’re going to have to go get him,” Katherine spoke a slight smirk on her lips. “Maybe he has a surprise for you.” You softly rolled your eyes at your eldest. “Watch your sisters. I’ll be back.” You spoke and made your way up the stairs. You couldn’t hear any movements from your bedroom and for his sake, you hoped he was dressed and ready for work. You opened up the door to the bedroom to see him on the bed dressed, his back to you and he was staring down at something. “Kook...” you mumbled and made your way closer to him. You climbed on the bed and wrapped your arms around him from behind. “Baby..” you softly kissed his neck. Jungkook smiled softly and kissed your arm and then turned to you. “____ you’re pregnant again.” He chuckled and showed you the test he discovered which you had taken yesterday but were waiting to tell him. “I was going to tell you..” you whispered. “I know.” He smiled. “5 kids.” Jungkook chuckled and turned to you completely. “Another girl?” He smiled teasing. Your smile grew and you shrugged. “I guess we’ll see. I’m only like 4 weeks into the pregnancy. I have a doctors appointment tomorrow.” Jungkook nodded and smiled. “When do we tell the girls?” You laid your head against his shoulder. “After the appointment?” He hummed. “We really have to be more careful when we have sex.” He laughed softly. “Well, I have to be more careful.” You giggled and nodded. “Yeah mister, this is all you.” You rubbed your belly. He pulled away from you and leaned down to kiss your belly. “Cmon.” He held your hand and the two of you made your way downstairs where your 4 daughters finished up their breakfast. “Alright my beautiful ladies, are you all ready for school?” 3 of the girls nodded but small Daisy giggled. “Sucks for you girls that have to go to school, I still have another year with mommy.” She giggled. Katherine shook her head. “Enjoy it while it lasts dweeb.” Rose shook her head and softly nudged Katherine for the nickname. The 3 girls stood and made their way to the door. “Bye, mom!” The yelled in unison. You waved them goodbye then made your way towards your husband. He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss on your lips. “Bring back home some pickles.” You giggled and he nodded. “I love you Jungkook.” “I love you too princess.”

[vjjeons]

whaddup!! i’m acacia (satan). i’m twenty years old, i use she/her pronouns and i hail from the pst timezone! i’m super excited to be in a lil ol’ group again because i haven’t been in one since like… idk?? but enough about me — let’s get to the good stuff aka my girl, veronica jeon. it gets pretty lengthy, so if you just want the overall version of it just scroll to the very end! anyways, if you like this, i’ll take it as an invitation to IM you for plots, so be careful!! ♡

jennie kim + cis female + she/her — have you met veronica jeon? they are a twenty-one year old artist/barista known as the philophobic. a pansexual scorpio, they are independent + bold, as well as stubborn + cynical. their soulmark is a crescent moon on the left ring finger, and they can feel the emotions of their soulmate.

BACKGROUND + TRIGGER WARNINGS: abuse, death, drugs

to kick things off, veronica grew up with just her mother around. her father had always been MIA. so, she doesn’t have a lot of memories involving him. therefore, her mother dated an array of men. often times neglecting her daughter, with the exception of the times she brought in successful report cards.

when she was thirteen, her mother married a man who physically abused veronica any chance he had. especially when mrs. jeon started cheating on him. so ronnie recoiled around her art for a few years.

being alone as an only child, she had to keep herself entertained. she started off by doodling with just a pencil. but, eventually expanded with acrylic paints and water colors. thus ultimately discovering her love for the arts!! 

she isn’t exactly sure how she’s going to find a successful career path through her beloved hobby. which is why she picked up her job as a barista to make some actual cash flow.

when veronica turned sixteen, she thought of tracking down her father in hopes of reuniting with him. this lead her to her grandmother’s house. who eventually had to break the news that her father had died from a drug overdose before she was born.

though, the news was shocking. it didn’t leave her feeling empty. instead, she found something better — her grandmother. she instantly connected with the woman and eventually found herself making her grandmother’s home as a sort of safe haven.

her grandma even supported her with her arts. buying her any supplies she needed and giving her suggestions on places she can find more muse. basically fulfilling the mother role veronica desperately needed.

but one day while visiting, the woman had passed in her sleep. this took a toll on ronnie considering how attached she became to her grandmother and her home. she would have to return back to her mother’s and her step-father. when she went back, the man attempted to abuse her again. however, she ratted him out. ultimately sending him to his imprisonment.

once she turned eighteen, her mother had packed up her things and left the girl behind. though, ronnie was fazed by the woman’s actions. nor did she feel any lose considering how little she cared about the other.

but good things do happen to v! one day she received a letter explaining that she inherited her grandmother’s fortune. (which she often uses to pay off her apartment bills.) along with a small journal with letters and locations to keep veronica on the right path. to stray away from the hatred and negativity and turn those emotions into something beautiful.

PERSONALITY + RELATIONSHIPS

PERSONALITY: she is charming, creative, and witty. however, she can be quite cynical, stubborn, and reserved. she has that tell it like it is personality. she just calls it likes she sees it. even if she’s not exactly right. she’s witty and intelligent. she’s very particular when it comes to most things. she wants things done correctly. so she often runs by the quote, “if you want things right you gotta do it yourself.” she doesn’t like relying on others to get things done when she knows she could do it faster and better. a little bit of a ocd queen. she’s one of those people that set their mind to something and goes through with it until the end. she has a way with words. her silky soft voice makes it easy for her to manipulate people. (unless you’re close to her, then they can see past the bullshit.) but don’t get her talking about feelings. because you’re gonna just hear crickets if you do that. she’s sort of an introvert. over the years, veronica had to work hard to become the person she is today — someone who is hopeful, who sees art and beauty everywhere, even in the ugliest parts of the world..some days, it’s a little harder, but she never gives up. she’s slowly growing out of her tough head of hair and morphing into a young woman so beautiful over the years, but also at times, terrifying?? self destructive?? even if she’ll never let anyone see her deteriorate her insides sigh. basically she’s a hot mess. but she tries her best to hide that shit. yeye sweg.

when it comes to FRIENDS veronica can always use some of ‘em. she possess the qualities of a good friend loyal, honest, trustworthy. however, she can be quite pessimistic. which might be a reason why she doesn’t have as many friends. once her mind is set to think a certain way it’s hard to persuade her to believe otherwise. she’s the type of friend to listen to your problems, but be prepared to listen to her unwanted opinions – all of them. she’s also the type to put a friend in check when they need it. she thinks of it as trying to convince them to see the bigger picture. first impressions is something she might not be very good at. while she isn’t exactly the definition of rude, she tends to not filter then things she says. overall, i would say that she might just need a handful of friends, a whole bunch of acquaintances, and her a ride or die.

please flood her with ENEMIES. i know for a fact that she has these. being so boldly opinionated and all. you know this girl has more than enough haters. sometimes she has some very evil intentions. she’s vengeful and irrational. but, don’t get me wrong. she’s not pure evil. veronica does have some good intentions, she leans more to the chaotic evil side. deep deeeeep deeeeeeeeep down the girl is trust issue central when it comes to letting people in. she can’t help it. she has abandonment issues thanks to her parents. therefore, she might come off as standoff-ish to new people. she keeps her circle tight. so maybe they think she’s cliquey? or she could have pushed people away. she’s like that one rihanna meme, them: you can’t just cut people off. ronnie: *holds a pair of scissors* she doesn’t have problem with letting people go. so maybe people think she’s a bitch because, “how could you just drop our five year long friendship like that.” and she’d just shrug. but really, she’s hurting beyond repair and will go home crying while eating a thing of ben & jerry’s chunky monkey. and there’s always that possibility where a friendship just didn’t work out. maybe they just stopped having time for each other and now it’s just mad awk. whatever it is, an enemy would b beaut.

as for LOVERS. veronica is a fucking cynic. love ain’t real and life is cold. she’d rather just be alone and happy than in a relationship and suffering. she sees so many people around her settle for less. (her mother being a prime example of that.) especially when she’s giving advice for friends. she doesn’t think people should be so easily manipulated by the concept of love. she knows there’s a difference between wanting someone and wanting to be with someone. and in her eyes, most people only settle for the sake of companionship. it’d be a hard mission to win this girl over. but not impossible. she’s definitely been on a few dates and had a couple of relationships. though most ended quickly due to the realization she only fell for their smooth talking and nothing more. 100% dabbles in the quick hook ups for the sake of fulfilling those needs. though, if the right person were to come along… she’d be loyal to them, completely devoted to just them.

WANTED CONNECTIONS

sooooo, my lazy ass actually found the power to make a RELATIONSHIPS PAGE. peep it, tell me what you think. if you can’t find something your muse fits, throw whatever ideas you have right at me! i’m so down for whatever.

MISCELLANEOUS

in a nutshell, she’s an angel with a halo unbalanced with horns, not a devil but not a saint either?? kind yet has a backbone. softer than what she seems like. humorous and witty though understanding. mistrusting but willing to let loyalty speak. veronica is a hot mess dealing with personal issues by lashing out on those around her. she’s loyal, but manipulative. opinionated, but easily offended. intelligent, but sometimes argumentative. she’s a bit of a feminist. trusts no bitch. but if you’re her friend, she’s chill as fuck. though, she’s a bit hesitant when it comes to making new friends. since she’s likes being a lame outcast. but really — she just doesn’t know how to process her good thoughts into words. she’s a barista and a tortured artist. she’s independent, hardworking, and determined. muse inspo for her: kat stratford (10 things i hate about you), samantha borgens (stuck in love), michelle (spider-man homecoming), and a hint of blair waldorf (gossip girl). anyways, give her girl scout cookies and she’ll love you til the end of time.

congratulations ! you made it to end ! if you read all of this… i love you. i only ever write so much bc… it gets me in character lmao. also, i wrote all of this the second i woke up. so don’t mind the grammar mistakes and what not. HENNYWAYS… i would really love to plot with everyone. so just slide into my DMs and we can get things started!! luv u *blows a kiss*

[pro-bee]

- We've lost agents before, haven't we? And when we do, it's all hands on deck! - She's more than an agent to you. - She was a daughter to you. She was a sister to McGee and Abby, and— she was no more to me than anybody.

Oh my heart.

THIS ENTIRE SCENE.

As I said earlier, this is the scene of Michael Weatherly’s career, but let’s not jump ahead of ourselves just yet, because settle in boys and girls, this is going to be a bumpy ride.

The raw emotion spilling out of Tony is so incredibly painful to witness, because it’s one of the rare instances of pure, unadulterated grief anyone on this show is ever allowed to experience. 

Everyone on this show is usually so controlled -- particularly Tony -- and to see him lose it, emotionally and physically -- is definitely jarring, but I suppose that’s exactly the point, because Tony has finally reached his breaking point.

We’ve never seen him like this before-- not after Kate, or Paula, or Jenny, or even Jeanne-- all of whom’s deaths or departures were sudden and traumatic and personally meaningful to him. But again, there’s a purpose to it, because Ziva, as Gibbs points out, isn’t like any of them, especially not to him. 

But let’s back up.

I have many favorite parts of this scene (if you can call “getting my heart ripped out” a favorite thing), but it starts off early.

- What are you doing here? - What am I doing? What are you doing?! What are we doing? Is anybody here?! 

Oh, DiNozzo.

This gets to me right away, not just because of Tony’s meltdown, but because of Gibbs’ immediate understanding of what is happening.

I can’t really explain why, but Mark Harmon’s delivery of that line gets to me and kind of spells everything out. Because yes, he initially sounds brusque, but it’s because he recognizes exactly what Tony is doing and going through, and it’s more like, “Work is the last place you should be right now because it’s not going to be pretty and we both know it.” Like, it’s so paternal (and dare I say even slightly tender) and sadly Gibbs is speaking from experience here, because he’s been there and he knows this is just the tip of the iceberg.

And he’s right.

(More under the cut because this is going to be looooooooooooong)

[[more]]

- What do we know? What are the facts? 'Cause we don't assume, we verify. Do we know she's dead? 'Cause if we know she's dead, we're gonna get him. - Yeah, she's dead, and we will get Kort. Us. Not you. - Oh, yes, me! We've lost agents before, haven't we? And when we do, it's all hands on deck! - She's more than an agent to you.  - She was a daughter to you. She was a sister to McGee and Abby, and— she was no more to me than anybody.

So Tony goes back into denial-- because he isn’t ready to face what this means and what he’s lost, so he tries to pretend that this isn’t real, that what they had wasn’t real, that he can handle this the same way he handled everyone else’s deaths. Which means they take action and seek justice and vengeance but meanwhile don’t think about what the loss really means to them. 

Because he knows he won’t make it.

It’s really powerful watching him lose control -- banging on the desk, yelling, lashing out at anyone who crashes his path because nothing is enough -- and as I mentioned is uncharacteristic of both Tony and the show, but if ever there were a reason, this would be it.

Especially because you can see that he still doesn’t quite believe it. It’s why he has to ask Gibbs if he’s sure Ziva is dead, even though Abby and McGee would never (knowingly) steer him wrong, and he must know that Gibbs won’t tell him anything different. But at the same time, he also knows that Gibbs’ word is basically gospel in their world, and he’s the last word on what’s real. So he wants Gibbs to reassure him-- but he’s also searching for a way out, for a way this isn’t real and that there’s a possibility she’s still alive, like the last time this happened. Good call btw.

But again, you can see Gibbs looking out for him, even if he has to be harsh. “Us, not you.” This is for so many reasons. Firstly, because Tony is too directly involved and it would be wrong on so many levels for him to be involved in this, professionally and personally. I mean, let’s be real, it’s wrong for any of them to be on this case which is true for like 90% of this show, but in this instance in particular, Tony would only bring on a world of hurt.

Because as Gibbs points out, Ziva was never just anything to Tony, and especially not in the last few years. Gibbs knows what Ziva and Tony were to each other -- and is the only person Tony’s ever really discussed it with even tangentially -- and it’s important that he bring Tony back down to earth and remind him of that fact. That the grief he’s going through is a whole other kind of world of hurt, one that they share in a manner of speaking.

Tony is right, that Ziva was more than a co-worker to all of them, and I like that he points that out, particularly to Gibbs, because the show has emphasized over the years how close Ziva and Gibbs were, from the second she pulled that trigger against Ari to save his life, and eventually even confessed to him that he was the closest thing to a father she’d had in the later years she was on the team. So yeah, Gibbs’ reaction (or lack thereof) is curious, but I think the fact that Tony points it out is deliberate by the writers -- and I’m pretending it’s because once Gibbs realized Ziva had died (”died”), as painful as it was, he knew he had to keep it together to for all of the team’s sake, but especially for Tony’s. Because Gibbs has been there, and spiraled out of control himself, so he’s being for Tony what he didn’t have when Shannon and Kelly were killed. 

(As an aside, not equating losing your wife and daughter with losing your on-again-off-again-whatever-the-hell-thing Ziva was to Tony, but it’s closer to that end of the spectrum to what the others would feel.)

So what they need right now isn’t a father or friend, it’s a leader, and he’s stepping up to the plate so that they can all do what needs to be done for Ziva’s sake. Let Tony grieve, and the rest of them will deal with the justice for both of them until it’s time for all of them to process this.

But let’s get back to Tony.

And Senior showing up just in time to bring home that this is not normal.

Because if there’s anything more irritating than having your surrogate father try to do what’s best for you when you’re tailspinning, it’s having your actual father join forces with him to do the same.

- She was no more to me than anybody. - Well, that's not true. - Yes it is! And why are you following me? - Come back home, Junior. - No! I can't. - You need time. - I need to know what happened. - You need to breathe. - I'll breathe when Trent Kort is dead.

Oh, man.

This is when everything begins crashing down.

And you can see it all over Tony’s face.

The “I can’t” just hits me right in the feels. 

Because that’s the moment he breaks. And so do we along with him.

It’s the reason why he isn’t home right now: he can’t be there, because being home means facing up to the truth (or truthiness), and that’s the last thing he wants to do right now.

So when Senior asks him to come home, it’s not just because he wants to be at work to go after who did this, but it’s because he can’t handle being home, where everything will remind him of her, and what happened, and he can’t handle it.

Because he couldn’t live without her then, and he really, really can’t now. 

And it’s just the way it’s delivered: how he chokes on the words, how he can’t stop the tears coming now, how his face just crumples when his father and his mentor both stress that yes, this is happening, and he has to deal.

It’s just an interesting reversal, because most of the time on this show, the characters really aren’t allowed to process, anything. After every blow to the team, it’s gear up and time to go after the bad guys. Being allowed the luxury of breathing is one they are rarely afforded, and maybe with good reason. Which is why he pivots onto focusing back on getting Kort, even if he is in no shape, physical or emotional, to actually go through with it. Somewhere deep down he knows it, and Senior and Gibbs definitely do, because again, they’ve both been there in their own way losing their own loves of their lives.

- But not like this. Just for tonight, get your bearings, son. - Listen to him. He's right. Go. Or go for good. - What?!  - I’m not asking. We got this.

Again, I like this, even though it’s incredibly painful. For one of the few times on the show, a character is allowed to be fully human, and absorb the impact of such a loss. (I understand why they have to go at a breakneck speed on TV, but it’s comforting, in a terrible way, for Tony to be able to be a man, for once, and not an agent. I suppose that was the whole point of the last year or two, but that is a whole other post.)

So yes, the last thing Tony probably wants is to be stuck alone in his apartment with his father and his thoughts and replaying his what ifs over and over again until he goes crazy. But by the same token, he’d probably do the same at work, too, to much more disastrous results all around. So I like that Gibbs and Senior are working in tandem, here, to look out for Tony the man, not Tony the Agent. 

Obviously, Gibbs threatening to fire him is extreme, but we all know he’d never follow through with it, right? How many times has he played that card over the years? (How many times has he played it himself?!) But even if it momentarily angers Tony, it does the trick -- to snap him out of his meltdown long enough to see reason and go home. To get Tony to trust in his team, who has always had his back, who always had Ziva’s, to reassure him that they will get this done. They are as invested in this as he is, and he has to know deep down that they will give everything they have to find Kort, as if he were there with them.

So Tony can nurse his broken heart and broken spirit enough for all of them, and they will take care of justice for Ziva and for Tony and all of them, and for what was taken. 

I’m no good at writing endings to anything, but the short version of all of this is that this is a tour de force by all of the actors, but not surprisingly, most notably Michael Weatherly. I think Tony runs through about five different stages of grief in two minutes, and he’s allowed to play every one of them all over his face. In some ways, it even makes me wish we’d gotten to see even more of these acting chops over the years, because he really shines with the material. Again, it comes at the expense of all of our hearts because it really shouldn’t have necessitated killing off a beloved character, but I guess we’re not allowed to have nice things, ever. 

On the other hand, I love how Senior and Gibbs take care of Tony in their own way, from Senior’s more traditional fatherly approach, to Gibbs taking the practical route in order to make sure they do what they all need to do, but is no less important or ultimately comforting.

There’s just so much happening in so little time, often going unsaid -- everyone acknowledging the impact of Tiva, and by the same token Ziva’s death, Tony realizing this is actually happening and how little he’d moved on from it in the first place, Gibbs trying to take care of his NCIS family the only way he knows how, and Senior fully embracing his role in this time, perhaps in a way he wasn’t able to for Tony when his own wife died decades earlier. There’s a whole lot of subtext happening behind the amazing acting at the forefront.

Also, in case it bears repeating, #zivaisnotdead2017

[someguyranting1]

What’s in a Scene? How SAO Became the Worst Anime Ever

Sword Art Online is ass. OP to ED and everything in between, the whole thing stinks and I hate it. But I didn’t always. As a matter of fact, when the series first started airing, I thought, “This is okay. I mean, I’ve seen better, but I’ve seen worse, too. I’ll see where this goes.” Somewhere between that and this, though, that stopped being my response to the show. At a certain point, I could no longer form words and was mostly just vomiting blood for the duration of each episode. And I’m not alone in that. Pretty much everyone over the age of 12 agrees that this show sucks.

What they don’t agree on is WHEN it started sucking. When did Sword Art Online get terrible? Some would say it happened when they locked the only likeable character in a rape dungeon and made Kirito’s sister want to fuck him. Others would point to the gratuitous tentacle rape scene, and boy, gee whiz, there sure is an excessive amount of sexual assault in this show. Then there’s the “I told you so” camp who say it was terrible all along and all of the bullshit just made you realize that after the fact.

For me, there’s a precise moment when Sword Art Online goes from being okay to being one of the worst fucking shows ever, and it’s all Yui’s fault. Yeah, you heard me: your innocent daughteru ruined fucking everything. Let me explain.

In the beginning, Sword Art Online had some stuff going for it. Not a lot (the fight choreography was always pretty bad, the cast was always bland, and the premise was never original), but it had a solid sense of tone. We’d seen “trapped in an MMO” stories before, but never with this kind of horror tinge to them. The world of Aincrad had this oppressive air hanging over it. From very early on, there was this sense that just about anyone could die at any moment. The first few episodes do a great job of establishing that. And while it didn’t break any new ground in terms of character writing, it had some good stand-alone episode plots, like the one where all of Kirito’s friends got murdered, and the whole murder mystery thing where they’re trying to figure out how somebody was breaking the rules of the game, and… Actually, those were the only really interesting episodes, but hey, lots of okay show have had less.

The main thing that the show had going for it early on was that underlying sense of dread. It felt like something where nobody, except for this one guy, was ever really safe. Nobody important died after the first few episodes, but that was fine...for a while. If the show was kill-happy all the time, that would be a problem in itself. You’ve gotta pace these things. It’s hard to get attached when characters are going in and out through a revolving door.

Still, by Episode 10, there had been enough near misses that it seemed like Kirito and his harem might be a little too invulnerable. It seemed like the right time to kill someone off to raise the stakes. It’s at this point that they chose to introduce Yui.

If you don’t know (congratulations, you’ve saved yourself from a shitty show), Yui is a little girl who Kirito and Asuna find wandering around the woods near their home and decide to adopt as their daughter. She’s sweet and innocent and might as well be walking around with a timer counting down to her sad death. It’s cheap and lazy enough to introduce a pure cinnamon roll character purely for the sake of killing them off, but that’s not nearly bad enough writing on its own to drag this show down to the total dog shit territory it now occupies.

The bigger problem with this is tied to what Yui is. Yui is actually a fully-sentient AI, which means that she’s the only character in the entire cast who, if killed, could be brought back. And that’s very, very bad for the show because if Yui dies and is then brought back, that renders the threat of death from a narrative standpoint permanently meaningless.

Remember: as of this episode, that’s the ONLY interesting thing about SAO. Death in media isn’t interesting because, “Oh, they’re dead! That’s sad! I’m sad!” It’s interesting because it inherently changes the dynamics of a story. A character who was once a force in the narrative now ISN’T. Any arc that they might have been going through is cut abruptly short, and from this point forward, the writers can’t rely on their presence to move the story forward or build up other characters.

Most stories never pull that trigger, and I’m cool with that because, like I said, it’s hard to write around. I’m okay with a show being a little toothless as long as the story is engaging and the characters are fun. Also, there are plenty of ways to make your characters suffer without killing them off.

However, when a show acts like death means something and then does something that very transparently reveals that the writers aren’t willing to sacrifice potential plot lines, it’s like watching Mickey Mouse take his head off at Disneyland: it ruins the magic. There are RULES against this kind of shit. If a character dies and is then brought back, you might as well write, “And then they got on a bus for a couple of weeks,” for all the fucking difference it makes.

Obviously when the show was airing, I was really dreading this prospect. I was hoping that the show would pull something out of left field, maybe fake me out and kill Asuna or Kirito off, instead of do the stupid, obvious thing that it was definitely going to do. But then, I got to the end of Episode 12 and I watched Kirito and Asuna mourn for little baby Skynet, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

IT WAS WORSE! They don’t just kill Yui off in the most trite way possible; they do it while immediately undercutting all of the dramatic weight of the moment because, as Yui is being deleted, Kirito pulls some techno wizardry out of his ass to store her in an inventory item. And because of that dumb dragon feather episode, we know that means she’s coming back. They could AT LEAST have left it ambiguous as to whether or not they could bring her back, but, “Nope! Can’t let anyone think their waifu might not come back! They might stop watching and giving us money!” However, even that isn’t the most asinine thing about this scene.

In this moment, as they reach the game master’s console in the depths of this dungeon, Kirito reveals the heretofore unknown fact that he’s a PhD-level programmer, thus irreparably ruining his character forever. Kirito was already stupidly overpowered, but at least it made a bit of sense. He was a beta tester, so his base skill level being higher than most other players’ was justified. Doing Kendo in real life gave him good reflexes. He also spent, like, the first year of the game solo queuing instead of socializing to reach his ridiculously high experience level. That became less believable as he also proved to be the most eligible bachelor on the entire Internet, but you can at least justify that as girls having a crush on him for saving their lives, rather than that coming down to any innate social skill on his part. It’s easy to justify a lot of things about Kirito because he has no defined personality at all. However, when you add to those traits the fact that he’s got the scripting skills to not just hack the game from inside it, but to custom-write code in the space of a few seconds to store data as an in-game object, I’ve gotta call bullshit.

Hacking games requires time and at least some knowledge of the source code. There’s no way Kirito has that. Even if the thousand or so carefully selected beta testers for SAO were data-mining the shit out of the game, they only had it for a little over a month during summer vacation and they only saw a fraction of the content. It would be hard to get a full picture of how the game works in that time frame under NORMAL circumstances, but SAO is also the first game of its kind, built from the ground up for incredibly complicated, brand-new proprietary hardware.

Already, Kirito’s doing something that nobody outside the company should know how to do, but even if we assume that there’s a command already in place to store a script as an in-game object, think about what he’s storing. Yui is a fucking AI, the most complicated kind of program conceivable. Her code needs to be immense to account for the broad variety of situations she might need to deal with, and it also needs to be capable of rewriting itself on the fly in real time. Kirito is taking that huge, complex code, saving its current state of operation, and converting that information into a custom item in a game whose script he must be figuring out in real time, all in the space of a few seconds. NO! NOT FUCKING POSSIBLE!

In this moment, Kirito ceases to be a real human being and I lose all suspension of disbelief for this entire show. It’s just not believable that any person could be capable of pulling off the shit that we’ve seen him do up to this point. Maybe some of it, but not all of it, and especially not A FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD FUCKING CHILD!

Also, as if he wasn’t special enough already, the scene establishes a few moments earlier that he and Asuna are the only people to ever experience love or joy in SAO during the entire two years that the game has been running. This is so fucking stupid, it hurts!

This scene amazes me for how thoroughly it manages to ruin the entire show. It would be bad enough to ruin the whole story by implicitly admitting that they never plan to kill off anyone who’s had any kind of character development ever again (unless dying is part of their story arc), but in doing so, they also manage to make it impossible to relate to their PROTAGONIST. From this point forward, the show has no dramatic stakes. It CAN’T have any. Kirito’s been established to be able to do basically anything, and we now know for a fact that no one important will ever really die.

Furthermore, if you want to nitpick, this scene raises a ton of questions, too, the big one being, “WHY?! Why is THAT what Kirito did with his backhand access?” If he had the time to isolate a huge, complex program and store it as environmental data and write a custom script to save that file to his personal computer, why didn’t he, I don’t know, globally reactivate the game’s logout function? He had access to the fucking source code! And that would’ve been a lot simpler! There was probably just one value he needed to set from True to False, or maybe a few lines of code that had been commented out. Comparatively speaking, it would have been easy, and he’d have been saving, I don’t know, upwards of, like, 7000 people’s lives? But no. Preserving his wife’s Tamagotchi is a lot more important than that.

There’s been a lot of complaining in this review and not a lot of hard analysis, but that’s because there’s not much in this scene to analyze. This is one of the most flat, boring scenes that I’ve ever watched in anything. Every shot is static and dull, especially the obvious, predictable reaction shots that it uses to ham-fistedly attempt to tug at your heartstrings. Furthermore, the set is a blank, white room with nothing going on. There’s basically nothing to even look at here. That said, if nothing else, I guess I can take solace in the fact that nobody was even trying when they made the scene that ruined the whole show.