Shall we date? Love Tangle, Dean's story review
Dean is a brave cop, and his story didn't look appealing at first glance, while Wylder seemed more compelling since I dig the artist-eccentric vibe they were going for in the common route. My expectations tanked, and both stories are meh at best.
Let's get straight into Dean's route because I have a lot to say.
I gave Dean's route 3 out of 5 stars because I liked some parts, and I guess I liked the possibility of what it could have been rather than the mediocre execution. Dean's survivor's guilt was not handled well, and that's my biggest issue. The author(s) addresses parts of it in the last two chapters, which totally fucks the consistency of the story.
Maybe you never watched Lethal Weapon, but in that movie, you have a character named Martin Riggs (played by Mel Gibson). I won't get into the history of the character and will just address the first movie where he's introduced as a depressed cop driven by the grief and pain of losing his wife in a car accident, so he regularly puts himself and others in danger, hoping that he will die or that someone will kill him. This total disregard for his own life makes him completely fearless, turning him into a "lethal weapon." I didn't mention this just to promote a great movie, rather, Dean's story was supposed to be similar to the above-mentioned character, but they completely and utterly failed.
I understand that the writer(s) wanted to keep his history a secret in the common route, but you could tell right off the bat when watching Riggs that something was wrong with him, while with Dean, you don't get that impression since most of his statements and dialogues are fine.
When I read it for the first time I was like, this guy is super brave and passionate about his work and wants to save people at all costs, but in the last two chapters they turned it into: he does that because he doesn't value his life.
He thinks he should have died with his family in that accident and feels guilty because he stayed home.
Couldn't you introduce that a bit earlier in HIS story? Like making him reckless when he didn't need to be? Because both times when he risked his life, MC was in serious danger. He pulled Wylder out of the fire and tried to protect him, so what the fuck? Isn't that what most police officers do in real life?
Another thing that annoyed me is that the author of the story gave Dean, a man in his prime, sentences of a 70-year-old man.
The background plot is as ridiculous as ever, with so many "lucky" coincidences.
When the moment comes for Dean to tell MC about his past, it's done so unnaturally that you lose interest because the story is like a written report rather than engaging storytelling, and MC is there to take notes and try to resolve shit. I must say that the elements of this story are good, but the writing goes from mediocre to bad and cringe as fuck.
Dean's speaking again like this:
The scenes that should be the best and let me down the most are the lab scene and the hospital scene.
So the whole premise of the story is MC finding some magical bullshit plant that can cure diseases, and she's researching it for the leopard's sake and for the sake of future achievements in medicine. She's warned a few times that a big pharmaceutical company is after her findings and that they will stoop at nothing. The big culmination scene is some goons coming in at her workplace to take away her research and are called "Mafia 1 and 2" I shit you not.
Julia is all defiant and shit and quickly pieces together that the p. company has to be behind it.
No shit Sherlock.
While they aren't paying attention since they came out of a cartoon, she slams the alarm and one of the goons wants to shoot her.
Dean appears in 0.5 seconds and hits the guy who held her at gunpoint. The other one grabs Julia as a hostage and shoots Dean in the abdomen. Is this what is supposed to hint to us that he's an unhinged cop wanting to die? I think not. I see him as someone wanting to protect the girl he loves because he was in the area since he mentioned he will be patrolling around her workplace.
However, Dean quickly disposes of him and shoots the guy in the shoulder. He then tries to interrogate him when Mafia 1 sets off the sprinklers in some dumbass way because of the plot and escapes, while Dean collapses due to his wound and makes the death speech but it holds no emotional weight since we know he'll survive because this ain't that kind of game.
The hospital scene was where the game made me pause and return a couple of days later. So, Dean is in the hospital, Julia is by his side and so is Wylder. After guilting MC into thinking that Dean will die if he constantly risks her life for her, Wylder also attacks Dean when he wakes up.
He says that he should think about the suffering of the people who he saved, risking his life, and I'm like:
The next idiotic moment comes when Julia and Dean are alone in his hospital room. They hug and Julia tells him how worried she was for him, and he replies if it meant saving her, he would gladly give his life.
I'm like: aww dude, you really care about her, huh?
MC is like: no dude, I want you alive, don't throw your life away for me.
And here is the moment that I mentioned.
I get what they wanted to say but the writing doesn't support it. It comes off as if she was telling him that risking his life for civilians is throwing his life away, which is ridiculous given that he's a police officer. It's not a coping mechanism, it's just their bravery and selflessness, and kindness.
Dean states that he thinks he's atoning for the death of his family by saving people, so it feels off to me? Is it just me? Nah, it's the writing.
You see, Dean's deal is, and I grasped what they wanted to say only when I read it carefully the second time, not because I missed something but because they are that incapable of getting their points across - he doesn't value his life at all and doesn't hesitate to expose himself to danger, that's why he jumps in front of a knife, gun, etc. That's a whole different matter than doing your duty as a cop, and I mentioned Riggs as an example of that.
The part with Wylder needs to be rewritten, where he would clearly state that although Dean saved him, he had no intention of saving himself or something.
For example, he pushed him out of the way to safety and froze there looking at the fire because he remembered his family or something similar and stood there waiting to die, and Wylder's shouts snapped him awake or whatever. Would make much more sense, especially the thing Julia said at the hospital. And this should have been introduced earlier on in the story not at the end.
I mentioned this in some of my other reviews, both lovers need to learn something from one another and work together towards a goal of some sort, in this case, Julia helping him value his life and overcome the trauma of the past, while he helps her get the needed courage to persevere through the corrupted world and pressure around her. It could have been so wholehearted.
Everything gets patched up and resolved in a matter of seconds, without proper mental and emotional healing, since Dean is like I found you MC, and my problems are gone, leaving you with what the fuck did I just read and gave money on? (Bought premium route) Apparently, on good tropes that were ruined by shitty writing with the abundance of cringe.
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Half-Blood Prince is like:
Hermione: I wish Ron liked me back
Ron: I wish Hermione liked me back
Lavender: I wish Ron liked me back
Ginny: I wish Harry liked me back
Dean: I wish Ginny liked me back
Seamus: I wish dean liked me back
Harry: I wish Ginny liked me back
Draco: The only way to save myself and my family is to kill Dumbledore which will end the rest of the entire wizarding world, Snape and Harry won’t get off my back, and i have no idea how to fix the magic cabinet but if i fail GrayBack will kill me and my mother
Snape: I wish Lilly liked me back
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Archive of Our Own (AO3) has released their Top 100 Stats. When I posted last year's stats there was a comment that the stats are incorrect because writers have deleted or made their stories private due to AI concerns. I would assume the same goes for this year. But working off what the mods report, the top ship is
GOOD OMENS' starcrossed loves Aziraphale and Crowley.
A new entry in the top 10 is RED, WHITE AND ROYAL BLUE's Alex Claremont-Diaz and Henry Fox.
What took you lads so long??
THE REST OF THE LIST UNDER THE CUT
From 21 to 40, we get the old guard - no not the film THE OLD GUARD (tho, no love for Yusuf and Nicky?), but the stalwarts: HANNIBAL's Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter and SUPERNATURAL's Dean and Castiel.
The majority of names from 41 to 60?
From 62 to 100 there are platonic ships of the BatFamily - a mix of Jason Todd, Dick Grayson and Tim Drake.
Thank you for your service, writers.
Shippers keep shipping!
Am I suppose to care that Jamie and Cersei are siblings, cos I don't.
Look, this more touching that some ships actually do, so it's valid.
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