#it's weird. i know it's unrealistic to expect the team to have given every single variant as much

[son1c]

You're so smart about Prime, so can you explain Rouge to me? As in like, every version of a character is suppoused to be like, without a trait that's essential to them, but what's with Rouge?? All versions of her are like, very similar? And like ALL of them lack her love for gems and attention. The only thing I can come up with is Prim and her lack of courage, but all the others kinda blend together for me, and all are SO different from Prime Rouge. I wanna hear what you think, cuz I'm at a loss...

i think rouge is less lacking traits and more, accentuated traits? like, rebel is her leadership skills cranked up to 11. prim is her self-preservation maxed out. and batten is...?

yeah uh i'm gonna be real, rouge is maybe the weakest character in sonic prime so far. her gimmicks are the least fleshed out and ofc she doesn't even have her own world. it's a little sad tbh.

[bloody-fists-beating-hearts]

It’s a Fallout76/Bethesda rant

Bethesda just released Fallout 1st, a horseshit pay-to-win subscription system for their absolute cum-bubble of a game, and while it’s getting the flack it deserves there are people already putting on their kneepads so they can gobble down Todd Howards entire turgid cock, and as someone who likes rpg’s way too much this irked me, so have a massive and barely coherent rant i took off the discord because why not.

I want to start off with this:  Every good thing about current fallout comes from the fanbase. The stories people tell, the headcanons, the fanfics, the art, everything fans do for it is made with more love, and more thought, than anything Bethesda’s writing and games design team has done in the last 10 years

Now first of all, I haven’t bought or played 76. People are gonna stop me right there and go ”well you haven’t bought it how would you know its bad!!” yeah, I’ve never eaten dog shit either but I can pretty well guess that I ain’t gonna fucking like it.

I knew the second he said "there are no npcs" with actual enthusiasm that this game was gonna be shit. And if you give me 2 seconds to gloat, I never bought the game and I knew this was gonna happen and I was RIGHT so suck my fat hairy nuts all those fanboys who pre-order things mindlessly just because there's a brand name attached to it. If there is anything you take from this its DO NOT PREORDER. BRAND LOYALTY IS FOR BOOMERS AND BOOTLICKERS. FOR FUCKS SAKE BE SMART WITH YOUR MONEY.

Games like this are fucking 80-90 dollars or more in Australia so I actually have to think about whether this momentary distraction is worth almost an entire days paycheck, and I’m still looking for employment which means I actually haven’t bought shit in a while (side note, anyone wants to commission me for 10 dollars I’ll draw damn near anything. God I need to make rent)

Every executive at Bethesda seems to be playing catch-up to EA's monetisation scheme. Beth has abandoned their model of single-player rpg's in favour of a "games as a service" model. Fallout 76 seems to me like its a weird experiment for just how far they can stretch this and still make money. It actually makes me wonder if they are 

 a) just completely unaware of fanbase response [no idea HOW]

b) are running into financial problems and are doing this out of desperation

 c) todd howard is still mad that obsidian made a better fallout than he ever could and he's doing this out of spite 

  Games as a whole has become much like the movie industry where publishers will throw big buckets of cash around to development teams, and those teams have CEO's and higher ups that throw lavish meet n greets and have nice fancy suits and cars and then treat their development teams like shit, overworking them to the point of exhaustion, because the product has to be on time for release dates that are scheduled to be the most profitable (christmas is a notable one). 

And those products are consistently bland, shitty, shallow experiences. Narrative cum-dumpsters that are purposefully made to toe the line as safely as possible, to be open to as wide as an audience as possible so they can make the most money, and Bethesda is a huge offender. Skyrim was fun, sure, but it was watered down to fuck, it had shitty dialogue, it had bland one-note characters, it had a simplified skill system. It was impossible to lose. Seriously, try and fail a fucking quest in skyrim, other than one or two, it's a hand-holder of an rpg, but it has a huge community of fans that put in monumental effort, for free, because they like the Elder Scrolls, and they like the world bethesda made. 

  Then Bethesda goes "hey, that watered down thing we made got huge! lets release it about 12 more fucking times, with some of the SAME bugs, with the SAME content, with the SAME limitations and Yes, we absolutely expect you to pay for it, again. Then they release the remastered edition which, to their credit, is free to anyone who already bought the legendary edition (on PC), and does actually have updated 64bit capability and some graphical enhancements (that aren't anywhere near what some goober in his basement cooked up in his spare time, but whatever). Then, seeing that Skyrim was so popular, with kids especially, and made money, they turn their sights to fallout 4, a game that was so anticipated that someone made a fake countdown and caused a small meltdown on tumblr/social media when it was revealed to be fake (i was part of that fiasco, i remember the hype, i was there goddamnit)

So Fallout, a franchise that literally has its theme as its FUCKING TAGLINE, an ADULT game that is equal parts crude, gory and humorous. A game that satirises the cold war era of american my-country-tis-of-thee blind loyalty and openly mocks the way war was idealised, and shows that not even the literal end of the world could either stop humanity's lust for blood or its desire for conquest. Games that showed you the growth of the world - from shady sands to the NCR, from the vault dweller to arroyo, shit actually happened in the games, the world didn't just stop turning when the bombs dropped. A game where you you become a porn star for fucks sake, and it's funny. 

So Bethesda sees that, makes something like it (fallout 3) which is good, but a little rough around the edges when you look at it too hard. But the way they suck you into the vault, the way they build a relationship with your dad and your way of life is immersive as fuck, so when you leave the place you actually feel like you're leaving something important, not just finishing the tutorial

then they outsource a Fallout game to obsidian, because hey, we saved your franchise by buying it off you, but if you can make an entire game in one year and get a metacritic score of 85 we'll even throw in a bonus. And fuck me sideways and in the ear, if the obsidian devs didn't work themselves harder than a 4-armed hooker. And they made a game that on release was a clusterfuck of bugs, because they were given an unrealistic time limit and missed the metacritic score by ONE POINT so bethesda goes "nhey heh sucks to suck" and fucks them off the franchise forever. EXCEPT (and I admit I'm biased here) the game is good. The game is actually really good when you remove those bugs, and people start forming attachments to it, and mentioning how bad fallout 3's writing is by extension. 

  So Todd and Co. in his infinite wisdom, decide that the only thing a fallout rpg needs is 50s aesthetic and fuck all else, and he releases a game so watered down it can't even be called an rpg. And its not. There are no skills. There are barely any dialogue checks. Instead of dialogue, Nate/Nora is a flat, samrish individual that is either "yes sir right away sir may i have another", "yes but i'm gonna make an unfunny quip about it" "this option pretends to say no but its gonna give you the quest marker anyway". 

The game drops any pretence of difficulty by giving you a deathclaw, a minigun and some power armour in the first 10 minutes, allowing you to effectively reach late-game power levels with some minor scavenging for ammo or cores. Then the game ropes you into some inter-faction war that realistically you wouldn't give a shit about, because some spud in a cowboy hat fucking deputizes you into a military general because you shot like 4 raiders from a rooftop (with a minigun. in power armour. making you nigh-invulnerable to bullets). You're sad about your son about 3 times the whole game and then you're on your merry way to mowing down humans left right and center without a care in the world. God fallout 4's writing is so stupid it gives me an aneurysm.

 Remember the part about resources wars and america only having the veneer of a strong country while riots, inflation, and resource shortages tore it apart from within? Bethesda doesn't, have an eerily stepford pastel coloured glimpse at a world that was totally fine, nothing wrong here, shame it got nuked oh well moving on

Your spouse? yeah you love them, they're said 2 whole sentences to you then they died, be sad because you totally loved them and it is totally sad that they are dead. Your weird play-dough son shaun, you love him so much, you even tickled him on the chin once, okay he's gone off you go to chase him - woah now, don't chase him too hard we have all these side quests for you to do! What would be the narrative reasoning for a supposedly distraught parent to fuck around boston instead of finding their goddamn child? fuck knows! just go pick up some goddamn wood and get to base building sonny-jim! 

Companions? yeah, they're fun, we gave them a romance questline and it's thus: if you pick enough locks and pass a minor charisma check maccready will be ready and willing to tell you about his sick child, and then he'll ride you like a stallion. Talk to him like, 4 times, and he will be your bosom buddy for life in about 3-5 days if you just pick locks like a fucking madman, because character growth is hard and counting beans is easy.

 Also your son is a part of the faction we were talking about! something about synths, remember that one questline from rivet city that barely anyone actually remembers and was an interesting time waster at best? Well get ready to do that same quest but about! 15! more! times! because we could not think of anything else to write about synthetically produced humans that assume peoples identities other than having them as a hamfisted metaphor for slavery. Why do they take over people's identies? Well because the institute needs them to aasdkfjdh kshshshsh t9oe of course. 

Speaking of hamfisted metaphors, here's the underground railroad, named after the underground railroad that actually mattered, except this time its the same thing but synths. They are so top secret that the only way to find them is to follow the only bright red line in a street that is exclusively green-brown otherwise, and then enter their super secret password, which is "password"

They are then, like every other faction, absolutely willing to trust you, at face value, no questions asked, because have to actually do something or require a skill check might make this hard for people under the age of 12 to play. Then you go do whatever fuckin shit you do, I stopped playing at this point, and then you find out your son is actually 60, you guys have a tearful, 10 sentence reunion, then he diesthe whole reason you were out here in the first place dies, and you react appropriately, which is to say you say his name really sadly, and then go back to mowing down raiders with reckless abandon

And then 76 gets released, bethesda drops all pretense of fallout still being an rpg. You want a story? Fuck you, pay up. Its retro future and thats all that makes falloutSatirizing war mongering? You can nuke things in this game and its totally fine, its actually the goal, because fallout has nukes in it right? Pay us 10 dollars and you get army olive drab spraypaint because hurrgh war is fun and great, wasnt that the tagline from the first game?The more i rant the more angry i am because people put their heart and soul into writing this. The lore and dialogue is actual work that someone researched and loved and felt proud of and now  it's becoming a hilariously meta parody of itself. 

Honestly FUCK bethesda and and fuck todd howard for his pisspoor cash grab. Not even worth calling it a video game anymore

[mtvswatches]

Wynonna Earp 1x10 She Wouldn’t Be Gone

Spoilers disclaimer (please read before sending messages or writing comments.)

Click here for previous recaps!

Stray thoughts

1) Bobo really has a thing for Waverly, and it’s creepy as fuck…

Waverly claimed she couldn’t wait for Wynonna to shoot him in the face, but to be frank, I really hope Bobo’s final confrontation is with Waverly instead of Wynonna. There’s so much history between them, and I feel Waverly would gain both a sense of accomplishment and some closure if she’s the one to put him down. I wonder if that’s possible, though…

Also, what’s Bobo’s plan here? Other than piss the Earps off, of course.

2) Dolls put a bug at the bar, and this is the first thing they here…

Bobo: Those Earp girls may be bangable, but they're a boil on my scrotum.

…which makes me feel super creeped out about the fact that Bobo struck up a friendship with little Waverly. Pedophile much?

3) Who the fuck was this girl, what was that mark on her face, and why was she eaten by a wolf?!

So many questions!

4) Evidence that the revenants are bisexual. Boom.

WAVERLY: They're talking about Dolls, guys! They're speculating that your penis is small!

5) I’m glad Wynonna and co were as confused as I was about Bobo buying the bar. Their assumption is that he did it to protect the revenants, given that Wynonna is not likely to kill them off in front of the bar patrons. I guess? I mean, it’s not like Wynonna hasn’t shot revenants in front of humans before… And as BTVS has taught us, no matter how weird what people witness is, they will always try to find a logical explanation to put it off their minds. So, I think getting rid of Bobo warrants a few scarred-for-life patrons…

6) So… the girl bore this Lou’s mark, who is Bobo’s number one enemy, apparently. They seem to have made some sort of pact and Lou was not supposed to cross into Bobo’s territory. And I think Lou was the wolf?

7) Uh-oh…

Bobo found the bug. That doesn’t bode well… 

8)

9) There’s absolutely NO way Wynonna didn’t see that…

10) Wait, wasn’t Whiskey Jim being tortured for information by Dolls? How did he end up in Bobo’s hands?

11) How are these two so soft and sweet and badass at the same time? My heart cannot take it…

12) I really liked how the confrontation between Wynonna and Dolls played out. At first, I thought she was honestly being vulnerable and purposefully giving him the flirty eyes and leading him on, which she has sort of been doing, and that seemed unfair to me. But she was just using his attraction to her against him in order to handcuff him to the car and find out what he was hiding.

13) So we can’t really trust anything Jim tells Wynonna and Dolls, considering Bobo instructed him to provide them with certain information. But I think there must be some truth to what he told them. There’s definitely some blood between Bobo and Lou, but I wonder if it’s really because Lou tried to overthrow Bobo. And I do have a feeling that he might be much worse than Bobo. But I’m guessing they’re not going to find them in Pine Barrens, like Jim told them…

14) This is actually some good advice…

WYNONNA: Those things are cockroaches to me.

DOLLS: Don't do that. Do not do that. I saw your eyes back there. They were cold and callous. Don't get all hard and forget that you're human. That you are you.

WYNONNA: I won't.

DOLLS: Just remember, revenants will say anything with a ticket to Hell pressed to their forehead.

15) In this episode of Man vs Car…

I love that he’s so perplexed by this gift and Wynonna’s gesture that the best use to make of it he can think of is smashing it to bits until Waverly suggests he could learn how to drive.

16) Woods 101? Always stick with your group. Amateurs…

17) Why does Wynonna always wake up in the weirdest places?

18) Is this Lou? And is he the leader of some kind of wolf cult or something?

19) Sounds accurate…

CULT GIRL: How can you tell the good from the bad?

WYNONNA: Um the good ones are usually scared. But they push past the fear, you know? And they do what's right, even when it hurts. Even when every instinct is telling them to do nothing, to survive. And the good ones are hotter.

20) Oh, I feel sorry for the cult girl, she was kind of sweet.

21) Of course, they’re caught…

22) Well, he does seem to know Bobo pretty well…

LOU: Bobo. That narcissist finally figure out that his stupid fur coat won't protect him?

23) So, the “mark” means that you’re no longer welcome in this “community.” Well, mark me down…

24) The rogue animals are coming after Wynonna, right?

WAVERLY: Every single girl on this list? Found dead, scattered around the Ghost River Triangle. Autopsies say that they were toyed with and then killed by animals that had gone rogue.

WYNONNA: Rabies?

WAVERLY: No. Just torture. Like, every single bone in their body broken, their skin licked off.

WYNONNA: This is why I don't do pets.

25) I knew that he’d be craving this after a night out in the woods…

But what the fuck is it?!

26) Wait…

Was this just a camera trick? Or is it something that he can actually do when he’s under the influence of whatever he’s been jacking up on?

27) He’s the cutest…

But was he trying to run off or something?

28) He was trying to run away. Because he doesn’t think Wynonna feels the same way as he does…

DOC: I have vanquished my enemy. I have taken her horse. I am finished here, Waverly.

WAVERLY: This was your plan the whole time.

DOC: No, this was your plan. You told me to learn to drive.

WAVERLY: I didn't mean leave Purgatory without a word!

DOC: I do hate goodbyes.

WAVERLY: Look, we need you, okay? She needs you.

DOC: She has Dolls.

WAVERLY: Can't you at least try? I mean, I'm trying with Nicole.

DOC: Difference is, she adores you back.

But I wish Waverly asking him would’ve been enough for him to decide to stay, you know? Not that I think he’s gone. God, I hope he’s not gone!

29) Wynonna’s message about what makes a person a “good one” really got through to Eve, and I love that. But… it seems a bit unrealistic that a girl who’s been part of a cult for who knows how long would turn against her leader after having a few words with an outsider, you know? I know they didn’t have enough time in one episode for them to actually develop a bond, but it would’ve been more effective if we would’ve seen them establish a connection and how Wynonna was helping her demolish the walls in her mind.

30) So, Lou is a skinwalker. I’m guessing that’s another way of saying shapeshifter?

31) In case I haven’t said it, I’m in love with Wynonna…

32) 

33) hOW THE FUCK WAS EVE ABLE TO SHOOT THE GUN?!

34) IS SHE FUCKING WILLA??!!!

DOLLS: She didn't remember anything - since Lou found her, huh?

WYNONNA: Yeah.

DOLLS: Prolonged psychological trauma can cause amnesia. She may have been brainwashed. Or she's lying.

WYNONNA: She's not lying. We thought she was dead.

DOLLS: Wynonna…

WYNONNA: We gave up. We stopped looking for her.

DOLLS: Wynonna. We don't know anything for sure. There could be 1000 reasons why Peacemaker worked in her hand, you hear me?

WYNONNA: Or there's one.

34) IT IS!!!????

36) Okay, I was not expecting that plot twist? To be honest, half-way through the episode I was feeling like it was a meh episode. Some fun moments here and there but I really didn’t see the point in this plot so far into the season. But now it all makes sense! There are two living heirs! It’s a great twist on the “chosen” mythology. I just assumed that the mythology in this show was similar to the one in BTVS, by which an Heir could only be called at the age of 27 when the previous one had already died… but this changes everything! This means that as long as they turn 27, they can all be heirs. Could this mean that Waverly could be an heir at some point? That would mean she can actually be the one to kill Bobo off! I also have so many questions about Willa. Does Wynonna’s father’s relationship with Bobo have something to do with the fact that she was taken? Did their father hand her over to them? Was she the reason Lou left town? Did the girls’ father and Bobo team up against Lou and Willa was one of the sacrifices they had to make? SO. MANY. QUESTIONS!

37) Hope you enjoyed my recap, and, as usual, if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi.Thanks!

[rkmiya]

five fo five

i debated on even doing this because i knew it wasn’t going to be a fully positive note but it’s my honest feelings and the point of the rkfifth post was to post how we feel about rookies. as someone who has been here since the moment it opened until now i have a lot of feelings. note: this is going to be all over the place and not cohesive at all because i intend to pour out my thoughts as they come with very minimal editing and my thoughts, unsurprisingly, aren’t always cohesive.

NOTE: skip to the bottom if you’re too lazy to read everything for a nice little present i did for everyone !!!! uwu

first and foremost i want to talk about what an amazing milestone it is for an rp to maintain this kind of longevity in which it’s been around for five consecutive years without hiatus, with three (mostly smooth) admin transitions and always maintaining at least 100 muses in the rp at any given moment. that’s freaking insane. especially because this is the era where most rps die after a month or two because people lose interest; it’s crazy that rookies has been around and probably will continue to be for some time. so i want to thank our current admin team for keeping the rp functioning. i know it’s a high maintenance rp and it’s a lot of upkeep so despite everything, i commend y’all for your efforts.

that being said, it is also my five year as a member! i’ve been here since the very beginning with rkmin (now rkmiya). she’s never been dropped and picked back up again (though we did go through a really rough patch of lack of muse). she has journeyed through this five years of rookies and it’s been insane. that’s the only way i can describe it and i’m still not sure if i mean insane in a good way or a bad (probably a nice mix that leans towards good? who knows). being a five year member comes with some feeling of accomplishment because wow yes i’ve survived five years. but at the same time it makes me a little sad. most of you who have me on twitter know why and if any of you who have read rkmiya’s threads also know that she is very tired of being a trainee. we’ve been in the rp for five years and she was a trainee at the one-month mark for rookies (meaning this january will be her 5th year as a trainee, as the rp is heading towards its sixth year running). keeping a five year trainee muse is exhausting. it’s especially worse when she still hasn’t debuted but i can’t force that on rkmiya. but a lot of her frustration is stemmed from the long period of time in which she’s stayed a trainee. five in-real-life years. seems like a long time, right? but that was one of the leading causes to her two year long muse drag. any of you who were around for the beginning-middle of rk know that i used to write a fuck ton for rkmiya. and i mean it. she’s accumulated over 100+ solos in like her first two years in rk, even before our current point system. if i calculated it now, she has 8 on her current blog (rkmiya) and 124 on her old blog (rkmin). that’s 132 solos over 5 years of rping with threads (mostly paras) in between. after about three years, i felt like i hit a dead end because i had given sunmi (back then, min) a lot of development. i felt like i was scrambling to do things with her and for a long time i had debated dropping her.

thankfully both rkmiya and i are stubborn bitches so i refuse to drop her until she’s debuted whether it’s with nova or another company.

i have been given the grace of having one muse on its way to being debut ready. (and guess what? rkmiya is still a bitter bitch about it). i’m really excited and really pumped. i will say in the recent months (after i changed fcs from miss a min to sunmi), i’ve kind of regained that initial spark i had with the rp. which is nice because it was hard forcing myself to do things for her muse when it just wasn’t there and i was more upset than not to be writing there. most of you would remember that as the era where i prioritised my second muse: rkahnso.

her url actually isn’t rkahnso but it’s just easier to write it as such. but she is ahn sohee and she’s been in the rp since…….2014? and her ride seemed to be a lot easier. in comparison, sohee was given the opportunity to grow as a muse prior to being signed. she handled about 3? rejections before being picked up by trc. it’s nice to be able to have that balance because i wasn’t able to do that with sunmi. chungha, when i finally picked her up, was meant to be a non-trainee for much longer than she was. she made it to a year before she was signed. i’m not sad about it but it’s perfectly fine.

rkchungha came after a few attempts at a third muse (i had jackson, kim minji ‘kimi’ of bulldok and nearly brought in rkmomo). her initial faceclaim was going to be jennie but because the face wasn’t available, she was made into chungha! she’s the most wild of the three which means she’s the easiest to plot with for me. her purpose as a muse was to give me that freedom of a rookie muse because i had spent so long with two trainee muses. to be perfectly honest, i completely blanked on the entire year i had rkchungha. like i didn’t even notice the year pass/don’t have any memory of most of the threads she did in her first year. it’s a weird thing to explain but i feel like i didn’t “zone back” into the reality of being her mun until like march. it was almost like i was rping her on autopilot because unlike my first two muses, i don’t remember much of her earlier days in the rp. but she has grown interestingly and continues to develop and grow. like rkahnso, she was meant to need interactions in order to develop.

(another quick fun fact, rkmiya/rkmin was a version of my kpopxmen muse who was also a min fc because the admins of kpxm were the ones that founded rookies. so i essentially just transferred the muse i had spent two years rping already lol)

as an rp, i think it’s great when it’s at its best. at its worst (for me), it felt like a chore and i felt burdened. i know things are optional and i do not have to do them but when you have determined muses, slacking off is actually more damaging than you realise -- and any of you guy can see that as rkmiya has suffered the most from my two-year-long-rut i was in for her muse before switching faceclaims. so even if things are “optional” i feel obligated to do them because i want my muses to be at top tier they have to be. which means (now) doing three sets of trainee replies and three sets of evals. and because rkahnso is in trc/g, that means i’m doing seven replies a week and three solos (sometimes more bc rkahnso needs more attention with her evaluations) which is fine. i like that there’s prompts to write about with evaluations. it’s just that it gets repetitive very easily and it straight up nearly completely killed rkmiya’s muse before i even switched faceclaims.

i really do love rookies but i was once at a point where i felt hopeless, i felt like my muses were going nowhere and it was so repetitive to do the same thing over and over it was getting exhausting to even open up tumblr. and let me tell you, keeping a muse for five years straight without dropping a single time is such a hard thing to maintain. so shout out to rkmiya for turning 5 years old along with rookies. that’s literally insane. and i cannot tell you how the hell i did it or explain what it was like to force myself to at least do one reply every week and not even fight for trainee points for months on end. but since about may, i’ve been clear out of the rut and i’ve doing the needed replies and chungha is almost done with stamina (at the time that i’m writing this). it’s a good feeling to get as low as i did and come out of the other side with consistent muse, the ability to have new story arcs for each muse and to be an active member of the rp yet again.

i also want to say that i’m really happy with where the rp has grown lore-wise. it’s a lot more in-depth and the decision to include seocho, while completely unrealistic in real-life, makes it a lot more easier in an rp setting! i’ll admit that there is a good blend of rp make-believe that’s added into the roleplay as well as realism (so that we know what to expect without things being too out of hand at the same time) and i’ve always loved that about rookies. and it’s only gotten better and more interactive with time.

ooc wise it’s been a rocky road. not even with me personally but in general. i’ve been here for five years and i’ve witnessed/heard of a lot of messy things. is any rp perfect though? of course not and rookies is no exception. though i will say that personally i feel like it’s an improvement from how it was before in previous years. it’s still not perfect and there are some things i would like to be fixed/dealt with but not one person can push a mountain, you know? besides, there are other things in rp to focus on. my advice is to drop the people who don’t make you happy. don’t even respond to them. remove yourself from them, let the admins know and surround yourself with people who make you happier. as someone who has been in a situation of a year long push-and-pull with someone that was mostly abusive, it’s better to stay very far away from them and ignore that they’re there than to keep trying to reconcile with them. rookies, if anything, has taught me to stand up for myself and not let people say what they want about me or others. i will always stand up for myself and i will always stand up for others when there’s something to be said.

i haven’t made many long-lasting super close friendships in rk. i say this because yes, i have friends/people i know in rk of course but they’re mostly face-value friendships. there are few that are consistent and beyond surface level.

i know i can write so much more about her and it will definitely get a lot gayer because hope has my whole heart on such a deep and honest level but everyone who has us on twitter sees that from time to time so i’ll spare you all. just know that when i say she’s absolutely my best friend, i mean that.

i will say that i am well aware that i’m intimidating to some of you. i am so sorry for that if i come off a certain way. i’m just very…..aggressive in personality. outspoken, i curse (a lot) and i caps as a way of communication (not because i’m yelling at you, i swear) and i say “bitch” as a term of endearment. i encourage everyone to at least approach me because i can assure you i am literally harmless and 90% of the people who met me and were intimidated by me at first now can’t even understand why they were intimidated in the first place. just saying!!!!

branching off from that, i know that because of my own introversion coupled with the aforementioned issue that i speak to very little people in this roleplay. i’m not overwhelmingly upbeat and i really hate group chats but i’m willing to be anyone’s friend. i do go through these periods where talking to certain people (usually new friends) is really overwhelming for me so i need space. and i’m sorry if i ever went from talking to you a lot to rarely if at all. it’s not because i like you any less! i just got overwhelmed and i’m terrible at upkeep. i rarely genuinely dislike anyone. in fact, it takes a lot for me to even outwardly express that i don’t like someone. so if you’re ever feeling like you’ve upset me to the point where i don’t want to be friends or wonder if i don’t like you, please know that you most likely didn't! and i’d love to talk to you any time.

anyways (good job ani for getting distracted from the main point) i wanted to talk more about the connections i’ve made here!

a lot of you know i came over from kpopxmen and from that, i know a lot of people for several years. those people include kyle, jess, d’mi (an ex-rookies member), jenn (ex-rookies), ema (ex-rookies), jaiden and julie (our og admins), adri, phil, razel, gim (ex-rookies) and so many more people that i probably can’t think about mentioning rn. but i’ve went to make a lot more friends here and for that i’m grateful.

to amy: i want to say i’m sorry for confusing you with someone else when you initially joined the rp but i’m not sorry that i did because it put me in a situation where i got to speak to you for the first time and got to know you better. we don’t thread often (i think we have like two in our entire history together) but i love our muse’s dynamic, even if it’s mostly behind the scenes. i’ve come to adore yien so freaking much and i can’t imagine an rk without him. i’m happy and grateful that you trust me enough to talk about things and i can’t thank you enough for being one of the only people to go out of their way to make sure i’m okay when i’m at my worse. i love our tea spilling sessions. you’re the greatest for when i want to rant without judgement.

to marie: i’m still upset you dropped jinyoung i loved his muse u n u lol but for real i really do think you’re a cool person. it makes me wonder what the hell took us so long to freaking speak to each other on a more close level. but you’re so fun to be around and you have a great ass energy and i still have that baby picture of you running away from whatever that was AHAHAH but i’m so happy that we talk more! and omg we have our first ship together (that’s not in rookies but i’m exCITED OKAY WHAT A FUCKING POWER COUPLE) and you have to plot with me on dabin now bc you took jinyoungie away u n u

to nic: thank you for being a good friend to me all of these years. i value our friendship. i find it funny we haven’t plotted with any of your newer muses. HOW THE HELL DID WE MANAGE THAT? anyways i really wanted to say thank you for having my back, for helping me out when i really need it and for letting me rant and bitch to you about things that really piss me off. sometimes talking to you really does keep me sane or else i’d blow tf up for real. for that i’m thankful. we really do have to plot more with our muses. which somehow we’re terrible at? LMAO GJ US

to carly: i will talk about your hentaekai username until my fucking GRAVE because it’s still the most iconic thing to have happened. so for those of you who DON’T know, carly’s username on aim was hentaekai. so when she joined, she had put her aim username in her intro. i just copy and pasted her username into my add list and sent her a simple hello and introducing myself. then…….i returned to see if she was online (because i had sent the message when she was offline) and THEN i realised her name looked like hentai and i fucking lost it. that’s actually how our first conversation went. we then went on to talk about how similar taemin and min (rkmiya) were to an alarming degree. and now we have luna who is miya’s sister! i care about you even if we don’t talk much at all and it’s nice that we can confide in each other about things. i am grateful for you and you always provide interesting insight.

to jess and phil: i put you guys in the same one because we are One LOL. anyways i love you both to the death of me. we honestly have sphere chat for bringing us even closer together and thank fucking god you both let your muses be signed to sphere. rkmin was going nuts on her own it was getting ridiculous. i LOVE the sphere musketeers and i love the family dynamic that the sphere kids had. it really was the precedent in terms of company dynamics. phil, you know howon meant so much to rkmin and i’m glad even to this day we got to have our muses in the same company and i love you~ and whichever 1284239429834 muses you decide to bring LOL. jess, from jonghyun to huidong: i love that rkmiya has a relationship with both (which reminds me, jong-puppy needs to text his noona un u). i really find her relationship with huidong more interesting as the nova parents. it’s actually pretty nice how well the compliment each other and are similar at the same time. i honestly never thought they’d be close but here they are!

to chanel: wow it’s been forever for us, hasn’t it? we’ve been through a lot. although we don’t speak anymore i do value our friendship as it were. we had a really good dynamic going for our muses. it was nice to plot some extreme fucking slow burn for rickhee, who are a complete mess. it’s nice seeing the contrasting relationships our muses have with one another. you do create some fun muses! thank you for being a friend for so long. i definitely do miss talking to you more but i know irl gets a bit busy!

to nova kids: i want to thank you all for the 4 amazing years that sunmi has been in nova! it’s been fun. we’ve seen a lot of faces come and go. we’ve all had our differences with one another but honestly i really love how easily the nova kids can crack jokes on each other and really be playful. even if we don’t get to put it on dash often enough i really prefer the nova kids dynamic of all the companies my muses are in rn and that wouldn’t be possible with every single one of you contributing to that dynamic and it’s always a little different with each muse lineup. i know sunmi wasn’t an og nova member from day one but it really feels that way sometimes. we’re a crazy bunch but it’s fun to be in chat!

to trc kids: i know the company’s dynamics aren’t established if at all but i wanted to thank all of you for plotting with sohee and for dealing with her craziness. although she is more of the shy, eternally sweet kind of gal, she is super die hard for trc and would never dream of leaving. it was never her first choice in company (or her second, truthfully) but she really has come to love the company as it is and that’s all thanks to you guys! (shout out to joi for still having yubin in there since day one!!!! LETS GET THIS MONEY !!!) i also want to give a secondary shout out to mir first giving me great ass plot development for nesshee and for vanessa taking sohee’s first female kiss ic and for forcing sohee to learn that she has to take the good and the bad in situations. it was a very vital lesson she needed to learn. to the rest of the trc crew, let’s keep working towards getting our kids closer!! <3

to kt crew: i know chungha is still new to the kt group and doesn’t exactly fit in yet but i wanted to say thank you guys too! i don’t have much to say because it’s been less than a month being in kt and it’s the one company i’ve never had a muse in so i’m still unfamiliar with a lot. it’s also the company with the most members that i’m personally unfamiliar with. i’m interested in learning more about everyone and their muses!

to everyone i didn’t have the time/mind to mention: please don’t take it the hard way. i just had a lot to write and i’m sorry i didn’t give you a personal shout out. i usually do it to the people who have stayed in my sphere most recently (because then i remember them) but don’t think this means i think any less of you! you’re just as important.

to everyone who has mentioned me in their rkfifth so far: thank you! i didn’t really think i was impactful enough to even be mentioned in someone else’s rkfifth post so it was a nice surprise. honestly there were at least like two of you who mentioned me that caught me completely off guard. (and there’s some who didn’t mention me that i kind of expected to and they didn’t so it’s like a two sided surprise LOL)

to the rest of rookies: whether we haven’t met yet, only talk occasionally or are just twitter mutuals, just know that i’m ready to be friends when you are. it’s been five years and i’ve seen plenty of people come and go (including admin team members) and i feel like my heart will always be in rookies. i just can’t pull away. until rkmiya gets her shot at being debuted i don’t think that damn muse would even let me leave even if i wanted to. so i guess i’m sticking around for a while. why not make the time go by quicker by making some new friends? LOL

if you made it this far (hi carly) thank you for reading my long ass spiel that probably made no sense at some points! congratulations! i made something really nice for everyone. so if you want to see it, please click here!!!!!!

[camikee]

Lessons Learned Too Late

It seems that it’s the most valuable lessons that come at the most inconvenient time for us, always arriving exactly when we would rather be looking elsewhere. For me, at least. I had my last training session with my first college coachees last week.

A lot of things are terrifying to me- large social situations, flying insects, and boats that look suspiciously like the Titanic. So when I began coaching adults for the first this year, it was a nearly paralysing feeling. I got a team of men that had never played volleyball before. I scratched my head in confusion and thought about if I would actually be teaching them anything. “It’ll be like the middle school team I coached last year,” I pondered naively. “It can’t be that hard.” This was my first lesson learned too late as a coach- do not set precocious expectations. I started out by going to their trainings- which was a supposedly weird thing to do. I had always been coached and trained by the same person- however within my association, it was normal for the trainer and coach (games) to be two separate people. None of that made sense to me, and I chose not to adapt to what was custom. As I put more time into guiding these guys, I realised what I truly had in my hands- the amount of potential I’d been gifted. These guys were headstrong from the very start- much like my middle schoolers. Stubborn, some would say. Difficult, others would contest. Often, my position as would be put into question sarcastically, something which I had very well learnt to combat with my 11 year old coachees. Antonymously however, these boys were much taller and generally quite older than I was, which changed the way I would approach coaching. Looking back to the very start of the season, they were probably just as lost as I was- but once they started to get some direction, there was no stopping them. There was no real time for jokes either, as these guys were stubbornly motivated- and quite frankly I had trouble keeping up. The schedule soon became as follows: one practice a week, + 1-2 matches and 1-2 extra trainings (all in addition to my own team schedule). I spent nearly every single day planning for and coaching these guys. A 24 hour job. I soon learned to carry the ankle weights of anxiety through this new experience. I do recognise that I had the choice to do the minimum and just coach their games like the job description indicated, but I couldn’t ever do just that. 

You have to be a strong willed person to want to play volleyball 4-6 times a week during your first week at an association. The non-athlete part of me feels exhausted just looking at those training times. Admittedly, at first, I felt responsible for pushing them to spend more time together to get to know each other. Then, this job turned into meticulously planning extra trainings. What it eventually ended up happening is that they became the ones pushing towards having more practices, more games, and more trainings. It was truly out of my hands.  Anything these guys had trouble understanding or acting out, they would organise an hour practice where they would have me run drills for that specific component over and over again until they understood it. If I didn’t understand it, we would invite someone who did. Were they on crack? I had never met a beginner’s team so determined to improve- so motivated by the boundaries others placed on them. This is the only reason I can give for them breaking every expectation; they simply worked harder than everybody else because they felt out the gap in experience. Nobody gets anywhere without the grind. However, nobody gets anywhere without putting in the hours. Lesson learned too late number 2: it takes time. Of course, intuitively, I knew this. I knew that it skills don’t appear overnight and I knew that team dynamo didn’t form within and hour. If you’re reading this and don’t understand volleyball, here are the basics; you have to win 3 sets out of 5 to win a match. Each set consists of 25 points, which can feel like many more if games are slow. It took months, y’all. It took a quarter year of weekly games to  win 1 set, and nearly 7 months for them to win their first game (this level team usually isn’t expected to win any games in their first year season). It took really hard defeats, injuries, and repeated strain to get anywhere. It took frustration against each other, the coach, and obviously the referees to end the storming period. It even took a nasty clash with an official about stolen points during a tight match (ref was wrong tho, we all knew it). It takes power to get back up from the dust and continue the gruelling work of training. Something clicked, eventually, but only after a bit. It’s quite demotivating for the team (player as well as coach) to take loss after loss and remain positive. Things felt very still for those first few months, and it was worrying to think that maybe I wasn’t suited to ensure the success of this team. Some of them take these type of losses quite seriously as well as personally and I felt guilty for it. This stillness, somehow, is what made the first step so sweet. They took their first set against a noticeably irascible team, and nothing had ever felt so great. My co-coaches and I pulled our voices out of our throats and threw them up in the air like confetti. What did it matter about the rest of the game? A set was more than we had ever gotten. The next day, the sky was a little bluer. Following the win, the stillness returned, characterised by a lack of scheduled games. However, they had grasped their first tiny victory, and came back for their first win against a team two ranks above them in the same association, same classe, and same division. As humiliating for the other team as this could have been, it set them out for the kill and they slaughtered the champions of their classe and demoted them from their first place (same division). I was gobsmacked. I was present for their first win, the win for which I admittedly shed a few motherly tears for- but when I heard of their second win, I ran around to tell every single person I knew that was in the proximity. Lesson learned late number 3: always expect the best out of people. 

For months I had mentioned that I thought these guys were better than what their title could showcase- but who would believe their coach that was clearly very biased? Their achievements were proof of their hard work, this was evidence that this team happened to be composed of disciplined, hard working and most persevering guys that could have ever been sorted together. At some point, this team became family; and we want the best for our family, don’t we? I saw these guys, and what I saw was not only how they were now but also how far they had grown. If I looked forward, I could get a glimpse of what they could be. I not only compared their trainings to some of the most technical stuff I could find, I also expected them to outperform the previous versions of themselves. Given, some of the things I may have envisioned could have been unrealistic, but if you shoot for the best, you’ll land somewhere close to there, hopefully. Though they couldn’t gather enough points in the end to climb up in their pool, this was already a legendary year for them. They absolutely killed the game as first years and will continue climbing if they keep this up. If they had stuck to what was expected of them, which we known now was clearly not their best, I don’t know what would have happened. Not this, certainly.

Now, as a coach, I can’t say I expected this to happen. When I was pushed into coaching this team (by my own wonderful teammates, may I mention), I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. I’m used to coaching middle school- what was I even doing here coaching men’s college volleyball? I had to think about what my previous coaches had done that I think had worked, because my previous coaches are the ones who shaped whatever I would be handing down to these guys. I couldn’t ever have compared to the skills and years of expertise my previous coaches had- they had worked their way towards the bottom to end up coaching teams I’d played on. They started out playing on high teams and coaching teams of their calibre, before working their way down to teams I had played on. Of course they had their doubts about themselves- who doesn’t? The difference is that I did not have the extent of qualification to back myself up. I would have to work from the bottom up, to start the learning process the same way I learned how to play the sport initially. I was terrified, however, and felt that it would be easier to be an assistant coach to a higher team, or maybe not even coach at all. This was difficult to balance. Lesson learned late number 4: let ego take a back seat.  Everyone wants to coach the high level teams. Everyone wants to be associated with a team with high skill- and if you are the person best suited for a team in terms of skill and compatibility, then by all means. We’re all glory-seekers, though. (Note that I am not citing personal glory as a unique reason to want to coach the champion team but as a very raw human motivator to do so). If I may let the psychology student in me make an observation, it seems that coaches of higher teams may feel that their position is gratifying, and be inclined to invest more into the team they coach- which makes sense. Humans seek what makes them feel good. Coaches of “lower” teams may find it more difficult to think that what they are doing is working or even gratifying- and could be inclined to retract. Losses and stillness can make one feel helpless. This also makes sense, and if I had let myself fall victim to my anxiety, I would also retracted. I just couldn’t do that to this team I had. It’s not, and will never be, about me or how I feel regarding the game. It’s about them. Looking at all my past coaches, it would be out of character for me to not invest my energy into trying to get them the success these deserved. And they deserved it all. Volleyball aside, I spent a lot of hours with these 10 wonderful coachees of mine. And ofcourse, I’ve gotten to know them as the 10 separate individuals they are instead of just a unit. The amount of time that I gave did allow for them to grow on me. Lesson learned late number 5: learn to let go.

It is the end of the season already, and the Technical Committee of the association is working hard to redistribute the skill levels. This would mean, as expected, that the team I had grown so attached to was going to be dissected and reassorted. I hadn’t given too much thought to this until it hit me in the face. And this became the problem of becoming very involved- the issue of attachment. I often joked that these guys were my “kids”, because my way of guiding them was quite “motherly-like”. Unfortunately, my method of attachment was also quite “motherly-like” and the concept of passing this wonderful set of people off to another coach is alien to me. The countless memories and inside jokes, all being shuffled on to someone else. lol no. 

These guys continue to astound me, some of their traits on the court are also very clearly seen in their lives outside the sport. Notably; the perseverance, the stubbornness, the optimism. I know them so well, it’s like I’m not ready to let them go. The end of the season feels like seeing them off to new lives, much like a parent seeing their child off to college. Ofcourse, our shenanigans are far from over- but we all know it won’t be quite the same again. I seek to let them know though, how remarkable each of them are. To let them know that anything they set their mind to is within reach. To thank them for this great season. This sounds like any speech given by a coach at the end of a season, but I guess I never really understood until this point. I need to stop being such a mom. 

If you’ve payed attention to any of this, you know I still have no idea what I’m doing as a coach. I have a notion of what it could look like, but all teams are different and to compare any other group of people to the particularly great one I had this year could be risky. I’ve learned these 5 things, maybe I’ll learn more on the way. 

[cococrazies]

Lovestruck Series Review: Starship Promise (Season 1)

Personal playing order: Orion - Jaxon - Antares - Nova - Atlas

Warning! Minor spoilers ahead for Antares’s/Nova’s/Atlas’s routes, as well as CGs under the cut.

Orion: I’m torn on this one. I really enjoyed the story -- a lot more than I thought I would, given my lack of enthusiasm for the series concept -- and Orion himself. (If anyone ever wanted Shang from Mulan but in outer space, this is it.) The writing also had a very natural cadence and flow; it pulled me in easily, never getting too heavy-handed with sudden plot twists and cliffhangers... except for one instance, but more on that below.

And the MC! She was a pleasant surprise. I hadn’t been too impressed by her in the first-ep sneak peeks we get in each route, but she’s really cute -- she can be a bit of a space cadet at times (sorry, bad pun intended), but she isn’t dumb. Furthermore, she really develops over the course of the route, which is impressive given everything else stuffed into these mere 12 episodes.

So now to the things I didn’t like about this route: for one, the romantic development. It seemed really sudden and almost shoehorned-in as a result of the route length, which was jarring given how well-paced everything else had been up to that point. 

Also, the Antares plot twist; it felt cliché and gimmicky, especially since I could see it coming from a mile away. I think I would’ve preferred for it to be a Season 2 reveal, or at least presented to us right from the start -- as it was, it just seemed like it was there for the “shock factor” + to forcibly give us a reason to care about the antagonist if we didn’t already. But since this was a pilot season, I guess I can understand how they wanted to tease at an intriguing backstory as early as possible to get players invested.

Overall, they still did succeed with the latter, because now I’m pretty curious about where they’re going with this. And also because I need more Orion/MC in my life; rushed or not, those two are simply way too cute.

Jaxon: Whoa, this story was jam-packed with action scenes and chemistry between the OTP. The pace is hella fast, but you never get the sense that we’re skipping past important details; the writing makes the most of every episode it has got. Not a single scene is wasted or filler-like.

Jaxon himself is a bit of a harder sell. His gargantuan ego, jokester personality, and YOLO take on everything make him one of those characters that you either love or hate -- although for me, he fell somewhere near the middle of the spectrum. I like his concept and find him a refreshing addition to Lovestruck’s character lineup, but he’s not really my type as far as romance goes; and sometimes he toes the line for being near annoying.

(The fact that I constantly seemed to make the wrong choices -- at least judging by the sheer amount of weird looks or lukewarm responses he gave me after 90% of my choices -- didn’t help. Heads-up: don’t try to play it cool. This MC really, really can’t do cool. I had several near-death experiences from sheer secondhand embarrassment while playing this route.)

That aside, he makes a surprisingly good team with MC. Except from some cringey non-heart options (which were brutal this route, by the way), they naturally eased into working as a combo. I like how they both are able to pull each other out of their respective emotional ruts, as well as complement the other’s shortcomings. Jaxon’s character turnaround near the end felt a little sudden, but I like the teased insight on his past, and am looking forward to learn more about it.

Antares: Oh, MC. Trust me, I of all people totally understand crushing on the hot, mysterious, and possibly noble anti-hero holding you captive for unknown reasons, but even so. Being constantly unable to focus on anything but your attration to him -- and using it as a basis for your foundation to trust him almost straight away despite how he works for the Big Bad, and is literally using you as a tool(-fixer) for whatever evil purposes the Empire has in mind for the galaxy -- is like a whole new level of uncool.

(Also, how is a sheltered colony girl’s reaction to seeing a military leader telling his troops not to leave a single ship standing “swoon, he’s so charismatic” instead of “holy shit, he kills people”? Priorities, MC.)

Beyond that, Antares’s route was very intriguing to me. Out of Lovestruck’s villain routes so far this is the one that has done the least to paint the love interest as less of an antagonist, or the side he sympathizes with as more morally grey. I also appreciated seeing another side of Antares himself that actually knows the definition of the word chill  isn’t perpetually dressed in bunny-ear mecha armor  that’s not completely absorbed by his thirst for vengeance against his brother.

Similar to Orion’s route, the romantic development also dropped on us out of the blue here... but strangely, I didn’t mind. In a way, it seemed to make sense for Antares’s emotionally dysfunctional personality (to the point that it gave me Chance S1 in GiL flashbacks). I think I almost preferred this to him doing a sudden 180 and going all mushy on MC when any potential romantic build-up outside of premium choices has been minimal. I’m holding my thumbs now for a gradual turnaround -- much like Chance got -- in his future seasons.

Nova: I keep going back and forth re: how I feel about this route. To again start with the positive -- I’d been worried that Nova would be a Space Medusa 2.0, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that she wasn’t. For all the kuu in her kuudere demeanor, Nova still spends a fair amount of the route bonding with MC through actual conversation, and unlike Orion’s/Antares’s routes this season the romance didn’t even seem that rushed. Furthermore, I was intrigued by Nova’s backstory (not to mention that she’s hot as hell).

But to be entirely honest, this story is also the most formulaic, “typical otome”-esque route I’ve read so far in Lovestruck -- not so much in concept as in execution. It reminds me of one of those Voltage JP fantasy routes where we spend the first 1/3 of the route with semi-slice-of-life scenes interspersed with action, the middle 1/3 of this route discovering the LI’s angsty past and them distancing themselves to protect MC, and the final 1/3 with MC dissolving into hysterics/apocalyptic depression, stupidly running after LI alone, and declaring their undying love for them after having known them for a couple of days in the middle of a life-or-death situation.

Since I do play Voltage JP games I’m not saying it’s necessarily a terrible thing, just... jarring. I might seem like I’m awfully hard on Lovestruck’s writing a lot of the time, but that’s because I have high expectations of it. In a sea of near-identical mobile otome clones Lovestruck stands out with a more Westernized and creative take on standard otome tropes, hence often avoiding common pitfalls associated with the genre. The writing in general is a cut above what I expect from mobile games as well, hence all my criticisms; I don’t balk (as much) at LIs doing sudden 180s or MCs being stupid in a Solmare game, but I do with Lovestruck because I know -- and have seen firsthand -- that they can do better.

So this route was confusing to me. Because, if I were to go for my usual standard from what I would expect run-of-the-mill Voltage JP route, for example, or a Shall We Date? one -- then I’d think it’s fine. Or even good. But for Lovestruck? I don’t know. I wouldn’t say it’s bad, just not... good. (The GiL-esque Pok��mon-battle narration for action scenes -- yes, this is my official pet peeve now -- didn’t help.)

With all that said though, I didn’t dislike Nova’s route. (Hence the confusion.) And definitely not Nova herself. I just don’t really know how I feel about its writing direction, and how it measures against my expectations of a Lovestruck route.

Atlas: I fell head over heels for this route. Seriously, this was Astraeus-in-season-3-of-AFK level instant love, except without the devastating angst and with a decent helping of fluffy feels on top. Not that it was all fluff -- we had our share of prospective angst here too, if less literally earth-shattering. And hell of a lot of action, character development, and tons of other goodies tightly stuffed in a 12-episode-package of awesome.

Similar to my review for Astraeus, I don’t even know where to begin talking about this route’s good points. The prose, for one -- there were just so many beautifully worded narrative transitions, and the dialogue didn’t lose out in that aspect, either. The sass, sarcasm, and the humor were well-timed, but didn’t go overboard/seem out of character for MC or the rest of the cast.

Then there’s Atlas himself. Breaking down tsunderes is one of my favorite otome pastimes, and doing exactly that to our resident grouchy pilot was no different. First of all, I love that he maintains a healthy balance between insults that are obviously all bark and no bite, and genuinely worded criticism that should logically be voiced. In fact, there’s so little unnecessary tsun here that he could almost pass for a kuudere. 

Regardless of whatever mold he’d better fit into, finally crumbling down that cranky demeanor of his and seeing him dere was a sweet, sweet reward. (I actually caved and went premium twice despite my agonizing wallet because I couldn’t resist seeing more of it.)

Or heck, even the platonic moments building up to that were great. Because the romance with Atlas was really well-paced; I love how we went from almost-hate (my favorite trope!) to begrudging respect, then to friendly equals/teammates, and finally something more -- all the while there was obvious chemistry between him and MC interlacing every interaction. I was kind of worried whether we’d get some last-minute romantic confession slapped on near the end, but thankfully we got a development that, for all its unrealistic corniness, still had me squealing. Especially with that cliffhanger; dammit, how am I even supposed to emotionally last until I get to his second season?

The main plot was really interesting, too -- probably my favorite premise out of the ones we’ve been offered so far. Even though it starts out similarly with MC on the run, I like how 1) we see the Union as evil right from the bat, avoiding having another MC-gets-out-of-her-naïve-colony-girl-mindset mini-arc; 2) rather than being perpetrated for some valuable information/artifact that the Starship crew might benefit from, MC is in a situation where they actually have no reason to keep her around, adding more tension to the intro; and 3) how all of this tied into Atlas’s own personal character arc. (Not that I minded how the other premises played out, it just made for a fresh change of pace.)

To wrap this gigantic word-vomit ramble up, I’d just like to conclude by gushing one last time how fantastic this route is -- I’d warmly recommend it to anyone interested in giving Starship a chance, because after this, the series personally had me hook, line, and sinker.

Final character ranking: Atlas > Orion > Jaxon > Antares > Nova

....This got a little longer than I intended it to be, oops. Kudos to anyone who has made it to the end of this season review. (I’ll try to be a little more concise in my next one, i.e. GiL S7.)  You can follow my tag #coco reviews lovestruck for more reviews of Lovestruck games, or check out the ones I’ve done so far on this list.

[outsidethe18blog]

Matt Lanahan Presents: Everything You Need To Know About US Soccer Right At This Moment.

If you haven’t learned by now, Matt Lanahan and sad soccer experiences go hand in hand. To name a couple that you may or may not have heard about, there was my handball that lost us the State Cup for my club team, the 4-0 loss in the High School State Finals, Portsmouth falling into a black pit of monetary despair, and Newcastle getting relegated. But nothing hurts more than the USMNT failing to qualify for the World Cup. You might have heard my mini-rant on the podcast, during which I was mostly sad. Still, three days later, my mind is still a whirlwind of emotions. I am embarrassed, I am angry, and in a weird fucked up sense I am a little bit happy (I’ll explain). If you are tired of hearing takes on why the USMNT did not qualify, stop reading here. If not, continue on, and get my opinion on what went wrong these past few years for US Soccer.

WHAT WENT WRONG

Goalkeepers A good goalkeeper is like a wife: it usually works best if you don’t have multiple. The consistent change between Brad Guzan and Tim Howard is detrimental to the chemistry of the team. The relationship between the goalkeeper and the two center backs is especially important. Consistently changing that dynamic was a major downfall for this USMNT squad, and it showed. A number of weak goals resulted from back center back and goalkeeper play. Additionally, the decision to NOT bring a young goalkeeper to qualifying hurts the future of the team. I would hope that Howard, Guzan, or Rimando are not in the next qualifying stage. So, why the team rostered Rimando, and not a guy like Ethan Horvath or Bill Hamid puzzles me. Again, the nearsightedness of USMNT is very apparent.

Center Back partnership Throughout qualifying, the center back pairing has given me nightmares. No matter who was playing, seeing a player run at the two CBs made me more nervous than getting an organic chemistry test back. Between Geoff Cameron, Matt Beslar, John Brooks, and Omar Gonzalez, no pairing has ever been set in stone. Because of this, it felt like there wasn’t a leader on the back line. Germany had Boateng/Howedes, Spain had Ramos/Pique, Italy had Canavarro/Materazzi. Obviously, these are world class players that the USMNT can’t expect to replicate. But, the USMNT is missing at least one rock-solid center back who wins crunching tackles and is the emotional leader of the team.

Center Midfield Plain and simple, just not good enough. The USMNT was consistently outmatched in the midfield by lesser opponents, unless we added an extra player to the midfield and sacrificed attacking or defending options. Thankfully the Michael Bradley era has ended. To me, he will be remembered as a shitty attacking midfielder who couldn’t create, and an even shittier defensive midfielder who couldn’t tackle. Sadly, we lacked any better options in these two positions. Players like Nagbe or Pulisic showed glimmers of quality when placed in the middle. However, as outside midfielders, they consistently struggled to find the game, or to create through the midfield. We have yet to find a midfield pairing that can be dynamic going forward and effective defensively.

Forwards Bobby Wood and Jozy Altidore were poor throughout much of qualifying. The interplay between the two was almost non-existent. Neither forward could produce meaningful chances on their own, and both missed a lot of chances that should have been finished. Good teams have a “go-to” guy. Someone who is always dangerous with the ball. Someone who has the clutch gene and scores big goals.  The USMNT did not have that guy.

Chemistry The most frustrating thing to watch during the games was the USMNT’s apparent lack of chemistry. On the field, this was apparent—errant passes and miscommunications were Almost every single game, the question remained: who will be starting? By the last game in qualifying, the lineup should be set in stone. The partnership between the two center backs (whoever started) consistently made me nervous. We had a new goalkeeper every other game. There never seemed to be a connection between the two center mids. The partnership between Altidore and Wood just seemed “off.” But most importantly, the players lacked passion. After a goal conceded, there were never a center back screaming at a teammate. After a goal scored, the celebration was typically lackluster. After Pulisic got hacked for the 32nd time, nobody got in the ref’s face or put in a hard tackle on the opposing player.

This team was a group of individuals. It was a hodgepodge of the “best” skilled, most athletic players. Players on the USMNT come from all over. Some players are foreign born, although most were born here. The players come from the MLS, Liga MX, Bundasliga, Premier League, and Championship (England). And in that diversity, we struggle to create an identity. We aren’t an England, that spreads the ball wide with wing backs flying forward; We aren’t Greece that sits back and then counters; We aren’t Spain, that dominates possession with small passes; We aren’t Chile, that defends furiously with a high press. We need to create an identity for ourselves.

Coaching Klinsmann was the man we needed to coach the USMNT. He set realistic goals and made important changes to the youth system (see my other articles). Under Klinsmann, the USMNT was improving. We were more dynamic going forward, we defended as a unit, and we disciplined as a team. Klinsmann brought on younger players to ensure that future teams would be set up for success. He allowed players like John Brooks, DeAndre Yedlin, Christian Pulisic, Bobby Wood, and Sacha Kljestan to experience the atmosphere of the World Cup and World Cup Qualifying.

Bruce Arena is not the man for the job. It is clear that his intention was to win games at any cost, and the quality of US Soccer was severely diminished during his reign. Players consistently thumped long-balls down the field instead of possessing. Most importantly, our defensive shape as a team was abysmal and we were exposed by a number of less skilled teams. Arena has a subpar coaching history. After failing to qualify for Russia 2018, I hope the USSF will choose to replace someone with achievable goals and ambitious training tactics.

Expectations When Klinsmann became the USMNT head coach, he created realistic, progressive goals. He sat in front of the media and did something that few newly hired coaches would do at that point. He told the truth—the USMNT is just not that good. At the 2014 World Cup, his goal was to advance out of the group stage. Critics lambasted this as “weak” or “unpatriotic.” But why should the USMNT have any higher expectations? We have never been further than the quarterfinals in a World Cup. Klinsmann long-term goals did not resonate with the media or the general population, and because of that, he was consistently on the hot seat. Losses to quality teams like Colombia and Argentina only seemed to fuel that fire. Our expectations were just too high.

The win-now culture is pervasive in across many sports. It is understandable. But it comes at a dire cost. Think of any professional sports team that refuses to “rebuild.” Those teams that are too nearsighted to plan for the long term end up in the “twilight zone” where they justttt miss the playoffs every year. Unfortunately, this is the mindset of the US Soccer Federation, the media, the general fan that watches soccer every four years, and most die-hard fans that pay attention more closely. We as a nation continue to say, “We will be good at soccer in 20 years,” and then do little to make that happen (this is not to say that the expectation of qualifying for the World Cup is unrealistic FYI).

WHAT TO DO NOW

Clean House Unfortunately, the USMNT was not set up for future success. The roster moves indicate that this team was in a “win now” mentality. Here is a list of players who will be over 30 by 2022: Agudelo, Altidore, Beasley (he might be dead), Bedoya, Bradley, Beslar, Cameron, Dempsey, Feilhaber, Gonzalez, Guzan, Howard, Kljestan, McCarthy, Nagbe, Orozco, Ream, Rimando, Villafana, Wondolowski, Zusi. Not saying that anyone over 30 shouldn’t be on the team, but age does become an important factor. Other than Nagbe and a couple other in-form veterans, pretty much all of these players should not put on a US jersey again in a competitive match. Therefore, a YUGE chunk of the current team will be gone for good. Cleaning house means getting rid of Bruce Arenas too. There are a couple names that get thrown around, but I like Peter Vermes, current coach of Sporting KC. He is a guy that knows the US Soccer System, but most importantly, he creates teams with an identity.

Exposing young players to the USMNT The large void in the USMNT will need to be filled. The sooner that young guys can gain exposure to the international game, the better. The United States has a promising U17 and U20 team, and a number of other young players that haven’t gotten a call yet. Prospects like Julian Green, Matt Miazga, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Gedion Zelalem, Joshua Perez, Emerson Hyndman, Eric Palmer-Brown, and Lydnon Gooch are all under 23 and playing in Europe. Homegrown talent like Will Trapp, Dom Dwyer, Cyle Larin, and Sebastian Lletget have the potential to join a talented US roster. These players need to be tapped to the national team ASAP and begin training with each other. I cannot stress enough that Friendly matches should be used as a showcase for NEW players instead of a farewell tour for old players.

Assessing the Academy System Many of the new players who should be entering in contention for the USMNT will have gone through the Academy system in the United States. These next 4-8 years will be a litmus test for our system. Currently, it seems to be proving to be effective. Most of the players listed above were trained in the Academy system, including the ones who now play in Europe. MLS player Diego Fagundez, who was trained in the US system, has been pulled to the Uruguay U20 national team a number of times. The USSF must continue to monitor the success of US National teams and make changes to the structure of the Academy system if necessary.

The US Academy must develop a system. Think of the New England Patriots. Belichick and the coaching staff do an excellent job of picking players to fit their system. This allows players that might not be successful in other scenarios to thrive. While they might not be the most talented team on paper, the Patriots have consistently found ways to win. Other good teams had success using a systems approach. The Miracle on Ice team won the Olympics after Herb Brooks picked players that fit his style of play. The Oakland Athletics’ were competitive after Billy Bean acquired “unorthodox” players that meshed as a group. Chelsea FC and Antonio Conte’s methodology meant a great player like Diego Costa wasn’t needed anymore. Until the USSF and US Academy create a system and choose players based off of the quality to fit that system, the USMNT will not be successful.