#like it's just ironic that her arc failed and was missing this huge piece and then the last scene is confusing and misleading

[unsiredtribrid]

I feel like it's kind of a mark of how soulmates hosie are that Josie's arc feels incomplete and like it has a gaping hole in it because they didn't let her and Hope finish up whatever the hell they had going on there

[bloodyshadow1]

just finished Alanna’s route and I gotta say, I’d give it a C, it wasn’t bad, but I didn’t see a lot of good either.  There was so much crammed in as much as possible between the Society (that we barely get to see anything of), Time travel (which is fine but done pretty poorly with little buildup or fanfare or explanation), Immortals (like time travel, a decent story enough on it’s own, but only mentioned in the final 3rd of the story and barely talked about afterward), and Magic power stones (pretty vague power system that no one seems interested in telling the MC about) it feels like they accidently threw 4 darts at the idea board this time and never bothered to throw again.  It’s such a mess that the MC has to take on faith without ever being given a real reason to side with the Circle over anyone else other than her ex girlfriend is part of it and they hate her dad.  It’s so quick and it doesn’t ever feel like the right decision at least to me since you spend so little time with the Circle even as background characters to Alanna’s story.

Alanna as a character is kind of meh for me overall.  Physically her design is fine, seems cute more than hot or sexy, but sort of bland and generic.  there are other cute love interests that never felt this generic, she feels like she should be the sister or best friend character instead of the love interest of the MC.  It doesn’t help that by making her the MC’s ex returned, we know little to nothing about her, so much of a romance arc is missing because even if the MC knows, we the player don’t know what’s so great about Alanna.  All of Alanna’s character feels told instead of shown, the MC seems to worship the ground she walks on, but the actual story leaves much to be desired because we don’t really see her do anything super charming or amazingly skilled.  She’s pretty, but she’s not even the most beautiful woman in her route much less London or the world. I could understand why the MC would love her since she’s still hung up on her, so I could believe it if I took the story with a grain of salt, but the fact that her personality seems to be she’s so charming and everyone loves her without every truly delivering on such claims makes her whole route fall even flatter than it’s plot led to. The fact that the MC slept with her right away as a ‘palette cleanser’ was sort of interesting, but it still felt like being told about her, nothing about what she and the MC had gone through felt like she was so irresistible that the MC would need to get her out of her system, because we don’t know anything really about her relationship with Alanna.  And that’s a big problem to her selling points as a love interest

  We don’t know all the stories the MC has with Alanna, especially if they only dated for 2 months, the audience/player/readers, need to understand why the MC is in love with their love interest besides the route being named after them, by making their entire relationship when they first fell in love we miss all of that and are left with empty feelings and gestures between the two of them. The little back and forths between them about their past are okay to start with, but nothing about Alanna as a character from her 12 chapters makes me believe that she’s so lovely the MC can overlook her massive flaws and go along with her very unpersuasive desire to have the MC join them to help the world.  Her depression and feelings of helplessness after 200 years was interesting, but it felt like it came too late.  I’m actually really glad the MC called her out on her bullshit, by the end of her first chapter, I get a bit of where she’s coming from, but what Alanna did to the MC was fucked up and she doesn’t get to just pretend it never happened.

Plot wise, the story is a mess, like Alanna, so much of the story is told to the MC and she’s supposed to take it on faith that the Circle is somehow more morally right than the rest of the Society.  It fails because the Circle has barely any real character, they have interesting traits that if they were around more to make me care about them as something other than the vehicle to do the time travel and nothing more.  In so many routes, you’re introduced to all your love interests at the same time and they’re already a group, while you spend the most time with your love interest, you get to know most of the characters as people outside of their routes, but the rest of the Circle is pretty bland.  Not to mention that the Society is built up as this big maybe evil maybe just powerful and in the wrong hands thing..., but you barely interact with them at all.  The only people tell  the MC and her brother that the Society is bad is the Circle who are actively members of it and nothing about what they say or do makes me feel like they’re any more trust worthy than the rest of the society except most of them are going to be future love interests.  In Alanna’s route, the only member of the Society not in the Circle that has a unique character portrait is Arabella and she’s kind of a more interesting character with a more sympathetic story than the Circle. We hear about how corrupt and morally bankrupt the higher ups in the Society are, and we know the MC hates her dad, who seems to be considered the worst, but aside from being a bit stuff and arrogant, (much like the wealthy elite of our world) we don’t see much evil, and it confuses me if the Circle wants to bring down the Society or try and take control of it for the greater good without much of a reason to trust them.

The Immortal plot point fell flat to me, like the story basically skipped over the time travel plot device by making it literally a this happens and barely talk about it, but adding the Immortality plot felt unneeded in a narrative that needed a lot more structure, not irons in the fire.  I feel like if Alanna/your love interest was the only one of the Circle that was immortal other than the Elites of the Society it would have made a better route to go.  Having an immortal character in your romantic story is fertile ground, they could be a tragic figure, a figure who is hedonistic and loving their immortality, etc, there are plenty of ways to go, an immortal character with a bunch of their pals who are already incredibly powerful and have a vague sense of goodness about them, makes it feel far from a curse or whatever they’re trying to portray it here.  It could have also been introduced better to the MC by say meeting Arabella in the present day and being shocked by seeing her and needing confirmation from the Circle or Alanna, instead of Alanna dropping it in a mood to the MC.  

Overall, it felt to complicated of a story to tell with all the moving pieces that didn’t deliver on any of them sadly.  the whole story felt like it was a mix between Queen of Thieves and Astoria Fates Kiss, without the charms of either the story or the characters, replacing Greek Mythology with time travel.  I will also say, it the plot made me kind of uncomfortable with how a bunch of mostly white young adults have decided to be judge and jury throughout time with the first antagonist being a powerful black lesbian in london 200 years ago, and we only have their word that something is afoot.  I know that she actually was doing bad stuff, but the Circle is just a vigilante group with no actual authority and using time travel as their own means of policing people and if it wasn’t a simplistic romance story disguised as a scifi fantasy story, I feel like more nuance would have saved it.

The good parts: Alanna’s route for Immortal Hearts Society wasn’t all bad, I  I will admit I am probably overly harsh since I just finished it.  I actually really enjoyed the both the Female and Male MC character designs, they both were surprisingly interesting compared to a lot of MC’s.  I really did enjoy the MC for the most part and I liked her relationship with her brother, most of the time I’ve seen sibling relationships in Lovestruck they’re fine but don’t tend to have much actual conflict, just superficial.  But I like that the MC loves her brother, but burned her bridges with him to keep him safe, she regrets what she had to do but not what happened which is a pretty interesting take.  Alanna was enjoyable as a love interest in the beginning, but as the story got more and more convoluted, it felt like she didn’t have much actual character.  I do have a soft spot for the Circle characters, except for the two current love interests, I’m more annoyed that we didn’t get to see and interact with them more, especially since it looks like they’ll be future love interests if the pattern holds.  It was a fine story and I know I’m being overly harsh, but it just felt underdone instead of bad, which tends to make it worse in my mind because the lost potential is frustrating. 

 I wouldn’t mind continuing if the writing got tighter next season, I’ll still give it a try.  I would very much like an Arabella route before anyone else, she has such a gorgeous design and despite not seeing a huge amount of her character being a warm genuinely kind person stuck between a rock and a hard place for her family was an interesting take instead of making her one of the many false sweethearts in Queen of Thieves that stab you in the back.  I also think that if she still is around in modern day she would have fit the story as a love interest better than Alanna. 

Not sure if anyone is going to bother to read this but it feels good to get it out.  Maybe you think I’m full of shit and I’m fine with that, maybe you love Alanna and she’s your favorite love interest.  I’m sorry you read this because I don’t want anyone to feel bad, this is simply how I feel after reading the first chapter

[akkivee]

aaaaaaaaaaaand bam!!!!!!! here it is the final day!!!!!!!!!!! day 18!!!!!!!!! it’s time to break the wall y’all and wrap this up!!!! can you feel it??? i can feel it!!!!

First impressions: me: *looking at the newsletter from a jp anime goods site*

me: *sees ichiro for the very first time unknowing that this was the start* oh that’s a cute piece of merch!!!!! who’s the guy on it i wonder???? 😲

Current impressions: does ichiro know that i would kill for him. it is important for me to know that ichiro knows i will do anything for him—

man, ichiro randomly popped into my life when i needed him the most; i was really tired from the the previous couple of fandoms i’d been in, looking for a new one unconsciously when he showed up in my email, hugging a cd and utterly adorable with his big heterochromatic eyes. i wish i had a pic of the merch on hand ‘cause it was love at first sight man 💕 and he continues to be an utter delight to know!!!!! he’s the 19 entrepreneur that everyone would be writing about due to his jaded past and how successful he’s gotten all due his hard work!!!!!!!!!! i definitely understand jiro and saburo’s hero worship over him!!!!

Favorite thing:

he’s just a really cool dude man. he’s incredibly levelheaded with an equal amount of brain smarts and street smarts. but that levelheadedness is something he’s working hard to maintain. his personality is closer to samatoki’s and he knows this and wants to be better than the man who let him down and to be a good role model for his brothers with it. he’s an head full thoughts many kinda character and it shows in pretty much everything he does

Least favorite:

his seiyuu is kinda wack lol sometimes it feels like ichiro is one of those bland characters that doesn’t do anything and the surrounding characters are all totes more interesting yet are, for some reason, super into this bland character. thank god this statement is a total disservice to ichiro’s character because he’s incredibly interesting, it’s just ichiro is currently in an ‘after story’ kind of arc in his life where everything is good (for now.) it just sometimes feels like he’s being left behind in the story 😕

What i want to see from this character:

what don’t i want to see??????????????? how is he going to react seeing his father again and on the same team as his old teammate, sasara??????????? does he really know he’s been alive all this time???????? if he has, how is he going to deal with how betrayed his brothers may feel????????????? apparently he and samatoki can make up now since he knows nemu is ‘missing’ and samatoki knows that ichiro has nothing to do with her leaving him but will it really be that easy????????? will he and kuukou make up and be aikata back at again, like how is he going to react seeing kuukou again?????????

Favorite moments:

hhhhhhhhhhhh okay i’m going all in.

it’s not really a favorite moment but something that strikes me as a hindsight is 20/20 kinda thing, but ichiro fully intended to leave his little brothers out of his team and the rap battles. in the very first buster bros drama track, he gave them an assignment each, fully expecting them to fail. it comes as a surprise to him that they got it done and done so well. now, he’s been fully supportive of having his brothers be his team but it’s terribly ironic for him to get so offended when anyone insults his brothers abilities when he was the first to have doubted them.

and say ichiro has known their father’s been alive all this time. rei honestly might as well had been good as dead to them with how absent he’s been in their lives. granted, it’s definitely not something that comes up in casual conversation but with jiro and saburo having to confront ichiro pretty much twice in the course of helter skelter, it really looks like ichiro just doesn’t have faith in his brothers to outsiders and that could really blow up on him man

in our treasure trove of character tidbits called arb, when you have ichiro set as your my room mascot, he comments on his brothers who seemed to have stepped out and it’s something along the lines of:

“where is jiro? i hope he’s not getting involved with any weird people....” and “where did saburo go?? ......well, if it’s him, i think he’ll be alright.”

and if this isn’t the best example of how ichiro feels about his brothers individually lol. i’m sure ichiro is worried jiro’s trying to copy him too much and sees saburo doing things he was never capable of at his age as an inspiration but it’s interesting food for thought

and then in the stage play (*crowd boos*) has some of the best ichiro moments but i’m just going to say ichiro yelling at his brothers for being too loud with their musical number when he was the loudest one on the stage was really fcking funny 🤣

Headcanon:

i’m pretty sure this is canon at this point but ichiro is a clingy mf like once he’s decided you’re one of his peoples, then you are one of his peoples. you see it with how much of a brocon he is, you see it in the stage play when his long lost childhood friend, kazu, rolls into town and refuses to believe that kazu may be trouble, and you see it with ichiro naming his team buster(s) bros after his old team with kuukou who he still thinks about and considers a friend. (and might i add, was willing to change everything about himself in order to keep kuukou by his side and he’s the only person we see ichiro seriously crying over save for when he thought his brothers were dead after he lost the showdown battle with samatoki)

Ships:

ICHIKUU FOR LIFE!!!!!!!! ICHIKUU SUPREMACY MUST BE REINSTATED!!!!!!!!! like bro how do you have two different types of protagonists mesh as well as they do like they’re both loners with a huge amount of power but where kuukou is kinda nuts ichiro is kinda cool. kuukou is definitely ichiro’s sun but kuukou’s the one who puts himself into ichiro’s orbit like if their relationship turns out to be where if ichiro is struggling or if he’s calling and kuukou comes running, i will actually perish!!!! and then they’re both weebs!!!!! i really wanna know how this current ichiro, who’s a lot happier and not emo, and kuukou are going to mesh!!!!

lol and then ichidice is kinda cute and so is poly 19 year olds, ichiro/nemu/kuukou!! and of courses, i am heavily invested in however his and samatoki’s relationship is going to pan out

links to: jiro | saburo | samatoki | juto | rio | ramuda | gentaro | dice | jakurai | hifumi | doppo | kuukou | jyushi | hitoya | sasara | rosho | rei

[rationalisms]

southern reach trilogy for the ask meme!!! 🌱🍃🏞️

the first character i ever fell in love with: THE BIOLOGIST g-d i adore her soooooo much she’s just. ugh INCREDIBLE. i get emotional about what a landmark female character she is on a regular basis and i still remember relating so intensely to her and the way she engages with the world especially in annihilation. her perspective is so unique and according to so many readers apparently very alienating and i adore with how much care and sympathy she was written despite that. i love her.

a character i used to love/like, but now do not:i don’t have one of these so i’m gonna turn the question around and say i used to not like control AT ALL at the start of authority, mainly bc i just rly missed the biologist and was very resistant to another pov, especially a male one, but by the end of authority i adored him and i’m so glad i gave him a second chance.

a ship i used to love/like, but now do not: there’s literally nothing about these books i don’t like so i can’t answer this

my ultimate favourite character:again, the biologist…… she’s SO MUCH and i adore her character arc and missed her pov so much after annihilation, as much as i adore ghost bird, the psychologist, saul, and control. i have written so many embarrassing paragraphs on how hugely meaningful it is to me that she gets to be a woman who is allowed to feel the way she feels about relationships and other people and the universe around her, and i adore the very many ways jeff vandermeer provides insight into her thought process outside of the content of the diary entries (like the complete lack of names in the first book! so brilliant!).

prettiest character:it’s a book so idk! but going by how i imagine them it’d probably be grace.

my most hated character:i don’t have one i love every single character in that book series

my OTP:idk that i rly have ships in the like, traditional sense. i think the relationship between ghost bird and the biologist is VERY interesting in the way all clone/”original” relationships throw up such interesting questions of identity, and their inherent tether to each other is so good as well. also i was chindhandsing at every interaction between the psychologist and grace, especially @ their rooftop meetings (i know grace has a girlfriend already but still!) also obv i am so thankful to jeff vandermeer for giving us canon light house gays wearing thick jumpers and holding hands to small bar concerts together, like… the Romance……

my NOTP:h8 the idea of control/ghost bird romantically and i’m rly glad that even tho it was established control was attracted to her it was also immediately established that she’s not the least bit interested in him and that he knows and respects that

saddest death:no one really dies, per se, but…. the psychologist i guess? she invested so much of her life in figuring out area x and to come so close and fail must have been horrible. also poor poor saul. all he wanted was to live in peace with his boyfriend and his light house, he really didn’t deserve all that.

favourite book: still annihilation even if it’s shortest and provides the least answers. it was just SUCH a ride. i read it in like 4 hours in one go holding my breath half the time and that was before i was on ADHD meds so that’s impressive

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: idk who everyone else loves and i don’t hate anyone i love them all

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: control lmao. he’s such a disaster and it’s so tragic how his name is really more ironic than anything else but i loved seeing him unravel throughout authority and how pathetic he is in acceptance rly tugs at my heart strings. poor boy.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: again, poor poor saul. just let him be gay and cranky in peace.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: sea monster biologist/ghost bird is hot i guess??????

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship:see the answer to the otp question

[pass-the-bechdel]

Supergirl season two full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

100% (twenty-two of twenty-two).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

49.93%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Nineteen. 

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-five. Thirteen who appear in more than one episode, five who appear in at least half the episodes, and two who appear in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Thirty-six. Thirteen who appear in more than one episode, four who appear in at least half the episodes, and one who appears in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Though the numbers turned out higher than last season by virtue of some stellar narratives in the early part of the season, in reality this was a disappointing return to the show, by-and-large shallower and overly dependent on life-defining concepts of unhealthy romance (average rating of 3.09).

General Season Quality:

Starts out fantastically well, but loses steam around mid season, and turns pretty damn sour by season’s end. A shocking waste of the potential promised by the first season; I’ve practically got whiplash from how severely this turned.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Well, this was a clusterfuck. Let’s see if we can break it down into three manageable categories: world building, politics, and relationships.

The primary victim of this season’s bad storytelling is the alien world of Daxom, and the shoddy world-building there leaks out all over the rest of the narrative. We’re told initially that Daxom is some horrible party planet whose politics were at odds with truth, justice, and the Kryptonian way - we’re told this within a clear framework of confronting ingrained prejudices (something I applauded at the time, you may recall), a context which implies that there is complexity and nuance to Daxom that is going unrecognised, and which we might reasonably expect to explore as the season progresses. It doesn’t happen. We’re told that the people of Daxom are kept drunk so that they won’t question their oppression; we’re told that they were all too drugged up to ‘feel anything’; we’re told that they maintained a sex-drenched hedonistic society headed by an evil, war-mongering, slave-owning royal family (the slavery thing really makes it seem like Kara buried the lede by complaining about a ‘party planet’, too: honestly who cares if they’re partying? They have slavery. SLAVERY). Our hero Supergirl even tells us that the Daxomite prince was ‘the worst of the lot’, though she conveniently neglects to detail how he was the worst, which becomes conspicuous once it is revealed that her new boyfriend Mon-El is that prince. Everything we ever learn about Daxom is cartoonishly negative; it’s also somewhat at odds with itself. Were the Daxomites viciously oppressed and constantly partying? While it is technically possible to have both be true, the entire planet is treated as such a homogenous whole it’s hard to know who was suffering, who was livin’ it up, and who was doing both. Are the rich people being kept drunk and drugged so that they won’t object to their own superiority? Are the poor people provided the freedom and resources to party hard on a constant basis to prevent them from rioting over their non-specified hardships? The details are so vague we can’t even draw clear conclusions about who is responsible for this situation, because if everyone is drunk, drugged, or otherwise unable to gain perspective on their circumstances, then can they really be blamed for them? Daxom’s entire population is tarred with the same broad brush, a collection of cliches masquerading as world-building but really only serving to form a blurry image of a dysfunctional and inherently bad society. And with Daxom’s bevy of stereotypes standing unquestioned and therefore unclear, we segue easily into...

Politics. Early on when I applauded the show’s transparency about stating its political convictions, I had no idea how far they intended to take it, and how blisteringly uncool it would be. Where, at that early stage, the politics the show was declaring was all about equal rights and therefore undeniably positive, as the Daxom issue grew the political mess became far less inclusive. Despite being confronted by the reality of Krypton’s flaws back in the first season as well as in this one, the positioning of Daxom as an uncomplicated evil serves to backtrack on Supergirl’s personal growth in recognising that she is not immune from bigotry herself, instead validating her hatred. Ironically, they get the opportunity to examine the same confrontation for Mon-El later in the season when meeting with his parents forces him to acknowledge how far his personal beliefs have strayed from his upbringing, and yet they waste that chance as well, because duh, Daxom is bad. Exploring what was wrong with Daxom wasn’t about furthering that statement on equal rights, not least because exploration of Daxom’s flaws didn’t really happen at all, we were just handed the party line and told to go with the idea that this whole planet was garbage. And then on top of that, the show went and made the political division of Krypton and Daxom into a stand-in for real life American Democrats vs Republicans, with Rhea echoing Republican catchphrases while the much-championed equality-advocate and literal alien President of the United States is explicitly identified as a Democrat! Supergirl’s writers thus make a statement not about political policy or basic rights, but about political affiliation in the real world, and there’s nothing positive about using the cartoonish villainy of Daxom as a vehicle for attacking Republicans. This sends the message that Supergirl is not a show for Republican audience members, and that divisiveness is just not useful. Instead of using their show as a platform to promote positive and healthy ideas, it is used as a weapon to shame and (again with the irony) alienate a potential half of its viewership, and in the current political climate, that’s irresponsible story telling, not to mention anathema to Supergirl’s first-season theme of unity across barriers. 

So, we have a world that is just broad-strokes Bad News, an ill-advised not-metaphor for real-world political divisions, and a bunch of missed opportunities to explore the nature of bigotry. That last one is a bigger problem than it may initially appear, too, as noted in the episode posts: if the writers were trying to tell this story in a serious way, they’d have really invested in deprogramming Mon-El. As eager as they were to make Daxom ‘evil’, they didn’t want to also make Mon-El ‘evil’ as Kara said he was when she spoke unknowingly of Daxom’s prince, and so Mon-El becomes a victim of the vague world-building of Daxom, and creates a feedback loop which in turn makes Daxom’s world-building more vague by virtue of its politics not being clearly reflected in the unfiltered behaviour of its favourite son. The show wants Mon-El to be blamed for being born the prince of Daxom, but it also doesn’t want that - it wants the cheap drama of Kara expressing her own bigotry, but it doesn’t want Mon-El to actually be that bad, but it doesn’t want to admit that Kara is prejudiced, but it doesn’t want her opinion to be wholly justified in this one instance, just every other one, etc, etc. The show is too afraid to demonstrate Supergirl having ugly beliefs of her own to question, nor does it really want to do its due diligence on having Mon-El process the complex reality of having everything he was raised to believe called into question and/or summarily rejected by his new society. In the process, the season forgets to have any kind of moral centre, losing itself in that all-encompassing disavowal of Republican politics but failing to be specific  even then, and a superhero story without a moral centre is...kinda pointless. The resulting mess of politics and lazy short-hand, again, cripples Mon-El’s functionality as a character as he ends up tacked together out of disparate pieces, never really Daxom enough for Daxom, his playboy issues mostly pared down into base-level comic relief, and a grotesque romantic entanglement thrown in over the top to make his convoluted non-personality worse.

Which brings us to: relationships. Perhaps surprisingly, I don’t actually think Mon-El himself is the worst part of this season - as noted above, I see him as a symptom of much bigger issues - but his relationship with Kara is a huge problem. It plays pretty much every toxic bullshit trope I would have expected this show - especially after the precedent of awareness set last season - to avoid. The fact that Mon-El’s fuckboy behaviour is the only real evidence of that Daxomite heritage the show is refusing to properly unpack means it comes off not as a learning curve for him so much as an uncharacteristic weak point for Kara, that she would tolerate being screwed around by the thoughtlessness of this guy. That the show repeats this lazy drama literally one episode after another, having Mon-El mistreat or disappoint Kara at the start but make it up to her by the end, is further damaging as it shows Kara suffering a cycle of poor behaviour without any indication of why she keeps coming back to it, which again makes her appear weak-willed in total contradiction of her usual Supergirl persona, feeding an image of her as so love-struck as to be victimised by it despite any such ‘love’ being entirely unearned by the arcs of the narrative. That this is not only a massive unhealthy cliche but also one which is being served up without commentary as though the writers legitimately think it’s unproblematic romance makes it all the more shocking. Kara’s personality is overridden by her romance with Mon-El, and the rest of her relationships - most notably with Alex - are sidelined in favour of it; as the season wears on Kara rarely manages stories of her own that don’t revolve around the spontaneous and awkwardly forced romance with Mon-El. Why does she love him? Because the script says so. She loves him despite him being a Daxomite, but we’re not gonna explore that because it’s in admitting-that-good-guys-have-flaws territory. Giving the romance nuance or believability or unpredictability would require better characterisation of Mon-El and therefore Daxom and therefore, Kara’s prejudices that we’re supposed to pretend aren’t really a problem because Daxom is Evil. If Kara could have spent the season navigating the pains of bigotry with Mon-El, that would have been interesting and thought-provoking storytelling, and if they really insisted on making a romance there at least they woulda been treading some less generic ground.

Then again, they were already treading less generic ground when Kara was oh-so-briefly with James Olsen, before some fuckwit decided that it was too racially subversive to tell that story, and James ended up shafted with a promising but under-developed personal story and little to no contact with the rest of the characters all season long, making it almost weird when he occasionally graced us with an appearance. Alex at least fared better in the relationship that drew her away from Kara the majority of the time, scoring one of the only good subplots of the season in the form of her coming-out process, though I must admit I dislike Maggie and find her a flat, poorly-drawn character, as if the writers went ‘she’s a tough lesbian cop! That’s three words! It’s plenty of personality!’ and just kinda left it at that, and that taints the ongoing story of Alex’s personal life. The only passable romance in this season of Unnecessary Romances For Everyone Not Called James was J’onn and M’gann, and that possibly only worked because it was understated and featured but briefly; Winn’s relationship with Lyra, on the other hand, was just another cliche mess as irritating as it was dull, and pointless to boot, like the writers couldn’t figure how to write Winn a personal plot without it being a romance. Nice work, guys. 

There is so much more that we could complain about this season - don’t even get me started on the total misfire which was the CADMUS plot - and so few things to appreciate - Lena Luthor deserves a nod, queer rep is always a win, Martian stuff is great, Clark Kent is delightful - but it’s probably time to let this bad batch go. If we’re lucky, the folks behind Supergirl learned about a trillion lessons about how to do storytelling and will get back to actually trying, come season three. If not, I guess y’all can look forward to me bitching about it. A lot. They burned my trust in this show worse this season than I would have thought possible, and I’m not convinced they can earn it back. We’ll see. 

[pomegranate-salad]

Seeds of thought : Wicdiv #32 & #33

Work work work work work. I’ve never worked so much in my life. The college student easy life is a lie, kids. So I’m doing a 2-in-1 type of thing on the last two issues. I didn’t have much material on issue 32 alone anyway and I think these two issues make more sense as a two-parter finale, so I guess it works well. Thoughts and opinions under the cut, spoilers of course. And fuck Woden.

 THE LAST LAUGH

 “Well this looks ridiculous”

This was my - and I assume an unneglectable number of people’s – first reaction to the last page of issue #33 in which we see the severed heads of Lucifer, Inanna and Tara displayed on an altar. This scene was probably effective on some, but for me it immediately called back to Disney’s Haunted Mansion and Futurama, and I was effectively done for : there was no way I could take this visual seriously.

There’s no two ways around it : this scene is silly. First we have what should be one of the biggest reveal of the entire series casually thrown at us by a character who’s not even looking at the audience, Then the camera cuts to this grotesque display of living heads, and the scene is complete with a classic Luci one-liner that seems aware of how out-of-place this entire sequence is. Really, all that’s missing is the laugh track.

You could say anticlimactic ; but really should it be called that when it’s the creators themselves who intentionally destroy the dramatic potential of their own scene ? If you’re not convinced this was intentional, try a little thought experiment and imagine rewriting this scene to amplify its dramatic intensity. By doing so, my conclusion is that this ending had every chance of being a huge finisher like the ones we saw in Fandemonium and Rising Action, but every writing and artistic decision was deliberately made to be as wrong as possible, to ruin every emotional weight this scene could have had.

 This is not an anomaly : in these last two issues, the creators seem to have engaged in the systematic destruction of every dramatic beat by way of grotesque and ridicule. It’s an undercurrent that ran through the entire second part of Imperial Phase, but only reached its full potential toward the end.

It started on the very first page of issue #32, trivializing Amaterasu’s death when the issue before that still gave it all the gravity fitting to the first death of a Wicdiv arc. Then Dio’s last moments of bravery reveal themselves to be a total waste, on top of ruining One More Time forever. Even Woden’s bad guy monologue is sort of too shitty to really muster the kind of epic hatred you’d want to direct at this character. Then we have Sakhmet’s death, caused not by her lover or her sort-of-nemesis Baal, but by a thirteen year old on her first kill. And that’s not even touching on the awful reminder of her fate we get at the end of issue #33. Then there’s of course the beep machine, and issue #32’s hilarious finish, which I think call for no commentary. Issue #33 is divided in two big reveals, the first one forcing on the us the awful visual of David Blake’s head on Woden’s suit and one of the most fist-curling yet somehow pathetic bad guy monologues in history, and the second one being that ridiculous finish scene. The two are even separated by an intimate scene between Cass and Laura that literally gets cut because there’s a stranger tied up two feet from them.

 So if these issues somewhat feel like they’re played all wrong, we know where it comes from. They feel like a multipart climax that got flipped on its head, so not a punch would land or beat would work. That’s not to say there aren’t some really impressive character moments in there ; but for each of them, there’s an inversely proportionally bad joke or ironic twist sweeping right in to undercut the whole thing.

And that’s something worth examining, not as a mistake but as a creative direction. Humour used to be a respite in Wicdiv, a welcome break from all the bleakness and emotional scorching of the characters. Each of them had their own wit, from Luci’s cool girl referencing to Baphomet’s failed swagger, to even Cass’ dry deliveries. But now, humour is just another weapon to hurt us. It prevents us from caring about our characters, from connecting with their emotions, from taking the story seriously. As I was reading through what I knew were Dio’s last moments, all I could focus on was Woden’s villain’s speech and the fact that he was right, and that Dio’s death was probably going to be a complete waste, because that’s how Wicdiv works now. Just compare the weight of Amaterasu’s and Dio’s respective death scenes : they’re not even separated by a full issue, yet the light that’s shone on them is completely different. No matter how much dignity went into crafting Dio’s last scene, it doesn’t matter when it’s put back to back with the textual affirmation of its uselessness, the fact that we don’t even get to give him a proper goodbye, and even after that, Laura’s awful line about his life support. In 2017, I don’t think I need to explain anyone the power of humour in trivializing the most terrible situations and undercutting people’s empathy for each other. This is what Wicdiv has been doing to us these past two issues, against our will. Stopping us from caring. Keeping us at bay even when we’re trying to connect and get involved in the story and characters.

 What does this change in the use of humour mean ? Personally, I link it to the change of our purported hopes as an audience. At the beginning of the comic and up until Imperial phase, we were still allowed to believe, like Luci, that a solution could be found, that the 2-year sentence wasn’t real, nor was the great Darkness. That it was going to be okay. But right at the moment when the characters allowed themselves to think that there could indeed be a solution, we, as an audience, started to know better : there was no loophole, no escape, no way to prevent the inevitable, whatever that was. We could no longer hope that things were going to be okay. So what do you hope for when things cannot be okay ? You hope that they’ll be worth it. If you have to die, let it be a worthy death. A beautiful one. If you have to go, go in a blaze of glory. If you have to fail, let it be at the hand of a worthy foe. Let it be worth it.

But it isn’t. And that’s what humour’s there to prove. When our hopes were that things would be okay, the comic responded with tragedy ; now that we simply want them to be worth it, its weapon of choice is ridicule. As such, it’s definitely not a coincidence that the 455AD special preceded Imperial Phase part II, as it sets the tone for the entire arc, up to its back quote : when it’s clear Lucifer won’t be able to outlive his death sentence, all he want is to be allowed to burn. But he won’t be. He will bleed out and his body will be dragged across and city and cut to pieces by an old lady then fed to the river. Such is the fate that awaits our character. Pathetic and grotesque in equal parts, useless unless it serves someone else’s purpose, following rules you do not understand.

If Imperial Phase is the arc in which the gods are allowed to think themselves kings and queens, then the creators are the King’s fools, the ones allowed to tell them their real value because they do it through jokes and flip-overs.

This arc is a constant battle between the story the characters wish they were in and the one they’re actually in. That’s why it would be wrong, for example, to think of the beep machine as a McGuffin : its thematic utility goes beyond a plot device. When just last arc, it was the subject of a joke to relieve the tension between two characters, now it knocks them back to their actual scope. Something so small and silly is the kind of device they deserve. The big, ugly, scary machine ? It does nothing. Did you think you’d be handed a huge plot revelation as the crowning achievement of this arc ? Of course not. Instead, what we get is a sad, banal story of parental abuse from a man who’s not over leaving his youth behind.

Yes, even the David/Jon Blake storyline, arguably the one preserving most of its dramatic intensity over these two issues, cannot help but feel like a sad joke when you consider that David Blake’s motivations are basically the evil queen from Snow White’s. This is what caused all this. This, an old wrinkled lady, and a thirteen year old on a mission from God. Those are our villains, everybody. As for dying a worthy death, our heroes’ options are a pool of blood or a mounted head on an altar.

 None of this is worth it. At this point, it’s even hard remember why “this” sounded so appealing in the first place. And all this goes to contextualize even more Laura’s breakdown speech halfway through issue #33 : she wanted everything they had, and she’d have given anything for it. For power, for glamour, for this. For this joke of a fate that’s not even that funny. That’s what cost her the death of her family, multiple friends, and the rest of her life.

It’s also fitting that Jon finally voices something that has been on my mind for a long time : just how little do you have to think of yourself to think two years of superpowers would be worthier than a fully-lived life ? Through this character who, just like the other gods, is too good for this deal, but unlike them, seems to realize it, it’s yet again the sheer impossibility to make this deal worth it that’s shown to us. Because what becomes clear after this reveal is that if Ananke allowed you to become a god, it’s so she could see that you’d waste away your potential. House always wins, and when you burn the House down, another opens up next door.

 So this is where we are : our hopes of seeing any of it be worth it have been ridiculed, and all that’s left to uncover is precisely which joke our heroes have been the butt of. Cruel ? Maybe. But if fiction so often serves as a way to quench our thirst for grand emotions and epic stories, it’s precisely because outside of it, it feels much more often like one big joke than a sweeping tragedy. After all, Henri Bergson said it best : comedy is much truer to real life than drama.

  WHAT I THOUGHT OF THE ISSUES

 I KNEW IT IT WAS ME I FIGURED IT OUT I KNEW IT WAS DAVID BLAKE I AM THE GODDESS OF FATE BOW TO ME MERE MORTALS !

Alright, I’ll stop.

But while seeing yourself being right is immensely satisfying, it cannot help but damage your read a little ; like I said many times before, I want writers to be smarter than me, to be able to take me by surprise. So if I’ve managed to guess something, that’s great for my ego, but it also makes me a bit sad : that’s just another plotpoint that won’t reach full impact with me because I had so much time interiorizing its potential.

And that’s sort of my problem with these two issues : they revolve around two kinds of plotpoints, some that didn’t surprise me (Dio and Sakhmet’s death, Woden’s identity, the reason for Laura’s attitude) and other that were impossible to guess (the beep machine, Minerva’s “identity”, the talking heads). Meaning that while reading those, I was pretty much letting the plot carry me without being able to pause and care. As I’ve said above, part of it is intentional, but it also means that there aren’t many punches in these issues that landed for me. I’ll definitely count Laura and Sakhmet’s last conversation as well as Cass and Laura’s fight as a success, but the “big” intimate moment of issue #33, the conversation between Cass and Laura, didn’t do much for me, probably because it seems to me that anyone with a functioning brain and ears knew exactly why Laura wasn’t her best self since she had become Persephone. I understand why Cass didn’t see it – as we’re discussed before, she is a factual thinker, meaning she can’t grasp with Laura’s guilt when it is so obviously unfounded – but I still don’t understand the decision to make this a big character moment when literally every sentence Laura had pronounced since the beginning of Imperial Phase revealed what she was going through. There’s nothing more infuriating that being fed information you already think of as canon. If you ask me, this moment is much more important and interesting for what it isn’t, that’s to say a romantic scene, than for what it is. Seeing Laura being rejected by Cass, and therefore breaking the pattern  of dragging people in her self-destroying orbit, is much more defining than her whole speech on guilt.

The problem is that most of the work these issues do is retrospective : if the Jon/David scene on its own has limited impact, the new depth it gives to all the Woden scenes we’ve already been through is vertiginous. Like I said, I did consider what the meaning of David Blake being Woden would be, but that’s another thing to be confronted with the actual fact. When you consider that David is talking to his decapitated, imprisoned son when he’s pouring out his thoughts make issue #14 go from merely quite repulsive to one of the most skin-crawlingly nauseating pieces of media ever written. I can’t imagine what the creators went through crafting this issue while knowing the entire story.

 As for the rest of the reveals, it’s a little hard to weigh on them without devolving into hardcore theorizing. We’re basically at the last stop before the comic has to lay out its hand ; it already managed to delay it through two entire arcs whose very point was to see how long they could get this blind game going. But for me as a reader, it also means I’m at the point in the story that’s the least interesting to me : the one where I have no choice than to follow the train as it’s well on its tracks, without any possibility to pause or jump ahead. I have to wait for the full story to know whether any of these twists paid out or not ; at this stage, I have both too much and too little to really be able to do something with it emotionally or intellectually.

 So as a final verdict because I have to go back to cramming for administrative litigation, I’d say these are two issues I’ll have to revisit once the comic is over, because I suspect they’ll be a lot better with the full story in hand. Most of its impact is on the issues before them and in the groundwork they lay out for the final year. So as a stop point, they may not hold much interest, but I can definitely see them be one of the comic’s most astute cogs once it’s done and over. As a two-parter finale, I like it more than the Imperial Phase (part I) finale : it’s more coherent in its construction and doesn’t try to bite off more than it can chew. It’s mostly plotpoints and twists, meaning it’s my least favourite kind of read, but once I’m able to put that aside to see it instead as a character work thread in a bigger design, it’ll probably hold my interest much more. But as of right now, I can at least commend it for how much it makes me want to reread everything from the beginning. Which I definitely do not have the time for right now. Damn you. Damn you all.

[enrychan]

comparison mass effect andromeda / dragon age 2, yeah or nope? i hear that a lot around the fandom

short answer: nope

extremely long answer [lots of MEA negativity and Personal Opinions™ under the cut, you’ve been warned. Please don’t read if you enjoyed the game and/or you are tired of hearing negative things about it, believe me i totally understand the feeling]:

alright i’m not going to act like DA2 wasn’t disappointing because yes, it was. especially after a game like DAO which remains among the best RPGs i’ve ever played. so I would compare MEA to DA2 because they are both disappointments. that said, i still disagree with the part of the fandom that says they are similar because of the “smaller story” and/or “the focus on the characters”. DA2 is a smaller story than DAO, but it’s laser focused on the delivery of that story within a three chapters arc, and through its characters. Exploration is almost non-existent and the fetch quests are few and so unimportant you can skip them without missing anything. The companions are the true narrative and emotional center, and each one of them has a personal mission during each one of the three chapters of the story. Some of them (especially Anders and Fenris) represent a piece of the problems and politics of Thedas and force Hawke to make decisions regarding those problems. Their growth and fate depend almost entirely on their relationship with Hawke and on the choices of the player.

On the other hand, MEA is all over the place. it gives me a number of huge maps filled with nothing but fetch quests that don’t make the narrative proceed in any way and are entirely forgettable. The game also gives me a humongous researching/developing system for weapons and armor with an absolutely ridiculous and confusing as hell UI, which requires three different currencies (milky way tech, kett tech, remnant tech), that you have to collect by scanning things, just to research the projects for said weapons and armor, not to mention the materials to actually build the fucking things - which come in like six or seven different levels, so if you want to update your weapon or armor to the next level you have to gather the materials all over again. That’s insane. At some point I just skipped that mess altogether and went through the rest of the game with my shitty level 2 gear because i was sick and tired of scanning and gathering and researching just to discover lately that i didn’t like how my new weapon worked and i wasted time for nothing. Obviously that meant the combat was much harder for me than it needed to be. There is a more in depth analysis on the researching/developing system in this review, if you’re interested. I’m not going to delve into the ridiculous implications of having to scan the rebels’ tech on Kadara to get milky way tech currency, like on the Nexus they don’t have, I don’t know, archives or books on their own technology?

I’ll also add that while the combat is probably the best part of the game, and it’s much more dynamic than in the trilogy, it’s still much less fun for me because they took away the option to order your companions to use a certain power, preventing me from planning any tactic or combo. this also had the side effect of creating another layer of separation between my Ryder and her companions; like there weren’t enough already, with the mediocre writing and everything else going wrong in this game. Basically I always fought like I was alone and most time i actually was because my two companions were KO and i didn’t care, as they were almost useless to me.

I should probably add that the quest design in MEA is atrocious, the worst of every bioware game i’ve played - and i played most of them. for almost every mission i was required to go to a certain planet, than back to the ship, than back to a planet, then back to the ship… each time going through unskippable cutscenes and loading screens. Luckily for me when i played the game they already patched the galactic map, letting me skip the cutscenes of the voyage between planets, which are very pretty at first but at the fifteenth time they start to really grate on your nerves. And despite the patch, the voyage is still very slow compared to, say, ME3. I cannot even imagine the pain of the day 1 players who were forced to suffer through those unskippable cutscenes hundreds of times. Some missions (the worst ones imo) require you to follow a signal through more than two solar systems, reading a series of five or six “false positives” or whatever, before finally finding the “real one” and conclude the mission; an utter pain in the ass and a complete waste of time. I understand that MEA had huge problems during its development, but this kind of stuff has nothing to do with those problems and everything to do with artificially extending your gaming time with boring activities, just to say that the game is “100 hours long”.

At this point I want to make clear that I would have forgiven everything - the fetch quests, the confusing crafting system, the awful quest design - if Bioware gave me a good protagonist and/or interesting companions. Not even a good story really, I didn’t even care about that, just give me a fully flashed out crew with clear motivations and backgrounds and I’ll be happy. That’s basically the reason why I forgive every shortcoming in DA2 - and there are a loooot of those. But nope, Andromeda fails there too.

With the exception of Jaal and to a lesser extent, Cora, the loyalty missions of the companions are completely disjointed from the main story and universe in which they are set and don’t make us understand more of this new galaxy in any way. This lack of relevance would still be ok if the relationship between the companions and the protagonist and/or the protagonist’s choices actually mattered (like in DA2, where the companions’ loyalty determines who lives and who dies in the end) but unfortunately they don’t, and i mean at all.

Speaking of the protagonist, again the comparison with Hawke doesn’t hold. Hawke could have three very distinct personalities which made them somewhat memorable, for good or bad. Ryder on the other hand has two or more kind of replies that are almost always the same, just with slightly different wording (as this video says: do you know the difference between “now we are building again” and “this is vital to our progress”? - not that i agree with everything said in that review but here i agree completely). Ryder fares even worse if compared to other bioware protagonists like the Warden, who had a wide range of reactions that in some cases could even include outright killing their interlocutor. Combine this with the almost complete lack of choices and/or consequences in MEA and you get the most forgettable and boring protagonist of a bioware game to date; and yeah, I’m including the Inquisitor, because while the choices of dialogue in DAI were similar to those in MEA, at least the facial animations were decent so you could have a connection with your own protagonist on some level.

To be clear, it’s not lost to me what the original intention was with Ryder’s character arc. Ryder is specifically written as inadequate, uncharismatic and sometimes incompetent, because they weren’t the intended heir to the title of Pathfinder. They kinda found themselves thrown into that role and had to adapt. On its own that’s not a bad character arc at all. On the contrary, it could have been even more interesting than Shepard’s, who was a leader even before the first mission in ME1. Unfortunately there is no actual character arc for Ryder, only premises. Ryder never becomes more charismatic or assertive during the story, in fact they make very few choices at all, and even those few have little to no consequences both in the main story and in their relationships with the other characters. Ryder is just kinda there, reacting with various shades of tone to other characters actually making choices. Again compare that to Hawke’s arc, since we are discussing whether or not the two games resemble each other. In DA2 there is a simple premise (Hawke is a poor refugee who runs from the Blight and has to survive in an unforgiving city like Kirkwall) and a very clear payoff (Hawke becomes one of the central political figures in Kirkwall, while ironically still not being able to save their own family and, possibly, friends). With Ryder there is a clear premise but no payoff. At least not on a personal level, which is important in creating a connection with our character. Of course the story goes on anyway, but it doesn’t seem to actually affect my protagonist or change them in any way, so it remains almost irrelevant to me.

Everything said until now would be already experience breaking on its own, but it becomes even more remarkable in Ryder’s specific case, because Ryder comes with an extra passenger, aka SAM - and SAM is a very invasive extra passenger. To the point that most of the time you’re convinced it’s not actually Ryder the one in charge of that brain, or of the Pathfinder team. 99% of the time it’s SAM who solves problems and tells you and the others what to do. Sometimes is becomes frankly annoying. I’m not even talking about the vaults. You have to solve a murder case? SAM doesn’t just gather the evidence, oh no, he also tells you exactly what the evidence means and how it must be interpreted, like Ryder is too stupid to connect the dots. You intervene in a beating or a robbery on Kadara, either to stop it or just to understand what’s going on? SAM tells you not to get involved. And guess what? Ryder does exactly that, instead of, idk, telling SAM to shut the fuck up? SAM also becomes downright unbearable on Voeld and on Elaaden where it keeps telling you that the temperature is rising or falling or that it’s within acceptable range. I don’t know if they finally patched the thing but god was that annoying.

In any case my point is, since it’s actually SAM and not Ryder that does all the work, you have the distinct feeling that you are not actually the protagonist in this story, just a vessel. That could have been a cool premise if, for example, Ryder leaned too much on SAM and then halfway through the story it was taken away or shut down. That could have been a dramatic moment of growth for Ryder, where they were forced to finally rely on their own strenght and actually become the Pathfinder humanity needed. But again: cool premise, no payoff. SAM is taken away only near the end of the story and Ryder almost dies because of that. And even when they can’t access their SAM during the final mission, there is still the SAM inside the other Ryder sibling’s brain to tell them and you what to do. In short, Ryder is almost entirely dependent on SAM throughout the entire story, making them even less memorable as a protagonist, if possible.

Unfortunately, the same could be said of most of the characters that populate Andromeda and particularly the Tempest. Jaal is relevant only because he is an angara, the only new friendly species introduced in MEA (another disappointment), but he is otherwise completely forgettable on his own. It’s repeated over and over again how the angara have an extremely open behaviour towards each other, expressing feelings without many constraints like we do, but the problem is, without good and complex facial/body animations, that kind of behaviour is hard if not impossible to deliver. I think that’s one of the main problems with Jaal’s character. The other main problem is of course the writing, always generic and kind of vague. For example when you ask him about his relationship with the Moshae, he tells you that she “inspires” and he “loves her”, but he doesn’t give you anything that actually communicates that inspiration and that love, even only through the tone of his voice (has anyone given some direction to these voice actors?). It’s only telling without showing. Compare that to Dorian talking about Felix, for example. With just one image (Felix sneaking him treats from the kitchen while he was studying) he gives you an idea of both the person that Felix was and his relationship with him.

Cora is similar to Ryder in the fact that her character has good premises, but no payoff. She has two main character traits: she was trained as an asari commando and has great admiration for them; and she was the second in command under Alec Ryder, so she should have become the Pathfinder, but she didn’t. Aside from the fact that in my opinion she repeats that she was trained as an asari commando a little too many times, like she wanted to be 200% sure we got the message, and that becomes kind of annoying after a while… if we take a look at her character arc we see that there is a great disappointment when she finds out that the asari heroine that she admired the most lied about the death of the asari Pathfinder for her own personal gain. This should have set in motion a series of consequences on her character journey similar to those Liara experienced when she found out that the Protheans weren’t actually the ethereal, moral beings she thought they were, but instead they were conquerors and imposed a totalitarian regime on the galaxy. But while Liara at first gets angry and sad and then she slowly accepts to re-examine her own previous work under a new light, no relevant change can be seen within Cora’s character. More on this comparison can be found in this excellent video. In a similar way, her other main trait (the fact that she was the designated successor to Alec but she didn’t get the Pathfinder title in the end), also doesn’t have any payoff. In fact she is just slightly disappointed/irritated at first but she gets over it very quickly (even if Ryder is clearly not the charismatic figure humanity needs) leaving little to no consequence on her relationship with Ryder. In these conditions, the scenes in which she talks about her hobby ring hollow because I didn’t previously build my relationship with her on anything substantial, so I don’t really care about her plants.

I’d say the only companion who gets a very simple but complete character arc is Peebee, because she starts as kind of an outsider in the group, extremely afraid of commitment (the writers made sure it was super obvious with the “I live in an escape pod” thing), and in the end she learns to relax a little and trust Ryder and the rest of the crew more. Unfortunately I also found her annoying as hell since her first appearance, so that didn’t do a thing for me.

I could go on with the other companions, but this reply would become a bible. I’ll just add that the “good premises - no payoff” thing includes non-companion characters as well, Reyes for example. For the first 40/45 hours I didn’t romance anyone because, well, I found every possible LI either boring, paper thin or annoying af. That’s something I never experienced in any other Bioware game, but hey there’s a first time for everything I guess. Then I went to Kadara, I met Reyes and honestly he was a breath of fresh air. I’m not saying he was particularly deep or complex, but at least he was somewhat charismatic and charming (also, that accent), so I decided to romance him. Unfortunately both his character and his romance get no satisfying closure, as there is literally no change whatsoever, external or internal, if you let him kill Sloane; and you can’t really confront him on the fact that he used you and lied to you, even if you romanced him so it should have been kind of a big deal. bigger deal. whatever.

I’m not preteding that something like this never happened before. Speaking about the Mass Effect trilogy, Jacob is the most infamous example of boring, not entirely flashed out companion. Moving to the most recent Dragon Age, I’d say Blackwall also suffers from something similar, since he has good premises (she is vague and evasive at first because he’s lying about his true identity) but little payoff (even after the big reveal he remains pretty vague and generic about himself and his own story, nor he behaves even slightly different than before), though he’s still more interesting than the majority of the MEA crew. The point is, some shortcomigs are normal and expected and, if counter-balanced with other high points, they can be forgiven. But Andromeda didn’t shine in any way. Outside of combat the gameplay was boring and clunky, basically go from point A to point B, scan stuff, gather stuff, repeat. The sudoku puzzles were boring af and honesly ridiculous. No one ever solved them before you? is everyone in the Heleus cluster a moron?

In fact, the whole foundation of the story is that no one in the Heleus cluster could gain access to the vaults and activate them, despite having known and studied them for centuries. One day a complete stranger from another galaxy comes and solves everything in literally five minutes. And I’m supposed to believe that. I mean my suspension of disbelief can stretch a lot, but this is a little too much for me. Also that makes the angara seem like a bunch of idiots, which is not exactly flattering for the only new friendly species we meet in Andromeda.

The writing in general is poor to say the least. I understand that the writers were included too late into the project due to the huge problems experienced during the earlier stages of development, but some of these mistakes are super basic, like writing from the POV of the omniscient narrator instead of the POV of the characters. So we get dialogues in which the characters know that they are in no real danger even though they have been shot, they are about to get shot, they risk getting spaced, and so on and so forth.

I get that the writers were aiming at something completely different from the grim, fatalistic atmosphere of ME3, but the problem is: if the script doesn’t take itself seriously, why should I take it seriously.I mean I’m all for jokes and lighthearted moments, there were a lot of those in the trilogy and i loved them (most of them), but the entire MEA script doesn’t seem to take itself seriously. The stakes SHOULD be high - the Pathfinders have the responsibility of 100.000 souls on their shoulders - but not for a moment you feel that burden, that responsibility.

Even the real reason of the voyage itself (escaping the Milky Way before the Reapers annihilate every advanced organic society) is kept secret from the player until you gather all the “memory triggers” your father left behind. Until then the whole Initiative - a huge, extremely dangerous and exceedingly expensive project - is presented like a fun stroll through a new galaxy, just because “we are explorers” and we like new beginnings and whatnot. This is another incomprehensible narrative choice that doesn’t make sense, no matter how you look at it. If you played the trilogy, the Reaper threat is certainly no surprise to you so the “plot twist” doesn’t work. If you’re a newcomer to the series you don’t even know what a Reaper is so the “plot twist” still doesn’t work. Not to mention that for some reason Alec Ryder’s “memory triggers” are scattered on planets he never even visited in his life. Instead of placing them somewhere among his things, idk, family pictures, books or music he loved, where it made sense to find them?

And even after you discover everything about the Reapers, and that everyone back in the Milky Way may have been dead for the last 600 years, there is again no consequence in the story or in the dialogues whasoever. Not even Ryder seems to be particularly affected by the terrible news. But we should be happy because we found out that their mom is still alive! Too bad we don’t care about her because we don’t know her. Exactly like in the beginning we didn’t care about Alec’s death because we didn’t know him. Those are extremely basic narrative mistakes. The whole experience is on this same, boring, safe, non-consequential level. Bioware is so much better than that.

(sorry for the long rant. I had a lot to say)

[brakken]

On Homecoming

Here’s my stream of consciousness about Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Strap in, there are spoilers and a lot of words ahead.

Right out the gate, I gotta say this:

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is my favourite Spidey film. 

I know it isn’t perfect - I have my own criticisms toward it, but I feel a lot of the hate it gets is undeserved, and I believe my reasons for liking it are valid. I also don’t consider my regard for it to be blind love for anything Spidey-related. I’m not a fan of Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, and I find ASM1 has huge problems. I think Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 is an incredibly well-made movie, and having re-watched it recently, it’s easy to understand why most people (myself included) consider it one of the greatest superhero films ever made. However - I don’t consider it the greatest Spidey film. That title is held by Marc Webb & Co.’s 2014 underperformer, with a current rating of 52% on Rotten Tomatoes. There is an inherent feel in that movie, which for me captures the magic and identity of what I see in Spidey as a character. But, this isn’t about ASM2.

I mention it, because I want to express how difficult it was - how scary - to go into the cinema and watch Homecoming. For most audiences, this was potentially the first good Spidey film since Raimi’s 2. For me, it was following a film that I hold very close to my heart. And it took me two viewings to fully come to terms with my opinion on it:

Spider-Man: Homecoming is pretty good.

It’s not as good as Raimi’s 2, nor ASM2 (for me), but I’ve realised it’s not entirely fair to compare it to the second instalments of those series. Up against Spider-Man 1 and ASM1? It holds its own quite well. It’s pretty good. And if its first go can be pretty good, then the sequel has every opportunity to be pretty great.

While Homecoming has plenty of fun moments - of genuinely good moments… there simply aren’t enough memorable moments. As the sixth Spidey film, and as another episode in the MCU, it doesn’t hold enough of its own iconography to stand above its predecessors and peers. It’s clearly shooting for that ‘neighborhood’ feeling, and succeeds in that – but in doing so sacrifices opportunities for spectacle. And when it does step out into the big time, it’s all too similar to what we’ve seen already. Catching the elevator harkens right back to Raimi’s Spidey 1, with a bit of Gwen’s fall from ASM2 in the mix. When Spidey holds the ferry together, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the train sequence from Raimi 2 (plus Cap w/ the helicopter from Civil War). Nothing about how Spidey moved was overly unique or noteworthy to this iteration.

I have issues with the suit having such advanced tech - and to illustrate my problem I want to lay out the foundations of a general storyline involving the Symbiote: Spidey receives a new suit, it gives him enhanced strength, speed, and stamina. It increases the versatility of his web-shooting and makes his spider-sense react even faster. Beyond even that, the suit can talk to him - offering its own guidance and insight into his life. He begins to rely more and more on it. Becomes addicted to it. Until, he is able to realise it’s doing more harm than good, and ultimately abandons it - returning to his classic costume with a newfound understanding of his own strengths.

 Now, imagine after all that, he puts the black suit on again. And the story ends there. This is Homecoming. Sure, the suit isn’t directly affecting his biology or personality, but it represents newfound ability from a source not his own that he begins to rely too much on. Once it’s taken away from him, he’s back to basics - faced with the reality of hard decisions. He defeats the villain with his own strength, and having reached further clarity, turns down the Avengers position - happy with who he is, and comfortable with where he is. Then Tony gives him the suit back. Yes, he has fulfilled his character arc, and may very well use the suit responsibly in the future. But the suit in this case - is symbolic of him getting in over his head. A return of the suit equates to a return of that trait.

There’s a bit of a ‘wait and see’ that goes along with that (one of the track names on the OST suggests that Tony returned the suit without all the gadgets), but to cap off a movie which took efforts to showcase that relying on the bells and whistles is a bad thing, and handling the costume downgrade in the finale so well, it seems entirely backwards to me to then conclude with ‘yay! the bells and whistles are back!’

Karen presents an additional problem. She is, like J.A.R.V.I.S. in Iron Man 1, a non-character. An implement to give the protagonist and audience information when otherwise we’d be left confused or it would seem contrived to have our hero break into monologue. However, unlike J.A.R.V.I.S., she gives advice to Peter. She compliments him and gives insight into his personal life. To attribute this role to what is naught but a natural language UI is damaging to the actual active players in Peter’s life. It robs opportunity from Aunt May and Peter’s school friends to do the same, people with actual stake in interacting with him and who can experience the good and bad consequences of it.

To be clear, I get all this is purposeful in the context of the story. But it feels like the plot to a second film, mixing things up once we’ve established the characters in the first. Instead, we focus on them only long enough so they can fulfil certain trope moments before Karen, Happy Hogan, and Tony take centre stage in Peter’s life.

The suit’s design itself… I almost love. There are a few small things that bug me when I think of this as his standard get-up, but it has definitely grown on me since Civil War. Vulture’s suit, on the other hand, effing rocks and is the best thing ever and I love it. It’s everything I could have hoped for from a live-action Vulture.

Let’s talk about the opening Civil War vlog. Small inconsistencies in movies are easily forgiven, and it can be considered nit-picking to point them out as flaws or plot-holes of the movie. But the little things can go a long way to keep the audience from asking the wrong questions at the wrong time. Questions like:

Why was Peter shown as only having older tech in Civil War but in the opening vlog of Homecoming he has a modern smartphone? Why does he say ‘Holy shit!’ in Civil War when reacting to Giant-Man but in the opening vlog he says ‘he’s big now, gotta go’? Why does he have a bruise over his eye in the Civil War post-credits scene but looks unwounded in Homecoming while in Tony’s car (a scene which takes place presumably minutes earlier)?

All these questions can be answered. With ‘oh Tony gave him the phone’ or ‘He said “Holy shit” after the camera cut away’ but I think it’s a shame that what should have been a fairly easy and smooth lead-in to this movie is riddled with these little questions.

 On the note of lead-ins, I know we’re meant to be sick of origin stories at this point - particularly Spider-Man’s. Even so, I can’t help but feel like we’ve missed out on seeing this Peter’s beginnings. If the MCU is going to be Spidey’s home for the foreseeable future, I really want it to be the most secure - and having no solid concept of his backstory puts that on shaky ground. There isn’t that much to it. Bitten by spider, yep. Uncle’s dead, probably. But there’s still a lot you can explore surrounding that - so why not give us a bit more insight into how this one is unique? I knew they weren’t going to do an origin, but in doing so it’s created an odd-one-out within the MCU, wherein every titular character has had some level of on-screen genesis. I’m not very keen on prequels and flashbacks, so at least for me, they’ve kinda missed their chance. And that feels unfair.

I want to briefly touch on the scene-to-scene presentation. In my experience, scenes in stories should typically serve two purposes. The first is the subtext; to establish elements of the overarching theme or foreshadow future events. While the second purpose is the literal; to deliver a short yet satisfying arc within the scene itself, masking the subtext with smaller pieces of story. Here’s an example using the pizza delivery scene from Raimi’s Spider-Man 2:

Subtext: Peter struggles with managing his double life. His misfortunes are increasing in severity until finally he quits being Spider-Man.

Literal: Peter fails to deliver the pizza in time, and as a result, is fired from his job.

Compared to the deli scene from Homecoming:

Subtext: Establish the deli and its owner in the story so that when it’s destroyed, both Peter and the audience can witness the danger of the weapons Toomes is making, and witness Peter’s naivety and inexperience as a hero.

Literal: Peter buys a sandwich and pets a cat.

 That’s it. That’s the scene. Yes, he has some playful banter with the deli owner, but it doesn’t affect anything by scene’s end. It’s leaning mostly, if not completely on its overarching purpose, leaving the specifics of the scene in relative unimportance. My immediate reaction after the scene finished was ‘wait, why did we need to see that’? My reaction once I got home was ‘how did this scene end up in a Spider-Man movie’?

The film is rife with these one-track moments. At times, it avoids this, and I feel that’s where it’s at its best. The scene with Aaron Davis is a notable favourite of mine because it succeeds in delivering strongly on both the short and long term. The opening scene beneath Avengers Tower is also a fairly solid miniature arc while setting up the villain’s motivation for the remainder of the movie.

This one-track feeling bleeds into the characters at times, too. Particularly that of Michelle, who as far as the film is concerned is only there to say a witty remark before vanishing from the scene entirely… and then later, be MJ. (note: I actually don’t mind this change. It’s just a weird start for her and an unnecessary twist, that only leads to an unpolished character with the promise of more, rather than someone memorable and important from the get-go. She’s on the poster for gosh sake. I’m open to liking her, there’s just nothing to go on yet. I sure liked the way she… tilted her head up and squinted occasionally?)

I don’t think this makes any of these parts of the film bad. Only, less complete - less functioning as parts of a whole.

A scene that I do consider bad, though, is the death of the first Shocker. It’s a somewhat tropey scene - lackey steps out of line, head villain disposes of him out of spite and necessity, establishing that he can and will commit murder to achieve his goal. But, it doesn’t end there. After Toomes fries Shocker to a crisp with one of the pieces of alien weaponry, he looks surprised, saying ‘I thought this was the anti-gravity gun’. This is played for laughs, but at the expense of a cheap joke, they’ve thrown Toomes’ conviction into question. If he thought it was the anti-grav gun, did he not plan on killing his lackey? Does that mean his threats against Peter later are empty? Or was the plan always to kill the lackey, it’s just that he wanted to use the anti-grav gun to do it? But then why during the climax when he has Spidey defeated, does he go for the cargo instead of finishing him off? I can’t answer any of these questions because his conviction is made unclear, all from a simple, throwaway line. It’s a real shame, because I love pretty much every other scene with Vulture.

 That includes the familial twist. On the outside, it’s a little cheap. But the groundwork is laid from the very first moment of the movie. I wish it had been more original insofar as a villain’s personal connection to Spidey, instead of ‘oh it’s the dad again’ – however, it’s so well-implemented and revealed at just the right time to force Peter into a power/responsibility moment that I can’t help but enjoy it. Toomes driving Peter and Liz to the dance is wonderfully tense (possibly my favourite scene, and it’s just a car ride).

There are some genuinely great scenes beyond that. I actually teared up when Peter tells May he lost the internship, which is a first for me in a Spidey film (yes, even with ASM2 as my favourite in the series, I didn’t tear up at Gwen’s fall). Racing to the top of the monument has excellent pacing and presentation. Being trapped beneath the rubble and finally breaking free was an incredible performance from Tom Holland. As earlier mentioned, interrogating Aaron Davis has plenty of charm.

The score is good. Sometimes, it’s damn good. There are some really stand-out tracks. It just… isn’t on par overall with Elfman’s or Zimmer’s stuff. Raimi’s films and ASM2 come out strong from the beginning with their themes, and continue to play off them in new and interesting ways to cater to the moods of the scenes. Homecoming starts with the 60’s cartoon theme, and proceeds to never use it again. Giacchino’s original theme never steps up to be as memorable, and was only at its best when it wasn’t trying to be the theme. Vulture’s music rocks and is good forever – though I craved more variation to it. It seemed like every time he showed up we were hit with bahhh bwa-bah bah-BWAHHHH. It leaves something to be desired when compared to Electro’s music from ASM2 -  which is a constant in his scenes but always escalating to reflect his development. So, I guess as a character with only a little development, Vulture’s music is acceptable? I dunno, I might have just talked myself around on that one, haha. Nice to have some memorable MCU villain music, anyway. I love it a lot – just wish they’d played around with it more.

Spidey wrecked a lot of stuff in this movie, and it gives me some cause for concern that the filmmakers are going down the ‘everything is his fault’ route. I’ve talked a bit about this before, but I’m not a huge supporter of this concept. I’m fonder of a Spider-Man that takes responsibility, rather than one who’s responsible for everything, if that makes sense. If they’re going more for the ‘clumsy teenager’ route, that’s something I can get behind. But there is a limit. It was effective in the early parts of the film and the high-tension ferry sequence because of what it was saying about Peter and the effect he’s having as Spidey. But the chase through the suburbs, where he smashes or trips over everything he touches, was a little excessive. The last straw for me was when he wrecks Flash’s car. By this point we should start seeing character changes coming into effect, but they insist on presenting him as unable to face a new obstacle without breaking something.

I suppose I could go on and on, but I gotta call it at some point, right? So, I want to round all this off by just talking about some things I really liked.

Making Adrian’s whole deal that he’s a scavenger is such a cool way to get across the ‘vulture’ vibe and a great tie-in to the established MCU framework. The Shocker switcheroo was a fun subversion of expectations. Practical wall-crawling is just getting better and better. Stopping the bike thief and then not knowing where to return it is so ‘Spidey’. May helping Peter get ready for Homecoming is exactly what I could have asked for. The diversity of the cast in an MCU film was surprising and refreshing. Seeing Peter make his web fluid, and change his web cartridges mid-battle is something I’ve hoped to see for a while. Everyone in the cinema was having a great time and it was fun being a part of that.

So, that’s where I’m at. I’m at ‘pretty good’. At first it was hard to accept that. Hard to accept not being absolutely blown away by new Spidey content. But after a second viewing, I’ve come away satisfied, while still a bit sad about ASM2′s undeserved legacy.

If anyone has any thoughts of their own, or different viewpoints on the aspects I talked about, I’m very happy to hear them. I would love to love this film.

[propshophannah]

Why does Manon need to be protected though? Like I actually hate how people want Dorian to save her like I'd prefer if she stood up for herself instead.

She doesn’t need to be protected. But I’d argue that she needs a moment where someone plays her savior. Because she is ALWAYS saving everyone else that she need a moment where she realized that OTHER people find her worthy enough to die for. Someone/people who are NOT duty bound to her like the Thirteen. And I’m excluding Abraxos from this as well. To go with that, Dorian needs his “hero” moment. His moment of transformation when he realizes that he can save his friends, that he can have the woman he loves because the last time he was out in a situation where someone he cared about was in danger, he failed them. He failed Sorscha and even if he didn’t really love her, he still carries guilt for her death. So my argument is to kill two birds with one stone, and have Dorian put in a position where he can feel as though he saved the woman he loves, and have that be the moment where Manon RECOGNIZES that others put her first. She can’t see it with Abraxos or the witches—at least not yet cuz it falls in line with the “code” she lives by. Or has lived by. The same code that got of front of her ability to recognize the 13’s love for her. (I wrote a post about the scene in EoS where Aelin beats Manon where I went over the code.) So while Manon is more than capable of saving herself and has proved that over and over, she has NOT gotten a moment where she’s been able to see and recognize others being able to selflessly out their lives on the line for her. I argue she needs that for her character development to be complete. That and tears are the last piece of her puzzle. And it’s a beautiful intricate puzzle that Maas has built for her (and Dorian) but those are the missing pieces. It’s the same pattern with Abraxos and Elide and Dorian. It’s just not with chained things anymore it’s with Manon’s ability to feel worthy of love. Maas parallels Aelin and Manon REAL REAL HARD. So if you’re able to see why Rowan declaring to save Aelin at the end of EOS is such a big deal for Aelin’s character, put that same justification on Manon. Because they are mirrors of one another. They’re very very similar. Their whole lives really. But with Aelin it’s OBVIOUS that she has shitty self esteem and doesn’t feel like anyone will come for her. With Manon that same feeling of being unworthy is well hidden beneath the code, years of abuse, and her maturity. And for Dorian to be the one capable of saving her—the iron teeth witch, the powerful apex predator, the unbreakable woman he loves—WOULD. BE. HUGE. it’s so layered and complicated and it’s honestly an English teachers wet dream. Whether we get the two things at once, I have no idea. But it would work masterfully for completing their arcs.

[chuchoose]

this one also was not based on a prompt #02

The condensation dripped from ceiling to stone floor as if it were the dungeon’s heartbeat. 

Dri-drip. Dr-drip. Dr-drip.

Bokan the goblin trap breaker scratched his head, puzzled hesitant by the mechanics of the ornate brass door standing tall and unmoving before him. The door’s design wove itself between beautiful carvings of dramatic flourish and pistons and bars that all seemed to lock and slide into each other and all came together at one great handle in the center. To Bokan’s expertise, the locking mechanisms for this door looked like complete nonsense, which he could only understand as meaning that this door was more than he could pick apart with his current knowledge. Were this some examination back at the academy, perhaps after some study and reference, he might be able to crack it, but in the field? He was alone.

“What if we just smashed it?”

Bokan sighed. Almost alone. Bokan turned to his compatriot, rippling in muscle and hides beneath her Wolf Lodge helmet. Emera the Hammer picked her teeth of what remained of their most recent meal and towered over the goblin with a carefree grin.

“Look, I get that you’re clever, but not all problems have clever solutions,” she offered. “So what if,” she said as she flicked her toothpick away and hefted her great maul from off her back, “we just smashed it.” And then pantomimed the obvious consequent. 

Bokan screwed up his face into a frown. She meant well, by the cunning of Yob, she meant well. Tall folk always meant well. He shook his head and returned his attention to the door.

“How many parties do you think this door’s killed?” he asked.

Emera shrugged loudly and leaned on the haft of her hammer. It was Lilian that piped up. The green-robed elf stood tall, though she was markedly shorter than Emera, even when Emera was not standing at her full height. Lillian shifted uneasily as she fiddled with the clasp on her bag filled to the brim with both loose spell book pages and scroll cases amongst other magical knick-knacks.

“There’s no way to know,” the lore keeper said.

“Exactly,” Bokan replied. “There’s no way. All we have is this.” He pointed to the door. “This.” He pointed to the stone floor. “And this.” He pointed to the drip. 

Dri-drip. Dr-drip. Dr-drip.

A long moment washed over all of them. Emera was the first to break the silence. 

“You also have me!” Emera declared.

“We have you,” Bokan agreed, “but a hammer isn’t always the answer and not every nail is a question.”

“Emmy-- I mean! Emera is often an entirely serviceable answer,” Lillian said as she adjusted her spectacles, failing to hide the redness rising in her cheeks. Emera flexed proudly at the praise.

“It’s true,” Bokan agreed again, not hearing the change of pitch in Lillian’s squeaking reply, “but I don’t want to bet our lives on that more often than I have to.”

Lilian nodded, but Emera’s expression now matched Bokan’s, though for different reasons, he was sure. “But I would,” Emera said.

“And that’s what makes you good at what you do, but do remember what makes me good at what I do.”

Emera chortled, always enjoying this response. “You are very small and very clever. You are good at understanding things that are like you.”

Bokan sighed, as he always did at this, because she wasn’t wrong. He fidgeted with his jerkin in impatience. “And what else?”

“Because you can point to a door, the floor, and some dripping water.”

Bokan rolled his eyes, as was custom in this exchange. “Close enough.” Bokan paced around the landing before the door while talking. “So look, let’s start with what we have and then we can move on to what we don’t. The door’s made of brass, right?”

“Ferrous, of iron,” Lillian chimed. 

“Means it holds heat and lightning. But look at the door: no wear or deformation, so nothing’s running through it. Look at the floor: no scorch; no sizzle. Maybe the trap’s magical, but mechanical? No sign of alchemy for lightning or flame. Then the drip.”

“Depth, maybe from condensation? So from cold to hot? Or maybe it’s just wet here? The temperature doesn’t feel different here than the rest of the dungeon; neither more nor less humid.”

“Right, so is there a difference in temperature on the other side? If so, why? We don’t know. And then back to the door. Lillian: confirming the door didn’t ping for you, right?”

“Exactly right. No spells detected.” Bokan loved when Lillian and he got to talking shop. Emera groaned, as she always did when the two dungeoneering scholars got to talking this way, and took a few practice swings with her namesake hammer in the door’s direction.

“So lack of magic confirms it’s mechanical, especially given the door’s appearance, but look: the floor has no scrapes or scratches, nor any of the other stones around us. There’s no slideaways, trapdoors, or kill holes and if the door has no magical properties to hide those things, thank you, again, Lillian, what does the door even kill you with? Can a trap be neither magical or mechanical? And that’s not even getting back on the topic of the dripping!”

“I’m sorry?” Lillian asked.

“It’s driving me up the wall.”

Dri-drip. Dr-drip. Dr-drip.

Emera snorted. Lillian sighed.

“So what does it all mean?”

Bokan turned back to the party and they all exchanged pensive looks. Bokan, exacting in self-serious intensity; Emera, the gears in her head visibly turning on her face as she mouthed her logic to herself quietly; Lillian, her eyes shut tight as she quietly recalled all of the information piece by piece in silence while plumbing the depths of her studies for some morsel of applicable knowledge that could divine just what in the Wild this door could be protected by.

Emera snapped her fingers in revelation. “That means the door’s safe! It’s just a fancy door!”

Lillian groaned, but Bokan returned his attention to the door again. “Unless that’s another part of the trap.” 

They all hmmed in unison.

“I suppose there’s no way for us to know for certain,” Lillian said.

“There never really is,” Bokan admitted. “The Trap Breaker’s Credence: we can only assume.”

“What if the door’s a mimic?” Emera wondered.

Bokan shook his head.

“If you think like that, then you’ll start thinking everything’s a shapeshifter,” Lillian said. “What if the floor is a mimic? The walls? What if our clothes are mimics? It would never end.” The thought sent a shiver up Lillian’s spine. She reached out for Emera’s hand and Emera took it with a reassuring squeeze. Lillian wrapped herself around Emera’s trunk-like arm in kind.

“Okay, fair,” Emera began, stroking Lillian’s long hair smooth as it bunched against her arm, “but I only think things are mimics when it doesn’t make sense for things to be where they are and you’re all making it sound like this makes no sense. More than usual, I mean, given the way you two are.”

Bokan laughed. Lillian laughed. Emera laughed. The dripping stone and the door laughed, too.

Dri-drip. Dr-drip. Dr-drip.

Bokan blinked. Lillian’s jaw dropped. Emera unfurled Lillian from her arm and hauled up her huge hammer in preparation for a swing. “I love being right,” Emera sing-songed as the star-metal head of her maul crashed into the center of the door. The door mimic crumpled into a pile of squirming pseudopods and faux-metal beneath the hammer’s weight. The salivating ceiling mimic immediately sprouted scrabbling claws and began to scurry away from the party the opposite way. Bokan brandished a throwing knife as Lillian produced a wand from her pack and it sparked arcane before wrapping the mage’s arm in a sheath of magical, arcing electricity that she tamed with her arm’s gentle gyration. Bokan and Lillian glared at each other for a moment before their gaze was broken by Emera rushing between and past them. Emera yanked a smaller throwing hammer from her belt, let it fly, missed, and cursed, seemingly all at once, with her great maul cradled over shoulder as she made chase. The goblin and elf growled at each other and ran off after the warrior, flinging knives and spells at the fleeing shapeshifter as they went.

[uncleasad]

So many tags:

#Like her arc was just simply incomplete #And not only is it incomplete because Hope is missing from it #But it also somehow- #-ironically- #-literally ended while she was ditching her now ex gf to get on a bus to go help hope #holding the talisman #the last shot of josie we get is her holding the talisman #her write off was almost a love letter to hope even as the ship was being destroyed? #that's crazy #like it's just ironic that her arc failed and was missing this huge piece and then the last scene is confusing and misleading #and we THOUGHT it was going to be about hosie #I remember being so negative the whole run time of the show and the moment I finally thought hosie would happen was when I saw her holding #the talisman and going to find Hope #And then I close the episode and the article drops that Kaylee is gone forever #you guys don't even know #the confusion the sadness the heartbreak #they genuinely convinced me that hosie was happening in that LAST SECOND josie was clutching the talisman #on a bus to go help hope #and then I find out after the episode that she's going to...??? SOMEWHERE??? #like it's not even made clear and makes no sense #and then it's like being shot because hosie is dead #and josie's arc was a mess #just insane times #dec 16th was insane #hosie #josie saltzman #texts #tvdu #anti tvdu #anti legacies

All of this 😭

I remember feeling those very same things…Josie going to save Hope, the talisman, it’s gonna happen…and then slamming into a brick wall, heart ripped out, Josie/Kaylee’s gone…

I feel like it's kind of a mark of how soulmates hosie are that Josie's arc feels incomplete and like it has a gaping hole in it because they didn't let her and Hope finish up whatever the hell they had going on there