#like yes I have my faves but my number one priority is a nice fair and enjoyable comp no matter how my faves perform

[bronzebluemind]

I’m gonna blow this whole hill up like johann wanted to do if it once again fucks everything up and we won’t have a somewhat fair comp

[annakie]

Thoughts on a DW Rewatch & Mass Effect replay.

So I’m in the Eleven / Clara half-season now.

Also I’m now replaying Andromeda.  I have thoughts, about both.  I’ll start with Doctor Who then label it when I get to Mass Effect stuff.

Oh my God this gets long and rambly.  Apparently, I have a lot of thoughts.

So, season 702... I’m ready for it to be over.  I miss the Ponds.  I felt like most of the first half of this season was pretty great, honestly.  I’d forgotten how fun some of those episodes were, I think at the time we were anticipating a new companion so heavily that it was harder to appreciate those episodes?  I feel like there was a lot of criticism levied towards them that now I felt like was a bit too much.  The western episode was kinda meh but still not bad.

I’m not sure what exactly it is about these Clara / Eleven episodes that I’m still not connecting with but I’m in the middle of the Crimson Horror episode (which is a Vastra/Jenny/Strax heavy episode and enjoying it more than anything else so far this half-season.  

*edit later* NOPE NOPE NOPE I’D FORGOTTEN HOW THE DOCTOR FORCES A KISS ON JENNY.  GROSS.  SUPER GROSS.  SHE’S A MARRIED WOMAN, A LESBIAN AND DID NOT CONSENT TO ANY OF THIS.  BAD DOCTOR, BAD.

Honestly even with some excellent guest start acting, the Russian Submarine episode was STILL a slog and the ghosts in the 1950′s episode no better.  Like they still weren’t ridiculous and unwatchable but... just didn’t feel fun or interesting at all?  The Journey to the Center of the TARDIS episode was decent, and I felt like that wasn’t nearly as cool as it should have been..

I remember reading a criticism of these episodes early on where they said that the biggest fault is that they failed to give Clara any real characterization or solid personality other than “girl the Doctor is obsessed with”.  She’s SUPER IMPORTANT but not only do we not know why at this point but it really doesn’t feel... earned?  I don’t recall it ever feeling earned that Clara was supposedly always so important?  “The most importantest companion EVAR!”  

And as someone who stanned the hell out of a character who was hated in the fandom for “replacing” a previous companion I’m checking myself to make sure it’s still not because I Miss the Ponds.  Like, I don’t HATE Clara, I just, at least at this point in the rewatch, can’t find any reason to really LOVE her?  She’s there, she’s fine, Jenna-Louise Coleman is doing a great job with what they’re giving to her but... I don’t know.  It all feels... off.

I had forgotten all about the “the Doctor rides a motorcycle up the side of a skyscraper” moment and something hit me in that moment that made me remember that wow people hated that moment.  It felt really... shark-jumpy somehow.  

I love Eleven, but this half-season isn’t connecting with me, AT ALL. It feels like the writers just went and dug through a bunch of rejected script ideas, polished them up and were likle “let’s just do this until Matt Smith is gone.”  I’m anxious to get to Twelve.

Mass Effect Stuff

OK TECHNICALLY I haven’t finished ME3.  I still need to do the party and the goodbye scene, (Citadel Epiloge Mod installed) but I’ve gotten all the Stuff and done all the missions in the arena.  I just wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye yet, so I started Andromeda a bit early.

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OK look I had a point I wanted to make and never quite got where I wanted to go with it right here.  I’m too tired of trying to fix it, so this stands as written.

This playthrough had me ruminating a lot on Kaidan and Garrus.  I really love both of those characters, though in my heart I’ll always primarily love Kaidan, I’ve done the Garrus romance and wouldn’t mind playing that character again to see the romance one more time.  In ME1, I bring Kaidan everywhere all the time, and pick which other companion I bring to the story-based missions based on what I know is gonna happen like I’m sure most people do.  Wrex for Therum, Tali for Feros (though I REALLY wish you could switch before going to see the Thorian), Liara for Noveria, Ashley on Virmire, Garrus for Ilos/Endgame.  I rotate through all five for sidemissions.  

In ME2, Garrus is my always-bring companion, with Garrus + Miranda being my favorite team.  Except after the Omega relay, where characters with Throw really shine with all those husks running at us, Jack holds the bubble, and Miranda and Thane, who both have Warp to help take down the Reaper Baby, are the preferred team.  Also so Miranda can tell TIM to fuck off.

Then in ME3, once the game opens up, Garrus is back on the perma-team, with a preference towards bringing Liara along... until we get Kaidan back.  And then I realized I didn’t bring him to a single thing except a side mission or two until Earth.  Mostly, this is because I’m following the Kaidan Banter guide and it turns out Garrus is a real banter hog for most of the missions.  At leat he’s not James, who I literally never use unless I’m going on an N7 mission and feel bad that I haven’t taken him off the Normandy in awhile.  I mean, even Javik gets more play.  Also EDI doesnt leave the Normandy til near the end when all of a sudden she gets real important.  

But Garrus is always on the team for Priority Earth.  And that always felt like the way the main game should end, with your two favorites.  (Also what kind of monster wouldn’t bring Wrex to the combat-centric areas of Citadel DLC?  I keep thinking I should have runs where I bring other people but... Wrex is my other fave and we don’t get him with us AT ALL since ME1.)  

I love Garrus, so much.  And I was thinking with this whole parallel DW rewatch / Mass Effect replay think I’m doing right now how both Rose Tyler and Garrus Vakaraian are characters that were ruined for me for awhile due to their respective... overly enthusiastic fanbases who a small percentage of were dicks to people who loved other characters.  The Kaidan tag (and from what I understand Thane got some of this too, but not nearly as bad) was a pretty hostile place for awhile (and yeah I used to check the Garrus tag too and there was a small amount of tag-invasion there but uh, like 5% of what the Kaidan tag got) which made loving the character of Garrus a lot harder for awhile.  But when actually watching seasons 1 & 2 / the end of 4 of DW, or actually playing the games, those characters are awesome.  

Fanbases can be amazing or terrible, and time and time again I think you start to realize that no matter how great a fandom is, there are going to be a few people who can only enjoy themselves by feeding on drama, or on lifting up what they love by stomping on other people/characters/plotlines.  Going back through my blog reminded me that even the TAH fandom had some of this, with a small percentage of fans being real dicks to two prominent female characters in favor of their favorite ship, which soured even that just a tiny bit.  

It’s not fair to characterize everyone who loves a popular thing as someone who does this.  It’s also hard to avoid completely because there will always be jerks, or young/new people who don’t realize what bad form they’re showing.  I did learn by trying to fight it for a year or two, that responding might help that one person not do it again, but it’s not going to stop overall.  Maybe yelling a lot about Martha Jones did change some people’s minds.  It still isn’t that good of a look now, even knowing that in general I was pretty polite and logical about it.  I might respond to an odd comment now and again in some favorite character tags, but in general, turns out that kind of fight just isn’t worth it.

And those fights seem so stupid in the light of everything else happening in the world today.

Anyway, don’t be a dick about the things you don’t like.  

-----------------------

I also wanted to say, and I know I said it in a few other posts about this ME3 playthrough, but seriously I cannot believe how much ME3 is a changed game because of the modders.  I cannot imagine ever playing ME3 again without these mods.  There were so many small things that I kept thinking I should take note of to talk about and I’m sure I forgot 90% of them, but there’s things like... adding in mentions of the Andromeda Initiative, closing a few plotholes, mentioning Emily Wong, adding in many more Spectre console options which end up having their own plotlines, adding in an entire plotline about the VI civilization that had previously only been talked about in like, social media or Cerberus News Network posts, having the Normandy be so much more populated, seeing so many more other species on the Citadel with more variety in clothing for those species that have clothing / could have more variety, way more female Turians.... every time I play ME3 the game is more and more like the game we wanted when it came out.  

I am kind of itching to go back and replay it even now.

But hey, instead, its time to talk about Andromeda.

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So first of all, yes, mods for Andromeda.  A few appearance mods, a lot of convenience mods.  

After having recently played DA:I and I think Andromeda and DA:I are a lot more similar than Andromeda and the previous trilogy, I had decided it was time to cut down on the stupid stuff Andromeda does, like “Oh, you want minerals?  Spend 10 minutes in each mining zone finding the PERFECT place to gather materials or you’re fucked”  No, thanks.  I’ll mine but give me that “one probe placed anywhere and you’re done” mod.  

Make the modifications and crafting materials I use actually matter. 2% damage increase is nothing.  Make my squadmates not suck because I remember doing 90% of the work myself before and that got exhausting with the number of spawns.  

I tried to not go overboard so things feel like cheating, but there’s enough out there to just get rid of the stupid stuff, and it’s nice.  And works together a lot easier than the DA:I mods did.

One thing I did do was install the Multiple Romance Mod.  I enjoyed it in DA:I, even though ultimately I only did 2 full romances.  I am **NOT** romancing Gil or Cora with the mod, I just wanted to experience all the content available for female Ryders at once, since I’m not going to have the energy to replay this 100+ hour game enough times to see every romance on its own.  So I am poly-romancing Liam, Jaal, Vetra, Suvi, Peebee, Keri, and if it lets me, Reyes when it’s time.  

I’ve only gotten all the way through Andromeda once (where I romanced Liam)  My second playthrough was right after my first and stalled out about halfway through (was romancing Jaal.)  It was one of those “I’m totally gonna get back to this! (She didn’t.)” things.  I’m gonna be honest, I enjoyed the Liam romance and was enjoying the Jaal romance, I’d done a fling with Reyes but not the full romance my first time through and the fling with PeeBee on my second.  Reyes was probably my favorite out of all of them.  So this time I decided.. let’s see which I love the most, all at once.  I don’t know if I’ll do this in the future, but this game is too long to not see all the content I wanna see, TBH.  

And you know, I still really do like Andromeda.  It’s a GOOD game.  And I’m forever going to be mad that we’re not going to see how this story ends.  This story deserved to finish being told.  Like, there are a lot of very legit criticisms about Andromeda, but it didn’t deserve the harshness it got.  And the worst thing about it, and DA:I both is that... there’s just a little TOO MUCH of it.  100 hours is an amazing amount of game but... it’s also just too much.  For now I’m not trying to 100% this playthrough.  My plan is on each planet to get the planet to 100%, take out the Kett or whatever major base, the Remnant Architect, and yeah probably clear out the sidequests that show up on the map, but fuck quests that are like “visit random Kett camps until you find the right datapads that don’t show up on the map!” or “scan random blobs in the forest that don’t show up on the map!”  

So like, do the content, not the filler.  

I still hate the vaults.  The first one is cool.  The rest are tedious.  But they’re mandatory.

I love everyone on this spaceship though.  They did the Tempest stuff SO WELL.  All the companions I think are... good?  There’s no one I don’t like, even the non-squadmate shipmates ship have so much interaction and so much to do/say.  It’s not like “a bunch of randos and Joker, with occasional appearances by Chakwas and the Engineers”  There’s no randos, it’s just a few people you have real interactions with, and its great.

The lack of enough beds in the bedroom will never not annoy me.  There’s 4 beds for... Lexi, Liam, Cora, Suvi, Kallo, Vetra and Gil?  Even if Liam slept on his couch, and Vetra put a bed in her supply room... still doesn’t add up.  What, do Salarains not sleep or something?  Does Lexi sleep in a medical bed?!?  Peebee sleeps in the escape pod, Jaal brings a bed with him, and Drack’s like “Eh I’ll just sleep in the kitchen”.  WHAT?  THE KITCHEN?

I mean sure there weren’t enough beds, even with the sleeper pods, on the Normandy either, but somehow that was less disturbing.  

Also, I know you’re supposed to HATE Director Tann but I love Kumail Nanjiani so I find it hard to be a total dick to him, even if he usually deserves it.  If he wasn’t an anti-Krogan racist I think it’d be easier to like him.  He was thrown into a pretty shitty situation and... did actually hold things together for some time.  He’s not doing anything out of malice.  He’s a dick, but also doing what he needs to do to keep the Initiatiave going.  Oh, except for being a anti-krogan racist.  (Honestly, I also think  “until he turned Cerberus Udina was just doing his job pretty well” too, so...)

Taking some screenshots as I go.  I mostly just take screenshots for me now.  I have a few thousands screenshots from a dozen or more games rotating through my desktop background, and I keep adding to it, and love it.

Anyway, I’ve gotten Eos, Voeld and Havral to 100%.  Time to go save the Moeshe.  I’m having fun.  

*edit from later* I’d forgotten that... idk if the dialog they recorded for Jaal was the first thing they recorded for him or they used a different VA or what but on the Save the Moshe mission his voice is VERY DIFFERENT and oh man, that is still bad.

Might take a break for when Onslaught comes out for SWTOR, though.  I haven’t really played SWTOR in months. Oops.

[eponymous-rose]

Tagged directly and indirectly by some people, but I liked this version the besssst so we’re going for it!                                    

RULES: answer 30 questions and tag 10 blogs you are contractually obligated to know

Nicknames: Rose, Meso

Gender/pronouns: she/her

Star sign: Aquarius I think??

Height: 5′7″? 5′8″? Something like that? Oh god, this is making me weirdly nervous it’s a test I’m going to fail somehow.

Time: 8:35 PM Central Time

Birthday: January 26th! A big milestone coming next week! Woo!

Favorite Last band streamed: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Favorite Last solo artist streamed: Lorde

Song stuck in your head: MAHNA-MAHNA (doot-doo-dee-doo-doot)

Last movie you watched?: In the theater, it was the new Star Wars, which I really enjoyed!

Last show?: CRITrole.

Why did you create your blog?: Started this one about seeeeven? years ago keeping up with people from the livejournals. Started the LJ ten years ago to keep up with people from a fannish forum. And so on.

What do you post?: Lots of assorted (lately just CR) retweets, videos and gifs I made, sometimes writing stuff or neat cats or dogs or birbs of the internet. Random life updates.

Last thing you googled?: Browser history tells me it was “alt code symbols” for transcript purposes.

Other blogs: Nope! AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/users/eponymous_rose/

Do you get asks?: I have ACTUAL PROOF of several asks somehow disappearing on their way to my inbox, so if I ever don’t respond, just send it again and I won’t be annoyed. Yes! I am very lucky to have people sending me stuff from time to time. And, since I turned off anons, 100% fewer death threats from that one dude who’s busy getting himself into legal trouble over harassing other people. Cool.

How did you get the idea for your URL?: My initials are A.K.A., as in an alias, so I wanted to do a play on the whole “rose by any other name” thing. It’s one of those things that makes perfect sense when you’re 19 and overthinking things (and, to be fair, when you’re 29 and overthinking things).

I follow: 101 blogs, the vast majority of which are inactive, and I think the last person I followed on here was like three or four years ago? I mostly just browse blogs individually now.

Followers: I... haven’t looked at this number in a while, but it is apparently 3,116. Shit. Um. I mean. Uh. Hi. That’s terrifying. Who are you. Welcome? I hope you find things you enjoy here? I love finding out what awesome things people are up to (or what their amazing pets look like!!!) if you ever feel the urge to send me a random message?

Average hours of sleep: Over the past year or so it went from a strict seven and a half to about six. I feel a lot more well-rested on average, though, and never get sleep paralysis episodes anymore, so I’ll take the trade-off, however it came about.

Lucky number: Six! When I was a kid I won a bunch of prizes picking six during a game at a birthday party or something, so I decided that it would be my lucky number.

Instruments: Piano! Technically a bit of violin, but that’s buried somewhere in my parents’ storage room now.

What are you wearing?: I had to work from home to sign for a big package today, so I got to avoid work clothes! Navy hoodie, jeans, long socks that go from suns to partly cloudy to cloudy to rainy to thunderstorms.

Dream job: What I’m doing now with a little more job security.

Dream trip: I love @mystery-moose’s response here: visit all the internet friends! @mystery-moose, @loquaciousquark, @bettydice, @silksieve, @critrolestats pals, and many more! Visit school friends in Canada and assorted States! I’d also like to do pretty much any solo traveling abroad - I find it infinitely less stressful than traveling with a group. That said, maybe a trip somewhere nice with my parents and brother?

Favorite food: @mystery-moose mentioned chicken katsu which, YES PLEASE. I passionately adore almost all foods, but some major faves are: pierogi, gulab jamun (ANYTHING WITH ROSEWATER SYRUP), falafel, olives, gnocchi, sushi, just bring me A Food, especially if I’ve never tried it before, and I will probably enjoy it.

Significant other?: The last person I turned down on a date tracked down my phone number to call me names and send me threatening texts. We’ll give it a minute. (Loooow on the list of priorities, man.)

Last book I read: On the plane back from Austin I read Borderline by Mishell Baker. Loved it, looking forward to reading the sequel.

Top 3 fictional universes: Critical Role, Mass Effect, Star Trek. They’re not necessarily places I’d like to exist, but they are awfully fun sandboxes to play in and each means a lot to me for different reasons.

I always get weird about tagging people, but you can absolutely do what I did and do the questions on your very own blog with no specific prompting! Send me a note if you do - I’d love to get to know you folks better. <3

[felicityb-reviews]

Seventeen “Director’s Cut” Special Album Review

So like...

Who else saw it coming?!?!?

Hello loves!! My name is Jace (aka Felicity B), and welcome to my first album review!! And of fucking course, it's on Seventeen's repackage (sorry, Special Album™) - Director's Cut!! Anyone who knows me knows that I'm complete and total Svt trash (I might have cried watching Thank You for the first time), so I am *very* excited to be doing Seventeen for my first ever album review.

I might have had plans to do a Teen.Age review as my first post on Felicity B Reviews. No one can prove that, but it might have been a thing!!

1. Thinkin' About You

Thinkin' About You is Classic Svt™, kids.

You can expect three different types of tracks to be present on most (if not all) Seventeen albums

Gay up Straight up, balls to the wall Funk that has a ridiculous ass routine and looks amazing performed live (Boom Boom, Very Nice, Clap).

A soft Radio Ballad type song that would make the perfect intro track at a concert (Beautiful, Without You).

An acoustic(-sque) ballad that makes your heart go pitter patter (Smile Flower, Campfire).

I told y'all I was complete and total Svt Trash.

Thinkin' About You is a Funky Disco Pop number that combines the first and second Svt archetypes (tropes, if you will), and I fuckin' love it. In fact, I'm pretty sure there's no way I could ever *not* like this type song from any group, much less Seventeen. There's just something so Right™ about Seventeen doing high energy, pure pop numbers. Most boy bands outchea are trynna act like they're all badass and what not (not that Seventeen isn't), but Seventeen know what the fans want.

I know I said above that these type of songs would be perfect for opening a concert, but I actually think Thinkin' About You would be great to close out one?!?! Or for an ~encore~ stage. It's interesting that they chose Thinkin' About to open the repackage (*ahem* Special Album), because there's an element of finality to it. It does its job well enough, but it'd be interesting to hear how it'd sound if they had placed this at the end.

2. Thank You *title*

The ugly tears I bawled watching the video for the first time, y'all...

Firstly, whomstever leaked the original draft of my Teen.Age review??!? Yeah, ya mama's a heaux. I (very jokingly) complained about Clap not having enough Jisoo, and only did they come out with that ~remix~ of Clap that's literally WonSoo looking hot to a trap beat, but Thank You has an explosion of Jisoo.

It's too much.

Thank You is an EDM track that I'd usually expect from Performance Unit. And that's not shade, cause I fucking love Thank You. But sis, y'all could put ha next to Dance of the 13th Month and HIGHLIGHT, and it'd be a trilogy of slayery.

I don't actually recommend doing that unless your edge control is blessed by God, cause you will look a hot ass mess afterwards.

The best way to describe my thoughts on Thank You is "When will your faves?". All of my feelings on this song boil down to that question. Jisoo told us to be ready, but once the teasers hit, I had accepted my fate. My edges will never be the same, just like consequences. I will never stan another like I do Seventeen. How could I when they deliver such high quality, forward thinking songs that are still true to their brand of public friendly pop bops like Thank You??!?!?!

Dramatics aside, Thank You is just a really nice, really healing type of song. This song feels like renewed hope in a jar. Thank You doesn't make me feel like I can conquer the world, it makes me feel like I can live for another day. It makes me feel like I haven't struggled and fought in vain. And as someone who has had many a depressive episode that's left her feeling like complete and total trash, that feeling is not to underestimated.

3. Run To You

Sis, tell me how Seventeen delivered a J-Pop style track, while also making the song sound distinctly theirs?!?!?! I'm very sure if another group performed this, it'd still have that patented Svt feel to it.

Legends only.

Let's get the obvious out of the way - Run To You sounds like an anime theme song. A very nice anime theme song, but an anime theme song nonetheless. I'm a little confused as to why they'd include a song like this on a Korean album, because this style is very hit or miss when done in Korea. My thoughts on Run To You tie very heavily into how I feel about Director's Cut as a whole, but I'll get into those later.

Run To You has a grit to it's severely dulled by the mixing and mastering process, and it makes me wanna hear it live. This is exacerbated by the Svt's very clean, very pop style mixing, but to be fair, it is a complaint I've had about pretty much every Korean rock song with high production values.

I really would not mind if Seventeen ever decided to do a punk/pop sub-unit. Yes, I do realize Run To You isn't punk/pop, but that could easily be fixed. Seventeen gave us MCR inspired aesthetics with the Teen.Age teasers, and I was A Fan™. And several of the members play instruments (I'm having war flashbacks to their KBS Song Festival stage). It wouldn't be hard for them to pull off. It'd be a super cool foil to their power pop/Boys Just Wanna Have Fun™ group concept.

PLEDIS!! MAKE IT HAPPEN!!

4. Falling For U (Jeonghan and Jisoo)

In case anyone is interested, I prefer to use Jisoo's Korean name over his American one (even though he uses that as a stage name), because Joshua is my deadname. And it's really uncomfortable to call one of your biases a name that has the potential to make you extremely dysphoric.

Moving on.

Falling For U is Svt archetype number three. And even though I have love for every song on Director's Cut, Falling For U is my clear favorite. Outside of featuring 2/3 of my Svt biases (I am a gay trash can, leave me be), it's an Acoustic Coffee Shop RnB Midtempo.

And y'all know how much my gay ass loves those.

It's missing the RnB overtones you typically hear in this type of song, but it's still pretty rad.

Falling For U is another really nice, really healing song. She sounds like springtime dates with bae. Like you're in that Honeymoon phase and you just wanna be all gross and sappy all the time. Falling For U also gives me the feel of a couple that's been in love for a while now. Everything feels easy in that moment, because you're just so in love. It's a nice feeling.

I frequently talk about how K-Pop fans need to unplug every once in a while because they be sippin' the Kool Aid a lil bit too much, but sometimes, I just wanna listen to a cute love song by a cute boy (or cute boys #GayTrashCan).

And speaking of cute things by cute boys, HanSoo's cute rap during the bridge. Sis, my heart exploded with feels. Jisoo has such a nice lower range (you wouldn't know it by how high his vocal parts are, but he's got a lil oomph to his voice for a lyric tenor) and Jeonghan has rasp for D A Y S.

I wanted it to be longer, you guys.

Overall And Final Thoughts

Director's Cut does what a repackage/special album is supposed to do - extend the life of an previously released album cycle with a new look and some new music. I liked that three/four of the songs featured here are group tracks as opposed to unit ones; Teen.Age was a great showcase of Seventeen as individuals, but it felt more like a singles collection than an album because of it. The tracklisting was a hot mess that exacerbated the problem, but the root was how varied the sound of the album was. Adding in the group tracks definitely helps make the album feel more cohesive.

I mean, there's the task of actually integrating the tracks into the body of the album, but that's the beauty of the Digital Revolution.

At the same time, I almost wish they'd waited to release these songs?!!

I've heard that Seventeen are planning a Japanese debut soon, so why not save these songs for that album. Most groups release a remake of a Korean song as a debut single in Japan, but Seventeen could have released Run To You. If there's a few thing sI've learned about successful Japanese campaigns for K-Pop groups are, it's that groups a) need to be proficient (at the very least) in the language and b) you gotta tailor your sound to the market. And what do ya know, Run To You would have Perfect™.

Idk, I'm very happy with this comeback because it breathed new life into an already amazing album, but at the same time, I think Seventeen's first release in 2018 should not have been a repackage. Especially one with a tracklisting this poorly thought out. Seventeen's albums have always had iffy tracklistings, but Director's Cut takes the cake, sis.

It doesn't take away from the quality of the music, but it makes you wonder where their management's priorities lies.