#lmao she wants to be edgy and badass and murderous so bad but like girl sit ur ass down and learn smth from jude motherfucking duarte

[megumiifushiiguro]

ngl the shadows between us is mid

[stan-and-the-newbie]

A kpop newbie’s reaction to BLACKPINK

Alexa: bold Alex: italic

today you are reacting to... BlackPink!

o damn, are you sure this band isn’t your favourite?

pFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT-  ok, good one, anyway this is them :3

((she tried sending me a picture but it didn’t work))

awh come oN

~ technical difficulties, please stand by ~

dfgfd shhhHhhHhH i know wot im doin smdh. this is alreaDY GOING BADLY

...should i just google them?

its okay, i got it. this is them

o damn. they're very pretty, but that was to be expected

yep.. so what concept do you think they have? lol as if it isnt obvious

idk man three of them are giving me death glares. uhh black? and pink?

tbh,,,,,they have the girl crush concept, like, theyre all badass and stuff

oh, well that’s..  interesting

i cant believe im letting you edit this post..  anyway, opinion on them? they dont look that similar, thank god

well the red-haired one i like the most so far since she doesn't look like she wants to choke me (and not in the kinky way)

fgjgfghj yes i see

the one wearing the 2b outfit is probably your goth waifu

omf

and the pink(TM) one looks like she's the sugar mommy of the group

m o o d

i'm guessing she's the leader? it could just be the thanos throne

they dont really have a leader..  this is also them

ah, lovely, a picture where they don't look like they want to murder me

yes, finally

a bunch of talented asian cuties, wot is new

to be honesT. i'll start with the first one from the second picture

alrighty

her stage name is rose

the first two from left to right are the prettiest imo

o rlly

i'm gonna get lynched alive for saying that, aren’t i

so, opinion?

she's uhhh 23? and a singer, and she's the goofy one

well youre right about her being a singer..  shes 21, and yes, she is pretty goofy. she is fluent in english because she is australian

n i c e

this is her kickin everyone's ass 

((Then she showed me this video))

i-

skinny legend

and they said infinity war was the most ambitious crossover... asian idols wearing brazilian carnival outfits as some dude sings that song from shrek 2? sign me tf up

LMAOO gee her voice still gives me chills rose step on me

alexa that's lewd, let us move on swiftly

sorry i just like her shes also a good dancer

i'm guessing she's gonna be my favourite

o

english speaking idols get bonus points, and she seems to excel at everything else, so...

yes, she is amazing. oh, she also cried over her fish's death

;-; oof

:( bless her anyway, you have any questions?

nop, she's gucci, let us proceed

right, the next one is jisoo

she's a qt ;; she looks like a dork i want to shake her hand and give her a hug

this is her smiling

i-

see thats the heart smile

is she the radiance? because my retinas are burned

SDFGFDSADFG MOOD

literally no one is gonna get that joke

wat if they do?

then they are people of culture

opinion?

uhh, she is the soft one, and.. she's short because why not, and she's 22 and she sings ;; 

o- i mean, she isnt really tall, but she isnt that short. yes, she is a singer, the oldest, 23 y/o and she is a goofball, a derp. very entertaining tbh

she looks adorable and has a cute name and is a goofy dork god bless

all of them are good at english but her. but she Tries- and is confused.  

o o f

tis a baby

she deserves all the hugs

she isnt the best dancer, but shes a Great singer, and very stable on stage

their hair alexa their hair is so fucking aesthetic

i KnoW

i am in pain, pack your dictionary we're moving to korea

fuck yeaH the next one is lisa

abs of JUSTICE

hot diggidy she's the sass queen, and she's uh..  23, and a rapper

oh, this is also her

she is also 21, and yes, a rapper!! a very swaggy one

jackpot

but shes a whole cutie, and the youngest

awh ;;

and she gets embarrassed easily

i see, so she's the tsundere of the group

she is from thailand, and i think shes fluent in four languages, including english

nice, man

she is also an Amazing dancer

n i c e ,  m a n

shes kinda my wife but theyre all my bias so i cannot decide it is Too Hard

i only have one bias  u-u

ofc u do

remember to only have one waifu alexa, too many waifu will ruin your laifu

a baby

they’re all cuties this is fucking illegal

it  i s do you have any question about baby lalisa over there :(

so far this is a very solid kpop band

o

lots of english speakers, cute dorks and pure babies everywhere

;-; yes

it has my seal of approval

n i c e the last member is jennie

o damn. jennie? j-just jennie?

just jennie. she doesn’t need anything else

is that an ACDC shirt

apparently

why do they all look so good and fashionable, and both glamorous and cute and pure at the same time, alexa the space-time continuum shouldn't allow this

pffft opinion?

hmm.. she's both a rapper and a singer, and uhh..  she's the second sassiest, but also a goof, and she's 23. I'LL STICK WITH MY 23 also damn nice thighs

she does have amazing thighs tbh.. WAIT HOW DO YOU KNOW SHES ALSO A RAPPER AND A SINGER

well usually in smaller kpop bands one of them does the support for both singing and rap..r-right?

,,,,,,,,,now that you say it

it finally happened folks, i taught alexa something about kpop

badass

THEY'RE ALL SO PURE, FUCC

THEY ARE, they have the badass girl crush concept, BUT THEYRE ALL FUCKIN CUTIES IRL also, take this

my poor heart

jennie is so smol ;; jennie is the smolest

i'm sorry, i was distracted by the thicc

mood tbh she is also fluent in english lmao

pack your shiT ALEXA WE'RE GOING TO KOREA

y ES theyre all really cute and entertaining, they dont go over the top, but theyre still pretty funny - as funny as a girl group can be anyway

pfft i find all of them entertaining tbh. show me some songs fam 

o, alrighty. this is a dance practice, it was the first thing that was released and everyone went nuts

((Then she showed me the dance practice video))

lisa is the one with shorts, jennie has the cap, rose is the one with braids and the last one is jenniejisoo

oof, a bit too edgy for my taste, sorry. but the routine is great!

well, they were kinda made to be badass

yeah, i figured

also, a little side note

o?

their company is one of the biggest companies out there, but theyre known for their shitty management, as in, they dont really give idols many comebacks or promotions, so they dont have many songs;; even tho they debuted two years ago

well, that kinda sucks

yep..

i imagine this business is pretty finicky behind the scenes. i guess it can’t be all sugar and glitter all the time

true..  anyway, this is is one of the two songs in their debut ep lol 

((Then she showed me “Whistle”))

also, may i add, their mvs are hella aesthetic

they seem to be..  not a fan of the super edgy american-ish songs though

yeh, their second ep was better. this is from the second ep

((Then she showed me “Playing With Fire”))

pyromaniac title, piano in the first second. this one's gon' be gud

yeah, this one was definitely better - well, not objectively, just imo 

yeah then theres this beautiful beautiful song 

((Then she showed me “Stay”))

that title gives me the hibby jibbies

y e p p

nvm i saw a mcdonalds in the background and now i'm chuckling

sdfdsdfg honestly the mv is So Pretty

ALEXA I DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR SAD TIMES

shhh its a nice lil song just dont read the lyrics lmao

...i'm reading the lyrics now I THOUGHT THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE A BADASS GROUP WHAT IS THIS

the chorus is so nice tho, with the claps

it is..  well, that was mildly depressing

at the end they hold hands and laugh and jump around in a circle in the mv and its just..  i rlly like the mv and the filter is very pretty

a e s t h e t i c

anyway, back to badass

((Then she showed me “Ddu-du Ddu-du”...?))

this is their most recent release, this time with a mini album

and i see thanos’s throne is back

y eS

these sets look expensive as fucc.. is that a fennec fox?

maybe..

and the evil parrot from rio? what is this, a crossover episode?

THE MOST AMBITIOUS CROSSOVER

first we had the shrek 2 song, now this they gon' hit me with dat turu turu du alexa halp meh  

i k r wat u gon do

is that.. a sparkly tank?

y ES jennie is an icon

i feel like i've ascended

tbh all these things were so unnecessary yet they did it anyway

well i certainly don’t regret it

that breakdown at the end is kinda cheap, but i think the diamond tank made up for it

definitely

sdfvbvGJHGthere are two mvs left

oh, just.. just two?

y es

i feel bad for them ;; did u say it's been two years

yeah..

this is so r00d

yes, always feel bad for yg artists

what’s yg?

its a company - their company

ah, i see

their shitty company

oof

here's their debut song (which i dont really like but Oh Well.)

((Then she showed me “Boombaya”..? who the hell comes up with these names?))

well, in all fairness if they're one of the biggest they probably have a lot of bands to manage

not really..  they had very successful bands though, so that kinda paved the way for the ones nowadays

ALEXA THESE FUCKING LYRICS ARE KILLING ME

ASDFGBFVDS MOOD CLICK CLACK BADDABING BADDABOOM QUEEN

"i'm so hot i need a fan i don't want a boy i need a man" BISH YOU'RE A 5 FOOT 20-SOMETHING ASIAN IDOL CHILL

hjkjhghj shhHHH

this is a whole drugtrip

it iS

are those..  black leather biker pants...  mixed with blue jeans? this is some next level shit alexa i can't handle this

y ES fashion icon

why do coke when you can watch this for free and legally?

ikr theres one last mv, and its better, trust me

..alright...

theyre cute in this one

((Then she showed me “As If It’s Your Last”))

jisoo is the one with the heart magnet and i love her

awh ;; man these titles are edgier than 13 year old me

oh come on, its a love song

that dancing, it's s-so lewd  <-<;;

it iS oh, i forgot lisa's rap is in english

n o i c e i didn't know jennie had her own ice cream business

girl is going places okay but 1:36

what about it?

th-the cotton candy part

pfff

sorry i remember the first time and saw it and was like fukc thas cute

well, it was. it was pure ;;

alright, final thoughts?

well, they're a bunch of cute and talented dorks, but that ain't nothing new. either way, 10/10 for the lewd dancing and the fact that they speak english. give dem more comebacks, fam

they have lewder choreos, but thats for another day. justice4blackpinkcomeback edition

yeS, let’s make a petition

Heya peeps, it’s a boii mod Alex here. This was the first time I put together a Reaction Wednesday post, so uh.. yeah...  I think it turned out pretty good! But seriously, a lot of work goes into these, even though it may not seem like it. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it! See you next week!

[fae-fucker]

Zenith: Prologue - Chapter 1

This is the old snark I did of the first preview chapters that were released before the complete book, updated with new notes from me where I discuss some of the changes in the final product. The notes will be in bold.

The actual story will continue after chapter 12, which previously was chapter 9. 

Let’s see what Shinsay has cooked up for us, shall we?

Prologue

This part is actually called “Cell 377″ but you can’t fool me, Shinsay, I know it’s a prologue.

The updated version has inexplicably changed the cell number from 377 to 306. 

Thirty-six days of endless darkness.

Update: This line has been changed to just “Endless darkness”, to make it more dramatic, I guess.

It surrounded Valen Cortas in cell 377, twisting and turning itself into his bones until he and the darkness had become one.

Fair warning, people: This will get about as edgy as a 12-year-old’s Sonic OC on DeviantArt.

And keep in mind that one of the writers (or the only writer, if this was ghostwritten and Sasha didn’t actually touch the script itself), is an actual published author. This doesn’t say much, considering the garbage that gets published nowadays, but I just wanted to point this out.

I have several issues with the opening sentences already (mostly the overuse of “the darkness,” the level of melodrama, and the general wtf-ness), but I don’t want to be here for a billion days, so let’s just move on.

Valen Cortas is chilling around all sad and lonely in the daaahkness of his lonely daaahk cell.

I am Valen Cortas. He rolled the words over and over in his mind. It was the only thing that kept him going, and it leashed a sharp coil of courage around his veins as he added, Vengeance will be mine.

Leashed a ... sharp coil of ... courage ... around his veins ...

This reads like mad libs. Did Lindsay make the sentence structure and just let Sasha fill in the blanks with the most dramatic words she knew?

Valen had traveled all his life, leaving his home for long stretches at a time, sometimes to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. It wasn’t until here, in the darkness of cell 377 [...]

Yes, it’s very dark in cell 377 306. We get it. Very dark. Just super duper dark. The darkness? It’s in his BOOONES. That’s how dark it is. Move on please.

Update: This has been changed and there’s no longer any mention of the DAAAHK CELL, and Valen now has lived in Arcardius his whole life, as opposed to having traveled all his life.

Valen feels all angsty and sad about the fact that he used to love all of the most dramatic colors of the world, and now he can’t even remember some of them!

As each moment in this abyss passed, the colors all melted into a single shade of black.

It’s very dark in here, guys. Did you get that yet?

He shivered and pulled the blanket tighter around his thin shoulders. The pain of remembering things loved and lost had sunk its claws into him, threatening to crush his bones.

His bones are already filled with darkness, mind you, so I imagine if they get crushed, they’ll just spill out more darkness to add to the darkness.

It’ll be darkness overload. Dark darkness.

Somewhere, in the dank darkness, a scream rang out.

Or ... dank darkness. That works too.

Update: This has been changed to “dank prison.” I guess they had enough sense to change this lmao.

He rolled over, pressing his hands to his ears. “I am Valen Cortas,” he whispered, fingertips touching his cracked lips. “Vengeance will be mine.”

Do me a favor and press your hands to your ears. Now try to touch your lips without removing your hands from your head.

Our first hint that Valen might be an alien with a suspiciously human name, because how else would one explain his freakishly long fingers?

Update: This has been changed, and there’s no longer any mention of Valen’s infinite fingers.

We find out he’s somewhere called Lunamere. Is it a planet? A country? A prison? I guess we’ll find out.

The cold was endless.

Just like the darkness!

The food was enough to keep skin hanging on bones [..]

As we all know, when you starve the first thing that happens is all your skin slops off.

He had to bide his time, and hope that the godstars had not forgotten him. And so he sat, wrapped up in the cold arms of darkness.

Wait wait wait ... So you’re telling me ... It’s both COLD ...

AND DARK?????

Hmm. I hadn’t considered that.

Update: Godstars is now properly capitalized. 

The last line has been changed to “And so he sat, dreaming of darkness, wrapped up in its cold arms” which makes no sense. You just said he wants to see the colors of the world, but instead he dreams of ... darkness? That’s already surrounding him and that he’s tired of? What is he, a masochist? 

Chapter 1

Her nightmares were like bloodstains.

A bitch to wash off?

But Andi had decided, long ago, that the nightmares were her punishment.

She was the Bloody Baroness, after all. And if surviving meant giving up sleep, then she would bear the exhaustion.

Our main character, the Celaena ripoff, as it were, is Androma Racella. And her nickname is Andi.

Yes, really, though I must wonder why they didn’t go the whole way and just name her Andromeda instead of Androma. Was that just too cliché?

This is also false, because you will survive despite nightmares, as any living person can attest to, while lack of sleep can literally kill you. But who gives a damn about that when you can be dramatic?

And these civilizations have advanced far enough to master space travel, but some sleeping pills that knock you straight out is just too unrealistic, huh? I suppose if there was any logic, there wouldn’t be any cheap nightmare drama.

Andi is the captain of a ship named the Marauder (pff) and she’s “busy” etching another mark into one of her super cool katanas to symbolize that she’s killed yet another poor, weak fool.

Her fingertips were white as she gouged a thin tally the length of her smallest finger into one blade. Without its spirals of electricity, the sword looked like any other weapon, the tallies, any other soldier’s lucky mark. But Andi knew better.

Each line she etched into the metal was another life cut off, another heart stopped at the slice of this very blade.

I mean ... I would expect her to know the real meaning behind something she consciously does. Why does this imply that she realizes some sort of deep mystery while everyone else is a dumbass, she’s the one doing it so of course she “knows better.”

And honestly? I’m no sword expert, but what idiot carves marks into their beloved swords? Why would you purposefully damage the metal like that, just to prove how badass you are?

Whatever. I guess I’m no BLOODY BARONESS, I just don’t GET IT.

Update: Andi’s nails are now painted red, and she also wears glowing “compression cuffs” that protect the burned skin around her wrists from the Accident. 

A hundred lives to cover up the pain of the very first. A hundred more to shovel away the hurt into a place that was dark and deep.

From what I know, Andi is plagued by nightmares of her first kill, and while I get that it could “mean” more to a person than the ones after, it feels stupid that she supposedly feels so bad for it that she still has nightmares, but doesn’t care about the other hundreds of people she murdered. It becomes even dumber when the book says she’s killing more to bury that first kill in her conscience.

Andi looked up from her blades as a flash of light in the sky caught her eye.

A piece of space trash, hurtling through thousands of stars.

When you think about it, aren’t we all pieces of space trash, hurtling through thousands of stars?

What’s the difference between space trash and trash in space? Is there a difference? I ask too many questions.

She had always loved the stars. But tonight, she felt as if they were watching her, waiting for her to fail. Mocking little bastards. They’d be sorely disappointed.

EVERY FUCKING SENTENCE OF THIS IS A COMEDIC MASTERPIECE.

So she enjoys looking at the stars ... but not tonight. For some reason? Because they look wrong? Somehow? What? Is this just an excuse to make Andi seem BADASS, she’s so strong she can FIGHT THE STARS???

I’m cackling.

We find out that Andi and her all-girl crew are space pirates, and they’ve recently been smuggling, and I’m 100% serious, BIODRUGS.

That’s what they’re called. BioDrugs.

Aight.

It’s a collective name, and we don’t get the name of the specific BIODRUG that they were dealing, because that would take effort and I imagine there’s not enough left after Shinsay came up with BIODRUGS.

Andi is super edgy and thinks about her latest kill, how he looked into her eyes as she pulled her blade out of him, “silent as a whisper.” Yes, really. At least Andi seems to actually kill people, which already put her above Sardines, though I won’t give any points until I see her do it.

Update: “Varillium,” the type of glass their ship is made of, is no longer capitalized and is specified to be impenetrable.

The man Andi killed is now mentioned to have “double-crossed” her and her crew, which I guess is supposed to make Andi look less like a senseless murderer?

Andi now apparently doesn’t like killing, and contemplates that every person (”even killers like her”) has a soul. Idk why this was added. Is it an attempt to make Andi more of a Woobie? You know you can’t have her both be a ruthless killer and mope about killing, Shinsay?

Some blue chick comes in and announces herself as the second in command. Yes, really.

“As Second in Command,” the figure said, her voice as smooth as the spiced rigna they drank last week, “I demand that you return to your quarters and get some sleep.”

The blue-skinned space babe is Lira, and she’s part of a race called the Adhirans, who are all funky colors, hairless, and have super vision.

Update: Lira now also has scales that glow and can heat up to dangerous degrees when she feels “extreme emotions?” Which sometimes renders her unconscious? 

Lira’s sharp eyes and seeming knowledge of Andi’s whereabouts are now attributed to just her instead of her entire race, which is better if you want to impress someone with how talented your character is. If their whole race is awesome, then her being awesome isn’t quite as impressive.

There’s more info dumping about how Lira is special due to her scales, which are a type of mutation caused by a “radiation event” on a planet that her race colonized.

Lira stepped into the starlit bay and lifted a hairless brow.

[...]

Lira smirked back as she lifted her wrist to her blue lips.

I have a growing feeling that Shinsay have a thing for repeating already known information, but I don’t know where I could’ve gotten that.

Update: There’s FORESHADOWING about Andi’s dancing, which Lira suggest she should take up again to release some of her “deadly tension.”

Lira forces the rest of the crew to wake up, because if the Captain can’t sleep, nobody else should either. That’s ... a dick move, but OK.

Update: The girls now have “internal communication channels” which they activate by swiping their temples.

We’re introduced to Gilly, who’s a redhead and barely thirteen, but everyone is edgy here so she’s already killed people with her cool guns, of course.

“Why do you insist on ruining my beauty sleep?” Gilly exclaimed, in her fluid little voice.

Her ... fluid voice?

Is she gargling something? Does she need help?

The clunky-ass introductions continue as we get introduced to Breck, who’s the “head gunner,” whatever that means.

A tall, broad-shouldered girl appeared behind [Gilly], bending so as not to hit her head on the doorway as she entered.

Hey, you know you could’ve omitted “tall” if you, IN THE SAME SENTENCE, show that she’s tall, right? And you don’t need to say that she entered, we can kind of assume that since she appears in the scene and walks through a doorway.

A broad-shouldered girl appeared behind Gilly, bending so as not to hit her head on the doorway.

See? Much better already.

Gilly (How is this pronounced? Jil-ee? Gil-ee?) asks why her beauty sleep was interrupted and Breck tells her not to question anything Lira does because she can’t give reasonable answers.

Lira usually explained herself in complex riddles that no one could decipher; a smart ploy to get out of questions she would rather not answer.

1) Yes, yes! Inform that trait!

Update: This line is completely gone, though Gilly’s dumbass question remains.

2) This is all really dumb banter well and good, except they already know why Lira woke them up. Lira literally told them that if the Captain doesn’t sleep, they shouldn’t either.

3) Since Andi seems to have frequent trouble sleeping and Lira knows this well enough to know where to find her when she’s not in bed, why are they surprised?

Whatever.

We get some more exposition in the form of tepid banter, and we “find out” that Breck is super tall and big and was “pegged for arson” and on the run with a fucked-up Gilly when Andi found them two years ago. Gilly had been saved from becoming a child soldier or some shit.

Update: Breck is no longer pegged for arson and in fact, remembers nothing of her past at all, to the point where they all assume her origin, while it’s outright stated in the earlier version.

Gilly’s gun is still golden and still double-triggered, which still makes no goddamn sense, though I didn’t mention it in my original snark, so I’ll do it now: Double-barreled? A thing. Double action? A thing. Double trigger? Apparently was a thing on old SHOTGUNS. And I’m sorry but a 13-year-old child wouldn’t be carrying a golden fucking shotgun at her hip.

They mention that they don’t have much money, only 300 “Krevs,” which tells me nothing. A small “they couldn’t even fill a whole tank of fancy sci-fi space fuel for that” or similar would’ve sufficed, you know.

[Andi] stared at her blades once more before returning them to their harness. If only she could put her memories away just as easily.

Andi informs them about a new job on some standard desert planet, because apparently drug dealing isn’t very lucrative in this world.

Breck shrugged. “Any money is good money, if it brings us more food stores.” “And ammo,” Gilly said, cracking her knuckles like the soldier she was.

1) Yes, we get it, Gilly likes to shoot bang-bang-pew-pew guns.

2) I love how the girl rescued from becoming a child soldier is now called a soldier. Very top-notch stuff, there.

3) I didn’t know only soldiers cracked their knuckles.

Andi calls Lira “Lir,” because I guess that one extra letter takes too much effort, telling her to take them to Andi’s informant.

“As you wish.” Lira punched the destination coordinates for Vacilis into the Holoscreen on the dashboard, readying the ship for flight.

Andi turned in her seat. “Breck, Gilly, go to the vault and do a weapons check. Then make sure the Big Bang is fully loaded. I want you two ready, should anything go wrong.”

Why are the guns in the vault.

Why does the ship have a vault.

Where are their engineers.

Holoscreen.

Big Bang.

This is a masterpiece.

Update: “As you wish.” Lira punched the destination into the control panel’ s holoscreen. A diagram of Mirabel illuminated the room with blue light, stars floating around their heads and the little planets that made up each major system orbiting their suns. A bright line traced from their current location near an unnamed moon, too barren for habitation, to Vacilis, almost half a galaxy away.

Lira scrutinized the route, then minimized the map and readied the ship for hyperspace travel.

Andi turned in her seat. “Breck, Gilly, go to the vault and do a weapons check. Then make sure the Big Bang is fully loaded. I want you two ready in case we run into any trouble once we arrive in the Taavina System.”

Gilly skipping along behind Breck, her golden gun bobbing against her tiny frame.

This is the second mention of Gilly’s stupid golden gun. If they have to take on dangerous jobs with uncertain pay to get by, why the fuck does this brat have golden guns and why the hell does Andi have electric katanas?

I’m hoping that it’ll be explained that gold isn’t actually worth much on an intergalactic level, but I doubt that much thought was put into this.

Since space travel is so exciting, Andi falls asleep and we get an obligatory show of her super edgy nightmare.

It’s some girl dying (whose name is Kalee) and it’s all bloody and gruesome and oop, Lira wakes Andi up because they’re being chased by what I can only hope is the space po-po.

Lira curled her lip in annoyance. She tapped a blue fingertip on the Holoscreen, changing it to the rear-cam, where Andi could just see the ships soaring toward them.

REAR CAM.

Ok.

And yes, we get it. Lira is very blue. WE GET IT, WE REMEMBER, I PROMISE.

Update: She tapped a blue fingertip on the holoscreen, changing it to the rear-cam, showing Andi a faraway look at the ships soaring behind them.

Andi’s mind raced, calculating all possible scenarios for their current predicament.

Listen, I get that battle strategies in space are a thing that most people, especially people like Shinsay, probably don’t understand, but couldn’t you at least have tried showing us Andi’s thoughts? Pull something out of your ass for all I care, it doesn’t have to be right, it just has to be convincing.

Anyway, Andi’s brilliant mind comes to the conclusion that the ships tailing them must’ve been cloaked, because Lira would NEVAR let anyone get the drop on them. This raises a bunch of questions, which I'll go into in a sec.

Andi closed her eyes. Black holes ablaze, she was fiked.

This is what passes for cursing now, I guess.

Update: “Fike” has been completely removed from the book, and replaced with “screwed” in this instance. YOU DIRTY COWARDS.

“Cloaking is useless at this point,” Lira said, as she readied the gears, slamming buttons, tapping in codes. Andi felt the Marauder groan in response to Lira’s touch. “Damn their starshined tech.”

The narration just said that the Marauder doesn’t have fancy cloaking tech, but I’m guessing it does but it’s ... inferior to the cloaking tech of the space po-po? The Marauder also seems to have inferior detection tech, which raises the question of how exactly they’ve been evading the space po-po for this long (which the narration says they have) despite their clearly inferior setup, especially since (which the narration also mentions) the “Mirabel Patrol” has had their ship pegged for years.

Also, “starshined” is a bad thing, so a curse basically, which makes no sense because you’d expect most people to have a fairly positive view of the stars, but it also makes the phrase “damn starshined” redundant.

Update: “Cloaking is useless at this point,” Lira said as she readied the gears, slamming buttons, tapping in codes. “Engines are still too hot to go back into hyperspace. Damn their tech.”

“Get us out of this, and I’ll see to it that we get devices of the same caliber.”

“And bigger guns?” Lira asked, her blue eyes wide. “We’ll barely scrape by if we have to turn and fire on them. We only have one Big Bang left.”

Andi nodded. “Much bigger guns.”

Sooo is Big Bang ... a special kind of ammunition? Because then you’d just need to buy more ammo instead of upgrading the ship’s guns. Is it a one-use-only gun? That would be incredibly stupid, but that’s what this phrasing implies. Is it one of the main guns on the ship, and the other Big Bangs have been blasted off? What’s going on?

Also, how is Andi expecting to afford technology of the same caliber as the space police while they don’t have money to hire a cook and seem to be struggling getting food in the first place?

Lira says that “the stars may align” for them, which contradicts “starshined” as a curse, and they blast off into hyperspace to evade the space po-po. What was the point of all that if you could just do that in the first place? Do you want to upgrade your ship so you can kill some po-pos? Do they realize more will just show up so upgrading evasion tech is better than upgrading your guns in their particular case? If they’re smugglers, one would presume they would rather stay hidden and stealthy vs outright space battle.

Update: As previously mentioned, their engines are now “too hot” to get back into hyperspace, so now the chase makes a bit more sense.

Well, whatever.

That was the beginning of Zenith!

I suddenly feel like playing Mass Effect.