#man this week has been a fucking ride and it's literally only goddamn wednesday

[smth-against-dogs]

aaahhhhhh gender what the fuuuuuckkk

[percontaion-points]

King’s Men chapter 19 & Epilogue

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions.

Chapter 19

Renee needed one for her foster mother and donated the second to Matt so his father could bring his current mistress.

Did we need to know about Matt's dad dipping his dick where it doesn't belong?

That night Nicky and Aaron showed up to evening practice uninvited. Neil expected Kevin to send them packing with a "too-little, too-late" speech, but he put them to work immediately. On Wednesday the upperclassmen tagged along too. A week and a half wasn't enough time to make anyone an expert on Raven drills and scrimmages, but Kevin tried his best.

And the reason why they haven't been studying the Ravens this entire time is because...????? No really, I want to know. This book has been building up to this singular event, and yet, everybody's acting like this championship match-up came out of the blue.

"Your father's death left a void that's not easy to fill. Little boss is cleaning house and cutting losses everywhere he can, taking out people from California to South Carolina. Cops, doctors, moles—doesn't matter. If there's even a chance they're a liability to his new rule they're gone. Interesting stuff, the reshaping of an empire. Bloody, too."

This is literally the last goddamned chapter; I don't care about any of this! Get to the fucking game already!

Dan threw her arms around him and buried a choked laugh against his padded shoulder. "Yeah, Neil. We won!"

Chapter 19 summary: Well, as you would have imagined, the final championship game ends up being Ravens vs Foxes. The foxes throw themselves into their last stretch of training before the big game. But finals are also upon them as the spring semester wraps up.

One day, Kevin doesn't come to practice, and shows up later in the dorms, shitfaced, with something over his cheek. He's always had the Ravens tattoo on his cheek, but looks like he went out and randomly got a queen chess piece tattooed. He talks a lot about how Riko can be the king, which I think is a weird way to hammer in the book's title. But I don't know enough about chess to make a comment about it.

On game day, as they go to the “castle” at Edgar Alan, there's a whole lot of extra security. Seems as though Renee's foster-mother's threats against Edgar Alan and what the dean saw about Jean were taken so seriously, that now everybody's worried about the ravens hurting anybody who comes visiting.

Since this was such a huge game, they passed out a list earlier to reserve seats for two people per player. However, since this is a team of “rejects”, most don't have anybody, but people still manage to fill up the reserved section anyway. Neil's uncle Stewart, the one who randomly showed up just to kill Nathan, randomly shows up again. He talks about more mafia business, about cleaning house now that Nathan is gone. I don't care, and this goes nowhere.

They play, but it's a close game. In the end, it's 10-9 with foxes on top. After the game, Neil decides that taunting Riko, of reminding him that he'll always be “number two”, is a good idea, and almost gets murdered for this. But Andrew shows up and punches Riko out.

Epilogue

EAST was written above an elevator in bold red letters, and Neil forgot about the banners. The guard had to swipe his badge and key in a six-digit code to get access. There were only two buttons inside, "Floor" and "Tower". Neil closed his eyes for the ride to the top.

The guard stayed behind when Neil stepped out, so Neil went on alone. A short hall opened up into a spacious room Neil recognized. Nine years ago he'd been here with Riko and Kevin while his father carved a man into a hundred pieces.

This is literally the goddamned epilogue; can we not be sneaking in random info like this INTO THE LAST THREE PAGES?!

Trigger warning: Graphic murder

It wasn't comfort, but Neil didn't figure that out until it was too late. Ichirou put the gun to Riko's temple and pulled the trigger without hesitation. The gunshot was so unexpected, so loud, that Neil jumped. Riko's body jerked under the force of impact.

SO THAT JUST HAPPENED.

This was everything he wanted, everything he needed, and Neil was never letting go.

[image description: Frodo Baggins looking sweaty and dirty, right after he threw the One Ring into Mount Doom. It is captioned with “It's over. It's finally over.”]

This was everything he wanted, everything he needed, and Neil was never letting go.

Epilogue summary: The police end up getting called out tot he stadium following Andrew's beat-down of Riko. So nobody but the fans get to leave. Eventually, Neil is called up to where the mafia family hangs out to watch the games. Ichirou, Riko, and the raven's coach are all there, along with Stewart. Eventually, Ichirou pulls out a gun, shoots Riko point-blank in the temple, and then puts the gun in Riko's hand to make it look like he'd killed himself. He also says that the coach is dead, even though he's clearly standing right there; the implication being he won't be alive for much longer.

This entire thing was Ichirou cleaning house, of needing to remove the shitstain that Riko had turned the ravens into.

Neil goes back downstairs, and joins the others as they leave to return home.

With that, the series is put out of its (and my) misery.

[forgiven-whimsy]

Birthday Story time!

Tuesday was my 37th birthday, was mostly just a day, kids were being their usual end of summer kid selves, we had cake, sang happy birthday, and I put littlest bug to bed. Husband was being snippy, and it was obvious something was bothering him, but he had gone out of his was to be extra sweet, ordered me some new slippers, and even made me a hair appointment cause he know I hate calling and making appointments, so pretty decent low key birthday, just the way I like it.

A quick aside, Sunday was raid night, we're on Eden 2 savage progression, we're hitting the enrage, so we're close, but I had an off night, my uptime was in the shitter. I play white mage, I reached out to my co healer and have some solid strategies to improve and I was excited to implement them on Wednesday, which was second raid night, we only raid 2 nights a week.

Back to the story, after putting littlest bug to bed, and husband tucking the two older bugs to bed we head down to watch some wrestling and hang out with husband. He apologizes to me for being short tempered and off, and then proceeds to tell me why....and man....here we go.

So we raid with a bunch of friends we've known since game launch, we've been playing with these folks on and off for roughly 6 years, not always on the same raid teams, but we know each other and consider each other friends. Back when husband and me came back from our hiatus 2 weeks before Shadowbringers (we were gone almost the entirety of Stormblood, so about 2 years, I stopped raiding after final coil, cause I had just had a baby, and couldn't commit to raid times....cause baby, so the last time I seriously raided was about 4.5 ish years ago) a bunch of them got really excited and wanted to know if we were able and wanted to raid again. Husband and me jumped at the chance. We had 6/8 people ready to go and so raid lead starts recruiting the last two dps we'll need. He was adamant throughout this that this was a casual raid with friends, no pressure, 2 nights a week is hardly competitive progression, and that me and husband being rusty in our roles was no problem. I even spoke to him privately, explaining it's literally been years, and that I can be slow to learn, but I'll give it my all and that once I get a mechanic...I get it, but so long as they can be patient with me, and accept those things, I'll put the work in to improve.

Back to Tuesday night, husband let's me know that I've been cut from the team. Raid lead not only went to my husband instead of me to cut me, he never discussed the issues he was having with me, never gave me a chance to improve, even after me and my co healer had come up with some strategies and advice for me to use. He cuts me without any consultation from any of the team, he tells my husband he doesn't think I can hack it in the tier in general, and that he would be replacing me. Husband got the discord message at around 9am and gave him the entire day to reconsider and make a better call. He goes on to contact the rest of the team to see what they know about this, no one has heard boo, also, no one has any issues with me or our rate of progression, they noticed I'd had an off night on Sunday, but we all have off nights, and didn't think anything of it. Husband goes back to raid lead, reminding him of the expectations of the raid group as a whole and how he was going back on his word, how he was prioritizing a game over actual friendship, how it was unfair to cut me without giving me a chance to improve, and that it goes without saying if I get cut, he's leaving, Husband waited until 8pm to tell me. So there goes a tank and a healer.

News gets out, and our dancer, who was one of our new recruits, and the only other woman on the team, decides no thanks, turns out me and husband were her favorite people on the team and she writes to me letting me know how much she cares about me and how welcome I made her feel, and how the decision is garbage, and that girls stick together.( her voice through the guys off, she stated her pronouns I immediately switched to her preferred pronouns and carried on like nothing and the rest of the team fell in line.) So a most welcome ride or die! 

So keep in mind we still haven't filled our 8th position, and raid lead now needs to fill not 2 but 4 spots. My co healer, the one person in the entire team who husband and I are closest to, the one who really pushed for us to come back to the game is feeling shitty and pissed in equal measure. He's getting in raid leaders face, calling him out on the bs, going to bat for me. Second tank and dragoon are also pissed, they don't care about the rate of progression, they both just wanted to play with friends and do some raiding, especially now that raid lead is changing his tune, suggesting two more raid nights, talking better parses upping everyone's game, ect ect...so we end Tuesday there. Raid leader has yet to contact me directly btw, he hasn't said a goddamn word to me about cutting me directly.

Wednesday morning, after a shitty sleep, and littlest bug waking multiple times has me and husband cranky, but I'm going to a theater festival with my mom to go see Othello, something I've been looking forward to for months I refuse to let this fuckery ruin my mood. The sad disappointment has turned to angry indignation, and I'm determined to be petty by continuing to play, in raid leads fc, that he invited me to, I am determined not to run away and cry and hide like I normally would, I am determined to be a duck and let this roll off my back in the most passive aggressive way possible...since you know, he still hasn’t technically cut me, CAUSE HE HASN’T TALKED TO ME! 

I have the best day yesterday, the production of Othello was one of the best I've ever seen, we had a fantastic lunch, got to connect with my mom who I'm really close with. Get the kids to bed, and husband, who is as petty as me suggests we log in at raid time with our dancer friend and run maps and other content. We get on I have an ingame mail, it's from raid lead, he's apologizing, not for cutting me, not for being a coward and not speaking to me directly, not for refusing to give me a chance to improve, no no, he's apologizing for doing it on my birthday. He sent me a flying bed mount, it's currently on the market board for 10.5 million gil, I did not reply to the letter. We find tank 2 and co healer in discord, so we hop on to shoot the shit, and chat, cause we're all buddies. Second tank asks us if we we're still interested in raiding, with the same team.....minus raid leader. Husband, dancer and me are like, hell fucking yes we are!!

And that's the story of how my old raid leader kicked himself out of his own raid team.

We refer to the flying bed as the hush money bed, the rest of the team is upset they also didn’t get a flying bed for the upheaval the wanker caused. Dude is throwing a pity party threatening to quit the game....no one cares. It’s been almost 6 years of him pulling shit like this, people are done with his bull shit.

SO if any of you play a dps class on Aether and are looking for a ridiculous, fun and easy going raid team to join who have zero tolerance when it comes to drama, we have two spots open, knowledge of your class is a bonus, but a good attitude and willingness to learn and improve is more important. We run Sundays and Wednesdays from 8-11 est. A caster and physical dps are preferred but we're willing to try a myriad of dps. Our current comp is: pld/drk, sch/whm, drg/dnc. shoot me a message here, or hit me up on Shiloh Mitka on Midgarsormr in game. 

[tumblunni]

Okay the BIG TODAY THING

It seems i might possibly be gone for six months

I've been talking with my support worker about taking a course at this place thats uhh apparantly gonna help me get better with the depressions and stuff. And we had a meeting to go look around the place and make introductions and stuff but i had NO IDEA it would be all such short notice! I might have to move in IN TWO DAYS FROM NOW, what the fuck!!! And like if its not that its gonna be at the end of the week or next tuesday at the latest. Im so fuckin unprepared and im really freakin out!!

..uhh...how to describe it..well i guess its literally a mental asylum? But it's absolutely NOTHING like the horror movie stereotype! Its not a hospital with cages or locked rooms, its just like a big comfy cute shared house. Like a bunch of completely normal small apartment rooms but they just happen to be all connected to a shared kitchen and stuff and have on site nurses and a big schedule of therapy sessions and group activities like pottery class or bowling. You have the freedom to come and go as you please if you're on "voluntarily admitted" status (that's me!) and even if you're on what they call "sectioned" its still not scary loss of all your freedom. The highest level of sectioning is just like "requires an escort"? You're still allowed to go outside but you have a higher level of supervision from your key worker because you could potentially be a danger to yourself. But that's very rare and most people are only on maximum sectioning for a few weeks at the start of their treatment, if they've come straight from a situation of self harm or other concern factors. Most of the "sectioned" patients just have a time limit on how long they can spend on unsupervised outside activity. It's a pretty generous 8 hours apparantly!

So yeah i was getting worried about nothing, thinking i was gonna be in big scary solitary confinement and locked inside a tiny broom closet or jabbed with brain lazers. It honestly just seems like a summer camp resort for adults! And everyone there seems very nice, and im excited for being able to learn life skills like cooking and potential steps towards getting educational qualifications someday. And to have the help of a more specialist support worker who can assist me with even the smallest little problems. Like this nice lady Tazmin (who might be the one i get?) was saying how they've had other people with social anxiety before, and how we could plan "gradual exposure" to all the things that scare me. Like she said she'd be able to come with me and we'd take the bus and them get off at the next stop. That'd honestly be really helpful to help me get over being scared of the crowded spaces on buses, but i'd never be able to do it normally cos i'd be too embarassed taking such a short bus ride. Plus well itd be a waste of money,but if i'm a patient here i would get a free bus pass so it wouldnt be a problem.

Oh and the area seems really nice! Its so different from my stupid house right now in a crowded neighbourhood with NOTHING but houses everywhere for a mile! Its seriously almost a mile's walk to the ONE SINGULAR SHOP IN THE AREA and they close on sundays and dont sell vegetarian food. :( This area around the shared house thingie is a really nice bustling shops place but not super shops? Like i mean its a lovely village that has all the small shops you need, not a huge skyscrapers busy tourist place. The perfect balance of conveinient and not scary! They have a library and a park so close to the place, and a bazillion charity shops holy FUCK im so excited to have charity shops again!! I think you call them thrift shops in america? But i just always really love bargain hunting and finding nice surprises in places like that! And there's places to do pottery classes and group trips sometimes to do stuff like cinema or bowling or just having your big ol scary therapy meeting at the nice coffee shop at the end ot the road.

So yeah dont worry about me guys, im not trapped in some horribke hell place! I'm sure it'll be as non threatening as an Intensive Therapy Boot Camp can possibly be, im just still nervous as hell cos well yeah I Have Social Anxiety And That Is Why I Am Here In The First Place. Im scared im not gonna be able to succeed at this. I really wanna leave at the end and be all mentally buffed up and ready to make all these nice nurses proud!

Oh and man Richard has been so nice about this?? He was super freaked out and apologetic about it being Scary Short Notice, we had a bit of a dumb misunderstanding where he clearly told me and i clearly said yes but i somehow completely misunderstood what he was saying and thought i was saying yes to something else??? So im so fuckin glad that at the very end of the appointment right when i was gonna get out the car he was like 'oh so remember your suitcase on wednesday' and i was like WHAT. Like man can you imagine how much more terrifying it would have been if i just turned up on wednesday with no supplies but the shirt off my back and was like 'wtf where is he driving me OH GOD NO'. Bunni why you so bad at the good of talking!! Seriously richard thanks so much for clearing it up but also AAAAA i accidentally agreed to the shortest of short notice and i dont know if he's gonna be able to reschedule it!!!

And man i was there crying in his car about how i dont wanna be in hospital on my birthday, and babbling all the different things i had planned fot the next few months. And GOD DAMN MY DUMB BRAIN i ended up blurting out that i had a preorder of a videogame that i was gonna miss. And i straight up started explaining pokemon to my mental health counseller who is also a dj, how damn fake does my life sound?? Anyway he said that i'll still be able to keep him as my support worker when i get back out of this, and we'll still have weekly or monthly meetings while i'm in there. And he keeps reminding me that i'm free to leave if i feel uncomfortable, but i know that i'd feel like a failure if i did! So he legit fuckin goddamn said (THIS SOUNDS SO FAKE) that i could take a day off when the dumb game comes out, and he'd play co op pokemon with me. HOLY GEEZUS RICHARD YOU'RE LIKE THAT HOLY GRAIL OF THERAPISTS! And man he even said it wasnt embarassing for me to sleep with a teddy bear and he'd help me pack it up safe and ensure nobody saw it while we move my bags into my new room. And then i was like "uhh but also the teddy bear is a giant lifesize embarassing pokemon merchandise" and he was like "okay so we need DOUBLE STEALTH". Apparantly the new sequel to Pokemon Go is Pokemon Sneak! God he helped calm me down from this freakout so much, he's always great with lil jokes and motivational sayings. And i talked about how i first started being interested in Obscure Deep Sea Slug Facts because pokemon has some characters based on weird real life animals, and like its Very Educational Honest, And Has Appeal For Both Kids And Adults. How on earth did this turn into Motovational Pokemon Blabber Time??? Anyway thats how i ended up texting a professional psychologist pictures of gastrodon at 7.30pm.

SO

Yeah

In summary

I'm mostly just worried cos this is short notice! And cos its such a big commitment that being short notice is Super Bad. I need to friggin clean the whole house top to bottom in two days, so it doesnt get all gross and attract flies while im gone. And i need to toss out like a hundred bucks worth of frozen food that aint gonna keep for 6 months. And i need to wash all my damn clothes. And i dont even have a suitcase and this is at a terrible time where i dont get paid for a week so i cant buy a new one right now!! And damn i DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT TO TAKE AAAAAA

And the BIGGEST PROBLEM

Is that i wont be able to talk to you guys for half a year!!!

They dont have wifi and im not allowed to take my computer anyway. They only allow laptops and all i have is a desktop and AAAA its too short notice to save up enough to get a laptop mannnnn! Fuck man i didnt even think about that, i need to go pause my broadband internet for six months, do they even allow you to come back after that long?? And man part of me wants to ask to borrow money from friends to get a laptop but i know this time i cant promise to pay you back within the month cos AAAGH ALL OF THIS SHIT!! Like damn man if anyone is willing to let me pay back a hundred and fifty quid in 6 months??not bloody likely!! And man the only place to get a laptop in TWO GODDAMN DAYS is stupid fuckin Amazon :( but god im gonna go stir crazy being unable to do art or gamemaking or friggin anything to occupy myself!! I can bring my 3ds but i barely have any games for it and ive already finished all of them except harvest moon a new beginning which i quit cos it was bad. And the screen is broken anyway gahhh. SO MANY THINGS I NEED MONEY FOR IN SUCH A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME THAT IS NON CONDUCTIVE TO MONEYING

So anyway GAHH i wont have an internet connection in the house, and i'll be able to walk down the hill and use the library computers hopefully at least weekly, but they forbid all social media sites. So like can i get the emails of everyone who wants to keep in contact? Man i dont know how im gonna manage this AAAAA!!! i will send u loads of pics of scenic asylum beauty and dumb updates on my stupid life of probably very little progress.

And AGGGHHH i dont even have the time to plan a blog queue or anything fuck man geez aaaaaaaa

I NEED TO BUY A NEW PAIR OF TROUSERS WITHOUT HOLES IN THE KNEES man i cant live on singular pantage in a shared house

[bonesingerofyme-loc]

in which what the fuck happened

so i’ve finally gotten around to watching season 4 of the expanse, everyone’s favorite science fiction tv show. i shall not call it a space opera because i actually know what a space opera is.

i’ve just finished episode 8 and what precisely the fuck happened though

this season is a mess

in no particular order, we have

* the Ilus plot, in which it appears the Bezos Bux weren’t enough to afford a larger cast, so there’s three belters with speaking roles and a really, really bad rebellious teenager plot that makes me feel like i’m watching a fucking scalzi novel (which is not praise). The Ilus plot in which murtry swings between being a Bad Man with Justifiable Reasons to being a mustache twirling villain, where Holden doesn’t just hold the idiot stone, he fucking swallows it along with Elvi and also the TV show does that TV show thing where they make really, really stupid design choices that leave you scratching your head. more on this all later

* the earth plot, in which Chrisjen Avasarala is never wrong once but everyone around her acts like she’s executing her political opponents in the streets and trying to sacrifice babies to satan

* the mars plot, in which bobbie has a nervous breakdown over the course of about three days and resets all her character development to her first introduction

* the belter plot in which Dummer continues to be a national treasure and Not-Ashford is still very enjoyable and they prove they are the only competant fucks in the entire fucking Belt but the writers do their level best to sabotage every second of it

Right, so, specifically

Let’s start with Ilus

I think my overall issues here can be summed up with this statement

“The set design, knowing that the heroes would be riding out a world spanning tsunami and flood, decided the optimal way to adapt the descriptions of the shell buildings from the novel to be THIRTY FEET UNDER THE SURFACE OF THE FUCKING PLANET THAT IS GOING TO BE FLOODED.”

My brother and I looked at each other and burst out laughing at the end of the episode in which Holden gets yote across the room by the deluge of water. The deluge of water from the planetwide tsunami. The deluge of water from the planetwide flood that placed the water a good forty feet ABOVE the interior rooms.

The planetwide flood that did not begin to recede for days. In a building riddled with holes and also one big giant one they made. 

This encapsulates to many of the problems in this season in a single example. Writing choices and design choices that appear to be conceived of in the moment without any thought to the rest of the plot. Drama for the sake of drama. Convenient reveals after the fact to patch holes set up by the previous lack of foresight. 

We later see the entry area is flooded, appearing to imply that the room they descend into initially is just a lower area that totally flooded and that they are at ground level in the rest of the complex. As if to acknowledge that, oops, yes, maybe having this complex be situated forty feet under the water level with holes all the fuck over means everyone would drown, so here’s a solution - except, except

When everyone got in right before the flood, they were all standing packed like sardines down in that low entry room. Which started flooding due to the fucking firehose deluge that came in because hello a piece of reinforced sheet metal isn’t going to be watertight in the slightest. So you’ve got water pouring into a small contained space packed with about forty people and supplies - that’s going to be ruining supplies and equipment because it’s saltwater and people are going to be panicking. How do they climb out the other side? There’s no ropes or lines there, it would seem, since everyone was still shuffling around in the entry area when the flooding started. How do they managed to get ropes or lines up to the higher areas in the building before people are trampled or drowned or all their supplies ruined? Why the fuck didn’t the goddamn building just have openings on the ground level leading into a bunch of interior rooms like it fucking did in the fucking novel because the fucking authors despite their other fucking flaws at least fucking planned ahead and had fucking editors that fucking made sure that things were fucking intelligently designed?

Oh, right. So that we could have a fucking scene where Holden has to escape from a closing door or be smushed. Because Holden definitely was in danger of dying and everyone believed it. Fuck. PLAN MORE THAN ONE EPISODE AHEAD.

Related to that - I’m loving the insistence that TV and movies have to make everything related to the main character, and not even tangentially. Directly, directly related. Remember how Ilus fucking asploding was a major oops that wasn’t anyone’s fault? Now it has to specifically be Holden’s fault since he can’t stop sticking is dick in things, so all the deaths are directly on his shoulders. Great job. Really, really great. 

A nitpick here that doesn’t matter - remember when the moons were described as low-albedo and the nights were super dark? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

The Felcia plotline is awful too. Some random teenager stows away to orbit and then becomes instrumental in saving the Barbapiccola despite no experience and completely overriding the actual crew on board. Come on. Come on.

Also - thanks Holden and Elvi, you utter mouthbreathing nonces for not once thinking ‘Gee, maybe I should ask/tell about the MEDICATIONS THAT I AM CURRENTLY ON.’ It doesn’t make it an epiphany moment or a revelation when they realize his oncocidals are the cure, it makes them looking like absolute idiots. Holden, you shoot up daily. DAILY. You told Elvi about being a genetic hybrid. You didn’t think to tell her about the eighty gorillion rads you ate like soup on Eros and the fact that you’re swimming in anti-cancer meds?

Come the fuck on. Come. The. Fuck. On.

Stop making characters idiots to make the plot work. 

Leaving Ilus, there’s Earth.

Fucking Earth.

So Arjun is now Avasarala’s campaign manager and a completely different person. The lack of chemistry between the two actors is so profound that scientists are considering writing a thesis on it as quantum mechanics actually should forbid such an extreme effect. He’s also not Arjun, since he’s alternating between unctuous and judgmental about as often as Naomi switches between an English accent and a butchered attempt at Belter. So that’s swell, we have to deal with a new actor and a brand new character who is awful and should never have been because Arjun was a chill lad and didn’t deserve this.

On the poitical side is Avasarala, who literally cannot stop being right all the time. Seriously, why is everyone up her ass about THE MEANS AND THE ENDS AND YOU LIE AND ITS ALL ABOUT YOU.

I mean sure it is all about her but she hasn’t been wrong yet. And a person can be both selfish and helpful. I couldn’t believe with Arjun got asspained about Avasarala leaking confidential footage of ancient inimitable alien machines that melt moons and blow up hemispheres of planets when the 0 and 1s are switched as a completely reasonable attempt to instill a very healthy and very justified caution in the general populace over the gigantic alien relic that was made out of a hundred thousand people ground up into blue gatorade and marinated on Venus after it broke the fucking laws of physics several times to link up to a pocket dimension that casually rewrites it’s own rules. 

Like what the fuck Arjun, where do you get off judging Avasarala for releasing information about the extremely unpredictable and dangerous two billion year old alien doom machines that are scattered around the galaxy. Is it totally to her own benefit? Absolutely. Is it also totally the right thing to do? Also absolutely because you’ve got Gao hot under the collar about wanting to yeet every willing body through the ring gates into a hotbed of who-the-fuck-knows and acting like it’s the best thing since sliced bread.

Fuck.

Then we’ve got the marine raid. Avasarala is approached by her military advisors and generals who present to her a plan of action to go after a known terrorist who just attempted a direct attack on Earth’s defenses, defenses that I might add are not like ‘to keep people out’ but are actively existential defenses. So they bring a plan to her, lay it out, and she approves it, then when it goes tits up, the fucking General who planned it, brought it to her and executed it has the gall to blame HER for it failing (what) then resign because he can’t serve someone who plays loose with his soldier’s lives (WHAT) and then everyone gets assmad at her for costing like twelve marine’s lives in an attempt to capture a terrorist responsible for several hundred deaths already (WHAT) and then, and THEN siding with the OPA for Avasarala ‘breaking the peace’ when the UN went after a terrorist the OPA is known to have let go???

What the FUCK was going on in the writing room.

Meanwhile on Mars, Bobbie is going batshit insane. After btfoing a bunch of druggies to save her nephew she gets roped into some illegal stuff and then has a moral conundrum about it for maybe five seconds and then it like yeah nvm let’s steal this shit Y E E T. The very same Bobbie that was willing to go AWOL from her command, run to her own nation’s enemy during a cold war and refuse to ever budge on her testimony because the truth and honor meant that much to her.

Yeah.

Okay.

Then she meets a dude on sunday, goes on a date with him monday and tuesday, they bang on wednesday, then on friday he gets a job on Europa and is gonna leave and they have a fight as if they’d been seeing each other for months.

Uh.

Unless this show is doing completely different time scales for different plots, which they’ve failed utterly to communicate, we know how much time has passed. Bobbie met the dude like a fucking week ago, why is this full bore romantic drama as if they’d been in a committed relationship for months? They’ve literally banged twice in a hotel room and not even stuck around for cuddles.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I don’t have much to complain about with Drummer and Ashford. I really like them both and both are fun to watch. They’ve also been treated the most reasonably too in terms of not acting like fuckwits or being dealt retarded hands by the plot thus far.

This season is awful. The Expanse was always subtitled ‘The Expounding’ because of how characters could, at the drop of a hat, produce a minute long monologue about anything, but this season it’s taken that and cranked it to eleven. Every other sentence is an ingratiating platitude about ‘hopeful we’re hopeful future happy live we’ll live yay see each other again strong be strong and brave firm strong and hopeful’. Fuck. Naomi exists to look sad and give brave monologues to people, especially the now lobotomized Lucia who apparently did die and came back without agency. Alex sort of just exists, drifting from scene to scene as if saying ‘I’m still here, guys. Guys? Guys...’ every antagonist takes three minutes to lay out their life story and evil beginnings and rationale only to suddenly flip the tables a few episodes later only to play a reverse uno card and be mustache twirlingly diabolical right after. 

Oh yeah, and because this is my personal autism button:

NO, ELVI, THAT IS NOT HOW LIFE WORKS. LIFE MIGHT NOT ‘JUST AS EASILY’ BE BASED ON SOMETHING ELSE. THAT IS NOT HOW FUCKING PHYSICS WORKS. OTHER ELEMENTS ARE NEITHER AS PREVALENT NOR AS USEFUL IN FORMING BONDS AS CARBON. YOU COULD SAY ‘LIFE MIGHT RARELY AND EXTREMELY DIFFICULTLY BE MADE OF SILICON’ BUT DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE SAY ‘JUST AS EASILY. ALSO IRON. IRON. ARE YOU REALLY, REALLY GOING TO SAY IRON COULD BE USED AS A CHEMICAL BASIS FOR LIFE, BECAUSE HOLY COSMIC BULLSHIT BATMAN.

IN THE WORDS OF HERMIONE GRANGER: ARE YOU A HARD SCIFI OR NOT??