#on the other hand it would be a cool as FUCK conclusion to this storyline

[feather--fae]

Okay but the emotional journey I went on today when I saw the new wtnv ep in my YouTube subscriptions and saw it’s titled “nv229 final full.” First reaction was oh that’s probably just a mistake, second reaction was oh GOD what if lubelle explained away the whole PODCAST? What if she found out that they’re fictional and made it known that they’re in a podcast and that’s why it’s titled that??? Only to be followed by relief/disappointment when I checked on Spotify and saw that yes, it was a mistake, the episode is in fact totally normal :/

[neyafromfrance95]

I have a feeling is Galadriel is going to go with Sauron at the end the season as well. The scene with Elrond when she has the vision and then she ask him to oppose Sauron above her life and he agrees. I was like, 'Oh Gal is going with Hot Sauron.' I'm not sure for what reason yet, if she's actually going dark or sacrificing herself, but I believe that's where this is heading.

honestly i'm having the most excited + nervous time in all my years of being in the fandom bc i have no idea how the finale will turn out.

on the one hand, i go:

"no way they will actually go there. these shows always end up disappointing and underwhelming when it comes to their handling of romance/ships bc they chicken out."

but in this case, i think it really comes down not to the writers who i'm 100% sure do want to go there and are doing their best to somehow do that, but to the executives who don't give a single fuck about the good storytelling. all they care about is what brings in more money/viewership so they often avoid risky business (this is why tv is in a very bad state rn, btw).

so ofc i know it's wiser to expect them to just resolve galadriel's conflict in an "epic" fight scene, marvel-style, yk 💀

but on the other hand, galadriel "touching the darkness" or ending up with sauron in one way or another is not just one of the scenarios the writers might wish to explore or one of the cool theories that the fans came up with. the given storyline is literally leading to exactly that. that's why i'm saying that they've set themselves up. and the conclusion being a repeat of s1 outcome would simply be an objectively poor storytelling.

so idk folks.

[aceofnace]

Bestie catch up on Nancy Drew so we can scream (in a bad way)

Well, Anonymous, I should've replied to this the night you sent it to me so we could've screamed together in the worst way. But I made the mistake of being lazy and not getting around to answering anything in my inbox right away (shoutout to the rest of you who sent me something, I will get to you too, I promise!), and now I've moved past wanting to scream and rip my hair out. Does that mean I'm happy now? Of course not. It just means I'm moving through the stages of grief at an impressive pace (yay me!).

So, initially, 4x12 did make me want to scream. And rip my hair out. Oh, and vomit. I allowed myself to get spoiled on twitter beforehand, and what I learned about the end of the episode delayed my viewing because I mentally could not bring myself to watch it. Earlier in the day, I was joking about a potential Nanstan kiss, but I didn't actually think it would happen. In this economy? In a Celine Geiger episode? I DON'T THINK SO! Yet it did happen. It fucking happened. In the penultimate episode. The last episode before we collect our Nace endgame. How the hell are we gonna bounce back from that? How the hell are they gonna have Nancy realistically go from starting to move on with Tristan to getting with Ace in forty minutes, when most of those minutes will be spent closing out other characters' storylines? Oh, man, when I say I was ticked off...

But now I've had time to calm down, to cool off, and just...learn to accept it. Accept whatever they're going to give me in the next episode. Because I still truly believe Nace will end up together. And that their endgame will be satisfying in at least an "oh, look! Pretty people are kissing!" kind of way. We'll get to see that amazing, unmatched chemistry one last time, and it will be spectacular, I'm sure. And then, after the credits roll, we can all go rush to AO3 to read and/or write some of the best damn Nace fan fiction the world has ever seen. Stories where Nace slow dance with each other and go on dates, where they investigate supernatural crimes together, where they move heaven and earth to protect each other, where they give each other kisses on the mouth and forehead and they hold hands and have sexy times and maybe even get engaged and married (and pop out some babies for people who like that trope). Oh, those stories are going to be glorious. And Nace will continue to live on in our hearts (for at least a little while, anyway), and we'll always get to think about how cool it would've been to see ANY of those fun, romantic moments played out on our screens.

This is such a sucky way to end one of my favorite ships of all time, but I guess we just need to remember how lucky we are that we're even getting any conclusion to their story at all, when so many other shows were cancelled this last year without ANY warning. I'll take a rushed endgame with only one tiny little Nace kiss shoehorned in at the end over their story potentially ending after 3x13 with them freshly cursed and Ace never knowing Nancy loved him. That would've been THE WORST.

Anyway, Anon, I hope you check back in with me after the finale, and I hope we can scream together in a good way. Not gonna hold my breath, but maybe, just maybe, we'll get lucky.

[trollrider1111]

Atomic heart is really hot garbage and im gonna go into it. I fucking hate the combat which is 90% of the game. Most of my time is spent backing away from enemies or spamming y to shock enemies, or closing the gap to shoot or dismember them. Neither one is satisfying and it feels like fuckint daggerfall. But at least theres this beautiful scenery and art direction 😍 wrong. Youre constantly forced to listen to this irony poisoned protaganist undercut all of the beauty or momentum in the storyline by having your dumb as fuck glove "radicalize" (re:analyse a situation), leading you quite literally hand holdingly to the conclusion they want you to have not the one you might cone to naturally. Much of the upgrade system is garbage i wouldnt use if you paid me even if it makes the game more fun because im forced to use all of my upgrade points on health or other bs another game would give me for free. But atomic heart needs to manufacture reasons for you to play it. So they took away a decent healthbar, they took away your ability to sprint at top speed, they took away your inventory space, and for what? Another ten minutes while i backtrack? Whats the quality of gameplay/effort to make this ratio for this decision? This decisionmaking is on full display the entire game, like on paper it might have been cool but they just. Didnt fuckin care as much as with bioshock. I want to play bioshock.

[donotalwaysbebatman]

Nightwing #104 (A)

This writer needs to be thrown into the sun. It’s like the more freedom they give him, the more special he thinks he is, and the more pointless and terrible his stories become. I mean, you can even see it in the artist - who’s usually flawless - and how clearly bored he is of the entire script, drawing all these characters to be so stiff and emotionless, not even bothering to have fun with action scenes, which are usually his favorite. Every single time, everyone is just kind of standing there. Not that there’s much room in the script for anything except people standing around, for a lot of the panels.

So Dick gets handed superpowers, just because the writer was like, hurhur, it would be so cool if Dick had superpowers, which like, no? The entire point of the Batfamily is that they don’t have superpowers and have to solve the same problems without them. If you wanted a character with superpowers, it should’ve been one of the other ones, you know, the ones who do have superpowers. Okay, well, because he doesn’t usually have them, obviously Dick will do something new and interesting with them, right? No. He just does the exact same thing that would happen in the background of a random superhero’s comic to illustrate them having a normal day, and it has about the same emotional impact.

(More racist, though. I mean I know this author fucking hates asians, but like. Why did it need to be Americans specifically ‘saving the poor oppressed asians from themselves!!’ when it could easily have been set in an unspecified location, or multiple world locations could’ve been used, or it could’ve been somewhere in America where yeah actually bad things do happen, or just. Skip that entire page completely. It added nothing. Except maybe to prove to us that the writer knows what country Bangkok is in?)

Yeah so it’s just. What would Dick do if he had superpowers. Which, maybe if it weren’t trying to also have three other storylines in one fucking comic, could’ve been interesting. Except probably not, because the answer seems to be, “normal superhero things that would be boring in Superman comics also” and that’s the other thing. Who reads Nightwing for it to constantly be all about Superman??? Stop putting them in there!!! And that’s not even the only time Dick is sidelined in his own story, putting way too much about other characters in a story that already has a main character, it’s in the title. If it isn’t from his perspective, you’re not doing it right!!!

I would say, if you want to write about Superman, write Superman, and if you want to write about the Titans multiperspective, write Titans, but they already let him do that, and he keeps making those ones about Nightwing instead, like learn to write, dude.

Also there was this whole intentionally cliffhanger moment where Dick adopted a baby, which annoyed me because I was like, Dick already has plenty of children pick one of those (he can’t stand nonwhite characters unless he made them up and controls their entire backstory that’s why), and also, why do we need stories where Dick just identically mimics Bruce’s story? Except then she’s immediately written out and Dick isn’t even going to pretend to be her parent. So what was the point? Not to mention it’s a throwaway line instead of an actual conclusion to the arc, because, surprise surprise, this guy doesn’t care about the feelings of a black girl or think of her as more than a prop. At least give us something. But no, she’s just passive and okay with whatever random thing happens and let’s never think about her again because who cares. Why write the story at all, then?

Way too much of it is a leadin to Titans, which I don’t plan to read, because I do not trust this writer at all at this point. Like it’s cool to leave breadcrumbs, but if you can’t put the story where the story is meant to go, maybe put down a few projects and concentrate on what you can do. Or just. Stop writing forever! That would be super cool too!

But the superpowers thing is concluded “and then he easily defeated everyone with his superpowers” okay? Why didn’t you just not give him superpowers, and he easily defeated them with his preparedness, logic, extreme tactical prowess, observation, elite training, technology, etc. like he usually does? If fighting them wasn’t the point, why include it? It’s not like there’s any emotional turmoil. If Dick wanted superpowers there’s been plenty of places he could’ve gotten them, except that would be boring.

Nope, we don’t even have the most basic ass boring conclusion, like superpowers go to someone’s head. Or someone still has to be in touch with regular people. Or I have skills on my own, and I’m proud of them, and I’m good enough all by myself. Or there are downsides to superpowers. Or anything! He just has them and then he doesn’t! Nothing happened at either point! Also the fucking writer forgot his own fucking OC also has powers! She’s so inconsistently characterized because he literally doesn’t care about her!

It all culminates in a big moving speech except that the speech is short and not moving! Like if you were building up to that, why didn’t you even write the part you clearly designed the whole story just so you could write a boring speech to make Nightwing seem special!!

In conclusion, literally every part of this issue could’ve just been tossed and you wouldn’t lose anything from the arc.

[caitimetravels]

she's insignificant

chapter 5: he should have stayed on that moon

the umbrella academy x (fem) reader

disclaimer: i do not own the plot/storyline of the netflix tv series and i do not own the umbrella academy characters.

warnings: mentions of blood

masterlist

"there you are!" allison ran up behind luther in the hallway. "i've been looking everywhere for you" 

"what are you still doing here? i thought you were gone" he turned to look at her in surprise.

"no, i was gonna go and then pogo showed me this-" she tried to explain what she had found but luther cut her off with a shake of his head.

"well, listen.. i was wrong about dad's death"

"what?"

"yeah, i was wrong about y/n, you know, to accuse my own sister of that- it's just-"

"no, no, i get it-"

"seeing all of you and being back here. i-i should be the one who's trying to bring us all back together not tear us apart-"

"would you shut up?"

"what?"

"you were right. about dad. come on, i gotta show you something"

————————————————–

"i can't" eight didn't like crying, especially not in front of her father. he was always cruel, no matter how much the children pleaded and sobbed. she crumpled to the floor, exhausted. she hated training alone, she wanted to train with her siblings outside in the snow, it looked like more fun than this was.

"you are weak, number eight! we will continue until you can get it right" reginald glared down at her. "again!" 

she pushed herself up, wobbling. she weakly pushed herself again, trying to make something, anything happen. she squeezed her eyes shut, hands forming fists as she thought hard about what her father wanted. she didn't even know what she was expected to do. to no surprise, nothing happened. reginald sighed heavily, disappointed. he pulled a watch from his pocket before staring down at her as she fell to her knees again.

"you are dismissed, dinner will be in 20 minutes" and she was left alone. reginald disappeared into his office once again. she lay on the floor for a moment, heaving for breath. they had been training for hours, pushing her past her limits. grace and pogo lead her siblings, minus vanya, in through the doors. not wanting them to see her like that she gripped the table behind her, pulling herself up and leaning against it. 

"y/n?" ben frowned, stepping over. the others look at her in shock. she shook him off, grumbling about how she was 'fine'. he watched her stumble up the stairs, cringing in pain. her siblings all shared a saddened look. 

when they did rush down for dinner, y/n slumped into her chair, dark bags under her eyes. she barely touched her food, pushing it around her plate.

"number eight!" the next thing she knew five was holding her head up and her father was yelling at her. he degraded her, insulted her but she didn't hear a thing. five slowly let go of her, watching her carefully before turning away, back to his meal.

she sat up straighter and actually started to eat the food on her plate, after all, she must train on a full stomach.

————————————————–

y/n and five walked up the stairs of the mansion, feet dragging heavily. as they stepped up they were met with luther and allison.

"five? y/n? what the hell happened to you?" both stayed silent. y/n stared at her feet in a sort of daze. everything was still kind of confusing. 

"are you okay?" luther reached out to five, "can we help?" the said boy took him by surprise, hand snapping up and grabbing his fist.

"there's nothing you can do" he spat before his expression saddened, "there's nothing any of you can do.."

y/n looked up, watching as he went. she frowned.

"you alright?" she stared at luther for a moment, grimacing as she remembered what they had last talked about. she kept her mouth shut, brushing past him to her room. 

"y/n, wait-"

"just fuck off, luther" she snapped before he could say anything. he should have stayed on that moon.

————————————————–

"number eight" the remaining five siblings with powers stood in a line. it had been a couple weeks since ben's death now. reginald stood in front of them. they had all been told today's training would be different. "step forwards" she did as she was told, standing in front of the others. "you will be using your powers on your siblings today" 

her head snapped up at that as did the others. she had never used her powers on them before and they knew what she could do to others. he sent the others all around the house. she was told to find them, sensing where they were with a blindfold on, almost like hide and seek without any of the fun. it was when she had found them all for the seventh time that she sensed something else. 

"there are five people in line" she stated, "vanya?" 

"wrong" she heard her father scold. "there are only four"

"there's a fifth, i can sense it" she frowned, pulling her blindfold off to see only her four siblings. they all looked confused. "klaus.. is there a ghost? it.. it feels like ben"

"no" he answered far too quickly. ben turned on him from beside him,

"what? klaus! i am here! tell her i'm here!" 

"no, he's not" 

"klaus! what the hell?! you're so selfish! i am here!" but of course, she never knew that..

————————————————–

"come on, luther, i have to show you" allison tried to pull him away but he continued to stare at where y/n had told him to 'fuck off'. he felt.. guilty.

"but.. what about y/n?" he looked at her. he hated that he upset her, he hated that he had accused her without any actual evidence. she was only a child, just like diego said. 

"she's angry, let her cool off. you should apologise but not right now, give her some time" allison offered a soft smile, "that's all she needs, some time. now, come on, this is important" 

"i just.. i feel guilty" luther frowned as they walked towards their father's room filled with cameras. "i shouldn't have assumed-"

"she'll understand" allison reassured with a smile. 

————————————————–

y/n sat in her corner of the library, reading alone. she was calm, it was her safe place, nobody could bother her here. no training, no arguments, just peace.

"eight.." she looked up from her book at her brother's voice. five.

"what's wrong?" she shuffled over, eyebrows furrowing at the look on his face. he was worried, something five wasn't usually.. or at least he never showed it.

"i.. i want to time travel" he begun softly, taking a seat beside her. she frowned, why was he telling her? "i want to try but dad refused to teach me"

she froze, "you're going to try anyway" she realised. he nodded, now looking up at her.

"i know you think i hate you but i don't" he slowly begun, thinking of the words he was trying to say. "i'm telling you because i think you're the most trustworthy.. and i.." he paused, unsure of how to say what he wanted to. "i think you're the strongest, eight, no matter what our siblings may say"

"five.." she grimaced, "i know we don't talk much but i'll support you if anything happens"

"i do want to talk to you more" he sighed, ashamed for having obeyed his father's stupid rules. "but-"

"no, no. it's not your fault" y/n shook her head. "it's hard to go against him, i understand"

"you're too kind.. you shouldn't forgive people so easily, they'll take advantage of you" five frowned and she laughed. 

"i thought i was the strongest, huh?" she nudged his shoulder with her own, finally getting a small smile.

————————————————–

"let me do that" y/n pulled a chair beside five, gently pulling the needle and thread out of his hand. he frowned but let her anyways. "you're antsy" she pointed out, eyeing his bouncing knee. "going somewhere in a rush?" 

"i need to go back" he stared out the door, ready to rush out. "i need to find whoever this eye belongs to so that i can stop the apocalypse" 

"i know" y/n nodded, eyebrows furrowing in concentration as she finished stitching him up. she gently used a cloth to wipe the blood off his arm before placing a bandaid over it. five stood, pulling his shirt on and buttoning it up.

"can i come?" she watched him stuff dolores into the duffle bag and swing it onto his back. 

"no" he barely spared her a glance as he moved towards the window. he climbed out.

"what? why not? come on, five" she leaned out the window, watching him begin to climb down the fire escape. 

"i need to do this, y/n, it's important" he looked up at her now. "just wait for me here, i'll come back, okay?"

albeit hurt she nodded, she needed to be understanding. she frowned, moving away from the window, hoping to find something else to do. instead as she walked out of the room she noticed luther.

she quickly moved towards her room, hoping he wouldn't see her. she couldn't deal with anymore fighting right now. to her misfortune he did notice her, following her to her room. she swiftly locked the door as she ducked inside.

"hey.. y/n?" luther stood outside her locked door, hand giving a single knock.

"what do you want?" she hissed back, refusing to open it for him. she didn't need anymore of his accusations.

"i'm.. i'm sorry for accusing you" luther sighed. he had to get this over with, she deserved an apology. "it was wrong and i shouldn't have jumped to conclusions like that"

he heard her cautious footsteps as she made her way to the door. there was pause before she slowly peeked out. 

"you mean it..?" she frowned, eyeing his carefully. he nodded.

"i'm sorry. i know you've probably been lonely here, i know what it's like-"

"just shut up" she breathed out a laugh, pulling the door open fully, looking relieved. "no more fighting, please? i just want my family back.." the last part was quiet, vulnerable. luther nodded, smiling back. 

"no more fighting" there was a comfortable silence that fell over the two of them before luther spoke again.

"by the way, do you know where five is?"

"yeah, why?" she tilted her head at him, confused.

"we're having a family meeting.. it's about mom. i'm going to get him"

"okay, but i can't guarantee he'll find this as important as you do"

tag list: @rxses-and-reverie @lostgreekgod @on-yourmark-99 @bicyhot1 @navs-bhat @midnightmystic

[littlemissnoname13]

Wisps of Smoke (Draco Malfoy x Slytherin!Reader) - Part one

Summary: Draco and y/n find themselves drawn to an abandoned classroom every single night.

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Slytherin! reader (implied pure blood for the storyline to work)

Warnings: Excessive smoking, mature language, mature themes, no full fledged smut till now. Also please remember that the characters have all been aged up in all of my stories.

18+ Content

A/n: A pack of cigarettes on my desk seduced me into writing this one (smoking is injurious to health)

Word count: 3000

Monday

To say that Draco Malfoy was your friend was a bit of an exaggeration.

The two of you tolerated each other at most.

Having grown up in the same friend circle that consisted of Theo, Blaise, Pansy, you’d both learned how to remain perfectly civil.

Of course, it wasn’t always that easy.Sometimes the blonde git got on your last nerve.

Just last week, Theo had to pull him back by his robe and Pansy had to clutch tightly onto your arm because you and Draco were this close to hexing each other’s faces off.

And today Blaise looked anything but pleased about his choice of seat at your Potions class. The boy who donned a calm, cool and collected—almost condescending expression on most days leaned against the table in a bracing position while you and Draco yelled at each other from his left and right.

“You have to stir it twice. Clockwise.” Draco scoffed rolling his eyes as he watched you stir your Draught of Living Death potion.

“Clockwise y/n—No! no! No— y/n you are doing it all wrong. That’s anti-clockwise! Can you get any more stupid?! Merlin!”

“Why don’t you do it yourself instead of sitting over there, crossing your fucking arms and barking out instructions.” You shot back getting angrier by the minute.

“You should be glad I’m here to give you instructions. If it were up to you, the whole classroom would be up in flames by now.” He said icily, picking up a Sopophorous bean and observing it.

“In case you haven’t noticed already, I never asked for your help Malfoy!”

“And I did not ask to work with you and Zabini on this stupid potion y/l/n.”

“And I most certainly did not ask to be put in between two bickering children but here I am. Life isn’t fair now is it?!” Blaise snapped causing you both to retreat back into your seats.

That’s how your days usually went by.

And your nights...well your nights weren’t particularly any better. In fact, it was always the same old routine.

You stared up at the ceiling and focused on the creaking sound your bed made while your long time boyfriend Adrian Pucey chased his release on top of you.

He was always a blubbering, sweaty mess and you lightly stroked his hair and closed your eyes wondering why you felt nothing at all.

You were devoid of all emotion and pleasure—wondering if you were broken.

There was no pleasure and no pain.

And after Adrian’s quick departure, your room reeked of sex and sweat and your pillow would sometimes be wet with tears.

Sex with Adrian felt like nothing at all even though you loved him.

Adrian was gentle, almost too gentle and you had come to a conclusion that orgasms and passionate sex that left you wanting for more was nothing but a myth.

You channeled all the energy you had left into slipping your clothes back on. You lethargically wiped at your mascara stained cheeks with the sleeve of your sweater before slamming your door shut behind you.

Discreetly, you exited the dungeons and let your feet guide you all the way towards an empty and abandoned classroom with a huge window and a windowsill wide enough for sitting.

Nobody really paid much attention to the classroom and going there felt like hiding in plain sight. Going there in the middle of the night had somewhat become a night time ritual for you.

You quickly got comfortable on the moonlit windowsill and took deep calming breaths—filling your lungs up with the air around you.

The air had a stench of nicotine these past few weeks and It hurt your head at first. But now, you’d learned to ignore it.

Everything felt silent and tranquil for a brief moment until you started to hear moans and groans coming from the other side of the classroom door.

The sounds made your blood freeze and you closed your eyes, mumbling an inaudible prayer to the universe. The last thing you needed was an awkward encounter with the people making out on the other side of the door.

It didn’t take very long before the door started to creak and shake violently.

The creaking only got louder and louder. As did the moaning and groaning and cursing.

Soon, the shaking of the door came to an abrupt halt followed by a shrill post-coital giggle.

You closed your eyes and finally heaved a huge sigh of relief when you heard the pitter patter footsteps walking away from the room.

“What the fuck are you doing here y/l/n?” A familiar voice startled you and you held your breath hoping it wasn’t who you thought it was.

You opened only one eye and looked at the door that had been flung open.

Draco Malfoy stood on the other side of the now open door with the buckle of his belt still undone, his shirt all disheveled and his silver hair in a state of disarray from being yanked on.

“I would ask you the same question but it’s best if you don’t tell me.” You gagged.

The corners of his lips twisted into a typical Malfoy-esque smirk as he used his thumb to wipe his bottom lip.

“Well, would you like me to show you instead?”

“Smooth.” You muttered, letting out a sarcastic chuckle at his words while he sat down next to you on the windowsill.

Malfoy was the last person you wanted to see that night. Especially after Potions class.

Even though you were looking out the window, you felt his eyes linger on you through your peripheral vision. He was drenched in the moonlight seeping in through the large window giving his place skin a pearlescent glow.

Although Malfoy had maintained an unreadable expression on his face, his prying eyes gave everything away.

“Pucey?” He finally said.

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve been crying haven’t you?” He asked, lifting your chin up with his index finger and observing the redness around your nose and the puffiness around your eyes.

“Since when do you care?” You jeered, eyeing him suspiciously.

“I don’t.” He shrugged abruptly pulling his hand back—letting your face fall.

He turned towards the window, put a cigarette between his lips and lit it up. After taking a long drag, he tilted his head around to look at you again. “I just don’t think Pucey is worth crying over. If you’re crying over hi—”

“Merlin’s beard Malfoy! It’s you. You’ve been smoking your stupid cigarettes here haven’t you?” You cut him off with your eyes widening in realisation.

“I have.”

“And all this time I thought I was hallucinating the smell of smoke.”

“Sorry to break it to you y/l/n but I’ve been coming here since the fourth year.”

Wisps of smoke came out of his mouth and drifted all the way to the tip of your nose when he exhaled.

“I come here all the time.” He continued. “Sometimes alone and sometimes—”

“You bring a poor naive girl here for a quickie.” you finished his sentence coughing and swatting the air around you. “Who were you shagging outside anyway?” You asked, arching your eyebrows.

“Since when do you care?” He retorted.

“Touché.”

~~~~~~~~

Tuesday

“That poor girl you were with last night sounded like she was in pain.” You commented the next night dangling your legs outside the window as Draco stood next you, smoking.

“I am assuming Pucey is horrible in bed then.” He snickered making your cheeks heat up.

“He isn’t horrible.” You protested as he inspected the slightest amount of dust gathered in the corner of the windowsill paying little to no attention to you.

“He’s just…” you trailed off in your pathetic attempt to justify Adrian’s subpar bedroom skills.

“Go on love.” He mocked, lighting up another cigarette and extending his hand to offer you one. "Tell me."

"You are the last person I wanna discuss my sex life with.” You snapped pushing his hand along with the pack of cigarettes away from you.

~~~~~~~~

Wednesday

You gathered your hair up and threw on a silk robe over your slip dress and walked towards your usual spot in the abandoned classroom.

You found yourself subconsciously waiting for Draco to show up as you leaned against the glass window.

After a few minutes, he was quietly standing next to you staring outside the window that overlooked the school courtyard.

He placed a cigarette between his lips and turned to look at you. “You want one?”

You shook your head as you watched him light the one between his lips up—observing the way he inhaled and the way wisps of smoke came out of his mouth.

The wisps drifted your way and you didn’t even bother to fan it away.

Instead you took a sharp breath.

It felt like your brain was slowly associating the scent of smoke with him.

“Didn’t find anybody to shag tonight?” You asked in a feeble attempt to break the silence.

This made him turn his head to look at you—the true blue specks in his otherwise grey eyes glistened in cool tones and you felt a strange ache inside of you.

“Nope. Not anyone that I’d like to shag anyway.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“I won’t be surprised if I find you loitering around the Ravenclaw tower in a few nights—considering you have been with every other Slytherin girl I know.”

He shot you a bone chilling glare before flashing a devious looking grin.

“You’re in Slytherin.” Draco drawled, taking a step towards you.

“Your point?” You looked at him quizzically, taking a step back but Draco took a step towards you for every step you took away from him until you felt the coolness of the wall behind your back.

His palms rested on the wall on either side of your face as he stared down at you with his glacial eyes— the mere intensity of his gaze made you want to look away.

It was just too much.

The way his shirt was unbuttoned at the top and the way platinum colored strands of hair fell onto his face helped you understand why girls pined over him. You tried so very hard to hold your breath but failed in miserable fashion has his face inched closer and closer to you.

He let his slender fingertips trail on your waves before tucking the stray bits behind your ears.

“I hardly think I’ll find myself at the Ravenclaw tower anytime soon.” He raspily whispered into your ears.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thursday

He was in a rather foul mood that night.

Quidditch practice in the rain had gone on for a bit too long and to top it all off, his father had paid him a visit right after.

“Is everything alright Draco?” You asked, folding your arms over your chest and turning to face the exhausted looking boy standing next to you, with his hair still damp from his shower.

“Just perfect.”

“Doesn’t look like it.” You commented running your eyes up and down his frame, earning a disdainful scoff from him. “Anyway, how was quidditch practice? Adrian was telling me it got quite intense today.”

“Well well, looks like someone is feeling rather chatty tonight.”

“Okay, nevermind the quidditch talk. How’s Narscissa? My mum owled me about the upcoming New year's ball at your Manor—something about an announcement.” You scratched your head trying to remember what the letter said as you looked at him again. The bare minimum light cast soft, fuzzy looking shadows on his angular features.

“You aren’t usually this annoying. Is there any way you will stop with your ramblings!?” He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration before fumbling with his pocket to pull out another cigarette.

You quickly stood from the windowsill and reached for a very distraught looking Draco’s hand.

“We don't have to talk if you don’t want to, Draco.” You said quietly as you looked up at him.

“Then what do you suggest we do hm, y/n?” He asked more or less rhetorically as he pulled you towards him.

You thought you’d forgotten how to breathe by the way he said your name. You weren’t particularly fond of your name but the way he said it made you want to thank your parents for picking out your name—the same name he said so smoothly and easily, with tension and emphasis on all the right places.

“I—I was thinking we could just quietly sit out here—maybe open up the window and breathe in some fresh air. It's rather pleasant for a rainy night don't you think?” You babbled.

At your mention of a pleasant night, he turned away from you to face the window, occasionally surveying the half smoked cigarette between his fingers as you opened the window.

“We could do that actually.” Draco finally said in a calm voice, taking a prolonged drag from his cigarette from the corner of his mouth and tossing it carelessly to the ground before stomping on it. “Or—”

“Or?”

“Or....” He said with his silver eyes muddled and darkened into an opaque grey. “We could just do this.”

You couldn't even begin to comprehend why or even how, but his nicotine infused lips softly came crashing down onto yours making your heart pound loudly against your ribcage. The way he pressed his lips to yours—the connection made you lightheaded.

What was even more surprising was the fact that you kissed him back even harder.

Compiling to all of his requests.

When he nipped your bottom lip, you parted your mouth.

When his tongue met yours, you moaned softly into this mouth.

When he cupped your face to draw you in closer as his tongue seduced, tantalized, licked, and sucked, you surrendered.

The sweetness of your lips only made him want you more as he wondered how he had gone so long without his lips pressed up against yours, his thumb gently yet possessively caressing your cheek.

And now that he’d gotten a taste, he wasn't sure he could make do without it.

He wanted this.

He needed this.

There was something so sublime, so achingly beautiful about kissing your lips that a million different thoughts encircled his mind.

Why did it suddenly feel like his thirst was gradually being quelled by the way your mouth, your breathing, your pulse melded into his?

Your fingertips intertwining with the hair on the nape of his neck pacified him.

This was unfamiliar territory.

You were both treading uncharted waters and yet, there was something soothing and familiar about the way he ran his hands up and down your sides, feeling and remembering your curves.

“That ought to keep you quiet y/n.” He whispered, his voice hoarse and saturated with yearning as he pulled away.

The rain outside had transformed into a tempestuous storm and the wind brought in splatters of rain drops inside the classroom window colliding against both of your skin and clothes.

You turned your head to look outside. “Looks like the weather is no longer pleasant.”

His eyes mirrored the flash of lighting that lit up the night sky in shades of lilac, yellow and violet back at you as the sky roared.

“But I kinda like the storm you kno—” Your attempt to finish your sentence was futile.

Lightning struck again but this time in the depths of your heart as his cold, damp, rain-soaked lips brushed against yours in an urgent fashion. The way he aggressively moved his lips made you see more colours than just lilac, yellow and violet.

Magnificent shades of cerulean, emerald, crimson, and burgundy. You could see them all.

"I have pictured kissing you a thousand times over in my mind." he murmured into the kiss while the hand he had placed on your waist trailed down to your hips.

“Draco.” You mewled as your hands found their way to the back of his shirt, gripping onto the fabric tightly for support while you let his ravenous mouth place kisses along your jaw and clavicles.

"You drive me...mmmm... fucking insane y/n. You make me.. mmm..so fucking furious" He whispered between kisses with his fingertips digging into your skin hidden under layers of fabric.

"As do you. I know..hmmmm..the difference...fuck...between clockwise and...mmhh..Anticlockwise." You said breathlessly pulling him flush against you.

Draco backed you further into the wall and his fingertips lingered on the string of your silk robe and you guided his hands through the knots and tangles of the string and let the robe fall onto the floor.

He found his way underneath your slip dress and let his hands roam around your bare flesh turning you into a whimpering mess.

Your own hands trailed to the buttons of his shirt as the aching need to feel his bare skin grew.

And when his shirt did hit the ground, you greedily ran your hands all over his firm chest and toned abdomen— your mouth watering while the flimsy fabric of your panties turned damp.

When he felt you palm the tent forming in his trousers, he smirked and the kiss came to an abrupt stop and his eyes fluttered open.

He pressed his forehead against yours—shoulders rising and falling from his heavy breathing.

"Not yet. " He murmured with his breathing still laboured.

"Draco—"

He shut you up with another kiss before backing away and walking towards the door.

"Good night y/n." He smirked, fixing his clothes as he stood near the door.

“Uh, good night?!” You mumbled, dumfounded.

"y/n?”

“Hm?”

“Nothing.” He mumbled, shaking his head as he closed the door behind him.

To be continued.....

~~~~~~

Part 2 teaser:

"Took you long enough." Draco breathed,holding you tightly against him as he desperately ran his hands along your sides feeling the fabric of your silky nightdress.

"I was going to stay away. I tried so fucking hard." You whispered, and he instantly placed his lips onto yours furrowing his brows as you fiercely kissed him back.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Tag list: @maybesandohnos ❤️

~~~~~~~~~~~

Message me if you want to be on my tag list.

[violetlunette]

I’ve stated in the past a few times—give or take—that I don’t like that Bakagou learned about One For All and thought I should explain why.

Below I’m going to be more than a bit critical of Bakagou so consider this a warning. I’m not exactly bashing him but I am calling out on his less appealing moments.

Most of what you’re about to read is based on feelings rather than logic as a result, while I’ve tried to be fair—most of this is petty. I am flat out admitting this. This is basically me saying, “I don’t like this” in a really long way. Just letting you know what you're getting into.

Right, let’s get the super petty stuff out of the way—Bakagou knowing about OFA intrudes on Dadmight time (thought I was kidding when I said petty? You were warned.). I don’t give two shakes about the romantic interaction in the series, but I do care about the parental relationships and All Might’s moments with Izuku are my favorite. The OFA meetings were where we got the most in-depth as they had a bond over a quirk the two of them shared as the two tried to unravel its secrets. Those moments however are interrupted by Bakagou who is just—there, being Bakagou.

This leads me to my next petty point; it forces him and Izuku to interact more and I hate their interactions. This is a good chunk of why I don’t like that Bakagou learned about OFA. Bakagou acts at his worst when he’s around Izuku. Even after Bakagou finally talked about his feelings shounen style he’s still a petty jerk to Izuku just like before. The only difference is that Izuku isn’t flinching as much. Bakagou still acts like an asshole to Izuku and now he’s extending that to All Might as well.

At the OFA meetings not only is it obvious that he does not want to be there, but Bakagou mocks OFA. Not only that, but he scoffs at the previous OFA users who gave up EVERYTHING to stand against All For One because they didn’t have “cool quirks.” This including Nana, All Might’s teacher who was like a mother to him and died defending him. But let’s give Bakagou a little slack on that last point as he most likely had no idea (though let's be honest that wouldn’t have deterred him at all). Oh, and he has no qualms about laughing at the idea of Izuku DYING which is kind of a sore point for many fans due to the incident in chapter one. 

Everything about their interactions just rubs me the wrong way, even worse All Might sees all this and thinks they’re such great friends. Ugh. I know a lot of people see a lot of chemistry between the two to which I say—good for you. Enjoy. I, on the other hand, see a brat acting like an asshole. And instead of calling him out the people around not only ignore it, but they praise him for said attitude and the story rewards him for it. 

Speaking of being rewarded for asshole behavior, let’s talk about HOW he learned about OFA, shall we? 

Now, I’ll be fair here and admit that after their first lesson with All Might Bakagou had thought that Izuku was lying to him for years. He thought the other was making a fool of him by letting Bakagou beat him up all these years without ever using a quirk. (No seriously. That’s why he’s mad.) I understand that he felt lied to and while it doesn’t make me feel an ounce of sympathy for him I also understand why he felt that way. Izuku felt bad about Bakagou’s feelings so he decided to be as honest as he could.

Izuku telling Bakagou that he got his quirk from someone would annoy me under normal circumstances as after years of bullying and belittling he didn’t owe Bakagou shit, but I could live with it. It would be like getting a mosquito bite; it’s annoying, but I can deal with it, no problem.

HOWEVER. This scene came after one of Bakagou’s worst moments in the manga. Bakagou used the training exercise to viciously beat and maim Izuku before releasing a MURDER MOVE on him. This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing either. Bakagou planned the attack from the beginning, then he unleashed it knowing that if Izuku had dodged the wrong way it would have killed him. And he wasn’t crazy either; Bakagou did it all with a calm, “rational” mind. Even when Izuku collapsed in front of him possibly blinded from an explosion to the face, Bakagou doesn’t care. All that he cares about is that he lost to Deku. That was his only concern.

Yet after disregarding his partner, putting their grade at risk, injuring another student, AND using a death attack (which also put Tenya and Ochaco at risk depending on the damage to the structure) not only is he not punished for his actions, but he’s comforted by All Might and Izuku, then rewarded with the first clue to the biggest secret of the series. This is just all sorts of fucked up here.

Then there’s when he is let in on the secret completely. I actually don’t begrudge Bakagou for dragging Izuku out after curfew. I get it; he’s in emotional turmoil because he believes that All Might lost his powers because of him and he just failed the hero exam. He’s high on emotions and doesn’t know how to handle them, and this is shounen world where therapist don’t exist, so I can forgive him for the fight which resulted in Izuku getting in trouble on a day that started out so happy.

But then he learns the secret of OFA from All Might and there was no need! So he knew that All Might gave Izuku a quirk, so WHAT? Why did he know the rest?

And we follow the yellow brick road to my next reason; There is no reason for him to know about One For All. It doesn’t help his relationship with Izuku, he doesn’t contribute anything to the meetings except belittle the previous predecessors and mock Izuku and All Might, it doesn’t help with his development, and worse, it doesn’t contribute to the plot. 

If you cut Bakagou from the OFA secret everything would still be the same. Izuku would still learn what he did about One For All—maybe more so, Bakagou could still have his chat with All Might about his past “guilt” about Izuku, and he still could have followed Izuku to fight Shigaraki, only now he would be doing it just to protect Izuku and NOT to protect All Might’s quirk. Everything he contributes could have been done without knowing about OFA and all those acts would have more meaning.

As of now, the knowledge gives a double meaning to Bakagou's relationship with Izuku. Maybe Bakagou does in his own… Bakagou way cares about after Izuku listened to him break down. After all, at one point he did sort of stand up to All Might for him. However, those feelings are in conflict with his desire to surpass the “chosen one and take his progress and make it his own.” 

Because Bakagou knows about OFA all his actions come off as less actually wanting to help Izuku and more that he wants to protect “All Might’s Quirk” so he can beat it one day. Bakagou’s dream was always to surpass All Might, however, All Might lost his powers, so he’s settled for “helping” and protecting Izuku so he can have the next best thing and defeat One For All at full power. This thought underlines everything Bakagou does to help Izuku and adds a manipulation tactic to his “help.”

If Bakagou had never learned about OFA then all his actions would have so much more meaning. He wouldn’t be helping Izuku just because he has All Might’s power, he would be doing it because he cares about Izuku—even if he just wanted to beat him one day, the focus would be on Izuku and not OFA.

So, to recap here are my reasons why I hate that Bakagou knows about One for all;

*He ruins Dadmight and Izuku time

*I hate his interactions with Izuku

*He’s an ass at the meetings

*The way he learned the secret comes off as rewards for villainous behavior

*There’s no reason for him to know about OFA

*It adds nothing to the story. All the things he contributes could have been done by anybody.

*It undermines his attempts to make nice with Izuku as he’s more focused on OFA than Izuku.

There are a few more reasons, but they’re not worth typing about. So, this is the conclusion of “why I hate that Bakagou knows about OFA.”

If you think differently and that Bakagou deserved to learn about OFA and that it helps the story—good for you. I’m glad canon is pleasing someone with this storyline. I however am not pleased with it and I never will be unless a big surprise happens. But my opinions won’t change anything, so enjoy what you enjoy.

Good day.

[charlie-pippin-faraday]

Please break out your detailed, extensive, itemized list of every single thing you hate about S3 of hoa

*cracks knuckles* don’t say i didn’t warn you

let’s start with some positives

Things I liked about S3

Patricia and Eddie ❤️

like I am a peddie bitch and they are the literal only reason I bothered to watch literally any snippets of S3 at all

Eddie being a fucking simp 💖

The Patricia and Jerome fake date makes me cackle literally every time, so put that in the plus column

KT’s cool I guess, she could’ve been an awesome add-on if you hadn’t like ripped everything else apart

Things I HATED about S3 - LITERALLY everything else

here’s the main problem that threw off literally everything: no Nina???? then LITERALLY what is the point. she was the fucking driving force. nothing felt right without her

and then doing that made you break up Nina and Fabian which???? why?????? the entire first 2 seasons were spent showing that they cared about each other most in the world you can’t just drop it like it never happened and didn’t matter

and then, subsequently, you had no idea what to do with Fabian all season. god I love him but he lost something, you did nothing with him; the guy who was the number 2 billed character in seasons 1 and 2 just felt like an afterthought. he just became an information bank which :(

you sent away Amber?? why would you do that??

I didn’t like Patricia and Eddie breaking up. Like damn @ HOA writers is it that hard to write people in an actual lasting relationship? you tend to focus on the chase and not the relationship. watching people navigate a loving and committed relationship is compelling, too. P&E are better as a kickass pair and should never have broken up

my extremely hot take: Eddie didn’t need to have powers. he didn’t need to be the osiris or whatever the fuck. listen I LOVE Eddie dearly but tbh I didn’t like a single thing about that whole thing. 1) the idea of him being Nina's “protector” just felt icky and wrong to me. 2) I loved the idea of Eddie being normal and having all these great qualities anyway. like just being a regular guy but STILL being as adventurous and protective and wanting to be a hero? beautiful. he didn’t need all this. he didn’t need to be “special.” it felt forced??? having Eddie do all the same things and having those same traits but without the powers or whatever just would have been absolutely beautiful to me

I have conflicting feelings about Eddie being sibuna leader. Maybe if they had built up to it then it would have made more sense, but it just felt really sudden and abrupt and a little forced. he’s not a BAD leader (dumb, but not bad) but god the vibes were just off

really this problem just stems from the you-abruptly-tossed-Nina-to-the-curb problem, god everything just felt WRONG without her, and idk how to forgive them or any of the subsequent decisions they made bc of it

idk how I feel about alfie/willow. the jury’s out on that one

the main mystery/sibuna plot was questionable at best. the whole sinners thing had its moments but overall, meh

FABIAN/MARA????? WTF?????? doesn’t make one lick of sense. nope. get it out of my sight. they could’ve been cool friends but if you wanted that then maybe you should have started it a season and a half earlier

don’t fucking talk to me about how much they absolutely DESTROYED Jerome’s character. Jerome is my absolute favorite character and I am absolutely DISTRAUGHT about what they did to him in S3. like all that development that happened? especially during season 2? GONE. oh, you wanted him to grow and change and develop and be a better person? nah, we’re gonna hit the reset button on that. wtf happened.

why the FUCK would you do that to Jerome/Mara. if I had my way, he absolutely NEVER would have cheated on her. with his season 2 development, him cheating wouldn’t have made any sense, but you erased all of that I guess. and maybe they don’t last but it certainly doesn’t go like THAT. like?? why did you write that?? he spent an ENTIRE TWO SEASONS falling for Mara and opening up to Mara as the person he trusted with intimate, sensitive parts of his life. he developed and grew to be a better person because of that relationship. EVERYTHING through the whole first two seasons was building up to them being together, them trusting each other and being each other’s person and I just don’t understand why you would do that. they made them do a complete 180 from their S2 personalities and nothing that happened made sense and I’m really upset about it

Jerome wasn’t involved in the mystery hardly at all?? like is it really a house of anubis season without Jerome being tangentially involved with the mystery on the other end, his storyline eventually merging with sibuna’s? he felt useless suddenly, and it made me extremely upset. Jerome is a really intriguing and dynamic character who does so many interesting things, and S3 reduced him to a cheating storyline. even if he’s not IN sibuna (which he SHOULD have been, but that’s a different rant), he should be involved in the sibuna plot!!!! i’m extremely upset about everything they did with Jerome

I hated the ENTIRE Mara/Joy/Willow/Jerome storyline. HATED it. The majority of the season was just “getting revenge on Jerome” and I just. hated it. every single part of it. you could have had so many better things for them to do. every time i’m rewatching I skip past every second of this storyline it’s boring, cringey, gross, and takes up far too much time.

I hate literally everything about Jerome/Joy it doesn’t make sense they don’t vibe; I can probably count the number of times they interacted before S3 on one hand; you literally could not pay me to watch footage of them get rid of it burn it with fire

Another hot take: KT and Joy should’ve been lesbians. specifically lesbians with each other, but definitely lesbians on their own. I get that nickelodeon probably wasn’t “allowed” to do that but. they should’ve been

KT didn’t need to drive a wedge between Patricia and Eddie, they could’ve all been friends with no problems. this DEFINITELY would not have been a problem if they’d let KT be a lesbian

there were MANY friendships that needed to be built upon. namely: Eddie/Fabian, Alfie/Fabian, Eddie/Jerome, Patricia/Alfie/Jerome as a trio, Patricia/KT, needed more Patricia/Mara

strengthen the Patricia/Joy and Alfie/Jerome bonds

man I just want everyone to be friends??? I love friendship

reiterating the things I hated most: they should NOT have broken up Patricia and Eddie, they should NOT have put KT between them, and they tbh should NOT have insinuated anything romantic there at all. TIRED of that shit. just let them be in love all season is that so hard

Fabian deserved better

JEROME DESERVED BETTER

burn the Fabian/Mara and Jerome/Joy pairings with fucking fire

should not have sent away Nina and Amber everything just felt wrong

there are SO many better choices they could have made. like....so many. @ HOA writers hire me to re-write the season

in conclusion: Patricia and Eddie being in love was the literal only good part of S3. fin.

[facepalming-since-chernobyl]

Ok anon, I have seen the 6x08 - 6x11 eps.

And.

I will try to be not too salty.

Generally speaking, it doesn’t feel like a final few eps. More like fillers. Nothing really happens. People talk. Wrong people feel guilty for everything. People who should feel guilty don’t and go for a trip to solve their mommy issues to finds powers taken from writers’ asses. 

Nyxly feels like a Walmart Villain. Like? Reign was at least scary. Lex could mess with their private lives,  expose them, whatever. Nyxly is just another butthurt, theatrical bitch who wants power and punish her opponents. Her motives are dumb, her storyline is meh, her attitude is annoying. When it was Rhea at least I felt the hatred and personal vendetta, same with Lex. Nyxyly?Sure, Jan?

I know we know no one will die and I think it made us less nervous for teh characters (I mean, minus poor William, but no one cares even if they try hard to make him NICE guy). On the other hand, it’s a show where absolutely no one dies. 

The social stuff feels like approaching IMPORTANT stuff by a 10 year old. It’s like they know they write for teens and young adults but have no idea how, so it ends bland. Also, the CatCo stuff is simply boring.

Kelly says how she can’t really throw that punch how Alex teached her and Kara says it’s not important because she has other vallues and how the team respects her for it. One ep later Kelly kicks asses and is a warrior, I guess the other values are not so important and no one in the team can be a random human. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for Kelly and Azie, and it’s cool danse n is going to be a power couple and I kinda get it’s because Kara leaves the NC and moves to the future, so she needs to know she leaves it in good hands, but I’m annoyed.

As for a show that can be alienphobic in many storylines and glorifies “being the simple human who can be a hero without powers and masks!” they love to ignore it.

Also, I’m tired of Kara bieng dragged into new traumas and being sorry for everything, even if it’s not her fault. Like. I read the writers think we see her as the best things in humanity (humanity???) and what happens when she ends ignorant about some stuff and this shows exactly how the writers don’t get the audience. 

And I’m becoming cynical I think, because I’m annoyed about a show that talks a lot about so called hope blah blah, while people who watch are behaving like a crowd of orcs on social media. It’s like the show missed the target or something.

The humour annoys me and I don’t find shit funny.

Zor El bounding with Kara was a gem, tho.

Also, the whole Lobotomizer stuff. Shows how they don’t plan shit but create the storylines in the begining of the season and hope it will somehow work and it doesn’t. For 4.5 half of the season she was cold ass scientist and SUDDENLY out of nowhere she is a walmart witch. Nothing was  planted before. Even in s5 when we seen her mother death  it was about her guilt and butthurt. Nothing magical was suggested. Never ever anything magical happened accidentally to her. Nothing was hinted. It’s a fucking LAZY horrible writting and treating the viewers like brainless IDIOTS.

I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I’m more annoyed than I was during teh final season of TeenWolf, sic!

And I don’t get why we need to open more stories instead of focusing on closing the old ones and dealing with the relartionships to make climatic closures. Instead I think the finale are going to be like presentation with slides made by Andrea.

In my conclusion, it’s simply anticlimatic. And it should not have been like that. What is sad I would never ever recommend watching this show to anyone. Absolutely anyone

[ofmythsandmadness]

MY THOUGHTS ON TUA SEASON TWO: PART TWO (spoilers)

So...I finished season two.

I’m putting ALL my thoughts under the tab so please, don’t click unless you’ve seen it all, and/or you just....like don’t care about spoilers? But please if you’ve not watched it, watch it first ‘cause it deserves all the hype and attention.

You can read part one to this here.

FIVE HARGREEVES…

I deadass thought he was gonna die.

I thought throughout the entire show that he was going to die, and ESPECIALLY at the end, I thought that was it. I guess I’m glad though that he didn’t die of course. But I was convinced, and glad he didn’t and that there was no shock-value death of a major character. 

(though like maybe one of them should have gotten hit by a bullet in one of those final scenes?? I mean….there were bullets EVERYWHERE. By SO many guns. How did they miss every time????)

Aiden Gallagher did a terrific job with the character. I don’t agree with the things he personally has done but I am convinced on his acting abilities, I mean JEEZ. He sold the act and alongside Diego/David Casteneda, was really one of the best actors on the show. I am thoroughly impressed. I didn’t really like him much in Season One, but he’s sold the role to me now and I’m very impressed.

That being said... I kinda hated Five. That’s it. I liked him in general but some parts, I was so pissed off and just didn’t like. He was an asshole and I know he IS an asshole but it was beyond just being a grumpy old pisspot. And I don’t know really how to feel, because I know being 45 years alone and lost and then becoming the world’s best assassin or whatever will fuck your head up, so it makes sense. I just think there were points where he lost most of his humanity, and then he’d flip-flop back to a more caring being. I sort of just wished there was a clear definition to all of his thoughts and emotions on it all.

But at the same time his character makes sense so I don’t know how to feel??? Maybe I’m just pissed on how he treated Diego and shit. But I’m very very glad he’s not dead!! 

ALLISON HARGREEVES…

Okay, I thought she was REALLY dead in that scene. You know the one I’m talking about.

Holy shit.

I was so scared. And also it was so sudden (and a little cool admittedly how Lila just threw it back at her like that - HOW DO I WORD thAT NON-SEXUALLY) and I was so fucking worried they’d kill her off, because I find sometimes her character comes off a little disposable. Not because I want her gone, more that the show finds her an afterthought and pushes her with someone or ‘silences’ her.

But overall I loved her storyline. I didn’t know if I’d like her just being married, it felt again like an afterthought and she was being pushed to be with someone, but the civil rights movement plot was really well done, in my eyes. I loved too the agony of having such impressive powers, but scared of the effects of doing so and also not wanting to be the person she was before. I felt for her and I was so impressed with her separating herself from her past, trying to push away from being the one who had it all and trying to be her own self. I think that this season did that really well, with all the characters and finding themselves, and I just...I want her to be happy, and successful and I want to see her find a way to use her powers without causing pain to herself or others.

And not be with Luther. Please, anyone who can do a thing about it reading this, do not make her and Luther a thing.

(also - emmy raver lampman is in general so goddamn talented and beautiful and i wish her the best. i just heard her rendition of satisfied and me oh my, that gal deserves so much more love, i hope this show catapults her career even more forward)

VANYA HARGREEVES…

Literally invented cottagecore.

Also, I love her.

I was so impressed with the way they handled her queer storyline. I was so worried about it, admittedly because television shows have a history of handing out stereotypical plotlines and not caring about the depth of them but dear FUCKING heavens, I loved this one. I cried like a baby, and yet I was left almost happy, at the end? Not happy, because they’re apart and Sissy’s stuck in a world that she can’t be herself in, but there was a beautiful bittersweetness that I adored about it. And it was realistic, and they didn’t just follow a trope and leave it there to wither up and die.

Vanya was adorable in this season and while I normally hate the amnesiac storyline, I think it’s an easy way out, I liked it here! Because yeah it was I guess an ‘easy way out’, but it worked and it made Vanya be able to be here and actually start over. I didn’t want to see her so burdened with who she had been and who she was forced to be, I wanted to see her smile and dance and love her siblings and she could and I couldn’t be happier. I mean, when she was just saying how she loved her family and her family was amazing...obviously it’s funny cause the family’s so messed up, but she meant it and I just want so much good for her.

I just love how they naturally developed the idea of the Hargreeves genuinely liking each other. This season really brought them together but unlike the first, it wasn’t necessarily because they had to, but because they wanted to. And I think Vanya did that for them. 

Basically...I don’t know how to put it all into words without making this a 70-page thesis essay. But I love her and want the best for her.

(side note - I really also was impressed with Harlan. I was scared that somehow they were going to do something stupid with him, but he was adorable and I loved him. his character made me tear up a little, too. as someone who has close family with severe autism, it’s rare to see a show that doesn’t make an upsetting and non-accurate portrayal out of someone on the spectrum. but he was so precious and smart and good and Sissy loved him and dammit, I would die for that little family)

I’m ALSO curious if Vanya’s gonna visit Sissy ever? I mean I thought she would have at the end but obviously the cliffhanger didn’t leave room for that...idk know though because I think with multiverse theories and whatnot, she wouldn’t even know her but...eh.

KLAUS HARGREEVES…

I don’t actually have much to say on him, which is shocking because in Season One, I could have written a whole book on his character. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love him! He’s still one of my favourites, and I wish I could just take away his pain because that boy deserves at least a kernel of good in his life. But truly, there’s just not much I know to say about him??

The scene in the restaurant with Dave and his uncle though hurt. What hurt more though was his nonchalant nature about it, because he’s been through that so many times and he almost expected it, which hurt. It’s expected and I knew he couldn’t just waltz up to Dave and confess his love and they’d be dandy, but as a queer person, it was a punch to the heart just watching him go through that.

I just want him to be happy someday, and bond with his siblings because there’s a deep sadness that lurks with Klaus, and maybe it’s from the actor too but there’s a melancholy that I relate to, which I hate because that melancholy is a heavy burden to carry. A worthlessness, and a deep depression that he’s seemed to have fallen into that’s a bitch to climb out of and I’m scared that he won’t be able to. He covers it up in funny gestures and vices but it’s still destroying him. Even the cult - he lacks any real love and he finds it in meaningless places, never remembering their names or anything about them and coming off as an asshole when really, he’s just looking for someone who truly cares about him, who he is on the inside and listens to him without yknow, becoming brainwashed and treating him like a god.

I’m interested to see where the show takes his character.

BEN HARGREEVES…

This show really said fuck my feelings on this one, huh???

EPISODE NINE MADE ME SO NUMB AND SAD AND JUST - FUCK.

I cried so hard when he got to save the day. He finally could do more than just follow Klaus around, and he finally got to be more than their dead brother. For so long, Ben was just an idea, a memory and I can only imagine the pain of having to deal with that. They touch on it in the show but it’s so much deeper than just being alone with only Klaus to talk to - I mean Ben was literally nothing, to any of the others, aside from being their dead brother. And when he finally got to save them, and save Vanya and fucking HUG HER AS HE PASSES ON TO THE AFTERLIFE….when I tell you I sobbed....

And his hug with Diego, how HAPPY they both were….the way that they both just….:’((

And that scene with young Klaus and Ben....Netflix when I said I wanted more Ben content I don’t know if I meant THIS.

At the same time...it was beautiful and bittersweet because he was happy, almost, moving on to his next life. He was able to do what he needed to and move on and that was beautiful. And, he got to say goodbye to at least some of his siblings, and so I can’t truly be sad about his passing. Even though it made me sob like a newborn babe.

But also...what the fuck was that ending?

And by that I mean, who the fuck signed off on that stupid lil’ haircut??? HUH???? WHY DID HE LOOK LIKE HE WAS WEARING FUCKING FAKE BANG-CLIPONS AOIHWGOIHWOIWHOIGWH

IN CONCLUSION. Fuck Reginald Hargreeves and also just FUCK.

In conclusion, I really loved this season. It ended happier than I expected and that makes me happy, so much more happy then I thought I would have been. TUA has been one of my favourite shows, and I’ve over the past while waiting for S2, developed several strong loves for these characters. More than I’ve ever cared about others. And for the most part, they were given the justice I hoped they would be.

Overall, I am happy. And I hope we get season three, almost entirely just so I can figure out if Ben Hargreeves is wearing fake-bang clip ons or not. And also...like for everything else.

Also, what the fuck is a Sparrow Academy? Whomst??? And where’s miss Lila?? And are they technically related and if so HUH?? And also...no rights to Mr Reginald.

This is such a messy summary, lmao.

But let me know what you think! I’m going to rewatch it soon, probably tonight and I’m so excited to fall even more in love with it. (and them)

[konaizumi]

Tonhon Chonlatee ep 9 reaction/thoughts

- Ooo, pang, pulling the mom card, we stan a supportive friend who keeps her friend from doing stupid things

- pang is me the entire hug scene, it was so cute (also podd/ton looks like he gives the best, warmest hugs), also very happy to see na being genuinely excited for chon in this scene

- i’m so happy to see ton so willing to be open and public about their relationship, i think it really goes to show how much the homophobia was really repeated rhetoric from ton’s family and society an not necessarily his core beliefs

- amp getting trash thrown at her is what she deserves, go off on her ai!

- i dislike nueng bc he’s a rapist but i am really glad he called out amp like that and left her

- I can’t get over how cute and sweet ton is wtf

- ton keeps patting his head through the whole episode and I am here for it

- lol at chon watching 2gether

- i’m so glad the sister is accepting and cool about it, I hope this helps them next ep

- I, for a solid three seconds, when miriam got all shy and called her gorgeous, thought she was gonna hit on the sister and I was ready to support this 100%

- the cute little hand heart, ai being shy and hiding behind ni’s shoulder

- that’s right, ton, not good feelings left for that bitch

- also it’s cute that ton and baipai are close enough that ton can tell she had a fight bc she’s eating ice cream, i always love a good sibling relationship

- i’m just so glad chon has a backbone, even if he’s not the most confident or aggressive, he’s never let amp walk all over him in any of their interactions and it’s very refreshing, other bls need to take note

- on the other hand, chon, please have a bit more confidence in yourself, “even if i am a replacement, i don’t care, i just want to be next to ton,” sweetie, is that really something to brag about?

- however, “are you making fun of me?” “who else am i talking to?” was pretty great, petition for more sassy chon

- of all the sassy, mean, serious, or rude comebacks i thought ton was gonna say, “move, your in the way” is better than anything i could’ve come up with

- chon wiggling his shoulders when he said dancing shrimp

- very glad baipai and itt’s storyline did not end with itt being gay, the cat is adorable

- every time i start to take this show seriously, gmmtv loves to remind this show is just a crack video in disguise, what tf is this roleplay? (no complaints tho, i wish more shows wouldn’t take themselves so seriously)

- #getmiriamawife2021

- “it doesn’t mean ton doesn’t love me anymore” bitch yes it does!

- damn, just when i thought amp couldn’t get more homophobic

- props to ton for standing up for himself and his relationship

- i knew this was going to happen, yet i was still hoping somehow it wouldn’t, like I get why ton did it, he’s the kind of person who wont back down from dare if you call him chicken, but still, couldn’t he just not have?

- im not going to rag on chon (too much) for jumping to conclusions bc i will say i think they set it up well in a way that it’s believable for chon to assume things given 1) the video that pretty clearly shows ton kissing her freely, 2) his own insecurities and doubts regarding whether he’s just a substitute and whether ton actually likes him, a man -- so while i hate the faux cheating plotline, they at least set up better groundwork than some other shows

- ton ai and ni drunk singing is very cute

- miriam deserves everything, she really acts as an audience insert, we all wanted ton to get slapped (lowkey was hoping she would just deck him the face, but the slap was good too)

- ton riding the motorcycle while not entirely sober is giving me anxiety

- i fucking love chon’s mom so much, her relationship with chon has the same energy as pete’s dad from DBK in that not only does they know their sons are gay, but their comfortable talking and joking about and i love it

- I also like how she doesn’t just jump into overprotective mom mode and completely kick ton out or anything, like she really gives the sense of an adult who has gone through romantic struggles and can see that ton is sincere and didn’t mean to hurt chon

- how do you knock so much that your knuckles bleed that much

- you know what? chon said “you cheat, you’ll never see my face again” and my boy commits, I respect that

- the paper airplanes are pretty cute, very reminiscent of kornknock

- so, about the faux cheating plotline as a whole, i don’t like it, and i think the homophobic parents could’ve provided plenty of drama for two episodes with time left over for cute tonchon moments, but, i will say, this particular one isn’t bothering me as much as they usually do and i’m not entirely sure why? I think one part of it is ton is being pretty mature and responsible about it, admitting that he was in the wrong, telling chon’s mother that it’s “a bit of both,” not trying to push all the blame on amp. I think another part of it is that it’s going to resolve pretty quickly, they haven’t let this fester with a bunch of sad dramatic scenes of them making eye contact across campus, ton went after chon immediately and he’s not going to stop until he’s cleared everything up. And, as i said earlier, it didn’t feel like this was entirely out of nowhere or really unbelievable like faux cheating plotlines often feel like

- anyways, in conclusion, i actually really like this episode, i really love seeing ton just fully embracing being in a gay relationship and not taking shit from anyone about it, I’m excited for the final episode

[aegonbeingfakeisracist]

I really hate the way people insist upon acting like Arianne is just some impulsive fuck up that’s “bad at the game of thrones” and doesn’t know anything. Like, they keep saying she’s just like Sansa, except her mistakes aren’t as excusable because she’s older and they act as if a whole range of other characters are more mature than she is, but it’s just. Not. True. Honestly, it’s so not true, that I genuinely don’t understand how people can read the character that way.

Smarter people than me have expressed this before, but...Arianne isn’t a stupid little girl that needs to be taught patience, she’s a grown woman who knows damn well when she’s made a mistake. Her problem isn’t stupidity or immaturity or impulsivity - definitely not that last one - it’s a lack of information. The broader problem isn’t Arianne’s actions, it’s Doran underestimating her intelligence and maturity. Doran spent years thinking of Arianne as that same little girl who ran to him when she skinned her knee and trusted him instinctively. That meant not realizing that of course she was going to be hurt and offended by him suggesting she marry Walder Frey! Not realizing that her telling Tyene everything when it came to trivial things didn’t mean she would automatically spill important secrets! Not realizing that she is too smart to be completely ignorant of what’s happening in her own homeland and so it would be better to tell her than risk her drawing the wrong conclusions from limited information.

Arianne and Doran are so, so similar. Everything that happened in the Dornish storyline during AFFC happened because they’re enormously alike and didn’t understand that. Arianne’s not some impulsive, immature party girl, she’s smart, driven, and way more reliable than she’s given credit for. Doran leaves her with a job, and even though she thinks it’s him shunting her aside to handle something trivial and dismisses it as unimportant, that job is her purview, and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t do it well. She’s cautious, waiting and watching and gathering information, not acting until she feels backed into a corner with no other choice. Just as Doran didn’t recognize how smart she is, and how much she’s not the little girl she was anymore, she didn’t realize that his inaction was largely from the same motives as her own, instead seeing him just sitting there, not doing anything. And to her credit...she wasn’t wrong about that part! Where Arianne eventually acted, Doran didn’t, not until Arianne forced his hand.

Doran and Arianne are terrible at talking to each other. And they each have their reasons, very understandable ones. It’s such a human story. It’s not driven by various plot contrivances, it’s about character. And the fact that Doran and Arianne are so similar - more similar than we’ve ever had reason to believe Doran and Quentyn are - enables it all to happen. Arys claims she has more of her uncle in her than her father, and that’s just another demonstration of how he never knew her at all - just like the friends Arianne brought on her journey through the desert, he doesn’t understand her, Doran, or what drives them (which is why Daemon is so cool, because he fundamentally gets her). Arianne waits. She thinks. She observes. And the reason she fails is because she’s operating with incomplete information. She has no way of knowing what she doesn’t know! Once she has more information, her decisions improve dramatically.

Arianne likes pretty much everyone. It’s not an act, it’s that she’s genuinely a people person. But at the same time, she’s really very introverted, most of the time, withdrawing from her friends during their trip through the desert to think on her own; not actually sharing deep emotional stuff with Tyene; refusing Drey’s challenge to tie a knot in the beard of the old guy that fell asleep at a feast...Even when she refuses to marry Lord Grandison, she admits he’s a pleasant enough fellow. So when she doesn’t like someone - Lord Estermont, Darkstar, Lysono Maar - the reader trusts her intution, because she’s not dumb, she’s not prone to overreaction, she’s calm and reasonable and logical.

In this regard, she’s really Cersei’s counterpoint. While Cersei has massive amounts of unearned confidence, Arianne is wracked with self doubt. While Cersei makes dumb decision after dumb decision and dismisses important information before thinking about what it means, Arianne proves herself to be incredibly clever, capable of drawing reasonable conclusions from small scraps of information. And while Cersei was never on equal footing with her father, Arianne is with hers.

After the failure of her plot to crown Myrcella, she’s locked in a tower, she’s been isolated for so long, she’s furious with herself and grieving, and yet...with words alone, she can convince Doran he should stop bullshitting her. Doran is the one that’s explaining himself to her, Doran is the one that came in expecting contrition only to himself be struck with the realization that he really fucked up, Doran is the one that gives her the reassurance she’s been longing for for years.

Doran and Arianne so similar that she has pretty much all of his strengths and a fair number of his weaknesses - specifically the inability to communicate - but she’s also the one that can push him into actually doing something. She’s the one that stops him from crashing and burning. Without her, there would be no salvaging any of his plans after the Queenmaker incident. Sure, her plan failed because she didn’t understand what he was doing, but his plans were already falling apart without her.

Arianne becomes her father’s equal partner in ways we just don’t see with other characters. You could maybe make a case for the Tyrells, but we don’t have much information about that at all - we have no idea how much of that was them being active participants and how much was them doing what they were told. With Arianne and Doran, though, they become a team. He trusts her to represent him. He trusts her intuition and believes in her ability to make the right decision. And they’re two of the only characters in the story to really get that it isn’t a game. It’s war. Being good at cyvasse does not mean you’ll win. That last part is kind of what’s most important to me here - because so many people think Doran is still keeping secrets from Arianne, that he’s still using her as a piece in his game, that Arianne doesn’t have any skills. They’re neglecting the fact that these people understand the human cost of war. These chess game analogies do not work here.

Arianne is just...she’s so much better of a character than she gets credit for, and it frustrates me.

[coolgreatwebsite]

Cool Games I Finished In 2020 (In No Real Order)

Oh, hey! Right! I have a website! I’m like a week late on writing this, but what’s a week on top of an entire year of not writing, right? 2020 was... well, we all know what 2020 was. For me personally, it was simultaneously the best and worst year of my life. The worst in both ways you can probably assume and ways you definitely can’t (neither of which I’ll be getting into), and the best in ways I absolutely never would have guessed. That uncertain job I mentioned last year got very suddenly much more certain, at a much bigger company, for a much larger amount of money. That allowed me to get my own place, making my weird living situation much less weird. Still haven’t gotten the majority of my belongings off of the east coast, but if the entire world wasn’t currently fucked up by a global pandemic I’d have sorted all that out too. What I’m saying is that, for the third year in a row, my life has been a complete whirlwind that has left me very little time to get comfortable with any aspect of it. But I did manage to play more video games than I did last year! Which is perfect, because it’s once again time for another one of these. Here’s a bunch of cool games I experienced for the first time in 2020.

Astro’s Playroom (PlayStation 5, 2020)

My one word description of Astro's Playroom is "delightful". It's just an absolute goddamn delight. A total surprise too! Included with every PlayStation 5, Astro's Playroom is, in my opinion, one of the best pack-in games of all time.

First off, it's an incredible tech demo for the PS5's new DualSense controller. It was easy to brush off Sony's talk about the controller's haptic feedback and triggers as some Nintendo-style HD Rumble bullshit, but it really is incredibly cool once you get your hands on it. The game is obviously more than a tech demo though, or else it wouldn't be on here. It also just so happens to be an extremely solid and fun platformer on top of that. Astro controls exceptionally well and the levels are all well-designed and fun, even the gimmick vehicle ones designed to show off different features of the controller. It also has an oddly compelling speedrun mode, made all the more compelling by the PS5 notifying you when your friends beat your times and the ability to load into it within two seconds from anywhere on the console. But the biggest thing for me and, call me a mark, because I am, is that the game is an honestly incredible love letter to PlayStation history.

For the first time ever, Sony has pulled off a nostalgia piece without it ending up as embarrassing garbage in the vein of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. There's a Nintendo-like joyful reverence for all things PlayStation oozing out of every single corner of this game. There are so many nods and references and gags for literally every PlayStation thing of note throughout the the last 25 years, and then on top of that there's a whole heap more for the things that AREN'T of note that only hyperdorks like me would get! A sly reference to the ill-fated boomerang controller? Yep. A goof on the fat PS3's Spider-Man font? You betcha. A trophy you can earn by repeatedly punching a Sony Interactive Entertainment sign until it breaks and reveals the Sony Computer Entertainment sign it was slapped on top of? Yeah buddy. It's deep cuts all the way down, even up until the final boss which had me grinning like a total dipshit the entire time. The game is endlessly, effortlessly charming.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch, 2020)

Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the perfect game at the perfect time. That doesn't mean it's a perfect game, I actually have some issues with it, but it could not have released at a better time than when it did. It came out at the very very beginning of everyone going into lockdown due to the pandemic, and it was the biggest game in the world for a couple of months as a result. I played like 300 hours and that pales in comparison to the amount of time many others put into it.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the most different Animal Crossing game there's ever been, and I'm of two minds on it. Like, I loved the game, I played a ton of it, but it's lacking so much of the stuff that made me love Animal Crossing in the first place. The series has been slowly trending in this direction for a bit now, but it's not really a game that happens around you anymore. It's all about total player control. You select where everything goes, you customize every detail of everything to your liking, hell, you can even terraform the landmass to be exactly what you want. Your neighbors take a backseat in focus and end up as little more than decorations with limited dialogue and next to no quests associated with them. Series staples like Gyroids are missing in action. Facilities and services that have been around since Wild World aren't implemented. It's similar to past Animal Crossing games in a lot of ways, but on the whole it feels like a different thing.

But like I said, two minds. New Horizons strays from what I truly want from an Animal Crossing game, but I can't deny that the game as it is is a hell of a lot of fun. There's SO much you can do and SO many options, it's super addictive. Plus it implemented my long-requested feature of letting you effortlessly send mail to friends online! Too bad the actual online play is as cumbersome as ever.

In conclusion, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a land of contrasts. I'm kidding. It's good, but definitely missing something in a way where I can understand some people being disappointed in it. I had a ton of fun though, and I'm probably going to get back into it later in 2021.

Trials of Mana (Nintendo Switch, 2019)

Late in 2019, with the physical release of Collection of Mana for the Switch, I decided I was going to play through each game on it for the first time and finally find out what this whole Mana thing was about. I went into Final Fantasy Adventure (the first game in the Mana series, because every RPG had to be Final Fantasy back then) with zero expectations and found a totally serviceable little Zelda-like with light RPG elements. I enjoyed my time with it. I went into Secret of Mana with the expectation of it being a beloved classic and found the worst game I beat that year, hands down. That game fucking sucks. I get why it made an impression on people at the time, but it's just so so SO awful to play. Needless to say I was pretty disappointed. Honestly, I would have been disappointed even if I hadn't heard it was one of "the best games" for so long. It would have been a disappointing follow-up to Final Fantasy Adventure, a game that in and of itself isn't anything incredible. Secret of Mana is just that rotten.

I braced myself for more disappointment when (after a much needed vacation from the series) I started up Trials of Mana. This game had a reputation too, as a long-lost classic that never made it stateside. One of the best games on the Super Nintendo, criminally never released for western audiences! Like Secret of Mana before it, I'd heard nothing but effusive praise. Unlike Secret of Mana, however, I was very pleased to find out that Trials of Mana mostly lives up to the hype. From a gameplay standpoint, Trials is an improvement on Secret in almost every single way. It's not perfect. The menus are still kinda clunky, animations for things like magic and items are still frequently disruptive. But the main thing is it actually plays like a sensible video game designed by humans with brains. Attacking is responsive! Hitboxes aren't complete nonsense! You don't constantly get stunlocked to death! There are more answers to combat than casting the same spell for five straight minutes to kill your enemies before they get a chance to move! It's great!

On top of being an enjoyable video game to actually play, the presentation is top notch. Secret of Mana could be a pretty game with decent music in some spots, but Trials is consistently gorgeous and the soundtrack is across the board great instead of randomly having songs that sound like clown vomit. And while Trials of Mana doesn't have the deepest story in the world, it manages to avoid being completely paper-thin like Secret. The story actually kind of has a reason for being a bit straightforward, and the reason is that it has a really cool system where you pick your three playable characters from a pool of six. Each character has their own goals and storyline, some of which line up with other potential party members, some of which don't, and you'll even run into the characters you didn't choose as NPCs along the way. This and the relatively brisk pace of the game make it highly replayable.

I'm really glad that Trials of Mana made it over here in an official capacity, even if it was like 25 years late. It's as good as I expected Secret of Mana to be and singlehandedly saved my interest in seeing any more of the series. I'm aware the quality of what came after is very spotty, but I'll get to the rest eventually!

Final Fantasy VII Remake (PlayStation 4, 2020)

They (almost) did it. They (basically) pulled it off. They remade (a chunk of) Final Fantasy VII and (for the most part) didn't fuck it up. Ok, funny parentheticals aside, Final Fantasy VII Remake is astoundingly good coming off of over two decades of just absolutely dreadful post-FF7 sequels, side games, and movies.

Final Fantasy VII has been historically misremembered as this kind of miserable, angsty, brooding thing, both by fans and by the company that made it. FF7-branded media after FF7 itself is a minefield of changed personalities, embarrassing original characters, and monumentally lame stories. Final Fantasy VII Remake is the first post-FF7 anything that actually remembers the characters, setting, and plot of Final Fantasy VII and what made them memorable and special to people in the first place. Which isn't to say it's a slavish recreation! There's a ton of changes and additions, and I actually like almost all of them! Except for some really big stuff I'll touch on in a bit!

The combat in Final Fantasy VII Remake is great. I was super skeptical about it when the game was first announced, but they actually managed to make the blend of real-time action and turn-based RPG menuing fun and engaging. The characters all play super differently from each other too, which is a huge and welcome difference from the original game. The Materia system fits like a glove in this revamped combat system as well. The remixed music is good as hell, and the visuals are beautiful (outside of a couple of very specific spots that I'm kinda of surprised they haven't fixed in a patch yet). It's a well-executed package all around.

But alas, as always, there are negatives. For starters, this is only part one of the overall Final Fantasy VII Remake project. It goes up to the party leaving Midgar which, as you may or may not recall, is the first six hours of the original game. They compensated for this by fleshing the hell out of the Midgar section the game, ballooning the overall playtime to total of about 30-ish hours. The game feeling padded is a common complaint but for what it's worth, I didn't really feel it until the unnecessarily long final dungeon, There's also the previously mentioned and funny parenthetical'd changes and additions I don't like.

This is big time spoilers for this game so if you don't want that jump ahead to the next game on the list. The Whispers suck ass. Final Fantasy VII Remake should have been brave enough to be different without having to constantly derail everything in the most ham-fisted and intrusive way possible. You can have Jessie twist her ankle without making a spooky plot ghost trip her. I don't want to fight the physical manifestation of the game everyone thought they were getting as an end boss. If you're not doing a straight remake, that's fine, but have the fucking guts to stand by your artistic decisions without feeling the need to invent the lamest deus ex machina I've ever fucking seen. The last couple of hours of this game are 100% about the Whispers and are awful for it. It's a true testament to the strength of the rest of Final Fantasy VII Remake that this aspect didn't completely sour me on it. I can only hope that they stay dead and gone for good in the games yet to come and the remake can be different while standing on its own two feet.

I truly cannot wait for the next entry in the Final Fantasy VII Remake project. I'm excited for Final Fantasy VII in a way I haven't been since the late 90s. I have a bit of trepidation that they could royally screw it up. I mean, they already got kinda close, as I said in my last paragraph. But they got so much right in this entry that, for the first time in decades, I'm willing to believe in Square Enix when it comes to Final Fantasy VII.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (PlayStation 4, 2020)

My one word description of 13 Sentinels is "fucking crazy". I realize that's two words, but shut up. A bizarre hybrid of visual novel, adventure game, and strategy RPG, 13 Sentinels not only makes that work, but makes it work incredibly well. 

The story is fucking bonkers. It's told entirely non-linearly and is purposefully dense and confusing, but it does an amazing job of hooking you with a cast of likable characters and some impressively well-paced twists, made all the more impressive by the fact that you can tackle the story in basically whatever order you want. I'll say it again for those in the back, the story is Fucking Bonkers. Wherever you think it's going, it's not going. Where it is going is PLACES. Seriously, if you want a wild goddamn ride, this is the game for you. The presentation is also stunning. It's a drop dead gorgeous game with a really nice soundtrack. Easily Vanillaware's best looking game, which is saying something seeing as looking good is Vanillaware's whole deal.

If I had to levy one criticism against the game, it's that the strategy RPG portion is just kind of ok. It's enjoyable enough, it doesn't get in the way and there's not too much of it, but once it starts introducing armored versions of previous enemy types it's kind of done doing anything different. It is really good at getting people to out themselves as having no idea what tower defense is as a genre though!

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (Nintendo Switch, 2018)

I haven't really historically been a "Musou Guy". Not to say I've actively disliked them, they're just not something I've seeked out very often or played very much of. Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition kinda turned me into a "Musou Guy" a little bit? It's good, surprisingly-less-mindless-than-you'd-think fun.

I actually super don't care about the Zelda branding. I think all the fanservice stuff is meh at best. What I do care about is that there's a ton of character variety and a metric shitload of content. There's so many different characters and weapons for those characters that all play differently from one another and SOOOOOO many levels to play. Like the story mode is, again, kinda meh, the real meat of the game is the Adventure mode and there's a ton of it. It's 8 different world maps, each based off a different Zelda game, with each square of the map containing a little mini-scenario with unique objectives and rewards. There has to be at least 1000 scenarios between all the maps. There's so much. And that's not even getting into some of the other side stuff like the challenge modes and the fairy raising. It's a crazy amount of game in this game.

And again, it's not as mindless as it'd seem. It's not really a game ABOUT destroying 5000 guys, it's an area control and resource management game where the 5000 guys are one of those resources. Knowing who to send where and when to fight who is way more important than pressing the XXX YYY XXX YYY on the more than one million troops.

I'd say that if you're even cursorily potentially maybe interested in a musou game, this is the one to try. And if you like it, it could literally be your forever game. A sequel came out recently too, and I'm looking forward to trying that out soon.

Phantasy Star Online 2 (Xbox One, 2020)

Phantasy Star Online 2 finally came stateside in the year 2020, eight years after its initial Japanese release and initial American cancellation. It's no Phantasy Star Online 1, but it is a really fun game in its own right provided you can find the willpower to break through its clunkiness and eight years of confusing poorly tutorialized free-to-play MMO cruft.

The main thing going for PSO2, and this is a major improvement from PSO1, is that the act of engaging in its combat is fun. The combat is just feels really really good. There's a bunch of different weapon types and classes, and once you find the ones that really click with you you're in for a good time, whether you're izuna dropping dudes with wire claws or literally doing air juggles and rainstorm from Devil May Cry with the dual machine guns.

The other stuff around that combat is weird. I generally like it, but it's weird. The story mode is one of the most bizarrely presented things I've ever seen. It apparently used to be something you'd seek out in the levels themselves, but presently it's just a list of scenes you pick from a menu and watch with next to no context until it makes you fight a boss sometimes. There's some weird moments in there that MIGHT have been cool if it were presented in literally any other way?

The systems and presentation are also way more... I dunno, pinball? Pachislot? In very stark contrast to how chill original Phantasy Star Online was, everything in PSO2 is designed in a way to maximize that flashy light bing bing wahoo you got ~*~RARE DROP CHANCE UP~*~  feeling. Which isn't to say I don't like flashy light bing bing wahoo, but it's a weird different thing.

Was it worth the wait? Yeah, sure! For me! This is another one that I played like 300 hours of! I haven't even seen half of it, I fell off right before Episode 4 released because it coincided with my move! I'm gonna go back and see all that shit! PSO2's fun! A different flavor of fun than the original, sure, but fun all the same. Another one that I'm glad finally made it over here.

Riichi Mahjong (A Table, 1924)

Holy shit I fucking did it I finally learned how to play Mahjong and it rules.

It started when I picked up Clubhouse Games for the Switch. I saw that it had Riichi Mahjong and something in my brain snapped. For whatever reason, I decided that this was the time I was going to rip the band-aid off and figure this shit out. It wasn't too dissimilar to the first time I decided to try eggs, but that's a different and much stupider story for a different time. I did the tutorial in Clubhouse Games, looked up some more basics and advice because the tutorial wasn't super amazing, and I kept playing while being aided by the game's nice helper features like the button that pulls up recommended hands. I kept playing and... sorta got it. I learned the basic rules, but none of the strategy. And then I stopped playing for a few months.

In that few months, for whatever reason, a decent amount of people I know had their brains snap the same way? Like a more-than-two amount of people I'm either friends with or following online also decided to learn Mahjong. I decided to get back on the horse and downloaded Mahjong Soul and I don't know whether it was perseverance or the power of anime babes, but this time I got it. I still refer to a sheet with all the hands and whether they work open or closed, and I'm by no means a master player, but I actually honest to god understand what I'm doing and it's an incredible feeling.

Mahjong has such a huge amount of what I like to call "Get That Ass" energy. It is the energy you feel when you get someone's ass. In Mahjong you are either constantly getting someone's ass or getting your ass gotten. Someone puts down the wrong tile and you fucking GET THEIR ASS DUDE! They're got!! They're a fucking idiot that put down the wrong thing and now you have their points!!! Or you draw what you need yourself and you're a brain genius all according to plan and everyone gives you points because you're so wise!!!! It's great!!!!!

Mahjong has long been one of those games where I'd say "I'll learn this someday" and never reeeeally actually try to learn, and I'm so glad I finally took the effort to because it's good as hell. And, truth be told, it wasn't THAT hard to learn? Like you can get to the point where I was where I didn't know the strategy fairly easily in my opinion, and once you do that It's just a matter of continuing to play to understand the rest. I highly recommended that you also go out and learn it if you similarly revel in getting that ass, it's so satisfying once you do.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon (PlayStation 4, 2020)

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio took a big gamble with Yakuza: Like a Dragon. After seven games (more if you take spinoffs and remakes into consideration) they decided to focus on a new main character and, even more unexpectedly, they decided to change things up by turning the series into a turn-based JRPG. Their gamble paid off in spades. This is easily in my top 3 favorite Yakuza games.

The JRPG gameplay is surprisingly solid. There's definite room for improvement, but they nailed a bunch of it right out of the gate. Some mechanics are a little janky and I wish the job system was more fleshed out or just worked more like Final Fantasy V's, but they nailed one of the most important things and made the battles brisk and fun. It's a great foundation, especially for a team that's never attempted anything like this, and it's way more fun than the combat's been in any of the previous Dragon Engine games. I can't wait to see them iterate on it.

Everything else is top fuckin' notch. The music is great, the side content is fully fleshed out in a way it hasn't been since before they switched to the Dragon Engine, and I love the characters and story so much. Yakuza has a new main character in Ichiban Kasuga, and he's my son and I love him. Kiryu was great, and I love him too, but he was a bit of a passive protagonist. Stuff happened around him and he mostly just stoically reacted to it. Ichi is a much more active lead and it's great. He's a big lovable dope, and his tendency to keep an upbeat attitude and eagerness to leap into action is such a breath of fresh air. And it's not only Ichiban, since this is an RPG you have a whole party of characters and they're all great! Having them with you at all times bantering with each other and reacting to things is another great change of narrative pace, too. 

Yakuza: Like a Dragon just straight up rules. As someone who has historically not been too much of a fan of the Dragon Engine games, it's simultaneously a refreshing new take on the series and a fantastic return to form. I can't wait for what comes next. Wherever Ichiban goes, I go.

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure (Nintendo Switch, 2020)

After 23 years of Japanese PS1 exclusivity, Moon: Remix RPG Adventure finally got an English release this year for Nintendo Switch. I'm glad it did, because Moon isn't just the very definition of A Sebmal Game. It's the Sebmal Game missing link. In addition to being just a great video game, it helped me make a mental throughline for a bunch of games I love and a large part of my taste in video games.

To keep a long story short (seriously, I have a much much longer version of this saved in my drafts that I'll maybe finish someday), Moon turned out to be not the JRPG I assumed it was, given the title and basic story pitch, but a secret prequel to a game I love named Chulip. Moon's developer, Love-de-Lic, was formed by a handful of ex-Squaresoft employees, many of which worked on an extremely formative game I love named Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Love-de-Lic broke up in the year 2000 and its staff went on to form a bunch of different studios that ended up making a BUNCH of different games I love like Chibi-Robo, Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, Dandy Dungeon, and the aforementioned Chulip. These games, when you make the connection and line them up, all have a very distinct weirdness in common that makes perfect sense once you've realized many of the same people worked on them. Figuring this all out felt like snapping a piece of my brain back in place, and it was really crazy to come to understand exactly how much this studio that formed and disbanded decades before I'd even heard of them had impacted my tastes and, hell, my life.

So what is Moon, for those who don't innately understand what I mean by "a secret prequel to Chulip"? Moon is an adventure game where you explore a world with a day/night cycle, learn about that world's inhabitants, and eventually solve their problems. Think of it kind of like The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, but if the sidequests were the entirety of the focus with no Groundhog Day time reset mechanic and none of the Zelda stuff like combat and dungeons. You play as a young boy who, after a late night JRPG binge session, is sucked into the world of the game he was just playing. Everything is off from the way it was portrayed while the boy was playing the game, though. The hero he had previously controlled is actually a silent menace, raiding peoples' houses for treasure and slaughtering every innocent animal that crosses his path in an endless quest for EXP. The townspeople seem more concerned with problems in their day-to-day lives than the supposed world threatening crisis outlined in the game's intro. It's up to you as the boy to investigate this world's mysteries, help the townsfolk, mend the damage the hero has done, and eventually restore love to a loveless world.

Speaking of love, I fucking loved Moon. I loved the story, I loved the characters, I loved the music, I loved the way it looks (even though the Switch port is a little crusty in that basic emulator-y kinda way), I loved how constantly bizarre and surprising and funny it was. Like I said earlier, it's the very definition of a game made for me. It was essentially the progenitor of a long line of games made for me, and of games potentially made for me but I don't know yet because I haven't played them due to not understanding Japanese (UFO: A Day in the Life translation next please? Anyone from Onion Games reading this??). For as similar as Moon and Chulip are in their systems and pacing, I think I might actually like Moon better despite it coming earlier? It's not as full force maximum impact absurd as Chulip is, but it is a lot more playable and less obtuse once you get a grip on the time limit mechanic. You don't need a full strategy guide included in the instruction manual for Moon, and you don't need to exchange business cards with every single character to get information vital to finishing the game either.

I truly cannot recommend Moon enough if your taste in games ventures anywhere off the beaten path. Maybe this is a little conceited of me, but I assume if you're reading this article, let alone this far down into it, you relate to my video game opinions at least a little bit? You should play Moon. Everyone reading this sentence should play Moon. Moon: Remix RPG Adventure is my game of the year for the year 2020.

These games were also cool, I just had less to say about them:

Death Stranding (PlayStation 4, 2019): Death Stranding, much like Metal Gear Solid V, was a game I enjoyed for the gameplay and not much else. The story, characters, and writing were a huge disappointment for me, but man if I didn't enjoy lugging those boxes around and setting up my hellish cross-continental goon summer camp lookin' zipline network. Mr. Driller Drill Land (Nintendo Switch, 2020): I am a known Mr. Driller Enjoyer, and I enjoyed this Mr. Driller. Originally released for the Gamecube, Mr. Driller Drill Land is another long-time Japanese exclusive that finally came stateside this year and it's packed with new and novel twists on the Mr. Driller format. It looks super sharp, the music's great (also the credits music is the most impossibly out of place and extra as hell shit in the world and it's hilarious), and it's just a good ass time. The main campaign is pretty damn short, but if you're a post-game content kinda guy it has that and it's all super hard. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 (PlayStation 4, 2020): They finally made another good new Tony Hawk game, and all it took was perfectly remaking two of the best old Tony Hawk games! Plays exactly like you remember it with the added benefit of the best mechanics from up to THUG1, looks great, packed full of content, even has most of the music alongside some mostly crappy new stuff. It's the full package as is, but I do hope they end up adding THPS3 to it eventually. Mad Rat Dead (Nintendo Switch, 2020): Mad Rat Dead was a pleasant surprise that I only picked up because I saw a couple of people on my Twitter timeline constantly talking about it. A fun and inventive platformer where all your actions need to be on beat with the music. The gameplay feels great (aside from some not so great performance issues on Switch), the soundtrack is fun, and it's got a real good style to it. Demon's Souls (PlayStation 5, 2020): I love Demon's Souls and this is Demon's Souls. It plays exactly the same with some minor quality of life changes. I don't agree with many of the artistic changes, but there's no denying it looks incredible on a technical level. If you want to play Demon's Souls again or for the first time, this is a perfectly valid and fun way to do so. Groove Coaster: Wai Wai Party!!!! (Nintendo Switch, 2019): Groove Coaster is one of my favorite rhythm games, and they finally made an acceptable at-home version with Wai Wai Party. It's not a perfect replication of the arcade game control-wise, I have some issues with the song choices, and the pricing is frankly fucking ridiculous if you're not a Groove Coaster maniac like I am, but the same ultra satisfying gameplay is all there. You can even play it vertically in handheld mode! Flip Griiiiiiiip!

And we're done! Phew! Honestly didn't realize I played that many good games until I typed all this out. Thanks as always for reading this far. I'm gonna try and get back to regularly posting Breviews this year at the very least. Honestly don't know if I'll get anything else up on here, but we'll see. Here's to hoping 2021 is a little bit less of a nightmare!

[professorspork]

today in the Andromeda Galaxy, I EXPERIENCED EXTREME EMOTIONAL DURESS

so, to recap, though I’ve said this before: i’m heartbroken and highkey dramatic over the fact that this game is making me choose between Jaal and Peebee when JAAL AND PEEBEE HAVE CRUSHES ON EACH OTHER AND I HAVE CRUSHES ON THEM AND THEY HAVE CRUSHES ON ME. like. this game came out in 2017, people had definitely heard of polyamory by then!!!

the thing about Peebee is that her whole “I’m a tough cookie, I don’t need anyone, don’t look at my actually because I tripped and expressed a feeling, no one’s ever been there for me like you” spiel is my kryptonite. but. the thing about Jaal is that we never should have met! we are aliens not just from different systems, but from across dark space. for Ryder to travel all this way, not knowing what she wanted from life, and then to meet this person who also felt directionless and unfulfilled... for them to meet each other, and go oh, there you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. LIKE!!! that shit is so epic, and so thematically important to the way I’m playing my Ryder... I decided ages ago to romance Jaal this time around, but then stopped playing this game for like two weeks in part because it was Thanksgiving and I was busy, in part to focus on that kristanna WIP, but mostly-- MOSTLY!!-- because I knew I’d have to make the final choice, and Helen’s been torturing me by saying “wow you’re gonna break Peebee’s heart.”

the initial plan was to play Peebee’s loyalty mission and flirt with her more then, to get the most out of it, then lock in with Jaal, then do her last little scene.

things... did not go according to plan.

first I finished Cora’s loyalty bonus scene, where she accidentally quoted Hamilton a lot and we threw seeds into the air as though that’s what gardening is. that was really sweet. I took out the Kett outpost on Eos while we were there, and then Vetra told me about her prized ugly lamp she’s still looking for, and that was great. so I was like, great, let’s do Vetra’s close-out scene next!

READER, I MADE A MISTAKE

I was all set to be like ‘ha ha, I used the jump jets, I cheated’ and then Vetra reached for my hand and asked me is this real? about all the (EXTREMELY G-RATED) flirting I’d been doing and I had to say NO, I THOUGHT WE WERE PLAYING AROUND like some kind of MONSTER. I legit did not realize I’d flirted enough with Vetra that we’d have to have this conversation, and I was so traumatized by the whole ordeal i was like I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN FOLLOW THE PLAN

so I played it cool. I calmed down. I checked in on Avitus on the Nexus and did a toast with the other Pathfinders. I went to Elaaden and learned Dr. Aden was FAKING being Saelen to trick me, and we got Poc back. But then Peebee started ranting about how it had opened up the Kalinda wounds again and she still cares and this is what happens when you let people in, and oh no she’s letting me in, and despite The Plan I could not bring myself to flirt/sleep with her knowing the decision I’d already made

mortified at myself, I hightailed it to Havarl to lock in with Jaal. I WAS SO NERVOUS I FUMBLED THE CONTROLLER TRYING TO INTERRUPT TO HUG HIS MOM AND DIDN’T HUG HER. but like, I gotta say.... after all that build-up I’m kinda disappointed? not in Jaal, he was a perfect dork prince for every moment and he said I MAKE HIS HEART SING and told me how he took things apart as a kid (GEE WHO DOES THAT SOUND LIKE THAT I KNOW) and showed me his glow in the dark sticky star set. but the Ryder reactions and dialogue choices just felt extremely underwhelming-- like ‘yeah okay we might as well do this.’ THIS IS NOT A YEAH OKAY MIGHT AS WELL SORT OF LOVE STORY, BIOWARE, WTF. it killed me to watch Ryder be so blase about it after I’d agonized for literal weeks over how to do this. 

but I digress. it’s fine, and now his mom sends me cute emails and he calls me darling one when we part ways

with that done, I did the meat of Peebee’s loyalty mission, which was a lot of fun (but not quite as fun as Liam’s). the initial set-up with the hijacked pod (THE SAFETY BARS WON’T FIT OVER DRACK) was hilarious, and once again, like with Vetra’s and Jaal’s before that, I felt REAL FEAR over my interrupt choices. in this case, I chose to shoot Kalinda, because uh fuck her frankly she’s the bitch who broke Peebee’s heart and I won’t feel bad about it, she was an awful person and an abuser. but to hear Peebee be so torn up about it after... SHE TRIES SO HARD TO PUT ON A TOUGH COOKIE FRONT BUT SHE’S SUCH A SOFTIE. I CAN’T. I CANNOT. when she was like “now where will I sleep?” i was very sad to realize the flirt option, unavailable to me, probs would have been like “well my bed is free” and sadly none of the other options were “i’m sure Liam’s terrible, terrible couch is available.”  AND THEN SHE SENT ME AN EMAIL PROMISING TO BE MORE OF A TEAM PLAYER. friends i am so sad i cannot romance her too, i can’t emphasize that enough i really can’t. and I can’t even romance her next time because I’ve already decided my next Ryder is going to be a whiny pissbaby dude who can’t handle the pressure and that Ryder certainly will not deserve her

then I went to do a few errands on Kadara, and I brought Peebee and Jaal with me because of course I did, and they talked about whether or not asari and angarans can reproduce because SURE, WHY WOULDN’T THEY, THIS GAME HASN’T TORTURED ME ENOUGH. I wrapped up the Saelen storyline, and was actually torn for a hot second there over whether to arrest Aden or get his info-- but ultimately my Ryder’s too Just to let killing innocent people slide, even for kett intel. (pissbaby Ryder will def get it.)

and then Peebee was too embarrassed to tell me we’re friends face to face and made Poc do it, and then she called a FAMILY MEETING to say she’s PROUD AND HAPPY TO BE ONE OF US, and I had so many feelings I had to stop playing.

in conclusion: get fucked, romancing mechanic, i can’t believe you won’t let me resolve the world’s least conflict-ridden and most-compatible triangle with the polyamory we all deserve.

PLEASE GOD LET THERE BE ONE FIC OUT THERE. JUST ONE, THAT’S ALL I ASK, I WON’T BE GREEDY. PLS.

[categoricalglitches]

You know, it’s been three weeks and I’m still so fucking mad about this. What the fuck is going on with the morality of Star Trek: Picard? I don’t just mean the show, although that’s fucked up enough in its own right. I mean reactions across fandom, and it’s those that really fuck me off.

 Let’s review, shall we?

 Sutra convinced Soji and the other synths to build a beacon to call in the Reapers to kill literally everyone else alive in the galaxy to save their own skins, having rejected the alternative option to take all, what, thirty is probably pushing it of them and flee because, supposedly, then they would be refugees forever (oh hey, remember earlier in the season when the show established there was a Romulan refugee crisis?). Instead, in episode 9 Soji rambles at Picard about the calculus of sacrifice or whatever as if the handful of them are somehow comparable to—again—the entire rest of the galaxy. And whines about how their existence is against the law, which sucks for them, but uh… that’s only because a pair of mad scientist assholes decided their mad science was more important than the law or the existence as illegal beings their creations had to look forward to (oh hey, remember genetic engineering is also banned in the Federation and how there was a whole storyline about that once and this clear and obvious inspiration parallel was literally never even brought up once in Picard?). 

And not a one of them is even the slightest bit conflicted about this course of action! 

And, reminder: they build the beacon, then they activate the beacon, then the Reapers poke a few tentacles through, Picard makes a terrible speech that still somehow convinces Soji (who, let’s be real, is the only synth left that actually matters anyway) that maybe killing everyone else is not the way to go after all, and then she smashes a console and that works to end the threat somehow. Conclusion: the synths did nothing wrong! In fact, reward them for pressing cancel on killing the galaxy by unbanning them. What a beautiful story.

 Agnes murdered one of the aforementioned mad scientists and was in obvious emotional distress over it. Consequence: was going to turn herself in for it, still might be. And everyone’s either really mad about this or claiming that the mind meld made her do it (curiously, the Admonition ‘breaking minds’ is never brought up as an extenuating circumstance for the Zhat Vash…).

 Narek manipulated and tried to murder Soji—and was in tears doing it—and then for some reason killed Saga with Sutra (seriously that looked so dumb). And any number of bullshit discourse takes followed. (Consequence, for however little it’s worth: he fell into a plothole and was never seen again.)

 And the less said about Elnor and the fact that I’m pretty sure he’s only killed other Romulans in service of the man who abandoned him and his people, the better. (I love Elnor. But this is a problem.)

 Now, I want to make this clear. I’m not saying the Zhat Vash, collectively, aren’t a bunch of vicious thugs. Or that it’s bad that the synths felt cornered and desperate. What I’m saying is that there’s a ridiculously skewed sense of morality pervading both the show and discourse surrounding it, and it pisses me the fuck off. But everyone’s acting like the denizens of Synthsville never actually activated the Reaper Alarm Clock, so they didn’t actually end up doing anything wrong. 

Well, they did activate that fucking thing, and the fact that they decided to change her mind just as well might not have mattered. It’s not like they knew going in there was a grace period during which they could cancel the summoning, or that destroying that one console would stop the Reapers coming through. That’s all fine, but Agnes’ one single solitary murder is so heinous half the viewership is out of for her blood, and Narek’s somehow so “evil” he’s beyond redemption?

 Yeah, pass.

 Also, it bothers me that they spent an episode re-emphasizing that individual Borg drones are victims and worth fighting for, only to have them die tragically but pointlessly in massive numbers, and then for Seven to establish a local collective like it’s no big deal and even sort of cool, maybe (hey wasn’t there an entire episode of Voyager about how she did that once and it turned out to have very serious consequences for the other drones?) and then, surprise, nothing came of it again. And let’s not forget that for all its episode 1 bluster of “no, lives!” Romulan lives are worth jack shit in this show.

 I mean, fuck, I’m still willing to pretend this whole summoning the Reapers bullshit never happened so that I could, maybe, enjoy season 2 and Seven/Raffi and… yeah, okay. I just realized that, for now, Seven and Seven/Raffi is all that I have to look forward to in season 2. I don’t understand. I was loving this show so much the first 8 episodes.