#she's been in a star trek and the expanse if she was also in a star war that'd be quite a career trifecta

[airyairyaucontraire]

running thoughts about S3 E01 of The Mandalorian, "The Apostate"

jesus Christ of COURSE the Mandalorians have their child soldier investiture ceremonies RIGHT WHERE A FUCKING MOSASAUR CAN POP UP AND RUIN THINGS

oh my GOD you guys

simple FISH RADAR could've given you the early warning you needed to avoid this malarkey!

THIS IS WHY YOU'RE ALMOST EXTINCT

YES YOU'RE PERSECUTED BUT YOU'VE ALSO GOT NO SENSE

also okay wow

way to upstage Paz YET AGAIN Dindin

you slay the dragon when he can't AND you have A HOT NEW SPORTSCAR and you still have a CUTE BABY

also listen

THERE'S A SQUID IN THE WARP TUNNEL

or maybe it's one of those space whales that Ezra Bridger disappeared with?

ngl I was a little disappointed one of the street musicians on Nevarro wasn't Max Rebo

awwwww they put up a statue to droid Taika

Greef's clothes just keep getting bigger

"The belters are mining the asteroid fields at the edge of the system." Just like The Expanse! let us know how that works out for ya, you're already dressed a bit like Chrisjen Avasarala

absolutely no one is impressed by Grogu's weak sauce name

you know where else you could be apostate landed gentry? TATOOINE

WHERE YOU HAVE FRIENDS WHO LOVE YOU

I'm not saying Greef doesn't care about you but COME ON why move to a planet with one friend (since I don't expect we'll be seeing Cara again) when you could hang out with FOUR friends some of whom are VERY GOOD-LOOKING and talk with fun accents (Kiwi and Cowboy)

c'mon Greef they just wanna get drunk in a school

you know, for a pirate, you don't have a very good hat. Hondo Ohnaka's hat would take a shit on your hat.

GREEF HAS TWO LITTLE BRIDESMAID DROIDS CARRYING HIS CAPE

A GOLD STAR TO WHOSEVER IDEA THAT WAS

what do you mean you need him back

he EXPLODED in LAVA

what makes you think the brainy parts are even there?

I REALLY FEEL LIKE IG-11 WAS A LOT MORE BLOWN UP AT THE TIME THAN THIS MAKES IT LOOK

I mean always happy to have more Taika

assuming he still talks like Taika

maybe his voicebox is effed up

maybe now he sounds like Jemaine Clement

"now that's using your head" says Din

JESUS Din

oh okay it's the tiny cute mechanics from the sequels

HOW DID YOU CRAWL IN THERE

a new side quest begins

did Grogu want to cuddle the tiny mechanic or eat it

YOU KNOW WHO YOU COULD TAKE WITH YOU TO HELP YOU ON YOUR QUEST

COBB VANTH

JUST SAYING

I bet he's feeling a lot perkier by now! and would do basically anything for you if you bought him a drink and put your hand on his knee under the table

like you wouldn't even have to rub it

ohhhhhhhhhhhh he's starting to deliberately TEACH the baby

the pirate is suddenly talking MORE PIRATEY and saying things like Avast

I miss the Space Scotsman, remember him? "Tell that to Kanjiklub!"

CAPTAIN GREENBEARD

will not be appearing much in this episode, I suppose they're just introducing him so he can be a recurring and very moist foe

With Din talking to Grogu so much more, explaining things to him, do you think his little speech delay will start to come right?

say what you will about Bo-Katan Kryze, she certainly can strike a louche pose on a throne. She's no Darth Maul, mind you. Then again, who is? (blows a kiss towards hell for him)

If she's so depressed and all her plans are fucked, why is she still striking poses on thrones?

get a job Bo-Katan

you can always work private security

or be an aesthetician because given what we know about your age clearly you have SOME incredible skincare secret (and your hair always looks nice)

I mean... the planet was poisoned decades ago, that's why everyone was living under domes.

That felt pretty short, I have to say.

I like how you can see from the concept art over the end credits that both Bo-Katan's throne and her pose got fancier over time

[frannyzooey]

I wonder so much about the little SDLN family and how their trek across the country was, especially with a little baby. Any insights on that, or notable events that happened during it?

Yes!

In my mind, it was mostly uneventful -- mostly.

I allude to something in the epilogue, an attack by raiders that injured Joel and gave him a permanent injury (I imagined it to be him getting stabbed in the lower back). Honey would have been sick out of her mind with worry: alone in the wilderness with dwindling supplies and an infant, watching him suffer and knowing she might not be able to save him, but I also know they brought more than enough medical supplies with them (having raided all the cabins for them earlier). He is fine, if not slower on his feet for awhile, but that's about the most eventful thing that happens.

Otherwise: sleeping under the stars while the other kept watch with lots of June curled up against her father's broad chest as they slept, lots of trying to find shelters that would protect them from being too exposed (including finding some cabins along the way that they raided/stayed a couple days in), lots of meandering through the sunlit woods and talking about what they might find in Jackson or telling each other about their lives before, lots of worrying about June and keeping an eye on her, lots of lingering looks and teasing and kisses when they could grab them to evade the constant low, simmering knot of tension that lived within each of them as they traveled through the open land. Lots of Joel being extremely vigilant in order to protect his family, and lots of Honey doing her best to soothe him and distract June from the long, tiresome days.

Some bright spots: June's first steps in a sun drenched field as her parents ate lunch, her first babbled word said over the steady clip of horse hooves, the vast expanse of night sky that Honey saw as she laid on her back next to Joel before he covered it with the shadowed form of his own body, the gates of Jackson when they finally came into view and Tommy's face shortly there after. ❤

[lynxfrost13]

Tagged by @beanthazar for this :]

5 comfort characters

1. Tyrande Whisperwind (World of Warcraft)

I’ve loved Tyrande basically since I’ve loved Warcraft, she’s such a badass character in so many ways, she’s thousands of years old and has been through so much. She’s the leader of her people and the high priestess of her goddess, she’s married and has an adopted kid and they’re the world to her (and in the Stormrage novel she literally goes the the nightmare realm to get her man back, that’s love). I’m forever going to be a little bit salty about how her anger over the massacre of her people was handled during shadowlands but getting to see her help bring a new world tree into existence and then being able to pass the mantle of leadership onto her daughter so she can finally rest is so good to see. I love her she’s great <3

2. James Kirk (Star Trek TOS)

He is such a little shit SPECIFICALLY TOS Kirk. This man gets into shenanigans and meets alien love interests like no one else, he’s just a funny lil guye to me in the best way (and I have a fondness for TOS anyway bc it’s so damn dramatic and over the top)

3. Ariane Yeong (Signalis)

OFFICER YEONG MY FUCKING BELOVED I think about her every day… when you grow up trapped and choose another trap that dooms you because it’s the choice that’ll give you at least a few years of happiness… and you fall in love and finally thrive… only to then suffer horrifically and through forces beyond your comprehension essentially become a god who only wants release from her pain…

4. Chrisjen Avasarala (The Expanse)

This woman is so awfully delightful she’s such a ruthless person with her “earth must come first” mentality and then seeing her soften a bit and being more willing to work with Mars and the Belt was so cool!!! I also just love her excessive swearing and bratty/demanding attitude bc she really does whatever the hell she wants, mean ass grandma who I’m scared of <3

5. Beckett Mariner (Lower Decks)

MARINERRRR she’s such good fun, I love her loud and obnoxious personality but also getting to see her more vulnerable side as the show progressed. She’s just some guy who’s very content with her place in life so long as she’s got her people!!

Taggin but no pressure @star-ar512 @zazanyanya @kestrel-wylde @bi-pan-whiteout @yaoi-goth @uneclipsing @creativebrainrot @foxholemonster @thewrldlooksred @edmunderson and anyone else who wants to ^^

[trillscienceofficer]

Behind the scenes on season four [of Star Trek: Voyager], things continued to evolve. Jeri Taylor, after a long and successful career in television, announced her plans to retire at the end of the year, and Brannon Braga, who had started as an intern on The Next Generation, was now being groomed to take her place as showrunner (the first time he would hold that position). Braga, for his part, wanted to put his own stamp on the series, though it wasn’t always an easy thing to do as Rick Berman remained firmly in charge of the franchise. BRYAN FULLER: I was coming into Voyager in Jeri Taylor’s last year, and so she was handing the baton over to Brannon, and Brannon was very much a new showrunner. There were things that he really wanted to do and should have been able to do, and which would have made the show even better and bolder and bright, but he was not allowed to. Rick Berman more or less told him, “No, you can’t do that, because I can’t control Ira Behr on Deep Space Nine and I have to control you.” The influences of Rick on Brannon’s instincts sort of dampened what the show could have been. Brannon was a great showrunner and had great, bold ideas, but he was working for Rick Berman, who was a daughter of the syndication era. And the show had to be very specifically traditional in a certain sense, and he really squashed some of Brannon’s better ideas. I would love to go back in time and see Brannon do the Voyager that was his instinct to do. [...] You know, my experience with Star Trek consisted primarily of highlights. It was so fantastic to be able to walk onto a Starfleet ship and walk through the corridors. Being in those corridors was surreal and transportive. It was also an interesting time, because I was terrified of screwing it up and yet I was also fascinated with the politics of Rick Berman and Brannon on one show, and Ira on another show. Looking at somebody who had been a showrunner before and had the confidence and the ability to say no with someone who was still reporting to someone and still fulfilling a portion of someone else’s vision. BRANNON BRAGA: I thought Voyager could be a big, expansive, cinematic show. I wanted to up the ante from the production point of view. I would eventually get that chance. I remember Joe Menosky and I went to Jeri Taylor and said we wanted to start doing a series of two-part episodes that would let Voyager make its own stamp. Every single two-parter we did was fucking great and a barn burner. Real scope, and from a really high concept. I always thought Voyager could be high concept. BRYAN FULLER: Despite Rick’s determination to have a stronger hold on Voyager than he could on Deep Space Nine, I’d not deny how much Brannon actually did achieve with the series. He very much was eager to get into more high-concept science-fiction storytelling, like harder science-fiction storytelling. The great stuff with Species 8472, the Borg arc, the “Year of Hell,” the Hirogen and “The Killing Game.” There was a lot of iconography brought back into the world of the storytelling, and less sort of diplomacy and navigating new species and more “Holy shit, we’ve got to fight these guys!” And that was really Brannon coming into his own. Actually Brannon and Joe Menosky were really the creative voices of those last few seasons.

From “The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years” by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman (2016)

[bisexualamy]

@hallasurvivor and i were talking about this last night but also i LOVE how beep the meep looked like a puppet and how the bug guys looked like guys in masks. they were so chunky!! they were so real!! they were just costumes enough to have depth and texture i felt like i could grab them off the screen. ik beep is at least partially cgi but they did a great job with the fur looking closer to a puppet than that super fake glossy cgi fur. i love when the creatures on my screen look like creatures i could grab

also whoever made the decision for beep to be like 3ft tall instead of tribble sized deserves a raise. it makes the meep look so much more unsettling

also also rachel talalay i am sending you flowers for the directing in this episode. besides the obvious excellence of the star trek ii scene the amount of wide shots in this ep!! the amount of frames with 4+ characters in them!! this episode felt so EXPANSIVE which is something i've been sorely missing. she really used the cinematic aspect ratio to her advantage ms talalay i love u

[whovianwatchingstartrek]

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 077 - Home at long last

Star Trek: Enterprise - Season 4 Episode 3 - Home

Enterprise is finally back to Earth, and they've been given a hero's welcome! And what's this? An insightful commentary on the rise of bigotry in post 9/11 America? We're doing something actually good with the whole Iraq War analogy that devoured Season 3? Now we're talking!

The first half of the episode really is just the crew finally getting a chance to relax. Archer spends time at a bar, catches up with an old friend, the captain of the future future NX-02 who's currently selecting her own officers. And T'Pol invites Trip to go to Vulcan to meet her family.

While debriefing about the Vulcan ship they found in the expanse, Archer goes on a bit of Rager at High Command. I get where archer has been coming from, Saval is a bit of dick, but yeah Archer is definitely out of line here.

As I mentioned earlier, apparently Xenophobia against aliens has been rising since the Xindi incident, and it serves as a really nice allegory for the rise in anti-muslim bigotry in the years after 9/11, and after a whole season of Revenge Fantasy, I honestly wasn't expecting this, but it's very conversation around 9/11 that needed to happen, and bold for 2004. And setting of the last two episode being a Nazi Occupation of America now in this episode serves as so much more than a fun season opener now, but a brilliant point of comparison in the attitudes displayed.

I'm not sure how I feel about that allegory being extended to Archer though, who is being portrayed as a hard line militarist here, suggesting that Captain Hernandez take on more weapons on to the NX-02 and a MACO as tactical officer. Him struggling to drop the whole "mission to save the Earth" mode, and his almost PTSD like behaviour could be an interesting character arc if it's played right, though, so I'll wait and see where the season takes him. This episode kinda started a recovery arc for him, especially giving him a mutual apology scene with Savall, but I hope this is a running character arc throughout the season.

Phlox's arc in this episode as a victim of this anti-alien prejudice was also beautifully handled, especially his scene with Hoshi in the medical bay. Poor man is keeping himself locked up on the ship because he doesn't want to cause any incidents.

Even though Trip is only introduced to T'Pol's mother as a colleague, she still clearly disapproves of Trip's presence and it makes me want to know how she'll react when she'll figure out the extent of Trip's relationship with her. This episode brings up a detail that I had actually forgot in the midst of all the T'Pol Trip relationship stuff, and that's that T'Pol has been established to be engaged for a arranged marriage, so I'm looking forward to how that plotline gets resolved. Her agreement to marry Kos, to reinstate her mother's position at the Academy really hurt, because I'm super invested in her relationship with Trip, and I honestly felt the betrayal that Trip was feeling.

The dynamic between T'Pol and her mother was actually really interesting, and how the Science directorate punished her mother because they couldn't do anything to T'Pol herself on Enterprise after the various Vulcan run-ins, and this mutual resentment that's grown between them is just amazing.

This episode did a really good job at setting up the character arcs for this season. There isn't so much a plot direction, but I'm really happy that we're focussing more on the characters than specific mission, and there is a lot of potential for some really good stuff here. Fingers crossed that it delivers.

[fuckyeahfightlock]

I have spent the vast bulk of this three-day weekend re-doing my daughter's bedroom; today was the final build-the-new-bed and reset everything--and she has A LOT of stuff--that had been moved to another room in order to lay down a new rug and move furniture and etc. I'm exhausted beyond exhausted! And unfortunately I had no time to sit and watch a scary movie today.

BUT! I did see a headline this morning that a horror movie I'd like to recommend to you has recently arrived on Hulu (it was and may still be on Tubi, too). Lovely, Dark, and Deep is an extra-dimensional horror about a rookie park ranger on her first assignment at an isolated ranger station in a vast national park. Lennon, whose sister Jenny disappeared in the park when the two were children, discovers a rash of missing-persons cases. Further investigation leads her to uncover secrets, and to a fuller understanding of her true purpose as a guardian of the park and its visitors.

This movie is wonderfully twisty, creepy, sad, and scary. It stars Georgina Campbell, who is intensely compelling and easily carries the film. Written and directed by Teresa Sutherland. Run, don't walk, to watch this unique, eerie, and smart film.

Also written by Teresa Sutherland, coincidentally, was my scary movie yesterday. Directed by Emma Tammi and starring Caitlin Gerard, The Wind is an historic horror set during the Westward Expansion of America.

Lizzie and Isaac have lived on their homestead in New Mexico for several years, alone, until a young couple, Emma and Gideon, move into an abandoned cabin a mile away, becoming their first and only neighbors.

The opening shot of this movie, of Lizzie standing in an open doorway, drenched in blood from her chin to her knees, holding a swaddled infant, sets the tone for the film beautifully. Shortly Lizzie is left alone for a few days, and begins to have eerie, threatening experiences with wolves, the goat, a wandering preacher, Emma's left-behind diary, and the ceaseless, howling wind. Through a series of flashbacks, the story of Lizzie and Isaac's own loss of an infant, as well as the brief history of their relationship with their mile-distant young neighbors (Emma, an unhappy city girl and Gideon, an ill-equipped homesteader are nearly exact opposites of tough and hardworking Lizzie and Isaac), unfold to reveal the existence of a pamphlet called The Demons of the Plains. Is Lizzie haunted by one of those demons? Driven mad by the demands of a lonely life in the empty west? Or is it something much simpler--jealousy of her pretty young neighbor?

I am a fan of horror in any historic setting that ISN'T the damp gaslit streets of Victorian England. Coincidentally just a few weeks ago I finished reading a book about the Donner Party survivors, with absolutely hellacious descriptions of what it took to make the westward trek from St Louis or Chicago toward the Pacific Northwest or California. I had an idea of families happily bouncing along in wagons with their kitchen pots and bedrolls, like Little House on the Prairie, but the reality was often positively harrowing. For instance, walking beside the wagon (and frequently leaving possessions along the side of the trail) to save the oxen from having to carry the weight. Walking. From St. Louis to Sacramento. Those who made it were the toughest of the tough, and not a single day of their lives was easy.

Caitlin Gerard's performance is fantastic and understated--even her "mad scenes" are free of histrionics. While the final act throws a lot at the walls in hopes every viewer will find something that sticks regardless of their idea of what's going on here, overall the movie is intriguing and well worth the watch.

[nebulouscoffee]

much love to you 🫂🫂🫂 here's a star trek ask: what do you think ezri's childhood was like? or alternatively: do you think seven and naomi wildman stay in contact after voyager, and if yes, how do you see that friendship developing?

Thank you friend!! And these are both great questions :D

I think Ezri's childhood was, for lack of a better term, very confined- which is why I'm always so moved by the fact that her destiny (hehe) was to take on an existence so fundamentally expansive. I think her mother did spend a lot of time with her, but it wasn't necessarily time invested in Ezri's needs or dreams for the future- it was more training her in how to be a ruthless hash tag girl boss so she could eventually take over the mining business. We know from canon that her father was barely ever around (mostly because of his bad relationship with her mother), so I think he was originally in the family business but started taking up work elsewhere to get away more, and eventually just never came back? Maybe he took her out on business trips once or twice, and this is where she came to see travel as an escape. She was infused with a lot of curiosity about the galaxy, I mean who knew there was soo much more out there than just mining and business! And this is what gave her this deep desire to explore and meet people of different species and cultures (which her mother never approved of- she wanted all her kids to stay in the Sappora system), which motivated her to join Starfleet- I mean, if she was looking for a way to get out and "seek out new life and civilisations", that was it. (I think given that the place she was born was called "New Sydney", there must've been a fair amount of Humans too- plenty of walking Starfleet brochures lol!) I also think she was raised to be a perfectionist, and that's why she's so hard on herself in canon- I don't think Ezri was this adorkable goof who couldn't do anything right pre-joining, I actually think she was one of those people who literally did everything fine but was just never satisfied with herself. Canon also says she and her brother Norvo were super close; I think he was fundamentally an underachiever so they never really had a competitive relationship (while Janel was more the "model" kid). I think they often took solace in each other and gave each other a much-needed safe space to simply suck at things and be otherwise vulnerable, and so he secretly felt very abandoned when she left

As for Seven and Naomi, lol I'm way too much of a softie to imagine them falling out of touch! I think, given that neither of them really had much of an "Earth/Alpha Quadrant equals home" association, they'd sort of rely on each other to deal with the loneliness that would undoubtedly come with being the only ones not going back, but just... going somewhere else. Samantha would be thrilled to see her home and friends and husband (here's hoping Greskrendtregk survived the Dominion War!!!) but to Naomi, all these people are just strangers. Seven also has extended family on Earth, but she doesn't know any of them, and she's still finding her feet re social skills- she wouldn't immediately feel comfortable going Out There and making new friends imo. I think they'd help each other a lot! And I think, as Seven comes to understand herself more and more, she'd reexamine the dynamics she had with Janeway and the EMH, and then her own mentorship-like dynamic with the Borg kids- and feel sort of like determined not to make her relationship with Naomi a mentorship of any kind. I see it turning into a cool older sister type of vibe :)

[winged-mammal]

20 questions for fic writers

as demanded requested by @reginasbread

How many works do you have on ao3?

52

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

597,588

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Chronologically: Star Trek Voyager, Warehouse 13, Person of Interest, The Expanse. There's also a stray Star Trek TNG from almost 13 years ago, and let's not speak of the Strangers with Candy fic.

(Also I wrote some House fic back in the day, but I never put it on AO3. Why did I put the SWC but not the House fic on AO3, you ask? No idea. It made sense at the time. The SWC is there because of my adherence to the 'archive' part of AO3's name, but locked to logged-in users because it's not my brand anymore, hah.)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

'Metadata' (TNG) and 'Overheard' (POI) are the runaway leads, with about twice the kudos of number three. Then there's 'Catalysis' (WH13), 'Freud can take his cigar and go fuck himself' (POI), and 'An Offer That Possibly Should Be Refused, But Really Who Could?' (ST:VOY)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Always! That's how you get your grubby little hands on people who are as unhinged about the thing as you are.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

There's really only three angsty-ish fics in my history. 'Existentialism is a Bitch' for POI, where Root took over the Machine when she died, which I'd say is more bittersweet than angsty. There's also the Warehouse 13 one where HG stayed dead after S3 and Myka's grief created an artifact, which I'd say takes the angsty cake for sure.

(The third is one of the aforementioned Strangers With Candy fics we won't talk about.)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Other than the above, none of them are exactly *sad*. So I guess if we're going with, like, the romance novel sort of idea of a happy ending, I'd say 'One Foot in Sea, One on Shore' because of the happily-ever-after suggestion of the last scene.

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Don't think I ever have, nope.

9. Do you write smut?

lololololololol that's almost all I write. That's how they all have happy endings asdlkasjdfjasfdk

10. Do you write crossovers?

Not unless the POI Fifth Element AU counts.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I have a vague memory of finding one on Wattpad, but that might've been a friend's that I found when I went looking.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I've had several of my POI fics translated into Mandarin! I'm also gonna count the handful of podfics people have done, which is always very exciting. The WH13 one for 'Aural Sex' was 🔥

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I did some outsourcing work on a porn scene of @asleepinawell's shoot vampire au. Very spicy, and it accidentally tied neatly into the overall theme of the fic. Same brain!

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Can anybody really answer this??? We're all affected by recency bias. I mean, I had major shoot brainrot for six years, but my two years of bobbiechrisjen brainrot has already resulted in more written words than I wrote for shoot, so what is the truth???

...That said, I do think it's one of those two. Bering and Wells gives me SO many feelings, but they're less personally relatable to me than shoot's brand of affection or the milf appreciation of bobbiechrisjen lololol

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably won’t?

It's an extreme stretch to call it a WIP, but a few years ago I had a concept for a shoot fic that was kind of a weird mash up of Horizon Zero Dawn, Mad Max Fury Road, Futurama, a text-based video game I played once about nuclear hazard architecture, and weirdly, it was inspired by the Linkin Park album 'A Thousand Suns.' It's one of those things that you can see the shape of really clearly, but ends up being impossible to translate. Unfortunate.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and porn. I think it's clear looking through my history that I play to my strengths lololol

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Describing things like faces and clothes and rooms people are in, and using adjectives in general. It's because I'm one of those people who absolutely do not see pictures in their mind, so it never occurs to me to write that sort of thing.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

The only time I think I've ever done it is the Divine Language in the Fifth Element AU, which obviously is a fake language. I refused to italicize it because it's annoying and unnecessary and I find it infantilizing when I read it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The argument could be made that it was "The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales" back when I was seven or eight. If I had to have known that it was fanfiction that I was writing at the time, then it'd have been one manga or another when I was 14 or 15. Gravitation or Petshop of Horrors, or something of the sort.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Maybe 'The Signal's Just a Roar,' the shoot trucker/radio host au. I love that setting and the excuse to get super nerdy and enjoyed then combining it with canon in the end. 'One Foot in Sea, One on Shore' is a good contender too, if only for the fact I actually managed to write a 169k fic, which is still mind-boggling to me.

For oneshots, it's definitely 'when she wakes me, she takes me back home,' the shoot domesticity fic. I just really love how it turned out.

[andordean]

10 characters | 10 fandoms | Some Tags Maybe

Tagged by @poetikat (and someone else but it was a while ago and I couldn't find the notification anymore...) - thank you!

I'll go with Ciri then, so that our brat is not forgotten - Witcher books/TW3 though it does feel like they're two different characters. Fortunately we have wonderful writers in the fandom that bridge that gap beautifully. A traumatised bi disaster kicking asses who deserves two donuts and a hug, and then some smooches from some hot people.

Mara Jade - Star Wars. My blueprint for badass women with weapons, Done With Everyone's Shit. "Heir to the Empire" was released in Poland during my formative years and I've never been the same again.

Chrisjen Avasarala - the Expanse. Seeing her chew the screen in season one, only to read the second book where she proceeds to chew and spit out and stomp over what's left of everyone for good measure was a delight.

My newest favourite gremlin: Harrowhark Nonagesimus - The Locked Tomb. A prickly pile of ambition and competency and guilt with a strong moral core hidden under a fuck-off or my skeleton construct will bite you attitude. Someone give her a hug and a puppy.

Seven of Nine - Star Trek: Picard. Have I mentioned competent women with weapons, tired of everyone's shit?

Granny Weatherwax - the Discworld. An Icon. Also, see above.

Susan Ivanova - Babylon 5. Yes, I do have a type. And there's always a boom tomorrow.

Eowyn, Lord of the Rings. Women, weapons. I mean.

Death of the Endless - the Sandman. Sunshine. 💜

Honorary agender character: MURDERBOT MY BELOVED - the Murderbot Diaries. Done with everyone's shit: check. Would Rather Watch Media Than Deal With Whatever It Is. Baby. Did nothing wrong in its entire life.

Tagging @powerofadyingsun @cahirdyffryns @keyrousse @namesonboats @herbalinz-of-yesteryear @ginstermoff @disdaidal @starlight-and-thunder @laurikarauchscat @kuwdora (no pressure, and some of you may have done it recently enough; I lost the track!)

[weerd1]

ENT Rewatch Starlog, 5 May, 2024- Final Entry: Episode 4.03 “Home”

Archer and his senior staff are welcomed home where the Captain gives a speech reminding everyone of the 27 crewmembers lost in the operations to stop the Xindi.

He prepares for a board of inquiry regarding the mission while reconnecting with Erica Hernandez, former romance who is about to take command of the NX-02 Columbia.

T’Pol asks Trip if he would accompany her to Vulcan and he agrees. They arrive at T’Pol’s childhood home where she is surprised to find her mother, T’Les, at home.

T’Les informs her that she has stepped down from the Vulcan Science Academy, and is herself surprised that T’Pol has brought a colleague home. Later alone, she mentions to T’Pol that Koss, her betrothed, has been reaching out. 

Reed, Mayweather, and Phlox are in a bar in San Francisco when they are accosted by humans who display ignorant prejudice against Phlox (because prejudice, xenophobia, and judging someone by race or species is ignorance and if I have to tell you that I wonder what the hell you’re doing watching Star Trek in the first place) which results in a fistfight. Phlox demonstrates an old Denobulan defensive posture inflating his face, which scares off the human dipshits. Later, when invited to the surface by Hoshi Sato, Phlox chooses to stay on Enterprise.

Ambassador Soval seems to be out to get Archer during his inquiry, specifically about the Vulcan ship that was destroyed during their Zombie-like attack. Archer loses his cool and is ordered by Admiral Forrest to take some time off. He decides to go rock climbing but is joined by Hernandez. In the course of their climb Archer begins to display the inner turmoil he’s been dealing with since his actions in the Expanse, and tells Hernandez that he wants to be away form her for reminding him of what he used to be. She offers to help him find that man again together, and they kiss.

Tucker is beginning to grow on T’Les, particularly after doing some repairs around home. Koss arrives and asks to speak to T’Pol. He reveals he will not break their betrothal, offering even to resort to the Kal-If-Ee  if necessary—the fight to the death for the bride. T’Pol continues to reject him until he tells her that her mother was asked to step down from the academy because of T’Pol making enemies in the Vulcan High Command. He says his influential father could restore her status.

T’Pol takes Trip to the statues near the Vulcan Forge and tells him she will marry Koss.  Later when confronted by T’Les, Tucker admits that at that moment he realized he loves T’Pol.  T’Les says T’Pol should know that. Tucker remains silent however, and tells T’Pol how wonderful she looks. She steals a quick kiss, and then the marriage proceeds.

Archer completes his hearing and stays after to apologize to Soval. Soval states he has listened to T’Pol and reviewed the case. He is grateful to Archer for saving not just Earth but the Alpha Quadrant from the Expanse, and shakes his hand.

This is a very good episode giving us the closing to the Xindi storyline we needed. I know it’s beating a dead horse, but something like this I believe would have served the end of Voyager well. I especially appreciate the post-trauma reaction Archer is going through (something I have also experienced after my own service in war zones) and if I had to complain about anything in this episode it would just be that it could have used one more scene of him finding a little more reconciliation. The implication that he will be better because he doesn’t have to face it alone is great, but I think a little too much of the healing happens off screen.

Let’s however hear it for Ada Maris as Erika Hernandez (though she goes un-named here…and that’s dumb). Dispelling the old TOS line about the realm of being a Starship Captain being for men is great; I know we see her again, but it’s a shame season 5 didn’t let us see some more. I am very aware of the Beta Canon fate of the NX-02, and the evolution of her character, but would love to have some more just plain Captain Hernandez stories.  

The Tri’Pol stuff here is the kind of thing that propels a thousand shippers (me too) and is so well played for the tragedy.  As much as I praise Ada Maris as Hernandez, let’s also applaud Joanna Cassidy (a science fiction legend herself) as T’Les. Not only do I immediately buy her as T’Pol’s mother, but she brings a calm a subtlety to match Jolene Blalock, that was too often replaced with arrogance for Vulcans on this show. But this?

This is a knife to the heart in the best way.

The introduction of a human xenophobia is good here, and wow do I wish it were less relevant to us today. I know this will play out later in the season with Earth First movements, etc, but even when this aired, I think it said a lot about what happened in the US after September 11th with many darker skinned people being assaulted in a blanket reaction to actual terrorists (my then brother-in-law among them). I wish we’d learned more in the last 20 years, but also hope we’ll learn more by 2154. Watching the news though admittedly gives me some of Archer’s pessimism.

But this brings it to an end; I have spent the last few months rewatching and reviewing the Xindi storyline, and for the most part find it holds up pretty well, perhaps even better than I received it then. There are certainly some missteps along the way, but it has definitely reinforced my appreciation for this show as a much stronger member of the Trek family than me as a dumb-ass continuity-obsessed gate-keeper two decades back might have thought. Glad I got better, and I hope we all can, honestly.  There is new Trek I love, and some I think really misses the mark, but in the end Star Trek is ALWAYS relevant, and all Star Trek speaks to someone.  I can’t fault that. Gives me faith of the heart. 

If you’ve read these and enjoyed them, thank you for coming along with me. If you've like to find the rest they are all tagged "enterprise rewatch" and "xindi saga" on my blog.

(Images taken from the main website for @trekcore; I am happy to remove the images if asked.)

[travelerofthetimestreams]

In A Galaxy Far Far Away

I have been a massive fan of Star Wars since I was a child. The queer person in me loved Princess Leia and thought she was simply badass. They homo in me wanted to be Luke Skywalker, but to swept off my feet by the swashbuckling Han Solo. Then when Billy Dee Williams was brought in as Lando...yes please!

As the franchise grew and expanded, it had its ups and downs like all franchises do.

When Rey was introduced, I became a big fan of her character as well. I know those three films are polarizing to many in the fan bases. I liked them. They weren't great, but they do make for great lazy day viewing.

I also liked The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi. The rest however, I could not get into. Andor didn't grab my attention and The Book of Boba Fett was simply terrible.

I have not watched the animated series, so I can't comment on them.

Now we have The Acolyte. The one question I have for the show-runners and writers is, "did you have watch any of the franchise?"

The argument against fans' criticism is that they "haven't given it a chance". Halfway through a season's run, should pretty much have captured the audience and keep them coming back to watch.

This isn't a criticism of the characters, but of the writing and the story telling. Things like space fires and surviving a horrific crash without a scratch are just bad writing. Claiming The Force somehow being appropriated is ignorant to the lore of the franchise. Mainly because in order for something to be appropriated, it must first be owned or claimed by someone. Since The Force is all things, it's therefore for all beings. I won't comment on the acting because I don't know who to blame; the actors or the writers.

If the priority of this series is DEI, then I have to point to several series where diversity was just part of the story.

The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica did a good job of diversity. Side note: DO NOT REBOOT IT!

The Expanse was an incredibly well written and acted series with excellent social, political and ideological text and subtext.

And of course, Star Trek. The bastion of sc-fi DEI has always created diverse characters that were interwoven into the story.

With The Acolyte, it feels as though they tried so hard to fill the DEI quotient to their satisfaction, but with disregard to writing, storytelling and actual knowledge to Star Wars lore.

At the end of the day, if the story falls flat, so does the message.

[glitchy-npc]

B, K and U from the fandom asks?

B - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.

This ones tough, I adore crackships and I'm easily influenced. So as far as canon ships I can't think of any I was blindsided by. I am pleasantly surprised how well Tegan gets along with other, sometimes very different Sidesteps tho.

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

I don't play FFXIV anymore but Alphinaud's journey from being young and arrogant, to a leader that makes mistakes, to a young man humbled by life but never broken by it will always be one of my favorites. He goes thru so much growth between expansions.

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

Isabela - Dragon Age. She's a hot as hell pirate so that would have been enough on its own but she's also an extremely competent badass with a deep empathy for all people and their right to freedom. What's not to love?

Ortega - Fallen Hero. They're a lying liar who lies and a caring carer who cares. -slaps the top of their head- you can fit so much love and secrets in this bad boy. I want to put them in a jar and study them.

Leonard "Bones" Mccoy - Star Trek. He's a grouch so I automatically love him but he's also deeply passionate about his role as a doctor. His care for all people is always forefront in his mind but he's also a badass. Him staring down Khan and ever so politely informing him the best way to kill him while a scalpel is held to his throat is seared into my brain forever.

Thanks for the ask!

[thetantiger]

Train of Thought

Word count: 1,512

Characters: Mythodoran (he/him), Sanlasteron (he/him), Winston (he/him)

Mythodoran grimaced behind his helmet as he limped through the Tinker Town district of Ironforge, heading for the tram. His time with his friends was greatly appreciated. He enjoyed the presence of Andro, Palamedes and Courier Nine since their discussion a couple nights ago, and Maxwell being there was not unwelcome either. Synrel and Zap.. Mythodoran did not know either of them too well, but they were always pleasant. But the ache in his abdomen was getting to him. Perhaps he should’ve gone straight home after his visit to Wisteria’s.

The surgeon had performed her usual operation on him. He had wanted to get over Aruna, and quickly. The flower growth was much quicker than he remembered Tiao’s being, but he preferred to get it done in one day anyhow. The bright side was he’d be off work for a few days, at least. He appreciated the efficiency, but now it was time to head to Bel’ameth, and the first step to that was Stormwind.

As he trekked through the whirring metal tunnel and approached the waiting platform, the only other person in the tram appeared to be an elf. Judging by the cosmic stars in their armor and the violet and gold coloration, a Rendorei specifically, like Wisteria was. Mytho, though politely keeping enough distance, walked forth to also await the tram and noticed he recognized this Rendorei.

Mythodoran tilted his head. “Sanlasteron?”

Sanlas seemed to have zoned out about something, jumping at the sound of his voice and looking up at him with a confused glance. “Hm-? Oh, uh- hey!”

“Apologies for startling you,” the Kaldorei muttered, looking down the expansive, hollow track where the tram should be approaching from any minute now. “I thought I might know you. It took me a moment, with your new armor.”

“Oh, do you like it?” Sanlasteron seemed excited, gesturing to himself and even twirling to display it. The armor fit him nicely, the Warden had to admit. Brilliant purple fabric made up his tabard and his shoulderpads seemed to double as blades, with a twinge of void magic on the end of them for good measure. Large structures that looked vaguely like pieces of a Naaru he’d seen in the Exodar, but dark and starry, floated behind Sanlas’s mantle. Tight violet leather shaped his lean figure in a manner that.. had Mythodoran blinking his eyes to himself in puzzlement. That was an odd thought process.

“It’s a good fit,” was all he really had to say.

“Thanks!” Sanlas put his hands on his own hips, satisfied with that answer. “Well what brought you to Ironforge?”

“I’ve been seeking training for blacksmithing. The trainer in Stormwind was helpful, but I came to Ironforge to see the logistics of having my own forge and anvil at home.”

“Really?” The Rendorei offered him a large smile. “That’s great! You’ve needed a hobby.”

He scoffed at the notion.

“No, really! Well- you took a liking to the craft, ey?”

“That I did,” Mytho replied. “I managed to make Phoebelynn a knife.”

“That’s wonderful!” Sanlasteron rocked back and forth on his heels patiently. The tram was taking a moment. “She talks very highly of you, you know.”

Mythodoran grinned ear to ear. “I would hope so.” His ears perked as the moving machine across the station on the opposite platform stopped with a hiss. Blinking at Sanlas, he gestured with his head, if they should hurry to catch that one. The Rendorei took off with a start and Mythodoran went after him, though Sanlas underestimated the urgency of the tram’s movement and only jogged as Mytho passed him. The Warden’s plated boots hit the metal and he turned as the tram creaked with effort, and his first instinct was to reach out and yank Sanlasteron by the wrist onto it before it took off.

Sanlas wobbled as the tram took off with incredible speed, surging through the tunnel dug out of the ground underneath the Eastern Kingdoms. “WoaAah-! Thanks.”

Mytho nodded and disconnected his hand from the other man. “No problem. This tram moves quickly.”

“Heh. Sorry- I don’t come to Ironforge often,” the void elf remarked. “Me and Tayonna didn’t usually come to Dun Morogh often, or anywhere near it. Well- anywhere that wasn’t even closer to Stormwind or Light’s Hope Chapel, anyway.”

“Mm,” Mytho acknowledged. “And how is she doing?”

“Oh, Tayonna?” Sanlas’s eyes lit up at an opportunity to talk about his friend. “Oh, she’s doing wonderful! Heh.. spending a lot of time with Ghallavant, really. Which is okay and all, but.. yeah.”

Mytho frowned. Despite the happy demeanor the other elf put on, he seemed.. bothered by that. “Do you not spend your free time with Lunastrae?”

“Eh, touche,” Sanlas replied. “‘Cept.. not anymore. She and I broke up the other day. Not anything bad, it was actually a really productive conversation. We just.. are separate people nowadays.”

Mythodoran’s mind immediately flashed to Aruna. Not long ago at all he would’ve gleefully daydreamed about her at the mere mention of anything even tangentially related, but that adoration was very suddenly absent. He glanced down at himself, still aware of the low ache and the stitchings. He did not regret the absence of emotion towards her. He was head over heels for her, but slowly he realized maybe she was not as ready for him. Perhaps they were-

“Eyyyup,” Sanlas kept talking, as if off-put by Mythodoran’s silence. “Just separate people.”

“I.. see.” Mytho looked around. They were passing through Vashj’ir now, as detailed by the strong glass tunnels displaying the vast blue ocean. “I cannot help but relate.”

Sanlas’s mouth opened, as if shocked. “No.. Don’t tell me it didn’t work out with that redhead chick.”

The Warden Captain resisted a snort at his description. “Well. You win some, you lose some.”

At that, the tram suddenly careened to a halt--much sooner than it had any right to. They were approaching the Stormwind station, sure, but had more than a fourth of the way to go. This stop was unnatural, and as a result the platform screeched, sending alarming sparks flying and causing the two elves atop it to lose their footing. Mythodoran quickly clung to a railing, and Sanlas did as well, but bumped into him in the process with a small ‘oof!’

Odd silence filled the tunnel. “Fuck- sorry,” Sanlas murmured, scooching away from him.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Mytho responded. He hadn’t hurt him or anything. “I’m more concerned about walking the rest of the way down this tunn-”

“OH, FUCK ME!”

Mytho and Sanlas blinked into the darkness, their ears perked in alarm.

With an irritated huff, a brown-furred Worgen waltzed towards the stopped tram. His armor flared with heat as if made of machines of its own, and scars adorned his scruffy, graying muzzle, with a top hat to boot. “Fuckin’ tram. Always backin’ up on me.”

“Who are you, sir?” Sanlas asked, seeming concerned.

The Worgen looked up, as if he hadn’t realized the two of them were there. “Oh, howdy.” He tipped his hat in greeting, bearing a gruff smile. “Winston Cash. A conductor ‘round these parts.”

Mythodoran cocked his head. Usually he saw Dwarves or Gnomes working on this type of machinery, not Worgen.. and then realized that was probably a very racist notion, so he kept it to himself.

“Don’t ye two worry, yer not in any danger.” The Worgen knelt down, sticking his arm into jammed cogs and sprockets that Mytho wouldn’t dare touch, and started yanking at random shit. “I’ll have ya’ headin’ ‘te Stormwind in two shakes of a lamb’s leg.”

“Two shakes of a-?” Sanlas’s echo was cut off. Just as suddenly as they had stopped, the car moved again, causing them to lurch about again, though this time they were mostly able to stand put.

Winston took off his hat and waved it at them in farewell. “Cya later!” And as the car moved, they disappeared into the darkness.

Mythodoran smirked in amusement. “That was strange.”

“Is this a common occurrence?” Sanlas asked, gesturing to the car.

“Not in my experience.” Mytho felt satisfied as they finally reached the Stormwind landing platform. “Well. We are here.” His boot met the floor, relieved to be off that hellish ride.

“We made it out alive,” Sanlas remarked sarcastically as he also dismounted the tram. “Well, sorry to talk your ear off, and sorry to hear about Aruna. I’m mostly free if you ever need to talk about it.”

Mytho waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry. I’m doing quite alright. I’ll--extend the same offer to you in regards to Lunastrae.”

Sanlas shrugged. “I’m doing pretty fine too, myself. To be honest.”

“Hm. Then-..” Mythodoran glanced around as they exited the tunnel, blinking against the sunlight looming over Stormwind. “I will see you around.”

“You as well, Warden-man!” Sanlas did a theatrical bow and smiled, before vanishing. “Deuces!”

Mytho blinked. At the very least, he was a skilled stealther. He shrugged, thought nothing more of it, and headed for the Mage Tower.

[wirewitchviolet]

The Entire Plot of Final Fantasy 14, with all the expansions, and some serious analysis of how good it actually is. (Part 8 - Post-Shadowbringers)

Last time, we covered Shadowbringers, the more or less universally agreed upon best expansion. Nicely self-contained, well-structured, focused, and not bogged down with any poorly done morally grey stuff. Bad news is, this interlude before the next expansion has a lot of stuff that’s bad and dumb and ill-fitting to the established setting, but at least there’s not a lot of it, and the exceptions are pretty great stuff.

First thing’s first, since everything is all perfect and settled here in the First, and you’re actually able to do so, unlike everyone else, everyone suggests you maybe slip back home to check on how things are going with the whole final war against the empire and all that. Estinein really stepped up to the plate as stupidly powerful protagonist putting out fires everywhere and popping back to talk with Tataru and Krile. He really recovered nicely from his whole previous life-quest wrapping up weird and being possessed and covers stuff pretty well. He has been hanging out with freaking redemption-arc-Gaius though, and he has good news and bad news about what’s up with the empire. The good news is, the whole plan to avert the everyone-gets-killed-by-biological-weapons future by taking pressure off the empire seems to have worked out. The bad news is they’re getting back into the weird giant robot approach. One of these is just a rebuilt Ultima Weapon that Estinein gets to deal with in a bit where you play as him in full ridiculous-dragon-powers mode, the rest of this you have to deal with in Werlyt, one of those new break-aways from the empire that isn’t important enough to bother putting on the map somewhere that isn’t covered in clouds. Cid’s there though, and wow has he been busy. Also it struck me earlier that the one and only time he got a new outfit back in Heavensward it came out really like, 1970s, heading to the disco?

Like remember Bones’ look from the first Star Trek movie?

We start out with the first new model, Ruby Weapon, and yeah, we’ve got a whole set of gemstones here. It looks pretty Evangelion. And then partway through the fight it gets... decidedly more Evangelion when in defeat the “oversoul” system in it activates and... it’s probably better to show than tell here. Skip to about 5:40 for the important bit.

But I guess I also have to explain what is hands down just the stupidest, most badly written sidequest chain in FF14. So... Gaius. The “creeping mendacity” guy. Big ol’ nazi, hates all us primitive savages, strong should rule the weak, main villain of the base game? We’re retconning that he has like 7 or so beloved au ra orphan children he raised to keep them safe from all the evils of growing up in the empire, and already that’s just a hard no from me. That absolutely goes completely against everything about his established character. But we’re running with that retcon. We’re also, for some reason, retconning that the one female general under him in the base game, who incidentally had this whole speech before you fight her about how obsessively in love with him she is, was one of these children. I have no idea WHY we’re retconning that, beyond this all being just the worst, it adds nothing to this dumb thing except one of these other kids is jealous or whatever.

Anyway because they all love their dad so very much, after he uh... defected from the empire to start killing Ascians as a whole thing, they all decided to follow in his footsteps with this whole Weapon project, making a whole bunch of giant robots, that they all pilot, and which have this whole “oversoul” thing built in which... A- completely overwrites the pilots mind with that of some bigshot imperial general or other (in this first case, Nael, the big bad of 1.0 who does not appear in the game as it stands AT ALL besides here, kind of, and in the Bahamut raid 98% of players just completely skip, followed by in no particular order Gaius himself, Zenos, and uh... ones that don’t really come up). Not satisfied with killing the pilot by completely overtaking their mind like that, it also kinda melts their body into goo to power it up. With Ruby this doesn’t quite work right and you get this cool back-splits-open-goo-girl thing but that’s a defect the rest just get a boring second phase. And their big plan is to use these suicide-robots that destroy their minds to take down the empire that has oppressed them for their whole lives and honor the new path their dad is on, after first proving their combat readiness by... trying to kill their dead, and also the resistance to the empire, but, mostly you. It’s kinda just the absolute worst plan ever?

Meanwhile Cid just got super bored having to sit things out for a whole expansion and decided to kill time by... also building a giant robot. Something something found it in some Allagan ruins, made some modifications. In particular it originally came with big rending claws and he modified it to hold a lightsaber because he’s just a big ol’ nerd like that. I want to state for the record that this is still completely stupid and we really probably shouldn’t have two giant robots swinging lightsabers at each other and activating forcefields while fighting over the ocean that were both built by random nerds in a world where people still use maps that are half covered in clouds and we had a whole big thing about impoverished rice farmers trying to scrape up enough resources to like, charge at some people with spears, but... you can go to the hanger Cid keeps it in and pose on its shoulder and my heart is not made of stone.

Sadly you only get to use this thing for literally one fight. It’s surprisingly hard too, you have this whole mode-shifting system where you can toggle a damage boost and a shield on and off that need careful managing and a big laser cannon that needs to be precisely aimed. After that it “took too much damage and needs repairs” although it is reconfigured later to fly around and provide a big platform to stand on while fighting another weapon.

Another baffling layer to all of this is the commander officially heading up the suicide robot division. He’s introduced in this cutscene where he’s just shot from the neck down getting all sweaty from doing pushups and gulping down a big glass of milk, and like... I can’t see any sort of world in which you introduce a character in this way if you aren’t trying to bait people into getting all horny for the sexy new villain, but every other time you see him he’s just... literally the Sewer King from that one episode of Batman? With the orphans?

I swear it’s an intentional reference. Right down to him also having a giant pile of orphans (on top of Gaius’ kids) he makes poke each other with hot brands when they misbehave. All he needs are the glasses. I feel like the sexy scene had to have been a tease at the end of one patch and then they radically shifted direction or something. So anyway all of these idiot children take turns getting in big robots and exploding themselves and you punch the robots, while this too cartoonish to be intimidatng jerk keeps whipping them and sacrificing random people to test more of this oversoul stuff. Eventually we’re down to just two kids left alive, and one of them has enough sense to sneak off and tell you she realizes that this really is just the stupidest plan anyone has ever had and wants you to intervene, but her brother’s already been dragged off to be turned into the core/brain of Diamond Weapon, which rather than having the combat data or whatever from some old general just has an idiot uh... mashed into goo with his brain preserved permanently stuck in the robot. Which is already what they were doing with all their pilots, and he doesn’t really have any particular combat expertise so, this is dumb.

Girl with a smidgen of sense has to get in the actual pilot seat though... and she does have the sense to remember that the whole point of this in theory was to get the best possible giant robot and start attacking the empire, so she tries to just gun down everyone in the lab, but they just cut the power while she’s charging her laser. Then they’re about to kill her but the Overmind, as opposed to oversoul system kicks in and Big Brother restarts the whole thing and gets her to safety. And then... still doesn’t attack the empire, despite this clearly being the last chance to do so. Instead we go right ahead with the standard boss fight. You win, Sewer King shows up to taunt you, Big Brother vaporizes him, and then, the path finally cleared to take his new death robot body and start smashing up the empire, the dream he and basically his whole family literally sacrificed their lives for, exactly according to the plan he personally came up with... does the whole “I can’t live like this, as a cool robot, please put me out of my misery.” So Gaius does, and then we just kinda... pretend this whole sidequest chain never happened and never bring it up again. Not even Cid’s giant robot which would really trivialize a lot of problems and is in full working order with cool upgrades at the end of this. You can go visit it in the hangar all you want, but, that’s it. Oh and your only reward for any of this is some guy makes a gunpla of every robot and you can decorate your house with them if you have one.

Once you’ve finished or completely ignored the stupidest sidequest chain ever, the biggest news from back home is that being in a coma for some unspecifed amount of time is kind of bad for you, and it might be worth maybe considering putting everyone’s souls back where they belong before their bodies die. As is everyone’s kinda just staying alive because Krile has given up sleep to spam heals. Having some actual time pressure, everyone does some brainstorming and realizes that hey, you can go back and forth all you want, and you drag your whole inventory along with you. Why not just like shove everyone’s soul into a magic crystal of some sort and keep them in your pocket? Ultimately this works, but there’s a few complications involved since everyone’s souls have been manifested as physical bodies for a few years eating snacks and such so they’re kind of heavy and none of you really knowing how to do any of this, but G’raha has an in with the local equivalent of Matoya, a nu mou named Beq Lugg (no offense to “Master Matoya” Y’shtola). There’s a whole lot of technobabble about needing to keep memories along with souls and special crystal vessels G’raha needs to infuse with his blood... and the slight hiccup that he kinda doesn’t have blood anymore being all crystalized but he makes due, and I don’t want to get into most of it, except it involves porxies.

I didn’t really have time to get into this, but on top of all the other flavors of fairy, there’s these things called porxies which are basically piglets with dumbo ears. There’s a random bit of background NPC frollicking where a pixie turns another pixie into one for fun, but mostly they’re familiars made by no mou out of clay. One does the whole nightmare eating tapir thing as part of the pixie tribe quests too. In this case though, the idea is to make a specialized one to suck out elemental imbalances from people, which will be of some use in getting everyone turned into a crystalized soul you will presumably take back home and... cram into the mouths of their unconscious bodies or something. This still takes most of this interlude to finish setting up though. The important point for now is that Beq Lugg mentors Alisaie in how to make her own specialized soul-cleansing porxie she names Angelo. And she’s a terrible sculptor.

As an added bonus, to test this, they try sucking some of the light taint out of some of the people in the slowly-dying-of-turning-into-a-monster-angel hospice, and specifically pull the emotionless kid who wandered out into the desert from that one cut scene I linked last time back from the brink enough to talk and mourn people some. Hey, Alisaie’s arc and a really horrific death scene get a nice payoff!

The next bit of major unfinished business before clearing out is dealing with Eulmore, because you kinda killed the guy who was in charge, and was personally providing food for everybody, and was keeping everyone in a magically induced chill malaise. They decided to make Chai-Nuzz, the middle-aged cat boy who hired Alphinaud to paint his surprisingly nice wife and then also oversaw the construction of the mountain sized golem that’s still quite visible anywhere nearby clutching that still-hovering mountain, and yeah, that seems like nice qualifications, but then he vanished. Turns out it’s not responsibility jitters though so much as knowing he’s not really qualified and looking for an advisor who is. He finds a former bureaucrat, who does the whole test of character thing, and you end up teaching him how to ambush a berserk talos or three so they can be disabled, repaired, and put to work as farming equipment. While you’re in the area you also dip back to the bottom of the ocean which kinda still has that big magic air bubble that’s still messing with the nice fish people, and help them out a bit with the problems that lead to, like their queen being ready to lay a huge clutch of eggs and having problems from not being submerged. Did you know what a birthing rope was? Because you bring her one.

The other thing going on in the vicinity of Eulmore is a couple of the local dwarves playing around with explosives and blowing a hole into Nier: Automata. This is the setup for our big party raid, and I have very mixed feelings. It’s a decidedly less elegant handling of a crossover than “would you like to help me research my new play, Final Fantasy Tactics?” in that we literally just have this whole absolutely huge crashed space station with like transforming fighter jets and city sized industrial robots from a decidedly more high tech game right on the other side of these silly dwarven mines. Plus we’re in a dimension that only exists because one god punched another really hard and that theoretically should only effect your home planet.

On the other hand, while it fits in really awkwardly for FF14, so far as I can tell this is weirdly well integrated into the canon of the Nier games? I still need to play the whole series, but I’ve picked up a bit from osmosis. The most interesting thing here is that while the actual major characters from Nier Automata are here, the first character we introduce is 2P. The palette inverted version of protagonist 2B who only exists because 2B was a crossover character in SoulCalibur 6 and the decided to get cute with the player 2 variation. And now we’re taking that sorta joke fighting game cameo-born character and actually fleshing her out a bit in this crossover with an MMO. I can’t really speak much on the plot past that because it’s really tied in with the source-game’s plot and I lack familiarity. Things do go pretty bad for this pair of dwarves making the discovery of these high tech android ruins though. There’s an air strike on their village that leaves it in ruins for the duration of all this, and personally end up dead and/or replaced by android duplicates and/or stuck in another dimension. Once you’ve wrapped the whole thing up though there’s this oddly drawn out prologue where you have this real-world weekly task of walking back through one of the now enemy-free dungeons seeking out items of interest for the dwarves to study as they rebuild, and get messages from one of the missing pair. After a month or two of these there’s a proper epilogue where the two lost dwarves find eachother and head off to... somewhere for a happy ending. It’s all a bit odd.

And of course mechanically it’s full of the sort of full-on bullet hell mechanics the Nier games are known for and an otherwise very noticeable difficulty spike from how these things tend to go, because the director of those games had a say in it. Also you get a replica of 2B’s outfit for your trouble and a good number of people are delighted that the leg piece is a thong that noticeably gives your character a bigger butt. That’s a thing.

Speaking of raids, the real big piece of unfinished business before you all really focus on going home is that Ryne has been feeling particularly ambitious and dragging her dad Thancred and what I’m still pretty sure is his dad’s on the downlow love interest I’m wary to commit to a pronoun for Urianger along to search the world spanning desert beyond the wall of life-destruction in this very Star Wars Landspeeder sort of vehicle, trying to find some sort of way to maybe fix most of the world being lifeless white sand, and they found... a thing, which they decide to call Eden.

It’s kinda like... half-spaceship, half- two semi-abstract angelic women fused together, and between the nerds you have looking into it, the general speculation is that way back a century or so ago when Ardbert and friends kinda defeated evil a little too hard, the big fancy final boss defeat light show with too much light element gave rise to this thing, which promptly started sucking all aether out of the planet, which just kinda glassed the place for the most part and caused all life to die with a few exceptions that became the first sin eaters. It’s mostly inert, besides the boss fight waiting when you step inside... which I probably shouldn’t downplay so much because I mean it gets one of these attacks.

But you smack that inner core down and then you have access to a nice little ship control room, and the surreal realization that nobody’s all that shocked because really between some of the stuff in Imperial bases, Ayz Lla, and Omega’s whole deal, this is far from the first time you’ve seen this sort of setup. Anyway Ryne figures since she has the whole Oracle of Light thing going from kinda absorbing the weird Minfilia/avatar of Hydaelyn deal she was possessed by for a good chunk of her life, she should be able to just kinda take control of the whole thing and maybe get it to spit all that aether back out. Once you get it airborne though you have this confusing fight where this goth disaster with the sort of extreme platform heels I’ve only seen in fetishy specialty stores shows up carried by a sin eater and starts casting spells on a weird time delay. She’s unconscious after, and when she wakes up she’s kind of a rude jerk but more important has really severe memory issues, and wants to just kinda hang out while you check this out because she doesn’t know why she’s there either.

She’s not super clear on her name either but the voice in her head that tells her to do things calls her Gaia. She slowly warms up over the course of things as troubled goth weirdos with mysterious pasts tend to do in this game, but mostly you’re still focused on getting all that aether out of the big weird pinata. In a moment that really suggests your character just should not be left without supervision from people more responsible than Thancred and Urianger, you come to the conclusion that the most efficient way to get crystalized aether properly dispersed back out into the world is for someone to summon a god and for you to kill it. Kinda seems like a terrible idea to introduce that concept into a world that doesn’t have it, but you’re good at killing them and Ryne’s got plot armor against the whole Tempering thing that leaves you mind controlled thanks to her whole deal, so you pick a god for each element, do your best to describe them to her, she summons them, you kill’em, and sure enough, a bit of the matching element spills back into the local environment each time.

The details of all the gods come out a bit wrong thanks to the telephone game, which is what justifies these as a new set of boss fights. Leviathan has two heads. Titan’s kind of a robot. You don’t really have a dark god on file so you go with the Cloud of Darkness who’s decidedly less green and more full-bodied. After the first couple you start getting real needlessly reckless about it. Ifrit and Garuda you summon at the same time because hey those were total speed bump fights, right? And of course when you’re describing Shiva Ryne gets all excited about the tragic romance angle and Ysayle doing the personal possession thing instead of a standard summon. So despite everything going fine she insists on doing it that way and gets way too into character and ends up with this mini-Hraesvelgr all entwined around her and freezes you so Gaia has to step up and smack her with a giant hammer to knock her out of it. Otherwise things go pretty well, but I really have to wonder how it is you describe Ramuh as this pretty human looking guy with a big beard or confusing lightning orb collection mechanics (all of these give you a dialog choice between describing their appearance and getting all 4th wall breaky about the fight mechanics) and then Ryne goes and summons this.

That’s not even close Ryne. That’s way too neat of a beard, and for the rest of this you seem to have just been thinking about that poster on the Avatar’s wall in the intro to Ultima 6. Teenagers and their horny furry-adjecent phases, I swear.

Absolutely terrible segue, but speaking of Ryne being horny, her and Gaia absolutely 100% start dating during all of this. It really kinda sneaks up on you because FF14 is terribly addicted to doing a plausible deniability will-they-or-won’t-they/is this just a one-sided crush thing every single time they go there, with the exception of one minor side quest in this expansion where you help some woman work out how to propose to her girlfriend, but they go all in here. They’re going on little coffee dates and Ryne makes a necklace out of a leftover magic ice crystal after the Shiva bit for Gaia to wear and stuff. It’s pretty darn cute and wholesome.

Obviously this is setting up a big tragic turn where the voice in Gaia’s head actually belongs to Eden, which is also actually an Ascian, kind of. See the last boss Aldbert and friends fought was this pair of Ascians who did the whole Dragon Ball/Steven Universe fusion deal, which I may have mentioned a couple others doing in Azys Lla or I might not have bothered because everything involving Ascians not called Emet-Selch is incredibly boring and forgetable. He killed’em too hard with some sort of light-overload thing. One of them died in the pretty standard way everyone does where you go to the great aether flow/lightstream for a bit then get reincarnated as some person, but the fused bodies of both of them turned into this weird Eden thing and the other’s soul has just been stuck in it all lonely and hopelessly romantic and looking for the other’s reincarnated self. This isn’t a longwinded way of saying “so turns out Gaia’s an Ascian” because like, technically the way this works is that literally everyone everywhere is and that’s not a big deal, the losers who suck just never died and have been around forever, and this one’s obsessed with Ryne’s new girlfriend.

So the final dungeon capping all this off is her getting absorbed in by her jerk past-life ex who’s systematically destroying all her memories of cute dates with Ryne kinda like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and you have to charge in there mounting a defense against big shimmery memories of like going to this one place with good coffee and chocolate chip cookies and defending it from memory trashing monsters, and her forgetting everything and then it coming back to her while she’s pondering why she has such a dorky necklace and Ryne’s screaming from across a void at her. It is absolute peak power-of-love-and-friendship JRPG BS and I am totally here for it. And then of course if the whole thing wasn’t already super gay we make it really overt by just having this little paradisical private grotto with a giant rainbow crystal in it at the end.

I am as usual skipping around a bit. There’s a mandatory break in the Eden stuff until just before the next expansion properly starts, so Thancred and Urianger are no longer around to see all the drama at the end, but I legitimately keep having to remind myself that anything else even happens in this interlude. Hildy and friends don’t actually show up despite the clear setup for it, as Covid lead to a bit of cut content. The only other things we really have to deal with are a dungeon that doesn’t really bother having a proper setup, wherein you go investigate something in the basement of the Crystal Tower and it turns out there’s a little mini version of Alexander down there, with Cid’s personal branding stamped all over it, followed by a recording of Biggs from the averted dark future talking about building it from what they learned studying the original in the hopes of avoiding this stuff. I don’t think we really needed an explanation for how G’raha went back in time along with going to another dimension, but it was bothering Emet-Selch since it’s not something Allagans ever worked out, so, quick closure on that. Also the music is very good and there’s some running gag about people dancing to it.

So that’s pretty fun. And yeah. That’s it. That’s the whole free patch interlude. Everyone goes off and says their goodbyes to all the people they’ve been hanging out with for the past several years and you wrangle them up to go home. Oh wait, right, right. There’s some dumb Ascian garbage first. And like, extra dumb at that.

So as part of your “let’s leave this place as nice as we can tour” you give a big public speech to set the record straight that Ardbert and friends were not in fact just a bunch of huge jerks who set off the apocalypse, but were good proper adventurers helping people and clearing their map of sidequests and all that, and everyone should stop using “warrior of light” to invoke like the worst possible person. And then Ardbert himself stands up out of the crowd to talk about how great you are too, and everyone cheers, and then you get a bit worried because wait, no, only you ever get to see him, and also you like permanently absorbed his soul into yours to cure the whole turning into a final boss disease thing. Having dealt with this before, everyone concludes that this is yet another instance of some Ascian jerk digging up someone’s corpse to run around in. Specifically Elidibus since he’s the only one who isn’t dead and got kicked out of running around in Zenos’ corpse.

He’s got this whole thing where like I get it, but it’s dumb, and it doesn’t actually go anywhere. Running with the assumption that you are in fact still the same protagonist from 1.0 who had a vision of this, or at least that you watched the original opening cutscene where it happens, you saw a big fire-y apocalyptic meteor shower, which triggered some sort of like ancient soul memory of one of those happening when the Ascians had their apocalypse that made them summon Zodiark way back when, and that in turn ignited your whole psychic Echo powers, and those let you pick up on Hydaelyn saying that whole “Hear, feel, think” thing from the start of the game, which according to this jerk she just kinda has running as a constant public broadcast to anyone who can pick it up, and they all get psychic visions and run around being level 1 adventurers from there on.

And he proves it by just running all around the First putting on illusiory meteor storm shows and giving huge swaths of the population the same call to adventure. Partially to taunt you about not really being all that special, and partially to get the ball rolling on that whole light overflow for the whole world deal. That part of it never really goes anywhere though. There’s also this thing about him having personally been the one to originally summon Zodiark all Shiva-style serving as his heart and it not making sense that he gets to be running around if so which... is a weird thing to even bring up when it just gets kinda lazily hand-waved away in the end. There’s also a bit with “lesser Ascians” who know the new body trick and on the team but are really kinda just otherwise normal human mooks are showing up everywhere that also goes nowhere.

Like I said, this patch wave suffered from some serious cut content thanks to Covid so they might have been planning more with this and never paid it off. As is, it’s just propaganda with this guy siccing would-be hero types on you and summoning some in from other dimensions and such. It would potentially be neat if the “in this world the forces of light are bad so you have to play villain” thing were a theme Shadowbringers actually committed to in a real way, as is it’s just kinda dumb and pointless. Like everything with Ascians. It does however cap off with my favorite sort of dungeon, where you have to just kinda book it with the help of some weird magic shortcuts through every overworld map to get from Eulmore to the Crystarium to hole up, and while you’re running and getting attacked from all angles, like literally every single friend you’ve made over the course of the expansion shows up to fend off big waves of mooks so you don’t lose your momentum. There was one of these setting up Shadowbringers too, and there’s ANOTHER at the end of this patch set, but like, keep’em coming. I love these.

Then you fight what’shisface and he takes on the form of “the original Warrior of light” which is like, the depiction of the collective main character from FF1 as per Dissidia’s interpretation. And like the rest of this total BS because in the process of this whole plot arc you basically work out that the Ascians had this whole fancy council called the Convocation of 14 (which has nothing to do with the 14 pieces the world was broken into or with the 12 gods plus the two Ascian gods, it’s just a number we keep using because it’s FF14), and basically the only member of it who didn’t suck was strongly implied to have been you, pre-shattering, AKA Azem, and Emet-Selch’s dead boyfriend’s accidentally made conscious ghost hands you the matching badge of office which is used from here out as the go-to hand wave for where you’re getting other party members from for boss fights where it wouldn’t make sense for anyone else to be there. Anyway you smack him around, he banishes you to the shadow realm, Emet-Selch’s ghost is hanging out and unbanishes you because aside from all the evil empire founding he really is a nice guy who likes you, G’raha pulls a weird trick kinda like Moenbryda to suck his soul out and trap it in the crystal tower itself, and then it’s finally time to head back.

Well, again, after everyone takes a goodbye tour. And people are starting to pass out because their bodies are dying from not having souls in them. But yeah, Y’shtola has to say goodbye to the cat man (as opposed to catboy) who she has clearly been either sleeping with for the past few years or waiting for to grow enough of a spine to offer her more than soup, Alphinaud has to say goodbye to his adopted catgirl mom, you have to go bring Ardbert’s old warrior of light crystal to his old amaro pal and let them know his soul’s just kinda in your body now, Alisae’s mourning her (girl?)friend who died horrifically and checking in on the kid she fixed with her porxie that she died to save, Urianger has books to pack and maybe some off-camera pixie thanking for helping work the whole trans thing out, and Thancred has to say goodbye to Ryne. That one sucks, since she’s kinda the whole party’s adopted daughter, but she doesn’t have a comatose body on the otherside to jam a soul in, and she’s got her new goth disaster girlfriend to spoil, so, she’ll be fine.

G’raha’s in kind of a weird spot because he’s totally coming with you but his physical body is here, and also he’s kinda been pushing himself too hard with various big heroic sacrifice things and is kind of like 90% crystal 10% super old cat boy now. But, he’s got a crazy idea about how TECHNICALLY he totally does have a body back there. His past self, still in that version of the tower, not having gone through the whole dark future he averted by forcing you to take a break, and he’s pretty sure he can just kinda crystalize himself, you pass that off to young him, they just kinda merge since they’re the same person and have the same memories up until the point you do that, and tada, just a normal 20 something catboy with however many hundreds of years of extra memories. Which works out just fine somehow.

Back home there’s a big ol’ teary reunion with the two ultra short Scions who didn’t get to come along, and Tataru is nice enough to sew up recreations of everyone’s cool new goth phase looks and host a  tea party, during which Alisaie is talking to Alphinaud and frankly just breaks the 4th wall to gripe about how everyone else gets cool new outfits and class changes and they’re still looking like they have since Heavensward, to which Alphinaud says they’ll get their turn and the rest needed it more. Which is totally referencing how they were still all using their release models before this expansion whichwere a few years out of date posability wise.

We’re still not quite done though! Gotta set things up for the next expansion after all. So getting right back into that, when last we checked on the empire outside of visions of doom from G’raha’s now averted timeline, Zenos had come back from the dead in a pretty convoluted way, and killed the emperor. Which WOULD make him the new emperor except you know that’s a pretty huge crime and also not even a country full of nazis are stupid enough to want this guy in charge. Hell, he doesn’t even want to be in charge. He just killed his father because if he didn’t he’d just go poison the whole population and kill a bunch of people without any big climactic duels, most importantly with you. Instead they’re just kinda having a civil war now while he hangs out in the throneroom as an official enemy of the state after killing everyone who tried to take him out before someone had the idea to just legislate that hey, none of us our with this guy.

Also hanging out in there is the hands down worst villain ever in the whole game, another Ascian, which doesn’t make sense because by my count they’re all dead. He’s just one of those “lesser” ones though, where someone found the reincarnated version of someone on their big evil council, taught him annoying immortality tricks, and gave him the badge of office. Since then he’s gone and found the single-most punchable face in the world to wear, that of Yatsuyu’s somehow even worse brother, with the whole dumb fake peace treaty plan. He’s very theatrical and dancing around and talking about his big evil plan and Zenos basically just tells him “hey do whatever the hell you want as long as it ends with me getting to have another date/duel with the protagonist,” and goes back to watching the empire just kinda burn down in a really devastating civil war.

Meanwhile Alisaie has the bright idea that if her magical big-eared suck-pig (which she named Angelo if I didn’t mention it, games past the SNES get only the weirdest name drops) can cure being on one’s way to turning into a sin eater, maybe with some tweaking it can also fix the whole Tempering thing. So, quick field trip to Azys Lla with G’raha so he can use his bloodline security clearance to get info on what they worked out on this, and short verson yeah. The info dump is on a failing hard drive so they need to get Cid to help fix it, but it’s the same principle, should work on anyone who’s not like, turned into a horrible fish-monster levels of god corrupted. Only problem is setting up the porxie with the right magic tricks is pretty time and magic consuming. Alisaie basically runs to make a test case of that traumatized to hell kobold kid who like I keep saying is the core of her whole character and yeah, pulls him back to just normal, functioning levels of traumatized. Also he’s voice acted and it’s not just shrieking sounds like in the kobold tribe quests and it bugs me.

So, cool. We have worked out a cure for religion. Only problem is scale. Quick visit to Matoya to pick her brain on that. She’s both flattered and really annoyed to find out that Y’shtola’s been impersonating her, and that frankly nobody ever comes to visit her when they don’t need a favor, but she has the bright idea to just make one giant horrible “mother porxie” that constantly spits out pre-templated ones that just need a competent magic user to de-religion anyone who isn’t too far gone. She has a super whimsical giant golem kiln in one of her many ridiculous back rooms, you just have to smack around some elementals and hop on buttons to get it working, fight a berserk giant flying pig with a little crown, and you’re good.

Anyway, hey! You know who we haven’t really checked in on since literally before the start of Heavensward when there was that awkward incident at the party, other than the peace talks with the emperor which went badly? Merlwyb, the admiral of Limsa Lominsa and first likeable character in the game! Since the problem of the big nazi empire is kinda resolving itself, she’s been turning her attention to the other big consistent narrative theme, and looking to solve racism. Or at least to get a formal treaty going with the local kobolds and sahaguin. This isn’t going over with a bigshot pirate captain (’s second in command running things while he’s sick), who kinda thinks it’s total BS that they’re this whole pirate nation and they’ve kinda stopped killing people and taking their stuff entirely, and has been particularly avid on screwing with monster folk because see they’re not really people, is his logic. Merlwyb has no patience for that, and just kinda goes, look, pirate rules, you don’t like how I run things, you challenge me to a duel, none of this sneaking around behind my back crap. Kid’s an idiot and accepts this, she shoots the gun out of his hand, the actual captain of his ship gets out of bed to ask hey what the hell about him being such an idiot and apologize.

Then right after that, she’s like, right, cool, now we have all these stolen crystals from the other locals, and this religion cure, let’s make a peace offering of these, I’ll personally walk in with enough crystals they’ll definitely have a priest try and summon Titan to kill me, Alisaie does her thing, actual peace talk time. That’s pretty much how things play out, except, you know, he has a lot of reasons to hate humanity besides the whole religious zealotry thing. Merlwyb goes yeah, fair point. When we first settled here we totally made a peace agreement on how to share things and totally screwed you over in a colonialist fashion rather than stick to the spirit of it. Here’s the gun I used to kill my father, who signed that and later got turned by Leviathan, if it’ll sweaten the deal here, feel free to kill me with it. He doesn’t obviousl, and hey, peace achieved.

So Alisaie, for real, I think you owe the nice cool pirate lady an apology for implying she was a bloodthirsty racist way back with the faction picking speech commentary at the start of the game. Things broadly get patched up with the other four races off camera, but all this gets interrupted because there’s suddenly big ominous imperial looking towers all over the world. This bugs the heck out of me because up until now a huge deal has always been made about territorial control and transportation logistics and such and just teleporting big buildings in all over does not fly with that at all. Everyone goes to Ala Mhigo to talk about it because frankly they just have the nicest meeting hall out of anyone. Ul’dah’s might be close but the last big meeting everyone had there ended pretty badly. Anyway Fandaniel, whose name sucks almost as much as his personalty and his plan, shows up with “Lunar Bahamut” because you can’t be a terrible villain without recycling better ideas, and explains his terrible plan. Roughly, “I don’t care about that whole restoring the world thing the proper Ascians were all into, I wasn’t there for any of that. I just want to kill everyone in the world and then myself.” SUCH a downgrade after this last expansion. Hell he’s a downgrade from freaking Lahabrea.

Anyway Thancred shows up for the after-meeting meeting at Scion HQ to share our other reveal. What’s up with the towers is the new unbearable jerk here worked out a plan where the citizens of the empire started worshipping the empire itself as a god and did the summoning thing. Just, religion-ified hyper-nationalism. So on top of getting set on fire along with other horrible things thanks to a civil war, almost the whole population of the empire is now all zombie-like with religious compulsion, and the imperial palace is this sort of nightmare tower that I guess is just like popping out sub-towers all over the world, also putting out that worship us field.

So naturally, we have a small little strike force going in to check one of these towers out consisting of... not you for once! Rauban has access to Fordola who’s still all in on suicide missions to repent, and Arenvald who... I swear is totally an established character I just haven’t mentioned him. There’s a bunch of minor background people who hang out at Scion HQ, he’s one of them, he went off to have a more major role in Stormblood but doesn’t really do anything specifically worth calling out, has an interesting little backstory about his mom slicing his head open because he was maybe growing that “third eye” the imperials have, he just kinda randomly has the whole Echo thing because some people do, involved in a lot of Fordola stuff. Anyway they sneak in, set off an alarm, get jumped by “Lunar Ifrit” he’s stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. They do find out though that the towards have hundreds of people embedded in the walls just like in Bahamut’s prison to summon whichever god they worship constantly, on demand.

Time to run around a bit and gather info. Tiamat summoned actual Bahamut forever ago, so Estinein’s off to pay her a visit and see if she has any insight here. The Scions are looking for Estinein because... frankly he’s cool and it’s nice to keep him in the loop on these things. You bump into him, he’s all “wow you look so much more mature and manly Alphinaud!” ... to Alisaie. She has no clue but is mad about someone making a fake version of her dead boyfriend/god and wants to help but, you know, she summoned the actual one and reminds you she might just end up doing that again what with the whole Tempering thing. Tiamat’s weird like that. But, you know, we’ve got a cure for religion now. No more excuse for just standing around Azys Lla in the weird bondage gear, come help with stuff. Specifically that other cool all-your-friends-show-up-to-help dungeon I mentioned, when Fandaniel and his pathetic fake Bahamut are terrorizing the cool lizard people by Ul’dah. Kind of a speedbump fight, the whole “lunar” gods thing is just kinda here for a little boss filler without needing new designs really.

Anyway, the liberated lizard pals are now onboard, getting their religion cures distributed. Ditto for all the others. For real, Alisaie and Merlwyb just kinda ended religion and racism between them, everyone’s cool with everyone now. Unless you’re still grinding out those tribe quests, then there’s still jerks around I guess. You shouldn’t be though, best content in the game.

Krile figures hey, why don’t I go back to Nerd Town (aka Sharlayan, aka Old Sharlayan... the ruins from Heavensward were kind of an expansion site, they still have a turbo nerd college town off on an island) and ask the neutral-in-every-war scholarly jerks there if they maybe want to help because the empire really shouldn’t qualify as a side anymore when not taking sides, it’s just kind of hell on earth and full of zombies. OK I shouldn’t say zombies for this sort of thing because actual zombies are a thing and they’re actually all very nice and polite, but you know what I mean. Anyway, she’s taking off, and figure’s hey, seat’s open, let’s maybe officially make Estinein part of the team? Welcome aboard you super helpful idiot.

It’s seriously just boardroom meeting season. You have another one to officially welcome everyone who didn’t count as human to your grand old alliance and also formally quit it with that don’t count as human thing because really what the hell with that. Anyway I don’t think that meeting’s even over when Nerd Town sends a representative over to answer Krile’s inquiry formally. Turns out it’s the twins’ father, and he is just a gigantic asshole. His response is basically, “no, screw you, it’s not actually ‘the end of the world’ just because some jerk says he wants to kill everyone, and hey while I’m here, screw my father, he sucked, and screw my kids, you suck, and you know what, I’m officially disowning you when I get home.”

Krile calls on the phone after (I’ve mentioned that’s a thing right? Technically they’re called linkpearls and it’s like some kind of quantum entangled clam and pearl thing or something? In-game rationalization for chat functionality that gets used pretty constantly in the plot to just... make phone calls, rings and everything). Anyway she says everyone in Nerd Town’s hiding something, ASAP people should come check it out. First though we need to have a proper gameplay endcap. The deal with the towers is they’re sucking all the aether out of the world to redirect it somewhere (turns out the moon, eventually, which I don’t think the characters really clue into until a bit later, but we get villain cutaways, but it needs storing somewhere first). Anyway, we have a big showdown in Carteneau, which is where the big end of 1.0 battle was happening when the apocalypse happened and I think is where the PvP stuff nobody cares about happens and I couldn’t point it out to you on a map to save my life. Between Thanalan (country Ul’dah’s the capital of) and Mor Dhona apparently, as I check a wiki. Anyway, big ol’ fight against all these lame Lunar gods with the whole party, and by that I mean control actually rotates around and you play as if not all I think at least most of your NPC pals for different bits.

We get a cutaway to Fandaniel doing the whole evil advisor thing, “oh they’ve stopped us from gathering party there, we’ll just have to redirect to an area we still control, heh heh heh” sort of crap but... honestly Zenos doesn’t actually care in the slightest what this guy does, it’s not his evil plan, he’s literally JUST here to kill/bang/be-killed-by you and has kinda just spent this whole patch series looking through his pile of absurd weapons for one that seems cool enough to bring for the rematch, settling on a big ridiculous switchblade-y scythe.

Meanwhile, yeah, time to see what’s up in Nerd Town. Before leaving you get a weird vision/brief glimpse of some woman with one of those lame Ascian masks  all warning you you’re the only one who can stop the forthcoming apocalypse. But of course actually hopping the boat has to wait until next time.

Oof, I could have sworm MOST of this was in the next expansion proper, but this patch set really is just super heavy on foreshadowing the next expansion. I believe part of that is there was apparently some sort of writers room issues with the next expansion where basically, they had two ideas for what to do next, couldn’t decide which to do first, and kinda ended up just cramming both into a single expansion which among otherthings caused a BUNCH of setup to leak out over here.

I’m planning to finish this write up by the end of the month or close to it, hopefully people throw enough money at my Patreon that I can continue to survive past there. Meanwhile a couple quick last thoughts I probably should have squeezed in before now:

I don’t know if I mentioned this but all through Shadowbringers G’raha is constantly casting all the spells that were “grey magic” in FF6 (mute, float, invis, exit, etc.) which otherwise don’t exist in FF14, and I just think that’s a fun little gimmick to work in. Also I think I mentioned the bunny girl dancer that’s his captain of the guard? She’s not a super important character but there’s an interesting dynamic where she’s got a huge crush on him and is broken up about him leaving, but totally gets that she never had an actual chance, because he has a super obvious dorky crush on you to the point he’s oblivious.

Also, role quests. Shadowbringers had these instead of job quests. 4 for combat classes, 5 for crafters/gatherers. Pretty simple plot progression. The crafting ones are all about doing stuff around the Crystarium like helping the local vet and a girl who restores antiques, but then one has you help a cryptozoologist prove invisible brontosauruses are real, that’s kinda neat. The combat ones are all about the backstory for the rest of Ardbert’s old party. But there’s this whole thing where after you’ve done all of them, the woman running the bar who’s coordinating all the bountyhunters confesses to you in a pretty overly dramatic way that she was ALSO in Ardbert’s party, and before that she was one of the heroes in the Thirteenth, AKA The Void, or if you’re me just hell.

Turns out when things got screwed up there, the Ascians made basically the same deal with her they did with Ardbert. Hey, go to this other dimension, try and fix the cosmic balance by pushing things the other way. So she did and feels real bad about it. You forgive her because whatever, things worked out. But also, hey, she’s lonely, and while I think I forgot to mention it at the time, there’s also some kid who showed up back during that whole “Warriors of Darkness” setup who was also from the Thirteenth, doing the same sort of world hopping deal, who gives you a bunch of exposition on that. So you end up smuggling him over to the First in G’raha’s soul transfer crystal, presumably after rinsing it out first, they get to hang out. Nothing super important about this yet but I want to have mention of it here for sometime later.

Next up is Endwalker, which really sells itself here as being the actual ending of FF14′s story for real, flat out, and promises a trip to the moon.

[biblioflyer]

The Map is Not the Terrain: Institutional Power vs Individual Action in Star Trek Picard

In terms of its depiction of the Federation and the setting’s overall understanding of human nature and human rights, Star Trek Picard has continued the tradition of storytelling about the Federation as a place with an expansive state that is ready to free people from want and need, but is extremely cautious when it comes to violations of individual autonomy.

Yet while it is upholding this vision of the Federation, the series is also interrogating whether or not an expansive state is capable of the omniscience and omnipotence needed to guarantee a good life for every citizen and of empowering individual actors on the bridges of starships to know with absolute certainty what the morally righteous choice is.

This is part of a series of essays reevaluating Star Trek Picard and interrogating the widely held fandom criticism that Picard made the Federation into a Dystopia.

As discussed previously, I think the best interpretation of Raffi is that if we are to judge the circumstances we meet her in, the Federation has looked at the history of earlier states and their people and made a determination that it does not have the wisdom to know what’s best for Raffi. Trying to impose its view of what’s best on her is a moral hazard. As such the Federation is content to let Raffi figure this out on her own or until she affirmatively seeks assistance.

I’ve also written before about the challenges Picard likely faced in understanding the power of admiralship and using it correctly. Namely that the scope of the information available to you becomes more expansive but the finer grained resolution takes on limits. If you spend too much time on minutiae, you lose sight of the big picture. 

As an Admiral, it's the big picture Picard was responsible for. And a big picture is ultimately numbers. Ship numbers, timetables, manpower: all numbers to be plugged into equations to try to make the “good things happening” numbers go up: Romulans resettled, industrial replicators brought online. This isn’t being divorced from reality, it's a different, more impersonal relationship with reality where an individual has tremendous power to move resources around for the better of billions of lives, but a more limited capacity to see what that power is actually doing beyond making good numbers go up and bad numbers go down.

The dark side of abstaining from all acts that may inadvertently cause harm

Ultimately Picard’s Federation is a place where a Raffi can sit and stew for 14 years in her anger while still being afforded basic necessities. Through this, the state is also providing her as much dignity and autonomy as I think we can reasonably expect from a Federation that didn’t see a prestigious use for her worldview and could not supply an alternate means for her to obtain the validation she craved. 

Yet Picard’s Federation is a place that is extremely wary of bestowing its largess upon out groups. And let's be clear: it's always been this way. The Prime Directive is simultaneously an anti-imperialist mandate but also a means by which the Federation can duck responsibility for the galaxy outside its borders if it doesn’t feel like it. On a good day, it's more anti-imperialist than Social Darwinist, but sometimes when fear or suspicion are in the driver’s seat, it definitely has Social Darwinist outcomes, see also: Tasha Yar’s homeworld.

This is as good a time as any to talk about the philosophy of law. The central tension in the idealized version of the Federation hinted at by TNG and the more human “utopia is a process, not a destination” version that Picard is centering is that those of us who are more sensitive to disorder and untidiness in our systems crave utopia as a thing to be achieved. A final era of perfect law enacted by wise and fair administrators. A time in which the law itself would really and truly be just.

At varying times though, such as the “Drumhead” and gradually ratcheting up in DS9, what we start realizing is that even in the Federation the law is not justice. Federation law is usually just, but the law is not, has never been, and never will be justice itself. Justice is a condition, maybe it's even a Platonic form: a thing apart from reality that we are trying to reproduce out of the imperfect matter of a world forever distant from Source. 

What justice is not, is law. Law is a tool to try to create conditions of justice. In its most perfected form, law is a thing that provides a blueprint for justice to be followed by those who lack the inner purity and unlimited wisdom to do it on their own. Which, unless you’re a Bodhisattva, is most of us. Also if you are a Bodhisattva, DM me with some tips on how to start and sustain a good meditation practice because boy howdy am I bad at that.

In one of the earliest TNG episodes, Picard saves Wesley from execution for trampling some flowers. I can’t really think of another time where we see how law is not justice in its rawest form. It’s almost a strawman in how extreme the situation is, but it is useful in illustrating the broader point. The Edo and their maximalist approach to capital punishment is almost as far from justice as the law can get, but let's keep in mind going forward that laws that more closely resemble our internal Platonic Ideals of justice are still not justice itself.

Laws may not be real but that doesn’t mean they aren’t useful

Minor spoilers, but Captain Shaw in season three is a perfect example of someone who is joined at the hip to laws because he himself does not feel confident in his own wisdom. He’s also an example of a type of personality that I think we would be wise to recognize more widely as existing as a default template for humanity.

Shaw is someone who is more sensitive to disruption of the status quo and the violation of rules. We owe the Shaws compassion not because they’re intrinsically right or more deserving of not being discomforted than anyone else, but because they are people too. Those of us who are a bit more inclined to look beyond the status quo and see unlimited potential owe it to ourselves to put a little effort into trying to talk the Shaws off the ledge when we suggest an update to the EULA for civilization. Assuming we can do so from a place of safety.

Admiral Clancy too makes extremely compelling arguments as well for why the Federation had to mind its own knitting after Mars. “The needs of the many” and all that.

When the Federation acts, sometimes it wagers entire ships and their crews, entire planets, entire civilizations. This was acutely felt every time Picard was in a standoff with a Romulan, especially Tomalak, who was in some sense also trapped in a standoff with Picard, having to calculate whether or not everything he had been told all his life about the Federation was true and when might he need to shoot first to save his crew but perhaps condemn his Star Empire to a war in which billions will suffer even if it wins.

This is where the Fenris Rangers and other independent actors (ahem, season three spoilers) come into play. Because they can operate outside the Federation’s rules and can react nimbly and more precisely to small problems.

Okay sure, but what does this have to do with episode four?

Herein I think is where I think we start seeing Picard get a taste of what true freedom of action might be like. The ability to represent only himself means he gets to follow his conscience and he alone owns the consequences. Was there a sort of giddiness in episode three where he tells Rios he’s not in the habit of consulting lawyers before he does something? On reflection, that’s obviously a half truth. As a Starfleet Officer, he was bound to a set of rules he dared not break lightly. Although generally he thought those rules were in the right, except when he broke them.

Picard is also being asked to confront the consequences of myopically focusing on Starfleet as the only valid mechanism through which positive change can be implemented in the universe. Something that he still seems to be grappling with in Season Three.