#they were my first ship ever and they will forever my favorite chaotic duo

[small-reptile-cake]

having a feeling about davekat going up against Cecil/Carlos while the tumblrsexyman victory hype is still fresh the feeling is called resignation

[mr-blake]

Brick, Mordecai, Tina, Hammerlock siblings, and August for the ask thingy if you want? :~D

holy hecK ohboiohboiohboi

ALSO I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK ME FOREVER TO GET TO AAAHH

but here we go

Brick:

First impression: big funny chara in a duo dynamic, possibly recurring rival? heart of gold. too brief an appearance. (tftbl is what opened the door to borderlands for me so ye ckxbdk)

Impression now: Best Big Boi. Heart of gold. He's as full of muscle as he is full of love. I'd die for him. For the love of god let him have a dog that lives.

Favorite moment: Ohhh too many god. Like all of the commander lilith dlc. The whole "no one's ever said that to me before...I LOVE YOU MAN!!" Just. All the moments. There's also some bits at the end of the normal story of BL2 that are gold bUT one's a dirty joke so im hushity.

Idea for a story: iii got a fic/animatic idea that's been bonking around in my head for a while. It's mostly story that fills in between the gaps of the first and second bl games.

Unpopular opinion: pfbbbtt i cant rlly think of one except that he, along with the rest of the original vault hunters don't get enough love in the fandom? Granted, that's been like. Changing lately with BL3 coming out n the new Commander Lilith DLC finally being enough of a push to get some folks in the fandom lovin him.

Favorite relationship: well, obviously i ship him and mordy, but that relationship being golden is a given, so imma say the paternal bond he's got developing with Tina bc it's so fucking wholesome and sweet and also rlly funny bc they are both balls of chaos.

Favorite headcanon: oohh there's a lot of good ones. but rn the fave i can think of atm is that he has an actual living dog in bl3 bc it's what he deserves and it could very well just be missing a leg. Let him have a dozen dogs or more plz. Let the puppers be bffs with Talon too.

Mordecai:

First impression: tall scrawny mc-pointy beardy guy in a funny lil duo dynamic. Thinks he's rlly cool, and sounds like he practices things he says to people to try and make other people think he's cool but he's wearing a blanket wrapped around him like a toga shirt thing does he have back problems wonder if that works. his interactions with muscle man are adorable and cute plz tell me we can see more of them this is too brief of an appearance come back. (again, tftbl was my intro to bl, so find my happy surprise that he n brick were in all the rest of the bl games cjxkcb)

Impression now: tired bird grandpa with a heart of gold. he's the sweetest, most caring lad. I stan him so much he's such a great dad, he deserves better im so happy he's recovering. i love his sense of humor. i love his birds. he deserves happiness and the world and his b team family. i love him i love him i love him i love h-

Favorite moment: uNGH all of them. He has so many good moments, in and outside of the games. But rn imma just say the whole of the Commander Lilith dlc bc that was chock-full of Grade A Mordy content, from sweet and wholesome to rlly funny.

Idea for a story: Aaaalll my fic/art/animatic ideas basically. im kind of a gremlin when it comes to my ideas for some reason, but like it's hard to explain them without basically infodumping a summary of some big fic idea i have. But uH ig with my latest lil art comic i did?? it def involves my idea with which Mordecai and Roland first encountering Tina when she was little bc Dad Time™️.

Unpopular opinion: iiiiii rlly am not a fan of how a lot of the fandom has basically stuck him with the personality of Old Drunk™️ bc uH. For one, he's not anymore. He's recovering. And two, he wasn't always like that and people need to take note that for the duration of the main BL2 storyline, he was at one of the lowest points of his life which led him into falling deeper and deeper into alcoholism and being actually rather out of character for himself. So like. Commander Lilith DLC was a good glimpse at Mordy being presented more in character than ever. Not the other way around.

Favorite relationship: Besides the obvious of him being married to Brick and being a dad to Tina bc i adore that a lot and they are def faves, i;;;; rlly love his bonds with Lilith and also esp Roland. Like,,,, outside of the game,, mordy n roland have had some adventures and how they click and connect with each other is rlly interesting and fun and also a big thing i wanted to explore in one of my bigger fic ideas cjdbfkfb.

Favorite headcanon: he's a great friggin dad?? but like. that's canon. i have. a lot of hcs for him. I'd have to make a whole ass post just for him with those tbh.

Tina:

First impression: gremlin child

Impression now: chaos with a heart of gold (yes they all have hearts of gold chdbdkb). she's been through a lot and the whole chaotic persona she's built up seems to be a way to cover up a lot of the pain and suffering she's gone through. iiiim hype she's teamed up with her dads and she better be mcfuckin having these parents stay alive or ill die.

Favorite moment: the whole of the Commander Lilith DLC, but also the butt stallion mission that led to the origins of bl3's b team.

Idea for a story: same fic ideas ive mentioned before cjfjxkcb

Unpopular opinion: i am definitely critical with how various aspects of her character are portrayed, but that's on bad/problematic writing on gearbox's part so i kinda just. ignore those. like im sure a lot of folks who enjoy her character do.

Favorite relationship: her and all of her dads. im a sucker for found family

Favorite headcanon: it was both roland and mordecai who first found her which is why after roland's passing that she's protective of mordy. bc it was only roland and mordecai who knew her full story and had been trying to fill in paternal roles for her after the trauma of what hyperion did. and like hell she's going to lose another parent again.

also aHHH im soRRY I would do all but im such a rambler fbdkxBcfkb i hope just these 3 for this post is okay?

[bookishbloggerreviews]

Obsidio and the Illuminae Series --An Honest Review

[Warning: I give an honest review that focuses not only on plot but on writing and character as well. As this is an opinion, you can take it as as seriously as you want, but understand that my goal is to review, not shame or praise the author.]

Finally, the conclusion to a stunning and (in my opinion it seriously needs one) award worthy series. Before I get into my review I want to thank the authors for providing this enchanting, one of a kind series as it certainly was worth the read and easily became a top favorite in my science fiction collection. I hope that they produce more content and I’m excited to see more from them in the future. Now onto the review. 

As anyone who has read my reviews before know, I start reading books with a general expectation that the book will be 5/10. If the book is better or worse than expected, the score adjusts from there, but I guess this rating system is rather pointless when the book is a 10/10, or a 5/5 stars. 

The ending of a series, I find, is such a difficult one for authors. Many of my favorite, and many popular series have endings that fans simply aren’t happy about and didn’t conclude “successfully” (I’m using this in the terms of a poorly thought out, or poorly planned ending), or were emotionally rewarding. (Ex: The Maze Runner, Divergent, Michael Vey, The Reign of Shadows, etc.) So when I say that this book has one of the most satisfying, well-ended, and peaceful, eased into endings that I’ve read, that should be one of the highest compliments the ending to a series can get. 

As we already know, Kaufman and Kristoff can write well, produce excellent, relate-able characters, and make the story work together flawlessly, but once again, in Obsidio, they prove just how excellent books should be. So having covered the basics, lets get into the spoilers, shall we? 

[WARNING: SPOILERS]

From this point on, everything I mention or include will probably have some spoilers laced through it. So if you have not read the previous two books, or have not read this one and are continuing to read this, just know that you’re ruining the ending for yourself. 

Starting off I’d like to take a moment to address the AI, which is probably the most complex AI I’ve ever seen pulled off in a book, and even worthy to be compared to one of my all-time favorite characters from the Alien series, David. 

Aidan is a true chaotic neutral in all of his loving glory, and we’ve seen that in the previous books but now we get to see what should be an almost characterless-character develop into a chaotic good. And not only is the character development well-paced, well-written, entertaining and charming, but it truly is development. Often times I see many writers claim their characters have changed or developed from the course of actions that have taken place in a series, when, in the end, they remain the same stubbornly attached or unchanged person that they were in the beginning. (Ex: Bella Swan.) It’s essentially the same principle of a character walking into a fire and coming out of it unscathed. But the authors have truly delivered this time. 

With each book, Aidan gets “smaller”, as he refers to himself. In the beginning of the series he establishes himself somewhat as a god over his crew and considers it mercy when he attempts to kill them as peacefully as he can. However, as time passes and Aidan gets “smaller”, he changes from a very-god-like character to a very human and very mortal character, and seems to gain human emotion while he is at it until at the very end, Aidan literally sacrifices himself to keep Kady safe. 

To have an AI become so human that it prizes the life of one human above all the others on a ship of many thousand is such a remarkable character ark that I am thrilled that I have gotten to be apart of it. But oh, the goodness and excellence of this book does not stop there. 

Moving onto Kady we have yet another well-developed character ark and in many times of the book, we see Aidan described Kady as a ghost of the girl he once knew her as, or looking like she could literally just disappear. Which is, once again, astounding, to take a character that we would often define as hard-headed rebel-leader into such a small and quiet, obedient presence, that I just want to stamp an award on it. As I often find myself saying, characters don’t necessarily have to get better to have good character development. In fact, a neutrally or lawfully good character who turns to the dark to achieve their goals is far more interesting than an already chaotically good character becoming more chaotically good. 

Now I wish I could say the same about Nick, Ezra, and Hannah, but in truth, their characters were more minor characters in the book so we didn’t see very much character development other than what we have already seen in previous books. 

However, we were introduced to more side characters that also displayed excellent character development. Oshiro, Asha, and Ben, all followed the exact same patterns that I refer to. Oshiro from Lawful neutral to neutral good, Asha from Chaotic good to chaotic neutral, and Ben from Lawful good to chaotic evil. Once again, music to my character-loving ears and even worthy of Zuko level of good. 

(May the king of character development forever reign.)

Moving on from character development to plot and writing style, everyone knows how incredibly done the writing style is so I guess plot will be the main focus here but the ability to take something so abstract and make it seem so real is another thing this series has up its sleeves. This series shows that a thousand and one things can go wrong with your plans. This series shows that sometimes you can’t just make it on what you have and sometimes you have to make sacrifices you’re not prepared to make. This series shows that even the most ordinary humans can play big parts into the plot. But most importantly, it shows that you don’t need magical dragons flying out every other chapter (Ex: Gilded) to make a book interesting. In fact, the human interaction and how they deal with stress and organize things is part of what makes this book so enjoyable because it is so realistic. 

This book isn’t about a bunch of teenagers getting together at the last moment, disobeying orders to save a country. This book has support systems, rebellions, mutiny, organization, planning, and thorough detail. There are just as many adult characters in this book as there are teenagers, and they’re doing just as much to impact the series although they may be side characters. 

And finally, moving onto romance... the romance in this series was not the highlight and I would not suggest this series or this book to someone if they expect romance. This book does not excel in romance and it’s not it’s theme either. And while I believe that the romance made about as much difference to the plot as it not-existing in the first place, it’s clear to show that this is first and foremost a science fiction series. 

In fact, I believe that if romance had been the focus of the series, the romance would have been between Kady and Aidan, instead of Kady and Ezra, as those two characters grow together and are far more compatible than Kady and Ezra ever were. And if you want romance out of it, I suggest re-reading it believing that Aidan and Kady are the main love interests because that’s the only way you’re going to get the fullest and most fulfilled senses of love and connection out of that series. 

But regardless, the book and the series overall was incredible. The book, a flawless 10/10, and the series, a solid 9/10. 

If you have any siblings or family members who want to read but are dulled by paragraphs and words, I would highly suggest this book to them as it is a series I believe anyone can get invested in. Once again, I cannot wait to see what more this duo have in store for the writing community and if they will pair up and produce again. It was more than worth the money (as this series does cost a bit extra to get) but you certainly won’t be forgetting it anytime soon. 

If you liked this review or this series, or care to agree or disagree, please leave it in the comments below. I am always happy for some book chatter on my blog and love to see fellow fans. Until the next review, your average bookish blogger out!