#i could also just... replay extinction

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 2 replay, part two of Tali’s loyalty mission:

-I think Tali has the densest loyalty mission. Mordin comes close, but all the extra conversations makes Tali the winner.

-Why are the living quarters at the entrance of the Alarei?

That must be awful. Every time someones comes or leaves, they pass by you while you sleep. And the kitchen is in the middle of the bunks. You never have any peace.

-I’m just casually looting everything in the sight.

The quarians can consider this repayment for making me stress over a trial instead of just sending a damn email for help.

-Quarian log: Rael’Zorah ordered us to bypass standard safeties. Following standard protocols will take too long.

And shockingly, this ends with everyone dead. It’s almost like there’s a reason for regulations and protocols.

For a game that decries red tape, Mass Effect repeatedly proves its importance over and over. There’s some impressive cognitive dissonance there.

-Tali says the only species that salvages more than them are the vorcha.

I doubt the vorcha are better at it. They’re just more desperate.

-Tali’s turmoil through this mission is clear. She doesn’t know what’s worse: This being her fault or her father’s.

This is a good example of how her mission is better written than Jacob’s. Neither Tali nor Jacob wanted to believe their father capable of the crimes they committed, but Tali’s feelings are discussed in more depth and more personally.

Jacob’s are glossed over and impersonal. Jacob would not want to believe anyone capable of doing what his father did; Ronald could easily have been substituted with an old friend or commander and the mission would play out the same. His outrage against Ronald actions was a general anger against the crew’s mistreatment, not a personal betrayal.

The relationship – or more accurately, lack there of – between Tali and her father is centered in this mission, however. Tali’s actions are driven partly to live up to his ideals and partly because of her anger at him.

Rael did it all for Tali and she never wanted him to; Ronald had put his relationship with Jacob behind him and willingly abandoned him for a decade. Tali’s willing to take the fall for Rael in the end; Jacob only considered how to punish Ronald.

It’s the personal touches in Tali’s mission that make hers more powerful. Jacob’s distance from Ronald distances the player as well.

-One of the quarian logs says that Rael deliberately had the geth network together.

-How does weapons being offline or navigation being locked protect the fleet? Can’t the geth just hack their way past that?

-This must be absolute hell for the geth.

They wake up. They don’t know where they are except captured by their creators, who they do know are hell bent on the geth’s extinction.

They’re tortured. They can tell there are other geth around them also being tortured.

They finally manage to get free and make the torture stop, but they’re still trapped on this ship. Navigation is locked and the weapons are offline. It’s surrounded by the creators. They know it’s only a matter of time before the creators blow the ship up.

They probably just want to go home.

I actually feel pretty bad about killing the geth. Killing people torturing you is a reasonable response. I wish there was an option to negotiate with them.

-And on that note, why are the geth still on the ship? Why haven’t they uploaded themselves to servers?

I suppose we can assume they’re out of range or there’s some kind of shield around the ship to prevent that.

-Rael was looking for a way to overcome geth resistance to reprogramming.

So putting it another way, he wanted to indoctrinate them.

Charming.

-Tali insists that even assembled geth are not sapient. Rael was not performing tests on prisoners.

And how can you test reprogramming if the subjects aren’t sapient…?

Her denial is understandable, but the evidence is increasingly damning.

-If you go renegade and tell Tali the quarians to reclaim the homeworld, she expresses doubts.

They’d have to rebuild it and readapt to it. They’re culture would completely change. She’s not sure it’s worth it.

-But if you go paragon and tell her to not give involved in an unnecessary war, she bites your head off and tell you that you don’t know what it’s like to live in a home one hull breach from destruction. They’re trapped in their suits.

Tali, Shepard got spaced. They have some knowledge of the dangers of living on ships.

I’ll give her the suits, however.

-Regardless, the contrast is interesting. Tali’s conflicted on reclaiming the homeworld; she loves the Migrant Fleet as it is, but is also well aware of its dangers and downsides.

-She says the pilgrimage teaches them all they’ve lost being trapped in their suits.

Without it, she’d never know what she doesn’t have.

-The quarians haven’t colonized another world because it would take them a long time to readapt to it. The homeworld would take 60 years; another world would take 600.

I’ll put out there they could have colonized another world back when they first fled the homeworld and before the suits became necessary, but I suppose at the time it was considered a temporary measure. They never thought they would lose Rannoch for so long.

-If you skip hugging Tali, she has strong words about her father.

Her anger shines through here – she wanted her father to spend time with her.

Instead, he focused on his work to provide the best possible life for her.

It’s the continuing theme for Tali: People love Tali enough do what they believe is best for her, but don’t respect her enough to listen to what she wants.

-Quarians need to take sick leave so they can see each other’s faces.

Damn, that’s tragic.

-And once more with feeling: Rael brought the geth online and performed tests on them for Tali’s sake.

She’s pissed about it and being left to clean up his mess.

He loved her, but he didn’t respect her.

-At least he was emphatic that he did not want Tali to be caught in any potential blowback.

She was anyway, but kudos for trying.

-If you go renegade, Tali says that what Rael did violates quarians laws that predate leaving Rannoch.

I am genuinely impressed that the quarians consider experimenting on live geth over the line. I thought they would only be upset at the danger Rael put everyone in, not the ethics.

-You can also choose to care about Tali more than you respect her by showing evidence at the trial.

She’s understandably upset – she’s going to die on the suicide mission anyway, so what does it matter if she’s exiled?

-If you show no evidence, Tali is surprisingly chill. Not happy at being exiled, but at peace. Again, she’s most likely going to die soon anyway.

-Tali, about the potential war with the geth if she’s exiled: If they get themselves killed through their own stupidity, my conscience is clean.

Bravado probably created by adrenaline. Tali, uh, does not handle it well no matter what if the quarians die fighting the geth.

-Blue paragon and Rally the Crowd play out very similarly. The dialogue choices with Tali afterwards are even the same.

I actually prefer Rally the Crowd – having Veetor and Kal’Reegar come to Tali’s defense is moving.

Blue paragon relies on Shepard being Just That Charismatic again.

-Also, it’s rare for neutral to be so different from paragon or neutral. Usually it’s the same without the flavoring the others come with.

-Kal’Reegar says he’ll be escorting techs around researching for dark energy build up.

The foreshadowing is so obvious. When Bioware abandoned the dark energy idea, they really hurt the series’ continuity.

-He also says the best way to get the homeworld back is to find another means that does not involve fighting the geth.

I think this was intended to foreshadow an option to make peace between the geth and quarians without them ever fighting.

Obviously that idea was dropped.

-Shala’Raan has blinders when it comes to Rael. She always wants to believe the best of him.

Unless you state otherwise, she assumes Rael told Tali in his last message to her that he loves her.

And if you do, she insists he was showing his love the best he could.

-Interesting that when Gerrel asks about the evidence you found, deferring to Tali is neutral. Telling him is paragon.

With how the mission has played so far, I’d say that deferring to Tali should be the paragon choice. Let her make the choices about her life.

Normandy

-According to the Geth Shield Technology, geth technology is completely incompatible with Alliance technology.

Huh. How incompatible is Alliance technology with quarian technology?

The geth must have diverged quite a bit if they’re completely divergent from the quarians. They both built on the same foundation, and they’ve been monitoring organic communications.

-Tali says a few people have suggested her as an admiral candidate.

Foreshadowing! And Shepard may have made their case a little too convincingly.

-Tali: My father would be honored I chose to mourn him by blowing up a lot of geth.

Good line.

#mass effect #mass effect 2 #mass effect 2 replay

[nellasbookplanet]

I know I'm about a decade late but I've been replaying the Mass Effect trilogy for the first time since I was a teenager and I'm going absolutely bonkers trying to figure out if the endings are actively and stupidly working against the core themes of all three games, or if they actually thematically work but in the bleakest way imaginable.

All three endings are the embodiment of what we've been fighting literally from the start. In ME1 Saren thinks the Reapers cannot be defeated and so strives for Synthesis, thinking it will save us but not realizing he's already been indoctrinated and has basically willingly turned himself into a husk by the end. In ME2 & 3 the Illusive Man thinks destroying the Reapers would be a waste and that we should instead control both their technology and them as a species, ignoring that this is not only a heinous thing to do but also incredibly arrogant, seeing as anyone poking at Reaper technology gets indoctrinated. Both Synthesis and Control are actively argued against by the very narrative. That in combination with Destroy being the only ending in which Shepard survives, it’s no wonder many fans seem to consider it the only "true" ending (and it’s also not very surprising the indoctrination theory got so popular).

But Destroy comes with its own issues. Aside from the ethical implications of only being able to win by committing genocide against your own allies (synthetics in general, geth and EDI in particular), like with the other two it seems to be actively argued against throughout the narrative.

You are the strongest at the end by striving for cooperation throughout the games, showing time and again that destruction isn't necessary. You save the krogan from extinction, stop the geth and the quarians from wiping each other out. From Javik we find out that the strength of this cycle compared to his is the diversity and cooperation between alien species; from the Leviathan DLC as well as the history of the geth and of EDI we find that synthetics are only violent by mirroring their creators, and can be peaceful just as much as organics. And yet here is an ending arguing for completely wiping out all synthetics.

Assuming the writers were not actually trying to work against their own themes, this makes all three endings incredibly bleak. With the constant emphasis on making hard choices throughout the trilogy, is the point that there is no way to achieve a truly "good" ending? That you'll have to compromize your morals or your allies or both to stop extinction? That Saren or the Illusive Man's solutions could have worked had they not been corrupted, similarly to how synthetic implants (a step toward synthesis) did not automatically corrupt Shepard (with Kai Leng as a foil of cybernetic implants instead leading to indoctrination), or reaper code upgrades didn’t automatically corrupt EDI or the geth?

But if so, why are all endings presented as... happy? Why is Synthesis lifted as the epitome of evolution and peace while never touching the sacrifice of agency in the name of survival? Why does Control lift the "power in control" and "wisdom of harnessing the strength of your enemy" while ignoring the ethical implications of basically indoctrinating and enslaving the reapers in turn? Why does neither of these endings lift the risk of them turning sour the way they did for Saren and the Illusive Man? Why does Destory lift victory and rebuilding while ignoring the literal genocide that took place to allow for it? None of these are presented as bittersweet endings in which morals had to be sacrificed in the name of survival and a better future, but they also work against the themes in such an obvious way that I refuse to believe the writers didn’t notice. There must be more to it.

#*shakes bioware like a broken toy* WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME #mass effect #I've been obsessively replaying these games for the last dew weeks and now my brain is going BRRR about them nonstop #so i'll probably be writing another few posts just to air out my thoughts #ME3 as a whole is so strange cuz like. it's an incredibly good game #the emotional beats hit HARD #character arcs started for team members in ME2 are brought back to satisfying and cathartic endings #and then they just. completely fail to tie the themes together cohesively in the endings #nella talks

[lunarsilkscreen]

FFXIII - and Lightning

I've been asked; if FXIII-Lightning Returns is your favorite *ever* Final Fantasy game; why don't you write more about it? Like your other multi-volume sagas on the other franchises you go on fanpages about?

Because most of what I would have to say about the 13 series as a whole would be critical in nature. FFXIII is the first game in the FF series that feels Rushed, Forced, and suffers from the the dreaded [hallway effect].

The hallway effect is what happens when you try to extend a Retro-Style side-scrolling game like [Ghosts and Goblins] or [Battletoads] into a 60 hour (minimum) endeavour.

And by 60 hour minimum; I mean regardless of skill level, replays, or skipping side-content you're sinking approximately 60 hours in from front to back. You can get it down to about 40 hours if you're really focused, but it is a slog.

And this is the first in the FF13 series. So it's hard to say "Wow, I love this game and you should too" when it feels more like a trap where you'd love to finish the game; but it feels less like a game and more like work.

That's not to say you shouldn't like the game. I'm hyper critical, despite thoroughly enjoying the story. Although... The [Day-time Soap Opera] feel if the game may lead other players to outright avoid it in it's entirety.

The world of FF13 is set in Gran Pulse's moon; Cocoon. And society has set up a safe haven because monsters have taken over the planet's surface. The government has created a sort of legal system that forces [Criminals] suspected of [Crimes] to face punishment or flee to the planet's surface (which is not an easy thing to do). The planet's surface is basically Australia.

So this reflects a lot of "penal colony" rhetoric from the [Colonial] days.

In between 13 and 13-2; the titular character [Final Fantasy XIII], I mean [Lightning] has gone missing. She just fell in a gap between dimensions and her friends and family have absolutely no idea where she went.

This leads to her sort of Adopted Son; Hope from the first game to set off on a frantic lifelong mission to find Lightning. Similar to the plot of Interstellar; but with more RPG elements. Hopes quest coincides with Noel's quest who, through Hopes dealings with the quantum space time [whatever's] and though the power of [Eidolons] (this installments version of the [Summon]) is forced from the future into the present world where Hope, the character, lives.

He informs Hope of the future; A world that has gone extinct. Not just Humans, the entire planet. And Noel, along with Caius who also disappeared between dimensions like Lightning did, are the last two humans on Gran Pulse. (Cocoon has since been evacuated so that humanity lives in Gran Pulse.)

Leading to an unending battle between Lightning and Caius until the events of FF13-LR.

FFXIII-2 has a more arcadey feel (despite the original game was designed to mimic an arcade experience) and IMO has the mechanics of what the original FFXIII should've had in the beginning.

I really feel that if FFXIII was originally released with a FFXIII-2's style, it would've had a bigger following. The original FFXIII, however, did something that I don't know if it was intentional; allowing freedom of movement on Gran Pulse when the player finally gets there (Gran Pulse feels like FFX's world where the calm lands are).

This makes the player think; Do I really want to go back to cocoon to finish this? Or just hang out here on Gran Pulse? At the part I arrived in this area, I wanted to do the side quests; but I was also so burned out on the game I just wanted to be done with the story. (And I didn't wanna watch a YouTube video.)

I HAVEN'T SINCE TOUCHED FFXIII or -2, despite having played LR 3 times. That's how much I enjoy LR; even now I would go back and play that and avoid xiii and -2 entirely.

Hope and crew put an immense effort into trying to contact Lightning; the only person they really feel like could save the planet from its eventually destruction; while simultaneously trying to defeat Caius and the dark Chaotic rifts that open up all over the planet; in the past, present, and future.

Serah, being a [Seer] Sees a vision of Lightning save the world at the end of XIII-2 before her ultimate death. [Seer Visions] being thought to eat a portion of the Seer's life is the documented reason why; but nobody knows for sure.

In Lighting Returns, [FFXIII]; I mean Lightning: appears as diety, working for the Christian God [Bhunivelze]. An all powerful entity who wishes to destroy Humanity, Gran Pulse, and reform it as whatever he thinks is a better version.

At first, Lightning is collecting Souls. She Operates in a similar facet to the Protagonist of Act Raiser; returning to a celestial [Home Point] in between each outing and trying to save as many people as she can; However; Bhunivelze, Hasn't told her about his true intentions, and keeps a Copy of [Hope] as she remembers him, a child from the first game. But Hope isn't really there; he's a construct controlled by Bhunivelze; an effort to control Lighting entirely.

It's at this point I stop to tell you may favorite connection between FF13 and the Lightning Saga to another lesser known game series on GameBoy: [Sa-Ga] or {Final Fantasy Legend} in the west. I'm sure there's many more references to the Romancing SaGa series as a whole, but it's the Gameboy games that I've played regularly.

The GameBoy games feature a lot of the same key story points (That I'm going to glaze over) such as time travel to save the world inside of a futuristic spaceship (Legends3), Fighting and taking the place of the divine being (Legend 1) and most notably (For me) Odin. Whom ressurects the Hero should they die, only for the main character to have to fight Him and take his place.

(The save/reload ability of the game can be interpreted as Odin's resurrection power in this case. Which is a detriment, because you can no longer be "reloaded" to right before you died.)

Odin in LR becomes Lightnings mighty Steed (Chocobo) who many players tend to rename to [d*face] prompting SquareEnix to remove the ability to rename your Chocobo in the PC ports.

While Lightning becomes Odin in this game, and has to make this decision; follow God's Will, OR; save the souls of humanity and ferry them to the new world like a modern Charron retelling.

Obviously; Lightning chooses to mimic Noah and save humanity (Possible after canonically failing her mission of 13 days in length several times. Due to needing to 100% the game basically in order to see the true ending.) and ferry's the souls of the damned to the new world; while Serah and Caius opt to stay in the [divine realm] in order to protect humanity from another would be Bhunivelze.

[st-kitten]

pt.1, pt.2, pt.4 pt.5

rainy night: y/n stormed in the cafe, clutching her laptop bag, drenched. kiyoshi was the only one working. he went into the storage room and got her a towel. she thanked him and sat down on one of the sofas, catching her breath

he asked her if she was okay. she said that she was stuck in a student's block, that no matter how much she analysed and reread the terms and chapters, she couldn't formulate anything. and the screen time was only stressing her out.

kiyoshi thoughtfully brewed an espresso romano for her, which she accepted. kiyoshi didn't tell her so, but he really liked the way she'd smile upon drinking that particular coffee. never any other. just that one. it was his minuscule, but a special way of seeing her truly happy. the two then chatted, kiyoshi, also sitting next to her on the sofa, in his barista apron, which was stained and smelled like a lot of coffee

she complained to him about her difficulties in finishing her assignments. and he listened to her rant about her professors, the unfair way of modern academia, and how she wished she was some extinct dinosaur without a worry for any of these things. they shared laughs, several mugs of coffees. he even let her experiment with the coffee machine. she tried her best to make her version of a speciality. one which had a mild brew, vanilla extract, a cap of rum, and some cream. funnily kiyoshi found it interesting. he noted down the recipe and added his own expertise in measurements to it. and it turned out excellent. he asked her if he could add it to the menu and she was instantly happy about it. she of course agreed

he asked her to name it. she thought about it for a while and said: "window seat"

kiyoshi looked at her happy face, his head resting on his palm as he leaned on the counter, looking up at her. she was beaming. despite her unwashed and neglected hair, visible eye-bags, and chapped lips, she looked beautiful, kiyoshi thought

he didn't know what else to do at that moment, and stood up. he dug his fingers into her hair, holding her face and brought it closer to his. he kissed her. softly, unconditionally, and for a long time. though the way her lips touched his felt like a million different flavours of coffee, the small splash of sadness made its way through. fuck. she's taken. so am i...

they both pull away, kiyoshi meeting her gaze and she shook her head consistently "no no no we can't. kiyoshi…" "fuck. i know. I'm sorry"

he was glad that she didn't push him away. she understood what he'd felt and let it go. but, she did say she'd leave. she didn't want to make it any more complicated. kiyoshi insisted he drop her to her dorm as it was pouring outside. after a train of consideration, she agreed "just this once" "just this once" he replayed it in his mind, thinking about the kiss more than him dropping her off

he drove to her dorm and dropped her off at the driveway, which was sheltered. she got out of the car, but stood next to his window. she didn't know what to say after their encounter. she thanked him for dropping her. before she went inside, kiyoshi asked her if she would still come by the cafe. he didn't want to ruin her comfort place. she smiled at him and said "of course. you named a coffee after me after all…"

#kiyoshi teppei #kiyoshi #teppei #knb #y/n #coffee #kiss #new #fluff #cute #kuroko's basketball

[anxiousanteaterr]

Hmmm, should I get the first Nexomon game? I’ve already played Extinction and I LOVED it, to the point where I’m tempted to get the first one, but I feel like playing the first in a series AFTER playing the second might spoil the experience a bit.

#nexomon #might fuck around and find out anyway tho #i could also just... replay extinction #i also know the og nexomon game wont have the same characters #ill miss them :( #fuck ATLAS my blog stans Coco

[a-master-procrastinator]

First impressions on 7.0 story

I did the story on both Imperial and Republic sides, but only one time, so my thoughts and impressions might change after another replay. In general, it felt lackluster. Not without some bright moments, but 7.0 leaves more questions than answers and confuses me even more.

Spoilers under the cut!

Since I don't have backup characters (not main characters, so if something bugs I won't be disappointed) to experience new story, I took Airistan (DS-neutral Knight, Republic loyalist) and Jett (neutral-light BH, still unsure about loyalist/saboteur thing, both are terrible options for her, so I have 2 versions rolled with different options, today it's Imperial saboteur).

Didn't expect Manaan to be first, kinda figured it would be a story between the overall plot with Malgus and war. I didn't know what to expect from this plotline other than "we need kolto!" for either Republic or Empire, and, honestly, the game didn't get me invested. I don't know how to put it, but when Onslaught came out with the whole deal about Meridian complex, I had a sense of importance of either defending or destroying it. With Manaan I didn't have this feeling. Maybe it was my sleep deprived brain (can't rule it out), maybe it was lack of necessity of this mission in overall plot. Other than one "if we had that kolto shipment we'd get you more soldiers" line, Manaan's story don't have impact on anything else, at least so far. I'm willing to wait until next story updates release and see if the result of mission on Manaan has any more consequences.

Underwater mission was fun though. Gave me a little nostalgia from KOTOR.

New area looks good (even if it burns my computer and I have to lower shadows to get better fps and not hurt my eyes). Also happy about characters using their class ship.

Republic

Glad to see Arn again, congratulations on passing the trials and becoming Knight, even if his doubts are still there. Too bad Airistan can't help him much with his struggles as a Jedi (because she doesn't care about Jedi path).

Colonel Gallo is cool, hope she appears again (but pls don't make me come back to Manaan if it's gonna be so slow again).

Surprised that Airistan chose to save people instead of kolto, but in retrospective it makes sense - kolto isn't exactly a resource that's going extinct, and gaining trust by saving Selkath over kolto can help in future relations with Selkath. Airistan is devoted to win the war by any means, but she is also clever. Usually.

Empire

Ooops, another Dark Councilor is dead on Jett's watch, must be a coincidence. Shouldn't have gotten overly ambitious. In other words, Darth Norok didn't impress me.

Colonel Korrd wasn't super interesting at first, but with time I got more invested. Jett even didn't expose him and told to go Odessen.

Anri is great as always. I felt shame when she said "I know I can trust you".

Kolto was sent to Odessen, but to be fair, Jett would do so regardless of saboteur/loyalist status.

I still have characters ready to do Manaan, so maybe my opinion will change.

(about Darth Nul) "Even so... I struggle to think of anyone else with the power to wipe someone from history so completely" ever heard of Black Codex? (people who main Agents, pls tell me that they make a comment about this)

Then we finally get to the main plot of the, ahem, expansion.

Elom is even better looking, but I could not get through this flashpoint without lowering graphics. A few more updates, and even NASA computers won't handle SWTOR at highest graphics.

Anyway, I'm intrigued by Darth Nul and hope we learn more about her work in future.

Absolutely didn't expect to capture Malgus so early on, seeing how he is the main hype about this expansion, but it's not the last time we see him, plus they seem to focus more on Sa'har now.

Republic

Okay, but you can't convince me that Tau and Lana's bickering isn't them flirting.

New girl gang shot just dropped! (maybe not as iconic, but still cool)

Love all the Jedi who come to capture Malgus. Arn, Tau, Aryn, Gnost-Dural, SATELE HELL YEAH!!!

"Malgus is too dangerous to keep alive. We should kill him while we have the chance" ah yes, good old Airistan, finally back.

Empire

[Not this guy...] Heh, poor Rivix, Jett gives no cares about you.

"If he crosses us, we kill him" even better xD, making life difficult for Acina.

Rivix's interactions with Lana are fun as well.

Was wondering how non Force-users go about Malgus throwing a big ass rock at them (Jedi and Sith simply stop it with the Force and throw back at him), such an iconic slide.

So, Imperial cameos - Xarion, Krovos, as expected; even Acina decided to show up? (or Vowrawn if he's the Emperor, I guess).

As much as Jett enjoyed taunting Malgus on Ossus and Corellia, this time it would be outright asshole behavior, and she kinda understands not wanting to serve the Empire.

Lord Eldrid... hm, name drop and possibility to replace Savik on the Dark Council? I have a feeling we'll see Eldrid again.

In general, story was very short, yet at the same time it felt so long to get there (especially Manaan). I have mixed feelings about it: on one hand, not much happened, and Manaan didn't feel overly important, on another hand, I loved some characters, and story seems to have only started, so here's hoping it gets better with new story releases.

My thoughts on all technical stuff (combat styles, conquest, GS 2 and all that) will be later, as there's still many new things to try.

#this is short and nothing too specific bc i will play more and form my opinion better #swtor #swtor 7.0 spoilers #oc:airistan #oc:jett #manaan felt like a slog tbh #and i was annoyed when we had to backtrack in flashpoint

[the-wonderful-imp-of-ozcar]

So i was recently reminded that this post exists and I got sad thinking about it- so I decided to make it a ficlet so it can be everyone else’s problem too~! :'D

[TW: Mention of Death, Mourning. ] ***

Only those closest to Oz ever noticed the little ceremonies that took place 4 times every year. At first it always seemed nothing more than a one off experience, so no one makes a connection. And even his most detail oriented friends often didn't put it together for a few years, at least.

Oz liked it this way; it meant he had to explain less often.

And lie about it less often. Because Gods above, he hated to lie about it.

The first one was near the start of the year, when winter was past its harshest phase. On that day he would drink a personal blend of hot tea all day. No matter the location, no matter the temperature, and no matter the incarnation- if he had the ability to, he'd take the day off and drink this personal blend all day long, reflecting on this life and the world around him.

(It wasn't exactly the same as the one she loved, but many of the old tea types went extinct over the years. Still, it was as close as he ever could get to it, and it brought him the solace he desired when he thought about her smile when she would make it in the morning and sip it alongside her *̶̧̘̱͋̈́̍*̸͎̆*̵̹̬͒͂*̶͙̤̠́̀*̷͖̦̫̈́̃*̶̫̉̐)

The next one was near the middle of spring, when everything was full of life and color. Oz always tried his best- he really did- to make them correctly; but throughout his many lifetimes of trying to make scented candles, he found they always had something wrong with them when it came time to burn. One scent often overcame another, air pockets appeared in the candle, or on occasion it would produce smoke instead of burning cleanly.

(Still, Oz couldn't help but smile when he remembered making many of the same mistakes alongside her, and how she loved the product anyway. It was about the experience of creating something together, after all. A shame that *̶̹̝̗̽̓*̷͉̼́*̷͕̮̓͆̌*̷̧̹̽̽͆*̸̛̻̞͂̂ never saw it that way.)

When the summer heat hit its peak, Oz could be found performing the third routine; the simple act of playing a tune. He preferred to play it properly on an instrument when he could, but it often came down to simply humming the notes of the last song he could remember her playing. That was fine honestly, as the original songs were played on a woodwind instrument that had long since ceased to exist.

(He often wondered if this was in the proper spirit, as she loved to make up the notes as she went along- creating something new each time- just to get everyone up and dancing along. But still, he couldn't help but replay her last made-up melody she had played for them- even if it was only days before *̷̦́*̷̻͆*̸̧̈́*̴̱͘ ̶̢̂*̸̫̑*̵̦̚*̶̻̿*̵̡̊*̶̱̃,)

And finally, the last one came in fall, landing on a day where most would be focused on upcoming holidays or harvests. This was the hardest for anyone to notice, as it had no physical trace; no drink, no candle, and no tune to prove it existed. Over the many, many, many years that Oz walked remnant, very few ever picked up on this ritual, but it happened every year all the same. Every year, on the same date, Oz made sure to thank all of those around him for what they did; whether it be close friends, family members, staff, or his inner circle- he made sure that day they left understanding how much he appreciated their presence in his life.

(This was also often the hardest of all of them, as it meant showing an amount of vulnerability that he was often uncomfortable with. But still, for the little girl who always made sure everyone around her knew how loved they were, this discomfort was the least he could do to honor her memory. And honestly, the fact that his then *̷̞̎*̷͓͝*̶̭̍*̶̨͠ never thought it was important to reciprocate this... really should have been telling.)

These private ceremonies weren't much, he knew; but Oz found that over years celebrating his daughters' birthdays in these small ways helped the ache he still felt for them. So every year, without fail, he mourned and celebrated his little girls in these small ways- hoping despite having no right to it, that if he ever did complete his mission he’d get the chance to finally see them again.

#Ozpin #Ozma #Rwby #Rwby Oz #Rwby Ozpin #Hey guess who made herself sad!!! :'D #Decided to post this after a friend said it made her teary-eyed and my SO replied to it with #Fuck u now im depressed #anyway hope it hits every single one of u in the feels #Tried to incorprorate a lot of things in here not only regarding things that are good to do in mourning- #-but inspired by the tale of the 4 maidnes #hope yall enjoy! #now this imp is off to be sad about Oz some more :'D #mine #my writing #Fic #ficlet

[nomanwalksalone]

TAKE MY IVY, PLEASE

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

A few years before my excellent state graduate school destroyed the promise of accessible public education and raised tuition to the same levels as the privates, my housemate, complaining that he wanted an experience that I had already had, transferred to Yale. Said experience, one I had never put a name to, was “the Ivy League experience.” I never thought that my undergraduate years at Dirnelli U (known to non-iGents as Brown) amounted to any sort of emblematic experience of the eight universities that compose the Ivies, nor that the sort of experience that expression connotes exists today outside of the imaginations of a few who have closed their eyes to the sartorial realities of college, whether on the campus of an Ivy League or elsewhere.

Certainly by the time I wandered my college town’s streets the idea of an Ivy look that was not the national college outfit of jeans, sweats or even pajamas was ludicrous, even if those wanderings frequently took me past Brown’s last two, soon-to-be-extinct, soon-to-be-unmourned, Ivy outfitters. Despite one of them adding a large wood carving of the Polo logo to its sign, they remained unrelatable enclaves surrounded by the diners with insane hours (midnight to four AM) and smoke shops with Sobranie Black Russians which I remember more sentimentally.

They weren’t welcoming, either, if I ever braved to venture past the window displays with Royall Lyme and defiantly middle-aged Barry Bricken and Tricots Saint-Raphael mufti. Undergraduates were not buying, and that shop, Hillhouse Ltd, closed my senior year. Times had changed to the point that I remember the opening of a Gap on Thayer Street drawing some criticism in the press for that shop’s expected priciness.

Richard Press evokes Hillhouse Ltd.’s predecessor, Langrock, and the other classic outfitters of the Ivy League in his sparkling memoir Threading the Needle, a collection of reminiscences from his posts on the website of J. Press, the ur-classic clothier founded by his grandfather. Even if J. Press is now owned by its Far Eastern licensee Onward Kashiyama, Richard Press remains the face of the firm, and, for all intents and purposes, its breezy, never windy, voice.

Press is ebullient to the point of becoming almost ethereal, a far cry from my memories of the weary heaviness of my local Ivy shops’ atmospheres, their prosaic furnishings and quite mundane merchandise… But then again, my first recollection of Ivy style, recognized in retrospect like a recovered memory, was of my high school English teacher’s tweed jacket, which he opened to lend me a pen that smelt as memorably bad as almost anything I’ve smelt since then, including tanneries and certain institutional wards, suffused as it was not with the Hebridean peat fires that Richard Press insists you could smell in the old Harris Tweeds his father sold, but with decades of spilt coffee and sweat-drenched wool that must have never seen a dry clean, so that his shapeless, indiscriminately patterned tweed jacket bore the pedigree of its soiling. My first experience, then, was of miasma, not Press’s ether.

No wonder Richard Press makes a virtue out of the emptiness of the actual Ivy stores, filling them with ethos and intangible evocations: a sense not just of community but of belonging. Belonging to the New Haven restaurants that only sat university students and staff, not townsfolk; belonging to the boisterous undergraduates who knew that Press’s frequently invoked “Boola boola” is a Yale fight song; belonging to a time when immigrant tailor Jacobi Press and his staff travelled the trails of the carriage trade and visited boarding schools to sell rich adolescents custom suits, the better to lock them in for college and life. Belonging to dangerous road trips between Dartmouth and its sister college in the days before co-education (or good highways) to flirt, or at least hope to loan out a J. Press Shetland wool sweater; belonging to Frank Sinatra’s party one whirlwind evening when the Chairman of the Board sat most of the J. Press New York staff at his table in all the chic watering holes; belonging to the small group of people who have seen Dean Acheson in his underwear… Always, however, the thrill of this inclusion is in its exclusion of others: through codes of language, through the financial means required to pay for custom tailoring (for children who would grow out of it!); through social class. It is a privilege to read Richard Press’ writing, but it would be unwise to forget the privilege his rosy reminiscences required.

Comfort and ease in tailored clothing, then as now, only came at great expense. It does not surprise me that those physical Ivy shops of Providence, untouched by J. Press’s halo, withered and died. Threading the Needle includes Richard Press’s jabs at casualization. He bemoans it as a great swindle on us, depriving us of knowing what to wear, and requiring us to buy cheaper, junkier clothes at much higher margins than what honest traditional merchants like J. Press were and are selling us. But the reason Ivy is dead is because the class that wore this syncretistic American clothing, a dowdy bastardization of Britishness with Puritan formlessness thrown in, reflexively because it was what was done, and what was sold where one shopped, was quite happy to wear lighter, easier, less confining clothing as soon as they could shed the weight of Ivy, the dress code expectations that changed so radically from the 1960s onward, and quite happy to spend less on cheaper casual clothing than on expensive tailored jackets and ties whose silk had to be madder-dyed in England. You may see a few young people wearing a Harris Tweed jacket or seersucker sportcoat on a northeastern college campus, but they are all doing so with intentionality, the intention to recreate something that no longer naturally exists, populating an invented ecosystem with overthought clothing to which they associate a politics that was not at all certain to be associated with it in the days when so-called Ivy clothing was the norm on Ivy campuses.

Press’s essays even give us, in pieces, the narrative of what actually happened to Ivy Style. Once upon a time it was the norm on rarefied campuses of young gentlemen who might continue using the same tailor who had bench-made their clothes in high school and college once they graduated to Wall Street, like a Fitzgerald protagonist. The aftermath of World War II democratized (to a point) college enrollment through the GI Bill, leading many, many more people, of theretofore-unrepresented social classes, to attend college and adopt a similar wardrobe. (Another prep school teacher once informed us that Columbia University had simply called up his father after the war and asked him to attend, allowing him to climb the social ladder.) Innovations in production allowed factory manufacture of Ivy-style ready-to-wear garments as well, so that the increased number of people who wanted to wear Ivy could also afford to wear the Ivy look without having to pay the prices of artisanal one-off work. Ivy became widespread: Press uses the word “heyday” in the titles of several of his essays from this golden age when Ivy was the look. And every fashionable look has its end. Not only did fashions change, but social changes in the 1960s meant that homogenous dressing on campuses was at an end, particularly dressing like one supposed a white-collar grownup would in coat and tie. The 1970s’ upheaval in prep school dress codes broke the back of coat and tie for kids, dealing another blow to Ivy. The Ivy partisans Press evokes who wore it during those decades, doughty men, men of intelligence like Dick Cavett, of integrity like John Chancellor, were middle-aged men who had started wearing the same style of clothes decades earlier as students. (Even Frank Sinatra, who scooped Richard up to his bosom, only lasted nine months as a customer in the late 1960s before sending an emissary to tell Richard Frank no longer wanted to experiment with the Ivy look.) Ivy as a style worn by current Ivy Leaguers, or by American college students pretty much anywhere, no longer existed.

Decades later I, too, wear tweed jackets, but keep them clean (unlike the original Ivy population), and am not a parafascist reactionary (unlike some of the most visible latter-day Ivy practitioners). Savile Row tailors had to sacralize the concept of tweed for me, washing away all its associations of brown, smelly, shapeless and hegemonic, so that my garments in it, strange alpaca Shetland weaves or unthinkable lavenders, are as far from Ivy as possible.  Despite the awful Brown Daily Herald (for which I coined the motto “all the print that fits is news”) carrying a weekly News of the Ivies section, none of us felt any ineffable Ivy-ness. The closest I came to such a feeling may have been reading a cheesy story by Providence’s own H.P. Lovecraft, whose action suddenly shifted to the very room I was sitting in… or perhaps hearing a townie couple at a Spring Weekend concert by the very non-Ivy Violent Femmes mutter about how all the kids in the audience had good teeth.

I do not mourn Ivy, as I do not mourn the shops that died trying to sell it to the college populations that have moved on. I hope my housemate found what he was looking for in New Haven (I did successfully, and evilly, bullshit him into buying two Brigg umbrellas for his move there). Had I been him, no doubt I would have succumbed to some aspect of Richard Press’s winning fantasies, replaying the opening paragraphs of Franny and Zooey in my mind, wool-lined Burberry and all, in search of a possessions-linked romance that reality has no place for in this day and age, if it ever had.

#rjman #reginaldjeromedemans

[wonhosmistress]

Unholy Chaos (Pt.2)

Word Count:1,214

Warnings: (TW) Suicidal thoughts

Summary: After y/n’s encounter with Michael she has been feeling hopeless and craves nothing more than death because she doesn’t believe there any reason to keep on living.

A/N: This took me two weeks to complete which I can officially say it’s a lot fast than my usual update to any drabble/story. I hope y’all enjoy it, it was fun writing this plus I decided to continue the Unholy Chaos series and make it a miniseries instead of twenty chapters or more. Also it has not been proofread because I just wanted to posted it so please be nice because my grammar is not the best but I try my hardest!

Italics - Will be thoughts

Masterlist l ←Previous chapter / Next chapter→

Weeks passed since she had encountered Michael at the Chapel feeling defeated on the bed her eyes bore directly at the ceiling in the dark filled room, she was currently in. Michael’s words kept replaying in her head “Where’s your god now?”, it made her spine chill in a way she had never felt and as much as she wanted to stop thinking about what he said to her she couldn't; it made her feel completely helpless. Who was Michael? Why did he come to the outpost? Her eyes moved directly to the end of her bed. She sat up observing around her room trying to find out if anyone sneaked their way, possibly trying to scare her but didn’t seem to notice anything out of place. As much as she was exhausted, she couldn’t manage to force herself back to sleep but she had to since she couldn’t be seen wandering around the outpost corridors by Ms. Venable and her soldiers. 

After spending a long time in the bathroom, she finally walked out and headed towards the common area where everyone usually sat and talked among each other for days on end. It was the same dull routine everyday wake up, get dressed, gather in common area, eat, and “hope” to be one of the few chosen that would leave the so-called “sanctuary” with Michael but at this point it seemed like no one in this outpost actually fit the standards that Michael was looking for and everyone was even more helpless than before.

  As of now she didn’t care if she lived or died because she felt like a zombie living with no reason to keep going because every single living thing was long gone, plus almost everyone that survived the nuclear bombings either body mutations or were eaten by feral cannibals outside the outpost. The reflection of the flames from the fireplace made her eyes beam. It was odd how something that once seemed calm and comforting was making her feel like nothing ever mattered. 

 “Dinner is served” Ms.Venable announced, knocking her cane on the floor making it echo throughout the room and loud enough to stop the indistinct voices filling the common area and making everyone face her.

Everyone’s footsteps filled the corridor as they made their way to the dining area and as soon as everyone entered, they were faced by the chaotic man himself sitting at the end of the table with his legs crossed. 

Everyone looked back at Ms.Venable waiting for her to say something. 

 “Mr. Langdon what graces us with your appearance at dinner?” she asked, showing a displeased expression attempting to appear happy with his presence. “He looked at her and smiled like a maniac, “I’m here to join you all for dinner!” he said excitingly. “Please, sit.” He said as politely but she knew that he was far from the charm he was showing to everyone in this room and she was sure that Ms.Venable also saw +through Michael’s facade. 

 Everyone sat down and as soon as they did, they got served with the only once in a blue moon meal and what would be considered an everyday meal if the world wasn’t in an apocalyptic state. Everyone’s face lit up beginning to savor and take in the flavor of the meal they were given. In the early stages of the apocalypse she would be gleaming with joy at the extinct food they were “blessed” and given at the dining table but that joy had slowly faded away with each passing day they were in the outpost.

 Ms.Venable sat on one side of the table and across sat Mr. Langdon, Ms.Venable scowled at him but that didn’t faze him and kept coldly staring at her. Everyone in the table kept exchanging glances between themselves because the tension in the room was intense, they all wanted to leave and eat on their own but Ms.Venable insisted that dinner was to be eaten in the dining room. “So... how’s the application process going?” asked Gallant. Michael’s gaze was broken from the sudden conversation that he wanted to know and trying to break the tension. Michael’s eyes bore into Gallant’s seeming disgruntled at the fact that Gallant was bold enough to ask such a question, when he had already been told by Michael that he wouldn’t let others know how they would be graded. 

 “That’s classified.” Langdon said quickly and coldly shutting down the conversation. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He was only at dinner for one reason he was trying to observe by seeing right through everyone’s façade. A simple interview would not suffice for him because he was the type of person who would prefer to see others in their natural state without them being afraid to be themselves because truth be told everyone feared Langdon. He knew why they feared him, and he didn’t blame them. He was a force not to be reckoned with because if anyone attempted, they would see the bane of their existence. 

 “Nice job.” Coco whispered to him annoyingly as she elbowed him. y/n attempted to ignore everyone and continued to eat because she wanted to return to her room and just avoid every obnoxious person in this outpost. Why was she even here? Who purchased a ticket to this outpost? She thought about it since day one and she was still as confused as when she got here on the first day but this time without less energy. 

She wasn’t even considered to be part of the middle class back in the old life she once had. Who thought about even reserving a spot for her? 

 I wish I had died back on the first day of the Apocalypse. She thought to herself, maybe just maybe she would have saved herself the time, sadness, hope, and chance of going to a so-called sanctuary that Langdon claims that remains untouched with people repopulating the earth. She let out a silent melancholy sigh hoping no one would hear because once someone did they would start asking questions, if they even cared at this point everyone seems to care about themselves and if they’ll be chosen to go to the sanctuary. 

 Michael peered at her hoping to pick up something from her and he did. He found out how miserable she felt and how badly she wanted to die because there was no reason remain alive, she felt useless, annoyed and wanted to be let out of the outpost so she could inhale that radioactive smell that the outside has and just put her misery to an end. Michael found it intriguing how out of everyone else she truly craved death and wasn’t interested whether she was picked or not for the sanctuary he told everyone there was, it amused him how she was the only one that was questioning his authenticity and everyone else believed every word he told them when in reality there was no such thing. 

 This is going to be interesting. He thought to himself, he observed as she asked Ms. Venable if she could excuse herself from the table since she had finished her dinner,but she denied her and told her to sit back down and just like an obedient puppy,she did.

 Tags: @lvngdvns , @sojournmichael , @thegraphitechronicles , @cocotheangelchild , @michael-langdon-appreciation , @lostin-fern , @monsucredorge , @langdonswhoreprobably​ , @ghostiesbedroom​ , @onebatch--twobatch​ , @antichristsxbox​ , @xavierplymptons​ , @xaviersghost​ , @melodylangdon​, @avocodys​ , @dark-mei-rose

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#michael langdon #ahs season 8 #ahs s8 #cody fern #duncan shepard #Jim Mason #ahs apocalypse #american horror story apocalypse #ahs edit #ahs meme #michael langdon fanfiction #michael langdon fic #writing #ahs season eight #ACS #american crime story #michael langdon x reader #Thank you for reading #constructive criticism is appreciated

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 2 replay, Collector Ship:

-Canonically, helping Liara become the Shadow Broker must occur after the suicide mission. If she were the Shadow Broker already, Shepard could call her up and confirm that TIM is bullshitting them.

-On the Collector ship, why are there occasional drips from the ceiling? That’s can’t be good for maintenance.

-And more generally, what is up with the ship design?

It’s frame is clearly metal, but it’s covered in some kind of goo. You can see the metal frame through cracks of the goo.

What’s is the point of the goo? Does it make it more homey for the Collectors or something?

-And why is the ship such a mess?

There are pods and bodies scattered all over the place, not just the pile Miranda speculated may be a control group. (And if it is a control group, why discard them haphazardly? What, the ship can’t fit a furnace to burn the bodies?)

Considering the Collectors are taking these people to create a human reaper, you’d think they want to package them up carefully for transport.

-Why does everyone assume that just because the Collectors have a quad DNA structure that they must be protheans?

The galaxy is huge. Only a fraction of it has been explored. It’s entirely possible that there’s another race out there with a quad dna structure.

On top of that, it’s been 50,000 years since the protheans went extinct. Again, another species with quad dna could have evolved or died out during that period.

-Edi’s further analysis that the dna matches known prothean records confirms the match. But that initial speculation was still a leap.

-Why does Shepard obtain weapon training at this point?

In ME1, the specialization training obtained during the UNC: Rogue VI mission had some grounding in reality. The mission was level locked, so you could assume the specialization was Shepard honing their skills.

But the Collector Ships always triggers five missions after Horizon, whether those missions are recruitment/loyalty/the firewalker DLC to kill time. And it doesn’t explain how how Shepard suddenly learns how to use a sniper rifle or an assault rifle. The specialization was Shepard improving their skills, this is Shepard gaining skills out of nowhere.

I’m certainly not complaining about it – that assault rifle was very helpful during the platform sections. But it is out of place.

-So this is the same ship that killed Shepard two years and followed them to Horizon.

This is treated like a Big Deal, but I don’t think anything comes of it.

I hypothesized at one point that it meant the Collectors have only one ship, but I vaguely recall ME3 mentioning others?

-Is this ship prothean or reaper?

I’m leaning towards repurposed prothean technology. Maybe even a captured and retrofitted prothean ship. The open air sections fit the prothean and collectors having wings and being able to fly around.

If it were reaper, I’d expect it to be more advanced. And less gooey.

-Okay, the sections with the platforms is as awful as everyone says. There were quite a few deaths involved.

I actually used medi-gel to revive my squad mates for the last wave. I never do that.

-Aaand Tali called it. The turian distress signal was fake. TIM sent everyone into a trap. Shocking.

What baffles me is that it possible to identify as fake. The reapers are how many millennia old and Harbringer can’t mimic a distress signal from a recently space faring species? Is that just him not giving any fucks?

Pssh, those plebes will never notice the difference. This is good enough.

-Also: What is the point of this? To get rid of Shepard once and all?

This was an awfully risky means to do so, and it permitted Shepard to gain valuable information on the Collectors.

I’m just saying, a sniper could probably take Shepard out pretty easily next time they’re chilling on Omega or Illium.

-Harbringer says during fights that he wants Shepard’s body if possible.

Again, why? What are the Collectors planning to do with Shepard’s body?

-Was it really necessary to include a praetorian and more scions? Really?

-Tim bullshits that he had to keep it secret that it was a trap so Shepard wouldn’t give it a way, but I’m not buying it.

If the Collectors want Shepard dead badly enough to permit them onto their ship, they’ll let Shepard on to wander around even if they’re acting a bit suspicious. And what was TIM’s backup plan if Shepard died?

Indoctrination: Bad for your planning skills.

-It sure is convenient that this is where Shepard and co learn that the Reapers use IFF, and TIM already has a team exploring a derelict Reaper.

It would have been a bummer if Shepard had to take the initiative to find an IFF, instead of being carefully strung along by TIM.

And why the hell have the Reapers not collected it? It’s been dead for so long there are no records left from the species that killed it.

The Reapers sweep the galaxy at the end of each harvest so the species in the next cycle have little to work with. But they’ve missed this dead Reaper for how many cycles?

The derelict Repaer just screams trap, but it’s not one. Shepard will get on, get the IFF, and get off supposedly unmarred.

The indoctrination theory may not have been intentional, but Bioware foreshadowed it more than they did any of the real endings.

-And why do the Reapers never update their IFF? Again, it’s been how many cycles since that Reaper died?

They must know it’s dead! And they know Shepard is gunning for them. But they don’t update their protocols?

Talk about shitty CyberSecurity policies. This is why organizations require you to change your password on a regular basis.

-Why is Mordin part of the conversation with Shepard, Miranda, and Jacob?

I’m not complaining, but it’s weird that he’s here and no one else is. Garrus is also a mandatory squad member by this point, and he’s a huge tech nerd. He could contribute to a conversation about IFF.

Normandy

-If you go renegade with Grunt, he says that purpose is what makes the difference between feared soldiers and animals. It’s the job of the Battlemaster to provide purpose.

Good to see that while he’s embraced violence, he’s still thinking through what it means to be a krogan. That’s quite a philosophical statement.

-Huh. If you go paragon with Grunt in the first dialogue wheel, you don’t get the second one.

Same general concept, however. Battlemasters provide purpose.

-Like with Grunt, you can skip acquiring Thane’s loyalty mission if you go renegade.

Why do only these two have this option?

-I am baffled why Thane is such a popular romance option.

He’s open that he was an absent husband and father while his wife was alive, and then he completely abandoned his son after she died.

Yes, his self awareness about this is good sign, but I’d still be leery of him treating me better. It certainly doesn’t make him attractive.

-Did he at least send child support for Kolyat?

I’m leaning towards no. His knowledge of what happened to Kolyat after he left seems minimal.

-I’ll cut Thane a little slack that his own, unacknowledged trauma probably played a role in abandoning Kolyat.

Up until now, Thane has insisted that’s he’s fine being an assassin and feels no guilt.

But he emphatically does not want that life for Kolyat. And why would he feel so strongly about it if being an assassin is fine?

Because it’s not. But Thane wasn’t ready to grapple with that, and he didn’t know how to be anything else. And he was afraid, on some level, that if he raised him Kolyat would grow up to be just like him.

(Thane was raised as an assassin since he was six. He started killing when he was twelve. What does he know of raising a regular boy? What damage would he cause if he treated Kolyat like he was raised?)

So he left his son with people he trusted, and distracted himself with revenge.

Except, whoops. Turns out abandoning your son gives them different trauma. And now he has to face at least part of his past.

So kudos for Thane for having the courage to go after Kolyat now. That must take a lot of guts.

#mass effect #mass effect 2 #mass effect 2 replay

[pip-n-flinx]

yup, it all goes below the cut

So I’ve been seeing a resurgence of ME content following the trailers for ME4 and MELE, which makes sense. But I’m a salty m-fer and I honestly am sick and tired of Mass Effect getting shit on for things that other game studies (looking at you fromsoftware) get praised for. So we’re going to unload a little.

The underpinnings of the mass effect universe is this huge extinction cycle, designed and perpetuated by the Reapers. As sufficiently advanced civilizations reach a tipping point, not unlike the great filter theory of space travel, these AI come in and wipe anyone out. This sort of cyclical storytelling, with pieces of the previous cycles being dribbled in throughout the trilogy, seems pretty similar to progression of Dark Souls. At the end of the Mass Effect Trilogy, many fans were upset by the ending choices: Destroy, Control, and Synthesis.

What are your choices in Dark Souls? At the end of the first game, the cycle ends and you, the player, get to choose how the world enters the next era. Does they cycle of undeath continue, or do you shatter the world and hope something new rises from the ashes?

How, pray tell, is that really any different a decision? And why is it when fromsoftware does this its groundbreaking storytelling, but when bioware does it we decide collectively its ‘just a shitty recolor of the same ending?’

I agree, there are some flaws in how they chose to animate the climactic moments of ME3. For one, the fleet assembly and space combat with the reapers above Earth doesn’t change much no matter how many/which allies you bring to the final fight. And of course, the ‘garbage recolor’ ending. And I agree with the premise that more than the color should have changed. We should not have had to wait for the still flawed Extended Cut ending to be released to see how Shepard’s final choice changes the end of the game.

We can also comment on what the crucible actually does. If it is some incredible power-source in need of direction - the citadel - it is a strange choice of weapon to design for your battle against the reapers. We could speculate endlessly on why the writing team chose this, but the real issue here is that there is very little in game context for how this comes about. We get a few lines from Hackett and Liara explaining the Crucible, but that’s about it. Surely there could have been more discoverable codex entries about it, perhaps on Eden Prime with Javik?

To be clear, I don’t actually have a problem with the end of the Trilogy. Sure, it has its plot holes, but I’m not actually too fussed about it. It felt like a fitting end to the series to me. Graphically a little disappointing, to be fair, but otherwise a fine capstone to the story.

I’ve actually read some comments and posts explaining that they ‘won’t buy the legendary edition because they won’t fix the ending’ and I.... Do you even know what a remaster is? I’m not buying the remaster because I think many of the new lighting choices detract from the story, and a reskin won’t ensure the graphics stand the test of time any better than the old ones. I’m perfectly happy replaying the original trilogy without a fancy graphics package that adds nothing to the artistic vision nor sets out any distinctive art style. A few years will see even these HD 4k graphics obsolete/dated, and I’ve spent enough money on Mass Effect as it is.

Moreover, I really hate what speculation and rumor I’ve heard about Mass Effect 4. First, I hate that it will be a ME4 and not an MEA2. This will take some explaining so bear with me.

I’ve seen videos of the original graphics and animations that caught so much flak for Mass Effect Andromea. Unpopular opinion: I don’t think they were bad, and I certainly don’t think they were bad in the context of Mass Effect. None of the games prior had flawless rotoscoping or anchoring. Even watching stock sheploo in the original trilogy is painful if you’re hoping for realism. If y’all want to play this game we can start sharing clips but suffice to say I’m personally convinced we can go tit-for-tat on awkward animations.

Moreover, I think Mass Effect Andromeda is the best Mass Effect game. Best gameplay, by far. It has all the hallmarks of a great sci-fi: new aliens, new planets, new villains. And while I understand some people felt the switch from overcompetent supersoldier Shepard to young-kid-with-daddy-issues-and-more-than-a-few-bad-bosses Ryder was jarring, I absolutely loved playing a plucky hero who lost their mentor before they’d even properly started training. It gave the game an urgency I loved, and to me Ryder felt like a much more relatable protagonist than Shepard.

The story itself is a fucking masterstroke. Hear me out:

So in Mass Effect, the twin plot drivers are infighting with council/alliance/cerberus ‘allies’ while facing down the threat of and advanced AI wiping out all organic life to preserve diversity and make way for the next ascendant race. In Andromeda, we’re met by the same bickering and infighting amongst our own faction, and the Kett. The Kett, for whom nothing is cyclical. Everyone must assimilate. Who shun technology and seek to eliminate biodiversity by ensuring all civilizations end with Kett. And instead of a well trained military commander and a ship of soldiers, mercenaries, and specialists in the sciences who grow to be respected players on the galactic stage, we get Ryder. Ryder and their crew of misfit nostalgia-driven rock-licking rule-breaking cereal-smuggling culture-vulture heart-broken multiple-amputee nervous-doctor neophiles who meet one alien and have to save all their races from genocide by a rogue Kett Archon. And the Jaardan? the long gone artificial life-forms who had the technological capability to be reaper analogs? They’re the life-givers, the gods of the Andromeda galaxy, seeding species and hope into the galaxy for the player to find.

It’s such a perfect inversion of the original trilogy while still preserving the genre and the universe they had already built. It’s fucking brilliant. And I’ll never forgive them for abandoning it, nor will I forgive the fans whose vitriol stopped the project in its tracks, and killed any hope of a second trilogy.

Honestly, I don’t care if you agree about MEA, or the ME3 ending. I know this isn’t a common take among bioware fans. I just... I’m so fucking done with this franchise and this fandom. I’d like to think my mutuals and the other blogs I follow have level headed positions on this stuff (possibly more level headed than my own salty takes these days) but I honestly wonder why I’m even on this platform some days. It doesn’t spark much joy anymore. I hope no one takes this personally, I certainly don’t mean this as an attack or criticism of any of my followers but damn, I’ve got a lot of feelings tonight and almost all of them are negative...

#long post #really long post #mass effect critical #bioware critical #fromsoftware critical #sort of #fandom commentary #god I'm tired #I should just be in bed but I wanted to read #and I found some interview with mass effect devs #I just wanted to read some new stuff on one of my favorite franchises of all time and it was completely ruined by all the 'hot takes' #and even the editing of their words painted this unnecessarily negative picture #and I get it #they aren't even close to perfect games #and AAA studies shouldn't release games with as many bugs as is the norm #I know that #don't think I ever pay full price for a shitty buggy bethesda game anymore #haven't bothered with them since oblivion was new #but I just.... #I feel like theres this dirth of critical thought #or coherent standards #when we talk about art in any form #and it kills me inside

[naitiaclo960writings]

Day 12 - Rewind

The Winchesters had not kept many memories of their earliest childhood. When the fire broke out and the house burned down, all their possessions were gone except for a small box containing photos that John kept in the trunk of the Impala. Dean remembered seeing it for many years without John really pulling it out of there, warm in the false bottom of the car. On rare evenings, however, John took the time to take it with him to the motel room where they were staying before he plunged back into the past years.

Aside from a few pictures of his mother or him as a baby, Dean hadn’t seen much else. John jealously guarded the box as if he were afraid it would catch fire too. Fortunately, the years passed and with them, the fear of opening this box faded. Dean had been allowed to keep a photo of his mother, brother and himself in his wallet while he was already old enough to hunt. Later, John disappeared and the box returned to them.

Dean perfectly remembered the day Sam asked him to open the box with him. They had just returned to Lawrence to take care of a poltergeist in their old house and had briefly seen their mother’s ghost at the bottom of the stairs. This vision had been such a shock and, John not being around, Dean decided that a night to remember the good old days couldn’t hurt. Although they both had very few stories to tell in the photos, being too young to remember.

The years went by and the box followed them. It made a short stop at Bobby’s when Dean had to fix the Impala from top to bottom before following them back to the roads and finally landing at the bunker. Sam and Dean had taken the liberty of sharing a few photos to put in their room before carefully storing the box under the elder’s bed.

It was therefore not uncommon for Dean to dig up these photos, which he now knew by heart, during a lonely evening. They had taken care to weigh down the box with other memories over the years and now, other faces came to rub shoulders with those of the Winchester family. Nevertheless, these faces were still family members themselves.

Sighing and the outline weighed down by an invisible weight that seemed unable to leave him since months, Dean sat down on the edge of his bed and opened the box again with some relief. Going through these photos was like going back to his childhood. It was to go back in time and rewind the tape of his life to replay the best moments. With a small smile on his face, Dean contemplated another portrait of his mother holding a smaller version of him in her arms at the hospital. Mary was younger in this photo and she had always been radiant. Of course, it wasn’t like she had to endure the damage of time, Dean somberly thought. He carefully set the photo aside and took another.

This one was more recent, he had to be at least 26 years old and his brother four years younger. Dean remembered that Bobby had taken this picture in the backyard of his car wreckage while the two brothers laughed at a joke he had long forgotten. Sam still wore such short hair that it came into his eyes and Dean had this oversized leather jacket on his shoulders that had once belonged to his father and that he wore for years. Everything seemed simple and light at the time despite their already hectic life.

Dean gently nodded at his little brother’s childish face in this photo.

He knew that Sam kept his own memories in his room, lying on his desk or hanging on the cork board above it. In addition to a few other pictures from their childhood, one photo was different from the others. Dean had already noticed it, as it seemed to be much better preserved than the others despite the fact that it was at least a decade old now, as if Sam was taking special care of it. In the picture, one could distinguish a young blonde woman with a face dotted with moles standing beside Sam wearing a Stanford sweatshirt. Both seemed to be at a student party and held hands with a shy smile. Maybe then Sam sometimes had the same wish as him, to reverse the course of time to find the one he once loved.

Dean put the photo with his brother on the bed and went through some other memories before stopping at the photo they had taken at Bobby’s. "The last night on Earth," had he said before the camera went off with a quick click. He almost regretted having said those few words now that extinct faces were sitting on that photo in place of the usual smiles. Everyone was preparing for death that evening, and some found it.

Dean also lingered on Castiel’s serious face, ramrod straight in his eternal oversized trench coat. This angel who had sacrificed everything for them and who continued to do so day in, day out at their side. He briefly wondered if Castiel also kept pictures of his brothers and sisters somewhere, perhaps of his garrison even. But the angel was not on good terms with more than half of his fellows, and even if he was, he doubted that any of them would ever let themselves be photographed. As a result, Dean was pleased to know that they were probably the only family in which Castiel had several photos of him, some even showing him with a rare relaxed smile. Like this one where Sam was teaching him how to use a computer and the angel laughing at one of Dean’s jokes.

He also took the time to look at Bobby, the surrogate father whom he missed a little more every day, but that he was happy to find in this box whenever he needed it. Lost in his thoughts, Dean looked up at another picture in the box depicting him and Sam fishing with John. Dean moistened his lips with a nostalgic look for the photo, almost melancholic. He remembered that day when the three of them spent the afternoon at a pond in Oklahoma before taking out that huge pike out of the water and that they were showing in the photo. However, their faces were relatively closed in the picture which revived this bitterness in Dean’s chest.

He also remembered the night before when John was so drunk while looking at Mary’s pictures that he started crying in their motel room. Sam woke up to his sobs as Dean tried to comfort their father as best he could, but no appropriate words could come out of his mouth. He had felt so helpless in the face of his father mourning the death of a mother that he himself could not overcome, even years later. When John wasn’t at the motel, Dean was worried every day that he wouldn’t come back and walk through their room door. When he was there, the days were never the same: either John would take them out for a nice burger at the local diner, or he would drink until he couldn’t move.

Dean didn’t even count the nights he had to take care of his father in addition to his younger brother who barely understood what was going on. He did not consider having an unhappy childhood, he had grown up with Sam and it was the only home he needed to be happy. But he could not help but think back to those moments of solitudes that he had felt as a teenager when he saw other children growing up differently.

Dean sighed and tried to get ride of his dark thoughts. In any case, there was no point in bringing up the past like that, he already had too much to do with the present and his responsibilities. Moreover, he felt that he had not progressed that badly despite all the events of his life. Slowly, Dean put the pictures away and closed the box before putting it back under his bed. He barely had time to get up that he already heard Sam calling him to eat, Castiel having just returned. A pleasant smile stretched his lips.

Yes, he didn’t particularly want to live in the past. Not anymore.

* * * @winchester-reload

So, the original plan was to do Dean’s POV, then Sam’s, then Cas’... But I ended up with this idea rather than anything and I tried to include Sam and Cas too anyway. Hope you liked it, see you tomorrow for some ladies!

You can find the whole series on Ao3

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[canyouevenwritebro]

Sunflowers (pt. 1)

Summary: The reader has been with the Avengers since they rescued her from HYDRA. She has joined them on countless missions since then but this may be the hardest one yet. Set in 2016 CA:CW.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story. It’s purely fiction.

Characters: steve rogers, tony stark, natasha romanoff, bucky barnes, sam wilson, wanda maximoff, clint barton, peter parker

Word count: 4.5k

Warnings: angst, depression, violence, death

a/n: hey!!! i did it! my first fanfic.

When the Avengers raided the HYDRA base you were kept in, they found you inside a cryo-chamber sleeping peacefully. After every personnel was captured, they transferred you to the compound along with artifacts and files of experiments they performed. Eventually, they found your file. It was quite lengthy. Your father was working for HYDRA but he turned on them and planned to take them down. As a result, they silenced him and your mother. They knew that whatever he knew about HYDRA, he told her. They spared you because you were just a kid. Instead, you were out on the Thanatos program. It was your father's project and it was almost done up until his betrayal. They thought you would be perfect for the program. They could groom you to the perfect obedient soldier they needed. On top of that, what could be more cruel than using your father's work to torture you?

They gave you a version of the serum used on the winter soldiers, with their own upgrades of course. They incorporated it with the Extremis serum and that left you with a super soldier that can breathe fire. Phoenix, they called you. The ultimate weapon of death.

After briefing everyone on your situation, they woke you up. You stepped out of the chamber confused. You were met with unfamiliar yet kind faces that it overwhelmed you. You made a run for it and nearly burned down the entire medical wing before they tranquilized you again. You woke up in a small glass cell where they told you that they meant no harm. Somehow, you believed them.

That was a year and a half ago. Now, here you were walking around New York and trying your best to be part of society. After extensive amounts of therapy of course. You were on your way back when you saw an old man in a flower shop organizing his stalls. You were mesmerized by the flowers' beauty and found yourself crossing the street to get there.

"Looking for anything specific, ma'am?" he asked

"No, not really. Maybe something cheery?" God, why are you so socially awkward?

"Well, in that case," he said, "here are some sunflowers." He handed you a bouquet.

"My wife loves them. When she's upset, I get her these because they always look towards the sun and the color brightens up the room," he said with a smile.

"Thank you so much," you said as you handed him a $20 bill "Keep the change"

You were now back at the compound and you were rummaging through the kitchen in search of a vase. You didn't find any (Seriously? a state of the art training compound owned by a billionaire doesn't have a vase?)

"I guess a pitcher would do," you whispered to yourself as you headed to your room.

"What is that?" asked Tony.

"Sunflowers. Got it from the guy near the train station. It's a good metaphor when you think about it. They're always looking on the bright side. I didn't get many opportunities to go sunbathing when I was at HYDRA." you said with an awkward chuckle.

"Alright. Fair enough. I'm headed to MIT for the speech thingy. Wanna come?"

"Nah. I still have to catch up on culture." you giggled. Years of working for HYDRA also didn't give you a lot of me-time.

"Okay well if you change your mind, you know how to get there."

"Copy that."

You headed to your room. Yours. You actually owned something. You turned on your TV and scanned through the channels. Doctor Who reruns? Sure. Hours had passed and you've scanned through hundreds of channels. You decided to turn on some news in the background while you read.

"On breaking news, eleven Wakandans are amongst those confirmed dead after a violent clash between the Avengers and independent mercenaries in Nigeria." Your head bolted up and you reached for the remote to turn the volume up.

"Brock Rumlow, former SHIELD agent, led the team of mercenaries to procure a biological weapon being tested at the Center for Disease Control Nigeria Division. It was believed to be a suicide mission as eyewitness account said Rumlow wore a type of bomb in his vest. Avenger Wanda Maximoff contained the explosion only to have the blast thrown into a building killing a total of 30 people. We have yet to receive an official statement from the Avengers. More details tonight only on Channel 6 News at 8." You listened with intent and your heartbeat was beating fast. Those poor victims. Is the team on their way home? Are they okay? How is Wanda doing? Your mind formed a million questions.

"FRIDAY, call Steve Rogers." a faint ding let you know that your request is being done.

"Y/n." Oh, thank god he's okay.

"Steve! Are you guys alright? I saw what happened. I am so sorry."

"We're alright. Search and rescue was already on the scene when we left."

"How's Wanda? Do you need me to do anything?"

"Physically, she's safe, y/n. Emotionally? This is gonna take a toll on her."

"What about the others? Nat? Sam? You?"

"We're gonna be fine. We're on our way home."

You met the team on the law of the compound. They were visibly stunned and you cut through them to hug Wanda. She was your best friend and you know that this was going to affect her greatly. You were right. She locked herself in her room and the only thing you heard was the sound of the news and sobbing.

In his office, Steve kept replaying what had happened in Lagos. Knowing him, he was gonna blame himself for this. You wanted to leave him be but your concern for Wanda kept you standing by his doorway.

"Steve? You got a moment?"

"Y/n. Do you need anything?" he said as he paused the video on his computer.

"No. I just wanna say I'm sorry about Lagos. Sam and Nat told me what happened."

"It's not your fault, y/n. It's mine. Rumlow mentioned Bucky and all sense of the mission disappeared in my head."

"Don't blame yourself. Bucky was or is, your best friend and he's still missing. You have a right to have emotions."

"Thanks. I... uh...  I needed that. Have you talked to Wanda yet?"

"No. Her room is locked. Maybe you should try talking to her. Both of us saw you as a mentor. She'll listen to you."

You gave him a faint smile and headed for the kitchen. Maybe some food could help them. You moved the vase of sunflowers from your room to the middle of the large dining table.

Tony walked in and asked everyone to meet in the conference room. He got the news as he was coming home from Massachusetts. After a brief interaction with a grieving mother and the news of the mission, he knew what he had to do.

Inside, you were met by General Ross and his assistant. Rhodey was already inside and the rest of the team followed suit. Wanda had stopped crying but you knew she would never get over this.

The general discussed the Sokovia Accords with the team. As much as you'd like to be on Steve's side, you knew the team needs to be put in check. One more incident like this and the world might lose their trust in you. You agreed with Tony. Rhodey and Sam were discussing, or perhaps fighting would be a better word, over the Accords. Tony just sat there looking like a rebellious teen listening to his parents' lectures.

To prove a point, Tony showed the team a picture of Charlie Spencer. He died in Sokovia after Ultron planned to drive the human race into extinction. You felt your heart drop. He just wanted to do some good and he was caught in the crossfire.

At that point, the fighting and bantering was too much and you just zoned everyone out. You wanted to cry and you knew that the team was slowly drifting apart. Steve walked out after receiving a text. You didn't ask why. He has a private life after all.

You decided to take your frustrations out on the punching bags. You finally had a home. A family. But you feel the world caving in around you. With one last punch, the punching bag came flying through the room engulfed in flames. You fell to your knees as tears clouded your vision. Dum-E, who Tony programmed to follow you around with a fire extinguisher as a joke, finally put his programming to use.

"Y/n." a familiar voice called to you

"Nat. Hey." you struggled through the tears.

"Talk to me."

"I- I just want the team to stay together. You guys are the only family I have."

"Me too, y/n. I used to have nothing till I found this family."

"I want to help. What can I do to help?"

"I'm off to Vienna for the signing of the Accords. I'm meeting Steve on the way to try and change his mind. Maybe you can help."

"I'll try."

Nat took you to a cathedral. Steve was on the other end by himself. He looks... tired. On the altar was a picture of Agent Carter.

"Oh. That's why he left."

"Hi, Steve. I just wanna say I am so sorry for your loss," you said as you walked towards him.

"Nat. Y/n. What are you doing here?"

"We didn't want you to be alone and I'm also taking y/n with me to Vienna for the signing of the Accords."

"There's plenty of room on the jet," you said

"Who else signed?"

"Tony, Rhodey, Vision."

"Wanda?"

"TBA."

"Clint?"

"He said he's retired."

"There's still time to change your mind, Steve. Come with us to Vienna." you pleaded one last time

"You know why I can't do this y/n. If I sign, we're surrendering our freedom to people with agendas different from ours."

You felt a lump in your throat. "I'll be in the car." You said to Nat as you turned around not looking at Steve once as you walked out of the church.

"She hates me now, doesn't she?"

"No, she doesn't. She's just scared."

Nat was right. As always. You got in the car and tried to meditate. You didn't want to cry. Not when cameras surrounded you. You tried to steady your breathing but your brain seemed to do the exact opposite.

~~~Flashback~~~

"Injecting serum in five seconds." an emotionless voice said. You tried to break free but you were strapped down to the table. Even if you weren't, it was like you were trapped in your own mind. You couldn't move. The next few hours were a blur to you. The only thing you remember was the excruciating pain coursing through your veins.

"Serum successfully administered."

"Good. Take her to the cell for the remainder of the process."

You woke up in a pool of sweat inside a dark room. Alone. Like you have been since you were a kid. You don't remember much of it. Sometimes you see your parents in your dreams. You were 5 years old and they took you to the park. Your mom was helping you get to the other end of the monkey bars while your dad went to get snow cones. You were happy. But that memory was soon followed by the sound of gunshots and screaming. You couldn't understand what was said but you didn't need to be a genius to know it was full of anger. Your mom told you to hide and you did. But they found you anyway. Since then, you were subjected to vigorous training. You now know 30 languages and deadly fighting skills. You became a weapon and today was the final step of your transformation. Eleven years of training and they deemed you ready. After they reprogrammed your brain to be obedient, of course.

The man in the army uniform handed you a folder. "Your first mission, soldatin," he said, "Procure the obelisk. No survivors. No witnesses. You have 48 hours. Report back here as soon as it is finished." You nodded and opened the folder. It was of a tiny village at the base of the Swiss Alps. In the middle of it was the said obelisk encased in glass. You took a handful of soldiers with you and you headed for the village.

You succeeded in your mission. The obelisk was safely placed inside a containment unit in the jet. The village was burned to the ground. Bodies were piled on the streets and the only sign of life was your team and a handful of livestock the villagers kept. With that, you headed back.

"Very good, soldatin. Go with the doctor." and like the good soldier that you were, you walked behind the man in the lab coat.

You passed by a few offices on your way to the medical wing. Amongst other things, the serum enhanced your hearing. The faintest whispers sounded like normal talking.

"You heard about the mission?"

"Yeah. I heard y/l/n didn't even show mercy for those villagers." the voice chuckled.

"Bettenhauser's gonna be pleased." said another.

"I bet. He and y/f/l/n worked together on the program and seeing it do its purpose mus be so satisfying"

"Her father was an asset for us. That was before he betrayed us, though."

"Well, we got her now. She is an even bigger asset than her father ever was."

You kept walking and you ended up in a room with four other people in coats. In the middle of a room was a large glass case with a chair.

"Step inside the chamber, soldatin. You need to rest." and just like that, your feet dragged you inside. One of the coats placed a mask on you amongst other things. You felt your eyelids getting heavier and heavier and heavier. Gone.

The glass chamber now safely enclosed your unconscious body. Your body was now as cold as ice.

~~~End of flashback~~~

Since that first mission, you had killed hundreds of people for HYDRA. Innocent people. They haunt your dreams to this day but what's done is done. All you could do is help as many as you can.

You were taken out of your trance by the sound of the car door closing. Nat now sat beside you.

"Eagle Hangar please," she said to the driver

The drive to the hangar was silent. So was the flight to Vienna.

"Here goes nothing," you said to Nat as the elevator doors opened. World leaders were gathered in the room and cameras were flashing everywhere. A lady with a clipboard checked you in and quickly walked away.

"I see you are not fans of the spotlight." said the man in the suit. You later learned his name was T'Challa. Prince of Wakanda.

"It isn't very flattering," Nat said to him.

"Well, considering your last trip to Capitol Hill, you seem to be doing great so far." you chuckled at his response. You read about that months ago. You even saw it on YouTube on "Black Widow most iconic moments compilation.

"You don't seem like a big fan as well." You told him

"The accords, yes. The politics? not very. Two men in the same room can get more done than a hundred."

"Unless you need to move a piano." the voice behind you said

"King T'Chaka. This is Y/n Y/l/n. Allow us to apologize for what happened in Nigeria."

"Thank you, Ms. Romanoff. I'm sad to hear Captain Rogers won't be joining us."

"That makes three of us." You replied to him.

Just then, you heard a voice come on through the speakers asking everyone to take a seat. King T'Chaka was giving a statement when both yours and Nat's attention was drawn to his son who was looking out the window.

"EVERYBODY GET DOWN!" He screamed as he bolted for his father.

Like instinct, you threw yourself in front of Nat. It's something that you started doing after you joined the team. You thought after all the lives you've taken, protecting as many as you can could "wipe the red off your ledger" as Nat put it. You were a very effective human shield as a result of the serums. You weren't immortal nor did you have instantaneous healing due to the reaction between the two serums but you still healed faster compared to average humans. You felt a spray of glass cut through your skin and a searing heat touched your skin. Search and rescue came after the explosion and took you and Nat to get medical attention. You were perfectly fine but Nat had a few cuts and bruises. In typical Nat fashion, she walked it off like it was nothing.

You were taken to a tent to get a fresh set of clothes while Nat talked to Prince T'Challa, now king under horrible circumstances. When you got out, he was gone and she was on the phone.

A few minutes later, your phone rang.

Captain Grandpa calling...

you dropped the call and went to check on NAt

~~~BUCHAREST~~~

News outlets revealed Sargeant Barnes, Bucky, was behind the bombing. You knew Steve was gonna go after him. He'd been looking for Bucky since SHIELD fell. Now, he found him in Romania. Orders were given to shoot him on sight and Steve wouldn't let that happen.

~~~BERLIN~~~

Bucky was now in custody.

"What part of don't make things worse didn't you understand?" you asked Steve

You were in one of the offices watching Bucky getting evaluated by the doctor. You were in the other room talking to Tony about what would happen to your teammates.

"We're lucky they aren't in jail," he said

This was all too much. You went to the bathroom to splash some water on your face. You hadn't slept in 24 hours nor eaten anything. You looked in the mirror and fixed your hair as best you could.

BLACKOUT.

What was happening? You ran out and saw a lot of commotion.

"Get me eyes on Barnes," yelled Everett Ross.

You saw Nat and Tony walking towards the exit.

"What happened? What can I do?" you asked

"Don't know. We need to find Barnes." Tony said

"Please tell me you brought a suit," said Nat

"Sure did. It's a lovely Tom Ford three-piece two-button. I'm on active duty non-combatant."

Just as he said that Agent Carter, the younger, ran past you "follow me," she said. The three of you did and she led you to the facility's lobby.

You had never met Sgt. Barnes but from what Steve told you, he was a good man. The person you saw in the lobby was not him. He reminded you of your time at HYDRA. Cold and merciless. A soldier.

Sharon and Nat ran in and tried to fight him to no avail. You managed to get him down but he pinned you n the floor. He was trying to choke you and as a last effort to break free, you took a deep breath and exhaled a stream of fire. He dodged out of the way and you managed to get up. The next thing you saw was T'Challa going after him. You set fire to the staircase to slow him down but he still got away

You went outside only to see Steve on the rooftop pulling a helicopter from the sky. Sometimes you forget that he's a super-soldier just like you.

"Y/n coordinate evac. Get civilians as far away as you can," said Tony through comms. You wanted to help Steve but you got your orders.

~~~Fast forward to Berlin~~~

You did what Tony said and got civilians to a safe distance. When you went to meet with Nat and Tony, they told you Steve and Bucky were gone. They assumed Sam was with them too.

~~~Steve's POV~~~

"This would've been a lot easier a week ago," said Sam

"If we call Tony or maybe y/n--" he cut you off

"Who knows if the accords will let them help." he had a point. After everything that's happened, the UN would not listen to them even if they found out about Zemo.

"We're on our own."

"Maybe not." you looked at him questioningly. "I know a guy"

~~~End of POV~~~

You were now back in a conference room with General Ross. He gave you 36 hours to bring the three men in. He wouldn't hesitate to kill Steve if it meant bringing Barnes in.

"My left arm is numb. Is that normal?" he asked. Nat put her hand on his shoulder.

"You alright?" she asked

"Always." you knew that was a lie. Numbness in the left arm was a sign of a heart attack. But he's Tony. he could be bleeding to death and still say witty sarcastic remarks. You wish he didn't do that. You wished he'd open up to you more. "36 hours. Geez."

"We're seriously understaffed," said Nat. It was just the three of you there now.

"Would be great if we had a hulk right about now. Any shot?" Nat shook her head

Not even the Hulk. It would be nice if just Bruce and Thor were there. Maybe things wouldn't be as bad. Bruce and Thor would've deescalated matters before you could say Mjolnir.

"You really think he would be on our side?" she asked. You hadn't thought of that but knowing Bruce, he would want the team to be together.

"I have an idea." Said Nat

"ME too. Where's yours?

"Downstairs. Where's yours?" said tony.

~~~QUEENS~~~

"Spiderman? really?" you asked Tony in the car.

"HE stopped a 3000 lbs car going 40 miles an hour wit his bare hands and he swings from webs."

"But he's dressed in a red hoodie and swim goggles." you chuckled. It was probably the lightest moment you had in the last week alone.

You and Tony knocked on the apartment door. It was answered by a middle-aged woman. She was beautiful honestly. She had those kind motherly eyes that reminded you of your mom.

"Hi. I'm Tony Stark. This is y/n y/l/n. Is Mr. Parker here? we have some good news for him." Tony sad

"I'm May., his aunt and no he's not here. He should be home soon though. You're welcome to wait." she invited you in and served you some walnut and date bread. It was horrible but you didn't have the heart to tell her. she was so nice.

"So what is this good news you're here about?" she asked. Tony didn't actually tell you what his plan was. Not in full anyways so you were just as curious as her.

"Oh its a grant from the September foundation that he applied for. I approved." as far as bullshit made-on-the-spot excuses go, that was pretty good.

"Oh, he never told me that.

"He probably wanted to surprise you," you said to her

"Probably. Are you also a receiver of the grant?" she asked

"No. I'm interested in how the foundation is run so I asked to be here" she nodded. You didn't think she'd buy it but she did. Just as he said that the front door opens and a young guy walked in. He couldn't have been much younger than you. He had his earphones n and he was going on about this nice car parked outside. Tony's of course.

He saw the three of you on the sofa and he was clearly starstruck upon seeing Tony. He couldn't even speak without stuttering. He repeated his excuse to Peter and he surprisingly went along with it. Tony asked for five minutes alone with him and you were left in the living room with Aunt May. When they got out of the room, Peter informed his aunt that Tony invited him to the compound to talk more about the internship. You knew it was a lie of course because just a few hours later, Peter was standing next to you on the car to the airport.

~~~BERLIN~~~

Vision informed you that Clint came to get Wanda at the compound. Immediately, you knew this wasn't gonna end well. You don't want to fight her but you don't have a choice

As a last effort, you tried calling Steve but hews just declining your calls. Eventually, none of them would even go through.

~~~Fast forward~~~

"Steve, you know what's about to happen. Do you really want to punch your way out of this one?" Nat said.

"Just come with us. Please," you pleaded. He looked at the both of you

"Alright, I've run out of patience. Underoos!" yelled tony. just as he did, Peter grabbed Steve's should and landed on top of  the helicopter

"Nice job kid"

"Thanks. I could've stuck the landing a little better. It's just the new suit but it's perfect, Mr. Stark" he went on this babbling for about 45 seconds. You thought it was funny.

~~~

"I'm trying to keep you from tearing the Avengers apart," Tony said. You wanted the same thing. You all do.

"You did that when you signed," said Steve

"You're gonna turn Barnes over and you're gonna come with us now because it's us" You could hear the sadness and frustration in Tony's voice. "Come on" he whispered

You heard Sam's voice through Steve's earpiece "We found it. The quintet is in hangar five. North runway." you let out a deep breath. This was it. Steve raised his arm as Redwing cut through his restraints.

"Alright Lang," said Steve

"What the hell was that?" asked Rhodes

"I believe this is yours, Captain America"

"Oh great. There's two on the parking deck. One of them is Maximoff. I'm gonna go grab her. Y/n come with me. Rhodey, wanna take Cap?" said Tony as he grabbed you by the arm and flew towards Wanda... and Clint?

"There's two on the terminal. Wilson and Barnes"

"Barnes is mine," said T'Challa

~~~Fast Forward~~~

"Wanda. I think you hurt Vision's feelings"

"You locked me in my room."

"I did it to protect you."

"Wanda, stop this now. I don't want to fight you but you know I will."

"I can't live in fear anymore, y/n." and with that, she used her powers to drop cars at you.

"I'm done playing nice. You want a fight? I'll give you a fight." you said as you aimed fireblasts at her and Clint.

A fight has now ensued between the two teams. Tony attached a miniaturized jet pack to your back so you could chase after the others. Steve and the others were making a run for the hangar when Vision used his laser to stop them in their tracks. You landed in front of them, skin now glowing red from the fire inside you. The others followed suit.

"You must surrender now." Vision's voice thundered over you despite being in an open space. You were now face to face with your friends.

"What do we do, Cap?" asked Sam

"We fight."

"This isn't gonna end well," whispered Nat

"They're not stopping," said Peter

"Neither are we."

a/n: what do you guys think? I hope you like it. it's my first time writing fanfic. criticism would be greatly appreciated. part two coming soon depending on the response to this...

#steve rogers x reader #tony stark x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #bucky barnes #sam wilson #natasha romanoff #wanda maximoff #tony stark #steve rogers #peter parker #marvel fanfic #avengers x reader #captain america civil war #cacw #black panther #tchalla #sharon carter #ant man #scott lang #vision #avengers fanfic #marvel #iron man #captain america #black widow #winter soldier #falcon #spiderman #scarlet witch

[nanasarea]

Sucker I xx (finale)

Prompt: Y/N attends a school for the supernatural, specifically: werewolves, witches and vampires. The school might be magic, but so is love, right? Right?

Genre: angst, fluff

Pairing: reader x 00 line (renjun special)

Inspired heavily by: Legacies (and The Vampire Diaries&The Originals)

a/n: Renjun best boy, here we go

main m.list / sucker m.list /  i  ii  iii  iv   v   vi   vii   viii   ix   x   xi  xii xiii xiv  xv  xvi  xvii xviii xix xx

xx (jeno)

xx (jaemin)

xx (haechan)

xx (renjun)

“Mr Hwang?” Hana asked.

“I prefer Richard.” He answered, smiling.

“I thought she was dead.” You said, looking at the girl on his right. 

“She was but then I got her turned.” Mr. Hwang, or should you say Richard said. With that, the events started playing in your head again.

“Wait.” Renjun said. 

“If you’re going to go and do what Richard says, go ahead. If you’re going to go and do what Haechan says, be my guest, but what do you think will happen to you? You’re part werewolf, do you think Richard will just let you go like that? And Haechan, he’s blinded by dark magic, he’s not genuine. I saw the way you looked at each other and despite your humanity being turned off and him being intoxicated by dark magic, I could tell there was something there. Sure, he’s hot, but you shouldn’t pick him because of that. You heard the prophesy, do you really want to be responsible for so many more deaths?” Renjun asked.

You weren’t responsible for anyone’s death, she died because she was sent to be killed by you. There was no reason to feel guilty, no reason for your humanity to be turned off but most importantly, no reason why the whole werewolves race had to die.

“Mr. Hw-Richard, there’s no reason to do thi-” “Yes, there is, child. You see, werewolves are useless, their existence is probably god’s way to spite us all d-” Richard cut Renjun off but before he could finish his sentence, you did the same to him. 

“Weren’t werewolves around before vampires?” You asked “Y/N-” “Renjun’s right. If you want all werewolves gone, you’re gonna have to get rid of me too, so why should I help you?” You asked. 

“There’s no reason to get rid of them, the only one here we need to get rid of is you.” You added. 

“Aww, so sweet, but that won’t stop me.” Richard said, rolling his eyes. “I can end you all if I wanted to.” He added. 

“What did you need me for then?” Haechan asked, raising his hand before Richard compelled him to stop. 

“Oh please, who’s next?” He asked. 

“Another vampire?” he asked, looking at Chenle. 

“A werewolf?” He asked, looking at Jisung. 

“Possibly a witch?” he asked, looking at Haechan. 

“Why not try all three?” You asked, using your super speed to take the dagger from one of the shelves and stab him with it.

The dagger wasn’t to harm Richard, it was just to put him in a deep sleep, until you figured out what to do about him, knowing any offensive magic wouldn’t be the answer, especially not after the shocking events that happened in such a short time.

 You knew you couldn’t actually kill him anyway, and it’s not like he was dead either, he could come back to life if you pulled the dagger out.

Once you successfully took him down, you stopped and looked around. “I’ll go to the werewolves.” Jisung said, Mark and Chenle soon following after him.

“Great, what about Haechan?” Jaemin asked “Let’s hope we can siphon the dark magic out of him, yeah? Anyone have anything they won’t miss?” Minsoo asked as the girl stepped forward, handing him her ring. 

“Ah good choice.” Minsoo said, smiling at her before placing it in Haechan’s hand. “Who says I want my dark magic gone?” Haechan asked. 

“Me.” Jeno said as he placed his hand on Haechan’s shoulder. “It’s for the best and you know it.” He added as Haechan sighed.

Later that day, you thanked Renjun for turning your humanity on. 

“It’s been a long day. You should get some sleep, sorry for everything I did before you helped me turn my humanity on again, thanks for that, by the way.” you said. 

“I turned your humanity on?” he asked, blushing “Yeah.” You said, shyly looking for his reaction, the words he told Olor a while ago, replaying in his head.

“I’m in love with a woman I can never have. The point, I’m in love with her and its driving me crazy. I’m not in control. I have to stay together to protect her and she wants me to be the better man. Which means I can’t be who I am, a control freak who is a confused mess.” He wasn’t in control, far from it, but when he heard you tell him about the humanity, he couldn’t seem to care. All he cared about was you, so he moved closer while asking. 

“Does that mean I’m your soulmate?” He asked “Pretty much.” You chuckled. 

“Never knew the cute awkward guy who gave me a tour on the first day would end up being the reason I end up preventing the extinction of the werewolf race.” You said, smiling from remembering your first day. 

“Oh, god, I was so awkward that day, but can you blame me? It’s not every day you get to test the cutest girl you’ve ever seen for what her supernatural background is.” He laughed, throwing his head back from embarrassment. 

“Oh fuck it, I can’t wait any longer.” You said, causing Renjun to give you a confused look before you moved closer, grabbing him by his shirt and bringing him close enough to kiss him. 

And with that, the events of that day are still a blur, not only to you, but to the others. Later on, you found out the girl was actually being compelled by the ring she gave Minsoo. 

The ring they destroyed, and with it, all traces of Haechan’s dark magic, besides the front entrance, it was still being rebuilt as we speak. You also found out that she was actually really nice and that her name was Hyejoo, but she went by Olivia.

You and Renjun? You end up being the school’s cutest couple. Sure, you use to date like almost all of his friends, but he didn’t care, you were his now and that’s all that mattered. Besides, it’s not like much changed. You acted like you did before, when you were the best of friends, now you just so happen to make out and call each other over the top cheesy nicknames in a sarcastic manner.

Life finally felt right, like you were completed. Seeing Jeno and Jaemin fight over the last cookie, Olivia, Jisung and Chenle betting on Haechan, Mark and Minsoo’s competition on who can chug their bubble tea the fastest, Hana in Jisoo’s arms and you in Renjun’s as you watched it all go down. Life finally made sense for once and you knew this is where you were suppose to be. 

True love will triumph in the end and maybe, platonic love like Jeno’s love for Haechan, family love like Minsoo’s love for Jisoo,  romantic love like your love for Renjun, maybe, just maybe, all types of love save the day at the end, because even if this school is magic, so is love, right?

a/n: Renjun’s ending! I like this ending the most so far, I think. I enjoyed writing this part the most so I hope you liked it! It’s not as different as Nomin’s but Haechan’s part is still on it’s way so let’s hope his ending will be different enough haha. 

#nct #nct dream #sucker #huang renjun #huang renjun x reader #nct x reader #nct dream x reader #nct fluff #nct angst #nct dream fluff #nct dream angst #huang renjun fluff #huang renjun angst #nct series #nct dream series #nct au #nct dream au #supernatural au #the originals #renjun ending #renjun finale #renjun special #the vampire diaries #legacies inspired #legacies

[mistbornthefinal]

Madoka Magica Aniversary Analysis: Part 9

Can Love and Courage Still Triumph?

The beginning of this episode replays the end of the last, Sayaka’s transformation into a witch. As Oktavia von Seckendorff looms over her Kyouko is initially uncomprehending or perhaps in denial of what just happened happened. Kyouko grabs Sayaka’s body as it falls and is forced to dodge a barrage of Okatavia’s signature wheels. Homura arrives on the scene and sets off another flashbang and the offers Kyouko her hand.

Kyouko takes it and we get our first look and Homura’s timestop from an inside perspective. Within the stopped time Kyouko demands to know where that witch came from and what happened to Sayaka, Homura reiterates the truth that Kyouko is unwilling to internalize, Sayaka has become a witch. Homura then says that unless Kyouko is unwilling to discard Sayaka’s body then they will have to run. Kyouko can not do that so they exit the barrier. (cue connect)

We find Madoka walking morosely along the railroad tracks only to run into Kyouko and Homura walking in the opposite direction. Seeing Sayaka’s lifeless body Madoka tearfully asks what happened to her friend. Homura lays it out her Soul Gem shattered and became a Grief Seed, Sayaka is gone. That is the final secret of the Soul Gem when they fully darken they become Grief Seeds and a girl is reborn as a witch. This is the inescapable fate of those who become magical girls. In payment for the number of people Sayaka has saved Oktavia will curse and equal number of people.

Of course this sort of law karmic balancing that the girls have been claiming for the past few episodes doesn’t really hold up if you think about it. Mami saved a large number of people and cursed no one due to dying before she became a Witch. Heck Kyubey’s whole operation sort of requires a certain amount of unfair exchange to be possible given they use magic to extent the life of the universe and leave other species with the bill.  That said it’s easy to buy equivalent exchange as something the characters believe,(especially Homura who at this point want’s to resolve her wish as “a life for a life”) but it’s something that Madoka’s wish ultimately rejects. 

Kyouko is angered by Homura’s cold words in the face of Madoka’s grief grabbing her by the collar, but Homura simply continues her monologue telling Madoka that this is the truth of what she aspired to become. Homura then tell Kyouko that there will be trouble if she isn’t cautious about disposing of the body. Kyouko similar to Madoka in episode 7 asks Homura how she can call herself human.

“I can’t, of course. And neither can you.”

We find Madoka sitting on her bed when Kyubey come for a visit. Madoka is unsurprised to find him alive, and he confirms that nothing that Homura said is wrong enough to require further explanation. He then lays out the reasoning behind the system his kind have inflicted on humanity. When the Soul Gem undergoes phase change a tremendous amount of energy is released and that energy is their ultimate goal. It is a source of power unbounded by thermodynamics that they can use to stave off the heat death of the universe. 

While he implies that this is ultimately for the benefit of humanity as well (and that humanity will eventually join the interstellar community) the next episode proves he is full of shit. That they have a fixed quota of energy that they expect each planet to produce and express no regret at humanities immanent extinction strongly implies that the extinction of the client species is the expected end state of their operation. In which case the relationship is purely predatory regardless of what he might claim in episode 11. 

He also gives the fig leaf that the girls all consented but that’s a weak dodge. Like forget informed consent this is maliciously and deliberately misinformed consent, he may claim that his species doesn’t understand the concept of deception that doesn’t seem to stop him from doing it constantly. Also while it’s not brought up I can’t help but feel then need to point towards all the normal humans who never consented to anything and are being eaten by witches regardless. 

Kyubey then says that given that there are billions of human’s he doesn’t understand why the death of a single human has her bent out of shape. 

you tell ‘em Madoka

Kyubey gives yet another sales pitch this time stressing the vas amounts of delicious energy she will produce when she becomes a horrible monster. Leaving with.

“So, if you ever feel like dying for the sake of the universe, just let me know.”

We check in on Kyouko who is using her magic to stop Sayaka’s gem from decaying. Kyubey shows himself to ask why and Sayaka answers his question with another question. “Can Sayaka be brought back.” Kyubey uses ambiguous phrasing to give Kyouko false hope like the dick he is. We leave this scene with Kyouko stuffing her face making it pretty clear that her eating habits are less “endearing character quirk” and more “worrying coping mechanism.”

As Madoka is walking to school with Hitomi (who tragically unaware of what has happened), Kyouko calls out to her with telepathy asking her if she’s really just going to go to school after what happened yesterday? Realizing that the fate of her friends soul is probably more important than compulsory education Madoka ditches Hitomi runs off. 

Kyouko tells Madoka that she can’t abandon Sayaka so long as there hope she can be saved. (and potentially even if there isn’t) He friends voice might still be able to reach her, might bring her back to humanity. Madoka asks if that will really work to which Kyouko replies that she has no idea. She want’s to do this because she doesn’t know, because that uncertainty allows room for hope

“Maybe if we slice that witch in half, Sayaka’s Soul Gem will fall out instead of a Grief Seed. Wouldn’t that be something? It’d be like one of those stories where love and courage triumph over all. Come to think about it, I probably became a magical girl in the first place because I loved stories like that. I’d totally forgotten about it, but Sayaka reminded me again.”

You did it Kyouko, you boiled your character arc down to the bare essentials. Kyouko asks Madoka if she is willing to help even if Kyouko can’t promise her safety or success. Madoka cinnamon roll that she is accepts immediately offers  her hand into which Kyouko places a piece of candy in lieu of a handshake. 

Back at school Homura decides to dich as soon as it’s clear that Madoka isn’t coming. 

As the two of them search for Oktavia’s labyrinth, Madoka asks if Homura is going to help them. Kyouko says no and denies that Homura is her friend, they simply share a common goal, to defeat Walpurgisnact an enemy neither of them could face alone. 

Within the barrier Madoka asks Kyouko if she is a coward for always leaving the fighting to others. Kyouko flips the script her life is happy one, to abandon that, to become a Puella Magi for a mere whim is the height of stupidity. Kyouko won’t allow it, if Madoka did she would be the first to kick her ass. 

“The only people who should put their lives in danger are those who’ve got no other choice. Anyone else is just playing around.”

Kyouko then says there might be a time when Madoka has no choice but to fight, she should only consider the contract then.

We then arrive at the center of the labyrinth, or rather Oktavia realizes that she has intruders and they are pulled to the center. Oktavia’s familiars supply the background music as Madoka glimpses the remnant of her friend for the first time. She calls out to Sayaka but Oktavia’s only reply is to summon her wheels.

Kyouko raises her barrier and perpares herself to intercept the Witches attacks. As Madoka calls out to Sayaka Kyouko deflects a barrage of wheels with her spear. However Oktavia only steps up her attacks and Kyouko seems to be struggling to fight a purely defensive battle. 

As Kyouko starts to take hits she reminisces about her first encounter with Sayaka. She had dismissed the girl a first but she kept getting up no matter what. As she recalls that day red and blue flows across the screen froming the silhouette of Kyouko and Sayaka before resolving as flowing blood. Several wheels hit Kyouko and she is thrown backward. As Madoka moves to help Kyouko to her feet Oktavia seizes her in a massive armored gauntlet and begins to squeeze. 

Kyouko finally strikes severing the Witches limb and berating Sayaka. Oktavia brings her sword down shattering the floor and reveling an inverse of the concert hall they were in presided over by a familiar that resembles a certain boy.

Homura is there to catch Madoka. Kyouko apologises to Homura for dragging Madoka into her idiocy and the creates another of her barriers between her and Homura. The message there is clear. Kyouko acknowledges Homura’s mission focusing on the one thing she wants to protect above all else, Kyouko used to think that was what she was doing as well. She undoes her ponytail to reveal the symbol of her fathers faith that she had hidden in her hair, she never truly stopped believing. 

As Homura flees Kyouko summons spears from the earth in massive numbers including on large enough for her to ride. From her clasped hand she draws her Soul Gem that she has fused with the symbol of old faith.

“Don’t worry, Sayaka I know you don’t what to be alone. It’s ok. I’ll be here with you Sayaka.”

She then unleashes a massive attack through her own Soul Gem killing both her and Oktavia.

Back at the Homu-home Homura asks an interloping Kyubey if there was any chance for Kyouko’s plan to succeed. Kyubey admits that it was impossible and that he basically manipulated Kyouko to her death so Homura would have to face Walpurgisnact alone, and thus Madoka has no choice but to contract in order to save the city. Homura says that she will never let that happen.

For this episode Magia does not make it’s usual appearance instead replaced by “and I’m home” sing by Ai Nonaka and Eri Kitamura (VA’s for Kyouko and Sayaka respectively.)

And that’s Episode 9, when you get down to this Kyouko’s episode as much as Episode 10 is Homura’s episode. Kyouko what had come into the narrative preaching selfishness stakes it all on trying to save the girl who remined her of her old ideals. Now that the full weight of Kyubey’s system is reveled Kyouko tries to find a way out and in bittersweet way she does, choosing to expend her Soul Gem in a heroic sacrifice rather than fall into despair and become a Witch.

That said now there’s only one person standing in the way of Kyubey’s plans, though to a certain extent that’s how it’s always been.

#semi-original content #puella magi madoka magica #madoka magica anniversary analysis

[jakeriley]

Honestly, Choices owns my ass. There's something special about it, even with all the bullshit it just has a special place in my heart.

Storyscape, though? I started playing it some days ago, and it's just next level. Instantly got an ITunes Card, for Edge of Extinction specifically. Your choices matter (gdi, too much responsibility, make it go away!), the animations are drop dead gorgeous, the stories are insanely inclusive - in a natural, organic way. No forced LIs. Replaying actually makes sense, because there are so many stories within the stories. The conversations feel realistic. I don't HAVE to spend diamonds to experience an incredible story, it enhances but doesn't make the story.

Also, we get a cute dog for free! Pb could never.

#playchoices #storyscape