OH shit my pikmin queue is over. HOPE you enjoyed. i think tomorrow i might beat the game? not sure. it all depends on me.. BUT i will try hard. for like yesterday and today (i think?) we used 2 player mode (which is similar to super mario galaxy's) so its kind of cheating BUT its ok. we fight the good fight. i didnt check how many pikmin we gained or lost today BUT you know. its going up.

Assuming reboot Sparda has been tortured the entire time he was banished (which could've felt like more than the decade or more that passed between Eva dying and the twins killing Mundus- maybe time moves slower in where ever Sparda was banished to, too, or feels like it does), I feel like using the Yamato on him could help him mentally recover from at least some of that torture. Assuming the reboot Yamato works the same as the preboot one- which, until proven otherwise, I'm just gonna assume it does.

I feel like the best way to do it would be to sort of... "cut out", for lack of a better phrase, everything Sparda remembered after he surrendered to Mundus. Make it so the years of torture Sparda endured while banished fly out of Sparda's head as their own separate things, familiars, like V, Griffon, Shadow, and Nightmare (and Phantom, from the Visions of V manga). Its the best way I can think of to let him think clearly.

I headcanon that Mundus was still trying to get information out of Sparda on Dante and his whereabouts while Sparda was banished. I'm not sure how accurate/plausible that would be, given that in the game Vergil just kinda talks about Sparda being banished like Mundus did the dimensional equivalent of chucking Sparda into an underground bunker and then pouring unbreakable concrete over the entrance to seal Sparda in there... but it would make more sense if Mundus kept in contact with Sparda somehow (maybe not in question, just projecting his power into where ever Sparda was banished to) to question him about Dante, who was as far as Mundus knew, the last remaining Nephilim.

Or maybe not! Maybe Mundus banishing Sparda was Mundus acting impulsively and not really thinking, like Mundus did with the Hell Gate. But given how doggedly Mundus hunted down the Nephilim, it seems weird that Mundus would just let a potential information source about what Mundus thinks is the last Nephilim rot in banishment forever, no matter how painful that banishment was.

Idk. Mostly I just like the idea because it gives me more to work with. I know you can just work with the idea of Sparda just being tortured Just Because, without any questioning from Mundus, but I feel like adding Mundus being involved gives you more to work with. It'd give you a way for the twins to see that Sparda cared about them and was trying to protect them even after Sparda hid them among the humans, too.

Maybe thats just me, Idk. Anyway.

Even with the years of banishment/torture cut out, Sparda is still gonna need a LOT of time and help to mentally recover, especially since Sparda is probably gonna have to re-absorb all those memories or else crumble away into dust like V. But for the purposes of immediate "Help me, Dad, my brother is doing something potentially world-endingly stupid", or even just getting through to Sparda that Mundus is dead and his son(s) are here and he doesn't have to suffer any more, I think using the Yamato on Sparda could work. I think the latter especially could help him cope with the memories, even if Sparda still has to deal with the info of what Vergil did/is doing.

Idk. I feel like there's a lot you could do with Sparda meeting his sons again, and I feel like it could be fun to play around with.

With how Mundus is characterized in the reboot, I tend to headcanon that most of why Sparda is being tortured is because Mundus is mad. He often does impulsive things out of spite and the fact that his brother/blood brother/right hand abandoned him after what is described as eons to run off with an angel and conspire against him is definitely something that would set him off. I imagine early on, very early on, he might have tried to get information on Sparda's plans and what he did with Dante but, when he didn't get anything out of him, I wouldn't be surprised if he just sort of locked him away, not to be bothered with again. Especially since Sparda not giving him what he wants would just further anger an already angry Mundus, who is more likely to act impulsively. I imagine for Mundus he was probably feeling quite satisfied that he is getting revenge for what he surely views as a very horrendous crime (abandoning him and conspiring against him). I guess to me it's less just because, and more Mundus feels he is owed something and that killing Sparda is not enough to repay what he feels he is owed, thus forth the torture.

I've always liked the idea of Vergil looking for Sparda in hell after he becomes demon king because he would like his father to be his right hand. After all, Vergil doesn't know much about how hell works but his father had been right hand to Mundus for eons so, he certainly does know how things work and there's a lot he can learn from him.

I've never really considered cutting out the trauma from Sparda. I guess in my works I've always kinda just left him to work through it alongside the pressing issue of the fact he's stumbled into a very messy situation between his sons. I don't want to downplay Sparda's trauma from such a long time in what is described as 'a fate worse then death' but I also don't want to take his trauma away from him, I guess? He's also so often compared to Dante who is often compartmentalizing and avoiding his problems until he can't so I can see Sparda, after being taken from such a traumatic experience and then shoved into a new problem, doing the same because he doesn't exactly feel the sort of safety required to let himself process what happened. Plus we know reboot Sparda has some sort of way to manipulate memories so I wouldn't be surprised if he has been doing that or does that upon being freed to try and avoid dealing with it.

I think also there's the possibility of Vergil doing that as well. If we take the Vergil Chronicles as canon (which I have uh...Mixed Feelings On but we can scrap it for parts) then Vergil has the same abilities or has learned how to do the same thing. The idea of him sort of dampening or pushing back his fathers years of torture so he has a more useful springboard for ideas.

Also part of why I tend to headcanon Vergil being the one to bring Sparda back is because I feel like Dante is firstly, too busy, and secondly, him and Kat took Vergil very literally when he said there was no getting Sparda back so just figured it was not going to be possible, at least not right now asdfghj. Vergil on the other hand is in hell with very few allies and definitely looking for help.

Long story short of all of this: there's a lot to play with when it comes to bringing back reboot Sparda, especially since they left it so open ended and everything. Like we know he's alive, but in what state and where and everything is really interesting to play with.

So. The powerpuff girls reboot. And the leaked script. It doesn’t look super great right now. HOWEVER, I think it’s salvageable. Or at the very least it can be something that I can personally self indulge in. 

So if they’re going to make the show in the same direction it’s going now, with the powerpuff girls breaking up and coming together again umbrella academy style, I don’t think it needs to be because of them just not liking being powerpuff girls or because the professor was abusive or something, again umbrella academy style. But, there was an interesting bit about how Blossom killed mojo jojo, and to my knowledge, I don’t think the powerpuff girls ever killed anyone before? Beaten them to a bloody pulp that they might be better off dead, yes, but actually kill, nope. Also, they’re children, so that adds another layer of the trauma of killing someone since kids sometimes have a harder time knowing how to deal with difficult feelings. So they took a break probably, but then that break just dragged on for years and years and they just never got back into the game. Also, there are probably other superhero's in this world, so they probably took over Townsville for the powerpuff girls. Now the three girls are trying to deal with the trauma of that night, and maybe some other kinds of trauma as well, and in doing so they did shift away from each other. So this is how the first episode could go;

So Mojo has a son named Jojo, which I don’t want so I’m cutting that. Personally, I want Princess to come back having evolved as a supervillain. Her dad’s probably long dead at this point, so she learned how to take care of herself with the infinite money her dad left her. But she’s not going solo anymore, she has a whole organization behind her now. So I guess the first scene will show Princess talking to some guy about a deal that didn’t fall through, so she just kills him in cold blood and asks her partners, aka the rowdyruff boys to clean it up. Honestly Princess is a bit of a mafia leader now, as in she has connections and control over practically every criminal. They probably have some banter, and I’d like to think that the rowdyruff boys matured as they grew older so they’re not just like ‘ew a girl’, so Princess and them are actually pretty tight. They kinda all acted mostly the same to me, so I think in the reboot they should mirror the powerpuff girls more, but not by having similar personalities to the powerpuff girls but instead the opposite, like Brick is more of the irresponsible and impulsive one, Butch is probably more level headed and the most empathetic of the three, and Boomer is the type to take every insult directed towards him as a joke and incredibly vicious. Princess still acts all high and mighty, but now she can actually back that up. They probably all met after the powerpuff girls moved away, where I imagine they were trying to do the exacts same crime at the same time, so the rowdeyruff boys and Princess tried to one up each other but then they had so much fun with it that they decided to stick together. Anyway, so now they’re trying to plan some epic crime, which I don’t know what it is.

And then cutting away from that, it’s the professors birthday, and so the powerpuff girls come back to Townsville, as I’d like to imagine they always meet up on the professor’s birthday. The professor had tried to help the girls the best he could as they grew up, he researched about trauma and tried to get them therapy but it didn’t seem to work out, and as the girls had grown older they started going down these darker paths that he didn’t know how to stop, so now he’s got all this self loathing, thinking that if he was so smart he could have just done even more research and found the right thing to fix all this. But anyway the girls come back and we get caught up on what’s going on in their lives. Buttercup, honestly, I imagine her doing something like assassination or something along those lines. After the death of mojo jojo she kinda became desensitized to the idea of murder, and she was always the more violent one of her sisters anyways, so she just kinda figured if she was a murderer she might as well lean into the idea, since Blossom was the one that delivered the final blow but I bet all three of them had a hand in it. Bubbles is an artist now, not super well known but well known enough that she gets a steady string of commissions. But most of her drawings are very gory, as ever since that night she was unable to draw anything else, but it was fine since she actually liked drawing it, but people around her thought it was weird which made her self conscious about it, plus she does want to branch out and draw other stuff but she just can’t. And as for Blossom, she’s probably the biggest mess out of them all, but not outwardly. She pushes it all down, which sometimes results in these panic attacks and delusions of mojo jojo. So she’s a lawyer now, since I feel like she cared the most about justice out of the three, and she still wants to carry that out, just not in the same way. She’s kinda infamous for being that really strange lawyer that only takes up clients she believes are deserving of her defense, which results in her being kinda poor but she doesn't’ care. Anyway, I think that even though the girls are separated most of the time and they have their own issues with each other, they still care for each other and act very close. 

At some point they probably run into Princess and the rowdyruff boys again, and they’re surprised to find them together. Princess and the rowdyruff boys claim that they’ve turned over a new leaf, and technically everyone else thinks so too since their crimes are now much more secretive, although still pretty violent. They actually manage to get along rather well, although Buttercup doesn’t believe them at all, Blossom is pretty skeptical but open minded, and Bubbles believes them completely. So then they go back to celebrating the professors birthday, but then, at some point, I imagine the professor gets caught up in the middle of a robbery of sorts, and the girls step in and save him, defeating the robbers. It’s after this that Buttercup actually decides to become a superhero again, realizing that she really missed it, regardless of whether or not her sisters join her. Concerned for her, Blossom and Bubbles reluctantly join her, mostly to convince her to stop. And then we go back to Princess and the rowdyruff boys, who discuss that the powerpuff girls getting back together could prove to be a problem in their big overarching goal.

So that’s what I would have done with the story if I was given the script and asked to rewrite it while making it still close to the original point. This is probably still trash, but it’s trash that I can enjoy at least.

Steve Rogers - Promise

A/N - So, this is my first marvel imagine? I haven’t watched all the films yet, I’m halfway through and watching them all in chronological order, but I couldn’t resist because I love Steve Rogers. So much. Once I’ve finished watching, I'll probably realise a shit tonne of mistakes in this, but please don’t judge. Apologies for any typos and incorrect information. GIF credits to owner.

Warnings - angst, smut so 18+ please; fingering, unprotected sex (don’t do it), borderline ‘captain’ kink, 5k.

Summary - you’re an admin worker in stark tower, an average working girl except for one thing, you have a superior memory, one that has aided you many a time. But when you’re leading Cap on a mission and it gets cut off, is it because of your memory, or are you just letting your crush on Steve cloud any reasonable thinking?

YOU LOVE YOUR JOB, there’s no denying it. You’re young, a Brit in America, just working to help with your future, but after how well it’s been going recently? You don’t think you’ll want to leave. 

You’re an admin at Stark Tower. Not that one is really needed with all of Tony’s tech, and the fact that everyone is more than capable of sorting themselves out, it’s just fun to be around. Not only do you complete all the stenography and spreadsheets that don’t necessarily have to do with anyone specific, but you also do many of the more artistic plans and are everyone’s personal therapist. You probably don’t help your own cause - leaving your door propped open with a book to let anyone drift in and out of their own accord at any given time, unless you’re properly working, and then they know to find you in your office. Yes, your very own office.

Recently, with you becoming more and more familiar with the workings of all the residents, growing more knowledgeable of their work lives, picking up the lingo and everyone’s gladness at your perfect, imperturbable memory, you’re slowly being given more tasks. This could be anything from mission reassignment to looking through months old footage, but you’ve been helping out over the system on a couple of missions. You really feel like one of the team even though you know you’re far from it. Sleeping in the tower helps, as well as being welcomed by everyone every meal time that you sit together, especially the way they test your memory trick and always seem completely amazed at how you remember the most obscure details. Anything from the exact positioning of a birth mark on someone that Natasha took down the first week you began working, to the precise measurement of metal that Tony needed to complete a new project, to the freckle on Steve’s bare ass that one time he had to use your shower-

That escalated quickly. 

Currently, you’re in your office, daydreaming and completely wistfully thinking. You have no trouble remembering every conversation you and Steve have ever had, not that many admittedly, but he’s always been so kind to you. He was the first one to truly make you feel part of the team, welcoming you with a hug before holding you at arms length and brushing a crease from the arm of your blouse. You’re not really sure if he’d seen anyone dress that way, since all the girls he was around were always in their kick ass clothes, gym shorts or comfies, so you wandering around day in day out and wearing frilly Victorian-era blouses paired with short, tight pencil skirts and Louboutin stilettos may have been a shock to his system. It wasn’t with any agenda in mind that you did this, merely a mix of modesty and business woman style. Every word Cap has ever said flies through your mind, the impeccable memory of the way his exquisite nylon suit clings to him in all the right places... 

Steve is the only guy you’ve fancied for a while, the only person you’ve ever really gone for emotionally, and all of that is because he’s such a cute human being; so genuine, so upbeat around you, so supportive, and his smile. Goddamn his smile. He’s just too cute for life, which is also why you should really be concentrating, considering you’re supposed to be monitoring his mission. 

“Y/N, are you there? I think somethings happening, someone’s here that we didn’t know about, where do I go?”

His usually soft voice is frantic, and you can tell he’s a little scared, since this was supposed to be a simple solo mission, in and out, but now you’re having to recite an escape route. 

“Turn left at the end of that corridor, half way down there’s a grate on the wall. Pull it off, climb inside.” You tell him as calmly as you can, but even your heart is beating out of your chest, breathing laboured and a slight sweat forming on your forehead. 

“I’m in, sweetheart. What next?” Not the right time for your heart to flutter at his words, especially not the time to imagine the way his raspy morning voice would curl around those very same Few words...

“Follow the route, it’ll bring you out in a downstairs kitchen area that was empty last time I checked, I’ll look again...” you trail off, clicking off the one screen with the dot of his whereabouts to check the surveillance, and he seems to be safe. 

You hear his breathing calm down as he crawls through the ventilation system, but even as you flick through every camera that you’ve been able to access in the building he’s in and the surrounding area, nothing seems to be out of the ordinary apart from a couple of unconscious, probably dead blokes scattered across stone floors.

“I’m in the kitchen, but there’s no doors in here, no way out.” He says. 

Fuck.

Your heart sinks to your feet.

“Yes there is Steve, it’s on the north wall beside a faux, oversized spice rack. It has a silver handle and it’s an oak door, exactly like my bedroom door.”

He pauses, his heart rate thrumming heavily, “sweetheart there’s no door here, there’s no spice rack, just old built in cabinets and flat walls. You must have misremembered.”

“Shut the fuck op Steve, I’m doing what I can,”

Your usual eloquence is out the window along with all of your chill, sounding mildly like a road man as you frantically tap between the screens. He’s right though, his only way out is to climb back in the vent and hope to god, well, or Thor, that no one finds him there, but that may be too late.

“Try the cold tap on the sink, I don’t know exactly what was said but I distinctly remember someone talking about it. Stay calm for me Cap, please.” You want to beg for him to be ok, to come back in one piece, because this isn’t a normal mission, you’re emotionally attached. 

He takes a deep breath and walks over to the tap, but as soon as he touches it, all surveillance is cut off, your computer goes black, and you can’t even hear his breathing anymore. 

“Steve? Cap, come back to me, can you hear me? Steve?” With each call of his name to which he doesn’t respond, you grow more frantic. The lights are still on so you know that it’s not the mains, but you’re not educated with circuits, so you do what you can to reboot your computer, only for it to show up with your bland screen of spreadsheets, sans anything about the mission or Steve.

Your hands start shaking, lip quivering and mind overwhelmed with stress. It’s over, you’ve lost Steve, fucked up the mission, you’ll be out of a job, and the worst part? You broke a promise. 

“Promise you’ll keep me safe out there Y/N?” Steve asked, his cute little smile twinkling in his eyes and making your whole body go giddy.

“I promise, but you have to promise that you’ll come back in one piece.”

“That I can do, for you.” He murmured, wrapping his arms around your body and placing a kiss to your hairline. 

You haven’t been at the compound long enough to know whether this is normal for Steve, or for anyone, or if he’s just a natural flirt. Whatever it is, you feel too guilty to face him again if he even comes back alive. 

Slowly, soft sobs start to escape your lips without you noticing, tears slipping down your cheeks and dampening the neck of your blouse. You can’t help the guilt that overtakes you, the fear that you can’t even reason, and that’s when you hear a soft knock on your door.

“Can I come in?”

It’s Natasha. You nod gently as she takes a seat in the corner of your room, throwing her feet up on your coffee table so nonchalantly that it’s almost not a challenge of authority. 

“What’s up? Didn’t you have to radio for Cap?” Once again you nod, hastily wiping the tears from your face and smoothing your skirt out. “So, why are you crying?”

You like Natasha, of course you do, but you have normal people emotions and a little more conscience, unable to stand the thought of anyone even getting a papercut on your watch. 

“He went off, the computers crashed, and it’s all my fault.” You say, standing up and moving to shut your office door, locking it for safekeeping, because if Bucky finds out then you’re dead. 

Natasha grabs a lollipop from your sweet bowl and sticks it in her mouth, swirling her tongue around it, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think she’s flirting. She’s not, that’s just Natasha. “Care to elaborate?”

You take a sharp breath, “someone was there that we didn’t calculate, I had to get him through the ventilation system to an abandoned kitchen that I KNOW had a door, my memory doesn’t glitch, so in the time it took for Steve to get through the vents, someone must’ve closed off the door, but I’m not sure how. Then he just went when he touched the only possible thing that could be an escape route. Fuck, what if he’s dead?”

You feel tears bubbling up in your eyes again, blinking harshly to keep them away. 

“So what if he is? You’re smart, you’re panicking, so you’ve obviously done everything. It sounds harsh but you can’t get too attached. Just listen out and he’ll come back of his own accord, but if he doesn’t then we’ll have to deal with that later.” She says, grasping a hand around your shoulder before  stepping over the threshold to the main compound, leaving you alone with your thoughts. 

Maybe she thought tough love would work, but she has a point. You’ve done everything you can, so now it’s just a waiting game.

You keep an ear piece on you but shut your office for the night, heading out to the bar to pour yourself a more than healthy sized glass of wine. You unbutton your shirt a little and slide down the wall to your favourite reading spot, in one far corner, you set up some cushions and bedding. You’re the only one that uses it, but you could swear that you’ve seen Steve eyeing it up before. So you sit, tears streaming down your cheeks and leaving you with mascara-stained tear tracks, the first few buttons of your shirt recklessly undone, and your heels flung elsewhere. You bring the bottle over with your glass, and you pick up a book to keep you distracted. 

You’re not sure how long you sit there, guilt slowly building, occasionally calling Steve’s name to check if he’s come back on the system, but there’s nothing. Nothing until the lift doors open, and out walks a very bloody Cap with his suit half on and a skin tight white t-shirt clinging to his upper body.

The tears don’t stop falling from your eyes, but you close your book anyway. You would stand up, run to hug him, but your legs can’t hold you up, so you stay seated, all your words caught in your throat as Steve edges further across the common area towards you. 

He offers you a shy smile, virtually collapsing into the carpet only metres from you. Slowly his head lifts, hair falling into his eyes, and he holds his arms out. 

“Oh god Steve,” it’s him. Really him. You feared he’d be a hologram or something, your eyes deceiving you from their soreness post crying. But he’s here, you can tell from the overly memorised display of veins in his bicep when he offers you his arm. 

“It’s me,” he nods, edging a little further towards you as you crawl closer and settle into his grip. 

Your tears flow freely, dampening his shirt. Neither of you says a word, he just grips you closer to him, cuddling your legs into his lap to soothe you.

After a while, Steve fidgets, and you find your eyes dry. 

You angle your head upwards, your well kept chignon completely haywire. Steve’s face is covered in bruises and dried blood, but his eyes don’t look at all worried. 

“What happened?” You whisper, words vibrating through his chest. 

“The tap was a trick, or maybe I twisted the wrong one, but all the lights went out and I was shocked, I had to attack a few guys but I made it out, albeit bruised.” He swallows, running a shy finger over the curves of your face. “Were you worried about me?”

You nod, clutching him close. He chuckles and draws circles on your back through your shirt, just his soft touch more comforting than anything else. 

“I’m fine, sweetheart, is my nose broken though?”

You look at his nose, softly smoothing over a hell of a bruise, before placing a gentle kiss to the bridge. 

“No, trust me. In British comps, fights happen daily, and my ex was in with a bad crowd, always in fights. I had to deal with all kinds of injuries, and your nose is not broken. Be grateful because it hurts to sort it out.”

He laughs and brings you in.

“You deserve so much better than someone like that. I was worried about you when I was out there you know...” he says.

A strange conversation transition, but who are you to judge. 

“I was so scared, I thought you’d died,” ah shit, here come the tears again, “Natasha told me to just wait it out like I wasn’t completely emotionally attached to you. Bloody hell, Steve, I’d be responsible if you died.”

He cooes sweet reassurances in your ear, wrapping his arms entirely around your torso while the join between his neck and shoulder becomes your sanctuary.

“I’m emotionally attached to you too if that helps,” he whispers in your ear, so quietly that he hopes you didn’t hear, instantly regretting it. But with the soft kiss you place on the sweet spot just below his ear, he brings up all his courage to angle his head just right, capturing your lips in his in the sweetest of kisses. 

You gasp into the kiss, your reaction giving Steve means to believe you didn’t like it, instantly pulling away and dropping his hands from around your body.

“I-I’m sorry, you’re upset and I took advantage of that, and I haven’t really been with anyone since, well...”

“Shut up and kiss me, Steve.” You command, cutting off his rambling, your hand cupping his cheek. 

His hands slowly make their way around your body, fumbling for the bottom of your blouse and subsequently unable to find where your shirt ends and your skirt starts. You giggle a little into the kiss, taking the opportunity to deepen the kiss by delving his tongue into your mouth. You place your hands over his and guide them to your chest. For a second, he seems confused, his lips halting their massaging movements on your own, until he finds the open buttons at the top of your blouse. He pulls his lips away for a moment, breath mingling together in the air. His smells of strawberries, you note. He glances at you for reassurance, something which you eagerly give, so he begins. His hands slowly work their way over your chest, fingers fiddling with your buttons as you wait patiently, completely submissive for Steve to do whatever he wants to you. 

He pushes the material from your shoulders, and you untuck the back of it from your skirt, allowing it to fall to the floor, revealing your bra. Though now you see Steve eyeing it up, you realise it’s not really a bra at all, rather two triangles of flimsy fabric with some bands and strings attached, one of your only bras that doesn’t show through a sheer blouse. The way his eyes are boggling at your tits though, you guess he likes it. 

An unwitting blush creeps up your neck and cheeks, suddenly feeling cold under his scrutiny.

“You can touch them if you want,” you chuckle lightly, fearing that you’ll sound like an inexperienced teenager if you say more. 

Steve blushes as crimson as you, his large hands leaping at the opportunity to feel you. You throw your head back in pleasure as his cold thumb rubs over your nipples, making them hard to the touch, and the rest of his hands get to work massaging and kneading your boobs, pulling down the fabric to softly kiss your bare skin. 

Although he hasn’t done this in a while, well, a lifetime, he still knows how to do it realllly well. 

Your hands fly to his heart, keeping him there, his lips switching between your breasts until you grow a little more needy, grinding down on his bulge. 

“You wanna do this?” He asks, voice a little hoarse but still silky. 

“Yes, Steve. Fuck, just take me.”

“Language,” he chides jokingly, but despite that, he agrees. 

Clearly he doesn’t need to be asked twice, because he has you flipped beneath him with your back on your cushions in your reading corner, his lips attaching your neck. 

You fumble with the bottom of his shirt, pulling it up and over his head between kisses and suckles to a sensitive spot on your neck. He’s carved like a Greek god, abs toned to perfection, his tanned skin rippling with any given movement. He feels so soft too, skin tender beneath your fingers, trailing them gently across his back and torso to simply feel him. The contrary of gentle skin and solid muscles is one that makes your mouth water with desire, bringing Cap’s lips back to your own, palms pressed firmly against his back. You go in deep this time, licking his mouth and devouring his taste. To your surprise, he kisses you back with even more fervour, so passionate that you lose track of any thought swirling in your mind. 

“Suit off, now.” You call breathlessly, watching on as Steve clumsily tries to peel off his trousers by using the sleeve of his suit. He’s moving so recklessly that with an abrupt movement he’ll snag the fabric, ripping the suit that makes him look heaven sent. 

“Here,” you giggle, offering a hand out which he gladly takes, letting you shimmy the tough material down his legs, only blocked by his clunky boots which he kicks off at the same time as the suit, haphazardly leaving them wherever they fall in the lounge. “Fuck.” Is all you can choke out. The serum worked on everything. Even with his briefs still on, you can see his cock twitching within its confines.

“You’re wearing too many clothes now,” he faux scolds, leaping atop you again, kissing your collarbone as his hands work their way down your body. 

First he unhooks your bra properly, throwing it off and you both hear it land on the glass coffee table from the way your clasp knocks the glass. Next he moves onto your skirt, unzipping it, your hips raising of their own accord to accommodate his actions, slipping it off alongside your tights, revealing your bare legs to him for the first time. He doesn’t care about any of the natural marks that grace your skin, merely that you’re sitting in just your panties and only for him. 

“God you’re so beautiful,” he says.

He runs his palms over your thighs, just feeling your skin beneath his. His touch is soothing, as is his presence, allowing you to feel open towards him. You tilt your legs a little more open, revealing to him the small wet latch that graces your not-so-sexy work underwear. 

“All for me?” Steve asks, eyes innocent and doe like. 

If he’s really this sweet and naive then you’re gonna fucking ruin him. Sweet Jesus what you wouldn’t do to that man, starting with your incredibly well hidden Captain kink, though it may not be hidden much longer.

He brings a finger up to your core, pushing your panties to the side to run a finger up and down your slit. He audibly moans while collecting your slick from between your folds, fingers rough in contrast to the part of his body that you’re gripping onto, though you’re not sure quite where from your eyes fluttering closed. 

“Ready?”

You nod, bracing yourself as he rips your panties off and pushes one finger inside you. He feels brilliant, his fingers so much longer and better than your own, already bringing you jolts of pleasure from its presence. 

He draws it out before pumping back in again, continuing his movements. Your forehead falls against his bare shoulder, small gasps of pleasure escaping your open mouth.

“More,” you pant, ready to feel more of his intoxicating ministrations. 

He nods obligingly, slowly adding a second finger, continuing his gentle assault on your pussy. God, it’s been so long since you’ve had sex, just his two fingers pumping in and out of you brings you more pleasure than you’d care to admit. 

“S-stop,” 

He looks up at you, immediately withdrawing his fingers, covered in your juices and glistening in the moonlight. You flush far too deeply at such a simple thing. 

“I need to feel you already, please.”

You sensually drag your finger all over his bare chest, hearing his breath hitch in his throat. He nods vigorously, hair falling in his line of vision, but scrambles to be on top of you properly, hands either side of your head on your array of cushions and his legs steady, trapping you completely beneath him. 

“Are you sure? I don’t wanna take advantage of you, y/n. You’re so beautiful and perfect and I want your first time with me to be something you’ll remember forever.” He says sweetly, but despite his kind words, you can’t help but chuckle for a solid few seconds before he realises what he’s said. 

“Ok, but are you sure you wanna do it here rather than my room? Yours is out of the option, everyone will assume you’re dead if your book isn’t there anymore...” 

once more you chuckle, as does he, bringing your hand up to cup his jaw. 

“I’m sure, Steve, now get inside me before I change my mind and wake Bucky up,” you quip. 

He knows you’re joking but gets to work anyway, swiftly getting rid of his brokers and ungracefully kicking them off as you watch him. He may be hot but even Loki’s magic may not be able to make him elegant. 

As soon as he’s back in his previous position and you see is dick slapping against his stomach, hard and already a little red, you can’t help but gape. His too-tight boxers didn’t do him justice because now you’re worried he won’t even fit. 

He sees your worried face and panics, “We can go back if you want, we don’t have to do this.”

“I want this Steve, shitting hell-“

“Language,” he chides, interrupting you, allowing you to cock your eyebrows at him, a look to say ‘is this really the time?’

“I’ve never wanted anything more in my life, just go slow because you’re huge.” You finish, smiling at his dorky smile and flushed cheeks. 

Of all the things he could blush at, he chooses a compliment. Such a dork, you think to yourself, unable to stop the contagious smile creeping onto your face.

“I’ll be careful with you, I promise.”

And that he is. 

“Oh, and call me captain.”

That’s something you knew he’d have a kink for, making you smirk a little too. 

He runs the head of his cock through your folds to father a little lubrication before pushing in, very slightly and very gently. He bends his arms and kisses all over your face with the new leverage, feather light kisses of pure affection before you give him a breathy whisper, resembling of a ‘more’, so he pushes in a bit more again, repeating the process until he’s buried to the hilt inside your aching core, clenching around him without Steve even needing to do anything. 

“Can I start moving?” He asks, awkwardly shifting his weight above you, but you nod vigorously, kissing him urgently as his lips begin to move. 

He starts off slow, gradual thrusts, ensuring that he finds every weak spot inside or you, making your toes curl already and your legs knot around his waist, his tongue still dancing with yours. 

He increases his pace after a while, bucking into you faster, making you moan out his name and clutch onto his wonderfully broad shoulders.

You pull your lips away for a moment, “more Captain,” you ask, nothing more than a breathy sound, but Steve obliges. 

He breaks the kiss as he begins snapping his hips into yours with fervour and purpose. His balls are hitting your bare ass, his cock stuffed inside you and making the most delectable sounds from how wet you are, all for Steve. He looks down, tearing his gaze away from your pretty little face with your die eyes and parted lips, only to watch as he sinks into you again and again, blurring the lines of where he ends and you begin.

“Steve, Captain, please, talk to me,” 

Your words come out as a strangled cry, a beg mixing with his moan at the name, oxygen lessening as your eyes flutter shut, too engrossed in the pleasure to even care that your voice has gone up in pitch while his has gone down. 

“You’re such a tease, walking around in that tight skirt all day, those long legs always crossed. All I want is to pull them apart and go down on you, under your desk, in the kitchen, just anywhere that I can have you for my own.” 

His voice is low, raspy and needy as he trails his tongue along your collarbone filthily, forcing your eyes open with some unearthly force he must possess simply so that he can meet your gaze as he bites your nipples, his cock continually hitting that sweet spot inside you. 

“It’s not just that though,” he continues, resuming his dirty talk between caresses of his lips all over you, “you’re so perfect. So stunning, so intelligent, the reason I wake up every day just for the hope that one of these days I’d be able to kiss you.”

his hips halt just for a moment, long enough to unwrap your legs from his back and throw them over his shoulders, lust filled eyes boring into your own with an uncharacteristically devilish smirk. 

He kisses you again, fleeting but passionate before he nibbles your earlobe and purrs,

“And now I get to have you at my mercy, and believe me, that desk fantasy is gonna come true every day.”

With that sentiment, he starts ploughing into you even more ferociously than before, making you scream his name, a lot of murmured ‘Captain!’s and curses mingling with the cries. 

The new angle hits spots you forgot even existed. Your nails take his back, tugging in and clinging on for mercy, the burn of your legs in such a contorted position only adding to your pleasure.

“Fuck, I’m gonna come,” you shout breathlessly, chest heaving, your boobs moving up and down of their own accord and Steve is unable to take his eyes off them.

You feel the coil ready to spring in your stomach, a climax that’s been steadily building since he first kissed you. 

“Tell me what you’re gonna do with me tomorrow, and then you can come.”

His words are something forbidden, coaxing you off the edge, daring you to hit that wave of pleasure. Just the thought of your past daydreams make your walls clench around him. 

“I’ll wake you up by sucking your magnificent cock, then I’ll ride you harder than anyone has ever before, and then I’ll ride your face before we have intermittent sex in my office, at least twice.”

You don’t even know what you’re saying, your imagination running winks with the thought of Steve having you in his lap in your desk chair, pressed up against the glass of your office for everyone to see as he fucks you senseless. You’re insatiable. The thought of his dick twitching in your mouth is too much to handle, especially as he brings his thumb down and presses on your clit, moaning unintelligibly at your apparently sexy words, and you feel it. 

Your orgasm crashes over you so hard that you feel it on your bones, thrashing around beneath Steve, screaming out his name as he dudes your high out only seconds before coming too, his muffled cries of your name drowned out as he bites onto the juncture of your neck, bruising it and rendering you unable to wear anything other than polo necks for a good few days. The pleasure he’s given you is unrivalled, and you can’t waist for more.

His body collapses onto yours inelegantly, wrapping you unto his body warmth in your cosy little corner, both forgetting that you’re completely naked in the common area after having rather loud sex. 

“Was that good?” Steve asks sheepishly, fingers running through your tangled hair.

“Yes, incredible. And for you?”

He thinks for a moment before answering, “exquisite, sweetheart.”

Your heart glows a little at his sleepy voice. You run your thumb over the bump of his nose and the blood residue still on his face, but you think you may like Steve a little roughed up. You stay close to each other, breathing together and sharing kisses in the night time, so absorbed in your own bubble that you don’t hear someone come in.

“The fuck is this, Steve?”

Fuck, Bucky. 

“Couldn’t you have been a little better at aiming your clothes? We’re all glad you’re finally together, but loud and untidy as well as sex in the common area? Come on.”

You can hear the humour in his words, but they do hold some sincerity, making you blush and chuckle. Next thing you know, your bra is being thrown at the pair of you, landing in Steve’s messed up hair.

“Thanks buck...” you say with a meek giggle, kissing Steve and removing your bra from his face.

“Round two? My room?” He suggests, eyebrows wiggling. 

“Promise you’ll let me clean you up first?!” You insist, kissing his shoulder and beaming at him. 

“Promise.”

Farscape Nier crossover and ideas

Snippet (from 2017) Farscape/Nier: Automata --- Her room was a mess. Scattered parts of her uniform and other clothes piled along along the sides, kicked there when she came and went. Her personal books disarrayed, off the shelf and toppled over by her bed. She'd been putting off cleaning again and with the recent arrivals none of the operators could be spared to make up for her bad habits. None of that mattered at the moment. White sat in her chair, staring out into the void. A souvenir of her old days in the ground based resistance held in her hands. The framed picture of pair of androids seated on the still smoldering bulk of the ruined machine behemoth a memory of a simpler, happier time. A knock on her door brought her attention away from melancholy remembrance. Before she could compose herself and more sternly tell whoever had interrupted her what she had meant by 'Only bother me if there's an emergency' another knock issued forth. Followed by a voice. "Hey White? You in there?" She froze. She had so desperately hoped that it wouldn't be him. *** "I've never been here before," White said apologetically as their transport ship came down beside the small lunar outpost. A tiny thing, compared to the bunker. Even given the greater volume underground for secured data storage and backup generators. "No problem. First time I've been on the moon," he said, giving her a reassuring smile that didn't quite manage to look entirely honest. His frown returning as they stepped out of the transport, the boots of his pressured suit crunching into the light dusting of lunar sand that had covered part of the landing pad. "Feels like I should say something... 'Great leap for mankind and all that' you know. Hey, is the Apollo site still around?" "It is. If you want we could visit there Commander Crichton." "Just John... or Crichton. Being called Commander all the time feels weird," John Crichton said. "I know I'm the last human but..." "I-I understand," White answered. Keeping her own emotions deeply locked down as they passed into the fortified complex of the moon server. Past the scant few technicians and guards and into a dark room, nearly empty save for a single console located in the center. A black void engulfed the walls, impenetrable shadows, as the terminals and screens had long laid dormant. "So now what?" His voice echoed in the room, which must have been far larger than they had at first thought. Low clicks and whirs came from the bulk of the machine, the long slumbering physical access port awakening. Lights flashed along the walls and beyond them, racks upon racks of computer systems networked together awakening. A great screen before them coming on and displaying a stylized picture of a tree, long dark roots stretching out from its base. OVERSIGHT AND RECORDING SYSTEM VER. 2.01 SLEEPING BEAUTY ONLINE. CONFIRM USER PERMISSIONS NOW. "Commander White, YoRHa access S-Class security," White said. Looking to her side and adding, "As well as a guest." CONFIRM GUEST'S IDENTITY. "John Crichton, Commander in the IASA," John said. "Born... 1969. June 6th. If that helps any." The computer sat in silence for a long moment, not responding, the screen frozen as the loading bar seemed stuck in time. They shared a look of confusion, both android and human wondering if the ancient archive might have crashed and who was going to have to go out and ask the few technicians to help reboot it. Then the room came alight, a dozen more monitors online, the totality of it awake for the first time in forever. HUMAN IDENTITY CONFIRMED BASED ON HISTORICAL RECORDS. YoRHA S-CLASS SECURITY CLEARANCE SUBSTITUTED FOR UNRESTRICTED SYSTEM ACCESS. S-CLASS, SS-CLASS, AND HAMELIN ORGANIZATION FILES NOW UNLOCKED. GREETINGS COMMANDER JOHN CRICHTON. HOW MAY THIS SYSTEM AID YOU TODAY? "What... what's 'SS-Class?' There shouldn't be a level of security above mine." NEGATIVE. THERE ARE TWO. SS-CLASS, CONTAINING SENSITIVE FILES DEEMED TOO DANGEROUS TO BE KNOWN OUTSIDE OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL. AS WELL AS FILES REGARDING THE HAMELIN ORGANIZATION, WHICH WERE TO BE SEALED UNTIL SUCH A TIME AS A HUMAN USER ACCESSED THIS SYSTEM. "We do this so that the future generations will have the opportunity to judge us for our sins." "Who the hell was that?" John asked, shocked by the computer suddenly vocalizing. Producing the sound of some long dead man. Old and ill, his voice straining to make the words clear into the recording. DR. EUGENE ADLER, HAMELIN RESEARCHER IN DEMONIC ELEMENT MANIPULATION EXPERIMENTS. BY HIS RECOMMENDATION AND THE UN SPECIAL SECURITY COUNCIL'S AUTHORITY IT WAS FELT THAT KNOWLEDGE OF THE HAMELIN ORGANIZATION'S INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE DEMONIC ELEMENT AND THE 6-12 INCIDENT COULD NOT BE PUBLICLY REVEALED UNTIL THE CRISIS HAD PASSED. John looked to White, hoping she might be able to explain something, anything of what the computer had just told them. But she looked just as confused as he did. "Ah... Computer?" YES JOHN CRICHTON? "Define 'demonic element' please." DEMONIC ELEMENT: QUANTUM OBSERVATION REACTING PARTICLES BROUGHT OVER BY THE ENTITIES INVOLVED IN THE 6-12 INCIDENT. TWO VARIETIES WERE DETERMINED UPON FURTHER RESEARCH. TYPE I, WHICH CAME FROM THE ENTITY CLASSIFIED 'QUEEN OF THE GROTESQUE' AMONG NUMEROUS OTHER NAMES ACQUIRED FROM OBSERVATION DATA OF LEGION FORCES AND PRE-SUBLIMATION MEMETIC CORRUPTION OF WHITE CHLORINATION SYNDROME PATIENTS. TYPE I MATERIAL HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THIS UNIVERSE FOR THE LAST EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS FOLLOWING THE COMPLETE PURGING OF IT FROM THE EARTH'S ENVIRONMENT. TYPE II CAME FROM THE OTHER ENTITY, CLASSIFIED AS 'A DRAGON' NO OTHER NAME OR IDENTITY DETERMINED. WHILE HIGHLY REACTIVE AND DANGEROUS IN LARGE DOSES IT WAS FOUND TO BE STABLE IN SMALL AMOUNTS AND TO LACK THE MALEVOLENT EFFECT ON INTELLIGENT LIFE THAT TYPE I MATERIAL EXHIBITED. EVENTUAL CONTROLLED EXPOSURE AND SYNTHESIS EXPERIMENTS LED TO THE CREATION OF FOCUSED MAGIC ENERGY EFFECTS AND SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENTS IN FIELDS OF NEUROLOGY AND META-COGNITION AS WELL AS NUMEROUS OTHERS. PROJECT GESTALT AND ANDROID CONSCIOUSNESS ARE BOTH LONG TERM SUCCESSES OF THIS RESEARCH. HIGH ENERGY MAGIC WEAPONS WERE ALSO ATTEMPTED BUT LATER SHELVED FOR BEING UNRELIABLE. AS OF THIS DATE THE AMOUNT OF TYPE II MATERIAL PRESENT IN THIS UNIVERSE IS ESTIMATED TO BE 63 METRIC TONS, OVER A HUNDRED FOLD INCREASE IN MASS FROM THAT OF THE ORIGINAL ENTITY BROUGHT ABOUT BY CONTINUAL SYNTHESIS AND ITS NECESSITY IN THE CREATION OF NEW ANDROIDS AND ALL CURRENT GENERATION MAGICAL DEVICES. THE ANDROID WHITE HAS 6 GRAMS OF IT AS PART OF THEIR INTERNAL SYSTEMS, MOSTLY RELEGATED TO META-COGNITIVE PROCESSES. "Wait... wait!" John yelled out, grabbing onto the unused console as he stared at the enormous amount of text that had just been displayed. More and more appearing on other monitors, going into greater detail about all sorts of absurd things. "What do you mean by magic? And dragons? What the hell happened to Earth?" THE 6-12 INCIDENT. PLAYING ARCHIVED DATA NOW... *** Crichton sat on the edge of her bed. Looking down at his hands, fingers intertwined. He hadn't spoken since White had stepped aside and ushered him in. Neither had she. She had wanted to be alone, and had hoped that Crichton would choose to spend some time with his alien friends. Or his semi-human lover... "You know, it's kind of funny," he said at last, a low chuckle that surprised White. He truly did sound amused by the dark comedy of his situation. "What?" "Well, when I first realized you were lying about something... after I got over the whole 'android' deal anyway," Crichton said, looking up from his hands to look into White's eyes. "I was so certain that the deep dark secret you were keeping from me was that you all went Terminator on the humans and than got ashamed about it." White found herself smiling despite it all. "I guess I can imagine why you would think that. Even if we don't all look like Central European bodybuilders from the Old World." His expression collapsed, going from amusement to a shock so profound it looked like a stiff breeze would have knocked him over. White found herself confused and then very worried. Had she said something wrong? Then he started to laugh, slow at first, but building into something that bordered on mania. Rolling onto his back and shaking in the hysterics. "Haha... oh god... you have no idea, no goddamn idea how long I've wanted someone to get one of my dumb references," Crichton sat up looking far happier than he had a moment ago, the levity of their absurd connection dispelling the melancholy cloud that had hung over them since their return from the lunar server. "Like I love those idiots on Moya, but being around aliens on the other side of the galaxy for a few years really makes you long for some normal human conversation." "I... I think I can understand. Somewhat. It must have been very lonely out there." "Lonely, terrifying, insane... beautiful too. Space is crazy like that. Full of contrasts so sharp it's stunning. I-I wanted to bring that back you know? Not just to get home, but to show what I had found out there," he said, pointing to the stars outside White's window. "I guess it's too late for that now." "I'm sorry," White said. Noting the strange look that Crichton was giving her now she hesitated before continuing. "I'm sorry we failed." "Failed? Failed at what? Stopping a magic apocalypse that had already started before the first androids came online? Which reminds me, we're going to need to do something about them later. Those twin models that someone had the bright idea to shoulder with some fucked up version of android collective punishment." Crichton leaned forward, massaging his forehead as he did so. "That's probably only the tip of the bullshit you're dealing with and here I come with a whole new mess of problems. Maybe it would have been better if I had never found Earth." "No! Crichton you-we can fix things. I know we can. Not just your presence here or for getting access to sealed archives in the server. The technology you brought with you. It very well might represent a turning point in the war with the machines." "And what about the Sebaceans... the Peacekeepers? The Scarren Empire? Or hell, even the Nebari Establishment? Better gravity control systems and two hundred year old ship scale energy shields won't stop a fleet if it comes knocking at our door." "We'll do what we always have. Try and protect Earth and mankind's legacy from any aggressor. Whether distant cousins that no longer remember their home-world like the Sebaceans... or these Scarrens you've mentioned so much. We won't- we cannot retreat from this fight. Not now." White clenched her fist tightly, the glove creaking as she set a firm expression on her face. "I promise you Crichton, even if the past is lost, we will make a future worth fighting for." Ideas: I've been thinking over the ideas of a Farscape/Nier crossover some more, coming up with elements, themes, and specific scenes that would be fun to explore and write. These are some of the ideas I've had in no particular order. 1. Androids in relation to the Last Human (Crichton). Crichton is a self-admitted sci-fi geek, not surprising for a second generation astronaut that grew up wanting to explore the stars. He straight up makes comparisons to how he attempts to handle alien encounters to be inspired from watching Star Trek. Given that I think his relation to the androids would develop in a certain direction. Once the initial shock of a) the amount of time passed and b) that these people he thought were human aren't passes, he wouldn't feel comfortable having an intelligent race acting subordinate to him. I can see multiple incidents where some variety of complex philosophical quandary or just plain relationship question from 6O results in him telling them that humans really didn't have a better answer. Long term this would likely take the form of a very serious conversation where he points out that Earth, and what of its culture and history still lives, isn't in just human, whether the dead ones or genetically altered human descended Sebaceans. Or even in any hypothetical offspring that he might have. Basically, 'Mankind' includes them, as they're what's keeping the memory of it all alive. Aside from some bonding scenes between various androids and Crichton as they go over bits of alien tech, one idea I have in particular is that he takes a tour of moon landing sites, including the one his father visited. Effectively the only place he will ever see any lasting evidence of that man in particular. And the reaction of his android guide (White perhaps?) as well as the Apollo 11 plaque cements his decision to change the way the androids view their relation with humans, at least in so much as he can. 2. 2B and 9S (and others perhaps). I think there's a lot of fun to be had in placing the androids into weird situations with the aliens, and even more so if for some reason they have to head off away from Earth for a period of time. Since I can easily see the plan being for them to lie constantly. Lie about being human, lie about the 'Glorious Terran Federation' which is totally a military power that we didn't just make up, lie about what they're capable of, lies upon lies as they try and deceive the Scarrens and the Peacekeepers and keep Earth safe from either side those aggressive powers. In general I think 'Androids pretend to be human to deceive aliens' is a good plot for lots of stories, and could easily be turned into a rather long plot. Since the androids wouldn't want to let Crichton head off to parley with these alien aggressors on his own. And he could really use all the help he can get for whatever crazy ass plot he comes up with next. 3. Aliens would want Android tech. Probably just Scorpius, but others too if they find out more about Earth. I hadn't realized it at the time, but there was a period of the show where the hybrid Scarren-Sebacean was working with Crichton, and that would be the perfect opportunity for him to learn something about the androids and Earth history. And being him, he would look at all this extra-dimensional BS and android super soldiers and see potential weapons. He'd probably be disappointed that the Queen's Maso wasn't around anymore and that Hamelin Organization stopped human testing after Emil, since it would mean he'd be working from scratch if he could just get back into the good graces of the Peacekeepers and do so with enough of the demonic element to set up another research base. Hell, he'd probably try to directly convince Crichton get the androids to agree to serve the Peacekeepers, since that would technically put them back into contact with 'humans' if genetically engineered ones. Arguing that he could get the entire remaining population of Earth a ticket off world (to a nice Peacekeeper controlled colony where the can serve their new military overlords) if destroying the machine lifefroms proved to difficult even with a few starships to blast them from orbit. 4. The Terminals. The central intelligence of the machine lifeforms would likely reconsider its direction of evolution far earlier with a living human to observe, especially one that tries so hard to avoid aggressive resolutions. Even if that doesn't work, Crichton's crew and allies proves that he has managed to connect and form lasting bonds with entirely alien beings over and over. A direct repudiation of what the machine network had thus far found to be the fastest way to accelerate its own growth. Whether this would lead to a quicker conclusion that it needs to escape Earth and find its own destiny, likely expedited by FTL tech it took from the androids once Crichton revealed it to them, or an attempt at some kind of allegiance against the various hostile powers of the greater galaxy is unknown. While I can easily see Pascal and various pacifistic or non-hostile machine lifeforms being taken into account as potential allies the actions of the terminals past and potentially present would form a barrier to attempted cooperation. 5. Allying with the Worm Hole Ancients. The aliens that gave John Crichton knowledge about worm holes in the first place did so because they were running from an unstated catastrophe that had destroyed their home world. They originally decided against direct contact with Earth because it was likely to be divided and hostile. 21st century Earth that doesn't exist outside of Crichton's memories. It would be very interesting to see how they might react to finding out the new status quo. I've got a couple ideas that might be fun with them. One being that their dimension/time traveling tech lead to them accidentally creating their own personal Watcher related incident and the subsequent self-inflicted annihilation of their home world to stop it from spreading to the greater portion of the galaxy. Creating a situation where despite their far greater technological adeptness they find a reason to deeply respect humans/androids for facing down and defeating what they truthfully could not, reclaiming their world instead of burning it and running. (Though I'm iffy on that alteration/crossover expansion as it sort of makes them more like the Stargate's Asgard.)

Starlight Glimmer/Post-Secrets Of The Dragon’s Tear Thoughts

So now that Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear is finished. I can now sort of put some reflections on some of the things that I did. I did a lot to expand the lore of I Dream of Twilight Sparkle and/or give my sort of interpretation of where some characters could go after the final two-parter and tried my darndest to fit it in a way that wouldn’t be too farfetched if some details were actually canon. From Scootaloo helping out the Wonderbolts expand, Sweetie starting her music career, Dragons not having marriages, Moondancer having had a crush on Twilight, Where Spike’s egg was found and who his dragon mother was and what happened to her along with how his egg ended up in Equestria and get linked with Twilight in such a way given there was not any other Pony/Dragon companionship in the show ever. And of course all of the lore expansions that was revealed with Twilight speaking to Jennesis and Jinn, plus Applejack and family reuniting with her deceased parents (Obviously FiM is the kind of show that doesn’t let you say death. But there’s absolutely no way they’re alive judging from some of the faces and even a few subtle lines in the episode The Perfect Pear.)

But funnily enough, one huge part of the story that I didn’t quite expect to have. Was the entirety of Starlight’s part of the story. You see, Starlight Glimmer was a character I was always… kind of lukewarm towards. I could never quite get past how quick her redemption was plus from what we are told… she almost rebooted the timeline… just because her friend got a cutie mark and left (Which by that logic, Moondancer should have become a villain too. She’d probably have even connected more as a villain since at least she had a connection to Twilight. I’m not saying I would of preferred Moondancer be a villain as I like how she actually is. But having her episode where she only become a shut-in after Twilight didn’t show up at her party and moved to Ponyville sort of become detrimental to Starlight’s story that she went as far as she did after Sunburst moved). We never got any more details about that other then Starlight felt sad about that and it was somehow enough to start her turn to darkness not to mention never got an explanation for why she was so magically powerful. Even besides ridiculous stuff like turning kitchen utensils into a cake, she’s able to levitate herself without wings which we can assume is something Twilight can’t even do.

So Starlight kind of became a rather frustrating character. I never hated her per se, but it’s easy to see why she was sort of a divisive character when she’s sort of shoehorned as a recurring character with a rather weak turn-to-villainy story combined with a magic power that without the proper explanation I’m sure got her cursed out as a Mary Sue. And some of those actually had a point, unlike the people who thought Twilight getting her wings would instantly make her a Mary Sue. And even with some episodes coming up that might of promised some more Starlight backstory, it never exactly went that way. I am sort of thankful for that now, given it gave me free reign to do what I did for Starlight in the story. But stuff like Parent Map certainly only gave really small details like Starlight had a goth phase and didn’t even show a mother for her (Again thankful for that now since one of the big plot twists of the story depends on almost no one knowing who Starlight’s mother is aside from obviously her father who had a reason to keep her a secret)

When Starlight was dropped from being Twilight’s student in Season 7. That was something of a relief because the fear was that Starlight was going to become an Alicorn and she still wouldn’t enough backing to really support making her a Princess. Even if you weren’t a fan of Twilight becoming an Alicorn, there’s no denying that prior to Magical Mystery Cure we didn’t really know the ultimate goal of Celestia mentoring Twilight for. It didn’t seem right that she mentored her just to free her sister, save the world some more on occasion before, as she just spends her life with her friends. Even Lauren Faust’s vision was Twilight to succeed Celestia at some point, and in that context seems like it makes sense that Twilight became an Alicorn. Starlight becoming an Alicorn however risked being everything people feared about Magical Mystery Cure but worse since with how quick and with lack of explantation they did with adding Starlight as a recurring character that even has two-parters that star her instead of the Mane 6, that Starlight’s ascension was going to be when Twilight feels she is ready  despite having never given the audience everything we should want to know about Starlight, not to mention many of us still not quite forgiving her for nearly rebooting the timeline over… and I’ll repeat… a friend moving away.

So then, Starlight become a counselor in the school and had a few episodes involving that. And later, she is promoted to be Twilight’s successor to be Principal of the school. Which currently is how the show decided to keep as her canon role even up the more then a decade long timeskip in The Last Problem. Being a Principal of the School of Friendship is still a rather big deal. Though with the school only having been around for two seasons before the series ended it never really felt like it had too much of an impact so it kind of seemed like it gave Starlight a pretty mundane role that cools the fears of those who were afraid they were going to give a role to Starlight she doesn’t feel like she deserves without enough information about her. Though I imagine it may have been somewhat of an underwhelming choice for anybody who did like Starlight.

So Starlight’s legacy as a character goes like this: She’s Season 5’s seasonal villain that got quickly reformed in that season’s finale. Got important episodes in Season 6 and even gets to save Equestria alongside Trixie and Discord in Season 6’s finale. In Season 7 she’s stripped of being Twilight’s student to do whatever she wants. Though it was generally just slice of life with her own batch of friends whether it was Trixie, Sunburst, or Maud. And then she becomes a counselor in Season 8, promoted to Principal near the end of nine. Throughout her time on the show she’s sort of both an important protagonist throughout Seasons 6 and 7, but she never reaches quite Mane 6 or even CMC level in terms of working towards a clear goal or occupation. Other then I guess being tutored on the values of Friendship by Twilight we have no clear direction on where Starlight was supposed to go. So upon the School of Friendship, she’s free to essentially get employed under Twilight again but as a counselor throughout all of Season 8 and some of 9 until she’s given the reigns of the school after Twilight’s own promotion to sole ruler in Canterlot. So we’re left with a divisive character in the show that was never given enough to really tackle doubters, and perhaps underwhelming to her fans. So now the question becomes, is there perhaps a direction that could of been taken where Starlight could of possibly been fixed to a point where she may have worked into a more important role then she actually got that satisfies her fans that also at the same time has the backstory/information necessary to placate those skeptical of Starlight after her fast reformation?

As someone who just wrote Secret’s of the Dragon Tear where at least 7 of 32 chapters are centered around exploring something in regards to Starlight’s character and/or her family. I think I can say firmly: Yes. After writing this story, Starlight’s no longer a character I feel lukewarm/don’t care for. She quickly became… perhaps one of the biggest missed opportunities of the show. I believe now that Starlight could have been a great portion even if her turnaround was rather quick. What I did in the story I feel like provides a good baseline for not just making Starlight more sympathetic/understandable. But maybe even have it make sense that she perhaps eventually reaches an important role… even possibly becoming an Alicorn Princess in the future. Which is something of a turnaround for myself, since I would of groaned if she had been put on a path to possibly become a Princess in the show… but with what I came up with this story…. I couldn’t find it myself to stick with the idea that she only decided to stay a Principal and that’s it. Now, I’m not going to say that everything I did in the story would of had to been followed to make it work. Even just the concepts being similar or at least only a few of these being applied in some fashion could of worked to make Starlight better. So I’m going to sort of bullet point some things that come up in the story in order of which we first learn about them. Starting with…

I. Starlight’s relationship with her father/Firelight

Now obviously, Firelight is a father that loves Starlight very much. That’s obvious in the episode The Parent Map. Perhaps to the point where it’s overbearing, still calling her childish nicknames despite being grown-up. But nonetheless we can plainly see Firelight is a loving father… that said a loving father doesn’t necessarily always mean a good father. You can still have a complicated relationship with a parent that loves you. They treat you as well as you can, but perhaps they keep secrets from you. Or they’re naive to your intentions and/or what you’re doing. Even putting aside Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear for a moment, despite Firelight being so loving Starlight still became that vengeful pony that took over a town with a cult and would reboot the timeline just to get revenge on ponies for foiling her plan that she concocted all because of Sunburst’s moving away. Obviously, something went wrong if her father couldn’t have told her daughter what was right or wrong. It’s likely Firelight was just too naive to even see what his daughter was planning. Firelight should have been the first one to at least try to help Starlight out before she did anything related to that cult. But unless he was utterly complicit in Starlight’s plan, which we’re given no evidence that he was… clearly Starlight was able to hide much of her turn to darkness to her father. I have to imagine that at the very least Firelight may have had to at least see a hint of Starlight’s disgust with cutie marks, (More on that soon) But either Firelight perhaps just naively thought Starlight would eventually understand cutie marks on her own, or something about her cutie mark he knew about but he decided to attempt hiding Starlight from it as what happens in Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear.

But once again putting aside the story for a moment, it might of been interesting to learn what was Firelight’s role in Starlight’s past. Exploring that would have been an interesting direction for the show to take to give a little more depth to her backstory. Now it isn’t just that she turned to darkness because of Sunburst getting her cutie mark, but also she had a father that while he still loves her, didn’t quite inquire enough to try to stop her early on. Obviously the danger in that is telling to keep too much of a watch on your daughter to the point you helicopter them over all the time. But also it is imperative for a father to help out if their children are feeling some sort of resentment about something before it snowballs into something later. And without a mother (More on this soon as well), it’s possible to get to maybe Firelight’s side of the story in that being a single father was hard for him. On a side note we’re not even sure if Firelight is even aware of what Starlight did with the town or the time travel. That could of been an interesting thing alone to explore.

II. Starlight’s Cutie Mark

Seriously, we never got Starlight’s cutie mark story ever. That felt like one of the most important things to learn even if it was understandable why the staff didn’t want deal too much with family issues for Starlight (After all it took 7 seasons before we saw Applejack’s deceased parents, and even then they still had to go for a “Do not say death” sort of thing). It even seemed like Season 5 had like THE perfect set up for Season 6 once there was more Starlight episodes: Having the CMC who had just gotten a group talent of helping others with marks including Troubleshoes potentially being the big foreshadowing episode that would indicate the CMC would be capable of helping adults too with this seasonal villain who’s motivations were cutie marks.

But… we just never got it. It might be perhaps the biggest reason Season 6 mostly fell flat for me. Some say Season 8 is the worst season of the show and I can kind of understand why, but it feels like the School of Friendship actually does something by the end of the series that’s sort of worth it and the Student 6 were generally fun characters. While Season 6 fails at what should of been easy lay-ups from what Season 5 seemed to be setting up. It’s probably fair to say Season 6 had more interesting/quality episodes perhaps, but in terms of the general over-arching part of the series. Season 8 felt like it had a purpose while Season 6’s job was to endear Starlight to us after the Season 5 finale… and it feels like it failed at that for the most part. At least in my opinion, I know obviously Starlight had fans and still has them now and I don’t mean to stomp on any valid reasons for liking Starlight even back then for one reason or another. I just felt like I needed more to really understand Starlight’s role. And it took until writing this story and filling many of the holes left by Starlight’s part of the show to understand that Starlight had potential, she just never quite reached it I feel. And even fans of her I feel like may feel underwhelmed with what they overall did with her. Starlight telling how she got her cutie mark should of been the priority of the first two-parter if not the next Starlight episode after or at least near the end or even the Season 6 finale. But instead we never get it despite how relevant it feels like it would of been to find out.

The first priority of whenever the writer’s meeting were when they started pitching ideas for Season 6 should have made showing how Starlight got her cutie mark as the #1 priority. They reformed a villain who’s entire motivation for villainy was a friend who moved away because they got their mark. It’s almost hard to believe that the writer’s chose to ignore the entire time to the point that maybe behind closed doors for some reason Hasbro didn’t want Starlight’s cutie mark story for one reason or another. It should have been as clear as day that the next course of action was to share that story cause the idea of a pony who does’t like cutie mark but getting a make that perhaps refers to their high talent would have been interesting to be explored into. And potentially gives the CMC after getting their Cutie Marks their most important scene in the show in letting us understand Starlight’s motivations and/or how she felt about getting her cutie mark and even a better understanding of what she thinks it means and whether it’s dissonant from what it actually means or not. I hate to sound like the demanding fan, but it just should of came up before stuff like Starlight meeting Trixie, saving the world herself, all her new friendshipping episodes in Season 7, and her counseling/school episodes in 8 and 9. Those stuff had a right to happen but for some reason we just never got the single thing that felt like that was important to know.

So I definitely went to rectify it even if it’s rather simple and a little bit of a copycat since it’s similar to how Twilight got hers and kind of too convenient that the thing that would give her cutie mark was also with the book that would introduce Starlight down the path of her ideology on Cutie Marks. Though coincidental timing of Cutie Marks happen quite a bit so it wouldn’t be farfetched. But I understand if perhaps I have it a little too simple for someone who complains about the show never getting to it. But even if you feel I did Starlight’s cutie mark story wrongly. I wanted to at least give a good try at it that the show never took the steps to.

III. Starlight’s missing Mother / Sunset Shimmer’s role in Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear

Now, obviously the show would of never gone with the direction my story went with Sunset Shimmer being Starlight’s missing mother. Sunset had been already established in Equestria Girls, and even though arguably Sunset should be quite a bit older then Twilight if say she had went through the mirror sometime before Celestia discovered Twilight. Her being in high school would of made the issue of Sunset being Starlight’s mother… VERY, VERY, Awkward without having to explain complicated time discrepancies between portals to kids or more likely parents who may think the show is promoting teen motherhood. Luckily, the events of the Equestria Girls movies have never been canon to Genie Twilight’s universe outside of Genie Sci-Twi in a blog entirely about genie MLP characters in different universes meeting up. So it entirely freed up not just to give Sunset a role in this story, but plausibly old enough to be Starlight’s mother. I think of the Mane 6 of at least around 25 or so by the end of the series. So keeping in mind that in Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear. Sunset disappeared about 8 or so years before Celestia discovered Twilight and how Sunset was about Twilight’s current age at the time. If Sunset had been still alive in my story, she’d have been at least close to her 40’s. Plenty old enough to have been Starlight’s mother.

It really felt like an eureka moment in about October when I found out I could possibly link Sunset and Starlight in a way that’s feasible enough to make her Starlight’s mother. Cause it’s an entirely unique relation between the two. When Sunset and Starlight are in the same conversation or sentence. It’s often about which character is better in fan arguments (With Sunset generally being more popular since she’s probably the most well-liked thing about Equestria Girls where as Starlight has always been a source of divisiveness in the main show), the one time that Starlight appeared in an Equestria girls special, or… shipping… (Which I know anybody who reads my story is about to make every single art and/or fan fiction about Starlight and Sunset hooking up very, very, very, very, VERY, awkward). But Sunset being Starlight’s mother would at least give a plausible explanation for why Starlight’s so good at magic since she likely inherited the strong magic genes from  one of the few other ponies to catch Celestia’s attention enough to make them her protege. Plus, it’s fun to think of a family that decided to rhyme their last name, I naturally wrote that as something that Firelight proposed to Sunset. So that’s why at least in Genie Twi’s universe, you have Shimmer and Glimmer. In most Alt. universe fics involving Sunset being a family member of another known canon character it’s usually either she’s Celestia’s daughter, or Sunburst’s sister. I did have to make it so she is related to Sunburst, but she’s far too old to be a sibling to him in the story. And that’s when I decided to connect Sunset to Sunburst’s father… Sunspot… who was also coincidentally missing from The Parent Map. Though apologies to any Starburst shipping fans for sinking your ship in my story by making Starlight and Sunburst cousins all along.

But anyway, I’d even say if you look at Sunset and Firelight together you could kinda see why they could of made Starlight. I guess to be fair, it doesn’t really look like Starlight got any of Sunset’s physical traits. As appearance wise it definitely looks like she got a lot of her father, though maybe at the very least Sunset’s genes lightening up the purple into the pink/light-purple Starlight is. But I think at the very least there’s some similarities personality wise that worked such as their temper. Now, the Sunset in Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear was never a villain so they can’t relate in terms of feeling guilt for what they’ve done. But perhaps another trait they share is empathy, in that Starlight’s past experience allows her to personally talk to others as a sort of comfort that someone once felt like them about some things, which is probably at least part of the reason she’d made counselor. And as for Sunset, her whole flashback power from Legend of Everfree and onward is how she finds out motivations and is able to talk to them to understand them. And the EQG staff have even said that if Sunset had an element, it’d be the Element of Empathy. Obviously part of that is Sunset having her own experiences as a villain, but I still kind of applied it to SOTDT’s Sunset when she hears Starlight admit everything about her time travel incident where she’s at first quite disturbed that her daughter would do such an act, but hearing how the fact her death had such an impact on Starlight where there were quite a few things outside of Starlight’s hooves that if even one thing changed might of made it less likely she did what she did. And the cult thing is partly Sunset’s fault for leaving the cult book in the house (Even if she did kind of do good at hiding it by having it randomly behind a wall she couldn’t have known was ever going to be broken into) allowed her to understand the circumstances of Starlight’s life to get to that point of desperation.

As she says, it didn’t make what Starlight did justified but thanks to Starlight being able to come clean and willing to become a better pony is enough to get empathy, especially from a perspective of a mother to a child who would of likely been able to stop Starlight if she had been around. Everything Starlight did is now found out as an unfortunate circumstance from the rather bad luck she had in life in things she could not control. She couldn’t have prevented her mother’s death, her father refused to tell her who her mother was that would of probably gotten her to go to Celestia’s school had she known at the time she got her cutie mark thus reunited with Sunburst and having less of an issue with cutie marks when it would of turned out it was indicative of her potential in magic skill, but instead without a single mother figure and boredom of being alone in the house she accidentally discovers both the book that would indoctrinate her for years to eventually starting the Our Town cult and her mother’s spell book that would give her the cutie mark she received, thus begrudging her own moment of gaining her mark when it should of been a good day for her and with an overprotective father afraid of Starlight following a path he doesn’t want her to go on, for fear of Starlight going missing at some point too. It just deepens Starlight’s road to darkness. So instead Starlight’s raw power was set on a path to endanger Equestria, rather then potentially becoming at least a powerful ally if her father had allowed her to go to the school. Again, doesn’t make almost rebooting the timeline justified but at least made it more understandable why she fell so far to almost do it rather then it seemingly only be about the fact a friend moved away.

But anyway, ignoring Sunset in the story for a moment. If there was an interesting idea for Starlight’s mother it certainly would of possibly been a very interesting episode of the show. If Starlight’s mother is dead, then you have kind of have a way for Starlight to bond with Applejack over. I naturally had to have them talk about it even at the point of the story where it was still unknown who her mother was. Cause whether it was a missing or a dead mother, they both don’t have a part of their lives that their friends do. So having Starlight bond with a part of the Mane 6 other then Twilight would of certainly been interesting. Of course, if Starlight’s mother is still around. Perhaps part of Starlight’s story could of been about a messy divorce, and/or even a rather rough relationship with her mother akin to Diamond Tiara and her mother. This is of course assuming that Starlight wouldn’t have just had a normal mother that just happened to not be there for the Parent Map which might of been the way they went if they went ahead with showing who her mother was. But yes, Starlight’s mother is another part of Starlight that could of had plenty of potential to help endear her to fans. As for me… I just ended up making myself if not anybody else look awkwardly if I ever see shipping stuff between Starlight and Sunset in the future knowing that in my AU, that would be incest. Oof.

IV. Starlight as Twilight’s Student / Starlight’s Future

Now after talking about Starlight’s cutie mark and family issues. Kind of going back a little in Starlight’s first role after being reformed in becoming Twilight’s student. Naturally, this is the thing that got people worried that they were going to put Starlight on a path to become an Alicorn because naturally Twilight picking a student would have you believe that’s where things are going since that’s where Twilight ended up. Though once Season 7 rolled around, Starlight actually graduates in some fashion and is just no longer Twilight’s student. Which while it came as a relief personally, it also kind of makes the whole thing weird to just cut out Starlight’s role as Twi’s student after she was for literally only one entire season. Without the proper backstory, it just became a lose/lose situation. Either Starlight gets a role she doesn’t feel like she’s earned or her role as Student just underwhelms in comparison to the other two times we’ve seen an Alicorn teacher and a unicorn student (Whether that was Sunset which ran away from Celestia’s guidance started a spin-off series and became a well-liked character in her own right from Rainbow Rocks and onwards or Twilight naturally having earned her status over saving the world a few times and getting better at magic.) Though the former also has other problems like it’s just hard to think of how to fit Starlight in with the Princesses on her own without the proper history to back it up.

But that’s where I get back into my story, where in the epilogue. And also the post this thoughts is being linked, after having met her mother which has helped made her realize who she is. She realizes that she may have been in fact destined to be in some sort of duo with Twilight. Cause going by the timeline of events: Sunset wasn’t too far from possibly one day ascending to Princesshood, however she stepped down before then, and thus Celestia had to look elsewhere. Before she found Twilight, she concluded that perhaps Sunset’s foal (Which she noticed Sunset was probably pregnant) might inherit Sunset’s power and she can begin anew from there as it would be when that foal is grown up when her sister’s banishment would end. But in a twist, Celestia goes to Saddle Arabia and gets a dream of getting the right pony to hatch Spike’s egg. Leaving it as an exam at the school first in case there were students there that could hatch it, but if they all failed she would seek out Sunset and hope she’s willing to let whoever her child would be to try hatching the egg. But instead, Celestia discovers Twilight first. But with Starlight receiving a mark that recognizes her raw power similar to Twilight from her mother’s spell book. If she had known about her mother and/or didn’t have a grudge against cutie marks to understand what her mark means, she might have gone to the school where waiting for her would be Celestia who already had Twilight. Perhaps leading to an intense magic duel between two gifted fillies, before ultimately it’s broken up to where Celestia can’t let go of Twilight because of the dream she had. But if Celestia is aware of Starlight’s history, she would of been nice enough to keep Starlight around in respect for her former Protege, especially if Celestia had known that she was deceased or even still just missing. Thus sort of having Twilight and Starlight grow up as co-proteges under Celestia. Now from there, it’d be hard to really figure all the what ifs of Twilight and Starlight being co-students from the very beginning and whether it’d change up the whole Elements of Harmony deal. Perhaps similar to how Celestia and Luna were able to harness the Elements just being two ponies. Maybe there wouldn’t be a Mane 6 at all and Twilight & Starlight would each carry 3 of the elements. Or the Mane 6 still happen, but Starlight being the sort of junior student is not one of the Elements though she still helps however she can when Nightmare Moon returns.

But of course this is a hypothetical situation that doesn’t happen at all with many things getting in the way, but kind of thanks to the idea that Luna is retiring at the end of Season 9 too it offers a sort of opening where it seems weird that Celestia and Luna is just dropping both the Sun and Moon on Twilight’s shoulders as a sole ruler. There’s no doubt Twilight would be capable, as the Last Problem shows. But nonetheless while there was a period of 1000 years of Celestia being sole ruler after Luna was banished. It wasn’t the norm, so to go from the beginning of the sisters reign with 2, down to 1 because of banishment, back to 2, but then 1 again since both sisters were retiring may seem a bit odd. So in a scenario where perhaps Starlight feels compelled to use her strong magic for the good of Equestria alongside being able to follow in her mother’s footsteps she’d want to be the student of who’s ever going to be the reigning monarch for a long while, and while she certainly doesn’t want to force it and let Twilight decide, whether she’s a student for life or eventually is chosen to sort of be Luna’s successor in terms of being the younger Alicorn. And with Celestia and Luna both retiiring, that means falling under Twilight’s tutelage once again but a bigger scope then the one throughout Season 6. She could still be Principal even as she has the status of Twilight’s student, as we saw Twilight did plenty of things, while known as Celestia’s student. And like is pointed out, being a Principal in a school where non-ponies are allowed to attend is actually somewhat the perfect warm-up for if Starlight eventually becomes a co-ruler with Twilight. She would have basically seen what are multiple ambassadors in terms of students from other nations, their parents, or whatever guardians brings them along to attend the school.

So, it gives a legitimate reason for Starlight to perhaps become Twilight’s student once again. There’s still going to be a due diligence in Starlight learning from Twilight for a good amount of years. In fact it’s likely I won’t explicitly share the result of going back to being Twilight’s student until whenever I decide I feel it’s time for me to close down I Dream of Twilight Sparkle (I don’t know when that will be, it will probably at least go until the end of 2022 Where perhaps I’ll end it officially after what will be 10 years since the blog began. Though also may depend how G5 is). Likely for the rest of the time until then Starlight will only be a student again. I don’t think I plan on showing Starlight’s moment of ascension if it happens as I’d like to think that Twilight and Starlight both mutually agree to make sure enough time has passed and Starlight has the experience after years of being the Principal of Friendship and/or enough missions that Twilight might send her on. And while Starlight hints she’s likely not to, it’s also Twilight giving time for Starlight in case she wants to back out if say she finds herself with a feeling like her mother to instead raise a family.

Basically after going through the effort to give Starlight such a role she has in the story. It didn’t feel right to leave her as just the Principal of the School of Friendship and that’s it. Another shot at being Twilight’s student I feel makes sense in a scenario where to honor her mother’s legacy and use the magic she inherited to it’s fullest potential is to once again be a faithful student to the ruling Alicorn.

And this is a rather huge step for me since I used to just not care too much for Starlight. And some of her episodes kind of made it harder since for one or another they were sort of problematic from No Second Prances where I feel Twilight probably should of been more lenient with Trixie, To Change a Changeling where Starlight messes up but it somehow works out anyway, and then there was A Matter of Principals where Discord might have been at his most infuriating yet Starlight actually forgives him near the end. With episodes like those and with the lack of more details about Starlight’s past it’s easy to see why Starlight was divisive. Though with this story, Starlight seems to me now like a pretty mishandled character that could have worked with the right direction, but just could never meet the potential that she could of had. Obviously maybe part of it was that the staff maybe knew Starlight was sort of shoehorned so they wanted to make sure there was still plenty of space for episodes about the Mane 6 or other characters that the fans have watched since the first season, as well as whatever ideas they wanted to do for each season until they got the word that Season 9 would be the last. But even considering that it feels like it could of been plausible to replace the more slice-of-life Starlight episodes with something that explains her a little more then we got. As besides from the Season 5 finale the only things we learn about Starlight’s past is a little more of her friendship with Sunburst, where she grew up, who her father was, and she had a goth phase as a teen. If I’m missing anything else they hinted or shared about Starlight’s past let me know, but there just wasn’t a lot for a character that feels like she needed it.

I’m not saying my story is the only way for Starlight to have been fixed. But just at least mentioning some key elements that would have helped. Change a few things around of the keys I laid out even if it of course it wouldn’t be the exact same or couldn’t be the exact same for obvious reasons (Most big of all Sunset who once again despite it probably making sense that she’d be old enough in the pony world if she was grown up when she went across the mirror the first time, is still a high schooler in Equestria Girls)  and either way it certain would of helped. While I’m sure there’s probably many fanfics about it already, even something as simple as turning Starlight and Sunburst’s relationship into a shipping story (Obviously not in Genie Twi’s AU though, since they’re cousins) where Starlight reuniting with Sunburst makes her rekindle a little more then just their friendship. Where it shows that perhaps Sunburst leaving was secretly a little more then just Starlight being heartbroken about her only friend leaving. Even if that’s the only change it would of helped. So in a way, I’ve come to like Starlight Glimmer much more then I used to but kind of in a way that she’s now a disappointing character if you don’t have anything to fill in the gaps and only go by what’s shown about Starlight in the show. But when those gaps ARE filled by some sort of fanon, suddenly she can actually be quite interesting and now I have a Starlight that I feel like I can get to like and shape for myself where even if she did all the same things the show Starlight did, it at least feels to me I thought of a satisfying enough reason for why it all happened. She doesn’t have to be completely forgiven about the Time Travel thing as that’s probably her biggest sin, but the important part was that Starlight could feel shame and remorse… which gets into my last category

V. Contrasting Starlight with the Villains Post-Reformation

With Starlight no longer a villain after Season 5 and on the side of good, it will come time for her to face some villains of her own. Though the first thing she faced wasn’t exactly a villain but just some dangerous winter storm that would envelop the Crystal Empire if the Crystal Heart isn’t fixed in time. Which is understandable since that episode is generally about Starlight reuniting with Sunburst after having been told him leaving was Starlight’s motivation. They again unfortunately go too deep on that, though still least shows Starlight has some kind of almost PTSD-like feeling prior to seeing him again. It wouldn’t be until the Season 6 finale before Starlight faces her first true villain with Queen Chrysalis on a revenge plan after Canterlot Wedding. I think generally Chrysalis and Starlight was a pretty good rivalry, that lasts for the entire rest of the series even after Starlight tried to have her own moment of reforming a villain in a similar reaching-out-the-hoof fashion to her own. Only for Chrysalis to just slap it away.

Though Chrysalis is actually the only one Starlight ever gets to directly fight besides of course the big final fight where there is an entire army of ponies who attack the trio of Cozy, Chrysalis, and Tirek. Starlight only gets manipulated and trapped in the ball of magic by Cozy, Starlight is one of Sombra’s hypnotized army and in the final two-parter she gets a brief fight with Chrysalis where she’s defeated by the much more powered-up Chrysalis before she’s the first one Discord tricks Tirek into freeing to help the Mane 6 escape. Perhaps it’s another disappointment in that while it was kind of still interesting to have Starlight have this rivalry with Chrysalis. Starlight didn’t have much of a connection to the others.

And this is the point I again get to a part of my story, where I actually made Cozy Glow perhaps one of the central figures of Starlight’s past being a part of the family that are responsible for the death of her mother (Even though of course they didn’t come out unscathed since Cozy’s parents both died in that confrontation too, and Cozy was sent to the future by the unpredictable effects of Sunset firing magic with a broken horn). I’ll kind of admit it is sort of stretching things to just try to tie things together as much as possible, but Cozy Glow is a character we know even less about then Starlight. And despite being a little filly, she’s treated like this ultimate evil on the level of Tirek since she’s sent to Tartaurus. Which confuses a lot of fans who are used to this show usually reforming the villains. Which is probably why it was a good idea to actually sort of make it so that she definitely did deserve the fate she got by revealing her upbringing would make it impossible for her to be reformed. Just outing her as a complete psychopath that no friendship lessons were going to change her, as unfortunately there are people in real life that just can’t be changed and the only proper answer is some kind of justice for them that discourages others from following their path. Cozy’s just a filly, but when she’s indoctrinated by those just as psychopathic, at least in the Genie Twi AU it would take outright brainwashing.

Having Cozy have a role with Starlight’s Mother’s death also sort of makes the moment Cozy seeks counsel from Starlight with more hidden sinister background to it all. It’s partly Cozy’s fault Starlight ended up doing what she did since after manipulating Sunset into believing she’s not like her parents, she drops a rock that breaks Sunset’s horn, nerfing Sunset’s ability to do much against Cozy and her mother. Cozy gets some form of comeuppance in that she gets the ultimate bad luck in being sent through time by Sunset’s blast, but injuring Sunset’s horn allows Cozy’s mother to grab Sunset and put them in a suicidal free-fall that’ll kill them both since she doesn’t have the wing power to save herself and Sunset would have to hope she’s lucky enough with her injured horn. Resulting instead of both getting exploded after Cozy’s mother tries covering the hole of Sunset’s broken horn before they even hit the water. Though Cozy is likely sent conveniently at around Season 8’s time chronologically where she probably somewhere caught wind of the School of Friendship and started her manipulation on the CMC and of course Starlight. We’re also never given an explanation for how Cozy knew what she would do would happen in the Season 8 finale except I guess we have to assume that in canon it was something she learned from Tirek. But in the Genie Twi AU, it’s also a plan that her parents wanted to do and what Sunset aimed to stop before she retired for good. As we shouldn’t forget that removing the magic from Equestria is still a devastating move, we can debate that Starlight’s time travel is arguably worse and in some ways I’d even agree with that but nonetheless has a huge impact. And in a story where it’s states that all life is Magic too through their souls, that doesn’t just make Cozy a power-crazy psychopath but a GENOCIDAL psychopath.

Cozy’s magic sucking thing can’t actually suck in soul magic since otherwise Cozy herself would fall under her own plan most likely, but without usable magic the world would quickly become unhappy and dark magic would spread everywhere. I even made it so it’s particularly related to Starlight by implying that the wasteland we saw in the Season 5 finale was if Cozy succeeded. Obviously Cozy hadn’t been met at the time of that but given we saw the futures where Chrysalis, and Tirek won. Even if at the time Cozy didn’t exist conceptually, it was the perfect thing to apply to tie Cozy into the overall arch of the series. And while Sunset sending Cozy to the future just before Season 8 may be a little forceful in trying to tie things together it does result in the idea that time travel really messes up Starlight’s life in how it brings her unknowingly face to face with one of her mother’s murderers and how she’d end up using it in her most infamous scheme. I doubt Cozy in the Genie Twi AU knew for sure that Starlight was Sunset’s daughter but it does still sort of retroactively make any meeting between Starlight and Cozy in Season 8 more sinister and/or tragic with Cozy almost sending Starlight away with wherever all that magic was going to go in the Season 8 Finale. But if Cozy were to ever escape from being in stone and found out, she’d no doubt flaunt her role in ruining Starlight’s early life. The lengths of which psychopathic people go to torture the people who get in their way knows no bounds. Cozy’s effect on Starlight’s life implied in Secrets of Dragon’s Tear making her overall the central figure responsible for what Starlight ended up doing. Cozy and her parents confrontation with Starlight’s mother caused her death and in a fashion where no pony would know what happened thus causing the domino effect of Starlight’s fall into darkness and delaying her finding her destiny of being in a duo with Twilight.

Thus many of the events of Seasons 5-7 in the Genie Twi AU are now retroactively because of Cozy’s actions, giving her a much broader effect and really outs her as actually among the most evil the ponies have ever come across even though (Alicorn ascension aside in the final two-parter) she’s really not that strong herself compared to the likes of Chrysalis and Tirek. It’s even implied that if the trio had won, there would of likely been a situation eventually where Tirek and Chrysalis would have to team-up together to fight Cozy. In a bleak situation where any remaining ponies would likely have to side with Tirek and Chrysalis for the best shot at taking Cozy down. These revelations bubble up the anger in Starlight so much, she almost decides to kill Cozy despite having been told that killing the villains is a bad idea. As for at least a brief moment, she falls under a little more darkness just because it was Cozy’s fault she fell into darkness in the first place. Twilight and Sunset manage to prevent her from doing so, but it makes Cozy more central to Starlight’s life then Chrysalis. With the benefit of both Starlight and Cozy getting an upgrade of the overall part of the timeline then they ever had in the show.

VI. Conclusion

If I may to back a bit to the teacher/student thing with Twilight. It sort of makes it that Seasons 1 through Season 4 is the tale of Twilight’s rise to becoming the Princess of Friendship. Season 5 is this transition period where it gives some of the aftermath of Twilight’s rise while introducing Starlight who does some awful things for a seemingly weak reason but actually hid something a bit deeper. While Seasons 6 through 9 if you include the events of Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear into the timeline into Starlight’s portion of her own even if that includes a few oddities related to the show’s handling of Starlight having to return to being Twilight’s student, and nothing much of importance happening aside from becoming Principal of the School of Friendship with Starlight until after the events depicted in the show. I would say that if much of the stuff that is revealed in the story was at all canon it probably would of come up sooner then they actually did so I understand that if there’s any criticism’s of the story in trying to tie things together too much is including stuff that perhaps characters would of certainly talked about them sooner then they actually did. Though to be fair much of the subject matter is something a little too dark for the show after all again it took 7 seasons before we got to see who Applejack’s deceased parents were and even then they had to kind of skate around the fact by not saying how they died, they still did a masterful way of sort of implying they were deceased without telling us how in The Perfect Pear. I’m sure that if some of my stuff hypothetically was vetted by Hasbro execs they would outright reject the whole part of Cozy Glow role in the death of Starlight’s Mother (Whether it was or was not Sunset). But as is I feel like I did a decent job at fitting in much of the lore previously established that’s exclusive to the blog with answerig many questions that were left unanswered after the show. Starlight in particular I’m glad I was sort of able to turn into a character I previously didn’t care too much about, into a pony I could root for even if that’s kind of cheating since I wrote her myself in the new direction  I had many reasons for wanting to write this story, bud I was just super surprised at just how invested I got into expanding Starlight’s part when I was steadily always having concepts thinking about when I’d eventually write in this story expecting to be mainly finally giving the Dragon’s Tear more of a purpose then just the miracle item that saves Spike and the others in Return to Saddle Arabia. I really went ambitious with this story to include as many characters as I wanted including each of the Mane 6, Starlight, and the Saddle Arabian OCs each having their own chapters that provide a direction I think they could go for after the events of the final two-parter.

Obviously Twilight and Spike still generally have the biggest portion of the story especially after the Spirit summoning gets introduced since it couldn’t happen without Spike at that current moment but Applejack also has a pretty large role in the story in that she has that heartbreaking meeting with Grand Pear at the end of Chapter 2, invites 2 of the 5 performances at the ball, somewhat debates with Twilight about the dream, bonds with Starlight over having no representation in the club of mothers meeting at the ball, and then finally having a dramatic moment to seeing her parents again and introducing her friends to them. Which then sets up a more quick way of convincing others that this spirit summoning stuff is real being she’s the element of Honesty. Twilight and Spike learning about how their paths became entwined, Starlight finding her mother who’s very identity also held the keys to her destiny, and Applejack’s lamenting the lack of her parents but eventually seeing them are perhaps the big 3 parts of the story and I’ve sort of proud of the way I sort of entwined them all together with the Spirit Summoning part which could potentially have some interesting ideas that could be explored upon with enough asks afterward. With the show over, there’s no more main source to respond to at least until G5 starts but this certainly could help not just bridge the gap till’ then but have a sort of interpretation of the events of Friendship is Magic in a unique way that I hope others enjoy. I certainly had fun writing it, and there’s enough left open to still continue on as the sprite comics return. I even went ahead on improving the Starlight sprite that I admit I sort of half-assed before, along with sprites for Sunset along with Pear Butter & Bright Mac. Jinn as well too! Thanks to anyone who read the story and/or read my thoughts out here. Seeya!

“Purple” Part 3: Several Matt Murdocks Walk into a Bar...

    As much as I dislike the ramifications of the Purple Children’s decision to “solve” Matt’s secret identity dilemma by making everyone forget it, the “Purple” arc that establishes this plot point is quite good. The progression of Matt’s feelings about having a public identity from where Waid left him to the present makes logical sense, and his struggles to figure out how to deal with his escalating problems in this new status quo make for an emotional read. The mind wipe was not his idea, and he has mixed feelings about it, which I appreciate.

    However, for the sake of this run overview, I wanted to highlight #19 in particular, which is a stand-out issue that works just as well as a one-shot as it does an integrated part of the run, and which showcases a vital and-- I think-- perfectly in-character element of Matt’s personality. 

    For this story we are back in Matt’s head, though the landscape of the place looks significantly different than it did in issue #8, thanks to the intrusion of the Purple Man. While Matt’s blindness has always given him a degree of protection against Purple Man’s specific brand of mind-control, in this story arc he has found a way to amp up the potency and reach of his powers by using his children. This issue follows what happens to Matt while under the Purple Man’s sway, and switches back-and-forth between the real world and Matt’s mind-controlled subconscious, which here takes the form of a rather unusual bar.       

    This issue is pencilled and inked by guest artist Marc Laming, who is one of my favorite artists to work on Soule’s run. His work is beautifully detailed and expressive, and he and colorists Matt Milla and Miroslav Mrva do a great job of depicting the many Daredevils (and a few of their significant others) from throughout the comic’s history who populate the bar. For anyone not up on their DD continuity, here’s a breakdown: 

    With one of his greatest nemeses now finally under his full control, the Purple Man is eager to have some revenge. But instead of inflicting his own flavor of  pain on Matt, he decides to take a more insidious approach: he asks Matt to name the worst thing he (Matt) could possibly imagine himself doing. Something repulsive, that would break him were he to actually carry it out. This becomes a topic of debate for the Matts in the bar, each of whom has their own answer.

“Man Without Fear” Matt: “You lose control. You put your hands on the people who can’t defend themselves. You let the darkness out. You hear the bones splintering. You smell the blood, the coppery, swampy blood. You know the exact moment their hearts stop.”

Public Identity Matt: “Easy there, friend. We’re all just trying to have a good time here. How about you get back over there and I’ll buy you a drink?”

“Man Without Fear” Matt: “Who the hell are you supposed to be?”

Public Identity Matt: “Oh, you know.”

    (Please note Public Identity Matt, Foggy, and Kirsten’s facial expressions in the first panel. They crack me up.)

    It’s not only fun, on a geeky level, to see all these different versions of the Daredevil identity fight interact with each other, but it’s also a great way of exploring the huge range of character development Matt has experienced-- which is something I’ve always loved about him. Matt’s mindset and approach to superheroing, and the tone of the stories, encompasses such a huge range that all of the Matts in the bar have slightly different personalities based on where he was, mentally, at the time. And it’s logical that all of these different perspectives and conflicting ideologies are still present in the back of his mind. Matt has always been a complex character, and this issue gifts us a visual representation of that. 

    Black Suit Matt’s presence here is worth pointing out, because he is the result of some messy continuity that has never been resolved. He’s from the Man Without Fear mini-series, which is Frank Miller and John Romita Jr.’s alternate universe re-imagining of Matt’s origin story. It’s much more brutal and violent than Stan Lee’s version, and features a shuffling of the timeline that resulted in Jack dying while Matt was still in high school. Despite the fact that it was not written as a retcon, writers on the main DD series were quick to integrate elements of MWF into 616 Matt’s backstory. But it wasn’t a complete reboot; Matt’s yellow costume is still considered his first by most writers (it’s even in this issue!), Jack still died while Matt was in college (...or law school), and so Black Suit Man Without Fear Matt exists in a strange limbo, not quite canon but still somehow part of the 616 universe. 

    But for the sake of this issue, it’s best to just not think about it too hard. Here, he represents the most violent side of Matt’s psyche, which inspires his first response to the Purple Man’s question: which is seemingly to kill Kirsten. 

Kirsten: “Matt! What are you... What are you doing? Why are you with the Purple Man?”

Purple Man: “Be patient, Kirsten the Girlfriend! You don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

Matt: “You know... no. This feels a little small. I mean, I’ve lost girlfriends before. This would be terrible, sure, but... been there, done that. I can do better. Or worse, actually.”

    ...PHEW. Fortunately, Matt talks himself out of it. 

    If the issue were longer, we might have heard all of the Daredevils’ ideas, but sadly we only get a few more. 

Yellow Suit Matt: “You’re making this too complicated. Keep it simple. Get back to your roots.”

Armored Matt: “Wrong, idiot! You’re not thinking big enough, Murdock. The worst thing needs to be... extreme.”

    Again, part of the entertainment value of this issue is seeing the different Daredevils react to each other, and Soule makes a point of pairing the chipper DDs with the, shall we say, less psychologically healthy ones. And it’s worth noting that the two solid answers to the Purple Man’s question that Matt comes up with are both put forth by his darker identities; as mentioned, Man Without Fear Matt is emotionally raw by design, and while the armored suit period in the 90s wasn’t actually, relatively speaking, that depressing, it was a reinvention of Daredevil that Matt intended to be violent and frightening. And it makes sense that these darker DDs would have an easier time dredging up worst case scenarios. Frankly, it’s surprising that Volume 2 Matt-- arguably the darkest DD of all-- didn’t jump into the conversation (but maybe he was too distracted by hanging out with Milla (see above), and who can blame him?). 

    It’s also clever that the whole discussion is mediated by the one Matt who isn’t a superhero: Matt the Lawyer (who isn’t blind, which is a little weird). While the Daredevils represent all of the bombastic chaos of Matt’s impulses and emotions, Lawyer Matt sorts through their answers from a slightly removed vantage point and tries to apply logic to them. He is the clever, analytical part of Matt’s mind, and I love that he essentially serves as the main character for this issue. 

    Armored Matt (actually, his civilian identity was Jack Batlin, if we want to be really precise about this) makes the requisite “extreme!” 90s comics joke-- which made me laugh out loud the first time I read this issue-- and that leads Lawyer Matt to figure out his final answer. He requests that the Purple Man create worldwide chaos using his newly enhanced powers. And from what Matt and the reader can tell, he does. And then Matt explains what he has in mind.  

Purple Man: “...Now what?”

Lawyer Matt: “Nothing.”

Purple Man: “Wait... what? Nothing?”

Lawyer Matt: “Yes. This is the worst thing. The entire world goes to hell, I know about it, I have the power to help, and I do... nothing.”

Purple Man: “WHAT?”

    Arguments can be made about whether this is the actual worst thing Matt can imagine himself doing. That’s kind of the point of the issue, and I’m sure the answer changes daily for Matt. But it fits, and brings him-- as Yellow Suit DD advises-- “back to [his] roots”. The Daredevil identity serves many purposes for Matt, but one of its main functions is as a tool of empowerment. Its initial purpose was to give him a way to avenge his father’s death without breaking his promise to not become a fighter. After growing up unable to defend himself from bullies, unable to use his training (once he acquired it) out in the open, and ultimately unable to protect the person who meant most to him, he put on a mask and gave himself an alias, and thereby empowered himself to break free of that cycle of helplessness. Losing that power is certainly one of his greatest fears, and so the idea of choosing to render himself useless would be horrifying to him. 

    This is also a theme of Soule’s run in particular. This arc deals with the deterioration of the wonderful life he built for himself, Kirsten, and Foggy in San Francisco-- a destruction that is partly his fault, and which he is powerless to stop. It leads to the Purple Children’s decision to make the world forget Daredevil’s secret identity-- a decision in what Matt had no say. In the arc before this, Matt nearly commits suicide because he was unable to stop Muse from blinding Sam. And of course, the final arc of the run-- “The Death of Daredevil”-- is all about powerlessness; Matt achieves a huge victory over the Kingpin, then realizes it was just a dream. But the lesson inherent in Soule’s run is that whether or not he wins, Matt will never choose to not fight. 

    This moment of clarity and self-awareness, and the realization that his worst nightmare is actually coming true and he needs to stop it, allows Matt to break free of the mind control. He kicks the Purple Man’s butt and saves the Purple Children, who repay him by “solving” his secret identity issues (Hey, at least they meant well. I love the Purple Children...) But regardless of the unfortunate outcome, this is a great battle of wills between Matt and one of his most dangerous enemies, and is definitely one of my favorite single issues of the run.  

Carmen Sandiego vs. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

The two Netflix shows I binged this weekend were Carmen Sandiego and She-Ra and the Princess of Power. In both cases, I had never watched or played any of the original content, I just heard good things (generally true) about these shows here on Tumblr.

What I found fascinating is that She-Ra arguably ticks more of the boxes of stuff that I want, but I overall ended up enjoying Carmen Sandiego a lot more. This post is basically just me thinking out loud trying to understand that. As such, the usual disclaimers apply: This is only my opinion, not a fact. Nor do I mean to say that She-Ra is bad. It's still a good show, and easily beats Voltron. On the other hand, Carmen Sandiego isn't perfect either, and it doesn't reach the level of, say, The Dragon Prince or, off Netflix but on the subject of reboots, Ducktales.

First of all, She-Ra is in many ways more interesting, because the show has much more human drama elements. Especially the complicated, messy relationship and conflict between Adora and Catra is great. Carmen Sandiego has nothing similarly dramatic. She-Ra also deals with topics like growing up, diplomacy, friendships and so on.

Carmen Sandiego, in contrast, is a very straightforward cartoon, with very clear good guys, very clear bad guys, and no moral grey area to speak of. Yes, Carmen does things that are illegal, but it's for a good cause and she looks cool while doing them, so it's okay, the show tells us. Her relationship with her former classmates also lacks depth and nuance by comparison. Sure, there's a lot of "how could you?", but no moment where either side doesn't know what to do with the other.

Style

What does Carmen Sandiego have that She-Ra doesn't? The most obvious thing is certainly style. She-Ra doesn't look bad and has some good character designs, but the overall style is fairly standard fairy tale planet threatened by evil machinery. There are hardly any things that feel like fresh new ideas, visually speaking. On the other hand, Carmen Sandiego has a gorgeous glamorous South Park Art Deco style, where every single frame is very obviously that show only. And look at those frames! The careful choice of color palette to give every scene and every episode its own visual identity while remaining true to the overall style is just amazing. Maybe that's superficial, but there's a reason why these are animated shows instead of podcasts.

Also, maybe that's just me, but I love classic James Bond, by which I mean anything pre-Craig (you heard me), and similar things. Hell, even Jason Bourne has more similarities than differences. Carmen Sandiego taps right into that whole aesthetic, and I just love that. Even if the trains are not very good represenations. Oh, it's a cartoon you say? Well, they had no problem drawing that old Peugeot 309 or the old Range Rover perfectly, now did they? I did choose this URL for a reason, folks.

Needs more Ca-Characters

Carmen Sandiego also has the good sense to make its best character, Carmen herself, the hero of the show. No matter who is around, Carmen is always the most interesting person in any scene. In She-Ra, the best character is not She-Ra but Catra. Catra is constantly conflict, smart but angry, hurt by Adora and missing her. Her relationship with Adora is portrayed as both very important and providing much needed warmth to both of them, but also as being dysfunctional in a lot of ways. That's awesome! When we get to see it.

Sadly, most of the time, the focus is Adora and her new friends, a group that is literally called "Best Friends Squad" and has all the narrative depth and drama you would expect given the name. Meanwhile Catra is off growling in the distance. I honestly don't care much about Bow and Glimmer. Glimmer at least has a bit of a conflict with her mom, but Bow doesn't get any conflict, backstory or personality; he doesn't even get a name of his own and is instead just called after what he's holding most of the time.

I'm obviously exaggerating here, and it's not like e.g. Carmen Sandiego's Zack with his "I like most food but not all food" is really much better. But in Carmen Sandiego, that relationship is a fun friendship on the side, not the emotional core of most episodes. It's no coincidence that the best episode in She-Ra is the episode that has no Bow and Glimmer, and is instead all about Adora and Catra and the history of their relationship. Honestly, if the show had been all about Catra, with Adora doing her thing somewhere in the background, this post might well have been the other way around.

Carmen Sandiego, meanwhile… look, let's not beat around the bush: Carmen is sexy as hell. I don't mean just the amazing character design and fashion style: There's also the amazing voice acting, body language, and most importantly her entire demeanour. I think I'm kind of in love with her; the only question is whether that makes me too emotionally compromised to do this comparison, or whether it proves that CS is winning. What I do know, from looking at Tumblr, is that my response seems to be the default one that most people have when seeing her.

That aside, Carmen is also just plain fun. In a world of "I don't know if I can do this, and if yes, how", it's nice to have a protagonist who knows she's awesome and has full confidence in her own abilities. I don't mean to diss the "how do i become hero" thing, I really loved Into the Spider-Verse (make no mistake, that's on a whole other level), but damn, it is nice to have someone who is that suave. I think this ties back into my love of James Bond, because this is very similar; only this time, the prettiest lady is not a mere love interest, but the awesome main character.

Adora generally lacks memorable attitude, she doesn't seem to view her job as something that's fundamentally fun, and she doesn't really do much to differentiate her from most other Luke Skywalker wannabes out there. Though the few times when she does, e.g. the intense preparation for the ball or the arm wrestling matches with the annoying captain guy, are awesome.

The writing's on the wall

Ultimately, a lot comes down to the stories the shows tell and how they tell. And in that regard, it seems at first like She-Ra has the edge: The stakes are high and there's a strong overarching plot, while in Carmen Sandiego, the entire planet is not under threat and nobody would notice if you reordered a few of the interior episodes.

But I cannot help but feel that Carmen Sandiego maybe tries to do less, but is way better at doing what it wants to do. Its clear focus is one of its biggest strengths (apart from all the other ones). The show never hesitates to go straight for the things that it is awesome at; the heists, the action, the adventure, and the odd geography fact. In contrast, She-Ra has a lot of things that don't feel fresh or interesting. Going to a village, defeating the big bad there, then recruiting them for the rebellion? Going off in search of a training montage? Realising that you shouldn't only rely on your superpowers? Realising that your strengths lies in your friends even if they're generic and boring and seriously does Bow have any sort of background at all? I've seen that before and done better in things like Avatar: The Last Airbender (why don't more people compare Catra and Zuko? It's because it's too obvious, isn't it? That's the only explanation that makes sense to me).

Ultimately that's what this all comes down to: Stronger visuals, stronger characters, and a laser-like focus on the things that make it awesome all serve to make Carmen Sandiego the show that I'm obsessed with right now, and She-Ra just another show that I watched and generally liked.

Not everything's a competition

While I am talking about both shows: I've seen people argue that Carmen Sandiego and She-Ra have very similar premises, with the girls who grew up in an evil school, then left once they realised they were in an evil school. Personally, I'm a big fan of that trope, and while I think it has its issues, there's nothing wrong with more of that. But Adora and Carmen aren't really that similar besides following a (fairly mild version of) that generic background plot. In particular, Carmen as the master thief for chaotic good and Adora as the honourable warrior are on two completely different paths (though I could totally imagine them being friends), and the resulting stories are completely different.

By the way: My favourite incarnation of this sort of background right now has to be Violet Evergarden, where the brainwashed child soldier does not become an amazing child soldier for the side of good, but instead a professional love letter writer. It's poignant, beautiful, and I'm never going to stop telling people to watch it.

1) do u ship michael/eleanor 2) if yes pls share ur thoughts and feelings :))

*cracks knuckles* Just remember: you asked for this, anon.

1) Yes.

I am oh so predictable and this dynamic offers everything - literally everything - that gets me going, so I got going at once. Like act 1, scene 1,

“Hello, Eleanor. I am Michael and you are dead.”

A dapper amoral non-human puppetmaster becomes emotionally compromised as a kickass mortal woman keeps foiling his ridiculously meticulous plans, and they end up bonding over the confusing struggle of self-improvement, survival, & being messy benches who love dramaaa?

Honestly, they gave me no chance to even consider resisting this.

2) Oh boy. This is where we duck behind a read more bc length & GIFs

I should probably start by saying that as far as strict canon goes, for now, I only see solid evidence of the tightest, beautifulest friendship btw these two, but the potential for “more” is def there, as well, imo. I broship them on the show and ship them like mad in this nice little bubble of Could Be where I’m happy bc canon is generous w/ the fodder. That being said, the furthest I can see canon pushing this ‘ship is a bittersweet unrequited love area, sth like [ this post ] I reblogged the other day. No bitter Friendzoned™ bullshit bc Michael ain’t a gross-ass dick like that. Friendship is his most precious treasure like he kept the spoon Janet gave him and put it on display in his office. My heart almost gave out at that part. I think he felt lonely and isolated among his kind even before his solo project started going off the rails, forcing him to defect to the human side, so I’m sure he would never consider “friendship only” w/ Eleanor to be some second-rate outcome. (neither would I)

But he is only beginning to discover the various dimensions of human relationships, so his feelings are likely in flux and mixed. He might consider chaste romance friendship, too, since he has no previous experience to draw on whatsoever. I mean, feelings are v difficult to sort even w/ plenty experience as evidenced by the humans around him.

Eleanor is to Michael who/what Chidi is to her, imo. Every round of the Eleanor/Chidi dynamic is characterized by a rollercoaster of “is it platonic or is it romantic or both or neither or what the sweet fork is it?”, and I can imagine Michael going through a bit of that confusion himself as he gets more and more attached to Eleanor but w/o the pressure of “pick a label already and act on it”. A general feeling of attraction (not necessarily sexual) would be natural, esp for a being who is experiencing his first intense connection with someone who actively challenges, rewards, and punishes him in ways no other being has before and no human has ever dared before.

She takes him down a few notches, no question. Chidi is the teacher but Eleanor is the one pushing and pulling Michael along their rocky, scary, insane path of self-improvement, which, just like hers, starts out as an empty nuisance deal of self-preservation (“You get help but only if you take ethics lessons”) and turns into a genuine effort to become better. She insists on him taking these lessons and makes sure he “stays in school” despite the initial difficulties. Out of his 4 humans, she is the one he consistently looks to for emotional pointers, support, and validation.

The subtlest (and my most favorite) display of this is how he keeps half-turning back towards her when he pleads their case in front of Judge Gen.

She is his person who has faith in him when no one else does and reaches him when no one else can or want to. She is his anchor pulling him back whenever he drifts off too far, be it as a result of a massive existential/midlife crisis or venting frustrations in his old, cruel ways like tormenting Chidi:

He listens to her and tries to reciprocate even if it means breaking some fundamental rules of the afterlife or turning on his own kind or giving up his immortality or going behind the back of the All-Knowing Judge who can condemn anyone for eternal suffering with a snap of her fingers. This is the same kind of glitch Janet describes in 111 (aptly named “What’s My Motivation”): to act unpredictably and behave in ways that run counter to how you were programmed to behave. a.k.a. the “human error” a.k.a. LOVE

Eleanor just instinctively gets him in every sense of the word bc they are very similar, and while at first it causes alarm, discomfort, and tension for both of them, it transforms into friendship - sth that I believe has its origins in S1 when he is supposed to be faking everything. That day spent together having all kinds of fun has left some genuine positive marks on both, imo, despite both “participating” to cover an agenda.

This bond is now the kind of stuff that would need only a tiny, unexpected spark to ignite. I don’t think it will in ~that~ way on the show since Eleanor is focused elsewhere in that department atm & maybe forever, but the groundwork is def there, so I can imagine billions of excellent fic scenarios blooming from this + as I said somewhere above, a potential canon scenario where Michael harbors unrequited feelings but keeps silent bc it would be a secret he is ethically allowed - maybe even required - to keep. Again, it is one of the lessons that come up when Janet’s “glitching” and they consider breaking up Jason and Tahani as a solution: “It’s not permissible to ruin their happiness to save ourselves. … It’s okay to keep a secret as long as that secret isn’t harming anyone, and telling them that secret might cause harm.” Michael knows Eleanor needs Chidi to stay on course towards eternal happiness, and, given the group’s track record, telling her that he has feelings could cause confusion sufficient enough to derail everything and that’s not permissible. But this is pure speculation ofc.

Despite the circular narrative and reboots, nothing gained is wasted on this show, it only changes forms and feeds further development. For example, everything Michael pretends to feel and do in S1 he ends up feeling and doing for real in the first part of S2, then gradually gains a more thorough understanding of these actions and feelings in the second half via Chidi’s lessons and by watching/helping others deal with their problems. He fakes it till he makes it. He essentially mirrors Janet, the other non-human member of this group dynamic, who unexpectedly bonds with Jason and her behavior becomes erratic as a result and calms only when she understands what is going on and how to deal with it. Michael’s “demon programming” starts glitching, too, and Eleanor is right smack in the middle of that mess.

Janet “orbits” the “Jason-Tahani unit” w/ a link to Jason, Michael the Eleanor-Chidi one w/ a link to Eleanor, which forms the two interconnected triangles of the show - an “arrangement” further reinforced by the image of Janet and Michael glued to Jason’s and Eleanor’s monitoring thingy respectively at the end of S2.

He is the (recovering) devil on Eleanor’s shoulder sitting opposite to Chidi (also they are the only two guys who wear glasses in the afterlife??), but no matter how well they click and how much fun they have together, it’s Chidi whose presence needs to be tangible (800+ reboots proved that), not his, no matter how/what he feels or what he wants. Removing himself from the equation, sacrificing his own wants & needs, is the only way to ensure Eleanor & Co. have a shot at eternal happiness, so he literally pushes her away and advocates for a solution that involves them completely forgetting about him. It is the ultimate act of selfless love if you think about it, and it makes me feel A LOT.

Also just look at them when she sees he did not die and he sees she (and the rest of the gang, I know, but that’s not our focus here) has not been eternally damned yet bc OFC HE COMES BACK WITH ANOTHER IDEA + 369 BACKUP PLANS + CHEAT CODES bc this is the demon who literally tried a billion ways to sneak them into heaven and was plagued with “after sad” when he failed.

And then we have the scene where he just can’t help himself, breaks yet another rule, and sneaks down/up/idk to Earth to nudge his lost pal back on track and she ofc doesn’t remember him bc the Judge wiped her afterlife memories and he pretends to be her BARTENDER in STING’S DESERT ROSÉ (!!) and delights in her drunken ramblings - it is too much goodness like I’m this close to a Cheers rewatch and also just… THESE FOOLS OWN ME NOW

Beautiful Things

Pairing: Theo Raeken x Reader Warnings: Depression, anxiety, self-doubt, fluff (kind of??) Request: @catching-fire-in-the-wind :  Would you do an imagine about depression w theo? Idk if you’re comfortable with that and if not it’s completely okay, but I figured I’d ask cause I feel kind shitty. And also like...if you do it, maybe add just dehydration and the reader being reminded to drink cause it makes it worse? Idk you can ignore this dude, sorry, and keep doing you Summary: Theo takes care of you during one of your bad depression days, making sure you’re eating and drinking while also making you take care of yourself A/N: I’m totally someone who reads depression type things when my depression is bad and hey, it’s fucking winter so fo course mine is bad now so hey. I also named it Beauitful Things, not ironically for once. But, the song Beautiful Things by Grayscale is about all the things you don’t see when you’re depressed but start to notice when things get better like lightnig bugs and kelley green eyes. It’s a good song but a sick ass Philly band who knows exactly what they’re talking about when it comes to mental illness. So, please listen to it. Also, if any of you are having a hard time with anything, my ask box is always open if you want someone to talk to you. Here is also a list of help hotlines. Masterlist Prompt list

It’s the middle of the night and you’re sitting in your living room, still in pajamas and wrapped in your blankets. If you were being honest, you couldn’t tell exactly how long you had been laying there. You knew it had awhile given you started season one of Friends when you entered your living room and you were already on the season finale. The day was just a giant blur, numb and boring. Yet, you found yourself not bothering to even try to change it. You knew if you tried, you would feel better but trying in and of itself was just not happening. The mere thought made you want to take a nap.

However, you were pulled away from watching Friends when your door creaked open and then shut seconds later. You only moved your glance when a shadow was cast over you but you didn’t actually move. Theo sat at the end of the couch and stared at you, waiting for you to look at him and when you did, he didn’t look pleased.

“Bad again?” He asks with the slight raise of his brows. You looked back to the TV, knowing he could smell the mental illness radiating from you. It was a blessing and a curse. You never had say it, he just knew. It removed the awkwardness of having the ‘hey I have depression and no I’m not gonna just off myself one day’ talk. “Alright.” Theo sighs and gets back up, only to return a minute later with a glass of water. “Here.” Theo hands you the glass that’s decorated with Disney characters. “You have to drink water. You know dehydration only makes it worse.”

“I know.” You mumble, sitting up slightly to take a drink.

“When was the last time you ate?” He kneels on the floor in front of you, taking the glass from your hand when you were done taking your sips.

You move your eyes, as if trying to look in the back of your head for any memory of eating that day but nothing came. “I think yesterday?”

“What do you think you ate yesterday?”

“I know I had crackers.” You shrug awkwardly.

“Alright, well what do you want? You have to eat something, y/n.”

“Whatever you’ll have.” You look away from Theo as shame starts to fill you.

“I’ll go raid your kitchen and I’ll be right back.” Theo rests the glass on the stand next to you as he uses his knees to help him stand, placing a kiss on your forehead before exiting the room.

As you wait for his return, more thoughts creep into your head. Surely, he knows you haven’t moved all day and come to think of it, you knew your hair was gross because you hadn’t been able to shower in two days. Everything took too much energy and it was making you feel even worse. Full of guilt, full of shame, full of worry. It wasn’t your fault the chemicals in your brain can’t sort themselves out. It wasn’t anyone’s fault and yet you laid on the couch blaming yourself and allowing Theo to baby you on days like these. He didn’t ask to be brought into a relationship with depression and anxiety and self-doubt. No one asks for that. It’s hard and it sucks and people leave because of it. It is so unfair and, quite honestly, depressing.

And just like that, your heart sped up while your face turned warm and pale. Your hands clammed up and your throat ran dry. Your hands started to shake and the room started spinning. You quietly sat up with the turning of your stomach, just another chemical your brain can’t seem to get right. You tried deep breaths as much as you could, trying to hide the anxiety attack you had caused yet again from overthinking before Theo could come back. But, you failed. Theo came back and immediately knew.

“Anxiety attack?” His brows furrow as he watches you. All you do is nod, completely incapable of speaking, partially from your throat being so try and from the thought of throwing up if you opened your mouth. “Okay, hey, in seven counts, hold four, out eight.” Theo says, knowing the breathing technique that’s essentially a system reboot. You start the breathing but Theo grabs your hands and makes you stand up. “Start walking and keep breathing. Watch your feet and I’ll go back to the kitchen.” Theo says and leaves you to your anxiety attack.

You pace back and forth, chewing on your thumbnail while doing the breathing technique. You block out the TV and the small sounds Theo was making in the kitchen. Your only focus was set on your feet and your breath. Within fifteen minutes, you were breathing normally, your muscles were tired but no longer shaking. The walls weren’t moving and you had calmed your anxiety attack down. With a sigh, you walked to the kitchen, now even more exhausted than you were originally.

“Hey.” You mumble, almost completely inaudible.

“You okay?” Theo looks away from the stove and makes eye contact with you, which you quickly avoid.

“Yeah.” You shrug.

“What happened?”

“I’m sorry.” You apologize, biting your lip.

“You apologize every time. You don’t have to.” Theo shrugs and stirs the pot of whatever he was making. You shrug again when he turns to face you, your face now red with embarrassment. “Come on, what’s going on?”

“I just,” You pause and slowly find your words. “Feel bad. I don’t know.” You shrug once more. “You didn’t ask for this and I don’t know. You’re just good, I guess. With me and this and I just, I don’t know.”

“You afraid I’m gonna just up and leave one day?” Theo scoffs with his question.

“I wouldn’t blame you.” You state, finally looking at his perfectly blue eyes that held a tint of green. “I mean, hell, I would leave if I could, like leave myself.”

Theo gives a chuckle and shakes his head. “It’s hard. I’m not gonna lie to you and it fucking sucks. It sucks seeing you depressed and it sucks when you can’t leave your bed or the couch and I want to take you out. It sucks when we have to leave places because you’re having a panic or anxiety attack. It sucks.” Theo states everything, laying everything out with honesty. “But, that doesn’t change anything. I don't get it and yeah, y/n, I get frustrated sometimes but I just don’t get why you can’t do simple tasks sometimes but,” Theo walks over to you and grips your shoulders. “I love you.” He says, something he only ever said carefully. He showed love, rarely ever said it. The first time he said it, you both nearly went into cardiac arrest from the shock. “So, I’m not gonna leave because of that bullshit. And if I have to tell you every damn day,” He shakes his head with the words. “I will. Everyday.”

“Thanks.” You nod, feeling just a tiny bit better.

But, that’s it. It didn’t magically cure you and Theo knew that. And it didn’t magically remove your doubt and he knew that. But, he said it. It was out in the open and that’s what mattered because now, you’d be able to think back on it and you’d have that to hold onto. It would mean more than the world when it got better because it always gets better.

A soft smile crosses Theo’s face. “We’re gonna eat some Mac & Cheese because that’s the only thing I can cook and we’re gonna watch Friends or whatever you have on and then later, you’re gonna shower.” He smirks, moving his hands to your face. “We’ll eat some more, you’re gonna keep drinking water and then tomorrow, I’ll help you clean. Deal?”

“Deal.” You give him a genuine smile knowing that showering alone will make you feel better and Theo will throw you into your shower fully clothed if he has to and cleaning always makes you feel better. Being clean in a clean environment, always helps. It doesn’t cure anything, but definitely helps.

Tag list: @theofuckingraeken @huntress1428 4

Shadowhunters recap - s2ep18 “Awake, Arise, or Be Forever Fallen”

SHADOWHUNTERS Recaps Intro and Masterlist

These recaps may contain spoilers from the books (that may or may not happen in the show.) Proceed at your own risk.

Recap and meta under the cut.

Gotta give it to Max, he’s a little badass. Temper that with a bit of discretion and maybe he’ll actually live to reach adulthood, contrary to all book canon. Like, seriously Max, you couldn’t have gone to find Alec or Izzy once you realized what the hair leading you to Sebastian meant, instead of confronting Sebastian yourself?

Gratifying just how many times Sebastian gets stabbed in this episode. Of course, I’d prefer it if one of them was a mortal wound, but alas…

If Lindsay was lurking in the hall outside Alec’s office, she should have heard Max’s head crack against the desk. A blow hard enough to knock someone out and cause them to bleed from their nose and ears would be LOUD. I’ve literally heard real people hit their heads in ways that do much less damage and it sounded like a melon exploding.

Now that the banter and fun goofing around is back, so is Simon and Maia’s chemistry. I think this is the magic of Simon. I bought the Climon relationship the most when he and Clary were being giggly and having fun together. I found Simon and Maia’s chemistry in s2ep06 to be off the charts, again, when they were bantering and laughing. For some reason, whenever Simon forgets to be that guy whom women can laugh and have fun with, he loses a lot of what makes him click in his various potential pairings.

My frustration hit its peak with the fact that Sebastian was right there in the middle of everything while everyone was all, “Where is Jonathan?” There’s only so many times you can yell “HE’S THERE!!! HE’S RIGHT FUCKING THERE IN FRONT OF YOU!!!” at the TV before you just throw your hands up in the air and say, “You know what? Fuck it. You’re too stupid to live. I hope he guts you all.”

They carried this plotline right up to the brink of me hitting that point.

Current sexuality: Magnus saying, “m’lady.”

“Your crush” Oh, I’ll show you a fucking crush, you pint-sized wretch!

Let’s all take a moment to bow our heads and be grateful the producers are making a young-adult urban fantasy show and not a hospital drama. Because they would be really, really bad at it. Seriously I was cringing.

And what the fuck were the runes flashing on the monitor over Max’s head about? Are they there to remind the infirmary medics “This is how you draw an iratze. This is how you draw Nourishment. This is how…” (I’m not sure what that last one was, but it looked like some Shadowhunter stylized version of the Caduceus or the rod of Asclepius.)

Of all the times for Magnus to refuse to take Alec’s call.

Wow. I’d forgotten what an asshole Season 1 Alec could be. He’s come a long way, considering that in-universe it has literally been six weeks since he and Magnus met (No, seriously, check out my timeline if you doubt me. I did the math so you don’t have to.)

I say “asshole” in the most loving way possible, of course. He had his reasons, but he was indeed an asshole. It just goes to show how unhappy and uncomfortable in his own skin he was, and how much losing that burden of hiding himself away from the world impacted him.

Still, I sort of wanted Magnus to push back a little harder when Alec low-key threatened him. “If you let anyone know…”/“Oh, you’ll do what, Shadowhunter?” Because Magnus could almost certainly kick Alec’s ass with all but one of his little pinky fingers broken.

I’m glad we’re finally getting down to business with the whole Ollie thing. But IIRC it’s against the Accords (or Covenant?) to let mundanes know anything about the Shadow world. Which means Luke could be in trouble if the Clave gets wind of her finding out.

And why is so so eager to know, anyway? Like, why was she all up in his business?

I’m wondering if it doesn’t actually have something to do with Maia, considering the way Ollie zeroed right in on her. Say, Ollie’s a cop, but she also, idk, moonlights helping Sam (who maybe is a private investigator?) by taking on missing person cases at the behest of desperate families. Contrary to book canon, we’ve been given some indication that Maia’s parents may actually care for her, so what if they hired Sam and Ollie to track Maia down, and find out she’s gotten mixed up in what might look to be (on the surface) a weird wolf-worshipping cult?

IDK I’m just spinning bullshit theories.

I like how at SDCC Isaiah said that Luke is grooming Maia to take over the pack someday, and how we actually sort of saw that in action here.

I liked Jace’s distress here, because with the exception of s2ep08 and a pat on the head in the last episode, we haven’t really seen him and Max interact or gotten any impression of how his relationship is with Max. And his distress here feels a lot more…sincere? relatable, maybe?...than his oft-repeated bouts of brooding manpain over his upbringing under Valentine.

And, strangely, his pain feeling more genuine also made Clary’s empathy and support feel more genuine. This moment made me feel more of a connection between them than just about any other moment they’ve had on-screen together.

Funny how when you build a relationship between characters out of moments and situations that are arise organically within the plot—rather than forcing it—it just works better, isn’t it?

I feel like I should say something about Bat, but I just don’t have much of an impression of him or what part he’s going to play within the plot, yet. Kevin Alves seems incredibly sweet and eager to be a part of the show, however, so there’s that?

“Rebooting of the brain.” Really? (The part of me that actually knows something about medicine is rolling its eyes so hard right now. This was badly done. Suspension of disbelief in one area only works if you are meticulously grounded in accurate reality in other areas, and this would have been a good area to do that. Massive head trauma that can’t be magically woo-wooed away.)

I have lots of thoughts on the decision to keep Max alive, most of them not good. I was prepared for the pain of him dying, which would have struck pretty close to home because I have a 10yo son. And as a storyteller, I think it would have gone a long way to establishing the stakes for this story.

Like, Valentine wants to commit genocide, and Sebastian wants to help him. We all get that. And we’re all horrified by it. But genocide is a MASSIVE concept to try to really wrap your head around. The human brain, I think, tends to shield you from really grasping it. It’s just too much.

This is a problem faced often by storytellers who are writing stories in which the fate of the world is at stake. It’s too big. The audience can’t connect with it personally, can’t internalize it. So you take that, and you distill it to make the stakes personal. One death, of a character who is beloved by your protagonists and hopefully by your audience, an innocent with all the potential in the world that will now never manifest, stands in for the thousands or millions who will actually die if the bad guy isn’t stopped. That death becomes a rallying point for your protagonists, and a symbol to your audience of just how evil your bad guy is and how much he needs to be stopped.

In short, Max needed to die. He needed to die as tragically as possible. It would have had a lot more storytelling mileage.

God. This scene was just everything I could have asked for their first time to be. I’m pretty sure I wrote a line in a fanfic once about Magnus telling Alec that one of the rules of his bed was that you had to be able to laugh in it, so the giggling and giddiness was just so perfect. And the fact that Magnus responded “No such thing” when Alec expressed concern that he might be doing something wrong is really something else I could have written myself.

It was tender and sweet and sexy without being objectifying and I loved it.

I will say, though, I’m probably in the minority in that I never wanted or needed to see a scene where Alec was confronted with Magnus’s cat eyes for the first time and explicitly stated his unstinting acceptance of him. I always felt it would be othering to go that route. And I felt like this idea that Magnus, who is so incredibly powerful, would lose control so easily a little absurd. I always liked to imagine that the idea that Alec would find NOT being accepting of Magnus unthinkable, that he would be honestly and sincerely befuddled by the idea that Magnus’s eyes might be a Big Deal. “Yeah, he’s a warlock, he has a warlock mark, I’m not sure why that’s supposed to be something that matters.”

That said, if they were going to go there, then this was the way to do it. The thread that weaves through Magnus and Alec’s story in this episode and ties past to present is the fact that they come from different worlds, and with those different worlds come different obligations and priorities. So in this case, the othering was entirely the point and it played into that theme.

So, if it had to happen, I’m glad it at least happened within this context and wasn’t just schmaltzy.

I really loved Luke being such a badass here but I’m certain allowing Russell to live is a bad idea.

Seriously, though, Russell. Not only is Luke a badass just as a werewolf, but he’s got the martial training of a Shadowhunter. How do you imagine you’re going to win this?

Probably one of the most realistic fight scenes I’ve ever seen in terms of showing just how exhausting fighting becomes in very short order. Too many drag out too long before the combatants start to show fatigue.

I really want to know about the cooks at the Jade Wolf. Are they werewolves themselves? Is that why the kitchen staff never bats an eye at anything, including these people waltzing in and out of the kitchen and storeroom?

The scene with Maia explaining her backstory was extremely well done and Alisha Wainwright is all things wonderful and I love her.

“This is what love got me.” Let’s take a moment to recognize the symmetry of Maia and Simon’s stories though. Becoming a vampire, a Downworlder, is what love got Simon as well.

I can’t say anything about this scene that hasn’t been said before, and better, since they released it as a sneak peek. But it’s so beautiful and my heart hurts.

Magnus’s moment with the Lightwoods all together on one side of the hall and him by himself on the other is incredibly poignant but I can’t find the words to really examine it properly. This is the point at which things just began to hurt too much and my brain stopped being able to cope with it.

I’d really like to know how Jace, who can sense Alec’s happiness over things like having sex with his boyfriend for the first time, couldn’t sense the lack of a spike in grief that would have surely occurred upon Max’s death. Grrr.

The fight sequence with Sebastian taking out all the guards was amazing and Will Tudor is brilliant. Did he really use a sword that was still stuck through someone’s body to parry a blow?

What the hell was with him just using his hand to open the crypt, though? No rune or anything. Can Sebastian somehow channel magic?

This whole thing with Clary was awesome and for once she seemed to be working for her miracles so I’ll ungrudgingly let her have this. The one thing I don’t know is what finally tipped her off about Sebastian. Was the electrum nugget thing too warm after he handled it? Did she just realize she never saw his palm? What made her chase after him and check his palm?

I loved her stabbing him. Twice. I’m fully in support of stabbing Sebastian. Yes. Please. Let’s stab Sebastian more. Sebastian for Pincushion 2k17.

Sebastian continues to be a creepy-ass fuck. Seriously, WHY did they decide to go with the incestuous obsession thing? There are so many other places they could have taken that story.

I like that her Open rune that burned through Magnus’s wards also exploded the Institute security doors. I appreciated that for a couple reasons. First, because Sebastian taught her to do that, to use her runes and make them more powerful. Second, it’s also a nice little nod to the books, since we didn’t get that scene of Clary totally disintegrating and blowing up Valentine’s barge with that rune.

Sebastian has vamp speed, too?

I want to ship them, but I haven’t managed it yet. In-universe it’s been like, a week, since Clary and Simon broke up. And of course we know they’re not end-game. But the writers ended up making me buy Climon more than I ever expected to, so maybe they’ll do the same with this one.

I just don’t want to see either of them hurt, so if Simon ends up ending it with Maia, I’m going to be upset, and if Maia ends up ending it with Simon I’ll be upset. *sigh*

I hated seeing the home Simon has been making for himself torn apart like that.

This is the moment of my first death and the beginning of buckets of tears. This look on Magnus’s face after Alec says “our way back to each other.” I can’t. I just can’t. He’s just so heartbroken here.

And the way Alec’s eyes close when Magnus touches him.

And the way Magnus’s voice almost breaks when he says “I love you, too.”

And the way Magnus is trying to smile, just a little. To hold on to some of the joy he’s found with Alec. To file this portion of his life away as a happy memory. To remember Alec as a good thing and not a source of sorrow.

There are so many nuances here and every single one of them fucking slays me dead.

Alec’s disbelief and denial.

Alec’s youthful, naïve insistence that if they just work hard enough, if they’re just determined enough, they can find a way, and Magnus’s world-weary wisdom and centuries of experience telling him there’s just no chance for them.

“You once asked me what I was afraid of. It’s this.”

And here’s my second death. That all along we thought that Magnus was afraid of being alone, being abandoned, like Camille said, he never does well losing the people he cares about.

So, we’ve always thought he was afraid Alec would break his heart. Leave him. Be repulsed by him. Choose duty over him.

We should have known better. Magnus has lived long enough to have his heart broken before, and he knows he’ll survive it.

His real fear is inflicting that pain, that loss, on someone else.

My third and finale death. Alec stifling a sob is where I just lose it entirely.

So I guess what I’m saying here?

Yes, this is a break-up. That’s my read on it. Sorry. It just is.

I don’t believe it’s a permanent one. Of course it’s not. If they’re not back together by the end of the season, at least on some sort of tentative, provisional basis, I’ll be very surprised and extremely pissed off. If I’m left with this boulder sitting on my chest over the hiatus I’m not sure I’ll survive. This show is supposed to be my happy place and I think if they leave me in this hurty place for very long it’s going to ruin it for me.

I don’t think the producers will let this linger long.

But this scene right here? As far as Magnus is concerned in this exact moment as he’s walking away from Alec?

He thinks they’re done. He thinks they’re over. He means it to be that way.

Something will happen to make him change his mind, though, and that’s important. Because here’s the thing:

We’ve seen Alec choose Magnus over and over and over.

He chose Magnus in s1ep06 when he walked away from the Institute and duty to take an evening to at least investigate the possibility of doing something that wasn’t about duty.

He chose Magnus in s1ep12 when he walked away from his own wedding.

He chose Magnus in s2ep06 when he turned his back on his own fears and misgivings and plunged into this relationship.

He chose Magnus in s2ep08 when he challenged his mother’s lack of acceptance repeatedly and sent her a very pointed message about their relationship.

He chose Magnus in s2ep10 when he rejected Aldertree’s words about the impossibility of relationships between Shadowhunters and Downworlders.

He chose Magnus in s2ep13 when he risked censure from the Inquisitor to take a stand for what’s right.

Even when everything he’s ever been trained and brought up to do is telling him to do the opposite, he has chosen Magnus repeatedly.

The only time we haven’t seen him choose Magnus was with regard to keeping the secret about the Soul Sword, and even then, his choice was about Magnus, even if it was paternalistic and wrong-headed.

What we haven’t seen, though?

We haven’t seen Magnus choosing Alec. We see him clearly aware of the difficulty in their situation, especially since s2ep12, but he never really chooses to stand against it. Which is not to say he’s not committed, not at all. We’ve seen Magnus put himself on the line and expose himself and make himself vulnerable for Alec. That’s huge. But with the exception of his hesitation to keep pursuing Alec in s1ep12, we haven’t seen him make that same deliberate decision to damn the obstacles between them and make this relationship happen. His commitment has been more along the lines of ducking and covering and hoping whatever is heading toward them blows over before it pushes them to this critical juncture.

We need to see him make that choice. Everything since s2ep12 has been leading to him making that choice.

Now, I don’t want to step outside my lane, so I’m gonna tread carefully here. 

The thing we have to remember is that Alec, coming from the privileged group, is much safer choosing Magnus than Magnus is in choosing Alec. He’s got that safety net built in, so it’s easier for him. He may face censure and perhaps a decrease in some of his advantages (like being passed over for job promotions) but no consequences that he might face are on the same level of what Magnus might face.

So the two dilemmas and the choice to stand against their respective obstacles are not equal. If Magnus choses their relationship over his people, he doesn’t just face censure, he faces genocide. Pretty big difference there. The only possible way he can justifiably choose Alec at all is if he somehow discovers that choosing Alec dovetails conveniently with the best way to protect himself and his people.

My prediction is that something in the next episode, or in the finale at the latest, is going to bring Magnus to that decision point and make him turn around.

But for the moment? Right now, this scene?

I know it’s going to be an unpopular opinion, but Magnus really does mean this to be a breakup.

Law Unto Themselves (3/??)

Summary: Kaito searches Pisco’s home for the aforementioned disc. Dark!AU where the good guys are the bad guys, and vice versa.

[Beginning]     [Previous Chapter] 

They say only sociopaths and stupid people want to live forever.

And Kuroba Kaito is not stupid.

He’d not been lying when he’d said he was looking for a gem. It’s not his fault that people don’t know about the legend of Pandora, don’t want to look into myths and fairy tales for some distortion of the truth, about gemstones that cry tears of immortality. Sometimes, when he cannot sleep, because he is too focused on tracking the gemstone down, Kaito wonders whether they’ll taste salty, like real tears.

He pockets his phone, thoughts of Kudo Shinichi lingering in his head. Every day he guesses, wonders what exactly Kaito’s motivations are. And ever day he is forced to repeat himself, to tell him he is looking for a jewel, and bite his tongue from snapping completely and asking why he doesn’t just read the files Snake and his cronies had submitted before their ‘untimely deaths’.

Kaito shakes the thought away, forces himself to remain straight-faced and professional, and reaches into his pocket for his lock picks. He keeps them in his car, hidden under the passenger seat – easily accessible but still an efficient hiding place. Sometimes the best hiding places are the simplest.

“Okay,” he says to himself, barely a whisper as he pulls out two picks. He’s going in through Pisco’s back door, and just from looking at the lock, it’s easy enough to know that there are at least four pins that he needs to unlock. He suppresses a sigh as he identifies the lock as a wafer lock.

Pulling the torsion wrench from his set, he pushes it into the bottom of the lock, ready to keep all of the pins in places when he unlocks them. He almost wishes that he’d gone around to the front door – it’s an older lock, an easier door to open, but there had been a CCTV camera watching over, and there’s a light shining outside the door, a motion sensor.

Sometimes, technology is frustrating, despite all of it’s practical uses. Or rather; it’s irritating when Kaito has to go out of his way to bypass it, simply to break into a house.

If it was a heist location – something a bit more challenging – then it’d be more fun. A little amusing, but not an inconvenience. Pushing pins up within the lock and shaking his head, Kaito realises that’s what this is: an inconvenience. He’d planned on making copies of the blueprints for the Tokyo Sky-tree tonight, but a phone call from Kudo had dragged him to the gun trade, and afterwards, involved sending him on some useless mission.

The door unlocks with a faint click, and Kaito pulls the handle down, shimmying in through the back door and across the threshold into the kitchen. It’s a cluttered space, with pans and plates left on the drying rack. Pisco enjoyed cooking then, odd, seeing as Kaito had imagined him being the type of man who ate meals over the sink, always busy.

A part of Kaito wants to put the dishes away, just because Pisco never will again. Instead, he leaves the kitchen behind, climbing the stairs for some resemblance of a study. He grabs a small torch from his pocket – the beam isn’t bright, but it’s enough to see more details inside the room. Next time, he thinks, he’ll actually bring some night-vision goggles so that he doesn’t need any light… They’ll fit in the glove compartment, he thinks, and as long as he makes sure Aoko doesn’t take the car for work…

“If I were an eighty-year-old dead guy,” Kaito whispers to himself, “where would I keep a hidden file?”

He’s kept it on a disc, which is always harder to find than a paper trail, but he’s pretty sure that given enough time, he’ll find it. Provided that no one comes calling on Pisco tonight, Kaito’s certain that he’ll find the disc in no time.

The study isn’t tidy. It’s organised chaos, with books spread across the floor, files piled up against the wall. There are pictures spreading the wall – many from murder scenes, some from crimes Kaito’s committed himself. He’s not sure whether to be uneasy about the interest into the shows he’s put on, or proud.

He chooses proud, because pride feels much better than nervousness.

Pulling his phone out, he turns his settings onto flash, capturing the wall on his screen. It’d be stupid not to take pictures, even if he’s here for something else. Kudo doesn’t raise his voice much, (not that Kaito really cares when he does, it’s almost laughable watching the usually controlled man become slightly irrational), but he definitely would if he realised Kaito came back with only half of the information.

And then, he decides to search. He searches the man’s laptop first – sometimes people’s sense of security leads them to leave things in the simplest of places, and sits in Pisco’s chair, skimming over files he’s saved just in case there are copies on his laptop. There aren’t.

There’s no disc either.

It’s not surprising. The clutter of the room is a pretty obvious indicator that Pisco had relied more on paper evidence. That’s why he’s got a board of evidence, is why he’s so messy – people who use computers wouldn’t have as many police files lying around.

Wait… Is it even legal to bring police files from a police station? What a bad man. And here Kaito had thought Pisco would have been on his high horse, trying to play morality – but isn’t he technically as bad as Kaito is? He’s broken the rules, and frankly, breaking one always leads to breaking more.

“I wonder…” Kaito mutters, reaching forward to check the desk drawers. “If Pisco ever killed anyone?”

The man had been a cop before retirement, and well… it’s very easy, Kaito finds, to pull the trigger when the urge grows too much to handle. And Pisco would have even been able to blame it on police work, turning murder into self-defence.

Sometimes, Kaito thinks that he’d make a brilliant police officer.

But all the paperwork… How all his detectives can deal with boring office work is bewildering. Or maybe it’s worrying? Someday, he’ll book them in for a psychiatric test, because they clearly need one.

“Not in here.” Kaito sighs after a second, jumps up from the desk and makes his way over to the bookshelf. He’s still using his phone as a torch, and skims over the titles of books trying to find anything that stands out. Most are books on criminal psychology and other things relating to police work. Boring things, truly, except maybe one of the… yes, there’s one that looks more interesting compared to the others.

A cook book.

There had been a few downstairs in the kitchen, but only one in the study – Kaito reaches forward and pulls it out. As he opens the book, flipping through the pages, a single disc drops from between the paper. It makes some sort of noise as it lands on the carpet – not quite a thud, but not a clatter either. It’s a muffled sound, and while it doesn’t ring, it certainly carries through the room.

Kaito scoops the disc up.

Since Kudo wants the files ASAP, he circles around Pisco’s desk, rebooting the computer and placing the disc into the drive. The machine whirs – old technology, seriously, who even uses computers when laptops are so much better? - and Kaito taps his foot against the carpet as he waits.

He checks his watch – 1 a.m.

It’s late. Aoko will be wondering where he is; there’s only so much blame he can put on marking student’s coursework and preparing magic tricks for weekend shows. Even with all of the business he has with Kudo and the organisation, he’s usually home earlier than this.

Unless… Kaito glances at his phone next, when the computer continues to load it’s main functions, the loading bar only halfway loaded. There are two texts, both from his girlfriend and Kaito opens Aoko’s messages with the same euphoria he imagines a drug addict feels during the initial high.

Will be home late, don’t wait up. Xx

Someone was late to the briefing AGAIN. If KID can show to his heists on time, our team should have the same courtesy. Hahaaha xx

Kaito sends a quick text back, saying he’d been distracted with work for tomorrow’s class, but that he hopes she’ll be back home soon. It’s a lie – of course it’s a lie, but it’s not like he needs to work on an excuse if Aoko’s not home either.

The computer lets out a little ring, a signal that it’s fully loaded, and Kaito leans forward, double clicking with the mouse onto my documents. Seconds pass, and Kaito drags the cursor over to 'External device’, and opens the disc.

It takes some time to load, and when it does, the computer flickers.

Insert Password. The disc says.

Kaito pauses, tries to think of any words that’ll lead to the disc unlocking itself. It doesn’t feel like he’s taking too long, but after a minute of thinking, the computer blinks off, the screen going black. Safety measures, Kaito’s almost impressed.

He glances around the room – no sign of a password, no carefully placed post-it notes or words sketched into the desk. And he certainly doesn’t know enough about coding to hack into the disc without a password…

Kaito leans back in Pisco’s chair, lets out a sigh. There’s only one place he can go to get the disc hacked into without the password, only one place he trusts enough to deal with something this… is it important? He isn’t sure.

He checks his watch again, only three minutes have passed. It’s not like can even make an excuse that everything is closed, and that they’ll be asleep. A short sigh forces Kaito to push himself forward, a groan forces its way onto his lips and he makes his way back downstairs to the back door.

His car is two blocks across, and Kaito runs his hand through his hair as he makes his way back. It unlocks with a click of his car keys, and for a moment, Kaito has to suppress a yawn as he throws himself forward. To think – he’s going to have to wake up for work in four hours, and his night isn’t even over yet.

Coffee isn’t something Kaito tends to dabble with, but somehow he knows he’s going to have to fix himself one tomorrow. He’s already trying to figure out the water to milk ratio for a perfect drink, deciding how many sugars he’s going to have to put in to make it edible.

“Fucking Kudo,” Kaito says, slamming the door beside him. He pushes his keys into the ignition, the engine roaring into life. “The things I do…”

He sends a quick message as he’s preparing to pull away, the pictures he’s taken, and confirms that he’s got a disc, and that he’s working on breaking through any security measures to get inside. Then, throwing his phone onto the passenger seat, Kaito signals left onto the road, and makes his way down town, to Shinjuku.

[Next Chapter]

Weekend Top Ten #483

Top Ten Non-Predictions About Not-Quite E3

So E3 is upon is at last! Nearly. Almost. Sort of. A bit. But after a year in which the world-famous videogame trailer convention and Keanu Reeves meme factory was sidelined by this virus thing (Google it), it’s nice to have a major entertainment landmark back in the calendar.

Last year was a bit frustrating, but also interesting. For a long time I’ve wondered about the need – as a consumer – for huge conventions such as E3. It makes sense for the industry, sure, the same way Sundance or something does for film: it’s a way for creators to showcase their wares and hopefully secure deals or employment. But as a way of showing to the public games that are in development, or announcing new things, it’s seemed old-fashioned for quite a while. It requires developers and executives to turn into PT Barnum or something, hawking their wares on elaborate stages, titivating their offerings with dances and celebrity appearances. Sure, sometimes it’s genuinely excellent and entertaining, but most often it’s memorable for all the wrong reasons. With many companies now engaging directly with fans by releasing curated videos that announce their games in their own way, in their own time, would that not have been better? If last year is anything to go by, then no, not really. What we got – and this may have been in large part due to 2020’s unique circumstances – was a long, long summer and autumn filled with rumour and conjecture, and occasional, uninspiring videos, often featuring CG trailers, often for games that were literally years away. On the one hand, lots was announced; on the other, it all felt vague and woolly, and the slow drip-feed did nothing but build anticipation to unrealistic proportions. Without E3 serving as some kind of anchor point – in time, if nothing else – then the spray-gun smattering of videos, trailers, and announcements felt disparate and a little disappointing.

And so it’s back! But not quite. Because, understandably, the huge convention aspect is gone, replaced by a wholly online event. And whilst this may be detrimental to people who want to secure a distribution deal for their game, it might actually make for better showcases for us, the unwashed masses. Instead of a ninety-minute stagebound light entertainment extravaganza that ends up feeling like a ten million dollar school play, we’ll (hopefully) get tightly edited videos that highlight the games, alongside trimmed-down and relevant talking head interviews from developers explaining what we can expect and just how many bumps they’ve managed to map this year. At least, that’s what I hope will happen.

Of course, exactly what E3 is nowadays is a bit weird anyway, and this year exacerbates that. Loads of companies seem to shun the show itself but schedule their presentations for the same week or thereabouts, giving us, what, a fortnight (with a “gh”) or so of things to look forward to. I mean, it feels a bit weird putting this list out a full week before E3 formally kicks off, but I wanted to try to pre-empt any interesting amusing reveals that might occur in the days preceding (at the time of writing, Nintendo haven’t announced a new Switch, despite everyone on Twitter saying it was due any minute now). To be honest, I always like to look for the random stuff anyway, as the huge games tend to be known about or heavily rumoured well in advance (it felt like an open secret for at least a year that Playground Games were developing a new Fable, for instance, and we were just waiting to see when Microsoft would announce that). So I’ve tried to make these predictions daft, wish-fulfilment, or at least offer some kind of personal spin on the sort of thing we might expect. And, of course, as someone who tends to prefer to play on Xbox or Nintendo, there will be a skew towards those companies (anyway, Sony don’t really have a presence at E3 nowadays). And like I’ve said before, the really personal wish-fulfilment stuff I always used to “predict” in these things have started to come true – we’ve got Fable and Perfect Dark on the way, and we had Crackdown 3 a couple of years ago. If it goes on like this I’m just going to have to start wishing for loads of old Amiga games to get rebooted.

You heard it here first: E3 2022 is when we get the third-person open world Ruff ‘n’ Tumble reboot we’ve all asked for.

Anyway, here are ten predictions for E3 that probably won’t happen.

Halo Infinite multiplayer beta: we know Halo will be there, because it’s front and centre of Microsoft’s little announcement picture thing (along with what appears to be a bit of the Starfield logo). As the image also seems to show multiplayer Spartans, I imagine this will be the focus rather than more campaign gameplay. I actually think this is a big risk, as the main criticism of Halo last year was that its graphics weren’t good enough; typically, I’d say, the campaign visuals are stronger than the multiplayer portion, which tends to focus on elegantly designed levels and fast-moving gameplay. I wonder if there’ll be another, longer look at the campaign sometime later in the summer, in a dedicated Halo presentation. Anyway, one thing I think MS will do to curry favour is announce an imminent multiplayer beta. Maybe there’ll be a sign-up, but I think it would be cool if it was available for anyone in Game Pass Ultimate. It’s a way to get people to sign up for the service, and that seems to be Microsoft’s main goal right now.

Games ready to play RIGHT NOW: Psychonauts 2, Age of Empire IV, and the Xbox version of Flight Simulator have all been given age ratings recently, something that only happens relatively close to a game’s release. I think that at least one of these – maybe all three! – will be shown at the Xbox presentation, and then declared to be available immediately on Game Pass. Again, it bigs up Microsoft’s service, and would also be a cool mic drop moment for games that might be anticipated but aren’t quite the triple-A behemoths of Halo, Fallout, or Gears.

All the rays, nicely traced: one thing that’s been a bit frustrating as an Xbox Series X owner is the lack of genuine next-gen feeling experiences. I’ve really enjoyed the upgrade from a base Xbox One, and playing a game like Gears 5 feels like a huge improvement (and it’s gorgeous too). But I want to see crazy stuff that the old box couldn’t do, and not just in higher resomolutions. One of the things that I’d love to see is more ray-tracing; this is a next-gen graphical treat that, to me, feels like when I first saw games with dynamic coloured lighting twenty-five years ago. So I hope we get a proper reveal/release date for the ray-traced Minecraft expansion, but I’d also love it – now that Xbox owns everything – if the ray-traced version of Quake 2 was announced for the console. Give me them rays, Microsoft!

Quaking: speaking of the Quake series, it’s the first game’s twenty-fifth anniversary this year, and I think it needs some love. Now, id are working on their Doom reboot trilogy thing, so I don’t expect to see a fully-fledged reimagining for a few years yet, but how about re-releasing the original game on modern consoles? Doesn’t need anything fancy, just like the ports of the first Doom that are ten a penny. Quake is a bit more complex to port, it’s true, but I still think it’d be amazing to see it on consoles before the end of its anniversary year.

Nothing but Star Wars: outside of the Xbox-Bethesda conference, I hope we see some lovely, lovely Star Wars goodies. There are a few projects in development, but I’m gonna stick my neck out and say that we’ll get a fairly long look at the Knights of the Old Republic remake/reboot, a very vague teaser trailer for Fallen Order 2 (maybe even just a title reveal), and a teaser for the open-world game from Ubisoft. I don’t, unfortunately, think we’ll see anything of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga until the Lego livestream later this summer, but for what it’s worth I’m not expecting that game till Christmas now.

Old games on Switch: I think one of the things Nintendo is going to announce is a bunch of older games coming to the Switch. We already have Skyward Sword coming, but I think we’ll hear about other classic Zelda games coming in the anniversary year. Maybe remastered Metroid Prime games too? And I think they’ll do another one of those battle royale-style versions of their classics, maybe the first Donkey Kong?

New games on a new Switch: the sheer weight of “New Switch” rumours seems to suggest it is real, but when are they announcing it if their E3-ish Direct is all about software? I wonder if we’ll see some new games for Christmas ’21 going into ’22 that are then revealed to be enhanced by this mythical Super Switch. We’ll probably see a bit more of Breath of the Wild 2 (although I think there’ll be a bigger Zelda-focused Nintendo Direct later this year). I’m gonna predict Pikmin 4. And vague teasers for both a brand new Metroid Prime game, and also for Mario Kart 9. And all of these will be designed to run better on Switchy McSwitchface. Whenever that comes out.

Microsoft buys more companies: I just think this is inevitable, and I reckon we’ll get another announcement next week. Which companies? God knows. The Flight Sim guys maybe, or The Medium developers. Or, I dunno, Team 17. Probably not Sega, as funny as that would be. Maybe a medium-sized Japanese developer. So, yeah; Microsoft’s spending spree isn’t quite over.

Sony’s not-E3 announcements: Sony appears to be skipping E3 altogether, again. So when will they have their next big video presentation? I don’t think we’ll have to wait too long personally. So what will they talk about? I’d have thought we’d see the next Spider-Man revealed this year, but the big chitter-chatter at the moment is the whole “cross-gen” conversation (my opinion is: who cares?), and also when their games will come out. well, call me pessimistic, but I think Horizon: Forbidden West will end up being early 2022, with the new God of War and Gran Turismo ending up as late 2022 releases.

Crazy talk: I think this has ended up being a relatively straight and rational list, which just won’t do. So let’s get some wild ones out of the way here at the end. Sony announces remastered versions of Lemmings and Lemmings 2 for PC! Microsoft is making new games starring their Avatars! Double Fine release a PC version of Scurvy Scallywags for Game Pass! A brand new Duke Nukem! Lucasfilm bring Ron Gilbert back to oversee a reboot of Monkey Island! Nintendo announces Switch Sports! Gabe Newell announces VR support for Xbox Series X with an exclusive port of Half-Life: Alyx! Peggle 3! Phew, glad to get that out of my system.

2019 Annual Review, Decade Review, Turning Point

It’s the end of another year and the end of a decade. Last year I wrote my first Annual Review on the blog, and I am sticking to the same format this year with a little expansion for looking back at the decade as it draws to a close. As they say, this year has been a real humdinger. Right this moment I find myself in a sort of “grey space,” and in-between state. I’ve mentioned it before, and for now, it persists. This exercise will help me see that there is balance between the highs and the lows – and that the road ahead is paved and made smooth by everything I learned through the rough spots.

What went well this year?

Reading and Writing

Last year I pledged to read less and write more and kicked off my blog. I decided to stick with my reading goal of one book per year of my age, and I met this goal with ease but without blowing it totally out of the water. My goal was 43 books, and I read 49. I was thinking I should make a goal next year to get to gender parity in my reading and make sure half the books I read are by women authors, this prompted me to check my stats for this year and… 25 of my 49 books were written by women! That makes me feel like I am walking my talk. And I didn’t even know it. Also, I am very grateful that my tap dancing class changed nights, which has allowed me to show my face at Sci Fi Book Club again. A few of my suggestions were picked for next year’s reading list, which always feels like an accomplishment. I read a ton of non-fiction and self help this year. I thrive when I feel like I am learning and growing. I did a lot of that this year. It feels good.

This blog entry will be my 22nd post since I published last year’s review. This is only a couple more than last year, but I have kept it up, so I am giving myself credit and calling it a success. I also was officially accepted as an Amazon Affiliate and made some money from my blog. I didn’t make as much as I spent on it, but that’s okay. (Okay, I made like $1.10.) Everyone has to start somewhere.

Adventure

As I entered 2019, I was being called to the word Adventure. I knew we would be taking an Epic Cross-Country Road Trip, so it seemed appropriate to spread that sense of excitement to other areas of my life. Facebook memories reminded me that I’ve been sharing this same image with a quote from The Hobbit for the past several years on New Year’s Eve. I guess seeing the new year as an adventure is kind of a thing for me. 2019 lived up to it. I took my kids on a few trips, we even stayed in a yurt. We did some hiking. We saw the Grand Canyon and Meow Wolf. And my #1 kid drove all the way to California and back! I love road trips, but they are even more fun when I don’t have to do all the driving.

Self Care

I was hesitant to include this. I feel like there is a lot of pressure, especially on women, to make everything look effortless. To always have it together. And as much as I do feel like I have my act together most of the time, there are also the times when I just DON’T. In my life, I have already lived through stuff that no one should have to go through. I started this year on top of the world, doing BLE‘s Reboot Rezoom program. I had my longest streak of Bright Line Days and got to a new lowest weight. I was getting my nails done regularly, because after 3 years of not biting them, I still don’t know how to deal with them. Yes, I always got *SPARKLES.* I performed on stage for dance recital with my #1 kid, who (have I mentioned?) is a freaking tap dancing WIZARD. I went to several events to give Free Mom Hugs, which might seem like an act of service for others, but it’s really an act of care for myself. Then, on my #2 kid’s birthday of all days, I found out something that not only devastated my current life but also triggered my brain to relive trauma that was almost 20 years old. My heart swells with gratitude for my cousin and BFF who told me to take time off. I had to stop everything and take care of me. If I hadn’t done it then, I don’t know where I would be now. I have tons and tons of support from family and friends, but it’s still up to me to put myself first. This means something different every day right now, but I’m doing it.

What went well this decade?

Wow. Where has the decade gone? Ten years ago I was a single mother who had just lost a lot of weight and was running 5K’s and, let’s be honest, was still getting a lot of financial help from my parents despite having a “good job” and owning my own home, etc. It was Christmas of 2009 that I decided that the kids had enough (too many) toys and we should start having experiences around the holidays. We went to see Wicked in Kansas City… then of course, we went shopping! The next year we saw a hockey game in Dallas. Last year we saw a hockey game again but in Minnesota. Both of my kids have Quality Time as their primary love language, and I have to say, I feel like I have done a good job with this. It was early 2010 that we took our first trip to Savannah, GA. I think it’s still our favorite destination. We traveled a lot and took lots of road trips and especially toured lots of colleges. And during this decade I got both of my kids through high school and one through college. Oh, let’s not forget that I completed college myself. I also changed jobs. Some people do that all the time, but it was a pretty big deal for me. I guess at the end of the decade, I feel like I have grown up a lot. Oh, and I went to a LOT of cool concerts. Too many to name, but trust me, it was awesome.

What didn’t go well this year?

Time for the elephant in the room… The main thing that didn’t go well this year was my marriage. Unfortunately, I had no idea how “not well” it was going. Yes, we had the same ol’ perpetual problems, but I really never suspected to discover that depth and protraction of betrayal. My sister gave me some advice once: “Never tell a man how badly other men have treated you, because they will try to top it.” I didn’t heed that advice in my second marriage, but I had done it in my third, so my soon-to-be-third-ex-husband did not even know how much PTSD he would be heaping on top of his own hideous actions. Honestly, I had no idea that anything could ever trigger me that way. I know “triggered” has become a buzzword, but this wasn’t just feeling uncomfortable or unhappy. Just thinking about it to try and type this has my fingers shaking uncontrollably. That is the worst part for me, when my body has these visceral reactions that are beyond my control. It sort of feels like an out of body experience. It led me to take extra precautions to feel safe in my own home, not because X3 ever made a threat, but because I am never taking a chance with my family’s safety or my own. So, the marriage is over, but the divorce will not be final by the end of the year. Oh, also, have I mentioned that I have court-related trauma and anything dealing with lawyers and judges and court is… yeah… triggering. I was already struggling just hearing about some stuff coworkers were going through, and then this. I’m still struggling a lot. It’s hard to admit that. Just knowing that a court date of any kind looms in my future… even if it’s for my own good, it just takes me back to those feelings of someone trying to take my kid and accusing me of being a bad parent. Yeah, time to wrap this part up before my shaking hands turn into a full blown panic attack. Let’s just say, I’ve had better years.

What didn’t go well this decade?

Maybe it’s ironic that the relationship that is ending at the end of the decade started soon after the decade began. You might think that would lead me to say the whole decade was a waste, but that’s not how I feel. That was the longest relationship of my life and that marriage was longer than my first two put together. It’s hard to put my finger on anything that didn’t go well, because if I could live this decade over again, I think I would do things the same. I would like to point to a few things and say “change that” but I imagine the repercussions and I think this is how the decade is supposed to end. I think this was all to point me in the direction that I’m to go next. I guess I just wish I had gone to more concerts.

What did I learn?

Last year I said the key lessons were about support and authenticity. Those have continued to serve me well this year. I think a big lesson for 2019 was that I have “permission to be human.” In any given moment, I am doing my best. Some days my best is better than other days. That’s natural, and that’s okay. Some days my best is staying in bed, and that’s still okay. I also learned that having tons of support doesn’t mean that stuff doesn’t suck, and that even when you are surrounded by wonderful people, sometimes you just need to be alone and feel your feelings – and maybe burn some stuff – then burn some stuff with your friends – then spend some more time alone, you know, burning stuff. I guess the biggest lesson of the year was to always find out the REAL reason someone lost their job and never help them pay of their credit cards. Some things have to be learned the hard way.

Looking back at the decade, I would say it was a good choice to focus on experiences, and I’ve had a lot of good ones. Also, happiness is a state of mind, not a set of circumstances. That sums it up.

Conclusion

When major parts of your life are in upheaval, you have to go into survival mode and just try to get to the other side. It would be really easy to focus on the negative stuff and say 2019 was a terrible year. It hasn’t been the best year, but I trust that it is leading me to better things. Somehow all of these experiences, good and bad, are for my higher good in the long run. I know that to be true now, because it has always been true in the past. I don’t know where the next year of the next decade will find me. I know I will grow and learn and change. What more could I ask for?

Leave a comment to let me know how you wrapped up the year or the decade. What did you learn?

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Sensor Sweep: Spears of Clontarf, Mech, Max Brand, Melee, Dresden Files

Robert E. Howard (Jeffro Johnson): This is a great story, a fascinating piece.

In the first place, it shows us up close the sort of peoples, Christian and pagan, that produced the bedrock of the myth and legends that would define our base concepts of fantasy and heroism. But it also presents the notion that we are descended from people that were every bit as heroic as Conan and Solomon Kane. And being written by Robert E. Howard, you can’t help but end up being persuaded!

So many good lines here:

My lords, it may be God’s will I fall in the first onset– but the scars of slavery burn deep in my back this night, and may the dogs eat my bones if I am backward when the spears are splintering.

  Fiction (Rawle Nyanzi): It’s finally here. The project that myself, Brian Niemeier, and Bradford C. Walker set out to complete is under way. Three mech books — two currently released, one in pre-orders — can finally be purchased on Amazon. One even has a sequel out. These stories are very different from one another. Xseed is military sci-fi in the Gundam mold, very grounded in realism; Reavers is “Christian knights in space,” strongly modeled off of both chivalric romances and classic Star Wars. My own book is based strongly on Japanese-style superhero shows, specifically Power Rangers, while also taking place in an alternate history.

      Authors (DMR Books): Frederick Faust, better known to millions of fans over the last hundred years as “Max Brand,” was born on this date in 1892. Awhile back, I wrote a post on H. Bedford-Jones where I called him “King of the Pulps.” I may need to change my mind on that one. I was following the opinion of Darrell C. Richardson–whose opinions and erudition I esteem greatly–in that instance. I think I’ll have to belatedly disagree with Darrell this time.

While Bedford-Jones is calculated to have written about twenty-five million words for the pulps in his career, Faust wrote at least that many in a shorter career–Faust died five years before Bedford-Jones, almost to the day. Both men wrote in various genres, but Faust appears to have made better money doing so.

  Fiction (HiLo Brow): Ernest Hemingway‘s WWI adventure A Farewell to Arms. A hardboiled account — by a disillusioned American, Frederic Henry, serving as a paramedic in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army — of the horrors of WWI. “I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain,” Henry recounts. “I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it…” Our narrator is introduced to Catherine Barkley, an English nurse, whom he indifferently attempts to seduce; he gets to know Catherine better as he recuperates under her care, after being wounded on the Italian front; he is sent back to the front — leaving a pregnant Catherine behind in Milan.

      Fiction (Eldtrich Paths): Grave Peril is the third book of the Dresden Files. I had no major problems with the first two books in the series, but I can see why many readers say the series picks up with this book. A lot happens. Harry Dresden has to deal with more characters, more problems, and more enemies are. The author really puts Harry through the grinder with this one, making it a great chapter in the series.

  Fiction (DMR Books): The second installment in the serialized version of Tros of Samothrace is titled “The Enemy of Rome” and consists of what would become chapters 15 – 26 of the novel published in 1934. Set in the late summer/early fall of the year 55 B.C., this story tells of the aftermath of Julius Caesar’s first invasion of Britain and was first published in the April 10, 1925 issue of Adventure magazine.

Tros has won his first skirmish with Caesar and Rome: he has Caesar’s ship, his pay chests, his seal of office and all of his correspondence (not just military intelligence but much of his foe’s schemes and ongoing plans).

    History (Don Herron): Recently I read A Splendid Savage: The Restless Life of Frederick Russell

Burnham by Steve Kemper. Here’s a paragraph from the book:

Apaches inspired terror for good reason. They were as harsh and pitiless as the landscape they roamed. For non-Apaches, the worst imaginable fate was to be taken alive by them. Captured children and young women were occasionally integrated into the tribe, but men were doomed to torments. Captives were often turned over to Apache women whose male relatives had recently been killed. 

      Fiction (Black Gate): The Wrath of Fantomas is a book I approached with extreme prejudice. It’s a graphic novel that seeks to present a new version of Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain’s Fantomas series, which proved so successful when it was introduced a scant 108 years ago. As a rule, I dislike the concept of rebooting a series.

When first discovering a book series as a kid, continuity was key. It made a property more meaningful if there were numerous volumes to find and devour. Scouring used bookstores for dogeared copies of the missing pieces in the narrative puzzle made such books far more valuable to me.

  Fiction (Hillbilly Highway): You can imagine my interest then, when I discovered that an Appendix N and Weird Tales stalwart, Manly Wade Wellman, wrote an entire series of short stories very much rooted in the lore of my people.  About John.  At least that’s the only way his name is given in the stories.  He is more usually known as John the Balladeer or Silver John.  He may also be a parallel universe Johnny Cash.  Or maybe John the Baptist.  Or maybe both.

  Games (Jeffro Johnson): This game is so rad.

I get it out to show it to people, as if to just explain what it is and show off the components…. But then, if you have time to explain it, you pretty much have time to play it. And once you play it, you gotta play it again!

The sample character cards from the recent Fantasy Trip “Monster” Set make this even easier. Just pick a card. Pick one at random, even. Man, it’s just so easy.

  Games and Popular Culture (Wasteland and Sky): I’m unconvinced there is a Millennial who knows what an actual homage is. They should, but for some reason have discarded this definition from their minds. A “homage” is clearly not swiping passages of another writer’s work and not transforming it to a new form, such as comedy or parody, or attributing the original when doing so. But that aside there is a another quote that gives the game away.

  Cinema (Sacnoth’s Scriptorium): So, the organizers of Tolkien Day in Kalamazoo arranged for a special showing of the new TOLKIEN biopic to a room full of Tolkien scholars. We were on the whole a skeptical bunch as to whether the filmmakers cd pull it off, but willing to see how it had come out.

The first thing that struck me was the trees. Tolkien famously said you can’t get much about trees into a play, one reason he considered drama inferior to fiction, but the filmmakers showed this is not necessarily the case for film.

  Fiction (Classic Mysteries): I’m pretty sure that readers who enjoy some of the great classics of science fiction are already familiar with the name of Fredric Brown. I have particularly fond memories of several of his SF classics, such as Martians, Go Home. But I’m also fond of Brown as a mystery author. And, as a fan of Lewis Carroll, and the Alice in Wonderland books in general, I generally try to re-read one of my favorite Fredric Brown mysteries, Night of the Jabberwock, every few years. It’s funny, medium-to-hard-boiled, and I think its plot is both unique and brilliant. It’s not always available in the marketplace, but – as of May, 2019 – it looks like it’s out there at least as an e-book. So here’s what I had to say about Night of the Jabberwock when I reviewed it on the Classic Mysteries podcast several years ago. I’ve updated the information about the book’s availability, but otherwise it’s pretty much as I first wrote and recorded it.

Pulp Science Fiction (SF Magazine): The Debt by E. Mayne Hull is the third of her ‘Artur Blord’ series, and sees the return of the alien Skal from the previous story. This one starts with Blord coming upon a ravaged spaceship, where all the men are dead and there is only one hidden survivor, Ellen Reith. All the other women have been taken by the Skal’s henchmen to the Castle of Pleasure. Blord realises that they will soon deduce from the manifest that Reith is missing, and that they will return for her. He calls his office to organise a cover up.

  Fiction(Paperback Warrior): Author Paul Bishop is a 35-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department. Receiving “Detective of the Year” accolades twice, Bishop starred as the lead interrogator on the ABC reality show “Take the Money and Run” developed by marquee name producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Along with his 15 published works, Bishop also is the writer and editor of the essential reference work “52 Weeks 52 Western Novels – A Guide to Six-Gun Favorites and New Discoveries”.

Sensor Sweep: Spears of Clontarf, Mech, Max Brand, Melee, Dresden Files published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

The next two weeks are some of the busiest on the TV calendar, with nearly two dozen new series debuting across broadcast, cable, and streaming networks.

Some of these releases are among the most high-profile shows their networks have on offer, including NBC’s big bet at finding the next ER. And some of them are quirky little half-hour dramas imported from Australia. But we’ve watched all of them — and everything else that’s around — and we’re highlighting the ones we think are the most interesting.

Few of these shows are great, and we often have limited information on whether they’ll get better. (It’s rare-to-impossible for broadcast networks, especially, to send out many episodes to critics beyond the first couple.) But there’s something inside all of these shows worth checking out, especially if you’re a particular fan of their genres.

Read on for thoughts on CBS’s FBI, NBC’s New Amsterdam, FX’s Mr. Inbetween, and ABC’s A Million Little Things. We’ll be back later in the week with thoughts on shows debuting between Thursday and Sunday.

(A note: We’ve only given ratings to shows where we feel we’ve seen enough episodes to judge how successful they will be long-term, which for right now is just Mr. Inbetween.)

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TV super-producer Dick Wolf has launched two franchises that completely took over NBC. The first was Law & Order, which launched five spinoffs (as well as a recently announced sixth, Law & Order: Hate Crimes). One spinoff, Law & Order: SVU, has now run almost as long as the original — 434 episodes to the original’s 456 (it should catch up in May of 2019).

And then there’s the Chicago franchise, spun off of Chicago Fire; it now encompasses four shows, three of which are still running.

The point is: Dick Wolf knows how to make an iron-clad procedural, even if his premise is as vague as, “Here are some FBI agents.” And now that Wolf has joined forces with CBS — a network that never met a crime-solving drama it couldn’t turn into a big hit — to make a show about those very FBI agents, it’s not hard to imagine the two could make beautiful, bloody corpses together. (This is the first series Wolf has produced for a network other than NBC since a 2003 reboot of Dragnet for ABC.)

Whether you enjoy FBI will depend heavily on how happy you are to consume stories as un-skeptical of law enforcement as this one, or on how much seeing Wolf’s signature font in the closing credits will fill you with happy memories of long, wintry Saturdays watching episode after episode of vintage Law & Order.

But as always, the show is brilliantly cast (putting Missy Peregrym at the FBI’s center suggests Wolf has found his new Mariska Hargitay), perfectly paced, and solidly constructed. Is it great TV? Nah. But it’s highly competent TV, and that counts for something in this day and age. —Todd VanDerWerff

FBI debuts Tuesday, September 25, at 9 pm Eastern on CBS.

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I kept watching New Amsterdam, NBC’s new medical drama set in a public hospital that doesn’t turn away patients, thinking I had seen much of it before. On the one hand, I had — it’s hard to break new ground in the medical drama genre in the post-The Good Doctor, post-Grey’s Anatomy, post-ER, post-St. Elsewhere, post-Marcus Welby, M.D. universe. But even more specifically, the series feels like it’s riffing on Fox’s medical drama The Resident, now in its second season, which is too minor of a show to rip off.

But where The Resident and its doctors who care so much that they won’t stop trying to save lives!! are aggro in an irritating way, New Amsterdam takes some of that show’s ideas and pulls back on them just enough to become a fitting series to air right after NBC’s mega-hit This Is Us.

New Amsterdam, like This Is Us, is more interested in making you cry than anything else, and both series are busy, bustling shows with lots of characters who are wildly varied in terms of how compelling they are. Nobody is trying to reinvent the wheel, but maybe the wheel doesn’t need to be reinvented.

If there’s going to be something different about New Amsterdam, it will be thanks to the show’s central two characters, Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) and Dr. Hana Sharpe (Freema Agyeman). Goodwin is a no-nonsense reformer who takes over New Amsterdam Hospital and immediately starts ruffling feathers and making big changes — but he’s also got a big secret, one he’s only comfortable really sharing with Sharpe.

Again, nothing new here, and Eggold isn’t close to the level of Agyeman’s performance. But the details ring true, and the second episode improves on the first, which is always a good sign. —TV

New Amsterdam debuts Tuesday, September 25, at 10 pm Eastern on NBC. It’s weird that this show exists when there was a Fox drama about an immortal police officer of exactly the same name just 10 years ago, but you probably forgot that one existed, huh? It starred Jaime Lannister!

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As strange as it might sound, the market for hitman TV shows in 2018 is a crowded one. The latest on the scene is FX’s Mr. Inbetween, created by, written by, and starring Scott Ryan. It draws on a lot of what we’ve seen already this year in Barry, as Ray Shoesmith (Ryan) tries to balance the ins and outs of his job with his domestic life, though Mr. Inbetween is tonally a little closer to Killing Eve on its default level of darkness.

That’s not to say that Mr. Inbetween is lacking for laughs — if anything, the deadpan humor on which Ray operates is the main reason to tune in. Ryan’s performance is transfixing, as he’s hilarious and horrifying by turns. Bald, slightly gaunt, and sporting a grin that wouldn’t look amiss on the Joker, Ryan infuses Ray with a volatility that vaults him up to one of the more impressive turns of the year. He’s opaque in a way that his TV contemporaries aren’t, which makes it all the more frightening when he finally lashes out.

The story that’s built around him, however, isn’t quite as solid. The brevity of the season — it’s just six episodes long (all of which were sent out for review), with each episode clocking in at around 25 minutes — means that it moves at a neat clip.

This is to the show’s advantage as far as recommendations are concerned, but it also doesn’t leave a lot of time to accomplish all that much. Ryan is great, but Mr. Inbetween never manages to land on one side of the fence or the other as far as whether Ray is actually the force of justice that he seems to think himself to be.

The show also never reckons with the fact that there needs to be a little more meat on the bones of a story about a white man getting away with everything for it to really stick in a contemporary cultural landscape. But given how trim it is, Mr. Inbetween is charming enough, and Ryan’s performance shouldn’t be missed. —Karen Han

Mr. Inbetween debuts with two back-to-back episodes Tuesday, September 25, at 11:30 pm Eastern on FX, in between airings of Mayans M.C.

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A Million Little Things, ABC’s new drama about a group of friends dealing with a tragedy, is one of the first big network dramas to really feel like an attempt to copy what made This Is Us such a big hit.

And in brief, fitful moments throughout the first three episodes, it really does get at some interesting things about adult friendships, male bonding rituals, and the burden of mental illness. But it’s also a cautionary tale about what happens when network notes won’t just let a premise be.

In the opening moments of the show’s pilot, Jon (Ron Livingston) kills himself, interrupting the lives of his three best friends and their assorted loved ones and other compatriots. (Livingston will continue to appear throughout at least season one, in flashbacks and the like.)

The death affects each character differently, and the show’s most successful moments deal with how depression can affect a life, especially when Jon’s friend Rome (Romany Malco) sees in his friend’s suicide a reflection of his own suicidal ideation and finally decides to pursue therapy. It’s the sort of subject matter broadcast network dramas don’t always tackle, and rarely with the sort of emotional depth Things displays from time to time.

Unfortunately, the rest of the time, A Million Little Things is burdening itself with an over-busy mystery story about why Jon might have killed himself and the plan he set in motion to help take care of his friends after his death, which sometimes makes him feel like an all-seeing god and at other times makes him feel like a mildly cheeky ghost.

A Million Little Things shows that it understands how depression can hurt even people who seem to have it all together. So why does it need to have a big mystery about what John might have been up to, except for network fears that nobody would care about a group of friends learning to deal without one of them being there? (Yes, it’s similar to This Is Us, but that show kept the central death a mystery from the audience, not the characters, to deliberately mimic emotional repression. A Million Little Things has no similar creative justification.) It stands in the way of a show that would otherwise hold promise. —TV

A Million Little Things debuts Wednesday at 10 pm Eastern on ABC. No, it’s not based on the famous James Frey “memoir.” That’s A Million Little Pieces.

CBS’s Magnum P.I. (Monday, 9 pm) is a terminally boring reboot of the Hawaii-set detective drama. No show that begins with a man skydiving from space should be this uninvolving!

NBC’s Manifest (Monday, 10 pm) wastes a good premise — a plane experiences turbulence that seemingly transports it forward in time five years — in favor of weak-sauce family drama and mystical hooey.

ABC’s Single Parents (Wednesday, 9:30 pm) has a great cast (including Leighton Meester and Brad Garrett) and great creators (New Girl’s Elizabeth Meriweather and J.J. Philbin) but a pilot that tries to do way too much with a thin premise (a bunch of single parents hang out). Maybe it’ll get better?

Original Source -> 4 new TV shows to check out this week, from Australian hitmen to beleaguered doctors

via The Conservative Brief