#which isn’t necessarily a problem like I like reading comics and I like reading old comics
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The Avengers (1963) #1
#I have to start reading Avengers comics at this point#because just reading Tony’s solo comics and not getting the full context of his character was making me really uncomfortable#I’m at 1968 in his solo comics right now#and obviously this issue is from 1963#I’ve actually read the first 5 issues of the Avengers before for my Hulk readings#who of course I’m reading every single appearance of and can’t bear to approach any other way#I’ve talked before about the different ways of approaching choosing what to read with comics and with regular books#like I prefer stand-alone books and don’t really read those long-standing series that all star the same character#and I don’t choose which books to read based on a description of the main character#but based on whether the story and themes and writing style appeal to me#whereas with comics I tend to just look up a character’s first appearance and start from there#sometimes reading stand-alone graphic novels and minis works for me and I’m trying to do that more#but I just get so invested in comics stuff that oftentimes it’s very uncomfortable to not go in order#which isn’t necessarily a problem like I like reading comics and I like reading old comics#so an approach that gets me reading lots of old comics isn’t like unpleasant for me#but I’ve noticed in reading more academic stuff about comics how refreshing it is to hear things discussed#outside of the focus of the writer’s opinion of the main character’s characterization#as it relates to their opinion of the character’s correct characterization#or the stories standing in the character’s overarching history#and I don’t want to approach comics as this entirely fundamentally different medium of storytelling that can only be approached#through the lens of attachment to certain characters and how well stories appeal to that or not#like for example I’ve really appreciated some comics that told well-executed stories with characters I’m not personally invested in#that other fans didn’t like because they were invested in those characters and didn’t agree with how their characterization was approached#and I think that there’s value in trying storytelling that’s not beholden to all this long-standing continuity#but also- I just want to know everything and have the context for everything and read everything sometimes#it’s fine I just gotta have a balance and variety in my comics readings#marvel#tony stark#my posts#comic panels
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What Makes an Ethnic Villain "Ethnic" or "Villainous?" How Do You Offset it?
anonymous asked:
Hello WWC! I have a question about the antagonist of my story. She is (currently) Japanese, and I want to make sure I’m writing her in a way that doesn’t associates [sic] her being Asian with being villainous.
The story is set in modern day USA, this character is effectively immortal. She was a samurai who lost loved ones due to failure in combat, and this becomes her character[sic] motivation (portrayed sympathetically to the audience). This story explores many different time periods and how women have shown valor throughout history. The age of the samurai (and the real and legendary female warriors from it) have interested me the most, which is why I want her to be from this period.
The outfit she wears while fighting is based on samurai armor, and she wears modern and traditional Japanese fashion depending on the occasion. She acts pretty similar to modern day people, though more cynical and obsessed with her loss. She’s been able to adapt with the times but still highly values and cherishes her past.
She is the only Asian main character, but I plan to make a supportive Japanese side character. She’s a history teacher who knows about the villain and gives the protagonists information to help them, but isn’t involved in the main plot otherwise.
Are the way I’m writing this villain and the inclusion of a non-antagonist Japanese character enough to prevent a harmful reading of the story, or is there more I should do?
Why Does Your Villain Exist?
This makes me feel old because David Anders plays a villain with this kind of backstory in the series Heroes starring Masi Oka.
I think you want to think about what you mean when you say:
Villainous (In what way? To whom? To what end?)
Harmful (What tropes, narratives and implications are present?)
I’m relatively infamous in the mod circle for not caring too much about dimensions of “harm”. The concept is relative and varies widely between people and cultures. I don’t see much value in framing motivations around “What is less harmful?” I think for me, what matters more is:
“What is more true?”
“Are characteristics viewed as intrinsic to background, or the product of experiences and personal autonomy?”
“Will your portrayal resonate with a large audience?”
“What will resonate with the members of the audience who share the backgrounds your characters have?”
This post offers additional questions you could ask yourself instead of “is this okay/not okay/harmful.”
You could write a story where your antagonist is sly, sadistic, violent and cold-blooded. It may not be an interpretation that will make many Japanese from combat backgrounds feel seen or heard, but it’s not without precedent. These tropes have been weaponized against people of Japanese descent (Like Nikkei Japanese interned during World War II), but Japan also brutalized a good chunk of Asia during World War II. See Herge’s Tintin and The Blue Lotus for an example of a comic that accurately showcases the brutality of Japan’s colonization of Manchuria, but also is racist in terms of how Japanese characters are portrayed (CW: genocide, war, imperialism, racism).
You could also write a story where your character’s grief gives way to despair, and fuels their combat such that they are seen as calculating, frigid and deeply driven by revenge/ violence. This might make sense. It’s also been done to death for Japanese female warriors, though (See “Lady Snowblood” by Kazuo Koike and Kazuo Kamimura here, CW: sexual assault, violence, murder and a host of other dark things you’d expect in a revenge story).
You could further write a story where your antagonist is not necessarily villainous, but the perceived harm comes from fetishizing/ exoticizing elements in how her appearance is presented or how she is sexualized, which is a common problem for Japanese female characters.
My vote always goes to the most interesting story or character. I don’t see any benefit to writing from a defensive position. This is where I'll point out that, culturally, I can't picture a Japanese character viewing immortality as anything other than a curse. Many cultures in Japan are largely defined by transience and the understanding that many things naturally decay, die, and change form.
There are a lot of ways you could conceivably cause harm, but I’d rather hear about what the point of this character is given the dilemma of their position.
What is her purpose for the plot?
How is she designed to make the reader feel?
What literary devices are relevant to her portrayal?
(Arbitrarily, you can always add more than 1 extra Japanese character. I think you might put less pressure on yourself with this character’s portrayal if you have more Japanese characters to practice with in general.)
- Marika.
When Off-Setting: Aim for Average
Seconding the above with regards to this villainess’s story and your motivations for this character, but regardless of her story I think it’s also important to look specifically at how the Japanese teacher character provides contrast.
I agree with the choice to make her a regular person and not a superhero. Otherwise, your one Asian character is aggressively Asian-themed in a stereotypical Cool Japan way (particularly if her villain suit is samurai-themed & she wears wafu clothing every so often). Adding a chill person who happens to be Japanese and doesn’t have some kind of ninja or kitsune motif will be a breath of fresh air (well, more like a sigh of relief) for Japanese readers.
A note on characterization—while our standard advice for “offset” characters is to give your offset character the opposite of the personality trait you’re trying to balance, in this case you might want to avoid opposites. You have a villainess who is a cold, tough “don’t need no man” type. Making the teacher mild-mannered, helpful, and accomodating would balance out the villainess’s traits, but you’ll end up swinging to the other side of the pendulum towards the Submissive Asian stereotype depending on execution. If avoiding stereotypes is a concern, I suggest picking something outside of that spectrum of gentleness to violence and making her really boring or really weird or really nerdy or a jock gym teacher or…something. You’re the author.
Similarly, while the villainess is very traditionally Japanese in her motifs and backstory, don’t make the teacher go aggressively in either direction—give her a nice balance of modern vs. traditional, Japanese vs. Western sensibilities as far as her looks, dress, interests, values, etc. Because at the end of the day, that’s most modern Japanese people.
Sometimes, the most difficult representation of a character of color is making a character who is really average, typical, modern, and boring.
- Rina
#writeblr#Japanese#Japanese women#Villain#antagonist#tokenism#characterization#representation#stereotypes#immortality#superheroes#supervillains#asks
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Miller Morales Mechanic Shop (Frankie Morales x f!Reader)
Part One of Miller Morales Mechanic Shop
Summary: Something is wrong with your car. What, exactly? You have no clue. So you bring it in to some professionals- who also have a toddler running around the shop.
W/C: 2.3k
Warnings: language, Frankie is a dad, brief mention of divorce and trauma bc poor Frankie, there is a child heavily involved in this so if you don’t like kids this isn’t for you :)
A/N: WELCOME TO PART ONE EVERYONE! This is such a cute AU and I’m BEYOND excited to start sharing it with you all! I don’t know how many parts this will be or anything but I can’t wait to take it and run with it.
Marisol Morales behaves for very few people. One of those is Ben Miller. Unfortunately, she has decided to break her own rules today.
Frankie loves summer. He loves his little girl playing outside in her baby pool, taking her for walks around the neighborhood with their three-legged dog, all of the fun parts. The hard part is when the nanny goes on a vacation and Mari has to come to work with him.
Benny and Frankie, ever since the chaos that was the Lorea mission, run a small mechanic shop together. Miller Morales Mechanic Shop isn’t necessarily the busiest place in town, but they make enough to get by and have some disposable income too. Mari loves to hang around the shop with her daddy and uncle. She’s there more than Frankie would like, but he supposes it’s not the worst thing in the world. When Frankie and Jules split and Frankie won full custody, he’d hoped a nanny would take care of most everything when Mari is home all day in summer. Sadly, he was in for a rude awakening when no Mary Poppins showed up on his doorstep.
It’s normally not too bad; Benny hung the moon in Mari’s eyes. If she won’t do something for her daddy, which is still somewhat rare, she’ll always do it for her Uncle Benny. That makes the day run much smoother. Mari has a whole host of quiet-time activities and toys to play with, and the men generally trade off periods of either working on the cars or being with the little girl.
Her favorite activities at the shop include drawing on the concrete with thick sticks of chalk and playing with her toy helicopters and planes. Benny insists tanks are cooler, but Mari prefers flying her Polly Pockets in the chopper, running through the garage and making flight noises. She’s a smart little thing; for her age, she’s picked up big words and can make sentences out of three words, which is quite a stretch for a baby just over two years of age. She calls for Benny and Daddy and knows the names of his tools: wench, scu-dwive, and her favorite, win-seeled wipe fwuid. She loves to babble at customers while they get their oil changed.
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Being shit with cars is no fun. It only increases the anxiety when some light flashes on your dashboard. The lights can mean so many things that you find it ridiculous; “check engine”? Check it for what? To save yourself the anxiety, you find your nearest mechanic and pay them to deal with it.
Today, as you pull over into a gas station, you check your phone and find that the nearest shop is a place you haven’t heard of. It must be new. Miller Morales Mechanic Shop, 0.6 miles away. The name implies something more local and homegrown. You’re more than willing to support a place like that, so you start up the engine, pray you don’t explode, and make your way over to the shop.
It’s nearby, like the map indicated. The outside is a quaint little place, tucked in a strip mall next to a coffee shop, a dentist, and an insurance agency. The three car bays are empty, and knowing next to nothing about how these shops work, you pull inside and park your car, letting it run as you wait for an employee. The bell dinged to let them know you were here, so you stay patient and listen idly to the hum of the talk radio show from your car’s speakers.
After a minute or two pass, you realize that maybe this wasn’t the right place to be. Maybe you were supposed to go in the front or something. Concluding that you probably aren’t where you’re supposed to be, you turn off the car and get out only to be greeted by the sound of buzzing lips.
You can hear a baby’s voice, mimicking some kind of vehicle’s sound, and for a second you’re worried this place must have you hearing things. Then, from a swinging door to the front comes a little girl, running and babbling to herself about her toy helicopter.
She has a head full of dark brown curls, tied back into two puffs with pink scrunchies, and matching pink leggings and a t-shirt far too big for her, the back emblazoned with the shop’s logo. She’s barefoot, tiny feet slapping against the cold cement.
“I told you I had to piss, Fish!” A man’s voice shouts from one end of the garage.
“No you didn’t, dipshit!” Another man shouts back. Being caught in the middle of their argument is quite comical, if you’re being honest with yourself. “She’s fucking two! You can’t leave her alone like that, man!”
The first voice is matched to a person as a tall blonde man emerges from the customer service side of the shop. “Marisol Morales, come here,” he insists sternly as he rolls up the sleeves of his jumpsuit. “Come on, you’re gonna trip.” Ben is embroidered on a patch over his heart.
She pouts at him before stumbling forward and continuing to run, stopping as she sees you and looking up in confusion. Her lower lip sticks out in a pout as her eyes scan your face, as if she’s trying to remember if she knows who you are. “Hi,” she finally concedes as you bend to her level.
“Hi there,” you smile and hold out a hand. “What’s your name?” You pick her up, holding her on your hip so that she doesn’t trip, like Ben so desperately feared.
The second, unknown voice shouts for the little girl again before boots clunk on concrete up to you, rounding your car and stopping. This must be the girl’s father, you realize, as you rake your eyes up his body. He wears the same navy blue jumpsuit as the other man, though it’s unsnapped over his chest, exposing the white t-shirt beneath. The patch on his chest reads Catfish. He wears a ball cap and warm brown curls peek out from under it. He has scruff and a hooked nose that perfectly matches the one on the little girl. “I Mari,” she introduces herself proudly.
“Hey, leave her alone, Mar,” the man shakes his head as he hoists her up to hold her on his hip. “I’m so sorry about that,” he says with an embarrassed smile, showing a dimple beneath the scruff on his chin.
“No, it’s not a problem,” you laugh then set her down and tell the little girl your name. “Aren’t you just the cutest?” You chuckle as she looks at you. She blushes and buries her face in the man’s chest, giggling shyly.
He looks down at the little girl then up at you again. “Well, uh, hi. I’m Frankie, and you’ve met Mari already.”
“Your daughter?” you ask as you look at the pudgy little girl, who now stares at you in awe.
Frankie nods and adjusts his ball cap, pushing his hair back with it. “Yep. Our nanny is on vacation, so she gets to hang out around here,” he chuckles and kisses her head, setting her down. “Go see Benny, yeah?” He asks her. She happily waddles off towards the blonde man, who gives you a wave then heads into the back. “What brings you in?”
“Would you laugh if I told you I don’t really know?” You admit with a shy smile. “My check engine light came on while I was on the highway. I don’t know the first thing about cars, so I was hoping you’d figure out what that meant.”
“Nah, no laughing here,” he nods and gives you a genuine smile before looking over at your car. “Shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I’ll have you pop the hood for me and I’ll give it a look?” He asks.
“That would be great. Thank you,” you tell him, the desperation for his help in your voice. Now that you get the chance to really look at him, he’s quite attractive. His eyes are deep set and a beautiful brown, and they crinkle when he smiles. Facial expressions only accentuate the lines in his face, but he’s certainly not old. His eyes still hold his youth.
“No problem.” He leads you to the car and you pop the hood open before getting out. “Could I take your keys?” he asks you. “Just so I can turn it on and off and all that good stuff.”
“Yeah, of course,” you nod frantically and hand them over to him. “I’ll… be in the waiting room?”
“That’s how we usually do it,” he chuckles as he takes the keys from you. “Just shout for Benny if Mari annoys you again.”
That makes you frown. “She’s not annoying at all. She’s adorable,” you smile as you look over your shoulder and see her and the blonde man playing together.
“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” he laughs and points his wrench at you as he walks to the hood of the car.
Shaking your head, you can’t help but laugh as you head back to the waiting room. You walk in and Mari perks up, turning to look at you. “Hi! Playing helicopter,” she tells you in her stunted speech as she holds up the toy.
“You sure are,” you nod and sit next to her. “Can I play?” You ask, looking up at Benny, silently asking him the question too.
He nods and Mari squeals happily. “Friend!” She shrieks and hands you another helicopter. “Go pew pew, okay?” She drags them across the toy mat like they’re cars, and you follow suit.
“Okay,” you laugh. Looking up at the blonde man, you extend a smile his way and introduce yourself. He’s busy repairing a Barbie dollhouse with a screwdriver.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Ben, Benny, whatever you wanna call me.”
Driving your helicopter around the ground, following Mari’s lead, you chuckle. “No preference?”
“Fish calls me Benny.”
“Fish?” You ask and tip your head.
“Frankie, whatever. We’re buddies from the service. His code name was Catfish,” the man explains with a shrug, testing the hinges of the plastic door.
That makes you smile down at Frankie’s daughter. “Really, just buddies? Could’ve sworn you’d be brothers,” you tease the blonde, blue-eyed man. “Does Frankie know how to do his daughter’s hair?” You ask and fiddle with her two pigtails.
“Yes, he does,” Frankie insists as he walks out to the front, cleaning a wrench. “But just barely.”
You look up at him, embarrassed. “Her pigtails just look a little messy. Then again, she was running around like crazy,” you laugh and watch her rush over to Frankie, insisting he pick her up.
Bending down to grab her, Frankie groans at the ache in his joints. “She was. I could use some pointers, if you’ve got ‘em.”
“Of course,” you nod and stand too, brushing the dust from the concrete floor off on your pants. “What’s the verdict on the car?” You ask.
Frankie turned, watching as Benny walks out to the shop, but he turns back to face you. “Oh, right. The engine was misfiring, and unburned fuel was being put into the exhaust system, and that damaged the catalytic converter.”
You nod as you listen to him, really staring at his face more than anything. He’s just so damn pretty, you note as you admire the curve of his nose, his slightly sunken and dark eyes. His lips look beautiful and soft, even though they seem a little chapped. When he stops talking, it takes you a second to process it. “I don’t know what that means,” you admit with a shy smile. “I told you. I don’t know shit about cars,” you laugh, playing it off like you were lost when you were really lost in his eyes.
He shakes his head and laughs, bouncing Mari on his hip. “Your car is gonna need some work. Couple hours,” he shrugs. “If Benny and I get to working on it together, an hour and a half, maybe?” He admits.
“Yeah, that’s great. I can watch Mari,” you offer.
Frankie would never be this trusting normally. You’re a straight-up stranger, but your demeanor is good enough for him. Besides, you’re right here. He can check on the two of you every so often, and Mari seems to love you. “That would be great,” he smiles. “You really don’t have to.”
“No, I have nothing better to do,” you chuckle and look at the little girl. “You wanna play?”
Mari nods excitedly and Frankie sets her down. She rushes back to her toy mat and you watch her go. “Thank you, again, for fixing all this.”
“Just doing my job,” he nods. This time, it’s his turn to admire you. He stares at your face, examining the curves and angles that make you up. Your eyes are kind and warm as they follow the little girl, and he can see that he’s making a good choice here.
When you sit down, Mari comes and sits cross-legged across from you. “What are we gonna play?” You ask her, looking at her wide variety of toys. Her pile includes dinosaurs, Matchbox cars, lots of toy helicopters and planes, Barbie dolls, and a plastic tea set.
“Tea party!” She says and hands you a tiny plastic cup and a felt muffin.
“Oh my goodness,” you gasp in a fake accent. “How delightful!”
Frankie peeks over his shoulder at the two of you. He could really get used to that sight.
-
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Jughead (2015), Issues 7-8: Discussion and Commentary
Boy oh boy am I excited to talk about this arc!! These two issues hold a very special place in my cold little aro heart.
(By the way, do you see that? I managed to get a digital copy from my library via Hoopla, which means you are spared from my shitty phone grabs. I’ll fix the previous post, don’t worry. Try clicking on the screenshots if tumblr blurs them. And try Hoopla, if you’ve got a library card and have been looking to read these.)
Fed up with him sitting around the house playing video games all summer, Mr. Jones forces Jughead to get out of the house and do something outside. Jughead finds Archie at the pool where he’s working as a lifeguard, and convinces him to take time off to go camping in the woods with him at their friend Dilton’s cottage.
They take Archie’s car out to the woods, only to find that the lake is overrun with Reggie’s over-the-top relatives at the Mantle family reunion. Horrified, Jughead and Archie go out on a hike to get away. This is where things go downhill—literally.
Jughead calls Archie out for his growing fixation with Veronica Lodge, whose father is the one trying to clear out Fox Forest. Archie immediately goes on the defensive, but Jughead, understandably, really doesn’t get it. And here’s where we see that this is a divide that has been brewing between them for quite some time, even if Archie seemingly had no idea it was happening.
The boys end up getting lost, which only serves to fuel their frustrations. It occurs to Jughead, some time later, that the lake they’re camping at is not that far from Camp Lucey, an all-girls summer camp. Shocked and hurt, he accuses Archie of only agreeing to go on the trip to pick up girls, and not to hang out with him. He tackles Archie and they tumble down a hill into the woods below.
This is a really interesting story, from an aro’s perspective. Jughead can’t relate to Archie’s teenage obsession with girls, and it isn’t something they can bond over like other friends may have been able to do. On a simple level, all Jughead really wants to do is hang out with his best friend, just the two of them, just like old times—back when they were younger, before Archie’s interest in girls seemed to take over his every waking moment. Importantly, Jughead never objects to Archie’s romantic pursuits on principle (he does have an issue with Veronica, but that has to do more with her father’s actions than her). It isn’t that he wants to stand in the way of Archie’s happiness—he just feels left behind, and that’s something I think a lot of aromantic people, teenagers especially, can resonate with.
Eventually, Archie and Jughead run into Mr. Weatherbee of all people, who begrudgingly offers to help lead them back to camp. It’s at this point that we get one of my favorite moments in the entire series, one that I have waxed poetic about on this blog before and probably will again.
Archie insists that he is in fact here to hang out with Jughead, and that he’s just being dramatic. Jughead, on the other hand, insists that Archie’s the one being dramatic with his love triangle problems, to which Archie replies:
“Look, I’m not going to apologize for being a normal guy, I—”
And Jughead’s reaction to those words has stuck with me since the first time I read this. He’s shocked, hurt, and clearly a little angry that Archie would say something like that. And it’s a subtle moment, one that you might not even feel the gravity of if you didn’t know that Jughead was aro. What’s most important here, though, isn’t Jughead’s reaction, but the fact that Archie is clearly in the wrong, and he knows it. He tries to backtrack immediately (“Jughead! I didn’t mean it like that! Wait!”), but Jughead ignores him, as Mr. Bee has already gotten them lost again.
This singular page is, to me, a deeper and more nuanced portrayal than many works with “on-the-page” canon aromantic characters. This arc isn’t about Jughead being aro (in fact, none of the comics particularly are). But this is a meaningful incorporation of Jughead’s orientation into his daily life and his relationships with other people—namely, with his best friend. Although Jughead is being somewhat harsh with Archie, never does the narrative place him in the wrong for feeling abandoned, hurt, or angry because of Archie’s words and actions. Even Archie, his best friend, is capable of saying things that hurt him, and his words in this scene are never excused or justified by the narrative.
It also means a lot to me that Archie apologizes the second he gets the chance to, and that Jughead is quick to forgive him and explain that he just misses the time before Archie was so obsessed with girls. I wouldn’t want the story to just turn into a feud between them. You know when you’re on a trip with your friends and you get lost and you’re tired and frustrated you just end up airing your grievances and coming out of it with a new understanding of your friendship while trying to solve the mess you’re in? That’s what this arc is.
Anyway, after a run-in with Reggie’s relative and Mr. Weatherbee’s old high school bully Ted Mantle, the trio manage to make it out of the woods—after several hours of walking until the sun has come up. There, they find that Camp Lucey has actually been renamed, and is now a camp for elementary school girls, where Betty happens to be working. So after all of that, Archie just ends up making a fool of himself, like usual. Mr. Bee’s wife drives over to rescue them and brings the boys back to Dilton’s cottage, where she remarks that she’s heard a lot about Archie and Jughead, and that they’re inseparable.
At its core, this is a story about friendship. It’s about the difficulties that come with realizing you can’t always relate to each other, and you can’t always read each other’s minds, and you sometimes say the wrong thing without meaning to. It’s a story about growing up, but not necessarily growing apart, and being able to reconcile your differences.
Archie assumes that after all of their bickering, Jughead would just want to go home and not hang out with him anymore. But turning back now would be contrary to what Jughead wanted in the first place, which was just to hang out with his best friend.
All’s well that end’s well, and Jughead and Archie patch things over and vow that they will always be best friends. It’s a wholesome moment, and reflects a common struggle for aspec teens that I rarely see addressed in media, if at all. Sometimes, it feels like your friends are all moving on without you, and sometimes they don’t even realize it when they’ve been neglecting your friendship. It takes communication to work these things out, and I’m happy to see that illustrated here.
This arc is my favorite, I think, and there’s reasons for that even outside of the aspects I’ve already detailed here. The kids getting lost in the woods on summer vacation is a fun way of framing the deeper story, and there are a lot of funny and endearing moments in these two issues. (Archie falls on his face, a lot, and Mr. Weatherbee is stoically exasperated with both of their antics.)
These are the last issues written by Chip Zdarsky. So shoutout to him for some of the most nuanced representations of aromanticism in fiction to date, even if he never wrote the word down on the page (I’ll get to that, don’t worry). But these are the first issues illustrated by Derek Charm, whose art style I love (no offense Erica Henderson), and the rest of the volume has a lot of other good aro moments in store. Until then, here’s himbo Archie:
See? Pure of heart, dumb of ass. You can’t be mad at him for long. (He falls into a hole later on the same page.)
Yeah, me too.
#woo!!!#techno's jughead reread#aro#aromantic#aro jughead#ace jughead#aroace jughead#jughead jones#jughead comics#long post#op
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Character headcanons
Klavier Gavin from Ace Attorney!
1: sexuality headcanon
Bisexual. Possibly pansexual, but I’m going with my usual personal definitions here where “bisexual” = “attracted to more than one gender” and “pansexual” = “attracted to all genders”. I can’t see Klavier being attracted to uber-butch or very masculine people - no 6′5″ weightlifting lumberjacks with loads of body hair and big beards, for example. I think he is attracted primarily to people who are cute rather than gorgeous, and falls in love with people based on their brains.
2: otp
Klapollo. Surprise! Though I also very much like Klavier/Apollo as a romantic partnership with Ema Skye as their aromantic best friend and fuckbuddy. I do also like Klema as long as there’s a good reason why Apollo isn’t involved (e.g. he’s straight, and he and Klavier are very close friends but can never be a couple because of incompatible sexuality.)
3: brotp
Klavier & Simon Blackquill. They kinda have a lot in common. They’re both prosecutors, they both have a sibling in prison, they both have a public persona which isn’t very much like their private personality... They may have even been friends when Klavier was 17/18, before Simon went to prison to protect Athena.
Klavier & Miles Edgeworth. They have both been under a lot of pressure for too long, having become prosecutors so ridiculously young. They both speak German to some extent. (Word of God states that Klavier isn’t actually German but spent two years studying there, so he must speak the language well enough to be able to pass the bar exam). Their personalities might seem like opposites - flamboyant, extroverted Klavier vs reserved, introverted Miles, but that isn’t necessarily a problem. Most of my friends (and both my partners) are introverts.
Klavier & Franziska von Karma. The handful of stories where the two characters appear together usually have the vibe that Franziska has no respect for Klavier at all because of his “fake” German accent. But I did read the most awesome story where he asks her how she knows that she’s “really” German, and goes on to explain that his parents were German but he was born in the US, and his brother forbade him from ever speaking the language after his parents died. So he feels weirdly trapped between cultures, and isn’t even properly fluent. It’s great and a fantastic headcanon if you like Actual German Gavin brothers.
Klavier & Trucy Wright. They’re both performers and can learn from each other. They both understand the public persona vs private personality thing. They both care for Apollo.
Klavier & Phoenix Wright. I actually love the idea that Phoenix forgave Klavier years ago for his part in the disbarment process - that he realised that some 17 year old newbie couldn’t possibly have acquired a vendetta against him, and that it was all Kristoph all along. I like the idea that despite their mere 7/8 year age difference, Phoenix still sees Klavier as one of his “kiddos”.
Klavier & Kristoph Gavin. Yeah, I like his actual brother as a brotp. There is one (1) 4Koma comic strip which suggests that Kristoph was manipulative and gaslighting towards Klavier even from his early teens, but those comics are supposedly not canon. Since people are, in real life, far more nuanced than simply wearing black or white hats, I genuinely like the idea that Kristoph was a bad person but a good brother.
4: notp
Klavier & Clay Terran. Klavier/Apollo/Clay as a polyamorous triad is done a fair bit and I really hate it, no offense to those who do ship it.
Klavier & Nahyuta Sahdmadhi. They have the “terribly pretty men/NB people” thing in common, but I just don’t see why Klavier would overlook the Apollo that he knows and trusts in favour of his sibling. It makes no sense.
Klavier & Trucy Wright. Too much of an age gap even assuming that Trucy is already over 18.
Klavier & Athena Cykes. There’s a bit of an age gap too, but honestly, my main objection is based on personality. Athena is so gods damned perky and Klavier has a serious melancholic/introspective streak. Also Athena has highly sensitive hearing and Klavier likes to play his music loud. I can’t see them even managing to share a house, let alone have a romantic relationship!
5: first headcanon that pops into my head
He’s a terrible flirt but doesn’t know how to cope when he’s flirted with. If Apollo actually starts flirting back, Klavier.exe will stop functioning.
6: one way in which I relate to this character
Like... Everything? I mean, I’m not famous, nor a prosecutor, and I’m certainly not beautiful like he is. But he’s very intelligent, he’s extremely passionate about what he does, he loves rock music, he’s a huge nerd...
7: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character
17 year old Klavier in court with his dark glasses and arrogance. Oh gods, make it stop!
8: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?
Cinnamon roll with spikes.
#klavier gavin#ace attorney#character headcanons#klapollo#ask me meme#no one asked me#I just answered for my fave
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Hey, did you saw the film theory on Invader Zim on Membrane that Low-key makes sense
NO. IT. DOESN’T!
Okay, maybe this is my personal bias shining through, because I really don’t like Mattpatt sometimes... No. Okay, I have nothing against the guy personally. More frankly, I don’t like his fanbase or the way he structures his videos.
The way Mattpatt words and structures his videos acts like he’s the first person who thought of this idea, it’s the main contributor to why I stopped watching his videos a long time ago.
He speaks in a lot of rhetorics and strawman arguments rather than just saying what he wants to say. Like “If you don’t believe me... look no further then...” and that’s the one thing I ABSOLUTELY HATE on theory videos.
And some of Mattpatts own theories he doesn’t take seriously, but this is what you get when you base your INCOME off of youtube ad revenue and browse the reddit forums for new ideas. A completely monopolized way of theorizing. (and this is why there are several paragraphs in my current chapter of Tech Support of Zim’s Computer complaining about the concept of youtube entertainment in general.)
Sure, I don’t think Mattpatt will run out of theories... but I really hate the structure of his videos follows along strawman arguments, acting like he’s always arguing with an imaginary audience for entertainment value rather than just say what he wants to say.
That, and people will often cling to theories of someone with good editing software and a youtube channel then Their own opinions.
Something that I learned was incredibly dangerous to do. I learned my lesson with “That Guy with the Glasses dot com” and I don’t plan to act like I know something or am better than someone else cause I agree with someone who said something on youtube once.
I do watch Internet reviews and theory videos for entertainment, but that’s all they are to me. I don’t like to watch youtube videos to give me opinions on how I feel about things. And I seriously think a wide margin of his subscribers lack critical thinking skills at times, as well as a majority of the youtube audience, or from what I’ve seen in the comment section.
However, remember... These are just my thoughts on the matter... My thoughts are not law and I never claim them to be.
Like when I first joined the fandom and posed my GIR analysis questions... I even said:
“I don’t know if the fandom has talked about this in depth or not... I just got here... or if someone put it into this many words before but...”
Also... the thing that bothers me about his Invader Zim theory...
A lot of Mattpatt’s sources are just..... Wrong...
(for the next few minutes I will be talking about this video, feel free to watch or don’t)
Okay.. “Membrane is an Irken” this has been a popular fan theory since before I even entered the fandom and there are old fics about this. I have read Irken Membrane stories before.
It’s not personally my cup of tea, but it’s fun to think about.
But the straws Mattpatt grasps in his video.... Really upset me because there is some thought to the theory back in the day.. ... Like back in 2002??? but like.... NOW?!
Okay, I’ll pick apart this a little... bit by bit...
He says that Membrane takes a hard stance against anything paranormal.
Kinda... but no.. Membrane never outright denies the existence of aliens. (except in ETF... which he mainly says out of frustration...) This is what Membrane says about “there are no aliens” in the show:
Membrane just says that there are no “intelligent” aliens...None that are able to travel the massive distance to Earth, anyways... If aliens existed at all, (like the cryptoids Dib talks of) they would have traveled the distance to the planet and communicated with them by now.
However, this is a nitpick of a minor issue. One that a majority of the fandom tends to overlook when viewing Professor Membrane and Dib’s relationship in general.
And I do find it weird that he used this for evidence when he cut out the most important snippet from the full lecture he gives Dib here.... JUST to support his claim... as if he’s intentionally leaving that part out.... hmmmm
However, I can let this slide, because it’s a nitpick and really doesn’t change anything that Membrane is very dissuasive of Dib’s alien-hunting hobbies. (I have a theory as to why and I explain it here in my own way)
The point is, Membrane is dismissive of anything alien... maybe because he’s an Irken...okay, good, yes. fair.
A lot of Mattpatts claims from then on are pretty solid, and I won’t bunk them with “But in my headcanon/Fanfic verse...” Because what he is saying is all true.
Membrane denying the existence of aliens even after being taken to space jail doesn’t have much of an explanation and is played for comedy and there are many ways you can go with this, and I am not going to bring up my fanfics or my own headcanons to argue with him here.
Because there is no explanation, and he is going with the “Membrane is Irken” theory... So that’s very solid when he’s talking about Membrane denying the Hallucinations.
Mattpatt claimed that Membrane wore his face covering at all times and had been dressed this way since he was a child.
I will not deny this. This is true.
However, isn’t bringing up Membrane’s childhood kinda put a hole in your own argument?
MEMBRANE WAS A CHILD.
He had been shown to have childhood memories in the comics and the show.
Irkens don’t really have a “Childhood” per say, at least not in the way that humans do. They are a smeet, then elite, then Invader..
If he’s claiming that Membrane came to earth as an Irken SMEET....How, why, and when?
That kinda raises more questions than it answers.... What are you proving by bringing up Membrane’s baby pictures on Earth exactly? It kind of works against your own argument?
Saying that they’re Irken because they all have the same hair.... that’s just stupid... and he’s citing the Invader Zim wiki on this .... oh boy.
Yeah, Like before I watched the show I thought Dib and Disguised Zim were the same character or brothers...
But I don’t think character design here is a solid enough reason in this case... At least not when it comes to the hairstyles... That’s a stretch.
“Hmmm Membrane’s hair forms an M shape... What could the M stand for? Mirken?! SUSPICIOUS!” (this is just a joke)
Also... the lack of ears thing... He did say it would be hard for Membrane to hear if his headpiece was covering his ears, but not necessarily... The entire thing is a headset and he is the man of science, he can really do whatever the fuck he wants cause Science is like magic in a show like this. So if Membrane wears a headset that doesn’t obstruct his hearing at all, I can buy it... Also.. it’s equally possible his ears got blown off in a chem lab accident or he’s legally deaf and that headset acts as a hearing aide and HELPS him hear...
Actually, I always noticed how in Membrane’s original design from the show, the headset looked a lot like a hearing aid. Specifically one with a head clip, It’s one of the things I first noticed about his design in the show.
And it’s just something I always assumed because he’s a scientist who deals with explosions in his face on a daily basis... (in fact he experiences one in episode 2B) So on first viewing, I thought that his headset served as a hearing aid as well as prescription glasses and a communication device.
I’m just throwing out possibilities because the “lack of ears” is also kinda a stretch.
Mattpatt complaining about “lack of nose” however... Okay, yeah I’ll give him that one. It’s a character design choice that is a little odd for Professor Membrane, but it does fit with the Irken theory, since a majority of human characters, in fact, all have noses. So, Yes the “lack of nose” does fit more into the Irken theory.
However.... Florpus anime Membrane DOES have a nose...
Meant to be drawn in a more semi-realistic artsyle, you can clearly see the bridge of his nose here.
And he looks very similar to anime Dib... Sooooo... Shrug-city...
It’s likely that Membrane not having a nose in the show is simply a stylistic choice than anything else. Basically, the bridge of the nose is there... we just don’t see it.
Especially since Nightmare Membrane has a nose as well..
Membrane is like Home Improvement’s Wilson. We will never see his face, and that’s part of the gag. The man probably sleeps in his labcoat honestly...
I also find the voice pattern thing a bit of a stretch. Membrane and Zim are just eccentric characters who yell to emote or emphasize a point or emote stronger. And Membrane’s inflections are never the same as Zim’s.
Remember, no other Irken TALKS like Zim. Professor Membrane doesn’t really go around screaming: “I AM PROFESSOR MEMBRANE” either.....
If anything... it just kinda proves both characters have auditory processing issues or hearing problems more then anything.
And there is a lot of screaming on this show.... Screaming from Dib, screaming from Membrane, Screaming from GIR, screaming from Zim... Screaming is funny... and characters scream so much that the characters with their mouths wide open is somewhat a staple of the show.
This is more because of Johnen Vasquez’s voice direction...
Especially since no other Irken really talks like Zim..
Zim’s manor of Speach is strictly a Zim thing and not an Irken thing.
Professor Membrane’s manner of speech is simply a Membrane thing and not a human thing.
I will give Mattpatt that. That a lot of tech in the show looks similar to Membrane’s. I feel this is mostly a stylistic choice, but it really does fit in with the Irken theory.
Like that Zim just so happens to use the same operating system as Dib is played off as a joke. But it does add some small credence to the theory here... I need to point out when he does get it right... some pats on the back.
These are very good points and does follow through with what he’s trying to prove by the end of the day.
(even if Membrane was lying about the destruction of all mankind with the beans thing, but that’s a minor nitpick here)
But his entire paragraph comparing Membrane’s tech to Irken tech is a really good one. Props there.
This whole paragraph about there being only Tall or short irkens cause their society is height based and there are no “medium-sized” irkens....cause they were “dealt with”
Okay.
....
Sure Mattpatt. Let’s just entirely ignore the existence of the Frylord and this entire character even though you mentioned it in the synopsis at the start of your video... Showing that Taller irkens are in positions of power against the shorter, also... Zim is a tiny irken... there are many Irkens that stand taller then Zim.
Being tall in Irken society is a rarity, and Almighty Tallest Purple said that he and Red “became” the Tallest. How? We don’t know, but we do know at one point the current Tallest looked like this:
How do Irkens get that Tall? Body modifications? Maybe... it’s never explained, but considering the Frylord is super big and probably eats a lot of snacks might have something to do with it. We don’t know.
It’s safe to say that being Tall in their society is a rarity and Tallests are either born or made special from the cloning chamber from the get go.
Not to mention, Membrane is Taller than the current Tallest are already...
and you said earlier in the video that Membrane would have gone to Earth as a child...
When he was no taller than a wrapped Christmas box of socks...
So why would Membrane take refuge on Earth at this point? Mattpatt says that Membrane was sent on a mission to Earth because the Tallest felt threatened by his rule...
BY MEMBRANE’S RULE?!?
HE’S THE SIZE OF A CHRISTMAS BOX OF SOCKS!
What do they have to be threatened by?
Because... Mattpatt DID bring up Membrane as a child earlier in the video... meaning Membrane came to earth when he was about the same size as Zim.
SO THEY HAD NOTHING TO BE WORRIED ABOUT AND HAD NO EVIDENCE TO BELIEVE MEMBRANE WOULD GROW TO BE TALL ORE EVEN VIEW HIM AS A THREAT
You bunked your own argument. Congradulations.
Membrane conquered the world through his inventions. In a way, sure. Membrane Labs does own a lot of stuff. But he doesn’t own everything. A majority of the Corporations that keep the population stupid usually don’t have anything to do with Membrane Labs and aren’t affiliated at all.
But this does fit into the “Membrane is an Irken” theory so I will give him that one.
However, Membrane being an evil corporate dictator is a hot take I never really appreciate at all and I can never get behind it.
It hits too close to home in the real world, and I always like to view Membrane as a self-made man and a World loving hippie at his core who just wants to make the world a better place, much like his son, but he actively does something about it. (which can also be why he encourages Dib with real science so much cause he knows Dib wants to save the Earth as much as he does)
Just calling Membrane a capitalist billionaire that doesn’t care about the little guy kinda seems disingenuous towards his character for me.
Especially when Membrane in “Ten Minutes to Doom” created a machine (foodio) that completely end world hunger... which was in BETA in the unreleased episode...
but by the time the movie rolls around... Foodio exists... past his BETA, meaning that he’s probably no expensive than a common household microwave and can materialize food from nothing:
Yeah. Membrane completely ended world hunger off-screen. thanks. (something no capitalist would ever do...)
Membrane also does appearances for charity (in the comics), and often takes funding for sponsorships when he is low on funds and he had to find a cure for pig mouth.
Sure “Membrane conquered the world” fits the Irken theory...
But I never appreciate that take on his character and that is admittedly, very personal bais.
I just wanted to say my peace a little bit here about how I 100% don’t vibe with the “Membrane capitalist/billionaire scum” especially since he ended world hunger...and invented a cure for the un-common cold.
Works for the theory, so good on Mattpatt for that one, but I personally don’t vibe with it.
Mattpatt compared Zim and Dib’s head shape as something to argue... Like because Dib has a similar head shape to Zim... that Dib has to be an alien... Okay... But If you look at the Invader Zim artbook (which I own)
The show has a very distinct look on how they draw characters’ heads. It’s a very distinct stylistic choice and there are pages upon pages in the artbook describing the style and how it looks in motion, and many revision notes to the Korean animators.
There are lots of pages on the artbook describing in detail the differences between the main characters’ heads, what to do, and what not to do.
It’s a difficult style to replicate, and Dib having a big head was mostly a joke from the showrunners to the showrunners, cause they kept drawing Dib’s head slightly bigger to make him look more appealing.
A majority of the audience doesn’t really notice because all the children in the show have big heads. All the kids are like 3-4 feet tall and have huge heads.
Also... Dib’s head is far more rounder then Zim’s in the comics and the Movie... comparing their head shape as an arguing point, when Dib’s head shape changed midway season 1 when the designs got slightly more streamlined is just... bad form..
Dib and Zim’s heads never really look the same from the early episodes as they do later on.
Comparing this character design similarity just because of the artstyle is really stupid.
This is the most infuriating thing about the video... because Mattpatt disproves his own argument with his own footage not a few seconds earlier.
He claims that Gaz sarcastically mentioning she has a squeedly spooch is a canon fact...... but ... hmm.. Mattpatt... can I rewind the footage of your video, please?
Where’s her squeedly spooch?
IS IT BEHIND HER CLEARLY HUMAN ORGANS?! I DON’T SEE IT?
And this isn’t just a stylistic choice... here’s a picture of another human’s organs for comparison.
Mattpatt literally disproved his own argument and ignored the fact that we saw an X-ray of Gaz’s organs in the very same episode...
Gaz doesn’t have a squeedly spooch and she literally was being sarcastic.
and the whole thing is disproved very easily.
Everything Mattpatt says in between those two points, about Dib being taken aboard an alien ship as a baby, and that there is no mother, and the Clone theory... That is all good stuff and this is what the theory video should have speculated and focused on, because there is some digging to be had here... I feel he focused a lot on the wrong points in his video...
And this is the most outrageous point he makes in his video. It’s the thing that pissed me off the most... and lead me to write this essay in the first place.
He claimed Eric Trueheart himself confirmed the clone theory and had story plans where Dib would discover his clone origins.
HE DID NOT!
IN FACT, Eric Trueheart himself published Volume One of the Invader Zim script book AND THIS IS WHAT HE SAID:
Eric neither confirmed nor denied the rumor.
But for Mattpatt to blatantly say that Eric said that Clone Dib was a planned thing by the screenwriters?!
He is BLATANTLY putting words into a Screenwriter’s mouth! Something that you should NEVER do.
Because it is 100% a lie.
He had no source for this claim. He probably just read the same rumor on the wiki and has no source.
This is the reason why I don’t trust videos like Mattpatt. The truth is often stretched for entertainment value, or information is just made up to prove “they were right” about whatever the topic of the day was. He doesn’t even bother to cite the source he got “Eric Trueheart’s word of mouth” from... because it was wrong.
Sorry if this whole thing is more hostile than it intended to be... But Mattpatt was looking at the ENTIRELY wrong evidence for this show....
Irken Membrane is a fun theory... but Mattpatt picked the entirely wrong topics and points of discussion, even to the point of hiding the truth and straight-up lying to his audience about his sources.
It’s kinda like saying “Birds eat ghost peppers because they’re part dragon and dragons can handle spicy food”
While, yeah, Birds are descended from dinos, it’s kinda missing the full story there and it’s not the reason why birds can eat spicy food.
Irken Membrane is a fun fan theory... do what you want with it. I am not here to dissuade Irken Membrane headcanons...
I’m just here to encourage critical thinking, and perhaps NOT put words into content creators' mouths when there is no credible source for it just because it benefits your argument.
#Invader Zim#Film Theory#Mattpatt#danachan's rants#lol sorry i went off but he really needed to cite his sources more on this one
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Captain Fray: The Trash Superman
Look up in the sky! Is it a bird? A plane? No, it’s... an ugly, homeless bald man cackling evily while raining trash on the city with an army of sludge monsters, shortly before getting beaten up by a group of meddling kids. It’s just dumb old Captain Fray again getting foiled by Monica’s Gang, nevermind him. He does that every Tuesday.
Monica’s Gang are arguably the most iconic of all Brazilian comic book characters, having maintained popularity for 60 years and with unmatched worldwide recognition. They’ve had cartoons, a cinematic universe of films both cartoon and live-action, plays, a long-running manga spin-off that turned them into teenagers, crossovers everywhere ranging from The Big Two’s superheroes to Osamu Tezuka’s properties (as Monica’s creator Mauricio and Tezuka were acquaintances), at least one theme park, and much, much more. Even past Brazil’s borders, where they are a cultural institution on a scale matched only by Disney, these are some of the world’s most popular characters, starring in just about any kind of adventure imaginable and then some.
However, if you go into the world of Monica’s Gang, and look for a flying man with a chest logo, a cape and impossible superpowers, you’ll instead find their greatest arch-enemy: Captain Fray (actual name Capitão Feio, which translates to Captain Ugly), real name Feioso Araújo. Who will be happy to remind you time and time again of what a rotten, no-good scoundrel he is, even if he has to pick a fight with the Big Blue himself to prove it.
So let’s talk about perhaps the most iconic “caped superhero” of Brazilian comic books, even if he’s ultimately a long, long shot from being one.
Despite the long, worldwide spanning history of the superhero, the idea of the superhero as a cape-wearing uniformed superpowered do-gooder has remained a largely American concept, as different regions have their own unique icons. The titular 4 members of Monica’s Gang have on many occasions taken the role of superheroes, and they’ve built up a massive Rogues Gallery over decades, despite not looking like the usual idea of a superhero. Monica, Jimmy Five, Smudge and Maggy, for the most part, look and act like kids, with odd quirks.
To briefly describe the 4: Monica is the pudgy, bucktoothed ruler of the group as well as the neighborhood, being super strong and more than willing to hit people who mock her with her stuffed rabbit “Samson”. Jimmy Five has a speech impediment, and he constantly schemes to take Monica’s role as leader, best described at times as a junior Lex Luthor to Monica’s Superman. Maggy is Monica’s friend with an uncontrollable appetite, and the witty and perpetually dirty Smudge is Jimmy Five’s friend and accomplice in schemes. Smudge is defined by his complete and total refusal to take a bath or even come into contact with water under any circumstances, and some stories play up Smudge’s dirtyness to the point of superpower.
It’s Smudge in particular who’s gonna be relevant to this post, because the first time Captain Fray was introduced, he was introduced as Smudge’s good-natured and humorous uncle, a comic book addict surrounded by piles of dusty comics, particularly those of Smudge’s favorite superhero, Captain Pitoco, a sort of Superman/Buzz Lightyear analogue. Eventually, Smudge’s uncle is surrounded by dust, and out of it, he transforms “back” into a former alter-ego, Captain Fray, a megalomaniac supervillain horrified at just how clean the world is, and who decides to sully it as much as possible, flying around the city spreading dirt rays and even transforming the population into pollution-fanatics. Eventually he’s defeated and transformed back into normal, only thinking he had a weird dream.
Upon subsequent appearences, Fray would acquire things like sludge minions, underground lairs and ever increasing powers (like in the above sequence where he somehow destroys a rainbow and darkens the sky with a single gesture), although he would eventually gain a Kryptonite-esque weakness to water. Captain Fray would go on to become the most reocurring villain of Monica’s Gang for the next 40 years, as the former concept of him being Smudge’s uncle was dropped and he became instead the ruler of an underground race of sludge monsters created by him, who’d occasionally come on to the surface in order to engage in supervillain plots to take over the world and spread dirt and pollution everywhere, sometimes in stories with an environmental angle, and often when the story calls for superhero antics.
Fray’s got a very standard Grinch/Captain Hook cartoon villain personality, all cackles and snarls and shaking fists at the meddling kids who ruin his plans everytime, proud of being evil and rotten, but never too rotten to the point he betrays the kid-friendly nature of the stories he’s in, nor too rotten that he can’t do something nice for a change like allow his monsters to celebrate Christmas even if it ruins his bad guy image, or begrudingly do a nice thing for Smudge.
Although for the most part, the “mainline” comics have dropped the angle of Fray being Smudge’s uncle, the two having a particular dynamic has stayed consistent still. Sometimes, Smudge is portrayed as the only member of the Gang who’s got little to no problem with Fray, even welcoming the change of scenery he brings, although he will stick with his friends, as often he’s the only one who’s got no problem being hit by Fray’s dirt rays. While sometimes Fray singles out destroying Smudge so his claim as the dirtiest being in the universe can never be challenged, he is more often depicted as having a soft spot for Smudge, sometimes considering him a pupil or potential successor to inherit his powers, and plenty of times, Smudge has done just that, although inevitably it never sticks, partially because Fray gets jealous or misses his former life, and partially because Smudge gets bored of supervillainy and just wants to go play with his friends again.
The dynamic between Smudge and Fray has led to a lot of adventures between the two, and it’s something that’s been played up in the aforementioned manga spin-off, Monica Adventures. In it, the cast’s all been aged up to teenagers, and the adventures they get into respectively have taken much more of a shonen manga edge, much darker and weirder than anything the original kid comics could get away with, although not necessarily to it’s benefit, because I could not begin to describe just how much grimdark nonsense is in those, let’s just call it the Monica’s Gang equivalent of Jorge Joestar in terms of lunacy and leave it at that (although, to be clear, even the original “mainline” comics could get very, very weird themselves). Captain Fray has been a mainstay of said manga from the start, going through a series of redesigns, including one where he turns into a bootleg Sephiroth, and one where he tries rebranding himself into a suit-wearing gangster named “Black Dust”, which nobody really takes seriously.
It’s also granted Fray a backstory: As a kid, when he’d gone to the basement to read comics, his house was buried in a landslide. Afraid of death, he was met with a milipede claiming to serve “The Serpent” (the in-universe stand in for the devil, maybe, just bear with me here), claiming it would protec him so long as it returned the favor someday. He was afterwards transferred to an orphanage, teased by kids over his lack of hygiene and liking for superheroes and nicknamed “Captain Ugly” (again, his name, Fray is just the English translation), with rumors that his touch granted disease. After the orphanage closes, he’s adopted by a nurse and gains a step-brother in Smudge’s dad.
Years down the line, and Feioso’s managed to acquire a house and make a decent living. He spends a lot of time with his nephew Smudge, teaching him how to build toys out of garbage (a habit of Smudge in the strips) and fly kites and so on. Until one day, in an update of his original story, he’s cleaning his house packed with dusty comics, and a shelf falls atop of him. The millipede from his childhood appears to recollect the debt:
"Your mission is to pollude the Earth...rot it's soil...change it's atmosphere...darken the skies with smoke...so that the sun's rays may never again hit the surface of this planet!
"No! No, please! I-I don't want to hurt anyone!"
"You think you can refuse? You think you have a choice? Do you think you can escape your destiny? Evil does not tolerate weak servants. If you don't fill your end of the bargain, if you don't pay your debt...it will be transferred to the person you love most."
"Smudge? NO!! H-How do you know about my nephew?"
"We know of all that happens. Our eyes...are everywhere."
"Smudge has nothing to do with this. Leave him alone, please...I-I'll do anything you guys want!"
"So be it...Filthy powers will corrode your soul...This is the day of your rebirth! How would you like to be rebaptized?
"The nickname I was given at the orphanage...it's perfect! Captain Ugly strikes again!"
How “canon” the events of Monica Adventures are is a question best left unspoken, since it ultimately doesn’t change anything about the original strips. But regardless of what made Fray who he is, he would spend the following decades in many, many attempts to complete his mission and defeat Monica’s Gang, to be foiled and stopped time and time again by his nephew and his friends, little more than a dumb, cartoon villain there to be smacked again and again, too dumb to quit and too mean to stop. So he was, and so he will always be.
But something interesting’s happened recently with him. As part of the Graphic MSP initiative that’s allowed creators to reinvent the many, many characters of Monica’s Gang for stand-alone graphic novels, Captain Fray’s received one in the form of Capitão Feio: Identidade, which isn’t so much an origin story as it tells the story of a homeless man with no knowledge of his past or where he acquired the superpowers that force him to be on the constant run from society, and it tells the story of how said man eventually became the infamous supervillain, despite his many attempts to be a superhero.
The comic and it’s sequel, Tormenta, acted more of a proof of concept to test whether or not a serious reimagining of Captain Fray can work, and considering their reception and the newfound love that the Captain seems to have attained in recent years, I’d say they succedeed pretty damn well. He’s ostracized for his appearence, poverty, smell and bad manners, and there’s hardly anything he can do about it because his powers make him a toxic abomination by default. He spends portions of the book trying to create living beings with his powers, and once he succeeds in creating a Godzilla-esque monster to protect him from the authorities, he ends up having to put the monster down, before getting fed up with constant rejection and promptly announcing that, if he’s just gonna be known as an ugly monster by the people, even after he saves them, he’s gonna make it a point to be Captain Ugly Monster, the most rotten supervillain they’ve ever seen.
The comic constantly grants upon Frey iconography of several of the biggest icons of comic books, from Batman and Superman to AKIRA, playing up not just Frey’s association with comic books but also the fact that he's been mired in that aesthetic from day one. He wanted to be a hero, he wanted to be like Captain Pitoco, and regardless of continuity, all that he ends up as is becoming a gross caricature of a superhero. And still, Frey owns it. He owns his grossness, his rage, his bitterness at everything that he understands to be the opposite of himself, everything clean and good and decent, and he tries time and time again to tear it down, even if he ultimately can never get far enough to accomplish his goals, or lose all of his humanity in the process.
I’ve remarked once that, to many in some regions of South America, the “traditional” superhero does not hold much appeal, and most of the more popular protagonists and icons tend to be outlaws far away from caped antics. Which is why it’s particularly interesting that, not only is the most famous caped superman of Brazilian comic books a villain, but also that, perhaps unintentionally, Fray has undergone the kind of development that most reocurring cartoon villains never get, and one that seems almost poised to last. In a current zeitgest of villain protagonists, it’s successes and failures, I could very easily see Captain Fray becoming the star of a popular film or series, one that takes a look not just at his personality and role, but also at Brazilian culture’s relationship with superheroes and supervillains. Maybe Fray as an anti-hero, trying to make the best of the horrendous powers he’s burdened with, could work.
So long as it’s not revealed that he likes dirt because his mom got pushed off a cliff by cleaning products, I could see it working very well.
#character profiles#comic books#captain fray#capitão feio#turma da monica#mauricio de souza#brazilian superheroes#brazilian supervillains#superman#monica's gang
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Hurricane - Bang Chan Mafia AU Part 1
Warnings: Violence, language, drugs
A/N: Hey ya’ll, I missed writing these mafia fics so here’s Bang Chan’s :D as for those asking about Inure and AASB, both will be worked on and posted! I have started the next part of both of them, as my motivation is slowly coming back! I can’t wait to be posting more, and I’m BEYOND stoked to be writing a mafia fic again. Here’s the long awaited part 1 of Hurricane!
(Next Part ->)
Your hand stretched out, soft droplets of rain gently splattering in your palm.
Raining again?
The city was plagued with soft thunderstorms all throughout the week, and you believed the cloud of melancholy that was rumbling in your head may have been caused by it. Your life wasn’t necessarily hard, but it lacked something… It lacked excitement. You got up for work every morning, then went home and cooked dinner, watched some movies, then went to sleep. You were beginning to wonder when this boring little life of yours will have meaning, when it’ll give you a reason to want to get up in the morning.
I’m pathetic.
A deep sigh left your lips as you grabbed both of your umbrellas, one a soft matte black, and the other a pattern of greens with Totoro on it. A small gift from a friend of yours when you had left town to work in the city. When you had left to “live your dream.”
A depressed, lonely journalist walking through a rainy city, how ironic. You should’ve been in one of those Kdrama’s, or maybe an 80’s movie. At least your life would have some kind of excitement, some kind of meaning behind it. Hell, you hardly had friends, or even a love interest.
The rain picked up, and so did the wind, causing the rain to move sideways and wet your black cardigan. You stepped under a bus stop for a moment, as you had left for work early that morning. Making a five minute rest stop wouldn’t put a dent in your punctuality.
You looked down at your phone and scrolled through Instagram, seeing a picture of one of your friends that had been left behind in the small town you had moved too for college. She was smiling happily with her now fiancé, and you felt a little jealousy. She didn’t have to leave town to follow her dreams, she didn’t have to leave anyone behind to find love, she didn’t have to give up her everyday life to be happy.
The last time you had talked to her though, she had been upset with you. It’s not like it’s your fault really, but she thinks you had forgotten all about her and your other friends. What were you supposed to do though? Drop the job you had gone to school for/have been trying to get for months? She had always talked about the city, why couldn’t she come see you?
You were interrupted from your thoughts as a man hurried under the bus stop, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. He wore a nice, expensive looking leather jacket, but it had no hood. Your eyes glanced up at his face, and he suddenly looked at you. Your cheeks turned red as he had caught you looking at him, but all he did was give a light chuckle.
“Didn’t even bother to check the weather today.” He said, wiping some of the rain droplets from his brow. “And a car drove by and splashed me.”
“I hate city drivers.” You chuckled. “It’s like they do it on purpose.”
“Oh, he definitely did it on purpose.” He chuckled, flashing a bright grin. “Asshole.”
His smile was pretty, a nice set of white teeth showing past his plump lips. His lips were dark as his teeth chattered, the light, early spring breeze not doing the rain any justice. You felt bad for him, and reached into your bag and handed him the other umbrella. His eyes went down to it, then up to your eyes.
“It’s too cold and raining too hard for you to not have an umbrella.” You said.
“Are you sure?” He asked.
You gave him a polite smile and nodded, watching his hand slowly reach out and grab it. Not only was his smile pretty, but so were his hands. His fingers were nice and slender, but still had a masculine look to them.
“Do you take this route often?” He asked.
“Yeah, I take it every morning to work.” You blurted out.
Idiot, why would you tell him that!
“Really? I’ll have to come here one morning so I can return this.” He said, raising the umbrella a little.
“It’s not that big of a deal.” You chuckled.
He popped it open and the image of Totoro was clear as day, and you wanted to facepalm so hard. Why the Hell did you give him that one?
He turned to you, an amused grin across his face.
“Totoro huh?” He asked with a chuckle.
“I-If you don’t like it you can take the black one.” You said, your cheeks red.
“Nah, I like this one. It’s cute.” He said with a big smile before he started to walk away.
He turned back to you as he stepped out in the rain, waving to you. “Thanks again, I’ll be sure to give this back!”
You watched him walk away before stepping away from the bus stop yourself and heading towards the building you worked in. As much as you wanted this job, sometimes you felt dread as you saw the building come into view. You never got any of the exciting things to write about, just boring old ads for newspapers, and sometimes you got lucky enough to post the daily comic. How nice it was to see Garfields face while typing. Even with all the overtime and running around you do for your boss and everyone else, you didn’t feel as though they truly appreciated you.
You stepped through the doors and made your way to the break room, a small smile on your face when you saw a cup of iced coffee with a note and your name attached to it. Out of everyone in the building, only one of them truly appreciated you. You both did this thing where you’d get each other coffee here and there, or leave little bags of treats.
“Hey Yujun.” You said as you walked past his cubicle. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“No problem Y/N, Jihya isn’t in today, so maybe you’ll be able to write something juicy for once.” He said as he gave you a bright smile.
You gave him a thumbs up as you made your way to your cubicle, setting down your bag and your coffee. Jihya was only a position above you, but she constantly acted as though she was the CEO. Which meant, she was a total bitch.
“Y/N.” Your boss called.
You stood up and bowed as he strolled over to you, a small smile on his face. “Jihya is going to be off for the next few days, so I’ll need you to write this.”
He handed you a small handful of papers and you smiled at him and nodded. “I’ll do my best Mr. Jang.”
Though you never felt like Mr. Jang totally liked you, he was rather kind. He kept everything he said to you short and sweet. You weren’t sure if he was just shy or if he truly didn’t like talking to anyone… Or maybe it was just you.
You set the papers down and looked through it, excitement making your eyes gleam. It was your first real story you’d be writing for, though the situation wasn’t anything to be excited about. The day before, a small bomb went off in a cafe. Though it wasn’t big, there were a few casualties, one being a young child. There had been an uprise in mafia groups and gangs recently, a lot more crime and dangerous activity appearing. You read through the papers, highlighting important parts and a few lines from a few interviews that a few others were able to get.
Your fingers rapidly glided across your keyboard, your eyes steadily watching the screen as words flowed out of your fingertips. You went over every paragraph multiple times, checking for any spelling or grammar mistakes, your eyes sharp. Lunch came around faster than usual, and honestly, you were close to skipping it. The story and your opportunity to really impress your boss and the company giving you too much excitement.
“You coming to lunch?” Yujun asked.
“Nah, I’m doing this story.” You said, not taking your eyes off of the screen.
“Y/N, I know you’re excited for this, but you need to get some energy!” He scolded you. “And looking at a screen like that for too long at a time is going to give you a headache.”
You sighed, knowing he was right.
“I know… I just got so wrapped up in the fact that I finally got something!”
“I know, it’s exciting getting your first big story, but once you get hungry or your head starts hurting, you won’t be able to focus.” He pointed out. “And you need to be on your A game for this one.”
“You’re right.” You said with a smile, standing up and stretching. “I guess I should listen to you.”
“You guess?” He chuckled.
You followed Yujun into the break room, finally feeling grateful for the hour break you got. You had plenty of time to eat and think about what else you wanted to write for the article. You rummaged through your bag for your lunch, and realized you had grabbed the second umbrella after noticing it was raining instead of your lunch.
“Shit.” You cursed under your breath.
“Forget your lunch?” Yujun asked.
“Yeah.” You sighed. “I grabbed my second umbrella instead… Which I, by the way, gave to some stranger on the street since he forgot one.”
“Well, it’s your lucky day.” Yujun said, reaching into his book bag and pulling out a second cup of noodles. “I brought two.”
“It’s like we were destined for each other.” You laughed as he handed you the cup of noodles.
You both sat there eating and you observed Yujun’s face. He was a couple years younger than you, and his face really proved his youth. He looked much younger than he actually was, his large eyes passing him off as a young high schooler. Despite him being a few years younger, you preferred him to not use honorifics with you, considering you were both pretty close.
“You’re writing about the bomb that went off, right?” Yujun asked.
“Yeah, thank goodness Jihya’s sick.” You said with a smile. “As fucked up as it sounds.”
“Not fucked up, accurate.” Yujun said, an evil little grin on his face.
You laughed as you stuck your chopsticks into your noodles, finally bringing them to your lips and sighing happily.
“Noodles are the best to have when it’s chilly and rainy.” You said.
“I agree.” He said muffly, a mouth full of noodles stuffing his cheeks.
You laughed at the way he looked, cheeks puffed out, large innocent eyes bigger than usual. He smiled at you through his stuffed cheeks and chewed, covering his mouth politely as he spoke.
“How’s the article coming?” He asked.
“So far so good, I’m so immersed in it. It feels so good to be able to get an ACTUAL job.” You said with a smile.
Yujun gave you an all too knowing nod. “It took forever to actually get a good story myself, no one ever believes in us little guys. They always give the good stuff to the seniors.”
You nodded in agreement, feeling sorry for Yujun. He had been here a year longer than you, and he had just recently gotten his first big story about two months back.
“What do you have so far?” He asked.
You reached into your bag and took out a dark purple folder, sliding the paper with the information out. You pointed out everything you’ve highlighted so far, and you realized that this was the perfect opportunity to get help from someone who's worked on stories like this. You explained thoroughly what you had gotten down so far, and how you worded certain areas. Yujun listened carefully, and even took a pen out from his bag and circled certain things you had down to add a word or two, or pointed out a few more things.
“I’m impressed, this is really good.” Yujun said.
“I still made quite a few mistakes.” You sighed.
Yujun patted your shoulder and gave you a soft smile.
“Listen, this is your first big story. It’s not going to be perfect your first try, and it won’t be your second. We all make small mistakes or tend to leave things out, or we could even use bigger and better words. I still make mistakes, and I made ten times the amount you made on my first try.” Yujun pointed out.
“Really? You made a lot of mistakes?” You asked.
“Hell yeah, the unfortunate part for me is that Jihya was the one who went over mine, and I got an eraser pegged at my face.” He laughed.
“Really?!” You gasped.
“Yup. Bounced right off my nose.” He chuckled. “So you’re pretty lucky you got me to be the one to check it over.”
“Yeah, I guess I am.” You laughed.
You both checked the time and headed back to your cubicles, and you quickly opened your laptop, hurrying to change what Yujun suggested. He had left you quite a few notes as references to what words and phrases you could use while writing the article. Your fingers fired away on the keyboard, your eyes going back and forth between your notes and your laptop. The hours ticked away a lot faster than usual, and you jumped when Yujun came over to your desk.
“Ready to head home?” He asked.
“For once, no.” You chuckled, shaking your head. “I can’t believe it’s 5;30 already.”
“Believe it Toots.” He said with a smile. “You heading out?”
“Ya know what, I think I’m gonna stay a bit longer.” You said. “Try and get some of this done. I need enough time to write it out and thoroughly go through it.”
“I understand, don’t get too caught up in it.” Yujun said. “I did that my first real story, and I lost days of sleep.”
“I’ll try not too.” You said reassuringly.
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He said, waving goodbye to you.
You waved back then hunched closer to your laptop, pulling the papers with the story on it closer so you could highlight key points. You looked through all the papers and found the interviews with key witnesses, taking the important ones and rewriting them and highlighting major points. The persistent tapping of your laptop keyboard filling the empty room.
The hours quickly ticked away, and you were startled by the door to the main office opening. You looked up and saw Mr. Jang looking at you, a little confused,
“What are you still doing here Y/N?” He asked.
“Sorry Mr. Jang, I’m still working on the story you gave me, and I lost track of time. I wasn’t going to stay this long.” You said quickly, shocked to see that it was 8PM.
“It’s no trouble Y/N, I appreciate you staying and devoting yourself to your work.” He said with a kind smile. “But I do need to lock up.”
“Oh, no problem!” You said hurriedly, getting up and closing your laptop, taking your notes and putting them in your bag. “Sorry, I didn’t clock out. I won’t expect overtime.”
“You worked over time, didn’t you?” He asked with a chuckle. “I’m not worried about paying you for overtime, Y/N. Like I said, I appreciate you devoting yourself to your work.”
You bowed to him and he gave you another kind smile before opening the front door for you and locking it.
“Will you be okay getting home with it being this dark?” He asked.”Do you need a ride?”
“Oh, I should be okay.” You reassured him. “I appreciate that though!”
He gave you a smile and headed to his care, and you smiled as you turned and walked towards your apartment. The smell of the recent rain and early spring put you in an even better mood than before, and you decided that, when you get home, you’ll order out some noodles and continue to go over the papers and continue highlighting and writing down key points and what you’d like to put into your article. You could use your personal laptop and type what you need to, then email it to yourself so you could copy and paste it to what you have.
You got to the front of the building and went to open the door, and noticed it was locked. Of course, it would be locked. The first time since you moved in it’s locked, and your key to the front had broken. Your landlord, however, had given you a key to the basement, just in case this would happen.
You groaned as you started to make your way to the back of the building, which was connected to multiple alleyways, and sat right across from the back of a few places. You began to come around the back when you spotted something familiar on the ground. You bent down and picked it up, a scoff leaving your lips. It was your Totoro umbrella, it had been open and just laying on the ground.
If he didn’t like it, he shouldn’t have taken it!
You were ripped from your thoughts as you stared down at a dark mark that covered the one side. You stuck your hand towards it and touched it, noticing it was really warm compared to what the rest of the umbrella felt like. You looked down at your hand and noticed it was red.
Is this...Blood?
Your head shot up when you heard voices, and you quickly pressed yourself against the building. The surface colder than usual because of the rain, goosebumps beginning to adorn your skin. You slowly peaked over the side of the building, and noticed four men standing around another, who was on the ground. You noticed one of the men kick the one on the ground as he went to get up, and he grunted as he hit the ground hard. The man who had kicked him lifted him by his shirt, and your breath got caught in your throat.
It was the man from earlier. His leather jacket was gone, the white shirt that had been beneath it stained a dark red on the side of his stomach, and small red drops from the blood from his lip stained the neck of it. You heard the man holding him up say something, and the man from earlier rasped out a response that got him thrown onto the concrete, and a swift kick to the spot that was bleeding heavily. He let out a short wheeze, his hands trembling as he slowly started to get up. The same man kicked him again, knocking him over. He kicked him multiple times until one of the other men pulled him off, two others approaching the one on the ground.
One held him down while the other stuck a syringe in his neck, making him jerk. They held him down for about two minutes before he went limp, his eyes closing.
“What did you give him?” The one that had been kicking him asked.
“120 Milligrams of Ketamine. It should last about 30 minutes, and when he wakes up, he’ll be too sick to do anything.” The one who had pushed the syringe into his neck said.
“Perfect.” The other responded.
He and two of the other men began to walk away, when he whistled for the one who had administered the drug. “When you hear my signal, come out to the truck, we’re gonna go talk to Boss then we’ll get him in the truck.”
The other nodded as the three walked away. You pressed yourself against the wall between the building and the dumpster. The three men didn’t notice you, and you watched them head away from the small alleyway. You had to think of something, and you had to think fast.
You waited a few minutes before mimicking the man's whistle as best as you could, and the man standing by the one from earlier looked around.
“Already? That was fast.” He said to himself as he began to walk towards you.
You pressed against the wall and held your breath as he passed, waiting until he was completely out of sight before hurrying over to the man on the ground. You dropped down beside him and checked his pulse, feeling it pulsating fast. You quickly got up and unlocked the door to the basement, fumbling with your keys as your hands shook. You quickly unlocked it then hurried over to the man, bending down and wrapping his arm over your shoulder. You quickly dragged him into the doorway, a gasp leaving your lips as you fell, forgetting that the stairs were very steep. You were just able to catch yourself, but cringed when you heard the man fall onto the hard concrete floor of the basement.
“Sorry…” You muttered as you looked down at him, facedown.
He didn’t respond, and you quickly shut and locked the basement door before hurrying back down the stairs. The dim light didn’t do much, so you flashed your phone's flashlight over where he was bleeding on the side of his stomach. A deep gash was showing through the rip in his shirt, and your stomach turned.
“Were you stabbed?” You whispered, though you knew you weren’t going to get an answer.
You quickly took your cardigan off, and gently lifted it enough so you could wrap it around his waist. It was a good thing you liked long cardigans, because you were able to double wrap it and tighten and press the knot to his wound to stop the bleeding.
You kept your hands over the knot, pressing it against his wound for a couple minutes as you thought of what to do. You jumped when you heard the men outside of the door, hearing them yelling and cursing.
“Let’s get you up to my apartment.” You said, gently sticking your hand out and feeling his pulse again.
It had calmed down only slightly, but the feeling of his warm, smooth skin under your hands felt… Weird. You shook off the feeling and gently lifted him, keeping his arm wrapped around your neck as you began to drag him towards the stairs leading up the apartments.
*bonk*
You gasped as you accidentally hit his head off of one of the pipes that stuck out.
“Sorry.” You said softly.
*bonk*
Another pipe, straight to the noggin.
“Sorry!” You apologized again, moving him over.
*BONK*
“OH MY GOD!”
When you finally got him to the last stair, you began to wonder if he would’ve been better off being taken by the other guys. He had gotten quite the beating just from you trying to help him. You opened the door leading out of the basement and began to head towards the elevator to get to your floor.
You were glad that mainly old people lived here, knowing everyone should be asleep and no questions should be asked. You got off of the elevator, your back beginning to hurt from holding his weight and your own.
“Ms. Y/N?”
You froze, slowly turning and making eye contact with Mrs. Boo, one of your neighbors. She looked at you worriedly, glancing at Chan.
“Did something happen?” She asked.
“Oh, uh, my friend here and I went to the bar when I was done work. He got a little too drunk and then a huge bar fight happened.” You said with a reassuring smile.
“Oh! You young people can be so careless!” She said.
“Yeah, you got that right.” You said. “Well I’m gonna get him inside and treat these bruises, have a good night Mrs. Boo!”
“You too, dear.” She said with a smile as she slowly stepped back into her own apartment.
You reached for your keys, slowly losing your grip on him and his head went straight into your door.
“.... God dammit.” You muttered as you unlocked the door.
His body slid forward but you were able to catch him, a huff leaving your lips.
“Aht aht aht, I caught you that time.” You said.
You leaned him sitting up against your wall as you quickly cleared off your kitchen table, finally testing out just how sturdy the fine wood was.
Hauling him up the stairs was a chore, but getting him up on the table after hauling him up multiple flights of stairs was a new challenge. When you finally got him up on the table, turned on all three of the lights in the kitchen/dining room area. You slowly ripped his shirt where the injury was, and you were finally able to get a good look at it.
It was deep and fleshy, but didn’t look life threatening. You noticed his eyes clench, and a heavy breath left his lips.
“Sir? Are you okay?” You asked.
His eyes slowly fluttered open, his breathing labored. His eyes roamed until they landed on you, and he squinted hard.
“Hey, are you okay?” You asked.
His eyes finally focused, and he looked over your face.
“It’s you… From earlier.” He rasped.
“Yeah, I saw what those men were doing to you. You were behind my apartment building.” You told him.
He slowly nodded, a small puff of air leaving his lips.
“I’ll call and ambulance for you.” You said, reaching for your phone.
His hand shot out and grabbed yours, his breathing more harsh.
“No ambulances… No cops.” He rasped..
“Why not? Those men could’ve killed you!” You pointed out.
“Please…” He rasped.
You were silent as you looked him over, bloody and almost pitiful.
“I have a needle and some thread for sewing, I can give you stitches.” You said.
He nodded as you hurried over to the cabinet above your kitchen sink, grabbing the sewing kit. You grabbed some salt, some water, a water bottle, the first aid kit, and the bottle of vodka you’ve had for months.
“I’m gonna disinfect the needle with the vodka okay? I’m gonna pour some salt over the wound to make sure it doesn’t get infected.” You told him. (Salt dehydrates bacteria by pulling the water out of it)
He nodded and kept his eyes closed as you poured some of the vodka onto the needle, gently placing it on a paper towel. You poured some of the sea salt into your hand then pressed it into his wound. His breathing hitched, but he didn’t protest or move, then his whole body relaxed.
“I don’t have anything to numb it.” You said gently. “But I have the vodka and I have a water bottle.”
He nodded as you pressed the cold water bottle against his face, as he had been sweating, and he closed his eyes. You went to see if he wanted some of the vodka, but he turned away from it.
“Just please… Get it done and over with.” He rasped.
You slowly nodded as you put the black thread through the needle and slowly leaned forward, getting a good hold on the skin before pushing it through. His body tense, but he didn’t make a sound or jerk around. You kept glancing at him every time the needle pierced into the wounded skin, until the last part of the thread finally close the wound completely.
“It’s over now.” You said gently, grabbing a rag and gently dabbing at the blood.
He softly nodded, his eyes closed and lips slightly parted as he breathed raggedly. You gently pushed the hair out of his face, cringing at a big bruise on the side of his head from you bumping his head off of every possible pipe in the basement…. And quite possibly for from when you dropped him.
You opened the water bottle and gently lifted his head, pouring a little in his mouth. A small amount of color came back to his face as the water entered his body, and his eyes fluttered open again.
“Thank you.” He said hoarsely.
You nodded as you wiped the sweat off of his chest and face, being as gentle as you can as his eyes closed again. Now that he wasn’t watching you, your eyes lowered to his body.
Oh sweet baby Jesus.
You shook your head and lightly hit it before cleaning up all the bloody paper towels and putting everything back in its place. Most of your apartment was dark, and you guess that’s how you didn’t realize the person standing behind you, until a cold metal was placed against your neck.
Your whole body froze, and you lifted your hands in submission, your knees shaking.
“Who the hell are you?” A man’s voice asked in your ear.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? Since you’re in my apartment?” You asked.
You felt the sharpness of the Metal press harder into your neck, and your whole body began to tremble.
“Hyunjin…” The man on your table rasped. “Stop.”
The man who had the knife to your neck slowly lowered it. He kept a hold on you as he approached the man laying on the table.
“Chan Hyung, what happened?” The man named Hyunjin asked.
Chan? That’s his name?
“Some of Yohyuns men.” Chan rasped. “She saved me.”
You finally got a look at Hyunjin’s face. He was pretty, sharp eyes meeting yours as he kept a hard expression.
“Sorry for the knife to your neck.” He said, before turning back to Chan. “Felix and Jisung are outside, we can bring you home.”
Chan nodded, his eyes opening as they met yours.
“What’s your name?” He asked in a raspy voice.
“Y/N.” You answered.
He gave you a soft smile, and you couldn’t help but ask yourself how anyone could hurt him.
“Thank you, Y/N. I’ll have to repay you someday.” He said.
“Don’t worry about that, worry about getting better.” You said.
Hyunjin gave a small smile of approval and then leaned forward and held Chan up. Chan looked at you again, his honey brown eyes a little brighter as he slightly bowed to you. You held the door for the two of them as Hyunjin held Chan up, and you watched them disappear into the elevator.
When they had gone, you dropped yourself onto your couch, looking at your curling.
“What a crazy night.” You murmured to yourself.
You quickly checked your phone, a sigh of relief leaving your lips when you realzed it was only 9:15. Your favorite noodle place closed at 10, so you had enough time to order and have it delivered.
When the noodles came, you left a pretty nice tip to the delivery driver for delivering right before close, and then you sat at your desk and quickly took your notes out. You stuffed your face with noodles as you read over everything, continuing to highlight what you needed.
Hours ticked on, the clock striking 6 AM a lot faster than you expected. Looks like you weren’t getting any sleep, not that you could sleep anyways. This project was too big, too important, and the events from the night before kept replaying in your head. You had wanted your life to pick up a little bit, but not this much in one day. This was almost too much to ask for.
You finally got up to shower and get ready for work, applying a few layers of concealer to hide the bags that would rat you out to Yujun. He might be able to tell you haven’t slept either way, but you could at least hope you could find a way to hide them.
You quickly organized your notes and papers and packed them up, finally heading out the door. It had rained again, not that you were surprised. The deep puddles nearly enough to swallow your ankles if you were unlucky enough to not pay attention. You were surprised you were able to focus, the project and Chan completely occupying your mind.
“Stay up all night?” Yujun’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts as you entered the building.
“Damn, hardly even looked at me and already caught me.” You chuckled.
He smiled at you and patted your head, his eyes soft.
“You should really rest ya know.” He said. “Rest is a key part to writing good articles.”
“I know, I was just too excited.” You said.
You didn’t want to tell him about the Chan situation, not wanting to worry him. You trusted Yujun a lot, but for some reason other than not wanting to worry him, you found it better not to say anything.
Xx
You sat in your cubicle, fingers clicking away. The day had gone by fast, and everyone had left already. It was a Friday, which meant you all left pretty early. Usually you were out of the office by 2:30-3 the latest, but today, you couldn’t help but be glued to your laptop. You were so close to finishing the article, you could practically already see it, printed in fine lettering. This whole article could completely make or destroy your career, and you were getting more anxious, yet excited, as you slowly got closer to the end.
You only had a few paragraphs left, but you glanced at the clock. It was going on 6, and you knew Mr. Jang wanted to leave soon, as he had always left at 6 instead of 8 on Friday’s.
“Still here again?” He asked.
You turned towards him as he stepped out of his office, a smile on your face.
“I’m almost done… Could you look it over for me? If you have the time?” You asked.
“Of course.” He said with a smile as he walked over.
His eyes scanned your laptop, his fingers lightly hovering over the pad to scroll down or up to read. His eyes were intensely scanning the words, each paragraph being implanted in his brain.
When he finished he pulled away. He looked at you, the same expression his face changing as he smiled.
“I like it. I like it a lot actually. Keep up the good work, I now know what you’re capable of.” He said with a bigger smile. “Big things are going to start coming your way, Y/N.”
You beamed at his praise, a huge smile on your face as you bowed to him.
“Thank you so much Mr. Jang!” You said excitedly.
He walked you out of the office, waving goodbye to you as you turned towards the direction of your apartment. You looked up at the darkening sky, inhaling deeply, a big smile on your face. You began to walk home, stopping in the little convenient store for a few snacks and a quick dinner. You grabbed some of the pork dumplings they had, your stomach rumbling.
You approached the front door to your apartment building, and you sighed in relief when the door opened. Thank god it wasn’t locked again, you don’t need more stress like last night.
You entered the elevator and pressed the button to go up to your floor, when you felt a sudden wave of dread. Something felt off, and you couldn’t tell what it was. You clutched the plastic bag with your snacks in it, and decided to brush it off.
You just got great news about your career, why are you worrying now? Nothing could ruin this moment for you, and you weren’t going to let anything destroy your hope.
You got off of the elevator and walked over to the door, unlocking it and stepping inside. Your whole apartment was dark, and the skin on your neck and back began to crawl as the same eerie feeling began to haunt you. You walked over towards the light switch when a cold metal touched your temple, a soft click filling your ears. Your body shook, your eyes making out a dark figure beside you.
“W-Who are you?” You asked.
“You made the biggest mistake of your life getting involved.” A man’s voice growled. “Unfortunately, it’s costing you your life.”
Your hands shook as tears filled your eyes. “Please don’t… I won’t tell anyone.”
The cold metal pressed against the skin on your temple, a soft chuckle leaving the man’s lips.
“I don’t give a shit who you would’ve told, you were an idiot for saving that man. You took away an opportunity for me, and the only way to pay that back is your life.”
You heard the safety click and closed your eyes tight, your whole body shaking. You heard a weird squelching sound and a choked gasp. The gun fell away from your head and you slowly opened your eyes.
Another man stood over the one that held the gun to your head, and the moonlight illuminated the man. It was the one that had been kicking Chan the night before, a knife was sticking out of his neck, his eyes open and wide.
The other man you didn’t recognize. He wore a black hat and dark clothing, his eyes meeting yours.
“Are you hurt?” He asked.
“N-No…” You whispered shakily.
“Are you Y/N?” He asked.
You nodded and he slowly approached you.
“I was sent here to come get you, and it looks like I got here just in time.” He said. “Come with me.”
You didn’t ask any questions. If your mother was here, she'd scold you for willingly just following a stranger. But he had just saved you, so he can’t be all that bad, right? As you were stepping out the door, you smelled smoke, and quickly turned around. A fire was starting to smoke up the living room, and you went to go towards it when the man stopped you.
“Leave it.” He said, pulling you away with him.
He took you down the emergency stairs so no one would see you, and when you reached the side of the building, you heard the fire alarm blaring.
“Hurry.” The man said lowly.
You followed him to an Escalade, the giant dark truck reflecting the flames that were beginning to burst through your open apartment window. You watched it for a second, your heart shattering.
Everything you had ever worked for was in that apartment. The project, your degree, all the money you had put into making the place feel like home… It was all gone.
“Come on, we can’t stick around.” His voice snapped you out of your thoughts.
You shakily opened the passenger side door and got in, finally getting a good look at your savior. He was short, shorter than most guys. His dark hair hung in his eyes as the hat he had on flattened it even more. He was wearing all black, and the gloves he wore had blood splattered in them.
“I’m Changbin.” He introduced himself.
You wanted to respond, but nothing came out. Your throat was dry from holding your tears back, so you just gave him a stiff nod. Your eyes wandered out the window as a big cloud of back smoke hung in the sky from your apartment building. It began to grow smaller as Changbin drove you away, taking you away from the dream you had chased for so long.
Changbin finally pulled into a massive drive way, the whole thing circling a massive fountain. Your eyes were wide as you looked at the mansion, statues and art carved into the columns sticking out, even in the dark.
“Follow me.” He said.
You slowly stepped out of the truck, and stiffly followed him up the giant stairs. He opened the two giant doors to the mansion, and you stared at the entrance. Another fountain was in the middle of an archway, and two sets of staircases that twirled around sat on each side. The place smelled like gingerbread, and the beautiful white and gold walls were bright, almost blindingly bright.
“Did you retrieve her?” A voice asked as a head popped around the fountain.
“Yes, this is Y/N.” Changbin introduced you.
The younger male smiled at you, his dark eyes sparkling.
“I’m Felix.” He said, beckoning for you to follow. “Come with me, someone wants to see you.” He said, leading you and Changbin through a giant hallway.
You heard more voices as you got closer, and you decided to stay closer to Changbin. Felix opened a giant door and multiple heads turned, but only one caught your attention. It was Chan.
“Y/N.” He called to you, a smile on his face.
His lips were still cut up, and he had a bruise on his jaw, but his eyes were shining. He stepped towards you, a big smile on his face.
“It’s good to see you.” He said, his smile faltering when he saw your expression. “What’s wrong? Didn’t something happen?”
“One of Yohyun’s men got into her apartment. I got there just in time.” Changbin told him.
“I made the right decision sending you when I did.” Chan said, his expression completely changed.
He looked down at you and stretched his hand out, gently touching your shoulder.
“You’re safe here, okay?” He said.
“W-Whats going on?” You asked.
Chan sighed but gave you a soft smile.
“When you saved me, you ruined plans for them. You see… I’m a very wanted man right now.” He explained. “And I knew they would find out who had saved me, and I knew you’d be in danger.”
“Why would I be in danger for saving you?” You asked.
“Because like I said, I’m a very wanted man.” He said softly. “You stole a… Big bounty from them.”
You were silent as Chan rubbed your shoulder, his warm touch almost comforting.
“What if they look for me again?” You asked.
“We won’t let them hurt you, Y/N.” Chan said.
“And where will I go?” You asked. “My apartment was on fire… I lost everything…”
Chan’s eyes were soft as he looked at you, a soft sigh leaving his lips.
“You’re going to uh.. Have to stay here… With the eight of us.”
#bang chan#bang chan stray kids#stray kids bang chan#bang chan skz#skz#skz chan#skz imagines#skz mafia au#skz bang chan#stray kids#chan stray kids#straykids#stray kids au#stray kids mafia au
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Scottrospective: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together! or Days of Summer
Hello all you happy scottaholics! Welcome back to those of you who’ve read the rest of this retrospective and welcome to those of you just joining us. This is the Scottrospective, my look at all 6 volumes of Scott Pilgrim, the game and the movie. It’s all the video game refrenes, slice of life story telling and boob punches you can handle!
It’s been three months since I left off with “The Infinite Sadness” , and while I intended to cover this one for Valentine’s Day, my schedule got away from me and with March being full up, this ended taking till April
I”m not too put off by it though as the hiatus between these two reviews is fitting for this one both in story and out. In story there’s a couple month time skip between books, while out.. this book got delayed a few times.
This is notable to me at least because this was the first volume of the series I bought when it came out. As i’ve brought up before I came into the series via the Free Comic Book Day Issue and the second and third volumes, picking one up later. I still have my original copies despite no longer really needing them thanks to having the color editions in general. Always will provided something dosne’t happen to them. So this was my first instalment that I got to read fresh and got to wait for and be hyped about and i’d saved enough money that I was able to pre-order it. So the experince of waiting and waiting for the book only to keep seeing it slide back is vivid in my mind as is the frustration I felt having the one thing I COULD NOT WAIT FOR, keep going further and further back.
So with this long wait and the fact I bought this one when it came out, as I would for the next two which didn’t get delayed thank god, this volume naturally means a lot for me. When I wrote Scott Pilgrim fanfiction, this volume’s status quo is what I based it on. It was the coolest to me and the one I loved to reread the most. It has the most contained story, the most character growth at the time, and the best art due to Bryan’s style having finally hit it’s stride. Not that the art for volumes 1-3 is bad mind you, but it’s very clear his style was changing and shaping into what it is now with each one and while it’d change a bit more, this volume is where the style and quality everyone thinks of when they think of this series and the kind you see on various art done from it comes from.
So as you can tell i’m excited for this one. Before we get started there WERE two shorter comics released between this one both for Free Comic Book day, the first of which, Free Scott Pilgrim, is the reason I got into the series and the second, the Wonderful World of Kim Pine .. was both delightful and sets up Kim moving in with Hollie for this volume. Originally I intended to cover these in this review.. but I realized they wouldn’t of helped the pacing and this review is going to be way longer than my standard as is.
So instead I came up with the compromise. I did review them.. but as bonus reviews on my patreon. For just one buck a month you can read them and help me reach my stretch goals which now include reviews of Lost at Sea, Seconds and SnotGirl, aka Bryan’s OTHER comics. You can find my patreon THROUGH THIS LINK HERE if your intrested in the exclusives or helping me reach my reviews. I also intend to do an exclusive of Monica Beetle, a short comic Bryan did starring Scott’s dad in the 70s at some point so keep your eyes peeled for that, as well as the three strips he did of Style, the comic that gave us the prototypes for Lisa and Kim.
I will talk about their connections and setups for this volume briefly: FSP sets up the next ex as a ninja, with Roxy having a bunch of posters come to live and pummel our boy, while Wonderful World has Hollie tell Kim she can move in with her. It’s not much, hence why i made these exclusives but they are good stories, so check them out. And with that JOIN ME UNDER THE CUT, as we enter Scott’s world once more as he grapples with the past, employment, and saying the L-Word... which might be Lesbians. I don’t know. Find out bellow!
So we open Two Months after Volume 3 with a beach birthday party! Complete with Kim in a swim suit!
But it’s for Julie who lobs a volley ball at Scott’s head when he and Ramona try to make out.
I also dont’ know if “Manfiesting out of all the world’s collectives sorrows” counts as a “birth” necessarily but whatever. I love a good beach story. It’s just a fun setitng for swimming, romance and battling a giant crab with the help of the bird what lives in your backpack.
So after the beach our heroes get dinner and Ramona sweetly calls Scott the nicest guy she’s ever dated. He responds with “That’s sad”. Blunt, but entirely accruate. Julie calls it pathetic and tries to counter Ramona RIGHTFULLY saying “who the hell asked you?” something that really should come after EVERYTHING Julie said with “Back off bitch i’ts my birthday”
So later that night Sex Bomb-Omb has a beach sing along, and I can’t help but notice Neil’s hairy legs.
I mean yes it does make since for a 19 year old to have leg hair, but of all the characters besides Stephen, the ONLY other character we’ve seen it with to give it to, why the character you specifically single out as “Young” it’s just a weird choice I never noticed before.
But anyways Julie has to whine about it because she’s Julie, she can’t stand other people being happy and complains the song...
One of my faviorite moments of the series. Knives puts a nicer spin on it, she’s here too and not over with Neil because, as we’ll find out later they broke up, but she just asks if Knives should be drinking. She shouldn’t but for fucks sake lady she was just trying to talk. I also do like that despite Julie trying to control Ramona’s love life, you know the thing the VILLIANS are doing, Ramona cannot stand her now.. and honestly probably never did.
But Julie, SOMEHOW turns out to be right for once as Kim and Knives have disappeared later that night, and Scott elects to go look for them. Also Ramona says she wants to marry kim while drunk after Julie asks if she does. The throuple is strong with these three... serioulsy that’s my one true pairing for all three now. I mean it ballances out their collective flaws, it’s cute and Ramona is just as into her boyfriends ex as she is her actual boyfriend even when she’s not hamered. Why the fuck not?
Scott instead finds the two making out. I will confess I shipped these two when I was younger.. but I don’t. Not because their gay or anything or because I found another ship for them but because the age gap is still just as wide as it was for Scott. The game did not get this memo and made them a couple which is... ehhhhhhhhh. I mean I wouldn’t mind either being bi, but it just brings up the same problems even if their both hammered. I also question why this scene exists. No really outside of one face punchingly dickish comment from Scott later, this never comes up again and it doesn’t effect Kim’s or Knives character any. Why have this? it’s clearly not fanservice, it’s just a thing that happened. And while Scott Pilgrim as a series does have some of those, as does life and that’s fine.. this is a bit too major, i.e. Kim and Knives, two of the main cast, making out, drunkenly or not, to just.. gloss over you know? I feel Kim would feel majorly guilty for this, as she has the most active moral compass of the main group, and Knives would be massively confused but it’s just.. forgotten because I dunno. In a story that’s otherwise pretty stellar this stands out as an utter waste of potential. I’m not saying have them hook up, gay or not it’s still not better than what Scott did, but have them at least talk about it and have both grow or something from it. Sheesh.
So we cut to.. another day. Maybe the next day I dunno but it’s August. Point is Scott and Wallace are grocery shopping and Wallace notes they can’t get fancy mayo as their barely in budget. I would’ve glossed over this scene... but @panur
pointed out back around the Infinite Sadness review that this scene reveals something very intrestng: Scott.. is kind of a fincial burdern to Wallace. Before this while Scott mooched off him it wasn’t all that clear that Wallace was struggling.
But here we notice that outside of some Havarti, it’s just the simplest stuff imaginable: turkey, bread, boxed mac and cheese ramen noodles... it’s nto BAD stuff, I have all of that in my house and it’s good stuff... but it’s not the kind of thing that you need to carefully budget for. Now granted part of this probably is Wallace as he likely spends a LOT on drinks, condoms and two 2 liters of diet soda a day.. but while he really needs to adress his alcohol issues, the rest is fair. He should be allowed to have as much sex and diet coke as he wants it’s his money. Same with the havarti. He earned it if he wants some really delcious cheese with herbs, seriously Havarati is the best, then that’s his bidness. But the rest of the time he’s barely managing to get a basketfull of cheap food.. because he has to provide for Scott. It’s clearly something Scott dosen’t get and something I can relate to not getting. It took me a while to get how hard it is to budget for a full family, let alone two people on one income like Wallace has to. But Wallace is working on a nice job... but still a call center or something. He can’t pay for everything and the finccial stress is about to give as their landlord wants to meet with them. And as we’re about to learn things were even worse than we thought.
Our heroes head home where we get a truly iconic conversation when, over margeritas (again proving my point that while Scott certainly isn’t HELPIGN wallace’s finacials, it’s not all on him)
This will be imporant later.. both the Lesbians part and Scott’s struggle saying it. he tried earlier on the beach but couldn’t get it out and Ramona clearly didn’t want to hear it as she kapt sshhhhing him.. playfully of course but still.
So some time later it’s moving day! Kim is moving into Hollie and Josephs, and Scott, Stephen and Jason are helping. You might be wondeirng who the hell Jason is. He’s Kim’s boyfriend. I do not likes him. Not because he’s kim’s boyfriend, getting upset because a fictional character you fancy is dating is just patently stupid. I’ts like getting upset a celebrity crush is in a relationship: you had no chance anyway why. I wasn’t even bothered as a kid. I don’t really like him.. because he has no real personaliy and no real baring on the plot and I struggle to think why Bryan included him other than for a really annoying plot twist next time, which does not help my liking him knowing what’s coming.
But while our heroes help our heroine move in, and Scott is suprised Hollie is there despite Kim having told him a minute ago she was moving in with her, something I can relate to sadly, we get something vitally plot important; Stephen passes Joseph’s room.. and notices he has a small recording setup in his room. Stephen quickly begs him to record the band’s album and Joseph agrees if only because he finds Stephen hot. Eh i’ve seen better relationships start on less, fair enough. And yes I said relationship more on that in a bit.
So after a brief scene of Scott and Ramona having lunch where Scott fails to know her age and when Ramona says he could just ask.. hea sks and she dosen’t tell, not a bad scene character wise just not very plot important and probably should’ve bene swapped in order with the previous scene, we get to the next day. There’s a heat wave so Wallace orders Scott to go to the mall maybe find a job. He emphasises that.
Instead Scott just sorta bums around thirst but nto having any money.. until an old face shows up.
For those who forgot like Scott has, it’s Lisa Miller from the Volume 2 flashback, the girl who had a crush on Scott and was close friends with him and Kim. After a tackle hug and some panic Scott eventually remembers.... if in a curiously unique and self serving way
At the time this was just hilarous. Now it’s very clear foreshadowing for the big twist in Volume 6. The two catch up while Scott is very clearly attracted to her but very clearly dosen’t want to be, with Lisa wondering where kim is, finding about Ramona, etc, before offering Scott lunch as the two catch up and Scott is very conflicted about how he feels. It’s nice visual stuff as he’s blushing, something more clear in the color version and trying to desperatley sort things out. As for why Lisa’s here she’s moving to the states soon, but is staying with her sister for now.
So after an incdental scene with Wallace we catch up with Knives, who has broken up with Neil. And after some talk about Clash at the Demonhead, Tamra notes Knives apparently put a big x on her shrine of Scott... which baffles Knifves as she sure as hell didn’t do it and is still, sadly, obessed with Scott as ever. Granted Tamra isn’t at all helpful here claiming she did it even when she says she didn’t, is clearly confused and while yes we don’t know who else would care Tams, that just makes it all the more creepy. Stop gaslighting your bestie, she’s already got enoguh issues. She dosen’t need thinking she might have a split personality on top of the stalking, obession over a guy who has no intrest in loving her back, and attempted stabbings. Knives dosesn’t get a ton of focus in this one sadly. She kind of takes a back seat, and while sh’es not GONE from the volumle and someone close to her does impact it, she dosen’t really have any personal progression, negative or positive, like she does in every other volume, a shame since her personal jouney is one of the most intresting of the main cast.
Anyways that night Scott hangs out with Lisa, having not gotten around to telling Ramona she exists yet and plays a game of find the Kim Pine. She goes to Neil’ and Stephen’s place for practice, but finds no one there and Neil being a dick... get used to that it’s going to get about 80 times worse soon enough. Though we do get this classic panel i’ve gotten some use out of
He goes to Kim’s place, but she , Hollie and Satan’s Misterss have all left to Sneaky Dee’s, the local mexican place, for something to eat and Stephen is either high or doing.. something with Joseph.
Yeah i’m not hiding that Stephen turns out to be gay in the final volume or cheating on Bitch and a Half with Joseph. And even if I hate Julie with the power of a frozen sun, I still dont’ think cheating on her is kosher. He could’ve just broken up with her and while part of it was likely confusion, and he could also be bi and not decided which one he wanted to be with, it’s still a dick move.. and later makes him a hypocrite but that’s a rant for next volume.
So our heroes FINALLY find Kim, along with Hollie and Mouthface. And a nice thing I like is that Kim and Lisa are just.. increidbly close, happily catching up and making plans to hang before Lisa leaves, that despite Lisa having feelings for Scott the two ended up as close and She and Scott did and i’ts sweet to see. it’s also just.. rare to see Kim GENUINELY happy. I mean look at her
It’s not like she HASN’T smiled across the series but normally she’s just so miserable, likely because her best friends are a grumbly asshole who forces them to hang out with a raging typhoon of bitchiness, and an insenitive asshat who she never got closure with. This is the first decent human being whose not Ramona or Hollie, and that last one’s not going to last, in a while. It’s genuinely sweet to just see her.. enjoy the moment for once, honestly engaged with someone. Ramona shows up and finally meets Lisa, who apparently was on Degrassi.. I mean she says candaian show no one ever watched, and I watched that plenty but i’d like to think she was on there for a season or two. I liked Degrassi.. I honeslty miss it and think it could use some form of revivial and think porting it to netflix was a smart decision.. what wasn’t so smart was not having the other seasons leading into it on there. Need to watch more of it.
So the next day Ramona stumbles into Scott’s dreams and both are annoyed, with Ramona suggesting he get a job. This finally gets him to try. He asks about Wallace’s work but understandably, he dosen’t really want scott there and asks if he even knows. So Scott sets out to ask his other friends for jobs, while Knives shows up saying she’s “totally not stalking him” but someone is following HER, a mysterious spiky haired dude in a black leather jacket, shades and with a sword on his back. Whu-oh.
He tries Second Cup, with Julie annoyed that Stephen’s recording.. it’s hard to tell if she’s annoyed because she’s a bitch or because Stephen is both gneuinely annoying right now and clearly screwing around behind her back. My take?
But Scott realizes maybe getting a job at his Sister’s place of work who also works with his arch enemy might be stupid and backs out. He next tries Kim’s, but backs out of that too, admitting to kim it’d be stupid and Kim lists off all the reasons (His lack of resume, the fact them working together would be stresful and his ountain of late fees) why that’d be stupid, but in a jovial way. For once i’ts clear that while she’s still taking the piss out of them she isn’t mad at Scott.
In fact she genuinely helps him get a job, taking him to Stephen’s work since hers is dead right now anyway, a vegan place. While Scott naturally compares things to a job system as he’d start as dishwasher while Stephen taught him prep, Scott agrees to genuinely take this seriously and Stephen’s boss decides “eh why not” when he asks her to employ him. Scott is gainfully employed baby! God I miss that. Seriously i’m not pimping my patreon for shits and giggles.
But as he celebrates and Kim wishes she could punch his life in the face, they run into some trouble on the way home: Katana man who slices a motherfucking bus in half and chases them, with Scott reluctnat to fight because he has a sword and Scott does not, which is valid. He does escape though using subspace. He and Kim part awkardly and he returns home to Wallace throwing a party with two intresting charcters, a woman and a man of color, one of the few in the entire work, who are never seen again.
The next night is practice.. or rather recording, and we start to see Neil get edged out, with him unable to come due to exams and clearly not happy about it, and Stephen just kind of ignoring anything he cares about like the dickhead he is. It dosen’t get any better as “recording” ends up just being Scott, Ramona, and Ratfaced Knacker watching bored with Joseph and Stephen work. Eventaully Scott and Ramona decide to get out of there as things are getting tensed between thing one and thing bitch, and leave.. and take Julie with them for some reason.
So the three have dinner with Lisa, Kim, and Jason before The Mummies Curse thankfully leaves. Jason thought they were friends.
We also get this exchange.
I mean.. she is the better option. She his THE option. But before we can get the obvious answer of
Stephen comes in with Knives. He smuggled her in. This leads to problems when Scott returns from the bathroom to find Queen Bitch throwing a bitch fit about him having brought her and screechs at her when she dares to talk to him “How do you even know my name?” Well Ted Cruz, you see when someone is an actually thoughtful and likes other people, they keep track of things about them and don’t constnatly tear them down or assume their partneer is automatically bonking a 17 year old instead of you know, actually forming something of a friendship and not shutting her out sensing she needs this friend group. Some people are not vacous piles of vitriol who care about nothing but themself and seem to go off at the slightest thing.
Scott takes Ramona home but finds a drunken barely awake wallace so no sexy times. Not that he could anyway as the next day is the meeting with Peter their landlord.
Peter reveals they’ll have to clear out by the 27th as their lease was for one year and their paid up.. as in only the first and last month. The two part melacholy knowing this sucks and isn’t a great situation. Then it’s time for Scott to work work, angelica, work work, eliza and peggy. After grueling day, can relate, he runs into a wisp on teh wend and steels himself for a fight.. okay he bitches about it being too hot but it’s Scott. so it’s expected. He does get a hit in on his mysterious persuer.. and that’s when we meet Roxy.
Via boob punch, something Scott’s not proud of but in his defense, as Roxy keeps complaning about it, he was blindly struggling for a hit and din’t know the next Ex, or any of them, were female.. not that Ramona didn’t suggest it loudly enough by empahsising “exes” but scott’s a bit of a fuckwit. She mentions “everyone allways remmebers you”.. which is kind of ominus and tells me she tried to hook back up with ramona despite her having a boyfriend and she rejected her. Still on good terms though. But this confusing encounter ends with Roxy vowing she’ll get him next time gadget, next time.
So we get some assorted slice of life scenes with the band, lisa and what have you as Scott tries to get in touch with Ramona but she keeps avoiding him. THat’s not worrysome at all. And Lisa brings up high school while drunk and clearly hits on Scott. He sidesteps it with her drunkness.. but this clearly isn’t over or going to stop being a problem.
Speaking of problems Wallace makes Scott confront the truth: He either needs to find a new place to live or commit to staying, though Wallace is trying to nudge him toward asking Ramona to move into her place. Scott starts thinking it over, it being very hard especially since, as Stephen points out this was his very first place of his own.. but Stephen also points out these things are temoporary.. right before Scott ducks from katana guy.
At work Scott wonders who it could be, though it turns out Stephen’s met him before, as he’s brought his family in here. So he’s PROBABLY not one of the exes.. but it leaves the question why he wants to cut Scott in half like Dewey Cox’s brother. But it turns out he’s nto the only enemy Scott’s casually running into as Roxy is there too.. with Ramona.
The two talk, clearly about Scott and Lisa with Roxy trying to convince her he’s cheating and Ramona rightfully trusting Scott: while he IS attracted to her, he’s been fighting it every step of the way. Scott storms over to find out what’s going on and while Ramona is more distracted by his new job, she eventually realizes Roxy did attack him and he simply dscribed her poorly when he mentioned the incident over the phone. Scott is confused as he dosen’t get it. Is she with one of the exes what? After some hiinting from both parties, and Roxy rightfully mocking him for not getting the obvious... he finallyg ets it in the grandest way possible.
So Roxy gets ready to fight and Scott can’t because sword, and gets fired in the background as he hides in Ramona’s bag and Ramona prepares to step in. Roxy screams at her for trusting him and defending him when Ramona.. just dosen’t her boyfriend to be bisected by her ex. A fight insues and a damn cool one at that. I honestly wish the movie had taken more from this, but simply didn’t have time leading it to instead be more like the envy fight with a bit of the Winfried Hailey fight from Free Scott Pilgrim.
Roxy chases her and Ramona rightly points out Scott can’t run forever but takes him into Subspace.. where Roxy heads them off, having “taught you everything you know bitch” leading to a cool fight in the wintery version of subspace. Again why THIS wasn’t used instead I have no real idea. We also find out she’s a half ninja but she eventually leaves afer Ramona presses that button.. but Rammy is actually apologetic about it and Roxy’s “I hope you and your 24 children are happy together comment” is telling.
Upon this readthrough of the volume.. I realized Roxy is the most layered and intresting of the exes next to Gideon himself. None of them are out and out terrible, but most of them have pretty simple motives: to kill Scott, ???, profit. Or in Todd’s case to kill scott, bang around and be a dick. But Roxy.. genuinely wants Ramona back. She’s the ONLY one who does: Gideon kinda does, but only in the sense that he wants her for his collection. But Roxy geninely still loves her, admitting so during this fight. And it’s not like she has no chance: out of the 7 exes she’s the ONLY one who parted with Ramona on anything resembling good terms. While intrestingly we don’t find out WHY they broke up, Ramona didn’t cheat on her like she did everyone else she was with. The two have coffee and hang out and Ramona geninely dosen’t even consider until Roxy tries to attack Scott that she’d really try killing him and tries her best to talk her out of it. But what holds Roxy back is her anger: She’s so bitter about the fact Ramona is bi or pan, so dedicated to viewing Ramona’s very orintation as a betryal (though Ramona calling it a phase dosen’t help and the movie RIGHTLY has Roxie comment on it and fly into a rage over it), and so driven to make sure the woman she loves dosen’t get hurt again that it blinds her to the fact Ramona dosen’t love her the same way anymore, and that while Scott is objectively a dick, and a cheater, and a greasy buttcrack pooflap, he is not a terrible person. A meh one sure, but he’s got good to him. She’s so biophobic she simply can’t see he’s a harmless moron.. well harmless to Ramona even with the cheating. He’s killed two people at this point and will kill again. Also she apparently has issues with only being a half ninja but this is never adressed. Point is Roxy’s really grown on me and is now probably my faviorite ex.
Scott and Ramona talk it over on their way to Sneaky Dees and Scott finally asks to move in and gets a yes. His response is downright adorable.
So at Sneaky Dee’s Young Neil is just a bit absolutely irate with Scott.. which isn’t fair as them not playing things is entirely on the blocky face asshole. Yell at him.. which he does, pointing out that they haven’t played shows in forever, and that the lady who owns Sneaky Dees not only runs shows, in the upstairs space, but has been asking them to play. Kim is rightly curious about this and to both Stephen just keeps saying “We’re recording right now.” And some of you may of wondered why I hate him. Well while he’s not exctly stellar in the first half in the second Stephen becomes goddman insufferable, slowly destroying the band for his affair and not giving one iota of a shit what anyone else wants. He’s a selfish, egomanical cheating prick. And yes I get it their recording an album.. but doing live shows would give them extra practice, MONEY, even if likely not a lot and exposure for said album. I get professoinal bands stop touring for a bit to do an album but you are not a professional band, and said bands still often iron out the album on the road. God you suck.
But while Scott sidesteps this argument he walks into another where Ramona confronts him about lisa about liking her.. and he rightly says if there was anything, which there was not it’s in the past. And while yes he is a cheater, she does not know this yet. This plot honestly would’ve worked better if she learned about the knives thing sooner, but instead she just comes off as paranoid for listening to Roxy about something that isn’t happening. Yes Scott’s been shown to be attracted to her.. but he’s been ashamed of it, fighting it and in denial about it, and is clealry all in with Ramona. Being attracted to someone else on a phsyical level does NOT mean your relationship is doomed.
Things get worse as he goes home to ruminate.. and instead sees a man’s Penis. And Wallace..is at his second most unsymapthetic, not letting Scott get a shirt or a bus pass or something like a decent human being for no goddamn reason. Usually when Wallace is a dick to Scott, Scott’s earned it and badly needs a slap in the face. Here he’s just being a prick because.. the plot needs him to? I dunno it dosen’t work for me. It’s in character, I just don’t have to like it.
So with no other options.. Scott ends up at Lisa’s. And so we get the last temptation of Scott. Lisa admits, embarassed that she’s been wearing sexy dresses and what not specifically to attract him, with Scott also mentioning how things are rough, Lisa tries to fight it herself pointing out he’s with ramona.. and when Scott points out they didn’t do anything in the past Lisa points out they should’ve.. and maybe they should now.
We fade to black as Scott ends up in a dream and finds Roxy, who naturally has the same skill and tries to Freddy Kruger him before he wakes. He finds Lisa but they didn’t do anything: Scott pushed her away and babbled about how much he loved Ramona instead. As i’ve said.... his heart was never with LIsa... and even when he was so close to giving in he couldn’t. It’s a tangible sign of growth: He screwed around on Knives with Ramona, and given how bad things were getting with Ramona, it would be oh so easy to once again ditch a relationship the minute he found something else and oh so understandable. But... he dosen’t. He loves Ramona even if he hasn’t said it, he wants to make this work, and he’s changed. She’s changed him. He’s not quite a good man yet.. bu he’s getting to be good enough. Love turned him from a skeezy dumbass into a far more loveable dumbass. Ramona’s gotten him to stop dating a teenager (even if again he cheated), face his past with envy to finally move on and now get a job. He’s realized just hwo much she means to his life and world and so he goes to tell her.
Riggghtttt after going to get his job back and works a shift, with steven wanting to punch his life in the balls. Stephen shut the fuck up. Just because Scott is lucky and your stuck dating satan’s scrotum does not mean you get to punch his life int he balls. Kim does, because he’s put her through more shit but not you.
He goes to second cup to talk to Stacey.. only to end up at the wrong one where Knives also now has a job... and we finally get an answer to who the mystery katana guy is...
Yup turns out wielding giant weapons in vengance runs in the family. As for how he knows about Scott her aunt mentioned her boyfriend, everyone freaked out and obviously while her mom was mentioned as knowing in volume 1, they did not tell her dad whose brain turned into an engine of vengance and defaced the shrine. While part of it is apparnetly racisim for Scott being white the fact is he clearly saw Scott’s photograph. The guy is 5 years older. I get him being protective. Still dosen’t justify cutting off his head. His balls maybe but not his head.
And then Scott ran, once agian finding a subspace entracne.. and this time we see inside ramona’s head and well...
Yeah.. that’s.. kind of fucked, and Ramona isn’t happy scott saw that, though she backs down once Scott explains..a nd then gets upset over him staying at Lisa’s but before SCott can tell her he loves her it turns out Roxy stayed over. So yeah, Ramona might of cheated, she tells him to alk it off and he runs around in a psycadelic haze of emtoinal confusion. And meets.. someone new...
Scott snaps out of his funk and ignores his doppleganger heading back for Ramona... whose fighting Mr. Chau. Scott left the door to Ramona’s head open and he followed him through Subspace. Scott lures him into the house and away from her only to run into Roxy. This leads to both of his attackers fighting and her wondering if Gideons ent him “Why does no one ever belivie in me?!”
She soon realize no i’ts just unrelated and calls Scotto ut on hiding behind not having a sword and behind her being a woman, caling it a flimsy excuse. I mean she’s tring to kil lhim. It’s okay to hit an enemy combatant. Scott realizes he has to stop running... and get real with ramona leading to a truly epic, romantic and heartfelt speech and given how far he’s come and just how heartfelt it is it’s a real sign of how deep he feels. Sure we’ve seen genuine chemstiry between the two.. but htis moment is a shit.. from a simple relationship.. into true love.
I may of only had a few but Relationships are not easy, They take work, they take time, they take patience and theyt ake love.. but if your willing to work with someone, look past some flaws and help them with the rest.. then it’s worth it. And Scott has finally realized it and for the first time in a while is running TOWARDS something difficult, actually working on this relationship and talking with his partner instead of running finding someone else or wallowing. He’s truly grown up. While he still has miles to go.. he’s taken about 50 steps forward with this. And as such given the kind of unvierse we’re in, as Ramona is genuinely touched by it he levels up a glowing sword with a heart shaped hilt coming out of his chest.. and realizing what’s happening he pulls it out....
So Scott faces off with roxy and in an awesomly short battle, their sords clash.. and he bisects her.
Scott then honestly talks down Mr Chau who leaves after a nod, and Ramona tells Scott she loves him two. The two make out and all is well.
One make out fades into another, as we cut to Scott moving in with Kim and Blockhead’s help. Well kinda they only had one box but they owed him one. He and wallace comiserate over the end of their time as roomies. They’ll always be friend but it’s truly the end of an era. Also Wallace gets off another bit of dickery as he’’s very glad it all worked out for scott...
Now there’s the Wallace I know and love. Dickish but just the right loveable kind of douchebag with that swagger.
Back at Knives house she’s apparenlty into somebody though who I have no idea, Mr Chau give sher his blessing and she.. apparenlty doesen’t know chinese. I dunno. As I said her subplot this go round was her weakest overall.
And so we end with the whole gang gathered to see Lisa off. It’s a REALLY nice shot, and one of the only times Wallace is seen with the Sex Bomb omb side of the group. Oh sure he goes to their shows and what not, but generally their never in the same vincinity so while there’s no interaction I still find this neat. Seriously the whole main cast is there, it’s a really lovely shot
Also Jason and Hollie.. who are getting awfully chummy. Whu Oh. And of course Craphole and Mouth Face are as likeable as ever.
So we jsut get a genuinely nice sene. Except Stephen and Julie reconciling. Fuck that. Please move on. And as everyone fondly wishes Lisa adeu and wish she stuck arond the res tof the series we end on Scott and Ramona snuggling, Scott asking her her birthday and finding out she’s 24, and they both will be come september. Scott wishes this moment could last.
They probperly snuggle as the volume ends on a high.
Final Thoughts:
Yeah.. Gets it Together is, on rexamination, DEFINTELY my faviorite of the 6. Besides personal value i’ts hte best contained story, contaning lots of character development, great character moments, jokes, and EASILY the best art so far, with goregouness and creativty abounding.
There is a problem here or there: Stephen and Julie’s subplot feels underbaked, and not just because I hates them, and there are several scenes that don’t further plot or character stuff. Ther’es also stuff that could’ve been expanded on.. but given this is still a pretty meaty graphic novel, it’s understandable why it wasn’t.. though it is why I’d love a streaming series since while the movie is excellent, a full series could expand on stuff from the books more Brian simply didn’t have time for. Knives also didn’t get a lot to do.
But their drowned out by tons of great decisions: Lisa was a wonderful additoin to the cast and I genuinely wish she’d stuck around, adding in some energy, blending well with the Sex Bomb Omb crowd, and having great dynamics with everyone and her arc with Scott is heartbreaking,knowing she can’t have him but wanting him anyway having never gottne proper closure on the man she’s always wanted. She’s a heartbreaking character and its nice to see her end in a decent place and on good terms with Scott, having let him go for both thier sakes.
And while Lisa is a highlight everyone is on their a game here for the most part apart from knives, girl hitler, and captain dumbass: Scott grows signfigantly but is funny as hell, Wallace has an intresting arc trying to nudge Scott out without being overt about it, scared to really confront him, Kim is in a happy and serene place for once and it shows. The villians are also intresting: While Mr Chau is a tad underbaked, he’s sitll a cool imposing presence. I do think he shoudl’ve had more to do with the plot.. but is still just so freaking cool it papers over that and him just.. disappearing after this like poor Lisa.
Roxy is far more intresting, having clearly more going on than we see and while I wish we’d got her backstory, she’s easily the most engaging of the exes, being the only one to actively compete with Scott (All her and ramona end up doing is making out a little it turned out), and have bigger stakes than just “The glasses wearing douche asked me to beat up my exes boyfriend and I was like alright.
All in all Gets it Together is really magical, the series high point, and just damn fun and it was a pleasure to go through
Next Month on Scott Pilgrim: It all falls down as we take a look into what once was my least faviorite Album, vs the unvierse. Two perfect assholes try and murder scott with Robutts, his relationship and band crumble and things get sad so very very sad.
Next on this blog: More LIlo and Stitch! The Proud Family come to Kauai and get into a fight with our heroes. Also wizard kelly... who if nothing else is now far more tolerable now i’ve had to spend another volume with the wicked bitch of the west. Touche universe touche. See you at the next rainbow.
#scott pilgrim#ramona flowers#wallace wells#roxanne richter#knives chau#stephen stills#julie power#mr chau#stacey pilgrim#neil nordgraf#young neil#comics#oni press#scotrospective#lisa miller#kim pine#jospeh
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@missellewoods wrote this post, and i wanted to respond to it, but i also didn’t want to add a thesis-length response to their post. the post was about the complexity of the parse iii scene, and i highly encourage looking at it before reading this, because it’s a direct response.
i wasn’t sure i was gonna do it, but i’m fascinated with jack’s pov, so.
(transcripts from parse i-iii, plus visual cues from lva@pvd i)
[jack turns around, obviously unhappy/startled] "kent."
"hey, zimms. didja miss me?" [smirks]
so parse shows up at the haus for the second time, after jack’s seen him last in either freshman or sophomore year. jack is not happy to see him. this is probably the part the remains the most ambiguous to us as an audience, because it leads up to parse iii: shitty’s story about parse’s first appearance is supposed to make us think that jack is jealous, and that he’s holding a grudge because parse is living his dream while he’s at samwell. however, this story isn’t included to give us more information about jack’s psych -- it is, after all, what we expect from jack after his year 1 arc -- it’s there so the impact of parse iii is more significant. it’s the first time we’re given reason to doubt jack’s heterosexuality and are given an actual glimpse to jack’s past since ‘the hockey prince’.
so is shitty’s story true? obviously ngozi is playing with the narrative here: smh all claim parse is a modest, super nice bro, but then we hear how he talks to jack in parse iii. meaning, ngozi is telling us: believe no one. you can’t actually know what he’s like, or what jack and he are like.
so our scene begins with jack, 1) either upset because his former friend shows up and triggers his intense jealousy, or 2) is upset because his former flame shows up and triggers unresolved feelings. honestly, in my opinion, jack himself isn’t sure which one it is. which is a great set up for the unfolding of the next scene.
[jack and parse are talking about jack’s nhl plans]
"...you have no clue?"
"i mean... it could be montreal, it could be l.a. okay? i don't know."
"...what about las vegas?"
"i... i don't know, okay?"
"..." [parse probably moves closer/tries to kiss him]
"pars---"
"..."
"..."
[whispered] "--kenny... i can't do this."
"...jack. come on."
their conversation starts out relatively neutrally. we’re given enough clues from this update and the future of omgcp to deduce that parse isn’t over what he and jack had. this is also the very reason they don’t work and why this conversation takes a sharp turn downwards from here: parse equates his feelings and whatever sexual/romantic connection they had to the chemistry they had on the ice. to him, jack leaving him and going to play for some obscure college is just as upsetting as their ‘thing’ ending. parse spends most of this scene trying to convince jack to come play with him in lv -- the only reason we even know it’s in some way romantic is because of his reaction to the Cup Kiss in year 3. otherwise, he makes it sound like he misses jack as a liney and best friend, maybe as a sexual partner.
but the catch is, jack was in a really bad place when they were playing together, and he doesn’t want that back. does parse know how bad things were? does parse know about jack’s anxiety? how well does parse know jack, really? this is all kept intentionally hidden from us. you could say that they were best friends, so it’s reasonable that parse knew all of this (thus painting his character in a much worse light), or you could say shitty is jack’s best friend and he still didn’t know major things about him. ngozi doesn’t want us to be able to tell how aware or not aware parse is.
so in the beginning of this scene, we’re on the edge of an inevitable cliff. parse wants jack back, as a friend/flame and as a teammate, and jack’s obviously torn. he doesn’t push parse away immediately, but he also doesn’t consent. my opinion is that jack is torn between his old dream (all his 18-year-old self wanted was to play in the nhl with parse, and win win win), and knowing this isn’t what he wants. but does not wanting that necessarily means he doesn’t want parse himself? jack’s obviously not sure, because he lets parse corner him/kiss him before he decides it isn’t right.
if anyone here has ever met an old flame, especially someone who was bad for you but you cared for for a long time, you’ll know how easy it is to fall into patterns. for a moment the idea of having that all again is so enticing. but then the illusion shatters, and...
"no, i-- ...uh." [and then much louder] "kenny--"
"--zimms, just fucking stop thinking for once and listen to me. i'll tell the gms you're on board and they can free up cap space. then you can be done with this shitty team. you and me --"
"get out."
here is the most important part of this scene in my opinion. kent doesn’t know jack anymore. anyone on the face of the planet could tell you that jack is a hardass, that he’s tough on his teammates, that his dream is the nhl. but jack loves his team. he didn’t necessarily always know how to be their friend, but he certainly doesn’t think of them as a ‘shitty team’ he’s stuck with.
and parse makes the mistake of shattering the illusion he’s built (with the clever use of the wording ‘shitty’, which probably reminds jack of the friends he has now). jack wakes up from the dream he had when he was 18 and comes back to reality: he’s samwell men’s hockey team’s captain, he cares for his team, and his new dream is to win the ncaa championship and go to the nhl. he doesn’t want this thing parse is offering him, because the person he’s offering it to isn’t him anymore.
and here is the first twist of this scene that op is referring to: jack starts to get angry.
"--jack."
"you can't-- you can't come to my fucking school unannounced --"
"--because you shut me out--"
"--and corner me in my room--"
"--i'm trying to help--"
"--and expect me to do whatever you want--"
"FUCK -- JACK!!! what do yo want me to say? that i miss you?” [twists his fingers in jack’s shirt, crowding into jack’s space. jack turns away, frowning angrily] “i miss you, okay? ...i miss you."
does parse really miss jack, or is it a ploy? honestly, i think the facial expressions we’re privy to in year 3 hint that he really means that. he misses jack. he doesn’t necessarily miss the current jack (it’s likely that he’s stuck on the fantasy of what they had when they were younger), but he means what he says. he wants jack back.
but jack is angry, because parse is complicating things for him. they were talking about playing together, and then parse insulted his choices, and now parse is talking about being together, and jack -- who took A YEAR PLUS to figure out his feelings for bitty -- probably has a hard time handling all of these things at once. for parse there’s nothing complicated here: the jack he knows wouldn’t want to play for a college team (therefore, =shitty team), and playing with jack=being with jack.
for jack none of these things work like that anymore. they’ve grown too far apart.
"...you always say that."
"...huh. well, shit. okay. ...you know what, zimmermann? you think you're too fucked up to care about? that you're not good enough? everyone already knows what you are but it's people like me who still care."
and... okay. so things go south now, and quickly. if you’re a parse stan... honestly, i hope you’re a parse stan who’s aware parse needs a shit ton of therapy.
jack insults parse, whether intentionally or unintentionally, by being casual about parse’s declarations of feelings. to be fair, jack thinks parse was playing dirty. but parse doesn’t see it like that, so he’s offended, and apparently when he’s offended he gets angry and lashes out.
now. the unfortunate thing about knowing someone at their most vulnerable time is that you also know exactly how to kick them down to their lowest. we all hurt our loved ones the most, because we know them the best. but parse doesn’t just hurt jack here: he goes for the jugular. he kicks jack and then makes sure he stays down. and this is actually the most we see parse say in the whole comic, so... we can’t judge parse as a whole person, but. i’m sorry. he’s definitely not a good friend to jack.
(how bad of a friend? depends on how aware he was of jack’s anxiety and thoughts and feelings. if he was aware, this is a highly emotionally abusive thing to do. if he wasn’t aware, he was just being a shitty friend. either way, parse needs therapy, because he’s holding on to a lot of anger and is expressing it in a really awful way. but we can’t analyze him any further as a character because parse is not the focus of this story and we don’t know anything more about him.)
[faintly] "--shut up--"
"--you're scared everyone else is going to find out you're worthless, right? oh, don't worry, just give it a few seasons, jack. trust me."
[probably begins shaking] "...g-get out of my room."
"fine. shut me out again."
"and stay-... stay away from my team."
"why? afraid i'll tell them something?"
[voice growing stronger] "leave, parse."
[door opening; jack and parse are surprised to find bitty outside the door. jack is visibly shaking, holding the attack at bay]
op asked how jack’s anger turns into a full blown panic attack. the answer is parse goes for his weak points faster than jack can prepare himself, just when jack was open for an attack. he calls jack ‘worthless’, which is jack’s second worst fear, and then (probably) tries for the sexuality angle. it’s unclear whether he’s threatening to out jack or to tell the team about his substance problems, but more likely the former, because the latter was all over the news.
parse is clearly upset here. is he just angry for being rejected? is he humiliated? is he heartbroken? we don’t know. the only hint we have is ‘shut me out again’, which implies he’s at least still upset about jack cutting him off after the draft. what we do know is that jack, with the last shreds of his will power, tries to defend his team. tries to cling on to the idea that he knows there are people who believe in him (this is very hard under the cloud of anxiety).
either way, jack’s panic isn’t even about parse or what parse used to be -- it’s just that parse knows where to press.
[parse clears throat, putting his indifferent mask back on] "hey. well. call me if you reconsider or whatever. but good luck with the falconers." [lands the final blow] "...i'm sure that'll make your dad proud."
[jack's panic attack takes over. he retreats to his room, slams the door, and slides down to curl into himself on the floor for an undetermined amount of time]
and then parse, in front of jack’s teammate, lands the worst punch he has in his arsenal. jack’s worst fear. disappointing his dad.
jack spent all of year 2 talking to nhl teams and being watched by scouts and negotiating contracts, and consulting with his dad and his teammates to make a decision. he’s not sure about the falconers until much later, but he obviously leans towards them. which is a whole essay in and of itself: jack leans towards the falconers, a smaller, younger team with no cups, but with a lot of potential and good people and something to prove. this is a metaphor for jack’s growth as a character. he could go for a more established team to look good in front of the world, or pick a winning-streak team like the aces to feed into his anxiety. parse is taunting him with his own growth, making him doubt himself: you think you can change? you think you can really be someone new after playing in some college team? if you’re not who you were when you were 18 and first-pick at the draft (before you ruined everything for yourself and ended up here), you’re no one. and your dad will never be proud of you.
[end scene.]
#omgcp#omgcheckplease#jack zimmermann#pimms#...? i really don't wanna tag that but i guess that's accurate.#text#meta#i get easily triggered by pimms discussions but i do think this scene was brilliant story-wide#*wise#so i wrote out all my thoughts and i hope no one who disagrees will get overwhelmingly mad at me
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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Amity”
Welcome back, everyone! I hated this episode.
As in, I’m nominating “Amity” for the Most Stupid Episode of RWBY award. Was there some cool action? Yes. Good Penny development? Mm hmm. Some surprise cameos in the Maya Engine? You know it. Was all of it almost entirely undermined by the sheer number of times I went, “Wait, what?” over the course of twenty minutes?
Sadly, yes.
But let’s start at the beginning.
We get a gorgeous opening shot of Amity Tower and, aesthetics aside, my first thought was, “There’s no one around to protect it?” I mean, this was Ironwood’s super secret project. Watts just tried to sabotage it a few hours ago. Prior to the reveal that Amity wasn’t finished (cough), Team RWBY was trying to convince Ironwood to give calling others a chance, but you’re telling me after all that there’s not a single guard there? Pietro, Maria, and Penny just waltzed up without any problems? The only reason it might be abandoned—yes, even with a grimm attack looming—is if it was useless. Because remember, it was supposed to be useless. Unfinished. Not worth protecting in its current state because its current state is non-operational. That would have explained why Ironwood would leave it undefended, yet as we’ve known since the premiere, Amity was apparently finished by magic at some point, leaving the question of why it’s unguarded (or why Ironwood wouldn’t want to use it himself for something) up in the air. Pun not intended.
So these three have free rein to do whatever they want and what they want to do is, apparently, blow up the dust mine. Love that we spent an entire volume worrying about dwindling resources! I’d find the sacrifice justifiable under the circumstances if this Amity plan weren’t so foolish. Also, I’m not going to pretend that I know anything about explosives and whether providing that kind of “thrust” would actually work, but in this case I think RWBY’s sci-fi/fantasy status gives it a pass.
Penny, however, isn’t so sure. “Dad? This… does not seem like a very good idea.” Yeah. Pietro gives a short speech about good ideas not necessarily being best ideas, which would have been a great perspective to adopt for the series’ massive Ironwood arc, not a three minute solution to a problem I didn’t even know existed until now.
Pietro also weirdly teleports during this scene? He’s talking to Penny outside of the tower, tinkering with things, and then the next sentence he’s suddenly deep inside it. I mean, based on the dialogue this sentence could have come later, but it doesn’t read that way given that they were just chatting. It feels like a continuous conversation. He was outside one second, now he’s not.
During all this Maria is doing… something with a mech. That she got from who knows where. I really don’t know what the point of this was besides a very brief airship fight, but I’m just happy Maria is doing something. In fact, she’ll do far more later in the episode—we’ll get to that—so congratulations, RWBY, we can officially ignore half of your Maria square on the bingo card. Keep her alive for the next nine episodes and you’re golden.
Our trio has the message ready to go which they recorded… when? Sometime before everyone split based on the fact that Ruby is standing in the Happy Huntress’ hideout. This episode throws out a LOT of information that seems to come out of nowhere and doesn’t hold up well in terms of timing. Or, you know, general sense. Take, for example, the next exchange between Penny and Pietro. She wants to stay here in case no one is able to come help Atlas and Pietro panics about her staying with them, heavily implying that they’re leaving leaving. Once they go up they can’t come back down because otherwise… why not just send out the message, land, and then Penny goes off again to help? Later in the episode landing seems inevitable and then it seems planned for—what, are Pietro and Maria just going to hang up there forever? So what’s the conflict here?
Specifically, what’s the conflict for Penny? Amity should just be a quick side mission she completes before heading back into battle. Why does she care about doing what’s essentially an errand while Ruby nurses Nora back to health? She’s not missing anything. I’m having a hard time understanding why she’s acting like getting the message out means she’s removed from the fight indefinitely. Pietro, however, makes a little more sense if we read it simply as him not wanting Penny to be involved in the fight, period. As we see later, he fears for her safety and will do everything he can to keep her here with him, safe: “I’m your father. I’m telling you, you belong on Amity.”
Penny gives a sad “Yes, sir” and Maria chides Pietro with, “Don’t you think Penny has had enough people telling her what to do?”
Oh boy. There’s so much wrong with this line. The general demonization of ever following orders, even when those orders are sound. The comparison between Ironwood’s new villainy/his “bootlickers” (“Yes, sir”) and a father’s justifiable fear. Ignoring that Ruby has also been giving orders and no one is reminding her that Penny is an autonomous person capable of deciding things for herself. Where was this sort of chiding when she took away Penny’s scroll and spoke for her to Ironwood?
So Penny, of course, flies up and I guess provides them with the launch sequence or something? She sort of perks up and makes tech noises, then the tower is ready to go. Just like that.
Pietro makes a joke about not having time to install seatbelts.
Funny, shouldn’t there be safety measures for the people operating the tower? If the tower was finished and ready to go? 🙃
Everything is going to plan until Cinder shows up, melting a giant hole while Neo pilots the airship through it. So she came! Too bad she’s not going to achieve anything. Despite the stowaways, the bomb Penny left goes off and the dust mine explodes in a massive cloud of color, sending Amity up into the sky. This pops up on Ironwood’s feed and he gives an ominous “It’s time.”
For the first minute or so no one can move due to the pressure and Cinder takes the time to taunt Penny some, saying she expected her friends to be here and, since they’re not, she’s just “a tool to be used.” While she lashes verbally she also summons a massive number of swords. When they’re able to fight Penny is briefly overwhelmed…
…Until Maria comes to her aid!
“Get away from her, you bitch!”
That was great. If anyone other than Tyrian was going to curse, you know it had to be our snarky grandma. So I’m cheering, watching Maria make use of her (acquired off screen) tech to help, despite the fact that she’s too old to fight anymore and—
Wait.
Okay, here’s my problem with this battle. First of all, Cinder’s group should have decimated them. This is an experienced Maiden (see: Raven fight) with a grimm arm vs. a girl who only got the powers a few hours ago. I know a few weeks back I mentioned how insanely powerful Penny is in theory, but that was before she was nearly taken out by the Ace Ops. You know, the group who was all knocked unconscious by a bunch of half-trained, exhausted teenagers. So the comparisons here don’t make Penny look too good. More importantly—because Cinder doesn’t have a great track record anymore either—she’s backed by ‘I was kicking a Maiden’s ass before she whipped out her magic’ Neo and ‘I can make anyone see anything and I just mentioned last episode that I’ve been working on this semblance’ Emerald. They are a power team. Who is Penny backed by? A non-combat scientist and a woman who stopped fighting years ago.
Right?
I have no problem with Maria being powerful. In fact, after her Grimm Reaper reveal I had hoped we’d see her fight, both to give the group a power to aspire to—here’s what a fully trained huntress with experience looks like. This is what our personal inspiration and a huntress beloved by the world looks like—and to have an older fighter providing diversity. Sure, there’s Ozpin, but he reincarnates into young bodies. Maria is a Mexican coded, disabled, old as balls fighter and that’s AWESOME. Problem is… she never fought. She hobbles around with her cane, using it in a way Ozpin never used his, implying that she really needs it. She’s not spry anymore. Every time there’s a battle she’s in an airship or other tech, providing help through the use of an assistive device. She never offers to train anyone. We never see her accompanying a group—like JNOR—to provide extra protection. During the grimm attack Maria exchanges a fearful look with Pietro and then presumably hides in his shop off screen. Why has the story been ignoring Maria when she can fight like this? How can she fight like this when we haven’t seen her throw so much as a punch since we met her?
I mean, this is Neo! Neo. One of the most powerful, non-Maiden fighters we’ve seen to date. She took out Jaune, Nora, Ren, and Oscar without breaking a sweat, but a few minutes with Maria has her collapsed on the ground?
Something is very wrong with this fight. Either the writing nerfed Neo to allow Maria to win, or the writing has been pushing one of the most powerful characters off screen, relegating her to comic relief. Maria should be insanely powerful given her Grimm Reaper status. I had come to accept that she was powerful and, like people in real life, simply lost that with age. Now, the story suddenly reveals that this was never the case.
During all this Emerald helps Neo one (1) time, despite presumably standing there watching the entire fight. Before it begins Neo randomly decides to turn into Ruby, but then has dropped the illusion by the time we return. Maria is laughing like a loon for the first half of the battle. The only reason she (briefly) looses is because she gets distracted. Then Penny K.O.’s Neo’s aura with a single blast.
See, this is why I rarely enjoy the fights anymore. Beyond that fact that I thought some of it was rather lackluster compared to our Penny vs. Ace Ops fight, it just doesn’t make sense. There’s moment after moment that has me scratching my head and if you’re going, “Huh?” at the screen the whole time, it’s pretty hard to get immersed in the story.
During all this they reach the necessary altitude to broadcast, but it won’t go through because of a “stabilizer fail.” You mean the giant hole that Cinder blew in the side of the tower?
Never mind that everyone except Penny should be dead by now. How are they breathing up there? It’s like if someone blew a hole in your airplane and everyone just went about their tasks as usual.
You’ve gotta input the code, Penny.
I joke, but Pietro does start desperately typing. I guess because stabilizers might be fixed with a code or something? Anything is possible in this show.
It’s the Penny vs. Cinder fight that I’m bored with though. At least before Cinder manages to nearly the powers. I think part of it is because we already got this fight last volume, partly because they don’t do much that we haven’t seen from them both before: Penny flies around a lot, Cinder tosses variously summoned weapons, etc. Details I did appreciate though were the return of Cinder’s arrows and the fact that she didn’t let Penny lead her from Amity for long. Look at our villain making a smart decision!! Love that.
Cinder starts destroying the tower instead and Penny asks why she’d want to serve Salem. “I don’t serve anyone and you wouldn’t either if you weren’t built that way!” Penny looks sadly down at Pietro and for one horrible moment I thought the story would actually have her buy into that nonsense, but then Penny rallies and announces that she chooses when to fight because she wants to protect those she loves.
Penny has some really great moments here. What’s less great is the setup for them. I mean… why is Pietro in danger? Penny is clearly trying to keep the top portion of the tower from collapsing after Cinder’s attack, but you’re telling me the tech-obsessed scientist hasn’t put flight capabilities into his chair? That’s not how he got way up high on the outside of the tower, it was just a random hatch or something? When every piece of tech in RWBY serves triple-duty, the Atlas tech mastermind hasn’t included the one thing in his massive chair that would save him here? It’s all very… “Really?” Especially when Cinder is smart enough to realize that Penny cares about the tower, but not realize she cares more about her dad. Just grab Pietro and threaten him, demanding that Penny stand down so Cinder can grab the powers. Penny, horrified by her father’s potential death (and ambivalent about having this responsibility in the first place) lets her. Something other than this weird setup of destroying the platform itself.
Penny’s scream though is fantastic. Kudos to Taylor for that moment. So yeah, Cinder starts taking the power—did she get a bit then, like with Amber?—before Penny rallies and knocks her off. From then on Cinder doesn’t stand a chance. Emerald reappears to provide assistance in the form of an illusion, except that Penny’s tech allows her to see through it with ease. The real Cinder is marked with ‘Danger’ and Penny takes her out easily once Cinder doesn’t think she needs to dodge anymore.
I should be feeling something considering that Penny just won a battle against the woman who orchestrated her murder volumes back, in the exact same place where she died… but I’m not. Penny’s resurrection was shrugged off. Amity was used for joke license parties. I’m endlessly confused about what message RT is aiming for in regards to Penny’s autonomy (a real girl, but hackable) and this fight has been a collection of power ups, power downs, or skills just conveniently not working. What improvements has Emerald made to her semblance? This is everything we’ve seen from her before. When did we establish that Penny’s android nature makes her immune to techniques of this nature? I don’t mind that she is immune—in fact, it’s a cool skill to give her—I just wish this sort of stuff didn’t suddenly appear in the story only when the plot most needs it to. Or, to be more charitable, it would be a cool reveal if the rest of the fight held up better. I don’t mind a, “Hell yeah, Penny had the trump card she needed to win!” if the whole scene wasn’t Team Cinder being oddly weak the whole time. The most they manage to do is escape via Emerald threatening to fill the tower with holes from her gun… after the tower has had a hole blown through it, shot with flaming arrows, and had two of the beams keeping it in place melted. The most Cinder accomplishes here is unintentionally putting Penny in a position where she falls when she’s hacked. That’s it.
The villains should have won. Not just because of the team dynamics making victory a very likely outcome, but because allowing the group to successfully get their message out was one of the worst things RWBY has done to date.
Gimme just a moment to get there.
Amity is drifting back down, out of the range they need to send the broadcast, so Penny offers to “hold Amity in place” until the message is done. Pietro freaks out… why? He starts to say “Even just the temperature out there—” implying that the cold and altitude can kill Penny, except she fought Cinder outside no problem. Literally minutes ago. Hell, Cinder was fine outside and she’s not an android.
There’s that massive hole letting the atmosphere in too. I’m so confused by these conflicts that randomly appear and, as such, I can’t take the emotion attached to them seriously. How can I be invested in Pietro’s worry about this killing Penny and Penny offering to sacrifice herself when I don’t understand why it’s dangerous to begin with?
And it is treated like a sacrifice. Penny tells him that she’s trying to “live her life,” kisses Pietro as a sort of goodbye, and spends a few moments enjoying the beauty of the night sky.
She’s acting like she’s about to die and yet none of this comes across as particularly dangerous. Indeed, Penny pushes Amity for as long as Ruby’s message needs her to and then, presumably, would have come back inside, a-okay, if she hadn’t been hacked. This is like that Parks and Rec moment:
Except it’s treated seriously. Penny is doing something mundane based on what we’ve seen her do before and the fact that this cold/pressure isn’t negatively impacting anyone else who experiences it, let alone the android. So why is the story trying to convince me that this is a death sentence?
Combine this with Penny’s origins: she was built to “save the world.” That’s why Pietro created her, to fight these exact sort of battles. So why is he so resistant to her doing just that? I’m not saying he can’t change his mind and grow to love her as more than a tool—in fact, their relationship is one of the few things I’m enjoying about this volume—I just wish we’d seen how that came about. When did Pietro move from building Ironwood a weapon to having a daughter? Back in Volume 3 he was on Ironwood’s side about Penny not having friends or going out because it was too dangerous for someone like her. She has secrets to maintain and responsibilities to prep for because she was, first and foremost, created for a specific task. We get an inkling through is admission that he can’t bear to see her die again that Penny’s first destruction really changed his view of her, but all of that happened off screen. We had a whole volume with Pietro prior to this where we might have watched him struggle with his new understanding of Penny as his child, rather than dumping this on us literal seconds before she engages in this non-sacrifice. We know almost nothing about Pietro except what tiny scraps we’ve been told, so dramatic lines like, “I don’t care about the big picture, I care about my daughter!”—while wonderful—appear to come out of nowhere in regards to his development. It’s jarring. Early RWBY presented Pietro as a morally ambiguous scientist aligned with Ironwood, then he suddenly became a scientist who loved his creation in Volume 7, the scientist who betrayed Ironwood, then Volume 8 has Penny dropping “Dad” left and right and Pietro willing to throw away helping a kingdom for her sake. When did all these changes happen? Where’s the progression?
Also, I hope people understand that this is why the world needs someone like Ironwood. Is it heartwarming that Pietro wants to ditch their plan at the last second for the sake of his daughter? Hell yeah. Is that good for the millions of other people who would like their own family members to survive this war too? Nope. “I don’t care about the big picture,” while human and great characterization, is dangerous when the rest of the world depends on you. Whoever runs this show doesn’t have the luxury of saving their preferred, individual life at the expense of everyone else.
So Penny goes out and gets Amity high enough for Ruby’s recording to start, complete with her acting funny-awkward for the first few seconds.
The cameos we get throughout this? Excellent. The speech itself? Rather horrifying. So the good: we get glimpses of everyone else in this show that the story has essentially left behind. Saphron, Terra, and Whitley start things off.
(Interesting that Whitely went to his father’s office rather than his room...)
Sun and Neptune (even though that “Dude” again messes with tone).
Ilia getting a call from Ghira.
The group sitting with a recovering Nora while Ruby watches her own words with the most ridiculous expression.
Tai, desperate not to lose the one link to his daughters he’s seen in years. (Side note: I’m not interested in any of the Tai hate. He’s still at home because the writers don’t know what to do with him and because Ruby literally ran away. Are people made at Ghira and Kali for not running after their daughter too? No, because they’re minor characters that the story needed to sideline.)
Tyrian, sitting beside a very pleased looking Salem...
(Love that she’s petting him.)
Even the shop dude!
Oh yeah, and MOTHERFUCKING GLYNDA.
I’m thrilled to see her. In the sense that I love getting her in the new engine, but I’m salty that she’s unlikely to become an important part of the story again. In fact, there are so many characters at this point that she shouldn’t be re-incorporated, just because that would bloat the cast even more. That… and did they really have to give her massive cleavage? The darker glasses are fine—even if I personally found them a bit distracting compared to her original lenses—but seriously, why does a woman always reappear with even bigger breasts?
At this point everything in RWBY has a sour taste attached to it because it’s been handled so badly for so many years. It’s only now, watching them do many of the things I wanted them to do volumes ago, that I realize how badly they’ve played themselves. RT messed up so many core aspects that when they re-appear they can’t hope to provide the same sort of enjoyment we would have gotten if they’d never been dropped and/or messed up to begin with.
Case in point: Ruby’s speech. I’m not going to cover the stupidity of telling the world about Salem because I’ve already talked about that to death on my blog, but I do want to add that Ruby managed to accomplish that dubious task in the absolute worst way possible. I need a list for this one.
So, about RWBY ruining core parts of its story? We had a whole volume about how horrifying learning about Salem’s immortality was, something we never resolved because the cast randomly went from thinking they’d entered a doomed war to being #confident about how they’ll win. But at the very least they’ll be careful and considerate when they tell others that very demoralizing info, right? Ha. Ruby never even uses the term “immortal.” She mentions Salem being around for “centuries”—which, remember, was info the group also had but never put two and two together—and then says that “Just because she can’t be destroyed doesn’t mean she can’t be beaten.” What does that mean to people who have never heard of Salem before now? Ruby doesn’t even explain who she is! What’s a “force” in this context? A person? An entity? Endless grimm? She gives the people nothing here.
Alongside just casually dropping that Salem has been around for “centuries,” Ruby says that she is “a force we’ve faced before,” as if the world has ever had to deal with an outright attack from her. No, Ruby. They haven’t faced this before. That’s the point.
“I know the idea of Maidens and Relics seems crazy”—does she even mention them before this?? I don’t think she does. Ruby just name dropped two things and never bothered to explain wtf they were.
Also, great job telling the whole world, filled with bad guys not already aligned with Salem, that there are two powerful, mystery things out there that they can now start hunting down. That’s why Ozpin decided to keep the Maidens quiet in the first place. He says in Volume 3 that people were killing them when they knew they existed.
She tells everyone that Glynda and Theodore can vouch for all this information, just casually dropping that responsibility into their lap. I mean, can you even IMAGINE being Glynda right now? This kid you taught for one year heads back home after your school falls, you lose touch with the inner circle after Ozpin dies, and then said kid suddenly appears on every scroll and TV in Remnant, telling the entire world that YOU, personally, can explain to them the things you’ve helped keep hidden for a good portion of your adult life. You are one of two people they can now turn to for answers. If I were Glynda I would be furious.
She also says that Theodore and Glynda “might even be able to organize a way to fight back” RUBY. WHAT DO YOU THINK THE INNER CIRCLE WAS? A KNITTING CLUB? WHAT ELSE HAS OZPIN BEEN DOING FOR A THOUSAND YEARS EXCEPT “ORGANIZING A WAY TO FIGHT BACK”?
“But, sadly, General Ironwood can no longer be trusted.” Wow. That’s one hell of a simplified take to give to a world already working under the incorrect assumption that Atlas caused the Fall of Beacon, an assumption Ruby admitted was wrong to Cordovin. So let’s unite the world except for this one leader, right? So much for practicing what you preach.
“If she was really unstoppable she wouldn’t have acted with such caution before now.” Oh boy, that’s risking a lot on Ruby’s interpretation of Salem’s motives. After eight years even we, the audience, don’t know why Salem didn’t attack until now, so where did Ruby get the idea that it must be because she fears them? That’s not the real explanation based on how happy Salem looks while hearing the message. When did Ruby even think about this? Outside of Nora’s realization that maybe someone other than Ozpin could beat her, we haven’t seen the group discuss Salem at all, but now Ruby thinks she has everything figured out? I honestly want her to explain her thought process here. Does she think Ozpin was mistaken about the immortality business and if he’d just had the guts to unite everyone and attack her, Salem would have been defeated lifetimes ago?
(Funny how that was Ironwood’s plan...)
Ruby ends with another call to band together because “That’s how we’ll win!” complete with smiling energy.
With the exception of the cameos I hated every moment of this. The unclear reason why Ruby thinks bringing the world together is the answer in the face of how badly that’s gone each and every time others have done it, Amity magically becoming available for them to use, her dropping in random beliefs we’ve never seen her express before, turning the whole world against Ironwood, failing to actually explain any of this… I mean, imagine you’re in Remnant’s place for a second:
This child (looking entirely unprepared) suddenly hacks every device and tells you that the most powerful kingdom in the world is under attack. Who is attacking it? It’s someone you’re familiar with! But not really. It’s Salem. Who’s Salem? I won’t say, but she’s responsible for every bad thing from the White Fang to the grimm themselves. Those Relics and Maidens, those are real crazy sounding, huh? Oh, I forgot to say what they are? Nm that’s not important. Talk to my old teacher and someone I’ve never met if you’re confused. What is important is that we all come together. Except Ironwood. I don’t trust him. But I expect you all to trust everyone else, including me! Because we can totally win against this “force” I haven’t defined. You should help us. In whatever non-specific way you choose. Should you come to Atlas and save us all from the confusingly explained attack we’re under? Fight an immortal enemy somehow, with the forces you don’t have, cross who knows how many miles in under a day? I don’t know. You all can figure the preparations part out :)
If I were watching I would, at best, think this was a prank. At worst I’d be panicking over a whole lot of scary information, none of which I understand. Which in this world brings grimm.
Ruby should, in an internally consistent story, have just caused a massive number of attacks across the globe. She should be responsible for the biggest mass grimm death Remnant has ever seen. In fact, that’s my final hope for the series. I want the world to lose its mind at this confusing, terrifying announcement, from rioting in the streets to grimm swarming major cities. Ruby is left dumbfounded at the destruction she’s caused. No one can—or will—come to assist Atlas. The Kingdom falls, taking plenty of civilians with it. Ozpin escapes and is finally allowed his anger, wanting to know how the safety measures he spent lifetimes building were undone by her in one profoundly stupid move. Ironwood (if he’s still alive) coldly tells them that they could have left and saved who and what they had at the time. Ren is proven right.
I need this story to decimate our heroes, humble them, and then let them rebuild. Teach Ruby something and let her grow from it, making up for her mistakes as she goes. Because for two and a half seasons now we’ve watched this girl commit one horrible act after another—whether it’s attacking allies or unintentionally giving the world the most damaging message possible—and something needs to come out of all that.
Can’t say I’m too hopeful of seeing that though :/
The rest of the episode isn’t any better. Ironwood continues his stupidity streak by trusting Watts to do the hack himself. I really can’t believe this is what his character has been reduced to. Granted, it appears as if Watts really did do what he was asked, it’s just that none of them could have known Penny would be outside of Amity and at the height of an airplane when her systems went offline. That trust does, however, allow Watts to nab Ironwood’s crushed scroll before he’s taken back to his cell. Because, you know, at this point Ironwood is so stupid he just chucks personal tech at a villain and thinks nothing of it.
Also... all this happens before the jail scene last episode when Watts was returned, but after Ruby’s group gets to the Schnee manor. The bingo board is getting another check.
Ironwood says that “It seems Polendina’s proxy trick worked.” So Pietro deliberately built Penny with this kill switch (for lack of a better word) embedded? In this villain!Ironwood world, is the story ever going to acknowledge that Pietro is far from innocent, having helped to create and support all the things people hate about how Ironwood (supposedly) interacts with Penny?
Penny’s hack doesn’t take until Ruby’s message is complete, because of course it doesn’t.
Yang’s group is all excited—“That was the broadcast!”—despite not having a signal last episode. If they can use their scrolls at the outpost, why didn’t they call for help?
Penny then says “I love you” to Pietro before she—maybe?—falls to her second death. I don’t know. This absolutely deserves a longer rant because either Penny was resurrected for a brief, narratively meaningless existence before dying again, or we’re expected to believe that she’s falling far and fast enough to become a meteor, but will turn out just fine. Perhaps the show will forget that Pietro said he couldn’t rebuild her again. I pretty much expect it at this point.
(Either that, or Pietro will sacrifice himself for Penny. Coming at it from a father-daughter relationship, I like the idea. As a black man dying for his white daughter in a show notorious for how it has handled its race allegory... ehhhh.)
Then, we end this episode with “a river of grimm.”
????????????????????
What?
Seriously, am I the only one who laughed during that moment? It sounds ridiculous. What does that even mean, “a river of grimm”? Did Salem expand her territory somehow? Is this the same grimm soup she makes them out of? What, can she just cover the whole world with grimm making goo now? Out of everything that could have been coming out of the ice, THAT’S what we end on?
I think this episode may have broken me lol. There was so much that I knew I was meant to be invested in, so many moments trying their hardest to be emotionally compelling… and only the tinniest slivers of it worked. I want to care about Penny falling. I want to care (more) about an unexpected Glynda appearance. I want to be cheering for Ruby’s message getting out, but it’s all just so badly done. I ended this episode feeling like I had watched a RWBY parody rather than an episode. Like for funsies someone had pulled together the most ridiculous ideas they could think of, like:
The villains come and then immediately leave again, like in Fury Road except in this case that’s not the point of the story.
Super powerful fighter gets her ass kicked by laughing grandma.
Nonsensical sacrifice going on but give it just a hint of ~real~ emotion.
Huge reveal for the rest of the world but the message with be near incomprehensible.
Toss in random characters we haven’t seen in years, people love that.
End the episode with grimm soup flowing towards the kingdom.
It honestly feels like someone set out to write an absurd episode, but then gave it just enough artistry that the viewer finishing the vid goes, “Why am I actually invested in this omg lol.” Except when that’s your canon we’ve got a problem.
I don’t know. At this point RWBY is so broken I can’t even articulate everything that’s continually going wrong when we get an episode like this one. For anyone who may have missed it, we’ve got two more episodes before a six week hiatus and frankly I’m glad. Mostly because I obviously want our crew to have the time they need to keep their sanity intact during the hell that is 2020 and the likely hell that will be 2021, also because that will give them time to spruce up the second half of the volume… but there’s also a part of me that’s just glad for a break. There are still pieces in RWBY I enjoy (like the Hound, or dad!Pietro, always Ozpin) and I love writing these recaps, but it says a lot about the writing that I hear we won’t get RWBY for two solid months and I am, at best, indifferent. Can’t mess up what you don’t air, right? 😂
Man, this bingo card… it’s getting three marks today. “Two day timeline wreaks havoc on continuity,” “Needless episode cliffhanger” (grimm river??), and “The team gets Amity up and running.” Yet we somehow STILL don’t have a bingo. Amazing.
Alright, I’m done. If you enjoyed this episode, bless you. I’m really glad. Please enjoy it for the both of us. And pray for us all over the next two weeks 💜
[Ko-Fi]
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I have said a Lot about the “Raph is a system” theory over the past several months, so this is something of a compilation post. It’s got some new stuff, it’s got some old stuff. (You’re reading Part 1) (Part 2 is here) (Part 3 is here)
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Firstly, “system” is the term for someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID. (The term can also apply to some folks with OSDD.) Someone might develop DID after experiencing long-term trauma at an early age- roughly five or six years old. To paraphrase the DSM-V:
1. We’ve seen three (possibly four) distinct personality states who speak, act, and perceive others differently.
2. The personality states, or “alters”, don’t necessarily share memory, and Donnie insinuated in “The Clothes Don’t Make the Turtle” that Raph has a bad memory in general.
3. Problems arise when alters don’t get along or aren’t on the same page. That none of them seem to be quite aware they’re a system doesn’t help either; it’s hard to work on communication and cooperation when you don’t know they need to be worked on!
4. This whole situation isn’t a normal part of a broadly accepted cultural or religious practice, or just Raph playing make-believe. (Though I wonder if he had “imaginary friends” when he was younger...)
5. It’s also not because Raph’s been smoking the devil’s lettuce or whatever. “Pizza Puffs” was one long weed joke and he was the only one “sober” (not poisoned) throughout! We don’t see this happen to other mutants, so it’s not a bizarre side effect of mutagen either.
(I’ve seen a few people joke that Mikey has “multiple personalities”, but that’s a tad yikesy and also just plain incorrect. His “doctor” personas are something he does deliberately, and youngest siblings are just Like That.)
So yeah, Raph is pretty heavily DID-coded. We’ve seen four alters so far:
“Host” Raph (HR): He’s our everyday Raph. A “host” is an alter who fronts most of the time and takes care of “business as usual” situations. They are often unaware of past traumatic events, such that they can appear “normal”. (Ex: the host of a child who lives with an abusive parent could be unaware of the abuse. Otherwise, they might cry or be uncooperative whenever the parent is near, further invoking their wrath. This unawareness allows them to be a “good child”, and stay under the parent’s radar sometimes.) Some systems have more than one host, but that the others have shown up so rarely in this story suggests HR is the only host (for now?).
Savage Raph (SR): Debuting in “Man vs. Sewer”, he’s a survival-oriented alter. HR probably could have defeated the Sando Brothers on his own under normal circumstances, but being in the middle of a breakdown doesn’t do much for your fighting skills. SR got pulled to the front to deal with them instead.
“Red” Raph (RR): “Red” is just a placeholder since we don’t actually know his name yet (or even if he has one, not all alters do), though I’ve also heard folks call him “Angel”. He’s got a “tough love” approach to problem-solving, which was probably a helpful thing in the past. LDM were no doubt rowdy children! We were (officially) introduced to him in “Pizza Puffs”.
Mind Raph (MR): MR could just be a manifestation of HR's thought process via Cartoon Goofery, but that possibility doesn’t give me anything to work with so I’m ignoring it. He’s pretty similar to HR, maybe a tad more upbeat. We (officially) met him in “Raph’s Ride-Along”.
When “Pizza Puffs” first aired, I was like “ah yes, this is the alter who has the cranky edgelord tendencies we’ve seen in previous iterations of Raph. He probably broods on rooftops in the rain when he’s in a bad mood.” Combining that with the whole “Red Angel” thing gives off some Batman vibes. And, of course, SR is similar to the Hulk. Those two heroes are pretty different, but they do have one major thing in common...
A sudden, violent loss. Given how prevalent rushing water is throughout “Man vs. Sewer”, I’m thinking a flood came through and separated Raph from his family. (You could probably argue that turbulent water symbolizes a turbulent subconscious? 🤷) Again, DID stems from long-term trauma, so Raph must have been gone for... a while. A couple of months, maybe more? It’s hard to say exactly; we have a little wiggle room when applying human developmental psychology to a human/turtle mutant. Since Splinter still needed to care for the other three, he wouldn’t have been able to devote much time to searching for Raph, and the New York City sewers go on for miles and miles. The longer Raph was alone, the more convinced he would have been that the others had drowned and he was the only survivor.
How old would he have been? I know the turtles are “different ages”, but they were all mutated at the same time so I’m pretty sure Splinter was just like “the littlest one is the youngest, the biggest one is the oldest, and the medium-sized ones are the middle children.” They’re all probably fourteenish by “Finale”. Back in “MvS”, Leo said, “You know how savage Raph gets when he’s alone”. He didn’t say anything like, “You know how savage Raph gets when he’s alone ever since such-and-such an incident happened”. This suggests that LDM straight-up don’t know something traumatic happened to Raph; they were too little to retain concrete memories of that time. In their minds, Raph has always been like this. Draxum isn’t known for his patience, so even though he wasn’t able to immerse the hatchlings in mutagen for long, they probably mature a bit faster than humans. And since humans usually can’t remember anything from before four years of age, three sounds about right for the turtles, though they would have been stronger and steadier on their feet than any human toddler. I doubt Raph would have survived otherwise.
I think he’s sort of... “stuck” back in that trauma. Catching food, building a fire, making a weapon, and getting camouflage aren’t the behaviors of someone who’s only been gone for a few minutes.
When SR called for help, I don’t think he was expecting anyone to answer.
But Raph did manage to hang onto something as he was swept away! It wasn’t much, but that little ragdoll gave him comfort while he was scared and alone.
(The rabbit design on Bruce’s pajamas is probably a coincidence, but...)
Raph seems the type to have sympathy for odd-looking toys. His knockoff Mrs. Cuddles plushie was the emotional crutch he needed back then.
And then he was separated from that as well. Lowkey associating Mrs. Cuddles with this traumatic event would explain why HR was so scared of her. That he doesn’t remember the trauma means he has no context for this fear, making it seem silly and baseless to him (and to the rest of his family), which is why he denied being scared at all in the first part of the “Mrs. Cuddles” episode. It would also explain why he collects teddy bears instead these days, they are a “safe” toy. (The moral of the story is to not make fun of triggers that seem silly.)
(I wonder what would happen if Mrs. Cuddles encountered Savage Raph? Perhaps he’d be quite sympathetic towards such a lonely little raggedy thing! Timestuck as he is, he probably wouldn’t question why a stuffed animal can talk... and it wouldn't be hard for her to persuade her “new bestest fwiend” to get rid of some “mean ol’ nasty sewew monstews” for her.)
That whole “sewer monsters” thing suggests Raph ran into... something while he was wandering alone. Y’all have heard those rumors about alligators living in the New York City sewers, right? Encountering Leatherhead could trigger a flashback.
It would be pretty easy to introduce Leatherhead into the narrative. One of the episodes the Rise crew had planned was titled “The Island of Dr. Noe”, and alligators have very impressive teeth. The Mirage comics had a story where Leatherhead and several cryptids were brought to an island to be hunted for sport.
Noe seems to have quite a few cronies/friends/rivals he could entertain this way. Since he’s got that obsession with Raph, Noe captures him as well, knocking him out with those darts so he can’t waste his energy trying to escape too soon. (Let’s just assume everyone’s powers are glitchy because they all hit another wave of puberty, meaning they can’t just curbstomp the lower-level villains lol.)
HR wakes up on the island and, of course, starts to panic because he’s lost and alone. While wandering, he runs into Leatherhead, which would trigger a flashback to getting attacked by that alligator all those years ago. But Leatherhead doesn’t want to fight! He’s just as scared and confused as HR is, and could really use a partner to help him survive this island.
HR and SR come into conflict because Leatherhead is/isn’t/is/isn’t/is/isn’t a threat. HR eventually wins out, reasoning that even if Leatherhead is that alligator, it wouldn’t be fair to judge him for what he did back when he was an animal.
But time and dissociation can make memories unclear. That our first look at Leatherhead was in Draxum’s “bluh bluh I’m gonna mutate all the humans” bit in “Bug Busters” means he’s a human-base mutant. He wasn’t the alligator back then, but the hunter tracking it. Leatherhead isn’t one of Noe’s targets, he is one of Noe’s guests! And he wants no one to interfere with his quarry, so he’ll play nice long enough for him and the snapper to take out the rest of the hunters and the freaks. Then the two of them will have the island all to themselves...
Years and years ago, Jack Marlin was a big game hunter prowling the New York City sewers in search of an alligator. He did manage to find and kill one, only to realize it had also been hunting! He had inadvertently saved the strangest little turtle creature.
Marlin had become too skilled at this point, the hunt held no challenge for him. This turtle sounded very young, and he was quite big and strong already. An adult could be tough and intelligent enough to entertain him. Marlin tried to get Raph to lead him back to “the others”. But Raph had been lost for some time, and as far as he knew, his family was dead. Hearing that put Marlin in quite the sour mood. A little mutant snapper is a better catch than none at all, so Marlin tried to haul Raph off. Raph fought back and bit off Marlin’s hand. He escaped, but lost his rabbit in the scuffle. Marlin retreated as well, taking some time to recover, scheme, and hunt other game. (And to pocket that rabbit. The blood loss had made him woozy, and he wanted to have some kind of proof he hadn’t just hallucinated the snapper.) Perhaps he turned that alligator’s hide into a vest, which provided the genetic material for his mutation when he eventually got bit by an oozesquito. Like his Mirage counterpart, Marlin didn’t take losing a limb as a sign he should retire, and instead got a tricked-out prosthetic. Who knows what he could do with it in such a mystic setting as Rise.
Raph eventually reunited with his family, but those distrustful, high-strung survivalist traits he had picked up weren’t helpful anymore. He once again had to be the good and patient big brother who didn’t bite when someone play-tackled him or shook him awake at three in the morning because they’d had a nightmare. Those two states gradually got partitioned off more and more, and now they know little, if anything, about each other.
So Leatherhead and HR are chasing away some mothmen or whatever, and things are going pretty well... until one of them knocks Leatherhead over and a familiar ragdoll rabbit falls out of his pocket. SR realizes that Leatherhead is Marlin and switches in to fight him off again. They’re evenly matched, or perhaps SR is even in danger of losing, when LDM arrive to provide support. Leatherhead is enough of a tactician to know that he should retreat. Donnie and Mikey pursue him while Leo stays behind, placing the rabbit in his stunned brother’s hands. “Remember when Pops made this for you? You were always really gentle with it, ‘cause he wasn’t good at sewing back then...”
(This thing really needs patching up, he’s got sewing stuff for whenever he needs to fix his bears/Blue isn’t a threat on his own/Wasn’t he just back at the lair?/Blue gave back the rabbit/Why does he feel like he got hit by a train?/Blue doesn’t want to fight?/ ...Leo?) And that’s enough for HR to switch back in. He’s probably missing memory from his whole time on the island, so while Leo does his best to tell him what happened, they don’t have enough puzzle pieces between them to truly figure out what's going on.
They defeat the bad guys, release the cryptids, save the day, etc. (Leatherhead managed to lose Donnie and Mikey in the woods. A battle for another day.) Once they return to the lair, HR gets help from Draxum to modify the memory spell from “E-Turtle Sunshine” so he can try to fill in the gaps. Surely he wouldn’t get rejected by his own subconscious... right?
Cue part three in the saga of Raph Punches Himself In The Face. SR isn’t happy that HR is essentially trying to poke at an improperly-healed wound, and attempts to chase him off. HR assumes that SR is just a psychic white blood cell like the Lou Jitsu constructs in Splinter’s mind, and retaliates.
But, of course, fighting is not the answer here. All that accomplishes is giving the body bruises. Eventually HR realizes “stay away” and “back off” are a little different than “get out”, and that SR is just scared. So HR tries another tactic. Over the following days and weeks, he tunes in to calmer memories and just sort of... talks. About what happened yesterday, about his teddy bear collection, about how he finally managed to get a good picture of that pizza pigeon. It takes a while to establish a connection, and even then, it’s spotty at best. Using the spell too much can cause headaches and nightmares. There are days when SR is nearby, and days when he’s not there at all. But he shows up when he can.
And then there’s awkward, stilted conversation and questions neither of them know how to answer and questions neither of them want to answer and more scrapes and bruises and strained silences and apologies, but they finally, finally reach a compromise. SR still doesn’t let HR near those memories, but he tells HR what happened as best he can. (The audience would see those memories, with SR as a voiceover.) Afterwards, HR still visits the mindscape that’s starting to become more solid. They talk some more, they watch light and shadow flow around them, they listen to half-forgotten lullabies on scratchy old cassette tapes. Eventually, HR doesn’t even need to use the memory spell, meditation is enough.
They’ll never get along all the time. But it’s a start.
(SR is going to be so clingy when it finally clicks for him when he finally lets himself believe that his family is alive.)
---
This took eight million years lmao. Parts 2 and 3 will come out eventually, they’ll focus more on MR and RR. Let me know if I need to tag this stuff as anything.
The usual disclaimer applies, I am not a system or a mental health professional so if you’re one or both of those things then feel free to give me some of that good good constructive criticism.
#you called for help... but nobody came.#rottmnt#rottmnt theory#the 'raph is a system' theory#rottmnt raph#savage raph#mrs. cuddles#leatherhead#jack marlin#plot bunnies free to a good home lmao#long post
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I saw that you like CATS the musical. What are your thoughts on the movie?
AAAAH AHHAHA oh man oh boy y'all should BUCKLE IN cuz it's a ride
my simple thoughts? it's entertaining if only because it butchered the stage show so badly in an attempt to idk modernize it? Well, modernization is one part of it I think. The other part I'll go into below lol. I don't necessarily hate some of the more modern renditions of the songs (mostly the ensemble sets like Jellicle Song for Jellicle Cats) but then others are just... so poorly done it's insulting.
I've said this at the end of this whole rant too but I'm gonna put it up here in case people don't (justifiably) wanna see me go on and on about it:
The movie wasn't made for fans of the musical. It was made to make money and I believe they choose, at least partially, to do that through making it the weirdest and worst possible adaptation they could so that people would want to go see the train wreck. Which, really, worked! It was all people could talk about for a good while so like... Goal achieved, I guess.
A MUCH MORE COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS UNDER THE CUT cuz i don't wanna. flood your dash with... this
ALRIGHT SO. Most of my friends know I'm actually a huge fan of new adaptations of things. I love remakes (provided the people making it are coming at it with some form of heart and not just... cash grabbing which is more often the case) I love seeing other peoples interpretations of characters, or changing settings. It's one of the reasons I like American comics so much, getting to see different writers takes is fascinating.
I think musical movies can be wonderful ways to introduce people to a stage show that might have been unavailable to them otherwise! Chicago, for example, is one of the BEST musical to movie adaptations in my opinion. It kept the heart of the show, it's funny and the song numbers are done really well.
There are of course other famous examples, such as Grease or Bye Bye Birdie. Hairspray was also a wonderful take. These are simply off the top of my head, there are of course more.
CATS in particular has a history. If you go through my CATS tag you may see a few posts from @catsnonreplica which posts photos from non broadway productions of CATS! It's a fascinating read and I love, love, love looking at the other interpretations of the characters! CATS is a musical full of fun and wonderful characters if you take the time to see past the ridiculousness haha and the Korean and Japanese runs of CATS especially have some of my favourites.
How does this relate to the movie, I hear you say well. As you might has noticed the movie's interpretations of the characters is........ lackluster at best and downright uncanny valley at best.
CATS is, at its core, a ridiculous thing. I will fully admit that! But it's fun, it's entertaining and if you pay a little attention you can actually get the plot. (Honestly I don't understand when people complain it has no plot but that's a whole other rant for another day)
The movie was... obsessed with this idea of like... semi realism? Like obviously, as a fan, I think they should have leaned into the over the top character designs but instead we got...w ell:
Bombalurina:
Demeter left and Bomba right. Demeter was actually cut! From the movie which is. upsetting lmao.
Macavity is one of the worst offenders for me:
Macavity was... I wish I could know what the hell they were thinking there cuz it's even in his song? Ginger cat??? THAT IS NOT... A GINGER CAT...... but I digress. I would show more examples but I think you get the point.
So. We've butchered the characters appearances. Okay that's fine but what about their personalities?
ALSO BUTCHERED.
There's... there's a lot to unpack here. Just for context: the Jellicle Ball happens once a year and the Jellicle leader chooses a single cat to be reborn into a new life. In the stage play all the cats who are nominated for this honour are on the older side (Jenny-Any-Dots, Bustopher Jones, Skimbleshanks, Gus The Theatre Cat, and eventually Grizzabella) AND are always nominated by another cat. Not themself, unlike the movie where they all seem to nominate themselves.
Jenny-Any-Dots went from a doting grandmother figure who's celebrated for her selfless volunteering and tireless work into a conceited, vain younger cat who is obsessed with fame.
It's an incredibly strange dichotomy. I don't doubt some of it isn't the result of the uh people playing the characters honestly. I do think some of them did the best they could! I don't really blame Jason Derulo, for example, for Tugger. And honestly, Tugger was probably closest to his stage version (while being a trouble maker, he's shown to show Deuteronomy an immense amount of respect)
Speaking of Tugger! This will bring us to one of the biggest grievances with the movie and that is how they handled Mr Mistoffelees.
So... Ugh. So. We have Victoria as the pov character, which imo is like whatever in the grand scheme of things, and then we have Misto who they have decided will be get live interest cuz... Of course. Misto is shown throughout the musical to be awkward, unsure of himself and well. Really, kinda incompetent. Which is Wild cuz in the stage show he might be aloof but he's fairly confident in his powers.
So, Old Deuts gets kidnapped. In the stage show Tugger is the one to bring Misto forward! It's really quite sweet, imo, and I'm showing myself as a Tuggoffelees shipper here, but again Tugger is previously shown to be pretty conceited but then here he is boosting and hyping up Misto to bring Deuteronomy back. My friends and I have lovingly dubbed this the boyfriend hype song.
SOMEHOW. The movie manages to make this, easily, the MOST BORING number in the whole thing. Which, again, WILD. Misto awkwardly stumbles through his whole song, which again is... Boasting of his supreme magical powers which movie Misto clearly. Does not have or believe to have. The song, to me, feels super awkward and unnecessarily drawn out in the movie which sucks cuz it's one of my favourites in the show.
The declawing (heh) of Mr Mistoffelees actually reminds me strongly of how they changed Gaston in the live action Beauty and the Beast movie. He's gone from a beloved figure in the animated movie to someone so disliked in the town that Le Fou has to pay people off to say nice things about him. It's just. Wild character choices were made!!
Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat is probably my favourite in movie non ensemble number. It feels the most... Genuine? Compared to the other nomination songs.
Other problems include but are not limited to:
The inconsistent size scale of the CATS which throws me off constantly.
The weirdly overt sexual overtones added to MANY of the songs (Jenny and Bustopher being the worst)
This is just a personal gripe and opinion but I don't like that they used the UK version of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer. The American version is both better known and tbh way more fun. Teazer's giggle? Adds ten years to my life every time.
Victoria's added solo song, Beautiful Ghosts, while I like the song as a song it doesn't fit the style of message of the musical. In the movie she's singing directly to Grizzabella who's being an outcast for years that she should be grateful she even has memories of being part of the tribe?? What?? But I know they had to add an original song to be able to be nominated for awards in like the Grammys n shit (which is why all musical movies will have an original song, fun fact!!) kinda funny they went to the effort though considering........... I don't think anyone could have genuinely believed CATS 2019 was gonna win anything but golden rhaspberries.
Movie Mr Mistoffelees has made repeated appearances as my sleep paralysis demon
The various cut characters, shout outs to Jemima, Demeter and Jellylorum especially
Bombalurina being a henchman to Macavity rubs me the wrong way
God I've written... So much. You probably get it by now haha. Like I said at the beginning, I try to go into any adaptation with an open mind but... Let's be honest, this movie wasn't marketed to people who are fans of the musical.
It was marketed, and made, to make money. And they choose to do that through, I think, intentionally making the worst possible version ever. Bad press is still press and the more outrageous people said the movie was the more people wanted to go see exactly what kind of train wreck it was.
Which is a disservice to the stage show, honestly, and all the people who've worked on it over the years.
But what can we do, right?
And besides all that, I do... Still own the movie version and I do still rewatch it on occasion. It is entertaining even if it's in a train wreck kind of way. I usually end up watching the 1998 version, then 2019 and then various tour runs that are on YouTube. (I highly recommend the 2016 tour, it's very good)
So in conclusion. It's fun (?) to watch. I enjoy picking things apart and doing analysis (if you couldn't tell!) so like... I don't hate it?
It did what it set out to do, I guess, and I can't fault it for that but. It's not a fair metre with which to judge the stage show imo. But I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, haha.
Jazz hands. I'm more than happy to elaborate or just chat about CATS if anyone wants! I grew up listening to the Broadway CD since I was a toddler so it's been! A very long standing obsession haha. Probably the only other thing on par with CATS is my obsession with Jurassic Park which I've also been a fan of since I was 3 (but that's a whole story in and of itself)
#astrix thoughts#cats the musical#Thanks for the opportunity to talk about one of my hyperfixations anon!#And to anyone who reads this whole mess lmao
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top 10 (ish) ridiculous or annoying FAQs:
(click at your own discretion)
1) "kids today rely on others to do everything"
ah yes, damn those participation trophies! if it wasn't for them my hands wouldn't be fucked, and I wouldn't need people to write for me. but seriously, stop reading boomer comics, and go outside to meet some actual young people.
2) "sus that a non-american says mom"
yeah, because it's clearly the superior version, and I'm not too patriotic to concede a defeat.
3) "sweaty, the victims of abuse by catholics are real people, stop appropriating their pain just because you want to hate catholics; plus teachers abuse people just as often anyway"
so firstly, I don't hate anybody. and secondly, regarding the fact that victims really do exist, [insert "of course I know him, he's me" meme here]; although I don't often talk much about the abuse I went through or what my religious beliefs are. but, more importantly, statements like "survivors are people" can be phrased like "some people are survivors", and when you're unable to act according to the latter (like when you don't even consider that somebody might be one) then you display a failure to recognise the former - you're projecting; a survivor can't be appropriating their own pain, but you can be appropriating it to silence one. and thirdly, teachers do abuse - the problem isn't and has never been purely religion, rather that abuse is often done by somebody in a position of trust, power, and familiarity; and that the lack of a global minimum enables totally legal abuse on top of the illegal stuff. people with access and respect have more opportunity to abuse than those without, and that goes for teachers too. but, once again, you can be appropriating the pain of survivors to deflect and silence people. please remember this before you say that shit.
4) "get help/therapy"
way ahead of you - years ahead of you. but it's not magic - people who say this often act as if you'll start behaving differently overnight. not only are some things simply beyond the ability of talking therapy to completely rectify, it also takes time and has to be selective. you've got to pick your priorities, and that's definitely not whatever ship or joke you're mad at me about today. therapy is a slow, arduous process that can't guarantee results - it isn't "anti-recovery" to recognise that, it's honesty. while I've been in therapy for a long time, it is not necessarily going to change whatever you don't like about me - whether that's because it can't, because my focus now is on more important or urgent things, or because I don't want to change that.
5a) "tell your family you ship incest, see how that goes; normal people find it disgusting"
actually, some know, and they're fine with it. in fact, one prefers sibling pairings in fiction to all other dynamics because, to paraphrase, "it's a deeper level of messed up co-dependence". so unfortunately for you, my remaining family (by which I mean those not dead or cut out of my life after abuse and so forth) actually are able to distinguish between fiction and reality. plus, my reasoning for caring if they find it gross or not pertains only to recommending books and such - their opinions do not dictate my tastes.
5b) "don't sexualise/appropriate incestuous abuse" and "I bet you enjoyed being raped" and other attempts to upset me over 5a
firstly, as I've already said here, survivors can't be appropriating ourselves. in addition, you're not owed people's history or trauma - it's not okay to require people's personal information, or else you'll send anon hate and accusations of appropriation. secondly, I'm not sexualising our abuse (not just because I write horror, and so a lot of my writing is intended to be creepy, not sexy); these stories aren't about us, they're not us at all. entire dynamics/people (fictional or otherwise) aren't all going to be applicable to us or identical to us, just because they have something in common with us; they're not us and they're not accountable to us. thirdly, the fact that people send this stuff (attempting to trigger people's trauma over ships) is so much more worrying to me than somebody making our communal imaginary friends kiss. you're trying to hurt people. and finally, to the "I bet you enjoyed it" crowd (if you're at all serious): do you think you'd enjoy being in a real zombie apocalypse, alone, afraid, and really at risk of being eaten alive? a fictional scenario does not feel remotely the same as a real one. this isn't rocket science - things that look like you aren't you; fiction isn't reality; don't send anon hate. (edit: comparable "just leave me alone, I'm not hurting anyone" sentiments for yandere stuff, and anything else you decide I'm naughty for.)
6) "you'll be sent off to do manual labour once your communist revolution happens"
while I don't know why people think that I'm a communist, a dictatorial regime probably isn't going to want me to do manual labour. they're more likely to just shoot me; I'm useless and a liability. call me crazy, but something tells me that "ah yes, we shall give ze deranged cripple ze power tools" isn't the communist position.
7a) "they/them can't be singular pronouns"
yes they can, and they're used as such in both shakespeare and the bible. but you don't have to say this - I'm also okay with he/him, so you could've just used those and chilled out. also, do I look like somebody who views the rules of grammar as fully immutable and imperative?
7b) "enbies/aros/pan/etc aren't valid"
do you really think that you're going to change any hearts or minds by putting that in my ask box or under my funny maymays? chill out, it's not worth the effort - you could be planning a party (in minecraft) and having fun instead. it isn't worth my time to rant at everybody who's saying something isn't valid, updating how I'm explaining it as my opinions grow and general discourse around it evolves; I'm just who I am, somebody else is who they are - why bicker in presumptuous ways about if that's enough? it ultimately is valid, in my opinion, but that isn't an invitation to keep demanding that I debate. (edit: old posts of mine probably don't phrase things incredibly, on this or anything... I tried.)
8) "what are your politics?"
my politics are informed first and foremost by the knowledge that I'm not cut out to be some kind of leader - I don't want to be the guy who tells everyone else what to do, I just offer what seem to me like valid criticisms of how we are doing things now, and general pointers on the values and ethics that I would prefer to move towards. things like individual freedom, taking the most pacifist route where possible, trying not to give excessive power to small groups of people (governments or corporations), helping those in need even when they're not palatable, and letting me suck loads of dicks. but please refrain from decreeing me something - there's not enough information in what I said, so you'll just be filling in the blanks with assumptions. (edit: workplace democracy seems cool to me; benefits are good; fair fines and taxes; and the "sperm makes you loopy" saga: 1, 2, 3, and 4.)
9) "you're a narcissist"
no, I don't meet the diagnostic criteria. joking on the internet that you're hot doesn't make a person a narcissist. the fact that I've chosen to keep my actual self-esteem issues to myself is not proof that they don't exist - you're just not entitled to that information about me. but it's also not narcissism to really like how you look. (edit: don't throw labels around carelessly too.)
10a) "kin list?"
the fabric of the universe, a zombie, dionysus, maned wolf/arctic fox hybrid, a comedian, big gay, big rock, ambiguously partial insincerity. (edit: kin list may or may not be incomplete.)
10b) "kin isn't valid/that's just being insane"
haven't we established that I'm deranged, and that sending stuff like this on anon is simply a waste of your precious time? besides, I do not care if it's invalid or insane - it's fun, I'm happy. (edit: see 7b for my opinion on sending me yet another ask with "that's invalid" in it; I'm not in the mood to discuss the nature of validity.)
bonus: "it gets better" and "trigger list?"
as I've said before, things just don't always get better for everyone - sometimes things can't be cured or even treated, sometimes they kill you; in some cases it could get better if not for a blockade or lack of time. the world is messy. it needs to be more normalised to reassure or comfort people without relying on saying that their issue will get better or be cured. it does suck to be this ill, but it also sucks to be made out to be a lazy pessimist, just because I have the audacity to not play along. and as for the trigger list, I don't like providing people with an easily accessed list of ways to hurt my feelings or harm me - upsetting me is supposed to be challenging, and thus rewarding. if you want a cheat sheet then you're out of luck, I'm afraid.
bonus #2: "FAQ stands for frequently asked questions, it doesn't need that s at the end!"
yeah, I know, I just enjoy chaos and disarray.
bonus #3 (edit): "what are your disabilities and how exactly are they incurable and/or deadly?"
again, I don't tell the internet everything about me, especially when it poses a risk, especially not as an easily accessible list for you to refer back to whenever you feel inclined to hurt my feelings. that is understandably a sore subject. (edit: that includes physical health issues btw.)
bonus #4 (edit): "so we shouldn't be critical?"
if it wasn't clear from my answer about politics or my post in general, you can have opinions about things, and you can voice that. it's just not realistic to exist at extremes: to think that you alone should dictate what exists in fiction, or to think that people shouldn't be expressing disdain or criticism of any calibur. say how you feel about things, that's fine, but it's also fine if people find that they don't value your input. plus we're all flawed, we can all be hypocritical from time to time, we all get bitchy, and we all make mistakes, or even knowingly fuck things up. that's important to keep in mind, whether we're talking about the one being criticised or the one doing the criticising - poor choices of words, imperfect tone, or contradictory ideas are inevitably going to happen occasionally.
congrats on reaching the end! if you have, at any point, said one of these to me, you owe a hug to your nearest loved one (once it's safe).
edit: might add more links/bonus points in the future when I think of things, but it's late now. (sorry for links where prior notes in the thread have my old url, that may get a tad confusing; also, not all links are my blog or my op, since it is to illustrate points/vibes, not to self-promo.)
#don't take life too seriously#nobody gets out alive anyway#tw abuse mention#tw csa mention#tw incest mention#tw for any tws I missed#idk why I did this
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Hello, Lady Connor! I want to ask out of unbearable, suffocating curiosity in my heart, even though in the previous post you already said to not mention "that certain comic". Could you please enlighten me about your view on that comic and what you despise about it? I would love to read your detailed thoughts about it even if just once. But if this is too triggering for you, I'm truly sorry for your discomfort and you don't need to answer it.
Hello, dear Anon and welcome ^-^
It's weird you naturally called me Lady Connor, as usually only my little fairy @giuliettaluce does. Well, I guess her magic put a spell on everybody here!!
If you really care to know, I'll answer, but brace yourself, it's going to be very long, almost an essay, because I can be very detailed about that comic being a failure in its every part. There's so much to say.
You're right, as I mentioned before, it can trigger me, but I have attentively analized it and I know it makes not a single atom of sense. So nothing can actually bother me that much, don't worry ^_-
First of all, my general consideration of the AC Reflections comic issue #4, (yeah, that thing -.-) is that of a mere attempt to desperately make Bayek's remote vision through Senu's eyes a canon feature. It was created and published in 2017, the same year AC Origins was released and yes, they needed an excuse to make believe Connor's alleged daughter inherited a skill someone (who isn't even their direct ancestor!!) that lived 1700 years ago in ancient Egypt had! OMG, this should be funny enough, but I'll go on.
Also, I think it was likely a carelessly arranged way to satisfy those AC3 fans demanding a "happy ending" for unlucky Connor (quite 5 years later, of course).
I'll better go step by step to figure out where to start from, seriously.
1) In the comic, when Otso Berg opens the file related to Connor, the scene is set in "1796: Upstate New York."
Now this is chronologically and spacially incoherent and illogical.
We see Connor still wears his assassin outfit in it, right?
According to AC Initiates (2012) in 1804 Connor invites the Dominican assassin Eseosa at the Davenport homestead to provide him some advices and further training as he's involved in the leading of the Haitian Revolution. That's a really cool character, read about him, if you want!
So, until then Connor is still an assassin, probably the mentor (by now) of the Colonial Brotherhood. He still runs the homestead and he still commands the Aquila, I guess, he's the captain still.
I calculated the distance between the homestead and the then upper NY frontier territories is approximately 260 miles (quite far nowadays with cars and planes as well). Then, why the hell should he have a family located in the forest upstate NY? It sounds very unconfortable to run back and forth to reach them and go back to take care of all the Brotherhood matters, doesn't it? Unless he knew about teleportation!!! Also, wow, he lives all alone in a nice massive villa with all the comforts of that time while his children and wife still live in a Native village constantly menaced by settlers wanting to steal their land?
Beside the fact that Connor, at least in my point of view, seemed at last very familiar with european way of living by the end of the game, this leads us to the next point.
2) By the time the game and the comic are set (second half of 18th century), most of the East Coast Native tribes were facing the tragic and forced migration to western and northern territories (mostly towards Canada, protected by the British) because of all the consequences of the Revolutionary War (lost territories, failed alliances, settlers advancing and buying their lands and so on).
So tells us history, unfortunately. It's a fact. And this is wisely showed to us in the AC3 main game when, after all the Kanien'kehá:ka tribes had left the territory around Connor's village (yes, even those near New York, to be clear) even Connor's own tribe at last migrates west, leaving an empty ghost village. They had remained all along to protect the secret temple, but in the end they as well were forced to leave.
So, to me it's highly improbable that in upstate NY, one could still find a tribe and even if so, that Connor would let his family live there and risk their safety everyday.
3) The whole comic plot revolves around the fact that Io:nhiòte has a "special gift"... She inexplicably knows how to read the ground and find animal traces, she also can perform a perfect twisted acrobatic flip in the air and land unharmed to the ground. Do we know why? No, don't ask! xD She simply knows U.U, even if right after the next scene she slips and falls miserably down a cliff xD, but... ok!!
Beside that, when Connor is far away to search for some water and is about to be attacked by a wolf hidden in the grass nearby, she sees the whole scene from the eyes of an eagle flying in the sky above her.
As I said before, this reminds us of Bayek's (never clearly explained) ability to see through his eagle Senu's eyes and spot dangers and enemies.
Now can you tell me why the hell this little girl has super powers and a skill Bayek had? As I said, they are not even directely related, as Bayek is not one of Desmond Miles' ancestor, we know him simply because Layla's new Animus is magical and can inexplicably read fragmented DNA from people who died a thousand years ago (it can also prepair coffee, I think!). So, where did she get that from? Magic? Mysteries of life? Convenient improbable connections for marketing's sake?
We'll never know and you should simply accept that and ask no question!
4) From her height, way of speaking/moving/running, I assume Io:nhiòte is at least 8 years old, 8 - 9 minimum. She's the youngest of three siblings, who must be at least two years older than her and than each other (according to a human woman pregnancy timing!).
If the comic events are set 12 years after the main game ending (1784, when Connor also starts to train the young ex-slave Patience Gibbs, arriving at the Davenport homestead with Aveline De Grandpré, according to AC IV Black Flag bonus mission with Aveline), so, this means that in that same year Connor must have found hastily the love of his life in a Native village (as if he was easy to open himself with other people after all he's been through), married her, impregnated her and seen her give birth to their first child, all in the same year when (let's not foget! xD) he still is the leader of the Colonial Assassin Brotherhood at the Davenport homestead training novices.
Now, this may even be possible humanly speaking, (well, if you force the things a bit and hurry up!) but highly unlikely to happen!! xD
These are the main problems affecting the logic of the comic in my opinion, the points making its foundations crumble apart. Though I'm sure there are many little others to point out, such as Otso Berg "opening" Connor's files... like what? Where did those data come out from? I remember playing AC IV Black Flag and uncovering a file where Abstergo researchers themselves closed access to his memories as there was "nothing appealing to this character anymore"! So, if no more researches were conducted on him since 2013, where did Mr Berg magically or conveniently discovered such data in 2017?
Or... do we want to talk about the cover? It shows Connor in the spirit outfit from the Tyranny of King Washington DLC, which has apparently nothing to do with the comic, since it is set in his present day and he wears his assassin standard robe. Now, I think that can be either a simple marketing choice to make the comic more appealing, as... well, that cover is so cool, let's admit that, or maybe the subtle suggestion that the events told in it are just a parallel Disney-like reality and are not to be considered true at all! xD
i don't know, maybe both explanations are right.
I'm sure that the deeper i dig, the more nothing rational I'll find!
If you played the old games, if you know well the franchise and its lore, the true, good, old AC lore, you definitely realize by yourself how that comic is useless and senseless.
This doesn't mean I do not wish an "happy ending" for Connor.
But I'd rather accept something coherent with the main game events and AC chronology. Also, it doesn't necessarily needs to be a "happy" ending, as they conveniently created to please complaining fans.
I wished for something real... coherent with his personality, acquired life-style and endless sense of duty and values.
Maybe that's what pushed me to write my FanFic novel in the first place, after all... To give him MY OWN cohesive ending, including my love, for love is always needed, I guess.
I'm so sorry if the answer took this long in time and words, but you were warned! ^w^
Though, thank you... Seriously, thank you so much for asking.
You made me reflect once more about this matter.
Come visit me again, if you want.
Take care
- Rumor Imbris 🦋
P.S. Oh, and if you're interested, this is my "jelousy song", for when things like this trigger my inner witch!! xD
#ask#ask me anything#I Am the Storm!!!!#AC3 Reflections#why it sucks#why it makes no sense#thanks for asking#anon ask
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Welcome to DG’s Listing of Wish These DLC Existed, where I theorize, speculate, and just kinda generally throw ideas at the wall about DLCs for games I love that never happened and never will happen, but damn, I’d like to see them anyway.
Because I have ideas, I can’t get them made as mods, I don’t have time to make them into fic, and they’re never going to happen anyway, so why not put them up in a public place? After all, they’re tie ins to games I have no control over anyway, so it’s not like I’ll ever make money off of them anyway. And, as I’m not bound by any hardware limitations in terms of crafting ideas, or production cycles dictating when the game’s endpoint is, these can and do go on a great deal longer than the standard lifespan of a game.
A review of the format: There will be a name for the DLC, a brief synopsis, a reference to when this hypothetical DLC would become available/if and when it becomes unavailable, and then an expansion/write up of the ideas going in to them. Some ideas will have more expansion than others, because I’ve just plainly put more thought into them - in a lot of cases, I wrote them down just on the basis of ‘this idea seems pretty cool,’ and then gave them more context later on.
Feedback is welcome! Like an idea? Don’t like an idea? I welcome conversation and interaction on these ideas. Keep it civil, remember that these are just one person’s ideas, we can discuss them. Perhaps you’ll even help inspire a part two for these write ups! Because I do reserve the right to come up with more ideas in the future - these are the ideas that I’ve had to this point, but the whole reason this series exists is because I come up with new ideas for old stories.
So I HAVE actually been working on my ongoing series of hypothetical DLC to games that I love over the last year (it was the end of January 2020 when my last one of these got posted, this is going up at the beginning of May 2021). Which, yes, some is pandemic related because *screams* but... I was looking over what I’ve been working on, and realized that I was at about the combined length of my first two of these in my present examination, and I was only about a third of the way through the ideas that I had. I could either keep going and do these all at once in a massive post in like another year or two, or I could break it up into chunks.
So instead of waiting, this is going to be Part 1 of (I hope) 3 in an examination at ideas and possibilities of what additional content could have been made for Mass Effect 2, which for some is considered the best of the series. Me, I’m a little more critical of it. To me, this game is a textbook example of bridge syndrome, of the plot spinning its wheels to hold off on the payoff until the third part of the trilogy - the Collectors are, in practice, an entirely separate threat from the Reapers, even acknowledging the connection in the plot. We see this in the impact that the ME2 characters have in the next game - most are in side missions, all perform roles in the plot that literally can have them swapped out, even if it’s to the ultimate detriment of your War Asset count.
So in my mind, there’s a lot of room to make these DLCs, these glimpses into further areas of the world of Mass Effect at large. Because for me, what ME2 SHOULD have been was about making the alliances with the galaxy at large, rather than the big set piece of the Suicide Mission. We got some of this in ME2 proper, but that’s where the core of my focus and attention is with these DLCs.
Admittedly, I am aware of the difficulties of working around ME2 having both optional companions (Thane, Samara, and Tali don’t have to be recruited at all, Zaeed and Kasumi are DLC, many missions are available before you necessarily pick up certain companions...) and the ability to hold off on doing the DLC until after the Suicide Mission, where any or all of your companions may end up dying. However, for simplicity’s sake (because these things are long enough as it is without having a dozen variations apiece), we will assume that all companions are recruited and alive for the sake of plot advancement. Minds greater than mine can figure out how these would work without a given character – me, I tend to clear out the quest log before the Suicide Mission (aside from Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival, both of which are minimal on the squadmates from the rest of the game) and rarely let myself lose someone on the Suicide Mission, and since these are my ideas, we’re working in my framework.
Also, timeline note: Like ME2′s actual DLC, the fact that these would unlock at certain points in the game’s timeline does not necessarily reflect when they would best be played in the in-game timeline. Like Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival are (as I mentioned above), at least in my personal timeline, post-Suicide Mision content. BUT, they both become available to play after Horizon. Just because they unlock at certain points in the plot, that doesn’t mean that they best fit the timeline in that point. It was just a convenient way to organize things in my notes. So there will be ones that unlock at plot point A, but probably play best after plot point B. Players would be able to decide where they fit as it works for them.
Ghost of the Machine
A phenomenon is spreading across colonies in Citadel space. Machine cultists are cropping up on planets. Shortly thereafter, these colonies go dead quiet – often overrun by husks. To Admiral Anderson, this sounds like Reaper tech, and there’s only one person who he trusts to investigate the truth of the machine cults...
(Post-Freedom’s Progress)
So back to the machine cultists. In our last installment, there was Evolution, which featured them. Here, though, we’re looking at something that kinda resolves this little storyline. Y’know, since ME3 isn’t really going to have the time for this sort of thing. Which, sure, I’m saying this becomes unlocked before you can unlock this game’s machine cultist sidequest, but shush – just because it unlocks at this point doesn’t mean it has to be played at this point. This time, it’s not just about learning about the problem, but we’re also going to see what we can do to understand it, especially since we’re now acknowledging that this is a recurring problem within the universe and maybe we want to find a proper solution to it before stumbling blindly into it gets more and more people killed.
So this takes Shepard to a planet that’s making its first steps at colonization, yet again (because I am trying to be cognizant of what practical realities exist in the game development, even acknowledging that this is a hypothetical thing anyway – early colonization means limited extras wandering around out in the open and a self-contained area to play around in). Those seem to be the places where these devices mainly get uncovered, so that’s why this is here.
Of course, we have a situation where the devices are known about, so there’s an immediate lockdown, and the reason that Shepard and crew are getting sent out is because Reaper experience is needed – in the event that this colony can have anyone saved, who is it and how do we get them out safely?
I kinda look at this as revealing the process – the previous encounters were the parts that told us the existence of the metaphorical monster of this story, here we’re getting to see the “monster” properly in action. And I feel like this should be about also introducing some of what will become ME3’s foot soldiers among the Reaper armies – we know about the husks from ME1, now we’re going to encounter another for the first time. Probably the marauders. Given that they and the cannibals (who are so numerous in part because of the batarian worlds being first in the invasion path) are the most numerous in ME3 aside from husks, we should at least get to see them be pre-established because of their involvement ahead of time – they don’t get any proper introduction as is in ME3, just accepted as being there.
The honest general idea in this one is tying off this thread that was seemingly built, by way of being a repeated thread in both ME1 and ME2, but goes entirely unmentioned in ME3. Obvious reasons are obvious, but that’s why these hypothetical DLCs “exist,” to address things that the games didn’t have time for. (And that’s a big part of a lot of these, so... buckle up.)
Obviously, we have some of the supplementary material to work off of here – I’m specifically thinking of the Illusive Man’s comic series, Evolution. (Side note, TIM’s involvement there should probably also be part of the reason he’s quick to send Shepard in here – he knows what these artifacts can do.) You can read the wiki page as easily as this, but to quickly detail the important part, we know what these are through them, artifacts meant to ease the way for the eventual arrival of the Reapers by doing the huskifying work ahead of time, without the need for things like the Dragon’s Teeth (which... I want to bring these into this in some fashion, considering they seemed to have importance in ME1, but as the numbers of husks increased in the later games, they fell by the wayside – ME3 claimed that they were basically just to increase a subject’s adrenaline and spread the Reaper tech through the victim’s body quicker from the fear of impalement, and that seems like a lot of effort for little reward, since nothing indicates a way to come back after infection anyway).
So why are these on far-flung colonies, especially when the husks definitely don’t have the mental capacity to control ships and spread out that way?
Since, again, there’s no way to come back after infection anyway, that’s going to be one of the core questions. This seems like a highly inefficient way to set about conquering the galaxy. Why spread this if there’s no reliable method of getting it to go beyond any singular world? (Obviously, the original idea seems to be a) BioWare shock value and b) something to horrify the audience with no reason attached – so it’s time to add that reason). What is the purpose?
So that’s going to be a running thread, probably the major subplot of the story. Obviously, though, the first priority is Shepard trying to escape getting caught up in this colony that is descending into Reaper control. Also, since I said we’re introducing the marauders here, I think we need a turian contact on the ground – I almost said make them a female turian, introduce them to the world of Mass Effect well ahead of the DLC for ME3 (a-HEM!), but I also think that we’ve got another situation of seeing them get infected and die as a result – it IS a consistent point in this series that coming back from Reaper infections Is Not Done. And repeating that here makes it a consistent theme, considering Nyreen.
So while I still say there should be female turians making their appearance among the turians of the colony, our turian buddy is going to be a guy, just for the sake of not stuffing another named female turian in the fridge. I’ll get to a more proper introduction of a female turian later, promise. (And, I like to imagine, with the number of DLCs I’m writing up here, there’s some kind of ability to retroactively introduce female turians into the crowds in the base game as a “patch” through at least one of them, as well as into ME3 proper... Hey, this is all fantasy as it is, let me have that one.)
Anyway, the turian contact is going to be frosty with Shepard – he (I don’t have a name for him at this point) not only doesn’t trust Cerberus, he was also friends with Saren, making him distrust Shepard. While Saren was a traitor, it’s got an element of ‘guilt by association’ to have had close ties to him, so Shepard’s kind of a living embodiment of the hit to his good name. Even if he didn’t do what he did because of Shepard specifically, they’re still associated. But he is still on a mission and Shepard is here and willing to assist him, so...
That said, he’s a Cerberus contact – Cerberus may be human first, but, given the ME2 crew, they can cultivate non-human contacts and aid, and under the circumstances of this colony, being a joint endeavor of humans and turians (probably throw in some callbacks to the last edition of these hypothetical DLCs and mention Ambassador Goyle and the Planet of Peace story). He’s been influenced by Cerberus operatives because hey, it’s good for humanity and turians to make peace if there’s a greater threat, right? Shepard meets with him on the outskirts of the colony proper – in order not to be influenced, they’re acting as much outside of the colony as possible. (Come to think about it, it might be a good idea to make recruiting Mordin a pre-req for this, at least handwave him having come up with a measure meant to protect from Indoctrination and the effects of these artifacts.)
The artifact is already influencing colonists, of course, and our turian friend is ready to write them off immediately – they’ve read the reports, and indoctrination can’t be reversed. I picture a brief discussion about how horrible indoctrination is as a weapon, making the Reapers enemies into their servants, and so warping their minds and perceptions that they’d never be able to trust that any thought they have afterwards is their own, even if they could be saved. Because seriously, that’s one of the most unsettling things for me in this franchise.
The idea is, of course, to get in to where this artifact is and destroy it unseen. That probably means a stealth segment through this colony – honestly, do it like the batarian base in Arrival, I don’t think that it would be so bad. That offered some nice variation, if a little spare on interactable things. Here are going to be some interactable things, things you can get to if you’re good, pay enough attention to the line of sights and such, but will still risk discovery.
Those interactable things are going to be some of the background of the artifact and what’s the whole deal – y’know, codex stuff, things that aren’t essential to the story but good background. Lay some groundwork for the idea of what the Reapers want out of these things being left behind.
Stealth section comes before the inevitable action section, of course. Here, the artifact is in underground caverns (like normal) and our turian buddy sets out to make some quick scans, get the information they need. And, of course, it activates at his approach, zapping him with energy. He tries to shake off any effects but... Well, I already said that he was gonna get infected and die.
So here’s where we start seeing the husks show up. It’d be really nifty if we could get them in varying states of their evolution (or devolution, depending how you look at it), some people just having glowing eyes, others being full on huskified.
And, of course, our turian contact is now in the process of becoming a marauder. I’m thinking we’re having something of the same thing as with Saren here – now that the Reapers made contact with him, they’re framing him as their “herald,” the one who’s going to act as their instrument. Shepard rightly gets to point out the comparison, which does at least get some hesitation – he’s being indoctrinated, is in the process of becoming a pure Reaper tool, but isn’t all the way there yet, the process isn’t 100% immediate.
Also I figure this is a good time to really establish (in terms of ME2’s plot) that the Reapers are so interested in Shepard and why. Like, yeah, sure, we do get Harbinger’s whole thing, but that’s not really a dialogue where we get to ask questions. It’s not even an interrogation where Harbinger demands information. Harbinger just spouts out dialogue of “this hurts you” and such. That’s not really telling us anything. So, yeah, there’s the basic “Shepard defeated a Reaper,” but hey, let’s just get a little more out of it.
I mean, we can intuit what Shepard means for the Reapers, sure, but if it’s important enough to be a major motivation, it’s important enough to say outright, you know? So Shepard is a pinnacle for this cycle – they killed a Reaper, delayed the advancement of the cycle for a few years, that’s a bit of a big deal when it comes before the harvest proper starts up – and the Reapers (like Leviathan will later) want to better understand what makes them tick. If this is unique to Shepard or the human condition, and, if it’s the later, how to break this down to its basic chemical composition and make it their own.
Turian buddy is also here to mouthpiece the explanation for what the Reapers even expect to gain from this. Slaves who can’t operate the mechanisms that they’ll be using are poor servants. I figure it’s as much an intimidation matter as anything – prompt the effective burning of a colony without deeper investigation, sow some fear about the unknown and keep people staying to the comfortable and familiar areas of the space that they live in, corral them in the familiar patterns. It’s a plan with the intent of intimidation – it isn’t until the harvest that they need the servants, so until then, they just want the borders firmly established.
Seems simple enough, sure, but this is still a mystery as far as the game proper is concerned, and I am trying to work within the established structure of the trilogy, rather than come up with some massive reveal that changes our understanding of everything – if I WERE just going to rewrite the franchise, I could do that, instead of writing up synopses of add-ons to the main game, y’know?
Of course Shepard’s gonna get free – I’m thinking that it’s a rescue effort by some of the other crew on the Normandy (because it really bugs me that, when the game is focused around Shepard gathering up the “Dirty Dozen” for their “Suicide Squad” (look, I had to get that out of my system), they only take two members out on missions at a time, so hey, look, they get up to something while Shepard’s busy doing the dirty work. This being ME2, we have to shoot our way out even further to get back to the artifact, which is where our turian ‘friend’ waits.
Paragon/Renegade choice here – do we try and reach out to him, get him to help us blow the artifact to hell, or just jump straight to the boss fight? By this point he has some additional help, by way of our introduction to a harvester – these were dropped into ME3, on Menae, with no exploration, and non-Reaper ones were meant to be enemies during the development of this game, so call this the natural evolution of matters. We’re introducing the marauders and the harvesters ahead of time, explaining the lack of fanfare that these enter the “proper” storyline with. The difference is if our turian friend is aiding us or the harvester, the harvester being our big end boss for this DLC.
The harvester gets killed, the artifact is blown up with the turian (he chooses to remain if Paragoned, a reminder of the permanent effects of the indoctrination process and how this is something that can’t be fixed – hammer home some of the fear and anguish that will be impacting those left behind from the inevitable fighting). Shepard returns to the Normandy for a debrief (I do kinda picture Miranda being involved in that, because, again, squadmates get additional dialogue here, and she IS the ranking Cerberus officer). Also some set up about discussing about Cerberus efforts to better understand indoctrination (foreshadowing for Henry Lawson’s experiments on Horizon next game).
Post Game Followups:
ME3: Indoctrination has seen further study, providing a war asset. Dialogue changes to reference Shepard having encountered marauders and harvesters before.
Commander Shepard
The Suicide Mission is coming, and the Illusive Man has asked for all of Shepard’s companions to have their heads cleared. Now it’s Shepard’s turn. Their burdens have remained – the loss of the Normandy, the death on Virmire, and their death at the hands of the Collectors. The rest of the team has to clear their heads, and now so must Commander Shepard.
(Post-Horizon)
Yeah, why is it that, while we’re dealing with having to clear the heads of our crew, our PC, who has canonically been killed and resurrected, does NOT have to do this? So, yeah, Shepard needs a good head clearing. (For the record, I have written a fic of this: Lazarus Risen, and that’s effectively where I’m going with this, so if you’re so inclined, check it out instead of reading this, since while the recap is shorter, the fic itself is not too long.)
So, if you don’t want to read that, my idea when I made the fic was to explore both the idea of “Commander Shepard’s loyalty mission,” or the one where Shepard clears their head, AND the thought of just what the heck required Shepard to take all their companions on a mission and leave the Normandy vulnerable to the Collector attack after obtaining the IFF. Now, I’m saying that this mission unlocks after Horizon, but in my mind, that’s when and where this mission takes place. I just don’t know how to implement it within the game design that presently exists, so we’re gonna leave that open to player interpretation.
So the starting point of the fic (and thus, this DLC – like I said, that’s effectively where I’m going with this) is that Kelly Chambers, in her role as the Normandy’s official unofficial counselor/therapist, has recognized that Shepard has a lot of trauma associated with their death and resurrection they have not worked through, and so that’s gone into her reports to the Illusive Man. Mister Illusive contacts the Normandy, declaring that Shepard’s going in to a Cerberus facility, along with their crew, for a full psychiatric workup – the mission is too important to not have all these issues dealt with before going into things.
A bit of fun with this, on the basis of it being why Shepard is taking their whole squad off the ship, is that there’s the opportunity for some banter and genuine crew interaction, something that is sadly missing from the base game itself. Since I’m me, and this is about what I want from these, this is also an opportunity for some character stuff with Shepard, both playing referee (maybe getting a chance to recover some of the loyalty divisions from the confrontations if need be?) and getting to be able to better build and display the growth these characters are going through from seeing their loyalty missions resolved (cuz you DO resolve all the loyalty missions before activating the Reaper IFF, right?). The whole point of doing them was to clear their heads, encourage growth, and the thing is, we don’t get much of that forward arc in ME2, with ME3 just catching us up later. At least half the point of these is some retroactive continuity to smooth out the trilogy’s edges, after all.
Moving on. The arrival at the Cerberus Station (I am assuming this is the same one from the early part of the game, the one Miranda and Jacob take Shepard after they escape the Lazarus facility, though it doesn’t have to be, just a convenient use of model reuse) is uh... complicated. After all, Shepard’s motley crew is not exactly Cerberus approved (even if TIM authorized it – remember how Brooks in Citadel will mention that “Cerberus was a human organization bringing in aliens”?). There is a stir. A handful of situations have to be defused before everything properly gets under way.
This isn’t in my fic because that was focused on the one thing, while, as DLC, this would have to fill out some additional content to justify the time spent and the resultant price tag players spend to buy it, but I kinda figure this is where we can start seeing where the dissent is for Miranda in particular (probably Jacob too), given her Cerberus loyalties. This is a Shepard-focused mission, but I do see Miranda having a relatively decent role in any sidequests, character bits, and dialogue, given that we presently have in her a Cerberus loyalist right up to the point that she sees the human Reaper in the endgame. Especially if she isn’t part of the endgame squad, I feel we should have some material that connects those dots somewhat. I mean, I expect all the characters SHOULD get some, but Miranda in specific is the one with the almost explicit arc of taking her from Cerberus loyalist to her “consider this my resignation” remark to the Illusive Man at the endgame.
The Cerberus station director (my fic said her name is Doctor Nuwali, so we’ll be going with that) tries to organize the chaos that is Shepard’s squad (Shepard being as helpful or obstructionistic as the player chooses to allow, because Cerberus and authorities figures are always fun to poke at, and we’re getting both of those rolled up in one). Building off the above point with Miranda, there’s also clearly tension between her and Nuwali – Nuwali is, in many ways, a reflection of who she was at the start of the game, the pure, uncompromising believer to the cause and the results-driven focus without acknowledging the human cost, while Miranda has been in the position of growing and developing and questioning (Like I said, connective tissue for her character arc).
Nuwali directs Shepard into a private room for their psych evaluation, insisting on the separation of Shepard from the squad. (Just go with it, it’s for plot purposes.) Within is a prothean artifact, and it begins to react at Shepard’s arrival. It flashes-
-and Shepard finds they’re now in the Virmire facility. This is the requisite combat segment stuff that I can brush past during the recapping. The point is that they’re making their way through the geth to the area where the bomb was deployed, to find Ashley or Kaidan, whoever was left behind on Virmire (even if they were left with the distraction team and Shepard didn’t go back for the bomb, Shepard is guaranteed to have been at the bomb site, not the other area, so...).
They assist Shepard in clearing out the geth and then go into confrontation mode – “you’re working with Cerberus now, what the hell?” You know all the fan debates about why is Shepard working with Cerberus, given the horrors they uncover in ME1, especially if you roll a Sole Survivor (and, considering that is the default Shepard background, that’s clearly BioWare’s preference, so it’s not even like this shouldn’t come up – DLC is better than nothing, you know?).
Yes, we’re doing a “defending your life” style thing here. Hey, the game could use that, considering how Cerberus is the bad guy and we’re working with them. We deserve a more critical examination of this concept.
It’s a bit of a verbal joust – Ashley/Kaidan question what Shepard’s doing, their purpose in working with Cerberus, why they aren’t just leaving, how they could have tried to turn them in to the Alliance and the Council after they were given the Normandy and use the information in the ship’s databases as evidence of the Collector threat? There were ways for the story to progress that weren’t this deal with the devil. Shepard gets to acknowledge their points, struggle to justify what they’re doing. Emphasizing that this IS a deal with the devil, and if Shepard doesn’t find a loophole out of it, they’ll be condemned alongside Cerberus as well – not blowing them to hell in the here and now can make them culpable for their future activities, especially if Cerberus tries to bank on the idea of “Commander Shepard worked with us” (like they do with Conrad Verner in ME3).
Call it “preempting the ‘we should have been able to side with Cerberus’ discussion” that cropped up after ME3 – people, we ARE talking about a xenophobic terrorist group, how were they EVER gonna come out of this series looking like the good guys in the final analysis?
The ultimate point is that this is not a good situation – whatever good might come of Cerberus in general, Cerberus cannot be trusted. Ashley/Kaidan point blank ask can Shepard truly justify staying with them, doing the Illusive Man’s bidding, regardless of their good intentions. And I don’t really think there’s a good answer here – again, in my head, this plays as the mission Shepard’s on when the Collectors attack the Normandy, and, because I make sure to do all the loyalty missions before going to the Collector Base, Shepard is about to cut ties with Cerberus by way of a massive explosion (because I’d never trust the Illusive Man with the Collector Base), this is basically laying groundwork for that moment.
If you don’t do things that way... Well, sorry, but this is my hypothetical DLC, so we’re playing things my way.
Anyway, this sends Shepard on their way to the next installment of “defending your life.” Because we’re absolutely following the Rule of Three here, so there’s more than just the one segment. More requisite combat stuff happens, this time fighting through the Citadel tower again. At the end is Saren. Because why wouldn’t we have an encounter with him when Shepard is doing questionable things in the name of defending the galaxy?
He, of course, is rather smug about the fact that Shepard is allying with the devil in the name of fighting the Reapers – to him, it comes across as something of a victory, because here Shepard is, the person who came after him for his alliance with Sovereign, having made his own deal with the devil. If Ashley/Kaidan were the angel on Shepard’s shoulder, the voice of their conscience, telling them that they are making a mistake working with Cerberus, Saren is here to be the devil on the other shoulder, pointing out all the value there is in working with them, in doing whatever the mission calls for to put an end to the Collectors and the Reapers.
One would hope that this kind of rhetoric from the villain of the first game would make it very clear that Cerberus are the bad guys. As if to drive the point home, Saren also brings up that Shepard was rebuilt by them – with what is certainly Reaper tech. Shepard has begun the process of ascending to the Reapers level, what’s some more, melding more with their tech, bringing that melding, that joining, that unification of organic and machine, to the people of the galaxy, of doing the Reapers a favor and acting as their instrument in raising up galactic civilization?
Things of course descend into a firefight (because we’ve got to have our action quota). This time, Shepard gets to pull the trigger and personally kill Saren – sure, I get satisfaction out of persuading him to shoot himself, and I can always take the other options if I’m really pressed to face off against him, but I want the visceral satisfaction of having Shepard standing over Saren themselves and pulling the trigger.
It’s the little things, you know?
Anyway, because Rule of Three, this proceeds Shepard to the third point. They are back on Lazarus Station. No combat this time, just proceeding through the halls until they find themselves in the spot where they met Jacob in the prologue. Here, they see Miranda and Liara, discussing the act of giving Shepard to Cerberus to rebuild. While at first they’re talking to each other (whether or not you want to interpret this as Shepard somehow having heard the conversation or this just being Shepard’s interpretation, that’s up to you – we’re already in the center of Shepard’s mind here, does that really need explaining?), eventually, Shepard gets to speak, raise concerns, raise their voice.
Shepard gets options – do they understand and appreciate what was done to them, the resurrection and effective drafting into Cerberus? Or are they angry and pissed off – they were dead, and then someone else comes along and decides not to let them rest. For me, this has always been an issue of bodily autonomy, where, with Liara using the reasoning, and I quote, that she “couldn’t let [Shepard] go,” SHE is the one deciding what to do with Shepard’s body. Whatever you might say about what that did to make the galaxy a better place... Was it what Shepard would have wanted done with their corpse, to be handed off to a terrorist group culpable in acts of horrific deeds so that they could play Frankenstein with it? This is, in the games proper, just completely ignored – the one option to be angry is about Liara hiding this from them, not about her DOING it, and in ME3, Shepard – without player input – frames Miranda and the Lazarus Project as “giving them back their life.”
Yeah, no. I can forgive Miranda’s actions, given her characterization is actively about her going from looking at Shepard as a resource to be tapped to a friend (or possibly lover). It’s not perfect, but it’s still part of her arc, and she does at least make an apology (even if the writing doesn’t focus on the part I want it to, that ME3 conversation being focused on her wanting to implant Shepard with a control chip).
But I NEED to be able to express anger at Liara in some way just to like her, considering her canonical reason for doing this is all about HER – not that she considered Shepard the only one in the galaxy who could stand against the Reapers, but that SHE couldn’t let Shepard go. When in my games, she has no right to that. She’s not the one my Shepard’s are in a relationship with. So what those who romance her probably see as an act of love and devotion, I, not romancing her, can’t see it as anything but an act of obsession. And, even if I have to limit myself to a mental simulacrum of her, because there’s not a better place to include such a thing in these DLCs, it will help me, because it’s at least acknowledgement that hey, maybe Shepard is kinda pissed about people making decisions about them for them.
*ahem*
Right, so, where were we? Right, the reaction to Miranda and Liara discussing what to do with Shepard’s body. So as Shepard reacts, this prompts appearances from Ashley, Kaidan, and Saren, all of them playing Greek chorus about the decisions made about Shepard and how Shepard is reacting to them all. And yes, now we have both Ashley and Kaidan, regardless of who was left on Virmire, because why not – if we have one of them showing up for this DLC, why NOT include both of them? You’d have both actors in the studio anyway, so... Basically this is the big character confrontation where they all make the points that fans can debate and nitpick over when they bring up this topic, until finally the question gets put as, effectively, “well, however you feel about it, it has been done, so what are you going to do now?”
And to answer that, Shepard has to reenter the room they woke up in. Because we’re not quite done here yet.
Yeah, that whole conversation piece? THAT was the third “fight” or “combat” scene of this sequence, done in dialogue. Think the Atris confrontation in KOTOR 2, a verbal standoff. The actual interaction that Shepard has to face in the operating room... is themselves.
And their mirror image is offering similar questions, now wanting Shepard to respond, rather than having other characters voice opinions for them. How do you play Shepard’s reaction to their death and resurrection? To the fact that they are spending this game working with Cerberus, who is responsible for a traumatic event in roughly one third of all Shepard histories? Who Shepard uncovered multiple instances of their mad science in ME1 that crossed every ethical line? Who have it repeated rather consistently, is a humanity-first organization who will put human interests (and Cerberus interests, claiming they’re the same) ahead of galactic ones? If the Collector Base has (or is) a Reaper weapon, do they legitimately trust the Illusive Man with this power? Does Cerberus or the Illusive Man REALLY deserve any loyalty from Shepard?
Think of this as “stage two” of the verbal boss battle.
So, the confrontation with themselves concludes with, effectively, Shepard making their decision for going forward – the idea is that it has all been a mental debate, Shepard talking to themselves and coming to a conclusion that they needed to make. The general idea probably is one that, if you’re an obsessive fan with a penchant for filling in the gaps of canon (hey how are you?), you may have imagined these kinds of thoughts and discussions and conversations happening, but isn’t it more satisfying to actually have them take place on screen? And two, Shepard confronting themselves is, in and of itself, always a big deal. As I said at the beginning, this is Shepard’s loyalty mission, done to clear their head. How could it not result in Shepard facing themselves and asking themselves these big questions directly?
When Shepard officially makes their decision for the forward march, you know, figuring out how to handle Cerberus from here on in, which basically come to, effectively, use them for their resources and cut them loose at the end of the crisis or cut ties now and let the chips fall – since, after all, aside from Miranda and Jacob, whose loyalties to Cerberus are already wavering, Shepard has a squad full of the most dangerous people in the galaxy, so they could handle a mutiny of any kind (and, on the player end, there’s the knowledge that, while all this is taking place, EDI is getting unshackled and effectively is capable of running the ship) – they’re kicked back to reality.
And yes, those are the only two results of this, because, just to hammer it home, Cerberus is NOT. THE GOOD GUYS. The Illusive Man is not secretly good, he’s just using the “humanity needs protection” line to justify his actions and attitudes that are about seizing power. And anyone who thought that we would, should, or could side with Cerberus come ME3 was kidding themselves.
Granted, with this line of thinking, I’m not sure what the motivation would be to give Cerberus the Collector Base at the endgame (I mean, I never have, so...). Maybe the idea of “indoctrinate yourself, get taken in by the Reapers, you bastard,” but... That doesn’t seem right for Shepard’s characterization. Eh, like I said, much of this is based in how I play in the first place, so if you want to try and figure that out, feel free, but my list, we go by my way of approaching things. Because that’s just how I roll.
So I haven’t explained what, exactly, this prothean artifact is. Well, it’s effectively nothing more than a plot device, but let’s say there’s a note that becomes interactable, that basically talks up the artifact as being what I’ve called it so far, something that is meant to allow the user a chance to directly interact with themselves, face the truths they deny. Again, this really is a plot device meant to allow the circumstances of the plot, and while I could go into the details of how I assume it works, it really just needs to exist, but that’s my handwave excuse to justify how it worked. It works very well, thank you for asking. The reality is the how is less important than what it brings up.
So, Shepard is back in the physical world, and sets about putting the ideas into motion – the Illusive Man wanted them here? Yeah, no. Not doing that anymore. Shepard gets their crew out of there, upsetting doc Nuwali (giving the impression that there were some sketchy ideas in mind for Shepard’s companions when they were alone themselves, invasive procedures that they’d knock them out and see if they could take them apart and put them back together, now loyal to the Cerberus banner that sort of thing) and has a brief chat with Miranda as they fly back to the Normandy.
...You know, which, based on my time table, is currently under Collector attack. Fun times!
Post Game Followups:
ME3: The artifact as a war asset, reports about Nuwali being captured by Alliance officers while in the process of having attempted some of those ‘sketchy ideas’ she’d meant to enact on Shepard’s companions.
The Lights of Klencory
The planet Klencory is rumored to hold secrets regarding ‘the machine devils.’ Admiral Hackett of the Alliance has suspicions these are references to the Reapers, and has been secretly investigating these. Now, a team of Alliance soldiers have vanished out there, and he’s calling in Commander Shepard as a specialist, along with an old friend...
Bonus Companion: Ashley Williams/Kaidan Alenko
(Post-Horizon)
So back on the old days of the BSN, before Arrival came out, the speculation was, after Lair of the Shadow Broker, that the successive DLC would feature Ashley or Kaidan, give them the same treatment Liara got by featuring them in a DLC. One of my favorite ideas featured the concept of the “machine devils” of Klencory. You know, the planet blurb from ME1 where a volus is digging into a planet in search of evidence of “lost crypts of beings of light,” the indication being that he’d had his mind scrambled by a prothean beacon. So, hey, guess where we’re going?
I mean, obviously Illium, duh.
Actually, that’s not a bad starting point. Illium in general seems to be fairly neutral territory – sure, technically a planet in Citadel space, given its an asari world, but with many Citadel laws relaxed, it makes for a place where “an Alliance operative” will meet with Shepard (We’re starting by way of a letter from Hackett, for the record) without it being considered suspicious behavior by those looking in who are not in the know about the tacit support that both Hackett and Anderson are offering Shepard. There’s a lot of questions coming into this on Shepard’s part, given that, at this point in time, they’re not really an Alliance officer, and yet this is apparently something that is getting them called on? Probably means Reapers.
It gets complicated once Shepard arrives for the meeting and finds Ashley/Kaidan is their contact.
So, before we go further, I want to acknowledge, by the nature of having any real contact between Shepard and Ashley/Kaidan between the encounter on Horizon and the opening of ME3, I am effectively breaking one of my cardinal rules for these, namely the idea of not screwing with the pre-existing structure of the games’ plots in allowing Shepard and Ashley/Kaidan SOME form of genuine contact and communication, to the point of a chance for a legitimate conversation about things and where they stand with one another (Yes, the previous entry was bending that rule, but this is an outright breaking of it).
Thing is, this is one thing that really SHOULD have existed in the games proper, I shouldn’t have to have built something up to include here, and I will 100% die mad about it. Ashley and Kaidan got shafted by BioWare’s handling of things, and I’m not willing to forgive it (if you follow my liveblogs of replaying the games, you’ll know I frequently complain that Arrival really was gift-wrapped to serve this function, and yet it doesn’t so much as mentioned Ashley/Kaidan). So yeah, we’re having an opportunity to address this stuff right off, it’s taking place in the game “proper” (for a given value, considering all of this is made up, but...). I’ll get into how this will impact their interactions come ME3 in the “Post Game Followups” section, for now, we’re just going with this.
Also on the “to note” element, I am mostly going to refer to Ashley/Kaidan in the sense of swapping them into place for one another, since, obviously, they are mutually exclusive at this point in the trilogy. But I do want it understood that I am not viewing them as interchangeable characters but as individuals. Just... If I stop to explain all the little differences of how they interact with Shepard in this, the variations of what they say and do on the character level, I’d basically be writing this out twice, which this is going to be long enough as it is, you don’t need to read the plot summary twice, and I certainly don’t need to write it twice. Assume that, even if not explicitly indicated, there ARE differences in behavior and dialogue that are reflective of them as separate characters and people, even if the overall plot must go forward regardless of how differently they’d react as individuals.
And you might want to pay close attention, since there will be a lot of use of “they” pronouns ahead, since Ashley/Kaidan is more awkward to write and I make it a point to not address the player character (in this case, Shepard) by one gender or the other in these write-ups, given that that’s variable, so things might get a little confusing if you’re not paying close enough attention to the context.
So... The meeting with Ashley/Kaidan begins... awkwardly. They’re uncertain how to really react to Shepard – sure, the encounter on Horizon means they know that Shepard is back, but now they’re really having to deal with this particular reality. So they’re going to aim to jump to business. Alliance intel has intercepted some messages from mercs hired out near Klencory, which got Admiral Hackett paying attention to things happening out there – like Shepard will acknowledge, between the circumstances of this meeting and the quick summary of the reason for the mercs all being out there, this sounds like it’s connected to the Reapers. Hackett wants to have Shepard as a “special consultant” as the Alliance has someone (re: Ashley/Kaidan) investigate (“consultant” since Shepard may not have had their Spectre status restored, so it gives them legitimacy either way). It could, potentially, just all be a massive coincidence. But since when are things ever “just” a coincidence?
Ashley/Kaidan are willing to use the Normandy as transport – Hackett figured that, between the stealth systems, and the lack of official Alliance authority in the area, the Normandy is the better option for getting there without being told to get lost. The bigger question is how they’ll be received – it’s not like merc gangs take well to outside interference, and the Alliance having any jurisdiction out there is questionable at best. But they should at least TRY to go in with civility. If this volus billionaire spending all this money on this (his name, for the record, is canonically given as Kumun Shol, so hey, less work for me, having to come up with a name!), then if he hears from someone who seems to be taking him seriously, it might get them invited in explicitly.
Obviously, though, if they’re hitching a ride on the Normandy, if things remain unspoken, the trip out there will be very awkward and seem longer than it is. So they have to address Horizon. They’re not going to apologize for not joining Shepard – Shepard is still operating on a ship flying Cerberus colors, even with good intentions, that is a betrayal of their oaths to the Alliance, Cerberus are terrorists and xenophobes, who want to secure human dominance. But they will acknowledge that they reacted to Shepard’s return in a way that wasn’t their best. I am not going all the way to “they admit that they were wrong,” because based solely on the information that they had, they handled things as best as they realistically could. But they will regret that things ended on the terms that they did.
Shepard gets to respond to that – are they accepting that it was a bad reaction to unexpected information, do they still hold a grudge, whatever. The conversation continues to a point of conclusion – Ashley/Kaidan don’t trust Cerberus, they want to trust Shepard, but the connection between the two at the moment makes that difficult, and they don’t know how to bridge that gap as things stand, but they’re going to try this.
We will be coming back to this, never you fear. But, of course, that’s more for the ending than it is the beginning, and this one conversation is far from the end.
Klencory is a world with a toxic atmosphere, so they first have to gain access to a semi-decent landing zone near where Shol has established himself. Because, naturally, he’s not interested in visitors – the brief communication we get with him is him effectively talking himself into the idea that Shepard is “the agent of the machine devils,” which... I mean, considering the prothean beacons and communications with the Reapers, it’s not crazy that he goes there, even if (by the rest of his actions), Shol’s gone a little nuts.
Shooty shooty bang bang, fight through the exterior guards and into the facility proper. Ashley/Kaidan are a little uncomfortable about what’s gone on – this really isn’t how they pictured things going, given the legitimate credentials they were supposed to be coming in with, and they can recognize the fighting is because of Shol not giving them an alternative, but it does still make them feel like they’re acting as little more than the thugs they’re dispatching.
Call this a reaction to the fact that Shepard doesn’t exactly get much of a differentiation in the game themselves. Particularly when they can call out looters on Omega while swiping whatever’s not nailed down.
This is another conversation that’s going to be part of that “coming back to” thing – assume there’s some kind of tracking metric for all of this in the same vein as how ME3 tracked how Ashley/Kaidan responded to Shepard as a lead in to the confrontation during the coup. Just, I’ll get to how that all plays out at the end.
Because a band of mercs aren’t enough to hold off Shepard, Ashley/Kaidan, and the third companion (yay party balance), they reach Shol’s central command. He’s a little batty, but it finally gets through to him that Shepard is not the agent of the machine devils. He is skeptical of Shepard being the savior from them, though. Instead, he wants Shepard and company to do something for him.
There is a vault. A vault none of his men have come back from. Shol declares that, if Shepard can enter, learn its secrets, and survive, then they will have proven themselves to be salvation from the machine devils. Since this is the advancement of the plot, Shepard will have to go ahead with this, even with the natural objections of Ashley/Kaidan (and, probably, Shepard themselves).
Another pause for a dialogue – Ashley/Kaidan are skeptical of Shol’s motives, and believe it may be too dangerous to just do what he says. Especially considering that he’s clearly not entirely stable. This is a situation that really calls for calling for backup. But there’s really not the option of waiting, because if they don’t do as Shol says, he’ll throw all his mercs at Shepard – even if we’re assuming that Shepard versus countless mercs ends well for Shepard (because, after all, it’s Shepard), it’s just a senseless loss of life.
Going in is a set piece of suspense. Think the Peragus mine, with a dash of Korriban for good measure, from KOTOR 2 – lot of littered corpses, this creeping and foreboding unease and feeling of being watched, this overbearing expectation of SOMETHING appearing down every dead end... Build the tension. This is a place that, the littered dead aside, no one has entered in thousands of years, it should absolutely be a place that could chill you to the bone. The examination of anything should feel like it’s disturbing the dead.
You know there’s some ancient security device active, right? I mean, something’s killing the people who trespass here. Obviously, it has to be something that will put up a fight as our end boss, and it needs to be something that is able to last a long time. I’m thinking an ancient robot (my mind is going in the direction of something similar in design to the ancient droids of KOTOR’s Star Forge), a last defense, left behind by a precursor to the protheans.
Yeah, it feels like an underwhelming result to me too, but it makes logical sense all the same – we have some evidence of things from prior cycles, not just the prothean cycle, making it through to the next ones, not the least of which is the plans for the Crucible. Seeing as how that bit of intel is just dropped into our laps come ME3, this is at least making it functionally foreshadowed, if indirectly, by actually showing us ancient technology that is still functional and viable even after more than fifty, a hundred thousand years. Plus the foreshadowing of things surviving to this cycle in the vein of Javik. Things lasting this long in forms beyond just ruins at least makes all of that happening in ME3 at least have some groundwork laid in these prior games – otherwise, we only have a few codex references to ancient civilizations, as opposed to it being an actual component of gameplay, things that the player MUST interact with.
But yeah, the threat may be underwhelming, but the payoff is what it guarded – the last remnants of this ancient culture. The corpses have been preserved, given that it’s a bunker into the planet’s mantle – the toxic nature of the atmosphere now came about because of the Reapers, though, of course, this is only spoken of in the material available as “the machine devils.” There could be a great wealth of information among this stuff.
Thing is, now that the threat’s dealt with, Shol wants his prize. He spent years of his life and a great deal of his money on this, and now he wants to use it – and, because he still is a paranoid bastard, he’s not particularly inclined to uphold his end of the bargain, having expected to have Shepard and the “guardian” of the tomb (for lack of a better term) kill each other. He just wants all of this to increase his own fortune – he’ll sell everything within to the highest bidder and damn what the Alliance, the Citadel, anyone might be able to get from the archives. Giving it to private collectors – like, say, the Illusive Man, or even any interested faction of capital-c Collectors (as in “the enemies we fight throughout ME2”) – will enrich him and it doesn’t matter what that information might do to help make the galaxy ready for war against the Reapers.
Now, normally you would think this would lead to a Paragon/Renegade choice. BUT, instead, we’re going to have a variation moment for Ashley and Kaidan. They’ll deal with Shol, but in unique ways. Ashley, having marine hand to hand combat skills (as she mentions in character discussion during the first game), manages to get close and disable the volus’s suit enough to render him unconscious, while Kaidan uses his biotics to get the same result. So they get to have a moment of protecting Shepard (not necessarily “saving” them, because a volus getting the drop on Shepard would certainly be an embarrassing way to go, but definitely helping them sidestep a situation).
NOW’S the time for the Paragon/Renegade choice, dealing with Shol himself. He is an obstacle, considering that dealing with the legal claim to this cache of information leaves the door open to some sticky situations as a result – the last thing they need is to have anything that might be useful be wrapped up in the legal battle. But he DOES have a valid claim. Just unilaterally taking this place from him is questionable at best – even if Shepard’s still a Spectre, are they REALLY able to just come in and declare the location to no longer be the property of the individual with the legal claim on it? Likewise, there’s a lot of sticky issues with the idea of killing him – after all, as mentioned above, he does have a bunch of trained mercenaries on hand, and it’s reasonable to try and walk out without adding to the bloodshed. But if it’s made clear that his madness has overtaken him (which, I mean... it kinda HAS), then there’s room for the Citadel to be able to legally seize his assets, including his claim on Klencory and its vault. But this still means institutionalizing a person because they’re inconvenient.
That’s the choice – institutionalize Shol and seize his assets, despite the subsequent legal battle that he and his kin can draw everyone in to, or cut through the red tape preemptively, kill him, and claim what amounts to squatter’s rights, since with him dead, no one else is there to take charge of the archive, whatever it contains. Ashley/Kaidan are going to say they have no intention of letting Shepard kill Shol (because that would certainly always be a line for them), but there will be a Renegade interrupt to take that choice out of their hands anyway, and Shepard can make an argument that, if they don’t do SOMETHING, Shol’s men will come in and try to kill them, while if he’s dead, that denies them their paycheck (because for one time ever, can we just have the mercs give up and run off once the source of their paycheck is dead?!). Shol certainly isn’t going to tell them to back down, and “survival instincts” have never been at the top of their hiring priorities.
Ashley/Kaidan will have some words about the decision Shepard is making, but they can be swayed to understand Shepard’s motivations, at least, in the moment, though any disagreements they have are more in the “waiting for a more opportune moment” than “what you say goes, Commander.” More on that shortly. With that matter resolved, Shepard calls for a pickup.
Back on the Normandy, Shepard and Ashley/Kaidan are having an informal debriefing in Shepard’s cabin (save the jokes for the end of the scene everyone, we’ll get to that). They do a brief discussion of what the likely followup will be – the fact is, the Reapers are probably already uncomfortably close at the moment already, so there’s not likely to be much opportunity to examine this place too much before they show. Still, every little bit is going to help.
The big thing is going to be how Shepard’s handled things through to this point. This was an accumulation metric (in the same style as Aria showing mercy on Petrovsky or not during Omega), so the various Paragon/Renegade decisions through to this point will lead to their reaction. Paragon Shepards get Ashley/Kaidan acknowledging that Shepard is still someone they respect, and that perhaps this whole Cerberus alliance was one of necessity. Renegade Shepards are leaving them questioning what Cerberus is doing to them, and are they really the person that they once were.
That leads to the question of where they stand if they’re a romance – like with Liara in Lair of the Shadow Broker, this leads to a romance rekindling, but only for Paragon Shepard, because that’s the version that has shown that Shepard is still the person they followed to hell and back, still the person they loved.
Yes, while I try and offer reasonably similar options for both Paragon and Renegade versions of Shepard, this is dependent on that. Because it’s about setting their concerns at ease, about listening to them and allowing them to be angry and upset and come around. Renegade Shepard will have shown they don’t care about that, so why WOULD Ashley/Kaidan take them back?
Anyway, insert “debriefing” joke here.
And, y’know, a reminder that, in these DLCs I’m writing, we’re going with the assumption that Ashley and Kaidan both were bisexual romance options back in the first game, and it’s an option to rekindle for both gendered Shepards.
After the interlude (however it plays out), there’s the discussion of what’s coming next for Ashley/Kaidan. They’re returning to the Alliance, of course – with Shepard’s official ties still in limbo, taking them out of the official chain, Hackett has made them a floating troubleshooter at points where he suspects Reaper involvement in some fashion, be it machine cultists and husks, Collectors, or what have you. However they feel about Shepard, Hackett is still seeming inclined to trust them on this, so they expect that the intel will still reach Shepard as they do their work. They make it clear they expect this to be the calm before the storm, and when the fight starts, they know Shepard will be on the front line. Paragons get them promising to back Shepard up when the time comes, Renegades get them hoping that they’ll still be on the same side when that happens.
Post Game Followups:
So here’s the part where, typically, I’d talk about how this impacts War Assets for ME3. But this is giving the ability to resolve the major Ashley/Kaidan element of ME3 before we even get there (like we should have in the first place...) and that means we have to deal with that. To that end, I obviously have left the door open for the lack of trust by way of Renegade Shepard, and that’ll go through things as they are, the same as if this DLC didn’t exist (I mean, it doesn’t exist anyway, but... You know what I mean!). The alternative for a Paragon completion is that there will be a distinct lessening of the tension between Shepard and Ashley/Kaidan in ME3, leading to some serious dialogue changes on Mars – more of an acceptance, instead of distrust.
I’m also thinking that, with the air cleared, there’s no moment of hesitation among them during the Citadel Coup, that it basically defaults them to trusting Shepard, regardless of how much they interact with them in Huerta and “clear the air” of Horizon. After all, Shepard already allayed their concerns with their practical involvement, gave them the chance to see them as the person they were, rather than the possibility that they were no longer the person they trusted. This changes the dynamics of their earlier interactions, and if you have rekindled the romance during the debriefing (no I’m not going to stop using that gag), then the dialogue will have more romantic undertones, the conversations more focused on matters of both them and the future together, trying to figure out if they even have a future, what with the invasion commencing, let alone where they stand with one another in that future.
I feel like I should have more done here, really, but I am really, genuinely TRYING to remain within the basic structures of the games as they are with this, because I totally could trash them and rebuild them from the start, but that’s defeating the purpose of this as additional material to the games, so that’s the most I’m offering on that. I want to do more, Ashley/Kaidan deserve a bigger and better role in ME3’s plot (which I’ll be trying to address further when we get to the ME3 hypothetical DLC, but that’s not here), but I’m trying not to totally rewrite ME3 as it is, that would probably be its own long involved project, and this is already ongoing. The original version of events can still be involved in the game proper, as the Renegade version, but that won’t be the only version any more.
Oh, and, we’re getting some war assets out of the place we discovered. That feels like an afterthought here, though. This has been about Ashley/Kaidan and their relationship with Shepard, more than anything, and we really did deserve this as much as Lair of the Shadow Broker.
The Omega Heist
An old contact of Miranda and Jacob’s draws them – and Commander Shepard – back to Omega, where, with the merc bands decimated, an old threat they thought they’d dealt with long ago has reemerged. With Commander Shepard’s help, they must try their utmost to put this genie back in its bottle before it’s unleashed on the whole of Omega – and, potentially, the rest of the galaxy!
(Post-Horizon)
Considering Omega’s status as the dark reflection of the Citadel, the answer to it in the Terminus Systems, I just really want to explore it some more. Tie in to that, Miranda and Jacob have great prominence when they’re literally your only crewmates, but the second you start picking up the rest of the crew, they start falling off the map. Given that they’re our viewpoints into Cerberus as an organization, this feels like a mistake. Cerberus spends both the preceding and following game as enemies, and I think we need to spend some time at exploring why either of them would even fall under Cerberus and the Illusive Man’s sway.
It begins with Miranda asking to speak to Shepard. I’m gonna assume that, considering the unlock pattern of loyalty missions, this is most likely going to be played post-loyalty mission for both of them, since they’re both the first to unlock. Just to firmly establish where the characterization is going in to this. So both of them are at a point where they’re starting to question their loyalty to Cerberus (hence why I’m considering it a default that, in particular, Miranda’s loyalty has been obtained).
She’s heard from a contact on Omega about something that she wants to get Shepard involved in. The meeting moves to her office, where Jacob joins them. This concerns a mission they’d both undertaken shortly after their first mission together (see Mass Effect Galaxy, the mission Jacob talks to Shepard about having lost his faith in the Alliance over). They had an assignment to dispose of a biological sample – their assignment had been not to ‘get curious’ and investigate what it was, just get rid of it. The orders had come directly from the Illusive Man, so they were actually obeyed.
Jacob had been suspicious of the whole thing – when you’re moving something that you’re not supposed to investigate, it’s usually something that could blow up in your face. He opted for a little extra security monitoring, with Miranda agreeing and having kept track of it. That’s why this is now coming to her attention. They still don’t know what this was, but they can’t imagine that it getting let loose where any idiot could stumble across it would be a good thing.
So we’re returning to Omega. Personally, I’m disappointed that there’s no real change in Omega as ME2 carries on, even though you have to both clear out merc gangs and an active plague in the course of the game – recruiting Garrus and Mordin are mandatory quests, after all, so their joining the crew, their recruitment missions, these have to happen regardless of anything else Shepard may decide to do. So we’re getting another hub area on Omega besides Afterlife and the Gozu District market place. If Omega is the Citadel of the lawless Terminus Systems, then it can certainly fit in more of this (plus give more life to this place that, we know, will have people threatened come ME3 and the Omega DLC there).
Our central hub sector will be a safehouse established near the Kenzo District (picked because beyond existing as where Garrus had his run-in with Garm, we know nothing specific about it, so it can be used however the plot needs it to be). Under the circumstances – meaning “since we stored dangerous material on Omega without even speaking with Aria on the subject” – the idea here is stealth. Shepard, Miranda, and Jacob arrived via a transient shuttle rather than via the Normandy, and did so hopefully with some element of stealth. It’s not that Aria is going to be a threat here, just that she wouldn’t be happy learning about this going on under her nose and Cerberus is trying to cultivate some of her resources (sort of tie-in to the Cerberus takeover of Omega come ME3).
Their contact is my chance to get that female turian I mentioned a ways back into things – a turian trader who I’ll name Naevia (what, I’m a Spartacus fan and the reference makes me smile). The biological sample has fallen into the hands of a gang that’s trying to take up the space left by the biggest gangs of Omega losing their leadership (I’m thinking one of the gangs from our last edition of hypothetical DLCs, from “The Clean-Up,” because continuity!).
It’s around here that Shepard does ask the most important question on the subject that I think we’re all thinking – why the hell was this dangerous and hazardous sample kept rather than destroyed? Naevia admits she thought the same thing, but she was paid enough not to care, just to watch it. Miranda states that there was a possibility of using it for something in the future – this is a sign of her beginning to waver, because she can’t really justify the use of this sample, the fact that, though they’d been told to get rid of it, the “disposal team” had kept it, and were keeping it in a place with a population.
Granted this is a long standing tradition with dangerous science, but still, it needs to be called out.
The important thing is that it’s there, on Omega, and in particular when the station is already in the recovery process of a plague that targeted every race except humanity – there is still a lot of anti-human resentment on Omega, and the last thing that Cerberus should want is a human-spawned crisis breaking out (because no matter where the sample came from, a human organization, known to have a humans-first bent to it, was the group that stashed it here on Omega). Hence our presence.
We’re gonna have plenty of time to talk with Miranda and Jacob, so assume character conversations sprinkled here throughout (much as I cite it as reason that I don’t particularly care for their loyalty missions in comparison to others, that their loyalty missions also only have one ending, that once you start the mission, the only resolution is obtaining their loyalty, makes for a useful method of characterization trajectory here). This is here for the sake of exploring and deepening their character arcs, their division with Cerberus from the endgame, given that they’re both set against Cerberus come ME3, so we’re going with that.
We also get to spend some time with Naevia and getting a new perspective with the turians – she is a free agent, sort of like Vetra ended up being in Andromeda, in the sense that she’s a rebel to the status quo of turian military discipline. She’s looser and less rule-bound. She lives on the fringe of society and that shapes her reactions. She has no need for the turian rules of combat and prefers to take preemptive action – the rules of combat are a great idea in theory, when you have enemies who will respect them. But the Terminus is full of people who won’t. And, while she hasn’t been read into the Reaper matters, she is clearly picking up on the undercurrent between Shepard, Miranda, and Jacob.
Now if you’re assuming that this is leading to Naevia turning out to be involved in matters with this sample... Well, that’s definitely going to be a thing to follow, but let’s just keep going for now.
And yes, I have been cagey about what this sample even is. Remember, that’s because it’s a mystery even to Miranda and Jacob – they were still in a point where they were willing to listen to the Illusive Man’s orders without questioning them. The assumption was that the team they were giving it off to was a proper disposal team, and the failure of either of them to investigate it beyond his word. Y’know, the idea being they’re both starting to push themselves to look beyond the word they’re officially given by their boss and question him.
So… investigative work. We’ve already been over how in these summaries, that’s not where I focus on, not having a layout or anything to work with and such. So I’ve given the core ideas of character work and plot that plays out over the course of things, let’s cut to the climax.
The sample is being held by one of the gangs and a member of the Cerberus disposal squad. Because hey, look at that, a Cerberus agent went rogue and started killing all their guys, Commander Shepard, can you take care of that? He explains just what this sample is – a contaminant that can devastate a planetary atmosphere, hence why it was being kept on Omega, a space station. Of course, the problem with it is that it won’t discriminate and a rapid atmospheric dissolution will kill human lives as well. This is one of those things that it’s actually entirely justifiable that the Illusive Man didn’t want to use... y’know, if it weren’t for the fact that he still kept it, but...
Anyway, here’s where we come to Naevia’s sudden but inevitable betrayal, citing the profit to be earned – it’s easy enough to live on ships instead of a planet, so she’ll come out of this fine. Shepard gets the chance to shoot her with a Renegade interrupt, and look at that! She WASN’T betraying the team, just pretending to in order to slide a knife in the bad guy’s gut. It doesn’t kill him, and it still leads to a fight, but it’s easier if you don’t take the interrupt (because as much as I like the interrupt system, I think there should occasionally be consequences for taking a quick and reflexive response rather than the more considerate and thoughtful and examinative approach to a situation).
A multi-stage boss fight ensues – basic ground troops, interspersed with standard LOKI mechs, a YMIR mech joining the fight with reinforcements, and then a gunship. Maybe the gunship peels off midway and lets in another YMIR mech, just to really hammer the ‘boss fight’ element, or at the least let that be a higher level difficulty challenge. I mean you can only do so much with the mechanics of the game to create boss fights, right?
Anyway, Naevia is either dying, laughing at how her turncoat act was too effective, or she’s made it through with a few scratches and is patching them up as Miranda and Jacob are recovering the sample. Here’s the expected Paragon/Renegade choice of destroying the sample or storing it somewhere else – I can even see a reasoning for keeping in the idea of ‘once knowledge exists, it can’t just be destroyed, we need to study this to be able to devise a countermeasure.’ It’s a sucky one, for the record, but it’s a way to justify the Renegade stance.
This is where you see the culmination of Miranda and Jacob’s development. Jacob is open about wanting to correct their prior mistake of leaving this sample around to be used by anyone who might try to actually use it. No matter what, he sees no possible good coming from it and wants it destroyed. Miranda is conflicted. Her trust in the Illusive Man tells her that it would be right to hold on to this, it’s a weapon that could protect humanity if the aliens were to attack them – which is something that can’t be discounted as a possibility, considering the batarian hostility and the general aggravation of other races like the turians (see the previous Hypothetical DLC entry for more expansion on why I consider that a thing gets brought up). But she also knows that if this exists, then there’s a chance humanity can’t control it. She is looking to Shepard for guidance on this – she’s not turning to the Illusive Man’s standing orders here.
When the group returns to their safehouse, they find Aria there. Because this has been happening on Omega, and it’s her business to be fully aware of what’s happening on Omega. She thanks Shepard for disposing of that little business – if the sample was spared, she does imply that she knows about it, but, so long as it’s leaving Omega, she’s not going to be concerned about it. After all, she only cares about Omega’s interests. But, as a reward for what Shepard’s done for Omega, from the plague to Archangel to this (plus, potentially, dealing with Morinth, given that was the presence of an Ardat-Yakshi on Omega), she is offering a reward for Shepard – a penthouse suite.
Yes, I’m letting Shepard get an Omega apartment. I mean, okay, having one right before the Cerberus takeover of Omega come ME3 is not exactly the most prime real estate, but hey, Shepard deserves a place to relax, right? Plus it also comes with access to a special Omega market, a place where Shepard will be able to purchase any weapons or upgrades they might have been missed in the course of their missions (and any that get added through the DLC, including these). Because really, we should be able to have access to those things somehow, as in the game as is, if you miss it, it’s gone forever.
Anyway, Miranda and Jacob will also have follow up conversations when they return to the Normandy, discuss the way that things have played out and how they’ve evolved as people in the course of the game. Because as I said at the start, the two of them, in terms of their character development, kinda falls off the map in the course of the second half of the game. So they get a little additional content that helps fit them into the big picture of their character arcs.
Post Game Followups:
ME3: If Naevia survived, she’s an available war asset in regards to her underworld connections and such to send help Shepard’s way. If it’s kept intact, the sample also has some benefit for Alliance scientists in the study of reversing its effects and how to restore ravaged worlds. Also some additional content in the Omega DLC, though I’m not sure about the details of that right now.
And, y’know, since Naevia’s existence means that we have a female turian model built and developed circa ME2, this SHOULD mean that there are female turians scattered throughout both further DLC (as in ‘assume their existence in further installments, even if it goes unsaid’) and (because now they’d “exist” prior to the release of ME3) there would be numerous turian females in ME3 as assorted extras and such. Should go without saying, but I’m saying it. There will still be a few important female turian NPCs I introduce in further installments, but these are now part the standard background NPC collection.
Battle Scars
Alliance officers on shore leave have been disappearing from the Citadel with no trace. Ambassador Anderson suspects there’s more to this than the standard dangers of a space station that’s practically its own world. Though Shepard is in a questionable position among the Council, they’re the one person Anderson can trust to solve this.
(Post-Horizon)
The Citadel being so limited a space in ME2 always bothered me. Y’know, I get the thematic idea, that ME2 was about exploring the darker underside of the galaxy at large. But I liked the Citadel. There was a lot about it to explore, all things considered – we’re talking about the galactic hub of politics and commerce. This really should be a major location, no matter the game. And as I’ve said elsewhere, there could be a whole game set on the Citadel with room for more. So yeah, we’re doing this here, exploring an area of the Citadel that we never got to see before.
There are Alliance officers going missing and Anderson gets Shepard involved. Obviously, the synopsis covered that bit. The idea here is that we’re going into areas of the Citadel that normally, Shepard has no business in, and in areas that are more like vacation areas. You know what this means? It means we’re going to have non-combat segments, in the same vein as Kasumi’s mission. There’s gonna be an extended sequence of Shepard out of combat armor in this one, because Shepard is not being called on to be a soldier but to infiltrate and be seen as a civilian more than a combat fighter. (I’m thinking this is going to involve a new casual outfit as well.)
And we’re gonna say that this is happening at an exclusive resort, meant to be a location that’s relaxing – a resort on the Citadel, effectively. It’s primarily a place for Citadel-aligned soldiers (Alliance and other races) to recover after combat, a therapeutic place for soldiers to get treatment for their PTSD (think a place where they’d probably have sent the PTSD asari in ME3 to if there wasn’t an existential war on). It’s why it’s a popular place for these Alliance soldiers to be, and we’re also going to rate it as having the highest success rate as a psychological and therapeutic facility in the known galaxy (because, being on the Citadel, why wouldn’t a place like this have a reputation of being the best, given how the Citadel is effectively the metaphorical center of the galaxy) and it’s a bit of a mixing bowl of Citadel culture, which allows for the rest of the party to come along.
I’m going to stick with mandatory companions here for a handful of reasons – one, Shepard’s got an eclectic band, and I feel like if they walk around a Citadel resort with Grunt and Legion, for example, that’s probably going to blow their cover. For two, I like the idea of mandating some pairings and developing the relationships more. Last entry was about Miranda and Jacob. Here, I’m thinking... For a resort, I honestly lean towards Samara and Kasumi, characters who, respectively, can blend in with “high society” and can pass through unseen by others. Kasumi, of course, does her cloaking to accompany Shepard – she does prefer going unseen. Samara, though, is playing at being a Matriarch – given the setting, let’s say that she’s pretending to be looking for a facility for her rambunctious daughter who is ‘disgracing’ the family name – sort of playing on her own history with Morinth (because Samara’s method that way), while still being a role she plays.
Yes, I’m aware that Kasumi is a DLC character, not everyone necessarily has her, but hey. If you’re playing DLC in the first place, you’ve probably collected other DLC, particularly a new companion, we’re just gonna roll with it, because I’m not going to develop an alternative without her, so consider them connected – I don’t know, say they got packaged in a sale together or something. This is all hypothetical in the first place, remember, does it REALLY matter that she’s not in the base game?
Shepard, of course, is going in as what they’re looking for, an Alliance officer looking for leave. This way there can be a solo segment, and the tension of “will Shepard run into trouble they can’t handle on their own before their companions come to their rescue?” Obviously, there does have to be some addressing of Shepard’s fame and notoriety, but it’s not like Shepard’s not doing other things that are putting their famous mug in places they shouldn’t be, particularly when it comes to involving Kasumi (The Hock heist, anyone? How, exactly, was the most famous human in the galaxy supposed to keep a low profile there?). So we’re just gonna handwave that, like you do.
As always when these are investigative sequences, I’m just gonna gloss over that part for the sake of convenience – the basic facts are that we have a lot of suspects with no clear motive at the outset of things. You know, get your basic archetypes wandering around – look at any show that features a recovery center, you’ll find them, I’m not gonna go into detail on the incidental characters.
The trick is that Shepard is going to be doing their initial investigating solo – they have to get entrenched before their companions show up (given that Samara’s cover is going to have her supposedly only there to look the place over, rather than sign herself in as needing “treatment” and Kasumi is going to be cloaked, searching for the things that Shepard can’t get access to – yes, for the record, I’m setting up for a Big Damn Heroes moment, I would think that would be obvious). They’ll meet with the above mentioned archetypes, learning details.
The details are more for the flavor – how well does Shepard figure out the scheme (which I’m getting to) before the villain shows up to explain in a monologue? Because, y’know, what villain doesn’t love explaining their nefarious deeds with a monologue? Shepard figuring out more and more of the plot before they confront the bad guy will impact the way the end fight goes down – figure it all out, you can sidestep the big final confrontation, figure most of it out, the fight’s significantly easier, stick to the bare minimum, it’s the hardest it can be.
This of course gets Shepard caught by our villain of the piece. So, what’s going on? Well, it’s an attempt by one of the doctors at this facility at cooking up the same shady shit Cerberus has, in the form of cyborg soldiers – the soldiers who have been kidnapped have been converted into these cybernetically enhanced soldiers. Problem is, they’re mindless automatons – higher brain functions didn’t survive the implantation process. So while these six million credit men are superior soldiers for combat, able to shrug off the kind of injuries that would cripple any other organic soldier, probably even have like nano-tech that speeds up any kind of healing and recovery process, they’re ONLY for combat, there is no human mind, no individual still alive in these shells – they’ll do as ordered because of the computer control chips in their heads, but only because those chips fire off the impulses needed.
“No glands, replaced by tech. No digestive system, replaced by tech. No soul. Replaced by tech. Whatever they were, gone forever.”
This is a point that I wanted to bring up in Miranda’s chat about “disposable soldiers” – the concept of soldiers being disposable is the kind of thought that cleans up war, something that the very idea is MEANT to be “dirty.” When you have these disposable soldiers, something that replaces the flesh and blood troops, you’re now in a position where going to war is not a difficult choice – you’re not sacrificing anything in the fight, because your best and brightest are safely out of the line of fire. When you don’t fear war, you’re going to turn to it as the first option, not the last. And, as pointed out by the use of Mordin’s quote above, at some point, your “disposable soldiers” become exactly what the Collectors are, mindless automatons who perform the duties of their masters, and, because of that distance, their masters’ own humanity erodes, because they never have to get their own hands dirty, while their servants are incapable of arguing with the orders.
This is when we get the aforementioned Big Damn Heroes moment, where Samara and Kasumi rejoin the party – since I’m assuming Shepard is being restrained at the moment, we have Kasumi Overload the controls and get them loose while Samara covers her by biotically handling the guards (because there are always guards).
So we get to that ending of how the boss fight can go down – Shepard gets to argue about the whole “disposable soldier” thing, bringing up and expanding on the above argument. If they uncovered all the details of the plot prior to the point they’re found out and taken captive, they can talk the doctor out of the inevitable fight (they still can choose to fight, of course, but the option is there to avoid a fight altogether) and have them shut down the project, effectively take their “prototypes” of these cyborg soldiers off life support and let them all die out (because, again, it’s the cybernetics that are even keeping them alive at this point), they can try and fail because of a lack of information, or they can actually agree with the idea, just that this doctor isn’t the one to be controlling them – it’s a valid choice, after all, to have a viable standing army to face the Reapers with.
I did debate making that last an option, just because I am morally opposed to the idea, but I am trying to respect that the Paragon/Renegade division was meant to be more than “goody-two-shoes versus puppy-kicking-monster,” and approach it from a level of “win with morals versus ends justify the means” – if you’re looking for something that can face the Reapers, like Shepard is aiming for throughout the trilogy, then a pragmatic approach says “we can use this resource, and I’ll deal with the moral weight of it later.”
Thinking about it, this does kinda make a flaw of the Kasumi-Samara team, because I do struggle with seeing how they’d just casually go along with Shepard saying “zombie cyborg army? Sign me up!” But maybe the Justicar code says that, regardless of origin, their existence has purpose and use, while Kasumi is horrified at the idea of using – and defiling – the dead like this. Basically, I want there to be a shoulder angel-devil scenario here, but I may not have selected the right companion pairing for this. Still, I’m not going back and rewriting this to make that work, so we’re just going to acknowledge that and move on – they’re both on the team, and there are other Renegade choices Shepard has available that they both just accept, so we’ll accept that.
And, y’know, I have a personal preference for Paragon at these decision points, and would probably stick to choosing to wipe out the zombie cyborg soldiers myself, and these are my ideas so I roll with what works for my decision making process, so nyah.
This still leads to the question of what, exactly, should be done with this facility – this is the head of the place we’re talking about as being responsible, with them out of commission (either being killed by Shepard or taken into C-Sec custody, depending on your choice), it’s entirely possible the place will be shuttered, or at least in chaos for a time, and that means all of its current residents are going to be kicked out – this is one of those “well intentions doesn’t change negative results” scenarios. Of course, Anderson will try to step in and do something, but... He can only do so much. Especially with having to clear out the devices and secret lab material and such, there’s a lot in this that just... is not going to have this place in a condition to be what it’s meant to be. Especially if things turned into a fight with the doctor and trashed the place.
Shepard themselves can only do so much – they can make a recommendation, but ultimately, there will be a board decision. They can offer a suggestion, a way for the staff to try and focus going forward, but it’s going to mean downsizing their care in some fashion – either they focus only on the immediately at-risk patients, going in the way of ‘if you’re not an active threat to yourself or others, you have to find somewhere else to seek treatment,’ or they limit themselves to just the care of a single species, because the psychological experts for multiple species is a resource drain.
And this one is NOT a Paragon/Renegade choice. It’s player’s best take on the subject, because there is no “right” choice in this scenario. Either way, someone is getting screwed over. You can hope sending the not at-risk patients won’t exacerbate their conditions, but you can’t be sure of that – especially when it comes to people who have been there for some time, PTSD and other conditions won’t just go away, they need to be managed and treated, and if you go from one facility and one medical professional to another, that can throw off your recovery. And you can specialize in the treatment and wellness of a single species, but what about the members of the other species? What about the “melting pot” nature of the Citadel and how, realistically, reinforcing those barriers between species only makes it harder for these species to get along with one another?
It’s a “no good choice” scenario, and I think it’s worth a discussion with Anderson at the end (rather than back on the Normandy with all the companions, just because I don’t think the game can really account for everyone there having an opinion). Though let’s also give a follow-up conversation with Kelly – y’know, the therapist – and let her have more to do in this game.
Post Game Followups:
ME3: If the doctor was taken in to custody, they’re among the Cerberus scientists during the mission on Gellix – Mister Illusive stepped in to get their work under his banner, and, like Gavin Archer, Shepard’s involvement eventually made them hesitate to do his bidding. If the cyborgs were kept on, they’re a decent strength war asset.
The Batarian Connection
A Cerberus vessel goes missing out near the batarian border. While the Collectors are still the first priority for Commander Shepard and company, the Illusive Man is concerned this may be the first stage of a batarian incursion of Alliance space. He tasks Shepard and company with recovering the missing ship. The batarians, however, have other ideas...
(Post-Horizon)
We hear a lot of talk about the batarians making slave grabs throughout the first two games, and the Colonist background has this as a part of the things Shepard has been through. But we don’t actually see it. And we probably can’t manage to see the absolute worst horrors of the batarian slavers, but that’s not the full point of this.
No, the point is to start showing another face to the batarians. See, we’re going in with the idea of the batarians slavers we’re after handing off the captives they take – of various races, though krogan and turian are not likely, given their own, more aggressive nature (maybe useful in gladiatorial rings... We might be coming back to that before these DLC are done), and the quarians aren’t going to be as numerous, that still leaves humans, asari, salarians, and other batarians. And we know from Mass Effect 3, having the Cannibals being introduced in the first segment of the game, the Reapers have access to a lot of batarian genetic material, so they’ve already spent a lot of time developing how they intend to repurpose the batarians into the servants they need to wage war in this cycle.
Codex material speaks of how the Collectors want certain specific types of people to collect, and that is going to be what’s happening here – while the Collectors main focus in the game is to gather up humans to turn into Reaper slurry, we’re also looking at the other races, because there’s a history of the other races being taken by the Collectors for various unknown reasons. It wasn’t clear if there would have been an intent to build additional Reapers out of the other races – an asari Reaper, a turian Reaper, etc. - or if they’d just be left to rot, possibly slurried alongside the humans and just put in the same shell. To build off the idea of “organic preservation” of the species who consist of a cycle, I’m going to assume that they would be fused into a Reaper of their own, though there’s room to argue they were going to just be pulped into the same Reaper or left as the Collectors of the next cycle. But my ideas, my interpretation of things. And if BioWare wants to fight my interpretation, hey, should have included it in the game.
So yeah, the batarian slavers we’re coming across were going to offer the Collectors more of those captives of various races and such. The idea here is to not just have a look at the horrors of batarian slavery, but also an upfront acknowledgment that the batarians do this to their own people as well. The crappy situation for your average batarian is reduced to codex and one-liners, so we don’t actually have this knowledge available for the common players, and this is a thing that needs correcting.
We’re also going to have an encounter with a different Collector ship (just to avoid too much of the whole “small universe syndrome” of the same ship dogging Shepard for two years – it wasn’t until ME3 and James’s backstory that I got the impression that the Collectors had more than the one ship, since they made this one ship out to be this major force). Because, really, if the Collectors taking colonies was something of a plan B when the Citadel didn’t open, then they should be readying themselves for more than just humanity to be taken.
Among the batarians is a sense of distrust – batarian propaganda says the galaxy hates them, and, because we get the slavers and mercs running around in the games, the audience is probably not inclined to disprove that theory (particularly if there’s a Colonist Shepard doing the run – because I say so, there can be plenty of statements from them on the subject that fit the background specifically, because it’s nice that these are all theoretical and I can throw in whatever I like). Still, the general idea is that Shepard does feel a moral responsibility to save them, even if, as in the case of Renegade Shepard, it’s just in the name of preventing the Collectors get their claws on them.
But, thing is, ME2 offers no ship piloting mechanic, and I’m not bringing that in. And, y’know, I still get war flashbacks of getting ambushed by Sith fighters in KOTOR. So that means that the Normandy heads off, Shepard ordering them to find help (we’re gonna say that this is taking place somewhere near the batarian-turian border, so the Normandy can go find a few turian ships – going back to my idea of “shaking up companions” concept, I don’t have any particular choices to go with Shepard this time, but this makes it almost mandatory for a companion other than Garrus to come along, since Garrus can sway the turians to come to the rescue of alien nationals – and this ship ends up crashing, with Shepard and companions still on board – as are the freed slaves.
And we’re not crashing on a habitable planet. Because while there’s the helmets and all, I feel sometimes like the franchise as a whole underplays how much the atmosphere of planets being conducive to life as we know it is kind of rare. So while the cargo hold, settled in the heart of the ship and surrounded by the various additional decks of the ship, makes it through, there are portions of the ship that have been vented into space.
And the Collectors are coming.
Shepard gets to make a Paragon/Renegade “inspiration” speech to the captives, recommending that they get to trying to save themselves. Paragon will get a majority on their side, Renegade only a particularly brave soul. This one would be the Paragon’s contact/coordinator, just so that I can have a clearly identifiable person to turn to. And, yeah, we’re punishing Renegades here, but here’s the thing about this – we have stolen people, taken prisoner, made into slaves, about to be handed off to aliens who are only known to the galaxy as kidnapping and experimenting on people who never return, and then crashed on a deadly planet, with their only shelter pocked with holes letting out the valuable atmosphere that keeps them alive. I’m sorry, but being an asshole to these traumatized people? Even in the name of saving their asses from said kidnapping and experimenting aliens, they are NOT going to be ready to take up arms and fight. Read the room.
So, it becomes a game of causing enough losses to the Collectors for them to retreat for the Normandy to arrive with rescue vessels. Cat and mouse combat, with interspersed dialogue with our batarian coordinator (Making a name up on the spot... Kahvahr). That’s giving the expansion on both him as a character, talking about himself – a political exile, he spoke out against the Hegemony’s attitudes and practices, that they are so isolationistic that the necessary trade with the Citadel races, trade that could reduce their reliance on slavery, is killing them, which led to him attempting to leave, an attempt that ended up putting him into the hands of the slavers he argued against, and he’s certain that the Hegemony’s leaders basically gave him up. Talk about the beauty of Khar’shan, as a planet and place, something more tangible for us the audience of this place that we never get to go – he speaks longingly of these natural wonders he doesn’t expect he’ll ever see again.
The aid of the batarians Kahvahr leads can offer some combat segments getting avoided, but I do want to include some elements of the Collector faction from ME3 in combat segments all the same, the Collector Captain in specific. Because these things never appeared in ME2, so let’s remedy that.
And our end boss is going to be some variant of the Collector drones we see in Paragon Lost, which are these giant sized Collectors. So they get some additional tricks and are a clear case that Shepard is now facing the worst forces the Collectors can throw at them. Because I figure you can give them some interesting additional boss tricks.
The turians arrive and the Collectors withdraw, so Shepard gets to pass on what to do with these batarians – treat them as refugees who are seeking asylum in Citadel space or ship them back to batarian space. Because the thing is... batarians in Citadel space are probably not going to have things pretty well. Like there’s a reason we see batarians on Omega but not the Citadel. And a lot of these batarians still have families in the Hegemony. So there’s a very real argument to the idea that they’d be better off going back. It’s probably bull, considering the Hegemony’s leadership (and definitely bull on the basis of the Reapers being about to steamroll the batarians in between games), but... It can be made.
And it also speaks to how well Shepard is responding to Kahvahr – Kahvahr makes it clear, batarian slaves tend to be those who speak out. How much good can they really do going back to the Hegemony? Sure, you can argue that it’s in the name of encouraging rebellion against the Hegemony’s leadership, but realistically? It’s signing a death warrant – if this attempt at silencing him didn’t work, the Hegemony will likely just go straight to killing him.
And maybe Shepard’s okay with that – the whole reason we’re doing this is because the portrayal of batarians through the rest of the series is almost exclusively them as an always chaotic evil antagonistic force. What do they contribute to the galaxy, right? But this whole thing has been to help paint the batarians in a new light – now, shipping these batarians back to their people isn’t a mercy but a death sentence. What can I say, I like that script-flipping. But, as always, it is a choice for Shepard, for the players. Because apparently, people who play these games like the chance to play the asshole. Fine, you can, but you’re definitely getting judged for it.
Post Game Followups:
ME3: If given asylum, a batarian militia will have formed, both the survivors of the crash and of batarian refugees, wanting to aid the Citadel forces, Kahvahr himself as an asset.
Shadow Dance
Shepard’s connections to Cerberus have not gone unnoticed. A Spectre – Vexx Liranus – has decided that they are a key component to Cerberus plans (not untrue) and that their capture or death would be useful in combatting Cerberus (definitely untrue). With a fellow Spectre nipping at their heels, Shepard has to face what should be a comrade in arms in a deadly game of cat and mouse!
(Post-Horizon)
We meet three other Spectres in the trilogy, and only one of them, Jondum Bau, in ME3, is actually an ally. This is turning that on its head – all things considered, Vexx Liranus should be an ally. After all, we’re talking about a fellow Spectre, working for the Council, and Cerberus IS using Shepard for their plans, so taking Shepard out would make sense.
It’s just Shepard is a good guy, working with Cerberus as more an alliance of necessity, rather than any ideological alignment. And while I’m sure if you had a chance to sit down and talk to another Spectre, they’d probably eventually come around to the idea, well... Where’s the fun in that.
So Vexx. We had Naevia above in “The Omega Heist” as our “first” female turian for the trilogy, though she does potentially get killed. So we’re gonna have another female turian here, just to really sell the “no fridging female turians” concept. She is a badass turian soldier, like I want a planet with an “r” name to say she had a major incident on so that she can be “the Raptor of [wherever].” Because I love alliteration. I picture her being voiced by Claudia Christian (who was a favorite of mine to voice a female turian back before we knew anything about Mass Effect Andromeda, and while I’m absolutely a fan of Danielle Rayne’s performance as Vetra, I still regret that lack, so I’m making this happen here).
As for the actual plot, we’re gonna start on a small waystation location. It’s a standard resupply place, in the vein of like those Fuel Depots or something, a place like the Citadel but smaller. Because I think that space stations are an underdeveloped aspect of the Mass Effect universe. Like in Star Trek, there are Starbases and Deep Space Stations (such as DS9). Surely the various militaries of the Citadel races are doing the same, building their own stations that act as refuel and resupply, as well as standard rest and relaxation – Spacer Shepard will talk about living on ships, but I don’t see a child actually being raised on military vessels. But a space station that acts as a rallying point and home base for a vessel? That I’ll buy.
So this begins with the Normandy pulling in to one of these types of stations. You know, a little bit of a supply run, something simple. Things do not go according to plan, though, because, y’know, why would they, we wouldn’t have a plot if they did.
It begins simply. They settle in for a resupply, Miranda suggesting that the operational crew get a chance for some break time, Kelly adding that crew like Rolston and Hadley should have an opportunity to contact their families. That’s how we get here. As Shepard proceeds to look through the market, we get other angles of Vexx monitoring and observing Shepard. Shepard will begin to get that feeling of being watched, and that’s when she makes her first strike.
Now, yeah, I say right off in the synopsis that Vexx is a Spectre, but in the story proper? This is going to be kept quiet for a while. Sorta like how Vasir gets this intro that kinda clearly marks her as someone who we’re going to have to fight later, Vexx is getting the appearance of being a straight up antagonist. Because in her mind, she IS an antagonist to Shepard. She just believes that she’s the protagonist of the story, specifically because of Shepard’s ties to Cerberus, coming to this place in a vessel flying Cerberus colors, operating with a Cerberus crew. In her mind, she has discovered a threat to the Citadel and the Council.
While I’m still on the “give the companions more of a role” train, in this case, we’re going to see Shepard cut off from the crew – they come under fire from Vexx, they give the command to evacuate the station, return to the Normandy, and get out until they give the signal. Paragon Shepard wants to minimize casualties, Renegade Shepard wants to handle this themselves – Vexx interrupts their leave? It’s on now.
This leads to a chase through the station, and finding that she’s gotten things pretty well set up for this chase – I figure at some point, Shepard comes across like a secured bunker she’d been using as a command base, finds logs that have been tracking them since they landed on Omega at the start of the game. (Timeline being what it is, meaning as variable as it is, I’m gonna say that this is taking place functionally around, say, the Collector ship mission.)
That discovery is also when her Spectre status is made clear. Now, while there’s a good chance that Shepard’s had their Spectre status reinstated (thank you Dad!miral Anderson), well, we still need a plot here. Vexx doesn’t believe Shepard’s claim to have Council approval – after all, she certainly can’t just casually check this out while on a mission, Spectres are supposed to function independently of the Council. And she’s pretty good with the “better beg forgiveness than to ask permission” approach – Shepard helping Cerberus, even as a double agent, is a threat (for a less competent example of why, see how Shepard helping Cerberus in ME2 leads to Conrad Verner preaching Cerberus values in ME3).
The hunt continues. I’m basically picturing this functionally working a lot like a lower-levelled version of Arrival’s Project Base level, just with like security drones and such, and Vexx popping in and out of combat range. This is a hunting mission, on both sides, and the idea is that Shepard (and, by extension, the player) should feel like Vexx or her drones might show up around any corner. If nothing else, call it useful practice and experience.
Now, I said before I wanted to avoid stuffing our first female turian in the fridge. While Naevia could survive, she also could die. So I want to guarantee that at least one female turian of prominence is introduced without killing her off. That means that we’re going to have to find a peaceful resolution, as well as an alternative that allows the bloodthirsty playerbase to be satisfied.
That means an outside agent, a third party, getting in on this. I’m thinking a krogan merc with a grudge and a krantt and a blood oath against Vexx he’s more than willing to extend to Shepard, the Spectres, and the Council – with Vexx, it’s personal, having tangled with her before, with Shepard, they’re in the way, and with the Spectres, they work for the Council, and the Council gave the go-ahead on the genophage, so hey, it’s a good day to be him.
This eventually leads to, after some three-way combat, Shepard suggesting a truce for the time being – the krogan (Vargan, for want of a name) is a bigger threat to them both at the moment, since he’s distracting them and endangering the station as a whole. Vexx sees the wisdom in this and is willing to work with Shepard.
This gives a little more time to explore her, now that Shepard can talk to her. Vargan’s grudge stems from her disbanding his merc pack a while pack – they had ideas similar to the Blood Pack and Clan Weyrloc (re: Mordin’s loyalty mission), just without the aid of any salarian scientists. Maybe they’d sought out Okeer (possibly part of the reason that Okeer became a “very hated name,” as Wrex puts it? I don’t know, I’m spitballing here). Whatever the goal, however, she managed to put a stop to it, enough that Vargan was stripped of his clan name – given the structure of krogan society, I figure that in doing that, a krogan loses all right to even attempt to mate with the females, a big blow to a proud krogan leader, basically leading him to a voluntary exile from Tuchanka. That he still has a krantt after that still speaks to his skill and prowess, but also makes it clear that these are his only allies in the galaxy.
Shoot-y shoot-y stuff happens, yadda yadda... We’ve been over how writing about combat in these write-ups is boring. End result, we learn more about Vexx, develop and establish her further, give her this likeable air now that we’re on the same side, and get to Vargan, taking out his krantt in the process. Now that he’s alone, he is ready to die. He got everyone loyal to him killed, that means he’ll never regain a clan name now. He wants to die.
Typically, Paragon/Renegade decisions are a clear binary of “good means letting people live, bad means letting people die!” But here, Paragon is understanding the krogan mindset – he wants to die because he will never have a place in krogan society if he lives. He got his krantt killed, so he will never be able to gather a krantt again. He will never have that trust again, and so his death is the only way he can have an honorable ending. Meanwhile, Renegade is saying “no, I’m not going to grant you the mercy of death, live with your failure.” And doing that will likely mean he will strike out and go on some kind of suicide run (indeed, I picture that result being a news announcement overheard on the galactic news points).
Because I like the idea of twisting the Paragon/Renegade assumptions around – the idea behind it is supposed to be more nuanced than “good = blue, bad = red,” but in context, a lot of the use of the system through most of the series is a lot more binary. So this is showing the flip side of both ideas’ general attitudes – you are saving more lives and respecting his attitudes and beliefs by killing him, while knowingly leaving a threat to others that you KNOW he’ll act on by keeping him alive.
Vargan defeated, it comes back to Shepard and Vexx. She’s more impressed by Shepard at this point. Paragon Shepard showed an understanding of non-human mindsets, and that more than anything makes her hesitate to paint them with the same brush as Cerberus. Renegade Shepard showed enough martial skill that she’s concerned that things will only reach the point of a stalemate, and likely do too much damage to the station for it to continue operation.
So she offers Shepard what she’s going to call a deal – keep to the Terminus Systems, like they have been, and she’ll let things stand as they are, with the added note that, if their Council reinstatement is genuine, she’ll also send a letter with a fuller apology after the DLC concludes. Yeah, it’s basically going back to the status quo, but one, I’ve been clear that my goal is to make these slot in comfortably with the existing game, and two, back to the in-universe justifications, it also means that she can prevent other Spectres from coming after Shepard – after all, we learned with Saren, the only real way to respond to a Spectre going rogue is to send another Spectre after them. If Vexx is in Shepard’s corner, it prevents other Spectres from coming after them later.
Probably should lead to a line or two in reference to Vexx from Tela Vasir, depending on when Lair of the Shadow Broker is played – alternatively, I suppose Vexx should have some comments about Vasir’s death as well, but I did say above that I see this functionally being roughly around the point of the Collector Ship in the timeline, and I always view Lair of the Shadow Broker as taking place after the Suicide Mission, and my write-ups, my timeline. Moving on.
Shepard has to agree to this, because see above: not fridging female turians when the trilogy is so bereft of them in the first place. We don’t kill Vexx. Because, really, that would mean that Shepard would have killed three of the four fellow Spectres they encounter in the course of the trilogy, and their numbers are said to only go to about a hundred or so. That’s a three percent fatality rate for the Spectres, and a seventy-five percent fatality rate of meeting Shepard. Someone has to think those numbers look bad. So, in accepting the deal, Vexx walks away and Shepard calls the Normandy for a pick up.
Post Game Followups:
ME3: Vexx has a sidequest on the post-Coup Citadel, regarding her work with the unifying of turian and krogan forces. Given Shepard having contributed, she’s asking them to join in her efforts. Complete that and she gets to be an asset and there’s a boost for both of those groups as well.
Underworld
Illium is home to many elite in the galaxy. It’s called the gateway to the Terminus Systems. But it’s equally a warning that there is as much danger in Illium’s shadows as on Omega. And now a high-profile Alliance official goes missing there. Ambassador Anderson asks Shepard to investigate as he keeps the disappearance quiet, and Shepard gets drawn into a web of conspiracy...
(Post-Horizon)
Illium seems like it should be a bigger deal, don’t you think? I mean, in ME2 we get three hub worlds in Omega, the Citadel, and Illium, but Illium is introduced after Horizon, being locked to (on console) disc two, and, while Lair of the Shadow Broker gave us more of Illium in general... Hey. Let’s explore more. Cuz now we can open up some new areas that can stick around and still be explorable after the DLC ends.
We open with a message from Anderson – “one of our people went missing out on Illium, I’d like you to look into this as a favor to me,” that sort of thing. This official is an ambassadorial figure from the Alliance to the asari (so, for the sake of a name, I’m in a Power Rangers mood right now, I’m gonna call her Kimberly Hart). She’s been attempting to shore up some diplomatic ties – I’d figure this would include matters like getting stronger ties between the asari in the name of gaining access to teachers for Grissom Academy, better relations in the name of biotic rights, that sort of thing.
Illium, being a free trade world, is a place where these kinds of negotiations take place without government oversight – I figure, based on things like the asari on Noveria in ME1 who wants to protect asari patents by getting Shepard to help her engage in corporate espionage, the asari government is extremely strict about their “secrets” while humans, who are still struggling to get a handle on what to do with first and second gen biotics, are willing to take on free agents more than like the commandos and such. Also, don’t want a repeat of Vyrnnus, so the turians are definitely out. It’s “asari free agents” who they’re looking at bringing on for this.
But with her having gone missing, that’s concerning – again, we have the asari being fiercely protective of what they view as their copyrights (which I do want to have a running theme here surrounding the idea “how do you copyright something that has this melding with the life it is bonded to?” – amps working as they do, mapped to biological systems as they are, this seems like it borders on trying to patent people in the process, since they’ll gain full maps of the people those amps are implanted in). Anderson wants Shepard to go in, since they’re off the official books.
Now we return to that earlier concept of mandatory companions. Because of the matter of biotics, this feels like a mission that Jack pushes her way in to – both because she’s been the subject of biotic experimentation, and she wants to ensure that this doesn’t turn in to the Teltin facility all over again, and to help give some foreshadowing for her becoming one of Grissom Academy’s teachers next game. Additionally, I’ll go with Thane as the other companion for this – he’s done work in Illium’s criminal underworld.
Now then, to our central hub of Illium. We’re on a different city than Nos Astra, but it’s going to have a similar flavor to it, in the same way that Azure still felt like it wasn’t all that out of place alongside the trading center. Nos Vidia, I’ll call it (sounds suitably asari, anyway). It’s not as major a hub of intergalactic trade and commerce, meaning that Shepard and company are going to stand out in the crowd.
This is also one of the more “crime” areas, where the black market has moved in. We have Eclipse symbols on the wall and, while they’re not wearing the uniform, many of the people around here are obviously in the gang. Which also makes Shepard stand out. Thane, however, manages to bring up a former contact, someone who has been able to stay alive this long, meaning they’re skilled enough that they’ve survived.
The contact is an asari I’m gonna call Kassria. Kassria has picked up some Eclipse chatter that references our missing ambassador. That means Eclipse has her, but it’s not clear so much if her being taken is because of her getting in the way of Eclipse as a gang or if the Eclipse are working for some asari company.
We pause for some talk about the various asari copyrights, explore that conversation, with Jack having quite a few words on the subject of trying to make people property. That kind of thinking creates situations that create the same kind of science as Teltin. Thane offers something of the drell perspective – he’s the one who argues that he was raised and trained as a weapon for the hanar, and that he was not responsible for the lives he took. Who owns the abilities, the user or the one calling for their use? (I mean, there’s an obvious answer, but Thane’s bringing up the alternative to this – the people who are broken down and made into weapons at the hands of others.)
Like actually, let’s make that aside a point of having Jack and Thane – in Jack’s eyes, Thane’s attitude towards the people he’s killed is much how Cerberus would have wanted her to have ended up, as a weapon for them to point, pull the trigger, and give no concern for the ways that it impacts the person who acts because of that order.
It’s the same argument that we have with Miranda – the idea of “disposable troops” does not make it a matter of saving lives, just a matter of how war becomes easier, having these weapons to unleash upon others with no risk to the people who are supposedly being protected by them. It’s a way of absolving yourself for creating slaves by giving them some higher purpose.
This really is going to be a turning point with Jack’s arc proper, with how it leads to her being a teacher, because she wants to protect the young biotics. It’s not just about her protecting the kids at the Ascension Project from ending up tortured like the kidnapped victims at the Teltin facility. It’s also about reclaiming and maintaining personhood.
And while it’s hard for me to really give the separation theory Thane speaks of (we ARE going to come back to issues of the drell in general a few DLCs from here, so consider this to be foreshadowing and set up for that bit), I’m going to try and offer his point of view – that of “if you hone someone to only be a weapon, to only look at the world from that perspective, is it really on them as an individual that they proceed to see the world from that viewpoint?”
Of course, yes, I’m aware that the inherent flaw of ALL of this is that we’re not talking about drell youths giving themselves up to the hanar in the fulfillment of the Compact or with “different brain structures” to humans. It’s the tangent that they end up on because they’re along for the ride, and Shepard eventually has to get them back on track – finding Ambassador Hart. Whether or not the asari corporations are intending to use people as weapons, the Eclipse sisters presently have her held captive, and this means staging a rescue operation.
I want to take this chance to get a better idea of Eclipse’s organization (which, by extension, showcases the ideas that are moving the other merc gangs in the series). Like, what goals do they really have – Blood Pack are basically chaotic berserkers who want the world to burn (which, fitting, considering the general krogan mindset following the genophage and the vorcha having a complete lack of survival instincts because they never needed to evolve them), while Blue Suns have the veneer of respectability, acting as private security. But when we meet Jona Sedaris in ME3, she’s a raving psychopath, ready to kill anyone in her way. So what does the Eclipse gang want? I mean, besides the obvious of money.
Kassria is a former Eclipse sister, so she offers this insight – Eclipse doesn’t even really know itself. The non-asari members are almost leaning towards biotic extremism, given how the other races tend to mistreat and look down on the biotics among them, which makes them angry and want to lash out at those who’ve hurt them. Meanwhile, the asari who join in are often driven by other motivations, given that all asari have biotics – some are outcasts (purebloods, in pureblood relationships, or people with the Ardat-Yakshi mutation – let’s just assume Samara will have shared about her loyalty mission by the time this mission is unlocked so we don’t have to have the characters explain this to Shepard), others are maidens looking for glory (think Elnora the mercenary from Samara’s recruitment mission), some are obsessed with killing (like Sedaris), and some are just looking for a purpose.
She suggests that, if given something better, Eclipse might be a valuable asset for Shepard – not just in biotics, but also in their mechs. It’d be something to use when the Reapers come calling, not that she knows about the Reapers, just that she can figure that whatever Shepard’s up to, they’ll want an army at their back (because we’re still ME2 here, so this means we don’t know that Aria will be assembling the merc gangs under her banner).
This leads to an assault on the Eclipse base and trying to reach Hart before anyone proceeds to try and kill her or worse. As we continue, we find out that there is a high-ranking Eclipse member among this group – Jona Sedaris.
Yes, that’s right, we’re going to be responsible for her getting locked up come ME3. Obviously, this does mean she’ll survive the inevitable conflict and boss battle, but hey, we’re gonna have other things to deal with in the final analysis, so hold all questions to the end.
The Eclipse sisters and the techs with their mechs are heavy throughout the place, but eventually, we reach the place they’re holding Hart. She’s been roughed up a bit, but she’s alive. She’d made contact with an asari firm who’d claimed to be willing to trade some “asari patents” in the name of cross-cultural cooperation, but Hart got suspicious of what was happening. Turns out, she was being used – the company (a minor company, not one of our major equipment suppliers from the actual games, that she had gone to them in the name of avoiding those big names) was going to give her access, only to revoke it and claim that she had stolen these patents. That would give them an opening to start consolidating biotic patents in a human market, because humans would now be running amps and implants with copyrighted asari material, and, by extension, that would mean the company would own those human biotics.
That, of course, gets Jack’s ire up, and she’s ready to tear the place apart – people aren’t things to be owned. Even Thane’s ready to join in – even accepting his claims of lacking a responsibility for the lives that his employers hired him to take (again, we’ll be digging deeper into this in the future), this is trying to force people to be under the control of this company – based on his reaction when Shepard suggests that the Compact between the hanar and the drell constitutes slavery, Thane’s definitely not on board with that idea. And even on Illium, a planet with legalized “indentured servitude,” this contract is definitely sketchy – but it would be just legal enough that the company leadership would be able to get their foot in the door, and make it harder for human biotics to be able to exist without “company oversight,” giving them access to the human biotics before they have a chance to stabilize their position in human society.
It’s some further asari haughtiness, the idea of asari like Erinya, the lawyer who holds the contract to the Feros colonists, that the asari are “better” than the other races. The asari in charge of this company are of the belief that only the asari “deserve” biotics, and want to keep all biotics in the galaxy under their control. These asari in particular don’t see any race other than asari as even deserving of evolving out of the primordial muck. Not a mainstream view, but one that we do have foundation for existing in the universe proper, and, let’s be honest, it’s not hard to imagine this being a thing anyway based on our world (We’ll touch on these themes in more detail later). And this idea, especially combined with the asari willingness to indulge in “indentured servitude” on Illium, if no where else, gets taken to its natural endpoint – they see human biotics as little more than pack mules, livestock.
Short step from there to going along with batarian or Collector ideas, but really, it’s not like we don’t know exactly where that endpoint is from our history.
Obviously, Shepard is a walking contradiction to those ideas, so combat is the only way through. Sedaris might be an unrepentant murderer, but we do still have to take her into custody – this is where Kassria comes in, taking her down and intending to hand her over to the authorities in the name of getting a slice of the Eclipse pie with her out of the picture. It won’t be a clean takeover, which will justify why Sayn is running things for Sedaris outside of prison instead of Kassria (who would DEFINITELY just leave Sedaris to rot and probably arrange an ‘accident’ for her), but it’s getting her more power.
As for the company, they’re JUST on the side of legality – the efforts of Eclipse on their behalf were by way of verbal contracts, and no lawyer on Illium is going to take the word of a mercenary over those of these high-ranking business officials. Hart swears that she can make things hell for them, lose them some very lucrative contracts with the Alliance. Thing is, that also makes her job all the more difficult, now that she’s been found out having attempted to make these grey legality ties for the sake of “getting an edge” in the biotics market – they have the resources to make this a fight that, meanwhile, would set the cause of human biotics back. (Which, as we’ve been over in other write-ups, actually is a bit of a thing that has some deeper ties in to the overall universe that the people of this setting are still working on figuring out.)
The Paragon/Renegade choice here becomes the rather obvious “do we take the option that handles this cleanly but lets the bad guys escape responsibility, or the messy alternative that may not even get the result we want?” choice. Because the thing about asari litigation is that they can afford to tie things up for decades without concern for the “short term” consequences. So if this DOES go to courts, they can wrap things up and keep them there for a long time – which will impact how things go for the human biotics, the whole idea of ‘owning’ people because they have these abilities. Because then their legality, their agency, their right to choose for themselves would be being litigated, and being done so in the court of aliens.
It doesn’t feel GOOD to me to have it left like this, honestly, but I don’t really see this as something that is supposed to have a conclusion that feels good – we’re talking about issues of corporate ownership of individuals, and the truth is... that exploitation just goes on, it doesn’t resolve itself with a few showy displays of violence. It gets caught up in red tape and paperwork, and people lose, even as they win. And the point of this has basically been, at its heart, to show that the “underworld” isn’t the black and grey markets that scrounge a semblance of society. It’s the businesses who will crush people underfoot then complain about the mess they stepped in. The design of a lot of the locations introduced in ME2 had this cyberpunk dystopia look to them, but only really focused on the criminal gangs – the core of this is approaching the white collar criminal element that was not shown off as much, how it encourages both further street crime and the depersonalization that comes from treating humans as a commodity.
Jack is pissed either way because this is all kinds of bullshit – it’s Shepard who points out that as angry as Jack defaults to, this is, for once, her being pissed at something beyond herself, where it’s not just that she wants to cause mayhem, but that she wants to make things different for others. To do something to protect future human biotics, kids who are in need. It’s her actively wanting to find a way to make a different, not just chaos.
As for Thane, he is still drell, still a proponent of the Compact (again, we’ll be coming back to this issue), but he does understand how easy it is to see something ostensibly done to the benefit of people turns around and is used by malicious actors to take advantage of them. It’s one of those things that he certainly understood in the abstract, but it’s another thing to see in practice. He leaves it on the note that “this has given me much to consider.”
As for Ambassador Hart, she knows that either way, she’s tanked her chances for getting the instructors that she’d been hoping for. Basically, the diplomatic ties she’d wanted from the asari government are off the table, given the combination of asari tied to the company and just general political embarrassment at the fact that all of this even happened – they want to ignore it, paint things over in pastels, and she is a living embodiment of the event to the asari, able to bring up the reality at a time of her choosing. The asari would rather that this go away, rather than have this constant reminder. Still, she’s grateful for Shepard’s rescue – the Eclipse might not have actively been planning on her death, but it wasn’t a good position. And, at this point, she can at least salvage a career going forward. Maybe not with the asari, but there’s a chance that relations with the turians have thawed out some.
Post Game Followups:
ME3: The fate of the company plays a part in War Assets – being tied up in legal red tape, they’re not able to contribute to the war effort, or, in a magnanimous show of “inter-species cooperation,” they’re sharing some patents with the other races. Additionally, Ambassador Hart shows up for a sidequest after the Cerberus Coup, making another go at the effort, now that Grissom is gone and the human biotics are here – might as well make the effort to get these asari instructors anyway, and she wants Shepard to help her out with smoothing the ruffled feathers (since this would still be in that period of time where the asari are still trying to avoid joining the active war effort).
Also, while this wouldn’t really impact anything via saved game import, I also figure this would at least tie in to Andromeda, that several human biotics joined the Initiative in the name of getting away from the corporations who want to hold them as “patented property” and such. Probably would be a way to help at least make Cora’s arc tighten up a little – it’s not just that she thought she’d only be a “useful freak” as a human biotic, as opposed to an asari commando or an Initiative Pathfinder, but that in getting away from Citadel space, she’d be allowed to just be, to find out who it is that she is beyond her biotics, rather than have to have her biotics “registered” with a corporation who’d exploit them and her. Not sure how to incorporate that into Andromeda proper, but it’s something that would be acknowledged.
End of Part 1, link to Part 2 forthcoming.
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