Most cupids are forbidden from interacting with humans. They meddle in the shadows, quietly pulling strings to help those unlucky in love finally find happiness through various meet cute scenarios. Kate is the newest Hawkeye: an elite class cupid allowed to manifest physically and interact directly with extremely difficult cases.
Her latest assignment, her first as a Hawkeye, is proving nigh impossible. Yelena Belova is gorgeous, charming, and so incredibly guarded to every potential suitor Kate presents her with. It would be infuriating if she wasn't so damned likable.
Aka, Kate just wants Yelena to find love and be happy, but Yelena only has eyes for the oblivious Hawkeye and is finding all of this very amusing.
None of my friends in real life have played any LIS game, so i will be sharing my thoughts on LIS TC with the Void. If only so it's out of my brain.
I am also someone who has no interest in BTS or LIS 2. I believe everything I need to know about Rachel Amber is in the first game and am not going to play a prequel that just reaffirms that she is complex and mysterious. From what i can tell, everyone's opinions in the first game are all a little bit true and I'm good, thank you. So keep in mind that I've only played the original and can only compare to the original, so I'm probably incorrect.
Also, spoilers if you haven't played it yet. I just played it yesterday because it was on sale. Otherwise, I wouldn't have given it a chance.
Alex gets control of her powers way too quickly.
Hours after arriving in Haven, she has an episode, and then when faced with equally intense emotion, she can deal with it despite herself being in a terrifying position. When Max needed her powers the most, they failed her, and I think there should have been more of a learning curve for Alex. Alex hid away from herself for years, so she is effectively in the same boat as Max. Yeah, she had known her powers for longer, was aware, and tried to manage, but to pull out actively using them so effectively was abrupt.
I apparently beat the game in <10 hours.
Super glad i waited for it to be on sale. I know I missed some collectibles, but dang.
Not a ton of story to play through
I'm replaying now to try and find things i missed, and I know this has a looser timeline than LIS, but I was expecting... more. More plot points, maybe more stakes to deal with. Honestly, the threats to Steph/Ryan could have come sooner so there could be more development there. Maybe Alex pulls back from them for safety. Maybe we find out more about the Big Evil Plot, which I'm still not super clear on what the vote was for. Maybe Alex loses some grip on her control without their stability/support.
Again, it's unfair for me to compare to LIS which was released episode by episode, so they absolutely needed to have distinct and compelling plot points to bring you back. Here, it's split into chapters more like a movie rather than a comic book that you can abandon at any time, if that makes sense.
It was easy to leave Haven
Nobody in that town is shown to give a single f about Alex outside of Bench Girl and text messages. Alex lost her brother, but they all leaned on Alex to fix them or listen to their drama. I get its part of the story, part of who Alex has always tried to be since her mom died. Also, there's helping people with their problems to manage your own problems, and then there is telling the guy who cut the rope you forgive him. Forgiving him was wild to me.
Leaving with Steph was even easier.
Steph is the only one who looked at Alex and said, "Holy shit, you need a doctor," without an ulterior motive. Ryan turned on Alex. Eleanor basically called Alex crazy. Pike and Charlotte were my own fault for not being able to side with Alex, but damn. Even if Steph had been platonic and offered Alex to run away with her, I'd have chosen that.
Also, she is super adorable in her flirting and internal gay panic over being flirted with. And the larp stuff was dope - witch Steph was extra adorable.
Their dad...
...did not need to be in the mine. That felt excessive. I don't remember if there was any notion of Gabe looking for their dad and following the trail to Haven in his effects, hence why I'm starting over to actually read (not skim) over his effects. It felt kind of cheap. What Jed did was awful enough without trying to make the situation more significant in that Haven was nearly the end of her whole family line. If nothing else game decision-wise happened with Eleanor, that would be a good enough reason for her to think Alex is cracked.
Excessive development in texts.
If the events take place over the course of 2 weeks, we get to experience like 3 days, give or take. I would have loved more of the little bullshit scenes that develop relationships instead of having to dice through texts. They don't have to be the intense "i will fix your crippling emotional state" things. Honestly, some of that, like the opportunity to neutralize Charlotte's anger, were overstepping or uninteresting to me.
It would have been great to see where Steph's loyalty had developed beyond being the only one who cared that Alex clearly didn't throw herself down a mineshaft. Maybe play through jam sessions and trade stories beyond Gabe's influence on their lives. Honestly, puzzling out the jukebox song was so much fun, and I wanted more of that.
Charlotte
I don't understand what it is like to lose a lover, especially not like that. Grief does messed up things in the mind, so i can see why she's turning that rage all over the place. I get the hatred towards her kid - ethan was told not to go in the mines, Alex warned them, and they reiterated not to go to the mines. He went to the mines anyway, and Gabe died. Yes, typhon was evil corpo jerkbags and didn't heed a warning, but if he had stayed home, no one would have died. No one would have been the wiser about Jed and typhon.
I am so glad the game didn't make me take her rage away. Anger is one of the stages of grief, and she seems to let go of some of it if you leave her alone. I saw a few reddit threads where folks call her terrible for hating her child, but by her own admission, she also hasn't allowed herself to express her feelings/grief. Bottled rage like that is toxic, and she knows it's awful to have those thoughts, but. Yeah. I feel like I'm getting circular and have been in several spots in here.
This got long, but my ramblings are over. I just needed to get that out of my head. In conclusion: the locals kinda suck(except for Riley), corpo scum is always corpo scum no matter how idyllic the setting, Steph is amazing, and in my game, they run off to Salem together.
If anyone does read this and knows of good fic on ao3 to link for Steph/Alex, I'd love a rec.
Daggerheart feels more like a boardgame than a ttrpg, based on the rules video. Definitely need to watch them play because the amount of things to check and roll each turn seems like A Lot.
Genuinely wish Netflix would just.. sell seasons of their shows instead of them being locked behind a subscription. I'd pay $40 or so for Wednesday or Arcane if it meant never dealing with their platform again.
Wenclair prompt/headcanon because I feel if she had the chance, she may try something like this if only to mess with create distance.
Wednesday doesn't want to interact with people so much that she speaks in a different language around different people. She only speaks in French to Enid, Castellano with Tyler, Latin to Bianca, etc. Nobody can understand her, and she refuses to speak around more than one person at a time so she can continue her little game. Unfortunately, Enid is smitten and actually trying to learn French so she can communicate with her new roomie/crush.
Viking Sinclairs were sailing to France but got blown off course to Spain during a storm. Once they got their bearings, they decided to attack a strange manor on a cliffside (so convenient!). It's the Addams' mansion, during a reunion, and they're welcomed with open arms. Those open arms are also excited for dueling new combatants, and the Vikings aren't used to such skilled defenders. The Sinclairs call a retreat.
In their haste to leave, they forget Enid, who got lost wandering the mansion hallways following the melancholy sounds of the cello providing ambiance for the duel below.
Enid is a serial killer because she wants to see the woman in black just one more time.
Aka, Enid fell in love with death and murder is how she flirts
Wednesday in a Poison Ivy role, antisocial and feared with a strong sense of justice often enforced with her own brand of terror. Largely prefers to be left alone in her peaceful (too horrifying for normies) territory. Enid was a normie who fell in love with the wrong person, and her new beast form only finds peace in the forbidden zone Addams rules over.
Been listening to Florence and the Machine lately so
Wednesday builds coffins with hammers and nails, she has no use for ships, no use for sails. Which is fine, because Eugene and Thing are firmly helming the good ship Wenclair, they just have to convince the girls they'd be perfect for each other.
The Addams family decides to set their home up as an Air bnb. The Sinclairs are the first family to actually book the residence, but they get spooked and bolt in the night. What fun!
Unfortunately they forgot their daughter in their haste to leave, so the Addams just keep her as one of their own. It's vexing for Wednesday, if only because after a few months she starts to develop... feelings, for her not-sister. Very inconvenient. To day the least.
Dead like me au prompt
No matter how much Wednesday tells her they aren't doing the actual killing, it's just not sinking in. She's having a tough time accepting the fact that she's dead, much less that she now has to harvest souls as a grim reaper.
It probably doesn't help that her (incredibly cute) mentor seems to fully embrace her job as a reaper. Wednesday has apparently been able to cross over for decades now but keeps ignoring her afterlife, or so Yoko tells her. Compared to Wednesday, Enid is only going to keep being a disappointment for the rest of her afterlife, too.
Over two centuries ago, Wednesday's mother placed a curse on her for her own good. She was left in a remote location, which wasn't so bad, but when she was discovered, she was cursed to become malleable to her new paramour's will. It worked for Morticia, after all, but Wednesday is not nearly as lucky.
This is the third time she has been abandoned, and in her opinion, it's the most extreme rejection she's had to deal with yet. The immortal being was taken to a remote cave off the coast of Greece and left impaled on a stalagmite. The curse she bestowed on the Galpin family to become Hydes after meeting their soulmates was justified by each day she was stuck on this rock.
An indeterminate amount of time passed before her next paramour showed up. Enid Sinclair, separated from her diving group by a weird fish that looked like a hand covered in kelp, is horrified to find her. The sight of a small woman in Victorian style clothes, impaled and surrounded by a pool of her own blood, causes her to faint on the spot. Maybe this one wouldn't be so cruel as the others, or at least she may allow Wednesday some independence if she passes out so easily.
I've been listening to some Nightwish (symphonic power metal) lately, specifically the songs Ghost Love Score and Nemo, and this kind of came up in my head
Wednesday is quiet - too quiet, always managing to sneak up on people for a good scare. It's endearing usually, but not today. Her mother will be attending parents' weekend, news which Wednesday reacted to by declaring it open season on Esther the second Enid shed a tear.
To prevent her girlfriend from going to jail for homicide, Enid and Thing devise a plan to keep tabs on the goth when she inevitably tries to "stalk her prey for the perfect moment to strike." They attach a small balloon to her ever present backpack during a hug with the goth none the wiser.
For 3 hours, Wednesday has no idea there is a balloon trailing behind her, and the student population is too afraid to so much as giggle. Every time Enid sees the balloon drifting above the crowd, she breathes a sigh of relief. At least that's going to plan.
Then, her mom starts complaining about her scars and general life choices. Shortly after, Enid receives an anonymous dm containing a picture of Thing, stuck in a cat carrier, the balloon string tying it shut. Her girlfriend is loose and determined to defend her honor to the death. If this weren't supremely stressful, she'd be swooning, honestly.
This is not what Enid expected when trying out a crystal ball for the first time, but desperate times and all that. If she's to get out of this arranged mating pact, she'll need some big guns and by all accounts the Addams are the nicest of the devil-touched family lines.
She has long since given up on actually connecting, but over and over again for the next few days this pre-recorded message (seriously?) chimes in her room and it will not quit.
"We're sorry, the demon you're summoning is unavailable. Your ritual is important to us. Please hold while we connect you to the next available servant of darkness."
A week later, she wakes in the middle of the night to an odd stillness in her room, and a dimunitive figure is standing at the end of her bed. Wednesday, daughter of darkness, heir to the Addams Family herself, has finally received the summons. And yes, the other, lesser servants of her infernally wholesome family are also annoyed that she doesn't carry a cell phone when she's on-call.
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