#tbnbefbou

sorry for lack of posts, i’ve been real busy lately! but in my free time i’ve finally gotten into sam and max and...this crossover was inevitable.

So, during this absolute mess, I’ve actually read and finished the first physically book in about two years (completely unrelated, I might have actually exhausted AO3 about two weeks ago). I happed to really enjoy this book, would recommend it (with the caveat that it is for adults), and want to talk/ramble about it.

(Also that cover is sweet)

it’s pretty obvious for zooey, who's incapable of lying and who values doing good above all, often at the expense of common sense, physics, and/or the law, but adrian has his moments too. his chaotic side comes out most clearly in one of the investigation scenes, when kimrean casually tosses out a comment about stealing danny’s car and going 120 mph--and it's subtle, but we know that adrian doesn't let zooey drive. therefore, even though he’s concerned with justice, he doesn’t mind breaking rules to get there. and that’s what defines a chaotic good! adrian doesn’t want to solve the case because murder is against the law, he wants to solve it because murder is wrong. in short, he's more worried about the general good than the details. consequences from broken rules are tolerable; flaws in the system and society are what needs to be fixed.

where i misread him, at first, was his completely logical personality. logic and rules sometimes line up, but adrian only cares about logic: at the very end, when they're in the hospital, he's confused by--and almost refuses to accept--the fact that zooey can move his dead leg, but he can't. logic is adrian's entire worldview, and he plays nicely in that sandbox. rules, however, are meant to be broken. adrian seems like he would be the kind of person to care about rules, but he just doesn't. minutes after the twins discover that zooey can still control their injured leg, adrian is breaking them out of the hospital and stealing an ambulance. when danny calls to tell them that frankie lyon has been killed, adrian tells him not to call the cops. he doesn’t care about being polite, so he insults and dismisses and points out details that make people uncomfortable. he embarrasses marlow and dawes’ receptionist for playing minesweeper on the job, before scaring the young man into giving up the agents' cover. he never makes an effort to hide his disdain for ursula, and often goes out of his way to tell her exactly what he thinks about her. he has little regard for zooey’s feelings when they don’t benefit him, so he derides everything she says and is hostile to fiona both times she visits, just because zooey liked her. most memorably, he puts zooey to sleep after a fight--but that once again displays his desire to solve the damn case, and the willingness to do it through any means necessary. he sees her as an obstacle, so he removes the obstacle. yes, adrian is an asshole and he looks down on anything that he judges irrational or illogical, but his ultimate goal is still the greater good. he thinks that, because he has good intentions in mind, he gets to do whatever he needs to do to get there.

and he is a decent person where he thinks it matters. ursula comes back later that night, and he does try to kick her out, but not before giving her money for a hotel room. (he ends up letting her spend part of the night in their office anyway.) he's a decent person, but we mostly see him as an asshole, and it's probably because for most of the book, adrian is never without zooey. the problem with adrian and zooey is that they have the same energy, but in opposite directions. they don't understand each other, but while zooey is more content to live and let live, adrian feels compelled to make zooey more like him (note the chess scene; he's angered by zooey's decision to promote her pawn to a knight even though it allows her to win the game later on. he thinks it wasn't fair that she won by making a random, emotion-driven decision, but that’s an offense against logic, not an offense against any rule). he knows that they're different, but he doesn't understand why she doesn't try to be like him. still, though he doesn't admit it outright, he feels that way because he's concerned about them both. obviously, they share a body, so adrian is involved in whatever vices zooey indulges in. but i think he'd still be concerned even if they didn't share a body. he does have a moral code. killing people is bad, but they'll get over it if he insults them. ursula won't have to find her own way around the city: she can either sleep in a hotel or in the kimreans' office. there's no such thing as speed limits, as long as he doesn't hit anything. he's mean to zooey, but he still takes care of her. and he puts up with all of her bullshit, so i think he deserves a jab now and then.

“I don't know what I'm doing half the time. I just hope the other guy does.”

would prolly have channels for each book, mayb a spoiler n non spoiler channel

n also art + fic channels n stuff like that