Awesome / Archipelago Exodus

• Triannual
  • Link: Emily, who's been nothing but a goofy Cloud Cuckoolander presence in the plot so far, unexpectedly steps it up when Nachoset has Natalie at the brink of death. Emily's weapons of choice against Nachoset? A hairbrush, a fistful of recipe cards, and a bottle of hand sanitizer. And she puts the work on him, with a Power Of Friendship speech for good measure. While he eventually gets the upper hand on her, it's a major wake-up call for anyone who thought she was just a cheerful ditz who loves baking.
• Whisper in my Ear
  • Link: The description of the aquarium at the center of the college - that is, one enormous room surrounded on all sides by a massive aquarium fixture - is the story's highlight.
• The Crystal Part 2: Strained Alliance
  • Link: The parade during the Mage Festival in Shin-Ra is pretty glorious, a procession of magic-users leading some remarkable supernatural floats.
• Ishkabibble
  • Link: The fact that any pain that would be felt by his duplicates is instead transferred to Terrian licenses the duplicates to occasionally nab a cool combat moment. Case in point: Scene One, where a bullet straight into the ribcage elicits nothing but a cheery smile from a duplicate who proceeds to knock the attacker out cold with a clock.
  • Link: Blaise drops some hard science on the Cardsharks in the hotel lobby, particularly the assailant holding a knife to her throat. First she turns his tears to acid, then grabs the knife blade while simultaneously altering its composition to make it so brittle it snaps off in her hand, and finally she sends him flying by negating gravity's pull on him. Blaise may talk the talk, but once in a while she can really walk the walk.
  • Link: Then, by fiddling further with gravity while detaching a hotel lobby counter from the floor, she surfs the counter across the room.
• (Dis)Orientation
  • The entire demonstrations sequence has been a long string of awesome, but Evelyn's light show (link) and Garth's window into space (link) have been standouts.