#I’m really loving this new render style I’ve been playing with lately

[kidvoodoo]

L E S B I A N S 🔥

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #642

Top Ten Games from the 2024 Summer Showcases

Okay, so the other week I swore I wouldn’t do this – literally writing a Top Ten about favourite gaming reveals of the past because I didn’t think I was bothered enough to actually write about this year’s crop of announcements and CG trailers. However, I’ve been swirling around the various separate shows for a couple of weeks now, and I’ve decided to just do a quick roundup of the most interesting games that were shown regardless.

Besides, I’ve left it late this week and I don’t have a lot of time.

So really there’s not much to it, and very little in the way of preamble. This week I’m looking back at the last few weeks’ worth of gaming showcases – from Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Geoff Keighly, Devolver, etc – and basically just picking the games that I think looked the best, or excited me the most. This isn’t necessarily a list of new announcements; I don’t really mean a bunch of games that I’d never heard of before. Rather, it’s just a list of games that either excited me just by existing, or by showing me something of themselves that I’d not seen before, didn’t know about, or just made the whole thing seem more, well… exciting. I’ve said that word far too much. “Proper bangin’”. Is that better?

Maybe next week will be funny.

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII (Firaxis Games): nothing but a name, an announcement, and a generic pre-rendered trailer, but already I’m salivating. Civ VI is my most-played game of all time, and there’s no way I’m not getting this bugger day one. Day One! And it’s launching on console and PC at once. The next decade of my life disappears here.

Perfect Dark (The Initiative/Crystal Dynamics): I wasn’t expecting to see proper gameplay of this long-awaited title, especially given the rumours of troubled development. The original game is an all-timer for me, so I’m a bit nervous that in “modernising” it they’ll lose the elements I love. But this is so, so promising: it looks like there’s a proper mission structure, with gadgets and infiltration, but perhaps a more emergent style of gameplay, coupled with some first-person parkour. Early days – I’m guessing it’s a 2026 release – but optimistic. Even if I doubt we’ll see Elvis back.

Fable (Playground Games): I nearly didn’t include this as I don’t feel it did much more than, well, show a bit more. It already looked like Playground had nailed the irreverent British humour, and the realistic, naturalistic graphics continue to look fantastic. We got – I believe – some proper gameplay here, and, well, it looks like Fable. Knowing it’s coming within the next eighteen months is tantalising.

Mixtape (Beethoven and Dinosaur): I always get really excited by adventure games, even if I tend to drift away from them before completion for some dumb reason. But hopefully Mixtape’s, er, mix of groovy nineties nostalgia, teen movie drama, and stylised jerky animation – at times like stop-motion, at others like it’s “animated on twos” – plus a phenomenal soundtrack, will burrow it into my must-play list. Also: Life is Strange: Double Exposure has reminded me that I must go back and complete the first game.

Winter Burrow (Pine Creek Games): basically Stardew Valley meets Brambley Edge, this gorgeous-looking farm/life sim about teeny tiny mice is the sort of potential time-sink that can devour families. It doesn’t look like it’s doing anything new, but it’s doing it with such style. And the wintry, melancholy tone of the trailer is giving me The Secret of NIMH vibes, which ain’t no bad thing.

Age of Mythology: Retold (World’s Edge): I had the first game, twenty-odd years ago; I think I bought it for my wife (we weren’t married back then, mind) because we both loved the Age of Empires series. But a crazier, more bombastic, mythology-flavoured version of Age, with the dynastic equivalent of superweapons, is right up my pantheon. Plus it’s all modern and pretty now, and the team’s recent Age of Empires IV was superb.

Screenbound (Crescent Moon Games): one that had been shown off before, but it was part of the Day of the Devs session, so I’m including it; because its trippy mechanic is worth looking at over and over. Basically, you simultaneously control a character moving in 3D space as well as a character moving in a 2D level on a GameBoy-style handheld. How it works, I dunno; but colour me intrigued.

Petal Runner (Nano Park Studios): the sort of groovy RPG that I’d love to devote time to, but will probably just play for an hour (I’m sorry, Cassette Beasts and Sea of Stars). But outside of the bizarre, Pokémon-delivery mechanic, it takes the 8-bit aesthetic to new heights by giving us, essentially, a lost GameBoy game, complete with pixelated four-colour graphics. Fascinating!

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Machine Head): I’ll be honest, I don’t think this game looks amazing; I think it’ll be entirely entertaining from start to finish, just a great, fun time. It’s not flat-out gorgeous, the gameplay doesn’t look particularly innovative, and I’m not sold on the whip. But I just think it’ll be really enjoyable, a good time. Plus they’ve utterly, totalled nailed the Indiana Jones-ness of it, especially with Troy Baker’s uncanny Harrison Ford impression. It won’t be game of the year, but I can’t wait to play it.

Astro Bot (Team Asobi): propping up the list because I don’t actually have a PS5, but this game still looks adorable. It feels like these sorts of platformers are very rare outside of Nintendo, so I’m glad Sony are going full-bore mascot-jumping-game. It’s also cute how it’s just an advert for PlayStation, up to and including a spaceship that’s literally a PS5. Come on, Microsoft; give us a self-referential Banjo Threeie!

Just bubbling under is The Plucky Squire, which looks adorable, innovative, and fantastic, but which I’m discounting as I’m not sure if was officially shown as part of one of these showcase events, and was “just” previewed to press. Seeing as it was previously revealed and I’ve already seen footage of its quirky 2D-then-3D dynamic, I’ve decided not to allow it into the list proper. Basically, there were loads of games I wanted to mention, and this way I get a sneaky 11th one, so it’s all good.

[legionofpotatoes]

I love your art, it is very detailed in a neat way. Was wondering how you got started making it as a source of income? How did you get your first paid work, I'd love some advice on how to get started, if that's ok

Thank you. Of course it's okay, although I doubt I have enough work experience in art to really delve into this. I only went full freelance this year, and had been juggling art as a side hobby until then. If you're still interested in my somewhat narrow perspective, and are okay with my long-winded rambles, I'll give it a shot:

So to answer your question fully, I'll describe how I started and move into personal advice and learnings later on. As a disclaimer, I am a white cishet dude in my late twenties with a moderate cocktail of mental illnesses, but overall I can pass for a functioning adult so a lot I have to say may come laced with privilege I cannot fully identify.

So uhh I began drawing in around 2012? I think? Maybe halfway through 2011? And I mostly made fanart for things I enjoyed and tried to branch out in communities that felt nourishing to my style and interests (I caught a bug for alt posters and enjoyed mainstream movies so I spent a long time on posterspy early on). There were a handful of opportunities that came from there but I could only accept a couple because of primary workplace commitments. Still, it showed that networking in a focused community was definitely a good place to start; I myself have huge trouble committing to social networks and really staying socially active, but I knew it was an essential ingredient in succeeding so I tried to make myself be involved in challenges and art support trains etc. as much as I could.

In parallel to all that I also ran a few third party online stores (redbubble, teepublic) for disposable income and would sometimes, if rarely, hit around $100-150 a month from those sources combined. It is a sort of thing that requires helper accounts on other social media sites to promote it on, because the stores themselves have a huge volume of content that translates into low organic discoverability. Obviously it was never gonna be the way towards financial independence through art, and with community projects being few and far between, I opened private commissions in around uhhh 2017 I think, focusing on offering a few styles I knew I could do well, and sometimes operating in individual fandoms (it was mostly a bioware thing to be frank). But I had to close them back down after a year or so, again because of work-life conflict and how badly it was burning me out. The reason I kept trying to monetize this hobby is because I honestly hated what I did for my main job and wanted to see a way out in some shape or form in the future.

And then in 2020 I had to quit my main job altogether because of *gestures at pandemic* and deal with a mental breakdown from all the wonderful things it did to us and me specifically. I took a short break and decided to give art a shot full-time, and that was around May this year. I was planning on opening up commissions again (and I still am), but a few sudden opportunities that fell in my lap moved that timetable down and now I'm grateful to even be doing something I am getting adequately paid for.

So, with that somewhat limited perspective, here's what I've learned that I'd tell myself if I was just starting out:

1. Being a fan of something can be a shortcut towards effective networking kickoffs. Which are important evidently. If you love something and enjoy making content for it, join communities, settle into a combination of social media websites that feel right for those interests + your body of work + your inner rhythm, and try to play to content discovery as much as your mental health allows you to. Like I said, I know that I myself am incredibly bad at self-motivating to talk to people, so I found that synergizing common interests into fanart - which I enjoyed making anyway - could be a way to give myself a gentle nudge forward and build those bridges leading to community activities, which then net experience and coverage. Sometimes even freelance projects from official avenues. Again; picking the right spaces for what you're after is key. Companies roam twitter, concept art recruiters scour artstation or linkedin etc, instagram can land you private commissions and collab opportunities, so on and so forth. Find your niche and try to kick up dust. However...

2. I do not believe that any social profile can replace a good portfolio. The thing that made an immediate difference to me this year was building a coherent, simple website with my best work front and center and a contact form on top. Every single opportunity I got came from that form (maybe via twitter or instagram initially, but always sealing the decision after going through the website), so I firmly believe that showcasing your skills and portfolio in a visually arresting and user-friendly way is a big priority. I had some reservations about tackling that task but fortunately I had help from a savvy life partner and we slapped it together via wordpress in less than a day. Twitter/whatever social media is prevalent in your target groups is definitely important to get the right eyes on your shit, yes, but those eyes will then look for a second stop where your work and rates are more clear and concise. Simplicity is key imo, I cannot overstate this. So make a cute, simple portfolio!

3. Your skills and rates will grow and change as you do. Let them. Over the years I built several lasting professional relationships from my obsession over mass effect and kept getting opportunities both from bioware and their partner companies, some small and some a bit bigger. A one-off job earlier this year opened an unexpected door to another much larger commitment, and then the work I did there brought some attention from small businesses looking for commercial commissions. These were all incredibly different projects in terms of scope and budget, and I've been tackling them all on a case-by-case basis and slowly coming into my own irt my needs, rates, and SOW thresholds. It is still a work in progress (and a LOT of literal work as well), and very much a thing I struggle with in publicly marketing, which is why I felt a tad underqualified to answer your question in the first place (obviously I did not let that stop me). But what it means for me now is that I am rapidly developing into whatever my "version" of a functioning freelance artist is, and when the conditions for that guy are met, I need to be able to confidently plant myself and operate from that space despite past precedents. Do not let anyone bully you into downpricing what you yourself perceive as legitimate products of personal growth and development. Speaking of which...

4. The shitty challenge of turning envy into inspiration, and paddling outside your comfort zones in full riot gear. it is hard, but realizing that being a miserable, self-hating artist in my early days got me nothing but more misery back was the first real step I took and what truly blew the hinges off. I was just not pleasant to be around, I would badmouth my work all the time, and it all somehow made sense in my broken mind because the validation I sought was purely external and the way I sought it was through eliciting sympathy via self-victimization (even when I made something objectively nice). It all led fucking nowhere. Except perhaps to my own narcissism that I one day managed to identify and start managing. So I started looking at things that made me seethe with envy and calmly deconstruct and figure out their inner workings instead, do studies, and find nuggets of inspiration or discover new ways to approach rendering or building up specific elements. It was an application of analytical diligence to what I wanted to be a purely emotional, esoteric workflow, but that I deep down knew wasn't. Art is a discipline and a skill, and maybe it isn't a straight line, but you gotta find some line to thread nevertheless. Being self-hating was almost an identity I had to break out of, and despite it still being like, 4-5% there? I realize its cause and effect on me, my work, and those around me, so it is with a conscious choice that I gently set it aside when I work and especially when I learn. It won't always stay quiet, but the effort is the difference. Your doors towards accepting true growth and venturing into uncharted territories, art styles, and networking will really open from there. But there's a huge caveat...

5. Toolsets, accessibility, privilege, and all the good things that enable artistic expression and profitability are not given equal to all. you might do all the mental work I mentioned to be ready to rock and roll and learn and draw your way out of anything, but digital art is a fucking money pit that asks almost too much at times. I don't got a good case study here but identifying and ensuring accessibility to the tools you need to do your best work is, like, super important. The ergonomics can improve as you make money and settle into the job, but the basics have to be made available to you. And some of that might not even be under your direct control. That can be anything from pen tablets to software subscriptions to opportunities in hiring sullied by sexism or what have you. You gotta navigate all that through careful networking and money/time management. I don't do a good job of devoting specific slices of time to work/study, and my primary clutch is iPad software which went from a good deal to a nightmare scenario over the years. So all I can say here is do what I didn't; network, invest in a PC/tablet, and pick a software you'll learn that won't burn a hole in your pocket.

6. Be nice to work with? This one is hard to articulate and has landed my own ass in hot water in my early years because of how socially inept I am, but nothing is more worthwhile than being.. like. a good person to work with. That can be anything like meeting deadlines, or sometimes missing them but eloquently articulating why, being generous in early stages, being communicable and not too wordy in your emails, having a good grasp on abstract artistic concepts and how to describe them in simple terms, having a clear, laid out framework of your working rates in commercial and non-commercial projects and sticking to those guns with grace, understanding when you need to say no and saying it well, the works. Just being nice. Sometimes that might mean going headstrong with something you believe in, or simmering down and sucking up to the big man, all relative and adaptive. Part and parcel of the service provision dance that we all have to do in order to make bank. Know your lines here, obviously, and don't like. work for nazis. or uh.. *shudders* exposure. but be nice and empathetic and communicable and word will travel eventually. Skill may be in abundance these days, but good people are most certainly not, and capitalism has a way of bubbling up scarcity. Grim, but uh, them's the breaks.

I know I'm ultimately telling you to like. Have a body of work, make a portfolio, grow, and network. But that's really how I see it for now. And being nice can be a cherry on top that sets you apart, along with the inherent irreplaceable voice of your artwork. I think I rambled on enough, but if there is something specific you need my help with, even if you want to come off anon and talk in private, please feel free.

[joneswuzhere]

hello join me in thinking about some books and authors that are, or might be, part of s5′s intertextuality

5.10 in particular offered specific shout outs, and also u know i’m always wondering what might be ahead so i have some ideas on that:

- first, as mentioned in a previous ask post, i know i wasn’t alone in keeping an eye out for 5.10 parallels to the lost weekend (1945) the film that gave episode 1.10 its name and several themes - or to the 1944 book by charles r jackson which the film is based on

- s5 has not been shy about revisiting earlier seasons, especially s1. altho i feel that 1.10′s parallels to the lost weekend centered characters other than jughead (mostly betty), a 1.10-5.10 connection involving jughead and themes from jackson’s story (addiction, writers block, self reflection) seemed v possible if not inevitable

- but like,, , for a hot minute after the ep, i was really stumped on understanding how anything from the book or film could apply, even tho the pieces were almost all there

- jackson’s protagonist don birnam goes thru and comes out the other side of a harrowing days-long drinking binge that could be compared to jughead’s one-night hallucinogenic writing retreat

- but jughead is struggling primarily with traumatic memories, not addiction and self control like birnam. and tho drinking activates birnam’s creativity, it paralyzes his writing as he gets lost in fantasies; he’s never published anything. jughead’s drug trip recreates circumstances that already helped him write one successful book. even the rat that startles him mid-high doesn’t line up with birnam’s withdrawal vision of a dying mouse, symbolic of his horror at his own self-destruction thru alcohol

- and maybe the most visible discordance: in the film there’s a romantic motif around a typewriter. first it’s an object of shame; birnam’s failure to write, tied up with his drinking, makes him flee his relationship. he tries to pawn the typewriter for booze money and finally a gun when shooting himself feels easier than getting sober. but with the help of relentless encouragement from girlfriend helen, he quits drinking, commits to her, and focuses on typing out the story he’s dreamt of writing. rd goes so far to avoid setting any comparable scenario that jughead has brought a wholeass printer into the bunker so there can still be a physical manuscript to cover in blood by the end, even without his own typewriter. the subtle detail of his laptop bg image is a little less noticeable than his avoidance of betty’s gift

- tabitha might be closer to a parallel than jughead is, but she’s still no helen. both refuse to take advantage of the inebriated men in their care, but birnam takes advantage of helen, financially and emotionally. jughead refused a loan from the tate family and now has resolved to deal with his shit before he considers a relationship with tabitha. instead of helen’s relentless and unwelcomed attempts to get birnam sober, tabitha reluctantly agrees to help jughead trip safely bondage escape notwithstanding. she even helps him get the drugs.

- whatever potentials exist for parallels to jackson’s story, they were not explored for this episode. ok so why tf am i even talking about this? what was there instead?

-  i have arrived at the point

- s5 has been revisiting s1, not directly but with a twist. and jughead’s agent samm pansky is back. u may recall, pansky is named for sam lansky

- jughead’s trip-thru-trauma is a story device tapped straight from lansky’s book ‘broken people’

- lansky is like if a millenial john rechy wrote extremely LA-flavored meta but just about himself no jk very like a modern successor to charles r jackson. both play with the boundary between memoir and fiction. lansky is gay; jackson wrote his lost weekend counterpart as closeted and remained closeted himself until only a few years before his death. both write with emotional clarity and self-scrutiny on the experiences of addiction, sobriety, and the surrounding issues of shame and self worth

- i feel like a fool bc after this ep i had been thinking about de quincey and his early writings on addiction (c.1800s), but i failed to carry the thought in the other direction, to contemporary writers in the genre, to make this connection sooner

- lansky’s second book, broken people, follows narrator ‘sam’, mid-20s, super depressed, hastled by his agent to write a decent follow-up to his first book, but too busy struggling with his self-worth and baggage from several past relationships. desperate, he takes up an offer to visit a new age shaman who promises to fix everything wrong with him in a matter of days. not to over simplify it but he literally spends a weekend doing psychedelics and hallucinating about his exes. jughead took note

- unless u want me to hurl myself into yet another dissertation about queer jughead, i think his parallel to sam - who, unlike jughead, has considerable financial privilege and whose anxieties center on body dysmorphia, hiv scares, and his own self-centeredness - pretty much ends there

- But,, the gist of the book could not be more harmonius with a major theme shared by the 2 films that inform the actual hallucination part of jughead’s bunker scene: mentally reframing past relationships to get closure + confronting trauma head-on in order to move forward

- so that’s neat. what other book and author stuff was in 5.10?

- stephen king and raymond carver get name dropped. i’m passingly familiar with them both but u bet i just skimmed their wiki bios in case anything relevant jumped out

- like jughead, carver was a student (later a lecturer) at the iowa writers workshop. also the son of an alcoholic and one himself

- i recall carver’s ‘what we talk about when we talk about love’ is what jughead was reading in 2.14 ‘the hills have eyes’ after he finds out about the first time betty kissed archie (at that time he does not respond as would any of carver’s characters)

- this collection of carver stories deals especially with infidelity, failings of communication, and the complexities and destructiveness of love. to unashamedly quote the resource that is course hero, ‘carver renders love as an experience that is inherently violent bc it produces psychic and emotional wounds.’ very fun to wonder about the significance of this collection within the s2 episode and in jughead’s thoughts. and maybe now in the context of the s5 state of relationships. or, at least, the state of jughead’s writing as seen by his agent

- anyway pansky doesn’t want carver, he wants stephen king

- i have too much to say about gerald’s game in 5.10, that’s getting its own post someday soon

- lol wait king’s wife is named tabitha uhhh king’s wiki reminded me of his childhood experience that possibly inspired his short story ‘the body’ (+1986 movie ‘stand by me’) when he ‘apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train tho he has no memory of the event’

- no mention of that in this rd episode but memories of a train could be interesting to consider with the imagery that intrudes on jughead’s hallucination. i still feel like it was a truck but the lights and sounds he experiences may be a train

- ok now we’re in the speculation part of today’s segment

- if jughead’s traumatic memory involves trains, then it’s possible this plot will take influence from la bête humaine <- this 1938 movie is based on the 1890 novel by french writer émile zola. this story deals with alcoholism and possessive jealousy in relationships, sometimes leading to murder. huh, kind of like carver. zola def comes down on the nature side of the nature-vs-nuture bad seed question (tho i should say he approaches this with great or maybe just v french compassion). also i can’t tell if this is me reaching but, something about la bête humaine reminds me of king’s ‘secret window’ which we’ve observed to be at least a style influence on jughead post time jump

- but wow a late-19th century french writer would be a random thing to drop into this season, right? then again zola also wrote about miners, which we’ve learned are an important part of this town’s history + whatever hiram is up to this time.  and most notably, zola wrote ‘j’accuse...!’ an open letter in defense of a soldier falsely accused and unlawfully jailed for treason: alfred dreyfus. archie’s recent army trouble comes to mind.

- since the introduction of old man dreyfuss (plausibly Just a nod to close encounters actor richard dreyfuss, but also when is anything in this show Just one thing) i’ve been wondering if these little things could add up to a season-long reference to zola’s writings. but i had doubts and didn’t want to speak on it too soon bc, u know, it’s weird but is it weird enough for riverdale??

- however,,,

- (come on, u knew where i was going with this)

- a24′s film zola just came out. absolutely no relation to the french writer, it’s not based on a book but an insane and explicit twitter thread by aziah ‘zola’ wells about stripping and? human trafficking?? this feels ripe for rd even outside the potentials here for the lonely highway/missing girls plot.

- that would add up to a combination of homage that feels natural to this show

- anyway pls understand i’m just having fun speculating, most of this is based on nothing more concrete than the torturous mental tendril ras has hooked into my skull pls let go ras pls let go

[mm2305]

The anniversary

Fandom : Lucifer (tv series)

Warnings / words : none this is pure fluff / 2.1 k

Pairings : Lucifer Morningstar x Chloe Decker 

Disclaimer : none of these characters are mine ,rights to the rightful owners

Description :  After Lucifer's return from Hell, Chloe has made preparations for their six month anniversary as a couple.

Author’s note : Hello everyone! I wrote and posted this back in June but I just realised I only posted the link to the ao3 and never the fic itself! Better late than never right? English is not my first language so please be kind. Also a big thank you to my amazing beta @forever5hines  / @tossacointoyourmorningstar .

Enjoy!

--------------------------------

It's funny how life turns out, isn't it? If someone had told Chloe 4 years ago that she would fall in love with that jerk, Lucifer Morningstar, she would have laughed in their faces. But here she is, shopping for their six month anniversary.

There were several obstacles in their way. The more they worked together, the more Chloe liked him. He had adopted the character of a playboy, a diva, but it wasn't exactly who he was. He was all these, but he was also smart, honest, respectful and supportive. He had a softer side which he chose to hide, in order not to get hurt. The only one who broke through his facade, was her. From then on, he did everything in his power to keep her safe. Dealt with Malcolm, his mom, his brother, Cain, went to Hell twice to save her.

When she learned the truth though,she ran and conspired with Kinley, tried to poison him. Betrayed him. Abandoned him. Even though they continued to work together after a while, nothing was the same anymore. She realized that she was in love with him and as  time went by, she accepted him too. All his sides. The good, the bad and the crispy.

He had to leave though. That night at the balcony she finally told him she loved him. Even though she begged him to stay, he left. It was partly her fault, because she brought Kinley to Los Angeles. Kinley then brought the demons up to Earth. She understood why he left. The demons had to be contained. And only Lucifer could do that.

Six months later, he came back, putting an end to both his and her misery. From then on, they began talking about their feelings and visited Linda a few times. In the end though, they decided to get into a relationship.

They were happier than ever before. Worked together, spent lots of time with each other, had dates. Of course, they had their problems too. Lucifer was still struggling to believe that there were people in his life who loved and appreciated him. To him, it seemed like a good dream, that's bound to end very soon. Chloe reassured him many times,but the feeling remained rooted deep in his heart. Chloe, on the other hand, was dealing with her own guilt. She tried to poison and hurt him. She wondered, even now, why the hell she tried to do that. What she also wondered, was if she was good enough for him. Chloe Decker, a human, a nobody , good enough for the Devil? The Lightbringer? They both had to work on their feelings, that's for sure.

At the moment, she is at a mall with Ella. It's their six month anniversary the next day and she had prepared a dinner at LUX for herself and Lucifer. For this reason, she wanted to get a new dress. Maze was babysitting Trixie and Linda had a therapy session scheduled for a patient. Only Ella was available. The problem is that they've been searching for hours and they've got nothing so far.

"Come on girl, tell me how's the relationship with the Devil going?", Ella inquired.

"It's been good. More than good, actually. He makes me very happy.", she replied smiling.

"I can see that. You're glowing Chloe. He is too. I've told you that I ship Deckerstar, haven't I?"

" Yes Ella. Many, many, many times.  Anyway, I'm telling you, if we don't find anything in the next 30 minutes, then I'm going to wear one of my own dresses. It's been 3 hours and we haven't found anything! " she complained pouting just a little.

" Oh shut up Decker. Look I found this. It's beautiful, isn't it? "

" Mmm… I'll try it. In fact that's the last I'm trying. Then I'm going home. " she said taking the dress from Ella.

When she came out Ella gasped in awe.

" Oh my God! You look gorgeous!", she commented  shocked.

"Really? ", asked Chloe turning around to look at herself in the mirror.

Ella has excellent taste , she thought. No one could deny that. This satin dress was simple but elegant. Not too formal, but still perfect for her purpose. It had a color almost identical to her eyes. Icy-blue. The fabric soft and feeling wonderful on her skin. The dress hugged her figure but it wasn't clingy. It reached to just a little more than her knee. It really was perfect for her.

"I'm getting this.", she decided after a few moments.

                                                 ***************

Lucifer loves speed. It makes him feel free and freedom and free will are things he has and will always stand up for. At the moment, he is racing through the highways of Los Angeles, in the comfort of his beloved, black Corvette,at high speed. The air landing on his face as he passes through the roads, the whole feeling of freedom, still seems incredible to him. That's one of the main reasons he bought a convertible. Something else he loves even more than this though, is his beloved Detective. Chloe. He's known her for years, and she wormed her way into his heart, since the first moment he met her. They've been through a lot. His mom, Cain, her leaving and coming back, and the most recent: him going back to Hell.

The night he left, when she told him she loved him, accepted him completely, he thought his heart would burst out of his chest. Seeing his Detective's tears and pleads for him to stay, broke his heart in a thousand little pieces. However he couldn't risk the safety of his friends and the family he had here. When the problems in Hell were resolved, he came back. Doctor Linda helped him a lot after that. Chloe too. For him it was much much more that six months down there. In the end though, they managed.

Tomorrow is their six month anniversary. He got her a ring. Not an engagement ring. A promise for the future. That he'll always be by her side no matter what. Love her, protect her. Anything she needs,anything she desires. The stone was the exact color of her lovely eyes. A favor called in here and there, helped him achieve his goal.

After a few more minutes going around, he set for LUX. He had a few matters to attend to and he was needed there. He'd meet his Detective tomorrow.

                       *******

When Chloe came back from her shopping spree (she ended up getting a pair of short-heeled shoes, in the same color as the dress), she was exhausted. After taking a quick shower and brushing her teeth, she proceeded to hog the bed, like someone once told her.

Chloe woke up with a smile the next day. Checked if things were going well, ate breakfast, spent some time with Trixie. Then she started getting ready. Followed her skin care routine - the results were amazing, soft skin and all -, showered and shaved thoroughly. Then she dried her hair and styled it into waves. Afterwards, she did her makeup. Simple, not heavy, in light colors. Lastly she put on her dress and shoes. I do look pretty good, she thought while looking at herself one last time at the mirror. She took Lucifer's present with her, too.

One of the very few things she had left from her father were his cufflinks. She wanted to give them to him. Not even Dan knew about their existence. She had gone to a jewelry store to get something extra etched on them. She added an 'M' in the outside and a 'C' on the inside. In this way she wanted him to understand, how much he meant to her. With the 'M' they would become his own , while with the 'C' she wanted him to have a part of her with him. Will he like them though?, she wondered anxiously. To her it was something important, but could that measure up to the person who created the stars? Come on Chloe, relax. It's going to be alright. With that she went out of her house, to get to LUX.

                                                    *************

Everything was ready. Lucifer's favorite dishes were ready to be served. The candles around, check. The DJ ready to play a special song for tonight, check. Comfortable, low lighting, check. Lucifer…check.

They both gasped at the sight of the other. Lucifer was wearing a black tuxedo, with a white shirt and a red handkerchief. He looked sharp and  very handsome. Chloe was wearing her new dress, looking absolutely gorgeous.

"Darling, you look exquisite," said Lucifer with adoration.

"I could say the same for you too, Lucifer", replied Chloe with a radiant smile.

"How about we sit down babe?"

"Of course, my dear."

After sitting down and getting their food, they made a toast.

" To us. May this be the first anniversary of many more to come"

" To us, love." he replied with a clink of their wine glasses.

They talked about the future, laughed about Trixie's adventures at school and when they finished their dessert they went on to exchange their gifts.

"Lucifer,I didn't buy you anything… Instead, I wanted to give you something special.These are my dad's cufflinks. I added something though...On the outside you'll see an 'M' for 'Morningstar'. On the inside,however, there is a 'C' for 'Chloe'...I wanted I'd give you a "piece" of me through this to have with you… If you don't like it, it is possible to have it changed… I just wanted to give you something that is very important to me, because you are one of the most important people in my life and… "

"Chloe, darling, I love it. In fact, you have rendered me speechless. Thank you so much, my love. ", he interrupted her giving her a genuine smile.

"Do you really like it or are you saying that just to make me happy? I mean, this isn't some of the extravagant things you're used to and I don't know… Maybe you would like something else… ?",she asked him nervously,looking at her feet.

"Chloe, love, look at me.", Lucifer told her lifting her chin to look at her lovely eyes. "You know I don't lie, don't you? Then trust me when I say that this is the best gift I've ever received. I know just how much your dad's death hurt you and by giving me one of his belongings…You've made me so happy and grateful, my dear. So, you don't need to worry about that alright? "

" Okay ", she sighed.

"Now it's my turn," he announced opening the little, black, velvet box. Chloe gasped.

"It isn't an engagement ring. It's my promise to you. I want to promise you that I will always be by your side. Your friend, your partner, your boyfriend, whatever you desire. Protect you, cherish you, support you in everything you do. Anything. You are the light in my life  and you've touched my heart in ways nobody ever has, in my long life. I want you to know I love you so much," he confessed while putting the ring on Chloe's finger.

" Oh Lucifer… I don't know what to say… Thank you, honey. I love you too, " she added hugging him.

"Dance with me? ", she asked him after a few moments.

"Anything for you, my darling. "

Chloe then signaled the DJ to put a very specific song on.

As they swayed, she whispered the lyrics to his ear.

"Do you feel my heart beating,

 Do you understand

 Do you feel the same

Am I only dreaming

Is this burning an eternal flame "

" Do you understand Lucifer? I love you with all my heart and I will always stand  by your side, too. Always.", she whispered teary-eyed but looking straight into his eyes.

"Even if I am the Devil? Who has tortured countless souls in Hell? A monster, like many others think?"

" Even if you are the Devil,who did his job in Hell. The Devil, who has been through many things, but never gave up. The Devil who is loving, adorable, caring, good-hearted and dangerous only to those who hurt his friends and family. The Devil who is a perfect boyfriend and  whom I love with all my heart. ", she replied tearfully.

" I love you too,my Detective. Let's continue dancing, love, shall we? ", he said kissing her sweetly.

And they did. The rest of the night was spent between the two of them. Lost in each other, their emotions, touches and kisses, they continued to sway on the dance floor. In their own, strange for some people, perfect for them, little world.

-------------------------------------

Thank you for reading!!!

[myforeverforlife]

walk on memories.

For an anon! Kokobop Baekhyun and 150. "You look happy now." (Introducing him to friends at a party, and ex is there too)

Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader

Word Count: 2,656

Masterlist

You stared, open-mouthed as Baekhyun drove up in his sleek, red convertible. But it wasn't the car that had rendered you speechless. Baekhyun winked at you as he pulled the car to a stop, green eyes flickering in the dim light of the setting sun. The slight afternoon breeze ruffled the red strands of his hair, pushing his bangs even further back from his face. Your gaze wandered south, landing on a silver necklace — the one you had gotten him as a gift. Baekhyun wore a plain white T-shirt, layered underneath a short-sleeved button-up. Interestingly enough, you noticed a tiny cluster of flowers peeking out from one of his shirt pockets. 

"Are you gonna stare all night? I thought you wanted me to meet your friends," Baekhyun said with a small chuckle.

"Oh," you replied, blinking out of your trance. "Right." With a bashful smile, you opened the passenger side door, slipping into the seat. 

Baekhyun leaned over, kissing you in greeting. "I missed you," he said, voice low as he ran a reverent thumb over your cheek. 

You felt your stomach begin to do flip-flops. It had only been a month since you and Baekhyun started dating, but you had already fallen hard for him. Not that you'd let Baekhyun know. 

With a light scoff, you feigned nonchalance. "Your friends would laugh if they saw how soft you are, Byun." 

"Let them see. They love you already." Baekhyun smiled, his eyelashes fluttering against your skin. 

Love. You still felt like it was too early to say the famous four-letter word, as much as Baekhyun had been skirting around the topic. But then again, he was always more comfortable with displays of affection. Even now, he began to press soft kisses to your cheek, trailing down, down....

"What's with the flowers?" you asked suddenly, startling both of you apart. 

Baekhyun followed your line of vision, staring down at the bunch of flowers in his shirt pocket. "Oh. I just found them on my way here. Which reminds me..."

He turned to reach behind him, grabbing something from the backseat. When he faced you again, you were stunned to see a bouquet of wildflowers in his hand — the same as the ones resting in his pocket. You had been so blinded by Baekhyun, so completely wrapped up in his presence that you hadn't even noticed the bouquet in the backseat. 

"For you," Baekhyun said, offering them with what almost seemed like a shy smile. But you had to be mistaken. Bold, outgoing Byun Baekhyun was never shy. 

You took the flowers, admiring the pops of color in each of the delicate buds and petals. "They're beautiful, Baekhyun. You didn't have to get these for me." 

"I wanted to. I drove by a bunch of these on my way here, and knew you'd love them." 

"You picked these yourself?" Your eyebrows arched up in surprise. 

Baekhyun nodded, lips curving into a proud smile. It was almost funny to think of Baekhyun, red mullet and all, stopping his luxurious car by the side of the road to collect a handful of flowers. But he had done it for you, with the sole intention of making you happy. 

"I love them, Baekhyun. Thank you." You brought them up to your nose, breathing in the light, floral fragrance. It was better than any perfume you had, all other scents paling in comparison. 

Well, almost. 

You laid the flowers down in your lap, pulling Baekhyun to you by the lapels of his shirt. He gasped softly as you kissed him fervently, lips parting to let him in. Your fingers traveled up the nape of his neck, curling around the longer strands of hair. All thoughts of flowers, your friend's party were forgotten as you lost yourself in Baekhyun's familiar scent. For someone who didn't care for wearing any fragrances, Baekhyun had a scent that was as comforting as any vanilla candle, as alluring as the amber notes in a woody cologne. 

He let out a breathy moan when you unconsciously pulled at the ends of his hair, his hands clutching at your waist. "You're going to be the death of me," he murmured against your lips. Baekhyun sighed, swooping in for one last, drawn-out kiss. He leaned his forehead against yours, both of you slightly out of breath. 

"Let's go, before your friends get mad at me for making you late." Baekhyun's eyes flashed open, the emerald blaze simmering down to a controlled flame. 

You glanced up, taken aback by the sun's descent in the summer sky. "Oh god, I completely forgot. I hope we're not too late." 

Baekhyun chuckled, one hand coming up to rest on the steering wheel as he shifted gears. "Buckle up, sweetheart. We'll get there in time." 

It would be foolish to ignore his warning, you knew that Baekhyun would drive at the speed of light if he could. But Baekhyun would never put you in harm's danger, driving fast enough to satisfy himself while still making sure he was attentive and safe. It was a compromise the two of you had agreed on when you began dating, and Baekhyun hadn't forgotten even once.

Sure enough, once you were safely buckled up, Baekhyun was off, wind whipping through his hair. The red convertible drove off as day finally drew to a close, nighttime only just beginning.

"He's very quiet," your friend whispered to you. She glanced over her shoulder, sneaking a quick peek at where Baekhyun stood with the rest of your friends.

"Baekhyun needs time to warm up to people. He's just nervous." You rummaged through the fridge for a drink, nose wrinkling up in distaste at some of the choices there. 

"Nervous? I thought this was the guy who races cars for fun." 

You sighed, pulling out a can all the way from the back of the fridge. Perfectly cold, just the way you liked it. "Just trust me. Give him time, and I know he'll open up." 

Your friend raised an eyebrow skeptically before shaking her head. "Alright. But only because I love you." She nodded towards the fridge. "Pass me one too?" 

The entire house was buzzing with energy, filled with people that your friend had invited. Most of them were recent graduates, fresh out of college and managing their way through new careers. Others were undergrads still working towards a degree, while others were friends and acquaintances from your friend's workplace. All in all, it made for a very interesting mix of people, especially when your friends heard that you would be bringing your boyfriend around. 

You and your best friend made it back to the group where to your surprise, Baekhyun was caught up in a conversation. 

"Yeah, the hard drive on that model is sick," Chanyeol gushed. "And the extra RAM just makes gaming so much smoother. I was glad to finally retire my old gaming laptop. That thing's been with me for too long." 

"I've been thinking of getting a new one, myself." Baekhyun looked over as you came back to stand beside him, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. "Hi, sweetheart."

"I see you've gotten to know Chanyeol." You waved at your friend, laughing when he shot you a toothy grin in return. 

"You didn't tell me your boyfriend was a gamer," Chanyeol said. 

"That he is." You held your drink out to Baekhyun. "Want some? Or do you want a different drink?"

"I'm fine, babe. Can't drink tonight if I'm the designated driver, especially when I'm driving you home." Baekhyun hugged you close to him, expression softening as he stared at you. 

You hid the blush threatening to creep up your cheeks by taking a swig from your drink. You spotted your friend over the rim of your can, glad to see that she seemed impressed by Baekhyun's response. 

Baekhyun started to come out of his shell, emboldened by his conversation with Chanyeol. You were pleasantly surprised to see him even starting up a conversation with your best friend, bonding over shows that both of them were interested in. 

"I'm gonna run to the restroom," you whispered to Baekhyun, smiling when he nodded before jumping back into an animated debate over "The Flash". 

Luckily for you, the first floor bathroom was empty. You decided to take the roundabout way back to Baekhyun, stopping in the kitchen again to grab something to eat. Just as you were in the midst of filling up a paper plate with snacks, you heard someone calling your name — someone you hadn't heard from in a long time. 

You turned around, unsure if your ears were playing tricks on you or not. But sure enough, there stood Oh Sehun.

Your ex-boyfriend. 

"Hey," he greeted, slipping his hands in his pockets as he approached. His hair was dyed a bright orange, slightly gelled and styled. He wore a Hawaiian printed button-up, top buttons left undone for his skin to peek out. 

"Sehun," you said, throat dry. "What are you doing here?" 

"Jongin invited me. I was running late though, I got stuck at work." Sehun shrugged, as if it didn't really bother him that much. "I've been outside in the backyard though, catching up with Junmyeon and Jongin." 

You peered over his shoulder to the patio doors, having completely forgotten that they were there. From the backyard, Sehun would have had a clear view of you even through the glass panes of the door. Knowing him, he must have been watching and waiting for the right moment to talk to you. Both of you had never been good at confrontation anyways, especially in front of other people. If you were being honest, that was one of the biggest reasons why it didn't work out between you two. 

"What do you want, Sehun?" You set your plate down, crossing your arms over your chest and hoping that you didn't look as nervous as you felt. 

"Nothing, I just wanted to see how you've been. You know, considering how we left things the last time we spoke." 

You remembered all too well. Another petty argument about who-knows-what, ending in harsh words and hot tempers. Both of you had been ignoring each other for months, avoiding each other like the plague. 

"I'm doing okay now, Sehun. I have a boyfriend." 

"I figured." Sehun's eyes flickered up, staring at something behind you in the distance before meeting your eyes. "You look happy now. I'm glad." 

You were at a loss for words, not expecting that from Sehun at all. "Thanks," you replied unsurely.

Sehun scoffed, rolling his eyes with a tiny smile. "I mean it, Y/N. I'm not here to pick a fight with you. I'm sure he's a nice guy." 

"He is." You paused, hesitating over your next words. "Thanks Sehun, it means a lot to me. I... I'm sorry that we messed things up so badly between us." 

Sehun stared down at the floor, the toe of his shoe rubbing against the linoleum. "It wasn't entirely your fault, you know. But I'm okay now." He glanced back up, a smile on his face — a trace of the old Sehun you once knew. "I'm gonna head back out there," he nodded to the backyard. "But take care of yourself, Y/N." 

"You too, Sehun." 

You watched as Sehun pushed one of the double doors open, his tall figure drifting back over to where a few people were lounging on the chairs outside. He didn't look back at you, although you noticed how Junmyeon turned to meet your eye for a few seconds. You weren't sure if things would ever be completely smoothed over between you and Sehun, but it seemed like this was a good start. 

Abandoning your plate of snacks, you returned to Baekhyun, placing a hand on his elbow as you whispered into his ear. His eyes widened slightly before he nodded. Baekhyun waited as you said your goodbyes to your friends, making up an excuse about feeling tired. 

Your best friend looked you over worriedly, drawing you close into a tight hug. "Feel better soon. And for what it's worth, I think Baekhyun's a great guy. He makes you happier than I've seen in a long time." 

You smiled at that, squeezing her in return. "He does. I'll text you tomorrow." 

Baekhyun stayed silent as both of you left the house, his arm wrapped protectively around your waist. It wasn't until both of you were back in the car that he spoke up.

"You okay?" He reached out to hold onto your hand, the cold metal of his rings brushing against your skin.

"Yeah. I just... my ex was there."

Baekhyun's eyes widened in realization. "The one you broke up with a while ago." 

You nodded, staring down at your linked hands. "I wasn't expecting him to be here." 

"Did he do something to upset you?"

"No." You let out a soft laugh. "The opposite, actually. I told him about you, and he was great about it, about everything really. It just felt weird, staying in there." 

Baekhyun's other hand reached out to lift up your chin. Your breath caught in your throat upon seeing the concern etched on his face. "Do you want me to take you home?" 

You hesitated before answering. "Can I stay with you tonight? I just... I don't want to be alone right now."

Baekhyun was replying before you even completed your sentence, hands cradling your face. "Of course. You're always welcome at my place." He pressed a kiss to your forehead. 

"Let's get you home." 

As soon as you got to Baekhyun's place, you made sure to put the bouquet that he gifted you in some water. Although he didn't have a vase, he had a glass tall enough to serve as one. 

You hadn't even grown nervous at Baekhyun's offer to lend you clothes for the night, eager to surround yourself in anything comforting. Now, lying in his bed, you curled up under the blanket, his T-shirt riding up as you moved around. 

Baekhyun turned the lights off before joining you in bed. He studied your face, on alert for any warning signs. "Are you okay?" He scooted closer, hugging you close to him. 

"Yeah. Just tired. I feel better here though, with you." Your lips brushed against the bare skin of his chest as you spoke, Baekhyun shivering at the sensation. 

"Good," he replied. He ran his hand up and down your back, the warmth seeping through your skin.

Seeing Sehun again had dredged up many old memories, all of them tinged with a bittersweet feeling. But you also thought about the more recent memories that you shared with Baekhyun. No one had ever treated you the way that he did, made you felt the way that he did. Even your friends approved of him as he was. 

"Baekhyun?" 

He hummed in response, the sound rumbling in his chest. 

You looked up, meeting his dark green eyes. "I love you." 

Baekhyun froze, as if he couldn't believe what he heard. "I love you too," he said sincerely, a new intensity in his voice. "I love you," he repeated. 

You didn't know who moved first, but the next moment, both of you were pressed up against each other as if your lives depended on it. Baekhyun's lips were on yours, kisses sweeter than any he had given you before, even as his hand wandered up your side and tangled into your hair.

When you first met him, you hadn't expected fast-driving, slightly intimidating Byun Baekhyun to have such a soft side to him. But now that you knew him, that you loved him, it was funny to think of how far off your first impression was. It was a fond memory to look back on, to add to the growing collection that you had amassed together. 

There would be more to come, without a doubt.

A/N: I basically mentioned two things I don't know much about: alcohol and computer lingo lol. like baekhyun, I have a really low tolerance for alcohol (it also just does not appeal to me LOL) it's still funny to write about though, especially since oc's choice of drink is slightly ambiguous. I’ll admit, I was slightly worried about writing this because I wasn’t sure if it would turn out great, but I’m pleasantly surprised by this? i’m just hoping it’s enjoyable for other people to read (especially the anon who requested this! 💕) 

[ohmightydevviepuu]

For the fanfic asks - #5 and #16 please?

Which WIP is first on your list to complete this year? Will you post a snippet?

technically i don’t have any posted WIPs but i do have two other things that i’m currently writing.  i’ve already shared several snippets from one so i guess it is time to unveil a piece of the procedural i’ve been talking about.  for a year.  *gulp*

Emma Swan gripped the steering wheel of her ancient Beetle and prayed it wouldn’t skid in the rain.

She needed a new car.

The yellow Bug had six-digit mileage and a cloned VIN and a bad transmission but she refused to trade it in.  She couldn’t afford it, for starters.  She didn’t want to, for another.

Emma Swan was many things--not sentimental, exactly, but mindful, always (see also:  ‘guarded’, ‘prickly’, ‘broke’)--and the Beetle was a reminder.  On her better days it was a reminder of how far she’d come.  On her worst days it was a reminder of how far she still had to go.  And, really, she should start by getting a new goddamn car.

But, again, she was broke.

The engine light flashed and Emma swore.  She’d just had it in and Gus said it was fine, but people lied.  Often.

Always.

And Emma Swan could always tell.

That’s how she got paid.

Speaking of:  Her phone buzzed on the seat next to her and Emma swore again, because she was going to be late and Milah hated it when she was late.  Milah had rules.

Emma hadn’t grown up with too many rules.  That’s what happened when you got shipped from home to home.  Sometimes she’d had to be on time for dinner, sometimes no one cared.  Sometimes she had chores.  Sometimes she had to hide her stuff.  Sometimes she had to hide, in general.  

Even the basics--don’t lie, don’t steal--had gotten distilled down to don’t get caught.

(Emma hadn’t even been able to do that.)

But Milah had rules and she’d tried to instill them; some lost, long-dormant almost-motherly instinct coming to the surface twenty years too late, as if she wanted to be motherly and had just forgotten how.

It might be, literally, true.  Milah had a kid--and an ex--and neither of them was ever spoken of.  Ever.  Emma had done some digging over the years and came up empty every time, which meant that Milah had gone to great lengths to render herself untraceable.  Invisible.  Emma didn’t even know the age or gender of either the spouse or the kid.  It felt unfair when Milah knew everything about her and in the most embarrassing way possible.

Their relationship was not an easy one, but it was the only one Emma had.  That’s what happened when you were fresh out of prison and on the run at eighteen--it didn’t leave a lot of opportunities for family ties.  But thanks to Milah, Emma was good at her job.  Better than good--she was great.  

And she followed the rules.  Usually.

Big meeting tonight and Emma needed more than the money, she needed the exposure, the chance to make a good impression on a client who could keep her in Pop-Tarts and Netflix and fucking car parts for the foreseeable future.  

Regina Mills had made a fortune defending wealthy clients accused of serious crimes.   Every photograph, every second of her on newscast B-roll showed her in one of her trademark pantsuits:  simple, impeccably tailored, so expensive they made Emma’s wallet hurt just to think about them.  There was nothing masculine about her, though--exactly the opposite.  Regina Mills was not ashamed of her femininity.  She flaunted it.  It was part of her style and part of her strategy down to her blood-red lipstick and matching nail polish as her smile and demeanor went from charming to soothing to terrifying and back again all within a single question.

High-stakes, high-pay, high-profile, and she was the best in the game.  Like she snapped her fingers and poof, magic, her clients got off. 

But to do what she did, Regina needed people like Emma:  someone who would do the work, to find the truth--good, bad or ugly.  PI work wasn’t glamorous but Emma was good at it, and she enjoyed the challenges of cases like Regina’s in between skip-chasing for deadbeat dads or waiting for hours in the car on the money-shot of a cheating spouse.  Emma had, very slowly and very carefully, built up a record with Regina--thanks mostly to Milah, who kept her behind the scenes but was always happy to throw a little work Emma’s way.

Until today.

Do you have that one fanfic that you wrote a ton for, ages ago, but never posted? Will this be the year, come hell or high water, that it WILL get finished and posted?

i do, and the answer is a HARD NO.  deep in the recesses of my google drive i have about 30 chapters--and that’s just the “final” draft--of a pretty epic pretty solider sailor moon moon kingdom --> present day --> crystal tokyo fic.   (lol you have no idea what any of that means)  the reasons i will never post it are numerous but chief among them is that it is based too heavily off of other authors’ work--an amalgamation of a bunch of stories and ideas i loved that i played with putting into one story and one timeline and then extended.

the reason i keep it is simple:  i loved writing it.  it gave me joy in difficult times and places.  it gave me focus.  and i still occasionally harvest the pieces of it to incorporate into other things. 

let’s start 2021 with some fic asks, shall we??

[listdepot]

Top 10 Indie Games of the Decade (10 - 6)

Boy oh boy, video games sure did happen this decade, huh? A lot of stuff with a whole lot of video games and, most importantly, the independent game scene became far more pronounced, previously just confined to PC, the increasing presence of the online marketplace on consoles has greatly expanded the scope to which indie games reach players, putting these games on the same level as AAA. Anyway this is 10 of this games that I liked this year.

An honorable mention goes out to Firewatch because I still don’t know what is Firewatch.

10. Stacking

Double Fine are undoubtedly my favorite game company. Tim Schaefer’s company has not only created my favorite game of all time (Psychonauts), but all their games have such a fun creativity to them. Whether its a turn-based RPG where children fight based on their Halloween costumes or an action/strategy game set in a world based on hard rock and metal, Double Fine have proven to be such a company that embraces fun and whimsy, that Sesame Street of all people let them develop their most recent game.

Stacking, as you can tell from the screenshot, is a world populated by matroyshka stacking dolls, and you play as Charlie Blackmore, the smallest of all the stacking dolls, who sets out on an adventure to stop an evil Industrial Age baron called The Baron, who has enslaved his siblings. To do that, he stacks into other dolls, only able to go up in size one at a time. Most characters have their own unique abilities and Charlie uses those abilities to solve adventure game puzzles. And that’s where Stacking gets really cool.

Every single puzzle in the game has multiple solutions, if you can’t figure out one version of how to do it, there’s usually two more solutions. While you only HAVE to do one, the puzzles reset once you finish them, letting you take your time trying to figure the others. Its an adventure game that forgoes classic tropes of that genre, also replacing your standard point and click with the quick to pick up stacking mechanic that lets you pick and choose how you want to do things. Its a game that combines interesting ideas with an anticapitalist story and visually is both early 1900s set design while those sets are comprised of everyday household items. Its like playing a diorama from 1915. Not a lot of games are like that.

9. The Stanley Parable

The story of The Stanley Parable is simple. A narrative-driven walking simulator, you control Stanley, a boring office drone that’s tasked with monitoring data on a computer, pressing buttons and not asking questions. One day, that monitor goes blank and Stanley goes to fix it, suddenly discovering the office he works in is completely empty.

But that’s not the real story of The Stanley Parable. The narrator that describes Stanley’s actions, storybook-style, doesn’t control Stanley’s narrative. You do. And you have every opportunity, every step of the story, to go against the grain of what you’re told happens.

The Stanley Parable is a game that, as soon as you do anything it doesn’t want you to, begs you to continue following the path laid out for you then berates you for not following that path then continues to just complain to you, trying to regain control of the story. Every variation of Stanley’s story is maybe 10 - 15 minutes long but each one is a fun and weird surprise and Kevan Brighting’s soft friendly British narrator is an all time great voice acting role. One so good, Valve’s DOTA 2 MOBA game features an announcer pack that fully replaces the game’s announcer with Brighting’s narrator. DIGITAL SPORTS.

8. Observer

A digital plague called a nanophage has infected and claimed the lives of countless augmented people in this cyberpunk hellscape of Krakow, leading to war and rampant drug use. The Chiron Corporation stepped in soon after and took control, turning Poland into even more of a nightmare than it had been, condemning those on the lower rung of society to poorly kept together tenement buildings, while also creating a police force known as Observers, detectives given free reign to hack the minds of citizens. Its 2084 and you are Daniel Lazarski, an Observer who receives a message from his estranged son Adam to come to a tenement, where he discovers Adam’s body, dead from long before the call was made. And that’s when things get weird.

The more I think about it, the more I think Bloober Team’s more recent horror game, Layers of Fear 2, should take the place on the list. The only issue is I only played Layers 2 a month ago and, no matter how much I love it, my first exposure to this company was through Observer, and more than that, this was a game I did not stop thinking about for like a year and a half. While Layers 2 plays with color and black & white in a game about the early days of film, Observer is clearly influenced by classic works of cyberpunk (the most obvious being Blade Runner), the bright neon buzzing endlessly in this dark, miserable nightmare. 

Even the real stars of this game, the minds of the dead you dive into as you solve this murder mystery, embrace that look as your setting is warped around you constantly. Rooms that look normal start stretching endlessly, doors open into other memories. And as Dan gets deeper into the mystery, the line between the real of the world around him and the memories of those he’s probing begin to blend until his own memories get mixed up among them, showing what lead to the current sad life he lives. Its a game that oozes misery even as it tries to jumpscare you around every corner. And its why it still keeps showing up in my thoughts.

7. Gone Home

What exactly is a walking simulator? Dumb, that’s what. The idea that a game isn’t a game simply because it follows more of an adventure game aesthetic without any real challenges is absurd and, frankly, a childish view of what a game can be. And no game broke gamers’ brains more than the “walking simulator” Gone Home.

In 1995, Katie Greenbriar returns from a trip overseas on a stormy night to find her family home completely abandoned, moving boxes still unpacked. The unnerving quiet of the house mixed with the constant rain and occasional thunder feels like something out of a Resident Evil game. But instead of horror, the game uses this to make you feel confused, something to make you want to solve what happened. And it turns out its not a horror story, but a love story.

As Katie progresses through her house, she finds plenty of objects she can interact with, many that often unlock other areas in this large rural Oregon home. Along with many of those unlockables comes narration from Katie’s sister Sam, who details the awkwardness of moving into this new house, frequently thought to be haunted, and her life in a new school where she can’t connect with too many other people. Until she meets Lonnie. The two young women bond and fall in love. And the more you explore the home, the more this story gets fleshed out. Gone Home is a pure delight of a video game and one that not only spawned the pejorative term of “walking simulator” but became a gold standard for them, a term that the gaming industry has since embraced. There is no shame in using interactive media to simply tell a story, and Gone Home knows it.

6. Jazzpunk

Its the late 1950s in the country of Japanada and Agent Polyblank must-  I’m going to be honest with you guys. I don’t know what Jazzpunk is. I’m not entirely sure what its about. I’ve played it multiple times and loved every moment of it but I’m not going to pretend its a game that makes any sense. And that’s just what it wants to be.

Heavily adopting the style of mid-century spy and cyberpunk fiction, Jazzpunk is a game that overly prefers making you laugh over any qualitative form of actual gameplay. Sure there are puzzles to solve to move the story along, but those puzzles task you with collecting giant spiders that are better rendered than anything else in this game, or hacking into a Soviet consulate which involves using a telephone to dial “Kremlin 2: The New Batch”. 

And the puzzles that make up the story stuff isn’t even 1/5th of the general dumb garbage you can do in this game. Jazzpunk exists for gags like the wedding cake that opens into a console that lets you play the multiplayer wedding-based FPS Wedding Qake. Jazzpunk exists to make you help a woman swat down flies in her store of very expensive vases. Jazzpunk will make you suddenly stop what you’re doing to do a first person version of the car bonus stage from Street Fighter 2, or suddenly put you into a cyberpunk heist in a Blade Runner-like city. 

Jazzpunk is Saul Bass on laughing gas. An intentionally stupid and disorienting experience purely designed to have you explore every inch of this weird world just so you can dig up weird crap on the beach with a metal detector and experience a pizza-themed Evil Dead 2 parody. Jazzpunk exists to be Jazzpunk. And in a lot of ways, it fully lives up to its nonsense name. Its a game of subversion in a way so impossibly dumb that it entirely feels improvised. That’s Jazzpunk.

[legobiwan]

Just got home from The Rise of Skywalker. No pithy intro, I’m just going to jump right in and it’s going to be a LONG rant here so buckle up, my friends, and be sure to read below the cut. SPOILERS AHOY YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Okay, so yes, the first third of the movie went at a blistering, nearly nonsensical pace. JJ  really had to cram a whole watermelon’s worth of exposition into a...well, you know, there was a lot to take in. This movie had to do so much telling instead of showing because it was such a departure (and middle finger to TLJ) from what came before. 

The thing was, the first third was also the most interesting part of the movie. I actually wish the whole trilogy had started with all of the Sith nonsense. (Actually, I wish they had started with Kylo absolutely wrecking shit like he did and then the Palpatine scene. People would have made all the wrong assumptions and it would have been glorious to unravel it over three films.) There is a strong history of Sith artifacts in both Nu-Canon and Legends, and it wouldn’t have been out of place, considering what we know now, to have made Rey, Poe, and Finn’s quest for these artifacts the start of the new trilogy, and then told the rest of the story in a non-linear timeline. Probably too experimental for a Star Wars reboot, but it would have grabbed attention and everyone like creepy Sith shit. 

Frankly, I would have dropped zombie-robot Palpatine at the very start of the trilogy, as well. It’s bonkers but I don’t hate the Rey Palpatine thing and they could have spent the rest fo the movies explaining this weird-ass lineage and how it relates to Kylo, Snoke, etc. and then have built back to the final confrontaion on Exegol. 

Leia. Trained. Rey. I so so so so so wished we had been able to get more of this. This, in my mind, is what it should have been all along. I liked TLJ (okay, so shoot me) but Master Leia is a whole other level of awesome. If I had to rewrite Luke and Leia’s roles, it would have went something like this:

Luke was searching for Sith artifacts. Luke was becoming disillusioned by what he was learning of the Jedi through “The Sacred Texts.” WHO DOES THAT SOUND LIKE? Hmmmm, I wonder....

Could you imagine Luke started to go a little Dooku in this respect, and so instead of fucking off the Ach-To because he had a feeling that was more “gravy than of grave” about Ben Solo’s dark sidedness, he fucked off to Ach-To - or even better - gave up training in order to keep himself from going down a darker path. 

And so instead, Leia is getting involved with training (and probably also governing at the same time because she would be an overachiever like that.)

Enter Ben Solo, who is Force sensitive, strong, being trained by his mother and occasionally his uncle, who is not totally plugged into the light side at the moment, which can rub off on Ben. Meanwhile, Han is maybe not the best father (he wants to be, he tries, but it all comes out wrong. I’ve been watching a lot of Psych lately, so I’m thinking of a dynamic similar to Henry and Shawn, but a little more dramatic.)

Of course, Palpatine is seeing all of this behind the scenes, he’s fostering ill will and discontent through the scattered remains of the Empire, sending Snoke clones out to be almost pseudo-religious/cult figures in the wake of the economic and social devastation left by the Empire’s fall and the floundering new government. Extremism, in pockets, rises. Extremism which preys on discontent, which preys of the desire for family, for belonging. 

Enter again Ben Solo, who has been pitted against the other strongest trainee, Rey (insert whatever last name you want. She knows it’s not her real name, she knows she was an orphan on Jakku, but she was brought by Luke to be trained). Ben is pissed how she and Leia bond, has been talking to his uncle, and perhaps encountered a Snoke clone on the way. 

Rey, on the other hand, is no one but wants to be someone, and that manifests in weird ways during her training. Perhaps she leaves at some point, perhaps not. But the seeds of her being Palpatine’s bloodline are laid within her. She wants to seek that belonging Ben has.

Okay, but getting away from my personal rewrites of the sequels, Star Wars is about family and lineage, both blood and found. There was so much potential to play on this throughout the trilogy with the Skywalkers, with Rey’s relation to Palps that if they had just planned the damn thing, it could have been brilliant. 

Moving ...(for now)

I felt so bad for Oscar Isaac. I felt like I watched his soul slowly depart his body over almost 3 hours. That man was not a happy camper and it came out in his performance. 

Power levels. Here’s the thing, guys. Magic needs to have consequences. Sure, you can cast a spell, but what does that take from you? You can use the Force, but to what degree? How much? Even Anakin exhausted himself at some points, and he was (allegedly, according to one Qui-gon Jinn), the Chosen One. It’s the first law of thermodynamics - energy can neither be created nor destroyed - and the Force is literally the energy of every life thing in the galaxy. You take the energy, use it towards something else, it has to drain from somewhere. This is what bugged the hell out of me with Rey’s Force Healing abilities (an ability that doesn’t thrill me to begin with as it’s so easy to overuse). Kylo keels from resurrecting the dead (and yeah, he was pretty beat up already), but Rey barely seems to breathe a beat harder. Once you start ignoring the consequences for magic, you end up like a shitty video game, and one of the criticisms I’ve leveled at the movie is that it feels like a montage of Battlefront and I can’t say that’s totally off point.

JEDI HUNTERS. Ochi. I will bet my right liver we’re going to hear something about this on The Mandalorian. 

So I know a lot of people wanted to see Rey Kenobi, but there was one piece of glaring evidence in the film why that would never be. (Aside from Kylo just announcing it to Rey.) She has a lightsaber, but she still ends up using a blaster. So uncivilized.

Speaking of The Mandalorian - Stormtroopers with Mando jetpacks. Hmmm.....

I loved techno-Sheev hooked up to all the equipment just floating. That was creepy as hell and played with the whole cloning and extension of life that was such a large part of the Darth Plagueis novel (which I still consider to be canon, higher powers be damned). Also, Palpy’s glowup with the wardrobe was hilarious. 

Dark!Rey was hot. There, I said it.

Let’s talk about romance. Or the lack thereof. Or the shoehorned thereof.

Poor Rose got shafted in this film with no explanation. I didn’t buy that whole thing in TLJ, but god damn anyway. (Finn also got shafted, for different reasons, which I will talk about later.)

If they were going to romance, just let it have been Finn and Poe, Finn and Rey, or fuck it, even a trio. 

I mean, I could have bought Reylo if it had been presented better. (With context. Adam Driver is an amazing actor, another thing I’ll talk about later.)

The Reylo kiss though - my theater laughed. No joke.

Of course, this was the same theater that thought Lando was trying to mack on Jannah at the end, so who knows what we were all thinking in there. (On that note, Lando was hilarious because no matter what, he was just having a grand ‘ol time in the movie. I like to think he got a medical spice card in his retirement years and was just enjoying anything that came his way, be it Wookiees, Jedi, starships, wars, whatever.)

While the Reylo kiss didn’t hit the mark the space lesbian background kiss got cheers, so there was some hope for my fellow theater-goers.

Did anyone pick up on Threepio saying the Senate made the bill that would render him incapable of translating the Sith language? No doubt that was a Palpatine move from TCW era. 

What is up with these movies and desert/jungle planets? Ugh. Thank everyone for Kijimi, at least that was interesting. 

New characters I loved: Babu Frik and DO. 

Finn’s Force sensitivity. Yes, I totally buy it. I wanted more. I wanted more fucking context of a Stormtrooper who would have known nothing of the Jedi getting these feelings and then bailing from the First Order (or, if I were writing the movies, bailing from the remnants of the Empire/Snokes weird military cults.) Totally underutilized character development. 

We. Were. Robbed. of Good!Ben. Adam Driver is so phenomenal. Form the little we saw of redeemed Ben, he is the perfect mix of his parents, from the “Ow” to the eyebrow wagging, the swagger, the smirks...I LOVED good!Ben. I wanted so much more good!Ben. What a transformation.

Speaking of which - the scene between Kylo/Ben and Han was terrific. I wish we had had more context for why everything went south, but it was so good and the type of family dynamic we really needed more of. 

The Knights of Ren looked awesome in this film? They needed to be like the Black Order of Star Wars, and they were getting to it, but not quite there. Gods, they could have been the enforcers of Snoke’s cults (Palpy’s puppet cults) that could terrorize far more than a normal, brainwashed Stormtrooper, who was only useful as cannon fodder (I mean, if we look at the history of the clone army to the Stormtroopers, it would be terribly fitting.)

That ship tug-of-war was DUMB. (See my rant about magic and consequences). But, if Rey was going to shoot lightening Palpy-style and blow up a ship, Chewie should have died. I’m sorry, that’s terrible, I love him, but there needed to be consequences for actions and throughout the film, there were either no consequences or random consequences that were a narrative convenience rather than developed into the plot/characterization/worldbuilding. 

Here’s the thing with the ST - there is so much potential. There are some awesome ideas. But they wanted to play if safe with JJ by rebooting the OT, Rian was too far out for them, there was no cohesive storytelling, and so we get these little glimpses into what could have been amidst a shitstorm of trailers for Battlefront 17. 

we could have had it allll....

Final rating: 4/10

[howrry]

ice

a/n: finally! i’m settled into skool lyfe and bella is back in business bitch (we love alliteration) here is that full fic of ice i’ve been hinting at :~)

w/c: 4.2k

warnings: this fic has an age gap of about 4 years and one of the characters is an older teenager! this is totally legal where i’m from but if it’s not where you are or it makes you uncomfortable then maybe don’t read this? also smut

***

Waiting for that one Facetime was like watching a huge pot of water boil. It was cliché, but you were running out of mundane things to do since you’d gotten home from uni. Seriously—laundry, reorganizing your soulless childhood room, even fully unpacking despite having weeks to get comfortable. Of course, as soon as you came back, you had your reunion with your parents and other family, but you hadn’t quite reached the seeing-friends phase of coming home.

At least, not until that lovely ringtone hummed through your room and you pounced on the bed, swiping on Gemma’s beautiful face. “Babe!” you cried.

“Hush,” she joked, crunching on a red apple on her side of the screen. You could hear her turn down the volume by clicking the buttons on her phone.

“Are you ready for me, then?” you asked, bouncing up and down on your tippy toes.

“No, don’t want to see you,” she crunched again, “just wanted to call to see how your mum’s doing. Of course I’m ready, twit!”

“Watch your language!” you chastised. “But I’ll be over in a New York minute.”

Getting ready was a rush—at this point you were just ready to get down the street. You shoved your feet into your Birks and grabbed your phone and keys, and once you’d padded down the stairs, your parents merely got a “be at Gem’s, later!” before you slammed the door.

When you got there, it was Harry who greeted you. You’d knocked and waited, since their house was always locked anyways. He threw the door open so fast that his cross necklace was still swinging when he rested his head on his forearm propped up on the doorframe. “Sorry, we don’t want any Girl Scout cookies,” he joked, smirking around his own jab.

“Ha ha ha,” you sarcastically bit. “Move it, Fisher-Price, I’m here for your sister.”

“I had a great semester, thank yeh for askin’,” he smiled, moving back and letting you in. “What about y’self?”

“It was productive, actually. Good to see you again, H,” you responded congenially. Ahh, the smell of your friend’s home was so nostalgic and inviting. It was fall all year round with the pumpkin in the living room, vanilla in the foyer, pine needles upstairs…

“Likewise,” he winked just before you went upstairs to your friend’s room.

Harry had always been a little charmer. Anne raised him to be very polite and he was naturally entertaining despite his introverted tendencies, but he’d always been Gemma’s annoying little brother to you. He always tried to butt into your hangouts with her, as far back as when he was four and you were eight and he wanted to play outside with you two, up to when he was 15 and you were 19 and he tried to buy beer from Gemma.

But soon, things changed. Harry got taller and his voice dropped and his skin got clear, and suddenly he wasn’t just the annoying little brother anymore. He was almost an adult, and he certainly developed a way with girls. The first time you went to see Gem and Harry had a girl over, something you couldn’t describe churned in your stomach. There’s no way Harry didn’t notice the way you cut your eyes when you initially saw her.

Ever since then, he just took a different light in your eyes. Going to Gemma’s house suddenly had double the benefits since you were seeing your best friend and her stupid hot little brother. If she left you alone for any period of time, you’d do anything to get Harry’s attention. He would chat with this amused smirk, one hand in his pocket and the other fiddling with his cross necklace, as if he knew you were subtly pining.

It was honestly kind of pathetic. He was still in high school, and you were in the home stretch of university. You had a potential hook-up pool that was at least five times the size of his and a much better selection, yet you were yearning for a guy who can’t even buy his own cigarettes.

But you didn’t care, and obviously Harry didn’t either. He humored your goofy flirting and gave it right back to you. For the most part, it was just harmless compliments and light schoolyard jabs and never escalated past that, until, well, it did.

You were going to go to brunch with Gemma that day. She’d gotten a part-time job as a photographer’s intern downtown that year, and invited you to try a new café with her. It was the perfect excuse to wear that flowy Free People dress you got, so you agreed.

While getting ready, Gemma called you in a panic. “Y/N! I forgot my wallet on my vanity at home,” she breathed. “Do you mind getting it before coming over?”

“Not a problem,” you hummed, checking your lipstick.

“Thanks, love. My mum left the front door unlocked when she got in this morning so just make yourself at home looking for it. See you soon!” Gemma blew a kiss into the phone before hanging up.

Her front door was open, just like she warned, and you hopped up the stairs to her room. Unfortunately, Gemma was more of the messy type, so finding her wallet was no easy task. Her vanity was covered in makeup and hair care bottles and papers from the previous semester. Where the hell could the wallet possibly be?

“Looking for somethin’?” Harry asked, leaning on the door frame with a Coke can in hand.

You looked up, pushing the hair that had fallen in your face to the side. “Need your sister’s wallet. It’s brunch time.”

“Ooh, bring me back a ricotta toast,” he ordered, reaching into Gemma’s Louis purse hanging by her door and pulling out her black wallet.

“You’d be lucky if I brought back a napkin,” you sneered, taking the wallet from him and going to shove past him.

He blocked your exit and held a hand up to your shoulder. “Wait, doll. Your earring is twisted backwards.” The hand that stopped you trailed up to softly ghost across your face and fix your earring, which must have gotten tangled in your wild goose chase.

Fuck, he was close. You could hear the soft breaths fanning out from his nostrils, his almost disinterested gaze slowly morphing into his classic smirk, and hand not leaving your skin in a timely fashion. His piercing green eyes rendered you stupidly frozen.

And the tension snapped. Within minutes he had you out of your dress and was fucking you into Gemma’s floral duvet. Everything was happening so fast; you didn’t even stop to think about how wrong it was. The feel of his teeth dragging across your neck and the stretch of his cock inside you were really the only things on your mind at that point.

It was rough and quick and dirty (and quite possibly the hottest thing you’ve ever done) but by the time you two were adjusting yourselves and catching your breath, you were twenty minutes late to lunch. You blamed it on traffic and Gemma didn’t care to push it.

So that’s how it started. It wasn’t anything exclusive, it wasn’t intimate, and it certainly wasn’t something you talked about outside of the bedroom. “The bedroom” being figurative, of course, since Harry and you liked to get it on whenever you had the chance. It wasn’t weird if you ended up bent over a washing machine or on your knees in front of him pressed up against the wall in a hallway.

When you thought about it, like reallypondered in a hot shower, you knew it was fucked up to be doing what you’re doing. It’s not like it was illegal—you just felt like you were betraying Gemma. You were closer to her than anyone else in the world and you were sneaking around with her brother.

He didn’t make it fair, though. He was so poised and smooth and fucked like he wasn’t still in AP Physics. The way he bantered with not only you but his sister and mother was definitely more witty than most boys his age. It only made sense to let him rearrange your guts.

So you had a bit of an internal dilemma. Frankly, if your little affair is well kept from Gemma, it shouldn’t be a problem at all. So you thought.

***

“So, do you have lice or something?” Gemma asked, raising an eyebrow from behind her magazine. The two of you had finally settled into winter break time and were taking turns spending at each other’s houses. Today, it was girls’ night at the Styles’ home.

You froze, one hand ruthlessly digging in your hair. “What? No. There’s just a wicked knot in my hair and I can’t get it out.” It was in the most unfortunate location on the back of your scalp, and your fingers could make no sense of the mat of hair.

“Do you need some help?” she offered, setting down her literature.

You reared back even though she was sitting at her desk across the room. “Gross, you just painted your nails! No thanks. Besides, I think I’m getting it.”

She shrugged and blew on her soft blue nails. “Whatever. I’m getting a yogurt.”

“I want one too,” you hummed, sliding off her comfortable duvet and gently pulling out a few strands of broken hair. A tiny plopaccompanied your feet on the rug and you spun in confusion. The noise was too soft to be a phone, but you still checked that yours was in your pocket. Barely visible in the fibers of the shag rug rested a solid black metallic ring. It was Harry’s.

You stared at it in horror. The ring had been in your goddamn hair. Earlier that day you’d given Harry a blowjob that left him slack-jawed and pink-cheeked and his hands had been so tangled up in your hair that your hair stole his ring. Which just fell out onto the floor in Gemma’s room.

“Is that Harry’s ring?” she hissed, gaze locking on the ring standing out from the white rug.

Oh no. Oh fuck oh fuck fuck fuck—

“He’s such a twat. Why does he leave his jewelry everywhere? You could’ve stepped on that!” she continued, reaching down to pick it up. “I’m gonna throw it in the trash.”

When she moved to her trash bin, your eyes widened and you squealed a “don’t!” That ring was really nice and you knew Harry would be devastated if she threw it out.

Gemma turned slowly. “Why?”

Your mind raced to think of a good excuse. “Because, if you throw out a ring he wears all the time, he’ll throw out something of yours that youcherish.” You gestured towards her vanity where the Tiffany box sat. She’d just bought herself a necklace for doing so well on her exams and you knew that Harry would retaliate with it.

Your best friend eyed the necklace and then the ring in her fingers. “You’re right,” she finally agreed. You let out a huge breath—there was always the risk of being too weird about Harry and blowing your own cover, but once Gemma ducked into her brother’s room and pinged Harry’s back with the ring, you knew the cover was totally intact.

***

God, you didn’t want to party. The break ended next week and soon it’d be books and schedules and debt again. Who could be shotgunning 4Lokos at a time like this?! Plus, none of the bars were open this day of the week so the only option was a freakin’ house party. What uni students over the age of 21 go to house parties?

But Gemma wanted to, and what she wants, she gets. Though you loved her tenacious attitude at times, all you cared about right now was taking off your revealing top and climbing into bed.

You nursed on straight Coke in the kitchen and absentmindedly watched Gemma go hard. You trusted her and vice versa; she knew her limits but still could have a really, really good time. The men of the party were in awe as she threw back tequila and slapped the bag right after, and even the inside of yourmouth was feeling withered just watching her.

“Hey, there,” you heard from off to the side. You casually lulled your head over to see a shockingly attractive guy. He had thick, dark hair with a sprinkling of light brown freckles on the bridge of his nose.

“Hi. You lost?” you joked, moving to make room on the upholstered bench next to you, where the mystery man joined you.

“Not anymore.” Mm. The faint scent of alcoholic breath wafted to your face but this stranger was keeping his composure quite well. “I’m Russell.”

“Y/N, pleasure,” you hummed, shaking his hand.

He started chatting you up, but to be fair, it was in one ear and out the other. He was clearly throwing words to the wind, and not even his good looks or nice cologne could draw your attention. It wasn’t like Harry, who could entice you with conversations about chopped liver if he so wanted to.

Ahh, Harry. You wondered what he was up to right now. He was probably at a party himself, drinking watery beer and flirting with any bird with eyelash extensions that gave him attention. God, why were you getting so jealous of him? You certainly didn’t owe him any loyalty and neither did he. In fact, if you so desired, you could go out and get laid right now and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it!

Your attention drifted back to the cute boy next to you. Somehow, as Russell droned on about his recent physics prof, you started to see Harry in his features. Certainly not in anything coming out of his mouth, but the curls that flopped down into his face were just like H’s after he’s played footy all day. Russell’s hands had prominent veins on them, just like Harry’s hands when they were grabbing at your skin and smacking your ass. Even the way he toyed with his bottom lip while thinking aloud.

Though H was really the last person you wanted on your mind right now, all these physical thoughts were making Russell more and more attractive by the minute. He wasn’t Harry, but maybe he could be Great Value Harry. You reciprocated his flirty chatter and got touchy with him, and things quickly devolved into kissing in the corner of the kitchen you two occupied.

Things were happening surprisingly fast for how sober you were. You went upstairs with him, you made out with him on a random bed, you undressed each other, and before you knew it he was rolling on a condom and pushing himself into you.

It wasn’t necessarily that it was bad sex. Russell had soft lips that kissed your neck as he thrusted and he certainly wasn’t small, but it didn’t really blow you out of the water. Your toes didn’t curl and your eyes didn’t roll back into your skull. He even lasted a decent amount of time, but once you made your mind up about not getting an O, you kinda just wanted it to end.

Once it did, he got busy falling asleep and you tried to not take it personally (c’mon, it’s pretty taxing for a guy to cum). You tugged your clothes back on and went out to look for Gemma, and of course she was upstairs as well, throwing up into a bathroom trashcan.

“Hey, Gem, how you feel?” you asked, rubbing at her back and tucking your hair behind your ears.

“Better now that this is out of me. Wanna go home?” she mumbled, sighing and wistfully staring at the toilet that she was seconds from making it into.

“Yep. C’mon, I’ll call an Uber,” you said to no one, hoisting a lackadaisical Gemma onto your shoulder and out of the house.

Once home, getting Gemma situated was the most difficult part. Her mother worked late and Harry was probably out, but even without the chance of running into one of her family members, she was still heavy. Her choice to not use her legs at all certainly didn’t do you any favors, either.

When the front door opened and the familiar smell of her abode hit Gemma’s nose, she perked up. It became minimally easier to hoist her up the stairs and into her bed. You did your best to scrub at the makeup that had lasted through her dancing and puking without waking her, but she was so tired and lulled to sleep by her drinks that an earthquake wouldn’t make her stir for at least eight hours. You nodded at the unopened cheap water on her nightstand, reminding yourself to get her a reusable bottle.

Your work was done. Gemma was snoring smoothly within minutes with a clean face and a drink waiting for her in the morning. You got laid, even though you were completely sober, it wasn’t exactly a great dick review, and you’re a 21-year-old who got fucked at a house party. Maybe it was just time to go home and accept the night for… whatever it was. You padded downstairs softly despite the minor coma your best friend was in. Common courtesy, you supposed.

Thump.

Face first into a chest. It was totally dark in the house and you definitely didn’t expect there to be a solid torso in Gemma’s living room for you to bump into. A sharp gasp filled your lungs and the figure reached behind and clicked the lamp on. Harry, of course.

“Jesus Christ, you scared the hell out of me,” you breathed, slapping a hand to your chest.

“It’s my house,” he grumbled. As your eyes adjusted to the light, you saw his puffy eyes and messy hair and wrinkled clothes. He’d been sleeping.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you? I thought you’d be out.” Just seeing him in such a soft state made your lower belly swirl.

He shook his head a bit. “What are y’doing here?”

“Went to a party with Gem. She got too wild so I put her to bed,” you bluntly explained.

Harry pursed his lips, crossing his arms and eyeing you focusedly. “Did you have a good time?”

“No,” you answered quickly, because you didn’t. “I didn’t drink and I had to take care of Gemma and I fucked someone.” That last part fell out of your mouth before you had a chance to think twice.

There were a few beats of a heavy silence and you wondered if you made a mistake. “Did they fuck you good, baby?” he finally asked, no emotion inflecting his words.

You couldn’t have been less prepared for that response. “No,” you whimpered, face getting hot at his critical stare.

“Oh, doll, they couldn’t fuck yeh like I can, huh?” His voice was pure sex—every response he had to you threw you off more than the last. Everything he said just floated off his tongue and danced into the room and onto whosever’s ears they were around.

“No, they couldn’t,” you choked out. You felt like your throat was closing. “No one fucks me like you do and I can’t understand it. I shouldn’t be seeing you because it’s so wrong but...” God, shut up shut up shut up. Your word vomit amused Harry beyond belief. The smug look on his face was making you feel even smaller than his height already did.

“Oh, I know what you’re sayin’, doll,” he laughed. “You wanna do the right thing by m’sister but yeh just can’t. Deep down y’know you’ll always come back to me, hmm?” Harry took a step towards you, and you completely froze. You thought that he was about to bend down and kiss you but he surprised you yet again by snapping a hand up and gripping it around your neck. “I own you, y’hear me?”

You nodded, or at least the best you could with his vice grip on you. Every breath you tried to take stopped short in the back of your throat, and it almost felt like your feet were about to lift off the ground. Your own hands flew up to claw at Harry’s hand before his grip finally softened. A thick gasp sucked in and your legs threatened to not support your body, but he grabbed at you and steadied you. His fingers grazed your quivering lips. “Who’s mouth is this?” he asked, intently staring.

“Yours,” it came out as a whisper. Normally he’d be much meaner and wouldn’t accept such a quiet response, but he was feeling generous, apparently. He leaned down and kissed you, sucking in on your bottom lip and biting the red flesh.

The two of you made your way down to the couch, such that you were straddling Harry and he was cupping at your ass. Your hair kept falling in your faces, but he didn’t care and continued to kiss you and grab at your throat.

He took a break and leaned back on the couch, taking his time to lazily cup at the soft skin behind your thighs. “Mmm, and who’s ass is this?” When you breathed out another “yours” he smacked it audibly. “Goddamn right, pet.”

He didn’t take your shirt off, nor any of his clothes. He lifted you just enough for you to tug your shorts and panties down, and for him to pull his leaking cock out of his dark sweats. You tried to tease for a moment, grinding your bare center against him, but he put a stop to that. “Do I even have t’ask if this is mine?” he growled, assertively cupping your cunt with his big hand. You shook your head and he smirked, guiding his tip up and down your slit.

“Nope, because I know it’s mine,” he whispered, letting you slip his whole length inside your wet pussy. He shoved his hands up the back of your shirt, dragging his nails down the soft skin. Once you’d bottomed out and you were desperately grinding your clit against his pubic bone, he put a hand flat on your chest. “Lean back and ride me, pet.”

You obeyed to the best of your ability. You put your hands behind you on his knees and shifted your weight back, allowing him to fully watch himself disappear into you. The coarse, dark curls at the base of his member lightly stimulated your clit on the downstrokes, making you helplessly whimper while you fucked yourself on him.

“Are yeh sure you fucked someone?” he grunted. “So fuckin’ tight, I just don’t believe it.” His fingers snaked down and played around with your clit, which undoubtedly threw off your bouncing. Your hips begged to stay down and enjoy the circles he was tracing over your button, but he wouldn’t let you. His free hand went to your hip, just above where it bent into your thigh, and guided you to start moving again. “Uh-uh. Keep ridin’ me, love. I know yeh can keep a rhythm, hmm?”

So you kept riding. The pressure of his tip ghosting around your G-spot combined with him stimulating your clit was making it difficult to stay quiet. Sure, Gem was asleep, but she wasn’t dead, and if you made a ridiculous amount of noise, she’d definitely investigate.

“Gonna cum, aren’t yeh?” he asked, and fuck, he was right. That knot was already starting to form in your lower belly.. “I can tell. Yeh gonna let go, all over m’cock? Gonna make a mess fo’ me?”

His words caused you to spill over, and you were no longer able to hold yourself up leaning back. He was very forgiving of this, and let you grab at his shoulders while riding out your high. Once you’d stopped shaking and panting into his neck, he thrusted his hips up into you once, twice, three times and came inside of you with a grunt and some more nail-digging, this time into your thighs.

And then it was silent. You meekly got off of him and shakily pulled your shorts back up. You two quietly redressed, Harry nearly dead from his draining orgasm and you weak in the legs from your sexual workout. The only noise was the scratch of fabric on fabric and your shared heavy breathing. Finally, when you were gathering your things to leave, Harry spoke in his sultry, hoarse voice.

“I like when you come around,” he smiled, and you immediately returned it. It didn’t seem like much, but this was Harry’s way of expressing affection. Regardless of how good he was in bed or how witty and charming he came off, he was still a goofy teenage boy who had trouble talking about his emotions.

A little giggle came out of your nostrils. “Thanks, Haz.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, hmm?” he asked, pinning that unconfident noise at the end despite knowing you’d be back. He was already relaxing, crossing his arms behind his head and lazily eyeing you scramble towards the front door.

“Yeah,” you dreamily affirmed, giving a quick wave to Harry (which he goofily returned) and floating out the front door. “Tomorrow,” you said to the empty street in front of you, toying with your car keys in your hands.

[sebastbu]

My Top 40 Movies of the Decade

***just my opinion***this list is not set in stone either***

1. 12 Years A Slave (2013)

What Steve McQueen has managed to do with this movie in nothing short of the best thing art is capable of. He takes the horror of humanity and turns it into a heart shattering tale of the best of humanity. A film that could have sunk easily among the brutality it contains, instead soars with Solomon’s survival. It is one of the most life-affirming, uplifting works of art I’ve ever seen. It makes you cry, it makes you shout, it makes you cheer, it makes you breathless. In short, all the things movies are best at. Not just a definitive movie, but a definitive work of art.

2. The Act of Killing (2012)

This has my vote for the best documentary film of all time. What begins as a transfixing profile of the mass murders responsible for the 1965 Indonesian genocide quickly transforms into a Brechtian nightmare as director Joshua Oppenheimer somehow convinces these men to stage scenes for a fake movie reenacting their crimes. As the film progresses you can hardly believe what you’re witnessing. Horrifying, yet you can’t look away. Oppenheimer holds your attention for every second. What’s captured for film here is truly unique, ground-breaking, soul shaking. A statement about the banality of evil as profound as Ardent’s essays. 

3. The Tree of Life (2011)

Malick has reached his final form here. An organic art form, pure cinema, visual poetry, whatever you want to call it. Nothing but a movie could be this. The images he crafts here are as close to a religious experience as I’ve ever had watching a movie, and probably ever will. In exploring childhood memories, Malick’s style perfectly matches his subject manner. He use of ellipsis and fluidity mirrors the way memories flash through our heads. It is as if we are witnessing memory directly, unfiltered. This movie will move you in ways you didn’t know a movie could. 

4. The Social Network (2010)

That Facebook movie? Hell yeah that facebook movie. What Fincher and Sorkin have managed to do is take what could be a standard biopic, or dull tech movie, and made it into an epic tale of betrayal, greed, friendship, coming of age, and identity. Ross and Reznor’s score pulses, as does the dialogue. This movie starts the instant you press play and it doesn’t let you catch your breath for one second until the very end. Endlessly quotable, perfected acted. A masterclass.

5. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

What can I say about this movie? Every shot is perfect. Every joke, beat, pan, zoom. Well, I guess I’ll say this. This movie disarms with its charm, its facade. But at its heart is a wrenching tale of loss, nostalgia, and the fleeting nature of everything, especially those we love. A jewel of a film. Anderson makes sure you’re cozy and then pulls the rug out from under you, and suddenly you’re crying. 

6. The Master (2012)

Career best performances from Joaquin Phoenix and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Lushly shot. Greenwood delivers another ground breaking score. PTA has made an aimless film about aimless characters that nevertheless is riveting. At the end, you may not know exactly how far you’ve progressed, but you’re sure glad you went on the journey. 

7. Drive (2011)

This is not an action movie. It’s a love story. The now famous dream pop soundtrack. Ryan Gosling doing so much with so little. Refn’s breathtaking cinematography. Diluted dreams. Crushed hopes. Silent gazes, filled with more emotion than dialogue could ever render.

8. The Revenant (2015)

An achievement of pure cinematic insanity. I still have no idea how they got some of these shots. A brutal, thrilling story of survival among nature’s cruelty. Inarritu’s camera is like magic in this film, uncovering the previously thought not possible. 

9. La La Land (2016)

A reinvention of a genre that somehow manages to have its cake and eat it too: a nostalgia trip that also subverts expectations. Right up there next to Singin’ in the Rain, in my book at least. How on earth was that only Chazelle’s second ever movie? 

10. The Lighthouse (2019)

TELL ME YE FOND O ME LOBSTER! WHYD YA SPILL YOUR BEANS? IF I HAD A STEAK ID FUCK IT. That about sums it up.

11. Parasite (2019)

Bong Joon Ho has made a beautifully twisted psychological thriller that is also hilarious, touching, and a lasting commentary on class and social mobility. 

12. The Florida Project (2017)

Baker’s approach of setting this story from the viewpoint of children makes it a glorious romp through a world of innocence as well as tragedy, and also makes it all the more emotionally impactful.

13. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

It’s all about the cat. Alongside the Coen’s mastery of dialogue and the side character, as well as the beautiful folk music, this film acts as a deeply moving portrayal of depression, and how sometimes we are our own worst enemy. 

14. Moonlight (2016)

Expertly crafted. Expertly acted. Expertly shot. A gorgeously rendered coming of age story. I’m not really the person who should speak of its importance. I’ll just say: it is. Very. A movie that will stun you. 

15. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Practical! Effects! Yeah, that really is Tom Hardy swinging fifty feet off the ground on a pole as explosions go off behind him. A feminist, post-apocalypse, road trip movie brought to you by the director of Happy Feet and Babe 2. What more could you want?

16. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

A wonderful celebration of childhood and of fantasy. Anderson crafts a world you want to return to again and again. Anyone else get jump scared when they realized Lucas Hedges was in this??? 

17. Arrival (2016)

I love Denis Villeneuve’s films for so many reasons. The most important I think is that he balances entertainment and artistic depth so well. Like all great scifi Arrival is not really about aliens, it’s about us. 

18. Inception (2010)

A film that runs on all cyclinders. Smart, funny, jaw dropping, just plain fun. Nolan manages to build some surprisingly moving moments as well. 

19. Gone Girl (2014)

Ah Fincher and his twists. Rosemund Pike at the top of her game. Ross and Reznor return with another gripping score. Around the narrative, Fincher creates a fascinating portrayal of the media and marriage, one with endless twists and turns. You never quite know where it’s headed.

20. Sicario (2015)

A second thing I love about Dennis Villeneuve: he does point of view characters better than anyone else. 

21. Enemy (2014)

A third thing I love about Dennis Villeneuve: he plays with genre and narrative structure unlike anyone else working right now.

22. Incendies (2010)

A fourth thing I love about Denis Villeneuve: he’s given us some of the best female lead characters this decade.

23. Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

A fifth thing I love about Denis Villeneuve: he somehow managed make a Blade Runner sequel work. Here’s hoping for Dune. 

24. The Look of Silence (2014)

The companion film of The Act of Killing. Oppenheimer does it again, this time focusing more on the victims of the genocide. Groundbreaking cinema.

25. Shame (2011)

Slow clap for Michael Fassbender. Slow clap for Carey Mulligan. Slow clap for Steven Mcqueen.

26. Hereditary (2018)

Using horror to examine mental illness and family trauma. Aster has made a new classic of genre, taking it to new heights.

27. Under The Skin (2014)

How to make a movie about an alien descended onto earth in order to capture men and engulf them in her weird black room of goo? Make a very alienation movie. Chilling. Otherworldly. Haunting. 

28. Son of Saul (2015)

In making any holocaust film there’s always the risk of feeling exploitative. Nemes’s radical camera work, focusing almost entirely on the main character’s face in close up leaves this concern in the dust. The horrors enter only at the corners of the frame, while humanity is firmly centered the whole time. An important film everyone should see. 

29. Whiplash (2014)

As visceral and heart pounding as the solos performed, the film as a whole is a perfectly made portrait of a obsession. 

30. Amour (2012)

Haneke takes his unforgiving approach and lays bare a topic with incredible emotional depth. The result is deeply moving without ever being sentimental. I’m hard pressed to find another film about old age that is this poignant. 

31. Birdman (2014)

A whirlwind of a film. A high wire act. The long takes turn it into something more akin to a play. A pretty damn good one at that. 

32. Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (2011)

What’s Chekhov doing in the 21st Century? He’s in Turkey. He name is Nuri Ceylan. 

33. The Favourite (2018)

Lanthimos turns down his style and turns up his humor. The result is the best of both worlds: a dark, twisted tale of power and a hilarious parody of monarchy and British costume drama. 

34. Phantom Thread (2018)

PTA delivers again. What could easily have been another tired tale of the obsessive artist and the woman behind him is instead a fairy tale-ish ensnaring of two people’s ineffable pull towards each other. 

35. A Hidden Life (2019)

Still fresh in my mind. Malick’s late style is given the backbone it needed in the form of a relevant tale of resistance and struggle. A meditative, prayer-like film about the power of belief. 

36. Prisoners (2013)

A sixth thing I love about Denis Villeneuve: his movies have layers, but only if you look. Otherwise, the ride is pretty great as well. 

37. Manchester By The Sea (2016)

A masterclass in doing less with more. 

38. Foxcatcher (2014)

Bennett Miller does biopics unlike anyone else. That is to say, maybe better than anyone else working today. 

39. The Witch (2015)

Eggers’s first foray into historical New England horror. A chilling commentary on the evils of puritanism.

40. The Kid With A Bike (2011)

The Dardenne brothers managed to make a gut-wrenching tale of childhood, masculinity, abandonment, the power of empathy, belonging, and redemption in 84 minutes. Here’s a suggestion. Watch this movie. Then watch it again. A better use of the same amount of time it takes to sit through The Irishman. Oh wait, no you still have 30 minutes left over. 

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #497

Top Ten PC Games No One Talks About Anymore

Blimey, Quake is rather good, isn’t it? Have you heard about it? I really hope so, because it’s only twenty-five years old. I mean, Jesus. What’s up with that? Quake is meant to be the future. It’s full of true-3D polygonal texture-mapping and real-time dynamic light-sourcing. Fancy it being a quarter of a century old. That’s ridiculous. “Old” is for things like, I dunno, Space Invaders or The Godfather or I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Stuff that our parents heard about before we were born. It’s not – it’s absolutely not – used to describe something that people bought 3D accelerator cards for. It’s not used to describe a game that popularised online gaming.

But old it is, getting silver anniversary cards and everything. No longer the angry, hungry young tiger, devouring its ancestors and growling at upstart rivals like Duke Nukem 3D – sure, you’ve got non-linear levels, interactive scenery, and toilet humour, but we’ve got grenades that bounce with real physics – Quake is now an aged beast of the forest, resplendent, battle-scarred, weary with gravitas. Quake is the game that shaped the now, but it does not represent the future anymore. In fact, arguably its greatest rival – Unreal – is the game with the lasting, living legacy, its progeny building the next generation of gaming with one of the most popular and impressive engines around, the framework underpinning everything from Gears to Jedi to Fortnite. Quake blew us all away, but arguably it ceded the conflict, secure in its status as one of the most important and influential games of all time. Quake II got plaudits for actually having a proper story and an engrossing single-player campaign (and coloured lighting!), and its immediate descendants such as Half-Life changed the nature of what FPS games could do, but in a funny way it feels like Quake has long since retired. A sleeping titan. It got old.

So it’s great that they rereleased it on modern systems! The version of Quake released last month is basically the game I remember, but tarted up a little around the edges, with texture filtering and dynamic shadows and other stuff that I couldn’t manage on my Pentium 75 back in the day. It plays great – it’s slick as anything, and you go tearing round the levels like a Ferrari with a nail gun, blasting dudes and ducking back around a corner before you get hit with a pineapple in the face. It’s the first game I’ve played in a long, long time that evokes the feel of classic PC first-person shooters of that era – which, y’know, kinda makes sense as it is a first-person shooter of that era. But that style of fast-paced run-and-gun, circle-strafing gameplay has gone out of fashion now, with FPS games usually favouring slow, methodical, tactical combat, or larger-scale open-world warfare usually involving vehicles. Whether it’s a straight-up no-frills blaster like Quake, or a game that takes you on more of a linear, narrative journey, like Quake II, or even just a multiplayer-focused arena shooter, like Quake III Arena, it does feel like a dying artform, like a style of gameplay that could do with a resurgence (and, to be fair, there are games on the horizon that look like they’re harking back to the era, so that’s cool).

But it’s not just first-person shooters like Quake that I feel have slipped from gaming’s shared consciousness. Maybe it’s my age (it’s definitely my age) but there seems to be quite a lot of games that were a big deal twenty or so years ago that are utterly forgotten now, whereas some – Doom, Duke Nukem, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires – are often namechecked or rebooted (even before the full-on 2016 reboot, Doom must have been one of the most re-released games of the last thirty years). But there are lots of others where sometimes I feel like I’m the only one that remembers it. And that’s where this list comes in: inspired by the excellent re-release of the Quake franchise, here are some other great PC games of that general era that I feel still need shouting about, even if I’m the only one doing the shouting. Maybe they don’t all need a full-on remaster or whatever, but it’d still be nice if they got a bit of modern gaming love.

No One Lives Forever (2000): coming at a time when most FPS games were still Doom-style blasters with little in the way of real plot, NOLF was different: stylish and funny, genuinely well-written (as in the dialogue), with interesting objective-based missions and a cool female protagonist. It skirted similar ground to Bond and the then-white-hot Austin Powers franchise. Two games were made and then, as far as I’m aware, it evaporated into a mess of tangled rights, hence no sequels or remakes. A shame, because it was great.

MDK (1997): the next game from the people who made the multimedia phenomenon that was Earthworm Jim, MDK was a really cool slice of sci-fi style, all sleek level design and intriguing features. It had a supremely bonkers plot which bled through into a game with a sense of humour, but mostly it was the run-and-gun gameplay and innovative use of a scoped weapon – possibly (don’t quote me on this) the first sniper rifle in a videogame. An even wackier sequel followed, but despite its cult status, that was it.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Klingon Honor Guard (1998): it’s probably fair to say that Star Trek has not had as many great videogames as Star Wars, perhaps because Trek’s historically straightlaced earnestness just didn’t translate as well as bashing someone up the chops with a laser sword. Honor Guard shook things up by casting you as a Klingon, showering levels with pink blood and going Full Worf. It was the first game to licence the Unreal engine, and had a cool level where you walked along the outside of a ship like in First Contact. Also: shout out to the Voyager game, Elite Force (2000), which was another really good FPS set in the world of Trek, with intriguing gameplay wrinkles as you fought the Borg. It also let you wander round the titular starship between levels. Trek deserves more quality action games like these.

Earth 2150 (2000): the nineties on PC really saw RTS games come down to those who liked Command & Conquer or those who liked Warcraft, but as the decade drew to a close other titles chased the wargame crown (including Total Annihilation, which would have made this list, except I feel like the Supreme Commander franchise is a sequel in all but name). 2150 was notable for its Starcraft-like mix of three factions with contrasting play styles, and its use of 3D graphics and the ability to design and build weapons of war that could lay waste to armies and bases with spectacular results. I think the genre has ossified into something more hardcore, and this was probably an inflex point where idiots like me could still get a handle on things.

Midtown Madness (1999): Microsoft has a history of building up great racing franchises and then abandoning them, but their “Madness” line of games in the late nineties/early noughties was terrific and much-missed. Back when tooling round actual 3D cities was still new and exciting, this was a no-holds-barred arcade racer, with some gorgeous shiny chrome effects on the cars, and very nippy handling. It was great fun smashing up VW Beetles and the like. It was surpassed, I guess, by Project Gotham on the Xbox, and sadly the whole franchise was then forgotten, despite the ascendent Forza franchise mostly shunning city driving.

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines (1998): part tactical war game, part puzzler, Commandos was famous for its gorgeously intricate graphics and its difficulty – I mean, it was way too hard for me. But its beautiful top-down design and its slow, methodical gameplay was compelling, as you evaded Nazis and solved missions with a team of unique units with special skills. Sequels followed, and western spin-off Desperados, but there’s not been a true follow-up for quite some time, despite promises; and few games have echoed its style or look.

The Pandora Directive (1996): okay, so really this is just a placeholder for an entire subgenre of game that appears to have been forgotten: interactive movies. I know, there are flirtations with this from time to time; and many of these games featured obtuse puzzles and relatively little gameplay strung between FMV scenes. Pandora was great though; a first-person 3D game with loads of old-school adventure aspects, as well as FMV, it was a noir-tinged detective story but set in the future. The Tex Murphy series (of which this was the fourth instalment) has had sequels – the most recent one was sadly cancelled only this year – but many other games of a similar ilk, such as Phantasmagoria and even Wing Commander – have fallen by the wayside. With in-engine graphics now allowing the fluidity and expression of cinematic renders of old, shooting movie inserts doesn’t seem like it’s worthwhile; but I still always loved a point-and-click game that featured digitised actors milling about. Toonstruck, anyone?

Marathon (1994): before Halo there was… Marathon! Back when I used to lug my Pentium round my mate’s house so we could play different games on different machines side-by-side, he’d bang on about this Mac-first series of games, like Doom but better, with an intricate plot and complex levels. And y’know what? He was actually onto something. There’s a style and an earnestness to the Marathon franchise, along with many concepts that would be refined in Halo years later. With Bungie now seemingly committed to Destiny, and Halo in Microsoft’s hands, I’m not sure what could possibly become of this, their forgotten FPS forebear, especially as it shares so much DNA with its offspring.  

Outlaws (1997): LucasArts are famous for two things, really: their Star Wars games and their adventures. But they made loads of other stuff too – including this intriguing Western shoot-em-up. Back when Western games were rarer than Western movies (which were rare at the time), this quirky and difficult cowboy-em-up saw you rounding up outlaws in typical oater locations such as saloons, trains, and mines. It had great music and a really intriguing set of weapons, including (don’t quote me on this) the first sniper rifle in a game. Sadly Outlaws’ success could be described as “cult” and it never got a proper sequel. and, weirdly, despite the success of Red Dead Redemption, we’ve never had a bit Western-themed FPS again. Which is really odd.

Soldier of Fortune (2000): I pondered whether to include this one, as if I’m honest I’m not sure I want this licence brought back. But I can’t deny the game was a huge deal and has seemingly been forgotten. A relatively gritty and realistic combat game with a huge variety of excellent real-world weaponry, its big hook was its incredibly detailed damage modelling, that could see you blowing limbs off enemies, or splitting open heads, or disembowelling them. Whilst its OTT violence made headlines, the granularity of its systems meant you could be more tactical, shooting weapons out of hands. But really its biggest controversy should be its association with a big old gun magazine.

There are many, many other games that nearly made the list - I almost had a Top Ten of just FPS games, for instance. Little Big Adventure was here, till a sequel was announced the other day. Hexen and Heretic I think still have a place in FPS history. Toonstruck, although without a sequel, was only really a cult hit at the time, and I feel the people who’d love it already know about it. I do tend to overthink these things, y’know.

So maybe not all of these could make a comeback, but all the same I don’t think they should be forgotten, and it does make we wonder what games will fall by the wayside twenty or more years from now. That game about the big green space marine dude in a mask – what was that called again…?

[aleksiann]

I’ve always liked to draw and paint but I didn’t start regularly drawing until around 2010, heres a decade of progress (I didn’t necessarily pick my “best” pieces from any year though, just something I found reflective of that year). Scary, I can remember 2010 like it was yesterday. Going through a decade of art was weird!

2010-Nibbler. I learned to draw by drawing cartoon characters with a pencil. I was 12 and my first “sketchbooks” were lined school notebooks. By 2011 I was still drawing cartoons but on slightly better paper and began colouring them in. Futurama was my favourite show at the time and is still one of my favourites, so I thought this was a good reflection of it. I also drew a lot of horror movie posters in pencil in 2010!

2011- the Twisted Twins. My art was still basically just cartoons and horror posters, but I also started my first attempts at portraiture which I was INCREDIBLY nervous to do but it’s definitely helped me out tremendously. This is an early portrait featuring the Soska twins!

2012-Ginger Wolf. Experimented with pens a lot this year! Was gifted my first set of fineliners for Christmas in 2011, so 2012 was when I played with them a lot. This is one of the first drawings I felt genuinely proud of and wanted to show off, I still do like quite a bit. 14 year old me spent HOURS on it! Ginger snaps was my favourite movie for a few years, and stil is one of them and I’ve met some of my dearest friends over our mutual love for it!

2013-Courtney and Kurt. When I drew it I wasn’t a big fan of it but at the time it became my most popular drawing on tumblr! I was still into pens, and colour. I started using coloured pencils regularly, though this piece is just ink. I had always drawn musicians occasionally, and hole and nirvana were/are some of my favourite bands!

2014-Corky 2. This was my first full coloured pencil piece, with a fully rendered background (I had some some whales with backgrounds in 2013, but the backgrounds were mostly just blue or gradients!). I spent an ABSURD amount of time on this, probably 30-40 hours which for a 16 year old is a lot of dedication, I rarely spend more than 20 on any given piece now, at age 21. I consider this the peak of my whale “phase” (I still draw and paint whales but for a while I exclusively drew and painted whales!), Corky is my absolute favourite orca, and this piece was the most time I had ever spent drawing one.

2015-Sleater-Kinney. The beginning of my obsession with “style” and drawing more musicians and fan art once again. I wanted my pieces to look recognizable as mine which made me try out some different things, but mostly my “style” consisted of dramatic and sketchy inking and unconventional colour. I had a lot of fun with it for a couple of years but then I got over it. Style is cool and all, but trapping yourself into a style leaves little room for growth. I’m less hung up on style now, I like to play.

2016-Mabel and Me. It was hard to pick a piece from this year when it was a weird year for me. It was a transitional year, I moved out, went to university to study animal bioscience before transferring to art in 2017, and I started exploring new mediums, specifically watercolour. I thought about having a watercolour piece here, but in 2016 I also officially “adopted” my cat Mabel (she was a street cat I got to know in late 2015, and I finally got her vetted and licensed in January 2016), so I wanted to have a piece of her on here!

2017-cricket. A painting of Carrie Brownsteins dog. In 2017 I got my first set of professional grade watercolours and started painting watercolour pet portraits (still a very regular thing!) and became really comfortable painting dogs and cats. This was one of my favourites and was on my banner for shows for a while!

2018-Aimee Mann. Okay I probably should have put a dinosaur painting here because I painted a LOT of dinosaurs, but I think this shows a progression of how I became less concerned with consistent style as opposed to 2015. It’s a faux inkwash, half done in India ink and half watercolour. In 2018, after a full year of art school I became really interested in play and trying to make art that was interesting, even if it didn’t look like mine.

2019-Therese. I had a super hard time deciding what to put here!!! 2019 has been a weird year (I’ll do a year in review post next!) of lots of experimenting and lots of art block. My drawing professor this past semester really pushed me to do “weird” work and try new things and acted like a mentor and it felt good to challenge myself, though difficult. Rather than show any class work, I decided to go with the painting I most recently finished, a quick gouache study it Therese Belivet. 2019 was the year I started using gouache and I am utterly obsessed with it!

The 2010’s were weird, but they were my coming of age. I spent a lot of the decade really miserable and in isolation, however that did give me a lot of time to grow my fascination with art as a teenager. I’m hoping the 20s are better mentally, and full of artistic grow, and I can learn to balance all of the aspects in my life on a healthy and productive way..... but given a lot of people have rough 20s that’s probably wishful thinking!

[poppytheorist]

Scary Mask

I.

I don’t know what to say when people come apart

The road is long, the road is dark

And these are just the words to somebody else’s song

 Before I get into it, I’d like to quickly note that this is not best post to start with. Same goes for the one on “Me Laughing.” My older posts are much friendlier reads and not nearly as dense.

Okay, let’s go.

At first I thought “Scary Mask” was straightforward, i.e. Poppy uses her persona (“I wear my scary mask”) as a defense when she finds herself in uncomfortable situations (“when I’m afraid I don’t belong”). “Well that was anticlimactic.” Indeed. But, of course, this is Poppy we are talking about, and nothing with Poppy is quite so simple.

The problem with basic interpretations that sum up a song with single sentence is that such readings miss all the nuances of the work, i.e., they leave out all the fun little twists in the lyrics, the double-meanings in the lines, etc. Basically, simplistic interpretations of lyrics ignore all the poetry, which is part of what allows music to transcend language. Poetic lyrics also provide us with new pieces of language so that we can better understand the increasingly complex world around us. Nestled in the gaps between our definitions lies the inexpressible that only poetry can render sensible.

Well-written (read: poetic) lyrics are part of what allows songs to completely baffle us; they allow songs to elude simple characterization and slip the shackles of obsessive categorization (e.g., genre). A truly great piece of music leaves us speechless; we cannot simply explain it to someone. Instead, the best we can do is say, “you know what? Just listen to this,” to which they are only able to reply, “wow… you’re right.”

This is why I love metaphors and dualities. Yes, I realize the previous sentence just caused every person who hated English in school to audibly cringe. Look, I’ve been there, I get it. I used to think English was a cruel joke played at everyone’s expense and that it was stupid because ‘there is no right answer.’ Then one day, all of that changed. Almost as though a switch was suddenly flicked ‘on’ in my brain. It wasn’t until I understood English that I finally appreciated it. I’ve never wanted to go back, so hear me out.

Metaphors are essentially a way of controlling the associations formed by your brain when you read or hear a word. They can make you associate simple pieces of language with something extraordinary, and make you see things in a way you would never have previously considered.

If you’d like to get fancy, you can start introducing dualities; that is, setting two concepts on opposing ends of a spectrum. When you do so, you allow the reader to consider new and (seemingly) impossible gradations, all born from the struggle between two relatively ordinary ideas.

Take, for example, Poppy’s ‘poetry-ecstasy’ duality that she introduced in “X.” This was the first thing that made me take a more serious look at her work, i.e., “I think something else is going on here…” We know poetry and ecstasy are meant to be diametrically opposed in “X” because the colors in the music video change in sync with Poppy’s delivery.

If YouTube subtitles weren’t broken, they would read: “poetry, poetry, poetry”

Likewise: “ecstasy, ecstasy, ecstasy”

It’s not obvious that poetry is the opposite of ecstasy unless you’re in Wonderland in which case, you messed up somewhere. Moving on, when you set two concepts against each other like that, you introduce a new interplay between the two ideas. Now the audience is forced to see things from a new perspective, one they would not have otherwise considered. Or, they just ignore it, as is usually the case, but I digress.

With all this in mind, further study into “Scary Mask” reveals that some parts of the more basic reading don’t quite add up. Take, for example, lines like, “M-A-S-K, am I okay?” or “You ain’t gonna see me tonight”; these lines refuse to fit neatly into the obvious interpretation e.g., why spell out ‘mask’? Why are [they] not going to see “you” “tonight?” Most people would choose to ignore these outliers or simply shrug and go about their day. If this post’s existence didn’t clue you in, we won’t be doing much ‘shrugging’ or ‘ignoring.’

You’ve probably noticed this already, but I try to forge readings of Poppy’s work that fit as many different pieces as possible into them. To craft interpretations that capture the interplay between all the elements in a song. Often, this requires approaching the song from multiple angles, some even being right. If this post is good, each interpretation should form its own colored shard of glass, leaving the reader with a beautiful explanative mosaic. If this post is bad, grab a broom and wear shoes for a week.

Hilariously, doing justice to the more abstract bits of art usually means I have to use figurative language to explain other figurative language. “Sounds meta.” Indeed. Some puzzles can only be done justice with other puzzles, which is also why my writing frequently dips into obscurity. Close reading yields wonders, but means interpreting ‘carefully’ and ‘openly.’ “Sounds like a lot of work.” It is, but anybody can come up with a vague idea of what a song is ‘about,’ e.g., “this one’s about love!” How insightful, you should post that on Genius, that’s just what they’re looking for. I mean, really, at that point what are you even getting out of the song? A few minutes of pleasure before you move onto the next one? Is that it? Are you going to just spend your entire life constantly devouring one helping after another, waiting hungrily for your favorite artists to dish up your next meal?

I may be going to hell, but at least I won’t be stuck doing that.

II.

Rise and shine—

get out of bed!

Take my hand, 

there’s darkness ahead.

 “Scary Mask” is one of Poppy’s best songs. No, I’m not interested in arguing about this. It is also one of Poppy’s most important songs. This, however, I am interested in arguing about.

For the sake of the following discussion, I will be ignoring most of Poppy’s singles. “Metal” and “Immature Couture” and [other singles] are good but they complicate things and I don’t have time to deal with them, despite having the time to tell you how little time I have. Fancy people would probably call such exclusions “exceptionally non-rigorous,” but I’m over it.

I tried to make this section not-boring, dunno if I was successful; my writing takes on the flavor of whoever I read last, hence why the “Me Laughing” post reads like schizophrenia. Lately, I’ve been feeling especially masochistic, so I’ve been reading [redacted]. Expect that to shine through.

Let’s zoom out for a bit: “Scary Mask” is the flagship song of Poppy’s Choke EP, though I am sympathetic to arguments for “Meat.” “Scary Mask” ties the whole EP together and makes it possible. It’s critical to Choke’s ‘flow.’ This isn’t a given, I’ll explain/pretend to explain.

The structure of Choke almost perfectly mimics that of a five-act play. Yeah, like that Shakespeare guy. The EP contains exposition, rising action, a climax, falling action, and a conclusion. The methodically squeezing “Choke” sets the mood and introduces a problem statement to color the rest of the EP. With its pendulum-like bassline and hypnotizing array of voices, “Voicemail” depicts a forsaken mind becoming further and further dissociated from reality. A complete breakdown occurs in “Scary Mask,” the explosive climax of the EP and, at least so far, Poppy's work. Following “Scary Mask” comes the bleak and gruesome “Meat,” which is clearly akin to the falling action. And finally, we are given “The Holy Mountain,” the EP’s pessimistic and wistful send-off.

As for the context in which “Scary Mask” was created, Choke comes after two pop-y records, Bubblebath and poppy.computer, and a half-pop, half-??? disc, Am I A Girl. After AIAG, Poppy had a choice: back off and return to pop or double-down and bring on the metal. Thankfully, she chose the latter and made Choke. Let’s all take a minute to praise AIAG for even allowing Poppy such options, for flowing together so smoothly, etc. Okay, séance over, let’s return: “Scary Mask” carried Choke, without it, the EP would’ve been severely lacking a massive, stand-out song to serve as the EP’s creative apex.

“Scary Mask” is, in a sense, the ‘no turning back’ point for Poppy. Producing “Scary Mask” was like Poppy locking her old style away and throwing out the key; “X” and “Play Destroy” were #wild, but “Scary Mask” was the third strike. Put confusingly, “Scary Mask” was Poppy’s ‘home run’ while also being the ‘final nail in the coffin’ and other idioms. The track is so far removed from the days of Bubblebath and P.C that it actually created a distance, a gap, between nu-Poppy and Pop-y. “X” has pop elements and Poppy cutely ‘ooo-ing’; it was walk back-able. “Scary Mask” has Jason Butler demonically screaming and saying the ‘fuck’ word; fine print says “no refunds.” Or, if you’d prefer analogies that are unlikely to age well: think of a giant iceberg breaking off from the main Arctic glacier and slipping into the cold, dark sea. Once it’s off, it’s not freezing back on. In other words, once Poppy dropped “Scary Mask,” ‘princess with a pistol’ became ‘demonic metal queen.’

I’ll also argue that “Scary Mask” is the least compromising song in Poppy’s current discography. It’s her truest expression of self pre-I Disagree. All artists have to make their music listenable-enough to get bread, just like I need to make my writing readable-enough to get read. Unfortunately, compromise is inevitable, but artists can still create good music. It’s just hard and getting harder. Plus, nobody agrees what ‘good music’ even means because we have no rigorous definition for art so—

When an artist decides to really ‘go for it,’ to make no compromises, and does it well, a beautiful thing happens. That’s what “Scary Mask” is for Poppy; she decided to pull no punches, and the result was, well, “Scary Mask.”

“X” and “Play Destroy” were both successful, but they didn’t guarantee Poppy’s nu-success. “Play Destroy” had Grimes, and “X” could have been an anomaly. If Poppy went back to pop, fans could have passed off her dip into metal as ‘weird’ but ‘kinda cool’ and that would be that. However, Poppy didn’t let up—“Scary Mask” proved she could consistently make quality metal tracks, and now we’re here and Poppy is about to destroy the world or something. Nice.

In summary: “Scary Mask” functions to transition Poppy’s sound, it does a damn good job of it, and I’m definitely looking forward to her new album.

III.

You try to take the best of me

Go away

You try to take the best of me

Go away

 Alright, zoom back in. Yes, “Scary Mask” made it possible for Poppy to throw in crazy distorted guitars and for everyone to love it, but it does more than that. “Scary Mask” also transitions Poppy her(?)self, which sounds strange but it will make sense later, probably.

Now time for the fun part.

Sometimes I like to begin my analysis with a song's verses before circling back to the chorus, as was the case with "The Holy Mountain," however, "Scary Mask" is so crazy that it doesn't even matter where I start. It's what I lovingly refer to as “straight-up bonkers,” like some twisted monstrosity tearing its face off as it stumbles around in the dark. Reminds me of the psychos from Borderlands, an analogy that already has not aged well. Basically, “Scary Mask” is all over the place, so I might as well start from the ‘beginning.’ I'm going to have to pick up the pieces and stitch them into some monster that would do Mary Shelley proud anyway.

Let's dive in.

Poppy opens the song with: “I wear my scary mask when I'm afraid I don't belong.” Okay, seems pretty straightforward so far. There isn’t much to work with here, but maybe we can add some color to this line. BUILD series conducted a relatively listenable interview with Poppy earlier this year. One excerpt to note:

Interview: “Well, why wear a mask?”

Poppy: “Sometimes you just have two faces.”

Interview: “And that’s okay?”

Poppy: “Only sometimes.”

This is why I was debating just skipping “Scary Mask”—the opening line was a little cliché, and it seemed like Poppy had taken Batman Forever literally, neither of which are particularly good signs. However, I want to stress that lacking an interesting message wouldn’t necessarily make “Scary Mask” a ‘bad’ song. This idea may seem very strange, especially in modern society where it appears everyone agrees that deep themes=good art. We’ve been raised with the notion that the best art is art that tells a message, and it’s difficult for us to consider otherwise. However, not only does the conception of ‘depth’ quickly fall apart (as I noted in the “Me Laughing” post), but it’s entirely possible that thematic elements have absolutely zero bearing on the aesthetic quality of a work. In other words, ‘themes’ may not be what make art ‘good.’

Yeah, take a minute and think about that.

Anywho, after deciding I could afford to pay attention, I found many interesting things. Note Poppy’s word-choice. She uses the word “scary,” an almost child-like characterization of something fearful. Indeed, in the music video, Poppy’s hair is hidden or pulled back, giving her a youthful appearance. Look, pictures:

Moreover, peppered throughout the song are Poppy’s pouty squeals and she sings with call an almost ‘whimper-y’ tone, the end of her words marked by a spike in pitch. Obviously, we’d like to ask: why is she presenting herself to us this way?

We find answers in the second half of the line: “when I’m afraid I don’t belong.” Okay, so when she finds herself in situations where she is uncomfortable, where she is struck by the feeling of being small, almost child-like, she resorts to the mask as a defense mechanism. Now we’re getting somewhere, though I would like to ask: why is the mask “scary”?

Being two-faced does not necessarily mean the one face has to resemble Harvey Dent post-toasting, it could simply be a different side of your personality. Perhaps the next line will help:

You can’t read my brain until it’s off

Note Poppy says “brain” instead of any other word such as ‘mind’ or ‘thoughts.’ Using the word ‘brain’ signals a sense of invasiveness. Think: Sylar from Heroes cutting open peoples’ skulls and studying their brains for secrets. I’m sure many obsessive fans have tried digging up details on Poppy’s personal life and many interviewers have tried asking her inappropriate questions. It appears that Poppy wears a “scary mask” as a counter to such intrusions, as if she decided that the only appropriate response to these inappropriate behaviors was a face-to-face with the scary mask.

Holy shit, was this entire song written as a response to the AMP Radio interview? That would be hilarious.

Poppy then repeats that the mask is “not coming off.” Hey, wait a minute…

Okay, so after a fairly badass guitar interlude, Poppy begins feverishly chanting the lines: “I'm never gonna take it off, so don't touch me / Never gonna take it off, stop looking at me.” I’m sure some fans hate me because I’m always banging the drum that Poppy’s work is about obsession, and thus, appear to be attacking them, but come on, how clear would you like the message to be? Go watch “Repeat After Me” if you’re not convinced.

Anyway, in a sense, Poppy’s scary mask (read: freaky persona) operates as a shield from foreign bodies who seek to violate her personal space.

I’m going to leave Jason Butler’s lines for the end because, well, you’ll see.

IV.

In the music video for “Scary Mask,” after Poppy first puts the mask on and has a little breakdown, there are many instances where she is no longer wearing the mask, but is still acting like a possessed teen in desperate need of exorcizing. This is weird, here are some possibilities:

1) Poppy takes the mask off in the music video because she’s pretty and people want to see her lip-syncing.

2) The mask was always on.

We’re going with door #2.

Let’s look at some of the weirder lines, like Poppy chanting the incantation: “M-A-S-K, am I okay?” By spelling out ‘mask,’ Poppy signifies that the “am I okay?” question is directly referencing the mask she wears. In other words: is it okay for Poppy to wear a mask?

We already know Poppy came down pretty hard on one side of the fence when she answered “sometimes” in the BUILD series interview. My equally unambiguous answer is: “it depends.” There are many reasons why wearing a ‘mask’ is a terrible thing that slowly renders you psychologically ‘fucked,’ go read TLP or Lasch if you want more info on that (actually, you should just read them anyway). However, we’ve already established “Scary Mask” was an empowering song for Poppy because it served as a truer artistic outlet for her, so any masquerading should be approached with this in mind.

Alright, so when is it a good thing to wear a mask? How can it be a good thing to pretend to be someone you’re not?

Well, when you’re an artist, you typically create art to express something. Often, this ‘something’ is deeply personal to yourself. You put a lot of yourself into your work. This means criticism of your work can really hurt. After all, if someone calls your [song/painting/writing] ‘trash,’ it’s like calling you ‘trash.’ It feels like that criticism is aimed directly at that piece of yourself you put into your work. Yeah, that sucks. Sometimes it’s so difficult to bear that you avoid creating anything so you don’t have to be faced with such attacks. You forgo creating art because the injurious potential of criticism is too daunting. Without a creative outlet, your feelings remain bottled inside, slowly eating away at you from within. It’s a lose-lose game and everyone’s the player.

So, you ask: “what do I do?”

Well, that’s where the mask comes in.

The artist can use a persona to get around these problems. In other words, putting on a mask can actually allow you to finally be yourself, which seems paradoxical, but I’ll explain.

Take, for example, me. After reading enough of the silly words I write, you may start to form a picture of me in your head. To speculate and fantasize about what I actually look like or how I actually act. Without even knowing your thoughts, I can assure you that any such conceptions are completely inaccurate. I know that I’m not actually as [adjective] as you imagine me to be because I work with a protective persona. The persona allows me to write without worrying too much harsh criticism. Hence, with a persona, I can safely express myself through my work.

The same is true for Poppy. As I’ve noted in previous posts, Poppy has a lot to say about the world. She would like to express these messages artistically, but it’s not always easy to face criticism of her work (and Poppy gets a lot of hate). By adopting the ‘Poppy’ persona, Poppy is able to safely express herself. To finally say what she wants to say. To be who she really wants to be. And when she is faced with scathing criticism, she is able to continue her work undeterred because it feels like the criticism is directed toward Poppy (persona) instead of Poppy (person).

An alternate (and hilarious) reading of the lines “M-A-S-K, am I okay?” and “I’m alright, I’m alright, I’m alright” would be to imagine them as part of a demented question-and-answer period with Poppy. Many of her fans have expressed concerns over the effects of living your life pretending to be a [robot/alien/demonic angel], not to mention the section of Poppy’s fan-base who seem to constantly worry about Poppy being Titanic’s so-called ‘puppet’ and that he is abusive towards her. You can interpret Jason Butler screaming “I’m alright, I’m alright, I’m alright” as Poppy’s response to such concerns. Seems like an appropriate answer to me.

V.

You try to take the best of me

GO AWAY

YOU TRY TO TAKE THE BEST OF ME

GO AWAY

YOU TRY TO TAKE THE BEST OF ME

GO AWAY

 There are some remarkably odd lines in “Scary Mask” that need some serious groundwork to render sensible, so let’s switch gears for a second and complain about pop music. Yes, I know. It’s not exactly brave (let alone novel) to decry pop music as a vapid and soulless caricature of art, but I find it therapeutic. Plus, I’m clearly writing a narrative here. If these words make you indignant, first ask yourself ‘why?’ and then relax. I listen to pop music too, most of which is terrible. Also, I’m talking about the correlation, not the rule. If you fight me with exceptions, I’ll hit you back with trends.

Pop is the most apologetic music genre out there (though mumble rap and country are giving it a run for its money, literally); pop music’s main purpose is stated by its terminology: it exists to be popular. To be as widely palatable as possible so as to garner as many listeners as possible. The implications associated with a genre revolving entirely around popularity for the sake of commercial success are pretty disgusting. I’d even go so far as to say the existence of ‘pop’ as a musical genre is a strong indicator that culture is no longer treated as an essential component to human society, but is instead only another industry, and has been for a while. People love celebrating the façade or appearance of culture (partially so they can consider themselves ‘cultured’), but the truth is that culture now exists mainly as a commodity to be endlessly repackaged and sold back to people under the guise of ‘art.’ “I blame capitalism!” Sure, and you may not even be wrong, but that’s a discussion for another time. The point here is that to successfully create music with value, music that isn’t just a meaningless product, one needs to escape such a hyper-commoditized regime i.e., the corporatized pop-music industry.

Business-wise, Poppy did this by ditching Mad Decent and signing with Sumerian Records, an independent label which will hopefully make her very happy. Music-wise, she also had to transition. Recall: putting on the mask (read: persona) allowed Poppy to be herself and make the music she wanted to. So, to evolve her music, she had to also evolve the mask. After releasing two and a half pop records, people will generally expect, well, more pop. People don’t like when their favorite artists abruptly change, probably because they don’t wish to face the idea that said artists were never making music for them in the first place. Either way, for Poppy to tell tales of an impending apocalypse or drop an insane metal album like I Disagree, she had to ease fans into it. Musically, this is the second half of AIAG and the entirety of Choke, but it’s also a perfect encapsulation of “Scary Mask.” It’s possible that the bipolar nature of songs like “X,” “Concrete,” and “Scary Mask” is only due to Poppy trying to transition her sound without upsetting too many fans. Hence why these songs incorporate lighter sections to balance out the darkness. Perhaps “I Disagree” is as dark as Poppy’s going to get, but given recent news of her hanging out with Nadya Tolokno from Pussy Riot, I doubt it (“don’t know how long until they see the rest of me”).

This is also where Poppy’s YouTube videos come in. While producing new music, she can quickly put out a few videos and slowly ramp up the darkness, facilitating a comfortable change in artistic tone for the fans. Something, something, frogs and hot water.

Considering all of the above, I agree with something @thatpoppyuk said a while back in regards to people saying “Moriah is coming out!” when Poppy dyed her bangs:

Not only is it potentially insensitive to call Poppy ‘Moriah,’ it’s simply inaccurate. For better or worse, people don’t regress, they progress. Poppy is not doing something so #basic as ‘returning to her roots,’ she is becoming who she’s always wanted to be.

VI.

Now that we have completed the necessary groundwork, we are able finish off the rest of the song. Lyrically, “Scary Mask” is rather focused; we’ve actually covered all of Poppy’s lines, so I’d like to examine the role Jason Butler from Fever 333 plays in the song.

I’ve actually refrained from gushing about how good “Scary Mask” is until now, but I don’t think I can contain myself any longer. Fever 333 was an excellent feature that perfectly meshes with Poppy’s harmonics and the chomping guitar riffs. Not only that, but lyrically, Jason Butler brings an insane performance. He brings scary mask to life.

Fever 333’s role in the song is complicated and will take multiple approaches to flesh out. First, consider the scary mask (Jason Butler’s lines) as an entity speaking for Poppy, as though it were some demonic hype-man:

This would then explain the line, “well you heard the woman, so fucking look away.” It appears that Poppy needs someone telling others to “fucking look away,” betraying a sense of dependency. After all, if Poppy could handle such onlookers on her own, she wouldn’t need someone else telling them to ‘beat it.’ We may interpret this as a sign that Poppy has come to rely on the shielding-nature of the mask. She relies on her persona for protection, but reliance gives way to over-reliance. Naturally, substitution and dependency follow.

However, this isn’t wholly satisfying, nor is it very charitable. Let’s consider another, more empowering, approach, this time as Poppy speaking through the mask. In this case, a synthesis is underway between Poppy and her new persona (read: scary mask). During the violent transformation, she screams and struggles as the darkness of the mask washes through her, until the process is complete and both are one. Or, rather, Poppy is transcending her persona through her persona, a process of metamorphic self-realization.

Approaching the relationship between Poppy and the mask as a symbiotic one will perhaps explain one of the most bizarre lines in all of Poppy’s discography (minus every line in “Voicemail,” of course): “You ain’t gonna see me tonight!” I mean, what the hell. It’s difficult to explain how much this line confuses me, words simply elude me. This is one of those lines that normal people would shrug and come up with a half-hearted explanation such as: “well, Poppy is wearing a mask, and because she is wearing a mask, you aren’t going to see her. You know, because she’s wearing a mask.” Poorly-conceived explanations such as these negate the whole point of studying art. You can’t just jerk responsibility when ‘the going gets tough.’ The reward isn’t merely the end result, and people who believe this are the exact same people who Genius exploits. It is the work, the method, the climb, the struggle that is important because it is while grappling with the piece that one learns the most about oneself. With that being said, this line has haunted me for three weeks now, but I think I can do it some justice.

First, we examine the context in which the line appears in the song. The line first appears near the beginning of the song, wedged between a crushing guitar interlude and the Poppy’s staccato-ed “M-A-S-K, am I okay?” build-up. Then the line comes again at the end of Jason Butler’s insane post-chorus breakdown which is interlaced with Poppy’s disembodied screams. This second appearance follows a punchy chorus from Poppy and directly precedes a charged guitar solo and Poppy’s explosive final meltdown. From all this, we notice that “You ain’t gonna see me tonight!” is always delivered amidst a great deal of turmoil, always sprinkled into the middle of a violent episode.

Next, we look at the line itself. “Ain’t” and “gonna” are very colloquial, like the speaker hasn’t been taught to speak ‘properly’ or has lapsed into a state where they are unable to or simply do not care. I’m also picking up a touch of mentally-disturbed giddiness, as if some deranged killer is frothily barking this at you outside your window while his head jerks around. “Well, I’m definitely glad not to live on the ground-floor.” Likewise.

I must comment, however, that “Tonight” is an odd word choice. “Well, maybe they just needed a word that rhymed with ‘alright’?” Remember what I said about giving up when things get difficult? No, “tonight” relates a sense of shadowy immediacy, like a doom drawing near. Perhaps Poppy is about to descend upon the world, shrouding it in darkness with her black angel wings.

Hence, “You ain’t gonna see me tonight” relates the sense of foreboding violence that comes with Poppy’s new persona. This makes a lot of sense in the context of Poppy’s work because I Disagree is likely going to be her most aggressive album yet. See, for instance, “I Disagree.”

Basically: full dark, no stars; Poppy’s out for blood, time to take cover.

VII.

In summary: the ‘scary mask’ is a protective garment for Poppy as well as an empowering one. The adoption of an artistic persona allows her to cope with criticisms and continue her work. Recently, she has adjusted her work, and thus, her persona, to something truer to herself, and “Scary Mask” was an integral part of her transition.

Well, wasn’t that fun? I know I enjoyed myself.

Wait, what? You have a question? Ah, wait—I know what you’re thinking:

“If Poppy only wears her ‘scary mask’ when she’s ‘afraid she won’t belong,’ then why is she ‘never going to take it off’?”

Well, maybe she feels like she will never belong.

[timeagainreviews]

A Loch back at a Zygon Era

Hello friends! I've had quite the week! Monday was my birthday, so my boyfriend and I took a road trip around Scotland. We saw lots of things from the Beatrix Potter Garden in Birnam, to the Cave of Caerbannog from Monty Python, to the Devil's Pulpit in Dumgoyne. But our main destination was Loch Ness! We settled into our hotel by watching "Terror of the Zygons," which seemed appropriate considering our surroundings. Naturally, I decided to review it here. Before I do, however, I would like to thank all of you who have been liking and reblogging my stuff lately. It means a lot to know I'm connecting with people. Thank you for your support!

On the surface, "Terror of the Zygons," appears to be just like any other serial of its era. However, if you do a bit of digging, you'll discover that there are some interesting facts about its production. Did you know that there was a sort of "real-world," tie in with the story? No, I don't mean Nessie. Think closer to Mickey Mouse. In 1975, Tom Baker played the Doctor for the August "Disney Time," bank holiday special. After introducing several clips from Disney films, he is called away by the Brigadier to the events of Terror of the Zygons. I can't help but wish this information was known to me before writing my Doctor Who and Disney article! You can watch the clips on youtube. They feature Tom being suitably bizarre.

Along with having an unusual prequel, the story also had a deleted scene from the beginning which was later colourised by YouTuber "babelcolour," for the DVD release. This edited version is the one I rewatched for today's review. The scene begins with the TARDIS materialising invisibly. The Doctor walks out from nothingness, wearing a matching tartan tam and scarf, replacing his usual fedora and scarf. Not far behind are Sarah Jane and Harry Sullivan wearing said hat and scarf respectively. There's something rather humorous about the Doctor using his companions as human hat racks. Considering Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart's name, it seems appropriate that the Doctor is sporting the Royal Stewart tartan. I can't help but wonder if the costume department did this on purpose. After rematerialising the TARDIS to "fix," it back to it's usual broken police box state, the three continue their journey to answer the Brigadier's Disney Time summons. It seems an oil rig off the coast of Scotland has crashed into the sea just shortly after having lost radio contact.

After hitching a ride from the eccentric Duke of Forgill, the three meet up with a kilted Brigadier in a small Scottish inn where the landlord, Angus, plays bagpipes ad nauseam. They're really driving the Scottish shit home, which makes sense when you consider they filmed the episode in Sussex. Also gathered at the inn are Sergeant Benton, various UNIT soldiers, and a man from the oil company named Huckle. The Duke has some curt words with Huckle, informing him that any crewmen found on his land will be shot. After leaving in a huff, we see one of these crewmen wash ashore, seemingly alive. Over the past month, three different rigs have all met their demise. The gang splits up Scooby-Doo style. Dr Harry goes off to check on the injured crewmen, while Sarah stays behind to get the scoop from the locals. And the Doctor goes off to be the Doctor.

Back at the inn, Sarah mentions the odd nature of the Duke to Angus who promptly defends the duke as a good man. However, even he has to admit that the Duke has been acting strangely since the oil companies came. After letting go most of his servants, the only real bit of interaction he's had lately was gifting the inn with a goofy looking stag head. Nowadays the Duke keeps mostly to himself at Forgill Castle. The surrounding area of Tulloch Moor seems steeped in mystery. People go missing as the mist comes in, Angus tells Sarah as they're being spied upon from a distance. Eavesdropping in on the conversation over a veiny, bio-mechanical screen, an unknown figure watches from the shadows.

While driving alone, Harry spots the washed-up man from the rig and jumps out to help him. Believing him to be yet another trespasser, a beardy fellow by the name of Caber shoots the survivor and wings Harry across his brow, rendering him unconscious. Back in the bio-mechanical ship, alien villains twist and caress a fleshy panel in the weirdest form of nipple play ever seen on Doctor Who, causing the destruction of another oil rig near Ben Nevis. While trying to decipher the signal that has been jamming the oil rigs' radios, the Doctor learns of Harry's brush with death.

After checking on Harry, the Doctor goes out to inspect the oil rig wreckage where he discovers strange holes in the foundation. After taking a cast of the holes with plaster of Paris, the cast reveals what looks like the shape of an impossibly large sharp tooth. During a call with the Doctor, Sarah is attacked by the previously seen alien hand, which belongs to none other than a fearsome Zygon! I've always loved their design, especially in this scene. Something about the shape of its mouth is particularly disturbing. I was slightly disappointed about the redesign from the new series. I'm a big fan of the Zygon cat nose. I almost named one of my cats Zygon due to his dark orange fur and similar nose shape, but my partner at the time vetoed that idea. I named him Rory instead.

After discovering both Harry and Sarah missing, the Doctor discovers Sarah in a decompression room for divers, the door slightly ajar. I was annoyed by the fact that the Doctor fell for such an obvious trap, but it also led to an intriguing sequence. Harry's nurse, Sister Lamont, closes the heavy door behind the Doctor and seals it shut for decompression. Running out of air, the Doctor hypnotises Sarah and enters into a trance to conserve air. I'm a big fan of any time the Doctor acts like a bit of a mystic. I'm a meditator myself, so it's cool to see the Doctor tap into the innate powers of thought control. One of the side effects of certain meditations is a slowing of breathing. It was nice that the scene doesn't overly explain this. It allows Tom the chance to really play up his weird alien charm as his eyes roll back and he howls toward the ceiling. Moments like these are why I love Tom Baker so much. He's not afraid of being utterly bizarre.

It's around this time we begin to learn a little about the Zygons. Having taken Harry to their ship, their leader, Broton, tells him a bit about their history. After they crash-landed centuries ago they awaited rescue while subsiding on the lactic fluid of their giant Nessie-like cyborg pet known as the Skarasen. That's correct, you did not misread that- they feed off of cyborg breast milk. Only with a show like Doctor Who can you get a sentence like that. You've kind of got to love that. After discovering their planet was destroyed by a cosmic event, they redirected their efforts toward getting their suckers on Earth. The Skarasen is to be the form of Earth's destructor, as no human weapon could hope to penetrate its augmented skin. In order to move their plan into motion, the Zygons gas the village, knocking the Brigadier and the UNIT soldiers out cold, thus allowing them to move in secret. Luckily for the Doctor and Sarah, Sergeant Benton was on the lookout for them where he saves them from death by asphyxiation.

After coming to, Huckle gives the Doctor a bio-emitter that attracts the Skarasen, which he found among the wreckage of the rig. Having bugged the inn, the Zygons reveal to Harry that they use the psychic imprint of humans in order to mimic their form. He sees the likes of Sister Lamont, Caber, and the Duke, stored in hibernation chambers, maintaining a link to their Zygon counterparts. They use Harry's form to slip back to the inn where they may fetch the emitter. But he is intercepted by Sarah who is concerned by his odd behaviour. She chases him into a barn where they scuffle in a manner that had me weirdly thinking of “Super Vixens.” Russ Meyer's Doctor Who is not something I ever expected to imagine. After a bit of trouble, Zygon Harry falls from a hayloft onto his own pitchfork, killing him instantly and revealing himself to Sarah as a Zygon. However, the crafty Zygons completely evaporate his remains to hide any evidence. I wondered why they didn't just do the same thing to the emitter in the first place, but I guess the answer is "it doesn't do that." Ok, sure, whatever. Now free from his psychic link with the Zygon, Harry is able to sneak about on their ship unabated.

After realising the Zygons were working from the shadows, the Doctor assumes they must have bugged the inn somewhere, so the lads go about searching the place from top to bottom. I love Angus' indignant response to the idea that his inn might have actual bugs. Angus Lennie's performance as Angus is a true highlight in the story. Afraid of the humans discovering that the goofy stag head must be the bug, the Zygons decide to send the Skarasen to rid themselves of these tiresome humans. After figuring out the secret of the emitter, the Doctor draws the Skarasen away from the village only to find it has fused itself to his hand. But Harry's meddling with the ship's systems allows the Doctor the ability to toss the emitter in the path of the Skarasen, destroying it in the process. 

The Doctor and friends meet up and go to Forgill Castle to ask permission to drop depth charges into Loch Ness, the source of the signal. Their hope is to draw the Zygons out. Meanwhile, the Sister Lamont Zygon goes to fetch the stag head and fights with Angus in the process, killing him. It's a sad ending for one of the more likeable characters, but it's also kind of wonderful in its simplicity. I never quite understood why the Zygons needed to turn people into electric balls of something I might pull out of my hairbrush, as they did in "The Zygon Invasion." If anything, I much prefer the updates they received in Mark Morris' "The Bodysnatchers." Using venom from their suckers matches their physiology far better than superpowers. Morris really fleshed out the Zygons in a way I wish the show would. Seeing them in their initial incarnation using brute force seems far more practical to me. I think sometimes, more is less.

After discovering a way into the Zygon ship, they save Harry, but the Zygons flee with the Doctor still onboard. The Doctor gets a wonderful opportunity to match wits with Broton in a speech that includes my all-time favourite Fourth Doctor line- "You can't rule the world in hiding. You've got to come out on to the balcony sometimes and wave a tentacle." Evidently, that line was ad-libbed by Tom Baker, only further solidifying my love for the man. He makes a good point though, the Zygons have mostly been working from the shadows, in secret. The Zygons fly away, masking their trail from UNIT, still hiding. I must admit, it's not abundantly clear what their plan actually is. Sure they intend to use the Skarasen against earth's weapons, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of explanation as to how the oil rigs play into everything. There's mention of turning the Earth into something more habitable for Zygons, but I'm honestly not sure. I asked my boyfriend what his impression was, and he couldn't quite figure it out either.

There's a lot of what happens at this point in the story that seems like happenstance. The UNIT crew and Sarah end up going to London, which also happens to be where the Zygons have set their next target. They plan to swim the Skarasen up the Thames to wreak havoc on Westminster Abbey. In my review for "Castrovalva," I mentioned how the Fourth Doctor's super-heroics were oftentimes overstated, and what comes next is nothing shy of extraordinary. After rigging some ventricle type wiring from within his cell, the Doctor uses his own body to complete the circuit, allowing UNIT to see past the Zygon's scramblers and pinpoint their location. I loved that it was Benton that did this, by the way. This was twice in one story where Benton got to play hero. They pinpoint the ship's location to be a disused quarry, which made me ugly cackle. Classic Doctor Who used quarries so often to make up an alien planet, that the idea of them saying "This actually is a quarry," seemed almost cheeky. Broton, thinking the Doctor has died, uses his Duke disguise once more to go plant another emitter in Westminster. After releasing the human captives aboard the Zygon ship, the Doctor sounds an alarm and sets off the self destruct killing the remaining Zygons onboard. Yay, murder!

The UNIT soldiers dispatch Broton after a fumbling fight scene between him, Harry, and Sarah. All the while, the Skarasen is working its way up the Thames. It's a brilliant little bit of puppetry mixed with stop motion animation that I found completely charming. Even if it does look a bit naff, it's effective enough to be a suitable set piece to end such an episode. It's very much within the tone of the story to have the Loch Ness monster stomping through London. The Doctor manages to trace the emitter and toss it into the open jaws of the Skarasen. It nom nom noms the emitter into nothingness, causing it to lose all interest in the Abbey. The Doctor casually supposes that it will most likely return to its home of Loch Ness. I loved that the show kept the Loch Ness mystery intact. After all is said and done, "Nessie," may still be out there. It wouldn't have felt right killing off a beloved cryptid that brings so much wonder to many. Such feelings of wonder are what Doctor Who thrives upon. Sadly, while we got to keep Nessie, we say goodbye to some regulars. This marks the last regular appearance of both the Brigadier and Harry. With the Doctor no longer relegated to the Earth, UNIT begins to play a much smaller role in the story. And Harry, now back in London, hasn't a lot of need to continue travelling with the Doctor. It's an almost unceremonious end of an era for Doctor Who.

All in all, I really enjoyed this story. While I feel like it somewhat falls apart in the final act, the mystery and intrigue in the first few episodes really draw you in. Even my boyfriend, who is a casual fan, was drawn in by the atmosphere. You can see the beginnings of what was to become the more horror-themed stories such as "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," or "The Horror of Fang Rock." The Zygons are, for me at least, a classic baddie. They may not be as popular or iconic as the Daleks or Cybermen, but I think they work as their own kind of threat. Bringing them back has also proven to be successful. The Big Finish audio "The Zygon Who Fell to Earth," is well worth a listen. There's a lot of care put into this story that I think makes it stand out from others. Geoffrey Burgon's beautifully haunting music was a nice change of pace from Dudley Simpson's usual work. The track "A Landing in Scotland," is particularly memorable. The Zygon ship interior being organic was a unique touch that we rarely see in Doctor Who, save for maybe "The Claws of Axos," and the model work was also pretty damn charming. Having recently been to both Loch Ness and Ben Nevis, it really added something to the experience as well. There is a surprisingly low amount of episodes that take place in Scotland, which is unfortunate. If there's anything this trip has taught me, is that Scotland has a lot to offer. There are so many peaks and valleys covered with lush greenery and deep dark waters. It's easy to imagine that somewhere, something is lurking down below. Hats off to Robert Banks Stewart and Robert Holmes for seeing this potential, and turning out something magical.

[chorusofravenousangels]

Here they are! I got these D&D character commissions for my D&D group in secret!  Three of the artists I met at Otakuthon, one I met through a friend online (thanks @gluethegrue for the hookup!), and one was a gift paid for by a friend a long time ago.  I’ve had my tiefling Bright for a long time, but the others didn’t have any visual representation - so I finally started scheming! I texted each party member asking them for a physical description, and got commissions based on those descriptions and my own knowledge of the characters.  When one player asked me a week later whether I was getting commissions, I lied.  “No, sorry!” I said, “It’s not in my budget!  I know that some characters have gone through some kind of intense physical changes lately and have had trouble finding moments to bring it up to the party, so I thought it would be good if everyone updated their bios at once, without knowing why!” They bought it! I hid the truth for over a month before I finally had prints of all four new characters.  In our next session, when the players were investigating a room after a fight, I pulled out an envelope with a symbol of the god Vecna on it (their arch-enemy for this campaign).  They were dumbfounded when they opened it and found, instead of carefully crafted props, pictures of their characters!  I’m proud to say that everyone was really pleased with their pictures and how the characters were captured by the respective artists. We’re playing D&D 4e, and the characters are level 18/19 at the time of these pictures. Going top to bottom... Bright the tiefling ranger was drawn by longtime friendly acquaintance @envyhime a couple of years ago, so this is lower-level Bright, but the confidence in this picture is something he has grown into even more lately.  He grew up in the wilderness as a slave to a goblin tribe until his teenage years, when he orchestrated his own escape.  Spending years in nature on his own, he felt the protection of Melora (goddess of nature) without knowing who she was.  He still loves nature and is uncomfortable around cities and people, but he’s learned from his hawk companion Dagger a confidence in knowing his capabilities and being satisfied.  He uses a fighting style also learned from Dagger - small weapons, daggers of his own, used to throw or slash with great ferocity and full-body commitment. Lo-Kag the goliath warden was drawn by @rhodathepomelo​ , friend of a friend.  They were amazing at taking feedback, and I was recommended specifically because they were good with big, beefy characters like Lo-Kag.  Lo-Kag is almost impermeable as a character, rushing into the midst of battle and keeping enemies close to him so that they don’t hurt anyone else, his skin stone-hard against enemy attacks.  Lo-Kag is a variety of goliath known as Stoneblessed; he is taller and lankier than normal, already tall goliaths, and his arms seem especially distorted as a result.  In addition, wardens use natural or primal forces to transform their body, and Lo-Kag has gotten almost too attuned to this, regularly stretching himself further, taking on the space-warping gravity of mountains or bursting into flame as he’s struck by lighting.  In the image, you can see vines writhing under his skin in the heat of battle, another transformation.  Finally, Rhoda put special care into his maul - on one face, you can see a simple scene, meant to represent Lo-Kag himself in triumph. The weapon was made and enchanted for him by the drow after he helped save a number of their soldiers from a wave of undead. Chaedi the elf cleric was drawn by @elzeoredraws - I met the artist at Otakuthon and was really impressed with her portfolio!  Chaedi is a cleric of Melora who is somewhat at odds with her god: while Melora champions the natural cycle of life and death, Chaedi hates suffering and wishes to alleviate it whenever possible, hoping for goodness in even the bleakest hearts.  Her compassionate healing style leads her magic to wound her in exchange for healing others, leading to the network of scars visible on her body.  The artist also did a great job capturing her physicality: her big eyes, approachable, friendly face, and the “Renaissance woman” body that carries more weight around the hips, neck, and so on.  She carries no weapon, preferring to use prayers that hinder, but do not wound enemies. Riii the eladrin warlock was drawn by @hoodyrooster , who I also met at Otakuthon - her work was really eye-catching in its colour and angular, stylized figures, and I thought this would be perfect for Riii.  (I was right - the player loved her!)  Warlocks, as a class, have made bargains or deals for their power, and Riii is no different.  At the beginning of the campaign, almost a decade ago (!!!), Riii came in with amnesia, including about where her powers came from.  This proved to be quite the plot hook, as Riii discovered: -she couldn’t enter the Feywild; -this was because she had been cursed by someone; -this person was on the other side of the continent, a seer named Miranda.  The party journeyed across desert, forest, and mountain in order to find her, and discovered: -she was possessed by some sort of fire spirit; -when defeated in Miranda’s body, this fire spirit in turn possessed Riii; after they defeated it, the party discovered Riii’s body had lost the ability to thermoregulate, and so they had to craft an elemental fire amulet for her (not pictured here).  After this, she could journey into the Feywild, but more began to become clear as she met the Archfey Summer Queen and afterward: the fire spirit had not fully left her body and been killed, it had only been slumbering inside of her, weakened.  In fact, it is the King of Summer, Moreth, betrayed and nearly killed by his Queen, who chose her as a host for his recovery, giving her power and safety *in exchange for her memories! Riii has a history of irritability, impulsiveness, and mild arson.  As she embraces once-King Moreth more and more as a partner instead of as a parasite, he in turn grows in strength and aids her more.  The fiery tiara around her head is emblematic of his influence joining hers, and the combination of smug poise and sex appeal in her bearing is perfect for the character.  Also note the outline of a crooked staff in the background, an unusual weapon for a warlock but Riii’s implement of choice, and the magic tattoo on Riii’s chest that blinks when she curses enemies. Tayschrenn the eladrin wizard is drawn by Orly at http://twitter.com/orlysaurus/ - she shared a booth with Elzeore, the artist who drew Chaedi, and when I got Tayschrenn’s description mid-convention I was super pleased that I could give them both business!  Orly’s colour work is fantastic, and she happily changed sketches several times on my request as well, finding a finished work that both I and the player were happy with.  Tayschrenn is a 16-year-old eladrin wizard, young and idealistic; he was an excellent student, educated by a fascist regime, but in his first battle against the rest of the party, he realized he was fighting good people and began to question everything he was taught.  Despite his naïveté when it comes to worldly matters or truth, Tayschrenn is possibly the best-read member of the party, having spent his youth in study and training.  He is a Spiral Tower-trained wizard, using his longsword (here at his hip) in eladrin tradition to channel his magic or to slash away enemies who come too close.  He is also a summoner, one who gets to know his summoned creatures as friends. In this excellent illustration, you can see him summoning a chain bearer from a portal behind him, young and with the lanky proportions of a teenager having just survived a growth spurt, but with training in arcane and tactical knowledge rendering him calm and certain in battle. If you enjoyed these images, please consider following the artists - I am not sure who of the five are currently accepting commissions, but my group was very happy with the results and I’m sure you will be too!