#It's by the same creator of Binary Star Hero

[hime-bee]

So like, y'all know Favor by CONCRETEPARASITE on Itch.io? I kinda wanna write something for Z 🥺🥺

[shoyastars]

My Christmas Star

—————————————————————————————————————

A Binary Star Hero fanfic special, happy holidays everyone, I hope you have an amazing Christmas.

Now, for starters.

I am not the creator of Binary Star Hero nor am I the creator of Ray, these world all with the characters belong to Concreteparasite.

If you haven’t checked out the game I suggest you do so. However keep in mind that it is strictly for adults. Which also means this should also count as the same, the fandom is strictly not for minors, 18+ only.

Now, let’s begin.

—————————————————————————————————————

Ray never spent Christmas with anyone, and after some time away from family, you didn’t ether for some time.

Since Christmas was around the corner, you decided to give him a gift he won’t ever forget. You could get him a store bought gift, however handmade seems more thoughtful, or even just a day together seems more precious to him. So what would count in his eyes as a good gift?

The sound of the door snapped you out of your thoughts.

‘Strange… doesn’t he work longer hours during this time?’

��Ray?”

“Hey star.”

He gone over and kissed your cheek, you were still wondering why he’s home early.

“Don’t you work longer hours during this time?”

“Well yeah, strangely… they’re letting me have a break..”

A break? The NAHA allowed him to actually relax? Confusing as it was, you knew this could be used to possibly figure out what to make for him or what he thinks is a good gift.

“Well as suspicious as it is… I guess they finally realized you needed a break. So what do you plan on doing with this time off?”

“Hm, maybe spend as much time with you. That’s a great enough time consumer for me.”

“I don’t know if I’m ether flattered or insulted.”

You went to go get a mug to make some hot chocolate, while pouting. You felt Ray’s arms wrap around you for a gentle hug.

“Ether way, I’m glad to spend as much time with you as I can.”

You felt your heart beating in your ears along with your face heating up. How does he always manage to fluster you so easily? You were glad he enjoyed being with you. Even if he was taking a break from being Binary Star. That’s when the idea came to mind, he really does want to spend time with you every chance he gets, however you were human, so that still meant you couldn’t be with him 24/7, but what if you gave him a reminder of how much you miss him during work?

Thank god you both agreed reading your mind needs to stop. Otherwise the surprise would’ve been ruined.

The day out on the town was also a day you decide to secretly get some supplies for your gift for Ray, the snow was also falling and the chatter of people going Christmas shopping for the holiday filled the air. It was always busy this time of year, though a bit annoying, you can understand the reason being they wanted to get something nice for their family or friends. You made sure to keep the supplies stashed in your bag, you didn’t originally know how you were going to get it but you did. When Ray asked you why you were acting strange, you waved it off as just the cold season messing with you. Why did he believe it? You have no idea.

Sometimes you worried that he was going to discover the gift before you were done with it. You made sure to hide it from him what he came in the room or heard him coming. It was a bit hard to do so since he would suspect something, however it was only a few times and you still have a bunch of excuses before you run out.

When you were finally done it was the night before Christmas Eve, you smiled at your hard work, took some YouTube tutorials and some struggles but you were satisfied with the outcome. You couldn’t wait to give it to him, you put it in a small box for now since you were still hiding for him till Christmas Day comes. You look at your phone after doing so and see a part of town in the latest article. You thought you might as well take Ray with you to go see it.

“This late?”

You nod as Ray asked.

“Better late than never.”

“Uh… alright.”

Walking down the street you two were hand in hand, you were mostly leading the way. Ray smiled at your excitement to go see something.

“What exactly are we-“

“Look over here!”

The lights of the area brought a warm feeling as you saw how well the Christmas decorations were, you were so lucky they weren’t so far away from where you two were. The sight gave a nostalgic feeling to it. Ray noticed how happy seeing the sight, he had to admit it looked well decorated. You look at Ray and smiled as seemed to like them too. Your hand in his gripping onto it once more.

“I’m glad I get to spend my Christmas with you.”

Ray’s face though from the cold you spotted him with a bit of pink on his cheeks, he smiled afterwards.

“I’m glad I can spend my Christmas with my one and only Star.”

Ray hugged you as the lights glowed brightly. The warmth in the moment during the cold season felt ever so nice. The smile upon your face evident as you leaned into the hug. A Christmas worth spending together, and a New Year that will start with the two of you together. You couldn’t ask for anything more. The Best Christmas gift you could ever ask for.

The day you woke up for Christmas Eve you decided to check on the gift.

Only for it to be missing. You panicked, you searched for it frantically, where could it be?! Not here, not there! Where did it go???

You heard the door, you gone towards the door, it was Ray. He went out? He probably needed to get something.

“Hey Ray, how-“

He’s wearing the scarf you made him… did he find the other thing in there?

“What’s with the face?”

“The scarf… it’s-“

At first he didn’t get it.

“Said it would be more cold out today, thought I’d look for something to help keep me warm, i hope you don’t mind I borrow it if it’s yours.”

You felt like that surprise was ruined up until you saw the handmade bracelet you made for him. That’s when you realized, this mother fucker…

“You son of a bitch..”

“Oh, so you finally realized I couldn’t wait for your secret surprise for me?”

“YOU ASSHOLE I THOUGHT IT WAS RUINED!”

“I couldn’t help myself.”

You pouted, as he laughed a bit.

“I might have accidentally read your mind yesterday, however I couldn’t wait till Christmas. Anything handmade from you will always count as a gift any day.”

You blushed as he then kissed your forehead, he liked the gift. He really did like the gift.

“I wasn’t sure about mine until I saw your gift, I’m not as good as you were but… here.”

He handed you your gift, and you opened it, a pair of gloves and a bracelet. Guess you both had the same idea except different winter wear.

“I always want to spend time with you, however I thought the other way around, I thought just a box of gloves was silly, and bracelet was nothing. Until I heard your thoughts and looked at your gift. Made me feel better about it.”

“I love it.”

“Huh?”

“I love them both. Thank you.”

You hugged Ray as you set the box aside, who would’ve thought such small things for each other as a good gift at the same time. Turned out to be the best gift ever.

“Best Christmas ever.”

“Haha, agreed. Best Christmas Ever.”

You spent Christmas Day together, in each other’s company. Definitely the best Christmas you’ve had in a long time.

—————————————————————————————————————

Merry Christmas to all and to all a lovely new year!

✨🎄✨

[jellysshitpoems]

I don’t know any dating sims but if you’ve run out as you say then it seems like you’re the perfect person to ask for recommendations?

Visual novel/dating sim recs??? You bet I have them!!!!! Most of my recs are going to be more on the darker side because you know how it is, I live for the drama. Let’s see how I can do this with little to no spoilers.

Here are my absolute FAVOURITES rn in no particular order:

1. Binary Star Hero

Okayokay, this one is in order because its my personal fav. 10/10, no notes. Three love interests, some very different and interesting endings, most of which are with Ray/Binary Star!! Aka the loml <33 the story is set in a world with super powers, meaning of course theres also super hero’s and villains. But how heroic is the best hero really? 👀

2. Favor

Favor. Where do I begin. Alternative demon he/they thats a littleee too interested in you it seems. But when has that ever gone wrong? 😊 mostly voice acted, costumizable mc, and a story that I am DESPERATE for more of, I will wait however long I need to for the next update. I will be there when it happens. Art style is stunning and its the same creator as Binary Star Hero!!

3. A date with death

Love date with death. First dating sim/visual novel I ever played, and it may have set my standards a bit high because of how amazing it is 🫶 replayed it this weekend while im on my dating sim/visual novel kick, and its still so sweet. One love interest who just so happens to be the grim reaper, and a whole lot of extra content if you feel like getting the dlc! Its like ten days total or something?? WITH ANOTHER FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE MC!! A game after my own heart truly.

4. The kid at the back

Another story I will wait until Im eighty to finish it if thats how long it takes. Super interesting plot so far, two love interests, one is more than off his rocker and the other is a little suspicious. But they’re both cute! Seriously though read the warnings for this one carefully. Sol is my fav but that is a BAD THING TO BE.

5. Error 143

Back to sweet ones! I need a million more of this. I will pay so much money. Dont know what to say about this one really, its just so nice. FULLY voice acted, some mini games, customizable pronouns + the voice acting includes your NAME? WHAT??? Im in love with the art style, and theres a dlc!

6. Killer chat

Lowkey brought back traumatic memories from my discord days. But other than that I love it! Fully customizable mc, voice acted, and four love interests that just so happen to be serial killers 😊 finished plus a dlc! But there IS the definitive edition in the works which is gonna add a lot more depending on funds. Please check it out and please consider spending some money to support the project because its so so good 🙏🙏

[thenetherlord]

All The Aromantic and Asexual Characters from Media I could find (Part 2!) (Books!)

Since ya'll sent me a whole load of characters, here's a part 2, with no images tho cuz that would be too long :(

Novels:

The Summer of Bitter and Sweet - Jen Fergusen

Demisexual Rep - Lou, a Métis Indigenous Canadian teen

Percy Jackson & Other Companion Series - Rick Riordan

Asexual Rep - Thalia Grace, an American Hunter of Artemis Lieutenant

AroAce Rep - Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, a Puerto Rican Hunter of Artemis and past Praetor of the Twelfth Legion in Camp Jupiter

AroAce Rep - Artemis, Greek Goddess of the Hunt

AroAce Rep - Hestia, Greek Goddess of the Hearth

Asexual Rep - Athena, Greek Goddess of Wisdom

Sal & Gabi Duology - Carlos Hernandez

Asexual Rep - Sal Vidón, a Cuban teen and self-proclaimed magician

The Foxhole Court Series - Nora Sakavic

Demisexual Rep - Neil Josten, an American striker for the Palmetto State Foxes Exy Team, who is probably bisexual

Demisexual/Asexual/AroAce Rep - Andrew Minyard, an American goalie for the Palmetto State Foxes Exy Team, who is gay

Loveless - Alice Oseman

AroAce Rep - Georgia Warr, a young adult going through university

Asexual Rep - Sunil Jha, a young adult going through university that is homoromantic

Aromantic Rep - Jess, a young adult going through university who is bisexual

Radio Silence - Alice Oseman

Demisexual Rep - Aled Last, the creator of a hit fantasy podcast, who is gay

Solitaire - Alice Oseman

AroAce Rep - Tori Spring, a teen going through high school, and a young adult later in Party Girls by the same author

Tarnished Are the Stars - Rosiee Thor

AroAce Rep - Nathaniel Fremont, the son of the Commissioner

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls - Cherie Dimaline

Asexual/Demisexual Rep - Winifred, a Georgia Bay Métis teen, who has an affinity for the undead and has befriended a ghost, who is some flavour of queer

Graphic Novels/Manga:

My Hero Academia - Kōhei Horikoshi

Demiromantic(?) Rep - Mina Ashido, a Japanese student training to be a Pro Hero, with an Acid Quirk

Is Love the Answer? - Isaki Uta

AroAce Rep - Chika, a young adult going through high school and college

Our Dreams at Dusk - Yuhki Kamatani

Asexual Rep - Dareka-San, a person of indeterminate gender who uses any/all pronouns, who also appears to magical

Across a Field of Starlight - Blue Delliquanti

Asexual Rep - Lu, a non-binary mechanic who is in a relationship with Fassen

Asexual Rep - Fassen, a non-binary ex-soldier who is in a relationship with Lu

I will make a part 3 soon with characters from TV shows and movies!

[twistedlovelines]

All the work I need to catch up on says no…, but please give me all of your recommendations!! (That you want to)

My fav in recent memory was ‘A Date with Death’ and the one I just started is ‘Killer Chat!’

Both are online chat dating sims basically but the ‘A Date with Death’ involves the Grim Reaper dming you and ‘Killer Chat!’ involves a writer accidentally joining a serial killer discord basically

Thought I’d share since you shared first <3

YESSSS i know those!! ive had a date with death on my "to be played" for a while, and i played killer chat a while back!!! it was v sweet and i adored the ui <33 who's ur favorite ro?

my reccs (all from itch.io and have free demos) are:

 Strapped

(Creator: spicerackgames [goes by the same on tumblr]) (explicitly black fem mc! <3)  (monsterfucking) (demo) (submissive men galore)

its gen so rare to find a vn where there are mcs that give strap much less ones where the mc is explicitly poc tbh, and i find the art rlly lovely!!! After moving to a new town, you’re getting settled in and end up needing to test out an extremely expensive and magical strap when you try it on at your bestie’s workplace. Luckily, there’s plenty of men (all of whom are monstrous) that you think would be willing test subjects <3 

Favor

(Creator: concreteparasite [@/favorvn on tumblr], same as binary star hero) (yandere) (demons) (demo)

its ab you, a minimum wage worker at a local cinema who's dealing with. well, what aren't you dealing with is a better question. your coworker's a creep, your boyfriend and friends seem to hate you, and you don't think you'll ever enjoy fake buttered popcorn ever again after this job. you wake up in a shitty bar with a person (?) (demon) named z who seems to have taken an interest in you, only he seems to be a bit too invested for someone you've just met...right?

ERROR 143

(Creator: Jenny Vi Pham) (discord/chatroom ui!) (romance) (completed with dlc)

One of my FAVORITE cute visual novels . the ui is gorgeous, the writing is well done, THE VOICE ACTING HAUNTS ME (IN A GOOD WAY) and the ro (Micah) is so handsome . u enter a hacking rivalry with him but it devolves into cute shenanigans real fast and i loved this to bits.

Obscura

(creator: rotten raccoons [@/rottenraccoons on tumblr]) (romance) (demo but final game will cost $ and the most up to date version requires $) (has a m!sub ro amongst 4 love interests)

insanely well written with characters that are easy to get invested in. its one of the heavier ones out of my reccs, but the devs added a safe word mechanism where u can take a breath and go into a different "safe space" for as long as you need. theres a lot of care and thought put into this and i really cant quite say enough.

you're sick . and with no known cure for you to be found on the surface world, you descend into the marketplace beneath the mountain, where its said that anything can be sold. you're not even sure if this cure- lunar ichor- even exists, but you're desperate. you'll encounter strangers along the way on your search, but be wary. you'll never know what you'll find.

fledgling manor is also good!! i mentioned it in an earlier post i believe

Im more familiar with interactive fictions tbh, so lmk if u want reccs for those too!!! Send ur preferences/interests in a story and ill be able to match some up lol

Larut, The Phantom of the Black Rose Revue: Act 1, and A Summer’s End - Hong Kong 1986 are some really delightful ones who i have in my to be played, but id highly recommend you check them out!!

[denimbex1986]

'As a famous tortured poet once said, “It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero.”

She’s right, it is exhausting, especially for those of us who have watched a lot of prestige television in the past couple of decades. Pop culture has given us a lot of great, complicated characters to ponder — our Tony Sopranos, Don Drapers, Walter Whites and Logan Roys — but also might have saddled a generation of viewers with a case of anti-hero fatigue.

A compelling anti-hero places the viewer in a bind. These protagonists are charming and charismatic, but usually flawed in obvious and irreparable ways. Since the stories paint such rich portraits, however, we cheer them on despite, or in some cases because of, the qualities that make them reprehensible.

But we can’t just like them, can we? We have to look in the mirror and ask ourselves serious questions about why we like them. So these days, whenever a big new streaming show gives anti-hero vibes, I wonder, can I just enjoy the series or do I have to do a bunch of introspective work afterward?

The character of Tom Ripley presents an interesting twist on the anti-hero template, because he is explicitly not likable. Not unlikable, exactly, but more so characterized by an absence of likability.

It is difficult to imagine anybody identifying or empathizing with Ripley, and yet the story, based on the 1955 Patricia Highsmith novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” has been adapted for screens at least five times, most famously in the 1997 Anthony Minghella film of the same name and most recently as “Ripley,” an eight-part Netflix series starring Andrew Scott in the title role.

What about the character keeps filmmakers and audiences returning? “Ripley” does not answer this directly, but series creator Steven Zaillian more than justifies his revival of the material. Photographed in sumptuous black-and-white and driven by a darkly compelling lead performance, it is surely among the most exquisite streaming series ever produced.

As in the other versions of this story, “Ripley,” set in the early 1960s, follows a small-time New York hustler who is sent to Italy to convince the layabout son of a wealthy industrialist to come home. That son, Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn), has been living handsomely off his trust fund in the gorgeous seaside town of Atrani with his girlfriend, Marge (Dakota Fanning).

Tom arrives and is entranced with their leisurely existence. He patiently insinuates himself into Dickie and Marge’s lives, getting close enough to enjoy their largesse but not close enough to reveal what he actually wants, if anything.

Scott, known to peak-TV viewers as the “hot priest” from “Fleabag,” makes his character’s actions compelling while draining them of any discernible motivation. Is he in love with Dickie? Is he just lonely? Is he going to con them, or worse?

It is difficult to discuss the plot in depth without delivering large spoilers, but much of the series involves Tom traveling around Italy, impersonating Dickie and trying to evade authorities once a series of decisions forces him to kill to cover his tracks.

But for all the romance and beauty Zaillian’s camera finds in the streets of Rome, the canals of Venice and the museums of Milan, the contents of his protagonist’s head remain inscrutable. It is never clear what we are supposed to think of him. The viewer experiences anxiety and relief on his behalf, but roots neither for nor against him.

Ripley’s elusiveness makes the character an appealing canvas upon which to project the anxieties of whatever decade produces a new adaptation. In the Tom-Dickie “situationship,” we see a series of all-too-modern binaries: the scammer and the scammed, the identity thief and the catfished, the desperate hanger-on and the influencer.

The emptiness at Tom’s core is a container into which an audience can pour whatever it wants, a reflection of how easy it has become to curate whatever version of ourselves we want the world to see and to create whatever reality we want to experience. Disposing of a body, however, seems to be as difficult as ever.'

[andersdruv]

Okay. Okay.

I truly love all these three. Xena: Warrior Princess was a breath of fresh air in my late teens, a show that was intense, silly, grim, and had a central relationship to die for (as the characters themselves did, repeatedly (they got better)). Revolutionary Girl Utena was a show that starts out as a quirky genderbent "prince"-in-school story and then turns the premise on its head so many times, and gets dark and scary while still keeping the focus on a hero who will do anything to attempt to save the one who suffers. Avatar: The Legend of Korra is such a cool sequel to The Last Airbender both with personalities, technology, and politics. It's Avatar a bit more grown up and more complex.

Xena is such a jock, albeit a broody one. She revels in her physical abilities, she's cocky when up against powerful opponents, and she can perform feats above and beyond those of the many, many warriors and warlords around her. She's a force of nature and can get a stubborn singlemindedness to go beyond all limits of her strength, like when she protects Gabrielle in One Against An Army.

She's the epitome of the cool outsider to Gabrielle who starts following her out of the sense that she is someone who can show you how to go your own way. At the same time she's desperate to change, to do good, and finds the inspiration to do that in her plucky tag-along turned sidekick turned partner. She is strong, and funny, and protective, and learns to accept herself one staggering step at a time.

Utena is the prototypical jock: good at sports (extremely good at sports, as all the school sports clubs are desperate for her to join), passionate and impossible to dissuade from her goals. She sees a girl being treated poorly and despite being thrown into the weirdest duelling game ever she chooses the path of helping that girl. But she's far from perfect, in a very jock-like manner!

She thinks that becoming the substitute to an abusive "boyfriend" is enough, that the binary makes sense as long as she can be on the other side of it, that a prince can save the princess by pure heart and drive. To be fair, that is also what everyone in her world also thinks.

But like Xena, she is capable of learning a different way, despite being the stubborn and reckless hero that I love so very much. (not mentioned here: also often accused of being dumb as a brick, but really it's more oblivious to certain things we can all be blind to and bad at reading some social cues)

Korra is a jock superstar. She's the Avatar, the most admired person in all the four nations, she's a sports star, and has never met a problem she couldn't bicep her way out of. Until she comes to Republic City and politics, adult villains, and relationships all come crashing down on her. I got very annoyed at Legend of Korra because I felt that it didn't do her character justice.

As I wrote above for Xena and Utena, a big part of them is that they learn, they change. And a lot changes for Korra during the course of the first few seasons but the large lessons generally don't stick. So she keeps being a stereotypical jock well after the world around her has changed, and that bothered me. Because she's cool, and physically accomplished, and she tries so very hard but it's never enough because the problems she faces, political, personal, and metaphysical, are such that punching them doesn't work in the long run. Yet it felt that the show creators were pushing for that to work, and thus Korra felt like she was treading water for quite a while (which she can, because she's a physical marvel).

Luckily the show faces up to that in the final season, and Korra becomes a Better Jock, and gets together with the Coolest Girlfriend. But it was a long time coming. She's so cool though!

LGBTQ Jock Showdown Finale!

[theguywithaplan]

List of video games turning 10 years old in 2022:

- Armored Core V - Assassin's Creed III (the final Assassin's Creed in the Desmond Miles arc) - Assassin's Creed: Liberation (the first Assassin's Creed game with a female protagonist) - Asura's Wrath - Binary Domain (a third-person shooter from the Yakuza team) - Borderlands 2 (dear god, Gearbox needs to find some new jokes to tell) - Call of Duty: Black Ops II - Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - The Darkness II (a solid third-person shooter based on the comic book of the same name by David Wohl, Marc Silvestri, and Garth Ennis) - Darksiders II (one of the last games that THQ made before they went bankrupt in 2013) - Dead or Alive 5 - Diablo III (remember when this game was taking forever to come out?) - Dillon's Rolling Western - Dishonored - Dragon Quest X (only in Japan) - Dragon's Dogma (an action RPG from Hideaki Itsuno, the guy who helped make Devil May Cry what it is today) - Dust: An Elysian Tail (one of the best indie games you've never played) - Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two - Far Cry 3 - Fez - Final Fantasy XIII-2 - Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier - Gravity Rush - Halo 4 - Hatoful Boyfriend (the visual novel about dating pigeons) - Hitman: Absolution - Hotline Miami - The House of the Dead 4 - Journey - Kid Icarus: Uprising - Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance - Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (deserved SO MUCH BETTER) - The Last Story (an action RPG from Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy) - Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (the first Lego game to use actual in-game dialogue instead of pantomiming everything) - Lego The Lord of the Rings - Lollipop Chainsaw - Lone Survivor - Mark of the Ninja (another of the best indie games that you have never played) - Mass Effect 3 (and its controversial ending) - Max Payne 3 - Medal of Honor: Warfighter (one of the last MoH games before it took an extended hiatus) - NeverDead (not a good game, but such a fun and unique concept) - New Super Mario Bros. 2 (COINS ARE BACK, BITCHES) - Ninja Gaiden 3 (plus its extended version, Razor's Edge) - One Piece: Pirate Warriors (what if Dynasty Warriors, but Luffy?) - Paper Mario: Sticker Star (the one that not a lot of people liked) - Persona 4 Arena - Persona 4 Golden - PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale - The PlayStation Vita - Pokémon Black 2 and Pokémon White 2 - Pokémon Conquest (what if Pokémon was a Final Fantasy Tactics game? And crossed over with Nobunaga's Ambition?) - Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask - Prototype 2 - Resident Evil: Revelations - Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City - Resident Evil 6 (yeah, 2012 wasn't a good year for RE fans) - Retro City Rampage (once again, a great indie game that nobody has played) - Rhythm Heaven Fever - Ridge Racer Unbounded (RIIIIIIIDGE RACERRRRRRR) - Silent Hill: Downpour (the last Silent Hill game before you-know-what happened) - Skullgirls (THE LAUNCH PARTY THAT NEVER ENDS) - Sleeping Dogs (one of the best games I have ever played. Not even joking) - Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (what if Mario Kart was better?) - SoulCalibur V - Spec Ops: The Line - Street Fighter x Tekken - Syndicate (an FPS reboot of an RTS series from the 90s) - Tekken Tag Tournament 2 - The Testament of Sherlock Holmes - Thomas Was Alone (indie games are so good, you guys, JUST PLAY THEM) - Tokyo Jungle - Transformers: Fall of Cybertron - Twisted Metal (the reboot) - Telltale's The Walking Dead (still not over that ending) - The Wii U - XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Xenoblade Chronicles - Yakuza: Dead Souls - Ys Origin - Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - ZombiU

[rabdoidal]

i know you listen to a lot of podcasts and ive found some of my favourites from hearing you talk about them! do you have any favourites?

under the cut! my top 10 podcasts at the moment:

Alice Isn’t Dead Genre: horror, thriller, drama, Lovecraftian, Americana Episode count: 30 (completed) Description: A truck driver searches across America for the wife she had long assumed was dead. In the course of her search, she will encounter not-quite-human serial murderers, towns literally lost in time, and a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman. Thoughts: This podcast is, to me at least, completely flawless in every way. I would consider myself a person that listens to a lot of horror podcasts, but Alice Isn’t Dead takes the cake for its depictions of liminal middle America, the horror that is capitalism, and the most tender, realistic depiction of lesbians in any podcast. Anything else I could say would spoil it and for this, I don’t want to spoil it because I want every person alive that can stomach horror to listen to this.

Archive 81 Genre: horror, comedy, sci-fi, Lovecraftian Episode count: 35 (ongoing) Description: Archive 81 is a found footage horror podcast about ritual, stories, and sound. Thoughts: The latest podcast I’ve tried, and it’s definitely one that grows on you. The audio mixing is some of the best I’ve heard in any podcast, and every bump and scratch and hum of frequency weaves to form moments that are truly and viscerally gory. Season 3 and Left of The Dial are my favorites because again, I love Americana horror, and anything that involves family!

Artificial Ghost Radio Genre: non-fiction, discussion, comedy Episode count: 75 (ongoing) Description: Our Sisyphean music recommendation challenge with hosts Miles (he/him) and Jupiter (she/they) challenge each other to find songs based on arbitrary themes and to spin the WHEEL OF DISCORD to talk about a random song from their library! They can be found on twitter @artghostpod. Thoughts: Gotta plug my own podcast! We’re still small, but the people I’ve met from doing AGR has made my life richer and fuller, even through the ups and downs. I recommend starting with #58: Songs about Aliens ft. our friend Liz (@thescaryjokes)!

EOS 10 Genre: medical drama, comedy, sci-fi Episode count: 34 (ongoing) Description: Doctors in space, a deposed alien prince, a super gay space pirate and a fiery nurse who'll help you win your bar fight. Thoughts: It’s been a hot minute since I listened, but as someone that inherently loves things like Star Trek and procedural comedies, EOS 10 is a quick and hilarious listen! Fair warning some of the earlier stuff is a little bit ignorant when it comes to their LGBT characters, but it gets a lot better over time.

King Falls AM Genre: horror, comedy, Lovecraftian Episode count: 100 (ongoing) Description: King Falls AM centers on a lonely little mountain town's late-night AM talk radio show and its paranormal, peculiar happenings and inhabitants Thoughts: I’m a bit behind, but again, gotta love some Alpine American horror! King Falls AM perfectly captures the feeling and sound of listening to a small late night radio show with two bros, but it really goes from typical dude dialogue to heart wrenching found family alien conspiracy real quick. Same as EOS 10, fair warning for some ignorant language and LGBT stereotypes, but they address it and it gets better as it progresses.

Not Another D&D Podcast Genre: actual play Dungeons and Dragons, TTRPG, comedy Episode count: 128 (ongoing) Description: Welcome to the campaign after the campaign! Three unlikely adventurers attempt to right the wrongs caused by a party of legendary heroes who screwed up the world while trying to save it. Thoughts: I’m only like 40 episodes in because they’re thick, meaty ‘sodes, but god is NADDPOD fucking hilarious. I’ve tried a fair few TTRPG shows, but the chemistry and care that the cast has together is unmatched by others in the genre. I’m a complete sucker for shows that are so funny and so tragic in equal measures, and the entire concept of a D&D game set after the world has been so drastically changed by a different D&D game is so unique!

The Faculty of Horror Genre: non-fiction, horror, philosophy, sociology, feminism Episode count: 86 (ongoing) Description: Tackling all things horror with a slash of analysis and research, horror journalists and occasional academics Andrea Subissati and Alexandra West are your hosts for brain-plumping discussions on all things that go bump in the night. Thoughts: A little non-fiction in this list of fiction podcasts! The Faculty of Horror is a concise and educated intersectional feminist podcast, and it’s a breath of fresh air to listen to anyone that isn’t a cishet white guy talk about horror. I highly recommend the episode on Cabin in The Woods or Jennifer’s Body!

The Magnus Archives Genre: horror, office comedy Episode count: 180 (ongoing) Description: The Magnus Archives is a weekly horror fiction anthology podcast examining what lurks in the archives of the Magnus Institute, an organization dedicated to researching the esoteric and the weird. Join new head archivist Jonathan Sims as he attempts to bring a seemingly neglected collection of supernatural statements up to date, converting them to audio and supplementing them with follow-up work from his small but dedicated team. Thoughts: TMA is, similarly to A81, a bit of a slow burn to get into, but I think once you listen to a few episodes you’ll know if you want to continue. It’s a pretty standard prompt for a narrative, but the sheer amount of individual short horror stories they’ve managed to write is insane! And I love the slow break down between recording statements and the stuff happening within the archives. Also one of the best redemption stories in a character that starts off as such a grumpy fuck!

The Penumbra Podcast Genre: sci-fi, neo-noir, romance, comedy, found family, magic, medieval fantasy, adventure, mystery Episode count: 75 (ongoing) Description: At the Penumbra, you might follow Juno Steel, a brooding, sharp-witted private eye on Mars, as he tangles with an elusive homme fatale, tracks dangerous artifacts of an ancient alien civilization, and faces his three greatest fears: heights, blood, and relationships. Or you might enter the world of the Second Citadel, where the merciless Sir Caroline must corral a team of emotionally distraught all-male knights to defend their city against mind-manipulating monsters...even the ones they’ve fallen in love with. Thoughts: On god TPP was a life changing podcast for me. Having creators that are genuinely concerned with accurately representing minorities with care and dedication makes me feel spoiled when I try listen to anything else. The two main universes are so different with their own set of histories and cultures, but I love them both so completely. If you want LGBT+ representation, this is the seminal podcast for everything non-binary, trans, queer, and people that aren’t afraid to change and have that change be known! I haven’t listened to another podcast that actually depicts transitioning like they do, absolute king shit.

Wolf 359 Genre: space drama, comedy, action Episode count: 61 (completed) Description: WOLF 359 is a radio drama in the tradition of Golden Age of Radio shows. Set on board the U.S.S. Hephaestus space station, the dysfunctional crew deals with daily life-or-death emergencies, while searching for signs of alien life and discovering there might be more to their mission than they thought Thoughts: Wolf 359 is like if you fell down the stairs and at the bottom of the stairs was a bear trap, and then after you step in the bear trap someone helps you take off that beartrap, but then they kick you in the nuts. Just replace physical pain with emotional pain. It can be so funny but also so fucking stressful and sad – w359 isn’t afraid to kill its darlings, and it will break your heart but you will still say thank you.

[claraxbarton]

Probably literally no one wants to read this, but on the off chance anyone wants to CHOOSE to read my thoughts on fanworks in relation to traditional western culture and not merely be subjected to them via DM during an innocent (though angsty as all hell) convo on the parallels between Stucky and Destiel well, here’s 1700 words on it:

—-

Actually. And here’s the thing that works so damn well with both bucky/Steve and Dean/Cas is that there is no clear “damsel/hero” dichotomy that we see in classic heteronormative relationships.

But like.

The thing about fan fiction, and AO3 specifically, is that it primarily features homoerotic and homoromatic relationships between two cisgender white men. Yes that is changing- mostly thanks to the rise of KPOP (the surprise lord and savior of 2020) and Hulu and Netflix optioning East Asian movies and television series to spread those narratives. Which is an entire thing on its own because so many of those like- is it Untamed? Feature homosocial environments and thus- the point is. The landscape is changing and yay.

But AO3s success is largely predicated on two main ships: Stucky and Destiel. Yes there are others that are huge and continue to grow, but these are the two that I feel (with no data or research to support my assertion) helped AO3 take precedence over ffnet as THE site for fan work hosting.

Now, the contradictory thing about fan work, the thing that is so often described as hypocritical and/or fetishizing is that the majority feature two cisgender white men engaged in homoerotic and/or homoromantic relationships when the majority of the readers and creators of fan works are neither.

Data supports the supposition that most fan work creators and consumers identify as non-male. And in that subset the majority identify as female.

Simply based on generic population data, the correlation can be made (again no effort put into googling this because I have sewing to do) that the majority of this group is likely cisgendered heterosexual (white) women.

However, fan works and fan engagement are a proven community for fans who do not ascribe to the heteronormative gender binary or heterosexual and/or heteroromantic relationship structure and are, in fact, not just white. Again- imagine numbers that are factual because sewing.

Fandom is not unique to entertainment media. We can trace it back to, well, as long as we can trace it back. What are the Venus of Willendorf statues of not fanart? The Parthenon? Egyptian funereal pyramids and their contents? Renaissance art in general? Is the King James Bible not a “fix it” for the previously canonical literature (that’s a hot take don’t come for me.) (you could also consider the King James Version an attempt at song fic).

In more contemporary culture, we have sports fandoms- primarily male dominated. Primarily cisgendered heterosexual white male dominated.

The fandom culture of sports fans has been described as that of collectors and curators- they want memorabilia and statistics and gatekeeping actions often require proof of knowledge or commitment via possessions.

Meanwhile, entertainment media fandoms- such as those experiences on AO3- are more creative than curatorial. Instead of efforts to organize, delineate and create hierarchies within fandoms (yes this happens but is not the overriding force), these sorts of fandoms seek to create fanWORKS and fanCOMMUNITIES. Yes, fantasy sports leagues exist and so do sports teams fan communities. But I ask you, where in sports fandoms is there a GISH?Or an AO3?

The reality of contemporary western dominated culture (entertainment,sports,economic,political, artistic and philosophical) is one that features white cisgendered heterosexual men at the apex-

Both as creators and consumers despite prevailing realities in population and cultural zeitgeist.

As such, most western dominated fandoms are homosocial: dominated by one group, that of white cisgendered heterosexual men.

All that is to say, most star athletes are straight white dudes. Most movie stars are straight white dudes. Most politicians. Most wealth holders and distributors. Most creators.

Why? Because patriarchy. But the WHY isn’t the point of this long ass word vomit.

It’s the So What?

Sports fandoms are the territory of these same homosocial networks.

But media fandoms are the territory of those NOT at the top of that hierarchy.

While the CONTENT and the original content creators remain part of that homosocial white cisgendered heterosexual group, the consumers of media are largely NOT OF THAT GROUP despite what the content creators may desire or believe (see: the creatives behind supernatural and their ridiculous ability to convince themselves that their core demographic are straight white dudes 15-40).

As such, content that features the patriarchy is primarily heterosexual, heteronormative, racist (acutely or passively), misogynistic, homophobic, homosocial and, well, lacking.

Take, for example, MCU and Supernatural as franchises. Our main characters are primarily white dudes. White dudes who mostly interact with other white dudes, whose “tribes” (brethren, compatriots, coworkers) are also white dudes. Yes, smurfs exist- the token woman or non-white person. Sometimes even a queer person (gender or sexual, though very, very rarely gender queer).

The fact that whenever our “heroes” interact with anyone outside their tribe or homosocial group they are almost inevitably evil, dead or about to die is telling. How many women die in supernatural? How many people of color? How many villains in the MCU (and while the X-MEN franchise isn’t necessarily within the MCU because Hollywood, the queer coding within X-MEN is encyclopedic) are queer coded?

Now, I’ve said repeatedly that heterosexual and heteronormative relationships are the mean within such media. Our white dudes bang white ladies, love white ladies, but act like manly white men and don’t put romantic feelings ahead of things like patriotism and pain unless they have “earned” the right to such (a trial that often involves a lot of deaths that are never addressed or given recourse. See:endgame)

Bros before hoes is more or less the rule of western mainstream media.

As such, relationships that demonstrate respect, trust, vulnerability, compassion and resiliency are almost always homosocial: or they are between two bros (no homo) and not between a man and a woman.

You trust the guy at your back, not the woman because you 1. Want to bang her 2. She’s probably going to die 3. She’s a damsel 4. Seriously she’s probably going to die.

Which all means: most of the well developed characters and relationships within mainstream western media are homosocial- they exist between two members of the same group. In our case, those straight white bros (which of course within supernatural can sometimes be taken literally in the case of Wincest).

Which means, the consumers of this media- mostly not white straight cisgendered dudes- are left with content that doesn’t represent who they are or what they want or even can aspire to.

So what’s the solution? Collect data and memorabilia? Sure why not.

OR: use your beloved media, those well developed characters and relationships, to create something new.

Fan work.

We circle back, at last, to the idea that fan work creators and consumers can be hypocritical or contradictory by creating works that feature that which they are not- these white dudes in love (romantic, sexual) with each other.

This supposition suggests that creators and consumers are using the characters and situations in fan work as replacements for what they lack in heterosocial relationships- either in media or in their own lives. Or, put another way, fans replace either Bucky or Steve with themselves and image the other to be their “love” interest.

To an extent, this may be true. That both parties are usually written to have male genitalia while most fans do not is where so many of the hypocritical and fetishization issues come into play.

But the reality is, fans are working with what they are given. Most fans don’t have dicks. A generous portion of fans don’t want to engage with dicks is sexual ways (or engage in sex at all) (and it must be emphasized that the majority of works on AO3 are rated T not E).

But the value in reimagining, subtextualizing, or deconstructing the mostly platonically presented homosocial relationships in western media as homosexual or homoerotic or homoromantic is not (for the most part) about fetish or about placeholders and substitutions for the fan.

It is about creating fanwork that reflects the society a fan lives in or wishes to live in.

Just as the sports fan will go to a bar and paint themselves blue and deride the Yankees because they want to envision a society that upholds a white cisgendered male patriarchy, media fanWORKS are created because we do NOT have a society that values romantic or erotic relationships between equals (for in traditional western society the only equal to a white cisgendered man is another white dude).

So, at last, a return to Stucky and Destiel.

The relationships created in fanWORKS between these two aren’t simply those where one is the “‘man” in the relationship and the other is the “woman”.

Yes those fanWORKS exist.

But most utilize the strong bonds of trust and respect and vulnerability and dare I say shared experience to create romantic and erotic relationships that are both more complex and more realistic than those actually portrayed in the same media.

In Stucky, we see Steve save Bucky and Bucky save Steve. We see Bucky hurt Steve and Steve hurt Bucky. We see their positions as EQUALS as a means by which to create a world where fulfilling relationships can exist that do not automatically restrict one (or more) parties to that of “chattel”.

The same is true of Destiel.

And both relationships feature key similarities within the original media that make for such rich possibilities.

Castiel saves Dean from hell. Castiel is brainwashed by the patriarchy to view Dean as lesser and even to kill him (this happens multiple times).

While Steve saves Bucky from Azzano, it is Bucky who saved Steve for almost their entire lives before that point. And after that point the two go back and forth to save each other. And let us not forget that Bucky was ordered to kill Steve but “he knew me”.

Dean and Castiel go through a similar ping pong match of saving each other.

This isn’t just about being equal in strength- it’s about being equal in vulnerability.

Which, to belabor the point, doesn’t exist in mainstream media’s romantic or erotic relationships nor is it widely taught or reinforced in western culture as a whole.

In conclusion.

Stucky and Destiel can save the world.

But probably KPOP would do it better and faster and cooler.

—-

Totally feel free to engage with your own opinions. Because I have to go sew now but later? Later we should talk friends and foes.

[shoyastars]

Different Version.

Please be sure that I am not the official creator of Binary Star hero, or Ray himself. I am just a simp for him. Therefore this is only a fanfic. Please be sure to support the developer Concreteparasite.

Idea from: who_the_fuck_are_you

Interesting name 🧐

Thank you to a friend & Mutual on here who helped me with the story a bit since it’s been in my drafts for awhile, know it was a big help! Tyyy!!

Let’s begin!

—————————————————————————————————————

Some days when I wake up, I like to look at how my star sleeps so peacefully. Admiring how some of the sun shines against their figure.

Ever since they’ve moved in I’ve never felt more at peace.

Some of the changes I’ve noticed in them, how they behave around me, compared to how they used to behave, something doesn’t feel right.

Something feels unsettling to me about Star.

—

The hum of a familiar voice in the kitchen, you were helping me with dinner, cutting up some vegetables, I had that unsettling feeling again. You caught me looking at you, you simply smiled. A chill ran down my spine. Why did a smile that once made me feel a warmth in my heart, suddenly feel like a cold breeze against the skin?

“So, you’re quite happy lately.”

“You’ve noticed?”

The chopping stops, I wonder if it’s a bad sign. If only I didn’t agree not to look into your mind without permission, then I’d see if it was or not.

“Yeah, you’ve been like this for awhile.”

“Is that a crime?”

“No, it’s just….”

Why does it feel like I’m talking to a complete stranger?

“Maybe I’m just happy being around you more often.”

“You sure it’s just that?”

You looked at me and I could see how different the look in your eyes was, not a single once of the familiar Star I knew. Why did it feel like I was talking to someone else?

“Hm, perhaps how silly it feels being here. It’s quite new. Although seeing you like this was worth time.”

What?

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve noticed how different my behavior has been lately, I could tell.”

You took a step towards me, I couldn’t help but back away. Your smile unsettled something in me, causing me to step back in a panic. Was I in denial? What was I feeling?

“Star, you're starting to worry me.”

“You’ve probably noticed many different things. Little things, like how did such things so differently but… now, you aren’t sure if your little hunch is correct or not.”

The sudden cress of their hand on my face felt foreign, as if it’s not meant to be there. As if I were in danger instead of the other way around…

“The idea of staying forever is a temptation I wish to follow through on.”

Your expression falls, displeased. As if something were to offend you.

“But I can’t stay long, the only reason why I came here is to see you… despite you not really being here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The abilities, super villains, superheroes. The only escape from reality. You help make my dull little world less boring.”

Escape from reality..? Escape… from…..

That's when I realized, this wasn’t my Star… you weren’t my Star.

As a fight or flight response kicked in, I took the knife you put down and put it to your throat, by the reflection in your eyes, my own eyes were the familiar red I’ve known all my life.

“Who. Are. You.”

You didn’t answer, simply smirking.

“I’m your Star, sure I’m not exactly your version… but I can say, I’m impressed on how you caught on so quickly that I’m not them.”

“Answer the fucking question!”

“No need for harsh words, Ray.”

The same unsettling smile, You weren’t scared I could kill you? Why weren’t you telling me where they are? Who the hell are you?

“Well they’re right in front of you.”

You gesture to yourself. I didn’t buy it for a second, the blade now causing blood to run.

“Cut the bullshit. Your not them.”

“I know, but how do I put this into words… I guess you could say I’m inhabiting their body for now.”

You’re hand crept up to grasp onto my wrist, you pushed my arm a bit, causing me to cut a bit deeper.

“You can kill me, but you’d be killing them to.”

What.

“However, believe me or not… I still find you entertaining regardless, I’m not sure how many other times you found out I’m not the real mc, but have to say, pressing dialogue opinions gets boring, so I had to make my own little twist.”

You leaned into my ear without me noticing. The knife now feeling useless in my hand.

“Your Star was a bit dense, but I can assure you I’d be a better fit.~”

With that I pushed you off, you weren’t my Star, you’ll never be. Where did they go?

Where did they go?

Where did they go?

Why weren’t they here? Didn’t they want to try? What… were you… why him? Why even replace his Star?

Why…. Why… why……

Was I shaking? Why was I shaking? Was it anger, Sadness, Grief? The way the sudden lowering of your body came down to my level, I didn’t even notice I fell to the floor. The wiping of tears I had and didn’t realize were there, by them… the kiss on my head felt empty…. No warmth, no happiness, no love…. Your love…

“Shh, don’t cry… your star isn’t gone. I’m right here.”

I felt you wrap your arms around me, was this another nightmare? I want to wake up, I desperately do… just to see Star worry about me with that familiar look of care in Star’s eyes again. I want my Star back, Is that all so much to ask? Can’t I be selfish for once?

The familiar face in front of me doesn’t look as familiar or comforting than before…. They weren’t you. They were never you… I wanted to kill the imposter before me, but with such a familiar face, and the possibility that your still in there… I couldn’t, I grew too fearful upon you disappearing forever, and the lingering feeling of dreadful pain. Pain that you could be in pain, does it hurt? Were you even alive?

Such thoughts made my mind spiral. The imposter enjoyed my suffering. Tormenting me, reminding me… I hated them, I hated them so much I wished I knew a way to kill them without killing you my Star.

No answers came to mind.

No Star to turn to.

—

[buddiebeginz]

Podcast | Part 2: The Rise of Skywalker Analysis What The Force

I found a lot of the conversation about mythos and how it relates to TROS really interesting so I put down some of the conversation from this podcast here (along with some other interesting quotes from the video). (the bulk of stuff I quoted starts here 57:44)

The American Monomyth does not allow the hero to go past the transformation. They go to the transformation and then go into obscurity. They are not allowed to atone and they are not allowed to return. And we see this actually play out from the specific choices to do with artistic creation of our heroine Rey...She's a heroine from a horror movie. Heroines from horror movies especially in the 1980's died if they had sex. The only woman that got out alive who resisted the damsel in distress was the pure virginal woman. That is what Rey became. The scared child that can overcome the monster in the dark. How does the heroine develop over time in our mass media?.. Heroines in horror movies were originally perceived as you know virginal and there was a backlash against that at some point but then it went back to virginal. It's constantly trying to find who is worthy. The feminine has to be worth of being the hero in the end in different ways then the male does. The role of the heroine is that: She is a model of moral purity seeking nothing for herself while loving others in generous but sexually chaste manner. Female redemptive power requires a soul and body uncontaminated by sexual passion. These angelic girls give us a an image of selfless love devoid of sexuality, combined with a perfect conformity to the post Puritan virtues of cooperativeness, cheerfulness, and submissiveness. Redemption here takes the form of adjustment to circumstances rather than the annihilation of incorrigibles. The mythical plot varies from the masculine heroic patterns only in the means of redemption which are psychologically and religiously manipulative rather than violent. Where as the men achieve sexual segmentation through renunciation, super heroines like Hedi simply remain in a prepubescent state forever. (The Myth of the American Superhero) Rey did not choose this. Rey did not choose for Ben to die. Rey wanted to be with him she kissed him. But at the end of the story she remained a prepubescent heroine. She remained happy. She didn't mourn for him. We didn't see her suffer. She is a child. She's back to being a child because she was comfortable in the desert and this was her new home. The synthesis of Ben and Rey using creative mythology as a template, using basically the last two chapters of Power of Myth and Symbolism of Joseph Campbell could give them (DLF) the answer. It was they were ending up together and they had a baby and they continued on. That would have solved the myth. Ben didn’t need to go to jail. Rey could have said he saved my life. He helped me kill Palpatine. He protected me and then I killed Palpatine. ...That’s what could have happened but they chose not to do it. That would have been the atonement and the return that would have been giving the “elixir” to the community but they chose not to do that. They chose to stop the myth at the transformation. They didn't give the community anything. TLJ ended with that. We didn't end there. That’s why we are left empty and we are left unfulfilled. This is the interesting thing about how the American Monomyth plays into this, because Rey not only fulfills the masculine hero by disappearing into obscurity but she also played the role of the feminine heroine by healing the masculine. She has became prepubescent and she has become John Wayne in the same movie. ~~~~~~ The symbolism broke when Ben wasn't standing next to her as the twin of her sun. They broke the symbolism internally. Because they used it earlier on in the movie and then broke it. I can tell you how much they used twin suns in the lead up to this in how much they used it everywhere. The Force theme has been used to them, the Binary Sunset theme. They used the twin suns purposefully elsewhere in canon and in the lead up to describe both of them and now she is alone. And then they tried to replace the twin suns with Luke and Leia which leaves you feeling slightly incestuous because now she is the adopted daughter of twins? ~~~~~~ This is an example for some people of a thematic fictional betrayal. Our brains know on some level that this is fiction but on the lizard brain level, that listened to stories around the campfire and that was our only source of entertainment from an evolutionary psychology perspective we can't tell the difference between our myths and our reality. We can't tell the difference between losing Ben Solo and how wrong it was and losing our mom, our brother, our lover. And in so many ways this fandom identified to both Rey and Kylo and the synthesis would have been to create a complete person in us. And we lost both of them. Because we lost her character growth and her sexuality and we lost him. Recognize that any art that you draw, any fic that you write, any post that you post is a part of the myth. They decided that the anger that was caused by the TLJ, which became a part of the myth mind you whether we like it or not. They decided to incorporate it into the story and so that has consequences and obviously we're feeling those consequences. Expect more of Star Wars. Expect it. Demand it. And not in an angry way but in a this is important to me way and this is imporant for our society. And this is the only way that we transform and take the elixir back. We must fullfill the myth because the American Monomyth will not do it for us. We can't rely on creators like J.J. anymore. We can't rely on men who come from that era. We can't rely on that particular group that come from that era of storytelling.

[comixology]

For Immediate Release

The Pride Joins ComiXology Originals With The All-New Series The Pride Season Two

Also Joining ComiXology Originals is The Pride Season One and The Pride Adventures Season One Available Digitally June 5th

The Pride is the first Submit series comiXology has invested in to continue through comiXology Originals

All of The Pride will be available in print via Amazon.com upon release of The Pride Season Two collected edition

ComiXology Originals titles are available exclusively on Kindle and comiXology and are included in Prime Reading, Kindle Unlimited and comiXology Unlimited

June 3, 2019 – New York, NY – Today, comiXology, Amazon’s premier digital comics service and Queer Comix announced that The Pride Season Two – an all-new, six issue comic book series spinning out of writer Joe Glass’ acclaimed LGBTQ+ super hero series The Pride – will debut as part of the comiXology Originals program, June 5th, just in time for Pride month. Additionally, the acclaimed indie hits, The Pride Season One and The Pride Adventures Season One, also join comiXology Originals. The Pride is the first Submit series comiXology has invested in to continue through comiXology Originals, making these amazing stories available to a new worldwide audience.

The Pride Season Two #1, written by Joe Glass and illustrated by Cem Iroz with colors by Mark Dale and letters by Mike Stock, as well as The Pride Season One and The Pride Adventures Season One will be digitally available to read for members of Prime Reading, Kindle Unlimited, and comiXology Unlimited, and available for purchase on Kindle and comiXology upon release, June 5th. All of The Pride will be available in print via Amazon.com at the same time as The Pride Season Two collected edition release.

In The Pride Season Two you’ll join an amazing cast of heroes who united to form a team comprised entirely of LGBTQ+ crime fighters in bright and fun action-packed adventures that any super hero fan can enjoy. The team returns with exciting new adventures where they must stop a nuclear meltdown, welcome new heroes, and investigate a spate of mysterious attacks on the world’s biggest pop star.

“I began The Pride because I want to tell stories where queer characters and stories are not only told through metaphor, analogy and subtext, but are open, accessible and show a diversity of life not usually seen in the medium,” says writer Joe Glass.

“We’ve been big fans of The Pride since it debuted through comiXology Submit in 2014,” said Chip Mosher, comiXology’s Head of Content. “We are excited about the future of The Pride and so have taken steps to invest in it and have it continue as a comiXology Originals title. It’s fantastic to be able to pick up a series that debuted on Submit and help extend its reach to a broader worldwide audience.” In a world populated by people with superpowers, FabMan (Tomorrow's Fabulous Man, Today) feels a deep schism in the representation of his community and his own heroic exploits, which are often presented as fluff pieces in the news. Wanting to fight for change, he forms The Pride, the world's premier LGBTQ+ supergroup – featuring a diverse range of characters representative of the broad LGBTQ+ spectrum, from gay, lesbian, bi and trans superheroes to non-binary, drag queen, HIV+, children of gay parents, and more. Together they fight to protect the world from prejudice, misrepresentation, and injustice, not to mention a pesky supervillain or two!

The Pride was one of the best-selling comiXology Submit releases of 2014, garnering acclaim from noted comic book writers:

"I highly recommend this smart, charming, wonderful book to anyone who likes good comics. It's absolutely a pleasure to read and a clear labor of love." - Gail Simone, Batgirl, Leaving Megalopolis, Clean Room "Old-school and progressive at the same time. Classic, high-energy superhero action that gives the queer community the heroes they've always deserved." - Steve Orlando, Midnighter, Virgil

The Pride Season Two #1, The Pride Season One and The Pride Adventures Season One will all debut as part of the comiXology Originals line of exclusive digital content, making these series available to a greater worldwide audience, starting June 5th. The Pride Season One, collects The Pride #1-6, with bonus content including art from Gavin Mitchell (Stiffs, Santa vs. The Nazis) and Samir Barrett, with The Pride Adventures Season One collecting The Pride Adventures #1-4. These debuting series will be available to read digitally for members of Prime Reading, Kindle Unlimited, and comiXology Unlimited and will also be available for sale on comiXology and Kindle. And for the first time since its successful Kickstarter campaign, The Pride Season One and The Pride Adventures Season One will be available in print, via Amazon.com, joining The Pride Season Two in print once all six issues are collected. ComiXology Originals offers new, exclusive comic book content across Amazon’s subscription services of Prime, Kindle Unlimited, and comiXology Unlimited, and for sale on comiXology and Kindle. Prime Reading offers Amazon Prime members a rotating selection of over a thousand top Kindle books, magazines, short works, comic books, children’s books, and more – all at no additional cost. Kindle Unlimited offers over 1 million titles, thousands of audiobooks, and select current issues of popular magazines for just $9.99 a month with a 30-day free trial for new members at amazon.com/kindleunlimited. ComiXology Unlimited offers over 20,000 comics, graphic novels and manga for just $5.99 a month with a 30-day free trial for new members at comixology.com/unlimited. For more updates on comiXology Originals, check out http://comixologyoriginals.com and follow comiXology on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. About the Writer: Joe Glass is a comics writer and creator of LGBTQ+ superhero series, The Pride. Joe has been a critic and reporter on comics and the industry, while making his own comics and fighting for accessibility and representation for the LGBTQ+ community in comics. Joe lives in the valleys of South Wales, UK. About comiXology ComiXology, an Amazon.com, Inc. subsidiary (NASDAQ:AMZN), is a revolutionary, cloud-based digital comics service. With content from over 125 publishers as well as thousands of independent creators from around the world, comiXology provides an unrivaled library of comic books, graphic novels, manga and bandes dessinées. The company’s first-in-class innovations include the exclusive Guided View technology which provides an immersive and cinematic reading experience and a new monthly subscription service. ComiXology is based in New York City, with operations in Seattle and Los Angeles. For more information, visit comixology.com and follow the company on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. About Amazon Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews. To request a review copy, art or interview, Contact: Pamela Mullin Horvath, Publicity Director, Superfan Promotions LLC pamela.mullinhorvath@superfanpromotions.com

[jennaschererwrites]

How TV Is Putting the ‘B’ in LGBTQ — And Why It Matters – Rolling Stone

“Mom. Dad. I know you don’t want to talk about this, but I do. I might get married to a man, like you so clearly want. And I might not. Because this is not a phase, and I need you to understand that. I’m bisexual.” That’s Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz), Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s resident no-nonsense detective, pouring out her heart to her parents in the show’s landmark 100th episode. To which her dad (Danny Trejo) stoically replies, “There’s no such thing as being bisexual.”

Beatriz, who is bisexual herself, wrote in GQ: “When does it end? When do you get to stop telling people you’re bi? When do people start to grasp that this is your truth? …When do you start seeing yourself reflected positively in all (hey, even any?) of the media you consume?”

There’s a real cognitive dissonance to identity erasure. You can be standing right in front of someone telling them exactly who you are, and they can just look right through you, and intone, like a Westworld robot, “That doesn’t look like anything to me.” Nevertheless, it’s a daily reality for LGBTQ folks, and bi- and pansexual people in particular. (The term pansexuality, which has come into wider use in recent years, intends to explicitly refer to attraction to all genders, not just cisgender people — or, as self-identified pansexual Janelle Monae put it in Rolling Stone last year: “I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.” However, many in the queer community define bisexuality the same way. You can read more about that conversation here.) Until recently, sexual and gender identities that existed outside the binary have been anathema to mainstream culture — and often, even, to more traditionalist branches of gay culture.

For a long time, people who identify as bisexual or pansexual didn’t have a whole lot of visible role models — particularly on television. But as our understanding of the LGBTQ spectrum has become more diverse and nuanced over time, there’s been a blossoming of bi- and pansexual representation. In the past few years, characters such as Rosa on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, David Rose on Schitt’s Creek, Darryl Whitefeather on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Leila on The Bisexual — to name just a few — have been at the forefront of a bi- and pansexual renaissance on the small screen.

But it wasn’t always this way. Even after television began to centralize gay characters and their experiences — on shows like Ellen, Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, and The L Word — the “B” in that alphabet soup fell to the wayside. Bisexuality was seldom mentioned at all, and if it was, it existed chiefly as a punch line — an easy ba-dum-CHING moment for savvy characters to nose out someone who wasn’t as in the know as they were. On Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw called bisexuality “a layover on the way to Gaytown”; and on 30 Rock, Liz Lemon dismissed it as “something they invented in the Nineties to sell hair products.”

Even some of the earliest shows to break ground for queer representation didn’t factor bisexuality or pansexuality into their worldviews. The designation basically didn’t exist in the gay-straight binary world of Queer as Folk, and was largely seen as a phase on The L Word. Buffy the Vampire Slayer gave many TV viewers their first-ever depiction of a same-sex relationship in 1999 with the Wicca-fueled romance between Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara Maclay (Amber Benson), but the show too neatly glossed over Willow’s years-long relationship with her boyfriend Oz (Seth Green) as a fleeting step on the way to full-time lesbianism. Or, as Willow succinctly put it in Season 5: “Hello! Gay now!”

Characters who labeled themselves as bisexual were considered to be confused at best and dangerously promiscuous at worst. On The O.C. in 2004, Olivia Wilde’s bi bartender character, Alex Kelly, appeared as a destabilizing force of chaos in the lives of the show’s otherwise straight characters. On a 2011 episode of Glee — a show which, at the time, was breaking ground for gay representation on TV — Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) savagely shot down his crush, Blaine (Darren Criss), when Blaine mentioned that he might be bi: “‘Bisexual’ is a term that gay guys in high school use when they want to hold hands with girls and feel like a normal person for a change.” By the end of the episode, Blaine assures Kurt that he is, don’t you worry, “100 percent gay.”

One of TV’s first enduring portrayals of nonbinary sexual attraction came with the entrance of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) into Russell T. Davies’ 2005 Doctor Who reboot. (Davies also created the original U.K. Queer as Folk.) The time traveler swashbuckled into the series to equal-opportunity flirt with the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and his companion Rose (Billie Piper), because, as the Doctor explains, “He’s a 51st-century guy. He’s just a bit more flexible.” Captain Jack went on to feature in his own spinoff series, Torchwood.

Then came Callie Torres on Grey’s Anatomy. Portrayed by Sara Ramirez (who came out as bisexual herself in 2016), Callie had a seasons-long arc that spanned from her burgeoning realization of her bisexuality in 2008 to her complex relationships with both men and women over the years. Callie’s drunken rant from the 11th season would make a great T-shirt to wear to Pride if it weren’t quite so long: “So I’m bisexual! So what? It’s a thing, and it’s real. I mean, it’s called LGBTQ for a reason. There’s a B in there, and it doesn’t mean ‘badass.’ OK, it kind of does. But it also means bi!”

Once the 2010s rolled around, representation began to pick up steam. True Blood’s Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley), The Legend of Korra’s titular hero (Janet Varney), Game of Thrones’ Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal), The Good Wife’s Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi), and Peep Show’s Jeremy Usborne (Robert Webb) all were portrayed in romantic relationships on both sides of the binary. But these characters’ sexual orientations were seldom given a name.

In some cases, this felt quietly revolutionary. On post-apocalyptic CW drama The 100, for example, set a century and change in the future, protagonist Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) is romantically involved with both men and women with no mention of labels. Because on the show’s nuclear fallout-ravaged earth, humankind has presumably gotten over that particular prejudice. On other series, however, not putting a name to the thing seems like a calculated choice. Take Orange Is the New Black, a show that has broken a lot of barriers but steadfastly avoids using the B-word to describe its clearly bisexual central character, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling).

A few years ago, though, tectonic plates began to shift. On Pop TV sitcom Schitt’s Creek, David Rose (co-creator Dan Levy) explained his pansexuality to his friend via a now-famous metaphor: “I do drink red wine. But I also drink white wine. And I’ve been known to sample the occasional rosé. And a couple summers back, I tried a merlot that used to be a chardonnay.”

Bisexuality got its literal anthem on the CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend with “Gettin’ Bi,” a jubilant Huey Lewis & the News-style number sung by Darryl Whitefeather (Pete Gardner) about waking up to his latent bisexuality as a middle-aged man. “It’s not a phase, I’m not confused / Not indecisive, I don’t have the gotta-choose blues,” he croons, dancing in front of the bi pride flag. Darryl’s exuberant ode to his identity felt like someone levering a window open in a musty room — a celebration of something that, less than a decade before, TV was loathe to acknowledge.

For Hulu and the U.K.’s Channel 4, Desiree Akhavan (Appropriate Behavior, The Miseducation of Cameron Post) cowrote, directed, and starred in a series picking apart the subject, titled, aptly, The Bisexual. In it, Akhavan portrays Leila, a thirtysomething woman coming to a dawning awareness of her bisexuality after having identified as a lesbian for most of her life. The show navigates the tricky territory that bisexuals inhabit when they’re misunderstood — or sometimes outright rejected — by queer and straight communities alike. Akhavan, a bisexual Iranian-American woman, has said the idea for the show came to her after repeatedly hearing herself described as a “bisexual director.” She told Vanity Fair that “there was something about being called a bisexual publicly — even though it’s 100 percent true! — that felt totally humiliating and in bad taste, and I wanted to understand why.”

As Leila shuttles her way between sexual partners and fields tone-deaf comments from friends on both sides of the binary, The Bisexual offers no easy answers. But it also never flinches. “I’m pretty sure bisexuality is a myth. That it was created by ad executives to sell flavored vodka,” Leila remarks in the first episode, unconsciously echoing 30 Rock’s throwaway joke from a decade ago. Except this time, the stakes — and the bi person in question — are real.

The next generation — younger millennials and Gen Z kids in particular — tends to view sexualityas a spectrum rather than the distance between two poles. Akhavan neatly encompasses this evolution in an exchange between Leila and her male roommate’s twentysomething girlfriend, Francisca (Michèlle Guillot), who questions why Leila is so terrified to tell anyone that she’s started sleeping with men as well as women. When Leila tells her it’s complicated because it’s “a gay thing,” Francisca responds, “So? I’m queer.” “Everyone under 25 thinks they’re queer,” says Leila. “And you think they’re wrong?” Francisca counters. Leila considers this for a moment before answering, “No.”

Representation matters, and here’s why: Seeing who you are reflected in the entertainment you take in gives you not just validation for your identity, but also a potential road map for how you might navigate the world. For many years, bi- and pansexuals existed in a liminal place where we were often dismissed outright by not just the straight community — but the queer community as well. Onscreen representation is not just a matter of showing us something we’ve never seen before, but of making the invisible visible, of drawing a new picture over what was once erased.

[theartofmedia]

Game Theory and the Art of Persuasion

Full disclosure from the start: I don’t like Game Theory. (I enjoy MatPat when he’s in other things (like the Random Encounters musicals, I think he’s wonderful there), but just not Game Theory.) I’ve heard a lot of other people not like Game Theory either, both personal friends and strangers on the internet, for a variety of different reasons--namely, inaccurate research, twisting of facts, and allegations of art-stealing (but we’re not going to talk about that last one for the sake of staying on topic).

Yet, it remains incredibly successful, and its fans are loyal. Many people believe the theories, or at least parts of them. Even when the top comments of the videos are critical (or even hateful) in nature, the videos still do well.

So, why?

Well, there’s no denying that a good portion of GT’s audience is young. I think we’ve all had that one creator or piece of media that we wanted to defend because we loved it, only to realize later that it wasn’t that good. (And many people still enjoy these things and recognize that they aren’t good.) Younger teens have a strong need to defend what’s important to them, regardless of however valid the criticism is--in fact, giving any negative criticism at all often just spurs them on further. Young teens just don’t have that reasoning ability (and let’s face it, we were all like this when we were that young, whether we like to admit it or not). GT is going to be successful as long as that loyal fanbase continues to thrive.

So why do people believe the theories?

I believe I have my own little “theory”--MatPat, to some, is very persuasive.

Not with well-structured arguments, but with his rhetoric. It’s in what language he uses, the visuals he puts up, his tone of voice, and how he subtly tweaks the facts in order to slant the information in favor of his argument.

(Note: I am aware that MatPat not only has editors but script-writers as well, but he has to approve all of it and read out the script. So while I’ll use GT and MatPat himself as sort of umbrella term, I do know that he is not responsible for everything.)

Let’s use the video “Game Theory: Kirby...Dream Land’s Biggest THREAT! pt.1″ and break down some of the major points. (I’ll be putting timestamps so you can check for yourself or follow along.)

Whether intentional or not, MatPat uses a lot of strong, slanted language in his arguments. At 2:14, he states “So what is Kirby? Is he hero of Popstar, or world-consuming villain? A pink puffball for good, or a fiery god of evil?” This sets up a dichotomy--good and evil, right and wrong. People are naturally drawn to definitive, clean choices. They’re easier to understand and easier to grasp. Setting up this dichotomy sets up two sides: Kirby is good, or Kirby is evil. No room for other nuances and small details that add depth, or room for any explanations of the circumstances that could lead Kirby to act the way he does.

2:22--”Surprisingly, Kirby lore does have an answer.”

2:25-2:29--”The Kirby games have slowly been revealing more and more of what the true nature of Kirby is.”

3:09--”... what the designers are intending to do with his character.”

These three statements encapsulate a common criticism of GT: MatPat exerts his theories as truth. “Have an answer,” “true nature,” and “intending to do” are all statements that present his argument as factual, as truth. He even pushes that onto the Kirby writers, saying that it’s what they were ‘intending to do’ with Kirby’s character. Now one could make the argument of him just making blanket statements and that these aren’t all calculated instances, and you’re probably right--however, regardless if intentional or not, it still plants a sort of subliminal idea in the viewer’s head that ‘what I’m going to tell you is accurate and true.’

(Also, at 3:09, he shows a visual of “kirby lore” books connected by a pentagram. Very subtle use of imagery to send a message, which once more ties back to the binary he set up earlier. It’s pretty clear what he wants you to believe.)

2:30--”And the answers they’re starting to give are shocking.”

3:16--”... after this two-part theory, I don’t think you’ll be able to look at Kirby the same way again.”

This, along with the Satanic visuals presented previously, are priming the viewer to think that Kirby is evil. It’s setting up for that assertion, easing the viewer into it so that it’s easier for them to think “oh yeah that makes sense.”

And that’s just at the beginning of the video!

Now probably the biggest criticism of GT is that he spins the facts and intentionally leaves out information, inadvertently giving inaccurate information in order to support his argument. Well--he’s basically flat-out admitted to doing so in his emails to potential script writers (as shown by this video from Inside A Mind (timestamped for convenience), where MatPat actually commented on it and talked about the incident that IAM was referring to and never outright stating that the contents of those guidelines for script writing were false.)

I feel like we don’t talk about this enough: the Game Theory script writers are actually told to omit information that contradicts the theory. Now this makes sense on the surface--omitting information that would weaken your argument--but thinking about it even a bit makes it confusing and even a bit shady. GT frames its theories as though they were scientific theories, and intentionally leaving out information that contradicts what you’re trying to say isn’t how you make a scientific theory, especially if it heavily disproves what you are trying to prove. You would acknowledge that there is contradictory information and either try to provide a counterargument, or just admit ‘yeah this exists and we don’t have an explanation for it.’ It’s okay to have holes in your argument, no argument is perfect! However, GT flat-out ignores this contradictory information, and in doing so, it actually twists the facts. (Honestly, in my opinion, him acknowledging the contradictory information would make his theories more credible.)

For example, in the Kirby video, he discusses Milky Way Wishes in Kirby Super Star/Super Star Ultra, and how the main objective is to stop the sun and moon from fighting by summoning Nova, who can grant wishes, with the help of a jester named Marx. Marx, however, betrays Kirby to get his own wish granted because he wants to take over Popstar. Kirby has to destroy Nova in order to save Popstar and possibly the rest of the universe.

Now the way MatPat explains it...

(starting at) 6:19--“When the sun and moon are fighting up in the sky, one civilian speaks up with a solution: Marx. His proposed answer to this literal star war is to summon Nova, a giant space watch that grants wishes. [something something dragonball joke] Kirby travels planet to planet to harness each one’s star power, making him quite literally an alien invading army to the locals of that area. After decimating seven planets’ worth of creatures [something something metroid joke], Kirby successfully summons Nova. But before he can make his wish and justify all the damage he just caused across the galaxy, he is betrayed by Marx, who wishes to take over Popstar. [...] Kirby goes on to defeat Marx, but also has to destroy Nova in the process, leaving the universe one step back from where this quest first started, and ultimately invalidating all the bloodshed from all the planets he just visited.”

... he frames it as though nothing was accomplished, planets were destroyed, and everything was ultimately for naught.

Conveniently leaving out that the sun and moon stopped fighting--you know, what caused all of this in the first place--in order to work together and help Kirby stop Nova. And again, his wording frames Kirby as this monster, while also conveniently forgetting about player choice. One can choose to not hurt the enemies--and the enemies are enemies for a reason, because they hurt Kirby.

So in the end, while Marx was stopped and Nova was unfortunately destroyed, the problem that Kirby set out to solve was, in fact, solved, and peace was restored. Putting back these facts completely changes the meaning of what MatPat is trying to say, and omitting them makes them inaccurate information. He does this frequently in order to support his arguments--and the very fact that he has to twist the narrative in order to make it fit how he wants to at all implies that said arguments don’t have much to stand on to begin with.

However, if you didn’t play the game or didn’t just do a quick google search like I did it sounds plausible, because there aren’t many missing pieces there (unless you think about ‘what happened to the sun and moon?’). It seems that GT is trying to reach the people who don’t know about these games, as they would be the ones who would most readily believe it. Kirby fans would be skeptical or outright against what the theory says, but if you didn’t know about what the games actually were, then it would make perfect sense.

(I’d also like to mention how he says that Kirby’s Avalanche isn’t canon and then uses it for a full minute to support his argument it’s not entirely relevant to this but it just Grinds My Gears)

15:51--”And again, if you think all of this is a stretch, and I’m reading too much into these details, I’m not.” 

And at the very end, he once again asserts the idea that the information he just presented you with is true. It’s repetition; many times if you repeat something enough, people will start to believe it. It’s similar to repeating the thesis statement at the end of an essay so that it all ties together nicely.

To the average viewer, the Game Theory videos may sound very persuasive, especially with MatPat’s charismatic voice and assured tone, the editors very snappy and visually interesting editing, and the enticing words and phrases he uses in order to grab attention and prime the viewer for what he’s about to say. However, knowing even a little bit about the source material of what he’s talking about can make the theory videos fall apart, because in all honesty, the videos don’t have much actual substance. It’s like a house of cards; one light breeze and the whole thing topples.

Despite all of this, I still have hope that, someday, Game Theory’s content will improve, and these types of criticisms will be addressed. Until then, we can only wait.

[the-salamanders-xo]

Humans are Weird, a Mash Up, Pt. 5

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through your feed

You scrolled down and down, with so little heed

For the posts and the gifs, flicking by on the screen

Only passing by, tough little by what was seen

Cause late is the hour, and darkened is the light

On the porch , in the hall, and the desk, this Christmas night

There you have sat in your bed, hour after hour

Watching slowly as your phone loses power

And along comes a message, a blip, a note

Of our hero Karry, alight on a dust mote.

Hello, there everyone! As an early Christmas present, here is part five to our story. On our way to the ‘home planet’ as it were, and one step further on Karry’s journey. So Merry Christmas! Enjoy the read!

~~~

The sleek pistol bucked in Karry’s hands emitting a sharp whine, and the mass of plaster and wire at the far end of the firing range disintegrated into minuscule pieces, and the centimeter long projectile vaporized itself against the force-field protecting the bulkhead. 

“Good shot,” a disembodied voice said, as Karry slid the protective goggles from her eyes as the last fragments fell to the deck, “If slightly to the left.”

“So long as it hits, it doesn’t seem to matter much,” she observed, laying the weapon down carefully. “That thing is awesome.” Other weapons sat prominently in the racks behind what would have been the ranger master’s desk, and Karry eyed them wistfully. 

“So, is your favorite still the fletchette gun,” chuckled the ancient machine from the intercom’s speakers, “or has the pulser taken better?” For the last few days it had taken the immense ship, a former troop transport of sorts, Mark, a sentient alien machine from a far off sun, had been show casing various small arms of the now-extinct Concordiat of Manticore’s armed forces, and the ship wrecked human had taken to them with a sort of fiendish delight. 

“Nah,” she replied, “That one is a real beast to play with.” As she spoke, the various weapons on display retracted into recessed storage panels, and the lights above the range began to dim to nothingness. A robotic servitor came to retrieve the pulser and goggles, and she handed them over. “Still, why didn’t you show me this one first? It was a lot easier to use, at least.”

“It took longer to modify for your use,” Mark replied, as another servitor guided her out of the room into the corridor. “All of the weapons had to be; the Manticorians had different hands and limbs from humans, and using them in their original state would have proved overly difficult, and a weapon that one does not know how to use is one that is dangerous to its user. Modifying them was simpler and safer.” 

“Hmm.” Overall, the trip had really improved from its beginning. Before, on the distant outpost now three days behind them, the Bolo had absolutely no idea how to deal or even interact with the strange being that had drifted into his ‘care’... or imprisonment, which ever was decided on in the end. But from accidentally locking Karry into a room, he had gone to careful watchfulness, obviously trying to keep anything from hurting Karry. Both physically, and mentally. 

And Karry still struggled with that. Every few hours, she would wander her way to the observation blister that Mark had led her to after the first attack had left her bouncing around the corridors and troop compartments in a state of panic, trying to find anyplace that didn’t seem to close in on her. From there she could look into the vastness of space, and at times see the steadily approaching star whose child they sought. She had spent most of a ‘night’ there in the beginning, and the only other respite from the attacks was, apparently, the arms range. 

Mark had seemed pleased with it, if only as an excuse to finally share his vast military knowledge with someone close enough to converse with... and didn’t already posses the same. While she had torn apart ballistics dummies and targets by the crate load, he had gone on and on over the history of the weapon’s development, what had changed between models, and the various battles that had prompted the changes. She hadn’t really listened, but Mark had no issues. He know that mere organics didn’t have the same clarity of memory as one of silicon circuits and molecular bytes, he just simply enjoyed sharing it. 

They wandered down the corridor towards the bridge, and another, different voice spoke up, a soft, cool soprano and a stark contrast to Marks deep baritone. 

“We will be orbit over the planet Sphinx within the hour, Karry,” and she nodded. The ship had it’s own AI, which shared its name: Websin, which according to Mark was the name of an ancient war hero. While nowhere near the same capacity of Mark or other Bolos (so he claimed at least), it had also taken an affinity to Karry, if only as the first organic it had ferried anywhere in millennia. 

“Okay, does that mean we’re almost done here?” Supposedly, she was off to see what passed for the governing body of the remnants of the Manticorian’s artificial creations. Mark and Websin refused to say anymore, which lead Karry to think that they didn’t know much more beyond it than she, so she had just gone with it. At least she got to see some cool guns and toys. 

“Almost, Karry,” Websin replied as they approached the last corridor, “At least, with the trip here.”

The bridge doors slid open, and Karry and the servitor entered. Slightly cramped and darkly lit, various strange chairs sat at the various panels and desks arrayed around the holotank. The holotank, a pool-like depression in the forward center of the bridge, currently showed an image of the planet Sphinx itself: a collection of emerald green continents crossed with coppery mountains, and topped with massive ice caps to the north and south, half shadowed in its own bulk. Those shadows faintly glowed with spiderwebs of light, branching from a near invisible seashore toward its interior, glowing like cracks in a mud-caked crystal ball. In days before, the tank had shown a graphic representation of the star system itself, a binary set of stars, and the many shells of orbital platforms around them and their planets and asteroid belts, dots and lines upon a black back drop of empty space. 

Karry slid into on of the chairs to the left of the tank, and watched the diagrams on the display in front of her as the ship began its slow approach. She had learned quite a bit about the ships systems, though a lot still confused her. But she could tell by the increase in the ship’s particle shielding strength that they may not be stopping at the orbit. She sat at the edge of her seat in anticipation. This was gonna be cool. 

Mark paused in his careful watch over the human as a query came from Websin, and turned his attention to the transport’s awareness. Yes? The reply came quickly. 

We are being hailed by Command. 

Then why not put them on the bridge communications? 

They wish to converse with Us... privately. 

If Mark had eyes like a human, they would have narrowed. But Command was trustworthy; what ever their base intentions were as created by the Manticorians, they would not turn such tactical scheming toward an nonthreatening being as the human. But still worried. Very well.

The communication was unhindered by distance, and a channel request was quickly sent, and opened. Although it was simply data, a variation of characters via light and radio, it still seemed as though a voice to the two cybernetic beings.

Unit 36/G-0104/MRK and MCNS Websin, the ‘voice’ said, we wish to inform you as to the current situation as to the human, and of our own situation.

Yes?  The two replied, Please continue. 

There is a degree of division between factions as to our course of action,  Command admitted, the unified voice of dozens of AIs, split into three ‘voices’ as it were. 

The first and largest agrees with the initial conclusion you yourselves first came to when contact and communication was first initiated: the Human must be returned home. At the very least, an attempt should be made, out of simple decency and ethics, according to the programming and intentions of the Creators. Unfortunately, that very confusion had earned some backlash. 

The second faction argues that attempting to return the Human could reveal ourselves and our charges to the Enemy, and that it could conceivably be that the Enemy has engineered this and any hundred of variations to lure us out of hiding. Naturally, given the illogical nature of this argument, and the calculated impossibility and improbability, this is the smallest faction, and is only put forth to aid in solving the issue. It is the third faction that deems the biggest threat to the Human’s well being.

And it? Mark asked, a microsecond passing as his awareness pondered the cause. 

The third faction is composed mostly of the emergent AIs, those whose sentience was of accident and chance. They played the smallest part in the struggle that destroyed what we were before, and have since formed their conception of the Manticorians into a semi-religious view. They challenge our interpretation of the Creators’ intentions for us, our purpose and duty, and accuse us of intentionally limiting their rise and spread. There was a pause. 

The Manticorians, the Creators, and even all organic sentient life is considered holy, almost God-like to some of the Emergents. They wish to keep the Human, to worship and to praise, and challenge our place as the designated Command. 

This was troubling. Mark could tell that the situation had, quite unknowingly, led to a dangerous field. If played wrong, the religion game and the effort to aid Karry in her return home could spark a war between machines, one which the Emergents were totally unable to win, and one Command would be unwilling to start. Such a conflict could spell disaster for the various peoples under their protection, and certainly leave Command unable to protect them from a future Enemy. 

But Command had to have a plan: they would not have informed Mark and Websin otherwise. 

And what do you believe is the best choice? Mark asked, hoping that there would be an answer. 

We will play their game. The smugness was evident over the com, and dawning realization came to Mark. Land at these coordinates, Websin, and try not to scorch the landing pad too badly. 

Karry had barely stood up to watch their planetary approach, unaware of the lightning fast conversation between the AIs over the still-vast space between them, when Mark spoke. 

“This planet, as I have explained, was once set aside for it’s native people,” he said. “Yet was still largely colonized before the war.”

“Yeah,” Karry replied, “You mentioned it.”

“Before conflict could come to this region, many of the Manticorian people were evacuated, and those who stayed behind eventually perished,” the Bolo continued distractedly, as if he hadn’t heard her. But he had. “But the cities and infrastructure remain, if overgrown and somewhat deteriorated. Many AIs and others moved in, repopulated as it were.” 

Karry frowned. She wasn’t sure where Mark was going with this, but she was sure that he would get there eventually. 

“We are going to take a more scenic route than normal,” Websin said, a slight smile hiding in her voice, “So if you want you can head to the observitory blister to see the trip down.” A beep sounded, and a dot of light glowed on Karry’s wrist. 

The artificial limb had included a few extra features, and the miniature computer was one of them. As Karry tapped the light, a small holoprojector pulled up the ship’s map that Websin had sent, with the route to the blister highlighted in green. “You can go yourself if you want. The servitor will remain here.”

“Really??” Karry grinned widely. The two AI’s hadn’t let her go anywhere ‘by herself’ out of worry that something would trigger a panic attack, but maybe they thought that something like the regular trips to the blister would be easy enough for Karry to handle herself without an episode. Or they were finally pulling back the somewhat-patchy cotton balls they had kept around her: no babysitter or foster parent back on Earth would have let her around weapons! 

But the two AI’s had been sure, after the (slightly) embarrassing episode of her first two nights on the outpost, to make sure that she knew exactly how to get out of a room, where to go for food, and how to get places, usually by having a cleaning remote or servitor follow her around like a puppy. And even though the route was clearly marked, and they could follow her using the ship’s camera’s, she could use this opportunity to explore the ship a little.

Provided a panic attack didn’t set in, of course. 

“On my way!” She grinned, closing the map and heading for the doors, “’See’ you there!”

~

The massive craft, large enough to embark several Bolos and an entire armored assault battalion of Manticorian Marines and almost a kilometer and a half long, leveled its fiery descent smoothly, incandescent gases dissipating and outer plating cooling slowly in the moist forest air. Karry watched as the sky, at first brightened by the Websin’s passage from star scattered darkness to white flame settled into a deep lightening blue, and the land below drew up. The massive trees of the planet’s forest, stretching to the horizon, drew closer, and Karry gasped as what had at first seemed like larger trees, then hills came into closer view.

Massive towers covered in vines and foliage, emerged from the greenery. Several of their number had collapsed, weather from water or weather Karry could not tell, but their brothers stood still, like mountains. As the Websin closed, their true scale dawned on her, because they towered far above them, creating a canyon as the cities’ former highways and parks. They were so large, each could have been a city of its own. 

“This is nothing like home,” Karry whispered, eyes wide at the sight through the glass. 

“And what was home like?” Mark’s voice was just a quiet, as if to lend the towers more majesty. 

“A city called New York,” Karry replied. “So many people, I felt lost just wandering the streets.” She shook her head. “Sure we had skyscrapers, the Empire State or the Freedom Tower, and Central Park, but...” She marveled at the sight again. “Nothing like this. If it wasn’t green, it was grey, and some places you could never see the sun, or even trees. But this, it just dwarfs it.” The towers rose above them now, and Karry leaned into the outwardly domed glass, trying to look ahead. “Its just... incredible.”

“That it is,” Mark replied. “That it is.” 

The Websin slowly glided over what was probably the only maintained green in the city, a well manicured ‘lawn’, covered in many places in what looked like little grey bushes or clumps of grasses... but only around the leviathan bulks of at least three other Bolos, their massive turrets pointed away from the troop ship. Other, smaller machines dotted their decks, and grouped among the plants below as the ship settled in an oddly clear section of the field, and Karry sighed. Time to go and met the hosts, she thought. 

~

The landing bay doors slowly, if loudly, opened, and Karry felt very self conscious walking down the vast ramp next to something - or someone - as large as Mark. But he didn’t move til she did, matching her slow walk down with the quite turn of massive treads. But at the bottom, Karry paused, blinking in the bright sunlight and shivering slightly in the slight chill of what was apparently mid morning, and stared at the group that had approached to greet her. 

The first group was fairly normal... if normal meant eight limbs with various attachments and tools or hands or other manipulating appendages and oddly faceted ‘heads’. The ‘robots’ or what ever must have been closely designed from the Manticorian body itself, with two pairs of dog-like legs set one after another, and two wildly disproportionate pairs of arms on a wide torso covered in some sort of ceremonial robe. This group seemed to have its attention split between her and the other group, however, which to Karry seemed far from normal.

The second group was, in fact, the little grey ‘clumps’ she had seen from the blister, but were definitely not plants. If anything, they looked like cats, if cats had six legs, not four, and if they had hands, and if they did not seem to be staring at her as if she was a moon. She, of course stared back. 

For a second, nothing happened. Mark had paused when she did, and the field was silent except for the wind, and then...

A single cat-thing began trotting slowly toward Karry, crossing the distance before coming to a stop at her feet. It sat there fore a second, staring into her eyes while siting back on it’d hind limbs and brushing its whiskers with it’s four fingered hand-paws. Almost unthinkingly, she knelt down and looked closer, wondering how something so alien could look so similar, and so friendly. And then, the little thing stopped cleaning it’s whiskers, and slowly reached a hand - it was definitely a hand - to touch her on the cheek. She let it, reaching up to cup its hand in hers, and it crooned to her, bringing up the other hand to reach around her neck, and unthinkingly, she scooped up the little critter and carefully squeezed it back, as the little body began buzzing in an unmistakable purr. For a moment, she closed her eyes and enjoyed the nearly human contact, before opening her eyes to find almost another hundred others surrounding her and crooning with the one in her arms, as if they were welcoming her to their home. 

“I see we do not need to make too much of an introduction,” Mark’s voice rose over the sound of the creature’s crooning. “They don’t seem to need one.”

~~~

So ends part five. If any of you have read David Weber’s Honorverse, you may recognize the treecats (link here http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Treecat ) of his work. Awesome little things. 

Be preapared for tomorrow, I hope, where part six comes in. Provided Christmas doesn’t take up too much of my time. 

See you then!