#actually super wild of that guy to randomly show up and then i was hook line and sinker...

[socksandbuttons]

Hi!! this is the same anon that bought you the check marks :D just a question, do you have a character that you hated at first but then they started and grow on you and now you love them ? :]

HI I SAW!!! i didnt realize tumblr also sent that in asks fdjdk BUT THANK YOU! im certified now (for what i dont know but im here!) I did answer something like this before a while back.

Alright so HATE is a strong word but ill see if recall- Earth was such on the fence for a bit when she first appeared (i really didnt want the Lunar and Earth show BUT LOOK AT ME NOW. i love it. theyre silly) and now I love her very much ill fight for that woman. look at her GOOO Uh who else. i feel like eclipse maybe, i was on the 'wow what a terrible brother' cause lunar is why i stayed to watch the show since the FIRST october. anyway i dont quite recall my thought process on him at first just 'ah compelling'. I dont think I hated bloodmoon, just indifferent for a while and understood peoples love, KC buddy- i think was like 'BRUH???' but i dont think i hated him. the moment the dad thing happened i was EYEING so much and then he just kinda wasnt in the story much... Sad. SAD. anyway. This is about hate. or suppose to be. I genuinely dont know who i wouldve been hating on. Other than Earth before she showed up. And then she showed up and i was like 'nevermind come back'. IM THINKING VERY HARD RN because im like

Does Fresh Sans Count?? I dont recall hating him but i wasnt interested until i had a dream and then i was like '...Well damn'.

[noir0neko]

satan on the strip | m

“But parties of two are my favorite.”

rating: very mature

paring: jungkook x reader

includes: lots of sexual tension, also sex, praise!kink, pet names, magic, drinking, other nefarious behavior, a lot of sexual thoughts, maybe some biting and maybe some air play and begging and cursing and just,,, it��s mature content folks, proceed with caution 

word count: 3.5k

a/n: Hi!!! It has been a hOT minute since I was here. I was just toasting some bagels this morning when this idea popped into my head and I knew I had to write it. Shoutout to bagels for giving me inspo, even though bagels are not in this fic in any way. If you would like to read along to what I was listening to when I wrote, here is the little playlist: “Miracle” by CHVRCHES. “Love on the Brain” by Rihanna, “Hypnotic” by Zella Day and “Locked Out of Heaven” by Bruno Mars. ENJOY! I am super happy to post something again! 

“Come on!” Your friends try to flag you over to the dance floor from your very comfortable seat at the bar. You hold up your drink as an excuse and take a sip, letting the bitter liquid burn a path down your throat. They scoff and give you a dirty look, but continue dancing, throwing themselves around wildly to the music. 

It’s the night of one of your best friend’s bachelorette parties, and of course, she wanted to have it in Las Vegas. And also of course, your ex boyfriend is the best man for her soon to be husband. And triple of course, they decided to crash the bachelorette party and you have now been watching another random girl grind on your ex for the past twenty minutes.

You take another drink, sighing heavily before turning back around to the bar. 

“Long night already?” A voice says from behind you, deep and low. 

You swing your head to the side, getting an eyeful of the very tall and very handsome man who has taken a seat at the bar. His hair is dark and straight, waving lightly over his forehead. His skin is pale, clear, and smooth, with eyes so bottomless and deep they almost look black. He is wearing a gray v-neck shirt with dark wash jeans that have rips in the knees, exposing more of his pale skin and you can’t help but notice he has bright red shoes on. 

“I guess,” You shrug, taking another sip of your drink and moving it to the other side of your body. Just to be safe. 

“I’ll take that it's going to be an even longer one, if your friends are all of the bachelorette girls.” He smiles with his straight teeth and full mouth. “Unless you just wanted to match with a bunch of random strangers for no reason.” 

You sigh again, fingering the stupid sparkly sash around your dress with an absent finger. Your friends had insisted on wearing little black dresses and pairing them with ridiculously bright and glittering sashes that say different things. Luckily, yours is one of the more tame sayings, with “Wild Princess” printed on it in big cursive letters. You feel anything but wild. All you want to do is leave and crawl into bed with a book and sleep. Or maybe cry and try not to replay the image of your ex dancing with another girl and not giving a damn about you over and over again. 

“I wish I was randomly matching,” You take another drink. “Sometimes a party of one is better than anything else.” 

The mysterious stranger gives you a mischievous smile. “Parties of one are great. But parties of two are my favorite. Anything above that is just a crowd.” 

You laugh despite myself, nodding along in agreement. Deciding to not sit and wallow all night, you place your hand in the space between you and introduce yourself. He takes your hand and electric currents run up your arms, pushing a shiver down your spine. 

“I’m Jungkook.” He says, smiling again. 

With his arm out, you can see the beginning of a tattoo curling around his bicep and under the sleeve of his shirt. Your eyes follow it, trying to decipher its long, coiling shape before he pulls back. His eyes seem alive and glowing, their almond shape crinkling in the corners as he looks at you. 

You clear your throat. “What brings you here?” 

“Oh you know,” he says vaguely, gesturing for the bartender. “Work.” 

“This hardly seems like work,” you quirk an eyebrow. 

“Semantics,” Jungkook chuckles. “I am in the entertainment business.” 

He orders his drink, a clean bourbon, and then turns back to you, a secretive smile on his face. It’s like he can sense what you are going to say before it comes out of your mouth. “Movies?” You can totally imagine him in an action film. 

He shakes his head. 

“Television?” You guess. 

He shakes his head again, thanking the bartender as he slides a drink along the counter. 

“Music?” You try again. 

“You’re getting warmer,” he leans in closer and you can smell the alcohol and musky scent of him. It’s almost more intoxicating than your drink. “Magic.” 

“Magic?” You repeat, stupefied. 

“Yes,” he sits back and your head clears. “Magic.” 

“Like rabbits out of hats and throwing knives at spinning people?” 

He seems to think for a second, as if actually considering your joke as a statement. “A bit more sophisticated than that, but yes. That’s the idea.” 

You narrow your eyes at him, turning to face your body towards his. “Show me.” 

“I don’t think you’re ready for the kind of magic I have, Princess.” He says slyly, eyes dipping to your sash again. You scoff, taking the sash off and placing it on the bar. His grin grows and he leans back into you. 

You swear you can feel electricity sizzling in the space between you two, desperate to follow the high he’s bringing. “Show me,” you say again, a challenge in your voice. 

“Alright,” his voice is so low you don’t know how you can hear him over the deafening music and yelling, but it’s as if there is no one else but you and him. “All of your friends are now wishing that they were in your place, when they were making fun of you for sitting here before. You wish you didn’t have to be here, but you are a supportive friend and know how much it would hurt if you left early. Your boyfriend over there is thinking about punching me and wants to know who I am and why you stopped being jealous to pay attention to me.” 

You  blanch, trying to discreetly look to the side to see the dance floor. You can see all of your friends out there, stealing glances your way in between steps and body rolls. You can see two of them giggling and whispering, wagging their eyebrows at you as they catch your glance. Then you see your ex, no longer with the woman from before, but making his way over from across the floor, his jaw set and eyes blazing. 

His angry face. 

Your stomach flips, but there is some smug satisfaction in his reaction as you turn back to Jungkook. He seems completely unaffected by your oncoming ex, but is staring directly at you. You think his eyes could burn you from the inside out if you let them. 

“What do you want to do?” He asks, his word ricocheting deep inside of you. 

“I want to leave,” you say, the words leaving your mouth before your brain can catch up. “Can we go?” 

“Of course we can, Princess.” Jungkook smiles, standing up and offering you his arm. 

You gather your things and join him, careful to not meet any of your friend’s eyes as you let Jungkook walk you towards the door. Hadn’t they been pushing you to hook up all weekend? Hadn’t they been throwing you at guys and giving guys your number since the party started? And even more because of the presence of your ex? 

The thought of him makes you grin and you look back to find him staring after you, clenching and unclenching his fists in agitation. Your smile widens and you can’t help but wave at him as you leave. Fuck him. 

You see your friends waving and jumping up and down excitedly, practically bouncing with happiness at the new development in your boring life. Jungkook’s arm is warm and hard around yours, static and heat pooling in the best parts of you. Close up, you can see the black lines and dots of his tattoo, but still can’t make out what it is. Your brain begins to question what you’re doing. This man is a complete stranger. And you’re in Las Vegas walking out of a bar with him. Every single horror film and terrible thing to happen to a woman always starts out this way. You start to rethink your choice, opening your mouth to tell him you’re going back. 

“Spend an hour with me,” Jungkook says, snagging your attention and the words from your lips. The night air is hot still, the street loud and bustling with people walking to and fro. 

“What?” You furrow your eyebrows. 

“One hour,” he repeats. “Spend one hour with me. If you want to go back after that, I’ll bring you.” 

“One hour?” You sound like a broken record. 

One hour. What can happen in one hour in one of the most crowded places in the United States? You both can just walk around, maybe get some food. One hour only has sixty minutes, after all and on the strip, that time would go by impossibly fast. Not to mention, the last thing you realistically want to do is walk the strip alone or go back into the bar without Jungkook and with your tail between your legs. You know your ex would have a field day and your friends would be so pitiful. Maybe it is about time to get wild. 

“One hour.” You say definitively. A statement this time. 

Jungkook leans in and you smell him again, musky and hot. “Then, I am determined to make it the best hour of your life.” 

His words bring fierce shivers down your spine. What have you gotten yourself into? 

Before you know it, your predictions seem to come true. A half hour passes without notice as you and Jungkook walk in and out of hotels, restaurants and bars. Jungkook asks you about your life, your hobbies, and does little magic tricks for you along the way. Pulling pennies from behind your ears and predicting cards before the dealer draws them. You’re laughing and smiling and living and noticing how beautiful he is when he smiles. How dark his eyes are and how you want to stare into them forever. How perfectly his eyebrows frame his face and how his cheekbones and jaw make him seem carved out of marble. 

“Have you ever thought about playing?” You ask him after you exit Caesar’s Palace. He had correctly guessed every single card before it was shown on the table and helped one of the players win big. Although it has to be well after 2 in the morning, the night is bustling and alive. Dancers are on the sidewalks in big feathers and bikini costumes, people dressed as Disney characters and superheroes are posing for pictures, and tourists are drinking and laughing and mingling with one another. 

“No,” Jungkook laughs, secrets in the sound. “I don’t need money.”  

“Doesn’t everyone need money?” 

Jungkook looks at you, tilting his head to the side. “There are things money can’t buy.” 

“Like what?” You ask. 

“Purity,” Jungkook responds. And the answer is so weird you stop walking. 

“Purity?” You put your hands on your hips, half mocking him. “Like chastity?” 

Jungkook moves close to you, looking down at you with those deep and confusing eyes. Your lips are part of their own volition. You want to kiss him. You want to do a lot more than kiss him. 

“Not chastity,” Jungkook looks wistful. Almost sad. “Heaven. The purity of it. When you fall, you can’t buy your way back in.”

Heaven. You think to yourself, looking at this man who seems to be a fallen angel himself. Beautiful and dark and full of magic, real or not, that pulls something buried deep inside of you and brings it to the surface. You hate how sad he looks, how regretful and reproachful. You want to ease his pain, you want to give him a slice of Heaven, a slice of the world, to see him smile and his eyes crinkle again.

And hell, if you don’t want to give yourself a piece of Heaven, of him, as well. 

Without thinking, you pull him into an alley between hotels. The night is hot and starless, the smell of sweat and alcohol and lowered inhibitions in the air. You don’t feel fully in control of your body, letting instinct guide you and Jungkook into the dark narrow street. 

“Time is almost up,” Jungkook reminds you. 

You growl in response, not even sure you know how to make such a sound. Not sure where this all consuming emotion has come from. “I don’t care.” 

Reaching out for him, you slam your bodies together and crash your lips onto his. You fit together perfectly, like two pieces of a long lost puzzle you didn't even know you’d been trying to solve. You push Jungkook’s hair back, catching a glimpse of small stud earrings in his ear. The jewelry is extremely sexy and you feel even more eager than you did before to feel him. 

Taking more control, Jungkook pushes you back until you hit one of the walls. You can hear the laughter and sounds of people around you on either side of the alley, walking up and down the strip and drinking. It would be so easy for someone to look in and see you both, obviously involved in much more than an innocent kiss. 

He touches you and you feel like you might break a part into a million little pieces. His touch is shocking, little fires trailing behind his fingers as they roam down the bare skin of your arms. Your back arches into the stone behind your head, a moan ripping from your throat when his fingers graze the skin of your neck. Jungkook is watching you with a feral gaze, licking his lips before leaning in to run his lips and teeth over your throat. You grip the front of his shirt, desperate to feel more. To feel everything. 

Jungkook crowds you closer to the wall, aligning his body to press against yours. You can feel the rises and plains of his muscle and frame through your thin dress. Your breasts peak with anticipation, a tingling sensation building low in your stomach. Jungkook hooks his hands around your thighs, the feeling of his bare skin on yours eliciting a string of curse words from your mouth. You’re ready to beg him to touch you where you need it. 

Luckily you don’t have to. 

Once he has you firmly against the wall, with your legs hooked around his midsection, he curves his arm around your leg and lets his fingers graze you. There is nothing blocking his touch and the contact and slickness of you seems to shock him. 

“No underwear?” He nearly growls.

“It’s a matching thing,” you all but pant. 

“It’s a naughty thing, Princess.” Jungkook responds, pressing his thumb directly into you. “How could I not tell before?” 

You ignore his statement, aware that you’re unable to question anything he does right now. His thumb begins to move and you moan, burying your head in the crook of his neck to muffle the sound. Jungkook’s other hand weaves through your hair, pulling you back against the wall so the sounds you emit echo against the narrow alley walls. 

“I want to hear you,” he commands. 

“But the people,” you begin to protest, knowing that even you don’t care. 

“They can’t hear or see us,” he responds, a grin carving a wicked look to his features. “Like I told you: magic.” 

Without warning, Jungkook slides two fingers into you, dragging the longest and deepest sound from your throat. Your hips are trying to move, begging for more friction, but he won’t give it to you. He has his body flush against yours on the wall. In complete control. You fucking love it. 

His hair curls with sweat, the strands sticking to his forehead. The moisture seems to make him sparkle and glow. Like an angel on Earth. Maybe a fallen angel. He curls his fingers and strokes you, your walls clenching around his fingers with delicious pleasure. 

“Shit,” he curses, sliding his fingers out. “I need to be in you. Now.” 

You whine in agreement, the intensity in his words making your toes curl. Jungkook reaches in between your bodies to undo his belt, long and nimble fingers making quick work on the clasp. You want him to do wicked and horrible things with those fingers, and that belt. You want him to tie you down and make you beg for every lick of pleasure he could give you. Wild desperation begins to build in you. You could cum just from watching him. Just from seeing that pink tongue of his lick across his lips. 

“Jungkook,” you groan, watching him pull his cock out. 

The rational part of your brain is aware that you are both in public, with hundreds of people walking by the alley every minute. The rational part of you is aware that you can get arrested for this. That this is dangerous and irresponsible on so many levels. But the louder and reckless part of you never wants this to end. The irrational part of your brain believes him, trusts him, and trusts his magic. No one has noticed yet. Maybe luck. Maybe magic. You don’t care. 

And then he is poised at your entrance and pushing into you in one, long, thrust. Your moans are incessant, no breath between the sounds. You can feel him at the back of you, you can feel him everywhere, filling you up and intoxicating you. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he is groaning, deep and dark and raw. 

He moves again, in and out, following an untraceable rhythm that is setting you on fire. You have never felt this alive before, this electrified, everything is you is singing with approval and building with pleasure. You didn’t know sex before this, you didn’t know how good it could feel before this. How can you ever be with anyone besides him now? 

He’s going to fuck you and leave you fucked for the rest of your life. 

Jungkook claims you in a kiss, his tongue roaming your mouth. He swallows your moans and sounds with shivers. Your hands reach under his shirt and travel along the rigid muscle of his stomach and shoulders. His body seems to come alive beneath the touch, skin rippling and muscle contracting. 

You can feel his large intake of breath along your lips. You don’t think you’ve heard him sigh until now, or breathe at all for that matter. It’s like he has never taken air into his lungs before you touched him. And now you can’t stop. Your fingers are everywhere as he continues to fuck you. Wild. This is wild. 

“Don’t stop,” you beg, breaking the contact of the kiss for breath. 

Jungkook’s eyes are touching you as they roam around your face, down your neck and collarbones, over your breasts and stomach, until they settle on the point where your bodies are joined. His skin is slick with sweat. His eyes are burning with passion. The muscles of his back and taut, signaling he feels as close as you do to release. 

He reaches between you and begins to rub your clit in small circles. That’s it. You’re gone. You’ve sunk so deep, you know there’s no coming back. You splinter and break a part around him, milking his cock with tight spasms until you feel him cum, as well. You cum for what feels like forever, moaning and writhing and shaking at his touch. 

Jungkook’s teeth are grazing at your throat and he bites gently. You think you’re going to cum again, moaning and arching up to give him more access. He’s still in you, despite the cum you feel dripping around him and coating your thighs. Jungkook’s lips curve up and he pushes his teeth deeper into the base of your throat. You feel a sharp sting and then warm, hot blood is dripping down your collarbones and between your breasts. Jungkook lets out a gasp as your blood fills his mouth, swallowing the thick liquid like he’s a man dying of thirst. His eyes are glowing, his skin is glowing, and you swear the tattoo on his arm stretches itself out, like it's waking up after a long sleep. 

“You,” he says, capturing you in a long searing kiss. You can taste your own blood. You can taste your own desire, still throbbing deep and low after he’s satisfied you.  “You are my princess.” 

And then, just as quickly as you were there, you’re gone. Swallowed up by a black so endless and so deep you’re not sure you’ll ever resurface. Like realizing you’ve sunk too far in the deep end of the pool and wondering if you’ll make it out. Like falling asleep and hoping you don’t wake up. And consciously, dangerously, eerily, like the color of his eyes.  

You’ve met Satan on the strip. 

And your hour is now eternity. 

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

~Admin Eggplant

[theonethatwatchesalotofshows]

Ranking every teen drama I've watched

I have gotten really into teen dramas lately, because it's quarantine I can't go out and have fun, but I can still watch other people my age going out and having fun and doing things I don't get to do. Anyway I haven't seen all teen dramas, I was never interested in supernatural ones, so you won't find Vampire Diaries and similar shows on this list.

From worst to best:

The Secret Life of the American Teenager

I will never understand how this show ran for five seasons. It will forever remain a mystery to me. This show is so bad it's good. The writing resembles a wattpad story, Amy's pregnancy is inconsistent (like how was she five months pregnant for like five or six episodes, aren't the episodes supposed to be set a week apart?), the acting is bad (that is not to say that Molly Ringwald or Shailene Woodley are bad actresses, obviously they're not, I'm talking about Amy's sister that has the same facial expression no matter what her mood is supposed to be), some of the views this show expresses are very old-fashioned and damaging (the madonna-whore binary, the fact that they can't even utter the word abortion) and every single male character on this show is a creep and a cheater. I can't believe I watched like thirteen episodes of this. I will never get that time back.

Weirdest moment: "I'm a whore!" "Well, you're my whore." (Was this supposed to be romantic??)

Best moment: none

Glee

This is going to be unpopular and don't get me wrong, I like Glee, but I feel like the writers put much more thought into the musical numbers than the storylines. Again, Quinn's pregnancy is inconsistent (but I'm starting to think TV shows are always inconsistent about pregnancies), the characters don't look like they're in high school at all, the cheerleaders wear their uniforms 24/7 for no reason (Quinn even wore it to her sonogram, like seriously?) the whole celibacy club thing is weird and Mr Schue is a terrible teacher. However, the visuals and the musical numbers are great, Sue Sylvester is iconic (albeit also a terrible teacher) and some of the scenes are really emotional (Kurt singing I Wanna Hold Your Hand made my sister cry) so overall, it's pretty good.

Weirdest moment: Finn praying to grilled cheese (what??)

Best moment: Quinn giving birth to Bohemian Rhapsody, Kurt singing I Wanna Hold Your Hand

Dawson's Creek

I LOVE their 90s' outfits and Joey and Pacey are really otp material, but I just can't stand Dawson! He got mad that Joey didn't tell him about his mother's affair, as if it was her place to get involved. She was 15! It's understandible she didn't want to get tangled into that mess. He also slut-shamed Jen in a really gross way. He literally stopped talking to her for a day when he found out she isn't a virgin. Why are both Joey and Jen into this guy?? This would've been a much better show if it was called Joey's Creek or Pacey's Creek.

Weirdest moment: the way Dawson's mom confessed her affair to her husband. I don't think any irl human would use this choice of words. Also that scene where Dawson's father was teaching him how to kiss while Joey was watching. Cringe.

Best moment: any time Joey and Pacey are bickering. My shipper heart!

Pretty Little Liars

I loved the book version of this, but the TV version seems way too dramatic. First of all, they romanticized Aria and Ezra's relationship (ewww) and made the whole thing seem much more overdramatic. I don't know how to explain it, I mean the books are also dramatic but the TV show somehow took it to a whole new level. None of the girls look like they're in high school, but I love the way they dress and do their makeup. It's almost as though the writers put more thought into their outfits than storylines. I still loved watching it until Netflix took it off, though.

Weirdest moment: Spencer somehow trying to block A's number from her laptop in the middle of a park and then being confused that it didn't work. Weren't you supposed to be the smart one, Spencer?

Best moment: Haleb in the shower, hiding from Hanna's mom.

Skins

This is a classic. Effy is iconic (I somehow heard about her even before watching Skins) and the musical number at the end of season 1 was out of nowhere but still somehow fit perfectly into the story. I also give this show point for being one of the few TV shows where teen characters are actually played by real life teens. They look their age, talk their age (no "I reject reality" or other cringy lines like that) and aren't unrealistically perfect like characters from American teen dramas tend to be. They look like people you might actually meet in high school. However the show loses points for all the continuity errors (are 8 episodes supposed to be the whole school year??) and the number of unneccessary death/tragic accidents. It seemed kind of over-the-top and unneccessarily dark and brutal at times.

Weirdest moment: Chris's graphic death

Best moment: Wild World

Euphoria

The Gen Z American version of Skins, but with better visuals. Much better. I loved the aesthetic, the colors, the lighting and glitter. Zendaya's a great actress and I give this show points for casting an actual trans actress in the role of Jules. However I find it weird that all guys on this show are complete irredeemable assholes (except of Jules's dad and Ethan that is). Are we supposed to just root for the girls and not the guys? Also I find it hard to believe that any of these characters are actually 16/17. They have sex all the time (yeah teenagers have sex sometimes but on this show they treated Kat as some kind of a chaste nun for being a virgin at 16) and have seemingly no rules and no curfew. It would've been much more believable if they were in college.

Weirdest moment: Nate breaking into Tyler's house, beating him up and then taking a shower. The audacity this guy has!

Best moment: "You did this to me!" and Rue having an anxiety attack on the stage in theater class

Gossip Girl

I know this is also an unpopular opinion, because many claim Gossip Girl is the best teen drama ever, but for me it just got way too soapy as the seasons went on. The first two seasons were believable, even though they didn't really look like they were in high school, but after that it was just more and more weird plot points. I will give this show points for the fashion (I mean Blair's headbands and school uniform inspired a fashion line), the acting ("I killed someone"- iconic) and the choice of background music (Nate and Serena kissing to Paparazzi, Thanksgiving with Watcha Say). Despite the wild twists and turns of events, I just had to keep watching because this show had me hooked.

Weirdest moment: Bart Bass somehow flying off the building for no reason (seriously, what he did there had no logical explanation and defied laws of physics), Dan being Gossip Girl, Bart faking his death and returning more evil than before, Serena becoming Gossip Girl, the affidavit, everyone randomly stopping going to college... there are so many but Bart takes the cake I guess

Best moment: the Thanksgiving flashbacks from season 1, Dan placing a plastic crown on Blair's head

Freaks and Geeks

This is one of the few shows where high school is depicted realistically. It's not all glitter and parties and not everyone has sex and does drugs. Okay, I admit, the bullying was over the top and it was weird how no adults cared but other than that, it was pretty spot-on. It was emotional without being too dramatic and far-fetched and also had funny moments. Yes some of the characters may have been stereotypes but at least the show seemed self-aware of that. It's truly a shame we only got 18 episodes of this show, while The Secret Life of the American Teenager somehow got five seasons??? I don't get it.

Weirdest moment: when Cindy suddenly got super mean once she started dating Sam

Best moment: Daniel showing up at Kim's doorstep, Sam breaking down in tears in the end of 'Garage Door'

Gilmore Girls

I'm not sure this one counts as a teen drama, maybe it's more of a dramedy but I'm still including it here. It's funny, the dialogue is witty and full of obscure pop-culture references and the relationships between generations complex. Same as with Freaks and Geeks, the portrayal of high school is pretty realistic. Characters are shown studying and taking tests and not just partying all the time. However the show loses points for getting weirdly soapy in the 7th season. The dialogue wasn't as good and the camera angles were soap opera like and the storylines weren't very good either. You could really tell the show changed show-runners. The earlier seasons are the best. It's hard to explain but something about them feels cozy like a warm blanket and a cup of hot chocolate on a rainy day.

Weirdest moment: Lorelai marrying Chris and then making the whole "you're the man I want to want" speech, Lorelai defending and loving Dean for no reason

Best moment: Rory's graduation speech, Rory yelling at Chris and calling him out for not having been there for her, Then She Appeared, "Yes Emily, you may go first"... there are so many!

[scurvgirl]

Uranium Fever

More Fallout AU because it’s fun! Part 1, Part 2

Backstory: it’s explained, but the Church of Atom essentially worships the nuclear bombs and radiation. They wield gamma ray guns that spew high levels of radiation. Geiger counters are used to measure radiation levels. Rad-X helps prevent radiation while Radaway gets rid of it and helps cure radiation sickness. Radroaches are exactly what they sound like, irradiated roaches, they’re about the size of a cat. 

Felasel and Darevas belong to @selenelavellan

Cirimeni belongs to @justanartsysideblog

Here are the songs used! The Wanderer, Jingle Jangle Jingle, Uranium Fever, Heartaches by the Number

Miriel has only ever seen the aftermath of the work of the Church of Atom. Usually they work in irradiated places, like junkyards where the fusion cores of cars are breaking down and leaking radiation. She’s never really seen them actively seek out something that was radiation but not attached to fusion before, but then again, worshiping atom bombs of all things doesn’t really suggest they’re really logical to begin with.

There are seven people standing before them now, all in tattered clothes and holding weapons that she’s only seen in broken heaps before. They’re an odd conglomeration of rusted metal and a round disks splayed out towards them.

“Uh, no Atom here! Just us...fleshy folk,” Miriel tries but Darevas steps in front of her quick, plastering a saccharine smile on his face.

“Fellas! Nothing to get alarmed about, we’re just here with some salvage from the hospital, no big deal, scrappers gotta scrap, amiright?” His hip is cocked and Miriel wonders if it is possible he can bullshit them all out of this.

“We can sense it, you are carrying a part of Atom with you,” the leader says and raises his gun.

“It’s not Atom!” Miriel protests, stepping out from behind Darevas, “It’s a drug, not a bomb. So that doesn’t count.”

“But it stems from Atom, without Atom there would be no drug.”

Well. She tried.

Darevas is quick on the draw and shoots at the two to his right, Felasel comes up behind Miriel and shoots at the leader while Cirimeni targets those on the left. Sandwiched between Felasel and Darevas means that Miriel can’t throw any grenades or shoot, however. So she ducks and rolls forward, coming up with a stink bomb. She tosses it at them and covers them in a sticky gas, causing coughing and sputtering.

They fire their guns randomly out, scattering Miriel, Felasel, Darevas, and Cirimeni. They run, trying to flank the group. The rays that emanate from the guns are pure radiation, making all four of their geiger counters tick wildly. Miriel pulls her bandana up over her face and her goggles down before rolling away and trying to gage where everyone is. The stink bomb created fabulous cover, but she can’t throw any more grenades without risking hitting one of her own. She takes out her rifle and runs back to flank the combatants.

The air sizzles with radiation and the electrical buzz from Felasel’s rifle. Darevas is firing rapidly at something and it’s only then that Miriel realizes that there are quite few more than just seven of the Children of Atom.

Damn fanatics. Normally the Children of Atom can be content to just be out in their little irradiated corners, but there’s always those few who are just bat-shit. Miriel fires at the ones nearest to her, two guys focused on Cirimeni who is trying to get some range on them all.

Miriel’s rifle jams. Fuck. She tackles the next fanatic that stumbles back out of the stink fog. She wrestles him to the ground and bashes his head with the butt of her gun. It’s much more unpleasant than simply shooting the man, but it gets the job done.

Cirimeni fires her gun, a resounding BANG echoes through them all and all the fire suddenly stops.

No quick shots from Darevas’s pistols or the “zzztt zzztt” from Felasel’s rifle.

“We all okay?” She calls tentatively. There’s coughing and her radio crackles in her ear. Two beeps.

“I’m good! Felasel, where you at, bro?” Darevas calls. Miriel walks to where she hears Darevas and then adjusts course to where she saw Felasel last.

“I’m fine…” he calls, but he sounds winded and a bit wheezy. Fine, right. Miriel skips to his voice, pulling out her own little first aid kit, filled with stimpacks, bandages, and there are even a couple of blood bags. Just in case.

But there are no catastrophic wounds on him, when she reaches him. He’s leaning against a building, head leaned back so he can breathe and catch up. He seems fine but...not quite.

“There you are, that was wild. Those guys really were gunning for us.” Darevas continues to ramble on. Cirimeni arrives and her eyes inspect Felasel quickly before widening. She hurries over to him and begins to examine his fingernails, and even pokes at his mouth to look at his gums. Felasel, not exactly happy to being poked and prodded, pushes her away and gives her an incredulous look.

“She’s inspecting you for signs of radiation sickness, Felasel, just...let her, she’s not going to hurt you,” Miriel says calmly. Felasel stops and deliberates for a moment before letting Cirimeni continue to gently poke at him. She lifts his top lip up to look at his gums, pulls the skin under his eye down slightly. She leans back and turns to Miriel, quickly signing.

Miriel whistles low and reaches in the bag of salvage, pulling out a Rad-X bottle.

“You’re showing classic symptoms, not really surprising considering they were firing pur radiation at you. Take two of these, it should tide you over until we get to a safe spot to hook you up to a bag of Radaway.” She hands him the pills and he grumbles but takes them anyways. He covers his stomach with his hand and grimaces.

“Let’s make that sooner rather than later.” Felasel grimaces as he pushes himself off the building. Darevas is suddenly very serious and quiet, watching his brother closely. He shifts closer to Felasel and Miriel thinks he may be offering to either carry Felasel or let him lean against Darevas as they find shelter.

Felasel refuses of course.

The sky overhead cackles and thunder rolls through. Miriel glances up and groans at the telltale orange and green tinted clouds. A fucking rad storm, just what they needed.

“Yeah, incoming rad storm. I think there is a brewery up the road where we can bunk for the night.” Miriel takes point and Cirimeni falls behind, covering them while they quickly make their way up the street to the brewery.

The city ruins are always full of sounds, ranging from the skittering of rad-roaches to building shakes from fights from the various factions that hole up in the buildings. There is a slight chance that there are raiders or super mutants in the brewery but it was quiet last time when they walked past it when she and Cirimeni were heading for the hospital.

They make it to the brewery, the thunder beginning to roll in more steadily. Miriel picks the lock on the door and ushers them all inside before sealing the door back up in the most efficient way possible - she moves a desk in front of it and puts a disguised mine under the desk.

There are a few radroaches that Darevas seems to be quite good at disposing of. He’s quick on the trigger even with his staunch refusal to leave Felasel’s side. They set up their main camp area in one of the side offices that she guesses the big boss person used to work or take naps or something. Life before the war seems so...dull and non-threatening that she doesn’t really know what to make of it.

Nonetheless, someone’s gone and put in a beat-up matress that Felasel eyes suspiciously before succumbing to his exhaustion and lies down. That and Cirimeni has a surprisingly intense glare.

He leans back against the wall, sitting on the questionable mattress while Cirimeni tinkers with setting the IV for the Radaway up. Miriel helps open up their first aid packs, pulling out some alcohol for sterilization and tape for the needle. Cirimeni finds a vein and pops the needle in, attaching the radaway bag quickly.

Felasel is quiet through the whole thing, watching them closely, his eyes red from fever. Miriel hands him some water.

“Make sure you eat, radaway can make your stomach a little queasy and it helps if you have a full stomach.”

“Joy.”

Cirimeni offers him some of their dried meat, cooked and not irradiated like the old packaged food scattering the wastes. Felasel takes the offering and begins to gnaw on the jerky.

Darevas hovers over Felasel a bit like a nervous bird. Staring at the strange tint to Felasel’s finger nails and flushed gums whenever he opens his mouth to take a bit. It’s good he cares, Miriel thinks, but it’s also just the tiniest bit odd.

“Darevas, come help me secure the building? You’d be more helpful doing that than hovering,” Miriel suggests and he glances up then back to Felasel, who nods and tells him to go. He reloads and holsters his pistols before following Miriel out into the brewery proper.

The quiet is...awkward. They’re just shuffling around, scanning the floor and the upper rafters to see if there’s anything they need to take care of. There’s none of the banter from before and she feels her shoulders twitch.

They make it to the first large metal barrel thing that she’s pretty sure the world’s forgotten the word for before she cracks.

“He’s going to be fine. Cirimeni knows how to treat it. From the looks of it, he’s far, far off from anything resembling ghoulification. He’ll be fine, just a bag of radaway, then a night’s sleep, food, and he’ll be back to normal,” she reassures and some of the tension in his shoulders ease. His blue eyes soften and he runs a hand through his hair, exhaling in relief.

“We’ve always been really careful with radiation. We had no idea that those people actually...shot radiation.”

Miriel shrugs, “The Church of Atom is weird and those fanatics were messed. And anyways, no matter how careful you are, it’s going to happen. There is just too much radiation out there for it not to happen.” She takes a chance and touches in his arm in reassurance. He glances back at her and smiles.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s a good thing we with you two when it happened.”

She blushes slightly and nods, “Yes you were.”

His smile turns into a mischievous grin, “You’re blushing.”

“I am not. This...this is an effect of radiation,” she argues, avoiding his eyes as the blush on her face intensifies. And it is not from him, not from talking or anything. She is calm and cool and collected.

“Ah, yes, radiation blush, and there is so more radiation in here, that explains why it’s getting brighter,” he teases, bumping her shoulder.

“Yes, don’t you hear the geiger counter ticking?” She spreads her arms out and backs up towards one of the large barrels. The geiger counter ticks a bit, but not enough to truly cause alarm. She steps away all the same, heading towards a different corner of the place. They’ve probably blown whatever cover they’d previously had, but she truly thinks they’re alone in here.

Except for the radroach up there.

Darevas shoots up at it and it dies quickly enough.

“Do you think the beer they made here was any good?” Darevas wonders, eyeing the great metal barrels.

Miriel grins and gestures for him to follow her, “There’s probably still some left, if you don’t mind two hundred year old beer.”

“Because that’s not full of radiation.”

“You just wash it down with some rad-x and you’re fine!” She waves him off and begins to poke around, looking for bottles of the beer of whatever brewery they’re in. It’s a large space, with wide open areas that make Miriel worry about ghouls or even possible raiders holed up in a different part of the plant, but the place is remarkably empty. There are some human and not-so human remains, but other than the stray radroach, there aren’t any threats.

It’s a surprisingly fortunate event. Particularly for a day that has contained a behemoth, a sentry bot, and the Church of Atom fanatics. It doesn’t take long for them to find a locked door though, and she quickly picks it to reveal the motherload of beer.

Ooooh yeah.

She tosses a bottle of rad-x to Darevas after popping a few herself. She pulls a case out and settles in, taking the caps off of two and handing one to Darevas. They take two long swigs each before Darevas pulls his pack down and pulls out a radio. He switches it on and shifts the dial to the local radio station that actually plays decent music.

Dion’s “The Wanderer” begins to play and Darevas fist pumps the air before singing along. Miriel rolls her eyes but can’t keep herself from laughing as he begins to sing along.

“Oh well I'm the type of guy who will never settle down

Where pretty girls are well, you know that I'm around.”

She rolls her eyes, confident that he’s not really that type, but he’s having so much fun that when he gets to the chorus, she chimes in.

“They call me the wanderer! Yeah the wanderer!”

“Yeah they do!”

“'Cause I'm the wanderer yeah the wanderer

I roam around around around…!”

She swivels closer to him, moving her hips and feet as she sings and dances with him. She sings over him in the next verse and he hoots as she takes it away.

“Oh well I roam from town to town

I go through life without a care

'Til I'm as happy as a clown

With my two fists of iron and I'm going nowhere

I'm the type of guy that likes to roam around

I'm never in one place I roam from town to town

And when I find myself a-fallin' for some girl

I hop right into that car of mine and ride around the world

Yeah I'm the wanderer yeah the wanderer

I roam around around around…”

Her knees bow out and she dances around as she sings along. Darevas joins in at the chorus and they laugh and drink their way through it. He shimmies closer to her, bending down so he’s closer to her height as they sing and croon together. He’s admittedly much better at the whole singing bit but she has the dancing thing down and is literally dancing circles around him.

She has her beer in one hand and her other is in her hair, pushing it back as she swings her hips side to side. Darevas’s eyes dart down to them and she winks, turning around just a bit, feeling just a bit mischievous and flirty.

The song ends to a long cheer from Darevs and Miriel who finish off their respective beers and open two more while they wait for the next to cue up.

“There’ll be no wedding bells today!” Kay Kyser croons.

“HA!” Darevas says, taking a quick swig of his before singing alone. Miriel keeps up her little dance, singing the woman’s parts in the song.

“I got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle

As I go ridin' merrily along

And they sing, "Oh, ain't you glad you're single"

And that song ain't so very far from wrong

Oh, Lillie Belle

Oh, Lillie Belle

Though I may have done some foolin'

This is why I never fell.”

The beauty in “Jingle Jangle Jingle” is the great big overture in the middle that allows Darevas and Miriel to suddenly come together and swing around in a tipsy rendition of a waltz. She kicks her feet out to the beet and he hums along with the music, making her laugh and take generous sips of her beer. His hand comes around her waist and they spin together, laughing all the while.

The next song keeps them on their feet, hopping and skipping and laughing even more at the rather appropriate though perhaps insensitive title.

“Uranium fever has gone and got me down!

Uranium fever is spreading all around!” Elton Britt cries, and they cry with him. Getting more and drunk with each passing verse.

With the volume from the radio and Darevas and Miriel’s own voices echoing through the space, they don’t hear the cellar door suddenly creek open. And it is only by chance that Darevas spins around at the precise time when a raider pops his head out of the cellar.

“What the -

Darevas, still with his beer in hand and smile on his face, whips out his pistol and fire a shot right into the raider’s head.

Ha! She was right! This place was too good to be true!

But fuck now she’s too drunk to properly deal with it! Ah well. She glances around and finds a large, heavy looking barrel.

“Let’s push it over the entrance and deal with it in the morning when we’re not sloshed.”

“Speak for yourself, small stuff,” Darevas teases, but the way he wavers on his feet is betraying and she puts her hands on her hips.

“Ooooh? Can you still do this?” She asks, dancing around with surprisingly precise movements.

“I can’t do that sober!” Darevas laughs, finishing his second bottle. He gestures to the barrel.

“Alright, let’s move it,” he says and they work together to cover the cellar door. Miriel places a few mines around the entrance.

Miriel pops up and finishes off her beer, setting it close to the mines. Nothing like shattered glass to discourage some raiders!

The radio crackles and continues to play, switching to a new song.

“Now I've got heartaches by the number, troubles by the score

Every day you love me less

Each day I love you more.” It gets Miriel swinging again and she pulls Darevas back to their little dance floor. They dance and drink for hours more, forgetting from the behemoth and the sentry bot and the fanatics that irradiated his brother.

Though at some point, Darevas must feel supremely because he heads back inside to where Cirimeni and Felasel are set up, only to find Felasel asleep, his head resting in Cirimeni’s lap - who’s also asleep!

Miriel giggles and somehow manages to keep herself from full on guffawing at the hilarity of it all.

“This is just so ridiculous!” She laughs, her belly hurting as she topples to the ground.

“I know! You weren’t meant to be at the hospital!” Darevas laughs, falling beside her.

“Us? Noooo, we’re doing this for our outpost, you and Felasel! Though, you two weren’t supposed to show up with your silly laser guns and long jackets.” She takes one of the flaps and shakes it.

“What is this?! It’s a...liability!”

“You’re a liability!”

“Psht! I saved your ass...three times today!” She pokes his side, making him giggle and snort.

“I knooow! You blew that sentry bot up and it was so cool! That was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen,” he says, suddenly just a bit more serious.

“What? Really?”

“Yeah, you could’ve let us die -

“Noooo, then how we’d get paid?” She tries to play it off and she consciously slurs her speech a bit more to sound drunker than she actually is. Darevas rolls to his side, head propped up on his hand.

“Could’ve just ransacked our corpses.”

“Tha’s no fun, though. And Cirimeni would be very unhappy, I hate that.” But she’s flushed and flattered and not quite sure what to do next. He’s looking at her very strangely but it’s not unwanted, she thinks, just...a look.

He inches closer and her eyes widening, “Are you about to do something stupid?” She asks, and he reaches forward to play with a tendril of her hair.

“No, because we’re drunk,” he says and she narrows her eyes at him.

“And you think doing a stupid thing while not drunk will work?”

“I hope so! You’re amazing and I’m a catch,” he smiles very annoyingly handsomely and she rubs her nose.

“You’re a...bad dancer!” She accuses but he just laughs and plays with her hair. Her gross, greasy hair that is in desperate need of a wash. She pulls it away from him and pats his head.

This is confusing and she’s drunk she should not be here. The music is still playing and there’s more beer but she...should go back to Cirimeni, she thinks. Because it is confusing and it’s been a very long day.

Miriel pulls herself up off the ground, grabs her things, and makes her way back to Cirimeni, confused, drunk, and suddenly extremely tired. The music in the other room shuts off and she hears Darevas shuffle around before he comes into the room as well. He smiles at her and she can’t help but blush and return the smile.

Confusing.

She chooses a corner and shucks off her jacket, making a pillow for her head so she can rest peacefully for the rest of the night.

[derkastellan]

Observations: Buck Rogers

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century was many things - a brillant hard scifi RPG boxed set based on a modified AD&D core, a set of mediocre expansion books, one superb and one “more of the same” computer game, a series of novels, and even a comic (which I never checked out), a marketing failure, the supposed reason TSR went under, and even allegedly a blatant attempt by a TSR exec to fill the family coffers through licensing their own IP to TSR.

It was also the first RPG I bought and read in English, somewhere between 1990 and 1991. The boxed set was full of splendor for me. There was a lot of goodies in that box - every planet had various factions, variant humans, and gene-modified races. Most fascinating for me were actually the outer planets, Jupiter and Saturn and their various moons. The game shined. I loved it.

Even before that I probably put my hands on the Commodore 64 release of Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday. After Pool of Radiance and Hillsfar this was my third computer game based on the Gold Box engine. It told an epic story about saving the solar system from a doomsday weapon that could sterilize a whole planet by harnessing the sun’s energy into special crystals harvested on Mercury (as revealed by the accompanying novel series, the first part of which, First Power Play, was actually included with the game.) 

The computer game and the novels both reveal problems with the series: People didn’t know how to write for the game. I mean, writing is up to professional standards, no doubt, entertaining and such. But wherever you look, there’s goofups as everybody envisions the game world different and modified it to suit their own needs.

These can be minor... For example the computer game was based on the Gold Box engine and so combat featured heavily in the game. In order to provide an upgrade path of weapons like in the AD&D games, they invented something similar to the +1, +2, +3 boni from AD&D - equipment could be standard, martian (+1), venusian (+2), mercurian (+3), or lunar (+4), mostly adhering to the idea of quality as inherent in the game world. Except this idea, IIRC, was not present in the (a bit spartan) game core. At the same the highly detailed saving throw system that sets the races apart never made it much into the game, at least not in interesting ways, and neither did most of the boxed set’s races. 

This was probably owed to scheduling conflicts when developing the game. I mean, when Pool of Radiance came out in 1988, the AD&D rules core had been stable for quite a while and all books published. Buck Rogers, however, was more like a marketing offensive, trying to push out everything at once to keep consumer interest high. Except... they were not capable as a company to pull it off.

The boxed set laid down a hard scifi world, but several of the expansion books contradict this. Telepathy is introduced both in a Uranus colony and the Inner Worlds expansion books and there attributed to... rats. In the first case, telepathy is a result of extremely well-developed off-the-charts intelligence and still rather limited. In another case, some sort of engineered beings living like a spider colony on an asteroid have a hive mind (and hence, some sort of telepathic connection) which contradicts the requirements of the first (because they’re no super-smart). And the rats? That’s just classical fantasy writing because authors from TSR knew that stuff. The rules for creating genetically modified creatures established that you if you want humanoid thinking capabilities you have to start from a human brain, not a dog or rat brain. Similarly, they talk about things that occur in nature. And third, they talk about the fact that random radiation does not produce much interesting traits. All three violated by Mercury’s telepathic rats. This is the sort of quality of writing you get in the expansion books where you can see an illustration of astronauts in space suits pushing mining carts on rails over an asteroid surface... There was a sort of pulp influence here.

But it wasn’t just the source and expansion book authors. When Buck Rogers frees humanity from RAM’s oppression by eliminating their key asset, a space station controlling all Earth traffic, they immediately sunk the ship when they declared that the station has energy shields. Does. Not. Exist. In. The. Game. And is not hard scifi as laid down in the boxed set. To make matters worse, the fighter craft defending the station patrol inside the shield. Err... what? Too many writer gimmicks in one go. 

The series then sprawls immediately into an epic, solar-system wide conflict between Venus and Mars. The stakes of the series immediately escalate into the biggest scale possible, the same being true in the computer games (destruction on a planetary level), its accompanying novels (same story), or the last novel series (have it, did not read it, apparently inner worlds against Plutonian nano bots). Once you have gone so big, you can’t go back.

Also, the novels randomly expand the concepts of the game. There is this near-perfect surveillance which people constantly try to fool that determines a lot of the pulp fiction writing in First Power Play trilogy. (Which also has the great pulp writing technique of telling us that people are so smart instead of letting them do actually smart things. Justifiably it was printed on the pulpiest paper I had seen up to that date, not having been exposed to the American mass market for cheap novels before. But I digress...) So, characters constantly do some sort of shadowboxing to fool people watching on behalf of other people, creating pages and pages of people interacting with their own paranoia where you can’t really tell if they’re actually followed or observed until two or three chapters it is inevitably revealed that they were ... followed or observed. Sigh. 

Please note that the original boxed set did not establish this. Pirates needed intel from moles and informants to operate. The game was kind of written to have a low tech approach to computers, which may have made it anachronistic but interesting. It was a world where humans were needed to operate levers. Where fast computers weighing tons where barely good enough to host a copy of an AI without it downgrading itself. Where no matter how good your ship’s computer is a skilled astrogator can still plot a better course.

Total surveillance might be realistic, but creates a Shadowrun or cyberpunk style world with endless feints and deception attempts and paranoia, where the boxed set established a can-do and push-the-button-and-live-by-your-choices world. Let’s say the author had a better grasp of the future than the authors of the game, but their narrative (and the fact that space is biiiiiiig) make for a much better game. The big world of the game puts the emphasis on humanoids - on traitors, whistle blowers, on secret signals being sent, on a smart guy directly shadowing another vessel, on homing beacons - and makes it all about the people, not the tech. It was, in a sense, a people-centric action game with lots of factions and worlds. And that was really great about it. That you could hide out in some dive in some half-forgotten lunar trojan bottle space station without it instantly becoming another confrontation with RAM’s special agents following you anywhere. This world seemed big. There are a lot of space to hide for everyone. Compare the world of the novels. It’s like the internet. The world becomes small. It no longer really has a frontier. It becomes boring.

Not the only time they dropped the ball. The book about genetically modified organisms basically puts the cost of engineering so high, it basically says there’s no more designs than these. Which is the most boring thing to possibly say in what constitutes the game’s monster manual! Until that book was released, the game (and its companion computer games) basically operated under the premise that there was a vast amount of genetically modified creatures and actual ecosystems constructed out of them. Well, scratch that.

In the end, from a purely gaming point of view, these are huge quality issues. You don’t know what to expect from one book to the next you buy. From great material to huge letdowns, sometimes in the same book. Lots of contradictions noticeable to any informed reader who likes the system. I think a lot of people were ordered into writing for the system and it shows. Outside the main boxed set there is a lot of mixed quality stuff.

And these authors did not know what to write. I mean, one of the established fixed facts is that humanoids not specifically gene-modified for deep space need the expensive Gravitol drug that can only be manufactured from a plant that grows in the Venusian lowland jungles. This is a setting-defining fact that actually gives Venus some sort of separate identify and also spices up its factions and struggles. Guess what? One of the adventure modules released for the system is about artificially produced Gravitol. For lack of a proper hook, the author simply took a setting fact and made an adventure about changing it. 

And frankly: That sucks! Big time. It shows the amount of intellectual laziness and lack of engagement people had when writing for the system because so often they simply violate the setting premises or turn them into cheap plot-powering gizmos. There are few strong, character-carried stories in comparison. It’s always about the MacGuffin. Always a wild goose chase. And almost always about things that alter the solar system forever. (Which makes the setting information a joke, because sometimes centuries- or at least decades-old setting facts can be negated in about a year of playing inside the game world.)

And seldomly the consequences of these changes are taken into account. Camouflage and sensor disruption like on the Krait fighter or Black Barney’s ship made it harder to detect and effectively engage those ships in the boxed set. In the novel series detailing Earth’s liberation this makes the Krait undetectable and the new super-weapon that completely decides the fate of two major planetary armadas. Buck Rogers and Killer Kane command each one squadron of them, making this personal instead of a real struggle of fleets. But! RAM has the designs, RAM can make more. Within a year RAM would dominate the solar system with its new fighter fleet, tops! And that’s what lazy writing does... completely ignore the consequences. The author needed a game-changer to write a story both epic and about a hero and a villain. But then the game. Does. Not. Change. And that’s why it’s pulp fiction. Facts are introduced but do not matter.

If you want to give Buck Rogers a chance, stick to the boxed set. It’s high quality, it’s solid, it’s a major piece of good scifi RPG writing, it’s a real accomplishment. Ignore the novels, ultimately. Ignore most of the expansion books and supplements. You will find a good game both scifi and having this nice retro feel. I dig it a lot. And I feel bad about how little love it ultimately received, both from TSR authors and the RPG scene.