#and i do mean wild space. some weird like really fucking weird planet in the middle of uncharted space

[bikananjarrus]

if i think too long about ezra being all alone in wild space i’ll have a breakdown

[kates-dump]

My experience with Analog Horror/ARGs and why you should check them out

Marble Hornets: the classic, and a big favorite of mine for obvious reasons. I cannot stress enough how good and spooky that series is, and the ToTheArk videos gave me nightmares, love it! <3

If you're into Slenderman stories, you should definitely check it out. The acting is very well done and the story is awesome overall :)

The Sun Vanished: the ARG that started my interest for ARGs, and especially enigmas/internet puzzles. Unfortunately I was not smart enough to figure the stuff out by myself, so I just watched explanations on it. Highly recommended if you like post-apocalyptic settings and subtle horror.

The Mandela Catalogue: possibly the series that brought back my interest for these things. I have only watched the first two seasons of it, as I sadly lost interest after a while, but from what I have watched, I would recommend it to those of you who like horror with religious themes (which is a big thing for me) and most importantly, trust issues. Do keep in mind this series deals with more serious and dark topics, though you have probably heard it already.

Local58: the analog horror of all analog horrors, Local58 barged in before TMC took the spotlight. There is so much going on and all of it is very interesting and scary. America's pride leads to its doom, the moon can control electronic devices, and weird creatures spread through the world. If you like stories that leave you not understanding what the hell just happened but loving it anyway, you will love Local58.

Rocket Archives: A single-video series that has unfortunately been taken down for reasons I am not certain of. But if you're curious what it was about, the video presented a reality where us humans were forced to leave Earth with how hot it was getting, and moved to contained bubbles in space. Suddenly, uh oh! The sun's getting closer! Outer Wilds moment! Everything is melting! Humans are gone and the sun is... alive???

Analog Archives: made by the creator of Rocket Archives, has also been taken down but can still be found re-uploaded. The series is slightly similar to Local58, as in it also focuses on broadcast hijacking used for ending off humans. The series also includes a few religious topics that can get very dark. I love it. "Nature Show" makes me tear up with fear every time.

Gemini Home Entertainment: ALL-TIME FAVORITE MOMENT!!! I don't think I need to explain why I love this one so much. GHE leaves a lot to your imagination/speculation, while also twisting your head directly into the direction of the threat and forcing you to look at it while you squirm in fear. GHE is subtle in the most obvious way, obvious in the most subtle way, and most importantly, IT'S COSMIC HORROR, BABY!!! THERE IS A PLANET IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM THAT GOT HERE UNINVITED AND NOW IT WANTS TO EAT US!!! UGHHHH I can't put in words why I think it's so good, it just is. Watch it. The Gardeners are cute, I swear. There's even a plush of them.

Monument Mythos: something something alternate realities, something something time loops. I have not watched all of it, barely even half, but I deemed it a little bit too confusing for my brain. BUT! If you're into things that boogle your mind, you might really like this series! I mean, world monuments are alive, what could be scarier?

Vita Carnis: EW. (affectionate)

But, seriously, if you like gross, you are certainly going to like this series. It's meat, and it's alive. Although, I did stop watching it because it got a tad too graphic and violent for my taste, but if that doesn't bother you, then I recommend it a lot! The editing is soooo good, and some of the creatures are very likable and cute ^v^ (the others are gross and I do not want them near me I do not WANT FUCK OFF)

Don't Look at the Moon: Minecraft spooky. Do I need to say more?

[popculturebuffet]

May as well pop this, let's try the Adult Swim cartoons. Favorite character from their initial wave of shows: Space Ghost Coast to Coast (technically started on Cartoon Network first before Adult Swim began in 2001 but it gets lumped in as Adult Swim these days), Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law, Seelab 2021, The Brak Show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Home Movies (began on UPN but continued production under Adult Swim). Throwing in Baby Blues, Mission Hill, and The Oblongs as bonuses that began on The WB but also finished on Adult Swim when The WB didn't bother finishing airing them.

Thank you. I may gloss over some later stuff, and you don't seem as into adult animation, so I appricate this. (And correct me if i'm wrong on that). Plus I can see you like doing these. But I grew up on the shows in this block's early days and some of it's middle days, so let's cook.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast: Moltar. IT's a hard choice as the main trio as a whole are all uniquely great, but I love his awkwardness and hidden monstrosity. And his attempts at knife fights. Coast to Coast is excellent and well worth checking out if you haven't. It's funny, got only funnier with time, and a handful of it's best stuff lives rent free in my head, something common among a lot of adult swim shows. And while this did predate adult swim, Space Ghost feels like why the block happened at all and it's earliest shows that weren't taken from the WB or UPN all kinda ape the formula of taking a classic cartoon and bending it, and joined it as soon as the block formed. Without it we woudln't have all these other great shows... I mean we might but it's a razor thin margin. It had a perfect comedic trio of the egotistical stupid manchild spaceghost, the cooler but blantatly evil and self destructive zorak and the also evil but awkward as hell moltar. A true classic and I badly miss C Martin Croker who played Zorak and Moltar and wrote this classic.

Harvey BIrdman Attorney at Law: WHOSE THAT CAT WITH THE BEAKKKKKKKKKKK? This theme song is dope as hell and is the reason this got made. Okay so faviorite character is Phil. HA HA obvious choice. But Stephen Colbert owns every scene he's in as Phil and the show rolls with it as it goes, letting Phil just getting into weird fucking hyjinks, the highlight being blackwatch plad where he hallucinates several things that never existed being stolen, somehow reads harvey's thoughts and institutes code rush's seminal album moving pictures. This show was a lot of funa nd introduced me to the bulk of hannah barbera's catalogue, finding fun ways to deconstruct the classic libraries from Fred as Tony Soprano to leaning on the fact Shaggy isn't actually a stoner but really, REALLY comes off as one, while getting better as it went by expanding on it's own weird cast, with Peter Potamus in paticular being pretty great. Add in some great Stephen Colbert performances before he had to leave for his own show, a killer soundtrack and one of Gary Cole's best performances as our bumbling hero just kind of ping ponged around by his clients and zany boss, and you have a show I now really want to rewatch. Adult swim would have better and shows I rewatched more, but the power of attorney is still strong to this day.

The Brak Show: Dad. George Lowe is just allowed to go into incredibly weird places with this man and I support it. The show itself is an underated classic these days, and while I try not to be too old man yelling at those them kids, this is a show the younger set who didn't grow up with it shoudl check out as it's absurd goodness. Brak started on space ghost and cartoon planet, but was too big to contain resulting in this lovely bit of nonsense that defined what an adult swims how not riffing on a cartoon could be. I mean it still did a little as it kept brak and zorak from space ghost but recast them as a loveable teen dummy and an agent of chaos.. the same people but in a new scenario that let them go hog wild. The show even got experimental as it went with batshit weirdness like Braklet Prince of Spaceland that puts the cast in hamlet (And dad as hamle'ts dad sans pants) or all I desire is you where the cast is suddenly in a soap opera). It's good stuff with a psycho musical, an election where Dad claims his opponent is killing pets with pet bombs nad fails the instant he actually has to debate, and of course

Sealab 2021: Accidently put this one out of order but it might be my faviorite of this batch, with one other jockeying for the crown. Captain Murphy is my faviorite and while the show had a few classics after his actor Harry Goz's tragic passing, it never felt quite the same. Sealab 2021 is the first abriged series and a damn good one. While the show skidded at times, at it's peak this was just pure comedic chaos under the sea, and the cast bounced off each other amazingly. The show wasn't afraid to experiment either and out of the shows here, while brak dabbled later, seemed to do it the most and made it stand out: as early as the end of season 1 we got a waking life full episode take, an episode following the cast as actors on the show, my personal faviorite tinfins that takes this concept and applies it to the making of a movie, a backwards episode, and one repeating the same running gag with variations over and over. The show had a great ensemble, mostly anchored by goz and later his son, and cemented Adam Reed as a legend in adult comedy.

Home Movies: Coach McGurik. It was John Benjamins brekout: While Dr Katz had welcomed him tot he world, McGurik made him a star and would eventually lead him to bob and archer, and he's still one of his best roles, a sardonic drunk who bonds with kids, yet also should not be around them and once claimed BRENDON SMALL IS ON DRUGS and tried to get a bunch of children to do an intervention.

I could honestly quote McGuirk moments all day and he frankly stole the show half the time, to the point the bulk of later seasons has him in his own weird b-plot, from gambing on a boat with the host of his seminar, to buying a bunch of swords when drunk, to telling a bunch of kids to go upstairs in a hurricane because being in the same rooms mean they'll all bump into each other. The last one isn't a subplot, it's just comedy gold.

The show had an easy dry improved style: While they did put in scripts after the first season, it was still mostly "get to this point" and let Brendon Small, a voice acting and comedy legend in his own right, and co cook. The result is a funny show with detailed charcters: Narccisitc control freak at only the third grade brendon, entirely out of it jason, only sane woman till she isn't melissa and Brendon's mom Paula who alternates between voice of reason to her child and her life being a hurricane. It's one of the best shows Adult Swims ever made and they hit the jackpot pickign it up

Mission Hill: Gus. While the joke could easily be "GET IT THE GUY IS REALLY MANLY BUT HE'S GAYYYY" they let him go beyond that and while his queerness is integral to who he is, he's also funny> We also get that great subplot of a knife just.. jutting out of his shoulder for a whole episode. The show itself is pretty good and worth a revisit from me, a nice hipster's pardise. The odd couple coulld get boring but Andy and Kevin play off each other well: Andy does need to grow the hell up, and I like the reveal both of his friends, while also cooler than thou slackers.. do actually have stable jobs. not saying a 9 to 5 job is growing up, I don't have one, but more that andy needed to change as a person and the series lets him grow, while Kevin bursts out of his shella nd misconceptions. The show was too good to last and i'm sad the spinoff fell apart. It was fantastic.

Baby Blues: Carl. What could easily be just the more grumbly testorone guy to the goofy darryl is a pretty fun slob. The show itself was solid. Is it anything like the comic strip? Honestly not really, having read the strip both early and not: It does deal with the difficulties of having a baby (Something Zoey was for the early years of the strip), but it's more it's own thing and honestly finding baby blues mid, that's a good thing as the show baby blues is pretty solid. Nothing super standout, but still memorable enough to stick in the brain.

The Oblongs: Down in the Valley where the chemical spill. Pickles. it was, unbenownst to me my first experince with jean smart and it's a good one. This is a show i'll give another shot someday as I wasn't a huge fan as a kid but in hindsight. it's really good. not nearly as mean spirited as I thought.

[larnax]

outer worlds things i like so far

game does a very good job of the feeling of discovering something that is absolutely fucking terrifying. very clear feedback. im like hmm i wonder what happens if i do X and outer wilds IMMEDIATELY tells me that i have fucked up terribly and am now doomed to slowly asphyxiate in space

in general one of the best "games that initially seems very homey and comfortable and then rockets into horror" because it builds to it at a very natural speed. you get enough of timber hearth to get comfortable with the protagonist's home and then you lift off and probably discover a couple weird things but you're so preoccupied with everything being confusing that it doesn't hit you and by you i mean me that you're in a horror game until The Sun. and even when you ARE fully aware you're in a horror game and you know enough to get to the scary spots the comfortable world doesn't disappear. you can still find the other explorers on the world and have a comfortable place to rest. they always come back and you're constantly reminded that all these things exist in the same universe. which also makes it so much worse that you can't save them.

obv the environmental design is really good. the planets are big enough that you need to know where you're going but small enough that it feels like my fault i am literally always lost. i do wonder how the timber hollow people grow their food though. where are the sugar canes for the marshmallows....

same vein open world that's big enough to feel like there's a lot there but not so big that most of it's filler. big little world

clapping my hands like a fucking seal for the worldbuilding i love the nomai writing system it's so cool and the creative uses of the quantum crystals for architecture are so awesome. the foreshadowing in the museum is still my favorite though

the shuttle that just wastes your fucking time is really funny. i spent so long finding ways to kill myself trying to use it. very mean but i respect it

as a deep sea life fan i wanna be a hater so bad and say that anglerfish imagery is overplayed and them being the deep sea creature everyone and their mother uses for horror and how about you do some actual research and find a marine animal that has an interesting trait you can use for unique imagery..... but i must reluctantly admit. that the implementation. is extremely bad ass. and so i'm fine with it

things im not a huge fan of

i am on my fucking knees begging please just let me mark a spot where i am standing on my map. please. i know where the hanging city is i need to get to the specific spot in the hanging city where my thing is. would it be that gamebreaking for me to just be able to mark the location of the tiny entrance into the meltwater district. you don't even have to give me more than one.

not very robust accessibility stuff. the janky controls are intentional but an option for a slightly bigger margin of error for stuff like getting into/falling out of the elevators would really help for us shaky-handed bitches out there. also there are a lot of flashing lights including an unavoidable section every single time you die.

[adultswim2021]

Space Ghost Weekend (part 2)

It's the second season of the dang GameTap episodes of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and the second of two posts covering them on this dang blog. I have very special thoughts about these, so please! pour over every word. Read this out loud to a loved one if needed.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #98: "Richard" | September 11, 2007 | S09E01

In this episode: Moltar discusses Linda, solidifying her into the canon of Space Ghost. I will not rest until she gets her first onscreen appearance on HBOMax’s Jellystone. In the cold open they joke about Moltar being whipped. Space Ghost proclaims to be the Earl of Peppercorn, which is pretty wacky. Moltar is self-conscious about having a huge head. And other garbage. 

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #99: "Stephen" | October 31, 2007 | S09E02

Okay, so Yar is back in this one, and he doesn’t actually sound like the one guy I said from yesterday’s post, I fucked up. He also is clearly drawn in a pixel art style, which I didn’t realize because of the questionable provenance of the video files I’m watching. He’s sorta the Bubba Duck of this show (readers! Bubba Duck was introduced late into Ducktales’ run, and those episodes are largely considered [by whom?] to be inferior to the ones that came before them!).

There’s a non-verbal (like Val Kilmer aww) appearance from the Council of Doom. This one is abysmal. They really chopped up the interview to make it sound nonsensical, and I personally consider this to be cheating at making Space Ghost. Worse than having your main character follow an ant around for 11 minutes (Which I like!!!).

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #100: "David" | November 11, 2007 | S09E03

Seems like this show thrives on coming up with silly words like “Lava Chicken”. I sorta liked this one but it’s still pretty weak. Zorak takes over the show after bogusly claiming that Moltar went on “vacation”, tantamount to “escaping” Space Ghost's enslavement. Space Ghost goes on a wild goose chase looking for him. If this were a higher-budgeted episode they’d probably take it to funnier places, but Space Ghost talks to little Space Ghosts instead and it’s mildly amusing. Moltar was in the bathroom the whole time, nasty!

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #101: "Chantal" | December 2, 2007 | S09E04

Why do these all start with a weird click noise? I’m guessing that’s the website’s fault and people screen-recorded these? This one features Chantal Claret who seems like she’s a fan of Space Ghost. She’s also one of the biggest babes the show has ever had. It’s a shame she was wasted on a Gametap episode! I have not heard her music or googled her name + "Israel" so I’m not sure if I respect her or not yet. But she seems cool I like her. 

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #102: "Mark" (lost) | May 4, 2008 | S09E05 Space Ghost Coast to Coast #103: "Bruce" (lost) | May 16, 2008 | S09E06

Two losties in a row. No Idea who these schmoes are. I can’t even google these dildos. My pal London told me that the lost episode's titles/guests could very well be bogus; filled-in by some ne'er-do-well on a wiki, and that this information has self-replicated itself ever since. I am very interested to find out if that's true or not, but I believe it. I did do a cursory search on the library of congress website and was astonished to see some GameTap episodes listed, but it was missing episodes that definitely do exist so I can't really conclude anything from that.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #104: "Dee" | May 25, 2008 | S09E07

Dee Snider who I heard is MEAN IN REAL LIFE appears in Space Ghost’s monitor. The compositing effects look bad again. Maybe Dee had to self-tape and this is what we got? They bleeped the word bitch in this. The Ghost Planet building is shown to blow up and a title appears on screen saying TO BE CONTINUED. This turns out to be a FUCKING joke. Dee is sorta funny in this, he gets into the spirit of the show pretty well by egging Moltar and Zorak to rebel against Space Ghost. 

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #105: "Barenaked Ladies" | May 31, 2008 | S09E08

This is easily the best episode of the GameTap batch, because it made me laugh twice. I expect this gag might be polarizing, but the weird live-action nipple with the fly crawling on it made me laugh. It’s unlike anything the show has ever done, really, and it was probably the element of surprise that got me. I suspect that gag might’ve pissed some people off, though.

The other part that made me laugh was when Space Ghost urges the band members to do something “sinsational” and the smack his lips. No joke, I laughed so hard at this, and it was one of those rolling laughs that feel like they’ll never end. They deserved the Peabody award for that joke. 

Space Ghost Coast to Coast: "Jonny Quest" | March 19, 1996 | Special

I wanted to throw this in there because I do sorta feel like this comes close to being a SORTA episode? It’s not really any better than the GameTap episodes, in my opinion. It’s mostly Space Ghost being excited about Jonny Quest’s VHS releases. Space Ghost never got an official retail VHS tape release, if I’m not mistaken, and couldn't you just imagine the world we’d be living in if there had been? 9/11 wouldn’t have happened! But Jan 6th still would have :( 

That's that for Space Ghost Weekend. We'll begin doing 2010 pretty soon. Maybe not exactly tomorrow, but soon.

[toastess-with-the-mostess]

Let's Rewind! Toast watches Voltron: Defender of The Universe (1984)

Season 1, Episode 35: Doom Boycotts the Space Olympics Season 1, Episode 36: Lotor's Clone

Episode 35 Doom Boycotts the Space Olympics I realized the text was hard to read in the long post so here's some color so you can tell which episode is being watched

wild that whoever made the choices for the space Olympics really thought hard and said "yes we're absolutely having it on Arus, where it's currently at war and has a weekly occurrence of giant fucked up robots fighting each other"

Is soccer actually an Olympic sport or is the world cup the biggest even for them?

Oh so doom IS actively boycotting the space olympics, I know It's for evil reasons but i have to agree just based on the fact THAT ITS ON A PLANET IN ACTIVE WAR AND ROUTINELY HAS GIANT MECHA FIGHTS

why are the boys in an army barrack 😭 the castle is right there is it not

Allura this is why you KNOCK walking in on the team showering in only towels is your fault entirely LMAO the boys are ragging on nanny for trying to make it their fault svsiodv woman just sit down and leave the food at this point

"I'm sorry I meant to surprise you!" "You did!" Keith that was adorable omg, I know you guys can't hear it, but his tone was the cutest

I love this show because in every other one it's hunk looking after Pidge, but originally it was Lance instead T-T He's currently very concerned about Pidge eating two kabobs at once, at least he isn't talking with food in his mouth

I'm sorry when did haggar get blueprints to voltrons wiring??

are they about to make a decepticon out of the beefed up bulldozer the team has outside to build the stadium?? Oh my god they are

man the only reason the team finds out about lotors plan is because one of the kids that was tagging along with hunk this entire time needed to take a leak outside 💀

haggar described her weird virus for that bulldozer as like a chip,,, it is not a chip it's a tiny robeast that takes over the entire machine just by standing onto the hardware i know they were making it easier to understand for kids but c'mon that had to be confusing for them, kids are real smart anyway

The boys: kid you were dreaming, nothing attached itself to the bulldozer (bulldozer proceeds to turn on and wreck their barrack) the boys: O-O guys please listen to the children, they're so upfront with everything they see its wild

PIDGE WHY ARE YOU JUMPING STRAIGHT ONTO THE BULLDOZER well at least he found out nobody was driving it UNTIL IT THREW HIM OFF, he's a gymnast (ninja) though so of course he lands on his feet anyway like a goddamn CAT

why do they always make hunk grunt like that? wild somehow they figured out it was lotor, i mean i feel like itd be obvious once they knew nobody was in it but still

OH SO PIDGE DOES ACTUALLY REFER TO HIMSELF AS A GYMNAST, THATS ACTUALLY SUPER COOL still doesnt make it any less insane that pidge LEPT ONTO THE ROOF OF THE BULLDOZER

WHY IS HE SO LONG IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT, IT LOOKS LIKE THE PASTED HIS HEAD OVER LANCES BODY he didnt even stop the thing i think lotor just told it to stop to lull them into a false sense of security

that same kid was yelling about not being listened and immediately punched the control panel with started up the bulldozer again 💀 I think you're old enough to know how to regulate your emotions my dude oh also he and two others are trapped inside now, dire stakes indeed

hunk and pidge got thrown off the bulldozer, how high up were they?? ft older brother lance again because he was making sure pidge was okay in the background

at last a lion comes out to actually do something NOT BEFORE THE BOY GOT BURIED ALIVE THOUGH WHAT THE FUCK THEY SHOULD BE DEAD

I don't think this is the first time lotor has told allura his plans for her, but it's good that he actually tells her so she doesn't get a worse idea

the team is free after allura creates a goddamn tsunami in the stadium ft MORE OLDER BROTHER LANCE BECAUSE HES HOLDING PIDGE NEXT TO HIM IN THE WATER

immediately after being freed the kids just sit there and do nothing UNTIL THEY GET TRAPPED IN IT AGAIN god this show makes so many characters stupid

all-scan?? Are you telling me you fuckers could've done that before, and you just haven't?? I'm gonna say you just recently learned it for my own mental health

the kids are out after Hunk bashed his way inside without a lion i love seeing scenes like these because the pilots are actually skilled outside of being inside the lions!

Ooh so I was right, it was a mini robeast who could interact with machines, and then it just combines with it to make it an actual robeast well they could've just said that earlier >:/

voltron is formed and definitely is spewing propaganda for the olympics but at least hes able to damage the robeast LMAO

holy shit easiest fight ever, they barely even did anything to the guy before pulling out blazing sword and skewering it

time to rebuild the stadium and gym using the lions my question is why they only gave one of those beefed up bulldozers to the team

/episode end

Episode 36 Lotor's Clone

Episode opens with Zarkon yelling at Lotor, this oughta be good lol

"quit sending robots to arus and destroy voltron yourself!" my guy how the FUCK is one dude gonna do that, you kind of need another big guy to help weaken him first

"you mean really lead? Like from up front?" "Where else you idiot!" LMAOO

I know they make the doomites robots so the show can skirt past ratings but do not give robots that much sentience and still say they're not people these fuckers were talking about defecting and living on Arus!

oh so this episode's robeast is just another lotor because he doesn't actually want to do the work HAHAHA

"but beware, whatever you know he will know" foreshadowing?

onto planet arus, the team is doing some lion training

Pidge: it feels like my head is on backwards! Keith: I always knew that! THE KID JUST FELL OUT OF THE SKY KEITH BE NICE LMAO

Pidge: did you know your nose wiggles when you're upset Keith: my fist wiggles too! KEITH PLEASE-

mystery power surge huh, at least we can tell that the castle actually has employees since they're running around trying to fix stuff

oh never mind the drules have an actual robeast that's fucking with the castle, the lotor clone is just so lotor doesn't have to do any of the work expected of him LOL

Keith has a plan but i can't remember the sleds/boats he mentions having used before with the team maybe they're just making it up to show that the pilots actually hang out on their off time fnvsdoi

"some of these parts are older than nanny!" GET HER ASS LANCE

it's good to know that the pilots are all slightly mechanically inclined, definitely a skill they gotta have to actually stay alive on Arus

Not lotor complaining that his clone isn't working hard enough for his hero image 💀 no wonder this man always gets his ass kicked

secrets out, keiths been fighting the clone this whole time and because of lotor having a telepathic argument with it, he knows it's not the real him anymore

Damn he was so offended by the clone calling him Lotor used the robeast to blow his ass up 😭 Keith's right, this was his only chance at winning

did they just fix up that sled thing to not actually use it?? What a waste of time oh never mind lance is using it while the others use the lions

"if you're gonna lie around the beach all day I'll come back later" i don't think any other show can replicate the absolute sass dotu lance brings

I like that hunk is the defacto leader when its him pidge and allura, I know allura has no experience so she wouldn't be but i wouldn't be surprised if they tried to pull something like this with pidge lol

voltron is formed, haven't seen lion head attack in a while so it's nice to see it back man that robeast just stoof there and took the beating, are they just giving up at this point soidns

ooh scene reuse, this is definitely from the bridge episode that i cant remember the name of, everyone is joking about how another clone of them would be good for the universe lol

/episode end

[cyanogen-miasma]

anyways following on from my last post I would like to introduce

The Space Cats

I have done the sun, the eight planets, the five undoubtedly confirmed dwarf planets and some choice moons. I have a WIP file for Ganymede somewhere but I'm on my phone right now so I can't get to it

each star system is like a big family, with the star as the parent and the generationality is determined by who orbits who. all the planets, dwarf planets and asteroids are siblings and their children are their moons. this gets weird for Pluto and Charon, I still have to figure out what their dynamic is, but overall, relationships within the same solar system are solely familial. I have to clarify this because someone on Scratch dot mit dot edu did decide to start shipping the space cats (I will have to find that comment thread, it was wild)

the Sun, otherwise known in the Space Cats universe as Sol (he/him). (I tried to lose a lot of the geo-centric names for some of the astronomical bodies - IE, there are lots of Suns in the universe, our Sun isn't THE Sun, if you get what I mean.) A fun guy, a little too desperate to get with other Stars, if you ask his kids

Mercury (they/them). Boy I would love to see them and Element Cat Mercury interact. (who am I kidding. I own both characters. I can do that) They are an oblivious little guy with a big imagination.

Venus (she/her). A dapper, sassy and hot-tempered gal who is always uncomfortably warm

Earth. The big E. Terra. Gaia. Home. In the Space Cats universe, her name is Tellus (she/her and he/him). Now, I drew this picture a while ago and I don't necessarily agree with how I characterized him here. Tellus is grouchy and sleepy, and only really has patience with her daughter. He has a lot of insecurities about his form because it keeps changing all the time in ways that she cannot predict. Changes to the planets' atmospheres don't make them sick, but he can see the green draining off his fur and that fucking terrifies him.

The Moon, known in the Space Cats universe as Lune (she/her). She is full of energy and loves new things. She is always happy to inspect Tellus's new growths, but is not really aware of how uncomfortable it makes him. Lune was formed from a traumatic event in which Tellus and the protoplanet Theia collided with each other. Theia was destroyed, but was reformed into Lune. Tellus is haunted by this event and sees Theia whenever she looks at her daughter, but tries to shield her from his anguishes because he loves her

Mars (he/him). edgelord. His villain arc is becoming frigid and void of life while Tellus has his moment in the Sun. A catty bitch who loves to gossip. He is jealous and can hold a grudge.

Deimos (he/him) on the left and Phobos (they/them) on the right. Mars's chaos gremlins. He didn't ask for them, they just showed up one day and he cannot get rid of them. Deimos is a feral child who will attack you, and Phobos is a no-thoughts-head-empty child who will watch you while Deimos attacks you. Mars complains to Ceres about how annoying they are, but really, he loves them, and lets them go on with their shenanigans.

Ceres (she/her). a little kitty with a big personality. She is plucky and can stand up for herself. She makes herself heard even when surrounded by massive cats like Jupiter and Saturn. The heart and soul of the asteroid belt. A queen, if I do say so myself.

Jupiter (he/him). The big brother. Everyone admires him and looks up to him for advice. He is flamboyant and charismatic, if not a bit self-centred, but ultimately, his heart is big enough to contain love for himself and everyone in the solar system. As you can see with Metis (she/her), he carries smaller moons in his fur.

Saturn (they/them). Look at that swag. oops! it's dead children. probably. Going off the theory that Saturn's rings were formed from a moon that broke apart under Saturn's gravity, this is the lore. They had lots of moons that they loved dearly, but eventually found them ill. "What's wrong?" "we are being torn apart." They were crushing their moons under the force of their smothering love and it broke them apart. As the debris coalesced into chains around them, Saturn vowed that this would never happen again. They distance themselves from their moons, much to their annoyance, and keep their rings as a reminder of what happens when they get too close to people.

[gaast]

Since October 2022, I've been playing only one game at a time. That might not sound like much but for something that struggles to keep its number of concurrent games even at two, it's a pretty big deal. I did it because I wanted to commit to games, and to commit to finishing them. And for the most part, I've been successful.

As part of this, I've been tracking the games I've played and want to play, and I've been marking down the days I started something (usually) and the days I've finished them.

Now that this much time has passed, I've got a year's worth of games down, and I wanna do little write-ups for everything I played in 2023.

That means that anything I played in late 2022 (Silent Hill 2, Xenosaga Episode 1, Observation, and Red Dead Redemption, among others) can only get mentioned honorably here. But I'm gonna go through everything I started in 2023, beginning with:

Outer Wilds, January 1-January 7

What a way to start the year. Outer Wilds is unique and charming. It's really fun to fly through space in the awfulest space ship ever with the worst autopilot (have fun in the sun!) and check destroyed, abandoned planets, read ancient peoples' logs of their attempts to save the universe, and to be there at the end of everything.

Unfortunately: the fucking angler fish. I hate those fucks so bad that I actually didn't finish the game. I never brought X to Y (no spoilers) because I hate dealing with those guys. So I can't class this a perfect game. Those dudes need some changes.

Still, highly recommended.

The Sims 4, January 6-the ride never ends

I'm not gonna lie. This is just a sex thing for me.

Even still, I don't quite get why people hate it so much. I played the third game, too. This one's fine. This franchise isn't amazing. It's weird and held together by Scotch tape. I like that about it.

What a weird world.

Anyway, this must be around the time my ISP sent me emails telling me to stop pirating shit or they'd kick me off their plan, which would be bad because that ISP is the only one we can get in our building! Imagine being unable to work because you wanted TS4 DLC.

Bioshock, January 14-January 28, canceled

I couldn't do it.

This was my second attempt at getting through this game and I had to just admit that it's not for me. I didn't enjoy it. It was a chore. I decided to just set it aside.

Wish I hadn't paid for a PS4 copy when I already had a Steam copy. Ah well.

The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince, January 31-February 2

A very aesthetically-pleasing puzzleish platformer with a cute story and good music. I enjoyed my time with this simple little game.

Half-Life, February 3-February 5

You starting to see a pattern where I only manage to finish games, like, late at night, so I can't start a new one until later? Anyway.

This was my second attempt to get through this game. I did it this time, and I regret it. I didn't have fun.

I don't really know why I didn't have fun, I just didn't. Maybe the combat was too tedious. Maybe the jumping was too iffy. Maybe it just went on for too long. Maybe it's a case of "Seinfeld Is Unfunny." I don't know. I just know I don't like Half-Life.

So maybe I don't like the game, but I love the Headcrab Fucker 9000.

Poison Control, February 8-February 11

Sometimes you just wanna play a mid game.

Look, I like poison. I love pink. I love androgynous characters in suits. I like NIS. This game had it all. And it was perfectly. It made me want to stop playing a little while before it was over. It had a really good OST. I got the platinum trophy and I didn't feel satisfied.

I liked it. And sometimes that's enough.

This is the first on a small series of mid NIS-related games. I'll have more to say when I hit the other.

Grasping, February 15

Obviously I couldn't play this as intended, but it's not hard to imagine having shoved your hand into an awful box.

Anyway, this was good, I think. I don't really remember it.

The House in the Woods, February 15

Another horror game I absolutely do not recall playing.

Apocryphauna, February 15

I remember this one! It's good! I liked it! I wish there were more to it--like, a lot more. A lot lot more.

Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin, February 25-March 21

I held off on playing this for a long time because I had always heard it was "made by the B team" and "not as good as the other games." But I decided to play it. It was the gaping hole in my From résumé.

It's not as good. It has a ton of bosses and none of them are memorable except for a select few DLC bosses (Fume Knight, Sir Alonne, Sinh). It makes a lot of weird gameplay choices. It takes way too long for Estus sippies to heal you--like, in terms of the health bar going up. The Iron Keep is infuriating. So many of the runups are abominable. It runs with the clunkiness of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls despite having the svelte ambitions of Bloodborne and Dark Souls III. It has way too many sections where it just says, "okay, deal with a ton of enemies now."

And I loved it.

Honestly, this is probably my favorite of the three Dark Souls games. I think it is by far the most aesthetically complete game of the trilogy. It fulfills its own promise, you know? And I disagree with the people who call it bleak. I think it's the only game of the trilogy that actually offers hope. A real hope, too. One that says that, just because our struggle may not take us anywhere, at least our struggle itself is beautiful.

In a strange way, I think that Dark Souls II is the only Souls game that actually understands the Souls series.

"A lie will remain a lie."

Pokémon Violet, March 21-March 25

I didn't want to play this game. I didn't want to like it. I just wanted to play it. I love Pokémon. Sure, this wasn't a Pokémon game (according to me), but I wanted to play it anyway. The morning I finally decided to go for it, I had read that the professors were antagonists all along. How stupid!

And the reaction. Oh boy. All the glitches. All the performance issues. All the memes. What trash, right? Right?

I fell in love. I didn't think anything could unseat Gen 7 in terms of my love for a Pokémon generation, but honestly, this game might do it.

Did it need more time to cook? Absolutely. I'm not gonna sit here and say it should have been released as it was. No; it is in many ways a disaster, and it is certainly unacceptable.

But every inch of it oozes with love.

This game wasn't just shit out to make a buck. It feels that way at first, but no, everyone who had a hand in making the Gen 9 games absolutely loved what they were doing. You can feel it--from the sound design to the music to the character design to, fuck, everything. They did the best they could with what they had and they made one of the most charming, wonderful games I've had the pleasure of playing in far too long.

There is so much heart here. It convinced me that the future of Pokémon is still bright. Very much so.

Just... let's take a couple extra years to make the next one, all right?

Heroine Conquest, sometime in April

Look. It's actually pretty good.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, March 31-April 18

I'll get this out of the way: I didn't really have fun.

The game has aged surprisingly well. Or Skyrim is just a truly unmotivated sequel. Either way, it holds up.

The problem is that I just don't think that TES games are for me. They're just so fucking boring. And I never end up liking literally any character in them.

I have fun actually playing for a while, but the general guideline with Oblivion is "don't level up." Fun! Either way, it's just rote after a while. Nothing really feels satisfying, and you're always worried something is going to break.

Frankly, the main story quest isn't compelling, either. With hindsight, knowing it'll lead to the rise of the Dominion again, it's like, well, shit.

Anyway, I played it. And it's certainly a game that you can play. If you wanna.

FEWAR-DVD, April 23

I called it "an arcade game" in my notes and that's basically what it is. Doesn't mean it isn't fun.

(Have you noticed I'm not reviewing games yet? It's write-ups; I'm giving my thoughts and impressions. Also, it's been a while, so I don't super remember a bunch of these. Oh well!)

Bleak Sword DX (Demo), April 23

I think I liked this? Apparently it's out. I should review it and see if I wanna get it at some point.

It looks pretty cool.

The Signal State (Demo), April 23

I liked this a lot because it's so unique and it taps into a specific type of autistic urge for me but god is its price tag just too high for what I suspect that it is.

Deltarune (Chapters 1 and 2), April 22-April 23

This was a replay of Chapter 1 and a first play of Chapter 2.

I think when I first played Chapter 1 I felt... you know, I didn't want Undertale, or a sequel to Undertale, but a secret third thing. And when I first played it in... late 2019? It wasn't whatever that secret third thing was. I liked it, don't get me wrong. But I think I didn't... get it?

Not to say I wasn't excited for me. It just took me a while to convince myself to finally get to Chapter 2 and to meet the funny spambot man.

Anyway, I won't bother spending too much time on Deltarune. I'll just say that in this play, I realized that Deltarune is that secret third thing, and that I think it's better than Undertale.

I'm scared.

Pizza Tower, April 14-April 23

I think I'm guilty of wanting this game to be something it isn't.

I wanted WarioLand, and it's like that, but it isn't precisely that. It isn't trying to be precisely that. It's trying to be Pizza Tower.

I like the game, but not as much as I thought I would. Not as much as I think I should.

I'll probably reply this game in a year or two and it'll click and I'll love it the way I was always meant to love it. But for now, I'll just let the "Tombstone Arizona" guitar impregnate me.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, April 19-May 27

...It took me that long? Really? Huh.

Anyway, I love this game. I love love love it. I love the characters and the art style and the way they tell the story and the story itself and the gameplay (holy shit the gameplay!) and just. Man. I wish more games were just like this. Weird, experimental, talky, confident, cool, and unique.

This is the type of game that inspires you to write your own sci-fi. Or to write about its world. To think and to imagine.

And that's the best type of game.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, May 28-June 6

Come to think of it, how can a sky be unknown. There's just the one.

As mentioned above, I played this after Ace Combat 2. With both of those under my belt, I now know: the way I want to play these games is not the way I'm supposed to play these games.

And that's fine. I feel like "gamers" nowadays are so fixated on the idea that games should let you play them however you wanna play them, and that if they can't accommodate that then they're somehow inherently flawed. It's like everything needs the mutability of Minecraft, the problem-solving freedom of Scribblenauts, and the role-playing depth of Dungeons & Dragons. If it doesn't score highly on all those axes, it's got problems.

Obviously, I disagree. Games can and should have "supposed tos." You should be expected to play a specific diegetic role. You should be limited (and by the way, you're always limited, so don't act like you aren't).

If I ever play another Ace Combat game (and I wanna play Electrosphere), I might do it on easy. I like these games but man do I not know how they want me to engage with them.

no-one has to die, June 4

I had to replay this Flash game that I had originally played once when I was probably 14.

I'm glad I did.

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, sometime in 2022-sometime in mid-2023

The strange thing about the Danganronpa games is that they're actually really good.

They shouldn't be. They shouldn't work. But they do.

This was kind of a replay. I had read most of the original orenronen LP back in... 2012, 2013? I only now have actually played it. And it's good. It's really good. I'm glad I went through it, and I'm glad I went through it with my fiancé, and I'm glad he knew nothing of any of the twists, and I'm glad I got to experience someone experiencing those twists for the first time.

SCARLET NEXUS, June 4-June 6, canceled

This was a second attempt after a first attempt in 2022 got deep into Yuito's story before I aborted it.

It's not for me. Not to say I don't like it--I do. A lot. I wish I could play this game. But I demand such fucking perfection from myself when playing it that I get too caught up by how poorly I'm playing to enjoy myself and actually let myself proceed.

I had to stop because I just wasn't having fun. I'm sad about it.

Risky Sanctuary, June 10

This is one of those games that I hope the developer comes back to, not to spruce up but to make anew. Because it's a really fun concept that basically got held back by being made in a month for a jam.

It really shouldn't take that long to clean come off of a wall.

HYPNOSCREEN, June 10

I keep forgetting I gotta play this more.

Parasite Eve, June 9-June 15

I'm still not super sure how I feel about this one.

The plot is fun but it never becomes compelling. There's an obviously evil scientist and he does obviously evil things. Never a good sign.

The gameplay is fun but it never hits nearly the level of intricacy and care that a close relative, Vagrant Story, does.

The dungeons are well-designed, though, and even if the setting is New York, it feels... fresh? It feels like NYC is always a backdrop in games and its specifics aren't important to it (see: Prototype). Parasite Eve actually cares that it's in NYC and it goes to locations there. The game feels like the developers enjoyed making it.

Also the OST is awesome. And Daniel fucking jumping out of the helicopter, getting lit on fire, throwing the bullets to Aya, landing in the water, and surviving is by far the coolest shit I've ever seen in anything ever.

This feels like a game you have to play at least once. I don't know why it feels that way; it just does.

WASTE EATER, June 17

It asks for like 20 minutes of your time and makes you cry. It's awesome.

EXPERIMENT: GROCERIES, June 17

I was more bored than spooked. It was a good try and maybe someone else will find it more fun than I did.

I'm sure if I replayed it and turned a critical eye to it I could talk at length about it. But I just don't want to.

I feel like if you're going to make uncanny the grocery store, there's other ways to do it.

Final Fantasy X: HD, sometime in 2023-sometime in 2023

We're about to see schedule issues. You'll find out why later.

This was, obviously, a replay.

I swear, this game gets better every single time I play it. I don't know what it is. It's such a smart, insightful game, with lovingly crafted characters. I love the inexorable northward journey, the feeling like you're constantly outrunning something even if you know you're running straight into the very thing you're outrunning.

Maybe it's because once you're aware of the spiral, its pull becomes that much stronger. I swear, I cry more with each playthrough, maybe because it just becomes all the more apparent how hopeless the journey is, and how much strength it takes to hope regardless. Yuna and Tidus are fantastic.

The gameplay ages like a fine wine, too. I know, it's turn-based, so it's hard to get clunky, but the game knows how it's being lenient to you and it knows just how to turn it against you. It's a system you can get better at. It's a game that rewards you in proportion to the time you're willing to put into it.

I don't need to tell you that FFX is a masterpiece, I hope. But it's worth reminding ourselves that it is. Because I think it's willing to be vulnerable in a way that most games just aren't anymore. I think the only Final Fantasy game that I've played that is more vulnerable than X is XIII. I respect the hell out of that.

(Speaking of, another honorable mention from the end of 2022 is my replay of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy--and frankly, my love and appreciation for those games grew only deeper. They rule!)

You can talk about X forever. You can live in its world. It's fantastic, and it's always worth returning to.

Even if you have to make Yuna dance again, at least you know there'll be a time when she won't have to anymore.

Succubus Academia, September?-September 16

I tend to stay away from RPG Maker games, not for any valid reason but because creators, especially of eroge, tend not to really edit much. They end up looking fairly samey, with similar gameplay. Menus don't get edited, music is pretty bland, it's a fantasy setting... Exceptions exist, like Miwashiba's games ("that's a different engine!" yeah well they're still well-crafted despite being Made Like That) and, apparently Succubus Academia.

I won't tell you what tag I searched to find it on DLSite but anyway, I found it, I got it, I played it, and I loved it.

The map graphics are standard RPG Maker fare, sure, but the battles are totally custom and they're actually really fun. The music, though, the music fucking rules. I was there to bust a move, not bust a nut, I swear.

The concept is really fun too. "The only way to proceed is to literally get killed the right way. Sorry! But hey, at least you'll save the world. Snrk." Coupled with a battle system that actually has a really fun push-pull kind of resource management/health system, it just works. It helps that the battles all have Live 2D animation work going on, too.

Give this one a shot (no pun intended) if you like eroge. Seriously.

Dohna Dohna, sometime in September?-sometime in October

All right, look. It's not the best at anything. But it's pretty good at everything.

The character designs rule. The color palettes are awesome. The gameplay is fun. The OST is actually pretty outstanding. The combat is really fun. The mechanics are interesting. The writing has a lot of care put into it.

Alicesoft wanted to celebrate its anniversary and they were welcome to do it. I enjoyed celebrating with them.

Kirakira best girl. Even if Joker is truly best girl.

Baldur's Gate 3, sometime in October-November 14

One of the first sounds you hear in this game is a Wilhelm scream. This is a subtly masterful introduction to the game, as it signals to attentive players a lot about the artistic experience they're about to embark on: It will be more or less the same as everything else they've ever experienced, just remixed so it will hopefully be less noticeable.

And that's the thing. We've seen everything that BG3 does before, over and over, and we're so used to seeing all of these signs and tropes that it's actually become difficult to tell when they're being used poorly. BG3 throws so much of the same old shit at the wall and it can only stick because the shit that's there from last time still hasn't dried.

But here's the thing: I don't even know if any of its shit sticks. It's all so bad.

For instance, the party. Each individual party member is a collection of about 3 traits, plus their own unique brand of "horny for you." They're about as complex as late-stage Tales characters, but they have way less charm because they don't have anything like skits to round them out. In fact, because there's no guarantee that you'll have X or Y party member, or that they'll be present for conversation A, your party doesn't really have conversations together so much as they just talk through you like you're a telephone. You don't really have a party. You are a guy who has friends.

So you drag along this uninteresting, blandly-designed crew of the same fucking shit you've seen a billion times (literally one dude's whole thing is "I'm a vampire and I have vampire problems") who never really engage with each other (they'll maybe trade quips here and there, and they've got some dialogue they'll run through ambiently when specific ones are in the party together, but it's clear that This Does Not Matter) through a pretty standard fantasy world that by its own popularity offers little novelty. As you do so you meet asshole upon asshole who has a quick trait or two and says things in a European accent and maybe you'll get the scummiest Narrator I've ever heard say something smarmy based on a passive roll you'll probably fail mid-conversation. Go kill some shit and come back and maybe I'll try to help you not die. Idiot.

But you can't not die. You need to keep dying, and people need to keep failing to help you not die, or people need to keep trying to kill you because you're dying the wrong way for them, or else there'd be no reason to have the game. Honestly, if you lost the tadpoles before you killed the final boss, like, two party members would probably just outright try to kill each other, and everyone else would fuck off back to their shitty little lives, except for the ones who managed to escape their shitty little lives, in which case I guess the adventure continues! I don't feel like any of these people, with maybe three exceptions, would actually keep litigating the campaign if their lives weren't on the line.

But hey, even if almost every time someone speaks it's just to either whine about how hard they have it or to criticize you for a choice you made or to give you a quest because everything in Faerûn is your fucking problem, at least you get to have the gameplay! At least you get to slog through some of the most bullshit combat encounters they can throw at you with their barely-working mess of a battle system! With the most boring bosses imaginable save one! (Why is Gortash the only fun boss? Why does he get to have those explosives systems that aren't anywhere else?)

But oh, you get to make so many choices! You can be whoever you want, so long as they're someone who'll make any of these specific choices. Fuck off.

Meanwhile the music makes you want to fucking tear your hair out because I swear to god every single track uses the exact same leitmotif and it is so boring. Oh my god this game takes absolutely no fucking risks with anything. There's no fucking reason to play this thing. It's miserable. It's miserable, it'll make you save scum, its loading times (to load saves; loading areas is quick as can be!) are atrocious, and every time you have an option to pick something cool, you get fucking despised for it. You can become a fucking mind flayer and the game makes sure to tell you you're a complete fucking scumbag for doing it.

I hate this game. I hate it so fucking much. It is so bad and it has nothing redeemable in it and it has nothing noteworthy in it and worst of all it is just not at all fun. It's awful.

Game of the Year. Play it.

Monark, November 25-December 3

Time to fulfill the promise I made back with Poison Control.

This game is good. It's not great. Maybe it's pretty good. I liked it a lot. I enjoyed playing it.

Does it have problems? Sure. Could they be easily corrected? Yep. Does that hamper my perception of it? Of course.

As I said, sometimes you just wanna play a mid game.

After I finished Monark, I checked out its TV Tropes page, and I of course linked to "So Okay, It's Average." The Quotes page on that trope all seem to imply that just being all right is somehow worse than being bad.

I can't agree with that.

First of all, I think the binary of "good" and "bad" art is a false one. There's value in literally all art. There's something to mine, to find, to take home, to use, to learn--to whatever--in everything. Meaning and worth aren't exclusive to the good.

Maybe something isn't as good as it could be, but it's certainly what it is, and nothing else is as good at being it. Monark maybe isn't a great game but it's awesome at being Monark. I doubt any other game could compare.

So many articles from game writers and journalists lament the concept that "there's so many great games out there that it's just impossible to want to make time for anything that isn't great." That's... such a sad state, to me. Imagine playing a game only because it is considered "great." Imagine needing everything you play to have an award or a green Metacritic score just so you'll make time for it.

I don't think these writers mean to do this when they say it, but they're really benefiting a capitalist mindset. Companies have to do everything they can to get your attention. They have to make "great" games, or you won't play them. They need hype machines. They need stellar reviews. They need people talking. They need public reception to manufacture their game's own greatness, so that it will be great and then be played and then make money. If the incentive to get good reviews is to make money then the game is just a product and it wasn't made to be art.

I don't think people purposely set out to make shitty games or average games. I just think they set out to make the game they make, and the question is how well they achieve that goal. And that's entirely personal. It's something that only the creators can decide.

But in the end, some of the creators are producers and directors and executives at publishing companies who look at games in terms overhead, costs, projected income, earnings statements, financial reports.

But these are the people who make great games. Because they have to money to spend to make them great, the clout they need to keep exploiting their specific workers, and the agents necessary to make sure that reviewing publications will be predisposed to helping make their game great (you know, like what Nintendo relies on pretty much exclusively). The game doesn't have to be good. People just have to be told that it is, and then when enough people believe, they'll police the narrative so much that others will be scared to voice their opinion without getting a ton of clown emojis in their inboxes.

I'm not saying that's every "great" game. I'm willing to argue it's probably most Games of the Year as determined by Big Industry Figure Geoff Keighley, though (borne out for sure with 2022's winner; Elden Ring is so mediocre, dude).

Anyway, there's no need to play all the "great" games that are out. You know what you can play instead? The games you want to play.

You don't have to agree with me that sometimes you just wanna play a mid game. But you'll probably agree that sometimes you just wanna play a specific game. Good, bad, or mid, it's what you want to play because it, in some way, speaks to you.

That's all you need.

Mediterranea Inferno, December 4-December 6

Until now, I was cautious about pandemic stories.

The problem has always been that, sure, the lockdown happened for a year (in the US, at least), but it was only a year. It was major, to be sure, and I'm not downplaying that, but in the grand scheme of human history, it was a year. There's no guarantee (or even, necessarily, reason to believe) anything like it will happen again for a long time. So, I thought, how applicable could stories that come from it be to the future?

Don't get me wrong, I always recognized that in the lockdown was stories about isolation, grief, illness, fear, loss. But those are all distinctly human things we've been writing about since we could write. They weren't unique to the pandemic. Why use the very specific imagery of the lockdown to tell a story about those things when there's definitely more universal things to use?

I'm, as always, an idiot.

Beyond just the fact that it was an event and we'll never stop needing to take stock of it, to examine it, to see who we were and became through it, the pandemic was a world-ending phenomenon, a sea change, a new way of understanding ourselves, or misunderstanding ourselves, or misunderstanding others.

Mediterranea Inferno is about having lost yourself. The lockdowns made three young Italian men lose themselves, and when they came back together in 2022 they found that they had lost each other, too. It presents continuity with their histories: their self-destruction wasn't inevitable, but the pandemic forcing them to grapple with their places in life created living nightmares of isolation, grief, powerlessness, loss of identity, and loneliness.

When you start a new game, a card informs you that the creator made it "about his generation." He seems to think that we're lost, not in the way that the Lost Generation was, but in a different way. Whereas in the 1920s we lost faith in symbols, institutions, and humanity, in the 2020s we lost faith in ourselves and each other.

It's terrifying to admit that we can't do this alone, and that the crutches we always used to get through each day were other people. Claudio relied on his family name; it lost all meaning when his father blew his inherited fortune, revealing that there isn't necessarily a continuity between past success (Nino) and the present. Mida relied on the ways he could keep people at arm's length and when he couldn't get closer to the only person he wanted to grow closer to, he decided that others were there for him to take. And Andrea was never able to identify precisely what he needed from other people to keep him going, mistaking sex and skin-deep pleasure for the validation he so desperately craved.

Of course, if one of them gets accepted to Heaven during the Assumption, one of the others kills their friends and, in one case, accidentally himself. And if none of them make it--or if all of them do--they tell themselves that they're no longer friends. They walk away. They fall to the ground. They feel, sharply, the absence. They try to feel it in the crutches they replaced each other with (the past, the prestige, the plenty). But it isn't there.

Alternatively, if they suffer enough, they can give their spiritual guide through their pain an opportunity as well, and through him learn that they went through all of it to encourage them to revolt against their fathers, against the endless history that suffuses every rock in Italy. Paraphrasing: "There's never been an Italian Revolution. We've always been satisfied with what our fathers gave us, so long as we had permission to kill our brothers." He, like so many, wanted the pandemic to become a watershed moment, one that spurred on change, made the world a better place.

And the Sun Guys reject it. Their revolt is to refuse to be told what to do.

Just give them time to figure out what to do next.

I don't think you can tell this story without the pandemic.

This game is bleak. It's harsh. The style is immaculate. The soundtrack rules. Play it.

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, June 16-ongoing

Here is why the schedule slipped.

I like this game a lot. I burned myself out on it. Over the course of months.

I'm still not done. I'm not letting myself uninstall it until I'm done.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Pokémon Fool's Gold, unknown

The new music was great and the sprites were awesome and I love Eris. But to me this was mostly a fun new way to experience Gen 2. That's not a bad thing, really. Gen 2 isn't great, but there's a lot about it to love.

Pokémon Unbound, unknown

This and the previous entry are the only two Pokémon mods or fangames or whatever that I've ever played. I'm glad I started here!

If you're into playing fangames or whatever you know about this one and you know it rules. I'm not gonna bother praising it directly, though I'll say it earns all the good things said about it.

For me, projects like these really remind me of why we're still drawn to the Pokémon series even when the people in charge of it keep making pretty drastic decisions. I've said for years that the series is for kids and that it's not only fine but right to keep its focus firmly on kids, but Black and White proved that we can actually have our cake and eat it, too. We can have a game for kids that is also just flat-out a good game.

But for some reason, even if I ended up loving Gen 7 more than I did Gen 5, I feel like it's harder to call Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon good games? It's more like I can call them good Pokémon games. But are they good games?

I want them to be.

But what I want Pokémon games to be is totally different from what anyone else wants Pokémon games to be. Fool's Gold and Unbound confirmed that to me. I mean, I always knew it was true, but they confirmed it. What surprised me about them was that they were also good. That even if they weren't my vision, I still enjoyed them as a vision for Pokémon.

But to return to what I said a few paragraphs ago: We're still drawn to Pokémon because in each new entry we find more promises. We find new things to enjoy, to marvel at, to wonder about, to fill in. Every new mainline entry, especially since Black and White, feels like a new reinterpretation of what Pokémon is and can be, and even if we as fans don't always agree, we still have the conversation and we're still often compelled enough by something in the new interpretation that we hang onto it and let it be a part of what Pokémon is to us.

For as much as it stays the same, Pokémon is very much a living franchise, one that changes and, no pun intended, evolves. Maybe it does so in different ways than we might want, but there's nothing stopping us from knowing better. Well, nothing except Nintendo, a company that is more than welcome to fucking die immediately.

Pokémon, both the franchise and its fan works, is constantly grasping toward perfection. But we all know that perfection doesn't exist. We head towards and we know that we'll fail and we also know that even if we were to attain perfection, we'd reject it. Perfection is an illusion, a cruel one; even were it not, it would still be cruel, a poison pill. Real beauty isn't in perfection, it's in striving for it knowing you'll fail. It's about being weak, bad even, useless even, and still being loved. It's about trying, hard, getting nowhere close, and smiling afterward. It's about working together to make something new, something that loves, something that brings us all together to love even harder. It's about the struggle; it's about the effort; it's about the handshake after the battle.

Wherever Pokémon goes, no matter who's propelling it along, it'll be Pokémon. And that's what I want.

[noteguk]

for science | jhs | m

— summary; in which Hoseok hears through the grapevine that you give one of the best blowjobs ever, and he needs to test it to be sure. 

— contents and warnings; blowjob (duh), dirty talk, praising and stupid pet names, cum eating, deepthroating (the oc has no gag reflex), Hoseok finds heaven, kind of crack? Idk don’t take this seriously, college!au, hoseok x reader (with a mention of past Jimin x reader), studying sessions being interrupted in the name of science 

— words; 5,1k

Requested by anon! 

Hoseok could be kind of clueless when it came to some science-related things (and his high school biology teacher could attest to that), but one thing he knew very well was the scientific method. All that hypothesis-testing-stuff, or whatever the hell that was (okay, maybe he didn’t know it that well) had taken him out of some trouble in the past. It helped him see some of his decisions in a more experimental light, avoiding the terrible Olympic-somersault-into-conclusions that had gotten so many of his friends into awkward situations. And it shouldn’t even be said that he took quite a bit of pride in that — it made him feel very intelligent and he would take any stroke to the ego that he could get. 

So, when Jimin got a bit too tipsy and started babbling on about how you gave him the best blowjob of his life, Hoseok was, at the very least, cautiously skeptical. 

“You’re such a drama queen.” Hoseok rolled his eyes before chugging down a bit more of his beer. He was nowhere near as intoxicated as Jimin was, and he wasn’t planning on changing that. It was a Wednesday night, for fuck’s sake. He had to leave some thrill to the end of the week. “It probably was like… alright. Good, even. But the best one ever? Please.” 

“It was so much more than alright, dude.” Jimin threw his head over the couch’s back, looking like he just got washed up on the shore. His hair was a mess of clear strands, exploding on his head like a failed science fair experiment. “It was the best suck of my liiiiife. I wish she didn’t hate me so I could have that again.” 

He scoffed. Hoseok had enough filter left in him to avoid telling Jimin that the reason why you hated him was entirely his fault — what did he expect from three weeks of ghosting? Besides, if the head was that good, he would surely stick around for just a bit longer than two months. “Sure. Like the time that you almost died riding a roller coaster.” 

“Hey. I almost did.” Jimin’s eyes opened, presenting his friend with a dazed-out, unfocused brand of frustration. He was getting tired of not being taken seriously — didn’t Hosoek know that alcohol makes you more honest? He wasn’t making things up. Not when they were as serious as the well-being of his dick, or actual death. “It was some Final Destination bullshit, I’m telling you. Pieces of metal flying and everything.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He waved it off, leaning closer to Jimin so he could take the almost-empty can of beer from his clumsy hands, and placed it on the center table. “I think you’ve had enough alcohol for tonight, man. You have a class at ten tomorrow.” 

“I’m serious, dude,” Jimin pressed on. It was past eleven and Hoseok only wanted to sleep, but the other boy was clearly clueless about the lack of mutual interest in that conversation. “Aren’t you two friends or something?”

“Kind of. It’s weird,” Hoseok answered. You two had lingered in a hazy friendship space for a long time now, and he didn’t know exactly how to explain your relationship. He didn’t really consider you two close by any means, but you weren’t strangers or casual friends either. To be honest, he hadn’t thought too much about it until that very moment. “Why? What does that have to do with anything?” 

Jimin sighed, fumbling against the sofa. Much to Hoseok’s delight, he was starting to get sleepy as well. “You could ask her to suck you off,” he mumbled, “then you can feel it for yourself.” 

He laughed at that, unable to believe what he was hearing. “Jimin, you’re out of your mind if you think that’s not gonna backfire.” 

He blinked heavily. “Hm? Why?” 

Hoseok blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “We aren’t that close, and we haven’t done anything remotely sexual before this. It would be super creepy.”

“That’s not true,” Jimin spoke lazily, as if the words were starting to get hard to find. There was a pause so long after his sentence that Hoseok thought his roommate had fallen asleep. “I know you guys made out like at the beginning of the semester. Taehyung told me so.”

He was going to murder Taehyung. “It wasn’t like that. We were both drunk and it was super awkward afterwards.” Hoseok got up from the couch, leaving Jimin to groan and spread out his legs over the cushions. “Listen, I’m glad you two had fun, and I’m sorry you ruined it. But I’m not gonna ask ____ to suck me off just so I can know if you’re being dramatic or not.” 

Jimin smirked wickedly — or at least tried to, because his lack of facial control wasn’t doing him any favors. “Whatever you say,” he teased, “but I think you’re curious.” 

Truth was: Hoseok was beyond curious. The cogs in his head had started to move, and his brain was evoking lewd images of you so fast that he could barely follow. He would be pretending if he said that he never saw you under that light before, but, after the mess that was your makeout session, he had forced himself to jump into the friendzone before he managed to make things worse. 

Hoseok liked you very much, even if you two weren’t particularly close. He enjoyed spending time with you, he found you funny, smart, and way out of his league. But he wasn’t delusional enough to believe that you would actually say yes to sucking him off, especially so out of the blue. 

“I’m not curious,” Hoseok lied through his teeth, and he wanted to change the subject so much that his head was starting to hurt. “You’re gonna sleep here?” 

“Hm… yes… the couch is very comfortable.” Jimin closed his eyes and adjusted his body on the furniture. His baggy shirt was already halfway through his stomach and his pants had ran up to his waist, but the man didn’t seem to notice. “You don’t know what you’re missing out on.”

Hoseok rolled his eyes, moving towards the door. He needed to get Jimin some blankets, because the other was surely not getting up for the rest of the night. It was bad enough to babysit him for those few hours of intoxication, but infinitely worse to make him chicken soup if he got sick. Been there, done that. “I’m sure the couch is great.”

Jimin’s voice was soft and sleepy when he spoke up again. Hoseok was already in the corridor, and he almost didn’t hear him when he said, “I’m not talking about the couch.” 

Hoseok went to Jimin’s bedroom and grabbed his pillow and the blanket from his undone bed. Meanwhile, scenarios ran wild inside his head, having you as the main star. He didn’t know what was taking over him, but he wasn’t so quick to ignore Jimin’s story. Hoseok was faced with a fantastic scenario of a perfect blowjob, and the idea that it was so close to him was making his pulse quicken. Again: it would be absurd to ask you to do that, regardless of the motive behind it, and he knew that it would be awful for your already-strange friendship. 

No, he could never do that. He would not. 

But like… what if it worked, and you magically accepted his request? And what if, by some wonderful moment, some millennial alignment of planets, Jimin wasn’t actually being hyperbolic and you actually had the ability to give incredible blowjobs? Could he really let it pass without giving it a shot? 

He could see it as a scientific experiment, Hoseok thought, as a way to prove a hypothesis. It couldn’t hurt if he just— 

Oh my god, dude, shut the fuck up and forget about this. 

Coming back to his senses, Hoseok strutted out of his roommate's bedroom and walked toward the living room. By the time he came back with the blanket and the pillow, Jimin was already deep asleep.

~ 

Against his best efforts, that conversation remained stuck to the back of his mind for the next two weeks. Hoseok would find himself going back and forth on the idea of you having some strange, Marvel-worthy superpower when it came to sucking dick and, worst of all, the idea that his skepticism was making him miss out on it. Jimin was exaggerated when it came to, well, pretty much everything, but that didn’t mean that he would be wrong about that specific subject. That would be a logical fallacy, and that was also something that Hoseok knew very well. Bless his late nights on Reddit for that. 

Yet as the days moved along, and his curiosity was slowly turning into desire, he was forced to revisit the infamous night between the two of you, the one that Jimin had so mercilessly mentioned. Thinking back on it, it wasn’t surprising that your overconsumption of alcohol, added to the way that you two had grown close (both physically and mentally) had ended up with Hoseok laying on top of you, kissing the soul out of you and fondling your breasts in the middle of a party. It wasn’t the most dignified moment of either of your lives, but, well, it happened. 

One way or another, the night didn’t move forward. Even if Hoseok already had a tent in his pants, you two were far too intoxicated to consent, and were quick to fall asleep before the situation could escalate. Bottom line: Hoseok woke up with your tit in his hand, a nightmarish hangover, and the decision that the You-Subject would have to stay on hold for some time. 

And on hold it stayed. For an entire semester. And it would’ve remained that way if Jimin’s stupid mouth hadn’t started talking. 

So after two weeks of self-inflicted psychological torture, Hoseok slipped a hangout invitation amidst your texts. If you saw any second intentions behind his “haven’t seen you in awhile, wanna hangout? ;)” you didn’t let it show. The problem was that you weren’t really in the mood to go out, especially since you had a big exam coming up, so Hoseok ended up convincing you that he would stay quiet if you let him go over to your place. 

It was a bit harder not to notice the desperation in his proposal that time, but you ended up agreeing. Your thought process was that the boy would eventually realize that his hangout attempt was ridiculous and that he would leave you to study by yourself, and the two of you would reschedule that odd friendship session to when you weren’t drowning in textbooks. 

The problem was that you had been stupid enough to believe that your friend would actually keep his mouth shut. 

Hoseok was seated on the edge of your bed for so long that he was sure that his asscheeks were permanently imprinted on your sheets. Because he hated himself, he kept eyeing the digital clock to your right, and he was certain that he had spent the last fifty two minutes and thirty three seconds staring at the back of your head and trying to come up with a casual way to ask for a blowjob. 

He had tried a few times already, and each one constituted of him being unable to finish his sentence, instead looking at you like BooBoo The Fool until you turned back around to face your disorganized desk, sighing and trying to concentrate on your work. 

All things considered, he couldn’t actually believe he had escalated Jimin’s sailor tale to that point. He was out of his mind, that was a fact, and he had absolutely no clue how you would react once he (if he) found the words to ask you to sacrifice your mouth for science. 

God, he was an idiot. 

He cleared his throat and got ready to try one more time. “So… I…” 

You sighed heavily and turned around on the chair. “Hobi, this is the fifth time you’re starting a sentence and not finishing it,” you said, annoyed. “Can you tell me what the problem is? I have a test in two days and you promised you wouldn’t interrupt me if you came over.” 

“I’m sorry,” he didn’t like feeling like a kid being scolded, even if he kind of deserved that. Hoseok guessed it would be better to just take off the band-aid before he made an even bigger fool out of himself. “Let me just, like, explain the context of this. Otherwise it’s going to be even more strange.” 

Dropping your pen, you fully swirled the chair around, crossing your hands over your legs. He wasn’t expecting your complete attention anytime soon, and the seriousness in your stare made his courage falter for a second. It was such a stupid idea, you’d just end up hating him like you did Jimin. “As long as you make it quick,” you told him.  

Hoseok hesitated, running one hand through his hair. “Yeah, okay, so… like, a few weeks ago I was talking to Jimin,” he started, watching your face for any signal of an expression — confusion, disgust, anything. But he found nothing. “We were drunk, and he started talking about the time that you two were together. Like, sexually.” 

You blinked, unfazed. “And?”

“And… he told me that you give, like, the best blowjobs in history,” the words left his mouth before he could fully digest them. This time, he got a reaction out of you — a light raise of your eyebrows. “And, no offense, but I didn’t believe him. You know how extra he is about some stuff. Most stuff.” 

There was a moment of silence as you waited for him to go on, but Hoseok was too busy swallowing his thoughts down and feeling like he would collapse at any given moment. You sighed. “So what? You wanted to tell me that you don’t believe in my blowjob abilities? That’s all? Can I go back to studying now?” 

“No, that’s…” Now, things were starting to get complicated. Just take off the band-aid, Hoseok, don’t chicken out now. “I wanted to know if you could show me. Like, if you could suck me off. So I could... confirm that hypothesis.”

Every part of his brain was suddently hyperaware of how fucking stupid he just sounded. He had expected that another thick silence would follow, but his heart almost leaped out of your chest when you started laughing at him — like, full-chest, eyes closing, head rolling back laughing. “Are you serious?” You asked, taking one hand to cover your mouth before, at last, bursting out again. He felt like his ego was being stabbed with a rusty nail. “I can’t believe you, Hoseok. Took you all this time just to ask me if I could suck you off? For science?”

His mouth felt like it was full of cotton and he had to clear his throat before he found the force to answer you. “Yeah, I mean, only if you’re comfortable with it, of course,” he struggled to say, each word morphing into the next. His stomach had frozen up and the flight or fight response was starting to kick in. Had he really been that much of an idiot? When did his cock start dictating his words? “I… I know this is like, super creepy. I’m sorry. We can forget this ever happened and I’ll never talk to you again. I shouldn’t have said anything.” 

Suddenly sad, he waited as you settled back on the chair, wiping a small tear from the corner of your eye before you stared at him. There was still a smirk crawling up your lips, and he felt like the world was collapsing all around him  as the silence expanded around the two of you. He looked at the digital clock: it had taken him precisely three minutes to ruin everything. 

He sighed, shoulders falling. “Do you hate me? Why are you so quiet?” 

You bit down on your lip, your eyes narrowing as you took his form in. Hoseok was hot: point blank. He was also nice, and respectful enough to realize that he might have overstepped a few lines with his request — and, even if you couldn’t really understand it, you also weren’t bothered by it. And you certainly didn’t hate him. In a way, you were almost flattered. You would’ve been more if the comment had come from anyone else but your Danny Phantom ex. But that was a different story. 

The entire situation was just too funny to let it go. And, besides, you really wouldn’t mind sucking Hoseok off. It wasn’t as if you had never thought about that before. 

“I’m... considering it,” you told him, watching as his face lit up in a mixture of confusion and joy. He looked like a kid seeing Santa for the first time. “If you promise to shut up and let me study, I’ll do it. And if you agree to never talk about it again.” 

Hoseok blinked profusely, his mind short circuiting. “For real?” 

“Yeah.” You raised from your chair, walking closer to your bed. Hoseok swallowed hard and leaned back, placing his hands on the mattress for support. “But do me a favor: if it’s not that good, don’t tell me. It’ll hurt me.” 

“Yeah, alright.” He swallowed dry, every neuron in his brain trying to grasp what the fuck had just happened. His mind was the Spongebob office being set on fire, and he suddenly didn’t know how to deal with the anticipation booming in his chest. “I’m... not hard yet, though.” 

“It’s okay.” You kneeled in front of him, placing your hands on his inner thighs and slightly pushing them apart. Hoseok quickly got the cue, and opened a bit more so you could comfortably place yourself between them. “Just... relax,” your voice was almost a whisper then, and he felt his soul trying to leave him. That was insane. “Let me take care of you.”  

Your words managed to make him relax a bit, then he tensed all the way back at the feeling of your hands fumbling with his button. His breath hitched as you pulled the zipper down, fingers hooking on the edge of his pants before tugging them down his thighs. 

He felt exposed as his pants fell like a puddle around his ankles, his tongue coming out to wet his lips as you leaned in. Hosoek felt like he was dreaming when you started nibbling at his skin, kissing and licking his inner thighs as you slowly made your way closer to his aching member. 

“I can’t believe this is happening,” he barely got out before sighing, the tingles of your caresses on his skin shooting directly towards his cock, already semi-hard. 

You flicked your eyes up at him, humming against his thigh muscles. You were now so dangerously close to his underwear that he thought he would lose consciousness. “Were you daydreaming about it or something?” You teased. 

Maybe in a different position, he would’ve lied about it. But the truth came out before he could hold it back. “Ever since Jimin told me that, yeah,” he said. 

“Hmm… hope I live up to the expectation, then,” you purred, looking up at him with those doll-like eyes. Hoseok suddenly felt like he was losing his balance, his entire body burning in desire and expectancy. You looked like another one of his horny daydreams, but you were kneeling right there, in arms reach, and he didn’t know how he would deal with what was about to ensue. 

Your mouth was hovering above his clothed cock before he could notice and, delicately, you leaned down to place a kiss on it. The touch was tender, almost numb with the fabric standing between you two, and yet Hoseok shivered, biting down on his lip as one of your hands enveloped his erection. He watched, mesmerized, as you started lazily stroking him through his underwear, leaning your head to the side so you could place heavy kisses on him, at times giving his tip a few kitten licks until it was covered by a thin layer of your saliva. 

The sensation left him on edge, silently begging for more. By the time you moved back so you could undress him, Hoseok was a mess of shallow breaths and heavy swallows; his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as pleasure started to build up at the corners of his perception. Biting back a moan of relief, Hoseok raised his hips as you slowly pulled his underwear downward, allowing for his cock to spring free from its confinement. You had done a good job teasing him, because it was already fully hard when it bounced against his abdomen, red-tipped and leaking. 

His gaze oscillated between your face and his cock, watching for any reaction as you took one hand to his length, squeezing him firmly. “Fuck,” he let out a grunt, his overwhelmed body responding to the smallest of touches. 

You smirked at his reaction, taking a quick glimpse at his devastated features before moving back to what you were doing. Hoseok was so cute, you thought, liking the way he was so responsive. 

A shudder ran up Hoseok’s body when your tongue came out between your lips, placing delicate licks on his base. He loved the feeling of your warm muscle against his hardened member, his mind growing eager as you began tracing a path upwards, flattening your tongue against him. His breathing was ragged by the time that you reached his crown, a hum escaping your throat as you lazily swirled your tongue around his tip, covering him with your saliva. 

You took your time caressing his slit with your mouth, waiting until he was cursing and panting before you finally wrapped your lips around him. At first, you only took his tip in your mouth, sucking so slowly that Hoseok whined and buckled his hips from the bed, trying to make you move faster. 

Wordlessly, you simply placed your palm against his thigh and pressed him back down. Even if that was the last thing he wanted to do, Hoseok accepted your order and settled back against the mattress, grunting as you continued to tease him. 

“Please, put it all in,” he begged, starting to lose his trail of thought. “This is torture.” 

And maybe another day you would have taken a bit more time torturing him, but, that afternoon, you were kind of in a rush to finish studying. So you complied. 

“Oh, fuck, fuck.” His eyes shut and his head was thrown back as you fully sank down on his cock, your tongue flat against him. Before he could stop himself, his hand flew to your hair, yanking at the strands as you moved back up, your hand pumping the parts of him that you couldn’t reach. 

“God, your mouth feels so great…” He moaned, back arching as you reached his tip once again, licking it before sinking back down — you took him just a bit deeper that time, and the motion didn’t pass by unnoticed. He was really starting to believe Jimin, and he wondered if maybe he should’ve been more worried about the entire rollercoaster situation. “Ah, that’s it. Just like that.” 

You moaned around him, the vibrations making him cry out, desperate. Hoseok couldn’t hold himself back from moving closer to the edge of the bed, his other hand clenching your bedsheets between his fingers as you continued to swallow his cock like it belonged in the hot confinement of your mouth. 

“Oh— oh my god, baby,” he grunted, pulling at the strands of your hair. His mind was starting to get hazy, his chest fluttering in a mess of sighs and heavy breaths every time that you sank down on his member; every time you flicked your tongue against his sentitive slit or pumped his base. “That’s really good, you take my cock so well.”

You looked up just to see the mess that Hoseok had turned into. With his mouth parted and eyes glazed over, he looked like he was about to fall apart at any second. He was watching you in complete awe, his eyebrows falling to form a beautiful frown of concentration; tongue coming out to lick his lips. He was so fucked out that you felt yourself getting riled up by his image, a pool of wetness accumulating between your thighs. 

“You look so pretty like this.” He exhaled, unaware of his own words. Hoseok was too busy following your swollen, redden lips as they wrapped around his member, your cheeks hollowing after you sucked him with all that you had. Even the small amount of droll around your mouth was enough to make him throb in your hold, a grunt escaping him. “With these — fuck — those pretty lips around my cock, shit. I could watch you forever.” 

You hummed around his member again at his words, the vibrations shooting directly at his core, where a rising heat had dangerously grown stronger, signaling his upcoming orgasm. Hoseok loved the way you actually looked like you were enjoying yourself, moaning and whimpering around his cock as you took all of him in your mouth, eyes closing every time he throbbed inside you. The eagerness in which you took him in, like you were starving for his cock, was one of the filthiest images that Hoseok had ever seen, and it was one that he knew would haunt his dreams for the years to come. 

When you removed his cock from your mouth with a dirty wet sound, Hoseok was about to complain before he saw you licking down his length, one of your hands holding his cock away from your face as your tongue started to play with his balls. It was an odd feeling, but not an unwelcomed one, and it kept him on edge for a little while longer while you played with him. 

With a timid whimper, you looked up at him as you licked your way back up to his tip. The image was so hot that he almost fainted, a deep moan escaping his throat when you took him back inside your delicious mouth. 

And the truth was clearer than Hoseok had ever expected: Jimin was right. 

“Fuck, babe, how did you get this good?” Hoseok grunted, trying his best to focus on the picture-perfect image of your lips wrapped tightly around his throbbing cock. He could tell that his release was starting to build up at an alarming rate, his thighs growing weaker every time you took him inside you. “Oh my- Ngh! Fuck! Oh my god!” 

Hoseok’s mind was wiped clean when he felt his tip hitting the back of your throat, his hips buckling up as your throat clenched around him. He was pretty sure he was in heaven then — if he focused, he could hear angels singing all around him — , his pleasure overtaking every cell of his body as you continued sucking the soul out of him. 

“Holy fuck, do that again,” he begged, his voice much higher than before. You didn’t need to be asked twice, because, within a second, he was crying out at the feeling of your throat wrapping around his cock one more time; his hands holding tightly to the roots of your hair. The only reason why Hoseok hadn’t started fucking your mouth yet was because he wanted to have you in control, giving him the best head of his life without any interruption. “Fuck, fuck— Baby, you’re so fucking good at this, fuck.”

There was a vague raising of his hips to meet your movements, making him hit the back of your throat again and again, the lewd sounds you were making filling the room. Nothing in his life had ever compared to that instant, he had ever felt a pleasure as great as he did at that point, and he knew it was about to snap. 

“God, I’m gonna cum,” he sobbed, finally closing his eyes and letting the pleasure take over. “Fuck, you’re so good, I’m gonna—“ 

Hoseok filled your mouth with his cum, dripping down your throat when you swallowed around him. His head was spinning and his muscles were trembling, and that time he was unable to hold himself back from thrusting up against your mouth, trying to prolong that divine sensation for as long as he could before, at last, collapsing against the mattress with a final, shaky moan. 

He barely heard you when you got up to your feet, his mind floating above his body as he tried to get himself back together. With the little force that he still had inside him, Hoseok leaned on his elbows and stared at you like you were made of gold. “Fuck, ____.” He breathed out, and the only thing he could say was, “What the fuck?” 

You giggled at his reaction, thumb cleaning a bit of cum that had painted the corner of your mouth. “I appreciate your feedback,” you teased, pointing over your shoulder, to where your desk stood, forgotten. “Now that you have your answer, can I study in peace?” 

“Y-Yeah, sure,” he struggled to say. “I’ll... stay quiet.” 

You smiled brightly. “Thanks!” 

He thought about thanking you right back for giving him the best orgasm of his life, but he thought that would make everything much more pathetic. So he didn’t. 

Hoseok eventually found the motivation within him to put his cock back inside his underwear, clumsily pulling his pants back up. He found himself in the same position he was before everything went down: dumbfounded, staring at the back of your head as you worked on your textbook. The red numbers on the clock told him that just ten minutes had passed, and yet his life had completely changed. 

All that he wanted was to return the favor — it was the fair exchange, after all. Hoseok sat up at the edge of the bed and spoke up, filled by a newfound courage. “Wait. Don’t you want me to take ca—”

“Shut the fuck up, Hoseok.” 

His mouth fell shut and his courage deflated just as quickly. Maybe another time.

[omg-im-such-a-masochist]

⭐️SIRIUS⭐️

Prompt: Requested, by the beautiful @romanreignsgirl20 Thanks for your request, sweetheart. I made some slight plot adjustments (I hope you don’t mind❤️) and I hope you’ll like it how it turned out😉.

Word Count: Long-ish

Pairings: Roman Reigns x Curvy/Thick Reader

Warnings: +18, smut, praise kink, body worship, bondage (shibari), oral sex (female receiving), food play, dom x sub dynamic, rough sex, delicate subjects regarding self image.

Editor: @rheacanbreakme

Tag: @ziasaph , @marlananicole , @akiko-tanaka , @wickedsunfire , @sassymox , @nicolewoo , @saccreigns , @mindofasagittaruis , @reigns-5sos , @auawdo , @lustyromantic , @babydee17 , @yungbludjazz360

Notes: This request has a special place in my heart now, people 🥺 Ok, so, why the title Sirius? You may ask, and I’ll tell you why: Sirius is the brightest star in Earth's night sky. The name means "glowing" in Greek — a fitting description, as only a few planets, the full moon and the International Space Station outshine this star. Later in the fic, you’ll realize why this little piece of information is valid for you 😉. Y’all know the drill, loves: You can check out my previous stories on my Masterlist if you’d like (it would make me your girl here very happy 🤗). Now, let’s get to the fun part, shall we? Hope you’ll enjoy...

Standing in front of the mirror, I stared at my newest acquisition: a light blue, mermaid style dress. Subconsciously, I couldn’t help but notice how it clung to every part of my body that I hated, and I instantly regretted purchasing it in the first place. I felt completely insecure about everything.

I heard the front door open, and Roman calling for me. Almost on instinct, I took the dress off with the intention of hiding it, but Roman was faster than I anticipated in making his way to our room, opening the door and catching me off guard, giving me no option but to try and hide the dress behind my back.

“Hey baby, what- Are you ok?” Roman asked, when he saw the frightened look on my face

“Sure” I lied

“What are you hiding back there?” He asked, curiously

“Nothing...” I trailed off

“Let me see it” He teased

“It’s nothing, really” I tried to dismiss him

Roman smirked and quickly ran towards me, yanking the piece of fabric out of my hands. He lifted the dress up in the air, almost as if to examine it closer

“Wow, this is really pretty” He complimented

“Ummm...thanks”

“Put it on for me” He said, smiling

“I-It didn’t fit” I lied once more

Roman raised an eyebrow in suspicion, asking

“Marissa, I could smell your perfume on the fabric, so I know you’ve tried on! What’s going on, babe? Why are you lying?”

“I...I don’t think it looks good on me” I murmured

“Can I know why?” He asked

“Because” I sighed “It shows everything I want to hide”

“Can you try it on for me, so I can give you my opinion?” Roman asked, softly

“Yeah, I guess so” I replied, taking the dress out of his hands, I made my way to the closet, so I could put it on without him watching.

Once I got the dress on, I went back to the bedroom, and Roman’s eyes instantly swam all over my body.

“Baby, fuck!” He gasped

“I know... I told you it looks weird-“

“Weird? Oh no no no, sugarplum, you look stunning!” Roman said in awe

“No, it’s we-“

“Mari, baby girl” Roman walked towards me, and placed one hand on my cheek “You look fucking gorgeous, baby! Why do you think it doesn’t look good on you?”

Trying my best to hide my insecurities, I shook my head and try to change the subject

“So, how was lunch with Jey?”

“Oh no, baby. We’re not going down that path, not until you tell me the truth” Roman softly pulled me towards the full length mirror, placed us in front of it, and asked

“Mari, what do you see when you look in the mirror?”

“Myself, in a dress that doesn’t look good at all” I tried to joke, but Roman didn’t seem to like it

“I disagree with you. I see the complete opposite! I see a beautiful woman, who has no idea of how stunning she is and how gorgeous her body-“

“Is not and how this stupid dress puts on display everything I want to hide” I mumbled

“Mari, look at me” He lifted my chin up with two of his fingers, and locked our gaze together in the mirror

“Baby, you’re the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen! The dress looks ravishing on you, it compliments your body beautifully. The fact that you have so many curves is a plus to me! It always has been. Yes, I love you, but why do you think I invited you out for dinner in the first place?”

“Because you had nothing better to do?” I cackled, but Roman continued in a serious tone

“No. It was because I was attracted to you. Physically attracted, sexually attracted! If I’m being honest with you, I pictured us fucking from the first moment I laid eyes on you!” He said, and I looked at him in disbelief

“Oh, you don’t believe me?” He asked

“Ask Jey then! Or Jimmy, even Seth. They all caught me jerking off and moaning your name”

My eyes went wide, and my face went crimson red at the comments he made.

“What?” He chuckled “I’m only being honest!” Roman’s arms circled around my waist, as he asked

“You still don’t believe, do you?”

I sighed heavily “I’m sorry Ro, but I can’t-“

“Well, then you give me no option but show to you”

Roman slowly pulled the zipper down on the back of the dress, and let it slide down my body, becoming nothing but a pool of fabric around my ankles. Offering me his hand, he led us to our playroom in the basement. When we got there, he positioned me in the center of the room, and pressed a button on the wall that would make the hooks on the ceiling lower down. Roman went to hooks on the wall that held our collection of bondage ropes, and took the lavender jute rope in his hand.

He began to create an intricate pattern upon my skin with the lavender rope, twisting, turning and knotting the rope into a beautiful design. Roman passed the rope on the top and bottom of my breasts, followed by my upper arms, where he securely tied them together on my back and looped the rope around the ceiling hooks. He pressed the button on the wall once more, making the hooks rise, lifting me off of the floor. He lifted my legs up and bent them back, then passed the rope several times around each thigh and tied my ankles next to my thighs, leaving me spread open for him.

He stepped back to admire his work.

“Damn baby, you look so tempting” Roman bit his lips, came closer to me, and gave me an intense kiss “I’ll be right back” He whispered

A few minutes later, Roman returned with a heart shaped lollipop and the chocolate syrup we kept in the fridge. Positioning the large mirror with wheels in front of me, he said

“Today is going to be a special day for you, cupcake” Roman said, while standing behind me, looking at me through the mirror “You’re going to finally see yourself through my eyes. You’ll see everything that I see when I’m pleasuring you. You’ll see how beautiful you are, how perfect your body is, how much you turn me on” He leaned closer to my ear “And most importantly, you’ll see that there’s absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about! You should feel only pride to have such a beautiful face, body and soul” He kissed my hair “My perfect girl”

Roman leaned back, and grabbed the lollipop.

Taking off the wrapper, he placed the candy in front of my lips and said “Suck it”

I did as he said and began to suck on the lollipop, and while I did, our gaze locked in the mirror and I could see his eyes slowly turning darker and darker.

“That’s enough” Roman said, stopping me. And then, without breaking our gaze, he started to roam the candy all around my body: on my breasts and nipples, my soft belly, my hips, my thighs and finally my mound, where he began to circle my clit with the lollipop.

“Ever since we met, I always thought about how sweet you are. The way you’re so kind and loving to everybody, how you always have a word or touch to bring comfort to those who need it and how lucky I am to have the sweetest woman in the world” Roman turned around, until he was in front of me “And as time went by, I noticed how physically sweet you are too. Your skin tastes like apricots, your kisses are as inebriating as the finest liqueur and your juices” Roman knelt down in front of me “Taste as sweet as the purest honey” He leaned forward until he was mere inches away from my core “I want you to keep your eyes on the mirror, Mari. Don’t close your eyes, don’t turn your head to the other side, don’t look down! I want you to see yourself, how stunning you are and how beautiful you get when you cum. Do you understand me?” Roman asked, placing both hands on my hips

“Yes, sir” I answered, looking down at him

“Good, baby” He smiled “Now, look at the mirror” Roman whispered and began to work his magic on me. It was excruciatingly hard for me to stare at myself, but the more Roman licked and hummed in pleasure the more I could see how my facial expression changed. I became more wild, more raw, more passionate, more like a vixen. The woman I always wished to be was now in front of me, she had always been there, I just was never able to see her. But Roman showed me her, the woman I wanted to be, the woman he always knew I was.

“Do you see her, baby?” He asked softly, inserting two finger in me

“Yes, sir” I whispered, trying to hold back my tears

“This is who you are, this is what I see whenever I look at you! I don’t care what other people say or think, the only thing that matters to me is what I see and especially what you can see” Moving his fingers in and out, Roman began to kiss my soft belly and stretch marks “I want you to see how beautiful you are, how much I love your body. All of it!” He curled his fingers inside of me, making me moan loudly. And when his lips closed around my clit, I came all over him and Roman more than eargerly licked me clean. “I love every curve, every love handle, every inch of your beautiful body” He said, making his way up, licking every sticky trace left by the lollipop. Roman kissed my breasts, played with my nipples with his tongue, left love marks on my neck and then he finally reached my lips and kissed me like it was the last time we would be together.

Leaning back, he took the chocolate syrup in his hand and said “Don’t look down yet”.

He began to write something on my belly and chest, but I had no idea what it was until he stepped aside, revealing the mirror once more so I could read what he wrote.

“Read it out loud for me, Mari” Roman said

“Beautiful and perfect. Sir” I shyly read

“Louder” He requested

“Beautiful and perfect. Sir”

“Again, louder” He asked and so I did

“What are you, baby?” Roman questioned

“Beautiful and perfect, sir”

“And what should you never forget that you are?” He asked

“Beautiful and perfect, sir” I responded with my voice strangled by tears

Roman knelt down again, and started to lick the chocolate syrup off. His tongue traced every letter, as to remind me of it. He didn’t licked everything off though, he left some remnants, so I could continue to see it and read it in the mirror.

“That’s my girl” Roman smiled softly, with his eyes full of love, and I couldn’t help but let the tears roll down my cheeks “It’s alright, sugarplum” He cood, kissing me sweetly. Once I stopped crying he turned around, so he could stand behind me again.

He grabbed the chocolate syrup once more, and wrote something on my ass cheeks, I payed attention to each letter. When he was done, he asked

“Mari, can you guess what I have written?” With a wicked grin on his face

“I think so, sir”

“What is it, baby?”

“Is it ‘mine’, sir?”

Roman chuckled and knelt down, tracing the letters as he did previously, but only this time he bit my ass cheek forcefully before standing up

“That’s right, cupcake. ‘Mine’ “

I looked in the mirror and saw he had pushed his jeans down, to his upper thighs. Right afterwards, I felt his tip against my entrance

“Remember to keep your eyes on the mirror, sugarplum” He winked, sliding in, slowly. The position that my body was in allowed me to feel him deeper, stretching my walls in a bitter sweet pain.

“Oh my-” I moaned

“Fuck, baby. You feel so good. So fucking good” He groaned, thrusting in me vigorously

We moaned in sync, looking at each other in the mirror, drowning in our grunts and gasps of pleasure.

My walls began to tighten around his length “You’re gonna cum, baby?” Roman bit my ear

“Yes, sir” I gasped, already feeling my orgasm rising

“Then cum, baby. Cum around my cock” Roman said, as he pounded even harder

I squealed, squeezing his length and triggering his own orgasm. Roman slid out of me, and admired his seed dripping out of my core.

“I love you” He said, looking in the mirror

“My beautiful Sirius” Roman smiled widely...

Please if you’re comfortable with it, let me know your thoughts on this? Feedbacks are always appreciated 🥰😘

[calyssmarviss]

Spoilers for Obi-Wan Kenobi Part V

So last week i had two people to scream at bit now I’m back to shouting at the internet instead.

I’ve seen, uh, not exactly spoilers but hints and inside jokes because i went on tumblr a bunch of times today forgetting it was Wednesday and i have high hopes for this one

Recap

Oh yeah Obi-Wan and Leia were both pretty badass in the last one, trench-coat incident notwithstanding

STOP SAYING HE'S AN OLD MAN OH MY GOD I CHECKED LAST WEEK HE'S ONLY 48

Titlecard

ARE WE IN CORUSCANT

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT

HELLO DARLING

AH

SHUT UP THAT'S FLIRTING

Karen Miller was on that balcony in spirit

See, Vader’s blowing hard just thinking about it

Mhm I’ve fought GoH battles on that bridge

Vader: onto more important matters: where’s my boyfriend

“Kneel.”

Kinky.

Ew. Grand Inquisitor, really?

Field trip to Jabiim let’s go

Haja!

Why didn’t they drop her to Alderaan before. I could probably answer that but i would need to go to my maps and, oh, fuck it

Yeah so it would have not taken much more time to drop Leia first but idk maybe it would be harder to travel through the Core worlds with the increased imperial presence… like, checkpoints on the lanes and pitstop planets

How long can they travel without stopping anyway?

Vader staring into hyperspace is… something. Idk what but it gives me feelings okay.

I’m just like him when i go to new planets in Borderlands 3 i stand i front of the ship and wait for the reveal.

Why is it all so dark on Jabiim i can’t see shit

That second hand lightsaber stand

“It’s not her, it’s Vader.”

Why are they like this. I mean. He’s not wrong but still.

“He’ll attack next. He hasn’t the patience for a siege.”

why is this so funny to me

“How do you know?”

*flashback to Wild Space*

Oh it’s a little bit weird to see them both with blue lightsabers and i watched some Clone Wars a few days ago.

Man that haircut. I know people who must have wept with joy from seeing the return of Wolfman Kenobi.

That back to back.

“Mercy doesn’t defeat an enemy, master.”

Oh Hayden, I’ve missed you so

“Which is why you’re gonna lose.”

I feel like I’ve written a scene just like this.

God we’re only eight minutes in.

I paused on a really pretty shot of the destroyer right in front of Jabiim i wish i could take a screenshot so bad rn

I’m such a fucking nerd i see a pretty planet and a couple fighters and i want to cry

Ooh, this feels very Last Jedi suddenly. Without the salt and the foxes.

Why? Are they blowing up the door when they apparently can lock down the place? How could they lock it down? What the fuck are they doing.

“I’m going to need a ladder.”

Oh right, it’s Lola. Already forgot.

Yeah so they couldn’t ask Lola to keep the front door open?

Why is it so dark?

Bail mail!

“We’re in trouble.”

No shit. What were we even doing checking our emails and spilling our backstory when the Empire is right at the front door

Here comes the Negotiator!

“Lord Vader will have you at any cost.”

“You mean Anakin.”

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HE GOT HER NUMBER

that’s beautiful payback for episode 2

“I was too weak.”

“They were the only family I knew. And he slaughtered them.”

“You’re not helping him are you? You’re hunting him.”

Well.

“Let me help you.”

“Why would i trust you.”

“Because we want the same thing.”

“Do you, Obi-Wan? Do you really want Anakin dead?”

Girl heard the stories you know. Two halves of a same warrior and all that. Damn, maybe she even spotted the Open Circle insignia on one of the thousands warships you put it on. Who knows.

“Where were you? When he was killing my friends?”

NOT WITH HIM AND THAT'S WHY WE HAVE THIS PROBLEM. He went to Utapau and took Anakin’s single braincell with him.

Hey no not the mute droid

I swear those two motherfuckers have been having a… Force bond discussion of a sort since Obi-Wan has been aware of Anakin being alive.

“Tell her to stand down. Kenobi is already ours.”

What was i saying?!

“There’s no way out, Master.”

Yeah this is not a memory i think. That’s mental battle.

Oh no his face when he says

“Admit you are beaten.”

That’s unfair man.

Who wrote this show? I have no idea. Anyway.

Here i paused to full on cry for two minutes and then realized why the girl were talking about praise kink regarding this episode

Also this show is making me feel strangely validated about past writing choices

“It’s over. I’m going back.”

“Vader wants me.”

Joby and Andrew we need to talk.

Obi-Wan said there were other ways to fight than lightsabers and m’y thoughts immediately turned dirty until i remembered the state of Anakin right now

Man i hope those Force ghosts are having the best time

“You’re not bringing him to me. I’m bringing him to you.”

Well fuck for a second there i misheard i thought he was bringing her to him like hi babe here’s the traitor in your inquisition but no what he’s actually doing is breaking my heart again

“We could end this together.”

Ben you’re tearing this family apart

“Because all he’ll see is me.”

We get it okay. He’s obsessed with you.

Think none of the stormtroopers hear that little convo?

And… they just bring him back inside?

“There. Your weapon’s gone. It’s over.”

Hayden has such a pretty smile.

“Your need for victory, Anakin it blinds you.”

So much could have been avoided if he’d just told him he was a good boy.

“Where is he.”

He asked once more, with feeling.

Leia baby, they need you to haul ass. Not me though. Take as much time as you want. This is fun.

Leia vs Lola

From spy to lamp torch

Why weren’t those people already on the ship

That’s SO sexy 🤩

I found my next desktop picture Vader’s back on main stage

I’m so disappointed this was so hot listen i don’t give a fuck about those innocent people Anakin deserved to win this one for sheer badassness

He didn’t even get to see him :(

So what they’re saying is that he’s still a Padawan lol give him some pearls to clip to his helmet

Hahaha Reva what did you think would happen.

Well i guess he did give her to him in the end

Hahahahaha he’s playing with her

He doesn’t even have his lightsaber out

🎶 This is the Vader Show 🎶

And it’s beautiful

Bye Reva

“Did you really believe i did not see it, youngling?”

Hey, the Rebels fans were right about that guy! He’s not dead!

“Our hyperdive is down. And they’re behind us.”

So what say you, General Kenobi?

What is that?

Oh it’s his comm

Back to Tatooine we go!

“I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Right.

You look like you’re gaving more than a bad feeling about this.

Hey Luke.

I / II / III

[asleepinawell]

Book Recs

I was gonna do one of these at the end of the year, but I’ve somehow managed to read 26 books this year already (12 novellas, 14 novels), almost all featuring queer authors and/or characters so this is already a long list.

Note: There’s a few on here I was kind of meh about, but in most of those cases it was a ‘book might be good but it’s not for me so i’ll mention it to put it on people’s radar anyway’ type of thing. Insert the usual necessary tumblr disclaimer about all of this being only my opinion and your opinions are valid too etc etc.

In order of when I read them:

Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir - Fantasy novella from the author of gideon the ninth that’s a twist on the classic princess trapped in a tower waiting for a prince story. Quite fun. (novella)

The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht - Dark fantasy about revenge and magic. m/m couple but like I said it’s pretty dark and twisted all around so definitely not a happy queer romantic story. My opinion was interesting premise that could have been executed better and probably should have been a full novel to embellish on the world building potential. (novella)

A Memory Called Empire & A Desolation Called Peace - Arkady Martine - Probably tied with murderbot as the best things I read this year. Scifi, f/f couple, wonderfully done exploration of what it means to fall in love with a culture that is destroying your own. More of the many queer anti-imperialist books that have come out recently and certainly some of the best. The second one is a direct continuation of the first. (2 novels)

The Tyrant Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson - This is the third in the Baru Cormorant series (The Masquerade) and was my favorite so far. The second and third book were originally one book that got split I believe and the second book didn’t stand alone as well (though was still great), but the third book really made up for that. Dark fantasy world starring a queer woc whose country and culture is destroyed by the imperial forces of that world colonizing and assimilating them. She vows revenge and decides to work her way up within her enemy’s ranks to enact it from within and bring an empire to ruins. Really really fascinating study of so many different aspects of our own world and the systems which enable and allow bigotry and how bigoted and violent narratives are used to control minorities. This is definitely a darker series and I was particularly impressed with some of the commentary on the racism prevalent in non-intersectional feminism as depicted through a fantasy world. Can’t wait for the last one to come out! (3 novels, 1 forthcoming)

The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells - There’s six of them--5 novella and a novel--and the first is All Systems Red. Told from the point of view of a self-aware droid/android that is rented out by a corporation to provide protection in a dystopian capitalist hellhole future that isn’t that unlike our current capitalist dystopia but is in space. Muderbot hacked the chip that controlled it and instead of going rogue just wants to be left alone to watch its favorite tv shows. Murderbot is painfully relatable and the books are both funny and poignant. Highly recommended. (5 novellas and a novel).

Winter’s Orbit - Everina Maxwell - This was a m/m romance novel with a scifi backdrop of royal intrigue. Generally I’m more into scifi with a queer relationship in the background than vice versa, so it wasn’t my favorite, BUT I think it was still well written and someone looking for more of the romance angle would enjoy it. Has all your favorite romance tropes in it, especially the yearning. (novel)

The Divine Cities - Robert Jackson Bennett - Three book series. I’m very conflicted about this one. Set in a fantasy world where an enslaved nation overthrew the country enslaving them and now rules over them. It’s a story of what happens after the triumphant victory and within that it’s also a murder mystery tied into the dying magic of the conquered nation. It also has a six foot something naked oily viking man fist fight a cthulhu in a frozen river. The second book was by far my favorite, mostly due to the main character being brilliant. My conflict comes from the fact I don’t feel like the story treated its women and queer characters well. Like it had really great characters but it didn’t do great by them overall. That and the third book didn’t live up to the first two. But still definitely worth a read, can’t stress enough how cool some of the world building was. (3 novels)

Into the Drowning Deep - Mira Grant - This might be the only one on here I disliked. It’s got a doomed boat voyage and creepy underwater terror and monsters and a super diverse cast of characters, but I just didn’t enjoy the writing style. While having a diverse cast is great, there were a lot of moments where it felt like characters were pausing to explain things about themselves that felt like a tumblr post rather than a normal conversation you might have while actively being hunted by monsters. I also bounced off all the characters. But a lot of people seem to have liked it so if you’re into horror and want a book with a f/f main couple then maybe you’ll enjoy it. (novel)

Dead Djinn Universe - P. Djèlí Clark - Around the early 1900′s, a man in Egypt discovers a way to access another world and bring Djinn and mysterious clockwork beings called Angels through. As a result, Egypt tells the British to get fucked and Cairo becomes one of the most powerful cities in the world. So Egypt, magic, djinn, a steampunk-ish vibe, oh and the main character is a butch queer woman who enjoys wearing dapper suits and looking fabulous while she investigates supernatural events. Her girlfriend is also mysterious and badass. And she has a cat. There’s three novella (one of which technically might be considered a short story) and then the first novel. You should absolutely read the novellas first (A Dead Djinn in Cairo, The Angel of Khan el-Khalili, The Haunting of Tram Car 015). Super fun and imaginative series. (3 novellas and a novel, more forthcoming)

River of Teeth & Taste of Marrow - Sarah Gailey - From the book description

“In the early 20th Century, the United States government concocted a plan to import hippopotamuses into the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This is true. Other true things about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two. This was a terrible plan.”

Queer hippo riders!!!! Very much a western but with hippos. Main couple included a non-binary character. Loved the first one. The second one I was more meh about due to one of the characters I was supposed to like having obnoxious man pain that a woman had to take the brunt of the whole time. Also there were less hippos. But queer hippo riders! Definitely read the first one, and they’re both novellas so no reason not to read the second as well. (2 novellas)

A Psalm for the Wild-Built - Becky Chambers - I may be the only person who hasn’t read the long way to a small angry planet at this point, but I did grab her new novella and I loved it. It made me want to go sit out in the woods and feel peaceful. The world it’s set in feels like a peaceful post-apocalypse...or diverted apocalypse maybe. Humans built robots and robots gained sentience, but instead of rebelling they just up and left and went into the wilderness with a promise that the humans wouldn’t follow them.The remaining human society reshaped itself into something new and peaceful. It’s the story of a monk who leaves their habitual monking duties to go be a tea monk and then later wanders into the wilderness and becomes the first human in ages to meet a robot. Very sad there’s no fan art yet. (novella, more forthcoming)

The March North - Graydon Saunders - This was such a weird book that I’m not sure how to explain it. The prose style is hard to get used to and I suspect a lot of people will bounce off it in the first chapter. There’s no third person pronouns used at all and important events get mentioned once in passing and if you blink you’ll miss them. Set on a world where magic is extremely common to the point that rivers sometimes run with blood or fire and the local weeds are something out of a horror movie and most of the world is run by powerful sorcerer dictators, one country banded together (with the help of a few powerful sorcerers who were tired of all the bullshit) to form a free country where powerful sorcerers wouldn’t rule and the small magics of every day folks could be combined to work together. The story revolves around a Captain of the military force on the border who one day has three very powerful sorcerers sent to them by the main government with the hint that just maybe there’s about to be a big invasion (there is) with the implication of take these guys and go deal with this. The world building is extremely complex and very cool...when you can actually understand what the fuck is going on. There is also a murder sheep named Eustace who breathes fire and eats just about everything and is a Very Good Boy and belongs to the most terrifying sorcerer in the world who appears as a little old grandma with knitting. It had one of the most epic badass and wonderfully grotesque battles I’ve ever read. But yeah, it is not what I would call easy reading. Opinions may vary wildly. I did also read the second one (A Succession of Bad Days) in the series which was easier to follow and had a lot more details about the world, but overall I was more meh about it despite some cool aspects. The chapters and chapters of the extreme details of building a house that made up half the novel just weren’t my thing. (novels).

The Space Between Worlds - Micaiah Johnson - In this world parallels universes exist and we’ve discovered how to travel between them, but the catch is you can only go to worlds where the ‘you’ there is already dead. This turns into an uncomfortable look at who would be the people most likely to have died on many worlds and how things like class and race would fit into that and what we would actually use this ability for (if you guessed stealing resources and the stock market you’d be correct). The main character is a queer woc who travels between worlds with the assistance of her handler (another queer woc) who she has the hots for. She accidentally stumbles on a whole lot of mess and conspiracy and gets swept up in that. Really enjoyed it. (novel)

Witchmark - C.L. Polk - Fantasy world reminiscent of Victorian England (I think?) where a young man with magical gifts runs away from his powerful family to avoid being exploited by them. He joins the army and fights in a war and comes home to try and live a quiet life as a doctor, but a murder pulls him into a larger mystery that upturns his life. Also he’s extremely gay and there’s a prevalent m/m romance. This one was a fun-but-not-mind-blowing one for me. (novel, 2 more in the series I haven’t read)

The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon - This was one of those that everyone loved but I couldn’t get into for some reason. I tried twice and only got about halfway through the second time. It’s got dragons and queer ladies and fantasy world and all the things I like, but I wasn’t that invested in the main story (which included the f/f couple) and was more interested in the smaller story about a woman trying to become a dragon rider. There are few things that beat out a lady and her dragon friend story for me and that was the storyline that felt neglected and took a different turn right when we got to the part I’d been waiting for. But, I know a lot of people whose reading opinions I respect who loved it, and if you like epic fantasy with dragons and queens and treachery and pirates and queer characters then I’d say you should definitely give it a try. (novel)

Bonus: I didn’t read these series this year, but if you haven’t read them yet, you should.

Imperial Radch (Ancillary Justice) - Ann Leckie - Spaceship AI stuck in a human body out for revenge for their former captain, but that summary does not come close to doing it justice. Another one examining imperialism and also gender and race.(3 novels)

Kushiel's Legacy Series - Jacqueline Carey - This is two series, six books total, and starts with Kushiel's Dart. Alternate universe Renaissance-y Europe in a fantastical world where sex isn't shameful and sex workers are respected and prized. Lots of political intrigue and mystery. A lot of BDSM and kinky stuff too (the main character is a sexual masochist, oh and also bi!). I first read this series when I was fifteen or sixteen and it definitely made a big impression on me. Same author also wrote the Santa Olivia series which I’d also recommend. (6 novels)

The Locked Tomb (Gideon the Ninth) - Tamsyn Muir - I mean, if you follow me, you know. If you don’t follow me you still probably know. I’d have felt remiss to have left them off though. Lesbian Necormancers in Space. Memes! Skeletons! Biceps! Go read them. (2 novels, 2 forthcoming, 1 short story)

Books On My To Read List:

Fireheart Tiger - Aliette de Bodard

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water - Zen Cho

Black Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse

This Is How You Lose the TIme War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee

Also, if anyone has any recs for scifi/fantasy books starring queer men (not necessarily having to do with a queer relationship) and written by queer men I’d love them. There’s a lot written by women, and some of them are great, but I’d love to read a story about queer men from their own perspective.

[sleepii-moth]

more outer wilds stuff sorryyy i just have to get this shit out of my head

spoilers under cut

all of this is just theories and shit btw i havent finished the game all the questions i ask are rhetorical please dont spoiler meeee

so at the point im at in the game ive explored a lot of planets and have done a bunch of stuff regarding the memory statues on giants deep and other places (not the hourglass twins tho)

and one of the things i noticed that stood out to me is in the projection for the place with all of the masks three of the masks are lit up, not 2, not 2 meaning just me and gabbro. theres another one. like someone else knows about the loop. and when i found this out i was really like blown away i was just floored thinking "who could it be?? ive found almost all the travelers in space?? and i dont think the last one has any dialog about that like gabbro because wayne met them on his stream?? could a nomai be alive???????"

and so i kept that info in my mind then went on to check out some of ember twin and chert didnt say anything about being in a loop so i was like "huh thata weird maybe ive not met this 3rd person yet"

and then i decided to check out the probe cannon

and i found the projection for where the probe information module is supposed to be and the first thought i had when i saw it was "oh i recognize this place! its the core of giants deep!! feldspar knows how to get here! which means i also do!"

and then i turn around. and you know what i fucking see? a memory statue.. with its eyes open.. the 3rd memory statue with eyes open that ive seen. the 3rd mask in the projection. in the place where feldspar outright says "oh yeah i was the first person to explore the core of giants deep heres how you get there"

and i loose my fucking mind like holy shit does feldspar know??? is feldspar like me and gabbro?? why would they not mention it?? and so i immediately and speed over to dark bramble, causing several damages to my poor ship, and go talk to felspar like "BRO ARE YOU IN A LOOP???"

and they dont have anything new to say.. but part of me is still convinced that maybe they know and maybe i have to actually get to giants deeps core for new dialog to pop up but.. and if my theory is correct then I'll loose my mind and if its not i will also loose my mind because i have no idea who else it could be and im working off the assumption that the memory statues wouldnt keep memories of nomai that died right? because wouldnt it make more sense for all the masks in that projection to be lit up and for there to be more statues with open eyes?

but for now im take a break it is 12am ive been playingbfor like 4 hours i gotta rest dndbdn

(again this is all just me theorizing please dont actually tell me)

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #243

Mon Dec 21 2020 [01:04 AM] Wack'd: FANTASTIC FOUR VOL 1 NO 243 [01:04 AM] Wack'd: The cover features "EVERYONE VERSUS GALACTUS" [01:04 AM] maxwellelvis: We'll see, JB, We'lllll seeeeeee [01:05 AM] Wack'd: Everyone being Reed, Johnny, Ben, Doctor Strange, Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, aaaaaaaaand the Wasp [01:05 AM] maxwellelvis: Is this at the point where Yellowjacket was in jail? [01:05 AM] Wack'd: I will defer to our resident Avengers axpert [01:06 AM] maxwellelvis: The Wack'd FF Liveblog's Senior Avengers Correspondent, @Bocaj [01:06 AM] Wack'd: But it's wild to me that "EVERYONE" doesn't include the current female leads of the book I'm reading but *does* include a lady from another book entirely [01:06 AM] Bocaj: Yes [01:07 AM] Bocaj: Hank is in jail and apparently the issue where the Avengers appear before this FF issue is that damn filler where the immortal kid yeets himself into the sun [01:07 AM] Wack'd: Everyone's getting yote these days. Immortal kid, all of Manhattan... [01:08 AM] Bocaj: Wasp was pretty cool around this time period but I'm nervous to find out whether Byrne knew that [01:08 AM] Wack'd: Frankie Raye: Galactus Truther

[01:08 AM] Bocaj: Ha [01:09 AM] Bocaj: Apparently the Daily Bugle printed articles claiming Galactus was a hoax [01:09 AM] Bocaj: Good ol Jonah [01:09 AM] Wack'd: Frankie Raye: Galactus Fetishist

[01:09 AM] maxwellelvis: Before they decided Ol' Flattop actually respected the Four. Or at least he respected Reed. [01:10 AM] Bocaj: ^^ Oh no [01:10 AM] Bocaj: Oh nooooo [01:10 AM] maxwellelvis: Oh yes [01:10 AM] Wack'd: Meanwhile at Avengers Mansion: Lots of alarms going off [01:11 AM] Wack'd: The Mansion is on emergency power but Janet says that's weird because the Mansion is tied to five different power grids. John Bryne: Optimistic About Monopoly Busting in The Greater Metro Area [01:12 AM] Wack'd: Okay so [01:12 AM] Wack'd: The force field needs to remain visible because if it wasn't, New York would know they were in the endless vacuum of space and parked on Galactus' doorstep [01:13 AM] Wack'd: Sue is preventing a mass panic, which...the part of me that thinks it's a moral obligation to have an informed public is clashing with the part of me that knows that things would probably get ugly pretty fast [01:14 AM] Wack'd: Regardless...this is still kind of a weird contrivance to keep Sue and Frankie out of the action [01:15 AM] Wack'd: Galactus spots the Male Three coming and is mostly just fucking teed off [01:16 AM] maxwellelvis: "You three chuckleheads again? Can't I go one week without you termites bothering me?" [01:16 AM] Wack'd: Editor's note says he's been putting up with a lot of Earth's bullshit recently in the pages of Dazzler and Rom. He really just wants a fucking break [01:16 AM] maxwellelvis: Oh, more like "And now YOU three chuckleheads again?!" [01:16 AM] Bocaj: The one in ROM Is funny [01:16 AM] Bocaj: ROM tricks him into eating a poison nebula [01:16 AM] Bocaj: And Galactus is like "fine asshole, I moved your planet. Have a good time getting home, DICK" [01:17 AM] maxwellelvis: Lesson? Don't try and play games with the Devourer. [01:17 AM] Bocaj: I thiiink in the Dazzler one Dazzler shoots Klaw into Galactus' ship [01:17 AM] Wack'd: I mean the second-to-last time we saw Galactus in these pages he was tricked into eating the entire population of Poppup's Impossible Men and got indigestion so bad he turned into a giant brain [01:17 AM] Bocaj: A-as ya do [01:18 AM] Wack'd: If he had a nickel for every time he was tricked into eating a world he shouldn't eat, he would have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice [01:19 AM] Wack'd: Anyway they encounter Galactus and he recaps the plot to show off how omnipotent he is [01:20 AM] Wack'd: "This moral judgment comes as a great reassurance to me, given that a few months ago you teamed up with a racist archeologist and let a child beater off the hook because he got spooked by some ghosts"

[01:21 AM] Bocaj: *Cough* [01:21 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Terrax gets impatient and yells at the Four to get on with it [01:22 AM] Wack'd: Galactus is so teed off by this that he puts Manhattan back, just to put Terrax in his place [01:22 AM] Wack'd: And then deHeraldizes him [01:23 AM] Wack'd: He deHeraldizes him twenty-eight stories in the air [01:23 AM] maxwellelvis: "Did I even need to be here today?" Ben starts wondering [01:23 AM] Wack'd: So I am pretty sure he's dead now [01:23 AM] Bocaj: HAH [01:24 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Galactus is weak, which is why Terrax chose this moment. But because of that weakness Galactus decides...maybe a snack? [01:24 AM] maxwellelvis: This issue in a nutshell: ...curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal... [01:25 AM] Wack'd: The Four are trapped in bubbles but the Avengers aren't! The Avengers will save the day in this Fantastic Four issue! [01:26 AM] Wack'd: Bocaj: Here's your Janet moment

[01:27 AM] Bocaj: 😦 [01:27 AM] maxwellelvis: You bastard! [01:27 AM] maxwellelvis: You vicious bastard! [01:27 AM] Wack'd: If it helps, I'm pretty sure Janet should be dead, but she's not, so that's pretty neat [01:27 AM] Bocaj: Not even exploding killed her [01:28 AM] Wack'd: Spider-Man and Daredevil arrive. Peter wants to help but Matt, sanely, is like "eh....maybe not though?" [01:28 AM] Bocaj: Ha [01:28 AM] Wack'd: "It may well reach a point where the Avengers and the FF will actually need our help...but to be honest I don't think much of Earth's chances if it comes down to that." [01:30 AM] Wack'd: Doctor Strange arrives to give Galactus HORRIBLE NIGHTMARE VISIONS [01:30 AM] Bocaj: Sure [01:30 AM] maxwellelvis: Messing with his mind is basically the only thing that really works with Galactus. [01:30 AM] maxwellelvis: Danny Ketch once knocked him on his ass with the Penance Stare. [01:30 AM] Wack'd: Specifically he gives Galactus visions of everyone he's ever killed [01:31 AM] maxwellelvis: That's the moment that got adapted into the cartoon I just mentioned. [01:31 AM] maxwellelvis: With Ghost Rider replacing Dr. Strange. [01:31 AM] maxwellelvis: And in the animated version, by the power of GUILT [01:31 AM] Wack'd: The day is saved by PTSD [01:31 AM] Wack'd: And also throwing Ben into Galactus' face real hard

[01:32 AM] maxwellelvis: The throwing part wasn't in the animated version I mentioned. Galactus just keeled over there, overwhelmed by the Penance Stare. [01:33 AM] Wack'd: SO! The issue ends with Reed declaring killing Galactus causes more problems than it solves and that they need to SAVE GALACTUS [01:33 AM] Wack'd: I would like to continue onto the next issue but first I need to call my girlfriend. And then hopefully it will not be too late to conclude(?) this tale [01:34 AM] Wack'd: That was not very long at all. ONWARDS

[miscellaneous--bones]

some world building of how crow's landing, yk, the world's planet or whatever first came to be

gonna put my rambles under a cut <3

so planets come from stars that give off a lot of air (because. these kindsa stars produce air. you can kind of breathe in space, like not really enough to breathe for very long, but yk you can be out there for a little bit.) anyway when a star gives off too much air too quickly eventually it'll build up and make an atmosphere, which will then cool the star enough to make a planet.

in crow's landing's case, it was the first planet to ever be created. the star in its self sort of lives on as the planet's core, it also keeps it heated seeing as nebula is much smaller than it (it can still affectily light it up, though, and make the day/night cycle, etc) but it also creates the aurora borealis in the tundra

that should also be explained, there are three 'mainlands' in the planet, the first and biggest is crow's landing, the taiga/foresty area that we all know and love. the other one is the tundra which is an entire land in cased in snow and cold (said to be caused because its at a spot where Nebula's light doesnt reach as much [nebula orbits around the actual planet, instead of the other way around]) and the last one is a land over come by fungi, some of which became sentient and even moved to other lands. there are some mushrooms that grow there that reach past the atmosphere.

uh, there are also 3 moons, the blood moon, the blue moon, and the harvest moon. the harvest moon also has a moonmoon called worm. blood is deep red, blue is blue, harvest is golden yellow, and worm is pink.

they orbit at different speeds- harvest tends to orbit real slow and last a couple months over each island and leaves the rest of the year. it's said to reflect the light of borealis and gives off it's own so you can always see it and worm in full.

I'm not so sure about blue and blood? i think these two usually orbit in tandem, same kind of deal with the real world earth's moon. sometimes though, one will show without the other (whether this is because of clouds, lighting, or just their tracks not matching up for once is unknown) and at this point theres two different ways it could go.

it its blue without blood, then thats like the night where you can't use the saying "once in a blue moon" because its very rare and thats also when weird things happen. (extra note, blue also can sometimes give off its own light, it isnt as solid as the other two and especially when its alone it will give the world an eerie blue glow for that night, blood does this too but thats because of it's color reacting to nebula's light)

when blood is alone it tends to be seen as a kind of bad omen? its said that when the blood moon is lone in the sky that means the hunt is out, which is similar to the wild hunt which you can learn about [in this video by overly sarcastic productions, if you'd like] (basically its a fuck load of ghosts in a big mob that are stuck in an eternal chase. whatever their prey is- if truly anything- is unknown.)

anyway, the hunt in this world is a ghostly hunting party, chasing any light left over from borealis that they can find (the light sometimes takes the form of wolf or fox like beasts, usually just called the Beasts of Light but sometimes also called Auroras) they also pick up any lost souls that have escaped Six Under, or otherwise havn't yet been found or collected by a reaper. you'd prolly think that the souls would join the hunting party- hell, some do choose to stay- but they are usually dropped of at death's door with a bag of gold and a pelt or two. the group is very pleasant to travelers.

as nice as they are, though, they do tend to mistake live people as lost souls which can sometimes result in temporary ''death'' where Will will have to bring the soul back to the body in the morning. in other words, its best that if a blood moon rises that you stay indoors.

i think thats all i had to say? i've been thinking about this stuff a lot and come up with a whole nother concept that i still gotta flesh out and make designs for so that might be coming soon.

[jngles]

Thoughts You Definitely All Asked For on ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2 Finale!!

These are in chronological order for the show.

One of my biggest fears about them reintroducing Boba Fett was that by removing some of his mystery, they would make him less cool. Thank god that has not been the case. He’s still an aloof and nasty piece of work but with dimensions added.

We all know the Empire is most often a metaphor for America right? At least when it’s not being Nazi Germany? The Imperial pilot talking about destroying an entire planet (of peaceful weaponless civilians no less) to stop terrorism hits a little too close to home of the nuclear bombs the US has dropped and the endless destruction of the Middle East in the “war against terror.” And of course we frame all our wars in similar language like “our troops died to keep our country safe,” which hasn’t really been true since WWII.

I do think it’s worth noting that this is the first time SW has had someone acknowledge the human losses of the Death Star blasts. Usually it’s framed as a loss in construction time, strategical advantage, and power. The Empire proved time and time again that the lives of its soldiers were utterly expendable, which always made me question why people remained loyal outside of fear. Through this pilot’s phrasing, you can see the propaganda Imperial superiors used to twist the truth to their followers, always blaming those deaths on Rebel aggression instead of prideful Imperial neglect (I.e. not abandoning ship when there was still time) or even direct Imperial aggression like Operation Cinder where they fired on thousands of their own (discussed in S2E7.)

You can’t tell me Din wasn’t into it when Cara shot that asshole pilot. That cold faced revenge shot? 100% Mandalorian style, and also very very hot.

I appreciate that it was a pretty equal match between Boba and Koska Reeves. So much of Boba’s advantage comes from his suit, but since she also has one, it’s a battle of wits on how to use it, and they even out. This both maintains his legendary badassery and also that of highly trained Mandalorian warriors, and hopefully avoids asshole chauvinist SW fans on the internet complaining abujt “pandering to feminism” (fuck off @ all of them, especially since Mercedes Vernado who plays Reeves is a WWE champ and could kick all of your asses.)

Din point blank asked how many Death Troopers there are and Dr. Pershing never answered, and that annoys me.

Why is no one suspicious why Dr. Pershing is being so helpful and revealing so much information? He totally did not have to tell them about the Dark Troopers or any of the specifics of locations on the ship. He’s still with the empire post-fall, implying he’s a loyalist, so... wtf on his part (since no tricks come of it), and “be smarter” on the part of everyone else. Unless he’s been captive as a clone engineer all this time. But couldn’t he have made his escape back in Season 1 when Din killed everyone at that lab to get the kid back?

Bo Katan really could’ve just told them how the retrieval of the dark saber needs to work in the flight before the mission instead of being vague about “he belongs to me.”

Boba Fett’s usage of “Princess” and “don’t worry about me” are a good throwback to Han Solo and the culture they both grew up in. You can never quite tell if it’s based in misogyny or resentment for upper classes, but both of them seem to use it as a shield for begrudging respect they hold for a woman they think is brave but following a fool’s errand (the Rebellion and retaking Mandalore).

The Comms Officer (Katy O’Brian) assisting Moff Gideon will forever and always look like Ilana Glazer to me, and then I get swept up imagining what would happen if the Broad City cast accidentally got transported to Star Wars.

The launch tube sequence has some amazing cinematography.

The second I saw Boba was cut off from the pack, I really thought they were going to kill him again and make his return bittersweet. Glad they didn’t.

God this team of Bo Katan, Koska Reeves, Fennec Shand, and Cara Dune is SO BADASS. I’m just obsessed with all these characters and their various motivations to get shit done. I honestly didn’t even think about the fact it’s all women until my re-watch, showing that the writers made it feel natural, the way women deserve to have their representation done. You can bet I am SO EXCITED for my future daughter and the wealth of possibilities she’s going to have of characters to play pretend as, action figures she can relate to, Halloween costumes to wear, etc. It’s so validating that we’ve gone from only Princess Leia as a female main character to all these women + Rey, Jyn Erso, Ahsoka, etc. etc.

Can’t wait for the trap remix of the Dark Trooper activation noises. (And the transition from that to the minimalist flute theme is perfect.)

The spy movie version of the main theme music is sick.

The Dark Trooper droid faces have a lot of similarity to Darth Vader’s mask. That callback is especially apparent when the one is literally lit from the inside with fire. He was already a martyr/legend to the Imperial remnants, Kylo Ren didn’t start the trend of ignoring his redemption.

Cara’s “excuse me” right before shooting up Stormtroopers is hilarious. Literally “can’t talk rn, doing hot girl shit and murdering space Nazis.”

Finally an Imperial ship got some frickin security cameras. Truly- the amount of times people just wander down hallways they’re not supposed to be in with no one being able to find them throughout the course of Star Wars is ridiculous when you think about the degree of surveillance our real life society carries out. I also love that this means The Mandalorian characters have also seen The Mandalorian.

The storytelling does such a service to Pedro Pascal and his already heroic efforts to portray emotion through a helmet. For example: Din easily could’ve killed the one stormtrooper outside Grogu’s cell much more efficiently, but instead, to show his absolute rage, they wrote in Din choking him out with a spear.

Moff Gideon would have been the BIGGEST pain in the ass in philosophy class. “Assume I know everything” my ass. I want to hear about his backstory (he would’ve been “coming of age” at the time of the Clone Wars) mostly just to hear about him getting bullied at school.

Smart move honestly, to try to tempt Din with the Mandalorian throne, given the Mandalorian power struggles of the past. Proud of our boy for keeping his priorities straight.

So has the blood from Grogu been transferred out of the ship and back to the remnant empire already, or do they have to find a new “donor” to help with building Snoke and Palpatine’s clones? Will they continue to go after him with Luke?

Lmao Din being so annoyed by Bo Katan being stringent about the tradition of winning the Dark Saber through combat is HILARIOUS, coming from a man who up until like a day ago hadn’t shown his face to a living being in decades.

The dark troopers can punch in blast doors but NOT Din’s helmet?? That’s a wild testament to beskar. Somehow that’s the comparison that sticks out to me, more even than its resistance to lightsabers.

This show works because of the cynicism of so many characters adding contrast to the moments of heart. Cara Dune is not a “fan” the way Rey was (for the record I love Rey, don’t come at her, it’s just different). Cara doesn’t see an X-Wing and go OMG THE REBELLION I LOVE THEM. She’s been through too much to believe in the magic saviourism of the “good guys,” and is instead thinking strategically when she, the one Rebel present, brushes off the usefulness of “one X-Wing.” The only positive things she seems to feel in battle situations are moments of relief and brief satisfaction in hurting the empire, with a dark knowledge that it will never make up for the hurt they did to her.

How do you keep a cloak hood on while fighting? Both from a technical standpoint (my hats fall off without me even having to move- is he expending force energy just to keep it on and look cool lol?) and also because idk, maybe it’s just me, but peripheral vision is helpful when surrounded by killer robots on a thin bridge above oblivion. I know his first lesson was to “see” through the force, but every resource helps, right?

Now that she has the ship, I wonder if Bo Katan can reprogram any salvageable Dark Troopers to help with retaking Mandalore?

There is nothing like seeing Luke’s fighting style, with its efficient choppiness and twinge of darkness. I always wonder how much is natural and how much is influenced by his first fights with Vader (that Skywalker diva flair). I love how they’ve advanced his technique but also kept him extremely “grey” here- like to straight up COMBUST a Dark Trooper takes some violent energy lol.

How tf is Moff Gideon alive after threatening Grogu’s life twice directly? That’s a wild testament to Din’s regard for Cara.

I love how seeing Luke slice through a bunch of murder droids like butter probably was a huge point in his favor for Din actually letting Grogu go with him. Like he will only send his child to boarding preschool if he knows the teacher will be a certified killing machine.

Oh my god they finally brought in some OG Star Wars theme music for Luke to take his hood off to 😭 It felt weird seeing him fight to different music, so the emotional payoff is huge when his themes come back for the face reveal.

Whoever added the digital young Mark Hamill face NAILED those classic shining Luke eyes and the earnest eyebrow lift.

Whoever shines the glass of Baby Yoda’s lil puppet eyeballs each day deserves a raise. The light caught in those babies is devastating.

Din is shaking as he takes off his helmet. This is the most enormous show of love he could give him, and possibly the last he’ll be able to for a long time. He only just got Grogu back and is desperate for a moment of real connection before letting him go once again.

This is the first time anyone has touched Din’s face since... likely his parents as a child.

Whoever wrote this scene clearly actually has kids. Anyone who’s ever had to leave a young child even just to go out for a bit or to drop them off somewhere knows that heartbreak of seeing them look in your eyes and hold on to your leg, trying to keep you with them. Especially when they can sense your mutual separation anxiety. The one thing that starts to make them feel better is something fun like a new toy or friend who can be their guide in the new environment, and R2’s friendly introduction is exactly that (since digital Luke isn’t being particularly emotive or child friendly... I hope that’s just because he’s reaching into Grogu’s mind while also keeping an eye on the multiple people with guns trained on him, not because he’s going to be totally unfeeling raising this kid.)

I love that Grogu and R2 are immediately buddies in contrast to Episode 5 when R2 was like “fuck this guy” @ Yoda stealing food and hitting him with a walking stick lol. I would imagine Luke must be reminded of that first introduction too and entertained by this display of playfulness in a *positive* light between R2 and mini-Yoda.

I need to know if Luke and Ahsoka have met- it is KILLING ME.

Does this mean Grogu will get killed by Kylo Ren when he fucks up Luke’s academy??? I will reincarnate Ben just to kill him again if that’s the case.

How does Luke not even fully SMILE at Grogu?? An adorable little baby version of his beloved master Yoda, and you’re telling me he doesn’t have the same heart stopping gasp we all did when we first saw him?? Maybe he did when they first connected through the force. He has a bit of bemusement on his face, and also wonder in his eyes, but I want a grin of recognition and welcome, dammit.

I really wish Luke had somehow acknowledged Cara Dune. Everyone else seems to see the tear drop Rebel sign and know it means Alderaan. He could’ve been like yo I have a badass warrior sister from your planet that you should meet. Or just “thank you for your service.” (I know this actually wouldn’t have been cinematically good but my heart wants it.)

Luke didn’t tell Din his name?? Or ask for any details about the kid and his care?? I could literally never let my kid go with someone, regardless of how worthy, and not be like, “Excuse me sir who are you and where tf are you taking my tiny beloved green goblin in case I need to find him? Here is my contact info. He likes to eat frogs and eggs, and he can have macarons as a treat. He’s 50 years old and his favorite toy is still a ball. Bedtime is 8pm and he’s allergic to dairy.”

Another reason I wish Luke had identified himself would be to see the mishmash of reactions that would ensue. Cara would be like DAMN IT’S THAT GUY WHO BLEW UP THE DEATH STAR AND KILLED THE EMPEROR, ACT COOL (and she would indeed act cool). Fennec would be like ugh it’s that guy who helped kill my best paying client Jabba the Hutt and then fucked over my boss Boba, I helped save the kid for THIS? And I would LOVE to know how Bo Katan feels about him, assuming she’s heard of him, and especially if she knows he’s Anakin Skywalker’s son. That confusion is probably the reason WHY the writers didn’t have him reveal himself- they didn’t want to break the emotion of the scene.

Let‘s all be real I’m just being needy about wanting things from Luke because of what he meant to me as a kid and my resulting innate need to have more canon of him, whatever it is, whenever I can get it. Especially in this form that’s so similar to ROTJ, a movie I watched on endless repeat. Even getting this was incredible though. Who else could we trust this lil heart-stealing green bean with so fully? Yet who would be so arrogant as to try to train a baby yodling (see: Ahsoka’s wise refusal)?

R2 is reckless as hell lmao. Not that we don’t already know that, but for him to just head on in, effectively abandoning Luke’s ship (how can they know if there are more troopers or not who might blow it up?) and also putting himself in the path of the ridiculously deadly Dark Troopers is NUTS. I’m usually on his side but he absolutely deserves a scolding by C3PO for this one.

I wonder if Grogu has any memories of R2 or vice versa since they did occupy the Jedi Temple at the same time. Can Grogu understand droids? They could swap stories about mutual acquaintances.

Does Din pretty much have to go with Bo Katan now since a) he’s shown his face and may not be able to go back to the Watch, and b) because he has the darksaber and has to figure out how to get it back to her without dying?

How in the hell did Bib Fortuna (whose chins age was not kind to) go from being butler to being boss? Were all the henchmen just like, “Fuck yeah, no Hutt parents no rules, let’s do what we want!!” And then they’ve spent the last ten years living off of whatever money they could salvage from Jabba’s non-banked wealth? Why has no one challenged them for that prime real estate and loot? I would love to hear that story.

Fennec Shand says “respect sex workers” so you better fuckin’ do it.

Idk dude Bib Fortuna really was a good butler, and he seemed pretty willing to comply with whoever’s in power. Did he screw Boba over in his attempt to return from the dead and earn that killing shot somehow? Or was this to make sure there was no one left who would have a claim to loyalty? Or maybe Boba just really wanted to sit in that chair.

Does “The Book of Boba Fett” mean we’re not on Din Djarin’s story anymore? Or is it a new show? I would much prefer the latter. I want to see Din help retake Mandalore or at least get a hug.