#fuck this gay earth i hope we all explode

[teekays]

okay trade season's not a joke anymore i'm done for real 😐😐😐 we can stop now 😐😐😐

[lithominium]

Anybody else want to just let the conservatives win and just kill themselves just like they want my transgender gay ass to do

Because god the US is just completely fucking fucked beyond repair

And theres no fucking shot at a “revolution” like these fucks think they could do because that would have fucking happened by now

And you really think in a revolution you could stop the over bloated budget of the us military? God!!

I just want to fly my god damn planes without having to worry about cost of living exploding into magnitudes never before seen on earth and fascism reigning completely free in the united states because literally what the fuck could we do about that once it happens because no matter fucking what its going to happen.

I have lost all fucking hope for the future. Today was supposed to be good. Today was supposed to be a day i finish my final fucking written test before i start flight instructor school

But now i know that i really just cant come out. I cant be trans or ill be killed or not hired anywhere and i know that theres no fucking hope because this is beginning of the 45 degree nosedive into fascism because theres absolutely no fucking plan for anyone to do anything

We cant do anything, theres nothing we can fucking do.

What is there left for me but to conform to the whims and desires of fascists lest i fucking die.

[dirt-grub]

not to be a homosexual but ive already got a stage persona in my head for if i ever start a band

[steviesbicrisis]

I want Nancy and Steve going through their Bisexual awakening together, and I want Robin and Eddie mistaking their getting closer, whispering to each other, exchanging glances as them getting back together.

I want the misunderstandings, both of them being disaster bisexuals in their own way (Steve excessively flirting to the point that Eddie doesn’t take it seriously, Nancy becoming a robot every time she talks to Robin and looking like she’s far from interested).

I want Steve to come up with stupid wooing plans and Nancy rejecting all of them (“we can’t lock ourselves in a room with them, that’s creepy and borderline kidnapping!”).

I want Nancy to try coming out to Robin but circling around the topic so much that at the end she’s used so many words, quoted way too many books and articles she read to prepare herself, that Robin is completely lost and gets a minor headache.

I want Steve getting frustrated, questioning his usual flirting tactics (“maybe it’s different with guys?” He wonders) but ultimately deciding to go bigger and bolder to get any reaction out of Eddie.

I want Robin to panic after Nancy realizes that the only fast way to make her rambling understandable is to kiss her.

«wait stop!! We can’t do this! You’re my best friends girlfriend, oh my God I can’t believe I kissed Steve’s girlfriend, he will never speak to me again - but I have to tell him we got no secrets between us-»

«?? I’m not Steve’s girlfriend, I was hoping to become yours»

«Oh fuck, you can’t say that - I can’t look at your Bambi eyes right know or I might give in - he clearly likes you, you’re always whispering to each other, acting all sneaky around us…»

«He doesn’t like me, he likes Eddie! That’s why we whisper, we’ve been talking about you and Eddie with each other»

«…oh»

«yeah»

«So… about that girlfriend talk you were doing earlier…»

And finally, I want Eddie to explode after countless instances in which he had to pretend to not be affected by Steve’s torturous actions.

«Listen Harrington, I don’t understand if you’re doing this without noticing or if you think it’s a funny way to mess with the gay freak - in which case, fuck you - but you seriously need to back off»

«messing with you?? I’ve been trying to flirt with you for weeks and I got nothing!! You know how exhausting that is? And I know I’m good at this so I don’t get why it took you this long to notice»

«Oh I’m sorry, poor King Steve, not getting every human on earth at his feet! And I did notice, but I’ve been trying to ignore it for the sake of you’re relationship with Wheeler!!»

«There’s no relationship with Nancy, are you stupid? I’m trying to have a relationship with you!»

«How was I supposed to know??»

«the fLIRTING?»

«YOU FLIRT WITH EVERY ONE»

«I DO NOT! JUST BECAUSE I’M BISEXUAL DOESNT MEAN THAT I HIT ON EVERY HUMAN BEING»

«SO YOU DO LIKE ME?»

«FINALLY YOU GOT IT, MORON»

«DON’T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT! And now kiss me»

«…I will but not because you told me to»

[mizunetzu]

iwaizumi finding out hes gay and having an extreme gay panic when they get their new manager in aoba johsai and the team teases him to hell and back for it (iwaizumi x male manager!)

Nice to see you again, boke saiikai~~ also look at iwa freak out in this gif AHAHAHA

——————

Iwaizumi x reader - Iwa-chan, Panic!

⚠️warnings - none

Pronouns - male, he/him

——————

Iwaizumi lazily scratched the itch on his stomach, not caring that his shirt was slightly lifted up and people could see his stomach if they looked. Eh, it’s not like people were around anyways.

He was already running late to practice, so he might as well reserve his energy and take a detour to the gym. It’s not like anything important was happening anyways.

“Yo.” Iwaizumi yawned, pushing the door to the gymnasium open. He slipped through, only now realizing that no one answered his greeting. He also noticed everyone was gathered into a loose semi-circle, apparently looking at something Iwaizumi couldn’t quite make out.

“What's...goin’ on guys?” Iwaizumi neared the huddle of Seijoh volleyball players. Matsukawa turned around, seemingly the only one who heard Iwaizumi in the first place. Mattsun nudged his head towards the middle of the circle, the clearing, where someone was standing.

“New manager.”

Iwaizumi’s ears perked up. Oikawa was complaining about ‘having at least one manager before he graduates’ but also ‘one that’s not one of my fangirls, because they wouldn’t take good care of the team.’ As insensitive as it sounded, having a manager drool and follow Oikawa for the majority of practice instead of doing their job does sound pretty frustrating. Iwaizumi scratched his head.

“Don’t tell me Shittykawa finally found a girl who doesn’t fawn over him.”

Matsukawa shook his head.

“Not girl.” He pointed to the boy standing there awkwardly, moving out of the way slightly so Iwaizumi could see. “It’s a boy.”

Iwaizumi’s eyes trailed from his feet, up to his firm-looking torso, and trailing around his nice-looking arms and hands. He couldn’t help himself from checking this dude out. Maybe he was just curious as to why this boy joined as a manager and not a player-

Iwaizumi’s eyes finally met the boy's glass-like (e/c) ones. He realized now that as he stared at this boy's mesmerizing eyes, his own (e/c) eyes began to stare back at him. Stare with his eyes growing wide, a cute doe-like expression on his face. But all he could see was his breathtaking, iridescent eyes.

“Uh, earth-to-(L/n)-chan?” Oikawa, who was standing next to ‘(L/n)’, waved his hand in front of his deer-in-the-headlights-face. He visibly jumped, blinking a bit, and turned his head quickly, pretending he was staring at Oikawa the whole time.

However, it wasn’t the same for Iwaizumi. He continued to stare with his mouth parted slightly, absolutely mesmerized by this guy’s handsome face. It seemed so...holdable. Like he wanted to walk up to him and hold his face in his callused hands and just...stand there. Forever. Squishing his cute face in his hands.

Cute? Cute? No. No. No. Not cute. Iwaizumi Hajime was not finding a man cute. No, not in a million years.

So why was his heart pounding in his ears so much?

His heart wouldn’t calm down. His everything wouldn’t calm down. He couldn’t tear his eyes off the new manager boy in front of him, immersing himself in conversation with a blush to shake off the fact he was totally staring back. He couldn’t help but feel confused. For once, he felt jealous of Oikawa. Not because he wanted to be popular or stalked by fangirls or anything, but because this boy’s full attention would be on him, and not Shitty-Crappy-Stupidkawa.

Matsukawa snapped his fingers in front of Iwaizumi’s face, smirking when he threw his head back in surprise with the reddest face he’s ever seen him with. Iwaizumi blinked, blankly, trying to process what just happened, before somehow exploding into a deeper shade of red.

“Are you sick or something?” Matsukawa placed the back of his hand on Iwaizumi’s forehead jokingly. “Oh. Nevermind.”

“Wh...I-I...huh..?”

“You’re just gay.” Matsukawa wiped his hand on his practice shirt. “Super gay. Super highschool level gay. You were totally checking out Manager-kun there.”

Iwaizumi grabbed Matsukawa by the collar, shaking him around in hopes of shaking the truth out of him.

“I-I’m not!”

“First symptom: denial.”

“Shut up-!”

“E-excuse me…?” Iwaizumi stopped dead in his tracks. Matsukawa was one second away from bursting out into cackles at Iwaizumi’s impossibly pale face. They both slowly craned their necks towards the foreign voice. Iwaizumi suddenly forgot how to breathe.

He, ‘Manager-kun’, seemed more utterly breathtaking up close. He was standing right infront of Iwaizumi, looking directly at him with his attractive (e/c) eyes. He didn’t even realize when Matsukawa wormed out of his grasp.

“(L/n)-san, good afternoon.” Matsukawa bowed slightly. “My name’s Matsukawa Issei, by the way. Thank you again for being our manager. We look forward to working with you.”

“Ah...thank you.”

When Matsukawa looked back at Iwaizumi, expecting him to introduce himself, he caught Iwaizumi staring at him with goo-goo eyes and an equally confused, frozen-stiff expression from Manager-kun himself. They stared at each other, one from awkward silence and the other from pure, unadulterated gayness. Matsukawa rolled his eyes.

“Dude!” Matsukawa jabbed Iwaizumi in the side, making him snap out of his trance with a grunt. “Don’t be rude, introduce yourself to Manager-kun!”

Iwaizumi broke into a cold sweat. He turned back to ‘Manager-kun’, attempting to look as cool as possible.

“Y-yo...the name’s Iwaizumi HaJIMe-” Iwaizumi’s voice did not want to be on his side today. The betrayers that were his vocal cords cracked mid sentence, making Iwaizumi cough horrendously in hopes of covering it up. Mattsun looked like he was going to die holding in his laughter.

“Nice to meet you, Iwaizumi-kun,” Manager-kun grasped his hand in his own, and held it for a moment. “My name’s (L/n) (Y/n).”

He, (Y/n), flashed a small, friendly smile, and Iwaizumi was taken. With the way (Y/n) held his hand so tenderly, he could probably faint. He’d rather die than let go. It was so warm, his hands were so warm. God, he felt so soft inside.

“...Y’know, if you aren't feeling well, I can take you to the nurse’s office-”

“No-! It’s-it’s fine! I’m fine!” Iwaizumi sputtered, and he silently whined when (Y/n) pulled his hand back. He stepped back, and gave a small wave.

“That’s good, Iwaizumi-kun. Well, I just wanted to introduce myself to everyone. See you later, Matsukawa-kun. Iwaizumi-kun.” (Y/n) smiled again, and left to introduce himself to another teammate. Once (Y/n) was out of earshot, Matsukawa erupted into a fit of cackles.

“Pfft-ahahahahaha! Dude! Y-you-! Ahahahaha! You need to chill man! At this point everyone’s gonna know you went all-“ Mattsun mimicked Iwaizumi’s wide-eyed expression, bringing his hands together and pretending he was a moe schoolgirl. “Kyaaah! (L/n)-senpai is soooo handsome!”

“SHUUUUUT UPPPPPP!” Iwaizumi started kicking at Matsukawa’s shins and hitting his back, trying to silence his cackles and hope (Y/n) didn’t hear that. Or see the huge red blush on his cheeks.

Oikawa side-eyed Iwaizumi and Matsukawa from the net pole. His hands were still moving on setting up the net for practice, but his eyes were examining the two fellow third years roughhousing with each other. More specifically, the red that engulfed Iwaizumi’s face. Oikawa turned his attention back to the pole.

——

‘Just do it!’

Those three words played on repeat in Iwaizumi’s mind for the past 2 weeks. And they seemed to get louder when Iwaizumi arrived to practice.

‘Just do it, Hajime!’

‘No!’ Iwaizumi thought back to himself, watching as (Y/n) greeted everyone who came through the club room door. He was standing outside, holding a box with supplies stuffed in it. Iwaizumi dreadfully neared the club room.

‘Do it! Now!’

‘No! Fuck no!’

“Ah! Hello again, Iwaizumi-kun-“

“No!” Iwaizumi blurted out. He was quick to cover his mouth, but the look of confusion that knitted (Y/n’s) face was enough to tell he had heard Iwaizumi loud and clear.

“Uh. I mean. Good mor-uh good afternoon, (L/n). Sorry bout’ that.” Iwaizumi trudged into the club room as nonchalantly as he could. But once the door closed, he slumped down to his knees.

“Something wrong, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa mused, slipping on his blue practice shirt over his head. “You look like shit.”

“Y-you’re one to talk, Shittykawa! Go die!”

“Uuu! How mean! Mean Iwa-chan!”

“Yeah yeah.” Iwaizumi hastily slipped into his practice clothes. Oikawa watched his face closely. It was redder than usual.

“Hey, Iwa-chan?”

Iwaizumi looked up from his knee pads, halting temporarily as he threaded them through his leg. “Mm?”

Oikawa opened his mouth, then glanced to the door where (Y/n) was standing outside of. Not yet. He didn’t have enough evidence yet.

“Never mind.” Oikawa rubbed the back of his head cutely.

——

Iwaizumi slumped down on the steps of the gym, heaving like he ran 13 miles. Well, he did. He watched as everyone came trickling back, Oikawa yelling praise as they all collapsed in front of the gym. Training runs across the block were tough. Especially after an exhausting practice match against each other.

“Good job, everyone!” Oikawa clasped his hands together. “Get some water, go rest, do whatever! We’re gonna do some serving and receiving practices, then we can take a break!”

The tuckered-out team choursed out a “Yessir!” before scattering about and doing their own things. Iwaizumi let his head loll back onto the concrete steps he was sitting on, closing his eyes and catching his unsteady breath.

“Iwaizumi-kun!”

Iwaizumi jolted up harshly, a blush adorning his features as his eyes snapped open. (Y/n) looked down at him with a small white towel in his hand and a water bottle in the other.

“I figured you needed some water or something so-I got you some stuff-!” (Y/n) promptly set the things down on Iwaizumi’s lap, though he’s not sure he noticed with the way he was staring at him so...strangely. Huh, that’s been happening for a while now.

Iwaizumi’s dazed look suddenly dissipated, his consciousness coming back to his eyes as he fumbled for the items slipping from his lap.

“Oh! Thank you...dude…! You’re…you’re...cool...f-for that…!”

Iwaizumi shot finger guns at his (Y/n). His crush. Fucking finger guns. He wouldn’t mind if he took his finger guns and shoved it so far up his a-

“It’s no problem!” (Y/n) shot finger guns back, before flexing an arm and patting his bicep. “It’s what a manager is for! Makin’ sure you boys are alright.”

“I’m gonna go fill up some more water bottles...l stopped and filled one up for you first because you looked thirsty…”

(Y/n) ran off. “See you!” He called from a distance, before disappearing from sight. Iwaizumi waved back with a blank expression on his face.

His legs felt like jelly. Not only because he ran 13 miles non-stop, but because of how whipped he became for manager-kun (Y/n) in the span of only a week or two.

Oikawa hummed to himself knowingly, watching Iwaizumi slump back onto the concrete steps with a hand in his heart.

——

“Iwa-chan, Iwa-chan, Iwa-chan!”

“No! No! No!”

“But why?!” Oikawa exasperatedly yelled, dramatically blocking the door leading outside the club room. It was just him, Iwa-chan, Mattsun, and Makki. Makki and Mattsun sat on the floor of the club room like they were expecting Iwaizumi to come in, and from the way they didn’t try to stop Oikawa from blocking the door, they knew the same things he did.

“Let me out shithead!” Iwaizumi clawed at Oikawa’s arms. Oikawa, as twinkish and childish as he seems, was actually stronger than he looked.

Eventually, Iwaizumi stepped back to take a breather. Matsukawa and Hanamaki took that as their chance to secure him, as Hanamaki grabbed Iwaizumi by the torso and wrapped his whole body around him.

He held him as secure as he could while he thrashed around, waiting till Matsukawa hurriedly set up a foldable chair and brought out some rope. Hanamaki dragged Iwaizumi to the chair, ignoring his pleads of “Let me go!” or “Y’all will pay for this-I swear!” As he forcefully sat him down.

He held his hands to the back of the chair as Matsukawa tied him up as quick as he could.

“Oi! What the fuck!” Iwaizumi kicked at Matsukawa as he circled him with the rope.

“It’s for your own good, Iwa-chan.” Oikawa piped up from his spot blocking the door. He didn’t want to move from the door until Iwaizumi was fully immobilized, just in case he tried to run for it.

“Like hell it is-ack!” Matsukawa tightened the rope. “Ease up, will you! God damn!”

“Sorry, sorry.” Matsukawa, in fact, did not ease up. He tied the rope into multiple tight knots, making it virtually impossible to somehow slip out of them. Iwaizumi squirmed around in his restraints as the chair was rotated facing away from the door, and towards Hanamaki and Matsukawa.

Oikawa sighed triumphantly, and backed away from the door. He clasped his hands together.

“So nice of you to finally join our discussion, Iwa-chan.”

“Literally suck my dick then go practice receives on a nearby building and fall to your death.”

Oikawa feigned offense to Iwaizumi’s words. Hanamaki chuckled, while Matsukawa shut Iwaizumi up by tugging at the rope’s end he was holding in his hands.

“Isn’t this illegal? Like-somewhere in the world?”

“It isn’t right now~” Oikawa sung, before becoming laughably serious. “Now! We need some answers!”

“More like you couldn’t contain your curiosity or ask Iwaizumi like a normal person.”

“Makki! You’re supposed to be on my side!” Oikawa blurbed, before coughing and regaining his cool integrator vibe. “Anyways!” Oikawa snapped harshly at Iwaizumi.

“You! Have a! Crush! On Manager-chan!”

Iwaizumi choked on his own spit. He turned away dumbly, with a coy look on his face.

“Dunno what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb! We all see the looks you give him! ‘Fess up, Iwa-chan! You’re absolutely totally whipped for (Y/n)-chan!”

Iwaizumi stiffened. “Since when were you two on a first name basis-!”

“See?! You got mad when I called (L/n)-kun by his first name!”

“That doesn’t mean anything!” Iwaizumi barked. He was starting to sweat now. Were these restraints always so stuffy? “I was just wondering why you called him that!”

Oikawa stuck his tongue out. “Just say you like him we’ll let you go~!”

“Never! No way in hell!”

Oikawa gasped. He pointed dramatically at Iwaizumi. “So you do admit it! You’re totally in love with Manager-kun but you don’t wanna say it!”

“Wh-?!” Iwaizumi sputtered. He kicked around in his restraints, making Matsukawa tug at the rope again. He was thrashing around so much he didn’t hear the door open. “When did I-“

“When did I ever say I had a big ass fuckin’ crush on (L/n) that it made me question my whole sexuality?! But that I couldn’t care less since he’s so...so nice and cute and-fuck!”

Matsukawa and Hanamaki paled. They seemed to be looking at something behind Iwaizumi. Oikawa was still listening intently to Iwaizumi’s confession, not noticing whatever it was those two were staring at.

“Fuck! Fuck! I wanna grab his stupid face and kiss him all over! Fuck! Why is (Y/n) so cute! I wanna call him by his first name too! I wanna hug him and do things boyfriends do too! Fuck! I’m so-“

Oikawa’s eye eventually trailed up from Iwaizumi. He locked eyes with whatever was there, then immediately copied the same panicked ‘we’re dead’ look Hanamaki and Matsukawa had. He looked back at Iwaizumi with a sweaty, pale face.

“H-hey, Iwa-chan, that’s enough-you proved your point-“

“-I’M SO FUCKING GAY FOR (Y/N) IT HURTS!”

The three boys flinched, looking behind Iwaizumi with the same look you’d give when you got caught doing something bad. Iwaizumi was breathing heavily, slouched on his chair after his whole explosion of a confession. He looked at the three third years, who weren’t even looking back at him.

“...what? This is what you guys wanted right? To admit that I like (L/n-“

“I-Iwaizumi, you might wanna shut up…” Hanamaki said, his voice trembly. Matsukawa and Oikawa nodded.

“No! Why are y’all acting so weird! You guys were all up my ass about it, and now you’re telling me to shut up?!”

Matsukawa silently spun his chair around slowly, towards the door so he could see what they were all staring at.

“Honestly, if y’all weren’t expecting me to actually…confess…t-to…yooouuu…”

Iwaizumi’s voice progressively died down as he locked eyes with (Y/n), standing by the door with the reddest shocked face he’d ever seen. It was Iwaizumi’s turn to go pale.

“Uh...I-I heard...screaming...f-from the club room and...and I wanted to see if you guys were ok...um.” (Y/n) awkwardly swung his hands around, before letting them rest behind his back. “So…”

“Do you...really wanna ‘kiss me all over’ and do boyfriend-y stuff together…? With me…?”

Iwaizumi said nothing. He started squirming madly in his binds, trying to look anywhere else but (Y/n).

“Let me out let me out let me out let me out-!“

Iwaizumi only wriggled and kicked harder when (Y/n) started approaching him.

“LETMEOUTLETMEOUTLETME-uu-?”

(Y/n) balled up his fists, resting them rigidly on Iwaizumi’s lap as he clumsily pressed a kiss to his lips. His eyes were clamped shut, unlike Iwaizumi’s, who were wide open. He felt (Y/n) push closer, to which he let his body give in and relax, closing his eyes and tilting his head to deepen the kiss.

Matsukawa wolf-whistled, while Hanamaki yelled things like ‘Get it, Iwaizumi!’. Oikawa smiled triumphantly once more, clapping quietly. “Bravo! Yay Iwa-chan!”

Iwaizumi’s eyes were half-lidded as began to pull away. He let out a shaky sigh, watching Iwaizumi take breathless breaths in. Oikawa was still clapping in the background.

“Yay! Yaaaay Iwa-chan! Iwa-chan is happy and I fulfilled my promise! (L/n) will be Manager-kun for forever!”

Iwaizumi snapped out of his dazed trance to glare at Oikawa in confusion. “Huh?”

“Ara?” Oikawa tilted his head. (Y/n) caught on, and started violently shaking his head ‘no’, as well as flailing his arms around trying to shut him up.

“You don’t know why (L/n)-kun decided to join the club?”

Iwaizumi shook his head. (Y/n) whimpered slightly and covered his face in his hands.

“I told (L/n)-kun that if he became our manager, I’d find a way to get you to fall in looove with him. But it looks like I didn’t need to do anything~”

Oikawa chuckled. “He really only joined for you, y’know. When I went up to talk to him about being a manager, his eyes lit up and he said, and I quote: ‘I’ll do it if you set me up with your friend Iwaizumi-kun and get him to fall for me-! Kyaaa! Iwaizumi-kun is so tall dark and handsom-ow!”

Oikawa was abruptly cut off when Iwaizumi kicked him in the leg, as it was the only thing he could reach while he was still tied up. Iwaizumi turned to the side with a blushy pout.

“Y-you’re embarrassing him, idiot.”

“Aww look. He’s enjoying this.” Matsukawa snickered. Hanamaki chuckled as quietly as he could, both trying not to get kicked in the leg like Oikawa did. (Y/n) sank to the floor, defeated.

“Why did you tell Iwaizumi-kun...that’s so embarrassing…” (Y/n) groaned from the ground. He was still covering his face, so he didn’t notice when Matsukawa started untying Iwaizumi, or when Iwaizumi squatted down and placed his hand on top of (Y/n’s) head.

(Y/n) made a noise of surprise as Iwaizumi patted his head with a blushy scowl.

“S’ only fair that I know… I was pretty embarrassed too when you heard all those things I said about you... Eye for an eye and shit…”

(Y/n) said nothing as Iwaizumi continued to pat his head. They said nothing for a while, before Matsukawa silently whispered to Oikawa.

“Wait, if you knew that (L/n)-kun liked Iwaizumi, why did you look so scared when he walked in? You knew they liked each other.”

“Ah.” Oikawa rubbed the back of his head, watching as Iwaizumi and (Y/n) shyly exchanged phone numbers.

“I was scared that Iwa-chan was going to murder me.”

——————

Wanna know what makes my day? When people comment on my fics 💖 especially when they reblog and go crazy in the tags or even say something IN the reblog itself 💖💖💖 makes me feel all warm inside ✨

-Mr. Mizunetzu

[popculturebuffet]

Amphibia Weekly Season 3 Reviews: Fight at the Museum/Temple Frogs: A Most Jellical Hell

Hello all you hoppy people! We’re on to Week 3 of my weekly coverage of Season 3! I’m Jake, I review stuff and it’s time for a bit of news and speculation before we move on to today’s episodes. 

So picking up from last week where we got the episode titles for the second half of Season 3a, we now have the summaries to go with them, so it’s time to ooo and ahh over the latest episode summaries and see what’s ahead fo rour heroes, and speculate what that might entail. 

Mr. X": Anne takes the Plantars to the movies, while the Boonchuys try to stop a government agent from finding them.

I’m mostly excited about this one because RU MOTHERFUCKING PAUL IS COMING. I haven’t watched Drag Race, you may now boo, but I love him in anything she does. Their work as Jackie Slithersteen in Harvey Beaks was a series highlight both times they showed up and it’ll be intresting to see them in a more serious role. Also it’ll be fun to see the Plantars at a movie theater. I love a good movie theater shenanigans story. 

"Sprig's Birthday": Anne tries to give Sprig a great Earth birthday.

Nothing really to say here other than this one’s probably gonna hurt. 

"Spider-Sprig": Determined to make his mark on Earth, Sprig becomes a superhero.

I haven’t gotten to mention it on this blog as I haven’t covered anything Spider-Man adjacent, but I absolutley LOVED spider-man and hoped this would be some sort of take on that. And given we see a doc ock esque guy using the Annsterminator’s arm in the season trailer, this is going to be REALLY fun.  And while the title could just be “oh generic because he’s a superhero” Sprig DOES have most of Peter and Ben’s powers: he can crawl on walls, has incredibly agility and speed, and his tounge is a good subsittue for webs. He only lacks the strength and spider sense, which give shim a mild handicap but nothing he can’t handle. Point is i’m so ready for this.

"Olivia & Yunan": Back in Amphibia, Olivia and Yunan try to rescue Marcy.

Dammit I already used the sinister bug saying things were good.... hmmm

Haven’t broken this one out in a while. Or the bug one come to think of it. But yes we finally get the incredibly gay rescue episode.. which is bound to end very horribly because we’ve seen the trailer. They PROBABLY shoudln’t of shown nightmare marcy. Just saying. Kinda spoils the suprise. 

"Hollywood Hop Pop": Hop Pop tries to make it as an actor in Hollywood.

This one was inevitible and will likely be fun. Next. 

"If You Give a Frog a Cookie": Anne trusts a questionable scientist who may have found a way to get them to Amphibia.

KATE MICCUI BABY! FUCK YES. God her and keith david on the same show it boggles the mind...

"Froggy Little Christmas": Anne attempts to surprise her mom with a Thai Go float for the Christmas parade while the Plantars struggle to understand the holiday. Meanwhile, King Andrias plans a deadly surprise.

The big one! A heartwarming christmas story, rebcca sugar writing a song and PLOT ADVANCMENT. Who could ask for a better christmas present?

So with all that covered it’s time to dive into this weeks’ episodes!  Join me under the cut, full spoilers, etc etc. 

Fight at the Museum:

We open with an answer to one of the most burning questions of the season: Where do the Plantars sleep in the Boonchuy house?

Look we had no real clear layout of the Boonchuy house and no real answer as Anne was apparently sleeping alone in “The New Normal’. I can wait on the other stuff because I KNOW we’ll get lore answers eventually because this show is fairly consistent at giving them, just at a slow pace between one off adventures, something this very episode lampshades in it’s own way. 

The answer is their all crashing in anne’s room, but all plenty comfy: Sprig has a beanbag, Polly’s sharing the catbed with Domino, which .... just.. just look at it. 

My heart just exploded from adorable. And Hop Pop is , judging by the first ep alternating between the floor and Anne’s bed. Seriously the boonchuy’s HAVE a couch he could use that. 

Anne however has been awake all night, can relate, trying to find a way back to Amphibia to save her girlfriends, the town and you know both worlds from the sexy wrath of Keith David as a Salamander. 

But the realistic consequences of running 24 hours for several days in a row, especially as a child who needs rest, are catching up with her and she’s barely concious the next day, still hoping to spend it the same way she spent the night. The Plantars.. want to watch a british soap opera. My mom could relate... and so can I just replace “British soap opera” with “sitcom about the deep state”.  Hop Pop points out the honest facts: they’ve ALSO been working hard to find a way home, if offscreen, but they can’t burn themselves out. Trust me it’s not fun. I’ve burned myself out doing this and I don’t hold the fate of countlres worlds in my hands. I’ll get into the why of Anne’s desperation in a bit. 

Mrs. Boonchuy roasts her daughter about researching for once before agreeing with Hop Pop. She needs to relax for once.. and Mrs. B needs to clean all the slime that’s built up in the house so their asses are going to the museum. Anne needs to catch up on missed School, the plantars can learn more about earth , and The Boonchuy House can stop smelling like a ninja turtle. Everyone wins!

We get an adorable montage of the plantars enjoying the museum while Anne nearly passes out a bunch: Sprig marvels at dinosaurs (”Guess you had a monster problem too huh?”), Polly relates to cavemen and Hop Pop is horrified to find earth people think the earth is round (It is)... and signals to Anne he needs to be kept as FAR away from the internet and B.O.B. as froggily possible. 

Anne however is still obesseivly researching... until they find a clue int he museum itself and we get a rather huge move forward in the overall lore:  Said pot depicts Andrias’ frog friend who looks a LOT like Sprig coming out of a portal, gifting the box to a bunch of vikings. She DID steal it after all as I suspected.. I never thought Andrias lied about that outright.. he simply didn’t see she did it to PROTECT people from him and his god. 

They then run into the Museum’s curator, Dr. Jan, an utterly nice woman who has a side hobby in crytozoology and is utterly curious abotu this mysterioius pot and would be HAPPY to help them. Anne turns her down and shoos her away, while Hop Pop wants to know why. \

Anne dosen’t know if she can trust her.. and that’s not only fair but ties into the very reason her obession is at it’s peak. It’s something that hit me this episode> For us True Colors happened about 5 months ago. We’ve had time to obesses over it sure but as simple observers we could move on to other shows and nonsense. For Anne? It was a just a little over a week ago BOTH her best friends/love interests deeply betrayed her, she fought off an invasion, found out the kindly king helping her was a tyrannical  monster bent on multiversal conquest, thought her best friend died, saw her new robot brother actually die,  went super sayian god super sayian, had one of the loves of her life stay behind so she could escape and saw the other stabbed in the gut while she was helpless to stop it. All in one fucking day, most of that in the span of a couple of hours. And she hasn’t REALLY gotten a break since: she had to emotionally reunite with her parents, spend hours explaining to them what happened after they had the whole frogs thing sprung on them by Hop Pop’s incompetence, was locked in her house for a day, had to fight off a killer robot, found out her new powers really hurt and is deeply disturbed by them, had to keep the plantars from getting themselves killed constantly, barely escaped a mall, had to stop her little brother’s shenanigans by driving a runaway truck with no breaks, and then had 8 cavities removed in one day just to top it all off. 

Like when your watching it week to week it dosen’t really register how much trauma this poor child’s been through and how short the time span’s been till you sit back and REALLY think about it. Though I did think about the timeline.. and by that was reminded by the episode list Reunion takes place three months after Anne arrived on amphibia, not only meaning the series has ALWAYS had a strict timeline, but that season 2 takes place over two months, perfectly slotting everything into place. 

Point is she’s been through a LOT and after the two people she loves most and the last kindly stranger she met stabbed her in the back and into her gut, it’s understandable why she wouldn’t be quick to trust someone she’s only met 5 seconds ago. She could be a goverment agent or something. They don't know. 

Anne being cautious here, especially since Hop Pop has the GALL to call her paranoid.... a week after again he WATCHED MARCY GET STABBED IN THE GUT BY THE MAN THEY ALL TRUSTED AFTER MARCY REVEALED SHE SENT THEM ALL TO AMPHIBIA ON PURPOSE.

But her plan.. isn’t as acceptable. She wants to be bi, do crimes and rob the museum at night. Hop Pop BARELY agrees to it while naturally Sprig and Polly are on board. I’m pretty sure when Poly conquers the world at 12 be gay do crimes will be the worldwide motto. Sprig just likes to be an ally. 

At any rate our froggy heroes deck themselves out in matching emo hoodies anne had because.. well she WAS dating Sasha, and rips once up for polly. Anne of course, having already had 80 outfit changes in her backpack alone, has a classic break in black ops outfit. 

The break in goes suprisingly well. Phase One is to distract the Guards... which would be a genuine issue if they weren’t at this level of competence

So they simply have hop pop distract them by pretending to be a cat...

Look you’ve seen the top, you know what he actually looks like, I know what he actually looks like. You already have the jellical nightmares. I’m not giving you more by giving it more time to sear it’s way into your soul. I will say they did hilariously mimic the stage makeup of cats well. I’ll also say they did well giving my worst fears and nightmares form. 

The kids roles are SLIGHTLY less traumatizing. Sprig takes out the camera’s with his tounge and Polly turns out to have razor sharp teeth because apparently Spirg and Polly’s mom had an affair with a Critter. I mean she’s ball shaped, has razor sharp teeth, and hungers for blood. The signs were there all along this just proves it. 

So our heroes sucessfully break and enter, and get the vase. But as Sprig notes this being a heist their contractually obligated to have a twist.. and this one was set up earlier as we saw the Annsterminator forced to patch into the local antenna to scan for them, as it’s scanner was damaged in the fight. But it finds them via the one security camera Sprig DIDN’T sabotage, meaning he finds them, sets off the alarms and leaves our heroes trapped. 

The result is an AWESOME fight across the museum as the plantars use EVERYTHING they can. From the cool stacking attack using armor, swords and a mace, to anne grabbing a sword again once again proving her strength to hop pop USING A MOTHERFUCKING GUILLOTINE TO CHOP OFF AN ARM WHILE SHOUTING EAT THE RICH. 

Cumulating in Anne holding Annsterminator off while the plantars DROP A DINOSAUR SKELETON ON HIM. 

Sadly bones don’t beat metal... they can beat off metal but that’s a whole other discussion, point is the Annesterminator escapes and nearly chokes the life out of Anne till Dr. Jan comes in along with the security so he books it out of there the only way he knows how

Dr. Jan quickly covers for them with the guards who are luckily still this level of smart

So they buy it, especially since the plantars had to ditch the disguises to be effective. Thankfully she’s not mad about the damage or almost theft and more curious as to what the hell any of this is, as you or I would be let’s be fair here. 

So they fill her in offscreen and on screen she offers to help, notcing Anne is near passing out and needs rest before they can get to work and Hop Pop points out the simple truth: They can’t do this alone. And it didn’t hit me before, because they’ve come so far.. but they really can’t. I’m so used to shows and media like this where it’s left on the teen protaganists and maybe one or two adult shoulders I forget sometimes.. those people have limites. The Plantar-Boonchuy’s are plenty badass, talented cooks and all around just the best people warts and all, pun very much intedned... but at the end of the day none of them are, as far as we’ve been told as far as Anne’s parents are concerned, Engeineers, scientists+-, historians, superheros, sorcerers supermee.. the kind of people who can help them get back where they once belonged. As we’ve seen the best Anne can do is research, and she’s looking into something that is, at least as far as the public knows, impossible, meaning at best there’s a portal at a goverement black site.  With Jan being a historian and into this sort of weird paranormal stuff, she has contacts and tools to help them. She can’t whip them up a portal.. but having someone who can look into Amphibia’s history with earth is better than nothing. 

So Anne accepts it, seeing Jan IS genuinely+ as good as she acts and agrees to her quid pro quo of sleeping in exchange for working on this. That night Jan studies the pot and takes Anne’s suggestion of running a black light over it for hidden messages, because why not. Shockingly there is. 

Fight at the Museum was excellent, letting the emotinal consequences of last season hit Anne in a subtle way. I do feel they need to talk about it eventually especially since we STILL haven’t heard from either of the girls parents. The fight scenes were also visually spectacular as always and cleverly used the museum setup, as well as having the Annesterminator loose an arm as setup for later episodes as we’ve seen. All in all another stellar episode from the show’s best season. 

Temple Frogs:

Picking up where we left off, Anne wakes up rested, refreshed and ready to eat that horse. And Jan messaged her about the temple so the Plantars are all excited to go learn about it. Given this is a children’s cartoon you just KNOW that means the adults in Anne’s life who aren’t frogs have other plans that are going to lead to a life lesson. 

Sure enough the Boonchuy’s are headed to the Thai Temple for market day, a day for the local Thai Community to gather to set up stalls, participate in activities relating to said culture and in general just bask in the joy of community. Anne being a teenager with a world saving mission wants no real part of this but the Plantars do and Mrs.B wants her ot stay AT LEAST an hour. Still no name, though apparently Mr. B’s is Jeff so that’s at least ONE down. I missed it but apparently this episode reveals it.

Anne reluctantly agrees and the family heads down to Temple. The Plantars end up feeling right at home as the number of stalls and sense of community feel just like their own market days back home. Anne has grown jaded with it mostly due to having gone here her whole life. We even see an adorable picture of her as a younger kid. It’s precious. 

The Plantars are more than happy to explore her culture, respectfully, and Anne lets them loose since they have an hour to kill and she’s on Sample duty.  The following part is easily the best and most charming part of the episode: The Plantars each find a part of Thai culture to enjoy and fit in with, without approrating it, and the local Thai community warmly welcomes them to join in.  It allows Matt to show off his cultural heritage and a bit of his own past, clearly having gone to similar gatherings at some point, and share them with the children, teens, and grown ass peoples (points to self) watching this.  I fully learned stuff with this as Sprig and Hop Pop’s activities are things i’d genuinely never heard of and googled to get the names right as while i’m fine with missing a character name or something, as this is usually from memory and on the day the episode comes out (this one’s way later than usual because the last two days have been kinda busy). It happens. But I flat out refuse to misspell something that people put their heart and soul into. It’s just genuinely nice to learn something about a culture that’s not my own, to learn neat stuff I never knew and genuinly apricate it. I honestly need to do this more often, as I genuinely LIKE learning new stuff and bits of history, in the most respectful way possible off course. 

Sprig wonders around till he finds a game of Takraw, a kick based ball and net sport. It follows similar rules to volleyball except you can only use your feet to hit the ball, making it far more acrobatic and a sport i’m now fully interested in looking into as the idea of a bunch of talented athletes doing spider-man style moves while hitting a ball only with kicks sounds utterly awesome. And keep in mind i’m not a sports guy normally, i’m only now casually intrested in Soccer/Football because of Ted Lasso and Wrestling because of the hard works that goes into it, the intresting histories and the nice dollop of bollocks. So the fact this show got me intrested in a sport at all is a feat. Sprig casually kicks a ball back, already having the impressive talents for acrobatics and strong legs needed for the sport, and is naturally invited to join in. 

Hop Pop is next and he finds Khon Dancing, where dancers act out the life of the god Rama via dramatic, well timed movements whle wearing glittery costumes and really awesome looking traditional masks. While not mentoined in the episode the story is told by singers on the side whlie the actors pantomime everything else. Hop Pop is naturally drawn to anything theater and fits in perfectly. 

Finally there’s Polly who finds herself at Thai School, where they teach thai to children every week, Anne herself later remarking she used to go (Thoguh failed to really learn more than a few phrases. Turns out Polly is a natural, having learned the language from Mrs. B’s soap operas, and thus impresses the other kid.. minus one calling her a show off but that one can be thrown in the hole with Polly’s other enemies when she conquers our puny planet. 

Anne notices her mom giving back a LOT of tupperware and getting some back, but thinks nothing of it. Me on the other hand? I got EXACTLY what this meant and reacated accordingly. 

Anne finds out it’s only been ten minutes and decides fuck it she’s leaving and gathering everyone.  I was dreading these next scenes as I figured , given the conventions of this kind of plot, Anne would drag her family away from their apprecation of her culture and get called out by them AND her mom for being an insesntive dip. But Matt Braly’s too clever for that. Instead as Anne’s clearly touched to see each of her surrogate family immersing themselves in her culture and truly loving every minute of it, and seeing her community gladly embrace them. She dosen’t bother them or even let her presecene be known, she just watches fondly and let’s each one go about there way. She’s especailly proud of Polly, baffled because Anne herself barely learned any Thai, but still proud she’s fluent in it. It shows anne’s heart: She gets that while the Plantars clearly miss home.. they likely also  miss their community and is glad hers is helping fill the void. 

So Anne decides to fly solo only to run into her mom whose rightfully pissed Anne couldn't wait AN HOUR. The episode really does well setting up Mrs. B as being in the right too. I point this out because WAY too many cartoons have the adult be right because adult. This isn’t AS prevalent nowadays but growing up in the 90′s and 00′s I saw this a lot. Here Mrs. B is right.. because she’s right.  Before we even get to the episodes heartwarming and heartwrenching reveal, the fact is she acknowledges how important this is, even without knowing the full stakes, and gladly compromises to let Anne only stay an hour, so Anne still helps her and reunites with the community (having gotten heavily cheek pinched by old ladies earlier), but gets to go get the important info they need. The Plantars are fully willing to take the detour to the temple for most of the day and offered no resistance, so there’s no making them feel bad. The only one who’s impatient here is Anne and while understandable, it’s not really excusable given Jan didn’t say anything like “I might of found a portal home”. There’s no immediate payoff to whatever she’s found, and thus no reason it can’t wait an hour and help her family out and reunite with a bunch of people who thought she was lost and hurting, which to a degree she was. 

So even without the next reveal, Anne was kind of a jerk for not staying and helping. The next reveal though clinches it: As I guessed the tupperware was all from dishes the community cooked for the Boonchuy’s while anne was missing, so they wouldn’t have to in the deep depression of loosing their daughter. Not only that the whole community stepped in and helped do shifts at the restraunt and whatever Jeff and Mrs. B needed during the worst moments of their life. And it’s very telling Mrs. B DIDN’T tell Anne till it was clear she needed to know. SHe didn’t want to burden her daughter with what they went through because Anne didn’t go on purpose. It was an accident, she didn’t do anything wrong, and she worked hard , as she likely outlined, to get back. Telling her how much her absence hurt them was unecessary. But telling her now, so she can now how much the community helped them, without asking anything in return, how much these kind people  made it so the Boonchuy’s surviived the worst 5 months of their lives with their buisness and sanity in tact, that was necessary. And Anne DOES geninely feel bad about being a dick about it now she realizes not only just what her parents went through, but how much this community really matters. 

Bigger issues crop up though as it turns out the Annesterminator has dragonfly drones it sent after her. Anne brushes them off as being from the school newspaper, some reporters were seen earlier trying to get the scoop on her absence. This also puts her disappearance to me around late may early june given we have the Christmas special coming, and the plantars had to get back for the harvest, with the Shut In, , non canon or not, taking place in october and just after the Plantars returned. Which would mean these eps take place in early novemeber or late october. Look I have all eterneity and a few more weeks of episode to figure out the timeline. Point is dragon flies a comin and Anne prepares for a fight.. as does the temple. You mess with one of them, you mess with all of them and EVERYONE organizes to fight, with Hop Pop, Sprig and Polly putting their new skills to work: Hop pop uses cermonial swords to cut down dragonflies, spirg and his new team use the ball to take some out, and Polly organizes everyone. Everyone elses uses pots, pans and wahtever to kick ass. IT’s a sight to behold. Sprig and Polly finish them off with a Takraw Spike Special, and our heroes win. Unfortunately their also fully unmasked in front of a large crowd, and we get that close up from above. 

The good news though is the community warmly embraces the Plantars and dosen’t need to know where they came from: They stood with them when they needed to and very clearly took care of Anne. That’s all they need to welcome them. Anne is touched by this and decides to stay both out of respect for her community, and because it’s now not just hers.. but the Plantars too. Plus more people she can honestly tell the frog thing to so that’s nice. 

She gets karmically rewarded for this as Dr. Jan couldn’t wait, and having gotten a text from Anne earlier, drove down here. So Anne not only gets to bask in community but gets her clue. ducking behind a tree, Jan reveals the black light message.. and it’s nothing she can read. But thankfully Anne has Marcy’s journal. 

Look if the shipping wasn’t at critical mass enough now Anne just.. casually  has Marcy’s things in her bag. Though frankly wanting to run away together, blushing a lot together and ... let’s just save time and say just about every scene with Anne and Marcy kinda already told us everything, this is just more blatant evdience their lesbians together. 

The message says “Find the mother of olms, she’ll lead you to her destiny” So they have a CLUE... but no earthly idea who she is and I only know what an olm is because of the recap page for this episode on TV Tropes. It’s a species of Salamander. Still it’s better to have SOME direction than none and wether this gets the Plantars home or helps them be Andrias it’s SOMETHING. So point for Jan and for Anne. 

Thai Temple is an utterly fantastic episode. It embraces Thai culture, gives us more text to what went on while Anne was gone, has another fantastic fight scene and is just a joy to watch, bucking most of the conventions fo rthis kind of plot to create an utterly heartwarming tribute to Thai Culture. Easily a contender for my best of the year list and that is a tight race and I suspect with only more episodes left it’s only gonna get tighter. I had to give this show an extra slot, 6 instead of 5, simply because it has SO many episodes this year. 

Next Time: The Moment’s we’ve been waiting for. Polly tries to rebuild Frobo with the help of some cosplayers, while the Boonchuy’s FINALLY find out the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Bring it on. 

If you enjoyed this review consider commissioning an episode, as I haven’t covered any of season 1, and am happy to, along with several ducktales episodes and all kinds of good disney and non-disney stuff. Just shoot me a message or ask, pricing details are on my blog. Or if you want a guaranteed review a month and for me to review an amphibia a month, just shoot over to my patreon. Just one dollar a month will get me to review one episode of amphibia season one (and that’s aa half hour by the way not the 15 minutes0, guaranteed, and 5 gets you a guranteed slot a month. A bit more gets the owl house. So join on up 

LINK IS RIGHT HERE. DOING THIS HELPS KEEP THIS BLOGS LIGHTS ON SO PLEASE DO. 

Thanks for reading

[exyrpf]

best stucky fic recs pwease

Okay, disclaimer, these are all like five+ years old (which is the best Stucky era, imo) and definitely not the only ones I enjoy; these are just a few in my bookmarks on ao3.

In no particular order besides the order I bookmarked them and under a read more because there's a shit ton of them (really, it's a lot):

- hold me until we crumble; Not Rated, 23k

“Sam told me you were watching Antiques Roadshow,” Natasha says, shaking out her hair. “I assumed it was a national emergency.”

- despite the threatening sky and shuddering earth (they remained); Explicit, 72k

“They really didn’t want the mask to come off.” Hill thumbed through the scans, and pulled out a film that she then handed over to Sam, face mostly expressionless but for the flat line of her pursed lips.

Sam accepted the film and held it up to the light, angling so both he and Steve could see it, squinting at the outline of the Winter Soldier’s skull, and the blips of unnatural white that showed up, God, in his brain, not to mention about half his teeth, plus the mask, with its thin protrusions—

“Those are pins,” Steve realized. He looked over at Hill. “The mask—it’s nailed to his face.”

Hill’s face was as unmoved as ever. “Like I said. They really didn’t want it coming off.”

- family means no one gets left behind or forgotten; Teen, 11k

“Why did you think I wouldn’t like you for being gay?” Steve asks gently.

“You’re Captain America.” Eli’s got his teeth clenched and is resolutely looking ahead. “You stand for truth and justice and the American way. You stand for American morals. You stand for…” he shrugs awkwardly. “Not people like me.”

Steve blows the air out of his cheeks slowly, trying to figure out how to keep the anger out of his voice so Eli doesn’t think it’s at him.

Or, Steve comes to terms with his new world, and gains some children in the process.

- Mistake on the Part of Nature; Teen, 1.3k

Steve takes in Bucky's betrayed look and Sam's confusion, follows Sam's gaze to the pile of mangled fruit in the trash can. Sudden comprehension fills his face.

"Oh," he says. "Bucky found out about bananas."

In which an American icon is mourned. But probably not the one you're thinking of.

- Swear Jar; Teen, 1.5k

Bucky isn't the only troll in the future.

OR

Steve has a Swear Jar and he makes the Avengers pay up every time they cuss.

- Barnes & Rogers and the Goddamn Truth; Not Rated, 19k

There are three well-known facts at Shield High:

1. The history teacher Mr. Barnes is a stone-cold terror, and it’s not even because he only has one arm. 2. The other history teacher, Mr. Rogers, is a mysterious enigma, and it’s something to do with the body of a Greek God and contradicting stories of his past. (They’re all rumours, anyway.) 3. Mr Barnes and Mr Rogers hate each other.

Bucky wouldn’t have it any other way.

- perfectly right wrong number; Teen, 32k

It all starts because Steve is too dumb to handle his smartphone.

A wrong number AU in which Bucky Barnes doesn't enter Steve's life (meaning: Bucky wasn't born until the eighties, but Steve is still Captain America) until Steve accidentally dials the wrong number. Wherein there is a lot of texting, some advice via Natasha and Darcy, a bit of pining, and a first date in an amusement park. Oh, and on top of being a disabled veteran, Bucky is a professional catwalker. Literally.

- The power of the right shirt (a.k.a. God bless America); Teen, 1.2k

"He just…" Phil trails off, mouth gaping. He is staring at the field outside the house, eyes glazed.

Clint sighs. "Yeah, he just ripped a log in two with his bare hands."

- To fill it up with something; Teen, 21k

A fateful encounter with Dr. Strange leaves the Winter Soldier transformed, and Bucky Barnes reunites with Steve Rogers in a most unexpected way.

“Steve brings the puppy inside, into the apartment that doesn't quite feel like home no matter how much he's been trying. He isn't used to being alone. Before the war, he always had Bucky, and his mother until her death. During the war, Bucky was there, too—and the rest of the Howlers, of course—but Bucky always meant home. (And well, maybe Steve's already got a name for the puppy in mind)."

- build it bigger than the sun; Teen, 10k

“Yeah, because nothing says heteronormative like living in Dupont Circle for two years and wearing skin-tight shirts to hit on hot airmen when you go running in the morning.”

“Look, I know you’re being sarcastic but I really don’t get how no one picked up on that.”

Steve and Bucky try to work out their relationship. The Avengers keep getting in the way.

- Memories Circle (Like Birds of Prey), Teen, 32k

Everything seems to be going right, Steve's fighting with his Commandos, they've saving lives-- until Steve falls from a train, is taken prisoner, and turned into the Winter Soldier. Meanwhile, Bucky takes up Steve's mantle as Captain America, and thanks to Zola's experiments, he gets dropped into a whole new time, only to cross paths with a Steve who doesn't know who he is anymore.

Essentially, the events of CA:TFA, mild mentioning of Avengers, and CA:TWS but with Steve as the Winter Soldier and Bucky as Captain America

- The Gentleness That Comes; Mature, 9k

Steve Rogers never really views the things he had to do to get by before the War with any sort of shame or embarrassment. People ask him for his opinions on modern issues in interviews, but Steve has gotten good at talking around those types of questions. Fury insists that there's no way to answer them without casting a shadow of controversy across the reputation of the Avengers, and that's the last thing Steve wants.

But then a sex tape is released featuring Tony Stark in bed with another man, and Steve can't stay quiet any longer.

- salt for the sea; Mature, 7.5k

Natasha comes home with intel regarding the fate of the Winter Soldier; Steve leaves to go and avenge Bucky Barnes.

“It's a list of everyone who was involved in his death, and a rough timeline of everything that happened beforehand,” she tells him.

“And the notebook?”

“I explained what they did,” Natasha says, “The blank pages are for you to explain what you do to them.”

- Lone Cat and Samurai; Teen, 8.4k

"We lost Kitten America sir!" Junior Agent blurted out. Then turned an unlovely shade of purple. "I mean, Captain America. Who’s a kitten. Because magic. Sir."

- Waiting To Prove You're Not Alone; Explicit, 41k

Months after he woke up on the banks of the Potomac, when a reporter mistakenly assumes Steve would disapprove of homosexuality being as accepted as it is in the modern day, Steve accidentally snaps and unleashes his real opinion on the matter... and with that, a secret he's hidden for over eighty years.

When that secret comes looking for him in New York, Steve can only hope that he can get a second chance at saving his best friend, even if it means keeping his heart in check.

“Yeah, back in my day it wasn't tolerated, and because of that I knew from the minute I figured it out, that I’d never get to tell my best friend that I loved him, and sure enough, he died without knowing that I’d been in love with him for a decade."

- I'm Not Sick (But I'm Not Well); Mature, 30k

Steve Rogers doesn’t meet Bucky Barnes in the 1930’s. Instead, Steve meets him April 17th, 2012.

Well…sort of meets him.

In actuality, Bucky had almost hit him with his truck.

Or: The fic where millennial Bucky Barnes nearly runs over a freshly thawed national treasure, and what Steve Rogers did to adjust to modern NYC during those two weeks before the events of The Avengers.

- pure as the driven slush; Explicit, 11k

He should have worked it out sooner. But then, Steve always was a sneaky little bastard—had to have been, just to survive this long.

For the SteveBucky Fest prompt, "Steve is quite experienced while Bucky's never gone beyond second base with anyone".

- Let's Be Exposed and Unprotected, Explicit, 5k

Bucky’s pretty sure he should be into getting fucked through the floor while walls explode around him like in that Mr and Mrs Smith movie that Clint loves. But he likes it like this. He likes being on his back with Steve looming above him, big and naked, blocking out the rest of the world.

- Man of Steel; Explicit, 6.7k

It’s like Steve looked at his metal arm and thought ‘Challenge Accepted.’

- 5 Times Steve Got Arrested and 1 Time They All Did; Teen, 4.9k

What it says, 5 times Steve Rogers ended up in jail (with and without Bucky) + 1 time all of the Avengers got arrested with him.

- the best of you; Teen, 16k

Bucky is on a mission when he gets the call.

They tell him that Steve has been compromised.

[The story wherein Hydra captures Steve to create a new weapon. Bucky, alongside the rest of the Avengers, come together and work through the fallout.]

- pull apart the dark; Teen, 79k

Steve's unending faith in his best friend was beginning to look less like hope and more like fantasy. When they'd caught the Soldier – in a fire fight that still gave Sam nightmares – the only thing the man seemed to recall was how to hit exactly where it hurt.

Four months later, Barnes still refused to speak English. Refused to heed anything but Steve's voice.

So, all in all, it was not a great time for Hydra to attack New York. All in all, Sam really wished they'd just killed him, instead of turning Captain America into a baby.

- Not Another Supersoldier Fantasy; Explicit, 8.9k

Bucky finds a popular sex toy modeled on Captain America's own anatomy. Well, isn't this just perfect? Because even after all this time, he still hasn’t seen Steve’s supersoldier cock. But apparently in this day and age anyone with $29.95 can get a decent replica. The unfairness of this is of galactic proportions.

- the blood of the covenant; Teen, 7.5k

Steve has a "thing" for hot water.

Or, Sam Wilson adopts Steve Rogers.

- Mighty like Love, Mighty like Sorrow; Teen, 19k

After freeing himself from the Russians' mind control, Bucky is left at loose ends, drifting through the decades. Still, he's in no hurry to take up Nick Fury's offer to once again fight the good fight -- especially not when Fury has the nerve to put some imposter in his best friend's old suit and send him out to fight against Chitauri.

- Read Me Like a Book; Gen, 1.5k

In which Bucky accidentally becomes a book collector, because when the universe gives you a million biographies about your boyfriend, you go bookcase shopping. And then he finds out about The Grenade Incident, and the boys actually talk about it like actual adults. (Somewhere, Sam sheds a proud tear.)

- the broadest stroke of color; Gen, 16k

Sarah Rogers always loved Steve's hands.

"Your hands will do a lifetime's work," she'd say. "Remember to do the work you can for those you love."

Almost a century later, Steve does just that.

[The story wherein Steve draws comics for Bucky to help him recover his memory. Through a series of events, the issues are leaked, and Steve finds himself reviving the Captain America comics. He still isn't sure how that happened.]

- If You're Loved By Someone (You're Never Rejected); Teen, 9.4k

You’re fifteen when you realize why you stare at Bucky’s lips more than normal when he laughs and when he says your name. You lean into his shoulder when you walk next to him and when you’re sick you don’t fight off his soft hands. You tease him, he teases back and being around him is so easy you forget what it was like to live without him. You can’t remember life pre-Bucky and it scares you.

- Unusual Weather; Explicit, 8.7k

Bucky’s been at the Avengers Tower for three weeks before he finally gives in to Steve’s gentle coaxing and Stark’s cheerful waving of fistfuls of circuits, and lets them scan the arm.

It doesn’t go well.

- this city bleeds its aching heart; Explicit, 35k

The one where Steve and Bucky pose as a happily married couple while on a mission for SHIELD, to catch an international arms dealer hiding in a suburban neighbourhood.

- Good Boy; Explicit, 13k

Bucky is still adjusting to life with the Avengers, and Steve is willing to do whatever it takes to make him feel comfortable. Increasingly, though, what seems to make him comfortable is strangely intimate.

Surprise, Steve! You're a gentle dom and Bucky wants to be your pretty pet!

- Brooklyn; Teen, 8.8k

"Captain America, what's your stance on gay marriage?"

Everyone knows that, by now. Everyone but Bucky.

[purpleivy12]

Misunderstandings

Pairing: Romantic Logince, Platonic Logicality, Background Mociet (Can be interpreted as platonic or romantic)

Word Count: 1887

Summary: Logan has been in love with Roman for ages. Roman couldn’t like him back... right? 

Warnings: Cursing, Crying, Fighting, Misunderstandings

Logan had a problem. It was a bit of a big problem too. The issue wasn’t the problem itself, no- Logan loved problems, loved coming up with solutions for them, loved thinking up new ways to solve them, loved being able to come at things from an analytical and logical standpoint to figure it out. But… this problem was more abstract than that…

It was, purely emotional- to put it simply. And of course it had to be the most confusing, strange, convoluted emotion of all. Love. Even saying it made Logan’s head spin. Who would have thought that the one thing that distracted Logan and kept him from working would be- Roman. 

Roman, who Logan once saw his outbursts and fits of passion as annoying, now saw that they were Roman expressing his love for things- going on about the things he cared about, talking about his dreams and what he loved, his eyes lighting up, his voice getting excited. How Logan longed to be the subject of one of those rambles.

Roman, who’s optimism and brightness and joy had once frustrated Logan, now made the corner of his mouth twitch up into a smile whenever he ever thought about it- he saw how Roman’s outlook on life let him be who he was.

Logan saw how Roman put his entire soul, his whole being, into the things that he created, saw how he put his soul into all of his creations, saw how he would stay up until ungodly hours of the morning just to put finishing touches onto a project, making sure that it was perfect, just how he wanted.

Oh, how could Logan ever measure up?

Logan could frequently be found in the memory archives- looking back at Roman, looking at the things he did- his smile, his laugh, him talking about his ideas… and most of the time, Logan would leave happy- would leave with a  smile on his face.

But not today.  Today, Logan felt his throat close up as he looked at the first memory, he felt his eyes sting as he watched- and as he set the memory away he felt tears roll down his cheeks. Because why, why in the world would Roman ever love him? Why would he ever love Logan, who couldn’t even find the courage to tell him how he felt, couldn’t even get out his feelings? Logan, who did his best to try not to show emotion, when Roman did the opposite, displaying how he felt with pride. 

And of course, it was Logan’s luck that Patton happened to be in the archives that day. Patton’s cheery voice could be heard as he walked through the archives.

“Logan? Are you in here? Roman and I were working on something and we wanted help finding the memory of-” but then Patton abruptly cut himself off when he saw Logan, leaning against the bookshelf nearest to him, a hand clapped over his mouth, trying to stop crying and breathe normally. “Logan? What’s wrong?” he asks worriedly, moving closer to the other.

Logan’s eyes widened because, shit- no one was supposed to know that he had feelings or that he could cry.

 “I-I’m quite alright, P-Patton, really.” Logan says shakily, sniffling. Patton doesn’t buy it for a second, and he quickly moves forwards, wrapping Logan in his arms. 

“You clearly aren’t, Lo.” he tells the logical side, wrapping him in his arms. And then Logan is done. He collapses into Patton’s arms and he’s openly sobbing now, too far gone to care about try to stifle his cries. Patton gently shushes him, sinking to the floor, sitting there and holding Logan in his arms. Patton gently rubbed his back, letting Logan cry against him. 

After Logan calms, Patton keeps his arms around him, not moving away from him just yet. “Lo… what got you so upset?” he asks him, his forehead creased in worry. 

“I…” Logan doesn’t know how to answer that. How to say that he was constantly in a state of emotional torment, full of longing for something, someone, that he obviously cannot have. “I love him.” he decides is the best way to start. “And every time I see his smile I want to kiss him until the sun explodes and consumes the Earth- and every time he sings I want to listen to him for hours, and every time his stupid optimism overtakes him it makes me want to shelter him from whatever could possibly dim it. But it… hurts. Because I know that this is one sided, I know that he’d never love me the same. And… this pain… I’m okay with it. Because I’m dull and plain and everything that he isn’t. I’ve decided that this hurt… that’s what love is. Not the glittery fantasies that he wants, and I know I will never be able to give that to him.  And even though he’ll never love me the same, I’ve decided to hold onto this little glimmer of hope that he will.” Logan says, and he takes a breath in, and somewhere during his monologue Logan had started crying- he didn’t know when- but he slips off his glasses, wiping the tears with his sleeve. 

Patton is silent for a long moment, before he speaks softly. 

“Logan- first off, you might want to look into a future in poetry, that was a beautiful monologue- and second, please, don’t take this in the wrong way- you’ve got to be incredibly dense if you believe a single word you just said.” he tells him firmly. “You’re not bland, or boring, or anything else that you said- and if anything else- you two are like the sun and the moon- Roman is the sun, and you are the moon, reflecting back the best parts of him. And sure, you two may technically be opposites- but you compliment each other perfectly- and in the end, you belong together.” he tells him. 

Logan doesn’t believe him. It’s apparent from the look on his face that he doesn’t. “Thank you Patton, for calming me.” he tells him, before he moves to stand, getting up and off of the floor where he and Patton had been sitting, leaving Patton frowning on the floor. “I’m afraid that I’ve used up time supposed to be spent working for… this. I have much to do. Good day.” he bids, before turning to go, leaving Patton on the floor to watch as he went. 

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

It was a few days after everything had happened- Patton slowly was growing more and more worried about the logical side, and it had gotten to the point where he had decided to enlist Janus’ help- telling him what had happened with Logan, and with his help- the two decided that they would attempt to get the two of them together- as Roman and Logan seemed content to ignore their feelings like one would ignore weird noises in the night in hope that they would go away. 

Over these days- they had tried to force the two to talk about their feelings- to no avail and much to Logan’s annoyance, because he’d rather ignore these feelings until they went away, thank you very much. 

Because of Janus and Patton’s constant trying to get Logan to speak to Roman, it was only natural that Logan constantly had Roman on his mind. It was quite annoying- and while Logan sometimes enjoyed entertaining the thoughts of a relationship with Roman, it was becoming all-consuming to the point where he wouldn’t be able to get any work done, and if Logan hated anything, it was functioning suboptimally. 

It didn’t help that said creative facet had just currently walked straight (or gay, depending on how you look at it), into Logan’s room, causing the other to let out a groan of annoyance, shuting his laptop as Roman flopped down onto the bed. 

“Do you need something, Roman?” Logan asks, his voice coming out a little harsher than he intended for it to. 

“Yeah, actually- I was wondering what was up with you? Did I do something wrong?” he asks, frowning a bit as he looked at Logan, his tone not the best as well- going off of Logan’s. 

“No- you didn’t do anything.” Logan says, his tone clearly dismissive. 

“Oh- really? Because you’ve been glaring at me for a few days now, and avoiding me as well.” he tells him, getting a bit upset with him. Bad enough that Logan didn’t like him- he was ignoring him too- any hope that Roman may have had was now thoroughly squashed. 

“Yeah, like you know what it’s like to be ignored.” Logan mutters, sending a glare Roman’s way. Roman’s mouth opens and closes at that- not sure how to respond, but with-

“What the fuck is your problem!?” he asks, wincing at that, because of course Roman messed this up, of course he insults Logan, shit, he can’t do anything right can he?

“You’re the problem!” Logan shouts suddenly, because Roman /is/ the problem, and the problem is that he can’t just stop thinking about him, whipping around  and looking at Roman, causing Roman to sit up, blinking.

Roman flinches at the shout. …oh. He’s the problem. /He’s/ the /problem/. Because Roman is always nothing more than a problem, isn’t he? Nothing more than an obstacle, constantly in people’s way, constantly in Logan’s way, making it harder to do his job, messing up everything that he had to do. Roman had ignored him, just like Logan had said- and now Logan hated him and Roman would never have a chance- and oh no, Roman was selfish too because here he was, only thinking about how this meant that he didn’t have a chance and- 

“Roman- stop-” Logan says, abruptly breaking Roman out of his thoughts. The room had begun to blur around the edges- everything becoming just a little bit fuzzy- Roman’s spiral affecting the room. “That’s not what I meant I-” 

Roman looks over at Logan. “Then what did you mean?” he asks, confused.

“Damnit- Roman, I’m in love with you!” Logan says, looking over at him. “You- what?” Roman asks, too stunning to even speak properly. He couldn’t believe that Logan- Logan- actually liked him. “You- you’re serious?” he asks.

“Yes! You’re amazing and wonderful and god, you’re practically my entire world at this point but I couldn’t tell you because you wouldn’t like me and holy shit I told you and you don’t like me-” he says, realizing that he’d confessed about ¾ way through his confession. 

“I wouldn’t like you? Logan you’re the one who wouldn’t like me!” Roman tells him, and he gets closer to Logan, moving closer, and gently reaches out a hand, extending it to Logan. 

“You- you like me?” Logan asks hesitantly, and when he gets a nod of confirmation, instead of taking the hand, he leans down, grabbing Roman by the sash and pulling him up for a kiss, crashing their lips together. Roman lets Logan pull him up, absolutely melting into it, his eyes closing as he let Logan lead it- after a moment, the two of them pulling away. 

“Seems we were both wrong, weren’t we Specs?” Roman asks with a little smile. 

“It seems we were.” Logan agrees, before kissing him again. 

[amwritingmeta]

15x20: Oh fuck it’s actually really good. Dammit Dabb.

So I slept. And waking up the first thought in my head was... but there is this open ending with them all in Heaven and Cas not a stated angel even, just a helper to Jack...

And then I felt the need to watch the episode again. Because of how I’ve said, perhaps not for always, but often enough, that this show of ours was never about Destiel, was never about Dean and Cas’ love story, and beginning to hope that the ending would be focused on them... it wasn’t fair. Not really. And I remembered reading somewhere that a big chunk of the internet accepted Cas’ death as final, and seeing posts to that effect and thinking LUDICROUS and NO WAY and knowing all along that it could all be denial on my part.

And oh boy was it. 

I know there were plenty of us who kept that hope alive, and I’m thankful for you, but I made myself believe that he’d be back because I couldn’t imagine he’d die like that, or that the love story would end unreciprocated like that. And I guess, in a way, it still did, BUT... in another way, it really didn’t. 

It’s not enough. Subtext is not the representation I’ve always hoped for, but it wasn’t just erased either. And we got as much as we could get, because obviously Dean being textually bi and us getting an I Love You out of him was just never going to get green lit by the studio.

I’ve always believed the writers would’ve gone there if allowed. I think Cas’ love declaration underlines that they would’ve. But they weren’t given the opportunity, and I’ll lament it until the end of time, but it is what is.

What we did get, though, is quite beautiful. No, listen, IT IS.

There’s the emotional substitute Miracle Dog, getting so much LOVE from Dean, which I know most of us all went the big awwww at, no matter what we thought of the rest of the ep. 

There’s the healthy way Dean is dealing with the loss of Cas, and of Jack, knowing that pain will never go away, and accepting it. Accepting it because he’s feeling worthy of moving on without them. He’s no longer attaching his self-image to the perceived failure of protecting others. He’s letting them go, believing that they may meet somewhere further down the road.

But looking at the finale for what it is, rather than for what I wanted it to be (cardinal sin omfg my emotions really ran away with me and I wish I could’ve been more level headed and come on here with this positivity and calm) (but) (no dice) (anyway) it’s just beautiful how Cas is in the background, not waiting, not really, because he’s busy preparing Heaven and fixing his home in ways that will actually mean peace AND freedom when the brothers are done.

Something Cas would not have been able to do if he’d not fallen in love with Dean. If he’d not gone through his journey. I mean. Those implications are highly satisfying. 

Last night all I could think, ALL I could think, was that it’s not ENOUGH.

But it has to be. Because it’s not dismissive. It’s not erasing anything. It’s the same subtextual thread we’ve always been pulling on, and it’s there for us to continue to pull on, and that’s a goddamn gift.

I wish that 15x18 hadn’t been quite so in our face “kill your gays” buuuuuuuut that’s if you’re surface watching, yeah? Cas isn’t dead, for starters, and everyone was, obviously, brought back when Jack took Chuck’s power, so even if it wasn’t visually established that Stevie and Charlie are back and thriving, it’s narrative fact that they must be. What it is, more than anything else, is what I read it as to begin with: a love letter to the love story, where we get the subtext of couples loosing each other so strongly stated that there’s no way we’re not meant to understand that Dean losing Cas is within that exact same context.

We didn’t get textual Destiel, but we did get the love story textually confirmed through Cas’ declaration, and we did get it subtextually confirmed, not hinted, subtextually confirmed through all those other couples losing each other, that the love story EXISTS there, on that level, for us. 

Oh guys I feel so sad that I was so SAD yesterday. Why didn’t I just take a breath?? Guys, guys, guys, there’s such BEAUTY.

And Jensen.

Jensen in how he played that death scene. Jensen who kept it so even, so gentle, so... brotherly. These brothers have been through hell. Dean ending this way... it’s a travesty, but it also means he meant to go to the place where he doesn’t have to hope to see Cas again--because he will see Cas again.

And why didn’t Cas come right back to Dean once he was out of the Empty, why did he go off with Jack to fix Heaven?

I would say that it’s another underlining of Cas’ independence, and this his entire focus isn’t Dean, but, of course, I would assume the thought of Dean is ever present, and the rearranging of Heaven is as much about making sure Dean gets that freedom, as well as that peace, once he’s done as it is about Cas simply not being able to stand for souls being trapped in their memories anymore. Cas knows how to fix Heaven. I mean... that’s a fucking gorgeous and highly satisfying ending to his individual arc. And he’s with Jack!

Like. I mean. That implication that Cas is fixing Heaven with Dean at the back of his mind is quite head-exploding to me. And yeah, sure, that’s how I’m interpreting it, but all the ingredients for that delicious pie is left right there for us in this ending.

What about the legacy issue? What about found family? What about Dean finding happiness in death? What about Dean opening himself up to love?

Yeah, it’s not without issues, depending on how we interpret these things. Do I believe Dabb set out to write an offensive, horrifying, deeply problematic ending to this show and pretty much hand it over to the side of this fandom that has always been the... well, shall we say, less stabile? 

No. I kept saying yesterday that I just didn’t understand what happened, I didn’t understand why our writers room would choose THIS ending, I couldn’t fit the pieces together. That was on me, not on them. Get me?

Interpretation is deeply subjective. It’s personal. And it’s tainted. Always tainted, guys, and there’s no way around that. It’s not perfect and it’s not absolute and all the writers can hope for is that their core message will get across strongly enough to avoid misunderstanding.

I misunderstood the intention yesterday because my interpretation was tainted by what I wanted and felt I needed from this narrative.

For years I’ve refused to put expectation on the story because I know what that does to one’s perspective. It’s futile to engage with hopes and wishes on a deeper level because the show will never deliver exactly what you want. It’s delivered stuff in the ballpark enough times for me to dance alongside it, but to place so much expectation on this finale was just... oh man. Bad. 

I take full responsibility. :)

What about the legacy issue?

The legacy is that you live the best life you can and you end up in happiness, with the people you care about. You LIVE. Nothing about Dean’s death is prescribing dying to get what you want. We have it established that Dean is not suicidal in any way, that he’s mentally stabile and that he’s carrying on without Cas, even though he thinks about him. Not living would make the sacrifice pointless.

What about found family?

Found family was meant to be a part of this ending, but due to COVID (I’m assuming along with everyone) we didn’t get a collection of oldies and goodies at the Roadhouse. We got a father figure to signal the father/son thread that this finale was pulling on, a thread always tied so tightly around Dean and Sam and underlined for us in this episode. The codependency finally broken because they were ready to let each other go. Not forever, because that would’ve been tragic, but for now.

What about Dean finding happiness in death?

The implications of Dean having to die to be happy are quite dark, I know that, but he was never going to hang it up. Not entirely, right? He would never be able to rest on Earth. And he’s always afraid. So instead of spending a lifetime alone, growing into a crusty Bobby (who lost the love of his life too early too), Dean got to go to the place where his happiness actually is. He got to go where Cas is.

I mean, that’s my interpretation here, but rather than set both brothers up with a love life and families and all that, we got a Dean who’s lost the love of his life and is dealing with that loss as best as he can, but who is also ready to go when it’s his time. He wasn’t expecting it to be right then, that day, and he says as much, but he’s ready. As long as Sam is ready to let him go. And Sam isn’t, but he does, and Sam deals with that loss, and finds his way into life and living and loving and happiness in a way that Dean simply wouldn’t have been able to. Because he lost the love of his life.

And Dean waited for Sam to show because of course he would. Sam was the only thing missing: Cas, and Jack, and everyone else Dean has ever loved and cared about, were already in Heaven. For the show to go on, Sam had to return too.

Hope.

That hopeful ending that I, and so many, many of us, have always wanted. Sure, everyone’s DEAD, which, you know, bummer, but they are at peace, they are together, and they are done sacrificing, bleeding and dying. Isn’t that remarkable? Isn’t that the greatest reward? Love and happiness and togetherness. Forever!

And for this fandom, we got what we hoped we’d get, right? An ending open enough for us to keep returning to this narrative over and over and over.

Let me formally apologise for the despair of yesterday. For all of you still feeling it, I send you so much love. Know I understand, I honestly do, but I hope, perhaps, some of these words will offer a sliver of comfort.

So, this is first impression based on second watch of 15x20 positivity. Let me know if anything hits right or hits wrong and let’s talk. <3

[frecklef0x]

Mass Effect 1: Playthrough Masterpost

At last, I have finished Mass Effect 1!

I have heard some mutuals say they wish they could play it again for the first time, and you kind of can--through me! I’ve been posting little “episodes” of live-tweet-stream-of-consciousness as I play, and now I’ve compiled them into one post to make my life easier.

Anyway, here’s the first one, the rest are under the cut. :)

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode one

My ass looks great in this uniform, first of all

Impaled robo zombies, yikes

Cheap shot, Saren, smh. How will I pass my spectre test now?!

Why does he have robot eyes? Is he like, Geth-Turian? Why? Is he a robo zombie also? Was it the beacon???

Cool beacon nightmares, I'm sure this is fine

This Kaiden guy has implants? ORTEGA?!??!?

"Call me princess again and you'll be picking your teeth up off the floor" lol obliterated

The citadel elevators are very realistic, five minutes of tense silence huh

Ya girl got a PROMOTION and a DOPE SQUAD time to catch a TRAITOR

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode two

First things first, gotta go find the blue scientist to join the gang

This galaxy is HUGE! How many of these places will I actually be able to go?!

Only two friends at a time????? D:

Ah, a distress signal, let's see wha--A DESERT CENTIPEDE NOPE ABORT ABORT

Robo aliens? In MY Theronian mining facility? Its more likely than you think

Running over dudes in my Mako is extremely satisfying tbh

*runs over geth troopers* *runs over geth armature* *runs over geth colossus* ... *backs over geth colossus*

Working elevators in the ancient ruins ✔

Oooooooh man hope this nerd is gay

Wrex, a friend of yours? Nope, not a friend, too murdery

"ShAaaAame about the ruins Shep, sOooOo much collatoral damage, SHEP" stfu Council, "ruthless" was in the resume when you promoted us, 10/10 would shoot lasers through archeological digs again

When Kaiden calls us "ma'am" I am, uh, into it

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode three

Time to talk to the gang! Gotta meet the fam proper

Oh dear seems we got a shmee of racism on board, compatriots

Wow Raina, good foot-in-mouth moment with Wrex there huh...sorry about the eventual extinction of your race, lost this round of Pain Olympics

OH SHIT OH SHIT BLUE HOTTIE BIGENDER? THIS IS NOT A DRILL???

“hi I’m Kaiden wanna hear about my last crush ;)” “hi I’m Liara wanna hear about Asari mating rituals? ;)))” damn we really slidin right into the DMs no chill

Garrus: fuck rules and red tape amiright Raina: oh u right ;)

Guess I’ll actually do a mission now LETS GO LESBIANS LETS GO

Honestly rolling out with Tali and Liara is a mood, squad goals

Raina @ every corporation on Noveria: I would sell you to satan for one(1) corn chip

This reactivation puzzle is some shit

I see some Mistakes were made

We already killing moms at this stage damn BioWare

FUCK FUCK BENEZIA KILLED ME AND I LOST A FUCKTON OF PLAYTIME

THERES LIKE NO AUTOSAVE IN THIS BITCH FUUUUUUUUU

fuck fuck fuck god damn it gotta shoot a bunch of deranged baby bug people again god DAMN IT

Okay we killed Liara’s mom in front of her hope that’s fine

And we let mama bug go free because after talking to Wrex, Raina’s like “this galaxy is a little trigger happy with the genocide, good luck out there bug mama ❤️ be cool please”

I have literally watched the scientist in the hot labs get killed three times now

So far the debreifs with the council have not gone very well

“You let bug mama go?! How many generations until they take over everything???” “My money’s on two :D Place your bets now assholes or stfu :DDD”

Asked Liara if she was okay and she seems pretty Cool With It

I hope to one day return to Noveria and Death Star it into oblivion

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode four

Talked with Tali and this situation with the Geth and the Quarians is giving me an existential crisis

You “inspect” my beautiful ship? You got somethin’ to say about my crew??? Talk shit get hit, bitch I will kill you

Yoooo my old earth gang, yeah what the hell, I’ll help ou—oh nope nvm he’s a xenophobe, you hang him and I’ll shoot his friend in the face, thx for your time

Went to the citadel to finish some assignments, left tasked with twice as many

“dOn’T cUt CoRneRs” fear not dear Kaiden, I have a permit: this piece of paper that says I do what I want

Still with the elevators, I really cannot with this

“You make it all sound so...dangerous...” ;) ;))))))

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode five

Headin’ to Virmire to rendezvous with the Salarian team

A cure for the genophase?!?!?! :D

Oh wait oh no are we for real gonna talk about destroying the cure like Wrex isn’t standing right here omg

SHIT GUYS NO NOT LIKE THIS WREX PLEASE

Phew for a conversation that basically started with guns drawn, it went pretty well... “What Saren has isn’t even a proper cure, he’s just fucking with the Krogans at this point. Are we gonna stand for that? Or are we gonna murder?” “Damn Shep, you right, we gon’ murder”

Okay Ashley, go join the aliens, try not to die

Shadow Team!🎵 tearing through the base 🎶 disabling all the     defenses 🎵 (you gotta sing it to the tune of the Trogdor song)

We free the prisoners!!! :)

We shoot the prisoners??? :(

“Raina? How can you shoot them where they stand?” So it’s more merciful to let them explode? NAH FAM

This scientist is responsible for the mind control stuff? For Benezia? Fine     I’ll let her go but I hope she explodes

We did not learn our lesson concerning beacons I see

Wait if even Saren is worried about his mind control ship does that mean there are larger forces involved here?

Oh. Oh fuck

Ugh Ashley I EXPLICITLY TOLD YOU NOT TO DIE

(so we really never found any info about that genophase cure huh? disappointing)

Oh Seren, you dumb dumb. You absolute fool. Clown man.

When Raina slings Kaiden over her shoulder to carry him to the ship—mmmmmmmmwoooow I am very bisexual

Bruh Raina takes every council call and she disconnects pissed off every time

WAIT I literally just hung up with the council, ASHLEY is DEAD, and Kaiden needs a DTR RIGHT NOW?!?!? Boy, NO, READ THE ROOM

This has been a stressful day

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode six

Shepard will avoid her feelings and go to Faros instead

Seeing Ashley’s figure greyed out and her locker inaccessible makes me sad

Wrex and Garrus, let’s go shoot some geth 💪 

A mind controlling planet—of course!

Shep gets all her renegade points shooting capitalists

Saved, uh, about half the colonists

If I have one more bad acid trip I stg

Oh nope here’s another one

Shep needs a nap

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode seven

Ah, the council. Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.

At least Liara is good at pep talks ;)

Joker, you cockblock

Haha DUDE we airborne, you THOUGHT

Now that I am exiled from the Citadel, guess I’ll run some galactic errands:

o   Killed corporate scientists who though we would rescue them lol

o   Destroyed a bunch of geth camps helping Tali on her pilgrimage

o   Disabled a nuke and killed some pirates

o   Shut down some evil Cerberus experiments

o   And illegally traded information!

Okay time to get back on track

So we may or may not be flying to our doom

OH GOD LIARA LOVES ME!!! RAINA, YOU DISASTER, YOU DID IT AAAAAH ❤️❤️❤️

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode eight

You know what I love? Being murdered by geth armatures

All these Ilos ruins be looking the same

Security panel is only kinda helpful

Oh, luckily I know Prothean now!

“CANNOT BE STOPPED” wow very encouraging, thanks

After that super motivating message and disabling security, its time to go down, down to goblin town

Vigil? Oh word?

My girlfriend is GEEKING out

I knew something what wrong with that fucking Citadel

Vigil: information is power. Also Vigil: What does it matter why they do what they do? All that matters is you stop them

“non-essential” personnel die first, huh? GROSS, VIGIL (gotta be honest that hits different in 2020)

Garrus gets it, I knew we liked that guy

Okay, find conduit, save galaxy, break millennium-old genocide cyle, nbd

Ugh Mako you gotta do me dirty one last time I see, I hate this thing

THE CONDUIT STRAIGHT YEETED MAKO

The citadel robot says we’re doomed : )

This shootout is SO fun, seriously

Saren get it toGETHER

Renegade Raina can kill with a conversation apparently, well done then

Concentrate on the Sovereign—why am I gonna save a council that hates my guts, sorry, but I have a JOB to DO that you ACTIVELY HINDERED

Great, zombie husk Saren, just what I needed as I mull over the possible consequences of my galaxy-altering decision

GO JOKER GO

Humanity-only council seems…questionable. Raina didn’t love the council but this sits wrong. Couldn’t we just appoint a more diverse council, including a human?

Anderson seems like a good enough dude, so…we’ll see.

TIME FOR WAR BOYS, GODDAMN WHAT A GAME

[snickiebear]

Hello hello nadia, i’m in a leesaku mood today so pls indulge me with a three-sentence fic for this lil prompt “you are my best friend and I’ve known you platonically for years now but every time you look at me I get fireworks in my chest and butterflies in my stomach” tysm ilyyyy ❤️❤️❤️❤️

haha... this is, two days late. NIASDUKDSK IM SO SORRY THANK YOU FOR THE REQUEST YOURE THE BEST ILY

side note: this is.... kind of what you wanted? AND LMAO ITS NOT THREE SENTENCES AGAIN WHOOPS

side side note: this is now crossposted bc i liked it a lot tbh :")

a cocoon in the heart, a spark in the brain.

It starts with a glance. An innocent, fleeting look. Naruto’s smile is too bright to look at for more than a handful of seconds and Sasuke’s glare is too dark to find anything of interest, so Sakura glances away, as she always does.

She glances away and there is Lee, dirtied and bloodied but he holds Neji’s hand, Tenten tucked under his arm, and is laughing, tears streaming down his face. He must have felt her eyes because he looks over and sends her a beaming smile. 

And. And her heart picks up, her breath catches. 

She quickly looks over to Naruto and Sasuke, being blinded by the light and dark both, and tries her best to not think of why one look from Lee can breed butterflies and moths in her stomach. 

.

.

.

They rebuild the village and everyone endures. Sasuke leaves once more because he is a boy who has never known staying, he has never stayed long enough to put roots in, to know how to stay. So, Naruto and Sakura let him go. 

(If she is being honest, Sakura is more than happy to have him leave. Sasuke will always be a rotten fruit in the tangle of her feelings, something that she will never quite understand, something that will haunt her no matter what she does. If he is not there, she does not have to think about it. He’s like a curse, and it hurts her to think that but it is true.)

Kakashi is the Hokage and Sakura is still laughing at him, clutching her stomach and howling at her friend’s “misfortune” as he calls it.

“Mah,” Kakashi half drawls, half pleads. “Must you laugh at your poor ex-sensei?”

Naruto is losing his absolute shit as they clutch each other to stay standing. “Kaka-sensei you do not look good in white.”

“It,” Sakura gasps, wiping tears from her face, “It-It really washes you out!”

Naruto’s knees give out and they both tumble to the ground, a mess and tangle of laughing limbs and leaking eyes. 

Kakashi sighs heavily from his desk but she knows he’s having just as much fun as they are. Kakashi is her best friend, she knows how he is when he’s drunk out of his mind and when he’s trying to bite back laughter. 

The door swings open and Lee steps in with Team Gai flanking him. Neji recovered incredibly well thanks to Sakura’s magic hands (as Naruto has deemed them) and they’ve been taking low ranking missions since he was deemed fit to return to duty. 

It takes a few moments for Sakura and Naruto’s heaving, snorting laughter to subside as Kakashi clears his throat, his eyes crinkling up in the way Sakura knows he’s really trying not to laugh. 

She looks up and glances at Lee, to find him already watching her, his eyes soft and smile softer. Sakura is a God Slayer along with Naruto and Sasuke, she has faced down hundreds of opponents with only her raw fists and come up victorious, she has dragged people back from the brink of death with a tap. 

Sakura does not blush. Out right refuses to. 

“Hey,” All breathless and raw from laughter.

Lee’s smile widens as he steps forward to offer his hand, she takes it without hesitation and thanks the God whose heart she ripped out that he was wearing gloves. She can feel the heat through them nonetheless. Sakura does her best not to shiver as their eyes meet. 

“You guys heading in or out?” Naruto asks after he hauled himself onto his feet, not hiding the way he eyes Lee and Sakura’s hands. The entire room’s eyes are on them. 

“In,” Tenten says slowly, and Sakura does not blush as she carefully extracts her hand from Lees and does not think about why there are fireworks exploding within her mind, why she misses the heat and the way his hand encompasses hers. 

.

.

.

She sees him everywhere now. 

At the Rusty Kunai, at the training fields, at lunch, sometimes even in the hospital. And every damn time he smiles at her, she feels like she’s coming back to life and being stabbed in the heart. 

Sakura has no idea if this was love or just lust. What she felt for Sasuke was not love, that was obsession and cruelty. She had crushes on civilian boys but they were too soft, unmarred compared to her countless scars, visible or not. 

Ino stares at her as if she’s the stupidest person in the world and Sakura smacks her for it. She hopes it leaves a bruise. The Bitch. “Stop giving me that look, Pig. I’ll hit you again, don’t tempt me.”

Ino glares as she rubs her arm, sticking out her tongue. “It isn’t my fault you aren’t using that big forehead of yours! You’re telling me that you two drink together, train together, you go to lunch together, he even visits you at the hospital because he knows you haven’t eaten or slept. And then you tell me you get all those stupid fluttery feelings and you don’t know what it means?”

And well. When she puts it like that. . .

Sakura pouts and crosses her arms, “It's confusing!”

“You’re a genius. An actual genius, Sakura.” Ino deadpans. “Your IQ is literally right next to Shikamaru’s. Lee has been in love with you since we were twelve! There is no way you don’t know what this means.”

Groaning, Sakura slumps into Ino’s lap, hiding her face in Ino’s thigh. “When did you become so smart?”

“When I made out with Hinata and then fucked her.” Ino says easily and Sakura laughs. “What? Don’t laugh! It's true!” 

Ino cackles when Sakura pinches her calf.

.

.

.

Lee moves with such elegance that Sakura aches with it. 

This boy made man who had known nothing but sweat and hardship, who still cups things with such tender and care, who moves so fluidly and hits so brutally.  

They are both the earth, solid and unyielding, they are the water, the hills, the mountains. They are unbreakable because they have broken themselves apart, pushed themselves past the very limit to reach where they are.

Sakura and Lee are 20 and they have saved the world. 

Now, they tear apart the training grounds just to keep life interesting. 

With every dodged fist her heart quickens because Lee is smiling and laughing, calling friendly taunts as she grins right back. 

This is nothing like Team 7’s spars, all bloodied teeth and snarling as Sasuke underestimates her again and again and again. Kakashi, Sai, and Yamato know better. Naruto is learning slowly. Sasuke never pays attention enough to know.  

No, sparring with Lee is like dancing, is like thriving, and a fresh breath of air at night as fireworks light up the sky and a butterfly lands on your nose. 

She lands a kick to his ribs and spends him flying back as she advances swiftly, pinning him down with a hand on his chest, knees on either side of his hips. 

A long pause as they try to catch their breathes.

They’re both breathing heavily, Sakura cannot tear her eyes away from him as he reaches a hand to tuck loose hair behind her ear.

“Lee,” She breathes, ignoring the way her face burns and the way butterflies have swarmed her insides, how her heart is raging against her ribcage. “Lee I-”

“Sakura.” Lee says, voice deep and rumbly and cracking. “Sakura, will you go out to lunch with me? Forever. Well, hopefully forever- you are so very Youthful, you are incredibly Strong, you do not need my protection, but Sakura, let me protect you anyways, just as you will me. Sakura-”

She channels her inner Ino and leans down to kiss him, all lips, teeth and tongue. His hands settle on her waist and he flips them without breaking contact and if they weren’t in public, well. . .

Sakura pulls back breathless and wide eyes before forcing the words out, “I’ve known you for years Lee, you’re one of my best friends.” Her hand on his chest can feel the way his breath catches, the way his heart is pounding. “Everytime you look at me I get fireworks in my chest and butterflies in my stomach. They’ve bred and infested my very insides, my brain blooms and rots with the thought of you.” 

He is shaking beneath her, staring at her as if she is Divine and Righteous and she cannot think of anything else she would want except his eyes on her. 

“Lunch?” She breathes, hand at the base of his neck. “I would like to have lunch with you. Forever. If the offer still stands.” 

Lee smiles wide and bright as he stands, pulling Sakura up with him, “The offer will always stand, Sakura. For you, there is very little I would not do.”

She kisses him again and hand in hand they go to lunch.

Facts:

The very first day Lee saw Sakura a cocoon formed within his heart, everytime after that more would form, more would crack.

The butterflies and moths have a home in his heart but only come alive when they see her.

They never die, no matter what he does.

He saw her crack the world open with a first, saw her tear open a God’s chest. He was the first thing she looked at after. He thought he would become alight with it all.

Lee loves Sakura. He always has, he always will. His heart has a butterfly garden full of fireworks just for her.

Her laugh makes his skin prickle, makes his muscles loose. He is addicted to it.

She looks at him like she sees the green of the trees and the blue of the sky. Lee revels in it.

Sakura loves Lee and it nearly breaks him.

He will take her out to lunch until the day they die and well after.

The butterflies and moths and fireworks never go away for either of them. It is the beauty of it all.

[just-the-mage]

Review-Love Death + Robots (Pt 1. Episodes 1-4)

So here we are again.  You, dear readers, and I, a mostly defunct tumblr page.  I was thinking...I’ve written a few reviews on here before, and I’ve rather enjoyed myself to be honest.  So until RP starts up again for me, I’m going to grab some popcorn and start reviewing some of the media I’ve been indulging in during this exceptionally fun pandemic we’ve all been saddled with (and are becoming increasingly more and more used to as time goes on).  Here we go! 

Spoilers incoming! I don’t like to discuss a show without going through it entirely-no stone unturned.  You have been warned! 

Love Death + Robots is a compilation series-each episode is self-contained content, based on what I have experienced thus far.  The content varies wildly from cute and sweet to surreal, to horrific.  For right now I’m going to stick with the first four episodes since they are fresh in my mind.  

Episode 1: Three Robots

Three robots shows a short adventure shared by, you guessed it-Three robots exploring the crumbling remains of human society.  It comes across as three tourists making their way through an area that they are completely unfamiliar with, attempting to define and understand elements of the environment as humans once did.  Their analysis and attempts to understand not only human culture, but also basic human biology, were entertaining to say the least.  Each robot has flair, character, and a their own take on humans and humanity.  Over the course of the episode, the fall of mankind is referenced a few times, being initially explained as a mass extinction due to environmental disasters (global warming is probably a factor-one of the buildings has an entire ship sticking out of it).  However, the twist ending throws that whole theory into question once the cat that has been accompanying the robots for the last leg of their journey reveals itself as capable of speech.  And, interestingly enough...being in possession of opposable thumbs.  It was certainly unexpected, and a bit odd-the cat (and its many, many brethren) manage to finish out the episode by convincing the robots that if the robots do not pet them, the cats may explode.  I will say that the ending, though it was rather silly and fitting with the tone, felt like an out of place twist intended mostly to give a bit of closure to a story that had no real need to have an ending.  It felt a little out-of-left field, at least to me.

This first episode, I think, is one that I could recommend to a much more general audience than almost all of the other content of the show.  It’s whimsical and cute, despite inhabiting such a grim setting (and grim it is-post apocalyptic is not taken lightly here.  There are plenty of corpses, some skeletal and some not quite so much.  At least one of them appears to have died by suicide).  I found it to be a nice addition and a good introduction to ease people into the tone of the show.  Definitely give this one a watch, even if the ending sort of comes from nowhere. 

Episode 2: Beyond the Aquila Rift

This episode was definitely a change of pace from the first.  It begins as a high science fiction story starring a hunky, middle aged man and his two crewmates, making some sort of cargo run (?) through a wormhole of some kind, but promptly finding themselves in a completely different place from what they expected.  Hunky space captain wakes up first, finding that he is greeted by an old friend (read: lover) of his, who explains that there was a navigation error that led them off course-way off course.  They’re in a completely different area than they expected.  The ship’s navigator wakes as well, swearing that there couldn’t have been an error in her calculations, but seems ill and is placed back in her future tech cryopod to rest.  Space captain man then bangs it out with his ex-lover (Greta) in a scene that was almost definitely written by a man, and she reveals to him that she lied, and that him and his crew are actually hundreds of light-years further off course than they had thought they were, basically dashing any hopes that he could have of returning to his old life.  The two then wake the navigator again, who immediately starts ranting that ‘Greta’ isn’t who she says she is.  At this point, enough clues have been given that the captain catches up with the audience (it was all a simulation the whole time), and he confronts Greta, demanding that she reveal herself as she truly is.  She does, after some prodding-and the captain finds himself in an infested husk of a ship, aged and haggard, obviously dying of starvation.  Greta reveals herself as a lovely spider-beast, and the captain wakes up from his pod again-back in his comfortable illusion once more.  

I love the premise of this one.  Crazy aliens and shit like this is a huge draw for me-sci-fi horror is probably my favorite subgenre of horror when it’s done well.  I would count this episode as doing it pretty well.  They don’t go into much techno-babble, which I think is a pitfall for some sci-fi stories.  The writers are well aware that we aren’t spending too long in this world, so we don’t need to know much about the rules under which it operates outside of ‘computer mistake your ship fly here.’  The twist ending didn’t end up being too much of a twist-in my opinion there were too many clues given throughout the episode to make it that much of a surprise that things weren’t as they seemed.  The odds of this man meeting his ex-lover in the infinitesimal reaches of space just by chance were a bit too impossible to make it believable-and the navigator was far too convinced that her work couldn’t be incorrect.  In the end, it was an expected twist, but still pretty jarring.  Execution is pretty good overall though-and the sex scene is pretty decent as well, even if its strictly a dude-fantasy thing.  Also, call me a sucker for cool looking beasties, but I adore the design on spider-Greta.  That’s a lady right there for you.  

Episode 3: Ice Age

The only live action episode I’ve seen so far-this one gives an *entirely* different tone than the majority of the other episodes in the series.  Topher Grace and Mary Elizabeth Winstead happen upon a lost civilization that exists entirely within their refrigerator.  They watch in awe as it develops incredibly quickly-hundreds of years passing within the civilization in roughly an hour or so of real time.  What starts in the morning as a town in the viking ages eventually develops into a modern society, almost destroys itself with nukes, and then rebuilds from the ashes into a fully futuristic society that quickly ascends beyond physical form, appearing to disperse itself into the cosmos, no longer bound by such petty rules as the laws of physics.  A disappointed Topher asks if they’ll return-to which he receives a sad ‘no’ from his partner.  It seems all is lost, and the couple go to bed for the night-only to find that the cycle has restarted overnight, and they probably won’t be able to keep any frozen chicken in the freezer for quite some time.

This one is probably one of my favorites of the series so far.  It’s fairly well acted, but the real beauty of the episode is getting to watch the mini-civilization develop itself in a glorious time lapse-the work that must’ve gone into it must have been monumental, to be honest.  The final product certainly felt that way, in any case.  What I also found fascinating was a specific scene in which the protagonists were abandoned in place of some of the tiny denizens of the lost civilization-which made me realize exactly how slow the ‘normal sized people’s’ actions must have looked to the diminutive people of this rapidly developing society.  Reminiscent of the earth’s motion in relation to our own perception-and reinforcing the concept that to an individual, perception is everything. 

Episode 4:  Sonnie’s Edge 

This episode opens with three people transporting mysterious cargo into a heavily guarded complex, quickly encountering and interacting with a ‘bigwig’ of sorts with a beautiful woman on his arm.  Through context clues the audience is easily able to discover that the three (pictured above) are here for a fight-and that their cargo is their fighter, a living creature of obviously immense proportion.  The bigwig asks the team to throw the fight, and they refuse, even after he offers a large amount of money.  (It’s worth mentioning that during this scene, ‘Sonnie’, the leader and controller of the beast fighter, shares an EXTREMELY homosexual gaze with the bigwig’s beautiful lady friend.  Don’t think I didn’t notice the setup, because I definitely noticed the payoff, even though it was rudely interrupted).  Sonnie and her teammates enter the ring, setting up as it appears that she will be piloting her fighter in some way.  Her opponent is also introduced, though he is hardly important in the story-imagine a cake of beef with a big sticker on him that says ‘mysogyny’ in bold print.  What follows is one of the most brutal fight scenes I’ve seen in animation (this is just my personal opinion though).  These creatures fucking tear each other to shreds, with Sonnie’s beast only just barely emerging as the victor, tearing the opposing fighter’s head clean from its body.  The bigwig is obviously angry, as is Sonnie’s opponent, and Sonnie and her team retires to a hotel room of sorts, with the exception of Sonnie-who slips away into the room that houses her fighter, promptly encountering the beauty from earlier! (Payoff time)..and it gets gay.  Fast.  I love me some wlw content, and there’s some nice tension here, right up until the beauty stabs Sonnie through the head.  Rude.  The bigwig reveals himself, which was a bit of a surprise-the part of me that hadn’t seen much of this show yet was hoping for a fluffy little happy ending.  It wasn’t to be though..after the beauty crushes Sonnie’s skull, the two promptly realize that ‘Sonnie’ wasn’t Sonnie at all-just some biotech.  The *real* Sonnie...was the fighter, the whole time.  Who promptly makes short work of both the beauty and the bigwig, (implied), in what I can only describe as the most satisfying moment in the series that I’ve seen thus far.  

This was easily my favorite episode of the show, and has continued to be, and I assume will continue to be my favorite through the rest of the series.  It’s not just because of the lesbian rep (my people!), or the misogynists getting fucking destroyed, but the strength of the reveal, the choreography of the fight scene, and the *power* of the protagonist.  I love her.  I love her sooo much.  We are seamlessly introduced into the world, shown a woman who has been beaten, scarred, faced sexual abuse, and she remade herself into a being of pure power.  She fought back, and *look how she fights back*.  I cannot describe just how much of a cheer-worthy moment it was to watch the smug smile be summarily wiped from the face of the bigwig.  I *love* seeing a villain who has full confidence in their victory suddenly realize that they don’t have the upper hand anymore...and that they are, in fact, absolutely screwed.  This was one of those wonderful, wonderful moments, and I can think of nobody more deserving than this villain of being torn to shreds.  This was an A+ episode for sure-100% recommend this one for anyone who can handle a bit of gore.  

Thank you so much for reading!  This is only part 1...more to come!        

[darkverrmin]

If you want

It was almost eleven when Jaskier walked out of the tavern.

The celebrations inside were fun at beginning of the evening, but he got bored pretty quickly. Plus, there was no sign of his witcher anywhere for the last twenty minutes and he was beginning to worry.

Geralt usually hated crowded places. People were either nagging him, either staring at him and whispering. But he usually sticked around when Jaskier was there. Whether it was drinking together or just sitting in the corner and watching the bard play. Jaskier secretly admitted that he liked Geralt watching him. It made him do his best. He really enjoyed the Witcher's company and he was pretty sure it was mutual.

But tonight was different. Geralt seemed distant from the very moment they arrived to the small town.

Mind you, he was always distant compared to other living beings, but there was something odd about it.

Jaskier walked out of the town's gates and towards the river. It was a clear night, the moon shining bright in the sky.

He found Geralt sitting on the grass by the river, cleaning his sword. His long white hair shined beautifully in the moonlight and the features of his face looked somehow softer, yet still rather intimidating and handsome. Jaskier tried to push that thought into the back of his mind.

Knowing from past experiences that sneaking up on Geralt from behind is never a good idea, Jaskier called at him when he was several feet away.

"Hey".

Geralt turned his head to look at him and nodded. "Party over so soon?" He asked, low and hoarse.

"Are you kidding" Jaskier answered with a smile, stepping closer and sitting down beside Geralt. "When I left, I think they were starting an orgy there. People here a bit, um, wild".

"Hmm".

They sat in silence for a few seconds. Jaskier was just about to ask Geralt why is he sitting here by himself, when Geralt started speaking.

"You didn't want to join them?"

Jaskier blinked.

"Who?"

"Those at the bar".

Jaskier let out a loud and awkward laugh, leaning back on his palms.

"No! Ha-" he breathed out.

"I mean, I know I've built myself quite the reputation of a wild spirit-"

Geralt rolled his eyes at that.

"-But I'm not really interested right now in that kind of fun. Besides, I was getting a little worried about your disappearance".

Geralt didn't say a word for ten seconds, so he continued.

"Why are you here, anyway? You could've got back to our inn"

Silence.

Jaskier sighed in exasperation.

"Okay Wolfie, care to tell me what's going on? You've been like this ever since we arrived".

Geralt raised his eyebrows in amusement. "What did you just call me?"

"Dear Gods! He has a voice!"

Geralt rolled his eyes again.

Jaskier quickly shifted so he was kneeling in front of the witcher, their faces inches apart.

"Can you please stop doing that?" He drew his hands to both sides, dramatically. "Rolling your eyes? I'm getting sick of this monologue".

"Then maybe you should stop talking".

Jaskier's eyes widened and he opened his mouth to loudly protest at the insult he was just given. However, he caught the ghost of a smile on Geralt's face. Something stirred inside of him and he was at a loss of words.

He didn't notice the fact that he was still leaning very close to Geralt. Until the moment that Geralt gently placed a huge palm in the center of his chest, lightly pushing away.

"S-sorry" Jaskier mumbled, barely audible, feeling the blush creeping onto his neck. Damn, why did he have to drink so much?

He was afraid of meeting the Witcher's eyes, scared of finding him staring at him oddly. It wasn't a secret that the bard had a minimal sense of personal space, but his reaction now made the whole situation ten times weirder.

He shuddered at the sudden weight of heavy fabric on his shoulders. Geralt has taken off his coat and wrapped it around the bard.

"Thanks" he mumbled "But I wasn't-".

"You're shaking" Geralt commented, monotone as usual "And it is cold. You probably can't feel it because of the alcohol".

Jaskier felt a warm wave of gratitude washing all over him. He already almost got used to the fact that he and Geralt had become friends. That Geralt was, well, protective of him. But still, every gesture like this, made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.

He smiled fondly at his friend.

Geralt seathed his sword. Then he focused his stare directly at the bard, lips pressed and head tilt to the side.

"I appreciate your concern" he finally said, calmly. Jaskier blinked. "And I assure you, that I am well. I just... couldn't stand to be there a second longer".

"Too crowded, huh?"

"I guess. And... Lonely".

Jaskier shifted to sit beside the Witcher, their feet bumping. He felt his heart beat faster with every passing minute.

"Why- why were you feeling lonely?"

Geralt hummed, deep in thought. Jaskier gazed at him, craving for every word. It wasn't like Geralt to talk about his feelings, so this was something really exciting for the bard. He loved hearing Geralt talk and wanted, with every fiber of his body, to make him feel like he's got somebody to lean on.

Not that he needed somebody. He was fucking Geralt of Rivia. But everyone, even Geralt, need a shoulder to cry on once in a while.

He wondered if Geralt ever cried in front of someone. If he ever cried at all.

"I guess-" Geralt's deep voice shook him out of his pondering. "I get easily annoyed by their stares. It makes me feel more like a monster".

Jaskier started to protest but Geralt cut him off.

"It doesn't matter. That's what they all think. I guess it makes it true", he smiled sadly, "I can never see myself like that, like a normal person. Like them".

"That's right, because you aren't normal. You aren't them. You're fucking Geralt of Rivia, you're better than them!" Jaskier exclaimed, concern obvious in his voice.

"Thanks" Geralt mumbled, halfheartedly. He laid back onto the grass, gazing at the starry sky. "But sometimes I wish I wasn't" he said quietly.

Jaskier crossed his legs and turned to look down at his friend.

"I don't know what the hell you're complaining about, I think you're fucking amazing" Jaskier remarked smugly.

Geralt huffed, half amused.

Jaskier continued. "Really, Geralt. Don't want to boost you ego any more, but you're just fantastic. You're a good person. A decent friend-"

Geralt kicked at his shin lightly and Jaskier laughed.

"Seriously, you're amazing. And I'll keep reminding you of that everyday".

"That's not necessary" Geralt murmured, but fondly.

Jaskier rolled his eyes. "You just want attention", he determined. "Which you're already getting a lot from me, so I can't possibly see why you'd be asking for more".

"Maybe I enjoy it" Gerald hummed, lips curling upwards.

Jaskier let out a nervous laugh. What is going on here?

Geralt continued, hint of a smile disappearing from his face. "But even you, as much as I... appreciate you, you probably won't stay around for much longer". He blinked and intertwined his fingers above his stomach. "I don't see a reason for you staying. I'm not very kind to you. We're facing death almost every day. Don't you just want to go back to you normal life?"

Jaskier breathed out of his nose, exasperated.

"First of all" he raised a finger "Shut up. Secondly," he dropped his hand to the grass "When did you exactly started developing insecurities?"

Geralt frowned. "It's not-"

"Yes it is!" Jaskier cut him off, loudly. "And it's okay, by the way. Everyone has them", he continued, heated and excited, "But you should always remember who you are. And how much I adore you. And even though you suck sometimes at the job, you're still a great friend. And I would follow you to the end of the earth. Fuck, I think I already did. So, yeah. I admire you. I don't know how else can I make you believe that. Fuck, I mean, if you were gay-"

He trailed off, suddenly realizing the words that came out of his mouth. Damn the alcohol.

If he wasn't blushing already, he was definitely blushing now.

He cautiously looked down at Geralt, hoping he stopped listening at some point. This sometimes happened when Jaskier rambled on. To his silent horror, Geralt was watching him wide eyed (for him).

"What?" He said, voice still and hoarse. Always good with words.

Jaskier cleared his throat, trying to find a way out of this. "I said, if I were gay-"

"No, no" Geralt interrupted him calmly, sounding amused at the situation. "That's not what you said. You said if I was gay then-" he paused and tilted his head to the side. "Then, what?"

Jaskier stood up, trying to mask his embarrassment with anger. "I'm drunk! Fuck off! I stuttered, you got the whole thing in the wrong way. Can you just let it go?". Jaskier felt a painful stab in his chest.

"No". Geralt said, slowly standing up. "And I'm usually not so good at reading people's feelings, but I think I got it right".

Jaskier gaped at him. "What feelings?" he was trying really heard to fix this. He was not going to ruin their friendship like this. Was Geralt making fun of him?

"Fuck," Jaskier sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "Could you just let it go? My head is spinning, I was speaking nonsense. Forget it".

Geralt looked at him, somehow disappointed. Jaskier felt that pain in his chest again.

"Not about the sticking with you part!" He blurted out quickly. "Mainly, the- the last one".

Geralt raised an eyebrow at him and hummed. "Alright. Let's head back to the inn"..

They walked all the way back in complete silence. It was a beautiful night. If he's heart wasn't threatening to explode out of his chest because of everything that happened just minute earlier, Jaskier would've probably enjoyed it. He occasionally glanced to the side, sneaking a look at Geralt. He was walking with his head slightly tilted down, gold eyes warm and deep in thought. The moonlight made him look magical. "Fuck," he thought to himself "he's beautiful".

Just then, Geralt turned his head lightly and caught Jaskier staring at him. Jaskier cast his eyes to the ground immediately, stomach turning. By this stage, he wouldn't be surprised if Geralt just took off without him, first thing in the morning.

They've finally reached their inn. Walking across the hall, Jaskier started to swing a bit, dizzy from the drinks he had, and Geralt took him by the arm. They stopped in front of Jaskier's door.

"Thanks" Jaskier mumbled, feeling like he would gladly be buried in this moment. "Good night".

"Good night, Jaskier" Geralt almost whispered, voice uncharacteristically soft. This caused Jaskier to look up at him. Geralt was staring at him, unfazed. "And for your question, I am".

Jaskier swallowed, having trouble to believe what he was hearing right now. "You're what?"

Geralt tilted his head to the side, unamused. "You know exactly what".

Jaskier breathed out, realizing he was holding his breath for a while now. "I-i don't get it, you-".

"Depends for who" Geralt cut him. He took a step closer to his bard. "For you, yes". Jaskier eyes widened, anticipating what was gonna come next.

But Geralt took a step back and turned around, heading for his own room. "But we'll talk about all this in the morning, when you're sober" he threw across his shoulder. "Good night".

Jaskier let out an exasperated sigh. His head felt dizzy at what was happening. He was excited. Also disappointed. "That is so not fair!" He called after the witcher.

Geralt stopped on he heels and smoothly turned around to face the bard, standing across the hall. Geralt threw him a dirty look, the kind that made Jaskier feel hard in his trousers.

"Do you know-" Geralt started quietly "What it took me right now to resist shoving you against the fucking wall?". He smirked, satisfied with the bard's reaction. "And touching you all over?"

Jaskier gasped quietly. "Then do it". He let out, breath shaking.

Geralt gaze was piercing him, as he walked back across the hall, like a hungry predator. He stopped right in front of Jaskier, still staring. Jaskier felt himself shiver as Geralt slowly leaned down to him. He was just about to jump at him, when Geralt picked him off the floor and shoved his bedroom door open with his foot. Jaskier yelped in surprise.

Geralt carried him to the one-sized bed, smirking. He gently put the bard down on the matress and started taking off his boots.

Jaskier leaned up on his elbows, aroused and confused.

Finishing taking off his boots, Geralt gently squeezed the bard's leg. He looked up at him with an amused smile. He looks so beautiful, Jaskier thought.

Geralt stood up on his feet and went to the door. "Morning. Sober. Good night".

Jaskier plopped down on the mattress "I hate you".

"Let's see in the morning". Gerald eyed him, one last time before leaving. "I'm glad we had this conversation today. Next time, when you confess something like this, try to be a little less drunk. I'm trying really hard now to resist what I want to do with you".

God, Jaskier thought. "You don't have to. Show me what you want to do".

"Maybe tomorrow. If you want. Sleep well". Geralt closed the door behind him.

Jaskier sighed and slowly dozed off with a smile on his face.

[thespamman24]

Some people say that brevity is the soul of wit, but to that I say:

You are wrong, you are extremely wrong, you’re so wrong if you were any more wrong the universe would explode with how wrong you are, I have never seen someone be any more wrong in my entire life. If I had a nickel for how wrong this was I would have an infinite amount of nickels because the wrongness of that extraordinary dumb statement is inifnite. I have spent over 16 years on this hellscape of a planet, and in all of that time I have not once heard something, so wrong, so dumb, so extremely removed from reality. The wrongness of the statement that you have said is at such an extreme level it boggles the mind. You’re so wrong I don’t even know what to do. That statement that you have just said, literally every single letter of every single word in it is wrong. And I used the word literally correctly. That is because I am a person who is correct as opposed to you, a person who is wrong. Capital W-R-O-N-M-J wrong. I mean, I didn’t even know a person could be that wrong. Like 100% of what you just said is wrong. Like, I mean for someone to think that is right, that must mean that they have an IQ below zero. You have an IQ below zero. Because you have said this dumb-ass, idiotic, rediculouse, insane, idiotic, putrid, idiotic, rediculouse, idiotic, idiotic, WRO-ONG, statement. I mean like, what is in your brain? Is it just a bunch of lukewarm water that just sloshes around? Is that what goes on in your brain? Is it just slosh, slosh, slosh, slosh, slosh all day? Just a bunch of lukewarm going sloshity, sloshity, slosh. I mean like, that’s the only logical explanation because what you have said is so goddamn wrong! I mean, like what school did you go to? The Isaac Newton school of being WRONG! Because you are so wrong! I mean, do you even have thoughts?!!?!?!? Or is it just the lukewarm water in your brain going spilishity slapishity sploshity all day long? HUUUUUUUUUuuuuUUUUHHHhhhhhHHH??????  You disgust me, you know that. Because you’re just sto wrong. You know, wrongness doesn’t usually actually piss me off. But this, but this, but this, but this, oh boy, oh boy, old buddy, old boy, does this piss me off! This pisses me right the f*** off!!!!!!!! You are just so gosh dam wrong!!!! What you have said is astronomically wrong! The wrongness of it is off the charts! Off the chains! Over 9000! Numbers can not calculate how wrong you are, there are no words in the english language which I can use to articulate, how wrong you are! I mean just the pure rotten, rotten, festid, rotten wrongness if the claim that you have just made to me- is disgusting. Just disgusting. I hope you die in a hole, you dumb little dumb little big dumb wrong slut!!!!!!! You are so wrong, that just reading that claim that you have just made makes my brain hurt. My brain cells are slowly dying one by one. You have killed them!! Killed them!!!! WIth your filthy, putrid wrongness!!!!! You sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, wrong bastard of a wrong person. Your wrongness has given me a migraine and I don’t think that it’ll ever end, I think I’ve been cursed, cursed to forever bear the shame of your wrongness, because you are just so wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, I don’t think the human brain can even fathom how wrong you are. Maybe, your statement is just so wrong, that the human brain can’t even comprehend. Maybe it’s one of those things, like infinity, or quantum physics, or the plot of Lost, where our brains just can;t understand it because it’s just so fucking wrooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnggggggggggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WRONG! SO FCKING WROOOOOOONGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!

god, oh god, oh god why, why must you do this to me, you- you’ve hurt me. I can’t stand it any more… just this… this… wrong… it’s just so wrong… so wrong… so wrong. How can you be so stupid. Your statement is dumb, your logic is dumb, your reasoning is dumb. I hope you never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give birth!!!!! I… I don’t think I… I even want to live anymore… how can I even exist… on a planet where such wrongness… also exists...how, how, how, how, HHHHHHOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY OH WHY GOD WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE WRONG!!!! YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!!!!! WRONG!!!!!!! YOU WILL, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE SO, FRICKING WRONG!!!!!!!! Your wrongness, the magnitude of it, it, it, it just astounds me. Nothing, anybody ever says, will be so WRONG AS THE WORDS THAT YOU HAVE SAID TO ME!!!!!!!! YOU DUMB LITTLE POOR EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING!!!!!!!!!! I HATE YOU!!!!!! I HATE YOU!!!!!!!!! I DON’T LIKE YOU!!!!!!!!!! I HATE YOU!!!!!!!!!! I’M NOT INVITING YOU TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU’LL NEVER HAVE ANY PIECES OF MY BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!!!!!!!!!! IT’S MINE! ALLLLL MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MWA, HA, HA,HA,HA,HA,Ha,Ha…. Ha… ha… ha… ha… ha. Oooohhh… woe is me. For I have been cursed with this wrongness. You know Shakespeare once said, “When we are born we weep, for we have come to this great world of fools.” You know, Shakespeare, he was gay, but he was also right… and today… I weep… I weep a thousand tears for this wrongness that has befell my eyes and blinded them, oh god I wish I could stick a hand into my brain and remove this filth and pestilence that infects it like a disease. Your words poison the air they are spoken into!!!!!!!!! The pits of hell themselves don’t even know such agony as the pits of despair I am currently drowning in!!!!!!!! I hope to never see the sunlight again, because if I do it would give me a sunburn! I hope aliens never see what you have just written because if they do, will, then they would, they would they would burn our planet to the crisp and then salt the earth so that nothing ever, ever, ever, ever grows again and then they incinerate our planet to the core!!!! And then they would flush it down a toilet that is big enough to fit the earth in!!!!!! You are wrong… so wrong. You are in fact, one hundred percent wrong. It honestly makes me sick. Just how wrong you are. I could on and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on about how gosh damn wrong you are but I won’t because it would take a thousand lifetimes to do so and I need to feed my cat!!! DO YOU HEAR ME!!!!!!!!! MY CAT!!!!!!!!!! SHE IS A GOOD, GOOD,GOOD, KITTY AND SHE IS SMARTER THAN YOU CAN EVER HOPE TO BE!!!!!!!! BECAUSE EVEN SHE, AGREES WITH ME THAT YOU ARE WRONG HELL, EVEN A POTATOE CAN SEE WHY YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!!!!!! EVEN A POTATOE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A POPTATO, A POTATO, A POTATO, A POTATO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE DUMBER THAN A POTATO, BECAUSE YOU ARE SO, SO,SO,SO,SO,SO,SO,SO, FUCKING WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!! WRONG!!!!!!!!!! WRONG!!!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!! INCORRECT!!!!!!!!!! UNTRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MISTAKES!!!!!!!!!! ERRONEOUS!!!!!!!!!! UNTRUE!!!!!!!!!!! INACCURATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! INVALID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FALLICIOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!! FALSE!!!!!!!! WIDE OF THE MARK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! … my life is but a nightmare. A dream which I can not wake up from. I am trapped, trapped in this prison known as the universe, a prison of which I can not escape, my memories are like chains binding me down, preventing me from, moving, from running, from trying to break free!!!!!!! All I can do is scream at the top of my lungs about how wrong you are… but I won’t because I’ve already done that and my voice is very tired and I don’t want to get laryngitis, because herbal tea is surprisingly expensive… I think I’ll go feed my cat now.

[bluescreening]

Book Recommendations: Space

Hi guys! This is my first collection of book recommendations. I’m going to make a small collection for each genre I like. I wanted to start with sci-fi, but there are too many to fit in one post, so I’ve divided them into Space and Not Space. I hope you enjoy them! Blurbs by me unless otherwise mentioned.

The Illuminae Files (Illuminae, Gemini, Obsidio) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff - Kady Grant lives on an illegal, frozen mining colony, and her biggest problem right now is breaking up with her boyfriend. Until the bombs start to fall. 

Illuminae is a space opera, there’s no doubt about it. The vast majority of the books take place on spaceships. However, it’s far from the 10-book-long dragged out sagas that populate old sci-fi nerds’ bookshelves. Presented as a collection of chat logs and transcripts, this series is quite possibly the fastest-paced thing I’ve ever read. I read each book in one sitting. It’s filled with twists, turns and a compelling female-led cast of characters including an AI that you’ll love if, like me, you get overly attached to typical robot characters. I do have a couple of criticisms that I can’t really voice without spoilers, and it’s slightly lacking in representation given the number of characters, but this is still an incredible series despite its shortcomings. In short, this is a legitimately funny, tense and surprisingly heartbreaking sledgehammer into the typical space opera genre which I suggest to anyone and everyone who loves sci-fi.

Rabbit & Robot by Andrew Smith - When the entire world is run by robots and your life is heavily regulated by the government, what else is there to do but be permanently off your head on drugs? That is, until your friend takes you to a space station to sober up and take a break... and then the world ends. Oh, and the robots are crazy now.

This is far from your typical space book. It starts off completely unintelligible, and you find yourself loathing the characters. Then you begin to piece together what’s happening and why, and it morphs into a comedic survival horror story. And right at the end, you realise you’re looking at this mess through the eyes of a terrified, clueless kid, and you realise you’ve against all odds formed a connection with the characters and you find yourself crying. This book somehow conveys exactly what it means to be human in a way that cannot be articulated, and also has a chapter called ‘It’s Time To Eat Now, And I Become Aware Of My Balls’. Basically, it’s a crazy trip, but a good one.

Satellite by Nick Lake - Leo, alongside twins Orion and Libra, is the first child to be born and raised in space. For the first time, he is going home - to Earth. But something has been going on behind the scenes, something his isolation has hidden from him so far.

Firstly, this is Good Gay Representation! If that isn’t reason enough to read it, this book paints the world as a beautiful, wonderful place that really restores some faith. It remains scientifically accurate while also showing the beauty in every aspect of nature. Frankly, the way this story is told feels like home, which is a major theme throughout - whether home is Earth, the space station, a person or something else entirely. Essentially it’s a coming-of-age story with a sci-fi ish setting, but I think it deserves recommendation because of the overall message that science and nature are beautiful, and the way the author conveys that. The only downside is that the whole book is written in text-speak, but that isn’t too hard to ignore.

The Martian by Andy Weir - I can’t come up with a better blurb than this quote which is abbreviated on the back of the book: “I’m stranded on Mars. If the Oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the Water Reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the Habitat breaches, I’ll just kind of explode. If none of those things happen, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death. So yeah. I’m fucked.”

The Martian is quintessential modern sci-fi at its greatest. It is one of my top 5 books of all time. It has a charming, witty protagonist, it has scientifically accurate solutions to every problem, it has in-depth yet understandable and often funny explanations for that science, it has some really emotional moments that come out of left field. It has it all! It’s a crazy survival story that is 100% possible, and I love every second of it. I literally cannot recommend anything more. Please, if you haven’t already, read it. Even if you’ve already watched the move. Please!

Artemis by Andy Weir - Artemis is the first and only city on the moon. And like all cities, it comes complete with a shady criminal underworld, and its fair share of corruption. Jazz Bashara is a delivery girl and smuggler who just wants some extra cash and to avoid trouble, but I think we all know how that’s going to go.

Liked The Martian? Want more? Artemis is full of the same lightening-paced action and scientific problem solving, but this time with a larger, more vibrant cast of characters! There’s some extra funky representation here. I have to admit, this one plays a bit more fast and loose with the rules of science, but it still holds up in general and I think Weir is entitled to have a little fun given how accurate he’s been so far. I can’t get enough, and I recommend this to anyone who loves the Martian, or the moon.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (and the rest of the trilogy of five books) by Douglas Adams - When the Earth was bulldozed to make way for an interstellar highway, Arthur Dent was rescued by his friend Ford Prefect, and promptly taken on a whirlwind tour of the universe involving dolphins, depressed robots and the literal end of the world. Poor Arthur just wants a cup of tea.

To round off the list, we have what happens when sci-fi and British comedy get it on. The original. The classic. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that Douglas Adams is a genius, and if you haven’t read this you’re severely missing out. Charming, hilarious and surprisingly meaningful in places, this is pretty much mandatory reading in my opinion. Of course, it was a radio show to begin with, so that’s an equally excellent way to take in this story. If you like Good Omens, and you also like space, give this a shot.

And that wraps up my top space book recommendations! I will post my recs for sci-fi in general at some point soon, so keep an eye out. If you want to geek out about one of these books or recommend me anything, let me know!

[popculturebuffet]

Final Space: And Into The Fire Review or Now with 110% More Homoerotic Telepathy

Welcome  new and old to my first Final Space review! If you’ve never seen the blog before, and given this is the first “new” series i’ve covered as it come out in some time that’s probably quite a few of you, welcome. I’m Jake, I do recaps and reviews of various animated shows and comics, mostly just stuff I want to do, often on comission (5 dollars an episode if theres any episode of the first two seasons of this show or any episode of any other show you’d like tos ee me cover), or for my patreon patreon.com/popculturebuffet. And it is my utmost honor to add this show to my rotating roster of shows I cover as they come out. 

I friggin love Final Space. I was intrigued by it back when TBS released the animatics alongside Close Enough (Wth the two shows ironically finally together on HBO max as of earlier this month), for their doomed block. I heard a lot of good things about season 1.. and let it get away from me, not watching it till Season 2. But both seasons had more than enough to pull me in with intriguging characters, even greater jokes and a truly unique idea for a premise involving giant monsters, an edltrich god and lots of cookies. 

So while it took an extra year given Covid, I’m super friggin pumped to get into season 3 at long last after the hell of a cliffhanger, especially since ironically last night I saw Steven Yeun’s oscar nominated performance in “Minari”. Now i get to watch him play a cat teenager again too.. and in a few days Mark friggin Grayson. It’s a good week to be a fan of his is what i’m saying and a good week in general. 

Previously on Final Space Yo!: Since it’s been a year and while the series provides  a recap , I’m going to be doing these anyway so:

Our heroes finally got all 5 dimensional keys and freed Bolo, and in the process also freed Avacato from Invictus, the horrifying entity controlling final space. Meanwhile Tribore got Sheryl to stop being a selfish prick and she joined the team trying to be a better mother from now on. But freeing Bolo came at a high cost as Nightfall sacrified herself as the sixth key (KVN was natrually both Gary and Bolo’s first choice, but was inllegible. ) So we ended the season with our heroes entering Final Space and Gary reuniting with Quinn.... while Invictus loomed. So over a year later we finally get some answers so join me under the cut for spoilers, recaps, and homoerotic text ahoy. 

Something i’m doing since both the roster keeps changing.. and as I correctly guessed from the trailer, and the general tone of the promos for this season, that everyone won’t be all together all season.. or even in one piece.. i’ll be doing a silver age style roll call to let us know who all we have on the Team Squad for the episode Roll Call: Gary, Quinn, Avacato, Little Cato, Ash, Fox, KVN, HUE, AVA, Sheryl, Bolo, and Tribore

So we pick up right where we left off, Gary tearfully reuniting with Quinn, with Quinn wishing he hadn’t come for her, and Gary being Gary naturally having ignored that, and actually been more determined since that made it forbidden which made it extra tempting and him want to extra do it. God I missed this glorious idiot let me tell you. 

So things are quickly interrupted by invictus, who turns out to be a giant flaming head.. thing... and chases them and the crimson light, which has to start speeding with our heroes tethered to the outside, Quinn holding onto Gary. 

So we get one hell of a thrilling chase as the Crimson Light outspeeds the demon head and runs into two titans, but Bolo shows up to take out one, with Mooncake trying his dimension shattering blast thingy on Invictus.. and naturlaly g ven this is the big bad we need to show off how horrying they are, and it does NOTHING. But Gary catches his little buddy so we’re alright. 

Sheryl also shows off her badass bonafieds by LIGHTFOLDING THROUGH A TITAN... granted she still has some parenting skills to learn as “lightfolding while your son is hanging out the back through an edltrich god” really isn’t a motherly thing to do.. but neither is trying to murder your child several times or blaming him for how shitty your life turned out so ANYTHING is a step up for her. 

But.. it’s not enough. While she does manage to kill ONE the Crimson Light is too badly damaged to go on and we get two tragic deaths in one go... The Team Squad is forced to abandon the Crimson Light.. and AVA is too damaged to Upload into HUE. “I’m Sad” “For who?” “For you.. and for us. “ God damn Tom Kenny is amazing. You don’t need me telling you that, but sometimes you need a reminder. 

So our heroes end up on a desolate mystery world, stranded in final space with no ship, no suplies and no hope. The only thing to do now is survivie and hope they can continue the mission at some point. 

ONE MONTH LATER

Things have not gotten any better, as naturally , our heroes have only found weird cartoon eyed worms that regrow their heads when you bite them off. So while this means unlimited food, it’s also disgusting and Garry hates it. “This may be a head but it tastes like a butt”. Quinn and Tribore are with him and Quinn hasn’t been ready to talk about her experiences trapped in this hellscape and still isn’t but being a good dude, Gary dosen’t push her on it. Though the weird red veiny thing on her arm tells me maybe one of you should speed that up before she explodes or gets cronnenburgy. Just saying. I’ll also say i’m not huge on the one month time skip, as while I feel they probably have a reason for being that specific i’ts a bit TOO long and I question why have that long a period of a jump, not the longest but still long enough for things to happen with nothing changingin that time? Still it’s a minor nitpick in an otherwise fantastic episode so I can let it go, I just don’t get it. 

What we do get is some Gary Corpses dropping and Invictius puppeting them... i’m with gary that is bowel openingly scary. I also do like how despite the FAR more dire circumstances, they still get in the requisite shenanigans this series requires. I’ts not to the network mandated subplot levels where it distracts, but it’s enough to help ease the terror of the situation and isn’t around for situations like the opening where it really SHOULDN’T be. As the series always has when something big happens, the bollocks goes away. Once we’re in between we can get back to literal pissing contests, KVN leading a crowd to their deaths and HUE in a pimp hat like god intended. 

So yeah our heroes have to outrun the horrible horde of Gary’s, though Little Cato catches on something’s wrong as Tribore makes gary cary him as foreshadowing for later and Sends mooncake down to asssit. Our heroes escape.. but a cave in happens.

After the break, Gary wakes up confused with the party now split in two: Gary, Quinn, KVN, Tribore and HUE on one side and Avacato, Ash, Fox, Little Cato and Sheryl on the other. So Gary does the logical thing... and take his shirt off telling Avacato to feel him. 

I mean I didn’t even ship them before this scene but... Gary claims because of their bond he can telepahtically connect with Avacato. That’s normal Gary shenanigans.. except not only does he shrug off his girlfriend asking why they can’t do that.. but it WORKS. We have a scene of the two telepahtically talking in a wheatfield that is so homerotic I guarantee there only wasn’t the Careless Whisper sax because they couldn’t afford it.. or their saving it for later this season. Look sometimes you don’t ship a ship because you just.. dont’ care that strongly one way or another and sometimes you just need an incredibly gay scene to see the light. Same thing happened with Weblena same thing here. 

Fox also says “that was glorious to watch” same man. That was freaking art. So our heroes split up into three plots. As usual for me

Team Gary: So yeah... Triobore’s pregnant. No way to really softball into that. He’s been pregnant this whole time. So we get a stupid and mildly horrifying gross out sequence with Gary having to look Triobore in teh eyes and Quinn having to “uncork him”. Which is code for ... you know what i’m not going to say it. If you’ve seen the episode you know and if not your better off not visualizing it trust me. Point is this whole sequence is dumb and the worst part of the episode by far. And the series CAN do good gross out. While Olan Rodgers regrets it, the pissing contest was one of the funniest scenes of season 2, and managed to make a gross idea on paper actually pretty damn funny. This.. this is just “Haha males giving birth and tribore’s an asshole”. There’s no joke here just a .. plug. .. gah.. the vomit is rising let me tell you. 

We do get something good out of this nightmare, Tribore’s son who hatches as the army of gary’s dig their way in, Quanstranstro, who rapidly ages into a stylsih spanish speaking adult badass. He is fucking awesome and a great addition to the team and the sheer.. oddity of his birth is wonderful even if the actual birthing was not. Then the climax happens so before that. 

Team Avacato:

Avacato and Co come across a sleeping giant robot cyborg .. thingy. Naturally Fox wakes him up. Little Cato remains not suprised. It occelates between panicking over it’s legs being gone and amenisa and is pretty damn funny. It’s voiced by John Dimagio. But it gets serious as we find out nothing has ever made it out of final space, and things.. change the longer there there. And Quinn’s been there several months if not a year. Whuh oh. This part is much better both due to better jokes and plot advancment.. though again Quanstrano is still fucking amazing. 

Team Bolo: Bolo meanwhile returns and fights a titan, and has mooncake help him rather htan join the others, but looses, hitting the planet with his body.. I mean he might not get back up.. but the impact shatters the caverns and causes an explosion. Everyone but Gary, Quinn, KVN and HUE are MIA, as our remaining party find earth floating overhead. 

TO BE CONTINUED> 

Final Thoughts: A decent start to the season. Like I said the whole birthing sequence can die in a fire and reminds me of the terrible comedy subplots adult swim wanted grafted onto two episodes.. but otherwise it’s a tense stark opener that sets up the bleak tone while still keeping the series rediciulous shenanigans in tact. It’s the perfect welcome back after so long. I mean the gay telepathy alone would make it a winner. 

Next Time on This Blog: We dive into a little history with HIsteria. See you at the next rainbow.