#that was actually such a fun and cool stream they need to do more stuff like that im actually crying

[helianss]

i finished the part in zams latest stream where they made everyone sing and like minute singing california girls had me DYING of laughter hes so😭😭😭

[saltylemontears]

.jpg || ln4

summary: lando.jpg has posted...some interesting stuff warnings: none, just lots of fluff a/n: had to take a break from my george fic because i accidentally made it sad lol, this is very short, just a word vomit tbh

fuel my creativity here!

click!

the first time, lando doesn't notice. he's way too focused on his engineers explaining the race strategy to hear the camera shutter. you squint a little, trying to get the perfect angle.

you were not a photographer. far from that, actually. the camera feels a bit too heavy and unnatural in your hands and you need to do multiple takes every time, because it just doesn't look right. but god, it is fun. you can see why lando enjoys it.

click!

lando's sitting in his car already, sharing some thoughts with an engineer before the race, helmet already on, gaze focused, burning with that passionate look you fell in love with.

you crouch behind a mechanic and quickly snap a few pictures, fiddling with the focus of the camera until it centers on lando's eyes, capturing his look in detail.

you hide the camera when he looks at you for the last time before going on the track and smile to yourself when he waves at you.

click!

your arms begin to hurt after a few minutes of standing beside the track with the camera. this being your fourth attempt at taking a cool shot of lando's mclaren speeding past you, you start becoming slightly impatient.

the car goes into frame and you press the button like crazy, trying to get at least one decent photo in that speed, trying to capture the incredible atmosphere of the singapore gp.

and, fourth time really is the charm, because it comes out perfect.

click!

tears stream down your cheeks and you can't see anything, let alone the camera, so you blindly press the button, not even focusing on centering the shot.

lando's standing on the podium, in first place, and you've seen this before, but you'll never get tired of the sight of him on the top step, seeing the passion and happiness in his eyes as he holds up the trophy.

when he looks down at you, aiming the champagne bottle at you, you manage to raise the camera once more and photograph the way he looks at you with so much pride.

for once, you don't mind having champagne in your hair.

click!

it's way after midnight when you come back to your hotel, both pleasantly drunk off of victory and questionable alcohol, the loud music still echoing in your head. lando looks at his trophy again and you can't help but smile.

he always savors his wins so much, with so much gratitude, and god, you love him so much.

you take a picture when he turns his back to you to put the trophy on the small table in the hotel room, but this time there's no loud noises to cover the shutter.

lando shoots you a pointed look. "the fuck was that?"

"nothing, an accident. sorry!"

you kiss him to distract him, switching the mood.

+click!

this time, lando knows.

he's sitting beside you, smile brighter than ever, and you're taking a selfie of the two of you with the camera. in the next, he's pressing a kiss to your cheek.

you smile to yourself looking at the pics. your plan's slowly coming together.

with the help of your hand running through his curls, lando falls asleep in your arms, giving you time to finish what you started.

you import the shots into your laptop, logging in to instagram.

lando's never hidden anything from you - not even his instagram passwords, and that's how you find yourself uploading the shots on his lando.jpg account.

you take some time to think of a caption, but eventually, you figure it out.

"through my eyes. love, y/n."

you hit send, leaning your head against lando's. he'll have a nice surprise to wake up to.

[cheriladycl01]

Funny Gaming moments with Lando and Max (F) x QuadrantStreamer! Reader

Plot: Just funny moments where Reader is a member of Quadrant and is a big UK streamer that does everything on Twitch and YouTube.

A/N: this is only small and just for fun, better Lando stuff is coming out.

Moment 1:

"Do you earn more than Lando Norris, chat you guys are wild ... but honestly with my individual sponsors, YouTube and streaming and any of my weird side activities I think it'd be up for debate" you giggle not actually knowing how much difference there was in what you or Lando earned.

"Not girlie casually admitting that with her side hustle she earns as much as an F1 driver, yeah guys, you gotta think I stream and upload full time. So i get paid for each YouTube video I do, I'm a twitch affiliate and you guys are so so generous. I game competitively and earn from that. I have sponsors, so ... lets just say i had no trouble buying Lando's Christmas presents" you grin, knowing the man had widely expensive taste.

"Who am i spending Christmas with, well Lando's family has asked if I'd like to join them, but I'll be spending the holidays mostly with Max and Pietra. Oh my gosh guys, did you see Instagram? I met Martin Garrix! How cool is that!" you laugh.

Moment 2:

"So I'm here today with Lando, and I'm teaching him Valorant, he knows that I'm in good but I don't think he knows I'm Immortal" you say until you unmute yourself in discord.

"Hey Lando baby" you joke but all you get from the otherside is silence which makes your chat go absolutely crazy.

You hear a few coughs that sound like choking, so you check his stream making sure not to tab out on stream, seeing him sat there in shock in his chair blushing.

"Lando?" you ask, and you watch as he rearranges himself in his chair pulling the mic closer to him.

"Hi, hello yes. Sorry you just threw me off guard" he laughs, wiping across his face with his fingers.

"What are we?" he asks, and you burst out laughing at the question which makes him laugh too. Chat on both ends starts going crazy, with the spam of Lando Norizz <<< Y/N the Rizzler and you were both dying.

Moment 3:

"Argghh fuck" you scream leaning back and fulling falling back off your chair. You were currently playing the horror game ' In Silence with Max, Lando and Ria.

"No way did Y/N just fall?" Max asks laughing at the girl whose stream he pulled up seeing her laying on the floor gripping her shoulder while her chair was now also laying in the floor.

"SHE DID" Lando laughs and you groan out in embarrassment.

Moment 4:

"What was that chat? My door reopened and closed shut while I was gone?" you ask looking back at your door. You knew you were home alone, the only people having a key to your apartment being Max and Pietra and Lando. But they were all travelling right now and were on the plane.

"Chat, stop messing with me" you scold jokingly, you start to load up the game your changing too. However a knock at your bedroom door has you stilling.

"What" you mouth looking at the camera. You go to the door, chat spamming saying how by opening the door that how all the dumb movie characters die. You here another knock making you flinch, you rip open the door, screaming when you see the scary mask, jumping and tacking the person now.

"Ow Y/N fuck" you hear and you rip the mask of, knowing that voice but not wanting to assume.

"Lando?" you ask looking at him.

"I thought it would be funny" he jokes laughing.

Moment 4:

"So Lando, Max and I thought it would be funny to play Valorant but for every kill we get we do a shot" you exclaim.

"Y/N gonna need new kidneys by the end of this? Hmmm very true, maybe we change it to every time we die we do a shot?" you ask seeing what chat's opinion would be on that.

"Then Lando and Max will be needing new kidneys? Well, I'm playing on my alt account and I'm just chilling so we'll be in gold/silver lobbies. Last time we played on my normal account, it was a struggle.

"Lets ask what they prefer! Guys? You want to do shots every time we get a kill or when we die?" you ask after unmuting yourself.

"We playing with MILF account of FnaticY/N?" Lando asks.

"MILF of course. And no comps, I'm not being called a booster" you grin and Max groans, Max was gold 2 and was asking for you to coach him, you had watched him in unrated's but refused to do comps together.

"Wait, when did you change your name...didnt it used to be Ilovetits6?" Max laughs.

"Yes, but chat started to call me mother? So i just rolled with it" you grin looking at chat and winking.

Moment 5:

"Are you and Lando Norris dating?" you ask, and then you open your phone and call Lando himself.

"Hey baby!" you smile and show the chat what Lando is saved as and the picture while he's on speakerphone.

"Hey love. I'm a little late coming back. I got stuck here with Zac and Oscar, but Max and P wanted to know if you would like to go out for dinner with them tonight" he asks and you laugh.

"Wait, Y/N are you live"

"Maybe, look you said you were ready to go public. So this is payback for what you did to Max on stream!" you laugh, knowing he wont be mad at you, as you'd talked recently about going public.

"Exposed? Yes yes i did" you grin.

Moment 6:

"Y/N your boyfriend is horny come sort him out" AngryGinge says adding you to the call forcefully mid stream.

"Mmmm that sounds like a job for you" you says seriously and you pull up his and Lando's stream to watch what was going on. Some people had come into your stream to say to get Lando to end the stream before PR has his head.

"He's been moaning on stream Y/N get your man and take him home"

"Yeah sorry let me just hop on the jet to Monaco..." you joke, knowing you definitely don't have a private jet.

"Wait, just how rich are you? Your boyfriends out here buying watches for 400k, you have a private jet. This just ain't right!" he exclaims making you laugh.

"I don't have a private jet. But... I've been in one of Max Verstappen's" you boast, you'd been introduced to him through Lando as Kelly wanted to meet you and set you up with her modelling agency.

"Huh? WHAT?" he screams and you just laugh before leaving the call. You shoot Lando a teasing message watching his eyes change as he reads it, and he lets out a groan that soon turns into a joke as Angry Ginge yelled at him to calm down again.

Moment 7:

"Salem stop" you tell your cat, which had jumped up and starting to paw in your lap where the blanket lay across before flopping down wanting fuss.

She started to meow at you not getting the wanted attention, but you were in the middle of an important rank up game, that would put you as radiant in Valorant.

As the game went on, you apologized to your teammates when you died after nearly clutching a round when Salem distracted you by pawing at your hand on your mouse.

"Salem please bub. 3 more rounds and you can have all the cuddles in the world" you whisper to the cat before she settles down, you proceed to Ace the next round and your team and you win the next two. The end of the game, with the MVP you get promoted to Radiant #497.

You celebrated by grabbing Salem your black Bombay cat and hugging her tightly, she leans into you wrapping her paws around happy for the affection she's finally getting.

"Treat?" you ask receiving a meow.

Chat:

y/nloverrr02- not y/n celebrating like she just got a podium

landonorizz- what's harder, f1 win, or reaching the top 500 valorant players

wedonttalkabouther- please, mother is mothering!

deadlocknerf- not her top fragging as an omen and their jett with a negative kda.

lockandassit- well done on the promo!

LandoNorris- Babe! Well done! I watched your win! I'm so proud

"Thank you, everybody. I think I'll leave it there for the day and I'll come back and we can try and get into the 450's!" you exclaim before cutting stream.

Taglist:

@littlesatanicassholebitch @hockey-racing-fubol @laura-naruto-fan1998 @22yuki @simxican @sinofwriting @lewisroscoelove @cmleitora @stupidandunnecessary @clayra-g @daemyratwst @honey-belden @moonypixel @lauralarsen @vader-is-hot @ironcowboycopnickel @itsjustkhaos @the-untamed-soul @beebo86 @happylittlereader @ziejustme @lou-larcher5 @thewulf @purplephantomwolf @chasing-liberosis @chillyleclerc @chanthereader @annoyingmoonballoon @summissss @evieepepi08 @havaneseoger08 @celesteblack08 @gulphulp @fandom1ruined2me @celebstories @starfusionsworld @jspitwall @sierruhh @georgeparisole @dakotatankbig @youcannotcancelquidditch @zzonsbeek @tallbrownhairsarcastic @mellowarcadefun @ourteenagetragedy @otako5811 @countingstacksandpanicattacks @peachiicherries @formulas-bitch @cherry-piee @hopexcroc @mirrorball-6 @spilled-coffee-cup @mehrmonga @bigsimperika @blueberry64857959 @eiraethh @lilypadlover

[bettysupremacy]

can u do something w james potter? a transfer student from america comes to hogwarts and he’s all love at first sight😭❤️do anything u want w it :)

Short n sweet but a good way to get back into writing<3

Your new friends are splayed in the room in front of you. Sirius is sprawled over Remus on the couch, watching him, very lackluster, doing his homework. Mary and Lily are squished into an armchair across from you and James, tangled limbs and giggles as Marlene lay on the rug in front of the fire with Dorcus, tired after supper feast.

The Scottish highlands were a drastic difference from the America you knew. The shops, the people, the boys. Everything seemed so hard to squeeze into. Your accent pushed you away from the people, and your culture pushed you away from fitting in. But they helped. The silly band of tired teens in front of you never once let you stand outside the circle of friendship they’d had formed years before your arrival.

“I could take you to hogsmeade? You know, to look around.” James looks up at you from where he leans against your arm. You sit higher than him, leg draped across his own. It makes his skin tingle.

He’s been a nonstop stream of words ever since supper, only pausing to stuff dining hall food into his mouth. He swears he doesn’t know what he’s going to do when he graduates, the dining haul being a necessary location in his schoolboy life.

He adds factually. “You know they actually have-“

“James,” Sirius snaps, a rubber band stretched too far. “Please.”

“What?”

Sirius only sighs. He doesn’t mean to be cruel to his closest friend.

James’ eyes flit around the room self consciously. All of his friends stare. Very unimpressed.

“What?” He repeats again, a little more desperate, a little more whiny.

“James,” Remus says gently. “Let her breathe.”

James looks to you suddenly, flames coloring his cheeks in the hue of orange light flickering off the grand fire.

It’s apparent James is embarrassed. His silence works its way into the cracks between Mary and Lily, the lulls in conversation between Remus and Sirius, until it becomes too much to handle. Sirius feels bad, he really does, but the way Remus shakes his head disappointedly fills him with something stubborn.

The vibe of the room is ruined subsequently. The boys go up to the dorm, Mary and Lily slip into their own room, shared kisses following, and you find the tangle of girls In front of the fire asleep, Marls arm tugging Dorcas closer.

“It’s okay,” you rush once everyone’s gone. “Hogsmeade sounds fun.”

“Are you sure?” James is insecure, quiet now, away from his friends ears.

You nod adamantly. “We didn’t have anything fun at Ilvermorny.”

He’s out of it now, heated in the face and embarrassed. He doesn’t mean to turn himself away from you, but his friends gnaw at him. They were well-meaning, but that doesn’t stop the green rumble of insecurity coursing through his body. He feels it so intensely he fears he may need to slip upstairs and go to sleep.

“Hey,” You murmur quietly searching for his eyes. When he gives them to you, you look up at the flushed boy through your eyebrows. “Just you and me?”

He stutters for the first time since he met you. “Yeah- uh, yeah, just me and you, sounds cool.”

You nod, leaning over to kiss the side of his mouth sweetly. He reels.

“Don’t be embarrassed.” You whisper, slipping out of the armchair.

“I’m not.” He insists.

You smile, squeezing his arm. “I know.”

He watches you walk up to your dormitory, a hunger in his eyes and a part in his lips.

“We’re not asleep.” Marlene grins. Dorcas snores and Marls opens her eyes. “Well, maybe she is.”

James flinches harshly. “Oh, fuck off.”

[justagalwhowrites]

TikTok Trend

Beautiful decides to take part in a TikTok Trend with Joel. A New in Town drabble.

^We're borrowing Mr. Ben for a late-40s Joel, OK? I desperately need more gifs of Pedro's Joel from that era, I'm too reliant on other characters and actual Pedro gifs for these fics GIVE ME SOMETHING PLEASE

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader from New in Town

Warnings: Not much! Age gap but not the focus of the fic (reader is 36, Joel is 48). No use of Y/N. Minors DNI 18+ only.

Length: 1.4k

A/N: I got stuck thinking earlier how Joel would react to the "call your boyfriend your husband" trend and this is how I think it'd go. This is set about 3 months before the last chapter of New in Town. This can be read as a stand alone fic with the understanding that reader is Sarah's best friend and Joel and Reader have an established relationship of about a year.

“So what’s this for again?” Joel asked as he sat down at the picnic table in the park. 

“It’s a TikTok challenge,” you said, settling in beside him. Joel opened the paper bag the two of you had just gotten from a food truck and started taking out the tacos, putting some in front of you and him. 

“Right,” he said. “And… I’m sorry, baby, but what’s the point?” 

You laughed as you set your phone against your water bottle so it was propped up and ready to film. 

“There isn’t really one, I guess,” you said. “It’s just a fun little video you make and then share. Those interns I have until May are all about it, they were showing me some of theirs the other day. Figure if I work in marketing, I gotta keep up with the trends!” 

Joel smiled a little. 

“So this is the kind of shit Sarah does, huh?” 

“Yeah, she does,” you laughed again. “Her and the interns made one for the company social page the other day, actually.” 

“Can I see?” He asked, interest suddenly piqued. 

“Sure,” you picked your phone back up and found your company’s TikTok, scrolling to the video and handing it off to Joel. 

“We work in marketing, of course we over analyze every ad we see,” Sarah said through your phone, a small smile on Joel’s face as he watched. 

It made you smile, too. One of the fun parts about being in the strange middle ground between your boyfriend’s and best friend’s ages was serving as a bit of a translator between them. Joel still didn’t quite get TikTok. Sarah didn’t understand why her dad refused to go all in on streaming and still had cable. You, at least, could see both sides. 

But this TikTok effort had nothing to do with Sarah. You did try to keep up with the trends on social media to better craft campaigns and content - capitalizing on trends meant that you had to move quick and you couldn’t afford to be out of touch - but your personal TikTok account was mostly empty. It was pretty private, anyway, shared with only a few close friends like Sarah and Maria. All it had were a few reposts of things you liked, some montages of video snippets from you and Joel’s first vacation together, that sort of thing. 

“You should do some of the trends!” Jason, one of your interns, said earlier that day. 

“Just being in the loop on trends is plenty for me,” you waved him off but smiled. “I don’t need to participate.” 

“But it’s fun!” Kenzie, your other intern said. “They’re not all dances and stuff, you know…” 

“I know,” you said. “But it’s just not what I want to spend a lot of time doing is all.” 

“Some don’t take much time,” she said, opening her phone and scrolling for a second. “Here, this one’s easy. You said you have a boyfriend, right?” 

“I do…” 

“Cool,” she said. “So all you do is record yourself making a video where you call your boyfriend your husband, just to see how he reacts. No crazy edits or anything, it’s super easy.” 

You caved after some light convincing and came up with a plan to get Joel in front of the camera. You told him it was a spicy food challenge, just to see which of you handled the heat better and, while you knew he wouldn’t really get the point, you knew he’d be supportive. He always was. 

But there was something about this trend in particular that made you a little nervous. It’s not like the two of you hadn’t discussed marriage. You’d been together a year now, you’d just moved into his house. It had definitely come up. But it had come up in the way that far off things do, something that might happen some day if things fell into place in just the right way. You didn’t want to push it, didn’t want him to feel rushed or obligated, especially since you’d only been cohabitating about a month. Bringing up marriage - even like this - made you nervous. 

“OK I think I get it,” Joel handed you your phone back after watching Sarah’s video twice. “But we’re not doin’ that same thing, right?” 

“Nope,” you said. “We’re going to see who handles the spice better.” 

“Think we both know which one of us is gonna win that one, Beautiful,” he teased, nuzzling his nose against your temple before kissing your cheek. “Us southern men are made of sterner stuff…” 

“Yeah yeah,” you rolled your eyes but smiled, leaning close to him. “We’ll just see about that.” 

You set your phone up to record again, propping it against your water bottle. 

“Here, you gotta get in close because the TikTok format is vertical,” you said and Joel adjusted so you were half beside and half in front of him, his arm going around your waist, hand finding your hip, thumb slipping up below your shirt to find your bare flesh above the band of your pants and brushing you slowly, sensually there. You gave him a look. 

“What?” He asked, brows raised, smile barely contained. 

“Don’t act all innocent,” you shook your head. “You know exactly what you’re doing…” 

“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s make your little TikTik video…” 

“TikTok,” you rolled your eyes but adjusted yourself, your heart pounding. 

“Whatever the kids are using now,” he said. “Because the sooner we’re done the sooner I can get you home…” 

“Alright, I’m going to record,” you cut him off. “Behave yourself!” 

“Always do, Beautiful.” 

You rolled your eyes again but took a deep breath, leaned forward and pressed record. 

“Hi everyone,” you smiled, watching the recording of you and Joel as it was made on the screen. “I’m here with my husband and we’re going to do the spicy food challenge…”

“Your what?” He cut you off and you turned so you could see him a little better. 

“What?” 

“Did…” he paused, looking at you like he wasn’t sure if you were losing it or he was. You weren’t sure if that was good or bad. “Did you just call me your husband?” 

“Yeah,” you shrugged, turning back to the camera. “Anyway, my husband and I both really love spicy food and…” 

You didn’t get a chance to finish your sentence. Joel grabbed your chin almost roughly, pulling you around to face him and all but crushed his lips against yours, clutching you close, kissing you deep and hard, like he couldn’t get enough of you. When he finally let you go, you looked at him and laughed a little, watching him. 

“What was that for?” You asked. 

“You wanna call me your husband?” He asked, a serious look on his face. “Beautiful, we will go to the courthouse right this damn second, don’t tempt me…” 

“Joel, it’s 7 p.m.,” you laughed. “The courthouse is closed.” 

“Don’t care,” he said, giving you a quicker kiss this time. “C’mon, we’ll grab Sarah on the way, see if Tommy wants to meet us…” 

“That’s all it takes, hm?” You teased, heart pounding but for a good reason now. “Just me slipping up and calling you my husband and you’re ready to run down the aisle?” 

“Baby, I’ve been ready to run down the aisle for about a year,” he pressed his forehead to yours. “Just been waitin’ on you to catch up.” 

“Well,” you kissed him softly. “I’m more than caught up. But think I’m still gonna make you ask.” 

“Good luck stopping me,” he said, kissing you again, longer this time, needier, until you pulled away with a groan. “Forget this food challenge, I gotta get you home and devour you. Let’s go, wife.” 

You laughed and stopped the recording on your phone, saving the video to drafts as Joel gathered up the food. You made the mental note to edit out that last part before posting, no need for the interns or Sarah to know quite that much about your sex life. 

“Sorry for ruining your little video,” he said as you started back toward the car. “We can try again later, promise to actually behave myself then…” 

“That’s alright,” you smiled, lacing your fingers with his. “I already got everything I need.”

[wirewitchviolet]

I miss games conveying a sense of Bigness

As you know if you watch my twitch streams, I play a lot of games, and games from a lot of eras, and there's a whole bunch of industry trends you pick up on from certain time periods. The one I really feel like talking about was a definite thing from oh... 1998 through... 2010 or thereabouts? Basically the aughts, give or take a couple years. Or if you prefer, the first two Playstations' run and a bit of the third. It was a period where games in general were really committed to feeling Big.

It feels a little weird to say that when major releases are priding themselves on stuff like measuring how much disk space they need in terrabytes and maps that sprawl out everywhere, but that's not what I'm talking about here. Games trying to feel Big is more of an attitude thing, and ironically enough I'd say it fell out of fashion almost immediately when Open Worlds became the new big thing. We hit a point where people actually made the maps for their games super big (even if most of that space was just kinda vast stretches of unremarkable rocks) so there's no more need to fake it, right? But faking it was kinda great.

I was thinking about this a lot playing the Resident Evil 2 remake, and comparing it to the original PSX game. See the original Resident Evil was set in a spooky mansion out in the middle of nowhere, but RE2 was the Bigger Better Sequel. So now we have a zombie outbreak happening in a whole major city, not just this single mansion. And how do we accomplish that? Do we actually model hundreds of buildings and have a big meandering adventure through all of them, or even a good swath? No not at all. Let's compare the actual maps side by side...

[There WAS a full map of RE2 here it was causing the post button to bug out. Look it up on your own?]

It's a little bigger. There's maybe a dozen more total rooms? But mostly, it's a smoke and mirrors thing. We've still got one big primary location, an animal-filled hike to a side location and back, and an underground science facility, but it feels like we've increased the scope to an entire city. The first playable moments have us out on the streets of the city, objectively in a few quick hallways, but presented as streets packed with dozens of crashed cars, raging fires everywhere, dead bodies littering the streets, and what again feels like innumerable zombies feasting in scattered packs. Once inside, arms of several zombies outside will reach in clawing at you, or later in the game finally breaching through. The remake completely loses that feeling. It feels like there's maybe a dozen zombies out on the streets.

Not to focus on just the one game though. How about GTA3? Remember how even when you're just on the first island, it feels like you're exploring this vast sprawling city?

Here's a more elevated angle from about the same point. I'm looking at this with noclip.website by the way, it's a really cool little toy.

The actual map is LAUGHABLY small. But it FEELS huge. They were really careful to avoid straight roads, and place a couple big vision blocking buildings, even if they're basically just a cube or two so that when you're actually on the ground, it always feels like there's so much more around you. Have another side by side, and a rough estimate of what's visible on the ground in the bird's eye.

RPGs around this time were also having a lot of fun playing with scale comparisons. FF7 is the obvious go-to. The world map is on par with any other in the series, but Big Cities are presented as such, making it very clear that you're just seeing parts of a single district in Midgar, really just the main street in Junon. Dragon Quest 8 had this very bold idea to keep the same visual scale on the world map as in the streets of the towns, with forests made of actual individual trees.

And I'm not even getting into the biggest elephants in the room. Are you old enough to remember how mind-bogglingly sprawling Hyrule Field felt? Maybe a bad example when sequels have kept that focus on selling their worlds as staggeringly Big. Shenmue? Objectively, looking at this map, there's not much there, but damn if I don't feel like this was a real town I lived in for a while 20 years ago. It's the way the detailing gets finer and finer the closer you get to Ryo's bedroom, where you can open every drawer, turn on every light, turn that orange in your hand, you know? I believe that bus you take to the docks has to stop in several other neighborhoods like this one.

And of course, then there's the one other series, maybe worth mentioning, perhaps.

Years later I'm still just speechless.

Again though, I don't actually WANT games with worlds as big as some of these feel. There just isn't the time and the money and the ability for a creative team not to burn out to fully realize that in a handcrafted caring way. I want some kind of inverted Plato's Cave, where it feels like there's a vast breathing world out there, but I'm really in a small cozy space watching masters of the craft put on a shadow puppet show.

[70sscifiart]

The Last-Minute Sci-Fi Gift Guide

There's only one thing worse than procrastinating on getting gifts for your loved ones, and that's procrastinating on putting together a guide to help out everyone else with all those gifts. It's Dec 12, so you can decide for yourself which I'm doing.

Art book: Worlds Beyond Time, $32

If you follow this blog, you might have heard of this one. I published Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s this year after five years of work on it, and I think it's really good! 400+ images, 100+ artists, with lots of fun art history and jokes.

Also, it's just $20 right now if you order through my publisher and use the code SKIPTHELINE! Cheapest it's ever been!

Card game: Coup, $14

In this "social deduction" card game, you play as a government official in a future dystopia who needs to backstab their way into power. Everyone starts out with just two cards in this bluffing game, so the tide can turn pretty quick when players start assassinating each other's cards. The fast pace makes it a good gift for someone who loves spies but thinks they don't like card games.

Game to play over Zoom: Bad Spaceships, $3

If a bluffing game stresses you out, try Bad Spaceships: It's a collaborative world-building game in which you roll dice to see what area of your spaceship connects to another, forcing you to spitball exactly why this is the case. As the game puts it, you might fix the hull by playing Tetris, or charge your weapons in the swimming pool. You're basically getting weird prompts to tell a story that can evolve over the course of the game.

It's such an indie game that it comes as PDFs you download from itch.io, but you can play it just as well over Zoom, if you're looking for an excuse to catch up with your old digital nomad college friend.

Movies/TV: Streaming service gift card

Gift cards are all well and good, but you can personalize them by recommending a few of your favorite shows as well. I suggest:

Hulu: Cowboy Bebop

Apple TV+: Severance

Criterion Channel: Ravenous, Paprika, Strange Days

Paramount+: Yellowjackets

Amazon Prime: The Devil's Hour

But to be honest, this entry is just an excuse to talk about the new Max show Scavenger’s Reign. Inspired by the work of French artist Moebius and with a clear debt to famed 70s animated film Fantastic Planet, this stylish sci-fi show features a bunch of humans trying to survive on a beautiful but hostile alien world. Perfect for lovers of fictional nature.

Vintage sci-fi

This Etsy shop has some good stuff, like the 1971 Frank Kelly Freas NASA poster above, a bit of history that I even mentioned on page 167 of my art book.

Penguin science fiction postcards, $28

These postcards have a ton of very cool sci-fi covers I've blogged in the past – great value if you want a lot of art for a low cost.

Meteorite pendant necklace, $34

I think we all know what kind of rock your loved ones need around their neck: A chunk of meteorite straight out of the 1576 Argentinan meteorite fall.

Book recs

For astronauts: Packing for Mars by Mary Roach, The New Guys: The Historic Class of Astronauts That Broke Barriers and Changed the Face of Space Travel by Meredith Bagby

For comedians: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, Even Greater Mistakes: Short Stories by Charlie Jane Anders 

For sleuths: Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty, Drunk on All Your Strange New Words by Eddie Robson

For crafters: Knits of Tomorrow: Toys and Accessories for your Retro-Future Needs

For the resistance fighters: The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley, An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

For slasher movie fans: Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare

Syd Mead "Biomorph Vehicle" button down shirt, $49

T-shirts aren't classy enough for the world's coolest visual futurist, Syd Mead. I haven't actually bought this incredibly odd shirt, but I really need to.

Art prints (and more) from 70s sci-fi artists

Artist shops can be surprisingly hard to track down on the internet, but here's a short list of ones I've come across. All of these artists are featured in my book (except one), so you can read up on them before you commit to a print.

Michael Whelan 

John Harris

Syd Mead

Don Maitz

David B Mattingly

Peter Andrew Jones - Jones was one of just a few artists who declined to be included in my art book, but he has a distinct, colorful style that I would have loved to have featured!

Finally, here's one extra bonus, just for everyone who made it to the end of this article: The UK-based educational charity Centre for Computing History sells three big officially licensed John Harris posters featuring these three artworks, famous for their use as covers for Sinclair programming manuals.

It's a great deal that I've never seen mentioned anywhere, and Harris' work has a timeless quality that makes it great for an unassuming wall decoration. If you're outside the UK, the shipping costs will be a pain, but there's no better deal for a classic sci-fi poster.

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight - A Vega-Bond Space Case

@a-closet-emo @Anguished-Lurker @library-of-cronos @ghostboidanny @lexosaurus @uniasus @redactedgoose

Danny has a thing for space, always had, except now his ‘thing’ for space was more like actually physically BEING space. Danny’s also always had a thing for NASA, these two things were of course related since NASA’s entire thing was space, except now NASA also has a thing for Danny

Danny didn’t exactly have a ton of ways to go about being within his ‘domain’ as it were or satisfying that pesky little obsession of his. Yes he could go star gazing or literally fly up into space, which was great and all, but no matter how much you love and feel fulfilled by something it’s still good and needed to spice things up a bit. ClockWork subtly messed with the time stream in harmless, to time and the future, ways. Nocturne gave people nightmares even though that did disrupt their ability to sleep. Undergrowth went and ‘adopted a kid’ aka Sam to ‘raise someone worthy’ even though there was no need.

In short, everyone occasionally did something different and new.

So, Danny figured he should too. After all, he was still somewhat human and humans get bored and burnt out a lot easier and quicker. And Danny getting bored and burnt out meant an Obsessive crisis or two, which he’d rather avoid thank you very much. So he figured he‘d try something completely new, a way of being all ✨Space✨ by simply talking about it instead of staring at it or being physically surrounded by it. And by talking he means online, because he is not going to attempt to become a science teacher just to talk about space at bored teenagers or something. Sure him starting a vlog to excitedly blab about space was probably pretty silly, and sure he could also use the term vtuber since he used a 3d model to attempt to hide his identity, and sure he didn’t exactly expect many people to care; but it was nice. The 3d model was a fun little project for him and Tuck, and Sam had enjoyed picking out the things quirky clothing, and watching it move to his facial features and voice was really cool. It was almost like getting to listen to someone else blabber about space, which was super nice even if they weren’t actually even a real person or saying anything he hasn’t said before. It’s not like anyone could actually tell him something he didn’t already know anyways.

What Danny hadn’t expected was for his stupid little white-haired (because of course), shark-toothed, sparkly-skinned, virtual model vlog channel to actually do well. Like yes, some of his stuff was shorter clips, more ‘digestible’ as Jazz would say, but most of it was hours of knowledge vomit with breaths usually only taken for comedic effect. Then again, he was obsessed with space before he half died and it literally became his Obsession or before he became the literal god of space; so there was bound to be regular humans who actually did want to watch a five hour video about the composition of Jupiter’s rings and how it having slightly different compositions would change it. He’s still baffled that that video has over one million views, he’s also very thankful he went the 3d model route. He’s also thankful he still finds the channel name he picked funny: Vega-bond, after the North Star and based off of the word vagabond, since space was endless so his home as a being was effectively everywhere and nowhere and he could wander it’s and his own vastness forever. It had also caused some ‘James bond in space’ jokes though, even if he’s never actually see all those movies it was still funny.

Leaning back in his chair and editing a couple more seconds of a clip, taking a bite out of his sandwich and scowling. Ew. He really should learn to stop letting Jazz make food for him. Not only was she just as bad at cooking as he was, possibly worse actually, but she kept putting ectoplasm in his food! Intentionally or not, he doesn’t care. The sandwich goes back on the plate, he’ll get crackers later, right now he’s got a bit on asteroid turn over rates to fix. He’s also pretty sure this is the video where he goes on a bit of a tangent about the flavour of space rocks and what a star would most likely taste like to someone if they were able to eat one. Which fine, not the smartest thing to be talking about in a public form like this but hey, that hasn’t bit him in the ass yet. That Absentiona planet a few galaxies over was way too cool not to talk about okay! At least it seemed like a lot of people either thought he was theorising or that he actually worked with a space program and had been given permission to use the internet to educate people, since most people were not spending their time reading all of NASA’s public reports like he was.

…

Danny was also reading their not public reports of course, a great use of Tuck’s hacking skills if he says so himself. He left most of the internal memos alone since those were near always personell stuff and seldom related to space. (Which was something he was going to regret deeply later or maybe not). He did try to make a point to not talk about missions that hadn’t yet been made public or recent human discoveries that NASA hasn’t yet had a chance to publish their papers and internal memos on, Danny wasn’t trying to accidentally get people accused of plagiarism or rip away months to years of research away from the people who figured it out by stealing their thunder. But he’d get excited and he couldn’t bring himself to cut out stuff after the fact.

So sue him if he’s maybe stolen someone’s thunder once or twice, and maybe talked about things that humans would have never discovered, or things that humans don’t have the physical capability to comprehend. Hopefully no one tries to actually sue him though, if NASA does that he’s positive he’ll ugly cry for, like, a week.

Hearing Jazz footsteps up the stairs he tilts his head back, “Jazz! Neither of us can cook! Including with freaking ectoplasm! Stop trying!”.

She pokes her head into his room with a huff, eyes the sandwich with a single bite taken out of it, “I refuse. I will figure out a way to make it work, you need it”.

“What I need is for my food to be edible and not have definitely old and corrupted ecto in it”.

She winces, “damn. You know I can’t tell that”.

“Then stop trying!”.

“No!”.

Danny picks up the sandwich and makes throwing motions with it, he doesn’t actually throw it because he’ll probably give her a damn ecto-burn with the thing. It’s a miracle it hasn’t started moving on its own yet. she comes in anyways and grabs the plate, putting a hand on her hip and holding it out for him to put the sandwich back down on, “I’ll throw this one in the incinerator, Danny, but I’m not stopping”.

He releases the sandwich, “you suck”.

She rolls her eyes at him and eyes the computer, smiling a little, “I’m not even going to ask, since I can’t grasp your space babble any more than you can grasp my psycho babble”.

Danny snorts, shaking his head as she leaves, his sister cares but damn was it ever inconvenient and hazardous to his health. He was a freaking Ancient after all, he could get by without freaking ectoplasm, he wasn’t some weak level six ghost; stupid cravings or no. Heck, he wasn’t even a child ghost anymore so it was even less necessary! Sighing, “she’s still not going to give it a rest, is she?”.

And then his email pings. Oh cool, it’s probably another comment since it looks like it’s from his channel linked email.

It is an email.

It’s an email from NASA.

Holy shit.

By all the Ancients including himself and every single one of their domains. What the zone?!?

He’s pretty sure he actually squeaked and started floating, some little stars might have even appeared in the air.

What should he do?!? Should he open it?!? Should he ask Tuck to hack it so that the message won’t read as read?!? Should he attempt to knock himself out so he doesn’t have to deal with this?!? Should he take that sandwich back purely so he can give himself a horrific upset stomach with it?!?

It’s fucking NASA!

He can’t just… not. Like, even if that was a good idea he absolutely has to know what NASA wants!

He’s not freaking out, you’re freaking out. He should call someone right?!?

Yes.

Yeah.

He should.

Purely so he doesn’t violently click open the email in Obsession fuelled glee and horror. Tuck doesn’t even get a chance to ask what’s up, “NASA fucking emailed me, man. What do I do?!? Like it’s totally NASA, right email and everything and it’s totally to my vlog email so oh my zone that means that NASA, FREAKING NASA, has been watching my shit! Is this good is this bad should I be complimented? Do they want to talk space or tell me to shut up about space! What am I going to do if they want me to shut up about space I can’t shut up about space and why would I shut up about space! Wait what if they have a space problem and I can like totally help with that shit and they think I’m some odd expert and not some random dude in small town USA! What if they think I’m one of their men and are going to try and give me shit for spilling space secrets because oh shit I’m pretty sure no one actually released that new shit about plutos gravitational pull which is super neat and all but what if they’re mad-”

“Danny man, shut up before you start speaking in tongues or something”

Danny doesn’t even hear him honestly, “-because I could totally understand them being mad but it’s not like I’m actually stepping on their turf since their turf is actually my turf and I’m technically only letting them in it because I can and because people knowing and learning about space is like super cool and I totally would still love to be an astronaut even if that is totally not possible for so many damn reasons! But wait what if that’s what they want that would be so cool! Even if I know that’s not how they hire people and even if I totally disagree with their choice of head engineer because he seems kind of like an ass but hey I’m kinda an ass and I’d be great at the job and oh fuck what if I ignore this for too long and they send another email what do I do then-”

“DANNY!”.

Danny jerks a little bit and falls from the ceiling nearly face planting into his floor, “oh I ah, whoops. Sorry Tuck, it’s just space and NASA and what if they emailed me about space and of course they emailed me about space they’re freaking NASA and my channel is about space we can totally talk space-”.

“I’m going to have Sam show up and throw her shoe at you if you don’t chill, man. I can’t give you advice or offer to try and help, if you won’t let me speak”.

Danny curling into himself and breathing a little, putting a hand over his shirt to feel the way his core is pulsing like crazy, “right, shit, just, give me one second to just vibrate my shit out”.

“Of course, I’m going to hack your email to at least give you a heads up if you should be actually worried”.

Danny wheezing, stars just sort of popping into existence around him, “yeah, yeah, that’s good”; he fiddles with one of the little stars like is a fidget toy. He always loved the way they felt, and tasted, and they just looked stupidly wonderful. Even if he had to be careful about it since him ‘getting starry’ could be hard on people’s eyes. Forming a little planetary ring and swirling it around with his fingers, “how do I even respond to NASA without coming off as crazy?”.

“Do not word vomit? Don’t tell them you’re a space god? Don’t get mad at them for getting something wrong?”.

Danny blinks, twirling the planetary ring around his finger, “so everything I’m inclined to do? Gotcha”.

“Dude”.

“Well what if they ask for my credentials? What else do I have besides acing flight simulators and being a literal god?!?”.

“You do have a point there, but you’re actually good. They aren’t trying to sue or silence you, they aren’t attacking your credibility, they aren’t accusing you of running an illegal space operation, they aren’t questioning if you’re an alien, and they aren’t commenting on you basically having a backdoor into their systems”, he chuckles, “you absolutely should open it, man. Stay on the line because I want to hear you cry”.

Oh? Oh no why would Danny cry??? But Tuck giving him a verbal thumbs up means he can’t not open it right?

He’s stares at the computer and it’s unread email for a while. He’s nearly vibrating out of his skin, he’s pretty sure one of his arms has unfurled as he likes to call it. Spread out into goo strings and pulsating constellations of eyes and teeth, gaps in between filled with galaxy’s and miniature planets that could barely be called an arm with fingers with hundreds of joints that could be long as trees if he let them; as it was they were wrapping around his desk he thinks.

He opens the damn email.

It’s…

It’s a freaking job offer and Danny basically explodes into galaxy’s and constellations and eyes and teeth and bits of different animals, and what comes out of his mouth is utter ghost speak gibberish and random space noises even to his ears. He has to fold his legs and feet under him because they’re just too long when he’s like this, all of him is but his legs are the most needlessly long, but he doesn’t drop the phone at least.

Then Jazz bangs open the door, “Danny what the hell! Oh why!”, and promptly passes out. He manages to catch her with his tail before she hits the ground at least, he forgets that he can be incomprehensible like this if whoever isn’t prepared. He’ll just leave her lying on the fluffy cloud space dust that made up the ‘fluff fur’ at the end of his tail till she wakes up.

Him whining immediately, “T̶͈͎͚͗͗ù̴̢̜͝c̴͖̯͐̔͜k̸̲͇̹̅͑͠ ̶̛̲̀̎I̵͕̔̆ ̴̞̘̌̌̃k̸̦͚̲̎n̸̳͛o̴̟̎c̷̩̕k̶̗͍̽͛̈́ͅe̶̢̛͍̐d̷͎̞͒ ̶̞̞̆̓̕J̵̦̭̤̽ȁ̶̰̖̈́͘z̸̧͇̼͝ẓ̴̹̳̇̑̇ ̵̟͌̈̀o̵̡̝̅ṵ̷̚t̴̺̣͒̓̈́͜!”, and attempting to keep his voice not filled with the sound of dying stars.

Tuck laughs at least, “at this point she should know what she might be in for! You all space lovercraftian jerboa looking?”.

“D̶͙̪̃͠ủ̸̦̕d̵̜̑̔̒ę̴̛̥̻̒ ̶̜̊ͅǸ̵̞̐A̴̤͛͒̃S̸̢̓͗A̸͚̩̿,̴͉̊̔ ̸͂̋̅͜N̶̡̥͇̏A̵͍̐̌͘Ṡ̸͕͛̽Ã̷̯̫!̸̯̩͎̓̇̕,̷̳̈́ ̶̭̥̗̏i̷̥̘̻̐s̵͉͉̹̈͂͐ ̴͖̃͛t̶̘̚r̷͚̀̈́y̸͈͚̕ǐ̵̡ǹ̴͓g̵̣͇̱̚ ̶͖̕ṱ̶̝̫̈̂ö̶̻̲́̌͜ ̵̠̠̑ḩ̴̣̅̆͊i̷͎̠̤͌r̷͈̻͐̀͠e̶̡̮̽̀̈ ̶̡͕͒m̶̧̧̬͒é̷̺͙̈!̸̜̀ ̷̳͒͆Ỏ̸̳͖̰f̴̟̩̈́ ̵̼̔c̵̨͚̅̄͊ǒ̸̺̥̊ͅủ̴͇̬͎ŕ̵̳ṡ̸̟̼̪͋̿ȩ̸̢́͆̈́ ̵̢͔͗͒İ̵̪̦͒ ̷̟͎͉̈́̎â̶̺̭̥m̴̮̄!̵̘̰͛͜ ̴̠̀͠D̶̙͆o̶̠̬͂ͅ ̴̟͕̻̃̅͂t̷͖̦̳̃̂̈́h̷̜̣͊̏ē̴̡y̶̦̙̜͐͗̇ ̴͍̞̉́ͅk̴̗͗n̶̹̒ǒ̵̼̲̬̄̈́w̴̥̄̆ ̶̣̞̂̈w̶̢̧̝͗̕h̶͕͇̓̉͘e̶̳͎̎̅ͅr̵͕̊͆ĕ̷͚̮̾͝ ̶̡̭͊͒Í̴͇͝͝ ̶̦̤̔͂̚l̶͚̦͕̔͝i̴̺̍̄̑v̸̫̎̚͝ė̶̼͔̓͛ ̷̫̥̆o̶̩̍͘͠r̸̮̹͛ ̴̩͔̣͗̍̈́m̵̨̯̲̍y̷̮̤̖̌̾̾ ̵̯̜̈́a̵̪͇̐͝g̸̭͖̋ẽ̶͇ ̶͖͆w̶̔͜h̶͕̖̘͆̒̎y̶͕͇̾ ̸̬̠̈́d̴̰̈́o̷͇̽͒͘ë̴͈̭́s̶̺̭̈́ͅ ̸̜̇͆̌ḯ̷ͅt̷̪̗̩̔̿̇ ̴͖͈̼̄̊͋l̸̛̲͈͐̆ͅǒ̷̡̗ͅö̸̥́̍͆ḱ̷̭̟̪̈́̑ ̵̬̻̈́͘ͅl̴͕̙̞̐i̵̲̥̔̇̕k̶̛̫̎ê̶̼͙ ̴̫͌̑̆t̷̤̀̾ͅh̶̠̻̳͂̏e̸̛̺̣̬͂̾y̶̫̾̊ ̸͖̗̖̓͒̇d̸̮͈͆̿̏o̶̧͇̽͒͝n̶̖̈́’̷̡͔̮́̏t̴̛̙͑͝ ̶̡̰͋ȇ̷͓̘v̷̙̈́͠ͅe̸̡̙͍͠ṅ̴̰̚ ̴̠̦̾̈͛c̴̤̘͖͗̉̽a̵͔͑̚r̵̢͔̫̽́̒e̶̼̕ ̸̥̘͒̈́͐ͅá̶͎͝b̴̧͚̞̂ő̴̟̕͠ü̴̱̐͌t̶͔̻̙͒ ̵̹̳͉͂̉̉á̶̠̯̚͜ṅ̶̦̜̈́ẏ̶̛̪͙͘ ̴̢̥͖̈́c̷͙̓̈́́r̷̜̳͖͑ḕ̴͉̣̂͜d̸̲̬̒̊͝ę̸͕̋̾̏n̷̺̤̂t̴̤̐̽͋i̸͍͕̻͌̒ả̴̘̝͑ͅl̸̺͎̅̾̈š̶̻͚́̒”

“Danny chill, I can’t actually understand you and you’re going to wreck my phones speaker, I’m taking that mess as a yes and do you really think they’ll hire you if you can’t keep yourself together? I’m pretty sure they can’t let a horror monster onto a spaceship”.

Damn Tuck always knew how to cool him down quickly, he doesn’t compact himself back to ‘normal’ though just squishes down enough that he’s not knocking anything over or making the ceiling creak. Moving that tail that Jazz is still on so it and her are laying on his bed, “r̵i̷g̸h̶t̴,̷ ̴r̵i̸g̶h̴t̶,̷ ̸y̶e̷a̵h̶ ̶t̴h̷a̷t̵,̶ ̴t̷h̸a̴t̸ ̵w̴o̸u̷l̷d̶n̵’̸t̴ ̷g̵o̴ ̵o̴v̵e̶r̸ ̸w̴e̴l̷l̴”̵”.

“No kidding. Now did you put a hole through anything with your horns?”:

Danny glances around, it didn’t look like it at least. Plus Tuck didn’t call them goddamn bunny ears for a change, regardless of how similar they looked. “N̶o̶,̸ ̸d̴o̵n̷’̸t̵ ̷t̴h̷i̵n̴k̸ ̸s̶o̶”.

“You’re getting better! Congrats! Now are you going to try and take this job? Can you even type with your fingers right now?”.

Danny looking back to the computer and the email on screen, he has to really curl and bend his joints up and one of his shoulders is going past the entire computer but he can manage, “t̵h̴e̸r̸e̷'̵s̵ ̷n̵o̵ ̴w̵a̵y̴ ̸I̷ ̷c̴a̵n̴’̶t̷ ̵a̷t̷ ̷l̸e̸a̶s̵ ̵t̵r̷y̸,̴ ̷T̷u̷c̴k̴,̷ ̵a̵n̸d̴ ̴b̴a̴r̵e̷l̷y̶ ̶b̴u̵t̸ ̴y̷e̸s̷”.

“Alright then shoot your shot, man. Just try not to give away that you’re an eldritch horror”.

Danny can t help but grin, his teeth and lips swirling and curling on the sides of his face like galaxies, “t̷h̶a̸n̷k̴ ̷T̵u̸c̵k̸,̴ ̸s̸o̴r̶r̴y̵ ̴i̷f̶ ̷I̴ ̵f̴u̷c̶k̶e̴d̵ ̸u̶p̴ ̴y̸o̴u̸r̷ ̵p̸h̵o̵n̸e̵ ̴a̸g̵a̵i̷n̷”.

“Think nothing of it, Danny, not only do I expect it but I legit do not mind at all. I’ll take my best friend getting a hella awesome job offer that makes him go eldritch nightmare fuel on my ear drums over impromptu rescue mission any day”, Tuck laughing as he hangs up.

Man is Danny ever glad he called his goddamn best friend. The message he sends back to FREAKING NASA is excited but not overly crazy. He doesn’t go on a tangent, he only hits the wrong keys a few times and has to fix it, he doesn’t accidentally break anything, and he doesn’t mention anything that he knows NASA doesn’t know about. Yes he wants the job, yes that would be very awesome, yes he promises he has the capability, yes yes yes. Oh he’s vibrating again and a couple of his stars that comprise up part of his knee explode and reform.

Jazz groaning makes him still, moving a hand to have two finger tips over her eyes, “s̶o̷r̸r̴y̷,̴ ̴t̸o̵o̷ ̴e̶x̴c̷i̷t̸e̴d̷ ̴t̵o̸ ̵c̸o̶m̴p̴a̴c̷t̶ ̸m̸y̴s̸e̷l̵f̶ ̸r̶i̷g̴h̶t̸ ̶n̷o̶w̵.̷ ̶N̷A̸S̵A̵ ̶y̷e̵s̵ ̸N̴A̴S̶A̸ ̶o̶f̵f̵e̶r̶e̵d̷ ̷m̶e̴ ̵a̶ ̴j̵o̷b̸ a̴n̵d̸ I̵ ̷a̴m̵ ̵l̴o̵s̵i̵n̴g̷ ̵m̴y̵ ̷m̸i̶n̵d̷ ̶a̶n̷d̷ ̷c̴o̷r̸e̵ a̵ l̵i̷t̵t̶l̸e̶ ̵b̶i̸t̴ ̶h̷e̵r̴e̷”.

She beams, sitting up slowly and not moving Danny’s fingers off of her eyes, “that’s awesome Danny!”, she points in the direction his voice came from, “you better have said yes”.

“I̸t̸’̸s̶ ̷N̸A̵S̷A̴ ̵o̶f̶ ̸c̶o̵u̵r̷s̸e̵ ̴I̸ ̷d̸i̶d̶!̸”, pouting to himself, “I̴’̷m̶ ̸j̵u̴s̸t̵ ̷t̴r̸y̷i̴n̷g̷ t̵o̴ ̷f̶i̷g̸u̶r̸e̷ ̸o̷u̷t̷ ̴h̷o̶w̶ ̸t̷o̸ ̴e̷v̸e̸n̵ g̸o̸ t̴h̸e̴r̷e̸ ̵w̵i̷t̶h̷o̵u̷t̴ ̷b̶e̶i̶n̶g̵ ̵a̵l̴l̷ ̷n̶i̷g̵h̶t̴m̴a̸r̶e̷ f̴u̵e̴l̵”.

She hums and taps her chin, “yeah your potential employer or coworkers wouldn’t appreciate having to wear blind folds or ear protection in case you get too excited or hyper-fixate into your Obsession too much”, humming some more, “obviously depowering yourself would be stupid, so don’t even think about it. They found you through your vlog I'm to guess, which I know you’re a little too liberal on with information, so they probably know something about you is off, so you can get away with being a little strange; your more human level of strange at least”. He’s fully fucking aware of that, hence why this was kind of a problem, even in his human form he wasn’t going to be able to contain himself super well. Just getting the job offer made him unfurl entirely, actually getting the job? He’s going to accidentally rip the building apart or something. She nods to herself, “well you will not get the job like this, meaning you will not be able to do space stuff with NASA if you can’t keep a lid on this”.

He knows tha- oh OH! Okay yeah. Okay. Right sometimes he needed others to tell him that shit for his core to get the damn message. Jazz nearly stumbling forward off his bed when he folds in on himself, leaving his white-haired ‘normal’ ghost self floating vaguely in the middle of the room and blinking at her, “point received apparently”, and shakes his head. He wasn’t exactly a super huge fan of his eldritch form, it was freaky and so disconnected from how a human body worked and moved.

She cracks an eye open cautiously before opening them fully at Danny being normal, “okay good”, standing up and moving on slightly shaky legs to his closet, “now what do you have to wear that is professional and doesn’t make you seem obessesed with space”.

He floats after her, “it’s a space job shouldn’t I dress space-themed?”, his laptop email pinning results in him nearly teleporting to it.

“No. They can already tell you’re crazy about space from the vlog, you don’t want to seem like that’s all you care about and love by also dressing in space themed clothing”.

Danny vibrates, it’s from NASA, NASA!, oh he almost wants to spread out again just to have more of him to vibrate! They set a date! A time! Three days.

It’s in three days!

They were moving so fast! Oh they definitely knew something weird was up with him! Was that good? Bad? Probably good-ish. Otherwise they’d care about his schooling and expirence and wouldn’t possibly ignore his inhumanness. He knows he’s got stars zipping through his hair and too many eyes when he looks at Jazz, “three days. They want to talk to me in three days! Me!”, and screams a little.

She hurls a button up patterned like a arcade floor at his face, “if you scream at them they won’t hire you, and what you’re saying is they’re not giving you any time to actually calm down. They are absolutely trying to figure out how you know what you know by blindsiding you like this”.

Danny gestures ridiculously, “and I don’t even care because it’s NASA, NASA can mess with me all they want!”. He pops that stupid tail of his out and bits the fluffy space dust, spinning head over heels in the air excitedly. This was awesome! So cool! Even if they didn’t hire him or thought he was utterly insane he would still get to met them! This was the best day ever!

She laughs at his antics, “you are so lucky mom and dad aren’t here right now. Even if they would be very proud”, she grabs him, stilling his spinning but almost dragging her along with, “as I am, but you definitely got to keep yourself contained. Even if they do want to hire ‘nightmare fuel’ they won’t if they think meeting you was a hallucination”.

He pouts a little, dropping his tail from his mouth, “I know that”, pouting a little more, “it’s times like this I’d rather look more like Clocky than Nocturne”.

“I know, but it suits you, and at least if you do wind up going to space legally any stars might get brushed off as just being part of space”.

“Aka part of me”.

She rolls her eyes at him before going wide-eyed and jumped up, “oh! Now I need to figure out how to make space food for you!”.

“What?!? No! Bad! What if you poison one of the astronauts!”.

“Then you can nurse them back to health”.

“Do not mess with my protectiveness like that!”.

She only laughs at him, but at least he gets himself human again, tail sticking around so he can fiddle with the ‘fluff’ while attempting to keep editing and not vibrate himself out of his mortal flesh again. He fails at that repeatedly.

----

Pretty much the only thing that’s keeping him compact and human while he’s getting ready for the goddam interview with NASA is the fact he absolutely will not get the job without being at least human passing. Sam actually showed up and stole all his space themed clothing -even the underwear!- to make sure he couldn’t wear it. He does go with the dress shirt Jazz threw at him that day, wound up picking pants that he’s pretty sure are actually Sam’s that she just left here, and a stupid pair of dress shoes Vlad gave him once. Heck he even threw on a yellow bandanna around his neck to make double sure his scars were hidden! Who knows if his medical history was going to get questioned because he’d fail that shit instantaneously.

… Unfortunately none of that matter at all.

Why?

Because the second he got to the freaking NASA field centre he loses his human form from pure excitement… and the secretary walks out before he can change back! At least he didn’t unfurl or explode! She… isn’t even surprised and that’s enough to keep him from vibrating himself into the floor. She just leads him, currently a ghost -she knows this isn’t what any human being looks like right? She can see that he’s glowing right? Right!?!-, into the little interview room.

He.

Is in.

A NASA interview room. He wants to smell the walls and eat them. Shit his teeth are too big. He slaps his cheeks mere seconds before his apparent interviewer comes in.

At least as a ghost his cheeks won’t be tinted red. Fuck him entirely.

The man actually chuckles, setting papers down on the desk and holding his hand out for a hand shake. How the Zone is this going okay? He shakes the man’s hand, his name tag says ‘A. Bowman’. Holy shit he’s one of the actual higher up’s!

… Oh they one hundred percent knew something was funky with ‘Vega-bond’ if they sent a higher up to talk to him.

Bowman eyes his own hand as they both sit down, Danny aggressively forcing himself not to float, “ghost skin tingles, interesting”, looking at Danny properly, “well I suppose this answers one of many questions, or rather most of many”.

Danny being a ghost was a… good thing? Well alright then. Tilting his head, “it does?”. He didn’t even mean to show up looking like this!

Bowman knits his fingers together and leans forwards at him, actually grinning, “it does. Your channel, you’ve talked about subjects, in depth, that even we have no knowledge of. It was much too in-depth to not be reality, and while encouraging plenty of debates is a good outcome actually meeting the person behind it is far more valuable”.

Sweet Ancients the job offer was serious. It is so hard to bounce around or something, fuck his eyes are probably glowing a bit too much to be pleasant to look at, “I technically am not actually supposed to be talking about that stuff but I get carried away easily”, and rubs his neck awkwardly.

Bowman hums at him and Danny doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. “Well I can certainly say I’m glad space excites you”, he shuffles the papers a bit, “I take it your interest in space, regardless of your state of living, is why you agreed to this interview?”.

Danny nodding immediately, “yeah! I’ve actually wanted to be an astronaut since I could walk, you know, before the obvious happened”. Oh Zone is he going to have to explain dying to NASA? “I’m pretty sure no doctor in their right mind would clear me to go to space, legally at least”.

Bowman nods acceptingly, “and based on your wealth of knowledge it’s clear you would have been willing to work towards that childhood dream, yes?”.

Danny begins gesturing a little excitedly, “I used to build model rockets and memorised every space flight simulator I could get my hands on. I spent years saving up for the best telescope money could buy and never missed any celestial event. My family even paid for a zero gravity flight once as my birthday and truce- I mean christmas present”, laughing awkwardly to try and stop himself from rambling, “I probably had a concerning amount of drive for it”.

“That’s the only kind worth having”, the man nods strongly, “anything less and this isn’t a good fit. Would you say you still have that drive?”.

“If I didn’t I wouldn’t be me”, Danny says that in the firm voice he usually used when fighting someone genuinely dangerous or lecturing the Observants about trying to inhibit him.

Bowman grins at that, “good. Then-”, eyeing the papers, “-obviously your, younger appearance means you don’t have any work experience to speak of. So what experience do you have?”.

“Does being a town hero since my freshman year of high school count as previous working experience? I feel like it should”. Like really, the sheer amount of ‘experiences’ he’s had could fill novels and pad out entire tv shows. “I’ve fist fought a god? Multiple gods actually?”.

“Typically, we strictly prefer if our employees don’t get into fist fights”.

Ah yeah, that tracked and was fair. “Think of a weird situation and I’ve probably done it, I had to land one of your spacecrafts once actually since it became sentient and tried to eat me; everyone got mind wiped because it was a little too weird for most people to handle remembering. I’ve got lots of lab experience and my hazmat isn’t just for show, especially with handling hazardous materials; granted I am made of hazardous materials. I’ve time travelled, had to wrangle sentient turkey, been inside books, been shrunk”.

Bowman shaking his head and pulling a tablet out of the drawer, holding up a finger while he types on it.

Danny really hopes he’s not in trouble, he could probably go on forever about the things he’s done. Oh and now his tails out, damn it, at least it’s just wrapped around his one ankle and he’s squishing its space dust fluff with his foot for something to do other than mentally freak out.

Bowman puts the tablet down, oh hey he was looking Phantom up! for stories about the stuff he’s done? Him eyeing Danny, “you’ve ridden a dragon and yet want to be an astronaut?”.

Danny beams, “yes!”, rubbing his neck, “dragons aren’t that special to me, since my younger sister is one. I’m literally from a dimension that doesn’t have gravity and I’ve been to space a lot”.

He blinks, “you’ve already been to space?”.

Oh are they going to be bothered he violated space sanctions? Laughing awkwardly, “I’m always in a state of zero gravity and don’t need to breathe, so yeah as soon as I knew I could I did. I’ve been outside of the Milky Way multiple times”. How the actual Zone would this interview have even gone if he had managed to stay human the whole time???

Bowman looks baffled, “you’ve actually been outside of the Milky Way? No human could ever hope to do that”, he looks more confused, “if you can do such a thing then why would you want to work with us?”.

He’s honestly a little lost on why Bowman is even confused why Danny’d want to still work at NASA, it’s NASA! Traveling to space with other people who are crazy about space would be a-mazing! Regardless of how much they know or don’t he could excitedly babble with people who could excitedly babble back and actually understand each other! He could see all their faces when they see all his space and their fascination and love for all of it! And ain’t that great all on its own? Sure he could observe them as he is now from space but it would be so different to actually be in there with them and have them actually know he’s there! Should he tell Bowman that Danny’s the one that rescued Oppy? Technically he shouldn’t have and yes the Observants gave him shit but that ‘I’ll be seeing you’ song broke his still somewhat human heart and he had to save the little fella. Danny quirks an eyebrow, “because travelling to space with others who love and research space and seeing all the wonder and research over it sounds like a dream?”.

Bowman blinks and nods, “then it’s more the people, the science, than the mere act of going to space for you?”, tilting his head, “how far have you gone?”.

“I… can’t answer that second one since that would confirm whether or not the universe has an edge”. It didn’t but he can’t be confirming that. “And that might mess with established reality and multiple gods would get very mad at me”. Bowman looks impressed actually. “But yeah, it’s the people and just getting to work with and for NASA. I couldn’t think of a better thing to do with my afterlife”, rubbing his neck, “obviously I still have my protector job to do but it wouldn’t interfere”.

“You can still protect your town while also being on a spaceship?”.

“Time and space are more malleable than people think”, shrugging, “and I can duplicate my body so being two places at once isn’t really an issue”. Not to mention the fact that he literally was space so he could move through it however he pleased. Huh, it’s starting to feel more like he’s just talking to a person than NASA which is making this freak his shit out a little less.

Bowman nods more to himself, “and if you can leave the Milky Way and return in an infinitely small amount of time then you could certainly do the same within its system”, lifting his hands up and resting his chin on them, “well my mind’s certain made up, consider yourself hired. If I may, how do you move though space and time so fast? Are there improvements we could make to our suits or crafts, you think?”.

Danny’s pretty sure his smile breaks his face a little and there’s stars in his teeth, a nebula in his mouth when he speaks, “a̷w̷e̸s̵o̵m̸e̵!”, clearing his throat and ignoring Bowman’s wince, “o̶h̸ t̶h̵i̶s̵ ̵i̶s̵ ̵s̴o̴ ̷a̴m̶a̵z̶i̷n̴g̸!”, there’s a little pop and crackle, a high pitched whine sizzle; oh shit he might have broken a minor galaxy, whoops. Being a young god was a such a pain. He swats at some of the stars that had cropped up around his head and through his hair, “heh. Got a little excited there”.

“I’m pretty sure you just created tiny stars”, Bowman looks stuck between awe and bafflement, “the sheer amount of research that would be available with stars so small. How?”.

“Uh”. Well shit, there goes the ‘be normal Danny’ crap. But! But but but but but! NASA WANTS HIM! Like ACTUALLY wants HIM! HIM! Sure he’s going to get asked so many questions about him and how he is what he is but it’ll be by astronomists! And astrochemists! And astrophysicists! And just general stargazers! He wants to scream but if he does that he’s going to terrify this guy! Ugh! Shaking his head out and possibly sending away eyes that shouldn’t be there, tail squeezing around his ankle a little, “okay so it might not be super public right now but I have space-related powers? Space is my thing as a ghost”.

Bowman makes a couple of faces, “do these powers often act up when you’re excited? Are any coworkers going to need to be briefed on you?”, eyeing the tablet, “so it’s similar to the… Box Ghosts interest in boxes?”.

Should… should Danny just say fuck it and tell this man that he’s not simply space related but the literal personification of space??? It would probably explain some stuff and holy shit no way could Danny actually really keep himself all contained if he gets to GO TO SPACE WITH NASA! Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh. His stupid horns are gonna pop out at this point, ugh. “Probably a good idea, heh. I’m young so I guess, you could say, I don’t keep the best lid on myself. I totally definitely want to see and get involved in everything immediately but if I do that I will definitely terrify you guys and possibly destroy something even if I will definitely be able to fix it too”, oh he’s vibrating now, great, “I can definitely be a lot in a lot of categories but you can’t really use me or mine for research, or well none of mine that’s actually like directly connected to me since studying all of mine is kinda what y’all do but the more direct me me is very ghostly and made of ecto and totally useless for human based research”. Danny manages to make himself shut up, it’s a feat really, his horns are absolutely poking out his hair a little.

A shooting stars goes across his chest and Bowman absolutely stares at it. The man eyeing Danny’s hair/horns and his face, while Danny’s trying to keep his grin from doing that damn spiral galaxy thing at the edges. “It… sounds like you view space as being yours and… your appearance can clearly change to something less human-looking”.

Oh no Danny’s made this awkward. He can’t rescind the job right? Right! “Lots of ghosts can be on the incomprehensible side, I’m generally good at not pulling that out on people. And um, it kinda is? I’m not exactly a normal ghost, more of a person who ascended into becoming a personification?”, gesturing wth a hand that’s fingers are a little too long and sharp and have a few too many joints, “I’m not gonna like spoil things or steal people’s glory or anything though I’m pretty good at making sure I don’t spill the beans on something I know NASA’s researching even if there’s nothing to be found that I don’t know but people researching and finding out and being baffled and loving space is my jam and I love it very much and would very much like to be along for the ride and aid?”.

Bowman squints at Danny, making him squeak a sound similar to Benstoma’s fire rain. Please let him still get hired. Please let him still get hired. Please let him still get hired. Please let him still get hired. PLEASE! “Are you claiming you’re a… personification of part or all of space? And that’s why you know things we could never hope to know and why you spent hours talking about such things online?”.

“Yes? Am I still hired?”.

… “Can you refrain from creating stars and what sounded like what we’ve hypothesised a minor cool dwarf star exploding would sound like?”.

“I won’t do it on the ship? Or near research stuff? Or I’ll keep it contained inside myself very solidly?”.

Bowman actually sighs tiredly at him, oh no now Danny’s getting the reaction he always did from people who had put up with his bullshit for a little too long. Shit. Blurting out, “I’m also the person who rescued Oppy?”; yanking out his phone and showing the selfie he took with the little rover, giving a very awkward smile. Oh the Observants were gonna be pissed about this entire conversation holy shit.

Bowman stares at him, almost looking like he’s tearing up a little, before shaking his head, “oh what the hell, who am I to tell literal space itself ‘no’”, and stands up to shake Danny’s hand again.

Danny absolutely wants to unfurl and maybe if Jazz and Tuck and Sam hadn’t been very aggressive about pointing how bad of an idea that would be then he would have. As it is he just vibrates, tail unwinding and swishing around, “y̸o̵u̸ ̸a̵r̸e̸ ̴t̸h̴e̴ ̶b̶e̸s̴t̶!”, standing up and giving the man his hand shake, quickly realising he’s at least a foot taller that he should be; crap his legs got all long and weirdly animisticly jointed.

Bowman’s blinking down at the tail, “is that made out of IDP’s and micro-meteors?”; meanwhile Danny’s shaking out his legs to get them back to a more human length.

Danny blinking, oops. Moving the tail end fluff up into his own hands and cupping it, still having to lean down a little, “yup! Most of my, uh, I guess ‘fur’? is cosmic dust. Wanna touch it? It won’t hurt you”, shrugging, “my stars do burn though so don’t touch those”.

Bowman looks absolutely fascinated and Danny is absolutely living for it! He’s vibrating again and just seeing the man poking it and thinking a mile a minute is making Danny oh so giddy. Some parts of him are absolutely getting all goopy constellations but it’s not too extreme… yet. Is this why ClockWork never really put up much of a fight when Danny wanted to do dumb shit with the time stream? Because it was just so great and satisfying to watch someone be focused in on your thing as an Ancient? And he thought talking to people in the comments section about everything space was a rush, this was so much better! He’s gonna have to make sure he doesn’t aggressively over indulge.

Bowman hums, “actually seeing cosmic dust moving as it does this close is certainly interesting”, looking at Danny’s face, “you won’t contaminate our samples though”.

“Oh absolutely not! Messing up space research would go against my nature so that’s not gonna happen”. Danny would never! Plus if he even could he would have already considering he’s already been inside basically every NASA building by now; including some that don’t exist anymore or never did and never will.

Bowman grinning, “good. Even if you can’t also be an impromptu sample source”.

Danny holding up a finger, “I also can’t or shouldn’t really, answer your questions for you. What’s on my channel isn’t stuff humans would have ever figured out so I decided it was no harm”, muttering to himself, tail flicking near the ground, “the universe overseers still weren’t happy but I hate them so whatever”.

Bowman shakes his head and walks to the door, “come along, I’ll show you around, try to contain all your space self please?”.

“If I hadn’t already been inside this building multiple times that would be impossible for me”.

“You broke in? Repeatedly?”.

“I can be invisible and intangible. And space is technically everywhere all the time. But actually getting shown around is, a-mazing. Tell me everything”.

Bowman smiles at him like he’s an excitable child and actually indulges Danny, explaining even the really simply tiny things and Danny is absolutely adoring and absorbing every second of it; he’s vibrating and stars dance across his skin, sometimes he has to smack bits of stars or galaxy back into himself but he mostly manages.

…

He also has to throw out the lunch Jazz packed him -having rightfully assumed that he absolutely would not be back home in time for said lunch- as it had growled at him and Danny refused to eat anything that could make sounds. Bowman eyeing the bag Danny crushed closed hastily, “you eat? And your food shrieks?”.

Danny sighing, damn it Jazz, “a certain someone keeps trying to get me to eat ectoplasm since I technically spend too much time in the living realm to get enough from the environment here, unfortunately she is not a good cook and I think eating ectoplasm is extremely disgusting and morally questionable”.

“That does sound unfortunately close to cannibalism, but I’m sure we could work something out with this caretaker of yours to get you approved for special lunches”.

Danny groans exaggeratedly at the man, who smirks a little at him.

And Bowman absolutely did get in touch with one Jasmine Fenton who was all too eager to try and set up program approved experimental ectoplasm space rations for NASA’s newest and strangest member. NASA’s scientists were dramatically better at figuring out how to get ectoplasm to work in physical food, so she was very happy.

When Danny got home the very first thing he did was call Tuck with, “so you know that whole don’t tell them you’re a space eldritch god? Yeah I fucked that up”.

“Ha! I’m almost impressed! And they still hired you?”.

“Yup! I might have appealed to his love for space with my stupid space dust tail, and I mentioned saving Oppy”.

“Oh how manipulative”.

“Oh shut up! Anyway he showed me around-”, Danny spends over an hour just gushing about everything Bowman had showed off to him, Tuck humours him but clearly isn’t really following the conversation. Man it was going to be awesome to talk space with people who could and would!

End.

Prompts: "Shouldn't being the town hero since my freshman year of high school count as previous working experience?" "What did you want to be, when you grew up?" Every strange thing Danny has ever done, accidentally or not, comes back not to haunt him, but to help him. Danny starts a vlog to talk about space, but as the Ancient of Space he knows more about it than all top scientists together. NASA discovers his vlog. Danny accidentally shows up to a NASA job interview as Phantom. He’s hired on the spot. Ghosts need ectoplasm to stay healthy and by golly is Jazz going to figure out a way to introduce it to Danny's diet. Sometimes you just gotta be an eldritch horror.

[nientedal]

Is it worth watching Megamind rules? I know I’m not the target, but I’m curious yet also really really nervous. I know it’s for a younger audience but I’m still very on the fence and nervous. Also, love your writing

Omg, thank you, and thank you also for asking and yes yes yes 100% it's worth watching! It got crapped on by a bunch of people who decided based on the trailer alone that it was going to suck (how fun, a movie about a guy who everyone decided would be bad despite not knowing him got a spinoff show that...everyone decided would be bad despite not watching it, lol), so there's a lot of hate out there for it. I'm assuming you've caught wind of some of that, and that's why you're nervous? But for what it's worth, I was staring at the screen like :D basically the whole time.

Some more specific notes below the cut, but the tl;dr is please do give it a chance, if you can find the time. A G-rated direct-to-stream spinoff show wasn't what a lot of people were hoping for, and there were some folks who watched it and didn't care for it. But from a writing and storytelling standpoint, I think it is genuinely good! If you go in expecting a cute kids' show with some silly jokes and social misfits finding their way forward together, and keep an open mind, I don't think you'll be disappointed-- in fact I think you may be pleasantly surprised.

Just a gentle heads-up on some stuff because I'm not sure what you've heard about the show yet, and I'm also not sure what your existing expectations are!

The show was given a shoestring budget and not a lot of time to go from writers' room to final product, and yes, there are places where you can tell. But that was always going to be the case-- Dreamworks was absolutely not going to be spending big bucks on a franchise they've barely even acknowledged in more than a decade-- and it wasn't the fault of the people making the show. And even with the low budget, I think the animation is still genuinely solid, especially in later episodes! The people who worked on it really did a great job with what they were given.

And the writing!!! Holy shit!!! My skin is clear my crops are watered etc. The original writers handled this project and they absolutely delivered. Megamind & Roxanne's whole Thing progresses and grows and blooms in a really sweet and realistic way. Roxanne & Chum have a great dynamic. (Minion's name needed to be changed for legal reasons, but the writers worked that into the show and I gotta say, as a trans person, it was really lovely to see everyone else respond to "actually, because of [spoiler], my name is Chum now" with "oh! cool okay" and just keep rolling. I love that that was modeled for kids.) The character development is tangible; we get to watch Megamind really grow as a person and come into his own over the course of the series. And the new characters are really fun-- I genuinely enjoyed Keiko and everyone else.

Even if you never watch it (it's OK if you don't!) please just know: this was not a cash grab; Megamind Rules was made by people who truly cared about this world and these characters.

It's also worth noting that Megamind Versus the Doom Syndicate (the extended pilot) recaps a bunch of the same lessons as the original movie, so it can feel a little bit "...didn't we JUST do this??" but I'm pretty sure that was because Dreamworks didn't want to rely on kids to watch a 13 year old movie rated PG instead of G in order to get context. So like, I get it. And it's still cute! But it did mean I was nervous about what the rest of the series would be like until I was laughing my ass off halfway through Episode 2. If you're nervous, you can probably skip MMVtDS.

But yeah. I truly do think Megamind Rules is worth watching, and I've been so sad about the reception it received. Thank you so much for asking about it, and not just deciding it sucks and moving on. I appreciate you.

[otakusheep15]

Barbenheimer: Twisted Wonderland

Did they see Barbie or Oppenheimer?

Riddle saw neither just because he's not a fan of movies. However, Cater convinced him to see Barbie and he actually enjoyed it a lot.

Trey saw Barbie because both of his siblings wanted to go. He also went to Oppenheimer by himself because it looked somewhat interesting, but he liked Barbie more.

Cater saw Barbie because she's a girls girl of course. He originally just wanted to see it because he thought it would be cute, but he had an absolute breakdown over the ending.

Ace saw Oppenheimer because that's the more "manly" one, but he lowkey understood none of it. He only went to Barbie because some friends (*cough* Yuu *cough*) dragged him along. He'll never admit that he liked it.

Deuce saw Oppenheimer because he was interested in the more technological aspects like the bomb mechanics, but it wasn't his thing. He doesn't go see Barbie just because it's not his prefered genre, but he still respects it for what it is.

Leona sees Barbie because he's chill like that, plus Cheka wanted to go with him. He purposely avoids Oppenheimer because it sounded boring to him and he's not gonna pay for a nap when he can sleep at home.

Ruggie saw both. He was Oppenheimer first with the intent of watching Barbie after as a way to cheer himself up, but he cried more for Barbie and regretted not watching it first instead.

Jack saw neither because he's not the type to watch movies at a theater, but he does plan on watching Barbie with his sister once it comes out on DVD or a streaming service.

Azul claims he watched Oppenheimer to look cool, but he lowkey went and saw Barbie. He cried the most out of anyone and refuses to admit it.

Jade saw both. He admits to liking Oppenheimer more, but he appreciates the message and story of Barbie, and the vibes were much better in his opinion.

Floyd saw Barbie. Jade tried to convince him to watch Oppenheimer as well, but Barbie was more fun than a movie about "some dumb bomb" according to Floyd.

Kalim saw Barbie and started sobbing the moment it got even a little sad. Also, Allen was his favorite character and he refuses to elaborate when asked.

Jamil saw Oppenheimer by himself and Barbie with Kalim. He enjoyed Oppenheimer more, but that might also be because Kalim wasn't there to talk throughout the entire movie.

Vil saw Barbie because of course he did. He was probably attended the premier and had a great time watching. He did contemplate watching Oppenheimer, but decided against it upon hearing reviews.

Rook saw both. He enjoyed the story of Oppenheimer more, but he did like the vibes and messaging from Barbie. He probably liked Ken a little too much and Vil probably needs to stage an intervention of some kind.

Epel saw Oppenheimer for the same reason as Ace. However, Vil forced him to watch Barbie as well, and he did end up liking it more than he thought he would. Unlike Ace, he has no problem admitting this.

Idia saw Oppenheimer for the fun techie stuff like Deuce, and saw Barbie for the fun girlypop vibes like Cater. By saw, I, of course mean he made Ortho bring his tablet to both so that he didn't have to leave his room.

Ortho saw both because of the reasons above. He enjoyed Barbie more, but he thought both were really good and did a great job of achieving what they set out to do.

Malleus saw Barbie because Lilia dragged him along. It wasn't his favorite movie ever, but he appreciate it and learned a lot about human culture because of it.

Lilia saw Barbie because Cater and Kalim told him all about it and he had to see it for himself. Naturally, he drags Malleus, Silver, and Sebek along.

Silver saw both but fell asleep halfway through Oppenheimer because it started getting boring. He almost fell asleep during Barbie, but Lillia kept him awake.

Sebek saw both. Lilia dragged him along to see Barbie, which he liked fine, and he saw Oppenheimer with Silver, which he liked more.

[realisticfanfictions]

𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥𝕤 𝕒𝕤 𝕐𝕠𝕦𝕥𝕦𝕓𝕖𝕣𝕤/𝕀𝕟𝕗𝕝𝕦𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖𝕣𝕤

There's not a lot of strawhats-in-the-real-world AUs, so I'm here to fill that void! This has been on my mind for a hot minute now, so let's talk about the characters in One Piece if they were youtubers!

Click to reveal!

Luffy - Travel Vlogger

Channel: IAMLUFFY

Subscriber Count: 7 Million.

Luffy would 100% be the unintentionally annoying vlogger who just streams and records everything. He's more likely to shove a camera in your face by accident, but he's also the guy who makes really engaging content and does more unique things than your average vlogger. He'd actually be a pretty big name in the vlogging sphere I'd imagine, and while vlogging channels tend to have lower subcounts, I think that 7m would be a good number for him to have. Luffy would also be down to record with other people (regardless of their sub count), and wouldn't mind traveling halfway across the world to do a one-off collab (especially if you agree to feed him).

His content: His content would revolve around travel, food, everyday living, and funny anecdotes. The editing would be very fast-paced with lots of graphics, and sound effects. He'd need to have an editor, and that poor editor would just be swamped with hours upon hours of random footage of him eating, or picking his nose. Lots of B-roll potential!

Videos:

BIGGEST SLIDE in the WORLD! | Brazil Adventures!

Monkeys STOLE my $2000 CAMERA! (ft. Nami) | Bali Adventures!

I almost DIED!! | Climbing Mount Everest Day #3!

Zoro - Fitness Guru/Vlogger.

Channel: Roronoa Zoro

Subscriber Count: 3 Million.

It's a no-brainer that Zoro would be a fitness influencer. He would never have thought of becoming an influencer, but Luffy probably recorded him working out in some of his early vlogs, and convinced him to start his own channel. He wouldn't be as into vlogging as Luffy, and definitely wouldn't put much of his personal life out there, but he'd still show what he did and make it somewhat entertaining. Zoro would have fangirls up the wazoo! Especially since he trains without his shirt on, and always shows himself working out. I don't think he'd do collabs on his channel, but he'd always accept being in one of Luffy's vlogs, or even guest starring on Sanji's show (more on that later--).

Content: I think his content would be focused on posting his daily schedule, what he ate, how he worked out, etc. as well as a weekly weigh-in. He'd occasionally post his kendo tournaments and would encourage people to try it out, and make tutorials on all things kendo. I have a feeling he'd probably have the most sponsorship offers, but he'd turn down the vast majority of them (since a lot of them are scams). I don't think he'd have an editor since he seems like the kind of guy to just slap it together with some music behind it and post it to YT or Insta. I can even imagine him getting quite decent at editing and filming, and using Brook's music (with permission ofc). I think he'd also talk about stuff about the gym, what he likes vs. doesn't like, and sometimes talk while he works out.

Videos:

Don't do this at the gym.

I hate gym memberships.

Kendo Tournament 2023.

Sanji - Cooking Show

Channel: Devil's Kitchen with Sanji

Subscriber Count: 3 Million.

I don't think I need to explain why Sanji would have a cooking show, but I imagine it more like Binging with Babish with fun challenges, instead of straight up Kitchen Nightmares/reality TV. He'd have the highest production value out of the strawhats with a cameraman and 2-3 editors, and he'd probably be the only one to actually get a show on cable (separate from his YT). Sanji would be more likely to bring guests onto his show, and I can see Zoro being a frequent guest. Would not be surprised if they start a podcast tbh. Wouldn't be surprised if they also lived together

Content:

His content would be a lot less 'indie' feeling and more high quality. Lots of cool camera angles and editing. His stuff would end up on Food P*rn I'd imagine. Like, all the time. Sanji would probably be asked to collab with other people, and he'd take a lot more sponsorships too. Soy Sauce wants to sponsor him? Hell yeah, he'd do it! Bang Energy Drink? Well, no. He still has standards. I can imagine him doing a lot of 'How-to' videos and diet-focused videos, like "How to Cook for Vegans", or "Best Gluten-Free Recipes". He'd probably be in and out of relationships quite a lot too, maybe some controversies? (Lemme know if ya'll want some headcannons for that.)

Videos:

Chocolate Kisses for Valentine | Cooking with Sanji.

Professional Chef vs Home Cook (ft. My Dumb Roommate.)

Tricking Meat-Eaters with Vegan Alternatives (Beyond Meat.)

^^ That one is 100% sponsored btw.

And that's the end of that! Lemme know if you guys want to see more, or have any suggestions!

[atthebell]

do you have any favorite days on the qsmp? if yes which ones?

SO MANY these are not in order they're just whatever i could think of. also idk if you mean like vod recs or just like fave days either way i'm gonna list them somewhat like recs

the french speakers' arrival is a wonderful day from several povs (bagheras, cellbits, quackity's, although his is fairly short as always)

similarly, brazilians arriving is also great! watch any of the brazilians or q or roier or even phil who was losing his mind waiting for them to give the eggs back

WATCH A DAY 1 VOD!!!! if you already have watched one pov, watch another from someone else! day 1 vods are so funny and deranged and really set the initial tone that really was the server's vibes basically up until the brazilians arrived

the egg event day! tbh watch any pov but roier's and jaiden's are really really good

the conclusion of the happy pills arc was an incredible day; i know it's probably soured for a lot of folks, and that's understandable, but if you never watched it and feel up for it, check out pac's and cellbit's pov of it because it's wonderful (pac didn't stream the actual conclusion himself, so you'll have to watch cellbit's to see the full conclusion of pac and forever getting the risus antidote)

idr what day it was exactly but the day bobby was killed by the code and lost his first life is a super interesting vod from several povs-- namely roier's, cellbit's, phil's, bad's, and probably some other folks? a LOT of lore stuff happened that day that was super interesting

cellbit's may 7 vod (featuring the cucurucho chainsaw hallway) + his may 10 vod (featuring him screaming and revving a chainsaw at the sight of cucurucho); tbh, if you're into qcellbit, watch his first week vods if you haven't because they're IMPECCABLE they decided to immediately torture him and also gave him so many puzzles it was great. this whole era of theory bros/ordo theoritas was incredible generally too so max's and bad's vods are also very very fun watches and they didn't spend a million hours deciphering an ARG so their vods are easier to get through

the day wilbur found tallulah is so fucking funny we were all losing our shit over the admins making an egg literally just for wilbur and to his credit wilbur did actually log on a ton those two weeks

bagi's arrival IMPECCABLE tbh watching anyone's day 1/arrival vod is a good idea they're usually pretty enlightening & fun; watch her pov as well as anyone else's because from what i remember they had to do a bunch of weird puzzles to get to her

similarly, carre's first day is very funny and chill vibes very enjoyable

gemeos do misterio reveal need i say more

the time roier and vegetta got quackity drunk at casualonas and got him to reveal his plans to kill the eggs on tape

literally any roier vod frankly roier is just so entertaining i could watch him wash dishes and have a good time

jaiden's birthday party vod

jaiden's vod where she was going on a break (i think when she'd been to japan?) and we got the reveal that she'd worked with the feds in the past

whatever day it was where they went and found kameto again in some federation hq

the juanaflippa life trial was deranged i didn't watch it myself (i think i was at my nephew's birthday party or something tbh) but every part of it sounded WILD

related, the funeral streams from any of the parents whose kids died are pretty interesting

the day quackity found out tilin died is BRUTAL but a great watch-- q is, of course, a brilliant rper and what he did with tilin's death was masterful and really heartbreaking. i think it was the day after tilin died? something like that

bobby dungeon. obviously. that was crazy and it set so much up for jaiden and roier's chararacters gahhhhh

the event with the new members' arrival (like tina and everyone else in that whole big crew)

any romero richas moments i cannot think of dates or anything off the top of my head but montelyson lore is so cool and genuinely creepy i miss it so much

the furniture prank came at such a wrong time but it was genuinely so fun along with the deranged waystone prank i lowkey wish they'd happened like. three days before or something bc they would've been really really funny

hide and seek!!!! again idr the day but when they finally got to do that event it was so cool

festa junina!!!!!! so many shenanigans and fun times

dia de los muertos EVERYTHING TO ME!!!!! seeing bobby again ough and all the newer members getting to meet the old dead eggs.... gahh

spiderbit wedding i am unbiased. nodders.

the day where baghs and cellbit did the first day train station puzzle was so good i NEED them solving shit together again sigh

BLUE BIRD MISSION + TIMER DUNGEON!!!!! event(s) of all time fr i loved that shit.

that time elq kidnapped dapper was kinda lame in that it didn't actually make sense BUT baghera went IN on that man and the whole thing of them following him was very cool

max and bad assassinating elq KING SHIT

wilbur party explosion need i say more that shit ruled fit's pov is great for that particular bit of the night bc you get to see ramon figuring it all out

the day they did a server reset so they let roier and bobby and tilin (i think it was them three? its been ages) blow a bunch of shit up that ruled

spiderbit ocean temple hangout very very good day

tazercraft prison break (the one where they escaped with walter bob but then he got taken away at the barbie house)

tiny mike day idr what was going on that day i jsut will never recover from tiny mike. miquinho. smaller than richas even so itty

[littleseasalt]

ok, i worked out fueled by grief over qforever, had breakfast and took a shower so now im more recomposed to be sappy about forever like kia did on her profile despite the fact that i did not sleep at all this night. full text under the cut to not clog the tag and YES I AM GONNA TAG THIS TEXT BECAUSE WE DROVE THE FOREVER BUS I FEEL LIKE WE'RE ALLOWED TO DO THIS IF WE WANT TO 🗣️🗣️

The qsmp is my first direct experience with mcrp and this kind of smp. Previously, my only contact with stuff like this had been dealing with Dream stans on twitter so uh. Not a good light. Before the qsmp i really had a negative view on mcyt and its fans in general (specially when it comes to shipping because i didnt really understood at the time). Then, suddenly on my twitter I saw a commotion about brazilians joining a gringo minecraft series, and that kinda make me go "? interesting", but I didn't really thought much. Then, my uruguayan friend send me the brazilians announcement when it happened, asking me if I knew those streamers.

Now! Fun fact! Unlike 95% of the brazilians in this fandom, these people were, in fact, not my childhood. I knew who Cellbit, Felps and Tazercraft were, of course, they were/are famous as hell. But, at the time they were at the peak of brazilian mcyt, my side of mcyt was the opposite of theirs (I was a rezendeevil fan. long story one day we need to put all the gringos up to brazilian mcyt lore), and previously I had only watched the old guard of brazilian mcyt (venom extreme kind of stuff). FUN FACT! I HAD NO FUCKING IDEA WHO FOREVER WAS! I had literally never heard of that man before and it just seemed so random to me, a random ass guy put along Cellbit, Felps and Tazercraft FEKWGFOIKWRRE

Now, due to them not being my childhood, I didn't really care about the qsmp. Like, oh, cool, brazilians are joining. But that was it to me, I had no interest in watching it at all. Then, the brazilians first day happened while I was sleeping, and my tl was FLOODING with videos about it. I saw fun clips of Cellbit, Felps and Tazercraft and found them funny, but that was it. After that I was just gonna ignore whenever it showed up on my timeline, block tags if necessary.

...And then I started seeing clips of Forever and Philza. And it was the most HILARIOUS stuff I had seen through the week. It was their interactions that made me be ok with the qsmp constantly showing up on my timeline, and it was their interactions that made me be somewhat more okay with mcrp.

So, fast foward a month. By then, I was used to qsmp clips showing up to me and some tweets about it, and then regret arc and guapoduo happened. This made me actually get interested in actively keeping up with the qsmp instead of just waiting for stuff to show up at my timeline. After a few days, I decided I'd hope on a qsmp stream just to see how things are.

This is the fun part: I was meant to be a Cellbit main, considering how it was regret and guapoduo what motivated me to watch a qsmp stream. But when I decided to hop on, Cellbit wasn't streaming but Forever was, and I was like "oh its the philza guy right? yeah im okay watching him" and decided to hop on. I think the first stream of his I watched was the one where he set up the Jaiden stasis chamber at the ordo.

And honestly, at first I tried really hard to keep up with Cellbits pov whenever Cellbit was streaming at the same time as Forever, but it just got harder. I don't know exactly what called me into Forever's pov at the time- maybe it was his relationship with Richas, maybe it was the way Forever was handling rp at the time, which had (and when he's not 100% loreing, still has) a thin layer of meta that just aligned with my current views on mcrp at the time. But Forever ended up being the pov I grew most attached and used to. I'd watch tazercraft during afternoons, sure, and I love them! But the moment Forever would open stream I'd come over running to him. I'd watch Cellbit when Forever wasn't on, but between the two, I'd always pick Forever.

And honestly, as a main Forever pov with a private twitter account and a tumblr lurker at the time BOY it was hard. my man was getting hate for some stupid shit and elections arc is a whole can of worms im not gonna open right now. But I'd never expected to grew so attached to a minecraft pov and to actually keep up with a streamer before- after 2016 I kinda just fell out of keeping up with youtubers/streamers.

And then we have the happy pills arc. This arc CHANGED my brain chemistry. But the pre happy pills arc stream, the one with the clock, I think that's the marking point for me. Because I cried when he wrote the letter to Richas, and let me tell you something, I don't cry easily watching media. The only times I had previously cried were:

Opening up KH3 and hearing dearly beloved for the first time (I had spent MY WHOLE LIFE SINCE 2013 waiting for KH3)

"Unsaid Emily" from Julie and the Phantoms (I have issues with my mom.)

Super Sonic in Sonic 2 movie ( Im a big sonic fan lmao)

So the fact that I cried with that letter SHOCKED ME. Never in a million years I'd have thought I would be crying over minecraft rp. And then in the next day he pulls the rug from underneath out of his viewers feets with the happy pills arc, surprising EVERYONE. The happy pills arc is still my favorite qsmp arc of them all and I hold it very close to my heart.

I think it's kinda funny that I kinda had the same evolution towards rp as Forever did- at the beginning the thought rp was cringe and said he'd only play normal minecraft in the qsmp, and now he delivered us two AMAZING arcs full of rp (I'm never getting over him smiling and crying to richarlystone and the black make up with the bleached hair, what the fuck)

I think I just fried my no sleep brain after writing all this cause Idk what else to write LOL. I appreciate cc!forever a lot for all he has brought to the table in the qsmp, for how he started as "haha funny brazilian man with his antics screaming and being funny obsessed over philza" and ended with one of the most tragic qsmp characters ever. I appreciate cc!forever for changing my view towards mcrp.

And also thank quackity for inviting forever to the qsmp and thank philza for having a urahara skin LMAO things would have gone very different for me if it wasnt for them.

I'll be keeping up with stonkscraft 3, but whenever forever comes back to the qsmp I'll be ready with my arms open to embrace what this man brings to the qsmp <3

also I WAS NOT KIDDING WHEN I SAID MY GRIEF OVER QFOREVER SERVED AS A FUEL FOR MY WORK OUT. i never progressed so much weight before (my leg press is insane wtf) and never did such a well done cardio on a >leg day< before what the actual shit

[vex91]

celebrating Halloween with pyramid game characters😈(things like dressing up or getting matching costumes but more specifically what would they dress up as or what matching costumes would they want)

OMG AND ALSO WHERE THEY WOULD LIKE TO GO AND STUFF like would they want to go trick or treating or to a haunted house

-🎀

Omg darling-

I'm so sorry, it took me so long to write it that Halloween actually came-

Okay so as for Suji I think she wouldn't really care about Halloween at all at first until she sees you getting actually excited about it. Then she will start putting thought into it. I see her as totally gave in to whatever you want to do, she just doesn't care what she wants and just goes where you want to and dresses up as you want her to (Be it her own costume or matching with yours but she would love matching costumes, she just wouldn't show it much). A lot of you may not agree with me but Suji as Aladdin and you as Jasmine (The thought appeared in my dream 3 days ago and stayed locked in)

I can also see Harin as not being bothered by Halloween type because girlie has other things to worry about, you know like completely terrorizing the whole class just to get revenge on one girl because of a grudge since they were children (While being hot doing that) so just like Suji, she will only care about it when she notices you being excited for it. She will still not care though, will only participate to make you happy. I can't see her wearing couple outfits with you like I'm sorry, she will even protest in wearing a costume at all. Will be very keen on making you dress up for her though, only for her eyes too since she will want to spend it alone with you in her room watching movies.

Jaeun is a little pookie so of course she wants to spend it with you. It would take her time to ask if you're interested though since she's normally not that sociable and even talking with her girlfriend freaks her out because she thinks you're so beautiful and great and incredible and god girlie is in DEEP. Probably won't do matching costumes or costumes at all because she will feel embarrassed, she may do it if you ask her enough. Probably just wants to do what you want instead of giving ideas. Just a puppy following what you want.

Yerim immediately has an idea that you two ARE doing Halloween matching costumes with her and spend your time with her then so you actually have no say in it because when she wants to spend time with you, she WILL make it happen. Imagine her wearing Little Red Riding Hood costume and making you a Big Bad Wolf just to make fun of you for being a wolf. Of course her making fun of you is full of love. But really guys, her as a Red Riding Hood-

Jaehyung will automatically choose you a costume and everything for Halloween because you are going with her. She needs to show off her girlfriend after all. Listen because I have a vision, Jaehyung as a Vampire. For some reason the image is big in my head like her teeth and blood streaming down her face as she looks for her victims. Automatically that makes you as a Vampire Hunter because in her words "She wants to see you to try and get her". Absolutely terrifying force to be with during holidays like that but she makes up for that with her enthusiasm and love I guess 😅

Eunjung will probably act all cool and nonchalant but will want to spend Halloween with you deep inside her heart. So when you propose the idea she accepts immediately. She left you in charge of the costumes and that's how the two of you became Lifeguard and surfer. Honestly took you a while to convince her that you didn't make her a lifeguard because you find the idea attractive... maybe a little but shush. To be fair it will end with you spending the time indoors because she didn't want anyone to see you looking so good in your costume.

There's only one right answer for costumes for you and Doah. Sherlock Holmes and Watson obviously. At first she would be against dressing up for the day, but you managed to convince her and she actually ends up having fun. You drag her to a party with friends and just help her forget about her responsibilities for one day so she actually can enjoy free time.

Someone once told me that Dayeon would fit Bonnie and Clyde costume concept and it was on my mind ever since. Dayeon would follow wherever you wanted to go and spend time doing something but would glare at anyone eyeing you up. Her arm would be wrapped around your shoulders at all times to make sure everyone gets the message. Honestly I feel like she wouldn't last long out partying with you before dragging you back to her house.

Wooyi was probably the most excited about Halloween because of an idea of matching costumes. She would have a lot of ideas but it would end up with a classic Devil and Angel with her wearing the Devil costume and you being an Angel. She only chose Devil because she thought she looked incredible in it which was true. Wooyi would probably drag you everywhere where people were partying and would spend time there until late night. Later would oh so not sneakily make you ask her to spend the night at your house.

[thecoolerliauditore]

Ngl, I hated pirates smp, it felt so rigid and boring, but even though im a bit wary, i m excited for rats 2. Rats 1 had this cozy and creative vibe, and such a fun setting, and i feel that type of smps is what pow is good at. We got so many fun moments, fun builds, and the lore was well used and while it was scripted, it was often carried by the players and didn´t feel as suffocating. The rats setting REALLY worked in its favour. Pirates on the other hand... Idk everything just felt so forced. There were some ccs that made it far better by focusing in interactions versus the plot (I remember Oli´s streams were a blast), or doing some very cool side projects (Martyn´s newspaper or Ros´ crazy castle for example. gosh i do hope Ros is in rats 2, she was the mvp of pirates), but the necessity for a story really pushed all of that stuff (the kind of stuff that made rats great) into the background, and I say that as someone who actually really likes lore, and doesn´t usually mind when it´s scripted. I also feel like dividing the players into factions really backfired, bc it killed the vibe of community rats had. The npcs were BORING. Finally, i m sorry, as a certified fan of stories featuring pirates, the set wasn´t being used correctly, there s so many cool ways of using that prompt and they just didn´t know how. Idk, I just hope rats 2 doesn´t follow that same pattern of thinking lore is everything that makes an smp good, when it´s only one of several (and not precisely the most important), and brings back the vibes. I am actually hopeful and excited, but we can only wait and see

At some point I need to join tumblr staff just to implement a feature where I can outsource asks to that megabuild guy specifically before I have to admit I actively dislike empires, rats and pirates. Good news about Ros though!

I think most ppl posting about rats 2 rn are in a similar boat in that they enjoyed rats 1 and feel uneasy about the second season cus of the nothingburger with a side of straight man represented as such that was pirates as well as POW being POW.

me being a hater (like. actually) below

I don't like posting about pirates because it breaks my blog rule for myself to not post about anything I full-on dislike and have no love for whatsoever but it really is kind of fascinating how they managed to mess up pretty much everything. the m in this smp stands for mid. You're so right about the pirates setting thing I could swear by like. the second day half the cast had completely forgotten they were supposed to be pirates (partially to blame I think is the fact that they really didn't have anything pirate-y to do).

Their conception of pirates seems to be more akin to a kids halloween costume than historical fantasy. I will always find it funny how scott once again sets up a character with very clear thematic relevance (classism and parental abuse, in this case) and didn't do anything with it and instead kept talking about his brother and expecting me to feel bad for him or whatever. I'm not surprised at all considering Scott has shown in the past he can't differentiate plot and themes it's just that a pirate story without the societal commentary or the moral greyness may as well be about any other group of motherfuckers on a boat. cruise ship smp. Fucking that squid was the most interesting thing Scott's character did and it wasn't even ""canon"".

I also watched a handful of Martyn's streams at the time and the newspaper thing was actually pretty cool but I also kinda?? felt bad for him?? He spends ages online talking to no one. There was this one stream where he spent the entire time doing parkour courses and trying to find where an npc disappeared to. I'm not saying that he was actively excluded or whatever it just felt really sad to watch him pretty much wander aimlessly for hours and discuss c!martyn headcanons with chat with no actual plot to go with those headcanons. I can't even say no one gaf about his oc cus people DID give a fuck about pirate martyn only for him to have nothing to do in the smp except be pansexual and lie. His vendetta against the urchin thing was funny but the start of it was during an event where there were way too many people in the same place all trying to make the loudest funniest quip and it felt like a mess to watch.

I think it's hilarious that scarian tops the ao3 tag for pirates considering grian isn't in it but also like. I kind of get it when Scar's character had the most sense of intrigue and actual pirate vibes to him (despite him only playing for like 2 streams LMAO). That plus the fact that the rest of the cast minus the two who were involved in horrors at the time had a fucking surburban hell homeowner association style list of lawn care expectations on what you could do with them in your fanart/fic like wtf else are people supposed to write about.

And that's not even getting into like. why this sucked in the first place i.e. like you mentioned the weird chatbot NPCs, the weird faction system that discouraged interaction, the "canon" and "non-canon" streams etc I don't really care about any of the other CCs involved if I'm totally honest (I don't count Cleo cus she didn't really. Do anything. May as well have not been on there) so I can't comment further but. yeah

Also this is very petty of me but the skins are sooooo ugly. Gone is the fun in each skin reflecting the players specific personality and taste aesthetics and all. Idk how they managed to make minecraft skins feel like they have same face syndrome but they did it. We're gonna take the thing that gives the players their own self-expression and usually makes your first impression of the character as the viewer and drench it all in sweet and sour sauce and an instagram filter until you can barely tell who's supposed to be who. At least they were smart enough to keep their hands off of Scar's smirk I would've rioted.

[mermaidchan05]

Vesuvia Weekly: Modern Date Nights

More bullet point headcanons! This time we get some date nights with my Apprentices and their love interests, modern-day style!

Nadia, Portia, and Chimalus: Movie Night

Or, more specifically, nostalgic movie night, as decided by Portia

Neither Nadia nor Chimalus exactly had ordinary childhoods. 

(Both for somewhat different reasons) 

They’re both aware of a lot of the movies that were popular when they grew up, and other “childhood” things, but they didn’t really get a chance to experience them. 

Portia, on the other hand, knows all the “kid’s stuff,” and unironically loves a lot of it. 

So she’s made it her mission to introduce her two loves to everything she can. 

It’s tough with Nadia’s very packed schedule, but Portia is an expert at finding time for important things. 

And as far as she’s concerned, this is of the utmost importance.

So the trio sets aside one weekend every month at lest to snuggle on the couch, make the coziest snack foods, and binge as many "children's movies" as they possibly can. 

Portia not only knows what all the best streaming platforms are, but also knows exactly how to get bargain-bin price DVDs and Blu Rays of the best movies. 

The trio has gone through almost the entire Disney catalog by now. And most of the Pixar movies. 

Portia, of course, has thrown in a few other classics.

Everyone was crying over The Last Unicorn. 

And heaven help them once they discover Bluey. 

Nadia sometimes isn’t the best person to watch movies with. Her analytical mind picks them apart and predicts twists.

But Portia’s seen everything she shows them, so she doesn’t really mind

And she giggles whenever Nadia gets something wrong... with extra giggles when Nadia actually predicts the story correctly. 

Also, Chimalus is able to mellow Nadia out a bit. Chimalus is an artist, so when they’re watching anything animated, they love pointing out all the little details that help make movies something you feel more than think about. 

Every single one of these date nights has ended in all three of them passed out on the couch in a snuggly tangle. 

(Side note: Nadia has an in-home movie theater and you cannot convince me otherwise. Yes, they could absolutely hold Nostalgic Movie Night there. No, they do not. They always opt for Portia’s Super Comfy Couch TM) 

Asra and Meleia: Convention Weekends

Two words: Couple cosplays. 

Asra is an artist. And they are an absolute aficionado of the most obscure games and movies and anime series you have ever heard of. 

Meleia loves sewing, and she’s a giant kid at heart. 

And since they both love collecting cute little trinkets, conventions are their jam. 

The two of them will absolutely spend way too much time planning out The Perfect Outfits. 

And yes, if it’s a longer convention, they will have a cosplay for every single day. 

Sometimes multiple per day. 

They're also both very good at taking care of each other.

Whenever Meleia has a more in-depth costume, like something with a ton of layers or a huge full skirt or a very intricate wig, Asra is the best hype person/cosplay care person. 

He’s got the full Mom Bag of anything that Meleia might need at any given moment, be it a little electric fan or a drink with all kinds of electrolytes or a makeup patch job or a wig brush or sewing supplies for an actual patch job. 

And Asra’s an expert at finding a cool and quiet spot to just sit back and recharge. 

The only two things Meleia really needs to be careful of when it comes to watching over Asra is making sure he doesn’t spend the entire shopping budget in one place, and that she doesn’t lose him when he finds a little corner to nap in. 

(Is Asra supposed to be napping in that corner? Up for debate) 

But in the end, the two of them have a wonderful time wandering around in their fun outfits and buying all the things and doing the silly arcade games that can only be found at conventions. 

They will pass out in the hotel afterwards. And Asra will sleep for almost a day straight once they get home. 

But it’s always worth it. 

Julian and Damian: Musical Magic

Julian and Damian have a lot of interests in common, but they truly bonded over their shared love of music. 

And we all know Julian adores drama. 

So a date night between Julian and Damian sometimes boils down to “which Broadway show can we get a ticket for this weekend?” 

The road trip to the theater is part of the date, too. 

These two can and will do an entire two-man production of Hadestown while en route to the theater and you cannot convince me otherwise. 

And when it isn’t Broadway Night, any kind of date is almost guaranteed to have some kind of music. 

A trip to their favorite coffee shop which showcases local bands, karaoke night (either at home or out at a specific spot, each with varying degrees of drinks), or, of course, the classic “going out dancing” 

Honestly, there’s just a lot of dancing involved, even if the two of them didn’t plan it. 

And when in doubt, nothing beats a gentle evening alone, where they make their own music. 

Damian takes out his guitar. Julian takes out his violin. 

And the two of them just let the music speak for them.