#Ip Man 5

[kungfuwushuworld]

Donnie Yen 甄子丹

#Donnie Yen #Ip Man #Ip Man 5 #wing chun #kung fu cinema #kung fu star #kung fu

[fuforthought]

Fresh out of Cannes, Donnie Yen has revealed he’s working on a fifth Ip Man film. Yes, even though Ip Man died in the fourth film.

#Ip Man #Ip Man 5 #Wing Chun #Donnie Yen #Kung fu #Kung fu cinema #Kung fu movies #Martial arts #Martial arts cinema #Martial arts movies

[fernsjjf]

Donnie Yen 3 Upcoming Movies

Misjudgement, Flash Point Resurgence, & Ip Man 5.

#Donnie Yen #Misjudgement #Flash Point Resurgence #Ip Man 5

[the-acid-pear]

Last night i was infodumping my bf on John Wick 4 and ngl i really don't realize how little people actually care about martial arts films as much as me and I'm not even a die hard I'm just so autistic about dilfs throwing hands

#luly talks #like i guess movies like ip man are known in between 40 smthn yo men but just as a passing name like oh yeah that movie of the chinese guy #while im sitting on my ass ripping off my hair over it or hell #EVEN OVER UNDISPUTED YALL SAW ME MAKE LIKE 3 POSTS IN A ROW SCREAMING AND THROWING UP AND SHITTING MYSELF OVER UNDISPUTED #but i fail to realize younger ppl just don't give a fuck about most these things #but idc go watch undisputed and go watch ip man and go watch uh #no don't watch mortal kombat 2021 just watch those two #ip man has like 5 movies and 2 spinoffs too 😭 #and God there's this ONE FUCKING GUY who i want to breed so bad #and he's the guy from Riki's story or whatever that one is called!! #he doesn't do much on ip man he's just there being funny and getting his ass kicked by our beloved #like im rambling i swear im so autistic about this topic please talk to me about this topic

[sungsuho]

my sleep schedule is so fucked

#i sleep in like 5 hour increments or something #went to bef last night at 5am woke up at 11. fell back asleep at like. 12? woke up at 3. fell back asleep at like 7:30/8 woke ip at 12. #passed oit at like 3am woke up at 5. ok man #i need to stop taking naps and also stop going to bed so late bc it makes me either wake up really early or wake ip really late

[girlbossblackbeard]

I think I'm actually going clinically insane over the reverse "you wear fine things well" scene because 1) if Ed looked at me Like That it would be game over I would literally do anything he asked me up to and including throwing myself overboard I literally do not know how Stede didn't legitimately spontaneously combust the second Ed turned those eyes on him 2) GNOSSIENNE NO.5 FINALLY BEING USED THIS SEASON AS A JOYOUS MARKER OF ED AND STEDE'S LOVE FOR EACH OTHER AS GOD INTENDED THIS IS NOT A DRILL HOLY SHIT 3) THEIR FUCKIN!!!!!!!! COY TEENAGER SHY LITTLE SHUFFLE TOWARDS EACH OTHER RIGHT BEFORE THEY KISS!!!!!! THE WAY STEDE EVEN LOOKS AWAY FOR A SECOND BEFORE LOOKING BACK AT ED AND ED'S TINIEST LITTLE SMIRK BEFORE THEY BOTH LEAN IN WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4) the way they grab each other's arm during the initial kiss I'm so sick to my stomach 5) THE MOON Y'ALL!!!!!!!!!!!! IT'S NORMAL!!!!!!!!!!! BECAUSE THIS ISN'T A MOONLIGHT FANTASY OR AN INFATUATION THAT FEELS LARGER THAN LIFE BUT BURNS OUT QUICKLY!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS REAL AND IT'S RAW AND IT'S VULNERABLE AND IT'S GONNA LAST BECAUSE THIS NEW CHAPTER OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS BEING FOUNDED ON DOING EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO NOT LET THIS PRECIOUS THING THEY'VE FOUND WITH EACH OTHER TURN INTO ANOTHER WHIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IM LITERALLY GOING TO START FEROCIOUSLY CLIMBING THE WALLS 6) hoooooooly fuck the way stede inhales and grasps Ed's neck like he's a man lost at sea dying of dehydration and Ed is the first sip of cool clean water he's had in months im ill im so so so so ill 7) ED'S LITTLE SHUFFLE AFTER ASKING STEDE TO TAKE IT SLOW SIR IM BEGGING YOU TO STOP BEING SO ADORABLE it's causing me to develop a heart condition 8) stede's quiet "huh, okay 😌" after Ed busts out his fish wanting to get caught metaphor he's literally so charmed by Ed it seeps into everything he does 9) WEHN THYE!!!!!!!! HOODL AHNDS!!!!!!!!!!! HAND TOCUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10) the way Ed is staring stede DIRECTLY in the eyes as he says "this? perfect" my vision is going black 11) SHUT IP SHUT UP SHUT UPPPPPPP THEIR SILLY LITTLE HAND HOLDING GAME AND STEDE WHUSPERING "you won 🥰" AND ED'S BLUSHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SMILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AS HE LOOKS AWAY AND PATS STEDE'S HANDS BEFORE TELLING HIM A COOL FACT HE LEARNED TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY! ARE! LITERALLY! TEENAGERS! FALLING! IN! LOVE! FOR! THE! FIRST! TIME! EVER! oh I am in desperate need of medical attention after this one fellas I can tell this is going to have extremely long lasting and far reaching effects on my already severely compromised psyche

#ofmd #our flag means death #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #ofmd s2 #edward teach #stede bonnet #ofmd s2 spoilers

[simp4konig]

Intimate König headcannons

Gender-neutral Reader

Word Count: 1246

*FLUFFFFFF!!!!! YES FINALLY WE (I) LOVE THAT ☁️☺️💫

MANY THANKS TO @puff0o0💫🩵🫂💙🩵✨⭐ FOR GIVING ME TJE IMMEDIATE INSPIRATION TO WRITE THIS 🥰🥰💖 LOVE U SM POOKS I AM SO THANKFUL TO HAVE SOMEONE LIKW YOU AS MY MUTIAL 🥹🥹🥹 YOU ARE SO SWEET AND DESERVE THE WORLD (and to be with your crush😤 fuckingGOD im in AGONT when the FUCK is the wedding gonna be 😭😭💔)

Was down in the dumps and feeling really guiltt for not delivering fanficgions on time but you really reassure me and make ot seem like its alright for me to take my time 😇 Honestly am forevr used to the stress of deadlines and alwahs achieving expectations always expected of me thay i always feel intense guilt whenever i delay 😿😿 Thank you so mucj for your love and support uour messages are whay have kept me going 🙏🙏💖🫂(and motivated me immediately to write this in <5 hours LOL🤭)

also pls do NOT track my ip address puff PLEASE this is some next-levdl fbi investigation type shit and im honestly SHOOK are u secretly an fbi agent ?????😰😰never poetinf screenshots ever AGAIN ❌🚫‼️

*Physical intimacy (not sex guys🗿) headcannons for before your relationship and during your relationship

Tag List ♡ @simpforkonig ♡ @abysslovesyou ♡ @puff0o0 ☆ @rustic-guitar-notes ☆ @happy-mushrooms ♡ @reyner-lee

...

König's crush on you was not subtle. At ALL.

My personal headcannon is that he has never had a girlfriend/boyfriend/lover before. :(

I mean, bullied at school, enlisting into the military aged 17, climbing up the ranks to become a Colonel... yeah, to me it doesn't sound like the man would ever have time to find a significant other.

Oh, don't get me wrong, he would devote so much time to a partner (if he had one), would coddle them and cuddle them more than humanly possible and spend every, making the most out of every moment together. Precious hours never taken for granted that he dreamed of while on deployment.

...Yet, having no experience with receiving affection and being affectionate since being a very young boy, when his mother was still around to take care of him before he attended secondary school, up to this point he had ZERO (0) experience.

Still, König ALWAYS had a hand over your body in some way, under the guise of protecting you and keeping you out of harm's way. It was endearing that he cared so much about your well-being. 🥹

Resting a large hand on the small of your back as he guided you down crowded rooms (though that was almost always a pretence, as there would actually be very few people around, and it was only his excuse for touching you).

Leading you out, his hand would be quickly replaced by his arm wrapping around your side and pulling you close, closer even than you had been moments prior.

Truth be told, the way he touched you was the way he longed, craved for someone else to touch him. To long for him and crave him as much as he craved you.

It wasn't like you were oblivious. In fact, you were hyper-aware of the skin-to-skin touch, of every instance his fingers grazed your knuckles when handing you something, of every "accidental" bump of your head into his chest in corridors, of each time he rested a hand on your shoulder. Or on your back for reassurance — though, whether it was for your reassurance or his own, you couldn't tell.

All his touches, his gazes at your from afar and up close, the way his pale blue eyes crinkled in happiness under that long hood of his: all of it; you noticed it all. Every single time.

Obviously, you didn't object. You relished in this attention, so touch-starved that each touch made you melt. Besides, how could you even? You became putty in his hands, and you revelled the feeling of being so loved.

...However, your own intrusive thoughts insisted that you wouldn't be good enough for König, did not deserve such a man like him.

As much as it pained you to do so, you shied away from his advances, always the first to pull away.

And, of course, König noticed it. Every single time.

His immediate thought was that you didn't feel the same way. That you felt disgusted, disgusted by him and his touch.

Did you not like the way he touched you? Did you not like him?

Therefore, for a while, he toned down the touching. A simple pat on the back or a tap on the shoulder would have to suffice, despite his desperate need to feel more of you, touch you more.

Judging your reactions, scrutinising your cues... you weren't disgusted. Not in the slightest, it appeared.

You just looked... flustered. Shy. A hand would go up to hide the blush on your cheeks — nothing discreet about that — stubbornly avoiding his gaze, yet a small smile was on your face, and it made him wonder: what if you really did like the way he touched you? Liked him?

His touches became more daring. Confident.

One day, all of his anxiety ceased to exist when you reciprocated his touch with some of your own.

The hand kept in place of your hip flinched slightly at yours timidly moving to touch the top of his, interlocking fingers over his palm. Momentarily causing König to short-circuit, he became stiff, audibly gulping.

Adam's apple swallowing the dryness of his throat, he looked at you, frantically attempting to read the expression on your face.

You said nothing, didn't look at him at all, yet through that gesture alone König understood it better than had you could have ever said it in words.

For a moment, you regretted it. Even made a move to sheepishly pull your hand away. König, finally pulled out of his daze, held your hand in place, squeezing it three times. You squeezed it three times, too.

Suddenly, it all made sense to him, and, somehow, made sense to you too. You two were meant to be together, regardless of your insecurities.

Now, your dynamics shifted slightly.

Hands held together as you two sat by each other in a room, neither acknowleding the situation in case the other pulled away in embarassment. Never parting ways without a good-bye hug from you, your arms lingering by his own for a moment longer than they should have.

When you two are finally in a relationship?

☠️ Say goodbye to privacy and personal space ig

König is unbelievably clingy, and literally clings on to whatever of you he can reach. He does not let you go. There can be no compromise, and he keeps you in place, despite your protests and squirming, face flushed as you tried to playfully push him off you, obviously to no avail.

At the same time, König's touch is so, so gentle.

Tentative touches on your skin as if your body was precious porcelain, a fragile fine china.

Callous hands that had killed so many in cold blood running across your back, your arms, your waist, your legs, anywhere that König could reach, with a mildness that could have made people question whether it was even the same man and if so, how he could ever be capable of being so soft.

It doesn't matter whether you go to the gym regularly and have put on muscle or whether you are someone on the more petite side, you're so delicate to König. Like you could be broken at any moment.

For that reason, he holds back. Or, at least, tries to, for the most part. Bless his soul, he tries his best, but it's impossible not to cradle your body in his arms. <3

Unable to restrain himself, his resolve breaks after five minutes of going without you under him or on top of him or beside him or entangled with him, and his hands go back to touching you all over again, caressing you with such care and love that tears often brim in your eyes.

No one has ever been so gentle, so attentive, so loving. No one has ever touched you like this before.

And, seeing how you allow yourself to be vulnerable with him, to see you so sensitive, he would wordlessly wipe the tears away with his thumb, your eyes glassy like a doll's.

He'd run his fingers through your hair, whisper sweet nothings in a mix of English and German, often forgetting to speak in English and unconsciously reverting to German, calling you the loveliest things in a tone that expressed his complete devotion to you.

And, as you'd sleep peacefully beside him in bed, he'd admire you, and wonder how on Earth he possibly could have gotten so lucky.

...

Note: can i please have my own König irl please and thank you🙏🥰 want nothing more than a big beefy man to hold me 🥹❤️❤️(😭 man i need some mentsl help 🗿thays for another day tho am not wbout to get into the catastrophic state of my brain😊✨gonna keep deluding mtself instead !!<3)

#aking10592_ ≛彡 #könig #konig #könig cod #konig cod #könig call of duty #konig call of duty #könig mw2 #konig mw2 #könig mwii #konig mwii #könig modern warfare #konig modern warfare #cod headcannons #könig headcannons #konig headcannons #könig x you #konig x you #könig x reader #konig x reader #könig x fem reader #konig x female reader #könig x male reader #konig x male reader #könig x gender neutral reader #könig x gn reader #konig x gn!reader

[lxgentlefolkcomic]

First page || Previous page || Next page

Start reading Episode 1

Dialogue transcripts:

Panel 1

Jack (voiceover): We are honored that you are visiting despite your busy schedule, Dr. Jekyll.

Jekyll (voiceover): I indeed rarely pay visits, but… we do live in unusual times.

Jekyll: ...

Panel 2

Jekyll: And Dr. Van Helsing has told me a great deal about you, Dr. Seward. Thus, I trust you will be an excellent help in investigating my findings.

Panel 3

Jack: Thank you for your trust. But the scientist we would like you to meet is better suited than me.

Jekyll (offscreen): Oh? Can I see him?

Griffin: That’s complicated.

Panel 4

Griffin: Ashley Griffin. Optics genius. And the only scientist in this house with any visible results.

Panel 5

Jekyll: The—the Invisible Man of Iping?? I thought that was a hoax…

Jack: I told you to wait until I had prepared him…

Panel 6

Jekyll: Pardon me, sir, but… You experimented on yourself?

Griffin: As any pioneer worth his salt ought to. I obtained the desired results, too.

Panel 7

Jekyll (offscreen): And the reports about murder?

Griffin: I–I didn’t—Listen, it was self-defense—

Jack: Past actions notwithstanding, Mr. Griffin has turned over a new leaf.

Panel 8

Jack (voiceover): Thus, on behalf of Mrs. Harker’s league, we are wondering, doctor… would you consider assisting us? For the good of our fellow man?

Panel 9

Jekyll (voiceover): ...I shall consider it.

Paper: I accept your proposal. -Dr Henry Jekyll

#lxgf #lxgf interlude 1 #story updates #lxgf henry jekyll #lxgf jack seward #lxgf ashley griffin #(for those wondering what the harkers talked about: it was jonathan being able to see griffin) #(the full convo was cut since it was a rehash of information readers already knew) #(but we wanted to make it clear that the characters were processing that information and weren't unphased by it) #(consider it a fanfiction free space ;))

[robobarbie]

ROMANCE/ANGST. being the light of nightowl’s life, the most important person to this man, but being just as insecure as him, so when he starts interacting with a pretty person in the server you’re left there wondering if you’re really worthy of him. (i’m projecting again, i’m the anon who sent the nightowl deep dive 5 times, i really hope it doesn’t happen again😭)

side note (this is the most e-dating, discord, online relationship-ass prompt ever)

# general

--- mystic_pizza has joined the server ---

Quest Oh?

nightowl whoa! a new member???

lovelylola hello!!

two2 nice 2 meet u!!

mystic_pizza hehe, hi everyone <3

BIGLADY how'd you find the server? O_O

June Yeah, didn't @BloomBot disable invites?

BloomBot It was getting stale around here.

xyx LMAO

NakedToaster LMAO

salociN Hello ! Mystic Pizza !

onionthief "Stale". That's an opinion for sure.

nightowl ??

onionthief Would just like to know how BloomBot has decided our presence is "stale".

onionthief We've done nothing different, kept chatting at the same rate (I've checked), and always focused on the webnovel to a degree.

onionthief I don't understand how that's "stale".

NakedToaster bro just answered the question by speaking

xyx bro doesn't see what we see

onionthief What?

BIGLADY @mystic_pizza who's your favorite character?

mystic_pizza Damien. So easy.

nightowl oooooooo, mine too!!

nightowl why do u like him?

mystic_pizza i just think he's misunderstood... breakups aren't super straightforward a lot of the time, you know

nightowl I AGREEEEEEEEEE

mystic_pizza like, it's not even up for debate!!! people are just being rude to damien for no reason!!!

nightowl my god

nightowl where have you been...

June hahaha

mystic_pizza are selfies ok btw?

BIGLADY yeah!!

two2 hey bloombot wh y did u always allow selfies?

two2 isn't that like a personal ident thing or someth

--- BloomBot is now offline ---

two2 what..

xyx @mystic_pizza post face so we can read your aura

xyx i got them aura glasses on

NakedToaster that's just not a real thing

xyx wow

xyx post a selfie of yours then and let me read you

NakedToaster fine

NakedToaster

(pic from xiaeom)

NakedToaster read me bitch

xyx holy shit

xyx holy fucking shit

BIGLADY what do you see?? O-O

salociN A very handsome man !

June Salo!! Remember, toasty is NB!!

salociN Oh , my sincerest apologies . I'm still learning.

salociN A very handsome person .

NakedToaster fuck yeah salo, you are so right

xyx no no no. no. all of you, shut the fuck up.

xyx i see

xyx i see a person with

xyx with

xyx with no balls

NakedToaster motherfucker

BIGLADY that's not an aura reading...

xyx absolutely no balls in sight

BIGLADY @mystic_pizza!!!! WHERE'S THE SELFIE!!!!!

NakedToaster yeah xyx's time on earth is a little limited

xyx you'll never find me

mystic_pizza hehe, okay! <3

mystic_pizza

mystic_pizza that's me on th e right

nightowl omg i love ur smile!! so cute!!

BIGLADY agreed!!! U R RADIANT!!! <3

mystic_pizza awww, thank u!!! u are all so nice around here!!!

nightowl we just wanna make sure everyone has a good time u know?

nightowl and damien enjoyers must be protected!!!

mystic_pizza i agree!!

mystic_pizza ah, fixed my flair

nightowl OMG

nightowl U AND ME!!!

mystic_pizza U AND ME!!!! XD

nightowl do u wanna call rq?

two2 can i join?

nightowl YA!

mystic_pizza yea sure hehe

nightowl @lovelylola you wanna call too cutie?

June The "cutie" in chat again..

onionthief Please keep that to DMs.

nightowl blah blah blah

lovelylola i'm kinda tired, i think i'm gonna sleep

nightowl awww okay

nightowl i'll call u later!!

BIGLADY gnight lola!!!

Quest Rest well!

salociN Have sweet dreams !

lovelylola good night!

xyx holy fuck

xyx @mystic_pizza

mystic_pizza yes?

xyx your aura

xyx your aura is just

xyx it's like the color of a

xyx of a war crime

mystic_pizza huh?

NakedToaster i have ur new IP bitch

xyx FUCK

---------

you close the laptop and sigh. it's okay for nightowl to have fun and meet other people, it's just...

gah. mystic pizza's selfie wouldn't leave your head. they're so cute... and seem to pair up pretty well with nightowl. you're sure the call is just going too well... at least you're assured it won't go too far since two2 is there.

but that's barely a reassurance. nightowl doesn't hesitate to flirt when he wants to, regardless of who's around.

you thrum your fingers on the desk and gnaw on your bottom lip. should you actually join the call? no, then you'd look insecure. do you already look insecure? is everyone wondering if nightowl likes mystic pizza more than you?

you look down at your frumpy clothes with a tired expression. ugh. maybe it's okay for him to flirt, if he wants to. this is what he's stuck with after all. who wouldn't want to flirt with someone who looks like that?

you try to ignore the pang in your chest as you stand up and get ready for bed.

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

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

LOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

#i blacked out then this was on my screen #bp ask #anon ask #nightowl #bp angst hour #does this count as angst hour #LMFAO

[ponett]

Bobby's 2023 Media Wrap-Up

So! Like I said before, this past year I kept a running list of everything I watched, every game I finished, every new album I listened to, etc., and wrote one-paragraph blurbs with my thoughts on every single one. Please enjoy this journey through everything I liked, or didn't like, in 2023, with my favorites of the year listed at the bottom.

(Yes! This is long!!)

Some notes:

I mainly only included things I finished. Exceptions are marked with an asterisk.

I included some YouTube stuff as "TV shows" - mostly particularly long, high effort video essays and documentaries.

I was a bit less adventurous than I'd like to have been this year. Part of this was just that I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up with Big Releases I felt obligated to check out, and part of this was just executive dysfunction from burnout. Wait until you see how long it took me to beat Mario Wonder lmao

Yes, I need to read more books. I don't read a lot of books these days. I need to get back to Discworld.

COLOR KEY

Video Games • TV / Web Video  •  Movies  •  Comics  •  Music

January

1/15: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (MSQ) - Very slow at times, the Primal shit is generally extremely lame to me outside of the boss fights themselves, but god if the quality of life improvements over WoW, the JRPG energy, and the fact that it Actually Has A Story carry it pretty hard.

1/18: Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island miniseries - One of the most creative and compelling uses of the Sonic IP… ever? Fantastic little self-contained arc about the struggles of Eggman’s abandoned creations that gracefully weaves between heartfelt optimism and moody horror with some of the best art ever seen in a Sonic comic.

1/18: Mega Man X4 - Glad I finally actually beat this after never even beating any of the Mavericks as a kid! I can see why it’s a lot of peoples’ favorites. The gameplay has very little of that X series bloat and is just fun, especially after getting X’s armor upgrades. (But the story really is a long series of missed opportunities.)

February

2/2: Donks - Felix Colgrave continues to be an exceptional artist. The sound design on this is fantastic and really sells this short as something unique. Had to go back and watch his older stuff again after this.

2/4: Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (3.0 - 3.3 MSQ) - I get it now. I get why people say this is just a proper mainline Final Fantasy game built into the framework of an MMO. That shit ruled. Not even walking back the drama in Ul’Dah from the end of ARR can sour me on it because the main storyline was so strong.

2/8: Disneyland's Forgotten Sci-Fi Rock Band - Live From the Space Stage - A nice and honest tribute to a group of artists who could have easily been forgotten. In hindsight this feels like a precursor to Kevin’s Disney Channel jingle video, a tribute to the unsung artists pouring their hearts into “lesser” art for a megacorporation, art that was designed to be transient but sticks with people nonetheless.

2/9: Metroid Prime Remastered* - Not gonna finish because I just played through the Wii version in 2021, but still. Very, very pretty remaster.

2/16: Theatrhythm Final Bar Line - It’s more Theatrhythm. What more could I want

2/17: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean (anime) - Probably the best part of the anime so far (assuming they continue on to SBR). A near perfect mix of the more structured plot of part 5 with the goofiness of parts 3 and 4 that crescendos into a fantastic, bombastic, emotional, bittersweet ending. The use of footage from the original opening and the new ending set to Roundabout in the finale were perfect, and made me intensely nostalgic for the early days of my JoJo fandom between seasons 1 and 2 of the anime.

2/22: Aggretsuko Season 5 - I don’t really know what to make of this one. Once you get past the agonizing initial arc all about Haida where Retsuko has to be his overbearing mommy GF who flips out and starts spying on him when she’s left on read and chides him when he misbehaves, it feels like an improvement over the previous seasons. But I don’t know how much of that is due to the extremely low bar set by season 4. And then the ending is extremely rushed and anticlimactic. They got legally married and the only acknowledgement was a shot of them signing the paperwork in a montage partway through the final episode?????????

2/24: Double Fine PsychOdyssey - God, what a journey the making of this game was. I already loved 2 Player’s past efforts at documenting Double Fine’s process, but this takes it to a whole new level. This feels culturally significant. The depth and honesty with which they depict not just the nitty gritty of making a game, but also the inherent struggles of working on a collaborative creative work for years at a time, is astounding. Not to mention that they were there to capture the shift from office life to remote work as COVID hit. So much of this would have been nightmarishly stressful to watch if I didn’t already know how successful the game was, but that’s just because they really didn’t sugarcoat it. And yet even after all that, it leaves me feeling optimistic about video games as an art form in a way that the constant headlines about cynical live service games don’t. There are still people out there pouring their hearts into making real art, and this is their story. Everyone who plays video games should watch this.

2/25: Cracker Island (Gorillaz) - New Gorillaz albums feel like less of an event these days, but after Humanz it feels like they’re just more chill with the project and their ambitions with it. Every couple years we get some more laid back jams from Damon along with some fun new collabs. Hard to complain. Favorite track: New Gold

2/25: Pool Kids (Pool Kids) - I discovered this band because Derek knows them and was excited when they got a song added to Fortnite through the Bandcamp collab. Always down to find more cool indie rock bands I can vibe with. The mix of dreamy vocals and energetic riffs on some of the tracks here almost fill the Crying-shaped hole in my heart. Almost… Favorite track: Conscious Uncoupling

2/25: Insane in the Rain (insaneintherainmusic) - I thought it was really funny timing when Carlos announced that his first original project would be a jazz fusion album inspired by acts like T-Square and Casiopea right as I was getting into those two specific bands. The final product does not disappoint. Favorite track: Insane in the Rain

2/26: Get Up Sequences Part Two (The Go! Team) - I’ve never been one to believe that a band’s sound has to remain exactly the same forever, but it really does hit you hard that the first two tracks here sound like classic The Go! Team. Their more recent cleaner sound is still here too, though, for a nice mix of old and new. Favorite track: Divebomb

2/28: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Season 1) - Oh my god. Oh my god. I got distracted around the time I was finishing SLARPG, but finally catching up now, wow. My assumption that the seemingly lighter tone of the series compared to the prologue was there to lull us into a false sense of security before twisting the knife when war finally breaks out was spot on. This is peak Gundam.

March

3/4: Pizza Tower - One of the best platformers I’ve played in a long time. It transcends its blatant Wario Land inspirations with the sheer speed at which Peppino can move and the way things like the level design, his wall running, and even the hidden ability to do a second lap around the level reward getting into a flow state where you’re just constantly moving. This is the type of game that wants to turn you into a speedrunner. My only real complaint is a few iffy enemy designs that I wish would get patched.

3/6: Bloons TD 6 * - I bought this before bed one night on a nostalgic whim and then the next morning woke up and saw the Steam receipt email on my phone in one of the most “what did I do last night” moments of my life. I like when the monkeys pop the balloons.

3/7: The Book of Boba Fett - I put off finishing this show for a very long time but finally caved upon the release of The Mandalorian season 3. This show spends four episodes failing to make me give a shit about Boba Fett trying to be “the daimyo” and drive the drug trade off of Tatooine, then just gives up and becomes season 2.5 of Mando, which in turn feels like it undercuts the main series. It fails as both its own story and as a spinoff. I know that finishing this after Andor did it no favors, but WHOOF.

3/12: Obi-Wan Kenobi - Some interesting ideas in the first half hinting at a more introspective show, but it’s mostly swept aside in the back half so it can become a generic Star Wars adventure remixing things from A New Hope and Rebels (and apparently Jedi: Fallen Order). Action scenes have zero stakes because you know nothing can happen to any of the returning characters and none of the new ones are particularly interesting. Why there’s a second climax hinging on a Luke Skywalker death fakeout eludes me. Obi-Wan throwing the rocks at Vader is one of the funniest things in Star Wars history. But it was still better than Book of Boba Fett, I guess.

3/19: The King of Braves GaoGaiGar - Wow, cool robot indeed… GaoGaiGar isn’t going to blow anyone away with its writing, but sometimes you just need a really fun monster of the week mecha show with great action and lovably goofy characters. This is a show where like 20% of every episode consists of recycled transformation, combination, and signature attack sequences and I ate it up every time because they look fucking cool as hell. I don’t care. I’d watch Final Fusion another 49 times.

3/21: The Last of Us (HBO) * - Watched the first two episodes out of curiosity, but I’m not sure if I’ll continue because I don’t give a shit about The Last of Us. It’s definitely a well done adaptation, though, even if I know it’s inevitably going to devolve into miserable torture porn with questionable politics if they adapt Part II faithfully. The ending of episode 2 also lines up perfectly with where I stopped in the game in 2013 lmao

3/27: The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse (Folding Ideas) - Another banger from Dan Olson. This time the premise inherently gives him more time to just show off a bunch of stupid ugly bullshit made by crypto guys, which is fun. My main complaint was that I wished he would’ve brought up Second Life more as a point of comparison (a thing I basically always want out of discussion of “the metaverse”), but he at least did touch on it in the last section.

3/31: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - I can’t believe after years of begging for the supporting cast to get more and better material in a Sonic game I got my wish in the form of a freeware murder mystery VN released for April Fools. This kicked ass.

April

4/7: Berserk - Completed Miura’s run and caught up on the chapters that have been released posthumously. It’s hard to say anything that hasn’t been said about Berserk, universally agreed upon as one of the greats of manga and fantasy fiction as a whole. What begins in its first few volumes as a nihilistic and edgy action comic built to facilitate as much sex and gore as possible quickly evolves into something deeply human and vulnerable and beautiful, both figuratively and in terms of its lavish art. The world sucks and is immeasurably cruel, and you will see that cruelty illustrated in graphic, sickening detail repeatedly throughout the series. (Perhaps a little too often throughout the Golden Age, where it feels like Miura never misses an opportunity to threaten Casca with sexual assault mid-battle.) But the point isn’t to wallow in that misery. It’s the story of a victim of horrific abuse learning to slowly open up to others, having those people he cares about torn away from him in the worst night of his life, hardening himself into a cold killing machine, and then slowly learning to open back up again, even if it means leaving himself vulnerable to more hurt. Anyone who says that the series peaked with the eclipse and went downhill in the “Guts’ JRPG Party” era is missing the point. Guts needed to find new people in his life to care about, to begin to find happiness again. Because no matter what unspeakable things Guts has gone through, it’s still possible for him to heal and to be loved. It takes time, but eventually you stop and realize that life has moved on.

4/8: Dedede’s Drum Dash Deluxe - Skipped it upon release because I didn’t particularly care for the minigame in Triple Deluxe, and I didn’t miss much. It’s fine as a little distraction, but not as a standalone rhythm game with only seven songs. If you don’t bother with the hard modes or chase after high scores this game is 15 minutes long. Oh how I yearn for Kirby to get the Theatrhythm treatment.

4/10: The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL - Eh… It was okay. Lots of cool robot fights, but said fights are stitched together with a mediocre plot that tries too hard to be more “mature” than its unabashedly schlocky kids’ show predecessor. Not crazy about the ending, either, which tries to be a bittersweet farewell closing off the series once and for all while also teasing that maybe there’ll be ANOTHER sequel after the OVA series they literally called “FINAL.” Ah well.

4/11: The Owl House - Sad to see this one go, but it’s hard to imagine them doing a better finale than this, even if they had gotten the six seasons they deserved. I’m not as obsessed with The Owl House as I probably would’ve been had it come out when I was, like, 20, but it’s a really fantastic show for all the reasons people always say. Great characters, great world, great story. I love that this starry-eyed fantasy story about a teenager finding love and a place where she belongs is also set on the rotting corpse of a titan with Hieronymous Bosch-inspired scenery and freaky monsters everywhere. What a great mix. If anything, I just wish I would’ve watched the first season as it aired so I could’ve had more time with it.

4/29: Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue Version - FINALLY beat this via the new collection, 20 years after playing it as my first Mega Man game. (Technically my first was White, not Blue, but whatever.) There are more annoyances than I remember - lots of really really bad forced backtracking sections where you have to revisit every previous part of the internet, low chip drop rates, some really aggravating bosses like BubbleMan and KingMan, etc. But it’s still a great time overall. It’s Battle Network. In the back half the story gets surprisingly emotional, too. I was always under the assumption that the Hub stuff never came back up much in the story after 1, so I was pleasantly surprised with how relevant it was to the emotional arc of 3.

4/30: Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun * - Yeah I’m not playing through the whole thing lmao. I just wanted to play the first couple hours for nostalgia’s sake, and as a baseline for how much better the rest are. Even before getting deep in the game and having to deal with all the shit gated between doing two new game+ playthroughs, it’s immediately obvious how much of a downgrade this one is. Tons of glaring errors and typos all over the script, blander music, a way more boring aesthetic for the internet, and a premise that mostly just recycles the tournament idea from 3.

May

5/14: The Venture Bros. - Glad I finally sat down and watched all of this with Anthony after having seen one (1) episode as a teenager and a bunch of random clips in the years since. Great show. Some jokes in the early seasons haven’t aged gracefully, but what the show grows into over time... man. Hank and Dean go from being the butt of the joke to being characters you actually sympathize with - while still also being funny little goofballs. And the journey Henchman 21 goes on throughout the show. Man. Amazing that a comedy like this could run for 20 years and maintain its level of quality. Can’t wait for the movie.

5/18: Future Me Hates Me (The Beths) - Okay yeah I’m now just discovering bands through Fortnite lmao. I can’t complain really, they pick some really great indie artists for the in-game radio stations. Anyway: It’s very easy to win me over with a combination of energetic power pop, catchy guitar riffs, and earnest lyrics like this. One of those albums where three or four tracks in I know I have to buy it. Favorite track: Not Running

5/18: Jump Rope Gazers (The Beths) - Ditto. Favorite track: Dying to Believe

5/18: Expert In A Dying Field (The Beths) - Another good album. (I’m listening to these in release order.) I’ve been a bit slower to warm up to this one, initially thinking it was a little too mellow overall, but it might be my favorite after a few listens. Some real high highs. Interestingly, the lead singer’s New Zealand accent is also coming out more in her singing? Favorite track: Your Side (or maybe Head in the Clouds)

5/19: The Super Mario Bros. Movie - As a Mario fan, I think I enjoyed it? As a movie, less so? It was decent, in spite of feeling like they came up with a list of fun action setpieces first and then wrote the absolute bare minimum possible for the story scenes tying it all together. Full thoughts here. (This is the first movie I’ve seen this year, huh? I really don’t watch a lot of movies.)

5/23: Don't Know What You're In Until You're Out (Gladie) - I feel like I don’t like Gladie as much as I should. Their style of noisy indie rock is very much in my wheelhouse, and I do enjoy listening to them, but I dunno. Maybe it’s that the particular style of vocals makes it more monotonous to me. A good album nonetheless, if not 100% my thing. Favorite track: Nothing

5/24: City Slicker (Ginger Root) - Yes I am still making my way through Bandcamp artists I heard on Fortnite don’t @ me. Any excuse to get me to listen to some cool city pop-inspired funk like this is a good excuse. Favorite track: Loretta

5/24: Rikki (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: Why Try

5/25: Spotlight People (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: The Classic

5/29: Succession - A good dramedy series that increasingly focuses more on the drama than the comedy as it progresses, but it’s hard to complain about that since the drama is so compellingly produced. I enjoyed it. That being said, I kind of rankle at the claims that it’s The Greatest TV Show Of All Time. It’s great, don’t get me wrong. Amazing performances all around. But the show LOVES to spin its wheels, to repeat itself, and to let most of its interesting dramatic developments fizzle out before anything really comes of them, almost as if the show is constantly getting bored with its own ideas. To some extent this is intentional - Logan Roy is the untouchable billionaire, his kids fail at everything (but will nonetheless remain billionaires), and in the long run none of them really give a shit about anything other than their own status. But it’s not like things tend to visibly impact anyone else, either, be they supporting characters or the world at large. Even the Big Scary Election, where the Roy siblings are directly responsible for plunging the nation into chaos, ultimately has zero impact on the finale a mere two episodes later. Certain Other Things do have an impact in the last season, though, allowing things to meaningfully change for the cast and for the show to sit with the ensuing drama, which has stopped me from souring on Succession more. There was finally a payoff for something. But it does still kind of feel like a show that goes in circles until it’s ready to call it quits, even if those circles did contain a lot of great acting and music along the way.

5/29: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - I’d watched the first 12 episodes when they originally released, but I guess the Netflix binge release and the fact that all three “seasons” came out in one year led to me waiting until it finished… and then I just never got around to finishing it. Glad I fixed that! Really fun and stylish cartoon with an art style reminiscent of Teen Titans, a hip hop-filled soundtrack, dynamic fight scenes, and a colorful post-apocalyptic world filled with mutant (mostly anthropomorphic) animals. I’ll admit that at times I do kinda roll my eyes at Kipo’s unshakeable belief that everyone can be friends in a way that I don’t necessarily with similar shows like Steven Universe, and not every joke lands, but I dunno. It’s a kids’ show. That’s to be expected. It doesn’t detract from the overall package for me.

June

6/1: Craig of the Creek (Season 4) - It’s been years and I’m still processing the fact that kids can turn on Cartoon Network and hear Jeff Rosenstock. Anyway! Craig continues to be one of the best cartoons on TV, consistently funny and creative and way more engaging than a show about a bunch of kids LARPing in the woods has any right to be. This season turned into One Piece with the gang effectively hunting down the Poneglyphs in search of a legendary treasure. The kids think it’ll be magic. It isn't. An increasing number of cartoon logic gags aside, this show is firmly set in the real world. Does that make it any less interesting? Hell no. Season 3 turned a game of capture the flag into an all-out five episode war between the heroes and villains, filled with dramatic turnabouts and a climactic guest appearance from Del the Funky Homosapien. I’m sure however they wrap things up in the (sadly shortened) final season, it’ll be great. (Also? I would watch a whole show based on that “what if” episode that jumped forward to everyone’s 20s.)

6/6: Barry - Holy shit, what a show. I ended up binging it in less than a week in a cycle of “okay, just one more episode.” The way this show is able to swing between tones and genres while still feeling like a cohesive whole is truly masterful. It’s a layered character drama, a tragic crime thriller, a farcical comedy, an understated action series, a surrealist morality play, and a scathing satire of Hollywood, all in one. Even within the criminal underworld subplots the show ranges in tone from Breaking Bad to Paddington 2. And it works! While the show naturally gets bleaker over time as it confronts the repercussions of Barry’s murders, it never completely loses sight of its comedic roots. My favorite episode was easily season 2’s “ronny/lily,” a mostly self-contained episode that somehow manages to keep throwing the perfect curveballs to escalate its dark comedy.

6/12: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition) - Y’all heard of this movie? Pretty good, it turns out. (I’d seen the theatrical cut before, but this was my first time watching the extended edition. I’ve also only seen parts of the other two movies, so it’s time I finally watch all the extended cuts. The Gollum game pushed me to this.)

6/13: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended Edition) - give it to us RAW and WRIGGLING

6/17: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Extended Edition) - I’m not crying YOU’RE crying

6/22: Clone High (Season 2) - While the first episode being about “cancel culture” (or, more accurately, a teenager from 2003 being transported to 2023 and putting his foot in his mouth a lot) put a lot of people off, I ended up enjoying the new season of Clone High. The new clones grew on me as the season went on and their roles in the web of teen romance melodrama crystalized, and it made me laugh a lot, and Cleo/Frida is galaxy brained. Also they played one of my favorite Antarctigo Vespucci songs like a minute into the first episode. I don’t think I could really ask for much more.

6/28: The Mandalorian (Season 3) - I'd been watching this weekly but put off the last episode for no real reason. Responses to this season have been all over the place, but my blistering hot take is… it was fine. Is it as good as the first season? Probably not. But Mando no longer needs to carry the whole franchise on its shoulders and set the bar for how good the live action Disney Star Wars shows can be, because Andor exists, and it’s never gonna top Andor. The Mandalorian is free to just be a pulpy space adventure show where Giancarlo Esposito plays a scenery-chewing cartoon villain and a little puppet does wire stunts. These are things Andor cannot and should not do, but that’s Star Wars, baby. It’s delightful. I could watch Grogu get underhand tossed like a sack of flour all day.

July

7/2: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (Season 2) - LOVE WINS. (More nuanced take from way later: It definitely feels like a lot of the more messy political conflicts in this show got swept aside by the big final battle where some more easily resolved family conflicts take center stage. I’m not sure the ending is the most satisfying. But also this show only got half the episode count that damn near every other Gundam show ever made got, so that might be a factor here. Idk. Still one of my favorite Gundams.)

7/4: Final Fantasy XVI (watched Anthony play) - I had to write my longest Medium article ever about this one because I was so frustrated

7/10: Home Movies - “Things I like that I’ve never seen in full” has certainly been a recurring theme this year. Home Movies remains an all-time classic of animated comedy that went out on a high note before things got stale or the characters became parodies of themselves. While it’s mostly known for its funny improvised banter, throughout the last season you can really see the arc where Brendon no longer enjoys making movies, yet he feels obligated to keep using them to escape from the real world. In that light, the ending where the nature of their dysfunctional makeshift family is cemented, Brendon’s camera suddenly breaks, and life moves on really does feel like the perfect note to end on. Truly one of the best to ever do it.

7/15: The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom - Wow. Just… wow. I had serious doubts about TotK in the months leading up to release due to how close Nintendo was playing their cards to their chest. I didn’t want this to be a Saints Row IV, where the game is fun enough but the recycled map makes it feel like a rehash. Instead, I found a game that made me look at BotW’s map in a whole new light, brimming with so many more things to do and people to meet. Add on a better, more versatile set of tools, more varied dungeons and bosses, and a story that I felt was told somewhat better and we’ve got a real contender for my new favorite Zelda game. It was hard to tear myself away, but as this list shows, it’s been basically the only game I’ve played since it came out.

7/16: Sonic Prime (Season 2) - I liked the parts with Shadow and Chaos Sonic, but I’ve come to the sad conclusion that most of this show is just mediocre. More thoughts here.

7/18: We ♥ Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie - “I’m a dog, but I love Katamari Damacy.” Truer words have never been spoken.

7/19: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts - Pretty good! It didn’t blow me away, but after how bad the Bay movies got I’m just thankful to have a decently cohesive Transformers movie where the human story is okay and I like the bots (although half of them needed more screen time), even if it is just another Hollywood blockbuster about two sides fighting over a macguffin that devolves into a big CGI battle against an army of nameless monsters in the third act. This is basically a mid-tier MCU movie but with Transformers, which won’t do much for most people, but again: the bar was underground.

7/22: The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart - God DAMN. A phenomenal ending for the series. While I would have loved to see a full final season to get some more one-off episodes in there, this doesn’t feel creatively compromised in any way–either due to the time constraints, or due to a desire to make it more marketable as a movie. It really does feel like they just took their outlines for the canceled final season and gently massaged them into the shape of an 84-minute movie, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s completely on par with the previous seasons. A hilarious and fitting sendoff for one of the greats of adult animation.

7/23: Beautiful Katamari - This was one of my first Xbox 360 games, but a frustrating temperature-based level made me put it down for 16 years. “Maybe it won’t be as bad now that I’ve beaten the first two games and am better at Katamari,” I thought. Nope! Still an absolutely dogshit level. But also, turns out the whole game is only like two hours long lmao. It’s still Katamari, so it’s still fun - the final level in particular, which seamlessly takes you from ground level all the way to space, feels like a logical endpoint for the series - but beyond that it just doesn't have the same soul without Keita Takahashi's input.

August

8/4: Doom Singer (Chris Farren) - I’ve been waiting so long for Chris and Jeff to do another Antarctigo Vespucci album, but god damn. This is the best of Chris’s solo work, and a contender for his best record, period. Every track’s a banger, with more energy than some of his previous solo work but also a good deal of variety. Favorite tracks: First Place, Cosmic Leash

8/4: Transformers Earthspark (Season 1) - This show had a bit of an uneven start, unsure if it wanted to have the emotional maturity of a more serious action cartoon or a preschool cartoon where the characters have little kid mood swings and outbursts and learn basic lessons. It also felt like it was speedrunning its Wholesome Found Family Dynamic with characters who just met, which didn’t feel earned. While these problems never completely go away (see: the cheap and corny way the otherwise very dark season finale suddenly resolves), the show improves quickly, and the positives outweigh the negatives. It’s so great to have a Transformers cartoon that feels fresh, giving us a post-war setting with a bunch of new characters and new dynamics between the Cybertronians and the humans. The returning characters are also uniformly great as the old veterans overseeing the new generation. (Reformed Megatron! Danny Pudi as Bumblebee! Steve Blum returning as Starscream! Keith David as Grimlock!!!) And those super dynamic action scenes! I can nitpick, but Earthspark’s a ton of fun, and easily the best new Transformers cartoon since Prime and Animated.

8/5: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (remaster) - Everyone who told me this game was a masterpiece was right. I had played the first chapter when it dropped as the demo for the iOS version years ago, but never went further than that until now. What a game. Absolutely incredible through and through. Great story, great twists, great characters, great puzzles, great art direction. Everything comes together so perfectly to form a totally unique, unforgettable package, a top tier video game murder mystery. Everyone should play this, preferably going in as blind as possible.

8/15: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Season 16) - Wow! Recent seasons of Sunny have been kind of up and down, with some interesting experiments (Mac Finds His Pride, the Ireland arc, etc.) paired with some comedic duds. Most of this latest season is standard fare for the series with fewer big creative swings, but it’s just hit after hit in terms of comedy. Not a single dud, whether we’re seeing Mac and Dennis try to start a rental business for inflatable furniture or watching the gang meet Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, believing the entire time that the latter is Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle. Even the attempts at topical comedy landed better. Easily the funniest season in years.

8/16: One Piece Film Gold - It’s easy to see why this one has kind of been forgotten in the wake of Stampede and Film Red, which revolve around established fan favorite characters, but this was still pretty fun. Perhaps a little too long, but it’s fun to see the Straw Hats fool around in a giant casino and do a heist. They definitely cranked the fanservice up even more than usual in this one, though, as I probably should have expected for a movie made alongside the anime’s adaptation of Dressrosa.

8/17: One Piece: Stampede - This one goes for a different kind of fanservice. While most One Piece movies are isolated from the ongoing plot and its expanded cast of characters, Stampede instead asks “What if we just put damn near every active character on the same island and had them fight?” The answer: a fun time! It would get old if all of the movies were like this, but after a bunch of movies that are just like “the Straw Hats are gonna land on another new island and fight some more weird guys” it’s fun to see characters like Law and Buggy and Smoker get in on the fun. It’s also nice to get a movie with the Wano era art style, and Usopp surprisingly gets some really good character moments in here.

8/18: One Piece Film Red - This really is the best of the One Piece movies, huh? (Baron Omatsuri is a close second.) It really feels like a change of pace after the last four with the most interesting and emotionally engaging story out of any of them. And even if the events of these movies are never canon, it still feels significant in my understanding of Shanks as a character as we move into the final phase of the manga.

8/21: Pikmin 4 - The opening hour of the game made me really question if they’d changed too much, with all the focus on your new dog unit over your Pikmin and the extremely dull, drawn out dialogue scenes with your new companions back at the base. But once I got into the swing of things I had a blast. This is probably my new favorite Pikmin game. There’s a great mix of activities here to keep things fresh. I also really ended up liking Oatchi’s role as basically your second captain who can also serve as your tank or a rideable mount. The Dandori stuff and nighttime missions in particular show off how useful Oatchi is for your multitasking without necessarily overshadowing the Pikmin.

8/22: Never Get Tired: The Bomb the Music Industry! Story - I literally backed this on Kickstarter eight years ago (my name is in the credits!) and then never got around to watching it for no reason. It’s on YouTube now, and Jeff’s got a new album out next week, so now feels like the perfect time to watch it. And man… what a great documentary. Obviously I’m just a fan of the band, but this also really spoke to me as an artist. Jeff wanting to stick to his principles and give out his music for free and play cheap all ages shows, his discomfort over the idea of selling merch, and the struggles that come with not playing the game like that… It's hard. They readily admit that Jeff is an idealist, that people fight him on this stuff, that he’s missed out on some big opportunities because of these stances, and that he’s had to compromise a bit on some of these things over time. But that incredible climax with their final show, including a full opening performance of the slowly building “Campaign for a Better Next Weekend” and the closing performance of “Future 86” where the whole audience is singing along as the members of the band are hugging and crying… it’s beautiful. This may have been a band where the members had to go back to their shitty day jobs after every tour because they weren’t selling out arenas, but their art meant something to people, and that makes it all worth it.

8/25: Nimona - I haven’t read the original comic (yet), so I can’t compare them too much, but it’s nonetheless pretty apparent that some things were softened and easy kids’ movie jokes were added by the studio to squeeze this graphic novel for teens into a PG animated movie. Regardless, the emotional throughline hits REALLY hard, particularly the very blatant trans allegory and the climax. (It’s no wonder Disney was afraid of this movie seeing the light of day lmao.) The animation is also very squishy and fun to watch throughout. Great movie.

8/26: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - Spider-Verse really has done so much for animation, huh? This one was as good as everyone said. Beautiful use of stylized color and lighting throughout, and every time this movie very conspicuously shifted to different framerates for a flashy fight scene it owned. Very cute and heartwarming story, too, which thankfully gave its second act plenty of time to explore the cast and let them go on their journey, unlike a certain plumber movie that came out a few months later. Also I would let Death [redacted]

8/28: Holocure: Save the Fans! - This isn't really something I can beat, but I've been addicted to Holocure lately. I don't even watch VTubers aside from maybe seeing a funny Korone animation every now and then, this is just a really, really good freeware Vampire Survivors clone with a huge roster of varied characters to pick from.

8/31: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock) - A new album from Jeff is always a major event for me. If there were any worries that he was starting to go soft at 40 (because one of the three singles off this album was a gentle acoustic piece), the frantic opening of this album put those worries to rest. The first two tracks are Jeff screaming out for help as he’s pulled in a million directions by the chaotic state of the world, a theme that becomes the thesis of the album. I’d say it lags slightly in the middle, but overall this is another extremely well-rounded record full of bangers that’s unapologetically Jeff, with possibly my favorite closing track he’s ever done. Favorite tracks: I WANNA BE WRONG, 3 SUMMERS

September

9/3: One Piece (live action, Season 1) - They did it. I can’t believe it, but they did it. While I have my nitpicks (Usopp and Sanji don’t get enough big moments to shine), this is an extremely solid and faithful adaptation of the first few arcs of One Piece with a great cast. For the most part the changes feel smart and logical, and the big emotional beats of the story are all there and executed very well. I doubted it a little in episodes 2-4, where the Orange Town and Syrup Village arcs saw some major changes to shift the action indoors, and the increased focus on the drama in favor of repeating every gag and battle from the manga 1:1 took a bit of getting used to, but by the end I was having a blast. It’s a different take on One Piece, but it still feels like One Piece. Genuinely very excited for season 2.

9/4: Pseudoregalia - A great little N64-style 3D Metroidvania focused on platforming and very satisfying movement. I always love entries in the genre that are less prescriptive in what order you have to tackle areas in, a la Symphony of the Night or Hollow Knight, and this one’s great in that regard. While there are a number of new moves to find, most of the map is open to you very early in the game, and smart use of your moveset can allow you to “sequence break” without even realizing it. (You would not believe how long I went without getting the wall run.) I do wish it had a map, but that’s already being patched in.

9/6: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk * - Not a bad game at all, but I quickly remembered how bad I am at skating games, so like… eh? Not sure I have much desire to play past chapter 2. Also the soundtrack is sadly kinda hit or miss for me outside of the obvious Naganuma tunes.

9/9: The History of the Minnesota Vikings (Dorktown) - Jon Bois never misses. Even as someone who doesn’t actively follow sports, Jon Bois is a master storyteller, using graphs and statistics and funny anecdotes to explore these deeply human stories. He can convey why people care so much about these teams, these people, and sports in general, and how our popular sports reflect on American culture. He could tell the story of just about any team or player in any sport and I just know I’ll come out the other side a misty-eyed fan. And what a fascinating cast of characters we have this time, with origin stories for everything from the Hail Mary pass to a Minnesota state supreme court judge to the Griddy. Nine hours well spent.

9/10: Timespinner - A fun and highly polished Metroidvania that maybe doesn’t quite have enough of its own identity in its quest to replicate Symphony of the Night…but also, like, this was pitched as a Symphony throwback on KickStarter in a pre-Bloodstained, pre-Hollow Knight world, so I can’t really blame ‘em! Stopping time to avoid boss attacks is fun, the pixel art is gorgeous, and I liked the dark science fantasy story about warring empires and meddling with time a lot more than I thought I would - lore journal text dumps and all.

9/14: The Decay of Sam & Cat (Quinton Reviews) - All the stuff at the end with Matt Bennett (the actor who played Robbie on Victorious and Sam & Cat) in this was really good and sweet. It’s that kind of thing that makes these videos feel like they’re still worthwhile on some level. But the padding and the things Quinton chooses to spend the colossal runtime on does drive me more and more insane with each passing Nick sitcom video. I don’t know how much longer he can keep this schtick up. I hope he’s able to move on to other things before too terribly long instead of continuing to extend this “miniseries.”

9/19: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales - AKA Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 1.5. It’s fun for the same reasons Peter’s first game was fun. I had a good time swinging around New York again in preparation for the sequel, and there’s a lot of cute stuff with Miles becoming Harlem’s neighborhood hero, but WOW did the Underground v. Roxxon conflict fall flat for me.

9/20: I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson - I understand so many posts now.

9/25: Spider-Man (2002) (rewatch) - It’s you who’s out, Gobby! OUT OF YOUR MIND!

9/25: Futurama (Season 8) - I was ready to be a hater, recalling the fact that Futurama has already had three “perfect endings” with the show getting a little weaker with every revival. Then I watched the first new episode on a whim and thought it wasn’t bad, so I was like, eh, sure, I’ll watch the rest. Overall Hulurama is hit or miss. There are chuckles to be had, and it sure as hell beats modern Simpsons, but almost every episode is either a belated take on an overplayed Topical Issue (the pandemic, Amazon, cancel culture, etc.) or a direct sequel to an old episode people liked. Or both! It’s also really noticeable that certain voice actors sound way older - Billy West is struggling with the Fry voice in particular, and it hurts his comedic timing. But just when all hope seemed lost after the nigh-incomprehensible toy-themed anthology episode, possibly the worst episode of the entire series… the last episode, where the Planet Express crew explores whether or not the universe could be a simulation, was really, really solid. Great note to end on to make me not regret my time with this season as a whole.

9/26: Spider-Man 2 (2004) (rewatch) - Once the GOAT, always the GOAT.

9/27: Spider-Man 3 (rewatch) - Revisiting this movie for the first time since I saw it in theaters… it’s not bad. It’s fine! It continues to have the heart and sincerity that make the first two movies work. It’s just not as concise with three villains vying for the spotlight, but I also wouldn’t cut any of them, necessarily. I guess Eddie/Venom would be the easiest, but Peter getting the black suit and giving in to his resentment feels too central to cut. (Yes, even with Emo Peter becoming a meme.)

9/28: Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake - I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this one, especially since I was never really a fan of the genderbend episodes in the original show. (At the time they mostly just felt like an excuse to crank up the teen romance stuff to 11.) But MAN. This was a fantastic coda to the original series. It made me care about Fionna and Cake and their friends as their own characters separate from their original counterparts, it gave the Simon/Betty arc a much more satisfying (if no less bittersweet) resolution than the original finale had time to do, and it even managed to be a multiverse story that didn’t make me roll my eyes in 2023. A+ all around. Makes me wanna rewatch the original show again. [spoiler: I did]

9/29: Meanwhile (aivi & surasshu) - It’s been a whole decade–they were busy with, you know, all the music in Steven Universe, among other things–but we finally have a new aivi & surasshu album! Their chiptune/piano fusion style is familiar, but they’ve definitely grown as composers in subtle ways. Favorite track: Time Travel

October

10/1: This is Financial Advice (Folding Ideas) - A lot of the nitty gritty finance law stuff turned into white noise for me, but still, great video. I had no idea that the GameStop stock craze devolved into this bizarre cult that thinks they’re going to crash the global economy and rise from the ashes as the new kings with the value of their GME stocks. Glad this video exists to try and balance out the narrative.

10/5: Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon DLC - Good ideas, absurdly frustrating and tedious execution. Full thoughts here.

10/10: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (rewatch) - I didn’t plan this, but very fitting that I would end up rewatching this on 10/10.

10/12: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - ha he! (Seriously though, that finale was a fucking masterpiece. The RTVS crew has an incredible knack for using the framing device of video game livestreams to blur the lines between comedy and horror, or ironic anti-humor and complete sincerity. I’ve never seen anything else like this.)

10/15: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - Not sure how much I can say that hasn’t already been said. The most visually creative movie I’ve ever seen, grounded by some really excellent storytelling about Miles (and now Gwen) that’s probably better than his actual comics. But it also does feel like it’s about to end and then the movie just keeps going like ten times over lmao. Can’t wait to watch this a second time on a better TV.

10/20: Sonic Superstars - A mostly really solid and fun 2D Sonic game that’s unfortunately dragged down by an extremely hodgepodge soundtrack and some overly drawn out boss fights. I spent HOURS trying to beat the final boss of the bonus scenario (which is required for the true ending in this one) before giving up. Really a shame that that’s the note I’m leaving the game on, because I otherwise enjoyed it, but ah well. More thoughts here.

10/27: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 - Another good Spider-Man game from Insomniac. Liked the story more than the one in Miles Morales, but maybe not as much as the first game. Extensive thoughts here.

10/28: Venom - Was in the mood for more Venom after the game. As expected this was not a very good movie, but the dynamic between Eddie and Venom made it a fun watch. Tom Hardy is constantly about to shit his pants in this movie. It’s great.

10/28: Venom: Let There Be Carnage - I had a way better time with this one. Is this a good movie? No. But it cranks the insanity of the first movie up to 11. Goofy as fuck in an extremely watchable way.

November

11/5: Pluto - An absolutely masterful series that anyone interested in sci-fi needs to watch. The anime adaptation was great, and I immediately understand why people who’ve read the manga speak so highly of it. Really makes me want to get into Astro Boy more, and also read some of Urasawa’s other works.

11/18: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off - Wow, just wow. When news of a Scott Pilgrim anime broke I was cautiously curious to see if we’d get a more direct adaptation of the comics, and instead it veered off in the exact opposite direction in the best way possible. This is almost entirely a different story, one that’s in conversation with the previous versions (sometimes in very meta ways), and I think it’s really valuable to see O’Malley revisiting these characters with new things to say about them. The major story divergence gives us a chance to examine the characters from a new angle - particularly Ramona, who’s the real protagonist of this version, and the evil exes, who completely steal the show. This was a great reminder of why I fell in love with this series as a teenager. I now genuinely hope we get more Scott Pilgrim.

11/22: Void Rivals (Issues #1 - #6) - The first arc of the new Robert Kirkman series that kicked off Skybound’s new “Energon Universe” is now complete, and I’m left thinking Void Rivals is… okay? I thought the first issue was a decent (if not particularly original) sci-fi comic with an appealing art style, which just so happens to also briefly have a Transformer in it so there can be a Big Surprise. And the series still hasn’t quite shaken that feeling to me. It’s an okay sci-fi series that arbitrarily dedicates a couple of pages of every issue to something from Transformers, but I’m not really sure what the shared universe stuff adds to Void Rivals, or what Void Rivals adds to Transformers and GI Joe. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

11/22: Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History (Defunctland) - Yeah, gotta be honest, I only got halfway through this one. It seems like Kevin just 1) really wanted to push himself creatively and 2) make a love letter to Epcot, and while I respect that, I think it suffers as a historical documentary. It’s Fantasia but for the creation of Epcot. That might be very impressive on a technical level, but it feels more like a piece of Disney propaganda than prior Defunctland videos due to a lack of context and nuance. 

11/24: Aperture Desk Job - A short, sweet, and funny little tech demo for my new Steam Deck set in the Portal universe. More effort was definitely put into this than was strictly necessary.

11/26: ESCHATOS - I am not good at bullet hell games, but I enjoy them from time to time and I really love this one’s FM synth soundtrack, so I picked it up on a whim in the Steam sale. I only beat it on Easy, but still, I had a lot of fun with it! It’s straightforward but very flashy, with the camera dynamically zooming around from set piece to set piece at ridiculous speeds and each level segueing directly into the next. The lack of a powerup system on the main mode in favor of just needing to know when to use your different shot types makes it feel very approachable.

11/27: Lunistice - A great little 3D platformer with a good soundtrack that I had fun hunting down all the secrets in. This is an easy recommendation for fans of games like Kirby or Klonoa - whimsical games set in colorful dream worlds where the underlying story can get a bit more somber. (Although the story in this one is mostly told through mildly cryptic lore dumps, so your mileage there may vary.)

11/28: Spark the Electric Jester 2 - The leap from 2D to 3D here is impressive, but this is very clearly a rough draft for Spark 3. Very, very fun Sonic-style 3D platforming, but the combat is lacking and the storytelling is just kinda bad. More extensive thoughts on this and the above two games here.

December

12/2: Fortnite (Chapter 4) - This was my first full chapter of Fortnite, after having been roped into the game by the siren songs of Zero Build mode and Goku during Chapter 3. This means it’s harder for me to compare this chapter to previous ones, but still, Fortnite remains a genuinely very well made Battle Royale shooter that’s a blast with friends. If I have any complaint about this Chapter, it’s that they would regularly introduce zany ideas and then slowly reel them back in, whether it was the Augment system or the increasingly mundane movement items. It also felt like it was a little too easy to get the perfect loadout in every match, meaning the final showdown would almost always be against players with Slurp Juice and gold shotguns. And I missed the smaller mid-season map updates of Chapter 3. But overall I still had a really good time, and look forward to playing more for the foreseeable future.

12/4: Plagiarism and You(Tube) (HBomberguy) - This will get written off by many as “YouTuber drama,” but this really is an excellent video essay that feels like the kick in the pants that YouTube needs. If video essayists are gonna be a major source of information for so many, then they gotta have standards. I also think it does a good job of highlighting the people that have been plagiarized and trying to drive more attention their way in an attempt to right those wrongs.

12/6: Transformers (Skybound comic) - We only got the first three issues of this in 2023, but I just HAVE to say something about how incredible this series is here. Daniel Warren Johnson is knocking it out of the park. This is the new bar for Transformers. The hand-inked art is extremely dynamic and full of character, and the story is using the familiar beats of G1 Transformers but doing very new things with them. You can tell this from the very first page, but the emotional scene of Optimus accidentally crushing a deer in the forest and realizing how fragile life is on Earth sealed the deal for me. And yet in the very same comics Optimus can do suplexes and clotheslines and lord knows how many other wrestling moves on Decepticons, and it doesn’t feel like tonal whiplash? These comics just fucking rule, and anyone with even the slightest interest in Transformers should be reading them.

12/8: What We Do in the Shadows (Season 5) - [spoilers] WWDITS has very much settled into being a status quo show. Every season has its own little arc where one or two things change to keep things interesting, but then everything returns to normal by the end. Guillermo finally becoming a vampire, only to become a human again in the end, might just be the most egregious example of this yet. But also… the show’s still really funny? And I continue to be happy that Kristen Schaal has stuck around as a series regular as the Guide. So it’s hard to complain. I could see the show running out of steam over the next few seasons, but it’s still hitting for me right now.

12/12: Pony Island - Finally got around to this since the trailer for the sequel dropped. I feel like playing this years later in a post-Inscryption world where Pony Island is a known quantity kind of lessens its impact, but still, it’s a fun and funny puzzle game where you try to hack your way out of a possessed arcade machine. I’m not sure I found it particularly scary, but I’m not sure it’s supposed to be? The way the game messes with you during the Asmodeus “boss fight” was probably the highlight for me. I also like being able to say things like “The part where you have to not kill Jesus was so hard. I kept getting terrible butterfly patterns.”

12/16: Breaking Bad VR but the AI is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - As always, Wayne and co.’s commitment to the bit is unrivaled. This kind of got interpreted as just a way to troll HLVRAI fans, but so many moments in this genuinely made me laugh out loud.

12/18: Soul of Sovereignty Prelude - As someone who would list Cucumber Quest as a big creative influence, I was naturally very excited for this first chapter of GGDG’s new visual novel. Their mentality of both scaling things back in terms of labor while also going more shamelessly self-indulgent in terms of storytelling after burning out on making webcomics has really spoken to me, and WOW, the end result of that new process of theirs is shaping up to be something really special. The art and music are sparse but extremely evocative, giving you the rough sketch of the world and letting your mind fill in the rest. The story blends literary high fantasy vibes with the style of fantasy seen in ‘90s JRPGs (you can definitely tell this came from an idea for an RPG), but rather than constantly winking at the audience and making self-aware video game references it plays these storytelling ideas extremely sincerely, giving them real dramatic weight while still indulging in fun tropes to their fullest extent. While it’s a far cry from their most famous work with much more mature content, GGDG always excels at creating characters and worlds that immediately grab me. I can’t wait for the rest.

12/18: Barbie - I’m only… what, five months late for the whole Barbenheimer thing? Perfect timing. Anyway! On the one hand, I get the critiques saying that this movie is just a major corporation funding a self-aware feminist critique of their own product as a marketing ploy. And I kinda agree with that. And the movie is a little too long, and I don’t really know what to think of the way the Barbie/Ken conflict plays out. Anthony asked me to summarize what the story ended up being about, and I had no idea what to even say. But also… I did still like the movie? We don’t get a lot of cartoonish, absurdist, fourth wall breaking comedies like this anymore, and this is a good one of those. Also the whole cast is great, the set design is kind of stunning, and the cinematography is consistently appealing. I wouldn’t say it’s a revolutionary work of feminist filmmaking by any stretch, but it’s a good comedy movie.

12/21: Dr. Stone: New World - Man, Dr. Stone is great. I’ve said this many times, but I just love that this series uses all the trappings of shounen that would normally be used to hype up the protagonist learning a new move to instead hype up things like the protagonist building a loom or a hot air balloon. It’s shounen Bill Nye. I didn’t completely love everything about the Treasure Island arc this season, but it all built towards a really fun climax with a lot of satisfying turnabouts where the heroes use their ingenuity to just barely win.

12/23: The History of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out World Records (Summoning Salt) - Truly one of my favorite Summoning Salt videos ever, even with how repetitive Punch-Out can get to watch. It’s just so hard to beat “and that runner… was me.”

12/24: Super Mario Bros. Wonder - What more can be said that hasn’t already been said? It’s the best and most creative 2D Mario game since the ‘90s. The only real flaws are that it’s a little easy, the Search Party stages are annoying in singleplayer, and I wish that every boss prior to the final boss wasn’t just some form of Bowser Jr. fight. But those aren’t nearly enough to drag the whole experience down. It was a blast.

12/24: Do a Powerbomb! - Got this from Anthony as a birthday present. This is the previous series by the creative team currently doing the new Transformers comics I was gushing about a few entries ago. Even with the high bar set by those comics, Do a Powerbomb! exceeded my expectations. Holy shit. An absolutely entrancing fantasy wrestling miniseries full of dynamic, energetic action and tons of heart. These comics where a guy wrestles a giant talking orangutan almost made me cry. Twice. An instant favorite.

12/25: Adventure Time (rewatch) - We ended up finishing our rewatch of Adventure Time (the main series, anyway) on my 30th birthday, which feels appropriate. I already kinda knew this, but this rewatch has truly confirmed that Adventure Time is my favorite TV series of all time. The entire show is even better on a full series rewatch. In hindsight, even parts that annoyed me when they aired end up being important parts of the beautiful tapestry that is this series. The many low points of Finn’s adolescent love life are important stepping stones in his growth as a person, which leaves him in an extremely satisfying place by the end. Jake having kids didn’t get to be a huge status quo change because they grew up instantly, but then they did a bunch of fun episodes about Jake’s relationships with his adult children that deepened him as a character. And most of the big lore questions they kept teasing over the years (“Where’d the humans go?” “Who are Finn’s parents?” “When’s Finn gonna get a robot arm?” etc.) ended up getting satisfying and creative answers, because the show left itself the room to figure those things out later. This is a truly special, one-of-a-kind series, one that lasted nearly 300 episodes and yet still seems like it was over too soon. And yes, I did in fact cry during the final montage, like I knew I would. I will always cherish this show with all of my heart.

12/25: Olive the Other Reindeer (rewatch) - Haven’t seen this one since I was a kid! It was a favorite of mine back then, and while it might not be quite as funny as I remember it’s still very cute, with a 2D/3D hybrid art style that remains very unique and appealing. As an adult I can also appreciate the cast they got for this, with like half the cast of Futurama bolstered by guests like Michael Stipe from REM and The Sopranos’ Joe Pantoliano.

12/26: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio - Anthony and I capped off our Christmas with the most jolly and festive stop motion movie of all! Jokes aside, man, what a beautiful movie. The animation is immaculate, and we really just don’t get children’s animated films like this anymore. Ones that overtly feature real world politics and religion and so many other dark themes in a way that doesn’t talk down to kids or sugarcoat things. This one hits hard. We need more movies like this.

12/31: Oppenheimer - This was an interesting one. Despite being three hours, the way that first hour jumps around in time makes it feel like Oppenheimer is constantly being propelled forward through life at a breakneck pace, swept up by the rising tide of nationalism in spite of his personal left wing politics, never really reflecting on what he’s doing until it’s too late. Then when he’s no longer useful to the empire, he’s chewed up and spat out, only to eventually be honored as a national hero as a symbolic gesture. It’s a compelling story. However, I’m a little torn on how certain aspects of history were framed. Does the abstraction of the bombings detract from the true weight of those events, in favor of sympathizing with the man who built the bomb? Or is it clever a way to show how the realities of the war were compartmentalized away by people who were complicit in its most heinous acts of violence? One minute a bunch of physicists are talking theory, thousands of miles away from the theaters of war, and the next they’ve killed 200,000 people. So which is it? Eh, probably somewhere in the middle, I guess. But I liked it overall.

12/31: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe - I’ve been really surprised by how good this rerelease is. It kind of flew under the radar for me. I liked the original game, but at the time it also almost felt like the New Super Mario Bros. of Kirby. It was a straightforward throwback game where you went through a grass world, then a desert world, then a water world, etc., and also they added four player co-op. But returning to this one after the kinda mid Star Allies has made me appreciate just how solid RtDL is as a Kirby game. I really like the updated graphics, too - yes, even the new cel shaded outlines around the characters - even though I didn’t think it looked that great in screenshots. Also the two new copy abilities (Sand and Mecha) are fun, the minigame collection is shockingly fleshed out to the point that they could’ve sold it as a standalone eShop game, the collectible character masks are fun, and the new epilogue mode where you play as Magolor is one of the coolest bonus modes they’ve ever done. This is a top tier Kirby remake any fan of the series should check out.

Ongoing things I followed in 2023 that don't have a blurb:

Halo Infinite multiplayer

IDW Sonic the Hedgehog (main series + specials)

One Piece

Chainsaw Man

My Hero Academia (not caught up)

The JOJOlands (not caught up)

Things I started in 2023 that I still need to finish:

Freedom Planet 2

Hi-Fi Rush

Live A Live

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Picross 3D Round 2

Rhythm Heaven MegaMix

Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team ProtoMan

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Spark the Electric Jester 3

Sonic Dream Team

One Piece (Wano arc, anime)

Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 (I’ve already read the Shibuya arc already in the manga, though)

Astro Boy (2003 anime)

Futurama (original run rewatch)

One Piece (manga reread)

The Amazing Spider-Man (Lee/Ditko era)

Scott Pilgrim series (reread)

And finally... my favorites of 2023!!!

Overall favorite game: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Favorite indie game: Pseudoregalia

Games remastered in 2023 that are now among my all-time faves: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, We Love Katamari

Most pleasant surprise in gaming: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

Favorite film: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Favorite live action show: Barry

Favorite anime: Pluto

Favorite anime written by a Canadian guy and an American guy based on the Canadian guy's old graphic novel series: Scott PIlgrim Takes Off

Favorite live action adaptation of an anime that I still can't believe they didn't fuck up: One Piece

Favorite Western cartoon: Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake

Favorite older cartoon I only got around to watching in its entirety this year: The Venture Bros.

Favorite documentary: Double Fine PsychOdyssey

Favorite semi-improvised semi-scripted absurdist comedy/horror/tragedy Twitch livestream performance art thing: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware finale (wayneradiotv)

Favorite manga: Chainsaw Man

Favorite older manga that I only read this year: Berserk

Favorite Western comic book: Daniel Warren Johnson's Transformers

Favorite album: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock)

And that's a wrap!!!!! Happy new year, everyone! Here's to me maybe actually reading a goddamn book this year

#bobby writes #i don't have a writing tag so i'm making one now to save this and other things

[felassan]

Some DA facts collected together, from recent tweets -

GhilDirthalen: "the frostbite engine didn’t do ending slides, so the slides you see in DAI are actually paintings that quickly spawn in your bed room. You can zoom out during the end with fly cam" John Epler: "i remember when we were trying to do these and we're like 'hey can we display still images' and the answer was 'uhh it's a lot more complicated than you think' so this was the solution. i set up all the cameras, and I THINK level design handled all the scripting logic" JE: "anyways videogames are basically held together by magic and hope and it's a legitimate miracle anytime one gets finished"

JE: "When you 'sprint' on a horse in DAI it doesn't really do much because frostbite couldn't stream in levels fast enough, so we just added speed lines and changed the camera so it felt faster. JE: "i've carried the guilt of this for years. guilt is an ocean, and i'm tired of drowning." "feels like I just murdered Santa Claus in front of many of you" [source], "feels like i just declassified Area 51" [source]. "i'm just glad the truth is finally out there" [source] Seb Hanlon: "ME1 did it first" JE: "just to be SUPER clear, riding a horse is faster than being on-foot, but the difference between normal horse run and horse 'sprint' is non-existent except for making it look faster". "the base horse speed is faster than unhorsed run speed, but horse sprint doesn’t move you faster than normal horse speed" [source] JE: "there were three days on that project where my entire job was ‘try to make horse sprint feel faster’" User: "I swear to god John I knew it, I fucking knew it, none of the mounts have different speeds, either?" JE: "i actually don't know the answer to that one, i just set up the gameplay cameras and did what what i was told." Seb: "but they have different sounds /screams in Red Hart" JE: "no one believed that's what a Red Hart really sounds like but they are fucked up animals."

Seb: "The save system in DAI loads with all doors in the area closed. This is a problem if there’s a door between you and a party member when the save happens, because they can’t open doors. If they can’t path to you, they get teleported to join you before the fade-up from black." Seb: "This “system” was rigged entirely in Frostbite Schematic logic quite late in development once we realized it was a problem." JE: "i vaguely remember that the first time we really saw this problem was when we were putting together the Redcliffe demo for... whatever event we showed Redcliffe at." Seb: "Yeah I think that was the map I tested the teleport-fallback in. Dorian was there in those saves for sure?" JE: "yeah 100%. it was when you first end up in the future and you're fighting your way to the locked-up followers. i think we were playing it in Hanged Man or Neverwinter and we discovered 'oh shit our followers can't get to you'"

Seb: "Zither’s first-pass ability icons originally echoed a broad swath of iconic album art. The UI art team made me so happy. Why didn’t it ship? Ain’t nobody chasing down those IP clearances for an April Fools DLC."

JE: "in DA2 Mark of the Assassin, if you let Baron Arlange live after the first encounter with him, he shows up very deep in the background of several scenes, creeping on Hawke and the party around stalagmites and around corners." "no one asked for this but i put it in as a little treat because i thought it was very funny. i still do. oh the scene where you get captured in the vault by Prosper and his guards, that's the same 5 (6?) guards just cycled through multiple times." [source, two]

JE: "i've told this story before but the reason Iron Bull's romance scene takes place in a separate tower is because the mocap for everyone walking in on you assumed that there was a doorway, and the player's bedroom ended up having stairs. so we moved the scene to the Sex Tower"

Seb: "DAI: To enable party followers’ AI to use their defensive abilities (dodge/block/parries), enemies spawn a “telegraph volume” as part of their ability wind-ups. This tells the party AI what kind of reaction it can use to counter (if it’s not on cooldown and it can branch in time)." "“Parry” telegraphs are the ‘weakest’ (can activate block, dodge, or parry abilities); “dodge” telegraphs are the ‘strongest’ (dodge or get fucked). There’s an all-abilities AI cooldown on these responses; before this was added, I saw Cass perfect block for minutes at a time." [source]

Seb: "the Qunari Ashaad in Trespasser is the only combat creature I personally implemented; and the only one intentionally plays both ranged and melee. and it was great fun watching play-testers climb a ladder to close and shut down his range attack—and get kicked off by the sweep"

Seb: "I’m still personally pleased that the Red Templar faction in DAI has such a strong overarching principle: “power corrupts”. The more elite the creature, the less human they are."

Seb: "Both the Children in DAO Awakening and the Harvester in DAO hide their extra body parts *inside* their torso mesh before they appear."

Seb: "Varric in DA2 is the most specialest snowflake; he’s not like any other dwarf because his rig includes all the Bianca animation bones."

Seb: "DAI’s Emerald Graves was the map where we hammered out the conceptual balance of using abilities based on the enemy composition and position."

Seb: "There’s an animation-driven movement mode in DAI that’s only used by a handful of large creatures; the dragon and the Red Templar Behemoth are the ones I remember."

Seb: "“making two combat creatures at melee range face, and not slide past, each other when they’re playing attack animations” took a surprising amount of problem solving on DAI; most of the basic-attack animations have both moving and standing variations for this reason."

Seb: "30 seconds of good combat gameplay takes more-or-less the same development effort as 10 minutes of good combat gameplay. Which is more than you’d think. IYKYK."

Seb: "The original concept for the Grand Fear Demon at the end of DAI’s Fade was a “level boss” - instead of a single big combat creature (like a dragon), the idea was it was so big it would attack out of the darkness with “limbs” (creatures) that shared a health pool. Cut for scope."

Seb: "The core combat ability animation/effects/branching system in DAI is called “CSM”, for “combat state machine”. It’s the third generation spiritual successor to the first system called CSM that I worked on, built for a project called Revolver…"

Seb: "The “impassable” purple fire zones in Trespasser were a tremendous pain in the ass, because both: - making them do enough damage fast enough to be a lock-and-key for invincibility powers as intended - keeping party members from following you in and getting bug-zappered" User: "I hate to tell you this but my first time through, I was determined to get through and I did not know that invincibility powers were literally down the stairs so I spent 10 minutes and eventually managed to get through with some mage shenanigans" Seb: "by the time we got to trespasser there were so many abilities you MIGHT have that MIGHT JUST get you through that we gave it our best shot and said “good enough”" User: "I died at that thing SO MANY TIMES until I realized there was an invincibility boost, lol" Seb: "clearly signaling “THIS IS A THING YOU WILL DO LATER” without saying it, especially if it’s a mechanical systems thing, can be surprisingly difficult"

Seb: "during development on DAI someone made a staff that, when used (hit the ground with the butt animation) spawned a bunch of nugs that ran off in all directions. for checking pathmesh bounds, obvs"

#dragon age #bioware #video games #mass effect #long post #longpost

[absolutebl]

Because your opinion means a lot: Any chance you feel like sharing 5 upcoming BLs you're most excited about and why? And maybe as a bonus, something you think many BL watchers will love but that you will hate?

Ooooo, how exciting what a fun one. You sure you want this from me? I have very odd taste.

The 5 Upcoming BLs I'm Most Excited About

(this forced me to put together the 2024 Announced BLs list which is coming soon)

1 Spare Me Your Mercy

Increased rates of deaths in terminal patients has a police captain investigating the palliative care doctor with whom he's fallen in love. Their relationship deepens but the mystery persists, driven by mistrust.

Why? It's adapted from the novel Euthanasia by Sammon (Triage, Manner of Death) but more important, it stars some old guard BL actors: Tor Thanapob from Hormones as the doctor and (fuck me YES) Jaylerr from Great Men Academy and goddamn Grean Fictions as the captain!

2 Wandee Godday

GMMTV and AllThis Entertainment producing a very pulp offering with new pair, GreatInn doing high heat, boxer meets surgeon. It features a one night stand, fake relationship, and all the cheesiest of tropes. Also features Drake, Podd, and Thor+ pretty boy (be still my heart).

Why? This is totally my kind of BL even if it isn't GMMTV's style of BL, and it's GREAT, so I'm in.

3 The Next Prince (ZeeNew)

Domundi brings us more ZeeNew in a fantasy/historical set in a palace where Zee plays a knight and Nu a prince - YES PLEASE.

Why? I did not expect this pair to stick so I really hope this happens. Give us the Little Pink Riding Milk BL we deserve!

4 Lover Merman

Fantasy BL about a man who falls in love with a merman.

Why? I don't think it will be good but I LOVE merfolk.

5 Me and Who

Domundi for WeTV brings this adaptation of Wickedwish’s novel of the same name. It depicts a young man who dies and is reborn into the body of a billionaire heir. The heir happens to be engaged to a handsome man.

Why? I flipping LOVE this trope but I never expected to see it drive a BL.

10 I am cautious of but VERY intrigued

JAPAN'S Although I Love You and You AKA Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka

From YTV releasing 1/11 about Soga, who, after a divorce and relocation to Osaka, seeks solace in dining at 26-year-old Sakae's restaurant. Unbeknownst to Soga, Sakae sees him as more than just a regular customer.

TAIWAN's Love For Love's Sake

Based on the Manhwa Love Supremacy Zone by Hwacha, this will star actors Lee Tae Vin, Cha Jun Wan, Oh Min Su and Cha Woon Ki. The plot of the drama is based on Tae Myung Ha, a young man who is dropped into a game based off of a novel that he knows. His mission is to make another player, Cha Yeo Woon happy. Cha Yeo Woon is Myung-Has favourite character in the novel. But then the game starts going completely different from the novel.

City of Stars AKA Fueangnakorn

Star Hunter started filming this 12/23 about an actor falls in love with a programmer and the narrative intends to “explore the ramifications of being public figure in the social network era who must endure critics, bullying, and defamation.” Looks like another Lovely Writer, Call It What You Want sort of thing.

My Stand-In AKA My Stand In

Chinese IP ALERT! Adapted from the novel Professional Body Double (职业替身) by Shui Qiang Cheng (水千丞) stars Up (Lovely Writer) and Poom (Bake Me Please).

OMG Vampire AKA OMG! Vampire (LeeFrank)

Frank and Lee Long Shi are back only vampires now. So many vampires.

The Rebound (MeenPing)

VIU Basketball based romance staring Meen (a national basketball player, so yay for that).

We Are (PondPhuwin)

GMMTV's university friendship Bl featuring PondPhuwin, WinnySatang, AouBoom, MarcPawin - basically ALL in the good kind of messy friendship group (so more My Engineer and less Only Friends). Looks a bit like the Kiss series but everyone is gay. I'm IN! Trailer here.

Love Upon a Time (NetJames)

Domundi announced for 6/7/2023 then delayed to 2024. NetJames in a historical BL! Also feat Tonnam (Dr Sing from Triage).

Jack & Joker (YinWar)

DeHup brings us be gay, do crimes. Yin, War, Mark and a few other familiar faces doing Leverage but gayer. Yes, thank you, I will have that.

My Love Mix-Up Thai Remake (GemniForth)

GMMTV. Hum, well I do love this pair and I did like the original and maybe this time these characters will actually kiss? I'm actually fine with this pick-up. I kind of enjoy seeing different countries remake the same IP. Especially if it's IP I'm mostly unfazed by.

#asked and answered #2023 BL #most anticipated BL #my top picks for 2024 #thai bl #Spare Me Your Mercy #Wandee Godday #GMMTV #The Next Prince #zeenunew #Lover Merman #Me and Who #domundi #Although I Love You and You #Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka #Love For Love's Sake #City of Stars #My Stand-In #OMG Vampire

[odiesdayoff]

So Undercover

pair: dark!Edward Nashton x fem!reader

summary: You get a little too caught up in an undercover job to unravel the Riddler.

warnings: NON-CON / DUB-CON SMUT (MINORS LEAVE); no really this is dark if it makes u uncomfy then do not pass go!! voyeurism, mentions of revenge porn, forced creampie, dildos, fucking machines, sexting? coercion, manipulation, name-calling (slut, whore, good girl), stalking, blackmail

i'm so fr if u dont like this then go because your consumption is literally not my business at all actually. but enjoy :)

possible part 2

<me> Hi. 

<?> Hello.

<?> What gets wet while drying?

<me> Oh. Um.

<me> A towel.

<?> Correct.

You sighed from relief. As far as you knew, the man you were dealing with was calling himself The Riddler. Having to actually answer riddles surprisingly wasn’t something you thought you’d have to do.

<me> What is your name?

<?> I think you know that already.

<me> Riddler, yes. But I want to know your actual name.

<?> I’m not stupid.

<?> What is your name?

<me> I’m not stupid, either.

<?> I know.

<?> You’re a good girl.

The pointer on the screen blinked. Your hands were still on your keyboard, but something stopped you from typing anything in response. No part of your conversation or your screen name implied you were a girl. Unless, it was a lucky guess and he was just messing with your head.

<?> Don’t get cold feet now, Y/n. We’re just getting started.

<?> That’s your name, right?

<?> I want to know who I’m looking at talking to.

<me> What?

<?> Answer the question.

<me> That is my name.

<?> Good girl.

You bit the inside of your cheek and slowly closed your laptop. Detective Henry and two officers looked at you for an answer. “He knew my name.”

The detective nodded. “We expected that. You didn’t get kicked off, though, right?”

“No. I don’t know, actually. I got scared.” Sheepishly, you looked down at the closed laptop. In your defense, this wasn’t in your job description at all. You spun your chair around. The first thing that caught your eye was the chair behind you. 

A towel. Draped over the back of the chair.

None of this could’ve been a lucky guess. You knew for certain that he was looking at you through your webcam. “I want you to talk to him at home. That way it’s more believable.”

“Can’t you do it yourself? Or get Estella to do it?” That was the office secretary that rarely did anything other than watch Netflix on her computer and occasionally go on a coffee run.

The detective crossed his arms. “He recognized us as cops. IP banned us. We’ll pay you overtime for this.”

You didn’t open your laptop again and look at the chat log until you were at your apartment and on your bed. With the knowledge that The Riddler could see through your webcam, you made sure not to change out of your work clothes just yet.

<?> I was wondering when you’d come back.

<me> I was curious.

<?> About me?

<me> Yes. 

<?> What about me?

<me> Everything.

<me> All I hear at work is you and the things you’re up to.

<?> At the station?

<me> Yes.

<?> You don’t look like a cop.

<me> I’m not.

<me> I’m an archival assistant.

<?> Interesting.

<me> It’s really not.

<me> What do you do?

<?> I work with numbers.

<me> Can’t imagine you with a 9-5 

<me> haha.

<?> I have to make money somehow.

<me> It’s funny.

<me> You’re just like the rest of us, then.

<?> Yes.

<?> People like you don’t usually follow me.

<me> What do you mean? People like me.

<?> Beautiful young women.

<?> With their whole lives ahead of them.

<me> I doubt that. 

<me> Do you know all of your followers?

<?> Yes.

<?> They are mostly older males.

<?> So…

<?> How can I be sure I can trust you?

You stared at the question on your screen. This was either a test because he knew that you were technically working for the GCPD’s investigation or a genuine concern. You started to type.

<me> You can trust me.

After sending, you realized how dumb the answer truly was. If you were him, it was obvious.

<?> Take off your blouse.

<me> No.

<?> Yes.

<?> Or I cut this communication.

Thoughts raced through your head. He was a creep, of course. You weren’t entirely sure what you should’ve expected of someone like him. This was for the sake of the investigation. It could save lives. Just show the man your boobs.

One-by-one, you unbutton your blouse until it slid down your arms. The webcam was pointed directly at you and your chest.

<?> Keep going.

Your bra fell to your lap after you unclipped it. He wasn’t typing. Your nipples seemed to keep eye contact with the webcam. A chill coming from the poorly fixed holes in your windows gave you goosebumps and made your nipples harder.

<?> Gorgeous.

<me> Do you trust me now?

<?> Yes.

His little available dot next to his name disappeared, leaving you confused, a bit violated, and half-naked in your bedroom. You didn’t know what he looked like or his name, but you just put on a little show for him. He probably was too busy jerking off to type. 

Not moving, you kept the chat open. The dot returned. He started typing. 

<?> Knew you’d be waiting for me.

<?> Greedy little slut.

<me> Excuse me?

<?> Don’t act modest now.

<?> Take off those pants.

<me> I gave you what you wanted.

<me> I’m not doing that.

<?> Yes, you are.

<?> I changed my mind.

You rolled your eyes and made sure it was caught by the camera. The laptop stayed on your bed as you stood up and shimmied out of your work pants. 

<?> Panties, too.

<me> No way.

<?> I want to see that pussy of yours.

<me> Fuck off.

You closed the chat and quickly threw some clothes on. There’s no way you were going to do all of that for some stranger just because it might help with an investigation. No way.

At work the next day, you did your best to throw yourself into the busy work you had to do and forget about last night. He was nothing but a disgusting pervert and you weren’t doing it anymore. You could just tell the detective that he found out what you were doing and blocked you as well. 

Your mouse hovered over the bookmarked website. No. He wasn’t going to take up any more space in your mind than he already has. You slammed the laptop shut. 

A knock on the doorframe caught your attention. A tall man with slightly shaggy hair and glasses stood, still wearing a dark blue windbreaker. He was mousy, his posture nowhere near upright. “Can I help you, sir?”

A small smile appeared. “Yeah, hi. I wanted to ask about the records and how I could possibly access one.”

You pushed your chair back further to get a better look at him. The whole point of this job was to stay cooped up in the shelves of your records, collecting dust just as fast as they were. “Well, did you fill out a request form?”

He looked at you, confused.

“I’ll take that as a no.” You chuckled and stood. Rows of cabinets faced you. “They should be somewhere around here. I mean, they are online, but you’re already here. So…” You searched a few of the cabinets before finding the stack of empty request forms. “Here.” You took one of the forms and handed it to the man.

“Thank you. Do you have a pen?” He made the gesture of writing with his hand like you would ask a waiter for a check. 

You pulled the pen from your hair and it fell onto your shoulders. It was keeping a somewhat bun shape just to get it out of your face. He took the pen and leaned on the closest desk to start filling out the form.

You stood there, watching him write. In reality, you had no idea what you were supposed to be doing with him still there. After a minute, he returned the form and the pen to you. “So, how does this work?”

“I just have to enter some of your information into the system, I’ll scan the record digitally and you’ll be able to access it online in about a half-hour, I think.” He followed you to your computer and stood a bit too close as you started to enter his information into the system.

“You think?” He raised a brow.

You shrugged. “I mean, I know. It’s just pretty rare that someone actually comes in. And it’s my boss that does it. She’s on vacation right now. Of course, who goes on vacation in the middle of February?”

“It’s cheaper.” He answered.

“I guess so.” You continued to fill out the information into the system. “You know, you don’t have to stay anymore. I’ll have the record sent to your email.”

He pursed his lips and adjusted his windbreaker. “It was nice meeting you, um…”

“Y/n. You too, um.” You looked at the form. Patrick Parker. “Patrick.”

Once you looked from your screen to his direction, he was long gone. Strange man. You took a closer look at the records he was requesting. The murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne. Strange men indeed.

No matter how strange the interaction you had was, it still took your mind off of The Riddler. You hadn’t thought about opening up the chat log again until you finally reached your apartment. The laptop almost beckoned you to open it while it was on the counter and you were eating dinner.

“Jesus. Okay.” You put your food on the table and brought your laptop. The chat was pulled up after a moment.

<me> Are you there?

You continued to eat, glancing at the chat log. The small availability dot appeared next to his screen name. He didn’t respond. 

<me> Riddler.

<me> I know you’re there.

You finished your dinner, still with no response. The dishes were done and drying when you returned to your laptop. He was still there, but not speaking. 

<me> Please.

<?> Such a desperate slut.

<?> I love it when you beg.

<me> I have a question for you.

<?> Yes?

<me> Why do you do what you do?

<?> For justice.

<me> I mean, the violence part. 

<?> Change doesn’t happen peacefully.

<?> You can’t just ask the corrupt to treat people like us with respect.

<?> Or give us the things that are rightfully ours.

<me> What about fixing the system from the inside?

<?> It’s naive to believe things like that.

<?> We can’t fix the system.

<?> It has to be destroyed and rebuilt.

<me> And that’s what you plan on doing?

<?> Precisely.

<me> I want to help you.

<?> How could you possibly help?

<me> I have access to the entirety of the GCPD police record system.

<me> No questions asked.

<?> They are public records.

<?> Anyone has access.

<me> Well.

<me> What can I do?

<?> You can be an informant.

<me> Like, tell you what the police are saying?

<?> Yes.

<me> I can do that.

<?> Good girl.

The surge of adrenaline that shot through you was hard to ignore. You were successfully doing undercover work and seemingly gaining trust in the Riddler. Even harder to ignore was that heat that pooled in between your legs when he praised you. For all that you knew, he was some ugly, basement dweller.

What were you even thinking? He’s a serial killer. A literal killer that plans on killing many more people.

<?> I’m sending you a gift.

<me> A gift?

<?> Yes. 

<me> Why?

<me> What is it?

<?> It’s a surprise.

The Riddler’s surprise gift that was supposedly getting to you could’ve been so many things. What if it was a bomb? You knew that he had your workplace and if he knew your name, he could’ve found your address. Easily. 

It took a week for the package to arrive at your front door. It was larger than you thought. After a long day of work, you had to drag the box into your apartment before anyone asked any questions. You took your pocket knife and cut open the box. What was inside made your jaw drop. You went straight to your laptop.

<me> What the fuck?

<me> Why would you give this to me?

<?> You don’t like it?

<me> No.

<?> I want to see you use it.

<me> I’m not touching that thing.

<?> But you are.

<?> It’s custom made.

<?> And remote controlled.

<me> You’re disgusting.

<?> And you’re still going to do what I tell you to do.

<me> And why is that?

<?> Because I have so many pictures of you that I’m sure your employers won’t want to see. 

<me> What pictures?

<?> Attached 3 Images.

Pictures of you from that first night appeared on your screen. Topless photos with your face clearly in the frame along with one without your pants. You gasped.

<?> Take it out of the box.

You resisted the urge to say no. The box stared at you from across the room. You got up and pulled it out of the box. It was a dildo connected to a metal base. It was not an unnatural skin color. It was pale, not entirely large, but not small. In the living room you placed it upright on the rug and brought your laptop to face it.

<?> Strip.

<?> Don’t make me wait, slut.

You grabbed the edges of your shirt and pulled it off, your pants following shortly. After a deep breath and the reminder that your life would probably be ruined if you stopped here, you unhooked your bra and rolled your panties down your legs.

<?> Touch yourself.

Your hand trembled as you reached your clit and gently started to rub circles over it. This was necessary no matter how uncomfortable you were knowing that he was watching. You had to be at least a little wet before he commanded you to start using the dildo.

<?> I want you to put your mouth on it.

The machine and the synthetic cock attached to it taunted you as you got closer to it. Glancing at the laptop for a moment, you licked the head. You slowly began to take the cock deeper in your mouth, doing your best to pretend that it was something real and connected to someone you liked. What was the name of the guy from the forensics unit? Ben? Yeah, you imagined it to be him.

Your phone began to ring and you looked at the screen for him to tell you what to do now.

<?> Answer.

The caller ID said that it was an unknown number. You picked up. “Hello?”

A modulated male voice came through the other line. “Get back to sucking, slut.” 

Of course, he knew your number. He probably knew your shoe size, favorite drink, and childhood dog’s name. “I won’t be able to talk.”

“That’s the point. I want to hear you gag.” Still with the phone on your ear, you returned to gently sucking the cock. A quiet beep came from it and it began to push slowly further into your mouth. He would be mad if you pulled away, so you tried your best to take as much of it before the tip poked against the back of your throat.

You gagged and pulled away from the machine. Your voice rasped. “No more.”

He sighed from the other line. “Then get on it.”

Not wanting to look at the camera, you kept your stare to the ground and lined your entrance up to the awaiting cock. As you sank low enough so that the tip was inside of you, another beep filled the silence. The machine pushed the cock into you entirely. You moaned out of surprise and the sudden feeling of being full, followed by whimpering as the machine, or The Riddler, didn’t let you get used to the unfamiliar stretch.

“That’s right. Moan for me, slut.” The machine’s pace quickened and you couldn't hold your voice no matter how hard you tried. Your moans and whimpers filled the air. Riddler wasn’t visible, but you could almost feel that he had a smug little smirk on his face. “You’re mine, you hear that? All mine. Say you’re the Riddler’s whore.”

“M’not saying that.”

The machine stopped its assault. The pattern changed to pushing entirely into you as fast as possible, then slowly pulling out. It was excruciating. It just kept going on like that. 

“I’m The Riddler’s whore. Now stop it.” Your body jolted with each thrust. 

“What was that? Say it nice and clear to the camera.”

You turned your head to face the laptop. “I’m The Riddler’s whore.”

The machine sped up back to its original fast pace. “Good girl. Do you know what good girls get?”

All of your brain power was focused on answering. “What?”

The machine stopped, sheathed fully inside of you. “They get cum.” A warm liquid shot out of the synthetic cock and filled your insides. You didn’t even realize what was happening until most of it had already been expelled into you, threatening to enter your womb.

Looking down at yourself, droplets of cum spilled from your opening. “What is that? That’s not real, right?”

“It’s real. I’ve been keeping it nice and warm just for you. Feel honored.” He hung up the phone.

At least you were on the pill.

At work, the next day, you walked in with a small container that held as much of the Riddler’s semen as you possibly could gather after the fact. How were you even going to explain this to the detective? Sexted the serial killer and now I have some evidence! That’s insane.

You handed the container to one of the forensics workers. “I need this DNA tested. It’s connected to the Riddler case.” Be brief with details and get out of there. 

You felt safe again when you were in the archive room and finally away from everyone else. A knock on the door caught your attention. The same man from a few weeks ago stood. Patrick Parker, you think it was. Some alliteration like that. 

“Couldn’t figure out the website. Figured I’d just come here again.” He blushed as he spoke and avoided eye contact with you. Still strange, but at least he seemed a little sweet.

You stood from your chair. “Yeah, the forms are just over here.”

#edward nashton x reader #the riddler x reader #odiesdayoff

[amalgamasreal]

Now that's how you hold a grudge and fuck with the Studios all in one go. I can think of a few other IP's I wish would have been bogarted like this.

Also, in case you're wondering, this is partially why Sony makes a new Spider-Man movie every 5 years or so even if the last one BOMBED (Spider-Man 3/Amazing Spider-Man 2/Madame Webb), it's so that they can keep the rights from reverting back to Marvel.

#Dick Tracy #warren beatty #hollywood #hollywood studio #hollywood studio system #fuck the studios #sony #sony spiderman #spider-man #spiderman

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

Follow-Up Question, If Hobie does not receive more screentime or plot importance in BTSV -

I was thinking about Hobie - not just his plot importance, but his fan reception as well.

Me and my Marvel-obsessed mother were talking about this, and discussing the similarities between Hobie's new popularity

- and Loki's popularity after The Avengers.

Both originally supposed to be side characters there to aid the plot of a bigger narrative, they've gained huge amounts of popularity within a short time.

Despite original intentions, Loki went on to be a fan favorite for years. During the era of The Avengers, his fandom was small - but as we progressed on to Endgame, the fandom perception and love of such character shaped and charged his place within the MCU - and he died a hero.

Today the Loki show just finished it's second season - and it's the primary IP Marvel is using to push their next phase of Kang the Conqueror.

The love of the fandom shaped the canon in a way that we are still seeing years later.

And now seeing a new hit side-character, I can't help but wonder what's next in store for Hobie?

The creators know the love for him. They put hundreds of hours on designing his world and home, and that concept art can be used in the future.

Plus, with BTSV - We'll be entering a new phase of Spider-Man.

After BTSV will be the first time in almost a decade, that we haven't had a Spider-man franchise.

Spiderman 3 came out 2007 - followed by TASM in 2012, a five year gap.

The TASM series ran two movies, but was cancelled before it's completion, with TASM2 coming out in 2014. Instead the IP was negotiated with Marvel.

Without much delay, the helm was handed to Tom Holland.

Two years later, around the time TASM3 would be released, MCU Spidey made his first appearance in Civil War - 2016.

Tom would go on to complete his trilogy, the most recent coming out in 2021.

Two years later, now - we have the most recent - BTSV.

But for the past decade, we've been getting consistent Spider-Man content.

Despite the break from covid-Tom has completed his three as well as appeared in multiple mainline MCU movies. Abs although he's implied to be returning - we have no idea when or how.

BTSV will be the last in the Spiderverse trilogy.

After BTSV, There's no more scheduled Spider-Movies.

For the past two decades audiences and fandoms have been accustomed to Spider-Man movies being in theatres routinely, every two years

- The longest gap being 5 years, over a decade and a half ago.

When the Spider-man vacuum comes, do you think people will notice?

Who will be there to fill the void?

What is the next Spider-man story that will make it to screen?

And would you be interested in Hobie being that story?

Do you think it's possible? I'm curious!

#spiderman #atsv #spider man #marvel #across the spiderverse #hobie brown #spider punk #spiderpunk #atsv meta

[kookblurx]

1920 - jjk [ chpt 4. ]

→ SUMMARY: a photo of a beautiful smiling boy; an old tree in your grandparents garden ... and a feeling of sadness. all those things are connected to each other ...

→ GENRE: time travel au; changing fate au; rencarnation au; university au; death; sickness; historical setting; trigger topics; smut; dirty talk; switching between present and the past.

→ chapt. 3 / chapt. 5

→ RATING: 18+

→ NOTE: thank you for blowing up the first chapter with so many reblogs and welcome to all new followers. also if there are any creative people among us, feel free to design a header for this story. i will try to include every pic in the next chapters + linking your account. ( no must! ). Also please enjoy the second chapter <3 DISCLAIMER; this is a piece of art, not many events will be historically correctly.

BTS MASTERLIST ♡.°₊ˎ PLAYLIST FOR THIS CHAPTER

The Present:

You waited until your Grandparents went do bed. As the mansion fell silent you finally had the courage to get out of your room. The red skin underneath your eyes indicated that you cried after coming back. to your dissapointment the fairy wasnt with you, no matter how much you had screamed into your room. even the chat guy didnt came online anymore, while so many questions were burning on your tounge. jungkook was a kind man. a kind man who doesnt deserve to die. on tippy toes you made your way over into the library again, sure that there must be something, hidden inside one of the old books. the light was dimm which made it hard to see a thing. only the nearest books were well lit enough to make out the letters on the back of them. with a sigh you pulled 30 books out of their respective place. as you sat down on the ground with them your fingertips slid over the back of each one of them. all of those book were from the year 1918 to 1920. you were sure that you would find something about jungkook in earlier books. books no one had the idea to look into them before you. just because he died in 1920 doesnt mean there arent records about him from earlier.

but as soon your fingers wanted to open the book a knock was heard behind you. your whole body froze, there it was again, another little knock. gulping heavily you turned around to the big window, there was nothing seen beside the huge moon on the sky. there it was again. annoyed you stood up, brave enough to face whatever made that sound. with both hands you opened the huge windows, looking around but there was no one ... until ...

"hey! down here!"

your gaze went downwards into your grandparents garden. at the sight of that stranger you nearly stumbeled backwards. this cant be right? there is no way, right? underneath the small balcony there was a boy, smiling up at you. you knew that smile, of course, because you already saw it two times.

"W-Who are you?" your voice was a whisper but loud enough for him to hear.

"Pff ... you wrote with me earlier. Im Jimin by the way!" before he could shout more you decided to wave him up.

to your suprise Jimin was really skilled in climbing, it didnt took him long to jump on your balcony.

"do i wanna know how you knew where i live?"

another grin from him "your IP adress baby. You should get a VPN when you write with strangers"

you just rolled your eyes as he just went inside, in the meantime you closed the windows. Jimin looked around the library, whistling at all the books. thats when you noticed that he had a huge bag with him. before you could ask he sat down between the scattered books and opened his bag. there were a lot of different documents which he places right in front of him.

"come, im sure this will be of your interest" jimin waved you to him.

a bit hesitant you sat down beside him. it was still so weird. he looked like park jimin, his name was jimin and he even smiled like him. was park jimin his ancestor? shaking your head you took one of the documents into your hands. on the paper were various dates and locations.

"be careful. i need to bring them back later ... i got in a lot of trouble obtaining these. my uncle nearly killed me there" he took another paper and held it in front of your face. it showed a family tree and many more dates. "here look. thats jeon jungkook's family tree. do you notice something strange?"

"it ... stops after him" your fingers traced the letters of his name. underneath the blurry picture and his name .. was nothing. the family stopped continueing.

"exactly. he was the last one. no siblings, no nephews, no cousins. he was the only and the last one of his family."

"so you mean ..."

Jimin clicked with his tounge "the rumour that his family got rid of all the info involving him .. isnt true. because there is no family left. his family and family name died with him."

you couldnt wrap your head around it. if it wasnt his family, who was it then? slowly something struck you as your gaze moved back into jimins face.

"say Jimin, are you ... maybe related to Park Jimin? A guy who was Jungkook's best friend"

"hm yeah. thats why i was able to get all of these. I dont know why they were hidden on our attic tho"

"what was the relationship between your family and the Jeon's?!" out of the blue you grabbed Jimin's shoulders.

"Yah! I- I dont know! i just stumbled over them after i searched the attic for more clues" maybe jimin was really clueless. but what if it was his family who got rid of every trace Jungkook left?

Your hand reached out for another document on the top of it was a picture of Kook. much better quality than the one on the family tree. as usual he was smiling, brightly. you couldnt understand how someone would be able to kill such a positive person. seeing him smile like this and knowing what fates awaited him, made your heart break a bit. Jimin noticed that as he placed a hand on your shoulder.

"why are you so invested in his case? i mean, im a history nerd but you? you dont seem like it"

for a second you werent able to find the right words as they got stuck inside your throat "I ... I just ...-"

the more you looked at the picture the heavier your heart felt. there was something inside your chest, it tightened and suddenly out of the blue you heard the female voice again:

"oh come dont be like that. Smile for me! You know i love your smile!"

your heart grew heavier ... then there was another voice

"why ... why are you always leaving. dont go. what if you die out there?! ... i dont care if its your duty! Please stay with me!"

slowly a tear rolled down your cheek. the document you just had in your hand slipped out of it and onto the ground. jimin tried to shake your shoulder, saying something but you couldnt hear him. because the next thing you heard wasnt a womans voice, it was the voice of a men:

"dont worry okay? i will come back. i always came back to you. you will see, we will be together soon. just wait for me!"

with that sentence the time suddenly stood still. as the tears rolled down your cheeks you finally noticed that the shaking had stopped. slowly you looked around, finding jimin frozen in place beside you. one of your hands reached out to your cheek, wiping away all the tears which just kept going and going.

"you heard it right?" there she was again, the fairy sat down on one of the books. her eyes looked at all the documents on the ground in front of her "you heard his voice and .. her voice."

"that was ... his voice right? Jungkook's voice. it sounded so real ... it sounded like he was right next to me"

the fairy nodded a bit "your life and his fate are deeply connected to each other. it wasnt a coincidence that you came here Y/N. it was fate."

everything was too much. you were always able to hear voices which werent there, back in university. but you always told yourself that you were tired because of all the exam stress you had. now this fairy is telling you why you hear those voices.

"he needs you Y/N. You found another trigger point within those documents ... are you ready to travel again? to the day that picture was taken?" the fairy pointed at the smiling face of Jungkook "dont worry, the time here will stand still. he wont notice that you are gone"

wiping away your tears you looked over to jimin again. the fairy was right, your fate was to help junkook, to prevent the things that had happened to him. slowly you stood up, nodding a bit.

"yes.. im ready. take me to him"

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