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#This is easily one of my favorite music videos

miralunawritez · 4 months

Text

Here are some dating hcs for Velvet and Veneer yall can eat up while I work on requests

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Veneer:

Absolutely PRAISES you

You ate today? Praise. You picked out an outfit? Praise. Posted on social media? PRAISEEEE.

Spoils the FUCK out of you

You own items from every designer brand you can think of. New iPhone model? Consider it bought.

100% blows up your phone with tiktok videos of weird millennials, cat videos, and edits of him

"Veneer, its been 30 minutes and you already sent me 68 videos?"

Definitely looks at your face to see if you're watching the videos he sent you

"Did you see the one of the cat?" "Baby theres like 46 videos of cats in here"

MATCHING OUTFITS!!!!!

He wants everyone to know your his so you guys match everytime y'all go out together

Writes songs with you (______ by Veneer (ft. Y/N) or vice versa)

You guys have about 5 songs with both of yall in it

Clingy as shit

Anytime he gets he will cling to you, hugging you from behind while you do your makeup, holding your hand while you get dressed, arm around your shoulders while y'all walk around in public, etc.

Listens to all of your songs and is the first to hear your new ones

"This is amazing (Y/N)!" immediately added to his playlist

Posts you all over his socials, this boy is so proud of himself for having the privilege of being your boyfriend

"Look (Y/N), this picture of us got 4 million likes!"

Uses pet names like my love, my angel, baby, sweetheart, darling

"I love you so much my angel"

Cant stand up for himself for shit but will fight a bitch for you

"Veneer..its okay, all they said was they dont like me" you say as he finishes flaming the person

Like I said before, he plays the piano for you while you sing

He cherishes moments like this, being able to listen to your voice while he plays the music for you

Velvet (fem reader):

Spoils you HARD

You glance at it for a second? You have 3 of the same item now

Acts like she gets annoyed when you cling to her but she secretly loves it

She scoffs as you hug her but immediately pulls you back in once you let go

Unlike Veneer, she likes to keep y'alls relationship on the low (the people find out anyways)

"Velvet why dont you ever post pictures of us?" "Theres some weird people out there (Y/N)"

Once the people find out she posts you nonstop

"Which picture should I post? This one...orrrr..this one? Fuck it, I'm posting both"

Like Veneer, she loves to match so you guys match all the time

The people eat it up, loving every outfit you guys put together

Makes sure you are safe when at her shows

"Velvet, is this necessary?" you say as 4 bodyguards surround you

Writes songs about you and plays them for you before performing them

"Do you like it?" "Velvet I-" "Of course you do"

Not big on PDA but will cling to you when you guys are alone or just around Veneer

She will hold your hand in public though to make sure you are safe and dont leave her side

Gets jealous really easily

She HATES it when you give Veneer any over your attention, even if its just you passing him a makeup brush. She also gets really jealous when you are featured in other peoples songs and when you perform with other people.

She hated you at first, absolutely despised you

"I actually hated you when I first met you so I wouldn't test your limits if I were you"

Does your makeup for you and you do hers (matching, duh)

"Dont we look so cute?" she says as she holds you face against hers while looking in the mirror

When you guys performed together she kissed you at the end of the show

The crowd went absolutely wild, so did the paparazzi <3

Bonus hcs that I thought of and thought they were funny and wanted to add

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Veneer:

Sits outside the bathroom door while you use the bathroom

Like deadass sits on the floor outside of the bathroom door (occasionally shoving his fingers under the door)

Ticklish as fuck

Shows you the dances him and velvet made up as kids

Favorite show is Family Guy

Never learned how to swim

Poor baby still has to use a ring floatie

You guys die of laughter while going through each others tiktok drafts

He has a few videos of him using the bold glamour filter in there

Has the windex bottle laugh (contagious as fuck, has you rolling on his bed and kicking your feet while laughing)

Really good at character impressions and faking accents

Lowkey athletic, he's really good at baseball

Velvet (fem reader):

You guys play fight A LOT

She initiates its every single time

She can pinch with her toes

Pinches your legs with her toes every chance she gets (leading to play fighting and wrestling)

SUPER goofy when yall are alone

This girl has you cracking up

Likes to do funny challenges with you

Doing each others makeup blind folded, trying to guess what the other person is saying while having music blasted in their ears, etc.

Looks you right in the eyes with a very serious face before charging at you and pinching you (with her fingers)

Has that demonic wheeze laugh (the one that sound like goose and it's contagious as fuck)

Her laughs have both of yall rolling, like face turning red, eyes watering, cant breathe, and smacking the closest thing to yall

Smacks you repeatedly when you lay on her hair, not stopping until you get up

You guys cant take anything seriously when yall are alone and its past 10:30 at night

Seriously, just looking at each other has y'all pissing y'alls pants from laughter

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#trolls 3 #trolls veneer #velvet and veneer #velvet trolls #veneer x reader #fanfics #imagines #velvet x reader #fanfic #headcanons

539 notes · View notes

merrybloomwrites · 3 months

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Ants Are Going to Town in My Body

Summary: Your boyfriend Shayne helps you through the roughest night of your period after getting a taste of cramps for himself.

Title taken from the video that inspired this story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkn2dc4L7fE

Word Count: 1.7K

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People could easily say that Shayne Topp has golden retriever energy. As his girlfriend of two years, you would completely agree with that statement, and you would say it as the highest compliment.

Shayne is the absolute best boyfriend you’ve ever had. It’s not uncommon for him to surprise you with flowers for no reason. He loves to cook. Sometimes you help him in the kitchen, and other times he kicks you out in order to surprise you with the new recipe he decided to try.

He gets excited to tell you all about the latest book he read or to watch a new movie or show with you. Day trips outside of the city happen a couple times a month, the two of you listening to music during the drive as you enjoy the fresh, non-LA air.

One thing that you found surprising at first is how much he dotes on you. It’s always in subtle ways, nothing overwhelming, but he does little things to show he cares. To show that he knows what you need, deep down.

He always takes care of you when you’re sick, grabbing medicine and making soup to help you feel better. If you’re sad or stressed he’ll go through the feelings with you. People often see him as a class clown type and might assume that he’d just do what he can to cheer you up and make you laugh, but that’s not always the case. He’ll meet you where you’re at. If you need to vent, he’ll listen. If you need to cry, he’ll hold you. He’s one of the most emotionally mature men you’ve ever met, and you can’t help but feel like the luckiest woman in the world to be able to call him your boyfriend.

He is also super supportive of you each month during your period. He has no problem picking up pads or tampons, not even batting an eye when fans recognize him in the feminine care aisle of the local convenience store.

He’ll make sure that you have pain medicine and a snack to take it with, so it doesn’t upset your stomach. He draws warm baths and makes sure your heating pad is ready for you. When you have cramps in the middle of the night you always go to the couch so that your constant tossing and turning to find a comfortable position won’t wake him. But without fail, he always comes to find you and bring you back to bed.

All that to say, he’s truly a perfect boyfriend. You don’t think it could be better than this. Until one day, he proves you wrong.

It’s day two of your period, and you’ve been curled on the couch since you got home from work. The pain meds haven’t kicked in, nothing is comfortable, and you’re extremely bloated. You’re debating if it’s worth it to drag yourself to the bathroom and take a bath when the front door of your apartment opens.

The very first thing Shayne does is press a kiss to the top of your head. The sweet gesture distracts you from the pain for a moment, but the relief is fleeting.

“Hey honey, how are you feeling?” he asks gently.

“Like it would be less painful to slice open my stomach and take out my uterus,” you reply through gritted teeth.

You finally look at him and see the most loving expression on his face. It immediately lightens your mood, and you say, “Sorry, that was a bit dramatic. I just hate waiting for the medicine to work. And I cannot get comfy.”

“I got something that might help,” he says before walking into the kitchen. You miss his presence next to you, but you’re also curious what he has for you. The microwave beeps and he’s crouched in front of the couch again. You look up and see him holding a stuffed rabbit.

“It’s one of those thingies that you can heat up and works like a heating pad. Plus, it’s your favorite animal so, I dunno, I thought it was cute.”

He hands it to you, and you place it on your belly, sighing at the immediate relief. “Thank you,” you say quietly.

“Of course, babe. I also have ingredients for your favorite meal so I’m gonna wash up and start making that, okay?”

You nod and smile, and he leans in to place a soft kiss to your lips. You’re comforted by the sounds of him preparing dinner in the next room and by the time the food is ready you’re finally feeling better.

“So, how was work today?” you ask as you dig into the delicious meal he prepared. You’d been too nauseas to eat lunch earlier, and you suddenly realize how starving you are.

“It was good, recorded a podcast, a reddit reacts and a challenge pit,” he replies.

“Busy day. What were the challenges?”

“Uh, it was a fun one. I’m gonna let it be a surprise for you when it comes out,” he says with a laugh. “How were the pups today?” he asks in reference to your job as a service dog trainer.

You tell him about the new dog that you’ve started working with as you both finish eating. Once you’re done you try to bring the plates to the kitchen. Since Shayne cooked you plan to do the cleanup, but he stops you before you can even stand. “I’ve got it babe, why don’t you choose a movie for us to watch tonight?”

You again wonder how you got so lucky to have someone who takes care of you and does so with a smile on his face. There’s a new documentary you’d both been wanting to watch so you pull it up and grab a blanket while you wait for him.

He joins you a few minutes later and hands you a bag of your favorite chocolates. You know that you didn’t have any in the apartment, meaning he’d picked them up for you. The kind gesture brings tears to your eyes, and you internally curse the hormones that make you more emotional than normal.

Shayne doesn’t comment on the crying, knowing that it sometimes makes you uncomfortable when he points it out. Instead, he just wraps his arm around you, pulls you in to cuddle against his chest, and presses play on the documentary.

His free hand moves to your belly, massaging and giving the type of pressure that always helps with your cramps. Even though they’re not bothering you right now, you appreciate how well he knows you and how he’s doing everything he can to make sure you’re as comfortable as possible.

For the next hour and a half, the documentary plays. You’re only half paying attention to it. The rest of your brain is focused on your wonderful boyfriend, who knows exactly how to take care of you. There’s no expectation, he doesn’t want anything in return. He just wants to make sure he’s doing everything he can to make you feel better.

The credits start rolling and Shayne turns off the TV before getting off the couch and reaching out to help you stand as well. The two of you get ready for bed side by side in the bathroom and you burrow under the covers.

It takes a couple of minutes for Shayne to join you, and you assume he’s checking that the door is locked as he does every night. But when he comes into the bedroom, you see he’s carrying the new bunny he got you. It’s warm, and smells of lavender, and you know he heated it for you in the microwave before coming to bed.

You place it against your belly and Shayne gets under the covers, spooning you from behind. He places a kiss to the back of your neck and murmurs “I love you” against your skin.

“I love you too,” you reply, and fall asleep.

You wake in the middle of the night, your cramps coming back, so you quietly slide out of bed and walk into the kitchen. You find a snack already left out for you nearly cry again at how well Shayne takes care of you. After eating the food, you take more pain medicine and reheat the bunny. You notice a vase of flowers on the counter that weren’t there yesterday and immediately realize that Shayne must have picked them up along with the chocolates and the new stuffed animal.

Just as the microwave is about to finish you feel hands wrap around your waist.

“You okay?” Shayne asks, his voice groggy from sleep.

“I’m okay. Thank you. For the snack. And for the bunny. You truly are the best,” you say as you turn in his arms to press a kiss to his lips.

You grab the stuffed animal and lead Shayne back to bed. It takes half an hour for the pain medicine to kick in, and he rubs your back the entire time.

The next day is better, your cramps and bloating subsiding. But you can’t forget how well Shayne took care of you through the worst of it. He never diminishes your emotions or belittles the pain you feel.

A couple weeks later you get home from work and open YouTube to relax a bit before starting dinner prep. You see the new Smosh challenge pit video titled “Period Cramp Simulator Challenge” and you immediately start to watch it. The video begins with the rubber band chicken challenge which has you in tears with how hilariously ridiculous it is.

And then comes the period cramp simulator. You notice the outfit Shayne is wearing while he practically fights for his life experiencing cramps for the first time. Suddenly, his actions on day two of your last period make sense. Because that was absolutely the day they shot that video. He got a taste of what you experience every month and went even further in his need to take care of you. And for that reason, this video makes you fall even further in love with your boyfriend.

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Thanks for reading! If you have any Shayne Topp story requests let me know!

#Shayne topp #shayne topp x reader

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ddejavvu · 8 months

Note

It says requests are open so how about reader getting caught while watching spencer reid edits?

His footsteps are masked by the suggestive song playing from your phone's speakers, but you're aware of Spencer's presence as soon as he leans over your shoulder, his slightly frizzy hair tickling your cheek.

"What's that?" He asks curiously, at the same time that you smash your finger over the lock button of your phone, the music cutting out abruptly.

"Nothing!" You insist, heart pounding in your chest, "Jesus, Spencer, you scared me."

"Was that a video of me?" He presses, but there's no accusation in his tone. You're extremely thankful that his aversion to technology has steered him away from TikTok, because he doesn't seem to have caught that you were watching an edit of him.

"Uh- sort of," You admit, feeling too cornered and guilty to lie to your boyfriend who rounds the couch and sits beside you, "I didn't make it, though."

That's worse. You want to backpedal, you want to take the words out of his brain where they're turning like gears and smash them to bits on the ground. His brow furrows, and his nose wrinkles slightly, "What?"

"It's nothing," You shake your head, waving away his concern and wishing you could do the same thing for your embarrassment, "Just drop it, Spence."

He looks like he's going to. He doesn't look like he wants to, because his scrunched brow perpetuates and he gnaws at the inside of his cheek. After a moment of deliberation between respecting your wishes and satiating his own curiosity, he chooses your least favorite option.

"So- someone else made that video? Of me? Is it- like, online?"

"Spencer!" You gush, cheeks ablaze as you whine at him petulantly, "Please, I don't wanna talk about it."

"I do!" He insists with an incredulous laugh, "I don't understand, you found that online somewhere?"

"Yes," You groan, "On TikTok, Spencer."

"I don't have a TikTok," He informs you, like maybe you're confused, "Who posted it?"

"I don't know!" You cry, launching yourself forwards so that your face lands unceremoniously into his lap, "Spencer, it wasn't me, I don't know who posted it, I just saw it."

"I heard the sound repeat 5 times," He admits, a gentle hand on the back of your head stroking through your hair, "I came to see why you liked that part of the song so much."

"Oh my god," You groan, the fabric of his joggers doing very little to cool the heat from your burning cheeks, "I'm gonna throw my phone in the garbage disposal."

"Where was the footage from?" He kindly directs the conversation away from you, and you rise out of his lap to glare defeatedly at him.

"Press conferences," You mumble, "And news reports."

"Weird," He mumbles, reaching for your phone, "Can I see it?"

"No!" You shriek, but he's got a hold of the device before you can stop him, and one thing you've learned about him is that he has incredible grip strength. You think the only way you'll get it back is by beating him up, and you wouldn't even if you could.

He knows your password and bypasses it too easily. The video starts once more, and his lips curl into a faint smirk as he realizes just why the editor had chosen the sound that they had.

"You're watching porn of me," He discovers, and you let out a desperate wail at the term he chooses to use, "You really liked this enough to watch it five times?"

"Spencer turn it off- no, not the comments!" You watch as his thumb descends upon the button with no hesitation, any chance of your dignity surviving flying out the window.

"Until the room stinks," He reads with narrowed eyes, then glances at the red heart beside the comment, "You liked it?"

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid scenario #spencer reid oneshot #spencer reid one-shot #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid headcanons #spencer reid headcanon #spencer reid hc #spencer reid hcs #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #spencer reid blurb #spencer reid drabble #spencer reid dialogue #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x reader fanfiction

933 notes · View notes

odxrilove · 5 months

Text

☆ SEVENTEEN AS PEOPLE AT SCHOOL

genre: highschool!au/uni!au

warnings: none

a/n: is this my official tumblr comeback ?? 😮

back to masterlist!

☆ SEUNGCHEOL

the leader of the “jocks”. he's the guy you see walking around school with his varsity jacket on– even if it’s in the middle of the summer. he’s the literal definition of the hallway crush, whispers and giggles being a regular thing he hears when he walks through the school hallways, hand swiping through his pretty hair. he often sits on the wooden tables outside instead of the benches whenever he and his friends have their little weekly hangout-meeting. always has a lollipop in his mouth and says it’s for the girls but really, he just likes sweets.

☆ JEONGHAN

the king of debates. if you sign up for debate class, don’t think you’re ever going to win if you’re up against jeonghan. he’s the reason why so many people left debate class mid year but the teacher is so impressed by him that she can’t force herself to kick him out. he’s also widely known for being the mastermind behind his high school’s senior prank. besides his maniac pranks and his broad knowledge of law, he’s actually pretty fun to be around and some girls who have had the pleasure to go on dates with him describe him as an angel– even after getting ghosted.

☆ JOSHUA

the class president. he’s a close friend of jeonghan and thus, winning the class pres’ election was easy peasy. he only presented himself as a joke but started taking it seriously 7 months in when the school planned to cancel the annual pajama day. he acts normal but he’s truly just as insane as his large group of friends. the grumpy math teacher is his next door neighbor and he once gave her leftover cookies and since then, he’s been her favorite student– and the only student she smiles at.

☆ JUN

the cat defender. falls easily asleep in class and is often woken up by his classmates after the bell rang. someone once drew a cat on a wall in the gym hall with a marker a few years back and when jun transferred to the school, his name mysteriously appeared under the cat drawing. in his second year, he got detention for a whole month after bringing a kitten to school and hiding it in his bag every day for two weeks straight– he was only caught because the cat meowed during a test and none of his classmates wanted to fake meow to help the poor guy out.

☆ HOSHI

the school’s dance machine. when the school speakers play music, you’ll always find him bobbing his head to the beat. he gets his notebook confiscated weekly because he prefers to write down possible dance movements and new choreography ideas than math equations and english vocabulary. he has a pretty big following on social media after a video of him freestyling at the school’s talent show blew up. he now uses his popularity to freely make dance covers at school, students avoiding him in the hallways when he’s swinging his legs and arms around.

☆ WONWOO

the school library’s only visitor. ok, maybe that’s a bit exaggerated but he’s definitely the only one going there willingly! the library stinks and there’s no wifi, plus some rumors are going around saying that the room at the back the of the library is the go-to place to fuck, and lastly, the librarian is a bitch– except towards wonwoo, of course. besides him being the librarian’s favorite, he once got asked to prom by a senior when he was a junior and every two months or so, someone brings it up and everyone goes crazy over it again. to be honest, if he wasn't so focused on his video games and books he would see how many people stare at him with heart eyes.

☆ WOOZI

the normal kid. what else can i say, he's just a regular guy. he goes to school wearing his silly baggy outfits and doesn't leave the house without his headphones on. he meets up with his friends and has lunch with them. he isn’t quiet but he isn’t talkative either, only partaking in his friends’ silly little conversations when he deems necessary. he gets normal grades and enjoys his silly music class the most. he’s on the school’s swimming team and won a few silly prizes during competitions. he’s been the subject of affection from a few girls since the start of school and he’s been on a date once. really, he’s just a silly little guy living his silly little life– what’s there to hate?

☆ SEOKMIN

the theatre kid. you either hate him or love him, there’s no in between– fortunately, no one really hates seokmin. he’s a loud student, his laugh often resonating through the entire cafeteria. he’s always been part of the cast for the school musicals, landing the lead role in his first year, something that had never ever happened before. the only kisses he’s had were during rehearsals or actual performances but he knows he has a large group of fans so nobody can really tease him for it. one of the school’s old students still has one-sided beef with him because seokmin ‘stole’ his role.

☆ MINGYU

the popular kid. he’s part of every club on campus, and has a hard time juggling football practice with the weekly sessions of the photography club. in his second year he decided he wanted to be an architect and since then he always complains about the school’s awful floor plan. people in the art club always go to him when they need a model because he has the Looks and actually knows how to pose. he’s actually very fun and the epitome of your rich friendly student who deserves to be crowned prom king. he’s known around school for mowing the lawns of his neighbors for free, shirtless.

☆ MINGHAO

the fashion police. there’s no better way to define minghao, as his judgmental faces have become an obsession for people on campus. he loves clothes and the fact he’s hoarding a drawer in his roommate’s closet further proves it. there's’ not one day that goes by where minghao doesn’t eat with his outfit, nails painted and sunglasses on his head– even in the winter. if you have to dress up for something, going to minghao’s dorm for help is the best solution. he’s rather honest, not hiding his disgust or love for people’s outfits. he was actually voted prom king (mingyu ending second) and was happy the crown fit the aesthetic of his suit. besides being an absolute bitch when it comes to clothing, his soft laugh does ease people’s nerves more often than not.

☆ SEUNGKWAN

the gossiper. or in better words, the head of the journalism club who’s in charge of the weekly school newspaper and news forum on the school’s official website. seungkwan is, with no doubt, respected by all. truthfully, he’s a good student, so teachers often let him write in his journal for new articles during class. there’s one unofficial rule though– you have secrets? do not share them with him. you can, however, ask him about other people’s business, and as long as you give him something in return, he’s glad to talk your ears off. you’re safe if you’re his friend though, because there isn’t someone as loyal as seungkwan walking down the school hallways.

☆ VERNON

the skater enthusiast. he always walks around wearing big weird hoodies, holding onto his skate and if it's one of those days, a beanie and some funky shoes complete the outfit. his skate is like an extension of his hand but does he know how to skate though? absolutely not. his friends now have multiple bandaid and first aid kits in their lockers because vernon never bothers to buy any but spends most of his lunch breaks trying to learn new tricks– and subsequently failing. he’s a sweet kid but a bit of an airhead, often bumping into people and staring at the people talking at him until he realizes the reason he couldn’t hear them was because he still had his headphones on.

☆ DINO

the school’s unofficial cheerleader’s cheerleader. it was truly a tragic day when the cheerleading squad’s manager got fired for fraud– not because of the money (duh) but because of the now lost cheerleaders. dino used to do gymnastics when he was young so in his eyes, he was their last hope. he was a god at planning cheerleading practices and events and in less than a year, the squad managed to win back their spot as number one during the cheerleading season. the school’s reputation was restored and suddenly all the teachers loved him. dying his hair blonde during a celebration party was the last straw for many– his locker would be full of confession letters the weeks following.

taglist: @0x1lovebot @fairybinie @blaqpinksthetic @odetoyeonjun @pockyandme @soobin-chois @soobisms @junityy @kaimal @laylasbunbunny @jaeyunverse @enhacolor @honglynights @starry-mins @bibinnieposts @yoonzin0 @raevyng @hoeforcheol @pearlygraysky @4xiaojun @viscade @amxlia-stars

please do not copy, repost or steal any of my work. all content belongs to @odxrilove

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ghostlykeyes · 5 months

Note

Hi Keyes! Nice to meet you ❤️ I was wondering if you would accept a request 👉🏻👈🏻

Its my first time asking for requests! So sorry if Im not clear enough of if I forget the rules. Im totally new at this T-T

I had this idea in my mind for a long time and I was wondering if you could consider writing it! Kayn x fem reader headcannons where Kayn falls haaaard for reader cause he found a partner in crime in her. They both like to cause a little trouble here and there, and also he found someone that could drive ever FASTER than him.

Omg Im so in love with him 😮‍💨❤️

Thank you and hope Im not breaking any rules!

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

HEARTSTEEL KAYN/TROUBLEMAKER READER ♡ No TW's ♡ SFW ♡ Nice to meet you, you're so sweet!! Thank you for your fantastic request, I loved writing it! I hope you'll feel free to request more in the future (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

KAYN

Instead of traditional nicknames like "honey" or "babe", Kayn exclusively calls you his little demon. Given your wild side, it's pretty accurate.

All it takes to get Kayn to do something is a dare. He has a hard time turning down dares as is, but if it's coming from you? His partner in crime and chief enabler? Oh, no way in hell he's backing down. Naturally it works for big, bold things: popping a wheelie on the Paranoia MV motorcycles, climbing a water tower, vandalizing a cop car. It also works for small things, too, though. Dare him to get you a glass of water or give you a kiss and he'll roll his eyes, but comply. "Oh, a dare, huh? You know I can't turn those down." He folds to your innocent, cute demands like paper. Just be mindful, though; he knows you're a troublemaker too, and he's not afraid to throw a dare or two of his own your way.

Whenever Ernest is naughty, fingers immediately point at you and Kayn. "He gets it from you two," the rest of Heartsteel claims. Kayn just shrugs. "We're his favorite," he defends (not true—Ezreal is clearly Ernest's favorite, but it's best not to rub that in Kayn's face). "Of course he's gonna take after us." He rubs Ernest's ears, completely ignoring the fact that he just stole food off the counter or shredded K'sante's favorite shoes. "Yeah, you're our little monster, huh?" If you didn't know any better, you might think Kayn is encouraging the dog's troublemaking...

(He is. He totally is. You've literally seen him sneak Ernest a treat after turning one of Sett's plushies into a chew toy.)

Kayn nabbed your phone one time and set the home screen as a picture of his mug shot from the music video. Not to be outdone, you stole his phone and set the home screen as a picture of your mug shot. Kayn has nothing but questions. "Is this real?? The fuck did you do? Why do you look so hot in this..." Of course, you don't tell him if it's real or staged. You can't give away all your secrets so easily, now, can you?

There's a change jar in the Heartsteel apartment kitchen marked "Kayn and (Y/N)'s Bail Fund". At first you thought it was a complete joke, but then you noticed Ezreal drop a twenty in there after Kayn broke a Taco Bell drive-thru window during a night-out. Now you're not so sure. Either way, hopefully you'll never have to use it for that.

Every single time you and Kayn go somewhere, it's a race. You line your cars up at the mouth of the parking garage and then you fucking go. You've raced to McDonald's for lunch, raced him to his rehearsals, you even raced him to a funeral one time. There are no rules except 'get there first', and yes, this little game has resulted in multiple speeding tickets. But whatever what's a small fine compared to an adrenaline rush? They wouldn't put 130 on the speedometer if they didn't want you to do it.

Kayn and you have been permanently banned from a fair handful of establishments. Reasons why include: totaling a go-kart, throwing bowling balls overhead, bribing a ring toss worker to get a gigantic Bulbasaur without playing the game (Sett really, really wanted it). And that's the beginning. Don't even get Yone started on the infamous Laser Tag Incident...

The perfect date for you two is a rage room. Yone got you and Kayn passes for a local rage room for Kayn's birthday one year. Playing frisbee with glass dinner plates? A surprisingly good time. Sure, they may have asked you not to come back after Kayn got a little rowdy with an old radio and an extension cord (you asked him how high he thought he could slingshot the thing and the answer was "pretty fucking far", which of course he had to prove), but it was a good time regardless. Whenever Kayn's feeling extra stressed and you don't want to deal with the fallout around real property damage, you take him to a rage room for the afternoon and smash bottles to your hearts' content.

Kayn never paid much attention to minor scrapes and bruises before meeting you. But, since you're now hopping fences or slipping through open windows together, he's suddenly become attuned to the bumps acquired while daredevilling. He keeps a small container of band-aids in his bag just for you. "I might have some bandages in here," he grumbles whenever you get scraped up. "Dunno if I used 'em all." (Of course he hasn't. They're your band-aids and he wouldn't dream of using one.)

Whenever Kayn just needs to talk, the two of you often sneak into an old building to do it. Getting caught puts your nerves on edge, for sure, but it allows Kayn to pretend he's not anxious about discussing his own feelings or worries. Of course he feels vulnerable, you two are trespassing! That's totally why his palms are sweating and his chest feels tight. It has nothing to do with his deep-seated reluctance to talk about his emotions. If you can tell Kayn's wound up extra tight, offer to sneak into a nearby community pool or abandoned gas station late at night. Under cover of darkness, in the silent hallways of a vacant building, Kayn lets you take a peek under his dark shell.

#heartsteel #heartsteel headcanons #heartsteel kayn #heartsteel x reader #kayn #kayn x reader #kayn/reader #sheida kayn #lovewhatsnotreal

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ponett · 4 months

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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

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sallowsswan · 17 days

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Slytherin Boys W/ Ballerina!Reader as Pas De Deux 🩰

SO I'm back at it again with more ballet stuff! Last time I did headcanons for Mattheo if he was dating a ballerina. This time however, we're going down the route of what Pas De Deux (pair dance) the boys would do with a ballerina reader if they danced together.

Lorenzo Berkshire

White Swan Pas De Deux (Swan Lake)

Choosing one for our boy Enzo was EXTREMELY difficult because I secretly headcanon him being a danseur already so picking just one dance for him was hard. I went with the famous white swan pas de deux from Swan Lake where he is the role of Prince Siegfried and the reader is Odette. It's a beautiful, and heartbreaking pas de deux where Odette and Siegfried get to know each other better with it ending in Odette putting her trust in Siegfried to make a vow of true love in order to free her from Von Rothbart's spell. (In this video the pas de deux is performed by famous dancers Svetlana Zakharova and Roberto Bolle. The part at 5:09 where he embraces her makes we weeeeeeep)

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Theodore Nott

Giselle act 2 Pas De Deux (Giselle)

For Theo's I decided to play a little into the headcanon of him being a casanova and went the route of Giselle. Theo's character would be Albrect (sometimes known as Count Albrect, Duke Albrect, or in other versions Prince Albrect) the reader's character is Giselle, who died of a broken heart when she found out Albrect was bethrothed to another woman. Another beautiful and heartbreaking piece as Giselle is trying to protect Albrect until dawn from the wrath of the willis (spirits of young maidens that died before marriage) who wish to make him dance to his death. The queen of the willis Myrtha uses Giselle to lure Albrect away from the safety of her tombstone by making her dance a seductive pas de deux that lures him in like a siren singing a song. (In this video the pas de deux is danced once again by famous dancers Svetlana and Roberto. They're one of my favorite dance partner pairings!)

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Draco Malfoy

Sugarplum and Cavalier (The Nutcracker)

My first fictional love, I had to give Draco one of my favorite pas de deux which is from The Nutcracker between the sugarplum fairy and her cavalier. I don't think I need to explain which roles these two are, it's a beautiful piece with beautiful music performed near the end of the story. (I've inserted my FAVORITE rendition of this dance performed by famous dancers Anna Tsygankova and Matthew Golding)

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Mattheo Riddle

Black Swan Pas De Deux (Swan Lake)

When it comes to my headcanons I said that Mattheo liked Don Quixote and Giselle, but this man also in my headcanon has an absolute WEAKNESS for Swan Lake. So when he gets to be the part of Siegfried and the reader is playing Odile? He's absolutely giddy because this pas de deux is alluring and seductive as Odile is playing poor Siegfried like a fiddle making him believe she's actually Odette. (For this video the pas de deux is danced by one of my favorite dancers Gillian Murphy with Angel Corella)

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Tom Riddle

Opening Scene (Swan Lake)

I could've easily went full delulu and gave Tommy a pas de deux, but come onnnnn. I'm giving this man the role he was MADE FOR. The opening scene from ABT's Swan Lake. He's the role of the sorcerer Von Rothbart while the reader is Odette. So enchanted by the beautiful princess he runs into in the woods he tries to charm her only to find her displeased and so what does he do? Takes her for his own and changes her into the form of a swan to keep her close to him. (For this video it's from ABT's Swan Lake they recorded back in the early 2000's with Gillian Murphy as Odette, Marcelo Gomes as the handsome human Von Rothbart and Isaac Stappas as Von Rothbart's other form)

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Blaise Zabini

Nikiya and Solor act 1 (La Bayadere)

I'm not too familiar with Blaise, so forgive me everyone but I didn't want to leave him out. I chose my favorite pas de deux from La Bayadere where Blaise would be Solor a warrior and the reader is Nikiya a beautiful temple dancer. The two are secret lovers that are reunited and dance together before swearing their love under the sacred flame. (For this one I went with yet again Svetlana and Roberto because they ATEEEEEE this pas de deux up with their chemistry alone!)

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some-weebs-posts · 6 months

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Ok, so I've been obsessed with Monster High since it came out, and my favorite character has always been Jackson Jekyll. And you know what? Not only is he an underrated character, but like, they made his background super detailed and complicated for like no reason. I couldn't tell you how many times I've gone on long rants trying to explain it all.

Think of this like a combination of different wikis. This is based on Generation 1, the movies from Boo York Boo York and previous, the diaries, the webisodes, and some of the books. I have not watched anything from Gen 2 or 3, which really doesn't matter because Jackson isn't in any of the reboots.

Basic Information

Jackson Jekyll and Holt Hyde are two people in the same body. They have different memories and different personalities.

Jackson Jekyll is 16 years old. His favorite color is yellow, his favorite food is mac & cheese, and his birthday is May 30th.

Holt Hyde is 16 years old. His favorite color is orange, his favorite food is hot wings, and his birthday is May 30th.

They both have a pet chameleon named Crossfade.

Jackson is a bit of a nerdy type. He enjoys wearing bow ties and sweater vests. He likes to play video games. He's crazy smart, and his favorite subject is Mad Science.

Holt has a rocker style with his everyday outfit being a red leather jacket and purple pants. He also shows more of their fire elemental side than Jackson, so he incorporates flames in all his outfits as well. He loves music, so he always wears headphones (not to mention that later becomes his trigger), and music theory is his favorite subject. He has a hot temper and can become angry very easily.

Jackson Jekyll is their default character. However, he transforms into Holt due to different triggers. His original trigger was it being either day or night where he was Jackson during the day and Holt at night. Later, his trigger changed to music with a 4/4 time signature, which is most music. In the diaries, Jackson states that his doctor believes the trigger will change at least one more time, and he is deathly afraid it will be something important that he can't avoid like taking a shower.

Jackson and Holt did not know of each other's existences until they were 16. Since their memories were different, they thought they had consistent black outs. Holt considered it just a way of life and how it was, but in the books, Jackson (thanks to the suggestion of Melody Carver) thought is was due to his extreme anxiety.

Family

Jackson Jekyll is the son of Dr. and Mrs. Jekyll.

Holt Hyde is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Hyde.

Jackson was born half normie (mom) and half monster (dad). The thing is, his dad is not the Jekyll/Hyde. That's his mom. His mom is the normie half of the Jekyll and Hyde combo. His dad is a fire elemental.

Holt is a full monster. His mother is the Hyde, and his father is a fire elemental.

This makes Jackson and Holt half-brothers. They have different moms but the same dad.

They know they have different moms or at least more than one mom. They call her Moms in the books and diaries. Their mom (in both versions of Jekyll and Hyde as far as I can tell) is named Sydney, who is a science teacher at Merston High and likes to go by Mrs. J.

That adds on another layer because that means his dad took his mom's last name, AND his dad's last name changes depending on who his wife is because he married both the Jekyll and the Hyde. So does that mean every time he is asked his name, the dad has to be like, "I don't know. Let me call my wife,"? Like, does he just change his name every day or is he just Dr. Jekyll by default and then changes his name if he gets a call from his wife? And he's not Dr. Hyde but Mr. Hyde, so does he loses his doctorate when his wife goes crazy?

Anyway, Jackson and Holt are cousins with Heath and Harmony Burns. Harmony is Heath's older sister. Their mother is Jackson and Holt's dad's sister aka their aunt.

Friends

Jackson's best friend is Deuce Gorgon.

Jackson first met Deuce in the diaries where they played some pick-up casketball. Then, they met-met and actually started to hang out after the webisode Fear Pressure. In the episode, Jackson had started to attend Monster High but was being bullied for being a normie (or at least appearing as one), so Deuce decided to take pity on him and let him sit at his and Heath's lunch table. Later on, Deuce introduced him to others like Gil.

When they first moved to their neighborhood, which made them change schools and start attending Monster High, Jackson only became Holt during the night, so Jackson was the first one to meet their neighbors. One time, Draculaura made him a welcome-to-the-neighborhood cake, and when he returned the tin, he met Dracula of which he was not afraid and actually made a joke about stakes. This was considered weird because both normies and monsters were afraid of Dracula, for in the diaries, he was described as being like a creepy, no-nonsense Nosferatu. Later, Draculaura invited him to Clawdeen's Boo-B-Que where he met The Wolfs.

During the night, Holt would come out and walk around. There, he studied his neighbor's houses and saw them very occasionally.

Holt actually went and became a DJ with the nickname DJ Hyde. While working a party, he met Draculaura. She was dancing the Transylvania Trance. He thought she was attractive and approached her by calling her Ula D, but she became confused because they had never met before.

That adds on another thing. Apparently, they can share some memories.

Romances

Jackson and Holt had many romances.

In the books, Jackson went to Merston High. There, he met a siren named Melody Carver. They started to date, but Melody met Cleo, because Cleo also went to this school for some reason, and they hated each other. So to get Melody jealous, Cleo ended up kissing Jackson. But he felt nothing for her. Then Melody started a band and revealed Holt, which started a love triangle except Jackson didn't know about Holt, so he didn't know what she was upset about. They ended up breaking up where she then got with a gargoyle named Granite who was also into music, but unfortunately their relationship never went anywhere, and Melody and Granite never became official.

Then there was Draculaura. Jackson and Holt both liked her, but she only ever tried to date Jackson. She said in one of her diaries that they ended up "breaking up", even though they were never officially dating, because he never went to their evening dates and could never remember exactly why he didn't the next morning. Little did they know it was because of Holt.

Then there was Frankie. She slowly fell in love with him over the course of Volume II of the webisodes in episodes such as Miss Information, Hyde Your Heart, and Hyde and Shriek. She originally liked Jackson because he was the new kid, and she was fairly new too and remembered how hard it was. She even stood up against his bully, Manny Taur. But then she met Holt and became conflicted because she thought she liked both of them and had to choose between them. After she found out they were the same person, she introduced them to each other, which is how they found out about each other in the first place. She then would record them talking on her phone so that they could talk to each other, but that got old fast, so she gave them separate phones specifically for texting each other. She decided they couldn't date until they got over their differences.

There was Operetta. In the diaries, Holt said that he liked that she liked music, so they went on a date at a concert. But then Holt got angry at someone, and due to his anger issues, he got into a fight. He and Operetta were kicked out. Her dad did not like that, and they weren't allowed to date anymore.

Then there was Clair. Clair is my personal favorite and is my OTP. In the movie Ghouls Rule, Holt got arrested while he and other monsters were vandalizing the normie school of New Salem High. He transformed back into Jackson while in jail, so they let him go thinking that Holt somehow kidnapped Jackson and swapped places with him. He became a fugitive, so Jackson hid by attending New Salem High. There, he met Clair. She stood up to bullies for him and even later defended him against the police after they captured him and tried to behead him (and no, I'm not joking). They had a discussion at the end where Holt commented that while Jackson and him don't agree on much, at least they can agree on women. He tried to kiss her, but she swapped him to Jackson first and then kissed him because, well, she didn't know him that well yet. She's an anti-police, anti-racism/speciesism, goth baddie, and I love her for that.

Side Notes

Despite being a huge nerd, Jackson is actually really good at sports. Jackson and Deuce only initially became friends because of a game of casketball. In Deuce's diary, he went to the court to play, but only saw "a lame human kid" aka Jackson. He was initially going to ignore him, but then Jackson asked to play. Then it turned out that Jackson could play very well. Quote, "I was gonna slide out of there, but he asked if I wanted to play some one on one. I figured it wouldn't take long to make him look like a statue out there, but I was wrong. He had a scary good jump shot and even crossed me over a couple times. I had just started to play really hard when my glasses got knocked off and broke. Now I have to figure out a way to get home without stoning someone, but dude just took off his shades and handed them over to me. He said to keep them until I got home and he'd get them later. Told me his name is Jackson Jekyll. He said he wants a rematch. I told him any time, any place. Not a bad guy...for a human." Also, in Friday Night Frights, Jackson attempted to join the roller maze team before he was stopped by Manny Taur. Edit: I just remembered he also plays volleyball in the Gloom Beach line.

Additionally, Jackson and Holt have facial piercings and tattoos. This is very rare and somewhat strange given they are only 16 and would at least need parent's permission for the tattoos. The only other G1 characters that have tattoos, that I know of, are Operetta and Wisp from 13 Wishes. The only other characters with facial piercings, not counting ear piercings, are Clair, Cleo, and Manny Taur as Cleo has the gem under her eye, Clair has a classic lip piercing, and Manny has a septum piercing. Jackson has one tattoo of a Ying & Yang symbol on his back, and he has an eyebrow piercing on his left eyebrow. Holt has two tattoos with the same Yin & Yang tattoo and an additional face tattoo around his eye. He also has a left eyebrow piercing.

The tattoos admittedly confuse me because the fact that Jackson doesn't have one of Holt's tattoos may imply that they got the tattoos separately, so they both just so happened to pick the same tattoo and then Holt got one extra. Also, their parents had to sign off on allowing their 16 year old son to be allowed to have a face tattoo.

Edit: Some people have mentioned that Holt's face tattoo may actually be a birthmark due it being mentioned in one of the diaries. However, this doesn't make sense to me because Jackson does not have a birthmark. So like many, I believe this mention of it being a birthmark was only added after they made the design as an excuse, and it should be left up for interpretation.

That's alI can think of for now. Info may change later, but that's the story of The Strange Case of Jackson Jekyll and Holt Hyde.

#monster high #jackson jekyll #holt hyde #heath burns #deuce gorgon #draculaura #operetta #i should go to bed #friday night frights

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animatedjen · 7 months

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The Best Movie Versions of Jedi: Fallen Order

As someone who has made too many videos about these games, figured I'd share my favorite "movie" editions of Fallen Order. It's the best way to meet the Mantis crew and experience Cal's journey if you don't have a gaming PC/console or want to relive the adventure in a condensed format. Also a great resource for making edits!

STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order - Movie Edition by MovieEditionGames

[2K, no HUD, YT CC captions available] My favorite viewing option for FO. It includes relevant gameplay mixed in with cutscenes, along with custom camera shots that showcase the environments during traversal. Clean music transitions and intentional character movement elevate it even further.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (The Movie) by Andy Gilleand

[4K HDR, letterboxed, no HUD, YT CC captions available] A very close second for FO viewing. The high-res, detailed textures really showcase how beautiful this game is. Along with relevant gameplay blended with cutscenes, this version also includes chapter markers to find different sections more easily.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - Game Movie by Video Game Player

[4K 60FPS, letterboxed, no HUD, no captions] Another 4K option with chapter markers (this time with on screen titles!) but doesn't use HDR.

STAR WARS: JEDI FALLEN ORDER All Cutscenes (Cal Mod) by Gamer's Little Playground

[4K 60FPS, includes HUD and in-game captions] Cal takes a nap and wakes up with a beard! If you want to revisit the story with a new look, here's a good option.

Hope this helps! As of now I have not found a comparable version for Jedi Survivor. There are cutscene-only options and full 13-17 hour gameplay options, but nothing in between. If you have seen one let me know! Otherwise I may try to make it myself, eventually.

[header photo from u/D3athtroop3r on Reddit]

#star wars jedi fallen order #jedi fallen order #fallen order #game movie #video game movies #cal kestis #cere junda #greez dritus #merrin #nightsister merrin #trilla suduri #star wars

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les-pompiers118 · 4 days

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Don't Worry Baby (a 9-1-1 ficlet)

Buck/Tommy | Rated Teen and up | 2K words

Summary: It's technically not their second date, but sometimes you just have to see where the night takes you. In this case, to the ocean. Notes: Set between 7x05 and 7x06, and incorporating some of Lou's backstory for Tommy from this video.

“Well,” Buck exhales, when he and Tommy step out into the muted hum of a balmy Los Angeles evening, “I think that went a lot better than our first date.”

Tommy stops and holds up a finger in admonition. “Ah, ah.”

“Right. Not a date. Just a— What did we call it?”

“A low-stakes, no-pressure evening of fun and getting to know each other.”

“Yeah, that.”

No matter what they’re calling it, tonight was actually great, Buck muses while they walk toward the lot where Tommy parked his truck. Buck’s not a great bowler himself, but he’s found that—as with a lot of games—the competitiveness and friendly trash talk are at least half the fun. He felt more in his element, more relaxed. Buck didn’t mind at all that Tommy won both rounds easily, with his usual confidence and charm. And he looked damn good doing it, too. God, there’s something about the sheer fucking size of him and the way he carries himself that make Buck a little weak in the knees.

“You did have a good time, I hope?” Tommy asks, sounding cautious after Buck apparently got lost in his thoughts for a few beats too long.

“Totally. Yes.” Buck glances back at the bowling alley entrance with a rueful expression. “Though I kind of wish…”

“Mmm?”

“I kinda wish that we could’ve had more of the ‘getting to know each other’ part, I guess? On the other hand, with all the noise and the music, I was a lot less likely to put my foot in my mouth again. So that was a plus.”

“Evan.”

“I know I kind of blew it last time,” Buck winces.

Tommy steps in front of Buck, forcing him to stop. He touches Buck’s wrist lightly. “Hey. If that were true, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Here… on our evening of low-stakes, platonic fun?” Buck asks with a small, playful smile.

“Hmm. I don’t remember ever using the word platonic.” Tommy lets that sink in for a second as he pointedly looks at Buck’s mouth. “Tell you what. I’ll take you to one of my favorite places in L.A. and we can talk for a while. That is, unless you have a shift in the morning.”

“No. No, I don’t.” Buck ducks his head, grinning. Feeling just so goddamn buoyant, all of a sudden. “I’d love that. Where are we going?”

“Why don’t we let it be a surprise?”

Read the rest on AO3

#911 abc #bucktommy #bucktommy fic #my writing

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justyouraverageficwriter · 1 year

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Watch Me, Want Me

Yeji x M reader

Genre: Smut, Handjob, Self-gratification

WC: 3111 Words

A/N: I thought this will be another BFH fic but the idea evolved it something different. This may be the end of my break too. Enjoy!

You feel it again,-the same way you felt it countless times before. The air conditioning is fully working, well maybe less effective as you left the door ajar; but still the cold air circulates just fine. But you feel hot, and something down there starts to give you discomfort. It’s becoming a routine now, call it a vice even as it starts to become addicting. It’s the wee hours and the place is silently still, except for the music occasionally playing out of your phone set two clicks up from being completely muted; and the ever loud ticking of the mechanical clock someone gifted to you for your birthday.

She’s just mesmerizing, the way she moves her body. The complete control, the sharp movements in contrast with the elegant rolls, her expression as she performs even in the smallest of stages. She's born to sing and dance, to perform, to entertain. She's an idol, an ace, and she absolutely makes sure your eyes won't leave her once you notice her; a task she does so easily and quite possibly really naturally.

You adjust yourself in a more comfortable position, an indication that you’re sucked into the content you are consuming. Is it the way she sways her hips? Is it the outfit she wears? Is it the belly button beautifully drawn in the middle of her perfectly toned midriff? Or is it the eyes? Yes, perhaps it’s her eyes - ever captivating, quite the charmer.

She is your favorite, and maybe always will be. She stood out to you the most, appealing to your highly set standards. Not that her four sister-members don’t meet the criteria, they all give Venus a run for her money themselves -yet it’s her that your eyes are glued into, it’s her that makes your mouth drool. You are hooked, like a fish at the end of the anglers line, hopeless despite the struggle (although it looks like you already gave up the fight before it even started.) And then you landed on it, on arguably your favorite photo of her - well it’s really hard to say for a fact that it is since you always said that to every single one saved on your phone’s gallery. But the world can forgive you, she is just irresistible.

“Ah fuck it! You are making me do this again, Yeji.” Words that mean you succumb again. The uncomfortable feeling is now getting really hard to ignore. You got it, an itch that needs more than just scratching; in fact it needs rubbing, or preferably stroking. There she is, looking straight at you on the other side of the screen, as if she’s begging you to do it, urging you to give in to the desire. All the while those eyes are silently judging, fixed on you until the oblivion, to the point that you could almost hear her call you pathetic for being so easy to seduce, for being such a softie, when in fact you are hard; literally hard for that sinful red top and that chain around her little waist.

Guess it's obvious now, the thing that you are currently doing. Self gratification, a fancy name for a sinful deed, maybe indulgence is a better word but you digress. There's a certain level of satisfaction when you freed your aching shaft from the confines of your underwear, and a moan to boot when you finally wrapped your hand around it. You know you're not the only one doing this, you're sure that someone somewhere on the planet is doing the same thing as you, at the same time as you, and probably on the same Yeji pictures and video clips you have. On that thought, you think that it's a race but the catch is the one who reaches the finish line last wins.

"Damn Yeji. You're so sexy, baby." You talk to her like she can hear you, and perhaps in your imagination she really can; even the sky is not the limit in the world that is on your head, especially if it’s filled with lust. “You know I would do things to that navel of yours.” The strokes start to become uneven, your breaths ragged and short, as if the air you release are immediately sucked back into your lungs. In your mind you are pleasing her, as much as she is pleasing you right now, or maybe even more. Legs spreading apart further and further as you slowly slip into the highs of fap (weirdly enough in the boner fueled mind of yours slip and high make so much sense). Eyes closed and mouth open to anticipate the resolution, the end, the climax.

“Hey, is that me?” An unexpected voice is heard, coming out of the left field. Yet it is familiar, and not to mention sexy as fuck. There is a hint of tease in her tone, her usual chaff and banter; she got all the reason to poke fun at you for she caught you red handed, with hands on your throbbing prick.

“What are you doing here?” Confused, and your eyes are still adjusting to the sudden flooding of light to your senses. You sound so confident, as if the whole scene is a normal thing. Although, you ponder that there’s nothing to be worried about, it’s not like you are jerking off to someone else.

“I’m your girlfriend, mister. I have every right to be at your apartment.” Yeji waltz inside your room like it’s hers, and maybe it is now given how familiar and at home she is navigating the space. She did not address the current state of affairs, aside from the question that she threw in your lap that is. Yeji peels off her shirt, and then her pants leaving her in her sports underwear. Of course it’s not new to you, you have spent so many sexy nights together. Although you’d be lying if you say that her body did not have any effect on you just because you have seen it countless times before, she can make you really naughty with just her photo; what more if you can see her in the flesh.

“You haven’t answered my question yet, babe.” She takes her place next to you, sliding in the bed naturally as you scoot over. Yeji lies on her side, purposely flexing her mouth watering body, all toned without any trace of fat; not that you will complain if there is, she'll be perfect just the same. She looks amused, although you are quite sure that she is, looking at you with her cat eyes. That's what everyone is calling it, but you beg to differ, you just want to call her Yeji's eyes for you haven’t seen anything the same, yeah it's boring and quite special at the same time.

She reaches out for your phone, in her quest to know the answer of her inquiry, she didn't even bother to wait for your reply. You can't blame her though, you have failed to answer the first time it was asked. The phone has been set to sleep now and was locked but that's really not a problem, what did you really expect, she's your girlfriend. Yeji's lips curl into a smile as your phone resumes to the things you are watching. She rolls her eyes and passes the phone back to your hands acting all unimpressed. "Oh would you look at that, resort to fapping because his girl has a concert, huh?"

"Do you prefer that I fap to someone else?" Your relationship is a constant battle of wits and control, both of you like to banter and tease each other out.

Yeji moves closer, until you can feel her breath on your ears. The hot air from her mouth in contrast to the cold air of the room gives you a tingling sensation across your whole body. For sure, she's doing it on purpose. "I don't think you want to, you're a little obsessed over me."

"Confident, are we?" You love the confidence in her voice, the fact notwithstanding is that she is wrong, that you also do it to the members of her senior group; but it's a secret you intend to keep for yourself, since you do it all in good fun.

Yeji suddenly nuzzles the side of your neck. "Mhmm, especially when I'm doing this." Her hands found her way to the base of your dick, still hard and growing harder. You bet it's smoldering to the touch, as the temperature rises again inside you. You let out a much louder moan than the one you had earlier; maybe because someone is doing it for you, and not just someone, it's the woman you’ve been lusting ever since you’ve laid eyes upon her. She’s a natural with her ways with you, gentle hands but firm grip, and the sultry voice, damn her sultry voice -you don’t know how many times you got a hard on because of it when you’re flirting right when you wake up next to her. Yeji pushes you to lean on your side, and she quickly presses her body on your back, hooking her chin on your exposed shoulder.

“It feels so good, babe.” Both of you have never been shy to let each other know what you feel, a little dirty talk gets off you and Yeji so much that it leads to the sexiest moments most of the time.

“I know! You are so hard.” She whispers in your ear seductively, all the while her tongue naughtily nibbles on your ear and shoulders, adding to things that make you sensitive. She strokes twice at every tick of the clock, -the backstory of why she bought it for you. Yeji loves the rhythm of things, maybe it’s second nature to her being in the music industry. And all that translates to the sexual things you do, and having a loud clock helps a lot; at the expense of your sleep that is(however you have grown accustomed to it now).

“What are you doing? Do you not want to look at my photos, babe?” It’s not the first time she’s jerking you off, but it will be the first time that she will while you look at her videos and images. And fuck that’s an idea you find really hot, an idea you would not want to say no. You produce your phone quickly again and start to scroll to the sexiest ones you have. It’s getting hard to focus though, you just want to close your eyes and feel her hands pumping you.

"Fuck Yeji, you're gonna make me cum." With that warning,Yeji rubs the tip of your cock and spreads the pre cum all over. There's a jolt of pleasure that makes your body shiver. You can hear her smirk at your back. Of course you stoke the fire, you're showing weakness to her touches; and of course she feeds off of it.

"I really love it when you are so horny for me, so weak and fragile, so opposite from the normal you. I love it when you lose control." Every single word from her pretty naughty mouth is like fuel to the flames of lust. Thankfully or perhaps cruelly, she slows down her pace and allows you to relax.

She clears her throat, possibly because she wants your attention. There's no need to though to be completely honest, she has all the attention you can possibly give; although mostly to what her hands are doing. "Show me your favorite photo to jerk off on, babe." In an instant you show her the picture that made you start the risqué act, it is a full circle moment. "Can't blame you, I look so hot in that." You can clearly see her smirk, like you have eyes on the back of your head.

Ever the competitive, you want to get back on her, you want to put cracks on her ever growing ego. "Don't get too full of yourself now. It would be a hard fall once I get my hands on you." In that very moment the last word is uttered, she increases the speed of her strokes causing you to squirm, to let out an uncontrolled mewl. "I don't think so babe, not when you're on the tip of my fingers." Her play of words amused you, you can interpret them literally or not, she's so damn right.

"Now tell me, how did you fantasize about your girlfriend earlier?" It's another blow to your ego, she's on a streak. She keeps on putting points on the board. She doesn't just want to know what photo that turned you on, she also wants to know how you imagined her, how improper you are. In simple terms she wants you to put into words the naughty thoughts you had, she wants you to admit that you are really obsessed, and not a little less. And maybe it's clear now that you are, more than you want to confess.

"I want to make out with you, and put my hands all over you. Then I'll unzip your top, and suck on your tits." It's expected really that you will indulge her request, it's another idea of hers that's too hot to not make true. “Then I’ll pin you on that wall babe, and take off those jeans.” She hums in acknowledgement of your words as she carries on with the handjob, ever masterful.

“You said you’d do something to my belly button.” Ah yes her belly button, wait what? - there is some sort of delay before your mind processes what’s wrong with it. It is another revelation, it now dawns on you that she has been watching you right when you started. “So you just stood there and watched, huh?” You noticed her head moves in confirmation. “You know what, I thought of just standing there until you’re finished but.” She pauses to climb on top of you, Yeji is now stradling on you lap.

“But?” You press the matter.

“But what you are doing is so hot, that I just could not be a bystander, can I?” She adjusts herself again to give way for her panties to come off, but immediately seals the separation to get back to her position. She's so wet down below, but you're not surprised. The slick juices now smear your crotch as well, as the contact starts to grow bigger and bigger. Yeji starts to move her hips and grind, you are reminded once again what a performer she is, on the stage and on the bed. You trace her tummy, one of the best in the business and draw circles around her belly button. This is your way of showing your appreciation to what she is doing, and in a way teasing her, to encourage her to do more. You know you’re doing the right thing because you are achieving the desired results.

Your hands naturally found home on her waist, guiding her as she rubs your length. “You know it will be much better inside right?” It looks like you had enough teasing. You are not alone in that sentiment, as Yeji shifts to line herself to your dick; it just feels so easy, feels just so right. Both of you exhale two satisfied moans, two different tones but blend really well, it sounded like one. You find her eyes as she found yours, satisfied yet still hungry, there’s a mutual understanding and respect but lust and wanting at the same time. “You are right, feel so much better.” Her smile should have been a wholesome break from the haze of erotic air, but you know it means so much more.

Built in her is a body of rhythm, and once again the movement of her hips match the ticking of the loud clock. It is once every second from the start, then as the pleasure intensifies so does the pace. “Fuck! It’s so good, Yeji.” She is doing everything right, and all you can do is brace yourself for the inevitable. You want her gaze only fixed on you all the time, but you can’t blame her for closing them once in a while, heck- you too can’t even do that because you know you’ll go overflowing already if you are constantly peering into the lust inducing eyes, beautiful, deep, unique and damn sexy.

It did not take long for that rhythm to get all messy, as all things eventually do in the middle of desires and the craving for more. “I want you to cum inside me.” The line surprises you, she’s an idol after all and should be careful, but the resolve in her tone is unmistakable, undeniable even. It sounds like you have a hefty price to pay if you dare to disobey. “I’d be glad to, babe.”

“Cum for me in five.” That sounds like a challenge, you just hope she means seconds, because it’s an impossible ask if it is a different unit of time. Hell, you think even that mere 5 seconds feels like eternity because of how close you are.

“Five..”

Yeji is just grinding non stop, it’s a performance and she’s giving it her all; she is an amazing artist.

“Four..”

The clock moves so slowly, you think time slows down. The contrast of how fast she is fucking you to the slow tick of a second is starting to not make any sense.

“Three..”

Her walls are closing in on you, it starts to tighten around you, choking your hard shaft.

“Two..”

Just a second more and your sweaty bodies will be rewarded, you pull the straps of her sports bra off her shoulders, amazingly it’s still on. Everything about her is so perfect, and on the verge of orgasm, it multiplies tenfold, maybe a hundred.

“One.”

Maybe you came half a second earlier but who the fuck really cares as the ropes of semen pump out into her warm, wanting cunt. The chorus of very triumphant moans echoed and filled the once still and quiet place. You have reached the pinnacle, the point of no return as you fill her walls of stacked cum. She pulls out and all the mixed juices leak once it finds a gap. However, the mess doesn’t matter for now. Yeji immediately finds her way in your embrace as both of you enjoy a deep kiss. Cheekily you grope her ass in the middle of the smooches, innocent, or is it? “Sleep now horny man, we already took care of your horny bone.”

#yeji #yeji smut #itzy yeji #hwang yeji #yeji x reader

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padsmoony04 · 1 year

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For the very obvious reason that there aren't many fanfics or stuff related to Jack, I've decided to share with you how I think he is like, so i hope you enjoy it :)

Disclaimer: sorry if there are any grammatical error, english it's not my first lenguaje. Remember most of this is made up.

Jack Champion it's like...

First things first, he's a theater kid. He has said it in a few interviews so I'm going to a assume that he probably (most likely) also like musical theater and that goes to the other theory wich is that he likes Hamilton, and it's also most likely that he has a couple (multiple) of the songs in he's playlist.

I wish I could also said that he's a swiftie, but I big part of me says that he's not a fan, but what I do think is that he does likes a few song's, like the mainstream one, for example shake it up, you belong with me, etc, etc, etc.

He's a fan of old school rock or old school music, like the beatles, queen, Fleetwood Mac, Michael Jackson and anothers. I meanly assume this for the fact that he's favorite song it's lest groove.

A true gentleman and no one can tell me other wise, that boy was raised by he's mom and he's mom alone, so I just know that he's sweet mother teach him how to be respectful to women and to treat them as equals.

He's a little dorky, but in a cute way. I mean have you seen the interviews..? Lmao.

Jack very confident: do you know what blowing a raspberry is? 😏

Bailey laughing her ass off: that's the definition!

Jack: What?...

Bailey: That's the definition..! *still laughing*

Jamie: But I still don't know what it is! 😀

Jack:..Oh...

The way that I have seen how he's friendship with Trinity is, I'm going to say that he's a really gentle boy and honestly really sweet.

Also he does a lot of dad jokes or better said bad jokes. I mean, I saw a video of him when he was younger saying "do you know why the chicken cross the road?... to prove it wasn't chicken!".

He's very carismatic but I also feel that he has a shy side.

He loves to cuddle (something that he also said).

I have a theory that he's the type of boy that, when he has a crush, he does a lot of silly things to make he's crush laugh.

He didn't like scary movies until he was sixteen, but that doesn't mean he can get scared easily with some of those movies now.

My next assumption is that when he likes something he turns it in he's whole personally (and no, I'm not projecting wdym?)

He's a Scorpio, so I just know for fact that he doesn't have patience, like at all, and also he has a short temperament.

Loves dogs and cats, but I feel he's more of a cat person.

He definitely had that fase where he used to film videos for his "YouTube channel" like almost all 2000's babies did.

Cookie lover, don't ask me why I think this he just gives me the vibe.

Obviously he's a marvel fan, and he's favorite superhero it's Spiderman (and something tells me that when he got the role for spider he's brain associated the word immediately with the superhero)

He's Favorite holiday is Halloween.

He also gives me the vibe that he's a ride or die type of friend.

Definitely the one how's always joking around in he's friend's group.

When he gest nervous he laughs.

A completely softie.

Nature lover.

He said that when he gets older he would like to settle down and have a family of his own, and live close to nature in a really calm place.

He prefer small towns rather than big cities.

He gives the impression that if he gest a girlfriend/boyfriend (to not assume directly what he's attracted to) he would follow them averywhere like a little puppy.

Probably would like to post things about he's partner, but not too much to not over share with the internet.

Also a little bit clingy as well.

He also looks like he would used the pet name "baby" a lot.

He cursed almost all the time, but like unconsciously, it just comes from him naturally. And when he's not supposed to curse and can find himself to stop doing it he would cover he's mouth with both of he's hands (something that it's really cute if you picture it).

Even though he's carismatic, he would get all shy and smiley when someone gives him a compliment.

Anyways! I think that it's it! Hope you guys like and enjoy my little theories about the lovely boy Jack Champion <3.

If you have more ideas about him don't be afraid to share it, I would love to know what theories you have about him.

And again, sorry if there are any grammatical errors :)

#jack champion #jack champion edit #jack champion imagine #jack champion fic #jack champion fanfic #jack champion x reader #scream vi #ethan scream 6 #ethan landry #avatar the way of water #spider avatar #jack champion headcannons

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