#especially the parts on Wug’s ship???

[fictionalsownme]

I put In Space with Markiplier on in the background when I work on my captain x engineer long fic (I have my favorite path set to a playlist and play it on mute) and even after watching the entire thing god knows how many times, I still find myself giggling and smiling at my favorite parts when I catch them out of the corner of my eye heeh

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

first ever request so I'm not sure if I'm being specific enough but

could I request something with the main iswm crew and maybe Mack finding out that the planet the colonists are being transported to is actually alien!readers home planet? (with reader's kind welcoming the colonists and crew with open arms) ((if that's too many characters, you can just pick which ones you want to do))

Slerapy anon

Mark

At first he’s stunned that you were an alien this whole time. You did a very good job masquerading as a human.

But does it change his opinion of you as a captain and friend who never gave up on him? Absolutely not.

He’s so excited to meet the rest of your species! And eager for the colonists to rest on the shores of your home planet.

Prior to disembarking you sent a simple request to your people: Never, under any circumstances, are they allowed to call the human named “Mark Iplier” ugly. That word was banned.

You've heard that one too many times from other rude aliens, and your species isn't gonna make the same mistake. No sir.

When Mark finds out about the extra step you took to make him feel more welcomed, he smiles.

And he beams with such pride as one of your planet’s leaders gives him a medal..and then you a medal..and then him a medal..and then you a medal..and that one female crew member a medal.

There’s no one he adored more than you, his alien captain.

Mack (Head Engineer)

On the other hand..

"I KNEW it!! You were an alien all along!!”

Of course, why wouldn’t you know how to reroute power or other troubleshooting measures on your own ship? ‘Only an alien disguised as a human captain wouldn’t!’ He thinks. That’s why he insisted on taking over and treated you so harshly when you refused. He was paranoid.

Now that the truth’s fully out, he plots a revolt against you for “espionage”. 

Yet...nobody takes his side. They don’t really care and are just happy to reach their destination in one piece.

You lowkey get offended when Mack assumes you wanna enslave the colonists, so you explain that your people were hosting a festival to celebrate their arrival--and that the two species have been communicating long before this trip. It’s why you orchestrated this trip at all.

When he finally meets them, he remains hostile but soon sees how genuinely kind they are and realizes how wrong he was.

Then he stumbles into your cabin in tears, begging for forgiveness.

Celci

Ngl she was a bit surprised.

She thought the planet you chose was uninhabited and simply had all the suitable conditions for human life.

But the scouting crew discovered an alien civilization and that’s when you reveal your true form to her, smiling as you explain it’s your home and all of them are welcomed.

“We’re a kind species, CC. We’ve been in contact with humanity for a while about establishing a society together. I just..didn’t wanna scare you guys so I stayed quiet.”

Although a bit miffed you kept this hidden she forgives you, still proud to call you her Captain.

“You kept them all safe, and that’s what matters. I’m eager to meet your friends and family, Cap.”

Gunther

“Aliens??? Hm.....do they have high-tech explosive weaponry we can trade?”

Barely bats an eye at the big reveal that his captain’s an alien.

You find it suspicious, especially when you remember the timeline he betrayed you for that exact reason.

When you catch him alone you ask him what he genuinely thinks of you.

“I was shocked, yeah but..shit, you led us well, Captain. Probably better than any other human could’ve. As long as your kind doesn’t try to uh..probe us, it’s all good.”

Burt

You’re a bit nervous about what he’ll think, but he just smiles lightly and reiterates his little poem (from the end of part 2).

“Alien or human or..anywhere in between, you are still a child of the universe. So beautiful to behold. I look forward to the exchanging of our cultures with your species.”

And he just walks away and resumes his duties.

What a guy.

Wug (bc I love him he deserves a spot here)

"You??? Alien???? Alien like Wug????? :DD" 

He's so happy when you’re comfortable enough to reveal your true form to him.

But at the same time feels bad for assuming you were human when you first met him.

You let him come onto your transport as you arrive on the planet's surface, showing him around.

"WOAH!!!! Wug find planet pretty..but not as pretty/handsome as [y/n]!”

He’ll use his translator to talk with your species, and after seeing how benevolent they are he might coordinate a meeting with other Wugs.

[flower-zombie-rob]

A lengthy critisism of in space with markiplier

Well i got through all the endings... all glorious three of them.

And i just... look i know so much work has gone into this and the production is increadible. The characters are fantastically designed the actings great the sets are phenominal but if im honest with you i just dont like it.

Im going to go through my few issues with it in this post so spoilers ahead!!!

I want to preface this review by saying that if you loved in space with markiplier and could watch it forever, all power to you!!! I am so happy you could find an enjoyment in this and I will talk about things that were very good. The production was so high and the acting directing costume and in general design was incredible from all parties including Mr. Youtuber himself. The sets were very good and the effects just keep getting better and better with each project more releases. It was a bold new take and it was interesting and fun to see market experiment with space related themes.

Now. Time to be the film critic that i am:

Ego Lore

So, going into this I was expecting some hardcore ego related lore. I mean who wasn't? It was a massive project that would have more fun adventures with plenty of different endings where we always expect lore. There is always lore. We were wrong to think that, to be honest. If there is any in there it's very hidden and none of it is very obvious at all which can be great for easter egg hunters and matpats of the audience, but for the general/casual viewers and fans of mark's ego verse, it was just sad and disappointing to know that we wouldn't get to see and appearance of dark or wilford or celine and damien or even Yancy. We had a small reference to Illinois, but it had nothing to do with anything but a throwaway gag in a strange one of the few endings. There wasnt even an unus annus referance! I know everyone was excited to see a new part of the deep story being extended, but I just don't think there was much of it there for the people who were excited and ready to see it. I honestly do think it suffered from the issue of being based mostly on the ship when others of his "choose your own story" style videos have had varying other locations from islands to prisons to cinemas to parks. They dont start there, but they go there unexpectedly and that drives the plot forward. As great as the ship is, it really doesn't give way to any kind of creative or ego-related visuals other than the blues and reds and long winding grey corridors of generic scifi. And just means that furthermore, there's even less references to egos.

Characters we got

The character lineup was brilliant, if only I could remember any of them. The problem was the mixed, crazy and all over the place narrative leading to an inability to properly understand or even really get know the characters the way that we have in the past. We got to know Yancy and had long action scenes with Illinois as well as big scary moments with darkiplier because the narrative was linear and we could understand their backstories and their in-general appearances were fun, but made sense and were easy to follow. In space with markiplier, however, has a twisting, turning, spiralling and looping narrative that no one can really navigate and/or figure out, which really distracts you from understanding, relating to and just simply enjoying these wacky characters. I just finnished less than an hour ago and i dont remember any names of these characters other than like wug, was it? They barely get any time to be the on-screen focus and don't get a lot of good moments in between the crazy plot. The characters, because of this, came off as unintentionally unmemorable and uninteresting especially when compared to characters we've met in the past, which really sucks because these actors worked so hard to come across strongly with their characterisation and the costume design was great for each of them, but alas nothing could save them from their forgetability.

Missing characters

Okay so here is where we talk about the bit that isnt specifically marks responsibility. He shouldn't have to cater to his fan base every single time he makes a passionate project and it is in no way his responsibility to fix things if we are disappointed with who did and didnt show up in his series. However!!! It was very disappointing for me personally. Basically all of the fun and plot driving characters that we have seen consistently show up in his previous works are gone from this one. There was no big iconic darkiplier monologue. There was no fun and goofy moment where we were blast into Wilford's world of madness. There was no visitation to the prison for yancy. The scene with actor mark felt cheap and underachieved. The scene with illinois felt short and solumn with lost potential. I think there was only one 100%, legitimate appearance of a single character that we have met before in this entire special. These characters grasped the hearts of the previous series fans and grew far beyond just their individual clips and endings, yet here they are nowhere to be seen. I just have a problem with that since it seems almost as if the writers are unaware of the key aspects of marks previous works that made (and still make) them so loved... and that hurts. As someone who is going into filmmaking in the future though specialised filmaking education, I've been told constantly how important it is that you understand what makes something successful and what makes characters so interesting and connectable with the audience. And especially what makes it continue past its release date. It sadly seems like "in space with markiplier" just abandons so many of the important things that really made the previous "choose your own adventure" experiences so great.

Plot

This is the main complaint I have entire thing. What was the plot? What was the story? Why are these things happening that aren't so much funny-random as previous works have been, but are more just plot contrived inconvenient-random? Everything that happens on the ship is agonisingly annoying and confusing. Pathways lead to the exact same ending but with different names and intricate interwoven choices make it 100 times harder to simply sift though endings and choices one by one. Furthermore, it feels like my choices barely matter because there's not much I can do that doesn't lead me down a path I've already been down. Whats different about this clip? Do i need to watch it again or have i already seen it? Did something slightly change and i didnt notice? Where was i? Which "wake the crew" did i just do? The fourth? The fifth? Whats the difference? Which version of the timeline am i on and how do i get back? Did i reach an ending yet? Whats the light, a reset button? Should i just give up? It is an impossibly infuriating way to do a narrative story and it makes it incredibly difficult just to do the physical mapping-out of endings. I straight up debated giving up on even getting one ending after doing the same thing 5 times in row to figure out whether there was a difference in what choice I made. In none of his other works did I find it this frustrating and unmanageable to simply find one ending or even determine what an ending counted as in this version of events. It made me unmotivated to even bother finding out what the ending was and that's a very bad sign as I usually really enjoy getting every single variable. Instead, I was simply bored and frustrated and just wanted to get to the whole thing over with. I would have loved to have a narrative where I even knew what was going on half the time.

Endings

In the whole "game" (if you will) there was 3 endings. Last time there was around 31. That is so anti climactic and need i even say more on why it is such a disappointment to just keep sifting back to the same 3 endings. It became boring and tiresome very quickly and I now just end up wondering after every run: was that it? All that work for that again? What was even the point?? I know that was the whole effect being created and that the loose plot demanded us to be stuck in an endless loop, but I mean come on. This production was massive and all we got out of it was the same two boring endings that left me just as confused and unsatisfied as when I started, and one singular throwaway ending that you have to do a very specific run to get and is the only ego appearance in the entire thing. This is the bit that I just unforgivably dislike about this project. 3 endings for this amount of effort is laughable and, in my opinion, just lazy writing. You had an incredibly compelling universe and story to tell, yet you only settled with 3.

Expectations vs reality

I think it was unrealistic of me to have the expectations that I had of this. But even so, the amount of people who were excited to get some backstory on Celine and maybe even some fem Darkiplier were rampant. Bingo cards were filled with us visiting Yancy on parole and mark coming out with a new alter ego character or a plethera of other previous tropes that made us love these things. I expected lots of locations with the kind of budget that was shown for this project. Alongside that, I expected compelling characters and interesting new situations that differed from anything we expected. Alas, we stayed on the ship and in space and in these repetitive situations and visually similar locations for hours on end, just sifting through a million repeat scenarios in hope that there's more than 2 generic endings and an Illinois reference. It just wasn't worth it in my opinion and I can't see myself watching it again, which is sad because I could watch a heist with markiplier on and on with friends and even go back and watch a date with markiplier repetitively, enjoying it every time. But this edition just left a sour taste in my mouth I was unsatisfied with the product I waited so long for and i just feel sad about it. I sort of felt that none of it lived up to what the trailer indicated or what the hype gave away. I just hope i don't find these issues in the next one because I really really do hope I enjoy it.

I am honest-to-god such a big fan of mark and his creative content. His filmmaking is impeccable, and thats comming from someone with a passion for the craft who studies it, and his story writing skills are hilarious and fantastic at a consistent rate so far. But in a disappointing turn of events, I just can't bring myself to enjoy in space with markiplier. At least not in the way I've endlessly sound contentment in his previous work. It's just let me down.

[shy-magpie]

RQG 157

these things get long and are by definition one spoiler after another, so live blog under the cut

pre episode nonsense:

My hopes for this episode are mostly just the obvious: For Zolf to pull out of his spiral; for Azu to talk to someone about how she's doing; for Hamid to find his footing with the Kobolds (loving that they are devoting a proper arc to using unearned privilege/power rather than pretending it doesn't exist); more Cel lore; a Wug; and for someone to shake answers out of the Brorb. Not sure Alex is going to let us get to know the kids individually which makes sense as juggling 7 new NPCs would seriously cut into everyone else's screen time. I think we will get more of Skraak & Hamid working through their issues, and Skraak's helping the kids through recovery. If we are very lucky maybe Zolf & Skraak will talk rather than just have Zolf resent the Kobolds for putting Hamid in a place to fall into old habits. Okay lets hit play!

Episode live blogging:

Intros are quick: Zolf sounds low, Ben sounds higher energy than he was.

Oh the Brorb drawings come better when the other half is distracted but not thinking about the real topic.

Krakens are through out the globe, unknown numbers, not true instances of Shoin, network is down.

Cel and I both react to having Shoin be the one to come closest to a truly non physical form.*

Krakens are cloned brains in robot bodies. Specifically said Daleks not Jurassic Park.

Shoin thinks he sent a ransom note using the Kraken as a threat against the world.

Does not handle it well when Zolf hones in on that no one knows who he is, much less trembles at his name.**

Hamid follows Zolf's lead and twists it towards boasting about beating the Infection. The talking half doesn't seem to know how he did it as clearly as the drawing bit. Unfortunately its strictly surgical which would be hard to reproduce at scale even before you consider the side effects.

Quick huddle with the rest of the team:

Cel always wanted to go to London?

Zolf wants to ask more about how the infection works so they could prevent infection. Wilde thinks he is suggesting using Shoin's solution, I get Alex has to catch people up but I don't like Wilde being a paragraph behind me or underestimating Zolf.

Bryn wants to review the diary. Alex confirms the diary says he had a possible  way to "end it" as a whole.

They go back and Cel feigns being extremely impressed that Shoin might have a way to stop the infection. I think having time to regroup cut him off from his memory of the infection again. Alex spells out Shoin loses coherence whenever they bring up the infection/the time period around when he was infected.

Heal check time. Zolf crit fails. Azu got a 29 and can see where his theory was better than his surgery. It may be an aphasia (issues to with communication. can't get to certain words, some can't be spoken even if he understands the concept; others he can't understand if he hears them even if he uses the word/concept himself. Brain trauma, memory problems more severe the more recent you get, sounds like unable to store short term memory properly so anything longer ago than a week but after surgery likely lost.)

Cel switches to the simulacrum. He verbally dismisses it as a waste of time. His hand keeps drawing based on the previous question re:stopping the infection.

Alex calls for a sense motive. Zolf & Azu see the latest drawing is a landscape using technical notation. Its a barren mine. Yes! it's the entrance to Svalbard. Cel can see its a circuit. Alex makes us/Lydia wait until after he's done with the simulacrum stuff.

Shoin thinks using humans as your base design to improve from is the wrong approach, gives some credit to Francois Henri for taking a different approach.

The circuit maybe to transmit something, it needs an organic component. Cel couldn't roll much better then that so they probably need to kick it towards the Harlequins to set a team on.

Shoin is moaning about paying the bills. Took on the contract to provide Simulacrum fluidics to Damascus for the money.

Drawings change shape get less technical and focus on the cavern entrance. Ben catches it sounds yonic, Alex was trying to not go there but did he really think you could go from cave imagery to seed imagry without stopping there?

Hamid tries to get more on how he caught the infection.

Bryn and Alex spell out that to get answers you ask a real question he won't answer verbally but will answer with his hand, with a decoy to keep the talking him distracted while the hand answers.

Decoy question is about Harrison Campell.

Concept drawing of a person, overwhelmed by an image of a huge figure with lines going from the small to the large? Is he suggesting they plant someone they prepare to be infected, and have them infect it back?

Proofs? Minor changes between the proofs and published version of early Campbell books.

Another review session upstairs. Hamid's red string wall got cited as being useful! Cult of Hades/Wellington may have been the one to hire Shoin to make parts for Damascus. Zolf and Hamid talk briefly, about work and as dry "stick to the subject" as possible but they are talking productively.

Oh Ben finally gets in that the interrogation is hard on Zolf's knees because he has to keep his legs out of the cell. He snaps a little at Cel when they comment on cell vs Cel. Carter suggests "naughty box" which nicely derails that point of tension. Cel refers to Shoin as being more pleasant to talk to than Carter. Not sure if that undermines the tiny Cel/Carter ship or fuels it with tension.

Cel asks who hired Shoin to make Sim parts. He can answer directly. Well directly for him, it seems to be mostly justifying stealing Tesla's work on the basis that Tesla wasn't going to implement his theory. Hamid snipes him with a shot praising Edison to get him back on topic. Shoin says Edison was being backed by a big investor. Is it to much to hope this is Alex finally consolidating the factions? If Hades is Edison's investor (leaving Edison & co as effectively their minions, rather than a faction of their own) and the factory owners we can cut down on sides considerably.

He goes on about how he spied on Henri, religion as money maker. Shoin was directly approached by Hades lot. Shoin made sure his bits won't work since he didn't want competition. Wellington was his contact with Hades. Wellington always had a pair of cloaked figures.  Vinegar + squizard = funny? Could be useful.

Do not follow what is going on with the hand.

Shoin is still unstuck in time and thinks he is going to connect them. Cel unplugs the speaker on his villain speech. Cel induces a dream state by powering him down

~break~

Cel suggests  painlessly killing him. Zolf seconds the idea because its immoral to keep him like that.   Hamid points out the longer the keep him around the more likely it is for someone to be infected. Wilde rules they should kill and seal it off.

Cel & Zolf have an argument about having the Kobolds handle the remains. Cel calls Zolf out on his inconstant stance on whether the Kobolds can be infected because if he doesn't believe that then he is risking them.

Wilde is moving on? Cel suggests letting the Brorb die, putting it in a bag of holding, keeping the bag in the anti magic field.

They can't just call Einstein because using unofficial channels is bad when irregular behavior is a sign of infection(?)

Alex's unhealthy attitudes about productivity are called out when he refers to the time Wilde spends thinking/planning before getting their transport arranged as "working" (with the inverted commas) rather than considering it part of the work.

They work out possible paths if teleporting is off the table.

And the boys are snapping at each other again. Zolf, you can't flip out every time you are reminded that Hamid doesn't have the experience or expertise of a seasoned sailor. Yeah you did leave the team without your skills and maybe the kid was a bit green for a field promotion; but you know what? He did a fine job, and the other choices were Sasha, who wouldn't lead, and Bertie, who shouldn't. Just because stepping down was the right thing to do, doesn't mean you get to lose it when you are confronted with the mere allusion to the idea it had consequences.

Barnes tells Hamid why going over the pole is a really bad idea. That Azu's suggestion is carrying Hamid has troubling symbolism.

Zolf actually comes more or less to Hamid's defense by pointing out that all their options are bad options, so having a go at Hamid's idea in particular is unwarranted.

I'm not going to bother listing out options. They will pick one or won't need to pick one. If we have been a very good fandom Alex may reward us with Earhart coming back as their preferred transport.

There we go, Hamid suggests her, Zolf seizes on the idea compliments Hamid on it, and immediately takes it to Wilde. Thank God he isn't so far down he can't do that. If he isn't compulsively shooting down any hope (especially from Hamid) then he really is on the upswing from the low brought on by quarantine stress.

Lydia isn't happy that there isn't going to be an American chapter. Then again we wrote off Svalbard, so don't give up!

Its the Northwest Passage and its so weird realizing that not everyone has it as a cultural reference. Wonder if it's an Oregon thing or a US thing.

Yes it would have been cool, but I think Alex is not going to let us have cool new story arcs when we haven't played with the ones we have at home.

Einstein and Earhart are our two best transport options. I am a happy fan. Especially if Zolf has to use his family and Earhart’s reaching out to him near the end of the journey to appeal to her. I mean we did get more on Zolf's relationship with his family than I expected after Paris, so I'm not going to sulk if they don't pursue this, but it would be nice.

Conflicted as a fan, its hard to remember that this taking months extra is a bad thing when the end of the series is feeling too close for comfort.

Zolf, look at you leveraging your experience with moving even when things feel hopeless!

Cel I love you, kraken as submarine is brilliant. Air kraken is suggested by Carter.

Hamid plays with the ideas while Alex goes "why?". Because you are going to have to work a hell of a lot harder than that if you want Hamid to see it as a no win situation rather than proof he needs to redouble on cheerful creativity. Feeling like he had no options led to the worst parts of Hamid's life, the things he is truly ashamed of; having few losses outside of those, he is going to make Kirk's Kobayashi Maru hang ups look amateur.

Zolf is heading to the beach.

Cel is checking on their village.

Hamid wants to contact Einstein himself, Zolf says he should talk to Wilde about that. Hamid wants Zolf with him for that meeting. Zolf either doesn't want to be a safety blanket, wants Hamid to get used to dealing with Wilde directly, or completely missed Hamid offering a chance to work together because he is incapable of seeing Wilde as an opponent. He does say some nice things about being a team.

Hamid tells Cel to say hi to Jasper for them. He is good at the people side of leadership. Remembering names and relationships, knowing how to show he cares because it's important to Cel without overstepping. If Zolf can learn to let go of the rank stuff, they could be an unbeatable team of co leaders.

Zolf nods at Azu. Azu smiles proudly back. Alex jokes about not liking giving them time to heal because they coordinate.

Hamid offers hugs to both Cel and Zolf. Because this entire character is a "fuck you" to toxic masculinity and he is not afraid to openly show affection to his friends.

Cel gives him a great hug.

Zolf hesitates but gives him a pat on the shoulder. Hamid's has high enough charisma to make that not awkward. Good kid, accepting that Zolf is reaching out as far as he can.

Hamid talks to Skraak. Hamid is worried about taking the kids. Maybe Skraak can convince them to stay & help Jasper with science. Because RQG loves us and wants us to be happy, they are considering a fantasy some of us harbored since "science" as a serious possibility. Could solve the issue with Alex not wanting the kids to take up too much screen time too. Skraak is the perfect character for Hamid to have as his second. He believes in Hamid, and can be confided in, but isn't going to take an ounce of self pity or bullshit.

Alex that village better be okay. Smoke? Controlled burn. Ben lightens the mood. The tank is still guarding the village. The barricade is up but they are guarding about as well as a village of level 0(1?) characters can be expected to.

They are having a party and there is a bon fire. Because Alex knows we wouldn't have trusted him if there wasn't a little scare with the smoke. !puns

The village is visibly healing since the weather is fixed. They thank Cel but know better than to ask.

Jasper! Jasper is looking good. He stepped in as a leader of the village. Cel and I could burst with pride. Jasper thinks Cel is coming to stay, Cel tries to explain they are going to help save the other villages around the world and mentions that Jasper would like the Kobolds.

!puns

* One day I need to hunt down the right corner of SF because there has got to be a decent amount of trans humanist fiction for trans humans out there somewhere.

**Not sure if I should feel bad for hoping this gives him a safe target for his destructive tendencies. Ideally Zolf would get past that point without indulging his dark side lest he reinforce bad coping mechanisms. Ideally Zolf would have weekly therapy without the fate of the world on his shoulders too. Its the more personal version of looking forward to a fight after Hamid's been stressed because he seems to find cooking baddies cathartic.