#it's also a lot more sci fi so

[that-wildwolf]

hey, remember being 18 years old and playing mass effect for the first time and it's got this like intense aura of being very small and very insignificant in a very big, very empty galaxy? remember playing mass effect for the first time and everything all of this is so new and mysterious, and it's 2am and you're sitting in a dark room in the light from your tv and you're playing through feros for the first time and you feel that this is someting very old and very ancient and you are somewhere you shouldn't be and you don't know what's going to happen or where you're going but you keep on. there's a tingling in your stomach and you're playing mass effect for the first time. the thorian is a milennia old sentient plant being. the rachni queen is old and telepathic and a hive mind and in pain. sovereign is an ancient machine that has not been built but is, and has always been, and this is something so alien and so unlike and beyond anything your human mind can comprehend, and this is something unexplainable and huge and as uncaring and indifferent as the empty galaxy around you. you're playing mass effect for the first time and you're walking on the surface of an almost completely empty planet with nothing but your two companions silently walking beside you and everything is so huge and empty and silent and you're so small and insignificant and it's so beautiful and so scary and you feel like you are on a rollercoaster about to drop down. you are playing mass effect for the first time and you're playing the mission on the moon and you stop and just look up at earth visible in the sky. you know this. this is home. you are playing mass effect for the first time, and the galaxy is so big, and you are so tiny, and everything is about to change for you.

[harpuiaa]

i've been dead and gone bc of school and jobsearching and everything happening all at once but ive been playing the boktai series games lately and i'm enjoying it a lot. I just got past the third boss in boktai 2. I don't know why but i'm enthralled with these games, i highly recommend them

[azure-clockwork]

How Does it Feel to Read Classic Sci-Fi?

Orson Scott Card: Two of the most interesting books you’ll ever read if you’re willing to look past a handful of things. And then you find the planet of Chinese people who worship having debilitating OCD. And the Mormonism. And the fact that the author is wildly homophobic and ought to read his own books.

Robert Heinlein (or at least the Wikipedia Summaries): I guess that’s a neat concept—oh, it’s a sex thing. Um. Gotcha.

Ray Bradbury: Man, I gotta read this thing for class huh. Well here’s hoping it’s good! *three hours later* oh. that’s why he’s famous. this will stick with me forever and I will never look at the phrase ‘soft rain’ the same again. christ. And then repeat 3x.

Isaac Asimov: Wow, this is such an interesting concept! I wonder how the exploration of it will influence the plot! Wait, hey, are you going to add any characters? Any of em? No like, with character traits other than ‘robot psychologist’ and ‘autistic’ and ‘woman’? None of em? No, ‘detective’ isn’t a character trait. Those are all just facts. Aaaand now I’m bored.

Ursula K. Le Guin: Hah, get a load of this guy! He’s never heard of nonbinary people before. Lol, what a riot; how dumb do you have to be to comprehend that these people aren’t men *or* women actually? Oh, wait, what’s happening. Oh shit, it was about society and love and learning to understand each other? And now I’m crying? And perhaps a better human being for it??

Andy Weir: Alright, this guy’s a really good writer. Funny, creative, knows so much engineering stuff…ooh, a new book! …I guess he can’t write women. Well, he wouldn’t be the first sci-fi writer…ooh another new book! And it’s more engineering problem solving and—wow. It’s not just women he can’t write. Please stop letting your characters talk to each other.

Lois Lowry: Oh, I remember this being fun when I was a kid! Wouldn’t it be fucked up to not see color? …upon reread, it would be fucked up to have your humanity stripped away, replaced with a tepid, beige ‘happiness’ for all time. Yeah.

Tamsyn Muir (let me have this ok): Haha, “lesbian necromancers in space” sounds fun. Lemme read this. Oh wow, yeah, this is right up my alley. OH GOD WHAT. NO. FUCK. OH SHIT WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING AND WHY IS IT REFERENCING THE BOOK OF RUTH AND HOMESTUCK BACK TO BACK!!! AHHHHHHHHH!! Now give me more please.

[vaguely-concerned]

I've been devouring the first few seasons of star trek deep space 9 recently and folks... after several false starts we might finally have found the trek that will take my brain down like the weak gazelle of the herd. I love this shitty little space station and the cast of exclusively weirdos that inhabit it so much

[elvensemi]

Been working my ass off on a double length update for the premier of A Place Among the Stars, my original sci-fi... debut? I guess? In that it's my debut into sci-fi. Guys I've worked so hard on it hhhhh I hope people like it. There will be some teaser art coming out soon-ish.

It'll be releasing April 28th thru Patreon.

In May, I'll also be releasing a free ebook that contains the first few chapters from each of my stories, to allow you to sample Khajit's wares (is that joke too dated). Once it drops, please feel free to download it and also send it to every single group chat you're in that has a book recommendation channel lmao. Remember: you can't beat free!

[archduke-enver-gortash]

got a post on my dash that was like only annoying nerds will like 73 yards. well. as an annoying nerd supreme.

[mariocki]

Pathfinders to Venus (ABC, 1961)

"What a paradise this place is. The way Earth must have been before man spoiled it with sprawling towns and filthy machines."

"If it hadn't been for man's filthy machines we wouldn't be here."

"That's true. And the pity of it is that after us will come rocket after rocket to ravage this planet. They'll gouge the minerals out of the earth, destroy the forests and eventually they'll go to war over it."

[ellie-mars]

I haven’t really talked much about it here lately, but my original web comic Supernovas is still updating, and there are now the first two entire chapters posted on Dillyhub! plus all five of the prologue chapters and a handful of other mini stories, that’s a lot of Supernovas for you!

You can find it on Dillyhub here:

It’s got everything you want! Action! Comedy! Shenanigans and tomfoolery! Aliens! Revolutions! Queer characters of every size, shape, color, and identity! Found family! Space pirates! Starships! Lawbreaking! Comeuppance!

[pelcrow]

Joaquin "Jack" Navarro is a lone wolf, cyborg, and quantum physicist with an infamous talent for time-fuckery.

In the 1970s, Jack and Maggie---his wife and research partner---spearheaded the exploration of spacetime manipulation, producing a pseudo-physical albeit unstable manifestation of time. Their ambitions created disastrous consequences, ones that deteriorated Jack's mind to a state of agonizing pain and madness while also garnering transcendental abilities. He lashed out at his family, becoming more like a rabid animal than a man.

His madness was contained by the very rift he created until he fell into the hands of a powerful coalition that seized the opportunity to transform him into a literal killing machine, giving him cybernetic enhancements in order to pursue their own desires of spacetime manipulation and to strike down any opposition. Here, Jack became a violent, remorseless, teleoperated executioner.

After years of this, Jack broke away from servitude when his cybernetic receiver decayed, and he isolated himself on a distant planet where he was able to start putting together memories he had lost in the madness and trauma.

He still carries a cold and violent demeanor, a raging pessimist and bitter man with a penchant for self destruction. He has no idea what he wants, teetering between wanting to restore what was lost and wanting to remain in isolation, knowing he is at the mercy of the unstable time he created.

[skitskatdacat63]

Paul Atreides is sooooo T.E. Lawrence coded

[neeko-system]

SIGNALIS SPOILERS AND WHATNOT~~

finished my second playthrough of signalis, was going for the artifact ending. then loaded my save and got the memory ending. such a good game aaaa

the memory ending made me cry, it was really heartwrenching when ariane said sorry i dont remember, i just crumpled. watching elster be so exhausted was a lot.

not really sure if i understand the artifact ending. i feel like either its really vague (on top of all the other vagueness) or if im missing something. it kind of feels like a burial of arianes memory? like elster dies and we see ariane thikning about her and elster dancing in the wrecked ship? i’m not sure. maybe someone could give me their interpretation of it?

i also found out that theres a difficulty setting and really wished i had set it to survival before my second playthrough. woulda been nice!!! I do have one more ending so i might play the game again but might also just watch it on youtube and play the game again some other time(gotta let it ruminate so i can go back in with different eyes), I wanna get all the achievements anyways.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

all in all i fucking love this game a lot. very rarely do i replay a game so soon after playing it for the first time. its really tragic i’ll never get to experience this game for the first time again, but, so it goes. its such a beautiful game i will be thinking about it for a longgggggggggggg time. ive been wanting to talk about it so badly for so long but none of my friends have played it yet kyaaa!!! >_<

its crazy to me that the game exists the way it does. the style, the mechanics, the story, the music, everything about it oozes so much passion and care and thought. very few games have made me want to stare at every part of it to figure out how they made it look the way it did (THE GAME IS SO STYLISTICALLY RICH LIKE HOIW DID THEY DO ALL THAT) and the game mechanics are so nice to my brain, everything is so tactile and clicky and inventory management and ammo management and horror stratgey and the flesh and rust and death and love and lesbians and robots and anime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

amazing game thank you rose engine, i hope they make more stuff because i really want to see it

edit:(thinking about the first time i played compared to the second. i was considerably less scared since i had a clue of waht was going on but the fear that i felt playing the first time was special to me. i really like games with stories about ‘time loops’ because the replay-ability is baked in in a cool way. especially with how the game throws information at you, viewing things again having experienced perspective shifts from information is really cool. seeing scenes again re-contextualized makes my brain go ^-^(hots quest ding sound) but going in completely blind and being afraid of everything (i especially remember being scared of the dream beach, i had literally no clue what to expect and it was nice) it all had a different flavor than the second time which is cool because i feel like i experience that kind of emotion change *with* elster. (girlie needs a FUCKING cuddle nap)

the way the game balances reality and the surreal i think is super neat. i love surrealist dream stuff a lot and i think that a video game is a super good medium for that kind of experiential stuff that really inspires me to wanna make video games. especially because then theres also this super nerdy sci fi stuff going on about robots and space regimes and magical tech(my favorite) and planetary systems and military systems and all that good shit. i similarly wanna get nerdy about stuff like military logistics while also telling a story about gay robots and girls that keep missing each other just barely in the space time continuum. i love that the game tells you a lot but also is vague and also says fuck you (affectionate) stop looking for answers and just feel it. it explains just the right amount to not feel esoteric while keeping enough vague to leave a lot up to interpretation/figure it out by playing it again/thinking about it. it plays with themes and reality and reoccuring symbolism and all that good shit that makes stories addicting to think about.) ((also one of the endings requiring beating the game once among other things that keep between playthroughs, yummyyy. games that know they are games/stories/worlds that are aware of themselves., thats good shit right there))

[dinitride-art]

Mike and Will both would’ve died in season one if someone didn’t save them. They both have dramatic near death experiences that are set apart from everyone else. Will needed cpr when they found him in the library, and Mike actually jumped off a cliff. Those two situations both went far enough that it would have been too late for them to save themselves. And that’s why either of them dying at the end of the story doesn’t make sense. They’ve already almost died. They were already too far over the precipice to turn back by themselves.

Maybe a conclusion to this could be the two of them learning how to live by themselves. In the monologue Mike says that, “[he] doesn’t know how to live without [El].” And while Mike’s just saying whatever he can in that moment, what if there’s truth in that statement? What if he doesn’t know how to protect himself. How to not jump off a cliff and be caught? And Will’s hated accepting help for a while now. But always has to rely on people to save him in the end. Maybe Will’s going to figure out how to protect the people around him- without putting himself in harms way.

Maybe the conclusion to this story is learning how to save yourself. To love yourself as much as everyone else does so you can protect them too. Strength doesn’t come from self sacrifice. Not in this story. Barb, Bob, Eddie- they didn’t run away. They didn’t make sure they themselves were safe. And all their deaths have caused has been pain. Being the hero gets you killed. But trying to live? Will reaching out for his mom when he’s stuck in the Upside Down? She came to find him. Whether they believed her or not. Will was alive, and she went to save him. And when El was on her own in the woods, Hopper put eggos in a box. He took her in, and kept her safe. From everyone- maybe a little too much at times- but he went to her. And he protected her.

But Nancy’s right. “They aren’t little kids anymore.” They’re not going to have someone to protect them all the time. They’re going to have to be strong enough to protect themselves. Strong enough to live. Not sacrifice themselves to save everyone else.

[pekoeboo]

finally feel like I'm at a point where I can share this idea!!! so @cookieg122 and I have been working on an AU for a few months now that's a pretty big departure from the Minecraft stuff we've been working on, as it's more of a fully-original concept instead ;o;

this story has a proper name, as well!! titled Codename: IRIS, the plot centers around a younger Khalan, who gets into gaming as a form of escape from his abusive home life and the stress of moving to a new country/big city. but he quickly finds out that the game console he was gifted actually houses a seemingly-sentient AI - of which he names Aya.

the two go on adventures through various video games to stop a different, malevolent AI that's threatening to corrupt the virtual world; all while utilizing futuristic VR technology to do so. but they also take breaks sometimes with more typical PC gaming and meet Antony along the way, who ends up being a sort of "guide" for Khalan (as the kid is pretty new to video games as a whole) :'0

unfortunately, the virtual threat does end up spreading to the real world as well, which pushes Khalan and Aya (who can move freely between the game console and his phone) to solve challenges within the city itself in a race against the clock to stop the threat - just as long as Khalan manages to get back home in time before his dad finds out;;

there's so much more to this story that I can't really cover in just a single post, but I felt like it was finally time to at least reveal the basics of this concept to y'all!! it's been a lot of fun to re-imagine these characters within a "real life" setting (taking place in an alternate version of Earth in the year 203X), though it's still very sci-fi at its core, lol.

anyway! that's all I can really share for now! hope y'all like ;0;

Aya Armas belongs to @cookieg122. please do not remove caption or repost. also on deviantart

[rioblitzle]

im not even that active as a lurker anymore but I did always find it funny how clear the fan favouritism was in the gorillaz fandom through the fact that noodle has a classic wild over-the-top edgy first-oc backstory where she was raised as a supersoldier/living weapon in a lab as part of a government experiment and narrowly escaped being slaughtered alongside all of her peers- and yet I have barely ever in my life seen whatever the fuck was going on with that and how it might affect her touched on in fan content, but in comparison there's gotta be like at least a thousand fics centred around murdoc's backstory alone

[poebrey]

gonna write a whole thing someday about how characters of color who clearly have a history of trauma or mental health issues aren’t given consideration or acknowledgement in the fandom imagination

[mariocki]

Pathfinders in Space (ABC, 1960)

"Now, the remainder of us have fifteen hours of oxygen left. That leaves fifteen hours in which to complete our research here."

"Well, what's the good of all that if you can't come back with it?"

"The moon never destroys her treasures, Henderson. We shall leave a record and it'll be preserved in the vacuum of the caves. And the future expeditions you mentioned, they will find it."