#that i'll save for another time

[somethingwittyandweird]

What's your favorite game you played this year?

You've activated my “review of my year in gaming” trap card! I was already going to make this post in some form or another, you've just given me the perfect launching point. So, the first thing you should know about asking me for favorites: I never give just one. How could I, when it's been such a banger year of games? (Heads up, this one's going to go long.)

I loved Tears of the Kingdom to death, and it took home my most hours played on Switch. It is a shining example of what devs can do with an extra few months to polish a game. There were so many remarkable moments that testified to how much care and ideas the devs were able to put in. I loved how it used the time since the first game to develop familiar places and characters, adding depth (no pun intended) and also making sure every familiar location had some new twist. The story was a much stronger followup to BotW, and I think this overall has my new favorite ending sequence of anything in the series (I'd love to make a full post sometime about how the final Ganondorf battles just keep getting more spectacular with each new title). I am so, so, so, so normal about this incarnation of Princess Zelda. 

Also in my favorites this year is Fire Emblem Engage, which hit at just the right time to scratch my strategy itch. As a long time FE fan it’s not a surprise I enjoyed this one- though it lost the political intrigue of its predecessor in favor of a more traditional/tropey story, I still had a lot of fun with all its gimmicks and gameplay innovations. Also it is hands-down the most visually appealing game in the franchise, a title previously held by the series’ GBA entries which are masterworks from the peak era of beautiful sprite art. From the incredible crit animations to the spectacle of super attacks to the battle maps which are so beautifully detailed that the game lets you free roam around them after a battle just to appreciate them better. 

I finished the Link’s Awakening remake this year! It was a charming trip back to an older era of Zelda design philosophy and I found it fascinating to compare the ways where the classic puzzles and challenges differ from what the game would be like if it were made today, as well as the places where modern technology allowed for better QoL changes that weren’t in the original. I really enjoyed the music as well, which I find to be a standout among the series still.

Here at the end of the year, I have to give a shout out to Sea of Stars. It has everything you want in an indie darling- very pretty pixel art, very nice music, turn-based battles with timed hits I joke, but Sea of Stars does a great job balancing evoking/paying homage to icons like Chrono Trigger and bringing new gameplay to the JRPG formula. I like its pared-down take on JRPG combat which revamps skills/mana into a much more dynamic resource that’s constantly being spent and regenerated, and I’m a known sucker for character combo attacks which this game has in spades. The later parts of its story are told with a lot of heart, and again I am a known sucker for certain character archetypes. Surprisingly also, I think the movement and exploration is absolutely a standout- not something that’s typically emphasized in the genre. But this game constantly has you hopping across stepping stones, balancing on tightropes, climbing walls and ledges… the emphasis on interesting traversal and verticality is a strength few games like it can boast. 

Before my final pick, I’m including a special section for all the games I didn't play myself but watched my friends play and still want to praise: Hi-Fi Rush, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Mario Bros Wonder, Pizza Tower, the Minish Cap Switch rerelease, and more all came out this year and all of them have brought killer music, excellent gameplay, and stunning visuals that I’ve enjoyed to no end. Anyone considering to pick up any of them would find a quality product without a doubt.

With all that said: I think ultimately it has to be Tunic in the end. Underneath its premise of a Zelda/Souls-like adventure game there is a wealth of secrets that goes as far down as you have the courage to delve. It’s a game built to evoke nostalgia for games that you didn’t understand yet, posing as a game that you watched an older sibling play or a game you could only find a poorly-translated foreign copy of. It obscures everything and teaches you its secrets through context, exploration, and discovering in-game pages of the manual (remember manuals?). It’s a game made for lovers of secrets and puzzles, full of hidden paths and trophies that reward inquisitiveness and observation (and taking paper notes). It was when I saw that it not only has a conlang, but that it gives you the hints you need to fully translate it, that I knew I had to get it myself. It spurred me to screenshot every in-game piece of menu text, then spend evenings cross-referencing it to identify phonemes and construct a key.

The rush I got on completing that key is one of two moments I knew this game was absolutely special. The second standout moment is when the game teaches you its hugest secret, and then invites you to prove your mastery of it by presenting you a huge, multi-part puzzle. But, Tunic does the same thing that one of my other all-time favorites, Outer Wilds, does so well: powerups via knowledge, “unlocking” abilities that you always had, you just didn’t know that you did. The pieces to this puzzle are hidden in plain sight; it’s only when the game tells you what you’re looking for that your understanding shifts, everything clicks, and your eyes are opened to the path you have to follow. I don’t say it lightly, but I consider Tunic to be a one-of-a-kind title, and one that delivers completely on its unique vision. 

In case that brick of text doesn’t make it clear, I love this game. 

I love all of these games.

It's a fine time to be alive.

[icantdothistodaybruh]

[kanejbr3kker]

my theory for soc 3 is that it's gonna open with a zoyalai wedding, and the crows are just there cause nikolai likes them, and then someone fucks up and then the plot actually starts.

[drippyboycunt]

thinking abt them sitting in my lap, riding me...

my lips on their lips, their jaw, their neck...

my hands wandering their body, trailing up their thighs to their waist, to their ribs, and back down to their hips...

holding them down as i grind up against them, both of us moaning and gasping at it all

[raynewolfegirl]

Meta Jazz, the Arkham Intern Therapist Pt 2.2

Note: Part 2.2! The Bane Incident from Kon's POV! 😁

~*~*~

Two days later, Kon was back at Arkham undercover again. The Bats had caught Bane nearly 12 hours earlier after Red Hood showed up midway through the fight, lept off the overpass, and landed a blow directly to the top of Bane's head with a metal pipe on the way down. The behemoth of a man had crashed hard into the cement, immediately unconscious, and been taken directly to Arkham's medical facilities as soon as he arrived. He'd been checked over and cleared to head to his usual room in less than 15 minutes once he woke up the following afternoon.

Kon found out all of this afterwards. 

He was headed back to the briefing room for his nect assignment after lunch when he spotted four senior guards, Collins, Ryans, Dorr, and Miles, escorting Bane from medical to his usual cell. He stepped into a doorway to let them pass by before continuing on his way. Kon had spent a productive lunch break chatting with Jasmine "please don't call me Fenton" while she waited for Dr. Rylie before he had to head back to the guards room so he wouldn't be late. He'd have to make sure to catch up with Dr. Rylie on the way out at the end of the day instead, Kon mused.

There was a shout behind him. Two bodies slamming hard into the walls on either side of the hall. A rush of fabric sliding across fabric. Rapid pounding footsteps.

Kon spun letting out a gasp as he saw Bane grab Jasmine's upper arm and yank her hard enough to make her stumble. The large man turned to face the guards behind him as he pulled her firmly back against his chest. Kon had the dart gun in his hands and leveled at Bane before he even realized he was moving. Dorr and Ryans had also already done the same. Miles was scrambling to his feet, drawing both his dart gun and baton. Collins slid to the ground, right shoulder visibly dislocated from hitting the wall at the wrong angle but he drew his tranquilizer dart gun as well.

"Weapons down or I'll snap her skinny little neck." Bane growled out, shaking Jasmine as emphasis. Her braid swung from the force of it. 

Kon expected her to panic. He was panicking; a full grown, fully recognized superhero. Of course, he expected her to panic.

But Jasmine didn't. 

Her expression smoothed out turning from barely-there surprise to blank calm in the span of a few seconds. Her breathing stayed deep and even. Her heart beat steady was steady. Was she in some kind of shock? But he had never heard of someone reacting like that to shock before.

"Back up! Let him through!" Dr. Rylie shouted to Kon and the other guards from where he had pressed himself against the wall on the opposite side from Bane. He must have been just a few steps ahead of Jasmine.

"She's my student! Let him through!" Dr. Rylie screamed again. His voice high pitched with fear for his intern. 

Kon didn't know what to do. From the way Ryans and Dorr were exchanging looks, he wasn't sure they knew what the best approach was in this situation either. Of the five of them, Ryans was the most senior guard but he wasn't one of the six guards trained for hostage negotiations either. None of the scenarios they had trained for would work here. Jasmine was too similar in height to Bane for a good shot and a single tranquilizer wouldn't knock him out anyway. They couldn't possibly circle around behind him in this narrow hallway either.

Kon could practically taste the panic building in the air. The tension was rising. If he didn't think fast someone else was going to make the first move and Jasmine would get hurt and -

She sighed.

Long, heavy, and disappointed. It felt like every muscle in Kon's body locked up suddenly.

"Mr. Bane, remove your hands from my person, please. I will give you to one to comply." She said voice calm and heavy like - like she was disappointed in him?

Kon's stared at her bland expression in shock for a moment before his eyes darted back to Bane. The rogue looked momentarily stunned then started laughing.

"Five." Jasmine said, ignoring his laughter. Kon felt himself paling. His colleagues were shifting, white faced with fear as they traded glances again.

"Four." She continued. Bane snorted derisively at her.

"Did you really think that would work?" He asked. His arms tightened around her. There was no way Jasmine was getting out of this without bruises.

"Three." She said ignoring Bane's question. Holy shit. Had she lost her mind?

"What can you even do if I don't?" Bane mocked with a rabid gleam in his eye. He's going to kill her, Kon realized faintly, even if we let him go now he's going to snap her neck for this.

"Two." 

"Jasmine..." Kon whispered pained and horrified by his realization. Loosening his grip on the dart gun without meaning too. She met his gaze across the hall, eyes resolved. 

"One." She finished, brows furrowing slightly in concentration as her lips thinned, pressed together. Bane gave a derisive snort. 

And then the massive man was airborne. 

"Holy shit." Miles breathed out.

Kon stared at the crater in the floor. Collins and Dorr were absolutely silent, hearts racing in their chests. Ryans took a half step forward, heart stuttering - Kon really hoped the man wasn't about to have a heart attack because he could rush him to medical right now. Dr. Rylie was half collapsed against the wall he'd been pressing himself against a strangled sound of shock coming from his throat. Bane was embedded in the floor breath wheezing as Jasmine half knelt on top of his neck. Oh wow, Kon registered, Bane's arm is fucked.

"Now, do you know what you've done wrong?" Jasmine asked looking down at the giant.

"Yes, Ma'am." Bane choked out.

"Fucked with the wrong HBIC." Collins muttered under his breath faintly still stunned.

"Jasmine for president." Miles whispered back automatically.

"Boys," Dorr scolded as he half lowered his dart gun, shifting his weight at the same time.

"Won't be making her angry around that time of month." Ryans mumbled to himself softly enough that Kon was the only person who could have possibly heard him. 

"What did you do wrong?" Jasmine pressed. Collins choked back an inappropriate hysterical giggle at the question. Bane appeared to panic when he realized he'd have to respond. 

No wonder, Kon thought, the man literally grew up in Santa Prisca's prisons. Did he even know how to respond to -Kon choked on air - a maternal scolding?! What the ever loving fuck? He bluescreened. Stood there in the hallway, absolutely stunned, completely unaware of his surroundings as he struggled to process the fact that Jasmine was giving Bane a maternal scolding in the middle of an Arkham hallway right in front of him. Maybe I've finally gone nuts? Kon wondered. 

Jasmine gestured vaguely towards the group of them without turning to look and Kon snapped back to the present. 

"Kyle here is going to take you to see the nurse and then back to your room then. I'm sure you'll behave for him?" Oh shit, that's me she's talking about. Kon walked towards her still a bit numb.

"Yes, Ma'am. I'll behave." Bane answered her. Kon watched as Jasmine stood up carefully and backed away from Bane far enough for him to pull himself out of the crater in the floor. Once he was on his feet, Kon led Bane back towards medical realizing as he did that there had been four other guards behind him this whole time.

Two of them darted forward and scooped up Collins, probably to take him to the guards medical ward along the outer wall patrol route. The other two fell in with Kon, Dorr, Miles, and Ryans. As they walked away Kon could hear Jasmine talking to Dr. Rylie.

"I'm fine, really. My mother was an extremely skilled martial artist. I've been learning from her since I started to walk." She explained honestly, trying to sooth the frazzled doctor's nerves. "I didn't know he was heavy enough to break the floor though!" Jasmine laughed. 

That - heart beat uneven, vocal cords tense - that second part was a lie.

[hyakunana]

The traditional seasonal visit to the Beyond to —report the news of this timeline— comfort your local involuntary time traveler

[sleepgarden]

new headdress I'm working on for my shop. Lambkin, the pet name varré gives us in elden ring, is such a cute word. The pink yarn is very light against the cream, it's hard to capture but it "blushes" in light, almost disappearing under certain angles and light! Accented with antique lace, and it'll have a gorgeous matching ribbon and bows.

I haven't posted any personal work in a while so here's something I'm taking time on for myself ^-^

[sukunasun]

could u please write some more mma!sukuna 🤲🏾

some rough in-between scenes. —

you get woken up when he returns home from a trip abroad.

in the dark and half asleep, you've gotten used to the way he moves around the house with muffled steps, how undeniably sukuna they are. heavy-handed when he shoves through the front door, a rolling luggage bag following after. tired and lethargic, he drags along, bounding up and down the hall in a pair of old house slippers.

he's sure to be quiet when he enters the bedroom. carefully stripping off what is no doubt his favourite sweater, the one he always wears on long flights, before tossing it into the hamper. there's the rustling of his pockets, taking out his passport and the clinking keychains, he sets them on the nightstand. there's some more thudding and thumping around but it's soothing, familiar enough to lull you back to sleep if not for the anticipation you feel, the excitement bubbling up when you know what comes next.

you feel his knees dip into the mattress. coming closer towards you like a practiced dance, he knows just where your form curls underneath the bundle made up of sheets, duvets and a warmth he's dying to bury himself in.

oh, you've been so patient waiting for his return. "hey stranger," you whisper, voice croaking out into the night. eyes peeking open lazily to see him hovering above you, his thighs caging you in. he's in need of a shower to wash off the jetlag but he can't be parted from you for a second longer, not when he's missed you this much, and judging by how you've been hugging onto his pillow, so have you. 

“missed me?” he smiles, your skin feeling the curve of it like a reward, his hands trailing over your figure. a sensitive spot here, a dimple there, moaning at the feel of his weight atop you, so comforting as he leans in to plant a kiss on your cheek. he'll savour this. go slow and steady, save up on the stamina so it'll last longer. maybe he'll get sappy and hold your hand through it.

...however that thought is thrown aside and abandoned the moment he makes a swift tug at the covers and notices you're not wearing any panties. revealing just two glorious thighs rubbing together with nothing in between but a hungry, greedy little hole waiting to be filled.

you see his expression turning into something dangerous, fighting back the urge to punish you here and now. his large hand leaves a sharp spank on your ass, squeezing at the flesh and holding it there til you start grinding into it, loving the pinch. "you shouldn’t do that, my boyfriend wouldn't appreciate it,” you tease, and he gets the hint.

“yeah? what kind of boyfriend leaves you in a bed alone like this?” he's spreading your thighs apart while inching closer to the softest part on the inside. where you start getting slick, glistening, and so lewd. staining the sheets you've spent all afternoon getting cleaned in preparation for him, only for them to get soiled all over again.

"the kind that has more important things to do," you use the words that will rile him up, hips bucking upwards to get a feel of his hardening cock in his sweats. he's gone for the grey ones, they're comfy, but you know he's chosen them deliberately so he'd have no trouble taking them off. as if he already had it planned and thought out, that he knew he was going to fuck you as soon as he got home.

"if you were my girl, i'd never leave this bed. must have been so cold, so empty all those nights," there's a truth there, that he still feels guilty for having to leave you. it's only been a week but he can't last a day without seeing you, touching you, hearing the sweet moans you let out. just like the ones you sing when he watches your clit throb in between your slit. pussy lips delicate and puffy you gasp as he spreads them with his middle finger, dipping in and out slowly. thumb moving upwards to your clit and flicking with skilled precision. back and forth he lightly teases before pressing down hard just the way you like it.

"it wasn't too bad, i played with myself thinking about him..." you purr, hand coming up to stroke a vein by his bicep, trailing down a river of blue to his forearm. his other hand tightens its grip on your hip as a warning at your admission. he'd made it clear you were to wait, but he should have known better, you would only scoff at his rules. must have started touching yourself before he even left just to challenge him.

"i know he gave me orders but what's a girl to do. you won't tell him, right? you're gonna take care of me, gonna show him how much better you fuck me,” it's just an act. a romantic effort, an attempt at seduction, a twisted, fucked up game you both play where you pretend to be strangers. just to be reminded how amazing it feels that you've found one another.

there's that glint in his eye when you say it. loves when you get a little frisky, a little bit desperate, urging for his resolve to break. he swears he's not the jealous type, why should he worry over losing what's already his, but it's enough to make him lose his mind. you don't want him to go slow, you want him to fuck it out of his system, all that's been pent up. use me, own me, i'm the only one who gets to have you like this.

——————————————————

he starts to drift the moment he plops himself next to you. a final pleasure-filled groan leaves his lips, sounding guttural and oh-so satisfied, not surprising given that he just came twice. he's worn out, head in the clouds with this dopey smile on his face, mirroring the one you try to hide as you take in his exhausted form. you feel giddy all over, woozy, because you did that to him.

"i missed you," you say, not knowing if he's actually listening, but he rolls over and wraps his arms around you. locking tight and secure.

"i'm still missing you...even after i've just fucked you," he laughs and kisses the back of your neck languidly, tasting the sweat that sticks. nosing and rubbing the back of your ear like a needy thing...gosh, you love when he gets this affectionate, this touchy, clinging and craving for more.

you feel him breathe out a question then, something that's been weighing on him for awhile you suppose, sukuna has found that the post-sex haze happens to always be the 'right time' to say the things he's afraid of saying. maybe since he's already so exposed, it's the only time he can breach his feelings, when he's assured enough that he has you, that you wouldn't run away—"what would you do if you found out i wasn't who i really am? like what if i did something unexpected?"

turning around to face him, you think about it. pondering on whether he'd ever be so different from who he is now. if he changes so much that he became unrecognizable. "you finally decided to go back to black?" you joke, running your fingers through his messy hair. he's been contemplating it recently, something about how the bleach is beginning to take a toll on his ends. it earns you a soft chuckle from him, a breathy one.

you admire his pretty lashes that droop and get heavier by the second, sleep taking over and seeping in. "i guess we'll just have to save this conversation for the morning," you whisper, kissing him goodnight as he lulls off to slumber.

—————————————————

"i'm taking a break in the summer, have some fun before i cut the weight," he says, leaning against the fridge while you're busy chopping up ingredients for lunch. giving him a noise of approval in return because you know he's dreading having to camp out and starve himself rid of 20 pounds once the season starts.

it's also the time he finally decides to unpack, albeit a month too late but he's always been a terrible procrastinator outside of meal plans and weight lifting regiments. groans at the monumental task at hand like a kid throwing a tantrum before pulling out travel-sized shampoo bottles and sweat-damp tshirts from his luggage. the smell is horrid, and you've already left several notes around the house reminding him to disinfect the lining.

beep, beep, beeeep, he forcefully presses the buttons on the washing machine. making sure it rings out loud so you'll know he's done it. maybe then you'll quit nagging at him. (screw that. he likes it when you nag, seeing you get so demanding turns him on.) (and you still wonder why he leaves these tasks to the very last minute.)

and he also indulges himself. sleeping in and eating whatever he likes. all the carbs and salt he can have, sometimes he goes as far as getting dessert after meals.

and other times he gets his dick pierced.

this blowjob is like any other blowjob. at least at the very start of it. moving your lips lower and licking over his ridged muscles, down to the place where they cut into a glorious deep v-line. you'd been nervous about these deep grooves once, about what you were supposed to do when faced with it. but you don't hesitate now, leaving soft smooches trailing behind, his skin warm under your parting lips, your tongue licks a stripe along that stunning ridge of his hip.

you see it for the first time then. the shining metal piercing sitting pretty on the tip of his cock, a circular ring with a bead where the ends meet. catching more than light but the slipping, slick pre that dribbles the more he waits in anticipation for your soft lips. how you admire him now with wide eyes and that slight fascination. his cock big and hard and straining.

you stare down his length, stunned and mouth-watering as you consider it. did you ever think he was capable of it, or is it that you're on the turn, the initial feelings of uncertainty dissipating now that you've seen it up close. blood pumping and coursing, his shaft grows thicker with every passing second, throbbing and twitching.

leaning forward, you press a soft kiss just beneath the head, letting your breath wash over him. instantly his hips buck, bowing off the bed and arching toward you. "fuck—" he gasps. he liked that way too much. no, he loves it. and you've barely started.

a bead of precum dribbles out, watches the way it runs down, no thanks to your grinning face looking up at him, finding his half-lidded, heated gaze and keeping him there. without looking away, you dart your tongue out and lick that salty-sweet drop from him, loving the way his eyes roll back, lids sliding closed as he fists his hand in your hair. "you're going to kill me."

you doubt it'll be that easy, but then again, he looks about ready to explode. "you never told me about this," you tease, gently wrapping your fingers around his shaft. it's a sight he'll burn in the back of his brain forever, saliva and pre cum spreading across your tongue, pooling there in a drooly mess, the gossamer thin strands connecting each time his cock taps lightly against your flattened tongue.

god...he doesn't think he'll come out of this alive. "why'd you think i asked you—" he lets out a groan then as your mouth closes over his cockhead warmly, lips pursing halfway down the shaft. his piercing is an unfamiliar part of the act, but the moment it bumps into the soft spongy muscle, your tongue swirling in rapid circles around the bulging head, it sends his teeth sinking into his bottom lip.

"hmm?" you hum curiously, head tilting to the side like you were innocent in all of this, he had never once mentioned it, so why was it your fault that he now braces himself, slowly feeding you his length.

"the night i came home," he elaborates, which isn't much, but he's too occupied with guiding your mouth, trying to resist drawing his release out too quickly. "if i did something you wouldn't expect me to," he grits out finally, right as you start jerking him, holding him at his very base in a tightly formed fist and taking his cock in deep, powerful thrusts down your throat, each one leaving him wet with your spit and throbbing desperately against the tight fit of your mouth.

it clicks then, you begin to realize what he meant, popping your lips off him reluctantly for a second to clarify, "i didn't think you were talking about getting a new piercing."

sukuna nods, albeit in that sheepish way whenever he gets shy. you think it's cute the way he flushes from cheek to cheek despite already having your mouth around his cock.

"i thought you might like it since you'd be the only person who gets to see it," he hoists you up and onto the bed then, chuckling at the way you squeal in surprise. "and i thought maybe you'd like how it feels when it's buried inside you too," cock still hard and bobbing against his stomach, the clinking sound of his piercing gets you wetter by the second. at that moment he glides it right in between your legs, feeling the cool metal nudge at that sensitive spot, sending a tingle up your spine, a gasp leaving your lips, when he finally sinks in deep..

[jimmyspades]

"Perhaps I should assume control... Just out of curiosity, if you were in control–" "I'd shut up and kiss you." ... "It's funny, I don't feel in control." BOSTON LEGAL 5.11 "Juiced" (Deleted scene)

[einsatzzz]

Happy Birthday King! 👑✨ May you have the sweetest and most entertaining dreams 🐥💜

Random Notes:

I think he would be so happy if he gets invited to Super Smash Bros lmao He's gonna have so much fun with his opponents.

I'm still amazed at how him being Disciplinary Committee Leader is so win-win for him. He loves his peace and quiet, so he'd be satisfied when no commotion happens for the day. But then he also loves fighting, so he'd gladly bite to death any fodder who does cause any commotion/does any crowding (it lowkey still does annoy him but still-- hahaha). It's reverse "damned if you do, damned if you don't"!

That panel with multiple Hibirds is them being able to sing the Namimori Middle School anthem in full, rather than only the first part. I remember reading somewhere that he had this problem where Hibird can't sing the full song skdjfbjhsvf

The panel with Kana - tried thinking of a dream that would give him the doki dokis. A death battle invitation would do the trick and a nice change of pace from the usual of hunting Kana down for sport. My monkeybrain.exe went oonga boonga after this thought. Wow, i love it when my fave khr canon chara and my fave khr oc beat the shit out of each other 🥰🥰🥰 So wholesome!

The one with the huge flying Hibird is based on this keychain LMAO

[brawlmetaknight]

pic of the day and special event images featuring meta knight from the official smash twitter/sakurai (2018-2022)

[purpurussy]

what is all of this like for post-hiatus phannies?

I've been trying to figure out how to phrase this for a minute. The most obvious comparison would be that it's like starting a TV show 10 seasons in, but that doesn't come remotely close to the amount of required reading necessary to understand even 5% of the references. This has not been a problem for me, as I love nothing more than a good all-consuming hyperfixation rabbit hole, but something I'm realizing is that you really just had to be there to fully Understand.

I got into d&p properly in December of 2023, when gamingmas appealed to my emotionally curious nature and then gave me some kind of irreversible brain damage which I'm still trying to process. Since then I've been consuming their back catalogue as though it's laced with cocaine, and obsessively lurking on phannie tumblr until I finally made this blog a few weeks ago.

-

I actually watched Dan's videos for a little while back in roughly 2013/2014, but something about his content back then just wasn't working for me like it does now (I have such a clear memory of watching Reasons Why Dan’s A Fail and thinking "aw man why does this cute little twink hate himself so much 😔" and then going back to watching Jenna Marbles lmao. Funnily enough it did make me change my negative self-talk a little bit). I was very much a brief casual viewer who went off them pretty much after watching a few videos, and after that I was sort of vaguely aware of them as the cultural icons of the 2010s that they were, but I wasn't keeping up with them at all. 

I don't even remember BIG coming out, which is insane because I've always been extremely chronically online and it definitely broke containment as a cultural moment (although I think I was trying to minimize my social media use at that point in my life, so maybe that's why it went over my head). I feel like I must have heard something about it at the time, though, because I knew they were gay when I started watching them last year. What's really strange is that a lot of this stuff is kinda timeless to me. I don't remember it happening 5, 10 or 15 years ago - I just witnessed it very recently. For a lot of you guys, BIG happened 5 years ago, but I just watched it for the first time a few months ago. At the same time, in my mind they've just always been gay, since I wasn't in the trenches of the unhinged online culture surrounding them in the early/mid 2010s. It's so confusing to balance my weird temporal perception of these events with the impressions that I get from you guys. Oftentimes I have to judge roughly when something would have happened based on their appearances - it's not actually a *memory* for me, like it is for you. I absolutely love the dynamic and branding they have now, and the deep dives into their past are more of a curious exploration of how they got here, rather than actually nostalgic (or, I suppose, mildly traumatic) for me. It’s still very interesting and compelling to me, but because I love the current iteration of Dan and Phil, not because I’m emotionally invested in who they used to be. 

Sometimes I’ll be aware that an event happened, but I won’t realize how monumental it was until I see people talking about it (I hate to say it but I genuinely don't fully understand why the BONCAs thing was so earth-shattering, but like I said, I've always lived in a post-BIG universe, and I think you just had to be there). There are also plenty of references to stuff that's just been lost to time, which I have to piece together with context clues, as well as the more unhinged demonic stuff that I just don't have any interest in exploring whatsoever (I think I might have watched the v-day video if I'd been there when it leaked and I was a stupid teenager, but at this point, I don't even feel any kind of morbid curiosity for it. I just feel really bad for them that it got leaked. Plus, unfortunately, I think I've learned all I need to know about it through internet osmosis here). I feel like a lot of these events have a real emotional meaning for you guys, when to me, they're just interesting/funny/insane anecdotes which give some context to everything. Some of the shit that you guys lived through back then is absolutely wild, and I love and appreciate all of you for meticulously archiving and documenting everything and for being so willing to answer the same questions over and over again! Otherwise I feel like I wouldn't be able to really be part of this community, and posting my silly little memes on this blog is so fucking fun. So thank you all for that.

It seems like this is one of the most ride-or-die fanbases I've ever seen. The fact that they could invent the concept of YouTubers doing world tours, successfully execute that multiple times, branch out into several other ventures, come out as gay not fully knowing how that would affect their careers, disappear for several years and then come back knowing that there would be a solid audience waiting for them even after their virality had died down, drop merch every 3 seconds - I don't know who else can really get away with that, for almost 15 years, in the extremely "live fast die young" culture of internet fame. And I think it's in no small part because you all have chronic "unconditionally supporting dan and phil" disease. (While we’re on the topic, I feel very lucky to have missed the hiatus era. There's kind of a compression in the timeline for me between the gaming channel going dark and Dan starting his WAD tour, where it's like that time just doesn't exist in the Dan and Phil cinematic universe for me. It took me a while to realize how insane it must have been when they came back in full force, I can't even imagine how that must have felt.)

Of course, there's a caveat in that I'm saying this only really knowing about the tip of the demon iceberg. I’m aware of people engaging in behaviours such as doxxing them, outing them and stalking their families, which is horrifying in and of itself, but I don’t know how long it went on for or how many people were involved. I think people are generally pretty well-behaved at this point, and most of the drama seems to be between different schools of thought within the fanbase itself. I assume a big part of the reason for that is people's varying degrees of involvement in (and remaining notion of guilt for) the boundary-crossing behaviour from the old days. Living with the spectre of this insanity is kind of strange - it makes me feel nervous sometimes that I’m gonna accidentally say something that hits a nerve, or cross a line I didn’t know existed, because there’s all this history that I don’t fully understand, beyond just the normal unwritten rules for interacting with fan spaces online. 

-

The topic that got me writing this in the first place was the orange heart incident, and everyone’s subsequent meltdown. For me, the excitement in them soft/hard/semi launching is more about me just getting excited about any open, proud expression of queer joy - it heals something inside me every time I hear a man referring to his husband or a woman referring to her wife (excuse the gendered terms, ykwim. gay shit). It's just that sentiment, combined with the fact that I'm parasocially invested in them: I'd love to see that energy from my fave little guys who live inside my computer. I am basically rooting for them to become more comfortable with just talking about gay stuff more openly and candidly, and I guess that would require a bit of a hard launch, although I can understand that they don't want to potentially open the door to excessive questioning regarding their relationship. I feel like it ✨hits different✨ for people who watched them for years before they came out. Like, you guys are rooting for people who you watched in real time struggling with their identities and internalized homophobia for years and years, while to me, they’re just some guys who I’m a fan of. Sometimes I get caught up in the emotional frenzy of their hard-launch breadcrumbs even though I don’t feel quite as insane about it as you guys (I said in some tags a few days ago that it’s like the base instinct to turn around and start running if you see a crowd of people running towards you and screaming in terror, even if you have no idea what’s going on). Anyway, I would love to see them being more gooey with each other, and I am gobbling up the breadcrumbs they're feeding us atm, because I love seeing gay people expressing gay love with no shame 🧡 

I think my perception of them as a couple, or of their sexualities independently, is just kind of an extension of everything Dan said in BIG. I really have no doubt that they're a couple, and I don't feel any kind of weird Catholic guilt in saying that, since I neither witnessed nor participated in the insanity back then. I interpreted (I'm paraphrasing) "obviously we were more than friends, but it was more than just romantic, we're like, actual soulmates" followed by "as for the situation now? we're private people and we'd like to keep that part of our lives private" as him essentially saying that obviously they're a couple, but that their relationship is not part of the Dan And Phil™ Brand. The brand is 2 guys who have great chemistry doing comedy together (5 feet apart even though clearly they are gay and in love). And I think that's a completely healthy decision to make, even irrespective of their history. I think a hard launch would be subtle, and it wouldn’t realistically change the nature of their content that much. 

With that being said, to me, it seems slightly wild for people to adamantly insist they're not a couple, or that it’s “invasive” to assume that they are one (not that that really applies to anyone here, but elsewhere on the internet). If they were a straight man and a straight woman, and there wasn't a huge chunk of people on the internet struggling with this oddly conditioned aversion to seeing them as a couple, then nobody on earth would be insisting that it's weird to assume they're together. Dan confirmed that they became romantically involved around the time they met, and building a forever home with your ex is crazy, that's all there is to it.

-

This is kind of a messy stream of thoughts (it ended up sort of becoming 2 essays for the price of 1) and I don't really know where I was going with it. In conclusion I think that day 1 phannies are braver than any US marine and you have all suffered more than Jesus on the cross, and I'm extremely thankful that I get to reap the rewards of your labour now without having lived through the dark ages myself. I also think some of you are holding onto a bit of unnecessary guilt for dumb shit you said on the internet when you were a kid. And Dan and Phil are gay and I love them and I reeeeaaaallllyyy want them to do a podcast so bad because this is all conjecture and I would parasocially love to hear their actual thoughts on it

[random-fandom-society]

Moominpappa literally looks exactly like his son without his top hat, that’s canon.

I took a break between drawing the first panel and the rest, god its noticeable 😅and yeah;; Its another style shift, and not my last;; oh well

[perenial]

gene im so glad you said this cause I haven't seen anyone else comparing it to the book as source material for like character and tone but i am So sure that if terry was alive the season would not be like this but i fear good omens fans dont realise how big a factor the lack of terry's influence is?? or like they forget that good omens was never just neilman???

ok before i go any further: i rly don't want to detract from anyone's enjoyment of the season and everything im going to say comes from a place of love for a) the original novel (& season 1 to a certain extent bc it got me back into it lol) and b) tv as a medium so like peace and love on planet let people enjoy things etc etc

but

like u said, terry's influence on the book was enormous – what makes gomens gomens is the balance of his genuine warmth and precise understanding of humanity tempered with neilman's sardonic voice and general like.....savvy approach to storytelling? i guess u could call it? anyway what rly helps the book is that it took them years to write it, passing ideas back and forth and rewriting each other's work until their voices blended seamlessly and a well structured capital-s Story was created. when i praise the book for being self-contained i think a huge part of that comes from the circumstances in which it emerged: two authors with complementary styles writing in a v particular time period where they had both the space to play with their ideas and the constraints of the novel as a storytelling format from which to craft something extremely specific.

adaptations are a tricky business and a tv version of gomens produced literal decades after the book was always going to have some unique challenges, but i don't think that's a bad thing bc the challenges could prove to be creative opportunities to take both the established audience and those new to the story by surprise. my biggest hot take here is that i don't think translating a story into a different medium means it has to follow the original narrative exactly, bc each medium has its own ways of communicating information and these structures, rules and traditions in turn inform what that story is. what matters more than following a story beat-by-beat is capturing what that story is about at its core, what themes and messages and ideas it works through and how.

all this is to say i never expected tv gomens to be a perfect reproduction of the book and if it had it been, it probably would have been worse off for it. that being said, there are parts of the book – like u said, its tone and character – that needed to have some fidelity in order to pull it off, and for the most part s1 did that bc it was still working predominantly within the bounds of the novel & its core ideas. while i did have some issues w how neilman & amazon adapted some details and characterisations, i generally rly liked s1 – it reminded me of why i loved the book and it was just generally fun to watch.

s2 was. not that fun to watch

a few positives before i go ham w the critiques:

the hair & makeup + costumes were fantastic (although i feel like s1 was slightly better re: makeup?)

the sound design & score made some of the more awkward scenes bearable and thats no mean feat imo

david & michael gave incredible performances w what they were given – michael especially managed to salvage aziraphale enough that his complete 180 didnt feel completely tonally dissonant (more on this later)

the detail of the sets is NUTS and i genuinely want to see more of hell bc of how intricate and fun the props look

i actually like gabriel/beelzebub!! their getting together montage worked for me, although they could have spent sliiiightly more time establishing what it is they like abt each other so much + why gabriel wanted to stop armageddon 2.0 so suddenly

the opening scene, although not on par w the novel's & s1's, was visually gorgeous and thematically resonant (although neilman owes me royalties for ripping it off from this shitty fic i wrote back when raphael!crowley was all the rage lol)

now w THAT being said:

like i said yesterday, the pacing was fucking awful. flashbacks are hard to work w at the best of times and the way they were used in this season felt so needless, especially the 40s one in ep 4 that takes up like 90% of the episode. in both flashbacks + present day there were scenes that dragged for no real reason, dialogue that looped back around on itself to stretch out the runtime, and weirdly enough places where there should have been character & plot work where there just,, wasn't any?? for example, maggie & nina's night locked in the café – some parts of the dialogue in later episodes made out that they'd had some rly deep conversation abt how they feel about each other or even that they'd had an affair, but that isn't clear from those scenes in the café. i'm not saying we had to see that conversation in its entirety but that there needed to be more connective details – either in dialogue or direction – that gave that part of the story coherence.

(there were pacing issues w the editing too but i don't want to jump down the editor's throats on this one bc im more focused on writing & direction issues)

the second major problem that i mentioned in my tags yesterday is the protagonist shift, which is an issue that started in s1. aziraphale & crowley are side characters in book gomens – significant ones, yeah, but still somewhat peripheral to adam (& anathema who counts as a deuteragonist imo). this works incredibly well w who they are as characters: they're Just Some Guys who happen to be involved in this epic biblical-level bureaucratic nightmare and importantly, they don't want to be in the spotlight. the arrangement was created so that they could explore what it meant to be themselves away from the Big Narrative; literally any time they get involved in larger affairs is bc the plot is alive and caught them unionising on company time. the last fucking chapter is adam (& god) being like haha u guys are alright keep it sleezy and letting them go. like. hello. neil u let them go.

but then!! tv gomens s1 does something interesting at the end w the body swapping addition that i dont totally hate – it gives aziraphale & crowley the extra bit of character work that brings them slightly more adjacent to their book selves. see i kinda view tv a/c as the younger, less settled versions of book a/c; they're still caught up in the immediacy of being key players and haven't fully realised that earth is their home. i haven't watched s1 in a while but one scene i remember rly clearly is crowley throwing all those astronomy texts in the air and angsting abt when he was an angel; i remember it bc his anguish in that scene feels a lot newer and rawer than book crowley's feelings about falling. when tv a/c do their bodyswap, it gives them the chance to land a blow against heaven/hell in a way that solidifies their allegiance to earth in a way that more closely resembles what book a/c have been abt the entire time (still adjacent, though. not parallel).

the reason why this works is that it does one final pivot to orient aziraphale and crowley as almost-main characters in a manner that makes sense in relation to a) their book selves and b) the position the tv show has placed them in. a combination of factors made tv a/c feel a lot less mature than their book counterparts but at the end of s1 they're sort of facing the same direction the book ended in, albeit through their own flashy late 2010s means.

when s2 was announced i was.......apprehensive bc to me, that felt like a satisfactory ending. i get the impression that amazon saw how wildly successful the adaptation was and was like oh shit we could make way more money out of this and neilman, having all those undead darlings that he and terry killed in the process of whittling the book into a workable novel, jumped at the chance to resurrect all those half-realised ideas. but not only were those ideas probably discarded for a reason, they've either been laying in wait for years unworked or they're new inventions, which means they weren't molded in the way that the book had been. like i said before, book gomens underwent years of rewrites and creative collaboration, and i think that process was what made it so good; s2 didn't have that. even if some of terry's ideas made it into s2, his influence is still missing bc he and neilman weren't in dialogue the same way they were in the book (and in some ways s1 bc i know terry was involved in the process of adapting gomens to screen before his death).

i don't think it's a case of newer fans forgetting terry so much as it is the context of terry's involvement being so removed from the current circumstances that certain aspects & discourses (i.e. is the s2 finale queerbaiting (no), does binge watching change the viewership experience (yes), etc etc) about the show overshadow other discussions that would usually be taking place. and before anyone says it's a case of neilman forgetting terry, i definitely don't think it's that either bc thats. yknow. wildly disrespectful. but also there are larger systems and structures at play than one writer no matter how much beef i have w him and his decisions, bc ultimately he's just one guy (a powerful and wealthy guy, but just a guy) and there's a wider cultural shift happening rn towards rehashing old stories without understanding what made them successful in the first place, and that same culture just doesn't allow for much, if any, constructive discourse analysis

so yeah

[annahi-red]

Let's talk about Niji and Sanj.

Let's start with something simple. When Ichiji and Niji return to Germa, they are greeted with exclamations and praise, but Niji only thinks about the fact that Sanji was not there to greet them and becomes angry.

In the anime there is also a scene where Niji AGAIN asks where Sanji was. When Reiju and Sanji arrive, Niji approaches him smiling and congratulates him on the engagement, but Sanji doesn't respond and gets angry again. Seeing the handcuffs, Niji mocks Sanji and gets angry once again when Sanji smacks him. I just see Niji wanting to bully Sanji again and have under him like he was in the past; Niji wanted to have power over Sanji and he didn't like the idea of his passive brother responding to him or counterattacking him.

During dinner, when Judge stops talking, the first thing Niji does is talk to Sanji, telling him that he never thought would be any help. He says it in a kind of smile and then says: "sometimes we remembered you" he also adds that it was ALMOST always thinking of amazing and funny ways in which Sanji would die. Where can we put that almost? What else were they talking about? Maybe he had a moment of humanity and wondered if his little brother that he could never love was okay? Just saying that they were talking about Sanji is more than enough to say that he cared at least somewhat. If really didn't care, then he wouldn't have even bothered to think about the different ways Sanji could have died. He wouldn't even have remembered Sanji if he was like that.

When Sanji interrupts him and tells him to eat, Niji looks taken aback for a second, perhaps realizing that Sanji doesn't mind being made fun of. Niji explains why he is not going to eat and Sanji orders him to eat it and insults him. Niji becomes enraged and tells Sanji that he can't get away with talking to him like that. I have several ideas about this small part of the interaction. In the past, Sanji would NEVER have dared to talk to Niji that way, but now he does and it infuriates Niji, going back to what I said a moment ago, Niji wants and HOPES that Sanji is still beneath him, because In his family it seems that the birth number is the most important. Ichiji is clearly the most important as he is the first son and the one with the most authority. Niji is the second, who is above Sanji and must only expect his younger brother to obey him or be docile. Sanji is no longer a child scared of his brothers, if he has to answer to Niji, he does it.

Feeling humiliated and to prove his position, he calls Cosette because "his younger brother insulted him because of the unpleasant food." Without expecting it, because technically it shouldn't have happened; Niji throws the plate of food in Cosette's face and Sanji gets in the way. Niji asks if he went crazy and doesn't understand when Sanji protects the maid. Sanji eats the food off the floor and Niji, very exaggeratedly, says that it is the most disgusting thing he has ever seen. Silly boy, you're a mercenary, how can that be the most disgusting thing you've ever seen? Furthermore, the floor had to be quite clean.

Niji realizes that verbally intimidating Sanji is no longer working and decides to discipline Sanji the only way he knows how, that his brother will understand. Niji gets up and rushes to kick Sanji, telling him that if he insists on calling himself his brother, he wouldn't put up with such an unpleasant act. As far as I can remember, Sanji never showed any intention of wanting to have any kind of relationship with them, especially calling himself their brother. I guess that's something Niji wants; recover the little brother that he lost many years ago and doesn't know that missed.

Sanji doesn't even react and Niji sighs, saying that he's is the family's misfortune.

Later, still quite offended and angry about what happens at dinner, Niji punches Cosette. Realizing that intimidating Sanji doesn't work, he decides to go after Cosette, because he knows that it will provoke some reaction in Sanji.

I need to point out the fact that one of Niji's moves is called "stealth". Don't be too obvious, Niji. Niji was able to simply appear behind Sanji without the need to use the word stealth, which is obviously a reference to Sanji's name "Stealth Black". (No one makes me believe otherwise)

Niji grabs him from behind and challenges Sanji to try to fight again. Here again, Niji has the power and authority he wanted over Sanji.

During a childhood flashback, Judge says that Sanji is dead and Niji seems quite confused and asks, "did he really die?" He is the only one confused, while 14ji was smiling.

When Sanji attacks Luffy, all of his brothers (except Reiju) are smiling. Sanji tells Luffy that his name is Vinsmoke Sanji and that he is a prince, and I interpreted the smile and "happiness" of his brothers as a way in which Sanji accepts being his family, that is, now YES Sanji would be claiming to be a brother from Niji as he hinted at dinner.

While they escape at the wedding I'm going to mention Niji worrying about Reiju <3 and this:

They literally have another attack where they indirectly mention Sanji, also, you just need to see the distance between the brothers, there is a fairly large space between Yonji and Niji where Sanji should go…

Being surrounded, his brothers surround him, protecting Sanji WITH THEIR OWN BODIES.

Helping him escape, Niji is the only one who maintains physical contact with Sanji, protecting him, again with his own body. Niji scoffs and tells him that if he goes at that speed, he'll end up full of holes. Do I smell concern or just random mockery?

Niji says goodbye to Sanji and throws him away.

In the end, Niji and Yonji are captured by Big Mom. So when they help protect Sanji and get him out of Whole Cake, we all know they're doing it for Sanji and not because they were angry about Big Mom's betrayal. As soon as Sanji arrives at the Sunny, Ichiji tells them to leave because his mission is accomplished. Niji or anyone could have refused to return to Whole Cake, because supposedly the Germa fell and they were all dead, why would they come back just to get revenge on Big Mom when they know they would lose? They only came back for Sanji and even if they tried to deny it, no one would believe them.

I guess in some way they do care about Sanji, they just don't know how to show it.

And a reminder that Sanji's raid suit in an art is exactly the same as Niji's. (Not to mention that o-soba mask's raid suit is also very similar to Niji's)

[cobaltfluff]

a christmas miracle with the blorbos <3