is your heart a sponge or a fist?

 i finished PARTIZAN. shoutout to noura who never misses when recommending things to me...i have to lay down forever now. like in a drainage ditch on the side of the highway. but i have to go to school so instead i will loosely assemble my thoughts here in bullet points that occur in no particular order

• you guys...listen to friends at the table. if weird military sci fi isnt your jam than skip partizan and go to some other season but seriously friends at the table just GETS IT. THEY GET IT!!!
• austin walker i need to study your mind in a lab NOW. austin is not only a really good GM but also just smart and cool as fuck. my only other experience w/ actual play podcast format is like critical role (which bored me though matt mercer is obviously a very good GM) and dimension 20 fantasy high (in which brennan lee mulligan is a highly entertaining GM despite the genre of fantasy high being way outside my tastes), so maybe i just have too small a sampling size but i loooove the way austin GMs. he really balances honesty and humor and just straight up good storytelling with drama and seriousness somehow...and he's so good at just Saying Words. so many quotes and monologues of his from a nearly 50 episode season still stick in my head. he cooked up some sick as shit missions and played one of my fav characters of all time; gur sevraq. austin slay!!!!
• the mechanics of beam saber are so fucking BRUTAL (in a good way). rolling d6s instead of d20s like most other tabletop rbgs/actual play podcasts do makes the stakes soooo high. the stress mechanic that makes it harder to help characters you care about it so crazy. as someone who loves failure and humiliation i like how beam saber really forces players to just fail constantly, without the wishy washyness of rolling like, an 8 on a d20. in beam saber if you roll a 1 or 2 You're In Grave Danger. 
• ver'million blue my friend ver'million blue. whats a greater character manifesto than i am the gun on this ship. 
• jack de quidt music. when that evil synth hits>>>>>>>>
• two people whose morals are diametrically opposed getting into a massive argument until they physically attack each other and fall to their deaths off the top of a giant fort into the ocean IS the pinnacle of character interaction
• ideograms everywhere. ideograms as codes. ideograms on rings. ideograms as overrides. ideograms as song titles. what do you know about SOFTPOINT. UMBRAL. TOUCHPAPER. 
• partizan character are so fun and perfect TO ME. space pirate with a camera as a head. buff old guy. evil yet totally moronic princess. robotic spider priest. clone school dropout. sexy war criminal. farming robot. alien made of gas. history teacher made of bismuth. gay bird steeplejack. person whose existence is the concept of 'diminished'. evil spy mom. a person who is the concept of erosion but 1000 years of it at once. witch in glass castle. 
• "play your character like you're crashing a stolen car"
• sovereign immunty's first belief about millie being "millie is a delight, i simply must show her to the whole universe" versus sovereign immunity dying carrying millie away from motion/the portcullis
• straight up nothing is funnier than clementine kesh almost dying in the first arc of the season because of bad dice rolls on PC performed surgery. 
• "valence died. we had no idea that was coming. i was like, ali, i think we might have to end the season now, i think the seasons actually over. im not sure what we're doing." so true austin post-mortem walker. i love how the back half of partizan s1 is so nebulous in that in every episode no one on mic has any idea when the season will end. anything can happen. AND IT DOES
• "braun lies to me because they think i am a person" simultaneously the saddest and funniest bond/belief ever
• in the beginning i really preferred rapid evening episodes more than sbbr episodes but look at me now, dying in agony at how the peak of romanze is playing your dead best friends voicemail to a 1000 yr old prophet as a black ops organization tries to crash god into the moon
• clementine kesh truly iconic antagonist. she is so fucking stupid and incompetent that you have to love her. no offense clem. her absolute refusal to go through any character development is camp
• can we talk about gur sevraq? i've been dying to talk about gur sevraq. i think the gur sevraq was lovely. first of all click here to understand how i imagined a robotic spider priest. truly inspired character design. his intro in the road to partizan episodes is sooo cool. wwyd if My name is Gur Sevraq, and I have stolen the future. i feel like i am forgetting everything i love about gur i wish partizan wiki was filled out fully so i could relive it all!!!! anyway he is able to make miracles happen...one of which is making a giant walking military fort disappear. ALSO I JUST REALIZED GUR SEVRAQ IS ROT13 FOR 'THE FRIEND' :(
• imagine if you died and your mom went 'in death you can be something you never were in life: useful." CLEMENTINE KESH DOESN'T HAVE TO
• ao rooke always keeping it real. i love when he shows up, talks some shit, and bounces
• nooncrown mission where valence murder-suicides crysanthe...whats better than this; every roll going horribly wrong simultaneously 
• chasmata quarry mission was SO FUN. i love a good disguise plan....the drama of splitting up the original squad of 4, then phrygian and sovereign being like ummmmm maybe we should split up again?
• every day thisbe is throwing mech pilots into the vacuum of space
• the absolute soul-crushingness of witch in glass first law being There is a reason why I am alive. 
• IM COMING BACK TO EDIT THIS POST WHEN I GATHER MORE THOUGHTS

personal fav episode titles

• bitter air - behest
• the first and second arrests of clementine kesh
• she said, "to win, we must play!"
• the storm over cruciat
• obelle, on fire
• a cemetery for heroes
• GLORY arrives
• guests, invited and otherwise
• orbital decay
• escape velocity
• operation shackled sun: the gate