The Suggestion Box #98: Vampires, and Deep Dives, and Ronin, Oh My!

Posted on by Lauren

Wondering what to do with your upcoming free time? Good thing we have some suggestions for what you should be watching, playing, reading, listening to, etc.

**Lauren here: Long time, no suggestion! That’s full on my bad, as these rarely actually biweekly posts took quite the hiatus thanks to my inability to consume anything other than Supergirl (or, lesbionest, Supercorp) fanfics for the past couple of months after I finally went back and watched the totality of the show (I never got around to watching the final season once it returned from its Covid break). I promise to get better about adding more variety back into my upcoming free time so that I can actually post these things every 2 weeks as I always intended. No, my fingers aren’t crossed behind my back.**

Lauren’s Audio Series Pick: Impact Winter – Let’s all just look past how many months it took for me to realize that the option to purchase the seasons of this Audible drama was available to me all along and I didn’t have to keep letting my subscription roll month after month after month til I finally made good on the promise to myself to listen to this before my subscription renewed yet again and get right to focusing on how this vampire centered, story driven podcast drama / modern radio play (or whatever this is actually categorized as) is. Impact Winter uses its cast full of unexpectedly recognizable actors to breathe life into this story of a post-apocalyptic future in which a meteorite kicks up enough debris to blot out the sun, allowing vampires to emerge from the shadows that once confined them. The creature noises and sound editing have opened my eyes to what this medium truly has to offer — there is a death scene in the first season that is so creatively chilling thanks to how the mixing is handled — and once I find myself on the other side of the vampire fixation Impact Winter catalyzed — the urge to rewatch 30 Days of Night and the good Underworld films was strong while listening to this thanks to the range of beastly to sophisticated vampires vs badass heroines here, as well as the desire to finally get to Baldur’s Gate 3 (I’ve seen all that Astarion art), Castlevania/Castlevania: Nocturne, and the reread of Dracula I keep intending to complete — I think I’ll have to see what else this medium of storytelling has to offer. Hell, I can still “best of both worlds” it and start with Slayers: A Buffyverse Story.

Ben’s Movie Pick: 13 Assassins – Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins is an incredible film. The story isn’t groundbreaking – a small band of skilled warriors plan to kill the Shogun’s sadistic brother before he is placed in a position of power – but it is a harrowing tale told extremely well. With just one thoroughly haunting scene, 13 Assassins shows how irredeemably vile and infuriatingly untouchable the villain is, therefore making the necessity of his death crystal clear from the very beginning. The majority of the film afterwards is spent either endearing us to the eponymous characters, showing off outstanding action sequences that convey their dedication to the art of the sword, or both. I ended up caring about the heroic crew of samurai and ronin quite a lot, which raised the tension of their inevitable final battle to even greater heights; a final battle that is essentially forty minutes of tricks, traps, explosions, and sword slashes. 13 Assassins left me in awe of its heroes, their skill, and the bravery they exuded running headfirst towards a nigh-unwinnable fight with their lives on the line.

Ben’s Video Game Pick: Destiny 2: Ghosts of the Deep – Destiny 2 has no shortage of endgame content, but my favorite has been dungeons since the very first time I ran one. These three-man mini raids boast challenging enemies, puzzles to solve in and out of combat, and often reward some of the best gear in the game. The latest, Ghosts of the Deep, sees your fireteam sent to Saturn’s moon, Titan, and tasks you with diving into the methane sea to stop a Hive ritual. It’s one of the better dungeons story-wise, as it’s pretty lore-heavy and hints at the possible return of a classic antagonist, and each encounter in Ghosts of the Deep plays out drastically different from the last, except for how they all flood (heh) each arena with an almost overwhelming number of Hive soldiers. The armor sets tied to Ghosts of the Deep are also some of the coolest out of any endgame content in Destiny‘s nearly ten-year history (Warlocks who want to cosplay as Sauron, your prayers have finally been answered!), and the weapons I’ve unlocked so far are pretty great too. With all said and done, Ghosts of the Deep is my favorite endgame activity in all of Destiny, aside from Grasp of Avarice.

So what do you think about these picks? What content did we miss over the past two weeks while we were spending time with these? Be sure to leave a comment below letting us know about everything (both current and simply new to you) you’ve been consuming lately!

And while you’re here, be sure to check some of the site’s other recent content:

Have Something to Say?