A fictional point of view narrative based on my actual spiraling thoughts/rants to friends while reading an incredibly popular romance/smut series called Ice Planet Barbarians.
POV: You settle comfortably in bed, teetering on the edge of sleep. Your room is dark, with only a sliver of light from the streetlamps outside filtering through the windows. You likely have work tomorrow, and you didn’t do the dishes you promised, but the pile in the sink isn’t too overwhelming, so it can wait until morning. The world outside has followed your lead and drifted off to sleep. The only sounds are crickets and perhaps a car backfiring a few miles away. You’re on the brink of slumber, your gentle, rhythmic breathing and strange, dreamlike thoughts lulling you deeper into the darkness. Like a siren’s call to ancient sailors, you follow the temptress of sleep, ready to embrace it for a well-deserved rest.
Suddenly, your room blooms with light as your phone vibrates against the wood of your nightstand. Your eyes snap open to see the rectangle of brightness illuminating your once-dark sanctuary. But just as quickly, silence settles in again as you wait for more buzzing to signal an incoming call or an emergency. After a few more heartbeats, the light from your phone screen dims, and you relax back into bed. It’s safe to assume it was a text that can wait until morning.
However, before you can fully close your eyes, your phone suddenly roars to life again as it vibrates loudly. This time, it doesn’t stay quiet. It alternates its insistent buzzes in an unpredictable rhythm, likely indicating that you’re not just receiving one message but several. Your phone has shifted nearly three inches from the sheer force of its vibrations. You groan and rub a hand down your face, weighing your options.
Science suggests that looking at your phone three hours before bed can make it harder to sleep. Do you risk your precious Zs for just another Instagram notification or a drunk-texting ex reminding you of their existence (even though you never asked)? Yet, you remember that emergencies can happen. Death isn’t all that uncommon, either. Quickly, you snatch your phone from its charging spot, and the screen light momentarily blinds you as you frantically check to see if Grandma made it through the night.
Your screen shows seven voice notes from Samantha.
As strange as it may seem, this could still be an emergency or, at the very least, something that cannot wait until daylight. You enter your code and quickly review your message history.
The transcripts of these voice notes are as follows:
Voice Note 01
Hey… it’s me. Shit, what time is it? I’m sorry. I just realized it’s dark out. But Oh my God, these books, though! I’ve been reading this all day—wait, did I eat dinner? Sorry, I’m freaking out, and I don’t know who to talk to because I know TikTok would rip me to shreds for this. You know how those BookTok Girlies are with their day Lou Lou. Jesus, my knees are so stiff from sitting for so long.
I’m on the third book and can’t…I-I cannot keep going. I can’t. I won’t. It’s this Ice Cave Alien series. I dunno if you’ve heard of it. The dudes are like giant blue cat-like creatures, like the Avatar movie, but they have horns and giant hogs. Ow, duck!
You don’t even bother listening; you can practically smell the Mountain Dew-fueled frenzy I was engulfed in as your phone vibrates with more voice notes from me. But you’ve already been exposed to the light of your phone, and combined with the momentary panic I caused you over your grandmother’s health, you’ve been given a second wind. Sleep will not be returning to you anytime soon, ever the fickle lover. And now, your curiosity and annoyance are piqued by my FDA-approved, Coke-like ramblings about… Avatar fan fiction?
You continue to read.
Voice Note 02
Ugh, sorry, I stubbed my toe on the coffee table. Also, I know what you might think—it’s definitely not Avatar fan fiction. I mean, maybe? I didn’t really look into it too much, to be honest.
Anyway, these are real books, real sci-fi smut that folks have been raving about. And I was like, “What the hell? I love smut and romance.” But I’ve never read sci-fi smut! The alien dudes are described as looking kind of like Hellboy. Now, I wouldn’t consider myself a monster ducker, per se, but, ya know, I’d totally bone Hellboy. I mean, Ron Perlman slash Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy. And, the smut readers have been going crazy for these blue alien books.
So, I bought the first three and started reading… yesterday? Wait, what day is it? No, if today’s Tuesday, I started it… on Sunday. So, the blue aliens they’re supposed to have massive dongs. But also, strangely, there’s a nub-like thing on top of it? The anatomy is described in great detail…the author delves deeply into the dick specifics…dick-cifics?
…
But then neglects these significant plot elements that are actively ruining my life. And if I’m being honest, the dongs sound more painful than a good time. More like a bruised cervix. But I’m not going to yuck someone’s yum, you know? Oh, God, I hate that I just said those words.
Voice Note 03
Wait, so I don’t have to hold the button down to do these voice messages? Also, uh, sorry again… I just realized it’s after midnight, so technically it’s Wednesday. Wait, what am I saying? None of that matters.
So, the way these ladies—oh yeah, they’re human, which is why I was like “ouch” about the anatomy—anyway, the way they end up stranded on this planet is that they’re kidnapped. I guess technically they get UFO-abducted by these evil aliens, and honestly, it’s some pretty decent sci-fi writing. Like, the aliens suck, and the women had it ducking rough. But they manage to escape and crash the ship on this planet.
And that’s all just in the first half of the first book. It’s actually a pretty solid survival sci-fi novel. So the main woman’s like, “I’ll scout for food and shelter,” because they’re stranded on this planet—with, like, Antarctica-levels of snow and ice.
She falls into a cave where this Avatar-caveman is hanging out—he’s hunting or something. And this is where my spiraling begins.
Voice Note 04
So, we switch to his point of view, which is pretty standard in smut and romance, so bear with me. We find out, while she’s knocked out in front of him, that he has a parasite inside him. Yeah. A parasite. Like an alien tapeworm… well, technically it’s a heartworm, since it wraps around the heart or something.
Anyway, we learn about it because the parasite glows and sings when the host—the Avatar-caveman, in this case—comes into contact with someone who’s, like, their soulmate or whatever. They say it’s more like matching you with someone who’s most biologically compatible or something like that.
And then, when the parasite does its glowing, singing thing, it also makes the host—meaning him—super horny.
I know, I know, it’s weird, but like… weird deus ex machina horny bits are pretty par for the course in smut.
So, his pinworm starts glowing and humming in his chest, and he’s getting really jazzed about this human lady. This is a big deal for the blue dudes because, in their culture, it means you’ve found your soulmate.
Again, scientifically, it’s not exactly that—but whatever.
Voice Note 05
Also, there aren’t enough blue ladies left for all the blue cave dudes because there was a plague or something. And he’s like the head blue dude—king blue caveman? Anyway, their numbers are dwindling, and you need the parasites to survive on this planet, because the atmosphere isn’t exactly hospitable. Eventually, it makes you sick and, like, you die.
But if you have the alien heartworm, you survive. The downside? You might get matched with someone and end up super horny.
Oh—and if you do have a parasite, you also can’t leave the planet, because it changes you biologically??
So, the main lady and the head blue guy fall in love—even without her having a heartworm. And they bone. A lot.
Then they team up with a group of other blue dudes to rescue the rest of the women. That’s when the ladies get filled in on the whole, “Hey, you’re slowly dying unless you get a weird worm thing to live inside you—but also, if you do get the worm, you won’t be able to leave the planet because you won’t survive off-world” situation.
Oh god, my throat is so dry — how ducking long have I been talking for?
Voice Note 06
God, that’s better. Sorry, I had to take a swig of something. And no it wasn’t booze. Well, it was an old-ish can of Cherry Coke…
Okay, so—you need to know all this and—duck, where was I? Oh, right. They go to save the rest of the women still stranded in the crashed spaceship, taking a band of blue cave dudes with them.
The head blue dude is nervous about it because, again, there aren’t many blue ladies left—plot reasons. He’s like, “Well, I just learned about consent from my parasite soulmate, but I’m not sure my guys are gonna get that if their heartworms start honking for any of these women.”
Because, like, they want companions—they’re super lonely—and also, the parasite gets them all jazzed up on horny.
And we don’t know who it was, but someone’s worm definitely goes off when they meet/save the ladies. Bookmark that for later—it’s gonna come up.
So, they have to kill some alien beast that’s full of parasites, so they can, you know, harvest them and stuff them into the ladies. And they’ve got to do it fast, because some of the women are already getting sick.
But also, the ladies have to decide if that’s actually what they want, right? Like, what if they get the worm, and then there’s a chance they could leave and go back to Earth? Some of them are like, “Whoa, give me a sec,” but they don’t have time—they’ve got to make a decision.
So, they decide to swallow the worm… well, kind of. It actually gets, like, shoved into their neck?
Voice Note 07
In the second book, we find out whose glowworm went off during the “save the ladies” mission. Turns out, he either knocked the girl out or she just fell unconscious—I can’t remember. But he’s all like, “Oh no,” because she was the one who triggered his “soul-dick”.
Then, he straight-up cuts her and shoves the worm into her neck before running off with her to a cave. It’s messed up, right? And she’s rightfully pissed when she wakes up—and immediately starts glowing when she sees him.
In this book, we also learn that just because your worm goes off, it doesn’t mean you, as a thinking, conscious being, actually love the person it picked. And of course, kidnapper blue guy has some deep family trauma tied to all this, and he’s like, “I kidnapped you because I want you to fall in love with me,” or some crap.
This is when I really started spiraling—and the third book fully cemented my freak-out.
Sorry, I need to hydrate. With water this time.
Voice Note 08
Wow. Water, man—that stuff is so good. I mean, it is better than warm Cherry Coke.
So, even though the kidnapped lady is all headstrong, like, “I’m not gonna fall for you,” she does, thanks to the horny parasite and the giant blue… well, you know.
But she has to convince the chief that it was all her choice. It’s messed up. I hated it. But I couldn’t stop reading because I kept thinking, Are they going to address the elephant in the room?
Spoiler alert: they definitely don’t.
Voice Note 09
ANYWAY, the third book. Hated that one, too. We get these two characters: one is a lady who had a universal translator surgically attached to her when the evil aliens kidnapped her, and it’s slowly killing her or something.
She and the blue dude, who is madly in love with her, have to go to an alien ship where the blue folks originated. Yeah, that’s something we learn in the first book—the blue folks aren’t even from this ice planet! They’re from a different planet, and like, a bunch of generations ago, they got stranded here when their ship crashed. That’s how they know the parasites help you survive.
Anyway, this ancient, barely functioning ship still works, so they need to make a trip to it so she can try to remove the device.
We learn that the silly, goofy blue guy helping her is super in love with her, and he’s like, “My wormy hasn’t glowed, but I know it’s you.”
She has a worm, too, but it hasn’t gone off, and she knows why: because she’s infertile. The wormies only activate for people you’re biologically most compatible to mate with.
And the whole story is her trying not to like him because she’s like, “I’m useless as a mate because I can’t have kids.” And, like, ugh, so frustrating. I mean, the book tries to be all like, “Hey, women aren’t useless if they can’t have kids, and kids don’t define you,” but don’t get your hopes up—it gets messed up.
Because, lo and behold, her freaking worm suddenly goes off, and they learn that the worms not only change your biology so you can survive on the planet, but they also change/heal your body so you can spawn???
And it’s supposed to be all sweet when her worm goes off for him out of nowhere, because I guess it somehow changed her biology, so she’s not barren anymore?
And I think that’s when I threw the book across the room.
Voice Note 10
Like, ethical dilemmas about consent are everywhere. First, I don’t even—like, why would you write yourself into a corner like that? And then, like, choose that corner to write yourself into??? You could’ve gone so many other directions, but instead, you were like, “Nah, this is the corner I’m going to die in.”
Parasites, at their core, have specific things that drive them—they need the host to spawn more of themselves—but this stuff treats it more like a symbiotic Star Trek relationship.
But they are parasites, and, like, scientifically speaking, parasites can mess with their host’s brain chemistry to drive the parasite’s ultimate goals. Sometimes, the goal is mating with others; other times, it can just be acting like nests for their parasite spawn to chest burst out of.
And we already know it’s not a soulmate thing, because we’ve learned you can get glowy worms for people you don’t even like. But you can’t help but get horny for them, even though you hate them on every level.
Then, the whole point of this is to find someone who is biologically compatible for you to mate with. We know this because the third-book lady has her whole barren thing fixed.
But like, so these heteronormative, sex-obsessed parasites are making you want to visit the bone zone, and I’m just supposed to sit back and LET THE SMUT ROLL IN. ALL WHILE KNOWING THIS?
Sorry for shouting, BUT DUCKING HELL.
Voice Note 11
Sorry, trying to brush my teeth and leave a voice note simultaneously was a bad idea. I’ve pretty much cleaned off all the toothpaste spit, but ugh.
ANYWAY. Like, I just wanted to read about blue dicks and alien smut, and now I’m stuck with this in my brain. And, like, I don’t know how else to explain it, but I’m fucking haunted by this dude. HAUNTED.
Like, what else are these parasites changing in these people’s brains? I can’t believe that these ladies quote-unquote love these blue cavemen, because immediately, everyone’s ability to provide consent is compromised. It’s kind of like when people get brain tumors that make them super horny???
Also, why is the beast they killed full of these parasites but these folks only have one? You want me to believe those parasites couldn’t be just weird alien tapeworms multiplying as their tails break off?
And I’m sure this is supposed to be some metaphor for love—because love is just our brain chemicals doing things—but that doesn’t override consent.
Voice Note 12
I even googled parasites. Are there any chill parasites? No, there are no laid-back parasites! They either eat all your organs, keep their eggs inside you, make you unalive yourself, mutate you, suck your blood—and so much other bad shit.
Like, I read about one that infects a host’s egg so that they only produce females, so their young can keep living. This even causes VIRGIN BIRTHS. So, this lady might now be able to bear children but it could just be for birthing parasite babies!
Wait. Is God just a parasite? What the duck.
Nope. Not going into more religious trauma.
Oh god. This is like when I actually watched Avatar. Dang, that was when I was dating Dan… remember him? Woof. And at the beginning of that movie, they mention that the main dude is actually inside an alien body created with his brother’s DNA. And even though they’re twins, that’s kind of still super messed up.
And that was all I could keep thinking about. Like, you’re just living in your bro’s alien body… permanently? When you have intimate relations with your alien avatar girlfriend, it’s actually your brother’s body doing the horizontal hokey-pokey with her.
Dan thought I was crazy for hating that movie and I even told him about the whole body horror issue and he did not get it.
How are either of these plots not horror movies? I’m feeling absolutely insane over this.
Voice Note 13
Oh crap, sorry, I realize now I should have said spoiler alert before blabbering on!
Dang, sorry if you had planned to read the books.
My bad.
Thanks for reading 🙂
Samantha LaFountain 