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metalheadmickey · 4 months

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fic writer interview

i was tagged by the luminous @energievie & @suzy-queued to fill this bad boy out! i remember doing this last year too, how fun! 🩷

1. How many works do you have on AO3? I've got 20 on there now!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 143,320

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? kinda raw, float, cinematic, and i'm your warm receiver, watching. the four after kinda raw are all pretty close together in terms of kudos, but kinda raw has a lot more kudos than the one after it and i don't understand why. i have written better fics lmfao! y'all are just nasty. and honestly i appreciate that.

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? i try to always respond, but sometimes it gets away from me! i just really appreciate people taking the time to leave a comment, and i want to show that appreciation.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? i don't think any of mine have been angsty!

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? they're all happy, but it might be you outshined the best there was just because of the nature of the story. soft dads, seen from mickey's perspective as he grows into fatherhood over the course of a year, but also so, so plotless. soft!

7. Do you write crossovers? no and i doubt i ever will. one of my very favorite conversations though is when my husband and i insert characters from other media we like into star trek tng or ds9. it's so dumb and so funny. lmao what if i wrote it

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic? yeah! once, on one of my favorite fics, ligature. they told me i should sterilize myself because i'm glorifying abuse by writing bdsm, it's a good read

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? i almost exclusively write smut! nasty and loving. i don't know how to describe it but whenever i think i've written something disgusting i inevitably get comments about how sweet it is. which, yeah, it's not like they're mutually exclusive ways to fuck. so yeah, sweet and dirty husbands

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen? i don't think so! i mean i hope not

11. Have you ever had a fic translated? nope!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? i haven't, but i've collaborated on a couple of projects with my dear friend @heymrspatel! i wrote and she made art for cinematic and honeycomb. cinematic was more julissa making art for parts i'd already written, but honeycomb especially was a collaborative process with the way that a bunch of what i wrote was based on things that julissa was visualizing for her art, so parts of it did feel like co-writing. it was the most fun i've had working on anything!

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship? don't make me choose between the angel who fell in love with a faithless man, and the closeted thug who fell in love with the kid who had it bad for him and ultimately had the most satisfying ending. destiel and gallavich are both such incredibly compelling ships!! aahhh!!

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? if there's something i'm not going to finish, it's generally because it became something i didn't want to work on anymore.

15. What are your writing strengths? describing physical sensation and emotional impact, dialogue

16. What are your writing weaknesses? exposition

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? i like evie's idea of just indicating that they've switched to another language without actually writing the language out

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for? gallavich

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to? i really want to write destiel smut. i think the nonhuman element could be fun to play with. i've read a lot of grace sex and that shit is soooooo. hot. i want to try my hand at it.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? this changes so often! one i come back to a lot is chapter two of 2022's kinktober collection, the prompts were wax & "yeah, that's it baby, just like that" and i wrote some wax play and i suppose cockwarming although it's not tagged as such. i also really fucking love lush, it's inspired by one of julissa's pieces and it's drunk lovemaking and breathplay. i also need to shout out a newer one, beauty in simplicity from this year's kinktober collection. mickey getting his ass eaten on the kitchen table. there's three fics! i don't care!

tagging @howlinchickhowl @whatwouldmickeydo @whatthebodygraspsnot @gallawitchxx @ohkate @sam-loves-seb @sisitrip @crossmydna @thisdivorce @mmmichyyy @arrowflier if you guys feel like playing 🖤

#tag game #most of these answers are needlessly long! i can't shut the fuck up

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justatinycollector · 6 months

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Thank you for the tag, @wyrd-syster!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Five! I'm a newbie.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

A humble 35,362.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I've only uploaded for The Rings of Power. A very, very, VERY long time ago, I started one crossover work between two other fandoms.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

#1: "swimming in the shallows"

#2: "if you're gonna play the game, you've got to learn to play it right"

#3: "crimson headache, aching blush"

#4: "exit light, enter night"

#5: "we could just kiss, like real people do"

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Try as I might, I can't seem to stop replying to virtually every comment I receive. It's a problem. I just...get so flattered that I want to thank people for spending any second of time reading words I strung together.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Angstiest? That's a tough call, considering the route my stories usually take. I'll say "exit light, enter night" because that one is by far the darkest.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I haven't written much with what you'd call a happy ending so far - my uploaded works tend to be on the darker side. But I'd say the happiest one would be "if you're gonna play the game, you've got to learn to play it right".

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've been fortunate enough to not receive any hateful comments on my work so far.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes! Not well, but yes. I usually write it with some darker elements thrown in. My beloved @thecoziestbean has told me that my smut perpetually leaves her in the following state:

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

My one and only (unfinished) crossover from LONG ago was a crossover. I am far too embarrassed to reveal what both fandoms were but...it was bad.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I have not. I think the AUs I write are either so specific that it's hard to lift detail or so general that I can't claim the details within them.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have not!

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

No, but I have plans to co-write one with the lovely @bad-surprise.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Oh this is TOUGH. Not including Haladriel because it seems like a copout. I...really loved Dean/Lisa from Supernatural. Me and my doomed ships, I suppose.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

"crimson headache, aching blush" is one that I get so excited about but can't seem to nail down. The other one would be the musician AU that will most likely never see the light of day in full, though I have posted it in some promptfills on Twitter.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Sometimes, when I hone in on the right details, I can make those details come to life in a fairly compelling way. I also have been told that I can create an atmosphere of dread fairly well.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

There are so many I could name. I cannot, for the life of me, keep a concept alive for more than one chapter, so I've confined myself to one-shots. I linger too much on the wrong details frequently. My paragraphs aren't long enough; I separate my dialogue and supporting sentences too much. I reuse phrases and details and motifs like my work is my recycling bin. My dialogue is...boring? I think my work is fairly bland. I could go on.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Speaking just for my own writing, I'm not fluent in any other languages and therefore don't feel comfortable writing in a language other than English. In other works, I very much enjoy seeing other languages represented. I just don't feel that I currently have the ability to use other languages well in my own work. I hope that changes soon!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Okay, OKAY. I'll reveal ONE of the above fandoms. It was the Jumper fandom (originally a novel written by Stephen Gould, adapted into a 2008 film starring Hayden Christensen). You won't catch me dead revealing the other one, though.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

It's a tie between "swimming in the shallows" and "exit light, enter night". "swimming" is my first fic, and by far my best. Nothing I write ever seems to top it. It sings in all the right spots and just...works. "exit light" is not loved widely, but it is loved deeply, especially by me. I am so proud of it, of the ways that the translation from the original video game to a Haladriel AU worked so well and of the few, small details I was able to add that make it mine.

tagging @alicuntisms @bad-surprise @thecoziestbean @formerlyir @mostlydriedmango @sawdustandstardust @pursuitseternal and anyone else who wants to play! Please, understand how much I love reading these from every single author.

#hmm the fear of being perceived is real today

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acacia-may · 1 month

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Thank you for the ask, now it's my turn 💘 Nozel x Vanessa from Black Clover? (I know, I'm biased^^') Elfman x Evergreen from Fairy Tail? Isogai x Meg from Assassination Classroom? Mustang x Hawkeye from Fullmetal Alchemist? Sorry, might have went a bit overboard^^'

Hello there friend! Thank you so much for playing and for asking about such fun pairings! 💕 I don't think I've ever been asked anything about Assassination Classroom or Fullmetal Alchemist before so I am so excited for this ^^

(Warnings: I do talk about a Fullemetal Alchemist spoiler, but I tried to steer clear of spoilers when discussing the other pairings. I'm putting it all under the cut just to be safe though).

Nozel x Vanessa

I'm honestly kind of neutral to this ship. I don't have anything against it, but it's probably something I wouldn't have thought about if I wasn't asked about it or if it wasn't requested from me. Since they haven't interacted in the canon, it's hard for me to imagine what their dynamic would be like and how they would get together, so I wouldn't say it makes sense to me to me personally and it doesn't really compel me since I ship both Vanessa and Nozel more with other characters (and some friends' OCs) than with each other.

That said, I have read some really enjoyable fanfictions about them. Yours especially are really lovely and really helped me to see & understand this pairing so thank you so much for that and for sharing your passion for them. 💕I have always been really impressed by this pairing's fans who I have a lot of respect for. I've even written about them a little myself, but only on request since I don't think it's a dynamic I'd really write about much on my own just given my personal preferences and how I personally prefer to imagine and think about the characters. But that's just me and my personal opinions. I can definitely see the appeal of the ship and think it could be a fun pairing--it's just not my personal favorite.

Elfman x Evergreen

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH! They're without a doubt in my top 3 favorite ships in Fairy Tail, and I was so excited every single time they appeared and interacted with each other. Their banter is just glorious. I have rambled about them in the past, so I apologize for repeating myself but these two are just that perfect balance between hilarious and adorable, in my opinion. On a certain level they both have such big personalities that are so wildly different from each other that it's almost goofy to think of them actually working out in relationship, but they complement each other so perfectly and have such a strong foundation of trust and mutual respect which I honestly wasn't expecting at first but was wonderful and delightful. I think the story does such a good job of showing us that they protect each other, sacrifice for each other, and want the best for each other, and ultimately they care about each other deeply, even if they don't always show it, so I do feel like they make a lot of sense as a pairing and, needless to say, I find it extremely compelling.

Isogai x Meg

I'll be honest and tell you that it has been quite a few years since I have read Assassination Classroom and seen the anime, and I forgot about these characters and this pairing and had to google it 😅 (I'm so sorry 🙈). As soon as I saw them though, I had this visceral, squealy "Oh my gosh! It's THEM!!" reaction and remembered being very invested in their relationship. Friends to lovers is probably my favorite ship trope, and (from what I remember) Isogai and Meg work so well together and have so much genuine admiration and respect for each other. Also there is just something so special and so compelling about inter-student-governmental relationships to me (A/N: Total tangent here but I think it goes back to one of my favorite childhood cartoons where there's an episode where these friends were pitted against each other in this really intense campaign to become class president, and (spoilers but) she won by one vote, specifically him voting for her because she had actual principles and ideas for improving the school but he just wanted to win. And oh my gosh I ship that to this day, and I think it has given me this intense affinity for these inter-student governmental relationships. Don't even get me started about my favorite pairings from Fruits Basket and Kaguya-Sama Love Is War that fit in this category. I just really, really, really enjoy this trope). Anyways...my goodness they are so cute! All it took was a short scroll through google images and a brief readthrough of their pages on the wiki to make me remember how much I really adored these two and their dynamic and relationship. I can vividly remember being so excited in the Valentine's Day episode when she gave him that chocolate. ^^

I think Isogai and Meg are really strong characters on their own also, which I really like and appreciate. Isogai is so hardworking, caring, and sincere, and Meg is so strong but so kind as well. And it's so lovely to see the two of them coming together and combining their strengths to become real leaders in their class and build each other and the other characters up. In summary, yes I think this pairing makes a lot of sense, and it definitely compels me personally. Thank you so much for reminding me about them and how much I loved them! 💖 I really want to rewatch Assassination Classroom now...

Roy Mustang x Riza Hawkeye

I may have actually squealed when I saw that you had asked about this pairing because my gosh I have no words for how invested I am in this relationship. If I felt I could write either of them and their dynamic with any semblance of justice, I would probably be writing fics about them non-stop, but I have never trusted myself to be able to do that, so they just live rent-free in my mind in incredibly convoluted scenarios about how they would somehow repeal or circumvent the non-fraternization law in order to get married (A/N: my favorite theory is that they throw another inter-military couple under the bus and use them as the poster-children of repealing the law, turning their wedding into an international spectacle before ultimately taking advantage of the repeal of the law to quietly marry themselves...but I digress).

Anyways, I don't even know what I can possibly say about this ship. Their bond with each other is so deep and so strong that even if they never get together in a romantic sense (which I would honestly be okay with as long as they just always stay together in a platonic sense. I don't need them to kiss...though that would nice...), I honestly just can't imagine either of them with anyone else romantically (which is very rare for me to say about a pairing since I tend to multi-ship). They are one of my favorite parts of the series every time I reread the manga or watch Brotherhood and that scene in the Third Laboratory where Riza thinks he is dead and just sort of breaks, gets me every single time. Even when I know it's coming, I still get so emotional about it. Her devotion and loyalty to him is unbelievable but so compelling, and the best part is that he is equally as devoted and loyal to her as well.

I can't fault this pairing at all. I think they're perfect for each other, and I'm so excited I got to ramble about them a little bit so thank you so much for that (also this my sister's ultimate OTP of all time and I can't wait to teasingly brag to her that someone actually wrote into my blog to ask me to talk about them lol). ^^

#thank you so much for the ask #this was so much fun vilandel!!#some of my all time favorite ships in here! so excited!!#isogai x meg #elfman x evergreen #roy x riza #ship ask games

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house-of-mirrors · 11 months

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Writing a critique of mask as if it was something I was critiquing for grad school lol. Some plot spoilers under the cut

Strengths

Always start with the positives. What did I like? I think the setting and music were immersive. Since I've been playing skies lately I was so excited any time something from it was mentioned. In games I love to make auditory connections, and I was excited that the audio for the sunlight in the parliament ending matches the intro of The Forge Timespace track on the skies OST! And on the topic of audio, of course the curator cries from skies. Hello Veils

There were a few parts, especially in a certain ending, where the writing really shone through. There are genuinely funny and compelling moments which has always been a strength of the devs, that dark comedy tone. My most recent playthrough, I basically just hooked up with monsters and that was the most fun I've had in the game.

Buckle your seat belt. Now onto:

Weaknesses

We've already discussed pacing to hell and back so I'm gonna skip that. Besides pacing, the biggest flaw in MOTR is that the game has identity issues. It doesn't know what it is or what it's trying to be. Mask fails as a dating sim, as a mystery game, and as a visual novel because it's trying to be everything at once and thus failing to be anything. If I played it like a dating sim, well. Pressing flirt repeatedly and seeing some of the same scenes play out every time you seduce a character with little new text doesn't immerse the player. If I played it like a mystery game, the pacing is prohibitive when it comes to solving it. I haven't actually played other visual novels so don't have a reference for that but I don't think they are as rushed as this

Either you can go into a little bit of detail about a lot of things, you can go into a lot of detail about a few things, or you widen the parameters so you can go into more detail about more things. Within the framework mask exists in (and I don't thing slowing the pacing will fix this beyond making it easier to finish some quests), the scope is too small to do justice to the scale of content they're trying to convey. I'd tell the author they had too much going on at once and to narrow their focus. Decide which characters should be focused on and which aren't so necessary. Some of them definitely were included in a way that felt last minute just to get a reaction from fans, and not because they had something to offer the narrative. Those characters either needed a plot with more depth or weren't necessary.

Mechanics

Mechanically speaking, I... didn't see a point to most of the new features. I was never in a situation where I needed certain clothes to progress, which made collecting them kinda pointless. You can complete any number of different playthroughs without touching story crafting at all. I got the feeling from marketing that story crafting would be used to help matchmake with other characters, but it very much does not do that unless I'm completely missing a big chunk of the game, which is possible given how nigh impossible it is to progress.

The engine is innovative and stunning from the perspective of someone with experience in code. But then you can't DO anything in it. Sure it may be super responsive to different paths, but if the variables change, the dialogue/written consequences don't.

Diversity and Inclusion

Finally, these notes. It's seldom comfortable to bring it up but it's important. I almost called this nitpicking compared to everything else but no, it's not! These issues are just as important and deserve to take up space. I see fellow players sort of expressing "yeah I didn't expect them to improve these areas" but that still doesn't minimize the issue.

I'm just puzzled. They took effort to research writing Jewish and Sikh NPCs but then go and keep assuming the player is Anglican. (In an ending after failing in the trial, I got a random bit mentioning how they used to hang Catholic dissenters and I was like... was that really necessary.) Idk like, especially with all the research they did you figure something would have changed, that someone somewhere would have pointed it out

The line saying the player spoke the Queen's English REALLY bugged me. First of all I have a working class accent, and I'm American not British, but accent is still a touchy topic and was even more significant in the 1860s than it is now. Same point as above, there are a lot of characters that do not have high British accents. Phoebe, Archie, Ferret, Ivy. Why assume with the player? The thing is they already have a mechanic in place with the backstories! Sure, a society player would speak Queens English but a dockworker would not! Go by that!

And body diversity. Can we please get more characters that aren't the same thin body type. It being the Age of Malnutrition isn't an excuse. (To get specific. You Know Who was from Mesopotamia where the culture had beards. The one option in late railway uses the silhouette from the cheery man which has a beard so I had misplaced hope but alas)

Summary

While the game posed tidbits of interesting horror lore, the classic dark comedy tone, and spicy monsters (before the encounters became repetitive, that is), Mask fell flat in so many ways. I had an ending after seducing Milton where he remarked that the player rarely talks about themself and I laughed because yeah, that's how the game was designed. The player has no opportunity to gain a personality through flashbacks or dialogue choices. The NPCs are stiff and very rarely have unique reactions to your character. Conversation changes topic with no clear thread or motivation.

I'm honestly flummoxed how this got through development with these glaring problems. Everyone in the playerbase noticed them right away. Ugh. Little is more frustrating than things that had so much potential that isn't realized.

It felt like a long ES, with all the pros and cons of an ES lol. Certain paths blow your mind and you might walk into hot moments with ur favs. But then no time to realize why you should care about characters, story that abruptly ends, new mechanic that is shiny and interesting but can only carry it so far, yada yada yada

#motr response #motr critical #motr spoilers #i love typing stuff like this. just like the nemesis rant and smen rant #I wrote the better part of this in the bathtub and I did not have my glasses on

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cadybear420 · 2 months

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Best and Worst LI from each series

Inspired by this post by @choices-binglebonkus from a couple of years back. I came across it recently and I felt compelled to do my own.

Keep in mind that I haven't played some of these stories in a while, and there are a handful where I haven't even started or completed them. So a lot of stuff here is subject to change.

TCATF

Best: For Kenna: I'm not sure. For Dom: probably Sei because I loved their relationship in Book 2. But it's been a while.

Worst: For Kenna: I'm still not sure. For Dom: either Rose because of how she's written out of Book 2 with the inability to transfer data, or Will Jackson with how he was so obviously a last minute addition.

[MW: Haven't played yet, and IIRC this one didn't really have any LIs or romance.]

[TFS: Haven't played yet.]

ROE

Best: As pleasant as the 3 main LIs were, all their romances with MC felt very empty and rushed, which to be fair is expected when Nana's forcing you to marry by the end of the summer. As for the other characters, it's still hard to pick one that's the best cause I didn't find any of the romances particularly remarkable. I'd have to go either with Party Twin's LIs or cousin's romance with Chaz because they were the only ones that didn't feel like clusterfucks.

Worst: Like I said, all of MC's romances were empty. But since I'm including the other characters' romances too, easily Audrey and Elena. Audrey was a very unpleasant character towards Bookish Twin in Books 1 and 2. And same for Elena in part of Book 2 and all of Newlyweds; she had every right to be upset at Brother for hiding his past ex wife, but she acted incredibly petty and immature over it.

Best: I didn't really get to romance anyone in my playthrough but either Jake or Estela. Jake has some really funny one-liners and nicknames. Estela I saw has the "Dont. Touch. My. Husband/Wife!!!" line that makes me really want to do a romance with her as a m!MC. I love protective gfs, I aspire to be a protective gf.

Worst: None of them because all of them are great characters. But if I had to choose... maybe Quinn? She didn't feel as fleshed out to me as the other 3. But it's been 2 and a half years since I last played so yeah.

Best: None of them really grabbed me, but I'd have to go with either Leah or Ben. Ben is just a sweetheart, but I also liked the interactions between Leah and MC in Book 2.

Worst: Mark wasn't bad, but I couldn't buy into the relationship with him as well as I could the other two.

THOBM

Best: Eleanor for sure. She is partly responsible for my realizing that I'm not straight. She's supposed to be this stoic ghost woman, but gets super flustered and blushy when you flirt with her??? Bye bye heterosexuality.

Worst: Victor wasn't bad but he was just... a total non-character. Yeah, a rare story where a female LI takes the spotlight and a male LI is sidelined.

TRR: I haven't really played past Book 1, but I've already deemed Liam as my favorite LI. Though I am biased because this is the first book I started when I first got into Choices back in February 2021 (I'm a fandom baby I know), but he won my heart instantly in that premium scene where MC can take him on a boat to see the statue of liberty. And throughout the rest of the book he's just a very sweet and pleasant character. So I'm just gonna leave it at that and not deem a worst LI just yet.

Hero

Best: It's been a long time but I strongly remember quite liking Grayson. He was sweet and cute. Kenji was also pretty decent but I don't think I liked him quite as much as I did Grayson.

Worst: Eva isn't a bad character, but she was introduced way too late into the story for me to truly care about her.

OG HSS

Best: AIDEN ZHOU AIDEN ZHOU AIDEN ZHOU AIDEN ZHOU AIDEN ZHOU AIDEN ZHOU AIDEN ZHOU AIDEN ZHOU AIDEN ZHOU AIDEN ZHOU AIDEN ZHOU AIDEN ZHOU AIDEN-MOTHER-FUCKING-ZHOU!!!!!! Sweet mother of all things holy how am I supposed to talk about this in only one paragraph???

As if it wasn't obvious, I love everything about him and he's easily my favorite Choices character of all time. For one, I love male characters who are more on the soft and gentle side. Aiden is definitely that, and his tendency to get flustered and blushy is adorable. For two, he's passionate, dedicated, just very earnest and down-to-earth. And especially in Book 1, we see how he struggles with self-esteem. He's passionate, but he doesn't consider himself as such. He considers himself a failure for the screwed up halftime performance. He doesn't feel he knows how to communicate to MC right and thinks lower of himself for preferring to communicate through music.

I found a lot of these aspects very relatable myself, outside of music though, because I can't play an instrument to save my life. But I do have a passion for stuff like drawing, writing, and editing. And I think relating to Aiden so much sort of added to how authentic the romance route with him and MC felt for me. There were a couple of moments where I could have my MC sort of connect with him– the rooftop scene where MC can say that seeing how passionate he is inspires them to do better, their scene at homecoming in the band room where MC can say that social interactions don't come easy to them either despite how confident they can be.

And just... the whole romance route feels so earned and well-paced? I mean I'm sure all of the routes in HSS are like that but I especially love it here. How you can give him time of day to listen to him play piano, slowly help him step out of his comfort zone, I love how protective you can be of him in Book 2 and how you can be there for him when Isa and his parents are punishing him, and how he's then being there for you during the Book 3 drama when you're accused of sabotage. And all the moments such as becoming official with him, him confessing his love to MC and how you can confess back... it just all feels so organic.

Also the romance route with him hits so much different if you romance him as a band kid. You get extra moments with him, not to mention when you're about to play his song at the spring concert and they say how "there's a glint in his eyes you haven't seen before" and after you play it they say "his eyes gleam with pride" like HELLO??? That extra bit of connection they have when they're *both* musicians???? Shit like this is why I sing my praises to this trilogy so much.

Worst: None of them! Okay but if I had to choose... well, this is gonna pain me to say this, but Michael.

I adore his character arc and he's my second most favorite HSS character and Choices LI, but when I tried romancing him (and I did so twice), I noticed he actually felt a lot more underdeveloped in comparison to the other LIs. Specifically in Book 2, as he's the only character who isn't really struggling with anything. He felt very lacking in presence for the first half of that book– even moreso than Emma, whose subplot didn't even have anything to do with the main Isa plot. And so Book 2 kinda felt like this big gap in the relationship journey that he and MC can have.

Then again, maybe he and Evie Ayana (my MC) just don't have all that much chemistry and I should try romancing him as a brand new version of the MC.

ILITW

Best: My personal favorite is Lucas, but honestly? It's a tough tie between him, Andy, and Ava. Andy I'd say had the stronger character arc, but I personally related more to Lucas. Ava however is certainly the most memorable and witty of them.

Worst: Connor. He's not bad and I quite liked some of the banter between him and MC, but he is lacking in ways that make him stick out like a sore thumb. All these other LIs are characters attending school with MC, that MC has been friends with since childhood, who have all experienced Jane's death up-front as kids. Connor lacks all of that, being Stacy's older brother of 2 years and not really part of the friend group. And he doesn't really have much of a character arc like the others do to make up for that. I don't mind MC romancing outside of their close childhood friends, but it just felt a bit harder to connect with him on the same level as the others.

HFTH:

Best: Wyatt was probably the most memorable of the bunch.

Worst: Nick was annoying, but he did get better in the second half of the story. Holly was alright but very bland.

[RCD: Haven't played yet.]

Best: Hayden without a doubt, though I'm certainly very fond of Sloane too. Hayden is a literal robot, yet they still feel more like an actual human being than like 90% of the customizable LIs we've been getting. The whole arc with them basically having an existential crisis upon realizing they're an android, then eventually going on to start a new identity for themselves... I loved it. And as a bonus, the customizable aspect is kind of integrated in the story itself rather than being a meta choice.

Worst: None of them. Maybe Alana and Khaan, cause they seemed to be somewhat pushing some romance with them in Book 2, but it felt very muddled and unclear.

Best: All of them. But I'm probably most fond of Kamilah "I'm *her* queen. And she's mine." Sayeed. Jax and Lily are close seconds though as they're incredibly memorable (also the mass fandom hatred for Lily that was apparently a thing... yeah very sus to me. why did y'all hate her.)

Worst: None of them. I'd say maybe Adrian didn't stand out quite as much as the others?

[VOS: Haven't played yet.]

AME

Best: None of the LIs really stood out to me but my favorite would probably have to be Jen, she was sweet and always tried to help MC.

Worst: Derek had to be the most lackluster of them all IMO.

[D&D: Haven't played yet.]

ATV

Best: For MC: I was most fond of Kepler the buff queen and Meridian the sweet medic. For Eos: Gee Zekei, how come PB lets you be a romance option for two playable characters? For Pax: Holmes is precious.

Worst: IDK honestly. I wasn't a fan of Zaniah's betrayal or whatever it was. But IDK.

[BSC: Haven't played yet.]

HSS:CA

Best: Objectively speaking, Skye. She's the one thing that HSS:CA enjoyers and HSS:CA critics and haters can agree that is good about the series, and honestly that's deserved. Everything about her character storyline is pretty damn immaculate. That being said, I romanced Ajay and I'm personally very fond of him. Although I didn't care much for him in Book 1, Books 2 and onwards make him a much more sympathetic and compelling character. And personally, I tend to chalk up the whole siding against MC thing to be lazy OOC writing considering A) he'd warned MC about Danielle in the earlier chapters and B) directors generally have a responsibility to stay unbiased in these kinds of situations, and given how seriously Ajay takes being a director, realistically I think he would have tried to stay unbiased and tell the other accusers to fuck off. PB, you did my boy dirty.

Worst: Rory. I didn't hate them and they're a pretty decent character on their own, but they're easily the weakest LI of CA and of HSS as a whole. They have zero character development over the trilogy. Book 1 forcing our MC to crush on them and agonize so much over wanting their first kiss with Rory on stage was obnoxious and unnecessary, and it didn't help that their entire personality in said book didn't really go much beyond "popular theatre heartthrob". They try so hard to force us to like them by flaunting how popular they are and having Cunt and Nasty– sorry I mean Clint and Natalie– constantly fawn over them. Rory was thankfully no longer forced in Book 2 and had somewhat more character (also the way they called out Morgan's hypocrisy and single handedly destroyed her campaign is peak Rory), but the whole election plotline did nothing for their character. Book 3 gives them some sort of conflict with their parents, but it's just the group thinking Rory's dad is cheating only for it to be the good ole misunderstanding cliche.

ILB

Best: Tom. Parker was pretty adorable too, but nothing beats the part in the premium lake day scene where Tom wishes he'd won a giant teddy so he could put it in the passenger seat and be able to go into the fast lane and then MC can give him the teddy they won (if they did win).

Worst: Danni for how she can be needlessly callous towards Parker's memory if he ends up leaving the group. Even if he's dead. It comes off as extra hypocritical if Danni ended up caving to Astrid's temptations as well.

[TE: Haven't played yet.]

ACOR

Best: Either Syphax or Cassius for their loyalty to MC.

Worst: IDK.

TH:M

Best: Eris Huang is an icon. "Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals".

Worst: I didn't care for Sonia. I mean she was alright and I liked her redemption arc, but she just didn't vibe with me as a LI.

ROD

Best: Colt is the only LI I felt had any real character depth, any real significance, any real reason for me to give a shit about him.

Worst: The pushing of Logan as the main LI felt very forced, unnecessary, and undeserved. Like... there wasn't anything all that special about him.

OPH: I haven't really played past Book 1, but I'm quite fond of Bryce.

[PTR: Haven't played yet.]

[WT: Haven't played yet.]

Best: Katherine the "I don't like being saved" was fun to romance as a male MC. But either Vera or Cal would have to be the strongest character-wise.

Worst: None of them really. None of them are super amazing to me, but I didn't have any problems with any of them.

[PT: Haven't played yet.]

[SK: Haven't played yet. Tried to once but I got bored and quit 5 chapters in]

Best: Aisha for sure. She's just a very vibrant and fun character.

Worst: Reed and Ash were nice and cute, but other than that... not much. They were pretty useless to the plot too.

MOTY

Best: All of them. IDC. They're all super compelling.

Worst: None.

[StD: Haven't played yet.]

[TRM: Haven't played yet.]

BaBu

Best: Mayor Dixon was really fun to romance. The female version especially contributed to my possible bi awakening.

Worst: I liked Clint as a character but the first chapter tries wayyyyyy too hard to get the player to be turned on by the thought of having his babies. The Clint fangirls in that scene were so clearly written by someone who's never met a single woman in his life outside of some stereotypical textbook-definition Facebook Karen moms I'm sorry

[HC: Haven't played yet.]

WEH

Best: Well well well, this seems to be the first ever single-LI story on the app. And personally I think Dakota was a pretty decent and compelling character.

Worst: None

BOLAS: I haven't started Book 2 yet but I already know my favorite is Imtura. I especially love how shamelessly RoleReversal her romance is with a male MC. Praying it carries over to Book 2.

AVSP

Best: None

Worst: This book was boring and Simon/Ava's motives for making a fake marriage with the MC felt very contrived.

Witness

Best: Cassian. This book sucks but Cassian was at least a pleasant character.

Worst: None.

Best: None.

Worst: None. Honestly I don't have many feelings for the characters in this one.

TNA

Best: Sam Dalton. I mean he's not brilliant or anything but I do have a bit of a soft spot for them because TNA 1 was the first Choices story I ever completed. Also the first time a f!MC was allowed to get up in her m!LI's bootyhole.

Worst: Also Sam Dalton because of all the "+Desire +Desire +Desire +Desire +Desire +Desire" and shit

QB: I've twice attempted playthroughs of this and ended up neglecting both of them halfway through Book 1. But I did quite like Ian/Ina.

TUH: I started a playthrough back when it was releasing to all and then ended up neglecting it by like Ch10. I'll need to start playing again, but I remember being quite fond of Mr. John Somerset.

MTFL

Best: All the LIs were pretty compelling characters, they just had shit stories with a shit MC. But of the three of them, Ava was probably the most compelling to me.

Worst: None.

Best: IDK. I'm tempted to say Jack/Jacqueline because I did like their banter with the MC, but other than that they were rather bland.

Worst: Like I said, Jack/Jacqueline felt very bland outside of the banter they could have with MC.

[RT: Haven't played yet]

Best: Morgan was easily the most fleshed out and compelling of the two LIs.

Worst: Bastien is derivative as all hell. Seriously, pick up any werewolf-themed YA erotic story and the male werewolf LI in it will almost certainly be identical to Bastien.

[FA: Haven't played yet]

Best: This is a tough one. Chef Flint's character was a lot more derivative and I personally preferred being around Julia(n). But Julia(n) was also an incredibly useless character, you could remove them from the story and nothing important would change.

Worst: See above.

LOA

Best: As much as I didn't care for the series, I did find both LIs pretty decent. But of the two of them, Aislinn is much more fleshed out.

Worst: Gabe, who wasn't bad but wasn't nearly as fleshed out as Aislinn.

Best: Manu was a pretty interesting character. The relationship with them is pretty straightforward, but it was interesting and even a bit sweet later on. And apparently your bond score can determine whether or not you survive in the last chapter? Also this is the only single LI story I know of where you can choose a more platonic route with the LI.

Worst: None.

WTD

Best: I think I liked Angel the most. She was fun.

Worst: I'm not sure really.

Surrender

Best: None. None. None. Noooooooooooone.

Worst: Fuck Reagan Thorne. Worst LI on the app ever. I'll admit Book 2 does go a little more in-depth with their background, but as someone who has been in a similar situation, God they botch it horribly because 90% of this book is spent doubling down on Reagan's toxicity. And just when MC finally gets the self-respect to leave them after that awful "When a woman agrees to be my sub she agrees to obey" line, they then throw it right in the trash with how easily she ends up getting back with them. Bruh throw the whole LI in the trash.

COP

Best: Trystan is a fun character and their relationship with the MC is very refreshing. They're both equals for once in a single LI story, and it'll be interesting no matter which gender you choose for each character (whereas in most single LI stories they're really only interesting if you play as anything other than wlm).

Worst: None.

Best: None.

Worst: Kit is the textbook definition of a soulless personality-less customizable LI. They try to push them as this "player" except it's moreso just people flocking to Kit rather than Kit flirting with others.

TPS

Best: Clarke was a fun character and the female white sprite also contributes to me knowing I'm not straight.

Worst: Devon was nice but they were kind of bland and useless.

TCH: I've only played Book 1 so far and haven't yet started Book 2, but I found Kieran pretty decent and I enjoyed their development.

ID: Gabe was sweeter and I kind of liked their interactions with the MC, but Cas was more interesting, so I'm not sure. But there's a Book 2 on the way so I can't properly judge anyways.

MAH

Best: Tyler! He's arguably the least developed of the LIs but he was my favorite because he's just so babygirl. I miss when we had true softie male LIs. Also, bonus points for the dialogue changes about him realizing he's not straight if you romance him as a male or enby MC.

Worst: Not sure. Maybe Donovan because he could be a bit callous to the MC in the earlier chapters. I get why he was acting like that, but some of it did seem a bit excessive. But even then, he's still a very fleshed out character and his callousness doesn't go on for too long, so it's hard to, in good faith, deem him as the "worst". But I will also say that Stevie being MC's childhood best friend felt very poorly set up.

TPA

Best: None of them. Rowan was underdeveloped and Agent Grey was mostly very one note. They have some alright interactions, but I personally found the two hookup options Lou and Alexis far more interesting.

Worst: Like I said, Agent Grey was very one note. They seemed to be trying to go for the whole James Bond trope with having a companion that he has a bit of bantery romance with, except there wasn't much flavor to the relationship between MC and Agent Grey. Grey's character is pretty much entirely just being a tsundere.

[GNV: Haven't played yet]

[KOD: Haven't played yet]

[GG: Haven't played yet]

RWB

Best: None.

Worst: Drew had some alright character development, but I found them mostly unremarkable. "Baby Bird" was also very infantilizing.

FCL

Best: None.

Worst: How is it that every single character on-screen, even Sky who's a complete stranger, could figure out MC was scheming against Rebecca, but Rebecca's partner themselves apparently could not? Blake is either spineless as all fuck, or was just doing shrooms during the entire trip. Or both.

[TDA: Haven't played yet]

[KND: Haven't played yet]

TBB

Best: None

Worst: Cole/Callie is bland as all hell and very unreliable. Tries to use a baby to save their and Daphne's relationship and then proceeds to cheat on Daphne. Only in like the last chapter do they talk things out like actual grown ass adults, but it's too little too late.

DLS: I'm still catching up but I'm enjoying Charlie King.

[APH: Haven't started yet]

[SOD: Haven't started yet]

[Unbridled: Haven't started yet]

#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play fandom #choices stories we play

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mx-piggy · 9 months

Text

Just finished season 1 of the Afterparty and I felt like writing my thoughts about it. I'd also love to chat with other people about this show, so feel free to comment, rb or DM me! Spoilers ahead!

I'm definitely going to have to rewatch it at some point (maybe after season 2 is fully out, so I can watch them back-to-back), because I want to see how everything plays out in hindsight, and see what details I can pick up on.

I started watching this show because I saw a gif from the most recent episode in season 2 ('Hannah', I think) and it looked kinda gay. That's how I started watching the Last of Us. And many other shows. I'm a lonely, desperate queer.

Overall, I really enjoyed it! I'm a fan of all the genres it combined, and I think they worked really well together. I feel like, even if you don't gel well with the comedy, the compelling mystery and characters make it worth a watch. I loved the format of having a different sort of genre in each episode, with my favourite styles being Chelsea and Yasper. And, I adore unreliable narrators.

The only episode I went into knowing the genre (or in Zoe's case, the medium) were Aniq and Zoe, but I correctly guessed that Brett was going to have an action-style 'movie', Yasper's was going to be a musical, Chelsea's was going to be a thriller kind of movie and that Maggie's was going to be kiddie-fied. Guessing the genre's not an achievement though, despite my sense of pride.

I didn't correctly guess the killer until I did my thing of reading a reader-insert fic just before the finale, and a line in there (something to do with 'keeping secrets') made me think 'oh shit'. It wasn't necessarily a spoiler, but it did make it click for me, and I noticed things in the finale leading up to the reveal, like Yasper being absent from when Aniq woke up. Before that spoiler, though, I guessed it was probably Walt, though I did suspect he was just a red herring. Part of me also had this crack theory that it'd be a 'Who Shot Mr. Burns' thing where Maggie killed him by accident (funny how they share the same name), or that she'd witnessed Xavier fall accidentally.

Speaking of which, I think the conclusion was satisfying and made sense in the way Danner explained it. I'm hoping it'll hold up on rewatch- I'm guessing it will. It made sense, and I think it's impressive for this kind of comedy show to commit to having one of their charismatic main characters being the killer, instead of copping out and make it be someone we don't really care about. Well, I cared about Yasper at the very least. I was one of my favourite characters, and I'm very sad that he's probably rotting in prison. But, I'm glad he had his moment of fame.

Since this is fiction, I'm allowed to say 'fair enough' to Yasper murdering Xavier. I think everyone at that party should have been more grateful to Yasper for getting rid of him. (/lh) Though I think it would have been hilarious if everyone was actually grateful, instead of them all celebrating that the killer had been caught. That said, even though I love Yasper and I condone what he did, it felt kinda nice for Danner's investigation to be celebrated, even though I'm not a fan of cops.

That said, I do have a small issue with the finale that is entirely personal to me and my preferences, and this could easily be fixed if I wrote an angsty fanfiction like I normally do. So, my problem is that I wish that the revelation of what Yasper did had more of an emotional impact on Aniq. I know that they haven't spoken in two years prior to that night, but they were best friends in high school, and I think it's kind of dismissive that they went straight from 'Aniq feels betrayed that his friend would do something like this' to 'now he's kissing Zoe in the car'. I know it's a comedy and it'd be weird for the season to end on such a depressing note, especially since in the end the murder isn't taken that seriously by Yasper (in a scene I sincerely enjoyed and felt kind of happy for him in). Speaking of which, I read some analysis on Yasper and the perception of success in terms of careers that was really interesting and I'll link here, so that kind of makes that scene a little sad because Yasper would rather be an infamous killer than a guy with a successful career. But, y'know it's a comedy so I'll try not to think about that or I'll be sad.

Now I'll get onto the characters, specifically the main ones. I like them all as characters. I'll only go into depth about the characters who get an episode named after them, Xavier and Walt.

Aniq is really charismatic, and I think he's a fun main character to have even if he's not the most interesting necessarily. I think it makes sense to have such a puzzle-oriented character as the main character in a murder mystery. Plus, he's a genuinely nice guy, so it makes it so you don't want to see him get sent to prison. I'm pretty sure he's the main character of season 2 as well, so I'm happy to see him return.

I really like Zoe, too! I was worried that she would just be 'the artsy, perfect love interest' that you see in teen movies, so I really liked to see her story of struggling with who she is and what she wants. It really resonated with me, and her episode was really interesting to watch. Personally, her episode reminded me a little of BoJack Horseman (the show, not the character). I don't really understand why her episode has such a harsh rating on IMDB, because I think the storytelling and use of animation to further characterise and flesh out Zoe was really effective.

I like Zoe and Aniq's relationship too, and I think that's really impressive because of how I struggle to get on board with canon relationships in rom-coms. A lot of the time, it feels like I'm watching a kid holding their Barbie and Ken dolls in either hand and repeating 'don't you think they should kiss?' But, with Aniq and Zoe, they had genuine chemistry (no pun intended) and they both work as individual characters outside of their relationship.

Yasper is one of my favourite characters in the show, probably second to a character I'll get onto in a minute. I think he's a great subversion of the 'best friend hypeman' trope, where he actually has motivations and goals outside of his best friend. I was worried that his character was going to just be the 'oblivious loudmouth best friend', and, like with Zoe, I was thankfully proven wrong. He was a delightfully complex character who did the world a service. I can't be bothered to analyse him in the detail I'd like to, so all I'll say is that I am going to spend some time tomorrow reading some angsty Yasper fics.

So, my favourite character in the show was Chelsea, and I'm honestly so in love with her it's insane. Her character was so complex and interesting, and on a personal level she was really easy to empathise with. I knew early on that she wasn't the killer, and that she was just a fucked up woman who deserved so much better in life. It made me so happy to see her making amends with Zoe, and to see how nice Yasper and Aniq were to her, because all she really needed was to escape the high schooler judgement and be afforded some compassion and kindness. And, I found it simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming that she was so used to the feeling of being judged and ostracised that she didn't get revenge on Xavier and wrote that apology on Aniq's hand for him drinking her cat roofies. Her arc was the most satisfying to watch for me. I'm devastated that she's only in season 1 (though I get it from a narrative standpoint). Hoping she will live on through fanfiction.

Brett was also a surprise to me, because I assumed he was just going to be a total loser who thinks he's a badass and that's it. But, I really like how he was actually a decent dad to Maggie as well. Like, sure, you shouldn't leave your kid alone in a car for a prolonged period or speed when your kid's in the car (or at all), but still. It was really sweet to see the joy on Maggie's face when her dad was living out some Fast and the Furious fantasy. And, I like how the motivation of his episode was to get the koala back. It made me giggle.

Danner was a really interesting character to watch. Again, I'm not a fan of cops, but I personally feel like her character is well-done. She's someone working against a shitty system as best she can. She'll do what's right as opposed to staying in favour with her colleagues who believe in protecting their own than pursuing true justice. I like how she's very unconventional in her approach, where she knows she'll find something relevant in seemingly unnecessary details. It makes her a really interesting investigative character. Plus, I really like Danner's personality; she's also a very charismatic character, minus the being a cop thing.

Walt wasn't my favourite character but I still liked him enough. It was kinda depressing (in a fun way, though) at times to see him be so overlooked by his peers. I thought it was funny that, in Maggie's version of events, he's a puppet who just says 'Walt'. And, I liked that he's so overlooked that his designated episode (High School) isn't named after him and we don't really get his perspective as much as we did with the other characters. It fit a lot with the outcast, background role of the character, where his own party, his own story isn't even about him. It was nice that they remembered his name in the end.

Maggie is so precious to me fr. She's such a sweet kid and I want to adopt her. Her joy is so infectious.

Now onto Xavier. As a character, Xavier was really incredible. As a person, I'm overjoyed that someone took the initiative to dispose of him. His relationship with Yasper was so interesting, and I like that we got to see his origins as a kinda dorky teenager who wants to reinvent himself and is heartbroken 'heterosexually' when his best friend wants to break up their band. So much so that he gets into a fight with the guy his best friend definitely isn't in love with. But, he fucked over my darling Chelsea and my guy Aniq. He makes shitty music. The only good thing he ever did was make Maggie's favourite movie. Overall, he is basically Jamie Tartt, if Jamie was murdered before he could become the man we all know and love today. I mean, neither of them wear shirts under their suits, and Dave Franco and Phil Dunster have some physical similarities.

I'm really looking forward to watching season 2 and to rewatching the whole show. And to reading some angsty Aniq/Yasper/Xavier fanfics. And to hopefully finding some fanart to reblog. I need to consume fan content for this show and these characters. Especially Chelsea.

#the afterparty #the afterparty spoilers #long post #the afterparty season 1 #aniq adjaye #zoe zhu #detective danner #yasper lennov #i won't bother tagging the characters who don't have surnames on wikipedia

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foibles-fables · 7 months

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What's that? Random asks? Don't mind if I do!

How did you hear about Horizon that made you want to play it, and how was that first time?

Howdy hello and HECK YES! I love this question.

So--summer 2020. I'd just come back from a decade-long hiatus from fandom in general, and was starting to learn the new ropes and spaces (this former livejournal clown breaking into discord and twitter, etc.). One night, I was scrolling through my twitter timeline and happened to stumble upon the freshly-posted E3 announcement trailer for HFW. And even though I hadn't really played a narrative video game since the PS2 era, I decided to watch it. And, huh! I remember saying, "Badass freckly redheaded archer...seems relevant to my interests." The graphics were absolutely gorgeous and what little hints of the story were present in that trailer (especially for someone who knew nothing of the narrative background presented so far) were compelling.

So I looked up some info and found out that it was a sequel to a 2017 game. Cool. Filed that away for later, deciding to get a PS5 when they released later that year.

Jump-cut to late December. I managed to get my hands on a PS5, and it was delivered a couple days before Christmas. Which was awesome, because life was not going super well and I needed a heavy-duty distraction. At this point I had kind of pushed Horizon to the backburner and was instead excited to play AC Valhalla as my first game! But when I booted up, I learned that my mother had bought me the disc version as a Christmas gift. I was left with a couple of days to try other stuff out before I could dive in to ACV.

So, I shrugged and downloaded HZD instead. And the rest is kind of history.

Went into it kind of ambivalent and really hoping I would like it. I had tried to play BotW and was completely overwhelmed by the open-world aspects, and not in a pleasant way, and I hoped that wouldn't be the case here. I'd also never really been into a ton of action games before, as most of my old faves were turn-based. The gameplay itself wouldn't be the clincher for me--that would be the story.

WELL, good news is, I was hooked from the prologue. I would equate playing HZD to not just watching a narrative masterwork unfold, but being in the driver's seat of one. Each discovery Aloy and I made was enthralling and exhilarating, and I legitimately could not stop playing. Could not stop exploring. Every side quest, every collectible, every corner of the map (besides the hunting grounds after earning my Suns at the Nora one, SORRY TALANAH). The entirety of "Deep Secrets of the Earth" had me staring into the darkness of my gaming room in a mix of existential horror and pure amazement. I wept at the ending. The HZD cast left an indelible mark on my heart, and it really reminded me of just how powerful game stories can be. Still trapped in hyperfixation hell (affectionate) over it.

The fun didn't stop there, though. By the time I finished the game (I took my time!), it was early February 2021. I feel very lucky to have sauntered in when I did, because it really seems like it was the perfect time to join the fandom. Folks were coming out of hibernation from both 2017 and the 2020 PC release, hyped with excitement and theories for HFW. Within those first months I met some of the most fabulous and now-lifelong friends (and more <3) I've ever had.

Bottom line: after playing HZD, Horizon and the fandom pulled me through a very very very difficult time in my life. I'm eternally grateful to this series and the meaning I derive from it. Especially from the first game--its vibrant narrative, and its absolutely fantastic characters. Lightning in a bottle, man.

And no, I still haven't finished AC Valhalla. lmao.

#thank you so much for this ask it made me nostalgic!!!#have an amazing day!#horizon zero dawn #horizon forbidden west

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burr-ell · 10 months

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while I've been a cr fan for a while now, i've only recently started to interact more with the fanbase after completing campaign 2 and starting to go through campaign 3(i will hopefully catch up before it concludes but who knows lol) and man is the fandom strange. never have i seen a fandom have both a toxic positivity problem as well as a toxic criticism problem at the same time. people both viciously defend the show and attack it depending on the time of day it feels like lol. that being said I do want to know about what you enjoy about the show? I feel like most of the posts i've seen of yours are meta/takes about the fandom, which i do enjoy don't get me wrong, but i'd love to see things you like, especially if they're niche things! sorry if its a question you've been asked before! much love from another, what i would say, sane critical role fan ahhah

ah you want to see me be annoying. bless you anon <3

-mr lord percival de rolo and ms lady vex'ahlia de rolo and their sister/in-law ms lady cassandra de rolo and their bear son trinket de rolo and their baby quarter elf de rolos and their bear grandson charles de rolo and

-listen, i don't know what made me such a lunatic about perc'ahlia and their family but i am, that will never change, they've both suffered so much loss and they could have gone dark so many times but they didn't! they both chose the light and each other and chose the light because of each other and they have a FAMILY, whitestone is a city of rebirth and i want to gnaw on something every time i think about it

-i also just! love vox machina as a whole! it's classic, archetypal fantasy adventure stuff and that's why i love it. i love the chroma conclave arc especially, i really enjoy the stakes and the traveling across the world and the absolutely ridiculous moments that grew out of it. vox machina is, in the metanarrative, the living legend—the group that started it all and began breathing life into the world of exandria, and i've always enjoyed those kinds of stories.

-EXU CALAMITY. if you haven't seen it you absolutely should, i highly recommend it. it's an amazing story, the characters and setting feel so realized and alive in the four episodes they were around, and the actual players are incredible. i love the lore it introduced, i love the specter of vespin chloras over the narrative, i love how much presence asmodeus has and how well brennan plays such a master manipulator. and the INTRO??? why isn't the intro released as a single it's so good

-i've only had fy'ra rai and morrighan for a day and a half. if anything happened to them i'd kill everyone in the crown keepers

-i love the kinds of concepts and narratives that taliesin considers for his characters and how deeply he thinks through their presence in the world. he's thought so much about whitestone and both what it used to be like and how it's changed since C1, and while i've only watched the m9 twoshot, lucien/molly/kingsley is such an interesting idea (and i just really like kingsley). ashton is also an absolute joy to watch, and i'm so curious about their backstory and lore. taliesin has a knack for portraying characters who have very strong moral and personal beliefs but would rather coexist in a world with others' than enforce their own, which is probably why i like percy and ashton so much in particular. i also really enjoy his sense of humor; it's very dry and snarky with just the right amount of gothic whimsy.

-simply put. Travis Good. even back when he was playing grog, who is on paper a pretty simple character concept, he just couldn't help but give him a compelling and interesting backstory—and when he had to show off his acting chops, he DELIVERED. the depth that he gives his characters and the enthusiasm he has for the lore of the world are so burr-coded. cerrit in particular was an absolute tour de force and just watching travis go for whatever decisions he's going to make is incredible. he's also absolutely hilarious and his comedic timing is underrated. i mean, southerner to southerner, game recognize game.

-laura bailey!! i'm so fascinated by her consistent narratives about masks and coping mechanisms, and i love the fact that she's willing to make her PCs unlikable. she embraces their flaws and their virtues and just plays them so naturally. you have to read between the lines sometimes with her characters or you risk falling for the fronts they put up, and i love that kind of subtlety! she also doesn't feel the need to walk anyone through those choices, which i also appreciate; she simply plays them as they are, and however you react to that is up to you. i admit i'm interested in the alternate universe where laura played a character in calamity—marisha absolutely nailed it as patia, but i'm also interested in what laura would have done at that table.

-welcome to tal'dorei? oh my GODS that album is spectacular, especially the title track

-lastly, i genuinely enjoy the fandom experience! i've met some really cool people and made some really good friends here, and i love the creativity, especially of fanartists. i've learned so much about narrative and storytelling from reading different people's analyses, i've learned more about art from the fanart community, and overall i feel like the people i've met and the experiences i've had have helped me grow as a person.

anyway thank you for encouraging some positivity! i enjoy writing meta and critical analysis is really fun for me, but it's nice to take a step back and remember all the things i love. <3

#asks #critical role

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delta-orionis · 27 days

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Tuesday Again No Problem 4/2/24

I feel like this is one of those weeks where I was extremely busy but accomplished very little...

Listening

Earlier this week I felt compelled to go back and listen to some of the songs by AURORA that were featured in that Sky: Children of the Light concert from a while ago.

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This song in particular is one that I'd love to create a music video for if I had the skill or patience.

Because I have Rain World on the brain, it brings to mind a slugcat (Survivor and Monk in particular) who are just focused on survival but slowly start to become aware of exactly why the world around them functions the way it does.

Watching

My Well There's Your Problem marathon continues. The most recent episode I listened to was this one about the Y2K Bug:

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(Again, it's kind of cheating for me to put a podcast with slides in the watching section, but I haven't really been watching anything else...)

Reading

Fallow this week.

Playing

I'm back to playing Rain World.

I was putting off beating the Artificer campaign, so I finally said "fuck it", and killed the Scavenger king in a very anticlimactic way by just chucking a singularity bomb at them.

In other news, I started a Hunter playthrough. I'm going to admit up front that I cheated in extra cycles for myself because I know for sure I will not be able to beat the game in under 25. To be honest I kind of wanted to do a relatively normal run where I can take my time and also be a carnivore.

Oh, and I have slugpups unlocked, so I keep finding the little guys everywhere. (They're hard to keep alive, unfortunately...)

My adventures have so far included...

Getting bullied by squidcadas,

Watching vultures beat the shit out of each other,

And witnessing one of the strongest enemies in the game get electrocuted to death right in front of me.

I finally reached Five Pebbles today. I got to him by climbing The Wall by way of Chimney Canopy, which isn't the route I usually take. I also made the (probably foolish) decision to take the long way out and go through his interior to access the Underhang. That might have been a bad idea, but Five Pebbles is one of my favorite areas in the game and I didn't want to miss an opportunity to pass through it. The Underhang sucks, though. If I get too frustrated I might just go back up through the inside (since fast travel isn't available for Hunter).

Making

I haven't made much progress on my crochet projects this week. I am getting close to finishing that granny square tote bag, though. I started the tedious process of weaving in all the loose ends.

I've also been revising that post I mentioned last week about trying to estimate how big Rain World's iterators are. My initial estimate was WAY too big, I think, and I've been debating even keeping it in the post at all. For the sake of clarity it might be best to delete it, even though I went through the trouble of making some diagrams for it... I'll think about it some more.

In addition, I’m continuing to worldbuild for my iterator OC. I made a rough layout of their facility grounds:

The idea is that they sit on top of a mountain, where their rain freezes into several glaciers which flow down to the base. At the base are twelve dams which collect the water, arranged like a big clock.

This “clock” is broken up into six sectors which serve different functions, and have analogues to the regions from the game (noted above in parentheses). I’d like to make a more polished map, maybe some time in the future.

I also posted some doodles the other day (featuring the same OC being smacked in the face)

This coming week, I'm traveling to the path of totality for the April 8th solar eclipse. Because I'll be traveling, I can't imagine I'll have much to report in terms of the Tuesdaypost, but I guess we'll see.

#tuesdayposting

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satancopilotsmytardis · 9 months

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I don't think you've had a headcannon so far that I haven't also shared and it's great. Honestly I'd love to hear anything about your headcannons and/or reasonings behind your Shigadabi and (Shigadabihawks) relationships. And also Duster is the superior nickname and I can't remember were I first saw it either.. huh... I'd just like to let you know I still haven't gotten the dog teeth series off my mind so I've been re-reading everything you've written (in bnha, I still haven't finished all your gravity falls fics I'm getting there tho), I've gotten stuck on your talk to me series as it's probably my favourite at the moment but I can't figure out why? It's just so feely? So if your open to it, sharing anything about those particular fics or I dead would be greatly appreciated. Also every time I read or re-read another one of your fics it seems to become my favourite, your writing is just so compelling :)

Howdy, so! Thank you for the kind words on my writing overall, but I'm about to show my whole ass because I'm gonna be really, really honest over both Talk To Me and Dog Teeth. We're gonna start with Talk To Me and Dog Teeth will have a little aside for triggering content before I get into that one later on!

Talk To Me was entirely written because I wasn't satisfied with the amount of Shigaraki's dirty talk in Say Something Nice. Like my main goal with Say Something Nice was to play with praise kink and dirty talk and while that piece was fine, I didn't feel like I pushed it far enough. So A Way With Words was created in response and I just pushed those themes harder.

As for them being 'feely' I think that just comes from the fact that my writing focuses a lot on introspection. Like for pieces that don't have a strong external conflict, which a lot of my smut centered fics don't, the conflict in the story needs to come from somewhere internal. Since I'm playing in a sandbox with established characters it then becomes a matter of looking at their personalities and then picking what to heighten or what would clash with the world/desires of the other characters around them that would push the plot forward. In A Way With Words specifically I heightened Dabi's desire to not get too involved with the rest of the League. This creates an emotional conflict on two fronts. The first is that Shigaraki obviously and actively wants to be involved with Dabi and is seeking him out. But it also creates a secondary conflict internally with Dabi who wants attention and connection very badly, but has been denied it by himself and others for years. This is why I can even tell the story at all because obviously if he was just like 'yeah let's bone' from the start then there wouldn't really be anything but the smut to write, and I personally don't think that's as satisfying. I think that when stories use internal conflict as the backbone of the plot, that puts a lot of emphasis on the inner world and emotions of the character(s) and that may be why it's more noticeable in the stories where I use that as a major form of conflict. (Spoiler, if you've noticed this tone across almost all of my writing, it's because I almost always include an internal conflict and give it significant weight in the story even if there is an external one happening too.)

Internal conflict is actually also the reason that this went from a one-shot to a duology. I really wrote A Way With Words not intending to do anything else with that world but after it sat with me for a little while I realized that while Dabi and Shigaraki were together, Dabi's internal conflict still hadn't fully resolved. He was still struggling to accept the depth of emotional intimacy that Shigaraki clearly had been broadcasting, and there was opportunity to show his struggles to be emotionally honest with himself about any kind of positive emotion. Hence him throughout that entire fic trying to 'protect' Shigaraki by tearing open a wound from his past and starting a frankly unneeded and kind of ridiculous investigation for months rather than just have a conversation about his feelings. This man does not know how to express himself without doing The Most and this was such a fun idea to add into play to go with the threads still hanging from the first part, this fic earned itself an unintended sequel.

Now we're gonna talk Dog Teeth and I probably won't be going in depth about all of these elements but please be aware that this series contains explicit sexual assault, physical/psychological torture, graphic descriptions of violence, and abusive relationships, so if you want to dip on this post here, then that's completely valid and please take care of yourself!

This series was really just born of "What if I wrote something really fucked up?" That was the main thought. I really emphasize consent and communication in my fics, what would it look like if I did the opposite? From there I just kind of busted out some psychology stuff like specifically how cults indoctrinate people and started to formulate how that would look if applied to my favorite son, Dabi. Then I just wanted to make sure I was keeping an internal logic so that nothing in the story was included for the sake of shock value or anything like that. Like throughout the story there are several explicit scenes of sexual assault, each one established a significant setup or had a payoff that was foreshadowed by earlier scenes. The very first establishes that assault will be a consistent threat and violence inflicted on him, and there are quite a few times Dabi mentions being 'used' that the readers don't see because I didn't feel the need to retread scenes like that which didn't actively contribute to the plot. I found it very interesting to play with the idea of what it would take to tear down someone's sense of identity in All Over Me, and in A Matter of Perspective it was very fun to explore how the abuse was being hidden as well as show that everything done throughout the first story was an active, methodical, and deliberate manipulation by Shigaraki-- even if the final results were 'better' than he'd expected.

In my opinion Dog Teeth is definitely one of the tightest series I've written and while it has some very uncomfortable content, it's definitely in my top three of things I've written.

Phew, okay, that was so long, sorry! I mean, you read my fics, you know I'm horribly verbose, but that was more talking than I'd planned on, whoops. Hope this was? Interesting? Informative? I have no idea, but I hope you got something out of this!

#Showing my whole ass and writing degree in this one lads #apologies if it comes off as pretentious but you all know I'm just out here writing anime villain smut #Also oh my god i did not mean to talk that much jesus fuck #tanco speaks #tanco's meta #ask #asks

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thereallivingded · 13 days

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8 months

Nearly 8 months have passed since I blogged. Damn.

I apologize profusely if anyone was interested in my ramblings. I have zero excuses other than life got hard. Full time job. Which I hated profusely - not that I'm not going to be working full time again soon - tends to bring on crushing depression when I feel stuck in it. Which I did, and I was. When you are paid bi-weekly and you see that entire paycheck go to your cost of living.. well. It doesn't do good things to your psyche. Energy levels get low and all that extra you had energy for before gets used up with day to day survival. Getting out of bed. Getting to work. Feeding yourself. Cleaning your house. Squeezing in workout (a thing I do now).

It's not all bad I suppose. I've finally been able to interview for and obtain a position that will not only net me a raise but be closer to home. Hopefully, that should get me more free time to pursue the things I actually enjoy.

I'd like to say that in this time I've been able to tackle my backlog of Steam games. But. Well. BG3 happened. And I spent even more time in the game than I had in early access. It's maddening how much time I've sunk into Faerun. I have no regrets though.

The only thing really that's kept me from finishing my campaign - as I am in Act 3 - is my computer. I haven't upgraded the beast since 2020 or 2021-ish. And it's starting to show. My mobo is acting extraordinarily peculiar. Sometimes I'll walk away from my computer to come back a couple hours later and find it stuck in bios. Super fun. The connection to the mobo gets wiggled a little and everything pops back on. Super. However, anything heavy to run - like BG3 - tends to get very crash-y.

Again. Super.

T.T

AND. Due to my financial constraints because of the job I recently left, I was completely unable to fix this. I'm hoping with the advent of the new job, getting a few paychecks in to stabilize, I can rectify the problems. Hopefully.

I started a couple of fanfics for the first time ever. I am ridiculously shy about them. My writing skills have become so sodding rusty. The stories came to me while I was playing BG3 and I was compelled to write them down. Note now, that the frequency of updates directly reflects the time I have to invest in them. So keep that in mind.

Be gentle on me here lol!

I have been able to get some gaming done. I have ceased playing Back 4 Blood, as it became no longer supported by its dev team. A sad move really. The gaming industry as a whole has become this parasitic beast. Devs work on a game for an extremely limited amount of time and abandon it the moment it becomes less lucrative than their board of directors care for.

There is a trend towards monetization of minutiae and online play in inappropriate genres, that has become an insidious infection in the game industry. It robs us of good game development. There's this mentality of more, more, now that's just slow poison to the whole beast. It makes everything very same-y and boring.

Which is why I strive at this point in my life, to not give money to the companies which I feel are most guilty of this. The only way to make these corporations listen is to hit them in the $. As such I will probably be carefully curating any games I discuss or mention on this blog from here on. My next post will likely be discussing a visual novel I've spent some time in that I equal parts enjoyed and became frustrated with. So that's in the pipeline. Until then keep to the lights lovies. <3

#gaming #gamer life #pc games #gamer problems #steambacklog

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dragonomatopoeia · 1 year

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Hello, would it be okay to ask what kind of horror games you've enjoyed? Please feel free to disregard! I saw from Stella's post/tags that you enjoy tragedy in horror and I find that concept very compelling.

I can definitely throw a few game recs out there! I will say, Stella might have been overselling it a bit by saying I like tragedy-- it's more that i tend to have more tolerance for when characters die and horror that makes me feel Very Sad than Stella and Alicia do.

Accordingly, some of these are going to skew more meditative/sad than horror, and some will skew more towards horror than sad, but I'll be sure to make note of each

Oxenfree was already recc'd by Stella, but I'm seconding it here. I'm a big fan of horror that plays with the resentment and wistfulness and 'tu fui ego eris' of ghosts. I also love the use of radios in horror. Something about attempting to establish contact or mutual intelligibility and it going horribly wrong (that's also a feature I really enjoy in the Silent Hill games, but i imagine that those need no introduction)

Stella also recc'd Anatomy (which I made her play for me because I was too scared) and if a game about a house that is so resentful of being abandoned that it begins to lash out sounded interesting to you, Kitty Horrorshow has made a lot more games where that one came from. Jacob Geller has made a video about one of the collections if you'd like to preview the offerings on display

I'd also like to second the rec for Devotion. It's a beautifully told and terrifying game that explores the tragedy of a family that is pushed to their breaking point and exploited by a religious movement

Lobotomy Corporation is a game I haven't completely finished yet because I've only been playing it whenever i stream for my friends, but it draws on a lot of creepypasta and SCP influences. Mostly, however, it draws on "Capitalism is Evil and Soulsucking" influences. it's a management sim where you are in charge of a facility and have to extract energy from Abnormalities. it has extremely punishing gameplay, compelling characters, and every mechanic (and i do mean every mechanic) is diegetic.

Because I haven't finished it, I haven't played the sequel, Library of Ruina, which my friends assure me will absolutely decimate me with themes and agonies and emotions and time prison

What Remains of Edith Finch isn't really a horror game so much as it is a story of a family's experiences and relationship with death, as well as how they experience and process it. Playing as Edith, you explore the Finch family home, learning more about the curse that has followed each generation of the Finches through the mechanism of the stories they tell about themselves and each other. Most of the game-play is a hybrid of Walking Simulator and interactive segments where you have to pilot each Finch to their inevitable death

Likewise, Outer Wilds isn't so much a horror game as a game that has scary aspects, scenes, and sequences. The primary mechanic of the game is reliant on you being stuck in a timeloop and attempting to determine why and how, as well as attempting to discover how to save everyone from the sun exploding

I've only played a bit of Everybody's Gone to The Rapture , but it has a very Twilight Zone tone and feel to it. Whether or not this is a horror game could be contested, but I've had enough recurring nightmares of everyone I love vanishing overnight for this to be Terrifying. The gameplay is pretty firmly on the walking simulator side

I haven't played The Mortuary Assistant yet because it freaks stella and alicia out and I'm too scared to play it alone. However, the idea of fighting against demonic possession while embalming bodies and confronting your own past is compelling to me.

Also there are quite a few visual novels I've read that grapple with horror and tragedy, like the When They Cry series (content warnings for everything you can possibly imagine in there) or Zero Escape. I've been meaning to play The House in Fata Morgana for a while but I know i'll need to shake my friends down for content warnings on that one before I can even begin to approach it

I might update or add to this later because I recently downloaded a bunch of itchio games, including Hypnagogia and the 2022 Haunted PS1 Demo Disc, and I def want to check those out before I start scattering recs willy-nilly

I hope at least a few of these will pique your interest! You're also welcome to hop in with more specific requests for direction or places to look, as there are a few horror or horror-leaning games I've left out because I was pretty lukewarm about them and their endings, but might still fit the bill of what you're looking for (ie The Vanishing of Ethan Carter). Likewise, there are some games I know of but haven't played for myself if you'd like some direction re: games with mechanics, style, and tone that you might be interested in checking out

#asks #SORRY THIS GOT LONG i like making lists #long post #horror games #recs #dreamsaflame

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davidmariottecomics · 4 months

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Best of 2023

Hi there,

This week, we're celebrating the 2 year anniversary of my website and blog (well, just under 2 years, it officially launched on Jan 1). So, to round out this year with the blog and in general, I thought I'd do a little roundup of my personal "Best of" 2023. This is more a list of stuff I really dug this year than a formal ranking of any sort, and a lot of this isn't necessarily new in 2023, so much as stuff I discovered (and rediscovered) this year! Some things will get a little extra blurb, some things will just be listed. Alright, without further ado, my best of 2023!

PODCASTS: Dungeons & Daddies - Legitimately, 90% of my podcast listening this year was either Dungeons & Daddies or Blank Check. I don't even think I meant for it to be like that, it's just how it happened. As a work of collaborative fiction, I really love Dungeons & Daddies. It's a super funny show and this past week-ish, I've been relistening to Season 2 so far and have just been delighting in it. Blank Check My Year in MENSA Solve This Murder The Real Housewives of Dungeons & Dragons Abandoning the Premise - Haven't heard of it? Well so far, there's only one episode and it's exclusive to my Patreon! But it was fun and I'd like to revisit in the future!

VIDEO GAMES: Reverse 1999 Honkai Star Rail - I am very bad at playing updating video games. It doesn't come naturally to me. I am not someone who completes a lot of games--if I am really gripped by something, I'll finish the story, but I'm not very good about new game plus and 100% runs or anything like that. So, what usually happens with games like this is I get to a point where I am caught up and then I take a break because something else catches my eye or I have less time or I just feel like there's not a lot to do with where I'm at in the game and when I next try to dip in, I feel too far behind. That's definitely where I am with HSR right now, but I'm hoping to take some of my remaining time off to actually try to play and enjoy it again. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog Detective Pikachu Returns - This was a Christmas gift and it's delightful! A lot of the puzzle-solving is very easy, but, I dunno, I like hanging out with my friends the Pokemon.

COMICS: Nancy Chainsaw Man Milky Way by Miguel Vila - Another Christmas gift, this book is beautifully ugly. It is a semi-erotic relationship-thriller that I think does a very good job of balancing the grotesqueness of human nature and interpersonal relations with a sort of soft loving lens of what compels us toward each other, even when it's at our expense. There's deception and injury and fetishization presented in ways that remind you why they're often treated as morally repugnant, but also are so attractive to us so often. Superman Kaguya-Sama: Love is War 17-21 The Rock Cocks Witch Watch - Every Sunday morning, I read through my "webcomics" of the week. I hit up Webtoon and catch up on anything there, then hop to Shonen Jump and read my new stuff there. Consistently, Witch Watch is probably my favorite read each Sunday morning, just because it almost never misses weeks and the characters are all just so delightful. Even with the current storyline being kinda weird (one of the main characters has been turned from a teen into a toddler and is being kinda raised by her romantic interest...) there's such a solid core of thoughtfulness and care and humor that I think it just always works. Spy x Famiy Lore Olympus Girl Taking Over: A Lois Lane Story Birds of Prey Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville - I recently talked on my Patreon about how I think playing backseat editor and coming up with "a book that would really get readers to the shop regularly again" isn't practical because I think there are other things that could bolster comic sales in longer-lasting, better ways and I think particularly with the current state of the readership, "comics readers" aren't looking for a unifying title, they're looking for the stuff they find personally compelling. I'm a guy in comics, I have a lot to say on that and how to improve things, but that's for another day. Why I bring it up here is between Birds of Prey and Fire & Ice, those are the books that if there was justice in this world would bring all the boys to the yard. These are the exact kind of superhero titles I wanna read all the time. Poison Ivy: Thorns Superman: The Harvests of Youth Dumbing of Age One Piece Crimehot - Crimehot #4 came out this year and includes the Cassidy and Butch to our main group's Jessie and James (That's a Team Rocket reference), the way more competent counterparts who all have weirdly deep backstories with the main cast. And let me tell you... like the name says, they're hot. And they do hot stuff. It's a good comic. Steamy Dandadan - I was recently gushing about Dandadan to some friends and described it as really hitting me as a comic that is so very much a book about whatever interests the creator at the moment (similar to Witch Watch in that way). If you read the pitch, it's like "she believes in ghosts and not aliens, and he believes in aliens and not ghosts and then wacky stuff happens to make a believer out of both of them" but it's really a light rom-com with just bonkers stuff happening and I love that about it. Three Rocks: The story of Ernie Bushmiller, the Man Who Created Nancy It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth What Happens Next - This is a webcomic I discovered not too long ago and there are content warnings on the very first page that I think are very helpful to make sure you're in the right headspace for it. I am a big fan of stories about younger adults finding their place in the world--not a coming of age "taking your first steps into real life" kind of thing, but a "you've been around for a while and life is hard and even if you're doing the right things, or nothing at all, why isn't it better and what comes next" types of stoires. This totally fits that. And it reads incredibly quickly since it's usually 1-2 panels per page.

BOOKS: Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror - I look at my comics list and I look at the things I didn't place on either list and I know I read plenty this year, but it does feel strange having such a short list for traditional books. There's a lot to that: I spent like 6 weeks spending all my free reading time catching up on 1100 chapters of One Piece. I started a handful of books that I was enjoying but for one reason or another paused and didn't really pick back up. And so while this is the most recent release on the list, Out There Screaming was a major help for me because it was something I could pick up and read in short bursts and leave satisfied and wanting to come back for more. Every story--even the ones that I didn't like as much, was compelling and fun and left me thinking about it afterwards. House of Leaves Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs - Book of the year. I don't even eat hot dogs, but I loved this book! I'm Glad My Mom Died The Broken Room

TV SHOWS: Poker Face Craig of the Creek Rise of the TMNT Transformers: Earthspark I Think You Should Leave - Out of everything we've consumed this year, I think ITYSL is the most quoted show in our household (though Real Housewives of Beverly Hills/Vanderpump Rules are close contenders). So much of this show is so funny and strange. The Rehersal Barry My Adventures with Superman Praise Petey - Without a doubt, Praise Petey is the least known show on this list. And because of that, as I just found out, it was canceled after a single season which sucks. The premise is after her cult leader dad dies, a down-on-her-luck New Yorker moves to the countryside and becomes a cult leader... whether she wants to or not and her own feelings on that differ minute-by-minute. Despite the broad premise, it's pretty in line with other animated sitcoms like Bob's Burgers or King of the Hill (it is a Mike Judge co-production) that I think speaks in an authentic, funny voice of the 18-35 demographic. If you like Only Murders in the Building, I think this has a similar energy, but hornier and with more of the concerns of youth than of old men. Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake Sex Education - Okay, I know I said I wasn't doing rankings, but as an overall piece of media, I think Sex Education is my show of the year. The last season, the one that came out this year, isn't my favorite of the series, but when so many shows flub their endings, this one really found a way to nail it (and to roll with the more major cast/location changes) in a way that felt real. This is one of those shows that, if it was available on DVD, I would buy to add to my "regular rotation", but much like Freaks and Geeks, I'd only ever be able to watch some of it again because as it got closer to the end, I don't know that I'd be able to emotionally take that on a regular basis. Joe Pera Talks with You Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

MOVIES: The Boy and the Heron The Fablemans - I have very complicated feelings about this movie. On the one hand, I really loved it on first viewing. It hit me emotionally in a major way. I've talked on the blog before about crying multiple times in the theater. And if you had asked me in the first half of the year what my favorite movie of the year was, it'd probably be this (even though it's technically a 2022 film). But I also have my issues with Steven Spielberg and... it is a film where I'm still navigating my own emotional catharsis with it relative to Spielberg as an artist/creator/subject of the film. Not to get too far into real issues of death of the author and separation of the art and artist, this is the sort of hyper-personal work that even moreso than usual I think cannot be separated from the creator and so my changing feelings on him means I'm still figuring out my new relationship with the work. M3GAN Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem - Up until recently, this probably would've moved into the movie of the year spot. I just thought it was so much fun. It's a visual feast. I like that it's a full story (Sorry, Spider-Verse). I love the world and the enthusiasm of the turtles and just really tuned in. Robocop Phantom of the Paradise - Becca watched this for the first time with me and we both marveled on how this kind of forgotten cult film actually informed so much of all pop culture for decades to come. I am happy to say that overall, still slaps. Venture Bros: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart Blue Beetle Gone Girl - I ended up watching a lot of Fincher movies this year, largely influenced by Blank Check. And Gone Girl has to be my favorite of his, and, on this rewatch, one of my favorite films of the 2010s. Oldboy Josee, the Tiger and the Fish Godzilla: Minus One - Again, not to rank things so much, but if Minus One did an Oscars sweep and took home (checks notes) every award, I'd be happy. Even the ones that don't make sense. Best Documentary Short? Give it to Godzilla, cowards! An absolute masterpiece on every level.

MUSIC: The Loveliest Time - Look, we got a new CRJ album. What else do you want from me?

OTHER STUFF: A smooth transition from IDW into the holidays (and into my new thing soon) Making a Discord for my friends and the feeling that I can spend a little time making my friendships stronger with some folks while we aren't also coworkers/collaborators. Bluesky (and not being on Twitter). Remaining boosted on my vaccines and not having any serious illness of my own. Becca's first year on Twitch. My first year on Patreon. WaifuExpo (now KimochiiCon) and generally being more open in my interest in consuming and creating adult material. Having some good experiences at shows and doing so many (will not be doing so many in 2024). Having good times with the people I love. All the comics I edited, all the blogs I posted, and just being at an end to that for the year.

Not to be a bummer at the end, but it has been a long, strange, difficult year. There is so much wrong in the world and so many are struggling. So, it's nice that there is also so much that I found enjoyment and comfort in. I hope you've had some real bright spots in this year too, and I look forward to next year with you.

I am not much for resolutions. I usually don't do a good job of them, if I bother to make them at all. But I do have some things I'll briefly say I'm excited for in the coming year.

I am excited to get married and to figure out what celebrations we can do around that. I am excited to start this new job and tell you all about it when I can. I am excited to make more comics. Besides my little self-drawn things that you can find on this blog, I didn't release any comics this year and I am very much looking forward to that not being the case in 2024. I am excited to grow my friendships. I am excited to continue this blog.

Thanks for reading. Happy new year!

New Releases next week (1/3/2024): Sonic the Hedgehog #68 (Editor)

Pic of the Week: A little thing about where else to find me online that I made.

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