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animehouse-moe · 7 months

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Well, Tumblr decided to bug out on me and I've now lost the original question that was asked, but someone had asked for my favorite series (be it manga/anime/movies/Tv/etc), and this was my response.

(first of all, so sorry for losing the question! I should have taken a screenshot or something when Tumblr wouldn't let me post)

It's all good, I enjoy getting these types of questions because they make me think about this stuff haha. I'm not one to really do well with the idea of favorites, so having to pin down stuff like this can be interesting for me!

That said, for this one I might just stick with anime for the list to make it a little easier. I can definitely do a top ten of manga or other stuff later on though. Also, this list will be in no particular order because I'd be stuck forever trying to figure out a satisfying order for them.

Sonny Boy

I think it's a very fair point to argue, that at this stage in his career, Sonny Boy is Shingo Natsume's magnum opus. There's just not much else to it. It's a series that he created, from his own mind and talent, and he executed on that. There are very, very few people that work in anime that can manage a feat such as that. In terms of story, I don't have any issue with claiming Sonny Boy is the pinnacle of high school storytelling. It stretches the fabric of reality so far that you might struggle to claim that it's about high school, but the longer that you spend with it, the more undeniable a fact it becomes. Or maybe you could generalize it to the human condition, or how the cracks in society will fester and form no matter the condition, or how authority will always appear in a self-serving manner, or this or that or any concept under the sun.

Terror In Resonance

Call me crazy, but there's quite a few reasons why this is the Shinichiro Watanabe anime for me. Bebop and Champloo have rose colored glasses that adorn every fan in the community, so I feel like it's hard to really take a proper look at it compared to Terror In Resonance (even though it has a similar amount of users on MAL). As a Mappa project, it is simply the best they've ever been from start to finish. As a concept, Watanabe's approach is impeccable as it examines the frustration and sorrow of displaced children in a society that never wanted them. It's powerful, concise, and from start to finish an incredibly focused series filled with some of the crowning achievements of animators in the industry. Seriously. Takashi Hashimoto, the animator for this cut, actually did all the math to calculate the speed of the smoke as it fell and moved. Some of the best work you'll see on an anime.

Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song

I am a big, big fan of Tappei Nagatsuki's work, so being able to experience an anime that is entirely his vision of the work is really impressive. It's one of the biggest struggles with artists, I find. Understanding their work through different mediums. What you see as an anime is not what they created as a manga, or light novel. But this is different, it is Nagatsuki's (and Umehara's) sole vision, the entire intent behind their creativity. And WIT knocked it out of the park to an insane degree. As a post-AoT studio, they showed just how far they can push their creativity and execution on a series beyond human. Incredible story, incredible animation, arguably some of the best hand to hand combat we've seen in an anime in a very long time. It's just that good.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

Maybe you see a trend going on with my picks, and while yes it's partly recency bias, it's also a gravitation towards anime originals. I'll add a piece to that at the end, but this is about Edgerunners right now. I was in high school when the video game was first announced. That's a decade ago, now. I played the shit out of 2077 when it dropped, and I'm absolutely eating up Phantom Liberty currently. It is then, absolutely no surprise, that I've placed Edgerunners on a pedestal. But of course, there's also a reason that Edgerunners is in the top 100 anime on MAL, and why it's Trigger's highest rated anime. It's just that damn good. An incredible story revolving around Night City and the themes that Mike Pondsmith laid the groundwork for decades ago. A true tribute to the tabletop game and the genre at large.

The Tatami Galaxy

I don't think there's a way I couldn't put The Tatami Galaxy on this list, truthfully. Of course, that also encompasses the sequel ONA The Time Machine Blues, and spinoffs like The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl. Tomohiko Morimi is a genius, Yusuke Nakamura is an icon, and Masaaki Yuasa is a savant. Incredible work for such an incredible story and message about the pursuit of perfection and the beauty that lies in the present. Arguably, much like titles such as Sonny Boy, these are 100% must watch titles for an anime fan. I'd highly recommend the others still, but these two represent such core and important aspects to how people choose to lead their lives and the frameworks that they do so within, that I strongly believe it's a requirement. I also wrote a review on the novel when I read it in January of this year.

Heike Monogatari

I think history is a very important thing to understand. I also think that history can be presented as obtuse, disinteresting, or too literal - especially in relation to history stories or myths. Heike Monogatari by Science Saru is arguably one of the greatest examples of how to display a modernized version of such a foundational tale to the history of Japan. It's also an incredibly powerful moment for the director, Naoko Yamada, as it was their first real work since the arson attacks on her home studio of Kyoto Animation. Because of the weight of her past, her work beyond words on this anime feels that much more powerful considering its messages about the past and fear of the future. It's wonderfully emotional, and contains one of my favorite closing scenes to a series.

The Saga of Tanya The Evil

Light novel aside, anime quality aside (though both are great), there's a separate reason this title is featured on this list: the adaptation. It is, for lack of a better term, borderline insane as an adaptation. It bears almost no similarity to its source. The tone is different, the scope and scale differ, there's significant changes in terms of narrative, and even the order of large scale events differs. But still, somehow, it remains a fantastic series. Bearing nearly zero resemblance to what it claims to adapt, it is something that I love. It's an incredible feat, and the gold standard of its one-of-a-kind approach to adapting a light novel.

Mononoke

Horror is a very hard thing to do right, at least in my opinion. Many get suckered into thriller territory very quickly, and avoid the psychological nature of horror. The immovable nature of something fearful standing in front of you, the slow descent into madness and despair. Mononoke grasps that incredibly well, and earns a spot on this list because of it's appeal in that manner. Also, the art is just incredible, personifying the more classical style that would be associated with the creatures and myths that pepper the story. I'm incredibly excited to see what comes from the upcoming movie.

Welcome To The N.H.K

While it may differ between its three formats, the core of the story stands strong. Impossible to put into words, it's more of a descent than anything. A descent that turns inwards on each of the characters as they slowly lose their grip on reality, as they continue to fall apart, piece by piece. I have my qualms about how they choose to end it, but I am a very bitter man at my core so it's more a personal difference than a quality one. Regardless, if you want an acid trip down the rabbit hole of depression, mania, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and all manner of other illness, there's no better story than Welcome To The N.H.K.

Toradora!

There's something special about Toradora to me. Is it the era that the anime comes from? Is it the appeal to a classic style of romance without falling prey to the issues of the layout? I'm unsure. But something about it feels so… comfortable, to me. I could watch it again and again and enjoy each minute. It's probably not the best romance anime out there, but it's one that I'll always be drawn to.

And with that, the list is over. Just to provide some extra context and honorable mentions, I'd love to have put series like Alien 9 or Monogatari on the list, but the challenge with them is the fact that the first is a shorter OVA, and the latter is a much larger series encompasses nearly too much to explain in this sort of context. There's really quite a few series like that that I struggled with when forming this list, but they're still really great titles nonetheless.

Anyways, the anime original point. While it's sort of an unconscious thing, I do realize what I do with it. Anime originals present something that you can't experience elsewhere. They are the end all be all of their creative vision, and that excites me more than a manga adaptation. Following someone else's blueprint vs creating your own, obviously one is more interesting than the other. And that sentiment extends to some of the other titles on the list like Heike Monogatari which approaches a classic story with a radical new viewpoint, or Tanya The Evil which basically forgoes the vast majority of its source material. It's really something I struggle with at large with adaptations. So many people want to leave their marks on the work, but quit just short of doing so in a meaningful manner. Very few go the mile to say that they did something in regards to the work, and instead meddle with it in minor ways which can negatively impact its reception as the original material. A great example of valuable changes is Heavenly Delusion. The team under Hirotaka completely re-arrange the order of events in the anime, and in doing so elevate the series in a way that only they can. Anyways, I digress, a discussion that I should leave for another time. This is my list, it may not be the best list out there, but it is mine.

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utilitycaster · 10 months

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Just wondering.... why is the Imodna codependency such an issue meanwhile no one had a problem with the codependency between Widobrave?

Hi anon, this is a great question!

I've actually covered this - I don't think their situations are as comparable as many people think! Here's the post about that in case you haven't seen it. And, as the anon in that post points out, Widobrave did get a lot of pushback and hate, actually. It sounds like you might be very new to the fandom, so I want to give some gentle advice: it's worth being careful about assuming a certain form of discourse did not occur. Often, it has. I understand it's difficult to prove a negative (ie, that Widobrave did not receive hate) and it's even more difficult to do so via the Tumblr search, but Caleb and Veth's relationship was frequently criticized, diminished, and treated as not just insistently platonic, but also strictly familial. But back to the original question: I think that Caleb and Veth far more quickly built other relationships and were able to express anger with each other - Veth's outburst towards Caleb in episode 48 is a standout moment that resulted in a greater understanding, and I think I'd feel much more positively towards Imogen and Laudna as a potential romance had Laudna been able to make the same accusation, that Imogen's people did this. Was it a fair accusation from Veth? No! But it eventually cleared the air, whereas Imogen and Laudna keep sweeping everything under the rug, ignoring that the rug is now so lumpy they can barely walk without failing.

Another reason is simple numbers and recency. Widobrave, as of this post, has about 280 fics on ao3. Imodna has 1,085. This increased popularity may indeed lead to increased scrutiny. We're also, as the previous paragraph hints, talking about a ship that is in an ongoing campaign, so you're going to see far more posts talking about it than a ship from a past campaign, simply because it's still unfolding and is the subject of current discussion! Recency bias is a very real thing, and it can be difficult to adjust for, but when making this sort of comparison, it is vital to do so.

I would also be remiss if I did not address the elephant in the room, which is the nature of the fans who ship them. I'm sure this question is intended in earnest good faith, but I'm afraid I've gotten a pretty significant amount of harassment specifically from people who ship Imogen and Laudna together and don't like anyone who points out the flaws in their relationship. I've never received the same from people who shipped Caleb and Veth, despite never really shipping the latter, and indeed, and this is obviously my limited experience, but the people I follow who do ship Widobrave often embrace the flaws and conflict inherent in the ship. There are many Imodna shippers who are wonderful - especially those who do like to explore the flaws and codependency and how it might one day resolve - but, understandably, those few bad actors attempting to ignore the lack of development in the relationship or even worse, advocating for it, have really been very unpleasant to deal with. As a result, it's led me to consider more deeply why I find Imogen and Laudna's relationship uninteresting, romantically, and so that's probably another factor in why I specifically have explored Imogen and Laudna's issues far more than Caleb and Veth's. (For me personally, it's also that I was a lurker for the first year of the Mighty Nein campaign; I was binging Campaign 1 concurrently and didn't finish until July 2018, and didn't make this blog until around New Year's 2019, so I've written comparatively fewer thoughts about early Campaign 2). But getting back to the previous point, I think something people who send hate or baiting questions on anon may not always realize is that it often has the opposite effect as intended; it leads people to defend their opinions, and in doing so often strengthens their convictions as they find more evidence, which leads them to make even more posts!

Anyway, I hope this helps - obviously, this is only my perspective, and I sincerely hope anyone else of whom you ask this question extends the same good faith, honesty, and openness to other perspectives that you are bringing. I do however urge you to at minimum attempt to find some discussion from the era of early Campaign 2 to get a better understanding of how Widobrave was treated, just to ensure better responses to your inquiries. Anyway, welcome to the fandom!

#answered #Anonymous #cr tag

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amysterywrappedinanenigma · 2 months

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4, 34, 41, and one freebie from me. What is your current Vampire Count and how many days has it been since the last Incident :)

4. What has been your favorite d&d character you've played? (NPCs count for DMs)

Might just be recency bias, but I really really love playing Enna, my current spores druid PC. (More info about her here if anyone is interested.) I also ADORE Maggie, the character I played the last time I played through the same campaign with a different DM. I just love the arc of her story and I'm rotating certain moments from that campaign in my brain constantly. I really hope I get the chance to continue her story at some point.

34. Favorite accent to do for characters?

I'm pretty partial to a british accent, which is what I'm using for my current character, but southern is also a really fun one that I've used before.

41. Give an out of context quote from one of your games!

I'll give you two! Both of these are from the current campaign I'm playing in.

One serious one:

Enna: “I think it a kindness to ask. If the path of blood needs to be taken- Would you like to go with him?" (“I love staring my couple friends dead in the face and asking 'Do you want to die together?’” (Out of game quote, in response to the above))

And one silly one:

Kaz: “You know you can just wake me up like a normal person, right?" Enna: “Well, I did see you bash a giant snake's head into a wall so hard its skull was crushed yesterday, so I wasn't sure if your arm would shoot out and just fling me across the room." Kaz: "You know what, that's fair."

And what do you meeeeeeean I'm so normal about vampires and definitely haven't been bitten 4 times over the course of 3 separate campaigns run by two DMs. Am I the problem here? I think I might be the problem here.

(The count is still 4 but I'll make sure to update it if it happens again.)

I had almost made it to a year before the most recent incident 🥲

Dnd asks here!

#ty for the ask #and for exposing me as extremely bitable to anyone who sees this post #i'm gonna wear vampire fangs to the wedding/divorce #also if anyone wants to know more about Maggie feel free to ask #she's a permanent resident in my brain

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ziskandra · 1 year

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Fic Round Up 2022: Questions and Stats

I posted the actual list of fics in a separate post to keep things from getting too unwieldy! I produced 38 written works across 10 fandoms this year, which means that despite writing less than 2021, I actually dipped my toe into different waters! Thank you @queenaeducan, @mxanigel & @little--abyss for the tags! 💖 Now, onto the questions. Words posted: 68,731

Additional Words Written: Probably another 10k or so all up scattered across various half-written exchange treats...

Highest Kudos: At 69 kudos (nice) it's White Noise, my first, and so far only, foray into Hot Fuzz fic! Definitely could be tempted to write some Butterangel again. 🧈👼 Highest Kudos to Hits ratio: Possibly because of recency bias (it hasn't had time to accumulate more hits!), but it's with no place to go, the angsty Franziska ficlet I posted just before Christmas this year! (That being said, there are a few fics of mine with less hits, so I think it's doing well regardless 🥰)

Highest Hit Oneshot: two in the bush, a Cersei/Sansa fic I wrote for nonconathon this year. Never underestimate the power of porny fic in a large fandom: this work received four times as many hits as the next fic on the list (which was Kristoph/Phoenix hatesex).

New Things I Tried: I did a lot more drafting and rewriting and starting things earlier than I have in the past, and I think it's really improved the quality of my writing, and I've found that I actually quite enjoy it? Surprise, surprise, this was the first year I tried writing after starting ADHD meds 😅 (the autism really takes over once I can actually focus, lol.)

Fic I Spent the Most Time On: All's Fair, the arranged marriage Meresino fic I wrote in an exchange for @venatohru! I kept wanting to add things to it, and then a whole actual plot evolved that I had no hope of actually completing in the time allocated, so I had to then rework the actual fic I submitted to be properly standalone and ahh. It was so much fun, though! Still working on that sequel...

Fic I Spent the Least Time On: Funnily enough, also an exchange gift for @venatohru! This time, an Ace Attorney twincest fic, (be)longing. I literally sat down, wrote the first draft in forty minutes, and when I looked over it again a few days leter to edit, discovered it didn't really need much improvement!

Favorite Thing I Wrote: Basically anything from Orsino's POV, which is still a massive surprise to me. Here's a couple of my favourites. From Precipice:

And Orsino was so, so tired of losing more of his own to the crushing oppression of the Gallows. It had been bad enough when he had been an apprentice, templars breathing down the necks of those who didn’t learn fast enough, or conversely, those with too much ambition. Only those who were able to adequately toe the line between these two different types of danger had successfully escaped notice.

Fortunately, Orsino’s childhood in the alienage, what little of it he remembered, had served him well when it came to knowing when to keep his head down and when to speak up. Make too much noise, or too little, and one could disappear.

It was why his parents had said nothing when the templars had come for him. Better the Gallows than the alienage, better this than dead.

He’d always held onto the hope that so long as he lived to see another day, he might one day bear witness to a better world, and perhaps even be granted the chance to help shape it himself.

Only here in the Gallows would he, an elf, a mage, an elf and a mage, be granted such an opportunity. Only in this unique set of circumstances could Orsino be the kind of man who might ascend to the ranks of First Enchanter.

It hadn't mattered that no-one else had wanted it, that the chalice was tainted, nor that he had most likely signed his own inevitable death warrant. In the absence of a silver spoon in his mouth, or indeed, any spoon at all, Orsino would always make do with whatever scraps of success he could scavenge.

But also the entire masturbation scene in end and the beginning, wherein Meredith becomes an unwilling passenger in Orsino's body after The Last Straw and nobody's truly having a great time. A tinier snippet because I don't want to make this post too nsfw:

Meredith had known that someone like Orsino would find her actions indefensible long before the red lyrium had entrenched itself in the recesses of her mind, promising her the power to fix everything she had broken, the ability to save everyone she had failed —

I suppose, Orsino interrupted, dead is a type of safe.

Favorite Thing I Read: My reading tastes are wide and eclectic! (I've actually been working on a small project to do themed fic recs, starting with weekly DA recs, so keep an eye out for that!) If you're really burning for recs right now, my bookmarks are pretty reliable!

Writing Goals for 2023: I'm actually hoping to write less and read more. (Both in fandom and otherwise.) 😅 I'm planning on doing less exchanges and working on more of my own fic ideas.

Tagging: @ineffableaz, @venatohru, @darethshirl, @bogunicorn, @chocochipbiscuit, @syrupwit, @fandomn00blr, and YOU!

#as in please feel free to tag me if you do this I wanna see your stats too #tag memes #long post

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 year

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Just watched Josie Long’s 2014 show, Cara Josephine, and fucking hell. That is by far the best stand-up show I’ve seen this year, though to be fair it’s January second. Seriously though, that is the best stand-up comedy show I’ve seen in a long time (clarifying “seen” because that leaves out the audio-only Daniel Kitson stuff I was going on about earlier this week, but honestly this is right up there with that as well), which is saying something because I’ve been watching quite a few of those lately. Recency bias is too strong right now for me to say this objectively, but if I were to rank my favourites of all the stand-up shows I’ve ever seen, this one is up there.

Putting the rest behind a cut because I suspect it will get long-ish and rambly.

There’s this thing Josie Long is so good at doing, where she takes some dark subject matter but makes it feel uplifting and hopeful. And she doesn’t do it by minimizing that – she’ll get really into the darkness first, can vividly describe how bad it is and how it feels to face something so difficult, but then manages to find whatever scraps of beauty are in there and draw them out a little at a time. So you barely even realize that she’s bringing the dark material back to something brighter, until it’s already there and she’s tricked you into feeling hopeful about something. I’ve heard her do that in several of her other shows – to some extent, in all the other shows I’ve seen or heard from her – but I think she did it best in this one. I’ve liked all her stuff but this one might be best. She did it very, very well.

It's a bit surprising, because I love her political material, and this isn’t her most political show. It had some politics in it, but was mainly personal stuff. The personal stuff was just so good that I didn’t even wish she’d get back to the calls for socialist revolution (I mean, I’m glad she got back to that at some point, I just mean I went into the show expecting that, and didn’t even mind when it didn’t happen because what did happen was so very good).

It’s a breakup show, and breakup shows aren’t normally my favourite thing, though to be fair I did just go through my first breakup in ten years and that has me a bit more open to connecting with sort of thing (also there are always exceptions, which I feel the need to mention because The Darkness of Robins was one of the best stand-up shows I watched last year). But it’s not just a breakup show! It seemed like just a breakup show, as she was going into it, but then she brought us along through all these other things and by the end I felt (feel) like I just watched a show about family and resilience and people taking care of each other and not to be too cheesy (I mean, I guess it’s a bit late to say that in this post) but how to find hope when it’s really difficult.

And obviously, even though there was only a very small amount of explicitly political material, everything in Josie Long’s worldview and approaches to the subjects she covered are informed by her politics. Is that anything? Any chance the fact that my politics align with hers make me more likely to connect to her personal material as well, because I share the worldview that informs the way we see life on a smaller scale as well? Probably not, that’s probably nothing. I am still emotionally reeling from how good that show was right now, and probably writing stuff about it that won’t even make sense to me when I look back later. Like the post I made last week right after hearing the Daniel Kitson CD when I said I think he might have implicitly lied to us about the voice actor.

Here's something I think. Earlier last year, when I was first listening to Daniel Kitson’s stuff, in some of those early shows he complained a fair bit about people he disliked coming to his shows. I listened to that and didn’t understand it. I thought: “Who the hell is going to a Daniel Kitson show while being a shitty person?” Not just because I don’t think those people should be there, but because I don’t see why they would be. This is beautiful sensitive introspective material that surely would be of interest only to people who also go through life with care and compassion for their fellow human beings.

A few months ago now, while scouring the internet for comedy recordings, I came across archives of Daniel Kitson fans from 2006-2007-ish. I was shocked to find it validated everything Kitson said about his audience containing a lot of – to use his word – cunts. The cunts were only a few people 15+ years ago, and many other bits of that website are actually very cool. I’m feeling the need to clarify that because when I first found it, I wrote a post on here that pretty thoughtlessly called them all terrible people, and good experiences I’ve had since then make me feel bad about painting with such a broad brush. But these few particular Daniel Kitson fans, who were vocal at that particular time years ago, did make me understand that apparently, shitty people can like this stuff too.

I guess I could take that as a way to understand that even people who act in ways that I’d label as being shitty can also connect to introspective insightful material, because they also have rich and complex inner lives and personal approaches to the world that could even overlap with mine in some ways. I could try to understand them better based on that. But I don’t really want to.

The main thing that made me decide I hate those people is they could barely stay on topic in the Daniel Kitson thread without straying into discussions of that [insert various misogynistic descriptions here] Josie Long. Yes, it would have been technically possible in 2007 to dislike one of the only then-successful female comedians for non-sexist reasons, but based on the language they used, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the case. When you dislike a comedian for non-sexist reasons, you can usually get through a page in a thread about a different comedian without calling her some quite female-specific insults. So you’ll understand if I don’t really want to spend too much time considering whether actually a shared love of Kitson’s material means I have more in common with those people than I’d initially assume.

Anyway. This was a long tangent to say, here’s something I think: I’ve revised my earlier opinion but it’s about Josie Long now. Apparently, it is in fact possible to enjoy Daniel Kitson’s work while being an asshole. But I think anyone who likes Josie Long’s work has to be, at minimum, a decent person. I’m going with a pretty low bar for “decent person” there – just a basic level of human compassion and not being an overt bigot. A person who would not stand outside my house with a sign declaring their right to kill everyone’s grandmother during a pandemic. That sort of thing. Maybe they could still suck in other ways, but liking Josie Long has to be at least a sign that someone has met the bare minimum standard for decency. I can’t see how she would appeal to anyone who doesn’t.

That doesn’t mean that anyone who dislikes Josie Long’s work can’t be a good person. Maybe it’s just not their thing. Maybe they don’t like being taken on a journey to the depth of emotional responses to the complex human experience, an enlightening challenge to the limits of a soul’s capacity for hope. It’s fine, bad taste in comedy is not technically a moral character flaw. I’m just saying if someone does like Josie Long, I don’t see how that could be compatible with the sort of traits that will make me really hate someone. And I will continue to believe that until I find the corner of the internet where people gather to talk about how much they love Josie Long and also how racist they are. Maybe that’s out there.

It was also funny. I often feel the need to stop and emphasize that when I’m writing about a comedy show that had a strong personal or political component, if I focus on that too much. Because I know the internet is full of people saying those shows just have all this other stuff but no jokes! So I try to avoid writing a post about the other stuff without clarifying that the other stuff is what hit me and made me want to write the post, but there were also jokes there. I laughed quite a bit throughout the show, it’s more than possible to have all of that.

Now that I think about it, I’ve never felt the need to clarify that in a post about a Daniel Kitson show. Just in a post about Hannah Gadsby, or Josie Long, or Nish Kumar - you know, the comedians who frequently get accused of delivering personal or political messages instead of being funny. Even though Daniel Kitson’s stuff is full of personal and sometimes political messages, but I’ve never seen anyone struggle to understand that he can do that and still be funny. If we think about it long enough, we might be able to spot something that makes him different from a Nish Kumar, a Josie Long, a Hannah Gadsby, that could account for this reaction. I've never heard anyone say it about James Acaster either.

The point is that several times, Cara Josephine made me laugh so hard that I worried for a moment I might have woken up my parents (because I have still not gone back to my place after Christmas). Also, sorry I keep comparing things to Daniel Kitson. He’s been a bit ubiquitous in what I’ve listened to for the last few weeks so my mind keeps bringing things back to that, but this Josie Long show I just heard was so amazing that it probably deserves to be the entire focus of a reaction to it, more than it was in this post. Sorry about that.

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fogwitchoftheevermore · 14 days

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🍥 and/or 🍙??

🍥 What's your favorite fic you've written?

LMAO THE WAY I JUST DID A TAG GAME ABOUT MY TOP FIVE FICS ON MAIN… but man picking only one is so difficult. i think i’m gonna say… oh it’s for sure recency bias but lets go for new scars i didn’t ask for anyways. yes i know i didn’t put this fic on my top 5 post but i was RESTRAINING MYSELF FROM DOING SO. this fic (and this whole universe) is just a combination of everything i love thinking and writing about when it comes to eyes and ears. the watchers being little weirdos but not actually being that powerful, the watchers being simultaneously extremely par for the course and extremely scary for the hermits, scott and martyn qpr, treebark, martyn is suffering the whole time, i have a long web of how i think all these servers tie together and i’m making it your problem, inserting bigb into the narrative even though it might make things less complicated if i didn’t. what more could i ask for!! (for people to read it) i love writing this so much!!

🍙 Is there a fic you wish had gotten more attention?

all of them godbless i like when people give me compliments. that’s a joke anyways. the real answer is either of the blaseball au fics i’ve posted so far.

i’m crossing my fingers that bring out all the ghosts to life will get more of an audience as i continue with it (mostly because i know people like to read jimmy being harmed and dying, which this fic has a fair bit of) but i don’t imagine it will because netty is so niche and such a big part of it and because like. it’s blaseball au no one knows what the fuck i’m talking about.

but if you DO want to read either of these fics (and you should cause they slap) bring out all the ghosts is about the final three evos smp members (pearl, jimmy, and netty) seeing the future in which two of them die and also they all save the world. never forget number 46 is about xornoth and great witch shubble being buddies before xornoth gets killed by god.

#space rambles #my writing #it should be known i don’t dislike any mcyt fic i’ve ever posted #it helps that i’ve posted all of them in the past year and a half and as such i’m not far enough removed from them to be like.#cringing at my own writing #but i genuinely REALLY like everything i’ve ever posted for this fandom #and a whole lot of stuff i haven’t posted #being into blaseball before this helped me learn good fic writing from all the insanely good fic in that fandom #and then mcyt gave me so many ideas and so much autism #it’s beautiful

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bryceslahela · 1 year

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being as unbiased as you can, which in your opinion is the best choices book (plot, characters, LIs, MC, art, etc) and which is the worst? I have been struggling with worst bc… they’ve gotten SO bad.

Imo best to me is either Laws (recency bias, i know) because i genuinely loved the plot, loved MC, and thought both Aislinn and Gabe were compelling, plus the potential after book 2 could’ve been amazing (where is my beau hookup???) OR something like Veil of Secrets (controversial I think) because I was compelled every chapter and it didn’t feel money grabby with a convoluted series drag out, not to mention Duffy being evil was a nightmare-fodder level twist (the LIs were meh tho so). So. Idk I know those are weird picks but I wanna hear the best in ur unbiased opinion/books you know aren’t the best in quality but are maybe ur favs anyway?

oooohhhhh!! good question!!! this’ll probably be a super long answer so i’ll put it under the cut!!

hmmmm i’m trying to be as unbiased as i can but i’d probably say moty. all of the lis were incredible and well-fleshed out (and don’t forget the replay value alone!!), the villains were realistic which made it more compelling, the plot was easy to understand and unravelled in a way that made sense. mc was fun to play and baby day was also adorable which led the reader to have more of a interest in supporting the mc in helping her daughter. i also think the book wrapped up in a satisfying way (unlike other books). like would i enjoy a moty2? yes. do i think we need a moty2? not really.

also a lot of the issues ppl had w/ moty was surrounding their own problems when it comes to parenting and motherhood or playing as a gendered character (which are all 100% valid!!) but none of them really attacked the quality of the book once it released. i think its a universal well-liked book in the fandom and w/ casual players.

now the worst….. hm….. a general answer would probably witness. annoying ass mc, boring li, plot that made no sense w/out diamonds being spent (es-core). i couldn’t even finish playing though so i’m gonna only do books that i’ve finished so i can give them a fair appraisal. so i’m gonna say hot couture…. complete yawnfest, most interesting li was locked behind a paywall and barely there, other lis were boring and ugly, book was boring and the plot was kinda all over the place? super forgettable. also the mc was okay but i honestly don’t remember anything about her. no replay value whatsoever….. i know this might be controversial but also remember that i haven’t played most of the ‘bad’ books that people would have put here aka tch, tna series, witness, wb etc.

#hmmmm i think my answer might be a little controversial #jade answers

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cadopan · 2 years

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Surprising to hear an Arsenal fan who thinks Emma Hayes is a better manager than Eidevall. Could you elaborate on what makes you think so?

Haha yah, sometimes my takes are too impartial that I don't sound like an Arsenal fan at all 🤪

I'm sure my take as some recency bias in it (given how poor Jonas's run has been of late), but it's mostly based on what I've seen Emma Hayes been able to do with her Chelsea team. Their growth under her has been constant and consistent; we'll see if they stagnate this year because it might seem like they've hit a little roadblock in getting to the next level (success in the UWCL), but my overall opinion is that she's undeniably a top manager. As well as being great in man management, which is the way she manages players' motivations and confidence levels, and the added aspect of her seeming like a really great mentor for many of the girls (her story with Fran Kirby). Arguably one of the upsides of being a female coach, naturally.

Also true that we haven't seen enough of Jonas yet so it's not fair on him to dish out an opinion so soon, but I still think I'd rate him lower in future projections of how he's going to do. We can go into detail another time, but he hasn't impressed me tactically at all yet (even earlier in the season) and so is his persona that's becoming more polarising by the day. He sure seems to have a desire to win and succeed, not sure if I would call that a "winning mentality" because that only applies if you can successfully translate it into getting the best out of the players of you have, and he certainly has some of the best that woso has to offer on his hands.

#answers #emma hayes #jonas eidevall #arsenal wfc #chelsea fcw #my takes

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intearsaboutrobots · 3 years

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heyyyy so you seem to be into horror movies atm. would you mind recommending a few you really like? i'm looking for new ones to watch :)

oh!! yes defs!! i am having a Films Phase atm and that is a Lot of horror for me. I'll aim to keep this to a reasonable length lol and not to succumb too much to recency bias

Saint Maud (2019)

Follows a pious nurse who becomes dangerously obsessed with saving the soul of her dying patient.

having said that... i just watched this and i can't get it out of my head. this is the kind of horror where the perspective you're tied to keeps doing things that make you go "oh no :cc".

maud's particular strain of religion is roman catholic ish so ymmv on whether you want to watch a movie w those themes - i loved it and canNOT stop thinking abt it!!

Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

A monstrous spirit seeks revenge by invading the dreams of teenagers.

literally wes craven should get a nobel prize for the idea of "slasher but the murders happen in your dreams" bc the weird dream imagery is SO good. follows kind of a standard slasher model in basic structure, except now when there's a Murder Chase Sequence you can have the weird dream feeling of running like you're moving thru molasses, communicated via rad practical effects. also nancy thompson is THE most competent person on earth, i love her so much.

it does have the blood and gore you'd expect (a LOT of blood) and since its the 80s the villain has some weird horny energy towards the teens he's murdering.

Blood and Black Lace (6 donne per l'assassino) (1964)

A masked, shadowy killer brutally murders the models of a scandalous fashion house in Rome.

do you want to see some murders done in the most saturated colourful gorgeous lighting? do you not need much in the way of a plot? boy is this the movie for you! truly beautiful, i gasped aloud in fear at some scenes.

the murders do hew violent, and my friend and i both had to look away from the screen at a point bc we did not want to see events unfold further, so if violence is an issue watch w caution.

Eyes Without A Face (Les yeux sans visage) (1960)

A surgeon causes an accident which leaves his daughter disfigured and goes to extreme lengths to give her a new face.

this is a movie that is shot so unsettlingly. the camerawork is *chef's kiss* very effective and creepy. it is also a movie in which face transplants are a major plot point. you might think, as i did, that since it is a black and white movie from 1960 probably they don't have the effects to fully realise the scary parts of that - go ahead and take my word that they make do JUST fine.

aside from the face-related stuff, which you can consider as much or as little as you like to decide if you'd like to see, this is also a movie that makes scares out of someone having scarring/disfigurement and having prosthetics to cover that. if you don't want to watch that, more than fair.

The Wicker Man (1973)

A puritan Police Sergeant arrives in a Scottish island village in search of a missing girl whom the locals claim never existed.

i love this movie so much. classic folk horror, the aesthetic of a 70s crime show which appeals to me deeply as a columbo enthusiast, FOLK SINGING. it is also, Imo, not That scary???? unlikely to give you nightmares, by my reckoning at least.

what this movie Does have, if not scares, is a fair bit of nudity/sex, so keep that in mind.

The Endless (2017)

As kids, they escaped a UFO death cult. Now, two adult brothers seek answers after an old videotape surfaces and brings them back to where they began.

this is a movie that does a lot more than what it says on the tin, and goes in some weird mindbendy directions. it's been a minute since i watched it but i was SUPER impressed by the visuals. while there is certainly some Scary Business depicted, in general the camera will move off of the horrible-thing-abt-to-happen and so you only witness the effects of it, not the thing itself.

Candyman (1992)

The Candyman, a murderous soul with a hook for a hand, is accidentally summoned to reality by a skeptic grad student researching the monster's myth.

see now, that description gives the idea of a simpler movie than this is. it also (tries to?) talk abt race and class, and it captures the feeling of reality slipping around the protagonist as she gets pulled into this Spooky Business.

i will highlight this since the description doesn't imply it that if unreality/gaslighting Type Things are not fun for you, this might not end up being enjoyable

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honourable mention: the conjuring (ghosts), insidious (ghosts), hellraiser (kink demons and body horror), friday the 13th (slasher), halloween (slasher), the exorcist tv show (weirdly good?? Very spooky possession stuff), gaslight (does what it says on the tin, does it REALLY WELL)

#original content #if you want more specific cw-s on anything lmk!#i tried to err on the side of not spoiling things #like if you google 'nightmare on elm street' you will get what i think is a cool reveal #spoiled for u #i edited it out of the plot summary lol i think its a good reveal!!#im trying not to keep adding more to this honourable mention list lol #i tried not to do recent releases you've probably heard of already

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autopotion · 3 years

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saw this floating around tumblr and thought i would fill it out myself for funsies. specifically challenged myself not to repeat anything from the same game (same series / remakes are okay) 'cause otherwise half the answers to this would be something from FFT and that's just not fair lol. if any of my mutuals do this tag me in your post i want to see your answers!

full list & descriptions under the cut

favorite game of all time: final fantasy tactics, obvs. picked the psx one to represent because i do prefer it to wotl. don't take that as me hating on wotl though, i think it's still good and brought some good stuff to the table, i just like the original a little bit better.

favorite series: yeah it's dragon age. once upon a time i would've said final fantasy, but while there are a great deal of final fantasy games i love, i'm not really compelled to seek out the ones i haven't played before and i'm not really following new releases much (except to make fun of them ghsdfnds). meanwhile i like every single DA game and have replayed each one mind-boggling amounts, and i actively seek out news for DA4. it's clear which series i'm more into, even if there are individual FF games i like more than DA as a whole

best soundtrack: final fantasy vii (original). this one's kind of a normie answer because i think there are other OSTs within FF itself that are objectively better than FFVII's, but if i'm going to listen to any video game music for funsies and outside of actually playing the game itself, it's pretty much always going to be FFVII. zoe and i were marveling about how FFVII is basically just one huge prog rock album. it's fantastic. hang on i'm gonna go listen to the boss fight music again

favorite protagonist: velvet crowe from tales of berseria. i actually answered this one last because i had the hardest time deciding, somewhat because of the "no repeats" rule, but also partially because i am often more compelled by side characters than player characters. anyway ToB is a mixed bag where i don't like the combat, hate the fanservice, and find the world to be kind of uninspired, but the characters are absolutely incredible and might be one of my favorite RPG casts. velvet herself stands out, i find her story incredibly emotional, and while i think her writing suffers from some usual video game misogyny she's easily the most attached i've been to a player character from the outset instead of needing to get to know her (save for maybe luke fon fabre, also from the tales series lol)

favorite villain: kuja from final fantasy ix. i almost put chaos vyce (of tactics ogre), but that is absolutely 100% recency bias, especially if i compare my month-long phase of being really into chaos vyce to the years of thinking about and writing about kuja. i like kuja a lot and find him to be really emotional, and i like FFIX's conclusions about him, i.e. if a sympathetic character is worthy of redemption if he commits absolutely heinous and evil atrocities and is also generally a narcissistic asshole. ultimately the game's conclusion was "no," IMO, because "redemption" is a complicated concept and eventually you hit a point where no good actions can make up for a lifetime of evil ones, but it still gave kuja the opportunity to do one good action that saved the player characters, and his existence gave the rest of the genomes and the black mages something to ponder WRT their own individuality. also i just think he's neat

best story: outer wilds. this might seem like a weird one because it's not like "lore"-heavy, which i think a lot of people associate with "story," but a story is just as much about in the way it is told as its basic content. the way outer wilds tells its story is unparalleled tbh. every mechanic exists to support its concepts & themes, and it's some of the strongest video game storytelling i've encountered for that reason. also the story it tells is extremely emotional IMO

have not played but want to: hollow knight & disco elysium. i picked two games: one that i own but haven't started (HK) and one that i haven't bought yet (DE). of the two, i'm most excited to try DE, but i'm waiting until zoe and i can play it together.

you love everyone hates: octopath traveler is not greatly liked among the audience it intended to cater to, i.e. people who love old pixel rpgs in the vein of FFVI. it deserves every bit of criticism leveled at it, from its shallow narratives to the disconnected and poorly written arcs of the travelers, but i also really enjoyed playing it and found it charming.

you hate everyone loves: crisis core (from the compilation of FFVII). god i hate CC. it is undeniably a fun game, and the first time i played it (as a teen) i sobbed during the ending, but the older i get the more this game sours on me. i consider it the biggest affront to the themes of og FFVII. what if shinra was "morally gray" and had lots of good people working for it! what if zack fair was actually responsible for key character traits of female characters, like aerith's ribbon or the name of tifa's bar! what if tseng was a creep who took pictures of aerith! what if it's actually really sad and difficult to be a cop for a megacorporation! )': what if i bashed genesis's head in with a rock. at least CC introduced cissnei.

best art style: hades. not even the gorgeously detailed (and highly sensual) character portraits, but the sprite work is really beautiful, the little icons for the boons & items are very cute, and the environments are gorgeous. all the movements are incredibly fluid and pleasing to look at.

favorite ending: tales of the abyss. there is so much to love about TotA, but the ending sequence is one of my favorites in any game. the final dungeon is extraordinarily bright, and if you have the right party combination for the final battle it turns into this amazing invincibility mode while tear sings in the background. also i love my personal interpretation of what happens with "luke fon fabre" at the end.

favorite boss fight: i cheated and picked two again lol. the main boss of arbiter's grounds in the legend of zelda: twilight princess was the first boss to introduce me to the concept that maybe... boss fights... could be fun?? riding around the spinny wheel while you're attacking the big skeletal dragon head was really cinematic and tense, to the point that i was almost kind of sad when it was over.

my other answer for this is the first boss fight against reno in FFVII remake. oh my god i loved that one. not even necessarily because of the mechanics, but the sheer adrenaline of finally getting to aerith, to the church scene, and then all the banter during the fight while you're trying to parry that weaselly asshole... i wanted to do it again the minute i beat him lol.

childhood game: also two here. rhapsody: a musical adventure and the first kingdom hearts i consider to be my quintessential childhood games (outside of FFT). they informed my taste in video games pretty early on. rhapsody's really cute, if not especially deep, and i want to replay it someday; when i was little, my sister told me to start with rhapsody before FFT because its very basic tactical battles would teach me how to play FFT, which is much harder lol. and of all the KH games, i'm most likely to come back to the first one, for nostalgia's sake. even though that game is incredibly linear, i cite it as the game that got me into "open world" games as a concept, since what i loved about it was its seemingly endless expanse to explore, when in reality it's pretty tightly confined.

relaxing game: stardew valley. i was gonna do this one and animal crossing: new horizons, but i came to the conclusion i find SV more relaxing than ACNH. time doesn't pass in SV unless you actually play the game, unlike AC, and the gameplay loop in SV is very relaxing and gentle to me; since days are so short, i can only complete a few tasks per day, and that's kind of freeing. ACNH is also relaxing but i can get more quickly stressed out if i'm trying to plan some big landscaping project.

stressful game: vagrant story. i don't think i've started and stopped a game as many times as i have this one. it requires so much detail-oriented attention that i only have it in me to play for an hour or two at a time before i get tired. (i was also considering putting tactics ogre for this one, but i'm actually about to beat TO pretty soon and have grown accustomed to its style, so VS is definitely more stressful.)

game you always come back to: this one was also really hard, in part 'cause of that "no repeats" clause, otherwise FFT or skyrim would be the obvious answer here. but ultimately i picked undertale. like a lot of people, i was really emotionally moved when i first played it; the massively expanding fandom kept me from engaging with it as much as i wanted to (i like my fandoms pretty small, or, if it's big, i like to curate my blog so i don't see a whole lot of it all the time), but i honestly think UT changed the game for video game storytelling. it's difficult not to compare other games to it, in part because it's in conversation with games as a whole.

guilty pleasure: i don't really feel "guilty" about any games i like, but i selected 999 for this spot because like, as i was playing it i had a ton of problems with it. i complained about the music, the misogyny, some of the puzzles, the dull environments... but it's also one of the most interesting games i've ever played. the story has stuck with me. what it does with its medium, its characters, and its narrative is kind of unique for video games TBH. so, despite all of my complaints about it, i kind of like it a lot.

tons of hours played: skyrim, no contest. i have easily over 1000 hours in that bad boy, across my various saves on various systems, soundly beating any other game i've played in terms of hours sunk into it. it's kind of embarrassing ghsdnfshg.

#long post #in case the read more doesn't work #cr personal

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