#2020 year in review

[skysometric]

now that i'm counting out everything that happened this year… what the literal shucks was 2020??? even for there being a pandemic and having to stay indoors, this is still the most high-velocity year i can remember since college – but, unlike college, not all of it was bad.

granted, the first half of the year was pretty bad – my grandmother passed away, working from home was a rocky transition, even nearly got kicked out (that's a story for another time). yet somehow i made a ton of levels, poured my heart into Rivers, and built Cartridge Tilt.

meanwhile the second half was like restful discovery: forging an important new friendship-turned-relationship, coming out as genderfluid AND pan, improving my living situation with a new desk and other nice things…

and i've barely even scratched the surface of this year!

i may not have accomplished everything i wanted to – and honestly, who did? – but i'm happy about the fact that i not only survived 2020, but did so with grace. despite everything, i have new skills, new resources, new friends, and a new understanding of myself.

i don't keep new years resolutions well, so i have just one for 2021: finish more stuff than in 2020. not "make" more stuff, finish more stuff.

my creative energy definitely suffered this year, but now that i'm finding my footing, i hope i'll get to do some neat things soon 💖

[that-butch-archivist]

"Tess was a performance artist and part-time jewelry maker who now worked as a set designer. [...] The first night we spent together, I taught her to knit — my classic seduction technique (High Femme Camp Antics, or HFCA) — and about frisson, that carbonated feeling that accompanies a crush. We stared at each other for a long time, unblinking. Because I knew that this otherwise might take forever (lesbians!), I finally asked Tess point-blank if she felt a frisson for me (HFCA). In response, Tess kissed me hard, with teeth. I knew she wanted to fuck, but I pushed her hands away dramatically when they crept under my skirt (HFCA). I told her that I didn’t typically sleep with people so soon (HFCA), which was true not for any real reason but because I was privately humiliated by my body (HFCA). Instead of letting her fuck me, I scratched Tess’s entire torso with my long, pink fingernails (HFCA). “Her fingernails drifted down my neck, across my shoulders,” Jess Goldberg, the butch narrator of Stone Butch Blues, says of a high femme whose camp antics thrill her. “I’d forgotten the sheer pleasure of a high femme tease.” “Your fingernails are full of frisson,” Tess said as morning light began to stream in through the window above her bed. “I know,” I said. I recently read a collection of funny stories by Lesléa Newman, high-femme chronicler of dyke life in the 1990s (the materialistic, shopping-addicted Golden Age of HFCA). In one story, a butch named Flash arrives to pick Lesléa up and take her out to dinner. Flash politely tells Lesléa that she looks nice. “The average femme would have taken that to be a compliment,” Lesléa dishes. “But this high-maintenance femme hadn’t spent the last two weeks shopping for the perfect outfit and the last seven hours bathing, shaving, bleaching, filing, polishing, combing, brushing, drying, moussing, spritzing, spraying, and applying five pounds of makeup to have all her efforts summed up in one little four-letter word.” Flash’s flimsy compliment doesn’t satisfy Lesléa’s desires to be seen, appreciated, and worshiped, and so Lesléa starts from the bottom and works her way up, prompting Flash to compliment her shoes, her miniskirt, and finally her hair in a grand, shimmering pyramid of HFCA. But even as she performs satiation, Lesléa is insatiable. Her antics fail at getting her precisely what she wants from Flash, because there’s always something unsatisfying about getting what you want by asking for it. Lesléa’s desire glows from within the frame of her HFCA, distilled and exposed and unmet. Can I Come Inside, my high-femme sex game, deals primarily with unmet, outsourced, and circumnavigated desire. In Females (2019), trans lesbian critic Andrea Long Chu argues that femaleness is a universal, existential condition rather than a gender or a sex — a condition of being and of consciousness that involves letting others do our desiring for us. At stake in Can I Come Inside, as well as in HFCA at large, is a femaleness that both craves and rebels against its tendency to outsource desire. In playing Can I Come Inside, I, like Lesléa, ask Tess to do my desiring for me, and Tess in turn defers her desire to me: the game is strictly my desire, one that she insists she does not share. Even though it mandates a performance of aggressive desire from Tess, there’s no doubt that Can I Come Inside is about my desire; it’s my game; I make the rules."

-- An excerpt from "High Femme Camp Antics," an essay written by Jenny Fran Davis. (Emphasis in bold my own.)

[weeddennis]

2020 a year in review was a good episode idc what anyone says

[music-moon]

All my liked songs from the 2020s, organized by the year they were released.

Always updating, discovering and refining. Cover art is my most listened to albums from each year, according to my last.fm.

My favourite songs organized by release year: 2020s

View more decades: 2000s / 2010s / 2020s

Take a deeper dive into my most listened to albums from each year:

Data from last.fm + pythfm.

2000 / 2001 / 2002 / 2003 / 2004 / 2005 / 2006 / 2007 / 2008 / 2009 / 2010 / 2011 / 2012 / 2013 / 2014 / 2015 / 2016 / 2017 / 2018 / 2019 / 2020 / 2021 / 2022 / 2023 / 2024

[cruiseshipmoment]

I had the thought that the reason the Gang handled COVID quarantine okay, despite a lot of people with severe mental illness having full-on nervous breakdowns IRL, is that their world is so small. They're so codependent there wasn't a whole lot of functional difference; it's normal for them to spend every waking minute with someone they kind of want to strangle. They see the same handful of people every day. They go the same handful of places. They don't really do their jobs, so there's nothing to lose on that front. They're perpetually intoxicated; can't develop substance use disorder in 2020 if you've been struggling with it since the early aughts *taps temple*.

(Also, Frank just didn't follow directions.)

[raspberryyyicedtea]

kineorama - it all makes sense, cats live 100 years (2020)

personal rating: ☆9.0/10 ☆

i actually really really loved this compilation album. it’s got a really calm and almost soothing atmosphere to it, with the vocals sounding like you’re being sung a lullaby. however, the album also carries a kind of strange feeling with it, like something is just a little bit wrong. this feeling really adds to the whole album. in songs like ‘aitsu no nogai’, the lyrics are really melancholic in the same way it feels when you’re waiting for the subway on a winter afternoon and you can see your breath. the whole album has lots of digital instrumentals, which contrasts really nicely with the soft feeling of the piano used in the songs, and with the melodic vocals. it all kind of feels like an empty building with the art still on the walls. it’s cute, it’s a little bit ominous, it’s charming, and most of all it’s just really really nice to listen to. it’s great! some of my favorite songs on this album are ‘pop song’ (probably my favorite song on the album), ‘correct way to fall down a deep hole’, and ‘anime song #5’, but honestly this album has no bad songs on it, and all of them are full of charm. they feel like ceramics and warm lighting. i love this album so much :-]

would i recommend it?: DEFINITELY!!!!!

[bedlund]

crazy things happening on my computer right now Destiel literally real .

[drarryspecificrecs]

Most popular (non-explicit) fics in 2020s

✔ subjectively sorted by Hits || alphabetically listed || as of 2023.07 ✔ most popular fics : non-explicit in 2010s | of other years ✔ sources : AO3 (rating Teen or General)

---

2022

Chronological Displacement by @bookinit02 [T, 89k]

Heal Thyself by @astolat [T, 46k]

Lovesick by @corvuscrowned [T, 7k]

Meeting By Starlight by Lomonaaeren [T, 5k]

No Questions Asked by @redthoughtsblog [T, 48k]

red and green are complimentary colours by Scarlet_Moons [T, 88k]

Second Chances by CrazyCatLady (Scribblesnpaws) [T, 118k]

The Silence of Your Love by malfoypolix [T, 76k]

Two Shadows in the Night by @ubi-goes-uwu [T, 81k]

The White Pawn by @soupy-george [T, 80k]

2021

Amicus Curiae by @sunryder [50k]

A Better Home by @ridleytheknight​ [33k]

By the Grace by @letteredlettered [139k]

Finding Sophrosyne by @mlfoyskhione [136k]

The Importance of Being Draco Malfoy by @upon-poppyhills [66k]

The Liars Department by @dorthyanndrarry [103k]

Silence of the Stag by Sweet_Wing_Queen101 [21k]

Under Dragon Wings by @bafflinghaze​ [182k]

Way Down We Go by @xiaq [109k]

Who We Were, Who We Are by @shelvesuponshelves [66k]

2020

The Courting by the Pureblood Who Only Has Five Milligrams of Romantic Intelligence and Thinks He’s Real Smooth by @cibeewastaken​ [19k]

The Mirror of Ecidyrue by starbrigid [ series ]

Evitative by @k-vichan [222k]

I'm So Tired by andrewminyardenthusiast & @brekkerenthusiast [84k]

In Another Life (I Would Make You Stay) by aboutmalfoy [112k]

Never Grow A Wishbone by @shanastoryteller [123k]

Owl Was Well by @fencer-x​ [66k]

Vortex by @xanthippe74​ [20k]

The Wand That Chose Two Wizards by @talkingtravesties [116k]

What's Left Behind by ElvaDeath [74k]

.

[gaydennisreynolds]

"let me be your guy, never mind them thighs" -> mac's desperate plea for Dennis to fuck him despite the shamrock tattoo

[kevin-day-is-bi]

This will be a guide to all my Batman reviews. I'll add links as I post them

I must emphasize: I have not read every Batman book ever, nor do I intend to. If you have a specific comic that disagrees with something I say, feel free to send an ask about it! Be kind. DC means a lot to me, and I'm sure it means a lot to you, but they are fictional people 💖

Live action:

Batman (1944) - I started to watch this one and the amount of racism made me stop

Batman and Robin (1949) - same with the above. The plot is mostly Batman talking about how evil anyone who isn't America is

Batman (1966) - Currently unavailable on streaming platforms

Batman (1989)

Batman Returns (1992)

Batman & Robin (1995)

Batman Forever (1997)

Batman Begins (2005)

The Dark Knight (2008)

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

The Batman (2022)

Animated:

Batman Adventure – The Ride

Batman and Harley Quinn

Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero

Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

Batman Ninja

The Batman/Superman Movie: World's Finest

The Batman vs. Dracula

Batman vs. Robin

Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Batman vs. Two-Face

Batman: Assault on Arkham

Batman: Bad Blood

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

Batman: Death in the Family

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight

Batman: Gotham Knight

Batman: Hush

Batman: The Killing Joke

Batman: The Long Halloween

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders

Batman: Soul of the Dragon

Batman: Strange Days

Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham

Batman: Under the Red Hood

Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts - Currently unavailable on streaming platforms

Batman Unlimited: Mechs vs Mutants - Currently unavailable on streaming platforms

Batman Unlimited: Monster Mayhem - Currently unavailable on streaming platforms

Batman: Year One

Chase Me

Nightwing and Robin

Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Lego Batman

Lego Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite

Lego Batman: Family Matters

Son of Batman

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies

I'll be tagging with "Batman reviews", and each one will be tagged "Embarking on watching all the Batman movies pt [xx]" if you need to find a specific number.

[a-bit-of-cedarjam]

ok so little story about this comic and my history with it, I saw this comic a while ago i think in 2020 or 2019 when watching a youtube comic dub of it and i really liked it like it made me either go Awwww look at Gannon begin a good dad or genuinely cry because of how heart broken i was. then i kinda forgot about it until a while back and to be very honest I thought that maybe i was just imagining things but HA IT’S REAL! AND IT IS STILL AS GOOD AS I REMBER IT BEING. I going to try and not spoil anything but there’s a moment in this series that made me feel so tense as i was stuck wondering if the characters where going to be alright and also so heartbroken at the same time. 

[louismygf]

girls when they just finished watching aotv

[samarecharm]

thank you for the long response! it was geniunely a very interesting read!! also i did not want to imply that you have to 100% like something or else drop it, that was not my intention (/_;)/~~ i just wanted to know what were the pros that outweighed the cons for you to continue the game!! i definitely have my own rant about the persona 5, as much as i love it.

i'm someone who has sunk hundreds of hours (i think about 400) into persona 5 royal, i have played the original as well and,,,,, i don't remember every bit of it as i got much more into royal, but your response definitely dug up some memories of my own gripes with the game as it was then. i bought strikers once i had a switch!! i was super excited to see ryuji and the rest of the gang again, but due to life stuff and me generally not being a fan of button smashers/combo games, i only got like 3 hours into it before i left it alone. also the lack of akechi was disheartening since after royal giving him more story i was wanting /still want more of him as royal, while not fully fixing his confidant, still improved majorly on his character in my opinion. but i trust your judgment, so do you have any tips to get back into strikers? it's really the gameplay that sticks out like a sore thumb to me, i'm not very dexterous with a controler and i get the hang of things quite slowly,,,, but again, thank you geniunely for responding so kindly and elaborating!! (*^ω^)

You are welcome 😊 I try to give the botd for questions like this, bc I have seen and received some very silly comments wrt to complaints of this game (and others people hold in high regard). Not that I am happy to see that you remembered some gripes w a game you liked, but it is easy to become a bit rosetinted about media you enjoy, and its good to go back and say ‘hey actually, theres some stuff i DO wish couldve been changed to make the experience better.’ At least u were polite about asking lmao

I think I am going to have the same problem I had before, so im going to preemptively put my strikers tips under the cut to stop it from bloating up dashboards 😭

I am aware that the warriors style gameplay is not for everyone; its very repetitive by its nature and it can be really bad on the hands if youre not used to it, so I unfortunately dont have a suggestion for making the combat portion of the game easier. But I am halfway through a ng+ of that game, so I at least have tips on how to make the combat less confusing, and how to spend less time on the actual combat itself.

Stick to one character and ignore literally anyone else in the beginning. I am so serious about this. The upgrades you get for ranking up teammates is used to enhance their combos, and that can be confusing in the beginning of the game. I had to fall back onto normal difficulty until i got the hang of everyones combos, so i suggest you do the same.

The ai for your teammates is surprisingly well done, and they will target enemy weaknesses and heal you before you NEED to be healed, which is always better than them simply forgetting to do so. They buff often, but they are a bit lax about debuffing without manual input (ann has Tarunda as a spell AND as a combo finisher, but she refuses to do either unless its targeting a tough enemy). You should prioritize builds that buff your entire team (so the competent team ai rips enemies to shreds) and debuffing enemies.

Combos are almost entirely optional if youre willing to jump in and out of Jails to replenish SP constantly. Spam spells, and switch teammates to spam their spells as well, then leave the Jail and return. Unlike the mainline games, leaving the metaverse does not pass time; only hitting important plot points like getting to the treasure and fighting the jailer counts towards progressing time, so you should abuse it as often as possible.

Due to [REDACTED] spoilers, you WILL need to at least master or understand three characters and their movesets. I obviously suggest Akira as one, but pick two more characters that work well with your playstyle. Ryuji was personally the easiest to understand; hes resistant to flinching, and his finishers are ‘hold X to kill everything around you’. Haru has a wide aoe for her combo finishers, letting her spin and shred through enemies or spam her grenade launcher infinitely. She has the added benefit of gaining more armor and reduced flinching during her hold finishers, so shes good for fighting bosses.

DONT fight those super hard burning enemies. They arent worth it 😭😭 you need to be at least 3-4 jails deep before u can even fight the one in shibuya jail 😭😭 theyre very easy to avoid, so just shimmy past them or ignore the area theyre in outright.

If you focus on understanding Akira, know that each persona has a unique set of finishers (yes, literally each one). If you are thinking of learning combos instead of just spamming spells, I suggest learning the pattern for executing his combos before focusing on what the finishers actually do. From there, you can test out finishers for each persona, and decide which ones are worth keeping based on that. I will say though, that the finishers kinda dont mean anything until you get to the end game, where high leveled personas will have spells like Concentrate or Debilitate as Finishers; but always know that a finisher spell is ALWAYS a spell that you can just as easily cast with SP. Dont make the game more stressful or complicated than you need it to be.

(As an addon, if you can understand Akiras moveset, then learning the other ones will be WAY easier since they are all virtually the same. The only thing you need to memorize is exactly what spell is used on their finishers; it took me forever to realize that Yusukes last finisher is…a combo enhancer…that makes his finishers last forever… and you would NOT know that unless u started learning his moveset since his ai never uses it)

If youre someone who wants to farm and level up to gain access to more personas, you should find the strong enemies around a map instead of constantly reclearing the entire jail. Unlike the mainline games, enemies do not respawn after leaving a floor; you gotta leave the jail and come back to make them respawn. If you are okay w the repetition, it is easier to memorize the spawns of strong enemies (not the minibosses that are burning) and beat them up for good exp and money, esp since all spawns are static. Silky in the Shibuya jail is the first one that comes to mind, since Ann is able to stunlock her w Agis, AND she spawns very close to one of the checkpoints (its before the underground section of shibuya but i cannot remember the name of it) making it easy to jump in and jump out to replenish SP, and continue farming.

And finally, despite what I just said, dont take the bosses of this game too seriously. They arent easy but they are absolutely doable without insane builds and optimization. Bosses have aids in the form of interactables of their respective weaknesses (Shibuya has party poppers with wind affinitiy thats eventually used on the boss to stun them.) Stock up on healing personas, Stock up on Items from Sophias shop, and target weaknesses whenever you can to force an allout attack as fast as possible. The combat can be overwhelming, but at the end of the day, the combat is really just ‘run around from attacks and spam spells or combos until the thing dies’. I hope that helps a little bit, and if push comes to shove, i will always recommend watching a playthrough instead of fighting through a game that feels like a slog to get through. Most of the story comes from the cutscenes and city interactions, so you arent missing much by watching someone beat up shadows for u lol and bc i genuinely LOVE the characters they introduce, its worth it to learn about them.

It sucks that Goro isnt in the game, but it was made prior to Royal iirc (the japanese release was the only one available for some time). I will say though, the themes of this game fit him so perfectly, and if youre of the mind to speculate and make aus, then you will be joining me in the obsession of making Goro interactions w the team. Palaces were about corrupted peoples desires distorting the world around them, and they were always someone so reprehensible, you were not intended to sympathize w them and even debate if what the thieves were doing was wrong. But Jails serve an entirely different purpose, and the end result is having Rulers with depth to them, and the overarching theme of ‘if you fuck up your life and others over the decisions you thought were correct, can you recover?’ And the answer is always ‘yes. No matter what, you can always start over if you intend to do better and be better’, and I think thats a good reason to see the entire story through :)

[etirabys]

ACX book review contests bring out the low ranking medieval courtier frantically looking for the right contribution to the big poetry improv event event. in me

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Years in review

2012: the end of the world has been averted! Everything is gonna be a-okay!

2013: senior year of high school sure does suck, huh? Can't wait to graduate.

2014: I'm going to college! My life starts now!

2015: Great Scott, it's the future! Everything is awesome, I'm so optimistic, I can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring!

2016: I WAS WRONG I WAS HORRIBLY HORRIBLY WRONG

2017: dear god, it's worse than I could have possibly imagined...

2018: no memory

2019: no memory

2020: oh, so the end of the world was just delayed 8 years. Great, fantastic, yeah, sure, that tracks.

2021: maybe things can get a LITTLE better?

2022: NO THEY CANNOT.

2023: what fresh hell awaits?

2024: I don't even want to think about it...

2025: I can't even think about it (like, I am incapable of imagining it one way or the other)

2026: the afterscape...

2027: this is not a real year

2028: this is not a real year

2029: this is not a real year

2030: this is not a real year

2031: this is not a real year

2032: hey, I'm old enough to run for president now! I'll be able to fix everything once I'm in office!

[mg549]

5 years in review (2018-2022)