#abysmal storytelling

[kamisadopteddaughter]

It's stupid to blame or be angry with Dominik or Rhea (or any wrestler in any storyline for that matter) for any booking/creative decisions because it isn't their fucking job. I'm tired of hearing about how Rhea's booked too strong or how Dom is being lazy/not putting in effort/doing a bad job or whatever the fuck.

Yes, they could probably do more to improve the quality of a story but if it sucks, then it sucks, it shouldn't be on the talent to make up for shitty booking/storytelling because it. Isn't. Their. Job.

I don't understand why Dom is catching all this heat by some of the fans over what was said at the auction when Liv was sat next to him saying the same thing and implied something similar right after SummerSlam so if anything this is her interpretation that he was piggybacking off of. A lot of y'all would be better off if you considered everything off TV (interviews and social media) not canon unless it's actually stated/shown/mentioned on screen. All of them have said or behaved in ways that aren't reflected on WWE TV.

My only issue with it is that it shows how WWE creative hasn't laid a clear, coherent story out for them. I get that Rhea's injury derailed the original plans but they really couldn't come up with a clear timetable of events, motivations, and characterization from April to now which is October? Like, all the blame goes to creative even if you think the wrestlers involved can do a better job.

[mmmatchasims]

sunday morning...

[synthville]

truly, i will never understand why, in s1ep3, picard decided to give raffi—a whole alcoholic —wine when he went to try and talk her into working with him again. there is no way he isn’t aware of her past, given their history, but even so. she’s clearly having a rough go of it when the audience meets her for the first time and his immediate thought is ‘let’s break out the drinks’ ???? huh. what is the motivation behind that action. and it’s like the writers weren’t even aware of how callous he came off there (and in subsequent eps—clapping after the emmy thing like bro? her friend just told her to never contact her again this isn’t a win? read the fucking room!) because the way that scene plays out is so slimey, strange and maddening. like is he going for blissful ignorance or is he actually just that callous that he doesn’t give a fuck about her well-being? because he was giving ‘neglectful user who wants her behind him no matter the personal cost to her’ and it was nasty

[duncan-rohanne]

i think what's pissing me off the most about house of the dragon are not even the made up storylines that make no sense but total and absolute ignorance of characters developments and their relationships.

everyone, and i mean everyone, is getting the barest minimum to push the story forward. how did alicent and criston ended up in bed? we don't know. do jace and baela even like each other on romantic level? no idea. gwayne came to king's landing after 3 months, kissed his sisters hand and that's the end of their relationship. have aegon even heard of his brother daeron? does daemon know that he has kids with rhaenyra? does rhaenyra know that corlys is around?

even on simply character level - otto fucked off to high garden and we are not shown his journey. this would never ever happened in original game of thrones. we would see him traveling, reaching high garden, see him get an audience with lord tyrell, we would see him scheme.

it's massive disservice to all those amazing actors who try their hardest to make us care for those characters but they can't fight the 3 seconds of screentime and abysmal storytelling.

[level2janitor]

Introduction to the OSR

what's an OSR? it's a game that's kinda like old-school D&D. or is old-school D&D. or is compatible with old-school D&D. an OSR game generally has some or all of the following principles:

low character power with highly lethal combat. in old-school D&D a 1st-level fighter has d8 hit points and a longsword does d8 damage, and you die at 0HP. this is not to ensure characters die all the time but to emphasize the next bullet point:

emphasis on creative problem solving. most situations cannot be solved by straightforward use of your abilities (such as charging into every situation with swords drawn, if a fighter), so the game tests lateral, outside-the-box thinking.

emphasis on diegetic progression. spells are found, not obtained automatically on level-up. you get XP by finding gold more than killing monsters. most of your cool abilities come from magic items. making alliances & hiring followers is encouraged.

focus on managing inventory, resources, risk, and time. the players are constantly faced with meaningful decisions; this is the heart of the game.

very sandbox-oriented. the focus on creative problem solving means the game must be accommodating to players taking a course of action the GM didn't plan for. use lots of random tables to generate emergent story. some elements of new simulationism.

high tactical transparency, i.e., the optimal course of action is rarely system-specific, and ideally very possible for a new player to intuit.

usually semi-compatible with old D&D, but not always. usually rules-lite, but not always.

what does the OSR mostly NOT do?

focus on character builds. these change the focus too much to be on the rules than the fiction, can create situations where stuff everyone should be able to do is an ability locked to one class, and impede tactical transparency.

resolve everything with a die roll. combat uses dice to be scary, unpredictable and most importantly not your default course of action. everything else should bring up dice rarely - dice are your plan B when your plan A fails. the best plans need no dice.

use linear storytelling or put players into a writer/GM role. linear storytelling gets in the way of the decision-making so core to the playstyle; letting players write details into the setting is mutually exclusive with them discovering it.

rules for everything. 400 pages of crunch is worse at simulating a believable world than the GM and players' shared understanding. OSR games rely constantly on GM ruling.

mostly still applies to all the above. making your system a "pure" OSR game comes second to doing what's best for your game.

System recommendations

old D&D or a retroclone

old-school D&D - or old school essentials or basic fantasy or swords & wizardry, which are old D&D's mechanics repackaged with quality-of-life tweaks (and the upside of not giving WOTC your money) - are usually the go-to when recommending someone's first OSR game. they're actually not my first pick, though!

PROS:

very complete, with more robust rules than a lot of the lighter games on this list.

100% compatibility: most OSR adventures are statted for old school essentials. converting them to other OSR systems is usually simple, but not 1-for-1.

easier to find games for. anyone interested in the OSR space knows what old school essentials is.

CONS:

jank. these games largely still have weird saves, level limits for non-humans, some still have descending AC, etc etc. it's not that bad but it is there

i hate thief skills. lots of essential dungeoneering actions are locked to the thief class as abilities, with abysmally low success chances. this is stuff i prefer being handled without a roll. thieves in this system suck and make everyone else worse at dungeon crawling by existing.

there's just lots of really cool shit in other systems i'm about to go into that you just don't get here

Knave 1e and its various hacks

this is a 7-page super-lightweight system that boils everything down to just the essentials.

rolling a character takes like 5 minutes. roll stats, roll gear, roll traits, go. done. it's great.

characters are defined entirely by stats and gear, no classes. wanna be a fighter, have high strength and carry a big sword and armor. wanna be a wizard, have high intelligence and fill your inventory with spells. item slots are elegant and pretty limited.

initiative is instant: roll d6. 1-3, monsters go first. 4-6, PCs go first. swingy, but god it is so smooth and shaves like the most boring 5 minutes off of every combat

monsters are so very elegant. old D&D gives monsters a "hit dice" rating to determine their HP, e.g. a 3HD monster rolls 3d8 for hit points. knave takes this number (HD) and uses it for attack rolls and saves (aside from exceptionally bad/good saves), so a knave statblock looks something like this.

spells are all one or two sentences long & extremely easy to remember.

7 pages is so light. i have the system basically memorized.

DOWNSIDES: there's no dungeon crawling rules (standard for meatier OSR games & something i consider essential) and no real bestiary, though the second point isn't a huge deal cause they're so easy to make. it also kinda assumes you already know how to run OSR games, so there's very little real advice or guidance.

KNAVE HACKS

knave 1e is in creative commons & comes with an editable word doc for you to publish with modifications, so there's a ton of variants (there was a spreadsheet of them somewhere, but i can't find it).

Grave is a favorite - i'm two years into a grave campaign and it's fantastic. it's a dark-souls-y version of knave with some really elegant innovations.

you have a set number of deaths before you for-reals die, as every character plays an undead as is dark souls tradition. makes it good for OSR beginners! being able to tell when you're close to your final death is really good - it lets you emotionally prepare for losing your character & raises the stakes more the more you die. (though honestly you should probably cut the number of extra deaths in half, it's super generous)

XP and gold are combined into one resource, souls. legendary creatures drop big souls you can make into magic items. this has ended up being the coolest thing in my current campaign. my players love finding powerful souls to make into magic items it's so fun

uses preset packages of stats/gear instead of knave's rolled ones, filling the role of more traditional character classes. has the wonderful side effect of not making you get stuck with low stats cause you rolled bad one time.

you have stamina equal to your empty item slots. you spend stamina on spells if you're a caster, or free maneuvers (on top of your attack at no action cost) if you're not. it's super elegant.

there's 3 classes of spells: wizardry for intelligence, holy magic for wisdom, and witch stuff for charisma. nice and intuitive.

there's a page of 50 magic items each a couple sentences long. this PDF is worth it just for the magic items.

DOWNSIDE: see the downsides for knave 1e. all still apply.

i enjoyed grave so much i made a variant of it with the dark souls bits removed (and some dungeon crawl rules added!) to use for my standard fantasy campaigns.

Knave 2e

sadly knave 2e is not purchasable yet (i backed it on kickstarter so i have access, though). but when it comes out i highly recommend it.

much larger and denser than knave 1e. it finally has dungeon crawling rules, it has GM and player guidance, everything is refined and the layout is so so nice and readable.

combat is a bit more interesting than 1e. you can break your weapon against an enemy to deal max damage. you get a free maneuver on high attack rolls.

there's rules for stuff like alchemy, warfare, building a base. it all kicks ass.

there are so many goddamn tables. i rifle through it anytime i need inspiration.

DOWNSIDES: some of the new rules are a little untested & wonky. introducing randomness into how often your rations spoil or your lights go out can cause issues.

Mausritter

you play tiny little mice! in a world full of big dangerous things that want to eat mice. cat = dragon. you get it. what more could you want

the mouse thing is just super intuitive. you get the dynamic between you and the big scary lethal world. fantastic OSR game to introduce kids

nice and robust ruleset; nothing feels missing

tons of super nice GM stuff! faction rules, tools for rolling up hexcrawls and dungeons, plenty of tables

super clean readable layout. font isn't too small to avoid being intimidating. guidance is really nice and clear.

combat is autohit. super fast & lethal.

100% free

look mausritter is just. good. i wanna run it so bad someday

Worlds Without Number

sort of a middle ground between OSR stuff and 5e. paid version here free version here

lots of classes, at least in the paid version. the free version comes with just the warrior, expert and mage. there's feats and more of a focus on builds than most OSR games. if you like more mechanical build variety than a typical OSR game, this is a great game for you!

extremely good multiclassing. y'know how in most games if you just mash together two classes you think are cool you'll end up with a total mess? not here! every combo is viable and works fine! easily the best multiclassing of any game i've touched

an absurd amount of GM stuff and tables. easily more than any of the other stuff i've praised for also having them. but personally i haven't dug into them as much, so i can't really comment on them

skills the way modern D&D has them. you roll dice and try to beat a target number. i don't tend to like rolled skills, but most people do, so if that's your thing WWN has them

DOWNSIDES

the layout is terrible. everything is a huge wall of text with very little use of bold text or bullet points to draw attention to the important bits. the table of contents has like 15 things in it for a 400-page book! i couldn't find any of the paid-version-exclusive classes for like a month after i bought it! looking up rules is a nightmare.

the way the default setting handles "evil races" is like an exaggerated parody of all the problematic aspects of how D&D handles it. like, it wants so bad for you to have an excuse to genocide sentient free-willed people. but at least the default setting is easy to chuck in the trash

Dungeon Crawl Classics

the goal of this system is to take all of the crazy gonzo moments people remember playing old-school D&D in their childhood and turn all of that up to 11 while cutting the stuff that doesn't add to that. i think a lot of its innovations have ended up kind of standard in newer OSR stuff (like fighters getting maneuvers with their attacks), but it still has more to offer.

the funnel: you start the game with four randomly rolled dipshit peasants that you then throw into a meatgrinder to get horribly killed. you pick one of the survivors to be your 1st-level character.

maneuvers: fighters roll an extra die with each attack that gets bigger as you level. if it's a 3 or higher, you get to do a cool thing on top of your attack. pretty standard for OSR games, but this game popularized it!

crit tables: fighters also get more crits and nastier crits as they level. every crit, you roll on the crit table. maybe you chop off a dude's arm. maybe you just knock them over. maybe you shatter their shield. it's very cool

spell tables: i don't really like roll-to-cast mechanics, generally. but DCC goes so all-in on roll-to-cast that it still looks fun as hell to watch. you cast a fireball and maybe it goes how you want. or maybe you explode, or you nuke everything in a half-mile radius, or from now on you permanently ignite flammable materials you touch, or whatever. casters just have to put up with turning into a weird mutated mess across a campaign

there's no dungeon crawl rules, no encumbrance - this game is all about the big over-the-top wacky shit, and is not really interested in the more down-to-earth number crunching. it's more in the you-die-hilariously-all-the-time area of OSR than the you-avoid-death-through-clever-play area. not really my thing but the system knows exactly what it wants to be and i respect it

iron halberd

this one is mine! as the author i'm not qualified to tell you what isn't good about my system, so just assume it's worse than i make it sound, but here's a bunch of the selling points

semi-random character creation where you flip back and forth between rolling dice and getting your own input. roll stats, pick ancestry. pick starting gear kit, roll different dice based on which kit you picked. etc etc. stats are random but all equally viable (no rolling incredibly low or high stats). every time i run this game the character creation is a hit. seriously go roll up a character it'll sell you on the whole thing

you start out a lot stronger than a standard OSR character but grow way more slowly. i don't like 4th-level characters being 4 times as strong as 1st-level ones; HP never gets that high. emphasis is more on diegetic progression instead.

way too many subsystems for alchemy, crafting, strongholds, warfare, renown, rituals, likes 9 pages of magic items, a whole subsystem for becoming a cleric mid-campaign. i couldn't help myself i love this shit

in my current campaign we had a player permanently sacrifice some max HP to become a necromancer after deliberating on whether that's a good idea for like thirty seconds, which instantly made me think my necromancy system is a success

also free

Adventure recommendations

(in rough order of size)

Moonhill Garden (by Emiel Boven): look at this. look at it! this is like the best template for a little dungeon in an OSR game. all of the little factions are tied together. this would be a great oneshot to introduce people to an OSR system with.

A gathering of blades (by Ben Milton): a system-neutral, one-page sandbox. i ran this for an iron halberd game and it went super well. lasted like 7 sessions. highly recommend.

The Waking of Willowby Hall (by Ben Milton): a single dungeon with a million things going on. it's super chaotic with half a dozen different factions crashing into each other and a big angry goose. highly recommend, especially for kids

The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford (by Chance Dudinack): small sandbox with a fun fairytale vibe and a very fleshed-out little town. and a big nasty dragon.

Evils of Illmire (by Zack Wolf): this is a very dense, entire campaign's worth of hexcrawl in a very compact package for like $5. it doesn't do anything particularly new, but the value-for-money is absurd and it's a really good template for how to do a sandbox if you're used to 5e adventures

Ask me anything!

if anything here is unclear or intrigues you, send me asks! i love helping people get into OSR games. i'll link frequently asked questions here if i get any.

[fastcardotmp3]

there is literally no one-line explanation brush off they can give for Argyle being gone that isn't gonna piss me off.

You kill off a character we fell in love with offscreen? Gross and negligent storytelling.

You have him ditch the save the world effort? ARGYLE?? the guy /you/ designed to be loyal beyond measure to the point where he becomes a getaway driver for his best friend and a dying man no-questions-asked?? no amount of suspension disbelief is digging you outta that hole.

You just simply don't even mention him?? FUCKED. as if the treatment of characters of color on your show isn't already ABYSMAL you're gonna gaslight us about him ever having been important?? gain one single OUNCE of self awareness please.

just. duffers die by my sword challenge.

[lennythereviewer]

After sitting and digesting the new Amazing Digital Circus episode, I've come to the conclusion that I really appreciate Jax for the simple fact that he's the first character in a popular series I can recall in a long while who's just an absolute, unabashed asshole.

It feels like in today's media and storytelling no one wants to make their characters too mean or too unlikable. They're afraid to alienate the audience: The absolutely abysmal sanding down and softening up of The Grinch in the Illumination adaptation back in 2018 specifically comes to mind; their flagship franchise is about villains but they can't make the Grinch, the mean one, MEAN.

If a character is in the 'asshole'-archetype, they always fall into the "Stands off to the side and spouts one-liners and pretends to not care but absolutely has a soft side for this one thing/person" type of character.

Jax is mean, he physically pushes people over and out of the way, he insults everyone around him and bullies Gangle, and his only source of joy is seeing people miserable and suffering; even if they're just NPCs. He's not the type of mean where it's fun to watch what he does, like you would a charismatic villain, he's uncomfortably awful.

He's not the Tumblr Sexyman, watered down and digestible-type of asshole, he's genuinely an awful fucking person and it's honestly refreshing to see a character with some bite to them, and the creator not being afraid to make a polarizing character on purpose.

[shadowlink06]

NO SCENT/NOT IRL DOGS: PG 902

I normally don't bother with the comments since the media literacy of the people that post on Comic Fury is abysmal. But this caught my attention and I had to laugh.

Since this comes from the creators themselves I just want to point out the fucking irony here. They are quick to squash any meaningful discussion about a plot hole that is so apparent to the average reader. The dogs, as pointed out by one of their readers could DEFINITELY scent just fine in the earlier chapters of home. An example is Roamer using a cloth to "paint" Ferah's scent to throw off the MT persuers after Kargo killed Savas or Ranach knowing Ferah and Kargo returned to the MT after Kargo killed the Solar Stag merchants. The reason why the scent can't work here, is because that means precious Ranach can't be the hero Kique is painting him out to be.

Can you imagine how tweeked out he would be around Iberion if he realize the dog Ranach was picturing when they were fucking was still alive? Oh and also it's his brother....let's not open that can of worms.

One thing that drives me crazy about the commenters on Comic Fury is how they will just defend Kique’s shit storytelling. You don't smell fucking fire, you smell smoke when something is on fire. If something isn't on fire, yeah, it's going to still have a scent. Mother of God, the education system is failing kids.

[animebw]

Alright, I was hoping to wait for the first episode of 100 GFs Season 2 before putting my winter first impressions list together, but it's taking its sweet time getting onto streaming, so hey! Let's do this!

MUST-WATCH

The Apothecary Diaries Season 2: This and Orb running at the same time is going to turn me into a historical fiction slut, I tell ya.

Zenshu: Holy shit, y'all, Old Mappa has risen from the grave. This is the kind of ballsy, creator-forward original anime they used to be the kings of.

RUNNERS-UP

Flower and Asura: Is this gonna be as spectacular as Eupho? No chance in hell. But I think it's gonna be pretty good in its own right.

Link Click Bridon Arc: Shame we've only got 6 episodes, but this is a definite breath of fresh air after how messy season 2 was. Let the mysteries be revealed!

Medalist: My only concern is this studio has a reputation for every single one of its shows completely self-destructing on the production front. But god, I hope they pull it off this time.

Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun Season 2: I missed this show more than I realized. Let's hope the five-year wait is worth it!

WORTH A LOOK

Blue Exorcist: The Blue Night Saga: Credit where it's due, a season-long flashback arc might be just what Blue Exorcist needs to get its mojo back. Fingers crossed!

Honey Lemon Soda: You know what would be nice? If mediocre, passionless productions weren't the norm for shoujo anime.

ON THIN ICE

My Happy Marriage Season 2: I'm giving this show one more chance to win me over. Please, for the love of god, let Miyo have some actual agency in her own story.

Sakamoto Days: Okay so imagine Gintama but only 25% as funny or well-written with some truly abysmal fuckups of visual storytelling thrown in for good measure

Solo Leveling Season 2: Oh god, this is where this show becomes as bad as everyone said it was, isn't it?

Sorairo Utility: I actually watched the short this is based on a while back and quite liked it. Very confused how the full show ended up so much worse on every front.

[lemonhemlock]

The episode where Rhaenys busts through the floor and murders countless smallfolk and it having absolutely no narrative consequences on the story or condemnation of Rhaenys' character, and the episode where Aegon murders the ratcatchers causing Otto to crash out have this whole monlogue about Aegon being The Worst being written by the same writer really tells you all you need to know about HOTD. And before you ask, yes, they were both written by Sara Hess lmao.

Yeah, I know there was discourse a while ago, because this dissatisfaction regressed into racist and misogynistic attacks directed at Sara Hess. Obviously, that's vile and people should, first of all, rid themselves of this despicable framework of viewing the world (because, as always, this is absolutely just another opportunity to dunk on a woman - these people don't care about good storytelling) and, secondly, learn how to actually formulate an argument that doesn't sound like the ramblings of a basement-dweller.

That being said, she is categorically not a good writer, there's no other way to put it. She can come up with some good ideas (or, at least, a glimmer of good ideas - for example, the daemyra argument in S02E02 was good - one of the season's highlights, actually) and her line-level writing is... adequate. But, on the whole, her record on House of the Dragon is littered with inaccuracies and logical fallacies. I haven't seen her other shows, but I decidedly have no desire to and will be actively avoiding if I see her name. And I am including Ryan Condal in this mess, too, because he has the ultimate say-so on how the scripts look. These two together truly are the blind leading the deaf.

I think the ratcatcher pity party was, in a way, a reaction to all the backlash she received for the Meleys dragonpit scene. But, instead of fixing her mistake and making it work in the context of what she had already written, she made some absolutely abysmal storytelling choices that defy common sense and contradict her own text. A very easy fix to this would have been to show the population of King's Landing become very anti- Meleys, Rhaenys and, by extension, Rhaenyra. But, of course, the wider narrative set by her genius colleagues was that KL couldn't possible have any negative feelings towards Rhaenyra, so it's completely swept under the rug and the commoners are made to consider Meleys' death a bad omen.

But, naturally, they had to do something about all the criticisms that they are not focusing on the negative effects this war has on the population. However, instead of showing that in a balanced way, they decided to pile all these evils on the greens again. Rhaenyra faces no backlash from the low-born for any of her actions. She does sacrifice them to Vermithor, essentially, by preventing their exit and it's framed as the beginning of her moral compromises and falling into self-aggrandizing behaviour. Yes. But where are the consequences to this? There are no consequences. These dragonseeds don't seem to have any family who are asking questions about them or blaming Rhaenyra for setting them on fire, basically. Not even one noble person hears of this and goes "hmmm that's kind of fucked up actually". Larys, the literal Master of Spies, who might have reasonably be shown to have found out this inside information via his network of spies, might have had some lines informing the green council about this awful thing Rhaenyra has done. Might have even informed the population, in order to turn them against her. But no, of course not, we can't have anyone actually be anti-Rhaenyra.

Meanwhile, we have close-ups of the fucking dog longing for the ratcatcher who literally kicked it in a previous scene. How do you even qualify the framing decision to invite the audience to feel sorry for a child-murderer? To feel more sorry for him than for the actual mother of said murdered child? We have Otto, of all people, lecturing Aegon about how over-the-top he is acting, because he executed a couple of ratcatchers. Otto, who, by the way, is shown in S01E09 to be executing people because they would not bend the knee to Aegon. Otto does not value commoner lives more than noble-borns (last season, he refuses to outlaw child pit fighting and, even in the previous episode, he gets annoyed by Aegon ruling too much in the smallfolk's favour), but he grows a temporary conscience for the purpose of this one scene, because we have to engineer another situation in which Aegon looks cruel or stupid (or both, preferably). Alicent's entire household was purged by Larys for supposedly being Mysaria's spies, the brothel was even set on fire and she gave zero fucks about that, but Aegon's ratcatcher execution is somehow one step too far.

I have said this before, but just thinking "civilians don't matter" in the ASOIAF universe betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the themes and message. Can you ultimately be anything other than a "bad" writer if you miss the point to such a degree? And you can tell that's her true opinion about all this, because she can't write a storyline in which civilians do matter to save her life. The suffering of the lower classes only matters in her stories just as far as she can instrumentalize it to demonize the greens. She's not interested in any kind of systemic exploration, because that would also involve the blacks and it would interfere with Rhaenyra's hero framing. Like Ryan Condal, she doesn't have the chops to write beyond the hero-villain binary, hence all the flip-flopping and the retconning and the logical fallacies. And, at the end of the day, I can just watch a Marvel movie for that, you know?

[bybdolan]

thoughts on books i read in 2024

This was kind of an abysmal reading year for me ... i did not read a lot, very few books were truly excellent, and most of what I read was written by white guys (which is on me). Let’s hope 2025 is better on all fronts. Anyway, here’s a list of what I read, and about 4 sentences written in 3 minutes trying to summarize my thoughts on the book.

The Autograph Collector (Zadie Smith) – started the year off pretty strong with this one. It’s been a while since I read it, but what I do remember is that smith is an excellent storyteller and I liked how the themes of grief, dreams, and fame were woven together.

Die Insel der 1000 Leuchttürme (Walter Moers) – eh? I was constantly hoping that this would go in a “horror as metaphor for bigotry” or “small communities with strict rules are fucking scary” (think The Wicker Man) kind of direction, and thus was not on board with the way the plot ended up developing. It’s also way too long and Hildegunst’s neuroses are annoying after a certain point.

Faserland (Christian Kracht) – this is as good as everyone says it is. Full stop. I admittedly just love books about sad young men who are or pretend to be assholes (Catcher in the Rye), so this was perfect for me. Very sad and very pale, but in a good way – it felt clear, like nice winter wind. Also: I couldn’t get the boy to kill me but I wore his jacket for the longest time. Etc. etc.

Das fliegende Klassenzimmer (Erich Kästner) – a classic for a reason!!! Children’s books are at their best when they take their audience seriously, and this passes that test with flying colors. Incredibly fun, incredibly moving. Made me cry more than once. Eisern!

Call Me By Your Name (André Aciman) – this was a really interesting experience for me because I strongly disliked the movie when I watched it, as I was constantly put off by Oliver’s behavior. I think the book does a better job at making you understand the fragile and confusing back-and-forth between Elio and Oliver, and I found myself really really liking it because of that. I also greatly appreciate how unapologetically horny it is. Being horny makes you act fucking weird!!! I love weird horny representation!!! YAY peach scene! The style was beautiful as well, though a bit imagery-heavy at times, which did fit the heavy summer atmosphere.

Rico, Oskar 1 – 3 (Andreas Steinhöfel) – listened to the audiobooks on my way to uni. A very fun time all around. Similarly to Kästner, Steinhöfel has a lot of respect for his audience and also doesn’t shelter them. What other kids’ books can you name where the protagonist’s mom works at a strip club? The representation may not be perfect but I love that he went there. Mama Doretti you are forever famous TO ME.

The End of Loneliness (Benedict Wells) – always pains me to say this because Benedict Wells legit is so fucking sweet and nice in person and I’d LOVE to have dinner with him, but ... he is not thaaat good of a writer. This one essentially is a John Irving wannabe, and despite the “dark” themes it feels incredibly shallow and cliched at times. The female character(s) are particularly offensive. However: at the very least Wells is earnest about it all?

22 Bahnen (Caroline Wahl) – Caroline Wahl who had 2 books on the bestsellers list for over a year now recently complained that she wasn’t nominated for the Deutscher Buchpreis, which is partially meant as financial support for authors whose a) books do not sell well because b) they are good and complex pieces of literature, so I hope that she’ll be at least a bit consoled by receiving the “Book That Made Me Seethe With Hatred 2024” award <3 the writing is ass the story is shallow it’s all just a big fucking cliché and the depiction of poverty and addiction is appalling. I’d be ashamed to put a book like this out into the world.

HOOL (Philipp Winkler) – this still is THE book about violent men to me. I read it 5 times in the summer of 2018 and I am happy to report that it has lost none of its appeal and grit and ugliness. Simply a 10/10 and deeply formative to my taste.

Emil und die Detektive (Erich Kästner) – everything I said about Das fliegende Klassenzimmer is also true for this one. Ultimately I do prefer Klassenzimmer though, simply because the themes of friendships and camaraderie appeal to me much more.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson) – As a thriller this is near perfect, I could not put it down for two days. Larsson manages to do the whole “intersection of faith and violence against women” thing without it feeling exploitative (I’d be inclined to believe he may have started this trend), and I am glad that he allows his female characters to take gruesome revenge. Howeveeerrr unfortunately the narration still has a very chauvinistic edge to it and Mikkel feels like a male mid 40s wish fulfillment fantasy.

The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt) – I bought this in the Mauritshuis after seeing the Goldfinch so :’) it has a nice little sentimental edge to it. And this is another one of those “it really is THAT good” books. Looking back now, I am surprised that relatively little has stayed with me though – I never was that invested in Theo, and I also didn’t love Boris a ton, so a lot of the novel was just me hanging out with characters I didn’t like reading about that much. What stuck with me the most was the love for beautiful things that comes pouring out of every pages. Especially the parts in Hobie’s shop were just awe-inspiring. I’m planning to do a reread where I just focus on the descriptions because they were so unbelievably rich.

Bluebeard (Kurt Vonnegut) – I don’t remember a ton about this. What comes back to me most is my fondness of Vonnegut. He has a lot of humor and warmth in his writing, and I always find myself deeply moved by him writing about people loving one another, as funny or dark or even sad it may be.

The Virgin Suicides (Jeffrey Eugenides) – IT REALLY IS THAT GOOD. I could go on about the genius of that narrator perspective (the boys who watched the Lisbon girls as this big shapeless faceless conglomerate of first person plural) for ages. The prose is embroidery-worthy and the amount of detail and specificity do not only bring the Lisbon girls to life, but also the entire small town ecosystem around them. A beautiful capsule of stifled adolescence. And yet a horrifying read. (Bonus: I read this at the time when my boyfriend was reading Lolita, so when we were reading in public we looked like Mr. + Mr(s). Coquette.)

The O’Henry Prize Winners of 2024 – I love a good short story collection what can I say? I highly recommend these collections to everybody, as they present an array of innovative, diverse, well-told short stories that you may have not heard about before unless you are a literary magazine afficionado. My favorites were “Roy” and “The Soccer Balls of Mr. Kurz”.

Everybody Jam (Ali Lewis) – listen. Nothing hits like a good middle grade book. This one is veeery heavy at times and I was honestly not ready for some of the stuff that was happening, but it still was an engrossing experience and I just love coming-of-age stories that get into the mess of living. I also learned a lot about Australian cattle farming. Yay.

Fighting Ruben Wolfe (Markus Zusak) – another book about men and violence, yay! Finished this one today (it technically is only the first half of my German joint edition of this + “When Dogs Cry” but shhh). The writing was really good for the most part (I read it to get a feel for slightly gritty and simple vocabulary-wise yet rich in imagery narration for a project of mine, and it definitely delivered), however, it is very cut-up and not very subtle at times. I also felt like it was just missing. Something. I wasn’t really satisfied by the end of it.

so uuuh I think my favorite new reads of the year were The Virgin Suicides and Faserland. Maybe I should lighten up.

[exhaustedwerewolf]

anyway I’m really behind on tlovm but I was a tiny bit disappointed that when scanlan tried to kiss pike she didn’t say there was someone else (like she did at a similar time in the campaign). I know tlovm has to simplify the characters and because of storytelling rules they don’t want to set up pike’s feelings for percy with no existing setup and no coming payoff but nevertheless, stuff like this is why I love the campaigns! cr breaks storytelling conventions all the time because of dice and because everyone is playing their own character who is truly at the centre of their own narrative and doesn’t have access to anyone else’s interiority. all the women of vm (and vax lbr) having at least a little crush on percy at some point despite him being the worst possible choice and the majority of them at some point going ‘uh, fuck that actually, that’s an abysmal idea ’ makes this feel so much like a realistic friendship group, and creates so much entertaining messy complexity. this isn’t a complaint about tlovm I’m just saying what I’ve said like ten times already they’re doing a really good job translating it! but a lot of what I love is getting lost in translation. yet again.

[lurkingshan]

I have watched the finale (I didn’t like it, fam, stop reading if that will bother you!). My expectations were already in the gutter but this is still some of the most abysmal storytelling I have seen in a minute. Time was spent on the wrong parts of the story, as usual. The emotional beats were inconsistent. There was virtually no character development for Phaya and Tharn and they never actually became partners in a meaningful way. All the most important resolutions happened offscreen and were delivered to us via stilted expository dialogue, and didn’t make sense to begin with. Even the handful of interesting moments with the sides were underbaked and felt haphazardly spliced in. But hey, that was a nice sex scene.

Just, wow. What a sad trajectory for this show.

[eggdrawsthings]

Sorry to ask you this in these trying times, and maybe an obvious answer given all you've said, but would you recommend watching the Acolyte? My mom loves Star Wars (but is still mostly casual) and we watch all the Star Wars live action shows together, but she hasn't brought up the Acolyte (maybe not enough advertisement??), is it worth watching? Your drawings really made me think maybe I should suggest watching it despite hearing that it's not a good show, and that maybe the "it's not a good show" is the hardcore fanbase's take.

personally w my bias opinion, i'd say no. I was roped in cuz of Sol being the first Asian Jedi Master, and cuz I love LJJ acting in Squid Game. I was so hyped about it since last year or sth when the first pixelated pic of him was leaked online. Also it's the first time we get sth Jedi-related that is not tied to the Skywalkers or Ahsoka. But watching it now week by week is like watching them ruining my fave in real time w the abysmal writing.

However, if you r in for the lore of the High Republic, I'd say maybe? I saw many of my moots who are THR fans liked it. But if you do, DO NOT get attached to any of these characters. Don't be me and then u will get your heart broken, not in a good way.

If you are someone who likes visual storytelling or just storytelling in general, you can watch it and learn from it like what works and what doesn't. It does have a very good premise, so if you are a writer you can think of ways to achieve the same outcome but with a much better plot or sth, it'd would be a fun exercise to do.

Im sorry this is not a clear yes or no answer. Cuz tho i was disappointed by how it turned out, it does have very good moments, especially the fight scenes, those are amazing. So yeh, check it out if YOU are interested and then judge it for yourself ^^

[melampyguss]

i need to rant real quick about heracles as a character cause i’ve read retellings about him that were so abysmal it ruined my day.

people are free to make their own storytelling choices and i take creative liberties too but one thing that really irks me is when people feel the need to make heracles out to be even worse than he already was which is super unnecessary because that man commit just about every heinous crime under the sun. what is the point in adding more in the aspects where he was actually good??

i read this one book that was supposed to be a feminist retelling of his story except for some reason that required them to make him be an awful husband to megara like victimizing her more does her a favor when telling her story as if they didn’t feel like what she already went through was tragic enough and it had to be made worse to be a story worth telling.

it’s more than tragic enough that she had a husband and children whom she loved so much and she had absolutely no reason to believe that it could suddenly be ripped away from her in an instant and yet it did anyway from things she couldn’t have prevented no matter how hard she tried.

it’s not like they’re wrong for making heracles out to be a bad husband entirely. it’s that they just do it at the wrong time and i just don’t think that’s as interesting from a storytelling perspective. i don’t want to read a story about how he was bad from the beginning just because. i’d much rather see a story that shows how he had a good heart but a bad temper that slowly ruined him and lead him to become that awful person.

not to mention the story they’re trying to tell is already in the myths, it’s just not megara. the story of his third wife, deianira, is criminally underrated. that has the perfect setup if you wanted to tell the story of a woman who was manipulated and wronged by heracles so horribly that it led to her death and that’s honestly one of the most interesting parts of his life in my personal opinion.

anyways this is a super long rant that i probably could say way more on but i won’t so basically what i’m getting at is some people are just so weird about using megara as a plot device to show off the flaws heracles in the name of feminism when they’re actually doing her a disservice to make it seem as if what she went through isn’t worth being told as is.

also i try to do as much research as i can but it can be a bit hard with what i’m working with so if i got anything wrong i’d love to be educated!

[serahadmoni]

2024 Fic Writer End of Year Roundup

I think most everyone has already been tagged, but if you haven’t, please share!

How many words did you publish on AO3 in 2024?

34,634 - that doesn’t seem right since I only started writing again in October, but I’ll absolutely take it.

How many fics did you complete this year?

6, most of them missing scene one-shots. Only in Fire missed the mark by a couple days.

Favor - (3654) Gen Xaden POV - General Sorrengail calls in her favor.

Warden - (5779) Gen Bodhi POV - After Varrish pushes Violet to near burnout Bodhi, Imogen, and Eya do their best to set her up for recovery.

As Duty Demands - (5547) Gen Xaden POV - The waning days of the apostasy. Xaden’s last unmonitored conversation with Fen and the discovery of where he’s been hidden. Includes small cameos by Bodhi and Garrick.

Gather Your Ghosts - (3376) Gen-ish Garrick POV - After Bodhi and Garrick disappear on Reunification Day. Grief, Imogen/Garrick messiness.

Of Galahad - (3960) - Gen Liam POV - Immediate aftermath of the unbonded attack on Violet and a glimpse of the early days of shadow duty from his perspective.

Chromatic - (12,318) - Explicit OC POV - Bodhi/OFC - Following a deadly RSC session, Bodhi checks in on one the marked cadets who used to fall under his command. OFC is a synesthetic empath. Incorporates exploration of signets. Canon level violence and reference to RSC related torture.

How many in progress or ongoing fics did you start this year?

Depends on the definition of start. I have base skeletons for two long fics and the beginnings of the next two missing scene one shots. If we're talking published in progress, none. But there's a fair amount of outline for both a "Violet reaches instead of Xaden" and an "OFC who was Ciaran's close personal friend does not buy the party line Riorson's selling at graduation and who makes it her business to find out the truth." So, frameworks? Not actual words yet, though there are snippets of scenes.

What piece was your favorite thing you wrote?

Man, this is like asking me to pick between my children which is impossible. If pressed, I'd probably say Chromatic.

What piece was your most experimental or different from your usual style?

Alas, I don't think I've done anything super experimental. Though I have thought about crafting and writing a series of Tyrrish folklore thanks to one of the moments in Chromatic.

Did any fics surprise you either while writing or their reception?

I can't talk about Only in Fire because that's technically this year, but it took several unexpected turns which is why it took me so long to finish it. But other than that, probably Warden. I know I needed the scene, but I didn't realize so many other people wanted it as well.

Who is an artist that inspired you?

Love @essjaywrites and @illustratinghan!

Who is an author that inspired you?

My TBR is an abysmal trainwreck because most of my limited free time is focused on writing, and I don't have the time I'd like to read. I did manage to work all the way through "storm in the quiet" by @justallihere and it was an incredible work of storytelling.

What are your creative goals for 2025?

Keep writing. Keep improving. Focus on more sensory anchoring. Get one of those two outlines (or both of those outlines) fully fleshed and onto the page. Figure out how Onyx Storm is going to change, shift, and/or blow up all of these plans.