#another trope for the speedrun list

[pharawee]

It'll be raining soon. Let's hurry and head back.

[blossoms-phan]

will never pass up the opportunity, so! i am asking. what are your phanfic recommendations?

ask (honoured!) and you shall receive bestie! quick preface: i returned to the wonderful world of reading phanfic around the start of this year and have admittedly missed out on years of incredible work i am now catching up on! also in terms of what i read i generally lean towards current-era fics, canon compliant/fluff/smut- although i'm always taking recs from lovely moots/whoever, you may find this isn't the largest range (no aus/long chapter fics or whatever) but this is just a selection of what i've discovered/loved in the past few months and i hope to make more of these as i discover more writings!

shoutout to everyone on here for their recs, all the incredible fanfic writers and the peeps at @phanfictioncatalogue for their work and accessibility and being the reason i discovered so many new fics/tropes i now love <3 ok lets get into ittttttttt

"you look at my face a lot" by natigail: i credit this fic for getting me into reading phanfic again in 2024 <3 one of the first ones i read post-hiatus and i've returned to it countless times! it makes my heart jump, just so sweet and so them. the slittening(s) were such an iconic moment i can't believe it's been 6+ months since them but i love the little moments like dan describing phil's hair colour to a sephora worker, always wanting to know more about each other and the soft intimacy.

"the angel in the marble" by ivylakes: OHH MY GOODNESS this one is artttt. this one is my fave of the post-phlondeing fics i can just see and feel everything that happens, the loving, lazy intimacy, and following this week's t-shirt events it absolutely cements my HC that angel is a nickname for our philly. introspection, hair-kissing, body worship- i eat it up (im having a thing for mirrors in fics rn so there's also that)

"slumber party" by possumdnp: if i wasn't already clear reality-based fics really just do it for me and i love this one!! slumber party is one of my favourite recent-ish gaming vids and i just love the cozy comfort vibes of having a sleepover and getting a little flirty with your best friend/crush going on 15 years <3

"after the birthday stream" by trashcanfromgallifrey: the birthday stream ignited something in all of us but this is just such a perfect depiction of (possible) events after hehe. feels so them, just love the loving intimacy and shower activities and fluffy endings with cake <3 (shoutout hannah ily!!)

"lovers, keep on the road you're on" by possumdnp: another personal fave. japhan 2019 is EVERYTHING to me, this is so lovely and well-researched and i just go in between reading this and watching the stories from it when i want to cry and book a flight to tokyo

"welcome home! (never leave that long again)" by natigail: this one is just soooooo soft and sweet and fluffy. so heartwarming and one of the many wad reunion fics that has my heart <3

ok i'm going to end up including all 40+ of my bookmarks (not a lot. but working on it hehe) if i don't stop myself so as much as i could write paragraphs about all of these just know that my PPA test is positive and i was probably sweating/giggling/kicking my feet at all of these so here's a speedrun list of pure smut (sorry it's a lot of what i read lmao):

"juxtaposition", "slow down", "sensitive", "some kind of mood" and literally everything written by the force that is intoapuddle

"come light me up" by JudeAraya (perhap not pure smut but I loveeee the teasing and characterization in this so so dan ugh)

"appreciation" by Scuddleduck

"a little vitamin D" by Spring_Haze

"good for you, good for you" and "under my thumb" by dvp_95

"lucky" by iihappydaysii

i could keep going but for now i'm going to stop here! i'm sorry if this is messy i have no idea what i'm doing with linking and stuff but i hope this introduces at least one person to a new fic they end up loving! i lurked/read sooo many fics before finally creating an a03 account only a little over a month ago so i def might be missing some i've forgotten to go back and bookmark! shoutout to all of these writers (i could include multiple works from them all u ppl are amazing)- again i'm soo open to discovering more phanfic and want to expand my horizons, i've started to read some chaptered fics i didn't include on here but will reblog more current reads where i can! also if we're moots pls shamelessly promote your works i'd love to check them out! need to start commenting more too but ok ok wrapping it up

[suzteel]

I had so much fun putting together my rec list for last month's Rec Fest that I decided I would try to do a rec list every month or so and continue to spread the love. Unfortunately, due to life, I didn't get to do much reading this month, but I wanted to put a list together for February anyway because I loved what I did read. So here you go! Short and sweet.

CANONICAL VEGASPETE

[The theme of this month seems to be trauma, as all four of these are short but heavy character studies dealing with either Pete's or Vegas's traumatic responses to canonical or post-canonical events.]

Deep Dive by Zaatar

After the safehouse, Pete goes back to underwater restraints training. It hits differently.

This is a Pete-centric fic set between the safehouse and the coup which focuses on how not okay Pete really is as he tries to go back to his usual routine. The characterizations in this are spot on and the sensory details are simply gorgeous. Literally stole my breath.

A Change of Clothes by Lise

Pete's in limbo. Also a mess. Figuratively and literally.

Another Pete-centric fic, this one set in the immediate aftermath of the coup. I've read so many good ones during that period and this is another to add to that pile, but what appealed to me especially with this one was the focus on clothes and blood and metaphor. Also a very quick read if you are looking for something short and good.

Isolation of the Cruelest Kind by ellieellieoxenfree

Frightened of his own anger, Vegas tries to deal on his own.

I won't lie, this one is not an easy read. It viscerally captures the process of spiraling into self-loathing and self-harm as the result of trauma. It's painful. It's also incredibly written and a devastating post-canon Vegas character study. And it has a gentle end. Well worth the read.

Lapping at the Edges by fleet_off (wip)

“You should hit me,” Vegas says. Even blind he knows he’s struck something, because the words hang like blood in the air. They snake back down his throat and settle in his lungs with a wet, heavy rightness that Vegas hasn’t felt all night. It would all be okay, he thinks, if Pete hit him. It wouldn’t remove him from his body; it would center him. And Pete’s fists can remold him better, punish him, free him from the filthy guilt-ridden jumble of what he is. They have before. Vegas lifts his cheek and braces his jaw to take the blow.

In which Vegas comes home drunk and speedruns setting off emotional landmines.

This is a WIP with a final chapter coming, but I feel like the two chapters that already exist stand very well on their own. I really love this one because it tackles how difficult breaking patterns of abuse is and the conflicts that arise at the intersection of the pain of past trauma and the fear of duplicating it. It's messy and painful and overall just really good.

VEGASPETE AUS

[Just one for right now. I have several AUs I'm following and enjoying at the moment, but I think I'll save most of those for a future rec list. But this one had to be mentioned.]

Sanctuary by sparkly_butthole (wip)

“You were just waiting for someone to lay claim to you," he realizes. "Am I just someone, then?” “No.” Pete’s giving him a highly self-satisfied look, which Vegas wants to wipe off his face with kisses and bites until his eyes are hazy and he can’t even talk right. “But you are the one who claimed me.” “Obviously.” Vegas’ hands shake with longing even as he runs fingers through Pete’s hair. Pete looks close to purring; how is it possible to yearn for someone who’s one step away from falling to his knees right in front of you, for you? “Do you regret it?” “Why would I? I belong to you.” Pete says it like it’s an immutable fact, like the tides, like gravity, and maybe it is.

This fic! I'll be the first to admit that soulmates as a trope is not a favorite of mine, but the way this author uses the conceit to hurl them together with all the intensive obsessive codependency developed in canon and then multiplied even further by the soulbond at an earlier part of the story is absolutely brilliant. The writing is gorgeous—fervent and slightly manic to match their intensity—with fantastic characterizations, and I am so weak for secret relationship AUs. This fic only has one chapter thus far, and it's already probably my favorite AU to date. Highly recommend.

Happy reading! ❤

[mbirnsings-71]

WAIT OKAY MADI gimme ur fav fic tropes and then i will send recs based off of that hehehe like whats ur angst level preference n stuff nodsnodsnsodnsos

oh OH okay OKAY

I'm not the biggest angst girlie (more so a fluff girlie, especially if it's domestic fluff) but if It does have Angst I would prefer hurt/comfort because I can't handle pure angst or I will cry violently. Oh and I hate Miscommunication but that's because logically we know what the others are doing most likely but the characters don't so it just makes me want to scream.

A.k.a my Angst preference is like no super hard hurt no comfort because I can take Angst like almost dying and getting injured and stuff but I like there to be a side of comfort with it. also as long as there's no major character death, non-con, or underage stuff I'm pretty sure I can handle it.

Fav fic tropes however is a fun one and so I will list some that I have enjoyed:

Marriage proposals/weddings (like those are my favorite things and I can not explain why, Jay can let you know that It is in fact my bread and butter

Fake Dating is also a good one especially if it turns into real dating (I've read a 45k word one-shot about Buck and Eddie fake dating to go to Buck's parents' retirement party cause Buck didn't want to deal with his parents alone while Maddie is also trying to deal with their parents and it was so beautifully written my god I finished it in one 5 hour sitting it was wild)

Friends to lovers is also a favorite of mine because while some people are enemies to lovers fans I just prefer the opposite (and in Buck and Eddie's case I love the speedrunning friends to fiancés for them!!)

if it's a father figure/maternal figure and their perceived adoptive child story I love ones where they explicitly get told that the other sees them like a son/daughter or a mother/father like those are so good for me to read and it's why I love Buck and Bobby's dynamic so much because Buck says in the 9-1-1 and 9-1-1 lone star crossover that Bobby is kind of like his father figure AND IT'S JUST I need these two to actually have a conversation about it okay

also any stories that do like good character introspection about characters' backstories and their connections to people like I love me a good character study LIKE ONE TIME I READ A ONE-SHOT ABOUT BUCK AND HIS RELATIONSHIP TO ALMOST DYING AND IT WAS SO-

Sickfics are also a trope I love because I just love seeing characters get taken care of. The trust needed to have someone else take care of you while you're in a state that makes you achy and hurt and just genuinely miserable feeling just is so nice to me, especially since this trope can be used Platonically and Romantically it's just a good over-all trope.

This also feeds into another trope I like called a character gets a breakdown and gets comforted and held like that is my favorite trope and I think it shows sometimes, sue me I like comfort.

My guilty pleasures are Chatfics/social media aus because those are fun to just breeze through and you don't have to really worry too much about typos because you can fix them in the story as a character fixing their own typo and I know they're not everyone's cup of tea but they're just so fun for me to read personally.

there's probably more but I'm blanking at the moment so we'll end it here

[cherchersketch]

My Secretly Hot Husband / My Husband hides his Beauty

It’s like medieval Beauty and the Beast, except with MLMs (wait what)

Summary Our girl has been reincarnated into this medieval life (because it helps the plot and gives her a fear of fire backstory. lol) Because of trash family reasons, she has to be married to the ~monster duke~. But don’t worry, it’s only a 3-year age gap and he actually looks *fine* but nobody can tell him that because of ~plot reasons~ Anyway, demons/devils exist and the way to defeat them, according to some ancient sage, is through the power of CAPITALISM! That’s right, our girl can read the ~mysterious ancient language~ written by an ancient prophet (a.k.a hangul). Using the power of fraud, she’s gonna go up the demon tier list to defeat them all and help hubby break his family curse. UwU

Tropes   - past life explained in one frame   - just throw this whole family away      - this is just an arranged marriage he/she would never love me   - the TRUE EVIL is late-stage CAPITALISM   - modern technology = magic

FL - Letitia el Halstead

- conquering devils and kingdoms with the power of BUSINESS FRAUD - literally harnessing the power of “The Art of the Deal” against actual demons - gaslight gatekeep girlboss

ML - Erden el Halstead

- hiding his ~*beauty*~ behind a mask - such a cute little puppy //sob Letitia please lift his curse soon - divorce my wife speedrun any% extreme monster hard mode (because Letitia would never)

Rating: Loved this so much I spent real life money in that I binged and then decided to pay for the weekly updates on tapas Status (as of 30 Nov 2023) Ongoing. Season 2 just ended so it’s yet another ~hiatus time~  Stopped at a pretty decent place though, not a cliffhanger, so it’s a good time to binge right now. 100% completed ;w; 

Same Same but Different   - Leveling up my Husband to the Max

full rec list

[fractualized]

Got tagged by the fabulous @distort-opia​! Picking a fifth fave fic was hard, but here's what I landed on:

- On the Mend (Free John Doe Part 1, rated Teen and Up) - Backstitch (Free John Doe Part 2, rated Explicit) I hadn't written fic for 5 years when I played Enemy Within. I started a one-shot when Episode 4 came out, but when Episode 5 emotionally crushed me, it got me thinking about the kind of life John could have had if he stayed within the bounds of the law, if he had the opportunity to actually learn how he wanted to live his life and to have Bruce be a part of it. I pictured John being the lead of a colorful variety show in some run-down club and finally getting a kiss from his beloved buddy. And I could have done it as an AU where Enemy Within didn't happen, or a flash-forward set years later, but I felt so attached to John as he is that I *really, really* wanted that scene to happen in canon, and I wanted it to feel plausible and earned. So over the next 2 years I wrote 212k words. I still need to finish editing it, but I'm pretty proud I saw it through. :)

- Another Version of the Truth (rated Teen and Up) AVotT was a way for me to skip to Bruce and John being cute as hell while plodding through OtM and Backstitch, and I'll admit I'm sometimes a little :\ that it's more popular than those two. But I get it! It's got the Pact acting more like a semi-functional family, it's got Bruce freely being fluffy as heck with John, it's got loads of silliness— uh, until it doesn't. Oh ho, it's all fun and games until the author's angst instincts kick in!

- Give and Take (rated Explicit) I'd written comicsy batjokes darkfic before and was looking for a regular old batjokes idea to take hold, and suddenly a Discord conversation about financial domination kink turned into a speedrun of classic batjokes tropes (and not so much findom). Each plot point flowed so easily into another that I cranked this out in a couple weeks. Why can't that happen more often? x_x

- A Man Possessed (rated Explicit) This is one where I happily flash-forwarded to a postcanon John who managed to get re-released from Arkham because handwavey flibbaflabbum. The idea sprouted from another Discord conversation about incorporating lexjokes into the Telltale universe, and in my head it went from jokey flirting to full relationship drama. John doesn't cheat, but he sure came close with the chemistry he turned out to have with Telltale Luthor and how much fun I was having cutting Bruce down a peg. And then there's rough semi-public make-up sex! (though I sometimes still think about a sexy angsty cheating dramafest don't judge me)

As for my WIP list... oh boy. I haven't posted links to my own darkfic (noncon, etc) on here, and none made the above list, but hey, I’ll discuss the Bad Times WIPs if anyone wants to hear about them. Although picking them out is like half lottery since the word "dark" is missing from most of them. The silliest sounding one is probably the worst!

Even after some curation, the list is still way too long.

I'll just be tagging @fordarkisthesuede​ and @mystrothedefender​, if they want to join in, but anyone else who'd like to should feel free!

[mathematicats]

mathematicats bkdk fic recs 2: canonverse edition

Time for another round of mathematicats’s bkdk fic recs!

I compiled this list way back in Nov and never posted it. Honestly, I had a lot of trouble this time around, because Katsuki is such a dynamic character that he’s become OOC in so many of these fics in light of last year’s development. I kind of lost steam in finishing this and haven't added more recent reads but I figured something is better than nothing, so here you go! All of them are complete unless otherwise noted.

Separated into canon universe pro heroes, UA, and alternate universes again.

AU edition here

Canon Universe - pro heroes

Worth a Second Shot by cinnabee

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23909569

13k, hurt/comfort, heavy on the hurt. Warning: a lot of blood.

Something goes wrong at Katsuki and Izuku’s party.

Well-written and super in-character, a ton of tension that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat the whole ride. Protective Bakugou “I’d burn the whole city down for you” Katsuki.

all the things beyond one’s control by aideyn

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29353788

7k, h/c heavy on hurt. A villain takes control of Izuku’s body and tries to hurt Katsuki. Super established relationship (they know each other so well and care for each other so much).

One Day The Only Butterflies Left Will Be In Your Chest As You March Towards Your Death by edema_ruh

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28020690

49k, h/c heavy on hurt. “Bakugou and Midoriya are in a plane crash. Bakugou has to take care of Midoriya and help him survive.” CW: field amputation.

when we’re finally alone, darling you’re my home by yabakuboi

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19824649

4k, h/c. A speedrun through bkdk’s post-UA ambiguous but reciprocal relationship. “Katsuki falls in love, falls in love, falls in love with Izuku wherever they are.”

it's the way that we rotate (that makes me feel ok) by w0nderlei

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25228675

4k, h/c mostly fluff. Long-distance relationship bkdk from an insecure Katsuki’s POV. Lovely words.

new collagen fibers by w0nderlei

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28605492

1k, fluff. Established bkdk share a soft morning with some scar-touching.

throw your heart to me (let it fall and hit the ground) by w0nderlei

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31300664

3k, fluff, getting together.

Izuku and Katsuki take a walk home after a night out.

So soft...so canon...so in-character. Palpable romantic tension and tender hand-holding, all described in very delicate words.

Apartment 310 (and they were roommates!) by Azureflowers

https://archiveofourown.org/works/35253994

8k, fluff. Warning: will warm your heart and make you crave more queerplatonic bkdk

Roommates to lovers trope. Sweet domestic bkdk with funny moments and a great (perfect, imo) take on the nature of their partnership. This author is so good at everyday energy and realistic portrayal of Japanese culture.

high school lover, favorite flavor by allwyf

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18521179

8k, fluff, roommates (idiots) to lovers trope.

My favourite dynamic of silently pining Katsuki + oblivious Midoriya “omg I just realized I love Kacchan” Izuku.

Whiplash by Flarewrites

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23605336

29k, fluff, Idiots to lovers, pretend-relationship trope.

Another pining Katsuki + oblivious Izuku get-together.

Bkdk get engaged for the media and Izuku discovers his feelings. It’s funny and I lost my mind when Katsuki said De-Izuku (this was written a whole year before ch 327!)

You Got a Boyfriend? By thatpinkbetch

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33346276

2k, fluff. “In the middle of a bar, Bakugou’s out with his friends, drunk as fuck, and head over heels in love with his childhood friend (aka, his husband) and he’s about to make that everyone’s problem.” SUPER CUTE.

give me a sign by nymphorical

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34450513

4k, angst. Not-really Eraser/Bakugou, one-sided bkdk, and established IzuOcha.

Katsuki is sad and alone at the bar and seeks validation from Aizawa.

song on a policeman’s radio by ohwickedsoul

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27714947

7k, pure angst, established relationship. For when you want to read about Katsuki grieving dead Izuku from an impersonal POV.

Canon Universe - UA (& younger)

Sneku by cinnabee

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24363238

41k, h/c mostly fluff.

Izuku gets turned into a snake and Katsuki takes him in. So indulgent...

(in the best way) by stardust_rust

https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931812

This is a 2-part series, 7k and 15k respectively, fluff. 7k of Kacchan-simping from Izuku’s POV, followed by 15k of birthday-party-planning from Katsuki’s POV.

Spot-on character study+canon manga themes, SO funny, great interactions with side characters (hilarious Todo-Baku dynamics), and so many details that make the story come to life. So many fics from this author have at least one moment that leaves me absolutely shooketh, and this is one of them.

the bittersweet between my teeth by stardust_rust

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34655239

20k, h/c. Deku is hit with a vampirism quirk

love came with all that it brings by blossomshed

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28793679

6k, fluff. “They become best friends as well as rivals, but along the way, Katuski falls embarrassingly in love. To everyone else, Deku included, they've been dating for months.”

It’s Enough by onlybylaura

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15952886

2k, fluff. Five times they kiss. So soft.

ashes to ashes and back again by ladyofsnails

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33102286

3k, angst with a h/c filter. Set centuries after canon story and from a reincarnation’s POV, with bkdk only mentioned through an old news report. The art that inspired this fic is also beautiful.

Crack

Big Protein by Mysecretfanmoments

https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysecretfanmoments/pseuds/Mysecretfanmoments

14k, canonverse pro-heroes. Pervy Deku’s Kacchan-doujinshi-stash is revealed to the whole world and Katsuki has a sexuaI awakening.

Number One Nemesis by heartsinhay

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27861262

32k quirkless “villain” Deku and pro hero Katsuki have the hots for each other. 2 chapters of high quality hilarity and then it hits you right in the feels.

Non-bkdk

Permanent Ink by Maxine

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25576375/chapters/62069245

99k, h/c, unfinished. Endgame BKDK but the KamiBaku is SO STRONG in this fic, I was rooting for them instead of bkdk so I can’t rec this as a bkdk fic in good conscience.

[jacketpotatoo]

top fives (answer as many or as few as you wish, I just had more and more coming while I was typing): top five artists? top five fictional characters? top five character relationships? (doesn't have to be romantic, doesn't have to be between only two characters, and doesn't have to be canon either :D ; asking about specific characters, not general dynamics, though I guess that can be another top five if you feel like it) top five fiction (any medium) ?

<rubs hands> I’ll speedrun this

Artists (assuming you’re talking about online artists + these are just a few on my mind rn, I have so many and it changes constantly):

- WolfytheWitch

- Sevvanto

- Automeruz

-Sevenchiart

- Velinxi

Fictional characters:

- Spider-Man

- Marcy/Bubblegum

- Kakashi Hatake

- Luz Noceda (a more recent one)

- Kuroo Tetsuroo

Character Relationships:

- Kate and Clint (tired disaster archers)

- Marceline/Bubblegum (the way they complete each other and bring out the best in each other and are bound in a way unlike any other because of their immortality, I am weak)

- Vi/Caitlyn (obsessed with them, obsessed with “opposites attract but maybe they’re not that different after all”) but also Cait and Jayce have the sibling dynamic ever. I could just list every arcane dynamic actually

- Ellie and Joel (I am such a sucker for the grumpy-dad-reluctantly-adopts-daughter-and-gets-unhealthily-attached trope you have no idea)

- Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (they’re just very iconic)

Fiction:

- Spider-Man into the Spider-verse

- Lord of the Rings

- Adventure Time

- Avatar the last Airbender

- Arcane

These are probably a mix of top 5 atm and top 5 of all time but I don’t know which is which because I am indecisive

[alpharaposa]

Ao3 Tag Game

@silly-bean tagged me! So here I go... 1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Current count is 13! Not that many, I know.

2. What is your total AO3 word count?

82888 words! Nice number, huh.

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Only six! Bleach, StarDew Valley, Transformers (Gen 1), Girl Genius, Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy XII. At least, on Ao3. I have some drabbles here on Tumblr that touch on other Final Fantasy works.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Number one is Haunted.

Number two is It’s Mine, I Liked It (the infamous Lick Fic)

Number three is Reno Speedruns the Plot (more crack)

Number four is Invasion of the Giant Clanks from Another World

Number five is Time on My Hands

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

Frequently! Even if it’s just to thank someone for telling me they liked my work. Those short comments mean a lot while I’m working on the next chapter.

6. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Uh... weirdly, that probably goes to All Out of Love, where my crack series Den of Gremlins takes a turn into some sads and heartwarming at the same time. I’m a big happy ending person, so even when there’s angst, there’s rarely lots of angst.

7. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've ever written?

I do! I enjoy seeing how two settings work together (or not) The craziest one would be the Girl Genius/Transformers crossover, but that’s pretty much because neither setting has an abundance of sanity in the first place.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not yet, thank goodness.

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

Nope. If I ever end up writing common smut tropes, it will be to explore the social parts of it or the romantic side of the situation, not the smut.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

11. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not really. I do brainstorm with others a lot on Discord. I am co-writing a couple of settings (like the Fae!AU), but each of the authors involved have their own stories within it.

12. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Uh...

That’s a tough one. I’m usually not browsing for ships on Ao3. I could give you a list of ships I don’t read, but I can’t think of any that I’d go looking for. Any ship can be written badly.

13. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

On Ao3? That’d be my Girl Genius/Transformers crossover, so those two.

14. What's your favorite fic you've written?

Another hard question! I don’t feel like I can nominate any of my WIPs because I fall in and out of love with them as I work on them. Among my completed works I have a lot of love for Clap Your Hands even though it doesn’t get a lot of notice on Ao3. I enjoy faerie tale settings and tropes and it’s a quick read at less than 7000 words. @nexomify is also writing in that setting with May I Have Your Name? and I’m working on another, longer side story (with a romance plot) that involves Kunsel.

Time for tags!

@nexomify since I just plugged your stuff. @akaluan, @vodkassassin

[savrenim]

omg i can't believe you replied-- i'm so starstruck right now! and wow, your reply is so long, like i said i would have been perfectly happy if you'd just said: "no" but you actually put in the effort to write such a long reply?? so thank you. alright now: i had no idea about ur original book, and I am so excited to read Opus I will buy it as soon as I can. 'm really excited for it now too, lol! will recommend it to all of my friends. running out space will add more on another ask

ok its me again. hi! i want to read honestly everything you said you'll write in your list of projects, but mostly Opus and witch-queen! actually sounds amazing! i will definitly try out ur book, esp if it's free-- and i have NO doubts that lots of other people will too! i'd buy it. and thank you-- for being so nice to your readers and writing projects that have literally make all the difference in people's lives and still carrying on even though there's not a lot of response. --carried on--

thank you for offering a bit of closure for itfmlam and all in all just being an amazing person. thank you thank you thank you! i... don't know what to say anymore, i'm not very good with words but, yeah. thank you. (and i expect that i WILL love opus-- gay and ploitics and Seers - yes! - all sound like they make a wonderful novel!)

yeah the tumblr ask system is ridiculous but also it is very fun to receive a bunch of asks in a row because The Ask System Is Ridiculous, it's almost a big "DnD joke sending Sending and running out of the 25 words because you don't plan your message ahead of time and keep babbling so keep re-casting the spell" sort of mood and I love it

I am really really glad that there is Someone out there who will give Opus a try which if you've read a beating heart of stone you've already met Saes and Luka which abhos is already so funny because, like. they're both in character for their circumstances but Saes will appear so different in the novel bc her circumstances are that different in the novel but I am. so, so excited about it. there are just so many tiny things that I love. it has The Gay. it has Enemies To Ride Or Die BFFs Speedrun. it has both Actual Intricate Fun Backroom Deals Backstabbing Politics and also Dramatic Duels To Settle Things a la “You know, I can hear you thinking that our government is fucked up and archaic. You can say it to my face.” “I was trying to be polite.” “You are forgetting one very very important detail. We have the defense of ‘we will beat you in a fistfight, therefore we are right and you are wrong.’” “Your government is incredibly convenient to me in particular and also fucked up and archaic.” it has 'so many of these characters are sassy little shits' as evidenced by the previous dialogue. it has 'if I've done this right it will start out feeling like okay fast-paced fun action and then you get like ten chapters in and PSYCHE there are Feelings shit just got Real'. it has such a weird fun civilization and culture that I made from scratch with a conlang where pronouns are not gendered but instead assigned by the speaker to the person that they're talking about based on the amount of respect the speaker has for that person and New Fun Verb Moods like not you've heard of the indicative but consider: the aggressive-indicative. it has the red/blue/gold system. it has an actual really cool looking cover that I commissioned from a friend bc they do that, they do the art thing professionally, so even though this is a self-published and ebook-free-I'll-probably-set-up-a-paperback-on-lulu-or-something-which-obvi-isn't-free-but'll-be-the-cheapest-it-can sort of deal it looks really cool and looks real and makes me feel like a real writer. and you just. aaaaah. have no idea how excited it makes me to hear that There Is An Audience Outside My Friends Who Have Had To Live With Me Ranting About This Nonstop For Four Years That Is Willing To Read This.

(also thrilled that someone will give witch-queen a try, it's weird and so few people like 2nd person writing but it is definitely a project that I am very excited about. given that it's probably going to be under 20k words it is also the sort of thing that will be finished very quickly the moment that I sit down to actually write it. the premise is intensely funny to me bc it is 1000% my reaction to watching an old B-list movie again that was a fave as a kid that I will probably admit to what said movie was on my patreon eventually but not out here in public and then finding in Wikipedia that it had a whole knock-off franchise except they totally in between movies 1 and 2 fridged the main love interest off-screen not even for angst just to I guess replace her with a new love interest and I was like. okay. what if. what if I write a revenge piece of fiction. where you have someone in her exact setup except then instead of being fridged offscreen through sheer spite and genre-savviness you have this queen who is just. aggressively avoiding the attempts of the narrative to assassinate her via refusing to participate in tropes that would end up with her dead and actually being scarily competent and it's weird but I also love it as a concept and do somewhat miss writing in 2nd person, I used to do it all the time when I worked at gay theater camp and wrote hundreds of thousands of words of character sheets for larps and anyways I'm ranting but witch-queen is fun and I'm ridiculous and self-indulgent enough and stubborn enough to bring it into the world)

and!! yeah!! very glad to have been able to answer!! I try to answer all of my asks, especially because they are currently at a Very Reasonable Volume, I am super grateful to receive them and so long as I have time I try to answer!!

[goose-books]

goose-books productions: a 2020 review

view the image in higher quality here! (open the image in a new tab to zoom in.) thank you to my dearest @yvesdot for the template

transcripts and month-by-month details under the cut! for reference, you can find my projects here :-) overall, new and old followers, thank you for another good year over here! [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your h

january

i spent late 2019-early 2020 working on 2019’s nano project, quark, aka the speculative fiction thing about new york city and prophets and dissections of the chosen one trope and gay people. quark is my second-oldest project (five years!), but it’s also probably the most ambitious, so it’s been... difficult to wrangle into place, and i didn’t end up finishing a first draft. oh, well.

enjoy a snippet that is devastatingly emblematic of everything about quark. the tone. the homoerotic tension. the ensemble cast all talking over each other. the fact that caelum has spent pretty much this entire scene crying. fun autopsy report meeting.

Marble stares at the notebook in Shade’s hands. Or maybe he’s staring at Shade’s hands. Dawn feels a little voyeuristic, so she does what she does and says a dumb and unrelated thing: “Augustus, I think this pizza-on-the-floor thing is hurting my ass.”

Augustus flutters his hands. “Sometimes nonconformity is painful.”

“At least we’re originals,” Caelum mumbles into his sleeve.

“Exactly,” Augustus says.

“True originality doesn’t exist,” Marble says.

“Oh,” Shade deadpans, “it’s going to be a fun autopsy report meeting.”

It isn’t.

february

in january i stressed myself out trying to make the plot of quark work. so in february, i decided to take some time and write something Entirely For Fun. like, entirely for fun, no rules. and. my god. how do i explain the project i started calling “third eye for the bad guy.”

it was an unholy mashup of many of my past hyperfixations, including the gone series, a tale of two cities, warrior cats, and the left hand of darkness. one of the characters was a canon scalie and one was a canon fictionkinnie. it centered around a polycule of wannabe-evil-overlord high schoolers. i only wrote like three chapters but i was lost in the sauce for all of february and then i just… like… wiped it from my mind and moved on? somehow??? one character was a werewolf and that literally wasn’t relevant at ALL

I.

Someone was going to die on these steps.

This had been Ivy Lee Palomo’s thought last year during the all-school photo, and it rose in her mind again now. The one hundred marble stairs leading up to the great double doors of Saint Constantine Academy were the school’s pride and glory, steep as the mountain, sharp as the blade under Ivy Lee’s skirt. With the cutting wind and snow glazing the stone more often than not, with the freshmen wild and wired on their first day of their first year, it was really only a matter of time before someone slipped and cracked their fucking head open.

It wasn’t going to be her. Not when she had Doc Martens and reflexes like an electric coil. Still. Ivy Lee didn’t want to watch someone die. She didn’t get along with dead people.

march

in march, i got back to the project i’d started in 2019 - AMT, my podcast! it’s a shakespeare retelling set in a modern high school; this excerpt is funnier and also more unnerving in context. (double, double, toil and trouble...)

INDRAJIT: What the hell are you doing?

[PAUSE.]

DEE (like she’s lying): Making pasta.

[ALL THREE OF THEM LAUGH.]

NONA: That’s right.

MORA: We have the keys to Mab’s office.

DEE: We’re using her stove.

NONA: To make pasta.

DEE: Do you want some?

[A TENSE PAUSE.]

INDRAJIT: No.

april

and darkling rears its head! all of my other projects have existed for at least a year; darkling (specfic king lear retelling) is... special. it was conceived in april, when i started hyperfixating on king lear, and i still managed to write an absolutely ridiculous amount of content for it. it was like the power of hyperfixation let me speedrun the entire process. which. okay.

iv: control

They say Cressida Stayer was nine years old when she turned her hair to gold. They laid her down in bed blonde, and the next morning, the waves cascading down her shoulders were solid metal, glinting harshly in the sunlight, weighing her down, creating that odd head-cocked expression she still wears now. Nine years old. Two or three years before most people develop enough magic skills to dye a single curl. Much less transfigure their hair into precious metal.

People also say Leovald Stayer’s immediate reaction was to hack it off her head and melt it down for cash. But generally they say that part a lot quieter.

may

in may i wrote AMT episode 15, by which i mean that in may there was a day when i sat in my room with the door shut for literally five straight hours listening to the same three songs on loop as i wrote the climax of one of the plotlines of AMT. so. that sure was… a day.

ISAAC: Do you want… do you want someone to drive you home? Hawk, you’re worrying me -

HAWK (almost cutting him off): Don’t. Don’t say that. I’m here to help. With your… thing.

ISAAC (quietly): I… don’t know if you should be here to see this.

HAWK (a little louder, more audibly upset): Well - what else am I going to do? Go home and - and have my dads talk at me and - and not be able to answer them? Because I can’t? I can’t. I don’t know what to say.

[PAUSE.]

ISAAC (V.O.): I wonder if this is what he feels like, on the outside, looking in at me. Watching someone else hurting. Helpless and afraid.

He still fits perfectly in my arms. I rest my chin on top of his head and pull him close to me, like I can stop him from shaking, like I can stop anything from happening the way I know it’s going to. I bury my face in his hair. He smells so familiar. He’s so warm.

God, Hawk. I love you so much. You shouldn’t be here to see this. Something bad’s gonna happen. And you’re not the kind of person who belongs in a tragedy.

june

okay, honestly, i should talk about “night shift” here, because in june i wrote a whole short story in one night (and then foamed over it for a week), but i am still in the process of submitting it places! so i am terrified to put even a sentence of it online. instead: the other thing i did this month was to finish AMT! (sixteen episodes and somewhere around 175k, iirc, but don’t quote me.) these lines are the opener to the final episode!

RAHMA (V.O.): The combined series of sophomore year disasters stretched through November. It’s June now. It’s taken me… a long time to get this all put together. I was going to make a vlog about it, initially - well, calling it a vlog sounds frivolous. I was going to make a video recounting the whole deal. All of it. From when I kissed Avery Fairchilde to the very last night. I scripted dozens of drafts; I put together dozens of bullet-pointed lists of what to cover… and it was never enough. Because Avery and I weren’t the only ones involved. Even if I was only focused on the two of us, it wasn’t just the two of us.

So… I gathered up everyone else. The whole town of Ellisburg is still talking about the week the town went crazy, but it wasn’t just a week. There was a lot leading up to it. And I think if anyone’s going to talk about it, it should be us. The people who lived it. So here we are. The most ambitious Rahma Ashiq production of all time - at least so far.

july

every july i pause whatever else i’m doing to celebrate the birthday of aurum & argentate, twins from my oldest and dearest WIP The Mortal Realm. july fifteenth! mark your calendars. they’re princes, though argentate would really rather not be; you can read the full birthday piece here.

“Do you… plan to get dressed?” A bit of the usual humor crept back into Aurum’s voice. “Although if you want to speak to the kingdom in your underthings, by all means, you have my full support.”

Argentate scrubbed at his face. He wasn’t dressed, no, but the usual malaise hung over his shoulders like a cloak. Guilt. Nerves. The sick sense that he hadn’t done something he was supposed to. The numb knowledge that it was too late to change a thing.

“I meant to,” he said. “Get dressed, I mean.” The rest went unsaid: I have just been sitting here. On the floor. Thinking about how I should get dressed.

“Ah,” Aurum said, extending his hand. “The traditional route. We’ll save the nude speeches for the future, then.”

Argentate took his hand, stumbling a little as Aurum pulled him to his feet. He steadied himself on the closest wall, taking a few deep breaths. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. His hands found their way to the cross, again and again.

august

this summer, i wrote an entire draft of Valentine Van Velt is Dead, AKA “holden caulfield goes to exposure therapy,” AKA the weird little personal side project i keep tucked into my coat. interesting features include second-person narration from a narrator who doesn’t like the main character all that much. so reading it is kind of like the book wants to kill you? with an added dash of general melancholy.

You used to live here. That’s the thing that’s got you feeling so off.

You didn’t recognize your old house. I mean, you kind of did. You remembered that the road was on a hill. That hill felt like a goddamn forty-five degree angle when you were a kid. But if you didn’t have the address written down you wouldn’t have known it at all. It would have been just another little suburban house in rows of perfect little towns that make your skin crawl.

So now you’re in this diner looking out a gross smudgy window trying to block out the elevator music pumping through the speakers in the ceiling or whatever. I don’t know how speakers work. You’re trying to tune that shit out. The waitress comes over and catches you by surprise so you just point at some coffee thing on the menu so she’ll go away. For the record: you don’t drink coffee.

There’s a public library across the street. A little square building. You probably used to go there. The lady comes over and thunks your coffee on the table and gives you a kind of look, like she wants to know what in the goddamn hell you think you’re doing here and not at school. You sip your coffee and look out the window until she leaves you alone again. And then you spit it back into the cup because, for the record: you don’t drink coffee.

september

i spent september and october prepping for nano, so i was mostly working on darkling...

It’s late spring; still, at this time of night, on a rooftop, there’s a chill. The wind plays with the end of Ruby’s coat, with her hair. She hands the bottle off to Jasper, stares up at the fogged-over sky, wishes she were lying in Dany’s arms in Dany’s bed instead of here. Wishes, even, that Dany were the one on the roof with her. At least then they’d be cold together. At least then she wouldn’t have to imagine what Dany would say; she could just listen, and watch Dany’s flashing smile and her flinty eyes.

(She cuddles. This is another thing Dany does that Dany probably shouldn’t do, based on everything about Dany; it’s not like rattlesnakes cuddle. But Dany likes to nuzzle into Ruby’s side and rest her head on Ruby’s collarbones and toss an arm over Ruby’s chest, and hold her down like she’s worried she’ll float off somewhere. She’ll card her fingers through Ruby’s hair and hum. Even though they could get caught, even though she’s probably got better places to be - Dany cuddles.)

Ruby imagines it, momentarily, both of them on the roof together, sprawled like horrifyingly beautiful gargoyles, sharp teeth flashing, blood running hot. Up here - it’d be like they ruled the world.

But whatever. Jasper’s fun. He’s hot. He’s got a sharp tongue in a lot more ways than one. And she likes when he lets the mask down. She likes seeing the soft bits underneath. She wants to sink her teeth and nails into them so hard she draws blood. Masks don’t bleed. Ruby would know; that’s why she is what she is.

october

...though i was also in creative writing class in school, and thus ended up writing a bunch of poems of varying quality (my teacher had a real thing for poetry) and also one darklingverse short story where rory and cressida hold hands! which you can find here.

Lorelai Rory Flowers is afraid of thunder.

This is a bit of an embarrassing thing to admit, as they’re seventeen (“at least seventeen,” they like to tell people, “maybe two hundred, who’s to say?”) and generally wise beyond their years, or whatever it is that adults say about kids with too much psychological baggage. Being afraid of thunder is not a very wise-beyond-one’s-years trait. And yet the state of affairs remains: loud noises make Rory want to melt into the earth. Back when they still went to school, even the fire alarm sent them scuttling under their desk to hide.

Right now, in the elevator, all they can do is shrink into their sweater.

They haven’t let go of Cressida’s hand yet.

november

and then november of course was nano which was an adventure all the way through. (opening tumblr on the fifth day of nano to find out about d*stiel... was something.)

“Apologize to me. Or get out of my house.”

Gracen’s voice is very, very low. For a moment she thinks he hasn’t heard her at all. Then he spins, eyes blazing. “What did you say?”

Gracen watches her own chest heave. She pushes herself up off the desk, stands with the effort of pushing a mountain off of her back. Leovald is six-foot-four. Gracen is six-foot-two. In her heels, in the heels she must wear to be a professional woman, to be a lady - they are the same height.

Gracen wipes her nose. When she lowers her arm, there’s a streak of blood across the back of her hand. Fire shivers in her chest; her heart rings in her ears; her voice could cut steel.

“I said,” she says, low, slow, volume building, “apologize to me. Or get. Out. Of. My. House.”

december

and finally, the poem i posted this year! it’s called the beast sonnet, and you can find it in its own post over here (with commentary! how sexy.)

i kill the beast and drop down to my knees, my blade stained dark with blood of stygian hue, and for a moment these scarred hands shake free, and hold a world unfurled for me anew. but once-mourned victims, victors, vices find; fear winged me; now its absence strips me bare. my sword now dulls, my legs, my voice, my mind; the beast, pried from my throat, leaves no skill there. and still i hear it laugh, O DEVOTEE— O CHILD DEAR, NO GLORY WITHOUT ME.

i was quite productive this year; i have to think it was because i was avoiding things... the peak of my productivity happened over the summer and in november, AKA, college app hell. (almost done with the last applications! pray for me.)

a general breakdown of what occupied me this year:

(no, i don’t know why the “various other things” category ended up so large... i blame all the one-off projects i wrote a single page for, and also whatever the fuck happened in february. yes, i do know why it looks hideous; it’s because each of my WIPs has a theme color

thank you once again for spending some time at goose-books dot gov this year! what to expect for next year: well, i very much hope i can produce AMT... also hoping to get darkling ready for beta readers, so keep your eyes out!

[measlyfurball13]

Pacific Rim: Into the Black fucking sucked.

It’s problem isn’t that it’s different from the first movie. Look, I LOVE the first movie, but I agree that more of the same might have been boring. I respect the writers for pushing the boundaries a little and making an original story with an original tone. . . If by original story you mean “make it Attack on Titan but worse” and if by original tone you mean “cheap shock value and needless edge that adds nothing”.

Full rant under the cut. Swear warning, whatever.

This series has so many interesting and creative ideas but they’re buried under loads of blundering edgelord tropes that have been done before in every other anime ever. Taylor the protagonist is a flavorless “older brother” trope. Mei is the tsundere badass who’s been traumatized by daddy. Boy (yes, that’s his name) is the mystical superpowered child. Oh, and he pulls this whole Attack on Titan thing and turns into a Kaiju.

You wanna know why this is a problem? Because holy fucking shit it’s a problem. Because it’s stupid. Because it’s magic handwavy bullshit. Pacific Rim, for all of it’s big robots and big monsters, grounds itself in reality by having consistent internal rules. Kaiju are monsters with some occasional cool unique abilities, but they’re all based in biology. Stuff like acid, extra limbs, flying. Even the EMP pulse ability from the first movie feels plausible, because electricity is used in a biological body in the form nerves. Another consistent rules is that Kaiju are big monsters. Big. Monsters. Big monsters who stay big, because they’re established as having so much mass and bulk and presence that they can’t get rid of because they’re biological creatures. The first movie establishes that they eat and breed and even defecate and have parasites. These rules make the Kaiju feel plausible. These rules allow us, the audience, to suspend our disbelief and immerse ourselves into the universe.

So why the fucking hell did the writers throw all that out the window, pull some magic bullshit out of their ass, and make a human that turns into a Kaiju? They don’t even show us the transformation sequence on screen. Flash of blue, and now the little human boy is a Kaiju. The problem is not that it’s unrealistic, the problem is that it doesn’t fit in with the Pacific Rim universe. It’s disjointed. It’s stupid. Any questions?

Now, where was I? Oh, right, characters. Haley, the younger sister, is. . . okay. She feels like the extroverted younger sister cheerleader trope, but then they also give her this character facet (it’s not an arc because it’s never really addressed) about murder guilt? And she also mothers a lot Boy? And she also makes really stupid decisions for the sake of the plot sometimes? Out of the main three cast members, she’s by far the most interesting and bearable, at least, but she doesn’t feel consistent at all. She also gets damseled a lot, too, which doesn’t add to her likeability or agency.  

Moving on, one of the two even remotely interesting characters was killed for shock value in episode five in the cheapest, most abrupt way possible, so I can’t talk about him very much, other than the fact that I’m still pissed that the writers thought killing him off was a good idea. Nothing narratively was gained by it; his death doesn’t even affect any character’s trajectory! He had so much more to give alive than he did dead. But that’s all I can say, since he is dead. The only other interesting character was the Jaeger AI who gets maybe all of 13 voicelines in the entire season and is barely, barely even a minor character. Nothing much else to say.

Remember the part where I mentioned that this show actually has wonderful creative ideas? I didn’t just say that for flavor, and that’s the most frustrating part of this all. The problem is just that there’s so many ideas, all at once, so in the end none of them end up shining. Here’s a shortened list of the great ideas- you could base an entire show around each one:

Interrogating someone with drift technology

Altering people’s memories through drift technology

Australia gets claimed by the Kaiju and survivors have to duke it out to survive with the remaining Jaeger technology with no help from the outside world

Training Jaegers and what Jaeger academy looked like

Jaegers having sentient AIs inside of them- and what happens when to the AI when a Jaeger takes damage or even loses a pilot? Is the drift in a Jaeger technically a three-way bond?

What happens when you drift too much, with too many people? Inheriting someone else’s memories or even skillsets?

(this one is probably my least favorite, but still has merit:) A Jaeger and Kaiju fusion. How utterly terrifying would that be?

These are all incredible. I probably would have adored Pacific Rim: Into the Black if (magic Kaiju kid notwithstanding) it had focused on maybe one or two of these ideas in its meager 140-minute runtime. However, Into the Black tries to tackle all of these amazing ideas at once along with about a dozen other shitty ideas that fall flat. As a result, nothing gets the time it deserves. Fascinating ideas are quickly glossed over, never to be mentioned again despite being extremely relevant to the plot, just so the show can truck through the next portion with the same lack of thought.

The season feels disjointed. Nothing builds on anything else, and plot points don’t lead into each other. Characters make stupid decisions, take meandering courses of action and are constantly changing their mind, or, most of the time, just stumbling upon their objectives by pure chance. The only throughline that even remotely delivers with proper buildup and payoff is the aforementioned magic Kaiju boy. The one competent plot arc they develop is the one that breaks the believability of the universe. Great.

Finally, to top it all off, I’m going to speedrun my more minor nitpicks with the general plot/continuity holes. Here goes:

Multiple breaches and breaches on land. If the Kaiju have been able to open breaches on land this whole time, then how in the everlasting fuck has humanity survived at all? I mean, really- why would Kaiju waste time coming from the oceans if they can just pop up wherever they please?

Mr. McRandom nobody protagonist decides on a whim to be the fourth person ever who solo pilots a Jaeger after piloting for maybe 3 days, tops, and then succeeds. The show explicitly references Raleigh and Pentacost as it does this, spitting in the face of their achievements by implying that anybody can do it, no big deal.

This show acknowledges that Pacific Rim: Uprising exists and builds a lot of its background conflict off that, which pisses me off because that movie sucks ass. Here was a chance for a fresh start and they wasted it.

The protagonists fuck up so constantly to the point where they should have lost their Jaeger several times over, yet it always survives, because (go figure!) this is a show about protagonists piloting Jaegers. The protagonists do nothing to solve their problems and do nothing to earn their clever escapes or sudden powerups, leaving everything tensionless and contrived.

The villain has no motivation at all and is so cartoonishly evil it’s a miracle that he has any minions that are willing to follow him instead of ditching him the first chance they get.

The protagonists sometimes just kinda forget their goal and wander around until they miraculously stumble upon something that just so happens to connect to it.

A lot of edgy, horrifying, traumatizing shit happens, and it doesn’t seem to ever affect the characters in any meaningful way outside of maybe 1 or 2 throwaway lines after the fact?

The show takes place in Australia but only gives asshole characters an Australian accent. What?

So that’s it. Bad characters. Universe-breaking concept. Needless, meaningless edge. Contrived plot. Rushed to all hell. Pacific Rim: Into the Black is capital “b” Bad. I love this franchise and I want to support it, but I can’t advocate that anyone give this show their time.

[lafortis]

⭐️hey nice job. what’s the book recommendation you’ve posted about a couple times lately?

thanks virtual gym buddy, it’s thanks to you :3.

i’m. glad you asked. :DDDD

it’s R. Scott Bakker’s The Darkness That Comes Before, the first book in his Prince of Nothing trilogy. it’s about uhhhhh... it’s complicated. but basically it’s like. the main character is a hybrid of batman, sherlock holmes and a supercomputer. he goes out into a fantasy world after his people spent 2000 years in seclusion, brought on by a giant fuckoff apocalypse that destroyed this world’s version of the roman/greek empires. the rest of society has carried on and the hub of humanity is sort of meditteranean, indian, persian ish? other main characters include the biggest toughest barbarian, who comes from essentially a scythian type culture? a prostitute who lives in what is essentially the vatican i guess. and a wizard spy who is part of a sect of wizards whose life mission is to uhh prevent another apocalypse basically? basically there’s like. weird fuck aliens. who want to murder everyone on earth. cus uhh then they won’t go to hell. becauuuuse... 

“There are no crimes,” he mumbled afterward, “when no one is left alive.”

so basically yeah! uhh there’s an ancient conspiracy to bring about the apocalypse but for real this time, the wizard spy guy is spying and tryna stop it, except no one respects him or his other wizard friends cus no one has seen the evil fuck aliens in like 300 years. there’s a new pope who is oddly good at everything, he’s gonna call a holy war on the muslims basically cus they control jerusalem. everyone listed above kinda worms their way into the holy war one way or another, and then it’s basically a speedrun of the first crusade. 

it’s uhhhh COMPLICATED and HARD TO EXPLAIN so sorry if that does not sound very appealing. i have yet to really perfect the pitch of it (to be fair neither has the fucking author or his publishers marketing team lmao they don’t know what to do with it). another way to pitch it is basically a realllllly dark high fantasy world, with some lord of the rings influence, with the twist that there’s objective morality. the author’s stated intent on making it was to make a fantasy world religion influenced by like old testament and old hindu morality, where like if you fuck up you’re just damned no take backsies. so this is that, and everything kinda stems from that. he’s i think a philosophy phd dropout, with a sharp interest in neuroscience, and it’s also kinda about his philosophy, which can kinda be summed up as neuro-skepticism? where he thinks that the further neuroscience advances the more we’ll realize that motivation comes from nothing, that man’s search for meaning will end in the realization that meaning was a useful evolutionary tool. that also plays a really big roll: the title refers to what the main characters cult thing refers to motivation as, i.e. the “darkness that comes before” the self, the place they can’t understand where their decisions etc. stem from, i.e. their soul, which they’ve made their life mission to understand and therefore comprehend the absolute. the stuff about there being no crimes when no one is alive is also a neat philosophy thing, which i don’t necessarily understand fully but it’s part of the metaphysics of the universe too

IF YOU CAN’T TELL I HAVE A LOT TO SAY ABOUT THIS FUCKING BOOOK. as unappealing as i may have made it sound, it’s my favourite fucking book/series and it’s hardly close. i’m hoping to meet the man himself soon, i missed the last fan meetup a year or two ago. i fuckin moderate the subreddit for it cus i started a reread/first time read discussion thread for it. it’s just. so nuanced and complex and intelligent and heartwrenching at times and kicks so much ass at times

NOW. uhh. fair warning. the content even when it’s not requiring a trigger warning is somewhat really dark. in Those Scenes it really need a TW attached. there’s uhhh. r*pe. a lot. as drama, in war, by creepy aliens, by one of the main characters (the barbarian). the reason i still like the series as much as i do is because i know bakker knows what he’s doing when he does it; he’s not putting it in for fun or to get off to it like some fantasy writers i could mention, it’s an intentional horrible morass of evil shit (i think he also said it was intentionally to alienate his more progressive readers, make them go “holy fucking shit”, that type of thing. not cus he hates them but just cus sorta sympathizing too much with any particular character or liking the world too much really doesn’t go along with the themes lmao). i was real suspicious he would end up being a fucking terry goodkind type of fella (there i mentioned his name) cus there’s like a fifty fifty when you read this type of book. like several main characters are obvious power fantasies for a while for instance. but no he knows for sure what he’s doing.

that tangent aside, yeah, consider there being every content warning you can easily imagine being on this book. if any of that sort of thing triggers you or anything you should probably avoid. if it doesn’t it’ll still squick you out to be entirely fucking honest, but you can probably make it thru

i guess that’s another thing i like about it, it’s part horror. also part lovecraftian metaphysical horror but it’s reeeeeeeaaaaally subtle. like just barely there except for one recurring part in the second series and one specific part in book five or six. so YEAH.

i guess the best recommendation would be “if you liked game of thrones” maybe? that’s the best cultural touchstone, but it’s not that similar. just in the sense that they both are dark and serve as deconstructions of a lot of standard tolkienian fantasy tropes. 

ANYWAY YEAH! that’s my spiel. i impart you all with that recommendation and the ability to infer my reddit username if you so choose i guess

[roll-for-anal-circumference]

Final Fantasy IV is the least Final Fantasy of all the main series games should not be a controversial statement, but it for some stupid reason it still is.

While it lacks moogles (with hummingways being reconned to look like a cross between them and rabbits in the later remakes), it has all the cosmetic tropes of the franchise down pat.  Story-driven gameplay, often hard to follow rabbit trails of a story, themes of death and rebirth, themes of nature vs. technology, the summons/phantom beasts, etc. However, it lacks one thing that is critically important to all other games in the main line and is the core defining factor of the single best game in the franchise (tactics).

In-depth character customization: You don’t get to control your class, or your abilities. At all. The class changes are story events, and most of the them they’re just power ups that add new spells to the character’s spell list. The one that isn’t is a full on reclassing, but it’s unskippable. It’s another story event. The DS/iOS remake goes to make fit a bit better with augments, but that is just one version of the single most re-released game Squenix has ever made. The PSP’s complete collection, which IMO is the best version of the game, does not include that.

Build your party from class choices, allowing for customized parties

Game reacts to what you do, making your characters into what you use them for

Robust class changing system

Hard coded classes. Only one of them change to any appreciable degree through a story event. Customization options consist of “Do I use this sub-optimal equipment build that lets the character do something someone else int he party is already inherently better at?”

Robust class changing system, with ability inheriting

Character-specific equipment, command and desperation moves. Otherwise full customization of stats and magic through magicite.

Character-specific equipment, and limit breaks. Otherwise full customization of stats and magic through materia.

Character-specific equipment, and limit breaks. Otherwise full customization of stats and magic through guardian forces.

Preset classes with customizable skills learned through items and with some skills to be equipped at your discretion.

Preset classes with customizable stat progression and skills through a special upgrade map.

Robust class changing system with subclassing

Preset classes with customizable stat progression and skills through a special upgrade map.

On the fly class changing that can be customized for unique character builds.

Robust class changing system based on weapon use

Preset classes with customizable skills through a special upgrade map. While not as robust as others, it pairs this with a cosmetic customziation.

Worst part is in every thread this comes up in noone can actually name a game in the main series that is less Final Fantasy than IV. But still pretend like saying that IV is the least is somehow wrong.

Mind you FFIV is my single most favorite videogame of all time. I’ve played it more times than I care to admit. I’ve recreated rare glitches on hardware, I used to have a rated score for an Any% no glitch speedrun. But that is why this matters to me. I know this game in and out.