#bavitz chicago

[txttletale]

i really love clownmuffle's role in chicago. she's the highlight of it for me. sometimes i feel like chicago's group-identity-vs.-individualism theme is a bit too much of a sledgehammer to the head but i think that the way that... all of clownmuffle's solitary lone wolf singularity ultimately ends up being reliant on other people, right, that she needs other people's help to maintaion her absolute indpendence she prides herself on, i think that's a really subtle and clever way that the narrative challenges her ideals. clownmuffle reflects on it herself, how much has she given away to other people in order to ensure that's what left is just for herself?

she survives bythos because of hegewisch and madoka. she gets away and makes it to gatinaeu because of murrie, then she needs gatineau to recover so badly she lets gatinaeu retraumatize her (and then cuts off more parts of herself by dissociating away from that harm). she survives the capitol attack because of hegewish and then, when truly 'free', operates as a pawn of her primarily due to an externally (if accidentally) induced loyalty to joliet. then it's berwyn and darien who make her reflect on her own situation, murrie who saves her life yet again... clownmuffle is in many ways this unstoppable singular force of will that warps the narrative around her, but she's only able to be that because of the foundations laid by the people she exists in community with, no matter how much she denies that or tries to escape that. i think it's a really interesting recurring narrative beat, this kind of big lie at the heart of individualism, and clownmuffle is an entertaining as hell character to watch it play out with too

[weaselandfriends]

In 2019, I wrote Chicago, a story where a group of magical girls invade and attempt to take over the US Capitol building specifically on the date January 6.

After the Pokemon leaks happened on October 12, I'm starting to worry if I myself might be too serendipitous for my own good

[narukaminigga]

something interesting i noticed

In Bavitz’s works, there’s a moment where the story ends. It’s hard to explain how I feel or what I’m talking about, but at the end, these larger than life figures, people who don’t seem to have a lot of character or hobble around as misanthropes unleash a dam of tears when they are complete, no longer barred from the circumstances making it impossible for them to cry. I’ll try to explain it in the best way I can. SPOILERS beneath the cut for I think all of Bavitz’s works.

In Fargo, Sloan Redfearn is beaten down after many epic battles, deaths of people she cared or didn’t care about, and cosmic destiny looms on the horizon. Despite her becoming an insignificant character in the grand scheme of things, Madoka herself approaches Sloan. Sloan, who could not feel anymore, drifting listlessly through the motions and could barely be invested at this point beyond key moments is brought back down to earth again. This moment is important because earlier in the story, Sloan tells Sayaka to bring down the Homura devil explanation “down to earth”, but Sayaka can’t. But after all of the conceptual talk, the world blowing up, and girls from Chicago, Sloan returns to something she cares about. The ending is akin to an abrupt ending of a movie or a video game, which Cleveland Quixotic returns to. The last chapters after the story function as an extended epilogue where life slowly transitions from the story to normality in the weirdest way possible.

This moment sets up a recurring theme in Bavitz’s works. These characters, larger than life, or not, are people at their core. In Modern Cannibals is the elusive Katsumata, who remains mostly out of the story but functions as Z. Coulter’s greatest inspiration. If we recall the story, Mr. Katsumata believes the game is for young girls, who he wishes to inspire and empower, compared to the malignant and elusive Hussie who swaps between several personas, several existences, many ideas, all layered under an ironic schtick that may or may not be a form of postirony. This simple and straightforward creator, once stone-faced, like Fargo, is touched, and the story ends because there is no reason to keep exploring. Z.’s journey is over.

In Cockatiel X Chameleon, Caricresco (or Car, I struggle with that name…) realizes that nobody was here for her or will prop her up. Car disappears without a trace, yes, without a trace, vanishing into oblivion. Harper, meanwhile, who just passed her, stares at her own creation, apart of her own being. In the story there is a great emphasis of art being apart of who you are, and the art being apart of who you are can be commodified, changed, and even controlled, but it can never be destroyed. In a similar vein to UNDERTALE, despite everything, it’s still you. Harper understands that, even if she is stuck in a perpetual state of drifting and non-thinking.

This takes me to his most recent Pokemon fic, When I win, the world ends, where Red, this silent figure, boogeyman supreme, is inscrutable to Aracely. It’s hard to even tell what Red is thinking compared to everyone else, and Cely missteps multiple times in her shock. It is like the mention where Red wins playing basic fundamentals and his opponents trip up somehow. But in the end, Cely loses despite having literal psychic powers, and the story ends. It shifts to Red himself, who returns to his 11 year old self. Red isn’t even the protagonist of the story, and yet:

The story, beyond that, means nothing. Red has won, and for everyone else, the story has ended. Bavitz chooses to take it in another direction, however. After this moment, it is only Aracely who is the loser of this tournament, the one who did not get her happy ending. But Red beat the person who was the herald of the end of the world, and that’s it.

[moonlit-tulip]

A Taxonomy of Sequels

There are at least three very different types of stories which all get tossed together under the category 'sequel'. This causes confusion.

The first type is the serialized continuation of a larger story which had been incomplete. Book one ended on a cliffhanger, or left behind unresolved mysteries, or suchlike; book two picks up from there. That sort of thing. This is fundamentally an artifact of publishing, not particularly different from how webnovels often release one chapter at a time.

The second type is the forced continuation of an already-complete story, saying "wait, look, there's more!" despite the narrative having already tied off its loose threads. Most famously, this is where a lot of movie sequels sit: there was a movie originally designed as a standalone story, it was popular, therefore the studio wants to make it not be a standalone story any more because it has fans who will predictably pay money for more movies about the same characters/world/etc. But one also sees the same pattern not-too-rarely in novels, games, and so forth. Often, but not always, sequels of this sort will try to hit many of the same narrative and thematic beats as the original, in order to try to appeal to fans of the original.

The third type is the new separate story, with its own plot and themes and narrative arc and so forth, which happens to share its characters and/or setting with a previous finished story and/or to be written under the assumption that those who consume it will have preexisting familiarity with said story. This is the relation between Bavitz's Fargo and Chicago, between ebi-hime's It gets so lonely here and The end of an obsession, between Toby Fox's Undertale and Deltarune (...probably), between Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, et cetera.

These are all basically-solidly-reasonable sorts of story to exist. (I tend to expect lower quality from sequels of the second sort than from those of the first and third sorts, by default, but they still can be and have been done very well, and not even particularly rarely.) But they're each pretty substantially different from one another, and I think that running them together under the unifying term 'sequel' can obscure that difference in counterproductive fashion.

I don't currently have any better terms to offer, unfortunately. But I think it could be a valuable social good to either locate or invent, and then to popularize, some such terms.

[theothin]

So what do you think weaselandfriends was actually trying to say? Also, I'm surprised you never finished 'Chicago'. I assumed you did, seeing you're a pretty big fan of the guy.

For Harper and Gramme, the world where history has ended is a world devoid of distinction and purpose, and that lack of distinction and purpose spurs the hedonistic sexual descent both characters take. For the rest of the cast, the notion of the End of History is outright absurd, even farcical. Many of them either come from countries that are far from being liberal Western democracies, or else are people who have been legally trampled or prejudiced against by this so-called “final form of human government” that is “fundamentally better” than any other. Dogshit’s name, for instance, is meant to be critique of how his world sees him; it was not a nickname he chose, but one foisted upon him, and one he cannot seem to shake.

bavitz's comments on the "history is ended" bit

as for chicago, it's actually next on my list. I started reading it earlier this spring but I wasn't really in the mood for novels at the time, so I set it aside for a bit

and "fan" implies the wrong type of relation. he's a longtime friend of mine

[weaselandfriends]

Some more art of Clownmuffle! Art by Ludmila V, commissioned by a friend of mine.

[weaselandfriends]

Recently finished reading Cleveland Quixotic, so now I have read all six of your stories in the span of like two months. I had a serious illness and had to stay in bed during all that time and you got me through it.

Questions...

Have you read every book referenced in the chapter titles? Have you watched every (real) anime mentioned in in CxC? Have you played Bubsy 3D 2?

Is there any WoG on the connection between Aracely and CM? When reading Chicago, I interpreted CM's wish to mean that "Cely Sosa" was herself, and that Charlie Vizcarra/Clownmuffle were different identities Kyubey had conjured for her after messing with her memories as per her wish. The alternate versions (?) of them in When I Win suggest... I'm not sure. Any comment?

Obligatory who are your biggest artistic influences question.

Especially in terms of tone and thematic focus, you are the bleakest writer I have engaged with that managed not to fall into the trap of numbing misery porn (Berserk, Wildbow, etc). Is something you are conscious of and intentionally try to avoid?

Who is your favorite character, from your own books? Which character do you see yourself as most similar to?

In Modern Cannibals, Graves and Maximillion and Hussie are LITERALLY meant to be the same interconnected entity, right? I was discussing this with a friend who I got to read it, and they agreed that they were meant to be connected as different potential representations of either AH or artists in general, but I read it as them actually being some fantastical unholy trinity monster. The story has a lot of allusions to Catholicism (the game designer in one of his monologues directly compares to his position as an creator as Christ being transmuted and consumed), was wondering if this was as much of an intentional choice as I'm assuming.

Are you ESL? My friend seems to think there are a few minutes "tells" in your work, and if you were that would be the most motivating thing ever for me

Oh boy, a lot to cover here. (I love it, thank you for this ask.)

I've read almost all of the books used as chapter titles. The only chapter titles that come from things I haven't read are:

Magica Madoka Veneficus Puella, from Fargo Ch 38 (This Story's Dead) - I just happened to see the author note blithely describing the story as scrapped and thought that was funny.

To the Stars, from Chicago Ch 24 (To the Stars) - As I mentioned in an old review of To the Stars, I only managed to read about 200,000 words of this nearly 1 million word behemoth.

Dunston Checks In, from Chicago Ch 29 (Dunston Checks In) - I have not seen this movie.

As for the anime in CxC, I've seen most of it. I haven't seen Gabriel DropOut or Himouto! Umaru-chan and I've only seen 8 episodes of Revolutionary Girl Utena before I dropped it. (I have an old ask about Utena where I express my unpopular opinion that I didn't like it, to the dismay of everyone who interacted with the post, but I can't find it anymore.) I'm obsessed with lists, so I have a list of every anime I've seen with a number rating (the Dropped section is also accurate).

I have, in fact, actually played Bubsy 3D 2 (also known as Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective), and not just seen the Dunkey video from which all the Bubsy 3D 2 chapter titles come from. (Including WIW's chapter title, MEWSEUM.) I've also gone to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where Bubsy 3D 2 is set.

Since I keep bringing up Dunkey in this ask, I'll mention that I'm actually in four Dunkey videos. I used to play League of Legends with him in 2012. We even did a group watch of the Disney Channel original movie Don't Look Under the Bed.

2. That's an interpretation I never would have thought of, but it's really cool! (My commenters always seem to have predictions/interpretations I wish I thought of.) My mindset regarding Clownmuffle's wish in Chicago was based on the classic work of horror fiction by RL Stine, Be Careful What You Wish For (Goosebumps #12). In it, the main character, Samantha Byrd, wishes in a fit of rage for her bully/rival "to just disappear." The wish works, but there's a catch - everyone else in the world has disappeared too! Which is just like, okay at that point it's not even be careful what you wish for, you're just making stuff up. At the end of the story, Byrd fixes everything and makes it so her bully/rival gets to make wishes instead. The bully immediately wishes for Byrd to become a real bird, which she does, and nobody else in the world becomes a bird, suggesting the wish woman was just particularly screwing over Byrd for no reason.

Anyway, my mindset was that Charlie and Cely were rivals, and things spiraled out of control, so that Charlie wished for Cely to disappear. What specifically caused them to fall out? I'll leave that open ended.

3. Franz Kafka is my biggest literary influence, though as even just this ask probably reveals, I can take influence from pretty much anything. I'm probably the least Homestuck-esque creator of the many creators influenced by Homestuck, but it was a major influence. The rapper Aesop Rock is another major influence (I'm named after him). Beyond that, pretty much anything I've read or seen might be an influence on me. Cockatiel x Chameleon's two main artistic influences were Lucky Star and the Madoka Rebellion movie, for instance.

4. Honestly, I love bleak misery porn. I love just the most depressing story you can imagine. I love when a story ends and there are maybe 2 characters still alive and they're both generic bureaucrats there just because someone needs to give the final line (like in Hamlet, King Lear, and Akame ga Kill).

Cockatiel x Chameleon is probably the work that most completely realizes my artistic ambitions, and it's no coincidence it's my bleakest and most depressing work. But ordinarily I often feel like I have a duty to achieve some sort of reader satisfaction. I would not consider myself a very indulgent author. I don't know if I could even be one if I tried.

5. My favorite character I've written is Khalid "Lil Cal" Bhandari from Modern Cannibals. I love his role in the story structurally. I love how Z. is so excited to go on this road trip with her friends and then neither of her friends talk to her at all and she winds up talking to this random guy all the time who is introduced as a literal who she has to put up with. I love how he vanishes for half of the story after walking off into the desert and then reappears 50,000 words later to participate in a climactic rap battle. I love his analysis of Malkwon's rap music. He's just a really funny character with a unique role in the story.

The character I'm most similar to is Harper Praise. Cockatiel x Chameleon is my most autobiographical work.

6. I designed Modern Cannibals so that both interpretations would exist simultaneously. They could be different people, or all aspects of the same person (Hussie). Modern Cannibals dwells on questions of identity and people having different faces or sides that are not immediately seen: Not just Maximillion/Ian West, Graves/Hussie, Max/Cosplay Max, but also almost everyone Z. interacts with, who winds up revealing completely new facets of their character in their POV scenes that Z. is totally blind to. This theme of identity works both on the level of Z.'s relationship with her friends, but also on the level of the creator figures' relationship with their audience. It culminates in the final question of the story: Who is speaking the story's final words, Shirou Katsumata the game developer, or his corporate-approved translator?

The identity aspect also translates into a lot of doubles or pairs that are less explicit and more thematic. For instance, each of the three main kids (Z., Kiki, Max) winds up having a "counterpart" in the three main adults (Maximillion, Mitchum, Hussie). The POV chapters are arranged symmetrically around Max's POV chapter as an aspect, with characters either getting a second POV scene in the same position on both sides of the axis (Kiki being the first and last POV scene, Maximillion being the second and second-to-last), or having a different but similar character replace their position on the other side of the axis (for instance, Shirou Katsumata and Andrew Hussie's POV scenes exist in the same position around the axis, prompting comparison of them as creator figures beleaguered by their fanbases). By the end of the story, Z. has seemingly replaced Kiki and Max with Cecily and Maximillion, both of whose names are similar to those of the people they "replace."

So yes, all of these characters who might or might not be the same character were intentionally designed in such a way, and I think that's core to how Modern Cannibals is operating on a thematic level.

7. I am not ESL, sorry. I wonder what those "tells" are...

[weaselandfriends]

Okay, the aformentioned second post:

1, In Cockatiel x Chameleon, there's no credits page, unlike with your other works. Do you have any list of chapter title credits somewhere? I'd be curious on that, I recognise a few of them.

2, In Chicago, you depict a group of magical girls plotting to overthrow the US government. As this was published in 2018-19, I assume you had access to depict Donald Trump as the sitting President, but you chose to set it during Obama's presidency instead. Any specifics reasons for that? Did you just want it to be in 2013-14 for other reasons and that was collateral?

3, I see you have read the Magical Girl Raising Project novels (and the anime, but I prefer the novels over the anime lmao). What are your thoughts on them? Which point have you gotten up to? Did you know that they're fully complete and released in official English now? I'm a big fan and they're pretty obscure overall when compared to other stuff, so I was surprised to see you cite them in one chapter title of yours.

4, Finally, do you have any solid plans for your next book after When I Win the World Ends?

Most of the chapter titles are original. Two, Me!Me!Me! and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, are references, but those references are glossed within CxC itself by Gramme's footnotes. For the other chapter titles that are references:

Moneymoneymoneymoneymoneymotherfuckers is from this Aesop Rock song.

The two titles that start with "Harper goes to Hell" are modeled on the 1993 film Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.

Entartete Kunst is a reference to the Nazis' degenerate art exhibit.

HELL OF SWALLOWED?! is the title of a series of snake vore hentai doujins. (I will not be linking to this.)

The title of Part I, Nothing to Nothing, is a reference to a quote from King Lear: "Nothing will come of nothing: speak again." Part III, End of History, is a reference to the 1991 essay by Francis Fukuyama.

While not exactly a reference, "Teatime witches who sneer at the uninitiated" is meant to evoke Umineko.

"Trees part; an idol emerges: She" evokes She by H. Rider Haggard, and more specifically the reference to She in Stephen King's Misery.

"Scrape of the cane" is modeled on the Homestuck song Swing of the Clock.

"Welcome to a land of magic" is a slightly altered quote from the first volume of Magical Girl Raising Project (more on that later this ask); the actual quote is "Welcome to a world of dreams and magic."

Other references, like those to Persephone or the Soviet Union, are probably well known enough to not require a gloss.

2. Two reasons. First, Fargo was set in 2013, the height of the Williston shale oil boom that is central to Fargo's first arc. (I also started writing Fargo in 2015, when 2013 was close enough that it basically seemed like the same time period.) Chicago is set immediately after Fargo, and even has some returning characters like Cicero. If I really wanted to, I probably could have stretched Chicago's setting to the Trump era, but the second reason I didn't was to give it some political distance from the Trump administration. Chicago is in many ways a product of the Trump years, but I didn't want the story to get bogged down in the swamplike minutiae of Donald Trump himself, and all the very charged political and aesthetic associations he carries. There's a reason there wasn't a single good Trump parody made during the time Trump was actually in office, and I did not consider myself up to the task of changing that trend. Beyond just that, there's something archetypally "presidential" about Barack Obama from a purely aesthetic standpoint that makes him a fitting stand-in for the United States political system as a whole. If the final chapter of Chicago involved Donald Trump giving a "return to normalcy" speech instead of Barack Obama, it would be a far different vibe, regardless of how you feel about either of those figures politically. (Also, throughout the entire time writing Chicago, I had that video of Obama wielding the Chaos Emeralds in my mind.)

3. I'm a major fan of Magical Girl Raising Project. I even wrote an essay that compared it to Madoka Magica. I am fully caught up on the series and own every book, as my updated magical girl shelf shows:

I got into the series through the anime, which adapts the first book in the series plus some side material from the fourth book, and I got into the rest of the series through my friend PlatFleece, who did a bunch of fan translations of the books before Yen Press made official releases. I actually really love the anime, though it's in some ways not fully indicative of the rest of the series. The anime is basically a magical girl battle royale, and it's one of the few battle royales that actually understands the core appeal of the genre. I'm totally annoyed by fake battle royales like Hunger Games or Mirai Nikki that are, in actuality, simply a series of challenges for the main character to overcome, with side characters virtually not mattering beyond their interactions with the lead. To me, a true battle royale should be an ensemble, and one that really surprises you with which characters die and in which order; any battle royale that follows a typical progression of killing off characters in order of irrelevance is a complete failure of the genre. The anime of Magical Girl Raising Project is excellent at not only surprisingly killing off major-seeming characters early on, but also having seeming cannon fodder characters make deep runs with unexpected impact on the whole affair. That's exactly what a battle royale should be like.

What's impressive about Magical Girl Raising Project as a series is how it continually reinvents itself with each arc. The first arc is a battle royale, the second arc is a murder mystery, the third arc is a season of 24 (this is the best arc, and the one I took the Cleveland Quixotic chapter title from), the fourth arc is a survival horror, and so on. And over the course of these arcs, the series gradually develops this fascinating world that is kafkaesque and bureaucratic in nature, with a labyrinthine magical girl government divided into endless departments and political factions. Magical Girl Raising Project is unique among dark magical girl series in that there is nothing innately bad about being a magical girl; you're not doomed to die like in Madoka or punished for using your powers like in Site or Yuuki Yuna. Being a magical girl gives you no-downsides superpowers and even increases your lifespan (there are some characters who have been alive since Victorian England), and the government's intended purpose for creating magical girls is simply to help people. The series is interesting in how it indicates spectacular consequences of fairly humdrum bureaucracies and political systems acquiring the power of magical girls; most conflicts, especially from the third arc on, are caused by government factions playing chess games for power, and most of the recurring antagonists originally sought to reform the government before themselves getting mired in and corrupted by its political games.

Of course, it's also a character meat grinder, fully willing to kill off characters both minor and major, even load bearing characters who drastically warp the status quo via their absence, and that's something else I really like. There's a hilarious tug of war between the series' author and illustrator, the former writing the story before the character designs have been created, and the latter consistently giving some of the best and most interesting designs to the characters who get axed first.

It's unfortunate the series isn't more popular and got really unfairly kicked into the "Madoka Magica ripoff" bucket by undiscerning critics (it's really nothing like Madoka beyond the basic idea of dark magical girls). Chicago is in many ways a stealth Magical Girl Raising Project fanfic, with its focus on government and bureaucracy, as well as its "harder" magic system. Even Clownmuffle's name is very MagiPro-esque.

4. I'm already hard at work on 1 Over X, my next story. Yesterday I finished the rough draft of my outline for it, so I will probably start writing within a month or so. It's a horror story set at an elite all girls boarding school in New England, where the richest of the rich attend. The story begins as four girls sneak out of the school to attend a Halloween party...

[weaselandfriends]

New Chicago cover art

Thanks to the artist "Donald J. Trump" for this cool new Chicago cover art:

[weaselandfriends]

Fargo/Chicago fanfiction

Hey everyone! Thought I'd plug some Fargo/Chicago fanfics. There's been a surge in them lately:

Savannah by pigoseg (formerly on ffnet, now on AO3) - 55k words, Complete

Leavenworth by DrewLinky - 64k words, Complete

London by julirites - 35k words, Ongoing

It's extremely cool to see fan fiction of my fan fiction out there. If you're a fan of Fargo/Chicago, I highly suggest you check some of these out! (And maybe get inspired to write your own?)

[weaselandfriends]

should i read Fargo or Chicago first?

Good question.

I wrote them so that they could be read in either order. I know people who have read, and enjoyed, them in either order.

Chicago technically takes place shortly after Fargo, making it a sequel. There are a few characters shared between both works, but these are mostly minor characters, or at least characters who are minor in one book if not the other. The majority of the characters, especially the main cast, are distinct in each book, and the primary plots are also distinct. There are a few minor elements of Fargo that might be spoiled if you read Chicago first.

To be safe, I'd say start with Fargo, unless something specifically about Chicago catches your eye that makes you want to start with it. Fargo is the more popular of the two works, and also the more straightforward (at its core, it's a revenge story). Chicago is more complex and political.

I imagine this question might become more important if I ever wind up writing the idea for what I'm tentatively titling Fargo 3: In Space.

Thanks for the question! I've had a small bump in followers lately (likely due to WIW), so if any of you are wondering, my ask box is always open.

[weaselandfriends]

Clownmuffle Fan Art

Drawn by a friend of mine!

[weaselandfriends]

Fargo and Chicago are now on AO3!

Previously, these works had only been on FF.net. Now, you can read them on AO3. This also means the AO3 Bavitz account has all five Bavitz Books, making it a convenient hub for all of my content.

Fargo and Chicago are epic, dark Madoka Magica fanfics mostly featuring original characters throughout the American Midwest. Fargo is about Sloan Redfearn, a down-and-out magical girl seeking revenge on the friend who betrayed her. Chicago is about a group of magical girls seeking to overthrow the United States government. They're super good, so if you haven't checked them out before, now is the time to do so!

If you notice any formatting errors or typos in the ported copies, please let me know!

[weaselandfriends]

Since you put CQ on Royal Road, have you ever considered putting new stories on Spacebattles or Sufficient Velocity? I know they're mostly famous for Worm fanfiction but there's plenty of non-Worm stuff on there, and a lot of it is decent. New stories on there tend to get more comments than they would on Royal Road (I think), so maybe yours would get attention?

There's really no downside to putting my stories on more places, I'm simply unfamiliar with many of them. What I'm really looking for a second place I can put Cockatiel x Chameleon while maintaining its images and footnotes (and, obviously, the M-rated aspects). It's a vulnerability that right now that story is only available on one site. I would prefer for all of my stories to be posted to at least two locations...

Speaking of, now that Cleveland Quixotic is finished, I'll work on porting Fargo and Chicago to AO3. Maybe I can post them on RoyalRoad too, even though they're outside the typical type of content for that site?

[weaselandfriends]

My current writing project is set at an all-girls school, and in researching what the culture of an all-girls school is like, I've learned that girls tend to fill in typical male-associated high school roles, like the jock, the class clown, etc. Though I didn't know that when I wrote Fargo/Chicago, that was the sort of mentality I approached designing the characters with. (Fargo was actually my first time writing a story with a predominantly female cast!)

Really glad you're enjoying the stories!

somerthing i love about fargo and chicago (bavitz fanficitons not the movies) is how by virtue of the source material both have all-female casts and so they contain many girls in character archetypes that female characters usually aren't allowed to inhabit. clownmuffle as the unstoppable force of nature anton chigurh type. hegeswich the smug self-serving blackadder-esque coward. sloan the meathead action hero who shoots first and asks questions later. & obviously these characters are all written with incredible depth and care and are far more than just tropes but it is still really fun to see female characters Allowed to inhabit these fun archetypes

[txttletale]

So I've seen you recommend bavitz, where do I actually start with their stuff? I've clicked on a couple summaries and It appears to be fanfiction and I'm wondering how much context of the original work I need.

i personally think bavitz' original stuff is their best: if i was going to recommend a "starting point", i'd say cleveland quixotic is the most accessible--it plays a lot with the isekai genre, but i'm not at all familiar with the genre and i felt like i wasn't missing too much. it is, if more literary and well-written than most, in many ways a fairly traditional fantasy novel.

modern cannibals, despite being listed as such, is not really homestuck fanfiction -- it is a coming of age roadtrip story about some kids driving to a con because one of them is a homestuck fan. having read homestuck will lend some depth to it, illuminate some allusions and make apparent some of the narrative tricks it plays, but i think it's perfectly comprehendible and enjoyable without any knowledge of homestuck at all, as a meditation on art and artists.

cockatiel x chameleon digs fairly deep into online subcultures and drama as well as art history but should be totally comprehendible on its own terms if you're not familiar with any of that. probably a terrible starting point though because of the large amounts of narratively loadbearing extremely explicit pornography.

as for the actual fanfiction, i think when i win the world ends should parse perfectly well for someone with a typical level of cultural osmosis awareness of the pokemon franchise. my sum total experience with pokemon is a few hazy childhood memories of the latam anime dub, playing black, liking it, playing y, disliking it, then only hearing about it second hand. so baseline familiarity with the concepts is necessary, but not much more than you'll probably have gotten just by existing online under a certain age.

fargo and chicago, though, absolutely need you to have watched madoka and rebellion, or the final stakes of either will be totally incomprehensible.