#its a really good fucking game its so fantastically written

[cybershock24601]

While the Steam Winter Sale is still going, I wanted to recommend that everyone who missed what Origins brought to the table in Veilguard go check out Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader because it hits the exact same spot Dragon Age Origins did when I first played it over a decade ago.

It's a grimdark setting with a fantastic story that still leaves you feeling like a triumphant hero (or dastardly villain if you so choose). There's great reactivity in the dialogue to your origin and choices throughout the game with no two playthroughs feeling exactly the same. The companions are all complex with interesting personal stories and every single one has a different relationship with each other with a number of them being outright antagonistic, and quite frankly the romances are all fantastic and heartfelt.

You can have an extreme bdsm dom/sub relationship with a drukhari and absolutely ruin the bastard by making him fall in love with you or romance the Most Repressed Man Ever by showing him genuine care and kindness or by letting him know you are down to clown (sexually) by throwing yourself at him at every opportunity or you can have a courtly love with an insane Space Princess who is always saying the most out of pocket shit you've ever heard and even more! Rogue Trader has some very well written and unique romances with 5 options to pick from in the base game and one from the DLC.

And unlike Origins, the fighting is actually fun in Rogue Trader! The game has a fantastic turn based combat system and incredibly customizable difficultly settings for whether you're looking to breeze through the story or take your time engaging with the tactical turn based combat.

Even if you know nothing about Warhammer 40k, I would check out this game because there is no good way to get into Warhammer lore but I think Rogue Trader does a great job as an introduction with a succinct but detailed codex, hyperlinks in dialogue to help explain important lore, and a story and companions that will introduce and get you invested in most of the major factions not only within the Imperium of Man but Warhammer as a whole as you engage with the myriad enemies of the Imperium.

If you liked the darker tone of Dragon Age, I think you'll find Warhammer is offering what you're looking for in terms of eternally fucked up societies but still has its moments of light fun and comedy because Rogue Trader does do a good job of acknowledging the silliness inherit to grimdark as you run around the Koronus Expanse with the equivalent a permit from the God Emperor saying "I can do what I want" and no one can really stop you because the God Emperor said so.

There's a complex morality system that rarely leaves you picking from a straight good or evil choice because the three party conviction system introduces some nuance to the tough decisions you'll face. Albeit the Heretic path is typically the evil for the sake of evil option, Dogmatic and Iconoclast are both interesting options as it often is the choice between lawful neutrality vs chaotic good. Dogmatic has you following the laws of the Imperium to the letter and sacrificing the few to save the many but also the Imperium kinda sucks so sometimes you're just being a dick. On the other hand while Iconoclast is the typical 'good guy' path, it's not always the best option as you are not automatically rewarded for being the hero and sometimes even outright punished for your altruistic intentions because this is Warhammer and everything is terrible all the time.

Also, I don't usually recommend DLC but pick up the Season Pass while you can because Void Shadows adds in another 15 hours or so to the game, substantially fleshes out running your spaceship, gives you a whole new romanceable companion, and a really fun story about rooting out a genestealer cult that has taken up residence on your ship and had a couple plot twists in there that took me way off guard. The second DLC, Lex Imperialis is due to drop sometime early next year and if it's anything like the first one for this game, it's going to knock it out of the park.

If all this is not enough to convince you to play the game, there is a whole quest in the game that's just waiting in line at the Space DMV and I think for that alone Rogue Trader should get a million Game of the Year Awards.

[quietwingsinthesky]

girl help youtube is trying to ragebait me about the incest horror game

[divorcedyaoi]

twau is fantastic but unfortunately it will make u think the comics will also be fantastic. which is a mistake

[txttletale]

If we're asking about games on your list of favourites, as someone who adored Paradise Killer, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it! I always enjoy your analysis.

so first of all the aesthetics of paradise killer are really good. usually games that were written in english but read like translations from japanese irritated me, but here i think it is very much leaned into and embraced as an aesthetic and set of cultural signifiers in its own right, which i really enjoy. the character designs are outlandish and charming. but what i really like about it is like, the way the core premise works

in most detective games, there is a correct answer, and not getting it is a failure state. you can't end a case in ace attorney with your innocent client being convicted, you can't get the wrong guy in the frogware sherlock holmes games. and this invariably, even if the game is critical in other aspects, tends to come around to a fundamental faith in the legal system and authority, right--something that's kind of baked into the detective genre at a fundamental level.

paradise killer upends that by simply saying "you are the detective. get the facts you need, make a compelling argument, and if the authorities above you believe you then you get to distribute justice as you see fit." you arrive on the island you're investigating and you're immediately told "hey, this member of a disenfranchised underclass did it, we've already arrested him, here's the evidence." and absolutely nothing stops you from taking that evidence and walking into the trial room and presenting it and saying "yep, he did it!" and beating the game! it's not a 'bad ending', you don't get a big popup saying 'you're wrong', the powers that be just accept the convenient narrative you've been given to present and everything moves on.

i like this from both, like, an ideological perspective, and also from an interpersonal stakes perspective. in most detective games, you can't miss a crucial piece of evidence, either because the game will not proceed until you pick it up or because you'll be forced to restart the 'trial' or 'deduction' segment when you game over because you're missing it. in paradise killer, whatever argument you put forward, if enough evidence supports it--even if you know for a fact it's wrong!--leads to the person you're accusing being executed. so the stakes are much higher, right, because instead of a game over screen and trying again, getting it wrong means that's just... how the game ends, with an innocent person being executed.

and more importantly i think it does a fantastic job--better imo even than something like disco elysium--at deconstructing the fantasy of justice. a constant theme of the game and something that the protagonist repeats often is "there is a difference between facts and the truth". you can withhold evidence at trial because it implicates your friends, or misrepresent it to implicate that bitch you hate. nothing in the system exists to stop you getting wrong, in fact your superiors encourage you to make the easy completely stritched up conviction and move on with your life.

and at the end, even if you get it right, if you catch all the criminals--all the time you spend investigating this island shows that, like, the society you're part of is fucking evil! you're all deranged immortals making constant human sacrifices to your evil gods! and you don't change that by solving the case, the whole thing just packs up and moves on. you don't get any comfortable resolution to that or to your role in it. you can play lady love dies as a diehard true believer or as a dissident rebel but either way she's ultimately just another cog in a machine, dispensing an alien and uncaring justice that is only attached to any real morality or truth by your decision to do so. a genuinely incredible game.

plus i like how whenever you open it a voice says 'paradise killer' so you know you're playing paradise killer

[velvetwyrme]

doozi's undertale fic recs round THREE

As requested, here are EVEN MORE FIC RECS. This round is mostly reader inserts, with a dash of platonic and non-reader fics at the end.

As usual, this is really really long, so take your time and enjoy! Some of them are uhhhh, pretty spicy, so please make sure to check the warnings and tags and act accordingly.

Please tread carefully while reading, check tags, take breaks, drink water and HAVE FUN <3

The STATUS of each fic is labelled as such: Finished, Ongoing/Unfinished, Discontinued. (Unless the author specified that the fic is Discontinued, on Indefinite Hiatus, or otherwise abandoned the work, I will mark it as Ongoing/Unfinished. Oneshots are also marked as such.)

Spicy (Explicit) and/or Dark fics have also been labelled if relevant. (I won’t mark ones with just suggestive themes/moments, since I cant guarantee I’ll catch all of them. Similarly, unless there is consistent graphic death, gore, or otherwise prevalent upsetting topics, I [probably] won’t mark it as dark.)

MULTICHAPTERS

Ghost Hunting With Skeletons - Various/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

ONE OF THE FICS OF ALL TIME!!!

Go "ghost hunting" with Cash while looking for machine parts! Become Sans' weird coworker! Lie and keep secrets with Red! Get tangled up with a mysterious shadowy figure who spontaneously spawns in your house- wait, what was that last one?

Tilikum - Various Sanses/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

I'm sure everyone and their dog knows of this fic by now but listen. If you haven't read this, somehow, please do yourself a favour and read this immediately.

I love mer fics and I especially love CEPHALOPOD SIRENS. (Blue and Red are very good in this fic but SKULL!!!! MY PRECIOUS BOY!!)

The Mirror Bay Depths - Various Sanses/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

And speaking of MER FIC- if you like merskeletons, mysteries, manipulation and mmmmmmmmmm...magical workarounds for linguistic difficulties (i made the alliteration work, see?) Then you'll LOVE this fic!

Dive into The Mirror Bay Depths and get charmed by a buncha mers! It's super cute and also has a serious undertone of "UH OH" once the mystery begins to come to light.

Got Crabs? - Underfell!Sans/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Got crabs????? Hilarious soulmate AU where you and have some of the stupidest words written on each other's bodies and it all goes GREAT.

You do in fact, got crabs.

It's Just A Game - Sans/Reader - Finished

CYOAs my beloved. This was recced to me recently and I got caught up with all the new updates and it's sooooo good auugugjhfkgh,, I love existential crises and weird metafiction.

cat ~/.zsh_history - Sans/Reader - Finished

If you enjoyed It's Just A Game, or other fics like it, you'll probably like this too!!!! Player-character reality simulation existential angst all wrapped up into a neat little fic <3333 It feels like a weight on my heart.

The Understudy - Sans/Reader - Finished

THE anti-harem fic. As in, THE anti-harem fic that inspired the structure of every other anti-harem fic. It's a piece of fantastic storytelling and is a literal pioneer of a genre.

It was a fic that was intended to flip a genre on it's head, and it's fascinating to me that it became a genre of its own. Splendidly written and is the cause of 99% of my confusion during my return to the fandom because all of a sudden there were a buncha anti-harems and I was like WTF ARE THESE jkdhfgkjdfk,,

I went into it intending to find out the history behind anti-harems, and then got sucked in completely. You can guess the general premise, but MAN does plot hit hard!!!!!!

And speaking of anti-harems...

The Eye of a Judge - Various, Swapfell!Papyrus/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

[Warning: Contains Dark/Heavy Themes]

What if anti-harem fic, except the terrible GF was EVEN MORE terrible. Really really fun concept with what happens to the reader, and oh so fucked up just in general. Make sure to check the tags on this one.

The Faults in Our Souls - W.D. Gaster/Reader - Finished

This fic is super sweet, the reader falls into the Underground and gets taken in by Gaster and his two boys, eventually falling in love and becoming a parental figure for the skelebros. But then the incident with the core happens...

Pros & Cons - Sans/Reader - Finished/Series

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

I try not to put too much NSFW in the lists on this blog but uhhhh *looks at the rest of the list* it's fine. I like these fics too much not to add them.

This one in particular is AMAZING and really funny to boot. The reader wakes up after a one night stand with very few memories of the night before and debates the pros and cons of checking who they slept with thsjfbbfkfbk

The fic right after is ALSO hilarious because it gives so much more context and life to the world I love it dearly. Also the smut is great but yknow gbflgbkf I'm TRYING to keep this relatively SFW

Eau de résistance - Underfell!Sans/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

[Warning: Contains Dark/Heavy Themes]

Underfell flavoured slave AU which gets really, really complicated emotions-wise. It's one of the few UT fics I still keep up with pretty actively atm, and it's because the mystery has me hooked. I NEED TO KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON.

Other than the obvious premise, it gets into some darker topics, so if you're sensitive to that sorta stuff, please read the tags and tread carefully if you decide to read! Otherwise, enjoy!

The Party Incident and Other Embarrassing Anecdotes - Sans/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

Takes a deep breath. Ok so, I debated adding this fic. Not because I don't like it, but because I haven't actual read this in years, so I don't know how it stands up to the test of time.

I don't usually like adding fics that I can't certifiably recommend, but I also feel like if you haven't read this, you haven't Really experienced Undertale reader inserts. It's like. a classic.

I still remember vividly cringing from secondhand embarrassment SO many times while reading BUT I wouldn't trade in that experience for anything- I fucking loved this fic. It was wonderful and terrible and so incredibly fun, and honestly I kinda don't want to reread it so I can keep it in the shiny veneer of nostalgia forever.

Smells Like Chalk and a Cockatoo - Sans/Reader - Finished

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

Uhhhh, I don't actually have a good segue for this, but this one also has really complicated relationships. There is a happy ending! It's a fucking rollercoaster to get there though.

It's kinda in the same vein as The Party Incident for me, I consider it a classic, and it's also... very 2016/17. Take that how you will. I don't know if I'd recommend this fic, but I definitely think you should read it, if you know what I mean. I'm VERY fond of it despite my extremely conflicted emotions. It's definitely not for everyone though.

Oh, also it has the most fucked up form of skeleton reproduction ever <3 That's okay though, because it results in one of my favourite fankids ever. I'm love my boyyy Impact ;w;!!!!

Bonetrast - Papyrus/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

The reader in this is terrible and I'm fascinated. I like reading about characters being antagonistic towards each other sometimes, so I really enjoyed this and I wanna see where the author takes this. Make sure to read the tags.

A Drink That Hits Right In the Bones - Various/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

This one... the reader in this kinda sucks too jhsfjkdf but in a different way. Once again fascinating as hell!!! Drunk, gay, in denial and homophobic, this reader is NOT having a great time.

I, however, reading it, am having a fantastic time!

breakfast combo - Sans/Reader - Finished

Veryyyyyy cute! The reader gets bothered about their crush on Sans by UF!Sans. Love the banter. Oneshot turned twoshot, it's a nice little read :D

Penned to you - Horrortale!Sans/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Penpals!!! I'm loving this so far <3 Horrortale Pap and the reader become penpals and subsequently friends. Sans is... around, probably not being spooky and weird. I'm excited to see where this one goes >:00

Grounding Your Ego - Underfell!Papyrus/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Soulmate AU again!!! The reader has a set of REALLY terrible words written around their neck, and... they're mute. :]

ALSO the little snippets of world building are so delicious and have stuck in my mind like the- wait fuck I just realised the title is a pun what the fuck how'd I miss that before- LIKE THE GROUNDS IN PAPYRUS' COFFEE.

The Sacrificial Skeleton and the Labyrinth of Gods - Various/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

:] *points vigourously at the warning* The smut is a pretty ingrained part once it gets to it, but I couldn't NOT add this fic.

Anyway I'm a little obsessed with this fic. There's a skeleton reader, who's a necromancer! The skeletons are thought to be gods, but actually they got isekai'd! It's a WILD RIDE and it's surprisingly good??? It feels like one of those webtoons or manga that you look at the cover/summary for and go *??????* at, but then you start reading it and go "OH, THIS IS REALLY FUN ACTUALLY."

There's pretty intense language barriers between the skeletons and the reader for a lot of the fic, but I love that sorta stuff, so that just makes it better for me lol. I adore the dynamics between the characters, they feel so diametrically opposed sometimes it's great.

Nothing to see here. - Various/Reader, Various Sanscest - Ongoing/Unfinished

Oh this one!!! Should probably actually go under misc but it's okay. This fic asks the question of: What if there was a MASSIVE multiversal mashup and some of the residents shared an apartment building where they now live completely normal domestic lives?

It's got /Reader stuff as well as a fun selection of Sanscest and platonic roommate content, and each chapter is semi-self contained and really fun.

Magic Bitty Bits™ - Various/Reader, Various Sanscest - Ongoing/Unfinished

Another one that should technically be under misc. I love bitty fics... and I love really fucked up shit happening to characters <3 Take are to note the warnings at the beginning of chapters, but hhrhghh I'm on the edge of my seat every time something happens/is revealed. LIKE WHAT!! WHAT!!!!!!! AHH-

The Monster Who Will Always Wait - Nightmare!Sans - Finished

Small kraken mer becomes BIG KRAKEN MER!!!!!! Leviathan sized drama, with some sweet romance. I followed this one from the day it was posted to the day it finished and I loved every second.

Dire Wolf - Horror!Swapfell!Skelebros/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

You get two new coworkers, who have some unusual habits surrounding food, leading you to make them lunch!! As you grow closer, their histories and rivalries come to light. It's hella good and I love the character dynamics.

Uncomfortably Similar Situations - Horrortale!Sans/Reader - Finished

Horrortale!Sans brings you home like one would a starving stray cat. There are ups and downs but everything turns out alright :]!!

The Sound of the Sea - Underfell!Sans/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

More mer content!!! But Underfell Sans this time ! There are only 3 chapters so far and it has me wanting more!! I love this so much...

Sweet Deceptions - Swapfell!Papyrus/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Fake dating!!!!! What more can I say ;D Well, I can say a lot more, like how fantastic this fic is with the escalation of the fake relationship, but I'll leave yall to find that out for yourselves :]

Dream Catcher, Nightmare Snatcher - Nightmare!Sans - Ongoing/Unfinished

HRHHGH Nightmare gets stuck in a Venom-esque situation with you, and you both suffer the consequences. You're both menaces to each other in this, it's great.

Coffee and Chaos - Underfell!Skelebros/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Reader ends up inheriting their mom's tenants, a pair of skeleton brothers. It's a nice slice of life!! Also, he/they reader ftw \o/!!

Canids love bones - Bad Sanses/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

In this, the reader is a monster with a really fluffy tail and a tragic past. They just keep getting bothered by these skeleton dudes and eventually end up joining them. Fun read! I like monster readers.

Train Station Blues - Mafiafell!Sans/Reader - Discontinued

Sadly discontinued :( Still a really solid fic and an enjoyable read!!! I adore the 1920s as a setting...

What is This, A Hallmark Movie? - Underswap!Papyrus/Reader - Finished

Christmas fic!! The reader does not like Christmas, and Stretch tries his best to get them to enjoy it regardless. It doesn't work out too well... but everything is alright in the end. I loved Stretch's determination jkfdhgkjdfg hes trying so hard...

Story of the perfect vessel - Various Sanses/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Really interesting premise!!! You're a parasite that took over this dying human's body and are now puppeteering it around. Then you meet a buncha skeletons, but you're still a parasite with no sense of what being human is like!! Love me some weird concepts.

America's Unluckiest (Luckiest) Almost-Astronomer - Various/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Yaayyyy! You get isekai'd into a hot mess of a universe, brimming with skeletons, skeletons and more skeletons! There's some weird stuff going on, but surely it'll be fine.

All is Fair in Love and Prank Wars - Sans/Reader - Finished

Hey! Another 2016 fic! The reader starts a prank war with Sans. Gets angsty but everything gets better in the end. I really enjoyed it :> Reader is named in this, but for some reason that didn't bother me like it usually does lol

Mr. Fear - Underfell!Papyrus/Reader - Finished

This is an interesting one. It's set in a mashup of various AUs (e.g. Swapfell Alphys and Underfell Papyrus) but not in like. a multiversal machine malfunction sorta deal. Anyway, it's got a fun plot and I really enjoyed it :]

Cheshire Kitten - Underswap!Skelebros/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

The reader is a shapeshifter who prefers to be a cat! (Mood) And they use that to deal with problems large and small. It's real sweet and makes me also want to be able to turn into a shapeshifting cat.

it's just me and an overly enthusiastic skeleton; trying to solve a murder. - Underswap!Sans/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Ah, I love ridiculously long titles. Saves me time. The title also acts as a summary, and it's really fun!! Monster murders must be horrible to make a case for, since you can't inspect the body for evidence...

Ship of bones - Various/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

PIRATES!!!!! I love the action and drama in this one, it's so fun! Also features a lot of scary skeletons. I loved reading about the reader giving them the slip >:3c!!

A Sea of Hope - Various/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

MORE pirates!! This one features a skeleton reader <33 I love the backstory and lore... also the reader is so teeny compared to Axe :DDD

You Know Where To Find Me - Papyrus/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

I am so invested in this premise (Papyrus is the mascot of monsterkind and you are his assistant) and both of you are tired after having a string of terrible employers/employees kjhkjdfg,, I'm so excited to see where this goes, it's been fun so far.

=========================

ONESHOTS

Seeing Double - Swapfell!Papyrus/Reader - Oneshot

Twin shenanigans. TWIN SHENANIGANS AT COFFEE SHOPS! I can't say more without spoiling things so just go read it!!! Reader(s) are named but moreso for Twin purposes.

Somethin' Special - Underswap!Papyrus/Reader - Oneshot

More coffee shop AU! Very cute. SO cute. They're both awkward and silly and its SO sweet.

Daguerreologue - Sans/Reader, Papyrus/Reader - Oneshot/Series

Actually a oneshot that's part of a series, but I just liked this one the most (you should also go read the rest of the series, it's really good too!!!)

Feels like a little snapshot of a soft, warm life, worn by time. It's just a really nice fic! Good for feelin fuzzy inside.

Looking for Something - Sans/Reader - Oneshot

The reader loves to people watch, and draw the people they see. Some of which, are monsters ;)! Superrrrrrrrrr cute. Suuuuuuuuuper super cute.

FIGHT ME!! - Sans/Reader - Oneshot

Not to be mistaken for Fight Me! by MsMK or Fight Me! by Little_old_lady (both of which are very good!!!!!!!) This fic DOES however use the same basic premise/prompt except with Sans as the nurse and it's SIMILARLY fantastic. I love nurse Sans in this.

If yall know of more UT fics with this title/concept please tell me so I can make this stupid joke a third time.

Dates are dumb - Sans/Reader - Oneshot

Sans has a really bad blind date, but his server comes to the rescue!! Really cute!

This was supposed to be smut, idk what happened. - Swapfell!Papyrus/Reader - Oneshot

As the title says, notably not smut. Sexy and very charged? Absolutely.

It's a soulmate AU where the reader is a mob boss making a trade of sorts with their rival, Sans. He shows off the goods before the trade is accepted.

Light of My Life - Papyrus/Reader - Oneshot

Very sweet!! The reader has magic that allows them to hear magic, and they let Papyrus listen in.

and i will love you on purpose - Horrortale!Sans/Reader - Oneshot

As you've probably noticed, 99% of the oneshots I rec here are super cute, and this is no exception djkfgkjgfh 5+1 of kissing Horror, it's bitesized and adorable.

Stargazing - Sans/Reader - Oneshot

A little slice of happiness set before the barrier went up. Sans and the reader are kids and it's very very sweet.

It's Raining Right Here (They/Them Edition) - Papyrus/Reader - Oneshot

Veryyyy cute snapshot of romance with Papyrus <3!!!!

General Misconception - Megalosomnia!Papyrus/Reader - Oneshot

I love the Megalosomnia AU and I also love Papyrus. This has both :] I won't spoil things, but General just wants to be helpful :))

And speaking of Megalosomnia...

Delirious - Megalosomnia - Dr. Baggs/Reader - Oneshot

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

>:3c I usually try avoid too much explicit content for these lists but listennnnnnnn I love good and fun characterisation MORE than any conviction I have to that, plus I've broken that rule already.

Anyway senseless justification aside, I freakin loveeeee how much characterisation gets packed in here, it's delicious!! You get to know so much about the dynamics and workings of the relationships in this universe it's great.

Relearning - Ink!Sans/Reader - Oneshot

The reader breaks her arm and has to relearn how to draw. Cue Ink! It's really sweet!!

Turn The Page - Swapfell!Skelebros/Reader - Oneshot

This one is actually part of a series but I just really like this one hjsdfgjhf,, I love festivals and markets!! The reader is so awkward and jumpy and I'm like. ah. a kindred spirit.

Meet Cute Oneshots - Various - Oneshot/Series

Cheating again by linking a series. As the title implies, it's a bunch of meet cutes!! My favorites (as of writing) are the second, fourth and fifth in the series ^^!!

the thing about axe - Horrortale!Sans/Reader - Oneshot

You go for a nice walk in the woods with Axe :) I love how it this one plays with emotions and atmosphere for the audience, because the reader (character) is mostly oblivious to Axe's history.

hottie hotline - Underfell!Sans/Reader - Oneshot

Really sweet and funny. Red gets stuck in an elevator. THE FUCKING ENDING GOT ME. HRHFKFJFKDNDK

A Conversation Starter - Swapfell!Papyrus/Reader - Oneshot

First times for both of them! A snapshot of these two stumbling through a conversation with a human/monster for the first time. It's adorable.

Soulmate of the Century - Nightmare!Sans/Reader - Oneshot

Soulmate AU where you can't harm your soulmate. You really just wanted some ramen, man.

Kabedon - Swapfell!Sans/Reader - Oneshot

Kabedon the skeleton!!! Razzy doesn't get the appeal, so you explain it to him ;))

Cuddles of Doom - Underfell!Papyrus/Reader - Oneshot

DOOMYYYYY!!! I love the dialogue here. Doomy is the most precious kitty ever and Papyrus is very cute.

Café - Papyrus/Reader - Oneshot

Short and sweet!! (Lightly) tsundere Papyrus is very cute dfjkghkfjg <3

A Blue Valentine - Underswap!Sans/Reader - Oneshot

It's Valentines, and you're crushin'~ Both of them are soooooooo sweet in this.

You'd Be Goo Where You Stand - Sans/Reader - Oneshot

True to the title I am goo where I stand. I'm all gooey and gushy it's so cuteeeeeeeeeeeeee. THEY'RE MARRIIIIIEDDDD,,,,, and there's a sequel??? SO cute.

First Meeting - Underfell!Papyrus/Reader - Oneshot

UF!Papyrus is a very worried parent and the reader is sweet as hell. I just think there's also something really funny about Papyrus calling Frisk a SLIPPERY SNAKE jkdhfjghfdg

=========================

MISC. / OTHER

Full Deck - ? - Ongoing/Unfinished

Hysterical flip of every reader insert ever written. Can be simply summed up as "skeletons desperately dodging various reader's advances", but that is nowhere near close to describing this fic. It's really funny, and if you haven't read it, you should.

Not quite a /reader, so it goes here lolol. The reader is more something that happens to the skeletons.

No fin new about it - Bad Sanses||Nightmare's Gang&Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

SUBNAUTICA AU!! With timeline fuckery! I just like big mer skeletons. And Subnautica. It's a real fun time.

Bits Of Spaghetti - Various&Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

This fic treats bitties in a really interesting way!! Veryyy cool origins, and very interesting dynamics between characters. Reader is an old man, and he just kinda wants to make puppets and dolls and have a nice quiet life. Unfortunately, skeletons.

Don't give up, Y/n! - Various&Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

[Warning: Contains Dark/Heavy Themes]

I do not have any kids but this fic makes me feel like a worried parent. It also makes me feel like I need to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes. It's great, really. Just makes me so stressed. They're just a kid... definitely heed the tags for this one.

Down The Mountain, Under The Door - Underswap!Papyrus&Reader - Oneshot

Monsters are giant sized !! Or humans are tiny. Either way, Underswap Papyrus comforts the reader after accidentally spooking them pretty badly. I love myself some good ol' unintentional fearplay and intentional comfort.

The Bucket List - Various&Reader - Finished

[Warning: Contains Dark/Heavy Themes]

Hoo boy. The reader creates a bucket list, intending to die at the end. It's story about depression and recovery and it's really really good.

Heart on the Table - Ongoing/Unfinished

MADE ME CRYYY,,, Sans and Pap end up taking care of Frisk and honestly just go read it it's very sweet and sad and good. Frisk is just a kid!!!!!! AHHH

Broken Bones (and Sticks and Stones) - Finished

CRIES!!!!!! You know Handplates AU. I know Handplates AU. Featuring: extremely complex familial feelings!!!! Papyrus has a kid, and she is the SWEETEST. Another of my favorite fankids!! FLORAAAAAA <33

This of course, with Gaster being Gaster in this AU, makes everything even more complicated. It's really good and made me cry. Please read it. Papyrus is the best mom.

Jamais Vu - Oneshot

HGH... this one is like a punch to the gut but in a really good way. Both because of the absolutely incredible writing and also because it was the first Undertale fic that this author has posted since 2017, and gave me a scare when I opened my email.

Letters to a Friend - Oneshot

Another by the same author, but from 2016. My HEART?????? The King Papyrus ending always hurts me so... hhhrhhhhghjkdf,,

OH, I WAS BEING SARCASTIC - Finished

[Warning: Contains Dark/Heavy Themes]

It's more Papyrus Angst! This is just going to happen every time I do one of these, probably.

He would never take a vacation for any reason...

Sonata - Finished

[Warning: Contains Dark/Heavy Themes]

More Papyrus Angst. Sometimes a melody can say more than words.

Broken Trust (Re-upload) - Finished

What's this!! Even more angst?! You bet! It's Swap flavoured this time though.

Sans is not actually a monster, and Papyrus is horrified when he finds out. Very very good and sad, with a happy ending. Paps is not great in this, but he comes around :( I really really love the concept of this fic, and I think it was executed really well.

I'm Feeling Fine, Kid - Finished

[Warning: Contains Dark/Heavy Themes]

Soooooooooooo fucked up but it's also like. one of the formative fics of my existence. I could've sworn this was in one of my other lists, but apparently not. Fucked me up big time back when I first read it sdjkhjhf, read this if you wanna hurt and then get tentatively put back together.

If you've read Flowey Is Not A Good Life Coach and you liked that, you might like this too. Lots of Papyrus Angst, but this one has even more Sans Angst!

Stones and a Glass House - Oneshot

[Warning: Contains Discussions of Explicit Content.]

Want a break from the sudden deluge of angst??? Try this, it's kinda a crackfic, and very funny.

Love when brothers get to tease each other mercilessly. They talk pretty candidly about explicit content, so heed the warning LMAO. Very very funny though.

=========================

SANSCEST/PAPCEST

AH SURPRISE! I didn't want to make a whole new list since I have way less of these on hand, but I also really wanted to recommend them lol. If this ain't your thing, then this list ends here -u-)b

fox in the coop - Sanscest (Dust/Horror/Crop) - Ongoing/Unfinished

Ouuuhhhhh I am so unwell over this fic. It hurts so good. Hidden identity bullshit to the max!! I don't even know where to begin with this one, but it's fantastic, go read the summary at least. Dust is so normal about everything. Totally.

Also, Dust gets chickens!!

Colors - Papcest (Spicyhoney || Underfell!Papyrus/Underswap!Papyrus) - Ongoing/Unfinished

Ahhhhh language barriers my beloved. Falling in love despite language barriers my beloved!!!

It's got some real good drama and lovely lovely writing. I love it a whole lot :]]

VILLAIN HOTLINE - Sanscest (Bad Sans Poly) - Ongoing/Unfinished

Bad Sans Chatfic. Wait wait wait hear me out!!! COME BACK. THERES AN ACTUAL STORY.

The chatfic parts are pretty fun, and the developing horror plot even more so! Universes and people are glitching, which spells a bad time for everyone!!!

You Have One (1) Unread Message - Sanscest (Bad Sans Poly) - Ongoing/Unfinished

Similar to the one above, this fic has a similar concept (crack chatfic that devolves into plot and horror)

Genuinely quite terrifying, even when viewed through Killer's strange apathetic POV (which is ALSO fascinating in it's own right).

Little (NOT LITTLE) Red Riding Hood - Papcest (Spicyhoney) - Finished

Really fun twist on Little Red Riding Hood!! Red also gets to wear a frilly nightcap and nightgown in this, which is a fun image.

So You Didn't Want to Marry a Mage - Papcest (Spicyhoney + BG. Mapleblossom) - Ongoing/Unfinished

Ahhh I love fics where a character gets to learn magic from another character... this one is hella cute!!! I love a lot of this author's works but this one in particular is one of my favourites :>

=========================

Did you have fun scrolling forever? I had fun putting this together.

There are a total of 90 fics here! I wanted to do 99 since it's the 999999999th anniversary of Undertale this year, but I'm tired so 90 will do. That's already so many. 90 in fact. Also my phone started to lag while scrolling so perhaps it's for the best.

If yall have any recs for ME, please drop them by my askbox, I (obviously) love reading jkshdgjkfh,,, I'm generally up for rereading stuff, so dw if you reckon I've read something before :]!!

Also, if you haven't already, you should check out my FIC REC MASTERLIST for previous (and future) fic rec lists (from me, specifically).

[rachelamberish]

Comprehensive Veilguard Review (FULL SPOILERS)

What They Got Right:

-The environments. My God, seeing some of these locations that we’ve only read about for a decade had me getting legitimately choked up just looking at them. I cried entering the Grand Necropolis. I cried at Weisshaupt. I cried at Kal Sharok. The Ossuary. The Crossroads 2 Electric Boogaloo. Just all absolutely stunning, and so lovingly crafted.

-The art direction, on top of that. They kind of go hand in hand, but genuinely, it’s great. I think the art director deserves a raise for the candlehops alone.

-The music. I love it. I know it’s not what it has been, but I think it’s fucking great. The Blight theme is far and away the best, but so many of the other tracks really fully commit to the fantasy-futurism aesthetic that has been crafted by the art direction and I think it’s so fucking cool that the music has evolved as we travel to new locations and the world of Thedas really opens up.

-Companions. I’ve spoken a little about this already. But yes, the companions are incredible. The pacing of getting to know each of them is so well executed. (It feels unfortunate that the same cannot be said about the story as a whole, really). They are each truly so memorable and I think BioWare knocking it out of the park with its companions is nothing new.

-Vocal Performances. Gareth David Lloyd should be lauded for his work as Solas. You can hear how that performance has evolved and matured over the years like a fine wine. His vicelike grasp on the nuance of that character transcends even the game’s often questionable writing. Truly incredible stuff. I also have to mention Jee Young Han for Bellara, and Bryony Corrigan and Alex Jordan for two versions of Rook. The rest of the cast is fantastic as well, those four are just so incredibly standout to me.

-This feels very specific but The Siege of Weisshaupt. That quest. Is. *chefs kiss emoji*. It’s giving game of thrones season 8 episode 4 the long night where i cant see anything but also i have existential dread!!!! Love that

-Codex entries are as well written as they ever have been, so no dip in quality of the writing there. Particularly a huge fan of the passive aggressive emails sent between Solas and the Evanuris like they were all shitty coworkers. Elgar’nan screaming “i’m the ELDEST BOY!!!” at the top of his lungs à la Kendall Roy while he and solas bicker about who was conceived of by the Fade first. Very good stuff

-Ghilan’nain is an eldritch horror lesbian witch and that is so so cool. Thank you bioware

-Maevaris Tilani

-Combat and performance. Because neither of these are story stuff, I’ll throw these together. The game performs like a fucking dream and is incredibly optimized. The combat feels amazing and I genuinely look forward to combat encounters rather than dreading them. No notes.

….The Rest, in No Particular Order:

- Morrigan forgiving her mother and the game erasing Flemeth’s nastiness was truly vomit-inducing so thanks for that one bioware

- Is Mythal good or bad bioware please answer the question and you CAN’T look at your notes

- They do get Solas mostly spot-on but Mythal is so inconceivably bad and it’s hard to divorce the two. Ironic, considering that they should be the most divorced couple that ever lived

-"Flemeth's piece of Mythal was the good version actually and was completely uncorrupted" bitch HOW?!!??!??!!?! FUCKING HOW?!?!? Literally A GAME AGO she screams at Morrigan and Lavellan about "a reckoning that will shake the heavens" promising vengeance for her betrayal because she's done nothing but stew ALONE in her anger for 2,000 years, ALSO piling on the rage and betrayals of Flemeth and (I think it's safe to presume at this point) Andraste and EVERY OTHER host she's had. If we have learned ANYTHING about spirits and "abominations" through four games it is that the spirit becomes corrupted "against its original purpose" when fused with the negative emotions of its host. What was the point of Anders, if not to foreshadow what Flemeth truly was? A spirit of justice corrupted against her purpose by living inside righteously angry women for millennia? If anything the Dagger-version of Mythal would be the uncorrupted one. Sure, she'd be lonely and pissed too but that would be the truest version to who Mythal ACTUALLY was from before. A mixed bag of grief and anger and hurt and pride. But the rage inside Flemeth's Mythal would be wild and unfettered. She would be almost unrecognizable.

-I'm moving on from Mythal now because ranting any more about her in this game is actually going to give me an aneurysm.

- Yeah this game suffers from lack of roleplay and choice carryover. It’s impossible to avoid. It was okay to suspend roleplay in a game like, say, Dragon Age 2, because Hawke as the game wrote her was such a strong personality and memorable protagonist. Rook is…. not that. Which is okay for a blank slate protagonist, but they’re also not that either. And i think they didnt commit, fully, to the idea of less roleplay. Because they *tried* to give you origin stories, but they don’t end up feeling like they truly inform the character in the way that they do in Origins, or even in Inquisition. Say what you will about Inquisition’s roleplay options, but Lavellan being Dalish DEFINES her character.

- And what do you know. Yeah. It was bad that they only let us carry over three choices. Who could have seen that one coming. It’s almost like everyone ever was like “wow. That sucks. Please reconsider.” And then they didn’t.

- And it also gets extra confusing when you realize that the three choices they said were going to matter a LOT literally don’t. At all. So that was a lie. I guess. Even Solas romancers who were being PANDERED to apparently get…like two mentions of something that feels like it should be so pervasive throughout the whole story. And one ending.

- Solavellan writing failure gets its own bullet point actually. There was so much ample opportunity for Lavellan’s presence in this story to be amplified. For the Lighthouse to contain more traces of her. In codex entries, in murals. I get that Solas probably wouldn’t talk about her to Rook much. But the fact of his yearning is downplayed when it should be overplayed. He yearns for this woman who made him think he was worth something for the first time since he took a physical body, while clouded by regret for his feelings for a long-dead woman who made him hate himself. That’s the saddest fucking story ever. Why does this game not lean into it more? I don’t know. You don’t know. None of us know.

- BioWare kind of forgot that fifty percent of the Tevinter population is slaves. What do the shadow dragons even do? There are apparently no slaves left to free!!

- BioWare kind of forgot that the Crows are very cool and yes very Italian!! 🤌🤌🤌 but also buy child slaves and turn them into soldiers by systematically weeding empathy out of them. So where was any of that.(*where is Zevran or someone who fills the role of that character. He is so desperately needed to portray the Crows with any nuance.*)

- The depiction of the Qunari/kossith, outside of Taash’s storyline (which I actually think was a very thoughtful examination of the intersection of gender and Qunari ideology), is actually the craziest most stereotypical one-note racist bullshit i’ve ever seen and i am shocked any writer allowed that to be the final product.

- You know what yes i also noticed that you couldn’t ever be mean in this game and also Rook smiles so much. She smiles when saying things she should not smile about. Idk why but that bothers me. And why are her hands always on her hips? What is she hiding

- The exposition-heavy dialogue is terrible at the start, gets way better around the first act break, then turns dangerously close back around to Avengers-style “Well, that just happened!” and it’s a mixed bag that I don’t know what to do with. I can’t blame bioware for the exposition, I’m sure that’s an EA directive of “pander to the people that want to come into the fourth installment of a series knowing nothing and not be completely lost”. But the rest…..let’s just say I can feel how many people had their hands in writing this. And I can feel it because the quality swings back and forth so wildly it gives me whiplash.

- Because of no choice carryover cameos feel like cardboard cutouts of characters. Dorian worked for me because he was doing things he would be doing anyway and it is passively mentioned that he and the Inquisitor are in close contact. Isabela is skinny like a twig now i guess (??? Hate that) and i’m happy for her whole lords of fortune thing but she is made lesser by being completely divorced from Hawke. Same for Varric, although at least he has more to do. Morrigan…………………………………………………………………anyway moving on.

- The Dalish.

- BioWare kind of forgot that Solas doesn’t hate blood magic. Doesn’t use it personally. But doesn’t hate it. Also what he does to gain a connection to Rook is LITERALLY blood magic. I don’t fucking know WHY he/the game insists that it’s not. I’m beside myself with that one.

- BioWare kind of forgot about the brewing elven uprising led by Solas that they set up at the end of Trespasser and instead now he’s a lone actor and everyone hates him. Like no. No actually some elves would have found what he was doing very cool and a great alternative to the terrible hand the world has dealt them. Perhaps all those elven Tevinter slaves you forgot to put in the game.

- BioWare kind of forgot about Briala in their rush to say “but nothing in southern thedas matters!!!”

- Cole should be in this game and the fact that he is not is actually fucking baffling.

- VERY BIG SPOILER Varric dying is fine actually and the one thing i’m literally perfectly okay with so idk why i put it down here other than it feels wrong putting this spoiler at the top lmao. But yeah that’s fine. We knew it was coming and Peepaw needed rest anyway. Good reveal, no issue there.

- Lucanis’ bugged romance ruined my life

- I made a separate post about this but Veilguard has single handedly eradicated mystery in the Dragon Age series without creating any new mystery and it’s what I’m legitimately the most sad about.

All in all, a mixed bag. I enjoyed my time with it, but it left me sad at times and not in the good way. The idea I have of Dragon Age in my head will always be more true to Dragon Age to me than this was, and I can live with that, I was just hoping for better on a lot of writing fronts.

[pikahlua]

Look, it's probably still not time to go really deep into it, but I did mention there are ways this ending where Tomura dies could work for me. Honestly I didn't have much of an issue with chapter 423 itself before the internet's emotional onslaught over it, but now that I'm hearing rumors the chapter was received well in Japan and a number of western fans have decided to couch all their disappointment in racism and rage at the target readership, maybe I should give some cursory thoughts just to counteract the stupid.

The Bittersweet Ending

Here's the thing. For all the game the bird app likes to talk about how MHA is happy and kid-friendly and not dark and that's bad somehow, it's kind of funny to me how little MHA actually meets expectations in that regard. If I were to divide MHA arcs into categories based on their endings, I would probably have to put the majority of them into the "makes me cry" category. Even arcs where the hero wins with ostensibly happy endings often have absolutely gut-wrenching moments, like All Might's retirement in the Kamino arc, Tsuyu's apology in the UA Dorm Contest arc, and Nighteye's death in the Overhaul arc. I don't think it's possible for me to watch the Sports Festival arc and come out of it with anything but mixed feelings of hope and haunting. Stain may have lost his battle, but his effect on society sure seems to give him the win when it comes to the war. The Paranormal Liberation War arc has a pretty rough ending where there may still be a sliver of hope, but goodness is it a small one.

Sure, some of the teariest moments are a result of happy scenes like Eri smiling for the first time at the cultural festival, but what I'm getting at is that MHA tends to go for more hopeful endings rather than happy ones. And those hopeful endings are often stained by some other tragedy, a price to pay for the hope. Just because MHA isn't full of random death doesn't mean it doesn't contain poignant loss. This was one of its early selling points in fact. MHA's most hopeful moments have always felt so real because the story acknowledges that these things should often play out messily. We've seen the mess, and now chapter 424 has given us a glimmer of hope. The question is now where the story will take us from here.

The Anticlimax

This post has come back for me in the most unexpected way, not gonna lie.

I often hear “anticlimax/anticlimactic” used as a negative criticism, especially colloquially. This criticism assumes an anticlimax is always written unintentionally. But that’s often not the case; anticlimax is actually fucking fantastic when placed in the right hands. And Kohei Horikoshi is a goddamn anticlimax connoisseur. I say he’s a connoisseur because Horikoshi has the gall, nay, the gumption–dare I say the balls to showcase the versatility of anticlimax as a storytelling technique for more than just comedy (although he does also use it for comedy a lot). He dares to use it in action scenes, horror/thriller scenes, and even fuzzy heartfelt scenes, all to the great effect of toying with our emotions. And he successfully has us feel exactly what he wants us to every time–because that’s the point. These aren’t cheap jokes; they serve a purpose! They illustrate an actual, meaningful point about whatever scenario they are used in to make the story more realistic, to combat the fridge logic “well actually” complaints endemic to fandom. Because Horikoshi is a fan himself.

When I write "realistic," I don't mean to apply this quote here to indicate that death (especially for edgy aesthetics) is realistic. I mean to indicate that imperfection is realistic. Izuku isn't a perfect hero. Tomura isn't a perfect victim, and by victim I mean "character for the hero to save." Izuku says it himself:

A perfect victim for the hero to save would yield to the hero's attempts to turn and save them. They would see the wisdom in the hero's position and 100% change sides to agree with them. Trite.

Doing this runs the risk of erasing the victim's identity that comes before. Izuku never has a perfect answer to all of Tomura's problems with the world.

Izuku is the same as All Might. He's only human.

[...]Horikoshi has no compunctions using anticlimax in big, important, non-humorous scenes (even if the anticlimax ultimately adds humor to the scene that was otherwise unexpected). This man has no fear. He ends his famously popular take on the tried and true trope of tournament arcs with one big let-down that affects not just the audience but the in-universe characters. [...] You wanna tell me Horikoshi didn’t know exactly what he was doing here? You wanna tell me Horikoshi didn’t know about the fandom war over Katsuki’s hero name? That he didn’t purposefully fucking troll the fandom with this? That this isn’t the single greatest brick joke in the history of published media for its effect both in the canon and in the meta? Fuck you, we’re building up the tension around the most wildly popular character’s hero name reveal for 248 goddamn chapters (that’s five-and-a-half years) just to make it the cringiest fucking thing you’ve ever heard in your goddamn life. His hero name must be the closest audio rendition anyone can imagine shaped like a middle finger and fucking nothing less will suffice. Congratulations, fandom: you played yourselves! You made a war no one could win! Horikoshi could have chosen Ground Zero or Kacchan as Katsuki’s hero name and risked alienating half his fandom either way, but you didn’t realize there was a third option, which of course he took: to risk alienating the entire fucking fandom.

I'm just saying, an ending like this isn't out of character for Horikoshi. In light of this trip down memory lane and Izuku's parallel with All Might in that they acknowledge they cannot save everyone, I'm interested to see what Horikoshi does with this ending whether or not Tomura survives. What sort of hope will he offer?

The extended ending arc

The only real extended ending arc we've had in MHA that might give us a glimpse at the inner workings of Horikoshi's mind is the School Cultural Festival arc. Because of that (and the many other things I've mentioned before this post), I will say there is cause to believe we will have a hopeful ending. Again, I don't know what that looks like. A lot of people seem to have a specific thing they need to have happen to save the story for them, and I cannot speak to those.

Except for Deku vs Kacchan 3, which is what I need to have happen lol. And god does it seem really fucking possible now.

[baldurs-writers-3]

Misunderstandings: A Baldur's Gate 3 Fanfic Rec List

This week, we have Misunderstandings! Check under the cut for nine excellent fics communication may be lacking but the meaningful relationships most definitely are not! And as always, comment and kudos if you like them!

Desperate Measures by Asidian (7270, Teen) Content Notes: None Pairings: Astarion/Karlach

Astarion comes up with a sneaky way to get what little blood he can while in the Shadow Cursed lands. Karlach is none too happy about it when she finds out, but only because she doesn't understand the severity of Astarion's hunger

Reccer says: I always adore Asidian's characterization, and they handle the misunderstandings trope so well here

Until you by bloodinwine (103345, Explicit) Content Notes: None Pairings: Tav/Astarion

"And they were roommates" the fic. Two people hurt for love and their slow-burn closer to each other.

Reccer says: This fic gently presses its foot down on your heart and gradually puts more and more weight on it. The prose is fantastic. But it's with the characters that this author really shines. Effy, her Tav, is one of the most well-written I've read--she's so godsdamned relatable. She gets wedgies, she pees, she fucks strange men at karaoke bars (and yes, this fic is set after the game) and she aches for Astarion with a conviction that just guts me.

Whither is thy beloved gone? and it's sequels by Brabbles (77903, Explicit) Content Notes: Depictions of violence, verbal abuse, unhealthy relationships. Pairings: Astarion/Tav, Wyll/Karlach

Astarion has ascended, and she has stayed with him. Life in the Crimson Palace isn’t as idyllic as it seems. Is there a chance for their relationship to go back to how it was? Or is it too late for the Ascendant and his consort? The fics are a softer take on A!A and explores Tav's past and the consequences of the rite.

Reccer says: I love that it is a nuanced take on A!A, and it sticks to canon events as much as possible. It goes from right before the epilogue to a year after.

Strange Highways by NoCryptoGrapher (28939, Mature) Content Notes: None Pairings: Cazador Szarr / Original female characters, Cazador Szarr & Original male characters, Cazador Szarr & Astarion, Cazador Szarr & Petras

After a failing ascension ritual, Cazador gets transported to 1987 New York. To set things right, he reluctantly joins forces with an aspiring heavy metal band.

Reccer says: It's really funny and full of twists.

The Faithwarden and the Archdruid by Lanafofana (3355, Explicit) Content Notes: None Pairings: Halsin/Tav

An angsty with a happy ending fic about a Halsin and Tav that aren't communicating their feelings well to each other. They're each trying to keep the other from feeling guilty when their responsibilities get in the way of their relationship and it leads to some misunderstandings and hurt feelings.

Reccer says: This fic is such a perfect blend of angst and fluff. The writing really makes you feel the hurt and sadness that Tav is experiencing. And the way the author rounds it out with a sweet, happy ending? Oh, my heart melts.

Found My Voice by SheDragonOfTheWest (3683, Teen) Content Notes: Modern AU Pairings: Laezel / Shadowheart

Lae'zel has had a crush on Shadowheart for a while, but she's not sure if it's mutual. It will take a gentle nudge from a friend, a few drinks and a shabby karaoke bar for her to finally make a move.

Reccer says: Funny, sweet and rocks!

Ruin You by VakarianSyndrome (3827, Explicit) Content Notes: None Pairings: Astarion/Reader

There's an implied break up post confession (WHO DOES THAT?) and now the RI is looking for Astarion and she gets more than she bargained for. I couldn't tell if he wanted to make her pay for leaving or reward her. Am I the one misunderstanding? It's ok. Sooo good.

Reccer says: Takes place in the Underdark, for one. I suspect F*ck or die, even though it's not clear, which I love. Very sensual and indulgent. Also, Astarion is kind of a troll here... Mr. Beg Me.

Reckless Little Love by VakarianSyndrome (12300, Explicit) Content Notes: Some violence, vampire bites (obv) Pairings: Astarion/FemDurge

Astarion fumbles trying to get Durge on his side, but they almost can't figure it out. Misunderstanding is an understatement. The tension between them is killing me, I swear to God.

Reccer says: I love Astarion trying to change tactics because his advances just don't work the way he expects them, too. It's kinda funny. But there's a seriousness to the fic that I really like, too. They're both looking for the same thing, but keep butting heads instead.

And two recs for the fic:

declaw, defang by PurpleCatGhost (7390, Teen) Content Notes: None Pairings: Astarion & Gale & Karlach & Lae'zel & Shadowheart & Wyll

The whole camp gets to contribute during BITE NIGHT and Gale says the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time and Astarion misunderstands in a very understandable way, considering his circumstances

Reccer #1 says: Peak early team dynamics. Everyone's characterizations are on point, and the resolution at the end is perfection! Reccer #2 says: I love this whole fic! Poor paranoid Astarion, not even realizing how much poison Cazador fed him about the world. He goes on a huge mental roller coaster right in this fic and each twist and turn feels so believable because why would anything good every happen to Astarion??? of course they're all waiting to stake him! What else could he really expect?

The above fanfic recommendations were pulled from our community for this weekly event. Have any questions about what this is? Check out the FAQ!

Next week, we’ll be back with another recurring theme, Rare Pairs!

Rare Pairs are any romantic ships with less than 1000 fics to their name. This recurring theme is to help highlight ships that are often overlooked or buried beneath more popular ships.

[kaija-rayne-author]

Section 12 in review of Dragon Age Veilguard

96 Hours in, 94 hours playtime..

Obligatory disclaimer, feel free to jump to the cut if you've read it.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I'm on media blackout while I play this, so I'm only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though, every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

Spoilers for Dragon Age Veilguard (and other Dragon Age stuff, I'm a Lore fiend.)

Section 11 is here.

So, the whole Mourn watch section with the half Lich was very well written and put together. Had an interesting (if not difficult) puzzle and a poignant ending. Loved it.

Did the Treviso sequence where Illario gets his comeuppance. Even though it's a very stale plot idea, it was so very well written and executed (har har) that it's a shame they fired Lucanis's writer. (Mary Kirby wrote Lucanis.)

They probably should've kept her and let her write a lot more than that. The game would've been so much better. It might’ve actually approached good.

Instead of something that when my partner saw me loading it up he said 'wow, you look like you're about to be tortured'.

Rueful face. So much of this game has felt like torture that having two sections on the same day that were legitimately good is odd.

The ones with Taash in Rivain were fun or sad, depending. But still well written and put together.

Still seem to have more to do. Gonna play for a few more hours. It's rare and nice that it's actually curiosity I'm feeling while logging in tonight, vs. any of the gamut of yucky emotions this game has treated me to.

Oh! Before I forget and in the name of attempting to provide a fair review, I do really love the light puzzles and ancient elven tech stuff. That's been a great deal of fun.

There are good parts to this game, but they just don't make up for the shit.

...

A. Single. Meaningful. Glance. As an intimate scene? Fucking DAO had better than that! Are they serious? Is there more in the final sequence? Dear gods, if I'd paid for this game I'd be bloody furious. Incandescently, explosively furious.

Let's talk about consumer expectation. It's something anyone hoping to sell things has to be aware of.

In its, what, 14 year Dragon Age history? Bioware has set certain expectations with their market share. As I mentioned, DAO, while dated and with poor graphics, actually had something extremely suggestive for the intimate scenes. You had no doubt what the characters were doing. Same went for DA2. Not much actual nudity, but again, no bloody question about what was going on. In DAI, some was sweet, some was saucy, but it was even more clear what was happening.

So the expectation for a behind door scene that you got to see has been set. If there had always been fade to black meaningful stares for the intimate scenes, fine, whatever. But that has not been Bioware's history. And it certainly isn't their gaming market's expectation.

Expectation isn't as important in a standalone game. There's no weight of expectation like there is in series work. Unfortunately for everyone who bought this game, the expectation of so many years and so much material has been firmly set. And a long, searching, intense look doesn't cut it. Are all the Romances like that? I don't have the stomach to replay it that many times to find out.

I still have to finish the final sequence. So it's possible my utter disappointment will be fixed, but given the way Bioware has structured its games in the past, the Romance parts were finished before the final sequence.

My level of disappointment with this game has been high all along, but this is indeed the shit cherry on top of the shit sundae of this game.

Hah! And to think I'd actually hoped for an intimate scene between Solas and Inky! (Hysterical, breathless, cackling. OMFG.)

The problem with market expectation? And not meeting it? Is that you utterly lose the confidence and trust of the people who buy your stuff. And that means they're less likely to buy your stuff again. I certainly won't ever buy anything Bioware makes again. I'm out. I'll enjoy the previous games, but if I'm right about my predictions? Veilguard doesn't exist as part of my universe. I'll pretend it wasn’t ever made. Unless I decide to write a long fix-it fic. Because OMFG.

If, as an author, I shifted from rather explicit, panties-melting intimate scenes to closed door fade to black... I would be betraying my reader's expectations and losing their trust.

If this is it for the intimate scenes? Oh man. Bioware, you fucked up.

Pre-play pithy commentary

If you want to skip the snarky paragraph ^?

13th review here.

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

1, 2, 7, 25 if you havent done them yet for the dbd ask game

Who is your favorite character?

God, starting me out with the hard questions, aren't we? It honestly depends on the day who my favorite character is. Everyone's arcs are so damn well done and it honestly depends on my mood/writing mindset/etc. who's my favorite. At this moment in time, it's Crystal, but ask me again in two hours and it might be Edwin, Charles, or hell, even Monty!

2. My favorite episode?

Well, this is really a two-parter. My favorite case is Dead Dragons, which I feel really embodied the monster of the week format as well as showing great character writing, but my favorite episode is Devlin House. Everything in that episode, writing, camera work, acting, editing, sound design, etc. is absolutely top fucking notch and honestly one of the best episodes of television I've seen in a very, VERY long time!

7. Favorite headcanon from the fandom so far?

The orbs. My besties. 10/10, no notes. Next question?

25. Why do you recommend the show?

Not only is it absolutely fantastic queer representation and has some of the absolute BEST character writing I've seen in a long, LONG, damn time, it's just fun. It balances out the dramatic, weighty storytelling and satisfying character arcs with well-done comedic moments that don't take away from the horror- rather, they elevate it. It not only respects its audience in every aspect, from the writing, acting, sound design, editing, and costume design, it loves the genre it is writing for and the audience it is aiming for. It is sincere even in its comedy and its drama and I haven't felt this unhinged about a show in a long while. (Just take a look at how many words of fic I've written for this fandom for an example.) I think that's why the fandom responded so well- not only is it good, it was clearly made with an audience in mind that it respects and adores. And there are so few shows that can say both.

[hypertextdog]

whats ur fav video game(s)?

OOOOOH THATS A GOOD QUESTION ummm lets see. im kind of ass at a lot of games that require a lot of speed and precision so it's mostly story-based and puzzle games. ok im bad at favs but here's some good ones and brief sales pitches in no particular order ...

STORIES UNTOLD is a ~puzzle game that unfolds in four parts with mechanics varying from those of the text-based adventure to full walkaround horror shit. over the course of play you gradually get a sense of what's really going on and how all of the parts are connected. it's extremely extremely cool and feels like a weird dream sequence it's great

HYPNOSPACE OUTLAW is some kind of exploration game that takes place on a fictional second internet circa 1999. play feels not dissimilar to surfing wikipedia. it's incredibly elaborate and vast and was crafted with a lot of love for the cultural phenomena of the internet both then and now. its soundtrack is also like 6 hours and incredible

THIMBLEWEED PARK was my first ever point-and-click adventure game and it's so cool. it's a very funny game and has a lot of fun puzzles ... it's shorter but it's also got one of the best soundtracks on this list check this out

KENTUCKY ROUTE ZERO is probably the most beautiful game i've ever played. i completed it earlier this year. it's so beautifully written and there's not a character in it who isn't in competition for most compelling motherfucker there. its visuals are also just so perfect dude. i really like itttt

DISCO ELYSIUM i nearly forgot to include because i was like nah everyone in the world already knows how amazing and immersive and vast and well-done de is. it is probably the best game on this list. it takes place in the most fleshed-out fictional world i've ever interacted with and every second of it screams "this is The work of someone's life." there's also a fantastic novel "sacred and terrible air" which takes place in the same world, which i also suggest ...

PATRICK'S PARABOX is one of those really mind-fucking puzzle games like baba is you if you're familiar (which would probably also be on this list if i got further in it than i did.) it's one of those games with an extremely simple premise that contorts into one of the most complicated things you've ever tried to wrap your brain around. recursion is so fucked up dude

THE PROCESS OF ELIMINATION is a pretty good free web game that irs umm i hear its author is a pretty cool guyy and uhhh i ummmm. it's pretty good ...... it's a hypertext-based adventure about a piece of spyware which an architect uses to monitor local crime and which his son uses to stalk this redditor he's crushing on. ibwill make another one eventually

HOPE YOU ENJOYED MY GAMESLIST ... 👍

[captainshyguy]

6 bc im curious and 9 bc i wanna see ur hit list /hj

aaa ty belle!!

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

hmmm, not to my knowledge! the closest has been somthing ve been neutral bout/thought was kinda silly like melli and ingo lol, like i didnt hate it, but was neutral, and now i think its hilariousKJDSNGSDJ

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why?

(if these end up in characters tag i apologise but i aint censoring every single damn name! im not tagging and that should be enough)

oooh im gonna expand this bit beyond my regular fandoms bc there are some little fuckers out there i really hatein othe thinhs gkgjd, lets do regular fandoms first though

hollow knght: tpk, lurien, tiso. tpk for obvious reasons (plus i dont really like a lot of high up characters in general like focusing on tpk in fics kinda makes me eyes roll when the vessels are right there. lurien for reasons :). tiso because people went through a stint where he was just silly himbo and kept shippig him with quirrel nd i fucking hated that lol. his design slaps though

tcw: the bad batch lol fucking HATE them. tech is tolerable, and i dont even count echo one of them, free him!!! but the rest are condesceding assholes sorry idc if they get better in their own show like sorry you sold them to me as 'ooo arent they soooo cool theyre so much better than those Regulr Clones Boooo, look at them!!! like fuck off lol. you will never be captain rex

pokemon: not a big fan of 'hehee im a cutesy quirky little girl!! chracters, like sabi or poppy like. theyre fine i guess but eh. not for me. otherwise swordbert and shieldbert were also annoying kjgskgj

off the top of my head i cant really think of many for mario besides like...idk cranky kong specifically in the mario movie? awful voice perfromace. i guess waluigi too sorry, i m not a fan of like..idk, more basic mario chracters who dont really show up in non mulitplyar games, bc they end up beign sooo known and its like. bro they didnt even put him in wonder or 3d world or anything. like if u want him to be a staple mario character to me then put him in other games too, or i'll just roll my eyes that he's taking up space where someone like cpatain toad or peasley could be taking it lol

undertale/deltarune: detanged one but ice-e. ex went through a period where he as weirdly obsessed with him and thought he'd be super important and it annoyed me :)

ok now outside of my regular fdoms, characters i still loathe include

ralph from the flash- he was this stretchy dude who was awful abt women and like sure he kiiiida got over it but it felt weak and i hated him and the actor ended up being shitty anyway.. in the same universe i didnt like either oliver or barry's daughters from the future, both were very annoying lol

mon el from super girl. i hate him. kill him.annoying boring no chemistry love interest. kill him

eric sparrow from tony hawks underground- though i will concede that like the hollow knight characters, he contrbutes in really important ways to the story. like your'e SUPPOSED to hate him thats the point, they do a very good job with it. like he's written fantastically, and i want to kill him. i alway think of this article i read about him that was like 'eric sparrow is my best friend and he wants to hurt me' like yeah thats it thats the character. like i LIKE WHAT THEY DID, which sets him apart from almost everyone else here, its just what they did makes you hate him lol

ross from friends. miserable, insecure little creep. kill him

there are little charcters i loathe more than peter griffin family guy. kill bite explode

[bethanythebogwitch]

Doctor Who - the Empire of Death

This was honestly one the better season finales written by Davies, but that is a very low bar. None of the new series show runners have been anywhere near as good at writing long-running storylines as they think they are. Sutekh was kind of wasted as a villain. He got less to go on than in the original story, where he was obsessed with ending all life out of paranoia that eventually something might evolve that could surpass him. Here he's just a generic bad guy who wants to kill everything for no real given reason. His defeat was also pretty silly. You're telling me that the god who scared the piss out of the Toymaker couldn't get out of a rope? Yeah it's a science rope, but its still a rope. The Toymaker and the Maestro could casually alter reality but the guy who scares both of them is beaten by a hook. Also, Sutekh survives being dumped into the time vortex the first time and the big solution to him returning even more power is to dump him in the vortex again. Brilliant plan. The Toymaker and Maestro were beaten in a way consistent with their godly domain (losing a game and finding a specific sequence of music). It would have been a lot cooler if Sutekh's defeat followed that trend. Use some kind of symbolic defeat of death to undo his actions.

Calling back to 73 Yards without even attempting to explain what in the sam hell was going on in that episode is kind of annoying. You could have tied the blatant magic of that plot into the pantheon, but nope.

The reveal of Ruby's mom's identity was silly. I guess I can buy Suteks thinking she was pointing at him and his paranoia of thinking she somehow saw him resulting in him accidentally imbuing her with powers by believing she had powers. That's not really what the show went with, but I can pretend.

Ruby referring to her bio mom as her real mom was a big oof moment. A real slap in the face to her adoptive mom.

Davies is so obsessed with giving bizarre hints to future stories he's now doing it as a season-ending cliffhanger. "Ooh, who is the mysterious neighbor? You'll just have to keep watching to find out!". Moffat did that too during 11's run and he ended up having too much hanging plot threads with the Silence, church, Kovarian, Trenzalore, etc that he had to slam it together in one absolute mess of a finale. Please don't do that again. That being said, it really speaks to how awful of a head writer Chibnal was that Davies can still write circles around him.

Consistently through the new series the season-long story arcs have been my least favorite part of each season. I much prefer the standalone episodes. The classic show almost never did running plotlines. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are the key to time and trial of a time lord arcs, the latter of which was so bad it almost killed the show. I would love a season of nothing but standalone episodes with maybe a two-parter or two.

If you want a (in my opinion) better take on the Doctor fighting gods, the Big Finish audio drama elder gods storyline is a better one, consisting of the dramas House of Blue Fire, Protect and Survive, Black and White, Gods and Monsters, Afterlife, and Signs and Wonders. There's some backstory involved, but I didn't listen to most of that and still followed the story just fine. A Big Finish story featuring Sutekh that I liked better than this episode is the two parter of Kill the Doctor!, and The Age of Sutekh, found on the Fourth Doctor Adventures season 7 volume 2 collection. And if you haven't seen Sutekh's debut in the Pyramids of Mars, drop everything and go watch it now.

This season only getting 8 episodes was criminal. Next season better be at least 12. Fucking Disney+. 15 is a fantastic Doctor and Ruby ended up growing on me a lot even after the Christmas episode put a bad taste in my mouth. I do think the show has pulled itself out of the hole the late Moffat and Chibnal eras dug for it. Not saying there's weren't good episodes in those eras, but I do think this season helped bring new Who back to its late-RTD/early Moffat high point.

[docholligay]

Dr. Holligay, can you please tell the class some children‘s books that would hit hard for adults? For example: I DO remember reading „A Wrinkle in Time“ as a 12 year old kid but I feel like I will get more out of it as an adult than when I read it as a child.

This is so hard, because by necessity, stories for children are so much more simple than stories for adults. The prose is less complex, the morality generally with more of a brightline, the plot beats more stock. This is not a criticism, children are cutting their literary eyeteeth on these stories, and that is what they are there for.

But, it's hard for an adult, thinking as an adult, to be QUITE as dropped out of the sky as a kid might be. I don't know of any kids' books I would PERSONALLY say "hit hard" but I'm a little tougher of a nut than some others and kids' stories rarely go the places I need to REALLY engage my emotions.

I mean, I think the whole Wrinkle in Time series is fucking great, but I think if you read it as an adult, it is pretty obvious that its for kids. Same with Series of Unfortunate Events, which I ADORE. For adults it's mostly just amusing, it won't hit hard.

I mean I have my contractually-obligated plug for Watership Down*. I think it's one of the kids' books I've read that I get a LOT out of as an adult. I think His Dark Materials has its eye-rolling moments, but also has some fantastic stuff going on, if you can get around Pullman occasionally cutting himself on all that edge**. I know a lot of people get a lot out of The Last Unicorn as adults, though I mostly found it a very good children's book. I know a lot of people love The Little Prince as adult,s but it did absolutely nothing for me, personally.

And then there are books I love out of a complex nostalgia but I don't know if they hold up for adults and/or also they have the trouble of their times, however else I feel about them: Peter Pan, The Jungle Books, I haven't reread Tuck Everlasting recently, Nor the Hunger Games but I remember being impressed by them when they came out, The Giver, certainly others I am forgetting.

*Yes, this is a children's book. It was written for children. I have noticed that whenever people say a novel isn't for children, even when it is, they mean, "it isn't pablum where everything is always going to be fine and you never have to be scared or sad" WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS IS A GREAT KIDS' BOOK TOO.

**I love this series, but, I mean good God, I get it Phil.

[jennaflare]

Nextfest Game Demos You Should Try

I've been playing a ton of demos during nextfest (going until 10/21 if you want to try any of these yourself!) and figured I'd spread the good word about some games worth checking out. Naturally, all these demos are free. I trawled mostly through the "story-driven" section, but there's a range of genres I tried. If you like games like Disco Elysium, Pentiment, In Stars and Time, or Night in the Woods, we might have similar taste! (Here's a longer list of games I've enjoyed)

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector

The sequel to the fantastic sci-fi RPG Citizen Sleeper (which if you haven't played it yet, what are you doing! go! play it!). This game is a Discolike that has its own identity and mechanics. Big emphasis on space capitalism and how awful it is. This one introduces an actual crew to the familiar gameplay of the previous game, which I'm very excited about. I love the idea of actually having my own ship + people aboard it who are a continuous presence in my game. Check! It! Out!

The Rise of the Golden Idol

An extremely good puzzle game where you collect clues and fill in the blanks (literally). I still haven't played the first one (only played the demo for that too) but man! The game mechanics are fun and I love the art soo much. I love solving puzzles and I love how these are decently challenging without feeling like I'm beating my head against a wall.

The Scarlet Deer Inn

An adventure game inspired by Slavic folklore where you play as a mother and innkeeper. All the characters are embroidered!! It's so cool!!! Visually, it evokes Ghibli and Pentiment. The story quickly took a dark turn in the demo, and I am extremely intrigued to see where this project goes. Highly highly recommend checking this one out.

Keep Driving

A lowkey management RPG with great pixel graphics and fun music. You're a young person on a road trip, so you need to maintain your car, work odd jobs to buy gas, and most importantly, have fun! I can easily see myself losing entire days to this game. Fun little gameplay loop. Give it a try!

Mushroom Musume

Raise a mushroom daughter in this pixel RPG! Just in the demo, there's something like 30 endings. I've played through three times and gotten three different mushroom daughters, and the final version (out later this year) will have double the content that's in the demo. The art is great and the game is well-written. I'm going to keep playing this demo until I've exhausted it!

Loco Motive

Point-and-click murder mystery comedy on a train. Great voice acting, fun & bouncy pixel art! Had a great time playing this one. Not a lot to say about it aside from it's fun and made me laugh.

Urban Myth Dissolution Center

Ooooo it's spooky! Another pixel game with really, really fantastic art. You're a new investigator for the Urban Myth Dissolution Center and it's your job to look into rumors of urban legends. This one's also a point-and-click investigation game, though with a bent towards horror. Really looking forward to getting to play the full release for this one.

The League of the Hustlers

A point-and-click adventure game set in 1700s France. You play as the members of a group of rebels who rob & murder nobility, specifically those tied to an organization called the Sons of Sun (I think they said that was the name anyway). I'm intrigued by this one! The demo was short and some of the mechanics are stupid difficult (looking at you, swordfighting minigame), but I was able to skip the section after a few failed attempts. There was very little in the way of instruction on the minigames, so I hope they add that in. I like the art style.

The Edge of Allegoria

Pixel turn-based RPG that takes inspiration from classics of the genre. It goes a little too hard on delivering on the steam store's page promise of "this ain't no f@#%ing kid's game" imo. Like ok I get it, you say fuck a lot and murder squirrels. That said I did have fun with the mechanics, and the humor could probably work for some people. Feels like the kind of game I really would have liked between the ages of 16 and 20 because it was "edgy" and "not for kids." ymmv.

Button Man

Set in 1920s Nova Scotia, you play as an enforcer for a local gangster. I love the vintage comic book art style with the halftones and comic book panels. The controls were a little weird (for some reason I couldn't use WASD for movement) and there's like two different interact buttons and they don't explain either? Didn't get to see too much of the story, but I had fun with it.

My Party Needs an Alchemist

Extremely cute. You play as an alchemist struggling to gather ingredients in a dangerous world. Luckily, you find a party to help you out, you just have to keep them alive! I have been craving an alchemy game that I actually think is fun (aka something that breaks up the monotony of making potions with story or some other minigame or whatever) and this looks very promising! The characters I've met so far are sweet and the art style is adorable. Looking forward to the release for this one.

Rooster

Another cute one. You play as Rooster of the Chinese zodiac, sent back to ancient China to learn a lesson. About being a decent person, I think? The art is cute and the music is nice. It's a very casual experience and feels like it's meant for a younger audience.

Polismos

An ancient Greek citybuilder. It seems very intricate and could potentially be fun! The UI is a bit busy, but that's kind of how citybuilders tend to be. I didn't play too much because I always WANT to like citybuilders but I never find them all that fun. Worth a look if it's your genre, though.

Demos I played so you don't have to

Divinastros - Card game using tarot suit cards & zodiac influences. You're fighting against Olympus (often mispelled in the game as "Olimpus," though the misspelling is inconsistent). I never really figured out how to play because it felt like the rules and objectives were poorly explained. Mediocre art and the game is rife with misspellings and grammatical errors I would have overlooked if the game had been fun. Maybe you'll get the hang of it, though.

Grimfield Mystery - This one was sooo disappointing. The art & vibe of the trailer made me think of Gravity Falls, but the gameplay was clunky, poorly explained, and not really fun. Maybe the full release will improve upon what's here but for now, I don't recommend it, and I'm not wishlisting this one.

Ad Agency Simulator - Another in these weird specific simulator genre. Fun enough, if that's the kind of thing you like. Drag-n-drop ad maker thing. Possibly uses AI art but I really didn't look that hard or play that much so. shrug.

[nonsubstantial]

APRIL 2024 ART FASCINATION DIARY

This is another post about the art that I've been fascinated with this year. I make these posts monthly, so that I can look back and remember all the things that were keeping me happy and inspired! If you are reading this, then I hope it will be somewhat interesting to hear about. First, a collage of my interests this month, then there are descriptions below.

MUSIC / ALBUM I heard about Everything Harmony by The Lemon Twigs because Vinny Vinesauce liked it enough to feature it on his twitch channel four times within this last month. After checking it out, it quickly became a favorite of mine as well. It's inspired by 60's era rock bands like The Beach Boys and The Beatles, and the two brothers in charge of The Lemon Twigs were basically raised from birth to create this kind of music. They're excellent musicians, but I do have a few complaints, mainly that their band is a four person group that started as a two person group, and it shows. The musicians on their drums and backing guitar are unnoticeable most of the time, or even make their music worse when I really focus on the boring repetitive parts that they play in the mix. I think that it would improve things if we heard the other two members’ creativity shine a little more. On a different note, their lyrics also feel kind of hollow to me, sort of like facsimiles of themes that we heard out of the 60’s pop music that they’re inspired by. Maybe the brothers’ odd upbringing is what makes their lyrics feel like nothing more than dreamy imitations of other lyrics, rather than being something written from their own hearts? In any case, their vibe is really bizarre, but despite all my criticisms I did really enjoy this one album from them. (And actually, their new 2024 album is already out! It’s also fantastic, and I’ll talk about it on my May list.)

FANFIC / CREATIVE WRITING I've been working on a long fanfic for fun since last month, and every time I write a new scene for it I'm filled with a sense of creative euphoria for the rest of the day. It's not always perfect, but there's no real pressure to write something good, so it just ends up being an enjoyable outlet for my passions. Even if I never publish anything, being creative and exploring my own imagination is satisfying in itself, and I wish I had the time to do it every day! (HONESTLY, there could and should be time, if only our society actually prioritized taking breaks for mental health and personal wellbeing over making endless amounts of money and increasingly insubstantial products to be consumed by only the luckiest members of our parasitic upper class. I hate our unsympathetic workaholic capitalist culture with every fiber of my being, and wish that I could fucking end it all, but I digress...) Writing is just so fun. And I'll be working on the same projects for another few months, probably, as long as I can keep on keeping up with them.

REALITY GAME SHOW The finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16 concluded this month, and I thought it was absolutely fantastic. Now that it’s over, we’re starting back from season 1 and we’re going to try to eventually watch it all! (We actually did finish season 1, right before posting this. It was interesting and groundbreaking in its own right, and it introduced me to Tammie Brown, who is now one of my favorite queens. Then, we started season 2 and I’m pretty sure that this is where the show’s bad reputation got its start, because I really can’t stand any of the season 2 contestants. Too bad, but we’ll keep on watching and see how it pans out anyway.) In season 16 though, there was just so much unique creativity and talent on display, and so many jaw dropping ‘holy shit’ moments, that I think it was one of the best things I have ever watched. It had the hypest final lip sync battle I ever could have imagined, and I had no idea which way it was going to end. In whole, I feel like the show was a wonderful watch, and I’m glad that our friends convinced us to give it a shot.

LIVE THEATER MUSICAL My partner and I were given a gift card to our local theater last year, so we finally used it to go see a live production of Annie! We don't live in a place where live musicals are very common, and I actually hadn’t seen any since highschool, so we had to make plans very early in the year to go watch it. And after having done so, I can say for certain that there is a unique magic to watching a live theater performance. I’m surprised that it was all performed so perfectly, even with children and a dog on stage, and remarkably, it sounded better than any recording I could find online before or after the event. It was so incredible all around that it totally transported me into a unique creative headspace. There were people of all ages there, some dressed up, some appearing more casual, but the atmosphere was delightful and jovial all around. I’m not going to comment about what was or wasn’t problematic about Annie; it’s not really that deep and you can probably figure that out on your own. But I will say that the magic of a live performance depends entirely on the energy in its room, and I was totally swept away by this experience. Without the discount, it would have been very pricey though, so I’m hoping that we can put away a little money to see a different live musical next year.

BOOK / AUDIOBOOK About a month and a half ago, I started Leo Tolstoy's epic work of historical fiction, War And Peace. I love a book that I can get completely lost in, and War and Peace is one of those books. I made it about 1/4th of the way through it this month, and even though it started slow, I’m now sure that it’s going to be an all time favorite. I read Anna Karenina years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I expected to like this one too, but there was still a sort of learning curve to overcome at the start. After over a month of engaging with it, I feel like I’ve finally gotten over its barrier to entry, and now I’m picking up the pace. Most people have heard of this book before, so let me tell you that its high-sounding title is no false advertisement. It’s a Russian slice of life book set during the Napoleonic Wars, dealing with a huge assemblage of political and philosophical conflicts, and it will have you exasperatedly crying “time is a flat circle!” as you realize that humans today have nearly the same brains and political interests that they had over 200 years ago. It is already a masterpiece, in my opinion, and I’m going to be reading this book for the entire month of May also, so that’s something to look forward to. If you’re interested in checking out an audiobook, I’m also listening to the Maude translation, narrated by Neville Jason, and I think it’s quite good! (That's it for April! But we're already a few weeks into May, so expect more Lemon Twigs and more War And Peace. Thank you for caring about me, and I hope you have a good day! ♡)