Fandom Promo Post
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ficinaboxUse this post to promote your fandoms to others or to ask for recommendations! Feel free to link to legal sources for your fandoms :)
A non-complete list of things you may want to include:
A non-complete list of things you may want to include:
- Fandom name
- What medium is it and where to find it
- A summary (try to avoid major spoilers)
- Content warnings
- Why you like it
no subject
Date: 2021-08-04 10:14 pm (UTC)Media: A series of 9 books (all 300-400 pages)
Summary: The series focuses around the titular Higher Institute of Villainous Education (evil boarding school) and four students making their way through it
Content warnings: violence, murder, a posession plot
Why you like it: It's equal parts a loving send-up of the spy genre and those tropes played straight. There is a Little Shop of Horrors Monster, robot ninjas, and also an evil AI that becomes the major series antagonist. The core four characters have different skillsets and use them to great effect, and they're each compelling in their own way.
I also find the mechanics of supervillainy (in a world without apparent superheroes) incredibly interesting, as is the backstory of the school (which gets doled out very slowly through the books).
no subject
Date: 2021-08-04 10:31 pm (UTC)Media: 14 books in the main series
Where to find: the first nine novels (and four anthologies) are available for free here: http://baencd.freedoors.org/Discs/Baen%2001/index.htm
Summary: Starts off as Napoleonic Wars IN SPAAAACE, with Honor taking the role of Horatio Hornblower
Content warnings: Lots of violence and (non-graphic) rape; bit of eye-gore in book 2
Why you like it: The space battles are well-plotted, and the characters and the challenges they face are compelling. I love treecats on general principle (fuzzy little buzzsaws!), and Honor herself (along with her peers) is relentlessly competent and dedicated. I also have a big thing for spy tropes, which Cachat and Zilwicki fulfill with gusto.
Barcelona (1994)
Date: 2021-08-06 11:35 pm (UTC)Media: Movie
Approx length: 101 minutes
Where to find it: Rentable online, including through Amazon Prime, Google, and Apple
What is it, in summary? A dramedy about two American cousins in Barcelona--the more uptight Ted is there for business, and his feckless and impulsive (but charming) cousin Fred crashes with him when he's stationed there to handle U.S. Navy press. Minor culture clashes and more major interpersonal cousin clashes, plus Ted's struggle to find love.
What do you love about it? I love Whit Stillman doing a comedy of manners, and I always liked when people pointed out that even his roughly contemporary films (this one's set in 1987) have the kind of up-close cultural observation that make them feel like period pieces. So it's talky and charming and generally fond of all its characters, and I love the testy closeness between Ted and Fred. So much bickering and justifiable irritation, but also so much tenderness. Even a fair amount of canonical h/c!
What sort of things are you likely to request for it? Ted/Fred cousincest. (Fred canonically keeps telling women that Ted is into BDSM. Maybe he wants this to be true.) Ted & Fred gen closeness and adventures, Fred's recovery, etc.
Content warnings: A character gets shot in the head. Drug use. American imperialism. Characters philosophize about men, women, sex, and love in a way that can be sexist and could grate on you.
Borgspace
Date: 2021-08-11 12:52 am (UTC)Medium: Written episodes
Approx length: Nine seasons worth of episodes, plus some extras
Where to find it: http://bspace.freeshell.org/Borgstories.html
What is it, in summary? Are you familiar with the Borg from Star Trek? Well, Borgspace is about a Cube full of Borg drones who were “imperfectly assimilated” - and who retained too much of their individuality. The queen has gathered all these drones together onto one ship and sent them off to the far reaches of the galaxy where they can still be useful, without the possibility of infecting other drones. Cube #347 encounters all sorts of weird – the equivalents of Home Shopping Network and the UPS, religious zealots, etc.
What do you love about it? The snarky Captain, “Sensors” who's senses don't quite line up with anyone else's, the Doctor, who used to be a vet and tries to assimilate every animal he meets – and the rest of the motley crew. The first few seasons are probably the best.
Content warnings: It's pretty tame. Borg don't do sex, and this group is seldom allowed to assimilate anyone.
Humans are Space Orcs
Date: 2021-08-11 12:53 am (UTC)Medium: various posts
Approx length: multiple short bits
Where to find it: https://humans-are-space-orcs.tumblr.com/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/humansarespaceorcs/ and https://www.alittlebithuman.com/humans-are-space-orcs-and-earth-is-space-australia/ (or do a quick Google)
What is it, in summary? The basic idea is that the aliens are afraid of us, because humans are crazy.
What do you love about it? We are are little crazy. The aliens have a point.
Content warnings: Varies. Mostly non-sexual, there is some violence.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-13 12:23 am (UTC)Medium: Video game, available for the Nintendo 3DS
Summary: A single-player turn-based strategy fantasy role-playing game centered on a player character with amnesia (with selectable gender), an extremely earnest prince, the prince's private militia, and a lot of dramatic reveals. There's mind control, time travel, extreme devotion, angst and hurt/comfort opportunities abound, battle couples, the power of friendship, dating sim elements where you can marry most of the cast (though it is gender-locked depending on which version of the player character you are playing), and, you know, maybe a dragon apocalypse or two. Fire Emblem!
Content Warnings: Brief but important mind control elements in the plot, if that squicks you. Character death but It's Complicated. It's a game about war, so there is violence, but it's bloodless and not gory. Some "men writing women in video games" sexism, including one character being a peeping tom and Chrom and F!Robin's supports being different from his supports with M!Robin - Chrom and F!Robin walk in on each other in the bath in some anime-esque shenanigans.
Why I Like It: I'm a big sucker for stories about the power of relationships overcoming everything! Also, the battle system is fun - I'm not very good at strategy but I have a blast putting the game on an easier setting and building my army, and the characters are very charming and shippable. Also, the Chrom/Robin (the player character's default name) ship hits me right in the heart. The intense loyalty comes through regardless of which version of the avatar you play and they are great both as friends and as a romance. Also it's got very pretty cutscenes and portrait art, and the balance of humor, fluff, and angst combined with the way some things are left vague provides a lot of range for fantastic fandom fun!
no subject
Date: 2021-08-13 10:36 am (UTC)Fandom name: 鹿鼎記 / The Duke of Mount Deer (TVB, 1984)
What is it?: A 40-episode live-action wuxia drama produced by TVB in Hong Kong, based on a popular and perversely genre-subversive wuxia anti-epic novel by Jin Yong.
What makes it great?:
Well, Andy Lau and Tony Leung, for one thing. :D
If you're into Asian cinema, you probably know them as two of Hong Kong's top film stars. You may or may not also know that they both started out on TVB in the early 80's, doing ridiculous but adorable low-budget dramas with flimsy props and dubious period costumes. The Duke of Mount Deer is a particularly shiny gem.
The premise: Two boys meet one day on the grounds of the palace court at Beijing, circa 1650 or so, and become wrestling buddies. Both of them are hiding their real identities. One is actually the young emperor of China, while the other is a mischievous trickster kid who grew up in a brothel and is now being used as a spy... by rebels who want to overthrow the empire.
Most of the story takes place after they've more or less cleared up who they really are, as their relationship gets increasingly complicated by politics. Meanwhile there's other crazy stuff going on all over the place (secret books, buried treasure, weird cults, a kung-fu nun)... but things always seems to circle back to drive the conflict between the maturing emperor, who is trying to hold his kingdom together, and his problematic fave Wai Siu-bou, who would rather be getting up to hijinks somewhere.
I love how well-intentioned and yet deeply flawed both of the main characters are, and how they struggle to sustain the fiction of an equal friendship in spite of the massive power imbalance between them. There are some intense loyalty tropes here, right alongside a lot of deception and mutual distrust and conflict. And, amid all the cheerfully chaotic drama and low-budget props, a compelling and really rather classic relationship arc.
A few years ago when I first watched this series, I wrote up a ridiculously thorough screenshot-illustrated recap, which is naturally full of spoilers but might be worth a glance if you're wondering whether the show is something you'd care to check out.
Content warnings: Lots of mysogyny (women treated as possessions/prizes), including one instance of strongly-implied non-con which the show plays off as just more trickster antics. :/
Where to find it:: On TVB's official YouTube channel with Chinese subs, or here with English subs. (Incidentally, the novel, which I also plan to request, consists of three ~500-page books and is available in a pro-translation on Amazon as well as a fan-translation here.)
no subject
Date: 2021-08-14 10:54 am (UTC)Media: video game
Approx length: 20-30 hours for the game, 2 hours if you watch the lore bits on YT.
Where to find it: it's a PS5 exclusive, so on the PS store or wherever you like to get your PS games. Because of the PS5 shortage and because it's a game where the gameplay and the story are not very connected if you're interested in writing for a horror, sci-fi video game fandom without playing it: you can find all the cutscenes and lore/story important voice logs on Youtube. And there is one more added video for the true ending. Unfortunately, the game's Wikia is a work in progress, so there are no full transcripts apart from these videos.
What is it, in summary? It's a third-person shooter roguelike, 3D bullet hell game about Selene, an astronaut, who crashlands on Atropos, an alien planet, and gets stuck in a time-loop where she has to face her traumatic memories about losing her child.
Fair warning: The game is said to be hard and frustrating due to the fact that there is no save feature and after each death, you have to start over again without (mostly) any of your equipment or abilities, and there is a lot of RNG in the abilities you can get. Almost every item you pick up has also some negative effect too, could feel very punishing. Personally, I enjoyed it, didn't feel too grind-focused, but it can be frustrating for some, and there are no different difficulties. If you liked Doom Eternal's fighting style it might be your game.
What do you love about it?
- Dark, horror atmosphere. It has so much potential for body horror and psychological torture! Selene can meet her other self via the time-loop (or cloning, however you prefer to interpret it) and some of her versions started to lose their grip on reality.
- The whole thing has an added Greek myth element, characters and bosses being named after Greek gods and titans, even the alien fauna is inspired by Greek monsters.
- Gameplay-wise, I enjoyed the whole fighting system, the procedurally generated, always changing maps, and the boss fights are superbly designed.
- It has a fantastic soundtrack!
What sort of things are you likely to request for it? The story can be interpreted in many ways (is any of it real or is it just Selene's guilt?), but I'll be requesting mostly world-building sci-fi about aliens and a sentient planet, time-loops, survival horror, body horror, psychological horror, trauma recovery, and Selene meeting her other, more unstable versions.
Content warnings: your typical video game violence, flashing, bright lights maybe - it has very Doom-like visuals with bright projectiles, so for some, it can be triggering or just plain not enjoyable. You can check out screenshots here.
For The Wolf - Hannah Whitten
Date: 2021-08-15 05:05 am (UTC)Media: It's a book!
Approx length: like 400 pages
Where to find it: It's at most booksellers! Barnes & Noble for sure, maybe your library?
What is it, in summary? I'll just copy over the official summary!
As the only Second Daughter born in centuries, Red has one purpose-to be sacrificed to the Wolf in the Wood in the hope he'll return the world's captured gods.
Red is almost relieved to go. Plagued by a dangerous power she can't control, at least she knows that in the Wilderwood, she can't hurt those she loves. Again.
But the legends lie. The Wolf is a man, not a monster. Her magic is a calling, not a curse. And if she doesn't learn how to use it, the monsters the gods have become will swallow the Wilderwood-and her world-whole.
I will also say that while the aesthetics are very Little Red Riding Hood, the plot is actually more like Beauty and the Beast? Someone somewhere* said "If you ever wished Beauty and the Beast had more eldritch forest monsters and political machinations, this is the romance for you." and that is accurate.
Content warnings: Provided by the author! And are very important Please Read
What do you love about it? I mean I personally am a sucker for fantasy romance, but I loved the worldbuilding as well! I also just. Love all the characters. They're very compelling and you get attached super quickly. It's also got quite a bit of dramatic irony? There's a certain subset of chapters (interludes) spread throughout the book and every time you hit one you're like, "Oh dear god, what now". It's a very fun experience.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it? Romance, with both the main canonical couple and also some other couples that were just implied/sidelined. Also a lot of platonic relationships, since this book showcases quite a number of very interesting and driving platonic relationships (the two sisters being the main one). Most likely my prompts will be either for backstory or like, "post-canon" (which is in quotes because the duology is not yet complete).
*Someone somewhere is "Alix E. Harrow, author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January", the quote itself is from one of the blurbs that the author?/publisher gets for the book
15th Century RPF - Wars of the Roses
Date: 2021-08-17 06:47 pm (UTC)Media: Non-fiction books (including The Wars of the Roses by Dan Jones and The Brothers York by Thomas Penn), historical fiction novel The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman, The White Queen book by Philippa Gregory and TV Series on Starz
Summary During the Wars of the Roses (1455-1487), the Houses of Lancaster and York fought for control of the English throne. Henry VI of the House of Lancaster was a politically and personally weak king with an unpopular foreign Queen, and he had bouts of mental illness that left him unable to rule. In 1455, Richard Duke of York, who had a claim to the throne, captured him and was declared Lord Protector. Fighting continues, Richard is killed in battle, and his son Edward of York takes up the claim. Edward wins the crown by force and is crowned in 1461, with the support of his cousin Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (the Kingmaker). Later on, Warwick teams up with Edward's younger brother George to overthrow him and drive him into exile. Edward comes back, retakes the throne, and Warwick dies in battle. I'm mostly into the reign of Edward IV, from him becoming Duke of York after the Battle of Sandal Castle/Wakefield to his death in 1483 and its aftermath.
Content Warnings: Period-typical violence and sexism
Why I Love It: Honestly, I'm here for the interplay between the York brothers and their cousin the Earl of Warwick! I love the complicated relationships, the supreme loyalty kink everywhere, the trust broken and mended and broken again. Warwick mentored all of them, and ends up fighting alongside his lifelong worst enemies against them! Edward ends up killing Warwick and then his own brother George! Youngest brother Richard of Gloucester stands by Edward his whole life, and then disinherits Edward's sons and throws them in the Tower the minute Edward dies! I'm into the codependency (especially between Edward and Richard), Us Against the World, political machinations - and if you make it all include incestuous sex, I'm very down with that!
Domina
Date: 2021-08-17 07:02 pm (UTC)Media: 1 season TV series on EPIX and Sky, made up of 8 hour-long episodes. Starring, among others, Matthew McNulty, Liam Cunningham, and Claire Forlani
Summary: The life and rise of Livia Drusilla, wife of Emperor Augustus, after the death of Julius Caesar and the fall of the Roman Republic.
Content Warnings: A lot of death! Including murder (by various methods) and suicide. Offscreen rape and forced prostitution is a big plot line in episode 2. Miscarriage. Infidelity. One big instance of animal cruelty in episode 3.
Why I Love It: So many great relationships, dripping with loyalty kink and codepency! I love Livia's relationship with her best friend (and former slave) Antigone. Their devotion to each other is the best. And I love Gaius Augustus' relationship with his best friend Agrippa, as they seize power together. Then there's Livia's son Tiberius, who would be a major woobie if he weren't so creepy. There are so many complex relationships, political maneuvering, and even poisoning! And sacrificing to Proserpina Queen of the Dead to make horrible things happen to your enemies! All while everyone is draped in gorgeous period clothing, lounging on couches while drinking wine and eating dormice, and surrounded by columns and statuary.
Scarlet Nexus
Date: 2021-08-18 11:18 am (UTC)Media: Video game
Approx length: 20-25 hours for the first playthrough, and about 10-15 for the second.
Where to find it: You can buy it on Steam, Playstation and XBox. However, there are also compilations of all cutscenes for each route: Yuito's route, and Kasane's route. The game is set up so that each route is a standalone story that contains what each character knows, but that to understand what's going on, you need to play both.
What is it, in summary? In the future, humanity discovers in pretty short order that a) they have latent psionic abilities and b) said psionic abilities are the only way to kill aliens who have infected almost everything on Earth. 2,000 years later, we have the OSF, a group of elite psionics who undergo a strict hormone regime to keep them physically in their teens, whose ranks are filled with those conscripted because of their powers and a few who volunteer. You play as either Kasane Randall, adopted daughter of the prestigious Randall family who is conscripted due to her powers, or Yuito Sumeragi, the youngest son of the leader of the city they live in who volunteers despite the fact that his powers are a bit rubbish really. They join their platoons and are ready to fight the alien invaders!
...except that this game is actually a sci-fi thriller and they are far more likely to get killed by the conspiracy that they have found themselves tangled up in than by the aliens. The two stories diverge at a critical point, with Kasane trying to find a way to undo the event that caused the divergence and along the way find out her forgotten past, while Yuito's past catches up with him while he desperately tries to find out why everyone is trying to kill him including himself. It's a game about bonds and connections between people in the face of a dystopia, and the idle animations in the base do more for character building than a lot of games I've played this year.
What do you love about it? I love psi-punk, people having fractious relationships but ultimately going ride or die for their team, and sweet sunshine children who push themselves beyond their limits only to pick themselves back up and do it all over again. I also love dystopian settings that aren't obviously so, and New Himuka is so bright and colourful, and just don't look too hard at how there are cameras on every corner and the government can literally project messages into your brain. I also like how grubby the OSF are: the conscriptions that literally no one can get out of, the idea of giving people a hormonal mix to keep them a teenager for as long as possible, the discarding of old OSF soldiers once they start aging (assuming that they're not just experimented on), and that they are completely alien to the society that they live in because of their service.
Underneath its bright graphics and cheerful "friendship is best!" exterior, Scarlet Nexus is a pretty dark story set in an oppressive setting where everyone is pretty morally grey except for Yuito, Nagi, Hanabi, and Naomi who really are as bright and wide-eyed as they appear.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it? It's an explicit game mechanic that the system that connects these psychic soldiers together is agonising, and they have to use it a lot. It is also explicitly canonical that Yuito is so exhausted that when he goes "oh yeah, my weird headaches and time-loss are due to fatigue" everyone is like "seems legit!". I also really love the psychological horror that comes with you losing time, your brain betraying you, and that your powers could fail you at a critical moment with the only relief being a medicine that is utterly repugnant to you. So, well, all of that.
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests? Yeah, you could actually get away with just Yuito's storyline for what I'm requesting. If you want to know what Yuito doesn't know in terms of the conspiracy, you'll need Kasane's story.
Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence) Scarlet Nexus contains references to human experimentation, body horror (that is more surreal than horror), mind control, the government being morally dubious, and abusive and/or distant family members.
SMT: Devil Survivor 2
Date: 2021-08-18 11:26 am (UTC)Media: Video Game (there is an anime but do not watch it.) There is also a game called "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor" and it is unconnected with this game apart from sharing game mechanics.
Approx length: How Long to Beat clocks it at about 60 to get most things and about 100 to get all endings. It's a pretty narrative heavy game, so watching the scenes would work as well.
Where to find it: The game is on the 3DS and I think you can buy it electronically. Alternatively, here's a compilation of every scene.
What is it, in summary? You and two of your school friends are going home after an mock exam, and are sent a video of your impending demise ... just prior to the events depicted in the video occuring. You manage to avert your death by forming a pact with demons, only to learn that the world is slowly being consumed by nothingness to be reshaped into something else, while also being attacked by interdimensional invaders. Fortunately, there's a secret organisation who knew all about it and has stepped forward to save the day! Over the next several days, you decide who lives, who dies, and whose proposal about what should be done about this situation you plan to follow.
The 3DS remake has an additional campaign set after the first campaign, where you learn that all you really did was defeat one set of alien invaders intent on erasing the world we know, except this batch just want to make us all dead because of what happened in the previous campaign. To make matters worse, one of your allies is missing, you keep flickering in and out of existence, and the rest of your allies are haunted by strange memories they don't understand. You can finally win a happy ending for humanity, but it takes a lot to get there.
What do you love about it? The above description sounds pretty grim, and the game is pretty dark! The apocalypse is here, there are widescale and personal tragedies, and while there is a happy ending for the world it's hard work getting there. The game also leans very firmly on the idea that humanity is capable of miracles as well as terrible life choices, and that a cast full of ordinary people will step up and fight gods with nothing more than grit and demonic pokemon. The characters are likeable and interesting, with great writing and voice acting. It's darker than Persona, but a lot more character driven than the SMT games.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it? Stuff about Miyako and Yamato, who are kind of AU twins to one another but aren't.
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests? Not really! The anime is shorter, but the anime is its own thing that makes drastic changes to characters, especially Yamato. Further, Miyako is not in the anime.
Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence) Devil Survivor 2 contains a lot of death (some of it depicted on screen), some body horror, and a mad scientist who doesn't seem familiar with ethics.
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
Date: 2021-08-18 12:18 pm (UTC)Media: Video Game
Approx length: About 35 hours to play.
Where to find it: Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is available on Wii and PS3. Here's a compilation of all the cutscenes, and here's a compilation of the skits.
What is it, in summary? Two years after Lloyd and co saved the world in Tales of Symphonia, the world is not doing so great because apparently smashing two worlds together and forcing them to co-exist does not undo thousands of years of exploitation on both sides. Our protagonists are a cowed and abused kid with a worryingly violent alter ego, a girl out to stop the organisation she co-founded while also determined to find her true love along the way, and a sarcastic being who knows everything but doesn't say anything because a) he's also trying to save the world and b) it's funnier this way. (Jury's out as to which factor is more important).
There's three plots going on: Marta's quest to collect all the Centurion Cores before the organisation she defected from does, a tall and brooding half-elf who seems to know Emil very well while doing what he think is necessary for his own goals, and "What The Hell Is Going On With Emil", which is ultimately my favourite part. Emil doesn't remember anything about Tales of Symphonia, so the game will tell you everything that Emil needs to know.
What do you love about it? As far as successsors to Tales of Symphonia goes, Dawn of the New World is ... not a good one, as it undoes the main thesis of that game that no-one should be sacrificed to save the world. As a standalone game, however, Dawn of the New World has a lot of really neat things going for it. It's one of the few games that goes "yeah, the deus ex machina didn't actually fix things", and that while you may have had to do bad things to win overall the people who were killed because of said bad things are not going to be okay with it.
But a big part of why I love Dawn of the New World is Emil himself. He's explicitly an abuse survivor who is obviously very traumatised by his past (both his own and his alter ego's). He dumps everything that he finds too difficult onto his alter-ego, while his alter-ego becomes increasingly unpredictable as he regains his memory. As the game progresses, his entire existence becomes a living nightmare as his powers go haywire, it becomes more apparent that people are keeping secrets from him, the sexy brooding half-elf seems to insist that Emil has to be killed but is super reluctant to do it, and he has flashbacks to his own death.
He's a surprisingly complicated character for a Tales escort game, is what I'm saying.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it? In the middle of the game, Emil starts going through some pretty weird things - he keeps waking up in strange places, manifests powers outside what a human can do, and forgets what his alter-ego does in his place. The game did not spend enough time on this, or what the consequences could have been had things played out a little differently. This should be fixed!
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests? You don't need to play Tales of Symphonia, but you do need to watch the scenes for Dawn of the New World.
Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence) Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World contains child abuse, fantasy racism on various axes, references to genocide, an abusive relationship between two people, and amnesia if that's not your thing.
Also, I promise Emil stops thinking "Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality" all the time.
Death end re;Quest
Date: 2021-08-18 12:22 pm (UTC)Media: Video game(s)
Approx length: 20-25 hours for each game.
Where to find it: You can buy it on Steam, PS4, and Switch (well, the second game comes out in 2022 on Switch), with physical copies available in the bargain bin of the gaming store of your choice. Here's a LP for Death end re;Quest, Death end re;Quest 1.5 and Death end re;Quest 2 It is strongly recommended to read Death end re;Quest 1.5 after Death end re;Quest 2, as it spoils one of the great mysteries of the game.
What is it, in summary? Shina is not having a good day: she's trapped inside a virtual reality game she was the director for with no memory of how she came to be there, and the game is so buggy that she is very likely to die before managing to escape. Fortunately for her the lead programmer, Arata, is more than willing to throw himself into saving her. Shina will finish the main quest and thus trigger the ending sequence for the game (so she can leave) while Arata will debug the game on the fly so that she can progress. Whatever could go wrong?
Shina's storyline is a more standard JRPG setup - she and a group of suspiciously sophisticated AI characters go on a quest to find a mythical land, which coincidentally is the trigger to finish the main quest of the game. The characters are all infected with Buggies which are clearly having some effect on the characters (though what is a big spoiler) but who are also weirdly adorable as well as the source of their powers. Arata's storyline is a thriller VN, focusing on the mystery about why Shina is in the game as Arata stumbles into a worldwide conspiracy. Also a lot of death. A lot of death. The first death is the most gruesome; the rest are nowhere near as detailed in their descriptions.
The interquel should really be read after Death end re;Quest 2 to explain what Arata was doing through the game.
Death end re;Quest 2 takes place in a small European town where our orphaned teenage lead essentially learns that this quiet little town is really a hotbed of paranormal activity and a ton of death. Like, a lot of death. This one doesn't focus on the "rewriting reality" side as the first game did (until you get to the NG+ scenes) but instead the weird paranormal stuff that was happening in Sagami City while the Enimga cast were trying to rescue Shina.
What do you love about it? I am a sucker for flawed heroes that are just not equipped for what they must do, and the cast delivers this in spades. Arata is able to travel back in time but a) is the only one who remembers what has happened; b) has to die a lot to get an ending where everyone lives; and c) every time he rewinds time reality changes. It is at times genuinely funny and also genuinely disturbing.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it? Something set in the 65,000 timeloops that we don't see!
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests? Not really!
Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence) There are numerous bad ends which end badly for the cast described in varying levels of detail, two genocides of fantasy species take place inside the game that Shina is playing, and special attacks involve the cast being half-naked while slaughtering everything in their path in a fit of fury.
The second game contains explicit reference to child abuse, strongly implied sexual abuse, a ton of murder, and a fair amount of described gore that is not shown on screen.
Starving Anonymous (Manga)
Date: 2021-08-18 04:49 pm (UTC)What medium is it and where to find it: manga, complete at 7 volumes; published in ebook and paperback in the US by Kodansha, findable via less legitimate sources where you'd expect
A summary (try to avoid major spoilers): In a sweltering, overpopulated near-future Earth, main character Iie is an ordinary high school student until the day when he and a friend, along with an entire busload of other people, are kidnapped and carted off to a secret underground facility where they discover that humans are being fed to monstrous aliens to appease the aliens and allow the rest of the planet to live. Along with a few tenuous allies they meet in the facility, they have to race to find an escape and a way to bring down this grotesque system.
Content warnings: lots; it's a horror manga aimed at adults. Contains a lot of explicit violence and gore, including dismemberment and monsters eating people; forced weight gain; m/f and m/m sexual assault in an institutionalized forced-breeding setting; cannibalism; human experimentation; body horror; less explicitly shown f/m incestuous child abuse. I think that's all the major ones.
Why you like it: the chemistry and understanding between Natsune and Yamabiki, two of the main character's allies, just sing to me. Neither of them is fully human for different backstory reasons and they're just so good at meeting each other where they are and recognizing how to make their potentially horrible powers into a path forward, and they are SUCH good candidates for hurt/comfort with everything they go through.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-19 02:44 am (UTC)Media: video game for PC, PS4 and mobile
Where to find it: the basic stores for each platform (Steam, GOG, PS Store, etc.)
Summary: [from Steam] Gris is a hopeful young girl lost in her own world, dealing with a painful experience in her life. Her journey through sorrow is manifested in her dress, which grants new abilities to better navigate her faded reality.
Content warnings: Death of a parent and dealing with grief
Why I like it: The game is beautiful. Visually, aurally, emotionally. It deals with grief in the way of bringing color back into a grey world. The soundtrack and the way the music is used in emotional moments will make you cry. It's a fairly easy platformer (I say this as someone bad at platformers), where the intent of the game is to pay attention less to the game mechanics themselves and more to the emotional experience (though the way they incorporate the powers into Gris' clothes is genius).
According to howlongtobeat.com, it takes around 3 and a half hours to complete the main game, which is honestly all you need. The vague plot doesn't lend itself well to long fic (though I did manage to write 18k of it xD ), but it's an amazing canon for art. Watch the trailer here and see for yourself :D
Check, Please!
Date: 2021-08-19 03:45 pm (UTC)Media: Webcomic / Book series
Approx length: Webcomic: four 'seasons' of 20-25 ten-panel comics + a few extra short comics / Book series: two books of ~300 pages with extra material (tweets from Bitty)
Where to find it: Check,Please! or your book purveyor of choice!
What is it, in summary? It is the story of Eric Bittle, former figure skater, hockey player, and gay Southern ray of sunshine, and his four years at queer-friendly Samwell College, where he finds a new family in a bunch of loud, boisterous frat boy hockey players, learns to accept his sexuality and his own self, and maybe even fall in love.
What do you love about it? So much! The art! The awesome side characters! The grump/sunshine romance of Bitty and Jack! The way Jack's mental health issues are treated! The fact that it's a happy fluffy queer story and while there IS angst the core theme - that queer people deserve happy endings - is never lost sight of.
Content warnings: Depictions of mental health issues, mainly anxiety, some minor depictions of homophobia post coming out, instance of bullying in Bitty's past and related trauma
A House of Many Doors (video game)
Date: 2021-08-19 04:15 pm (UTC)What medium is it and where to find it: PC/Mac video game, available on Steam or itch.io for about $13
A summary (try to avoid major spoilers): You are an inhabitant of the House, a parasite dimension that absorbs people, things, places, sometimes entire cultures from other worlds. You captain a "kinetopede," an odd train-ship that trundles through the darkness of the House's empty rooms between one settlement and another, trading information and goods, writing poetry about the House's mysteries, picking up interesting weirdos to help operate your ship, and chasing the possibility that somewhere out there is a way to escape the House for the worlds beyond.
Content warnings Textual descriptions of body horror, moments of dissociation; "sanity" mechanic to measure travel stress that touches on suicidal themes if it gets critically low (playing cautiously it's possible to avoid the suicide parts entirely).
Why you like it: HoMD uses some of the same code/engine (and has a similar archly dark atmosphere) as Sunless Sea, but the mechanics are much more forgiving; it's more purely about exploring a world rather than roguelike death-to-progress strategy. The world and cultures are fascinating to uncover, and the sense of discovery is exciting. You write poetry as a means of generating income and the game procedurally generates parts of your poems in several formal styles, often ridiculous and sometimes beautiful. There are a number of ship's officer characters with their own storylines; some of them are romanceable, others will have a fling but not a romance, and others have various reasons for not being interested -- none of them are gender-locked, as the game never nails down the captain's gender. Overall it's a beautiful, strange environment where all sorts of things are possible.
Helpful hints for getting started:
1) Ship combat is almost entirely unnecessary, apart from the battle at the very beginning. If you don't like it and/or if you haven't upgraded your ship much yet, just run away from aggressive ships/monsters.
2) If you need to make money in the early game, there is a profitable trade route running laudanum from the poets' colony Fargyle Keep, south of your starting city, to the City of Masks.
3) Advertise for new crewmembers when you can afford it; your starting crew do very little to improve your/your ship's stats and you can get much better boosts from people looking for jobs in the cities.
Re-Animator (movies)
Date: 2021-08-19 07:23 pm (UTC)Medium: English live-action movies
Approx length: Two feature-length movies
Where to find it: Kanopy, Shudder, or you can rent it from the usual places
What is it, in summary? 80s/90s horror comedy franchise loosely adapted from a Lovecraft story, about a mad scientist med student and his roommate whom he drags along in a quest to re-animate the dead.
What do you love about it? Just as a movie, Re-Animator is very tightly written and very funny, with a great score and great physical special effects for its bloody gore. The cast is great, especially Jeffrey Combs as mad scientist Herbert West. (Combs later went on to play a bunch of different alien characters on Star Trek: DS9.) It's also VERY shippy. Herbert is a weird little amoral gremlin who dislikes basically everyone on Earth except, apparently, his roommate and fellow med student Daniel Cain. Meanwhile Dan seems like the sensible one at first, but no, it's just that unlike Herbert he has a modicum of emotional intelligence, which does nothing to prevent him from going along with all Herbert's REALLY BAD IDEAS.
The second movie, Bride of Re-Animator, isn't as good of a movie, but in some ways it's even shippier, to the point of "there is no heterosexual explanation for this" on Herbert's end. A third movie was released almost a decade later, but it's pretty bad and doesn't have Daniel in it, so I don't really recommend it.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it? I ship Herbert/Dan a LOT. I really want fic of Herbert being his weird gremlin self while continuing his important
body desecrationscientific research. Feelings and gore, basically!Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfill your requests? I would be happy with fic for just the first movie or for the first first two movies.
Content warnings: Lots of blood, gore, and body horror, as well as institutionalization and a nonconsensual lobotomy. The first movie has a very uncomfortable gross-out scene of attempted sexual assault of a female character.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-20 07:04 pm (UTC)Medium: Other (Roleplaying Game)
Summary: THE popular world, ruleset, and worldbuilding that people use for tabletop rpg.
Content warnings: Fantastical racism, sexism as set up by "official" gameplay (many people use their own rules)
Why I like it: Well, for fic in a box, I think mediums are the way to go! Describe your dnd campaign and request, say, in-universe epic poetry or ballads, in-universe campfire or drinking songs, shanties, art of your PCs, spooky music playlists for dungeon crawls, all sorts of things!
no subject
Date: 2021-08-21 08:35 pm (UTC)Medium/Where to Find: TV Show; 2 10-episode seasons, about 20 hours total; streamable on the US through Hulu, Fubo, AMC, AMC+, Shudder, Amazon's AMC and Shudder channels, and Spectrum On Demand, and it has been released on both DVD and bluray; see its JustWatch page for more information if not in the US
Summary: A young working-class artist with family troubles and the magical ability to find lost things has to deal with a child-abducting, soul-stealing vampire. The show focuses on the ordinary and supernatural horrors of her life, building up the stress as they intersect.
Content Warnings: Murder, onscreen sexual assault, offscreen rape, offscreen child sexual abuse, offscreen but heard cat murder, abduction, drugging, an onscreen instance of domestic violence, references to offscreen domestic violence, references to child abuse, references to assault
Why You Like It: I love the artist, Vic, so very much. She tries so hard to keep herself together, repressing her problems as much as she can, internalizing responsibility and her fear that she doesn't belong in the better life she aspires to have. And Maggie, the charming girl who's been hunting the vampire and has powers of divination! Also, the family drama. Pain passed through generations! Different dynamics between several female characters, major, secondary, and minor, that push the plot forward while developing characters and relationships!
What sort of things are you likely to request for it? I'd love Vic about fic and all her dynamics with other characters! I've prompted for all of them. Gen would be loved, and for shipfic I'm prompting her in her canon ships, or with Maggie, or being wanted (without returning the interest) by the vampire.
Ar nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star
Date: 2021-08-22 02:22 am (UTC)Media: Video Game
Approx length: About 50 hours to play.
Where to find it: You should be able to get it on PS3, or the better version on Vita. Here's a text-based let's play!. Just ... ignore the commentary in italics by Feinne - it's a kind of fanfiction where a character from AT2 tells bedtime stories to their children, and is not at all part of the story.
What is it, in summary? Welcome to the Soleil, a colony ship where humanity has lived for 5,000 years trying to find a new place to live after destroying their last planet. Unfortunately, humanity is currently under attack by the Sharl, who kidnap humans and take them away to Do Terrible Things to Them. You are humanity's last hope. Can you guide Delta, Casty, Ionasal and their friends towards an outcome where humanity survives?
Ar nosurge is a story about communication and how things are usually better when you use your words to communicate rather than fester in silence. This is included in every aspect: magical attacks are based in people sorting issues out rather than ignoring them, the main character arcs are about getting things out in the open and discussing them, and the main resolution of the game is about seven people joining hands and singing a song to create a new world.
But don't let that fool you, because it is also a game where people can do terrible things because they think they are in the right, or that they've deserved it. It takes a long time and some very unexpected help to win that happy ending.
What do you love about it? So while I do not love the miscommunication trope, I do love the trope where feelings are converted into music, and Ar nosurge explicitly has that as a game mechanic. Everyone is genuinely trying to do the right thing from their perspective, and they actually have reasons for why they are not communicating with the other side that make senes with who they are. The characters are also very flawed and human, and the down-time segments are entertaining (if somewhat fanservice-y). The first hour or two is dire, but once the game hits its straps it's a fun romp.
I also love it because of the potential for horror. The player is a tangible force in this game. You literally control two characters, and while one is not sentient one very much is and is increasingly perturbed as things go on. I also laughed at the digs Gust make at parts of their own fanbase, because if you have ever seen some of the more redditbro JRPG fans, you know exactly what I mean here.
Also, everyone agrees that the music is top-notch. Even if you hate the fanservice (totally valid), the miscommunication trope (me too) or lesbian femdom, you'll find the music is an aural treat.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it? I want all the fic about how the player exerts influence on the sentient character and how it horrifies them but also they need the power to keep going.
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests? Ar nosurge is the section of canon! The whole universe is the EXA_PICO universe, which includes Ciel nosurge and the Ar tonelico series, but the characters I requested are not going to be familiar with any of that. (Well, Casty would for Ciel, but it was a long time ago for her.)
Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence) Ar nosurge contains fanservice at the beginning (you're going to see some boobs and asscracks, is what I'm saying), psychological horror, amnesia, body control, memory manipulation and control, genocide, suicidal tendencies, breaking of the fourth wall, references to suicide, and people dissolving into fuel.
Tales of the Abyss
Date: 2021-08-24 09:39 am (UTC)Media: Video Game
Approx length: About 50 hours to play.
Where to find it: Tales of the Abyss is available on PS2 (and emulators of PS2s) and 3DS. This looks to be a compilation of all cutscenes.
What is it, in summary? In Auldrant everyone knows that if you follow the Score (a planet wide prophecy), prosperity is guaranteed. Luke fon Fabre has been prophesised in the Score, and after he was kidnapped as a child his home of Kimlasca-Lanvaldear keeps him locked up in luxurious confinement. Luke's stifling life quickly comes to an end when a girl invades his house to kill his master, only for things to go terribly wrong and they are both teleported halfway across the world. Luke just wants to go home, but fate has big things in store for him, and he absolutely, 100% is not going to like it. Nor is anyone around him.
Tales of the Abyss is about finding meaning to your own existence without someone giving you a purpose, self-determination versus predestination, a ton of fantasy politics where people are for the most part doing what they think is the right thing with what they know, and probably the best villain in the Tales of series who has completely rational and sympathetic reasons for what he is about to do.
What do you love about it? Tales games tend to skewer the whole "Chosen One" thing, and Luke is no exception. As a consequence of his upbringing, Luke is immature, self-absorbed, and constantly shaken by the thought of taking a human life. He's not a genuinely awful person, but he has been indulged and cosseted so much that his good traits are crushed under his bad ones. He's shocked out of this by trusting someone he really shouldn't, and then has to learn to take responsibility for his own actions and to make amends, and his character arc goes up and down. He's also one of the characters who actually has a pretty reasonable reaction to killing the big bad: he's depressed afterward because it didn't fix any of his problems. I just really love Luke a lot.
I also really love the messy politics going on, and how that informs what everyone is doing. There's a lot of foreshadowing about Guy, for example, that doesn't mean much until a replay. This is one of the few games where characters not telling people what they know makes complete and utter sense. The party aren't friends first, but allies who become friends over time, and so there are tensions between the fragile alliance and their other allegiances.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it? Luke's guilt complex which cannot be eased, but which drives him to be more reckless! Luke having to live with the actions of Asch post-game, as well as everything he's had to do! Just Luke, grappling with his life now.
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests? No, Tales of the Abyss is a standalone game.
Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence) Tales of the Abyss contains genocide, on-screen child death, human experimentation, off-hand mentions of unsavoury acts to vulnerable people, body horror, and mind control. It also contains Luke being a jerk to Mieu, an annoying fluffy creature, though this does die down over time.