rionaleonhart | Entries tagged with someone should probably write that

I've watched the latest episode of Severance! Here are my notes on episode 2.04.

( Notes on Severance episode 2.04. )

I wonder what the innies do on their lunch breaks, and particularly what they did before the show began. All you can really do is talk, I suppose, but what do you talk about when you've never known anything outside work?

I've just played through Better Half, and Nemlei's visual novels continue to be an incredible showcase of things I love in fiction. Dark humour! Sibling relationships! Codependency! Mutual isolation! Better Half, to my delight, adds selfcest to the mix.

Nemlei is great at creating morally terrible characters who are enjoyable to watch. I can struggle with 'everyone is awful' narratives; they can feel a bit too bleak and cynical for me. But there's a charm to the awful characters in Nemlei's games, and the undercurrent of humour keeps things from feeling overwhelmingly grim.

Delighted by Happier Thiu relentlessly hitting on himself after the split. When there are two versions of the same character in a story, I invariably want them to bang, and it's fun when they want the same thing. (Or one of them does, at least.)

I grinned so hard when I realised the two halves of Thiu only have one bed to share.

Canon doesn't really go into the experience of bedsharing for the Thius; I assume it's a bit awkward to start with, particularly after the sexual overtures and the attempted murder. Scope for fanfiction? Writing Thiu/Thiu fanfiction would probably be a technical nightmare, but it must be doable;

dracothelizard managed to write fanfiction about five different characters called James travelling together, after all.

I smiled a lot when Happier Thiu bought Sadder Thiu a load of treats, Sadder Thiu got emotional over it, and then the two of them watched a film together. Cute!

'Is this the rest of my life, then? Is it? I mean, I'm fine if it is. So is it?' is also very cute.

'A character is split into two separate entities, each inheriting different aspects of the original personality' is a concept I've seen before, but there are a lot of interesting directions it can be taken in (and I'm not just talking about the two halves falling in love, although that's always a bonus). In particular, I like the way Better Half explores how the Thius change after the split. One half gets all the original self's positivity, one half gets all the negativity. But the positive Thiu quickly starts to accumulate new unhappiness, and the negative Thiu, no longer so lonely on account of having his own company, begins to have happier moments.

I'd never really contemplated regression to the mean in the context 'you're split in two, one half gets the positive and one half gets the negative', because, let's be honest, that's a pretty specific scenario. But it makes a lot of sense! If you draw a two from a deck of cards, the next card you draw is likely to be higher. Immediately after the split, Negative Thiu is at his lowest point; there's nowhere to go but up.

On one level, it's mildly unfortunate that everything Nemlei has created feels made specifically for me, because it means I've been falling in love with a bunch of visual novels that a) have no fandom and b) are unlikely, given that they've been taken down from the Internet, to accumulate a fandom any time soon. On another level, I'm having a great time. Thanks for tapping so deeply into my fictional tastes, Nemlei. I can't wait to see more of your work.

Finally picked up and finished my replay of NEO: The World Ends with You from a couple of years ago!

( Notes on NEO: The World Ends with You. )

On a replay, I think my overall feelings on this game remain much the same. It tries to be a new story and a direct sequel simultaneously, with the result that it doesn't quite succeed in being either of those things; the returning characters ultimately just overshadow the new characters, and the two story threads distract from each other until they both end up feeling incomplete.

That said, I had a great time playing it! It's a very fun, playful, stylish game. I love how lively and entertaining the dialogue is, and Fret is a delight.

I'd love to see another World Ends with You game at some point. There's nothing else quite like this series.

The full game of Metaphor: ReFantazio is now out, and I continue to have a great time with it! Atlus games tend to be on the hard side, so I'm playing on easy mode, which I'm personally finding to have a satisfying level of challenge.

(NB: I am never looking for a massive level of challenge in turn-based RPGs, so what I find satisfying (pretty much just 'some mild requirement of strategy') may not be what you find satisfying!)

If you're on the lookout for a mediaeval fantasy RPG, I can recommend trying out the demo; you can transfer your save data to the full version, and it definitely showcases enough of the game to help you decide whether it's up your street! In fact, the demo took me eleven hours to finish. A trailer played at the end, and I went, 'Do you... really think you still need to sell this game to me? I've been playing for eleven hours; I think you can safely assume that I'm enjoying it.'

Strohl, on discovering the existence of a washroom on the runner, was cheerfully willing to strip off in front of his companions to make use of it. Hulkenberg was scandalised by this prospect. I'm just making a note because 'Strohl thinks nothing of being nude in front of his friends' is a valuable detail for fanfiction.

I can't say for certain whether I'll end up writing Metaphor: ReFantazio fanfiction. I'd like to! I definitely ship Strohl with the protagonist in theory; as with Yosuke and Ryuji before him, it's clear that Strohl met the protagonist and fell in love with him straight away. But the protagonist isn't giving me any sense of personality yet, and I don't want my fanfiction to come across as 'Strohl is in love with a block of wood'.

Thinking about this was part of the reason I made yesterday's post about which silent protagonists I find interesting. The protagonist of Metaphor: ReFantazio is not technically silent, but he's definitely a silent protagonist in spirit. Hopefully I'll get more of a sense of his personality as the game goes on!

And, if not, maybe I'll get desperate and write Strohl/protagonist fanfiction, but in an AU in which the protagonist of Metaphor: ReFantazio is Joker from Persona 5.

Actually, that's an incredible idea. Someone rewrite the entire game with Joker at the head of the party.

On a final note: it's very funny that the fast travel system in this game involves actual canonical teleportation, and that the characters notice and are weirded out by this.

abyssal_sylph did this fandom meme over the summer, and I thought it looked like fun! The full list of questions was originally compiled by

trobadora and can be found here. To keep my entries to a reasonable length, I'll just do a few questions at a time, rather than posting the entire thing at once.

What's changed about your fandom life in the last 365 days?

The biggest change is that I've got a website now! It's great to have a space on the Internet I can just talk about Final Fantasy VIII as much as I want (I say, as if I didn't already do that in this journal).

Your newest fandom.

In Stars and Time, maybe? I've written a couple of fics; does that make it one of my fandoms? It's a time loop game with a lot of charm; I had fun with it, but I don't really think of myself as in the fandom.

The last thing I got into and ended up thinking about a lot is Omori, a game that absolutely haunts me and will probably do so for a long time. I haven't actually written for it and don't have any fic ideas, but I found it fascinating and I often find myself seeking out fanart.

The last thing I got into so heavily that it qualified for a 'my fandom history' writeup was Severance, back in February. Such an interesting concept! One of the most absorbing shows I've ever watched.

Writing-wise, this year has been more about revisiting older fandoms than launching into new ones, now that I think about it.

You've got your OTP, you have to throw a third into the mix (from the same fandom), creating an OT3. Who is the OTP, and in your opinion, why would they make a perfect third for them?

The first pairing I thought of was Nate/Elena from Uncharted, and the ideal third - Victor 'Goddamn' Sullivan, the third point of their adventure trio - is so obvious that I've actually written that threesome already.

Some potential thirds for assorted other pairings that came to mind, discounting pairings (e.g. Sora/Riku) where the third is so obvious it goes without saying:

- Jeff/Annie from Community: I think Britta would probably be the best fit, but I strongly prefer Jeff/Annie on its own. Their chemistry is so weird and intense!

- Light/L from Death Note: Misa, obviously. Or some weird thing with Ryuk, where L is unaware that there's a third entity in their relationship. That had not occurred to me before this instant, but I'm sort of fascinated by the idea now. Ryuk joins Light and L in the bed, forcing Light to suppress his reactions in order to hide the fact that he's having a threesome when, from L's perspective, only the two of them are there. Someone please write this; it's not in my skillset!

- Kane/Abby from The 100: Jaha is the only option coming to mind. This could either sort of work or go very badly, depending on the point in canon that Jaha is coming from.

- Jack/Kate from Lost: Sawyer? Probably Sawyer, as if Jack and Kate don't have enough potential to crash and burn on their own. For less guaranteed disaster: Charlie. For even more guaranteed disaster: Locke.

- Hinata/Komaeda from Danganronpa: I know Hinata/Komaeda/Nanami is popular, but I think I might be more interested by the thought of Hinata/Komaeda/Kuzuryuu. WAIT, NO: there's a correct answer here, and it is Makoto Naegi. Hinata/Komaeda/Naegi would be incredible; Hinata/Naegi would be very cute, and then they'd both desperately have to try to cope with the presence of Komaeda.

- Travis/Laura from The Quarry: Max or Ryan, I suppose? I prefer Ryan, but Max has the fun 'Travis kept me imprisoned' aspect. Travis and Laura aren't great candidates for an OT3, though; they're at their best when they're isolated and weirdly fixated on each other.

- Keiji/Sara from Your Turn to Die: hard to envision, because Keiji has zero interest in anyone who isn't Sara. Maybe some sort of fucked-up situation with Sou?

- Yosuke/Yu from Persona 4: Chie's probably the most obvious candidate, but I think adding Kanji to the mix here would be very funny. Yosuke and Kanji are both disaster boys with a lot of anxiety about their sexuality; it'd be fun to throw them together!

- Zell/Squall from Final Fantasy VIII: Rinoa! Rinoa, no question. This would be adorable.

- Beatrice/Battler from Umineko: oh, God, there's no good answer here. Jessica? Shannon, Kanon? Ange??? (Teenage Ange, to be specific, which by no means prevents this from being a fucked-up relationship but does at least make things a little less fucked up.) There's a huge amount wrong with Beatrice/Battler already (I say, with deep fondness), and adding any possible third would only make things worse.

- Utena/Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena: again, there is no good answer here. I think the only way out is to accept that and pivot to choosing the worst possible answer: Akio. An Utena/Anthy/Akio scenario, focusing on how the girls eventually manage to escape him. Wait, that's just Revolutionary Girl Utena.

Oh, wow, I have gone severely overboard on this question. It's an interesting one to think about, though! Feel free to share your own answers in the comments, if you'd like.

Tem has been showing me Star Trek: Deep Space 9! I have very little prior experience of Star Trek - I'd only previously seen a handful of original series episodes and the 2009 film - so this is an interesting experience.

I'm not currently experiencing any desire to jump into the DS9 fandom, but I am enjoying the show. We're in early season five; we've just seen 'Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places'. Here are some scattered thoughts:

- This show feels surprisingly contemporary! There are a few entertaining details, e.g. the fact that every document appears to be on a separate electronic tablet (very much in the vein of Red Dwarf's 'VHS tapes are triangular now, because it's the future!'), but it rarely feels dated. It also feels a lot more intentionally homoerotic than I tend to expect of shows from the nineties!

- Sisko is probably my favourite character. I really like his relationship with Jake, and how much he cares for his crew, and the insubordinate streak he has to keep carefully masked with surface courtesy in his position as the station's commander.

- I really enjoy the friendship between Sisko and Dax, but also I sort of ship them a little, largely because introducing a romantic or sexual element to their dynamic would be so deeply weird for Sisko. I just like it when characters are unsettled and confused by their own feelings!

- Nobody on this space station knows how to stand a normal distance from each other. This was also an issue on Lost, come to think of it: whenever two characters are in the same shot, it feels like they're about to make out. I say 'issue', but in fact I am absolutely not complaining.

- We started this watchthrough when I was very much in Death Note mode, so it was weird to learn that DS9 includes a character called Kira! Both DS9 Kira and Death Note Kira are strong believers in solving problems through the power of murder, too. ('Kira is so violent,' Tem commented, 'and she thinks that's morally bad of her, whereas I think it's morally cool of her.')

- I find it very funny that everyone's into Kira. Kira may not be the protagonist of the show itself, but she's the protagonist of a dating sim going on off to the side. Has anyone made a dating sim in which you play as Kira Nerys? Someone should.

If I played the hypothetical Kira dating sim, incidentally, I'd be most interested in pursuing the Odo route (Odo's crush on her is very sad and sweet), the Gul Dukat route (their 'mutual hostility, but also Dukat is really into her' dynamic is incredible), and the O'Brien threesome route.

- I'm going to linger on the subject of a Kira/Miles/Keiko threesome, because Kira being pregnant with Miles and Keiko's child is the storyline that finally made me go 'okay, I have to write an entry about this show now'. The show dealing with the real-life pregnancy of Kira's actor by transferring Miles and Keiko's foetus into Kira's womb: insane, incredible, I could never come up with such a stroke of genius. And then Kira moves into the O'Briens' quarters!

- I mentioned earlier that I love characters being unsettled and confused by their own feelings, and 'Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places' was iiiiiincredible for that. Miles and Kira having weird feelings about each other in their already very weird 'cohabiting while she's carrying his child' situation absolutely delighted me. Perfect episode.

Tem: DS9 is the Star Trek where I'd be least surprised to learn that all the main characters had had an orgy.
Ginger: Sisko doesn't seem as horny as the others.
Riona: But he'd still be part of the orgy, I think. He wouldn't cry if he missed out on it, in the way Bashir would, but he'd be up for getting involved.
Ginger: Oh, wow, Bashir would be heartbroken. You should write the fic where everyone except Bashir has an orgy, and then Bashir finds out.
Tem: No! That would be so sad! You can only write it if it ends with everyone making up for it with a gangbang focused on Bashir.

The latest instalment in playing games so Tem can watch: we've started the Uncharted series! We're still on Drake's Fortune at the moment.

Because R2 is 'sprint' in The Last of Us but 'shoot' in Uncharted, I keep startling myself by accidentally firing my gun. I explained this to Tem.

Riona: So, if I ever fire my gun for no reason, I'm trying to run.
Tem: Ah, truly the American experience.

This playthrough contains a troubling amount of Tem laughing at me as I plummet to my death.

'You died so beautifully that time,' Tem commented at one point, as Nate fell lifeless into the ocean. 'Your arms were flung out, your leg was bent; it looked like a graceful ballet move. It was like the end of Swan Lake.'

Tem: You keep dying, but you get a tiny bit further each time.
Ginger: Just like Edge of Tomorrow.
Riona: Oh, wow, I would love to see Nate in an Edge of Tomorrow situation.

I've never previously considered putting Nate in a 'dying kicks you back' time loop, but he does seem like a fun character for it! I'd need more of a concept than that, though. I've been struggling a bit to come up with fic concepts lately; it's been a relatively slow writing year so far, although at least I've got my Final Fantasy VIII website to work on, so I don't feel like I haven't been doing anything creative.

'We've killed a lot of people,' Tem observed. 'We're such an upbeat, fun-loving guy in the cutscenes; we don't seem like the kind of person who'd shoot hundreds of people without hesitation. We don't even take a moment to reflect. Nate never goes, "Sorry, Elena; I need some time to sit with the weight of my sins."'

Riona: Why is there a guy pushing explosive barrels into the river? He was doing it even before he knew we were downstream. Is that just his job?
Tem: Well, someone's got to do it. Think of the fish.
Riona: Oh, yes, of course. We hate those fucking fish.
Tem: Those fish have had it easy for too long.

At one point, Nate launched himself in the wrong direction and fell to his death. I exclaimed, 'D—!' and then cut myself off. I was trying to scold Nate for jumping the wrong way: 'Nate!' But my instinct when scolding, it turns out, is to say the name of our evil cat: 'Dipper!'

Dipper's lovely. He's very friendly and gentle. But he is on a constant take-no-prisoners quest for food, and he will chew on anything he can get his paws on. I've had to stitch my bra straps together multiple times because Dipper keeps chewing through them. Nathan Drake, to my knowledge, has never done this.

I was going to be sensible and wait for the cost of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to go down. I really was. But then I saw no fewer than six of you posting about it on my reading page, and it made me sad that I couldn't read any of your posts!

Here are some early impressions of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth! Very early; I'm in Kalm, in chapter two, and I'm currently supposed to head to the clocktower.

Be aware that, although I've only just started Rebirth, this entry includes spoilers from the original Final Fantasy VII.

( First impressions of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. )

I love the unnecessary physics on everything. I walk into a hotel room and promptly knock three chairs over because I'm a fuckup. Immersion!

I've finished Master Detective Archives: Rain Code!

( Spoilers up to the end of Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. )

And that's Master Detective Archives: Rain Code! What a weird game. I've had a great time, and I'll definitely be there if it ever gets a sequel.

Just came across a Death Note fic concept I noted down on my phone back in 2020: 'Fic where Light tries to get Naomi's real name by seducing/sleeping with her, whether to get her to trust him or to put himself in a position where he can get a look at her ID.'

This is a terrible idea, but I would absolutely read it. I just enjoy how easy it is to put Light in situations where he ends up having sex for practical reasons while going 'ugh, I'm above this.' Sometimes you have to do something slightly distasteful in pursuit of your pure and noble goal of committing several thousand murders.

Below the cut, I just ramble directionlessly about Light's character for a while, apparently? Like Jack Shephard, Light Yagami is a character I just want to study under a microscope.

( Talking about Light Yagami. )

Around this point, I realised it was silly to attempt a full summary of Light's character when I last watched Death Note three years ago. (There is a solid risk I'm on the verge of a rewatch.) He's fun to talk about, though!

Why are all my favourite characters the absolute worst? I'm not complaining; I'm just curious.

Up to episode 5.15 of Lost, 'Follow the Leader'!

( Lost spoilers up to episode 5.15, 'Follow the Leader'. )

Thank you to everyone who's posted ficsnippet requests on my last entry! I'm having a lot of fun filling them; it feels good to do some quick, low-pressure writing. There are a few I haven't done yet, but I'm still planning to get to those. If you haven't made a request yet and you'd like to, go ahead!

Be warned that, if I'm given any leeway at all, I'll end up writing a Lost snippet.

I've finished the fourth season of Person of Interest! Here are some notes on the last few episodes of series four.

( Person of Interest spoilers up to episode 4.22, 'YHWH'. )

Early in the show, I checked AO3 for Machine/Finch works and was disappointed that I couldn't find any. Now that I've seen more, I suppose that might be because the show frames Finch and the Machine as father and child, but I'm still disappointed by the shortage of man/supercomputer filial incest fanfiction. Come on, Person of Interest fandom! There's scope for interesting emotional conflict in Finch trying to cram their relationship into human familial roles that don't fit it, because the Machine isn't human.

There is, at least, plenty of Root/Machine fanfiction, as there should be.

My rampage through Person of Interest continues! I'm up to episode 2.18, 'All In'.

'One Percent': Reese shoved a guy having an allergic reaction down onto the sofa by his neck, then pushed a tube down his throat while whispering reassurance to him, and I might be kind of into it?

Also possible the guy was into it. I've been going 'this Totally Not Facebook guy definitely wants to bang Reese' ever since he approached Reese at the party.

I wrote that before he took Reese to Russia on a date. Wow.

As of the ending of 'Booked Solid' - the exchange about staying in the hotel another night - I can finally say with confidence that Reese and Zoe are definitely having enthusiastic sex every time they encounter each other, as they should, and I'm very pleased.

I really hope there's fanfiction about the first time Reese and Zoe have sex and, more importantly, the moment Finch realises what he's listening to through Reese's earpiece.

I knew before watching that Root/Shaw was a big pairing, although I had no idea who Root or Shaw were. Now that I've learnt their first interaction is 'Root ties Shaw to a chair and threatens her with torture while they both get off on it', I'm sort of delighted by its popularity. Good to know this is a fandom of taste.

(I double-checked that Reese/Zoe was in the top ten pairings on AO3 before being willing to declare this 'a fandom of taste'. Pleased to report it is!)

It's pretty cute that Reese and Finch go to the cinema together when they're not busy saving people.

I love the tiny, private smile Reese sometimes allows himself when he's starting to warm up to one of their numbers.

My household is still watching occasional Malcolm in the Middle episodes while I tear through Person of Interest, which is a bit disconcerting. That is a very different Reese.

We've almost finished season three of The X-Files!

I haven't seen much American television from this era, and I'm struck by the way the shadow of the Vietnam War hangs over The X-Files. In some ways, it's reminiscent of the lingering impact of the Ishbal genocide in Fullmetal Alchemist, although of course the atrocities of the Vietnam War were very real.

I remember being surprised to learn that 'the war' without context is sometimes used to mean the Vietnam War in the US. To me, in the UK, 'he fought in the war' has always meant World War II.

'Pusher': Mulder woke Scully up by stroking her face! They're such weird colleagues. I love it. ('You and your pretty partner seem awfully close,' the murderer they're pursuing observes shortly afterwards.)

I really enjoyed that entire episode, actually! Lots of Mulder and Scully having very intense feelings about each other, and that's very much what I'm here for. Scully slept on his shoulder! Mulder was forced to play Russian roulette with her! They held hands while trying to process their trauma!

When Mulder's in a dangerous situation, we don't see Scully making the decision to go in after him; we just see her going in after him, because of course she does. That was never in question.

Huh! I just looked it up, and apparently the writer of 'Pusher', Vince Gilligan, went on to create Breaking Bad.

'Jose Chung's From Outer Space' was also a hugely enjoyable episode for very different reasons. I loved the different perspectives and Scully censoring all the swearing. And she's so put out to learn someone said she threatened them!

I love the sequence in 'Quagmire' where Mulder and Scully get trapped on a rock in a lake. Asking each other about cannibalism! Mulder aiming his gun at a duck! Strangely reminiscent of the Peep Show episode where Mark and Jeremy get trapped in a building together and have nothing to do but talk to each other.

Scully: You're so consumed by your personal vengeance against life, everything takes on a warped significance to fit your megalomaniacal cosmology.
Mulder: Scully, are you coming on to me?

It's fun to consider Mulder and Scully investigating odd happenings from different canons. Mulder and Scully go to Silent Hill to investigate a series of disappearances? Mulder and Scully try to work out what happened on Rokkenjima? Mulder and Scully go looking for Luz Noceda and find the portal to the Boiling Isles? "Have you heard about the morphogenetic field, Scully?" Mulder asks.

Persona 5 gave me an itch to play more stylish games about teenagers hanging out in Shibuya, so I'm replaying NEO: The World Ends with You. Here are my notes! I'm up to the end of week one, but this entry vaguely alludes to later events.

( Notes on NEO: The World Ends with You. )

On this playthrough, I've made it my mission to befriend Yudai Miki, the Hog Fang shopkeeper on Centre Street. He greets me with 'O-oh, yo' whenever I enter the shop, and somehow I find it very endearing. I bought a hat I didn't need from him in the hope of making him like me.

(I added 'on this playthrough' to that paragraph because I was slightly worried people scrolling past this entry might think I'm forcibly attempting to befriend an actual real-life shopkeeper.)

I'm rewatching How to Get Away with Murder, and I like the characters more than I remembered! What a great bunch of murder kids.

( Notes on the first season of How to Get Away with Murder, up to episode nine. )

I might just rewatch the first season, because the main appeal (for me, at least) is 'normal kids trying to cope with insane bullshit they absolutely cannot handle'. New insane bullshit comes along in later seasons (or at least in season two; I don't think I've seen beyond that), but once the characters are old hands at insane bullshit it's not as fun.

That said, I seem to recall the kids discussing the possibility of having an orgy in season two; I'd be sorry to miss that conversation! Maybe I'll watch up to that point and see if I'm still engaged enough to carry on.

(There is a shocking lack of foursome fanfiction for these characters who committed a murder together and then canonically talked about having an orgy. There are four works on AO3 tagged with Wes/Laurel/Connor/Michaela! Four! Out of over two thousand for the fandom as a whole! Absolutely unacceptable.)

To continue my pattern of talking about Nil in every entry I make about this game that, to my knowledge, does not have Nil in it, here's a note I made during my last Horizon Zero Dawn replay:

It's nice to know I can't disappoint Nil. If I take everyone out with perfect stealth, he'll enjoy it. If I screw up and end up in a messy, bloody melee, he'll enjoy it. If I really screw up and get killed in front of him, he'll enjoy that too.

Another note I made during Zero Dawn: Aloy lies on the bed in Olin's apartment before the final battle and wonders aloud how Sobeck slept in this sort of situation and then asks, 'Sylens? Are you there?' and there needs to be fic where they remotely bang.

Horizon's 'no canonical romance, but pretty much everyone is into you' approach is a lot of fun for an indiscriminate multishipper. (Sylens is one of the few characters who doesn't particularly seem into Aloy, but apparently that's not going to stop me.)

And now to Horizon Forbidden West! Here's a bit more rambling about 'The Gate of the Vanquished', because for some reason I absolutely cannot stop talking about this one sidequest.

( Horizon Forbidden West: somehow I'm still talking about The Gate of the Vanquished? )

I fell off a walkway (in the game, not in real life), and a Tenakth passer-by said, 'Yes. Do that again, outlander.'

Another quote I enjoyed from a passer-by: 'Is there a reason for all this jumping around?'

Horizon Forbidden West is a vast, beautiful game with plenty to talk about, but I'm going to make an entire entry focusing solely on one specific sidequest, and you can't stop me. (The sidequest in question is 'The Gate of the Vanquished', the culmination of the desert water dispute.)

( Horizon Forbidden West: notes on The Gate of the Vanquished. )

I don't think I'm capable of writing a series of ficlets where Aloy bangs her way through everyone who's into her for stress relief, making it very clear that she's not interested in anything romantic, but I would if I could. The characters who are just here for a good time are delighted; the characters who want a more long-term connection are confused and upset by the arrangement, but they'll take what they can get and quietly have emotions about it later; Nil goes 'well, this is pretty good, but it'd be better if we were murdering people.'

I picked up my neglected Final Fantasy X replay and finished it at last!

Even though I never actually played it at her house, I associate this game so strongly with visiting my grandmother when I was a teenager. I remember daydreaming about it in her garden.

( Spoilers for Final Fantasy X. )

I always spend hours getting Auron, Yuna and Rikku's ultimate weapons and training them up to do comical amounts of damage, complaining all the time about how tedious it is, and then I go all surprised-Pikachu when I kill all the final bosses in two hits. 'Grinding is a pain' and 'there's no challenge in the final fights' have exactly the same solution, but will I ever learn? Absolutely not.

On a rewatch, Die Hard remains shockingly relevant to my interests. All I want out of fiction is to watch characters physically and psychologically disintegrating, and Die Hard delivers in spades.

I didn't bother to watch Die Hard for so long because I assumed it was just a generic macho power fantasy! John McClane, shirtless and panting with pain, sweating and bleeding and apologising to his wife? That's someone's fantasy, but it's not the one I was expecting.

McClane isn't the unshakable badass I thought he would be at all; he's deeply vulnerable and deeply afraid, and it both makes him a more interesting character and makes his badass moments much more badass.

Verdict on the other Dice Hard I've seen so far: Die Hard 2 was pretty unmemorable, but Die Hard with a Vengeance was an absolute blast. McClane isn't falling apart in the same way he is in the original, which makes sense - he's more experienced, he's less isolated and he's on his home turf - but teaming him up with Zeus makes for a fun dynamic, and I like that they tried something a little different with this one.

I love how desperate and messy John McClane's fighting style is. He's got no finesse; he's terrified and he's fighting for his life. He doesn't care about honour or a good fight; he'd prefer to catch you unawares and slam a door on you repeatedly.

I went far too long without this series in my life. I could watch John McClane having a terrible time all day. He's a terrible fuckup disaster man, and it's great, and I love him.

And he lives in New York, which, come to think of it, is also home to another fictional disaster I hugely enjoy. I'm not necessarily going to write fanfiction where John McClane and Peter Parker team up, or find themselves at odds, or both. I'm just saying I could.

(I've been replaying Marvel's Spider-Man for PS4 and rewatched Into the Spider-Verse on Boxing Day, so I've been thinking a lot about how much I love Spider-Man. It's strange; I tend to bounce off most superhero media, but... okay, I didn't start this sentence with the intention of making a bad webbing pun, but I can now see it barrelling up and I'm just going to stop talking before it happens.)

Crossposts: https://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/573511.html

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Trabia Garden

Entries tagged with someone should probably write that

Heavy Is The Crown.

I Have Two Selves! Maybe She'll Think We're Cool!

We've Had Enough Fun, Thanks.

Of Course, Montario Is In Manada.

It Appears We Are Both Falling.

The Borg Are Very Well Borganised.

What, Are We Just Supposed To Leave The River Devoid Of Explosives?

I Have No Idea What To Expect From This Game.

Look At Me! I'm A Meat Bun!

When You Wish You Had A Minute More.

We Were Never Important.

There Is No After For People Like Us.

I Kind Of Enjoy This Sort Of Thing.

Please Explain To Me The Scientific Nature Of The Whammy.

Let's Hurry Up So He Doesn't Make Fun Of Us Again.

Same Time Next Week?

Sarcasm Detected.

You May Lack Sense, But You Don't Lack Courage.

Never Forget Them.

Welcome To The Party, Pal.

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