#some of these I have read more than once

[annemariewrites]

List of all the books I’ve read

just wanted to keep a list of what I’ve read throughout my life (that I can remember)

Fiction:

“The Outsiders,” SE Hinton

“The Weirdo,” Theodore Taylor

“The Devil’s Arithmetic,” Jane Yolen

“Julie of the Wolves series,” Jean Craighead George

“Soft Rain,” Cornelia Cornelissen

“Island of the Blue Dolphins,” Scott O’Dell

“The Twilight series,” Stephanie Mayer

“To Kill a Mockingbird,” Harper Lee

“Gamer Girl,” Mari Mancusi

“Redwall / Mossflower / Mattimeo / Mariel of Redwall,” Brian Jacques

“1984,” and  “Animal Farm,” George Orwell

“Killing Mr. Griffin,” Lois Duncan

“Huckleberry Finn,” Mark Twain

“Rainbow’s End,” Irene Hannon

“Cold Mountain,” Charles Frazier

“Between Shades of Gray,” Ruta Sepetys

“Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe,” Edgar Allen Poe

“Lord of the Flies,” William Golding

“The Great Gatsby,” F Scott Fitzgerald

“The Harry Potter series,” JK Rowling

“The Fault in Our Stars,” “Looking for Alaska,” and “Paper Towns,” John Green

“Thirteen Reasons Why,” Jay Asher

“The Hunger Games series,” Suzanne Collins

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” Stephen Chbosky

“Fifty Shades of Grey,” EL James

“Speak,” and “Wintergirls,” Laurie Halse Anderson

“The Handmaid’s Tale,” Margaret Atwood

“Mama Day,” Gloria Naylor

“Jane Eyre,” Charlotte Bronte

“Wide Sargasso Sea,” Jean Rhys

“The Haunting of Hill House,” Shirley Jackson

“The Chosen,” Chaim Potok

“Leaves of Grass,” Walt Whitman

“Till We Have Faces,” CS Lewis

“One Foot in Eden,” Ron Rash

“Jim the Boy,” Tony Earley

“The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox,” Maggie O’Farrell

“A Land More Kind Than Home,” Wiley Cash

“A Parchment of Leaves,” Silas House

“Beowulf,” Seamus Heaney

“The Silence of the Lambs / Red Dragon / Hannibal / Hannibal Rinsing,” Thomas Harris

“Cry the Beloved Country,” Alan Paton

“Moby Dick,” Herman Melville

“The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings trilogy / The Silmarillion,” JRR Tolkien

“Beren and Luthien,” JRR Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien

“Children of Blood and Bone / Children of Virtue and Vengeance,” Tomi Adeyemi

“Soundless,” Richelle Mead

“The Girl with the Louding Voice,” Abi Dare

“A Song of Ice and Fire series / Fire and Blood,” GRR Martin

“A Separate Peace,” John Knowles

“The Bluest Eye,” and “Beloved,” Toni Morrison

“Brave New World,” Aldous Huxley

“The Giver / Gathering Blue / Messenger / Son,” Lois Lowry

“The Ivory Carver trilogy,” Sue Harrison

“The Grapes of Wrath,” and “Of Mice and Men,” John Steinbeck

“The God of Small Things,” Arundhati Roy

“Fahrenheit 451,” Ray Bradbury

“The Night Circus,” Erin Morgenstern

“Sunflower Dog,” Kevin Winchester

“The Catcher in the Rye,” JD Salinger

“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” Sherman Alexie

“The Good Girl,” Mary Kubica 

“The Last Unicorn,” Peter S Beagle

“Slaughterhouse Five,” Kurt Vonnegut Jr

“The Joy Luck Club,” Amy Tan

“The Sworn Virgin,” Kristopher Dukes

“The Color Purple,” Alice Walker

“Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Zora Neale Hurston

“The Light Between Oceans,” ML Stedman

“Yellowface,” RF Kuang

“A Flicker in the Dark,” Stacy Willingham

“One Piece Novel: Ace’s Story,” Sho Hinata

Non-fiction:

“Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl,” Anne Frank

“Night,” Elie Wiesel

“Invisible Sisters,” Jessica Handler

“I Am Malala,” Malala Yousafzai

“The Interesting Narrative,” Olaudah Equiano

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” Rebecca Skloot

“Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” Harriet Jacobs

“The Princess Diarist,” Carrie Fisher

“Adulting: How to Become a Grown Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps,” Kelly Williams Brown

“How to Win Friends and Influence People,” Dale Carnegie

“Carrie Fisher: a Life on the Edge,” Sheila Weller

“Make ‘Em Laugh,” Debbie Reynolds and Dorian Hannaway

“How to be an Anti-Racist,” Ibram X Kendi

“Maus,” Art Spiegelman

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou

“Wise Gals: the Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage,” Nathalia Holt

“Persepolis,” and “Persepolis II,” Marjane Satrapi

“How to Write a Novel,” Manuel Komroff

“The Nazi Genocide of the Roma,” Anton Weiss-Wendt

“Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz,” Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel

#books #some of these I read for school assignments and some I read of my own volition #some I read when I was a young teenager many years ago and some I read just this past month #somewhat in order of which I read them #some of these I have read more than once #for the record I work at a library which is how I'm able to access so many books #support your local library #also just because I read these books doesn't necessarily mean that I would recommend all of them to just anyone #don't come at me for reading 'problematic' books please #I was an english major in college and didn't get to choose a lot of what I read #but even the ones I was forced to read I'm glad that I read them #I don't really regret reading any of these; even the one's that I didn't like #I will add to the list whenever I finish a book #annemariereads

[13eyond13]

love it when a character that's hard to read intuitively for you has like a dedicated fandom interpreter who can just glance at their blank face in a panel and then give you a 3k word essay on their innermost thoughts & desires & fears and neatly tie it back into the themes & whatnot as if it's the most obvious thing in the world

#im talking about griffith btw #guts i feel i get intuitively - maybe because i have some personality traits in common with him #and we get more about his life concretely told to us in canon. so he is a bit easier to pin down as a character and feel attached to for me #but whenever i was reading the manga i just kept wanting more insight about griffith's actions and feelings #like ok yeah its fun to have mysterious antagonists and suspense /tension etc but its also fun to feel like you deeply understand them too #and i felt like that was a bit missing from him for me in canon #so reading about him in analysis and fics is the most fun for me rn #he always felt kinda half unreal to me- which maybe was the point of him - but i wanted a bit more about his childhood or something? #and wished we had more stuff explicitly from his pov in the story to read or explanation about his transformation or wtv #and now he's so much more closed off to me even than he was in the golden age. i keep waiting for him to explain stuff and he does not #ANYWAYS all this rambling to say some people out there are very good at interpreting him and making his like. insecurities #more obvious to me bc i didnt really get that side of him from canon intuitively well #also im really enjoying reading the first few berserk fics ive read #there may not be a ton of them out there but there is def writing talent in the fandom #i'll share some recs once i'm done sifting through most of what's out there to read #also (not to tie everything back to death note but it IS my home fandom after all) #i feel griffith is obvs the more light-like character here and L maybe a bit guts-like? but unlike berserk in death note #light is the one you get to know best and L is the mysterious / unreal one you don't get a lot of concrete insight into #and in the DN fandom I can read the more mysterious character intuitively but had to warm up to the less mysterious one instead #and the mystery of L makes sense to me and doesnt bug me as much due to like - he HAS to hide a lot about himself or else he will die lol #so some similarities there but also some opposite feels as well #berserk spoilers #p

[poetrysmackdown]

I'm hater but I just don't believe How to Be A Dog is that good, I hope jakey dies.

yeah no feel free to sow your hater oats. that's what this competition is for

#ask #not a poll #i exalt the hater #some of my most formative moments in english classes growing up were when i really disliked something #you can imagine how much of a joy i was to have in class #teachers often did not like me. especially men #but you've gotta learn your taste for yourself. and you've gotta know how to defend that taste if not to others then to yourself #and if you don't do that then you've got no path for quality reading once you leave the school environment #i admit i've been rather more diplomatic as the author of this competition than i might have been as a voter haha. but i'm fine with that

[vellichorom]

hypothetically, how would someone go about 3d modelling thierry, particularly his hair. Hypothetically.

GOOD QUESTION! oh god i don't know. he used to have sensible hair,

COME BACK..... SOMETIME TOMORROW & i'll have a mental breakdown & then i'll try & give the best Actual breakdown of his hair that I can manage to give you as someone who tried to download source filmmaker once & did not get anywhere. did not even get the program working. not even on the computer if i remember correctly

joking aside you Scare me with your hypothetical creativity & kindness. thank you

#anonymous #inbox #MY GOOD FRIEND MARY hi mary if you're reading this ily #MADE A CHIBI 3D BLENDER MODEL OF HIM ONCE !!! FUCKED GREATLY. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW IT DID IT EITHER #honestly it probably Looks harder than it is if I apply some realism question mark? #+ i HAVE tried to apply more realism to his hair as i'm tweaking his design gently so hold onto those horses #& REMEMBER THAT IF CRAZY BITCHES ON SFM CAN MODEL H@ZBIN H0TEL CHARACTERS & MAKE THEM LOOK. DECENT THEN THIERRY WON'T BE SHIT COMPARATIVELY

[hms-incorrect-quotes]

Heart: Do you think different paints have different tastes?

Soul: They do.

Mind: ...Why did you say that with such certainty?

#soul has consumed more inedible things than edible #chonny jash #cj mind #cj heart #cj soul #chonnys charming chaos compendium #they kinda do taste wise but the smells are definitely different #had to use paint for marching band & once a teacher had to watch me to make sure i didnt keep sniffing the spray paint #which like sounds bad but he was mainly joking #i say mainly cos i did smell it every once in awhile. but like it literally smelled like the candy banana flavoring okay #it smelled nice shush #my braincells are perfectly intact #the paint would not do anything I'm stronger than that..........now sharpies however/j #.../hj #KJ has a perfectly fine brain that is not at all damaged in anyway #if anyone actually reads these tags you now have some hidden KJ lore congrats 🎉

[yzafre]

Roxas: Had the Halloween town kids throw bombs in his face for multiple missions in a row before finally breaking down and smacking them around a bit.

Ventus: The dwarves were rude and refused to talk to him, immediately resorted to chasing them down and whacking them.

Characterization I see frequently: Ah, yes, Roxas is the one always willing to throw hands and Ventus is a smol sunshine boy.

#kh #kingdom hearts #these are really silly examples but the point stands! #in fact I think it expands when you look at their full screen-time #I am once again begging people to watch a full let's play of Days #don't get me wrong Ventus IS brightness and sunshine #but he also has the energy of a chihuahua ready to fight the world and I will stand by that #where as Roxas will tend to just try to avoid it until he Very Much Can't #now I think Roxas does BITTERNESS better than Ventus or Sora #but bitterness is not temper #in fact bitterness is usually negative emotions left on the backburner until the resentment caves in on itself #I suppose this is up to interpretation but from my reading... #a lot of times Ventus seems to burn out his anger then let it go #whereas Roxas doesn't do anything with the emotions until he/the situation self-destructs catastrophically so it ends up being nastier #but on the day-to-day? #yeah no Ventus is going to be the one reacting first #you can also exchange Sora for Ventus for some of these arguments #though I think he lands somewhere between Ventus and Roxas for short-temperedness #all this is more complicated than this reductive commentary of course #you have to take in how and in what orders the characters were introduced and marketed #the difficulty of getting the handheld games historically and the biases that set in before they were easily accessed #not to mention stock archetypes for fandom joke set-ups that then perpetuate the characterization... #like there's a LOT to how this came to be #but it Gets To Me sometimes #yza talks about a thing

[astrababyy]

can the whole “lovers read each other’s minds” trope in fantasy please go die in a hole because if it’s not something that happens AFTER the relationship is established, it always taints the relationship and its legitimacy for me. i have read a lot of stories with this trope, and i have never, not ONCE seen it done well. it’s always so invasive and a major reason for how the relationship goes from acquaintances to being as close as they are. that mind reading thing is always involved, and a lot of the time, it’s not consensual so it’s just icky.

#every single time this happens #if the relationship didn’t have that mind reading thing #they NEVER would’ve gotten to the point they did in their relationship #because they needed that push to force them to get close #and it’s so disingenuous and fake #it’s like forced proximity but one sided bc for some reason #every time i read it it’s ALWAYS one sided #anti sjm #anti feysand #astrababyy #this is such a weirdly specific trope #so it’s weird that i’ve seen it more than once #why do authors think this is romantic #cause y’all #it’s not

[spkyart]

— : can you hand me a pencil?

Rei Asaka: The world Is a cruel place, we're all doomed, there Is no happiness or prupose in life, the only thing we should do is DIE because only death can give comfort to my shattered, chewed up heart. I cry ti sleep daily, everything sucks and

#oniisama e #dear brother #rei asaka #vintage anime #riyoko ikeda #I am watching it with my mom bc she wanted to see more of ikeda #she is an avid kaoru stan #someone is gonna hate the ending mark my words #i watched it only once more than 10 yrs ago #and if i squeeze my brain i remember some plot stuff #but you know what i didnt forget? rei monologues #i love my insane daughter she need serious help #i never read the manga tho bc i dont think i have ever even seen it around

[enbysiriusblack]

remus loves folklore books, lily loves fantasy books, regulus loves classical books, peter loves comic books, emmeline loves detective books, dorcas loves poetry books, mary loves romance books, james loves sci-fi books, marlene loves rock magazines, sirius loves play scripts

#sirius would read beginnings and ends of loads of books to seem more well read than he is #but he does not have the patience for an entire novel. loves reading/acting out plays tho #he'd love duchess of malfi fr and anything tennesee williams #marlene hates reading. finds it hard. and boring. magazines are as far as she's willing to go #james is a sci fi kid!! he also reads really fast but then loses attention after like 10 minutes and takes a break for a day or so #aroace mary who loves fictional romance <333 so real #emmeline tries to work out the mystery before the book detective. she's usually wrong. the girl's a failure and i love her for it #comic book peter is so me. dc not marvel!! okay he can read some marvel. occasionally. only spiderman tho. #regulus is a snob. never read a non classical book for leisure once in his life #fantasy lily!! she's such a hobbit/lord of the rings fan btw #remus is living up to his name and his boyfriends nickname #marauders era #marauders #remus lupin #lily evans #regulus black #peter pettigrew #emmeline vance #dorcas meadowes #mary macdonald #james potter #marlene mckinnon #sirius black

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads

Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, Ancillary Mercy

Imperial space opera trilogy

a soldier who was once a starship AI with thousands of bodies but was betrayed and is now a single human body, encounters one of her old lieutenants on an ice planet and helps her while on her mission of vengeance

in book 2&3 she becomes part of a new ship, protecting a remote system & becoming familiar with the different people & culture while discovering injustices, politics, and murder

interesting cultures, characters, and use of a singular pronoun (she)

#Ancillary Justice #imperial radch #aroaessidhe 2023 reads #this is a p terrible synopsis but like. who hasn’t heard of these books #anyway: i finally read them!!! 10 years after reading the first 5 chapters lmao #did take me a bit to get into it #but once i got into it; a lot less complex than i expected it to be? or like. smaller scale. which I enjoyed. #also. it’s funny? not like all the time but more so than i was expecting #(i mean I wasn’t expecting or not expecting anything in particular) #love a grumpy not-friendship (as it is in the first book especially) #audiobook cons: skips the first two pages of every other chapter. pros: singing! in a way that actually works #(i only listened to the audio of book 1 bc the libby wait times are SO LONG for the others) #translator zeiat a standout in book 3. obsessed with her #i feel like i don;t have many concrete thoughts other than yea its good #anyway i will read the other 2 books at some point also

[ra-archives]

Ah yes its 'Follow the Lights' time where we get to watch everyone in the chain get shocked half to death because they had the audacity to simply exist.

Lu-tober day 14

Prompt: Electrocution From my Goretober prompt list

*TW* A bit of lighting and Wars being shocked. Its not very graphic, but figured I'd throw this on there anyway

Experimenting with art styles? More like I didn't have time for todays prompt but still wanted it to be colored so I decided to just go a messy version of my texturing style and hoped it looked good without lines. Honestly its not terrible, could use a bit of clean up but otherwise pretty okay.

IS IT RAMBLE TIME YES IT IS

'Follow the Lights' is a fic written by CluelessMoose on Ao3. 'Don't Go Into the Light' is the follow up alternate POV fic, and they are both fantastic. Expect more angsty art based on this fic.

The idea behind both of them is a Chain meets Wild fic, except everyone gets scattered across hyrule between a bunch of different shrines. Super angsty, and is definitely on the more extreme side, but is also fantastic. Come here to get your helping of hypothermia, heatstroke, blood, gore, unreliable narration and a lot else. Its essentially just kicking the chain while they're down and I love it. Especially Wild, he gets kicked a lot.

#lutober #lu warriors #tw electrocution #tw lightning #Once again on my way to not tag the author bc I'm not thrilled with the art #Idk my art seems to just find the people that inspired it naturally so I'm sure they'll stumble on it eventually #Tumblr really be like 'Oh you don't want people to see this art piece you made bc its not your favorite?' #'Boom more notes on this art piece in a day than your last five original posts got combined and multiplied by three' #Thats totally not what happened with the day one prompt what are you talking about #Anyway might reboot this piece and some of the other less impressive prompts once LU-tober is over and I have some goD DAMN BREATHING ROOM #Rambling in the tags again sorry #I'm not sorry actually but I'll say it anyway #Also everyone go read 'Follow the Lights' right now

[lee-hakhyun]

from an outside perspective it’s really feeling like they’re emphasising kim dokja’s status as an eldritch god. like,,, you don’t feel it through orv because kim dokja himself has just enough knowledge from reading twsa to navigate, and on his own you can really tell how human he actually is, but. take things from a distanced perspective, and suddenly. suddenly, it’s azathoth and the outer gods of lovecraftian lore, played completely straight. i’ve heard enough people compare azathoth and kdj that i think i can say this much

you wanna know something i’ve thought about a lot regarding kdj and the oldest dream? about yjh becoming a terrorist, and how kimcom willingly went back into the fray, how they returned to the previous timeline - and how some people couldn’t comprehend their choices at first? it makes me think of that old trope of ‘going mad from the revelation’, how some people say that gazing upon this otherworldly being’s true form or ‘learning the truth of the world’ would surely make someone go mad.

go mad with what, though? insanity? or grief? because so, so often, one’s pain is incomprehensible to outsiders, and fail to understand how or why you lash out or break down. it’s a depressing pattern in real life, too. kdj goes mad with grief and self-hatred, learning the truth; kimcom take on the insane route of going through the apocalypse again just to reach the end; yjh is unable to heal, to cope with a world without the scenarios and without his companion to bear through it, and so he fights over the replica of the arc. from an outsider’s perspective, without the understanding that the people involved are all brokenhearted over truths only they know, it might come off as insanity. but it’s all just grief.

with that said, however, to have someone jung heewon KNEW, cruel as he was, replaced by someone from a world beyond - and to start singing the praise of someone else’s name? to say ‘i need to find them?’ how all of them look to one name that outsiders simply DO NOT KNOW, to hail this unknown person as important, as an idol, as… as a god…

the 41st turn before their version of shin yoosung travelled to the other worldlines is a forgotten story, and by orv logic forgotten stories are outer gods. in lovecraftian lore, the outer gods sought to wake the blind idiot god azathoth, who in orv is represented by kdj dreaming for ‘eternity’. also, the Outer Gods of orv (the one actually being called as such right now) see the side story - which is the ‘forgotten’ 41st turn, now being written in where once it was not - as their chance to finally be written on the wall. so it’s. it’s. this is just singshong taking their lovecraftian elements to their logical extreme

interestingly, however, kdj isn’t the only reader anymore, is he? orv places a lot of emphasis on communication and writing on the wall, but in the side story it could perhaps be interpreted as ‘trying to be read by one person in particular’. and then the readers that die are labelled as ‘kdj33’ or ‘kdj47’, reducing them to being ‘just a part’, but… they’re all different people. they’re all people who took in kdj’s story, thus his story becomes a part of their own - but only a part. i’ve said that before, but.

well, you can’t force your own narrative on to someone else.

han sooyoung tried that, actually, didn’t she? tried to get kdj back through ending the story early only to realize the hurt she was causing and backing off. you can’t always reach people in the way you want. that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stop trying, but there’s also a point where you need to recede, to compromise. am i making sense? i have no idea where singnshong is taking this story, but i’m looking at hsy with lee hakhyun and ceokdj with the readers turned kdj fragments and the outer gods wanting their story written on the wall and. i feel like i’m starting to see a pattern. i could also be hallucinating, but i could also not be. i offer this for your consideration

okay i put this aside for a bit but yes. oh my god. eldritch kdj.. i had not heard about this before, but that's so interesting thinking about it through that lens. and in the side story, hsy forcing the memories of orv on jhw to try to break her.. the explict mentioning of han sooyoung being seen as a 'god' in that moment...

--

fun fact, if you don't remember! lovecraftian horrors are also mentioned as outer gods in orv

chapter 179. when talking with the devourer of dreams, kdj mentioned these modifiers

the fear of sarnath - bokrug

horror from the hills - chaugnar faugn

master of r'lyeh - cthulhu

--

now, adding my own thoughts - the pattern is identity. stories.

there's something wrong with everything in this turn.

the kkomas were cute. until it was revealed that they were dead readers. though.. is that not also kind of what the yoo joonghyuk kkomas are? they may have all been yoo joonghyuk, but their lives in that turn were their own. <- however. the difference here is that while the yjh kkomas were all 'yoo joonghyuk' these kdj kkomas were NOT. they all had their own lives before being brought to wos, and upon being killed and placed in the theater.. they lost themselves.. which is terrifying to think about. you die, and you're brought back to watch your companions go on without you, but you're not yourself anymore. you're kim dokja, who wants to continue watching the stories on the screen.

the transmigrated readers. until the latest chapters, we hadn't been shown the real effect of the readers possessing characters in this world (honestly, we were led to believe that most people transmigrated into 'extras' without their own story. but that's not true, is it?). cheon inho has no one close to him as far as we know (lol), but that's not the same for others. what about the people who knew the possessed characters? lee hakhyun realizes this in the latest chapter, that maybe him and the readers coming here were an additional disaster for the people that lived here.

lee hakhyun's problems,, he's constantly going back and forth on 'lee hakhyun' and 'cheon inho', and there's clearly something wrong with the way he sees himself... we know more about him that he does currently, and if he does find out. i don't think things are going to end well.

and of course. everything about kim dokja. his name is in everyone's minds, the readers are desperate for a source of hope and he has become that to them. kim dokja is being idolized. even before the scenarios, there were those using kim dokja's story in the same way he used yjh. it's not framed as a negative, if that's what you need to do survive, then you should always do what you can to survive, no matter what. but even when you borrow stories, you need to stay yourself. you are your own person.

there's a clear connection with all of these, and it's identity. who someone is, the way they're seen, their stories. what makes you yourself? stories make up who you are, and these outer gods want their own stories written down on the wall to define themselves. rep kdj wanting the readers to forge a new story, lee hakhyun discovering stories that were never told in orv.

right now, nobody's happy. time is running out for the outer gods, the readers have unwittingly destroyed others by taking over these 'extras', kimcom are still desperately searching for their star, our dear protagonist is continuing to doubt himself. and kim dokja is still watching.

...this is orv. not everyone will get their happy ending. their goals oppose each other. we can hope for the best, but that isn't going to happen.

#word VOMIT. im not editing this sorry if it makes no sense! #THESE ANALYSES ARE ALWAYS SO GOOD AND I AM NOT A PERSON WHO THINK ABOUT THINGS TOO DEEPLY... #i cut some parts of this out (mainly about han sooyoung + the outer gods) because i couldn't word it right. but they connect with this too #<- might come back to this once i have the corresponding chapters translated. give me a day or two #i know i talk about identity so much but this is what the side story is all about #i didnt know about the lovecraftian stuff until i read it on the korean wiki for orv <- it's so much more detailed than the eng one lol #ask #orv #orv side story #orv spoilers #lee hakhyun #somewhat related? but i realized part of why i related with lhh so hard #it's the trans experience #living a life that might not be the worst‚ but you're not truly yourself. feeling like you're living someone else's life‚ #responding to a name that isn't really your own. #anyway the TRANS CHEON INHO PFP IS STAYING !!

[kinokoshoujoart]

cora’s bad time hell simulation steps or how to play “sprite station for girl” “harvest moon ds cute” the wrong way

(all ways are wrong this game is Accursed)

ok so here’s what my disorganized “guide” to myself for harvest moon ds for girl (aka indecipherable notes i wrote to myself as i played and revised as i tested various things and restarted due to mistakes) looks like. at some point when i become a real gamer i will write a legible guide meant for eyes to look at but uhhh this is how i play this accursed game personally

i’m not sure if anything i wrote will make any sense since i wrote it as notes to myself so probably definitely use fogu and fc2 jonason wiki (may not work but some pages should be archived) instead

ALSO if you’ve never played or barely played the game it won’t make sense at all! hmds was my first harvest moon so i am used to various horrors!

my play style is probably not fun in general HOWEVER if you are a grinding hell goblin like me then it’s GREAT!!!! if not you may still find it amusing that the game gives you permission to play like this

(it’s a great background task game while doing like productive stuff but otherwise playing this way would probably be unbearable)

(image limit)

anyway after that the days go a lot faster, you’ll get the island on summer 1, so on spring 30 i put all my money into million G tickets and sell 200 of em, do the 5x money thing, and save the rest. so when thomas comes the next day to sell you the 900 million G island you can just sell 180 tickets and do the 5x money thing again with like ~600 million G tickets left over. it takes up inventory but you’ll get the shelf in a few days. basically you just need to remember to order from the TV shopping every saturday and place orders with gotz and gray whenever they finish stuff.

random tips

after unlocking the fuckass hot spring sprites (the ones that require you to spend a total of 700 1 hour sessions in the hot springs) i usually grind grazing points— if you put your animals outside for 5 hours you get a “Love Point”, but if you interact with them after they earn that LP then the timer switches over and you can get another LP after 5 more hours. if you wear the time ring the whole time it’s 2.5 hours. i’m not very good at explaining this but basically if you’re super efficient you can get way more animal LP than you realistically should, which is great because the touch glove petting minigame is Bad!!!!

i usually wait on getting the rest of the purple sprites (the ones that require you to hire the purple team and ask for healing) until i’m totally done with the indigo team, cuz i wanna get HG’s purple heart event asap, but you can switch the order if you want

by summer y1 you’ll basically have a feel for everything. aside from Skye, Leia, HG and WP everyone can be married early-mid autumn if you want

if you want to Gay (in the japanese version only) keira is the quickest to marry. leia is the quickest to max affection but it’s impossible to get leia year 1 because the bottle you need to fish up can only be caught in spring. you have to wait until at least year 5 for WP and iirc year 6 for HG.

#i’m really sorry i can’t make this more organized #if i literally ever have time i’ll just make a video guide instead of pasting this because it’s easier to explain with visuals…. #i can’t Write in an organized way i can only Visual Medium #i have a very complicated relationship with corobuckle station for girl #it scratches my brain #(derogatory) #(positive) #i have no idea how many hours of HMDS i’ve played in my life but it’s definitely the game i’ve played the most of all time #i’ll just paraphrase something i read on a japanese wiki for hmds/koroste a long time ago: #’i once again feel that the effort required for the completion of the task is unreasonable’ #god i really hope ds gets a remake so all of the titles you can get in the mailbox become steam achievements #bokumono #if people find out there are achievements that take at minimum real life decades to complete with basically no reward #gamers will lose their minds and society will collapse #‘trying to accomplish it is like trying to collect a sparrow’s tears #so at some point it may be inevitable that you have to give up trying’ #i really think the devs saw the ds could handle higher values than gba and went insane without considering balance at all #currently i’m trying to record as many cutscenes as i can in the jp version since y’know. english translation is very awkward #i am also trying to see if the pastor carter/cardi marriage option exists in the english version of cute #i will update so stay tuned for that if you want sex on the phone with pastor cardi b. i guess

[inthecompanyofabengaltiger]

man am i over people who've never actually read asoiaf shitting on it lmao

#i had two different posts willfully misinterpreting grrm cross my dash the last couple days #the aragorn tax policy quote isn't shitting on lotr or intended to be taken as a literal 'you must write about kings' tax policies' mandate #it's about how grrm is interested in different themes to tolkein #like the quote goes on to ask if aragorn commits genocide against the orcs after rotk or like what happens there how isthat tension resolve #in lotr it doesn't matter what happens to the orcs after aragorn is crowned because the story is about frodo's journey and not aragorn #and grrm KNOWS that & is literally making the point HIMSELF that asoiaf is more about the politics than lotr is #we see those tensions explored in plots like the wall with jon having to satisfy stannis the watch and the wildlings all at once #it's not an insult - it's just a fucking comparison & explanation. marketing speech more than anything close to anti-lotr hatred. like cmon #and then the second post was talking about how edmure tully is called weak for letting his smallfolk into his castle #and how that proves that george is an idiot who hates kindness and doesn't understand the medieval era #as if the other characters calling edmure weak for that wasn't kind of the entire point of the riverlands destruction arc #and it's not a purposeful contrast between edmure and other lords (specifically robb in his kingly campaign) #anyway it'd be nice if people read and used their brains to think some thoughts about what they read before talking shit. #asoiaf

[chirpsythismorning]

Clown makeup fully applied, if hypothetically byler was endgame and there are a few really incriminating scenes of Mike and Will alone in s5 to be had, leading up to that revelation… the skeleton crew filming with Noah and Finn alone for the first couple weeks of filming does sound like something they could do… Otherwise, if they filmed those scenes sporadically all throughout s5 production, random PA’s leaking it would be likely (end of s4 cabin scene leak teas). However, doing a few of their most incriminating scenes alone before most of the casual production are even there: no leaks…

#byler #i think that more than Noah/Finn will be filming tbh #they could wait for a table read for after or do it before #with the entire cast #it’s just a matter of availability #the table read is the one thing they try to have everyone major present for #it’s rare that all of them are able to be on set simultaneously #so thats like their way of coming together to celebrate at the start and get the ball rolling #but still #if Noah/Finn are available during that time #and maybe most aren’t #why not get them started with some incriminating shit with a skeleton crew… also with the writers strike implications this could also add up #just a theory #for now #i didnt really like fans spreading rumors like it was factual a while back #i was nervous we’d be humiliated and embarrassed once it was debunked #but seeing these sourced double down on a date mid May #and seeing Reddit scramble to insist it’s fake and there’s no way they’re starting before may… #what are yall so scared of?… #if there was no rumors about Finn and Noah filming first by themselves #you know they would be eating this source up and giving it some creedance #instead they’re resorting to insisting people are believing it bc they’re delusional #that may be so #but i’d argue they’re resorting to denying any possibility bc they are terrified #and that entertains me #like they’re acting like both Noah and Finn didn’t say May #theyre making excuses for Noah like HE BACKTRACKED #i wouldn’t count him saying May 3x+ and one of those times adding maybe jume #as him backtracking #and what about Finn? they still can’t think of an excuse to explain his may comment in that interview

[elftwink]

been learning to play ironsworn (gritty fantasy ttrpg which you can play with a gm but is mostly suited for solo or small group co-op gmless play) after having the rulebook pdf for several years (stars finally aligned to remove invisible thing blocking me from reading it idk) because i'm on another solo ttrpg kick & i don't know what took me so long to get around to this game because it genuinely is exactly what i was looking for. years ago when i was playing through solo 5e modules i should have just been playing ironsworn (believe it or not, 5e isn't very suited to solo play and is extremely clunky when you try lol).

also though i have dabbled in some other solo ttrpgs, a considerable amount of them are journaling games which is fun but imo considerably more work (usually by the time i'm a quarter of the way through the journal entry, i know how to entire scene played out and i want to move on to the next gameplay thing, so i get frustrated and bored quickly. it feels like when you solve a level in a video game but don't have the coordination to pull off the necessary move so you have to spend 20 extra minutes doing something you already figured out), so i really appreciate like not needing to write something for the game to progress (ive been taking notes for my own record since im playing solo and thus am not really out loud roleplaying the way you do in a group, but i definitely could do that instead and not take notes and the game would still function perfectly)

& ive been playing by myself but also in the past ive played a lot of ttrpgs in very small groups which has been other games but is mostly dnd and like. we also should have been playing ironsworn so that having a gm was not necessary. have definitely played games where we had to adapt the rules soooo much to do something that is just base game included in ironsworn. plus it's rules-light enough to do pretty complex moves that pose difficulties in bulkier games (ever introduced someone to dnd and they tell you they want to do a sick backflip and catch something and then attack and you have to tell them that will require several different consecutive rolls and some creative liberties with how the rules are 'supposed' to let you move? you can just Do That in ironsworn. use the strike move and describe it. done!)

the one thing is that although it's rules-light enough to theoretically play any setting or genre (some with more difficulty than others), ive found so far that like... the grittiness and sense of threat is very built into the mechanics so that would be sort of difficult to work around or change (but i think it's great from a game design perspective). what i mean is like, okay: you start with 5 max hp. there isn't really a way to raise this max hp, you just slowly gain abilities (assets) that make you less likely to have to lose the hp in the first place, or that make it easier to recover. when you encounter foes, you rank them on a scale of 1 -5, and enemies on the lowest side of this scale do one harm to you, while enemies on the highest side do five harm to you. so even though encountering an epic enemy won't always be deadly due to the assets you have, they are ALWAYS capable of taking you down to 0 hp with one good hit. so the feeling of threat is much more present compared to games where your character starts to be able to just tank and push through a failure or huge threat.

admittedly also i'm playing solo, im still learning how to balance combat, and also i built a character who has NO combat talents and iron (the close quarters fighting stat) is one of my lowest stats so i personally am under much more threat than if you built a character who knew how to fight or who could do deadly harm. but also the other thing about combat is it's extremely difficult to maintain control of the fight; you have to score a strong hit to do it on basically all moves, and there's a really limited pool of moves available when you don't have the initiative, and obviously none of them really favour you. i don't know that this makes combat genuinely more difficult, but it does make you feel like the fight is always about to spiral out of your control. every second you let it drag without decisive action feels like it brings you closer to dying. like i said, this is a feature of the game design and not a problem in any way. just thinking about it because when i was initially learning i was going to try to supplant it into a homebrew fantasy world of my own but the tone just wouldn't be right. and that it is somewhat difficult to replicate the kind of worlds that i typically play or run for dnd, which tend to lean somewhat sillier and definitely much higher fantasy

but i like to try new things and tbh especially in dnd i find that i very rarely feel that sense of threat and when i do feel it, it has nothing at all to do with the actual mechanics and reality of the combat and everything to do with how well the dm sells it to me and makes it sound and feel scary and dangerous. which is a testament to what a good gm can do for you but i do appreciate the threat feeling more built-in and also being actually real.

#good idea generator #kas plays ironsworn #am giving it a tag because i will continue to talk about this. its my blog #idk i just find in dnd like. players often FEEL threatened WAY before they actually are threatened #which makes it really hard to balance combat because players treat evenly matched fights like hopeless death traps #so instead they do underleveled combat that feels boring for some hard to pin down reason #but like. the reason is even though you're nervous about the dm's description and the things the monsters can do #there is no real threat. especially in bigger parties where the players DOMINATE action economy. they are always in control #so of course it gets boring. it drags out so everyone can take their turn but it never forces you to make difficult choices #or to totally exhaust all your abilities. after awhile the combats start to feel same-y #because even if the monster is different. you never have to do anything different to defeat it #ofc this is a subjective assessment and also if youre reading this and we play dnd together this is not a gripe abt our table i love u #i think it's really easy to get trapped doing this esp in tables which like rp more than combat #because its also like. once you're used to a certain balance of combat if your dm suddenly threw you a big one #you assume that this is a uniquely large threat in the narrative as well (rather than a rebalancing attempt) #and treat it accordingly. which is to say with way too much caution because it isnt actually that big of a threat #so then as a dm when you have to maintain the feeling of threat and the mechanical threat #(especially when sometimes the mechanical line between 'cakewalk' and 'tpk' is razor thin #and is more about the initiative order and luck than anything else) #you start to prioritize the feeling of threat. which is imo the right call always #but its just after awhile when you feel the threat but nothing ever happens to anybody. the dissonance starts to affect the table #also balancing dnd combat as a dm is really hard and often requires a LOT of on the fly adaptation #because sometimes the CR is useless and you don't know how it's gonna do until the dice are on the table already #anyway. my point is that im enjoying how ironsworn handles this problem