I ranked my top 10 pieces of fiction... would you mind doing yours?
Oh this is hard. This is REALLY HARD. Pretty much any media that I’ve obsessed over in the past, or even anything that made me think “wow, this is great!” has the potential to make this list. I’m just gonna list 5 of them that are most definitely up there, in no particular order. With yapping.
I saw the show while browsing through Netflix when I was 10-ish, I think? And was IMMEDIATELY drawn to its artstyle. The use of colour palette is top-notch, I adore the world and creature designs, and the characters are all very likeable. I haven’t read the books yet, and I wasn’t the biggest fan of a few choices made in the third season (like Hilda being a half-blood or whatever), but overall, it’s still a super fun, beautiful and imaginative series with peak cozy vibes. “The Fifty Year Night” is one of my favorite episodes of any show.
Uhm uhm I’m not sure what else to elaborate on right now (might have to do that in the future at some point) but the point is it’s GREAT.
Oh boy oh boy. I was super into the fandom for this one when I first got into it after the demo for the second game released (used to be a hardcore Monix shipper as a wee lass and I regret that now lmao). But yeah, this game franchise is awesome. It’s not very gameplay-heavy, but it more than makes up for it with its unique atmosphere and intriguing lore. The world and environments are so delightfully surreal and the monster designs are simple yet effective like ugh the artists did such a good job.
As for the lore… I’ll be honest, I don’t like how much of it was outright explained to us in “The Sounds of Nightmares”, and I much prefer the idea that the world the franchise takes place in used to be somewhat normal but became distorted over time, rather than the now-canonical explanation that it’s some dream universe separate from the real world. But I don’t want to sound too negative; it’s still a cool concept in general! Just not the direction that I think suits best for this series. (disclaimer: I did not listen to the podcast myself and have not read the new [graphic] novels… hopefully I can beat the larp allegations)
HOWEVER, the games have so many cool background details that give hints to a bigger picture and I love that ambiguity; I think this point still stands even with the new lore drops. I’ll always adore this franchise no matter what. ALSO THE CONCEPT ART GOD THE CONCEPT ART IS SPECTACULAR.
3) James and the Giant Peach
This is probably the one that those familiar with my blog would expect to be ranked first place, but it really boils down to the fact that it’s a relatively recent obsession of mine (is more than a year ago but less than two considered recent…?) that’s been going on for longer than usual and I don’t believe it’s stopping anytime soon.
Seriously though, I think this book / film / musical has cemented itself as being part of my soul forever now. My recent interests (most of them are things that I have enjoyed in the past but my opinion on them was strengthened / resurfaced) of bugs, Roald Dahl stories, stop-motion and musical theatre? JATGP was responsible for shaping them. Yes. As someone who read the book as a child, if you asked my past self to guess some random pieces of media I would hyperfixate on in the future, this wouldn’t even cross my mind for a second, yet here we are.
And like, the story itself is SO SWEET AND CUTE AND WHOLESOME I couldn’t care less that it for some reason has a reputation of being grim and the characters are so charming like dude the found family I love love love their little found family and the positive bug rep despite some inaccuracies that don’t exactly matter in the grand scheme of things… if I had all the time in the world and good editing skills I would deadass make a two hour video just dumping out all my thoughts on the different renditions of the story. Because despite it being one of the more well-known Dahl stories I still find it underrated and I just. I need to talk about it.
4) A Series of Unfortunate Events
My favorite book series ever. I read through the first eight and a half volumes as a kid but for some reason just didn’t continue it for years… then halfway through last year I decided to finish it while re-reading the ones I already had previously, and fell in love with it again.
This series has SUCH a unique writing style. That may be a Lemony Snicket thing in general (it’s hard to say because the only other thing I’ve read from him is “Poison For Breakfast”), but it still absolutely applies here. I think ASOUE does a great job at balancing humor with dark undertones: there are moments where it doesn’t take itself seriously at all, but most of the time it never feels like it comes out of nowhere or clashes with the tragedy, because it’s already established that kind of humor as as part and parcel of its style and tone (sounds pretty self-explanatory but I find it interesting okay). Speaking of the comedy, this series is genuinely hilarious sometimes. And so are the clips I’ve seen of the Netflix adaptation.
Oh right, the Netflix show! I haven’t seen it besides a few snippets but I really need to because it sounds very promising. And apparently it fixes some of the issues I had with the books (like how it feels like parts of the plot were just made up along the way, especially towards the end), so that’s great.
To wrap up: this series has some thought-provoking themes + a really cool world + Lemony Snicket is the best narrator character in history. (been trying to get my hands on “All The Wrong Questions” for a while now…)
Okay I feel like a larp again because I haven’t caught up with new content / info about the franchise in a LONG time but anyway-
I was not an OG Bendy fan. I was sucked into the fandom a few months after BATDR came out… mostly thanks to Pastra. Yup, I’m part of that group! This franchise may be quite flawed in certain aspects, but honestly, that doesn’t matter to me. The story is convoluted, but I still just find it so interesting? (it’s a bit like a FNAF situation, which I considered putting on this list but really mainly for nostalgia reasons). It went in a direction that I never would’ve expected (specifically in BATIM’s case), and it was one that was far more captivating than I initially imagined. I don’t really know how to explain it in detail but I hope you get the point.
Another big part of this franchise is obviously the style and aesthetic. I’ve seen people say that the yellow / orange with black as the color palette looks ugly but I personally find it very visually pleasing and… cozy? Typically that’s not what you’d want to achieve for a horror game but it just works here. The world of the Cycle is also stylised in a way that looks cartoony but not too exaggerated, which is perfect. Andddd yeah this segment is messy but trying to articulate my thoughts is as confusing for me as trying to figure out how the story views Joey’s morality so in conclusion… can’t wait for BATIF. :)
Of course, there are media I’ve seen that I consider better than the ones listed here from an objective standpoint, but I’m not quite as attached to them, so in a way they just aren’t as suited. So… there you have it!
Sorry for the late reply!
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