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I saw some people making lists of 100 formative books or other media to see how many of them other people have read, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon! But I did all kinds of media in one list, which was both way harder than I expected to get to 100 and yet I feel like I've missed a lot of important things I just can't remember off the top of my head lmao.

But here we go: Lex Tinkaton's 100 Formative Media List

I included stuff from my teen years, so anything that influenced me as a kid or I was obsessed with as a teen. There's probably a lot of old books I've missed, I used to read a loooot of series like Animorphs, Goosebumps, etc. for older elementary/middle grade readers that had like 500 books in a series. Lots of typical 90s kid stuff, I filled up a lot of spots with Disney and other animated movies. I noticed when adding my favorite old anime and manga that a ton of it had to do with gay stuff, crossdressing, or gender fuckery, which looking back is like lol. It's fitting that Adolescence of Utena got the first spot because that movie rewired my brain when I saw it in what, 5th grade? Video games were tough to narrow down too because I still think back fondly on a lot of PS1/PS2 games that I still consider faves.

Anyway, if anyone plays, let me know how many you get! Which of you would've matched my freak if we'd met in high school.

Been semi-productive with media stuff lately, so a few updates:

▶ I finished playing Split Fiction! It's a two person co-op action/platformer game by the company that made It Takes Two, which was huge fun. I played ITT with my brother so when I heard they were making another game with the same kind of gameplay, I told him we had to play SF together haha. And SF was just as much fun!

The story follows Mio and Zoe, two aspiring authors who become trapped in their stories after a mishap with a VR machine built by a company that is attempting to use the machine to steal creative ideas. The game's levels are either fantasy or sci-fi themed, with different abilities on each level that you have to use to cooperatively solve puzzles and stuff. The story is pretty basic and the writing is kind of cheesy, but there's some really funny moments and it's a ton of fun to actually play. (For example at one point you're in a motorcycle chase and while one player has to drive the motorcycle, the other player has to deactivate the self-destruct using a smart phone lmao. I was laughing so hard while watching my bro try to go through everything I could barely steer the bike.)

The nice thing about SF (and ITT) is that only one person has to buy the game and you can either co-op locally or online! So I highly recommend both games for anyone looking for something to play with a friend. SF is very forgiving difficulty-wise too, I am not very good at platforming and I was dying constantly because I have no patience lmao but we still didn't have any trouble beating the game.

▶ I watched season 2 of Severance! Putting this behind a cut for spoilers. ( + )

▶ I watched Moana 2 and it was okay... I thought the messaging was nice but overall it just felt entirely forgettable. I can't tell if the music in Disney musicals these days is genuinely bad or the nostalgia for the old stuff is just that strong. Like I know we can't all be Alan Menken and Howard Ashman but come on, I watched the movie a couple hours ago and I can't even recall a single tune from it. (Not that all new Disney songs are terrible, I too had "We Don't Talk About Bruno" stuck in my head for weeks lmao. But just like, most of it.)

▶ I don't even play Marvel Rivals but the Emma Frost character reveal trailer omg... The thigh jiggle?? Ma'am... She looks so good lmao Emma's designs are always very hit or miss but I don't hate this one. (I would get rid of the blue lipstick though I have never been a blue lipstick Emma truther!!) Anyway now I'm like shit, do I need to play Marvel Rivals sjhdfkjss

My wrists are hurting again and I have really fallen behind on my reading list, but I finally typed up this TV and movie post. I don't know what got into me last month but I got the urge to re-watch a bunch of my favorite action movies, so I did that for a couple weekends. (Oh, I know, it was seeing that The Old Guard 2 was FINALLY getting a release date that sparked this lol.) I also watched a couple new movies, Wicked and Venom 3.

( mini movie reviews below )

I also finally got around to watching Severance S1! Everyone going in on the S2 hype made me hurry up and watch the first season lol. I haven't watched any of S2 yet, so no spoilers please, but I'm gonna try to get on that once all the episodes are out and I can binge it in a few days. (Does anyone know when the last episode is airing...I'm afraid to Google because you know how the first thing that comes up when you Google a currently airing show is always like "Did Main Character REALLY Die in an Exploding Candy Factory Accident in the Last Episode of Show?")

( severance s1 ramblings below )

January-February's reading round up! We are off to a rough start this year, as I managed to read...2 novels and 2 graphic novels in two months. Technically I didn't even finish Heavenly Tyrant in February, I finished it in early March, but it did take up most of my February so I'm putting it in the February round up. And because otherwise I'd have zero books for February.



( Read more... )

So...yeah, two disappointing sequels I'd been looking forward to in a row, 2025 is not starting off well on the reading front. Hopefully I'll have better luck with my current book, Mutual Interest by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith, of which I am about 60 pages into. (However I'm annoyed that the physical copy I'm reading doesn't open fully without putting some force into holding the pages open? Like it literally hurts to hold open for too long because I can't relax my hands lmao.)

I hope everyone's reading has been going better than mine so far! Anyone reading anything good?

The cycle of saying I need to update and then not updating continues... I've still got my list of posts I want to make but most of my brain energy has been taken up RPing with a friend which has been a lot of fun!! I've been missing RP lately and I was even floating the idea of getting into a game again but thank god I convinced her to do a 1-on-1 thing with me so I didn't have to do that sjdhfsjkfdhs. It is, unsurprisingly, a Jayvik thing lmao.


A couple orders came in over the last few weeks!! I backed a pair of Wangxian and Hualian pins from a danmei ship Kickstarter and they're SO cute, I almost forgot about them until I got the shipping notice haha. And I also printed myself the best shirt in the world aka I put a Viktor Arcane "let's take ibuprofen together" meme on a t-shirt sjdhfkjsdf I love it so much. I've just been wearing it around the house but it's so funny to me.

( photos of the evidence )

I also discovered this sticker subscription site called Stickii Club that does 3 different themed packs a month and they're only $12, which is a steal for how much you get. It looks like they work with a lot of indie artists and their selection is so adorable, they have a lot of leftover stickers and things from previous packs on sale on their site and I'm really struggling to narrow down what I want to get... But I'm definitely going to subscribe for this month and see how it goes. 👀

Oops, I haven't updated since the beginning of the month. I guess nothing particularly exciting has been going on. Work continues as normal, weekends I've been vegging out at home. Not much journal-worthy haha. I've got a couple posts I've been meaning to make (some fandom stuff, some movie talk, etc.) but I need to sort out what I want to write.

The last couple weekends I've been working on my 2024 Reading Journal and I'm finally done! I've never made a physical reading journal before, but last year I got this cute notepad from a local artist and once it was filled I decided I wanted to paste the pages into a single notebook to keep it all contained rather than save a flimsy notepad. Then I decorated a few basic spreads at the beginning and voila, reading journal!

( look on my works, ye mighty, and despair )

If anyone keeps a reading journal or something similar, I'd love to see pics! I watch so many videos on YouTube of people setting up their reading journals even though I know I'll never do anything that fancy, they're just so pretty to look at.

Finally finished playing Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies! Well I finished the main game like a week ago but wanted to play the special bonus episode before considering it officially done, but whatever. I've not previously played any of the Ace Attorney games post-Investigations because I never had a 3DS, so this is my first time playing it! It was so nostalgic seeing Phoenix and Trucy and everyone again... I mean, I LOVED The Great Ace Attorney games, which I did play a couple years ago, but it obviously didn't have that same nostalgia factor haha.

So, thoughts below the cut! MAJOR SPOILERS for the final case because I went kind of crazy over the twist there.

( Read more... )

Ouaaaghhhh so I impulse bought two different commissions for my Rook from Dragon Age Veilguard and both are in now and they're so beautiful!! One is a gooorgeous bust artwork and the other is an adorable chibi drawing of Rook and Lucanis flying.

( click here for art )

In other news I realized in my sickness haze last week that threesentenceficathon started and I'm rattling the bars of my cage wanting to participate!!! I haven't had a chance to look at anything yet 😭 but hopefully this weekend I'll find some time. I've been very unmotivated writing-wise this month and it's killing me because I have so much stuff I want to write...

I jinxed myself by saying nothing was going on because the universe made me sick just to give me something going on. 😑 Wednesday night my throat started hurting and I was like oh no...and sure enough I woke up Thursday and had to call off work lmao. It was just a cold, but I ended up calling off Friday too because I still felt gross. I was scheduled to go in today but by some miracle we closed due to the weather so I didn't have to go in!! Thank god because I'm still kind of phlegmy and coughing a lot today. 😰 Impromptu 4-day weekend where I did literally nothing.

I spent most of Thursday and Friday curled up on the couch in a blanket either napping, scrolling social media, reading fanfic, or playing the Ace Attorney Apollo game compilation. On the plus side, I got through a decent chunk of Dual Destinies--I'm on the last episode now! Once I finish that I'll write up my thoughts and continue on to Spirit of Justice.

I did also get some work done on my makeshift 2024 reading journal. I filled out the sheets for the books I read at the beginning of the year (before I started recording them on the reading log notepad I bought) so now I just have to decide what extra stats/layouts I want to draw in the journal and paste the individual review sheets in. (I've also been debating doing a media journal rather than just a reading journal for this year, like a physical copy of my listography but with more detailed reviews for some stuff. The problem is figuring out what kind of notebook/journal I want to use for it and how I want to set it up...)

Somewhere in the sickness haze I did finally watch Suzume (dir. Makoto Shinkai) which I had been putting off forever. I loved Your Name a lot but I was not very keen on Weathering with You so I was like which way is Suzume going to swing... In the end I'd say Suzume landed in the middle; this is why you can't make your best movie first nothing will ever live up to it!! But I enjoyed Suzume more than I expected, so I was pleasantly surprised. Also Daijin was very cute lmao.

I'm hoping this cough dies down by tomorrow, I'll mask regardless but it's always so embarrassing to be coughing a lot in public like jhskdjfhs I'm so sorry I swear it's just the remnants of a cold don't look at me.

Haven't done a life update in a while because nothing of note has been going on... Mostly just going to work, coming home, falling asleep on the couch after attempting to play Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies because I have old man syndrome where as soon as I settle in to do something entertaining I get sleepy. (Also I haven't been getting a lot of sleep so that probably isn't helping either lol.)


Saturday I worked, so I had today off and actually did some fun things! Went to a breakfast place nearby with my family for lunch and that was nice. I've been craving home fries but I never make them myself so I was like my god, finally, home fries time sjdfhksjs

Afterwards I went to the mall because I wanted to see if the Bath and Body Works had anything left from its semi-annual sale. Spoiler alert: it did not. Well, it had a few items, but nothing good. There were ZERO 75% off soaps left which is mostly what I was looking for, and their regular sales currently going on were crap and they hadn't mailed out any new coupons, so...forget that!! As punishment I left and went to buy stuff at Hot Topic instead lmaooo.

There I did find a $7 clearance t-shirt of Faye Cowboy Bebop which I promptly bought, as well as some silly little blind box buttons of cute animals themed after the Major Arcana which were also on sale, which I plan to open at work tomorrow with some of my coworkers/divvy them up with them because they got really into blind box figures last year and kept giving me their duplicates.

Despite already going out for lunch I picked up food court chicken teriyaki before leaving AND THEN at home I made three boxes of those Pillsbury holiday sugar cookies that you just drop on a pan and bake. Truly a day of indulgence sjshdfksjhfds I ate a bunch and then put the rest in a tin to take to work to share as well.

( pics of the mall haul and the cookies )

I also wanted to mention that I watched The Wild Robot and it was really good! It's a DreamWorks animated movie about a service robot that ends up shipwrecked on an island inhabited only by animals and ends up becoming the adoptive mother of sorts to an orphaned baby goose. I think it's based on a children's book? But the animation was super nice and of course the very on-the-nose themes about family, coming together as a community, etc. made me cry sjhdfkjshsk. Highly recommend watching it!

tinkaton's 2024 Reading Wrap Up!



Finally getting to my wrap up for 2024's reading! I had to leave my re-reads off the Top 10 collage otherwise it'd just be entirely Captive Prince and The Last Binding lol. But it was another decent year for reading, looking at my numbers I did about the same as last year.

( 2024 Reading Wrap-Up Questions )

Once again, thanks for reading all that! Here are my Storygraph 2024 stats and my Goodreads 2024 stats for the curious. Fellow readers, what were your top books of the year?

Fanfic year in review! This is probably not interesting to anyone but me but I actually wrote stuff this year which was a miracle so I'm celebrating with this meme I borrowed from a few different people.

STATS FOR 2024

Total fics: 10
Total words written: 33,379 (+3k for an unpublished but mostly completed fic)

Fandoms:

• Arcane: League of Legends: 1
• Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat: 1
• Final Fantasy XVI: 3
• Hades: 1 (+1 unpublished)
• Last Binding Series - Freya Marske: 1
• Octopath Traveler II: 1
• Original Work: 1
• When Among Crows - Veronica Roth: 1

( click for the questions! )

I've enjoyed reading everyone's 2024 summaries and end-of-year memes! I can barely remember what I did two months ago let alone all year, so probably no yearly life wrap up from me lmao, but I do have some fandom-y memes I yoinked from y'all I may do at some point.

For now, here's my yuletide wrap up! (+1 extra fic I wrote but not for Yuletide.) This was my first time actually participating in Yuletide, it was so interesting to see the obscure stuff people requested. (I was too late reading The Will of the Many to nominate it this year, but I'm already sitting here thinking oh Yuletide next year? sdjfhshkf Maybe a fandom for it will exist by then.)

WHAT I GOT: I received this lovely fic for Freya Marske's Last Binding series! I let my creator choose which characters from the tagset to include and they went with all of them, which was a delight. The main pairings were present, but I loved the interactions between the less commonly combined characters, like Maud & Addy, Jack & Robin, etc. This really hit the found family aspect of the books super well!

Spinning a Family from Twigs by Vi0let_Baudelaire (Last Binding, Full Cast, rated T, 10k words)
A reflection on the meanings of family, and the stories of five people who joined the Blyth extended family.

WHAT I WROTE: And the fic that I wrote was also for Marske's Last Binding series, but it was pure PWP sjdhfjkshfs featuring a little magic, an unnecessary dance scene in the lead-up, Maud crossdressing, and a strap-on. Happy holidays I guess!!

Taking the Lead (Last Binding, Maud/Violet, rated E, 6.5k words)
Puzzling out the mysteries of Spinet House remains an ongoing problem. Violet tries to keep Maud's spirits up, but to Violet's delight, it's Maud who ends up taking the reins.

WHAT I WROTE BUT NOT FOR YULETIDE: I also ended up writing the world's dumbest Arcane fic for my friend for Christmas! This started as a series of jokes between me and her about obnoxiously supportive PFLAG ally Heimerdinger, spiraled from there as poor Jayce got dragged in, and then I banged out this fic in under a week as a surprise present for her lmao. I got another friend to draw a picture of Heimerdinger in an 'I ♥ my gay son' t-shirt. I think this is my life's magnum opus.

#1 Ally Jayce Talis (Arcane, Jayce/Viktor, rated G, 4.5k words)
When Jayce discovers that Viktor likes men, he wants Viktor to know he has his full support. Viktor wants more than that from Jayce, but he knows he'll never get it when Jayce is so clearly straight.

OTHER FICS I LIKED: Here's some Yuletide recs! Fandoms include: Buddy Daddies, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, The Last Binding, The Magnificent Seven (2016), Octopath Traveler II, Twelfth Night, A Taste of Gold and Iron, The Will Darling Adventures, xxxHolic

( Recs Below! )

Trying to bang out this post before the end of the year and I just barely made it lmao. The reading round-up for November and December! As you can see, I made good on my promise to re-read The Last Binding trilogy.



( Read more... )

Post-Christmas update... It's been very chill here, both at work and home. I had a couple days off for Christmas while the library was closed, but the following couple days was also very slow which was good because a bunch of people took off the whole week haha. I hate how slow it is around the holidays, I wish we could all just take off the last couple weeks of the year sjhdfksjfs Thankfully I made it through and now I've got a 5-day mini vacay because I took off Monday/Tuesday + we're closed Wednesday for New Year's.

Christmas was good! My parents gave me and the sibs money and I gave the parents a gift card to a restaurant so they'd have to use it for themselves lmao. We're not a very gifty family, which is fine with me now I don't feel bad about going overboard buying myself all that stuff this month. But I still haven't made or bought gingerbread cookies!!! Perhaps I'm cursed. (The curse is my own fault.) We've got plenty of candy though, my mom did give me one of those giant Ferrero Rocher boxes so I am living large now.

I already feel productive with my time off too, I finished reading a super long book I'd been hoping to complete before the end of the year! I think I owe this blog a two month reading update post, then I may do an end-of-year reading meme for 2024, either find a new one or just copy the one I did last year. If anyone has any saved, link me!


My first yuletide was a success, I'd say! I got nearly 10k of The Last Binding fic featuring pretty much every character (I let my creator pick whoever they wanted from the tagset) and it was super sweet. And my giftee seemed to like their fic so hey \o/ I also ended up writing my friend the world's stupidest Jayvik fic for Christmas, so this has been more writing than I've done in a while haha, I'm hoping to keep my momentum and maybe write some more Jayvik or Last Binding fic... Once Yuletide reveals happen I'll just post links to everything at once, I still need to browse more of the collection and see what else looks good.


Oh, I also watched the newest (last?) season of The Dragon Prince! tl;dr I liked it, though I think, like the whole arc overall, the pacing was a little all over the place. I feel like they dragged things out over the last few seasons and then crammed the entire actual final confrontation into what, 4 episodes? They're clearly setting things up for a potential third arc with that ending, and while I'd happily watch more (really curious to see what they'd do with a 7-year timeskip) I don't think they're going to get renewed...

But! Specific spoilery ramblings on S7: ( Read more... )

But yeah, I'm sad it's over because it was a fun show with a lot of great characters. I think they did a good job for a kids' show touching upon more serious topics, but of course the double-edged sword there is that it's a kids' show so, you know. It can be a little dumb at times lmao. I'd still recommend it though for anyone who enjoys diverse fantasy that's more on the lighthearted side.

I knew I was forgetting something from my previous post--I picked up Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp! I quit playing it about a year ago because the constant event grinding was just too much, but now that it's an offline version with no micro-transactions it's much nicer to just casually play. And I had a little over 6 bucks in Google Play...points things, whatever, so I paid less than $5 out of pocket for it.

It's been worth it I think, it's a lot more chill than before. They include the previously paid-only features of having a camp helper and stuff, and it's a lot easier to get the "premium" currency aka what replaced leaf tickets. (I'm so mad at myself though I didn't bother logging in before the game shut down to spend my remaining leaf tickets and they didn't convert into anything so they were just wasted!! I had a whole bunch left too. 😠)

Anyway!! If anyone's playing, drop me your player card! I spent like an hour earlier just assembling various outfits so I've got 10 options for you here if you want to add me lol. ( Read more... )

I had a lot of really good hair options I wanted to use but I made myself stop sjhdfkjshfd I think 10 outfits is plenty!! But the majority of my leaf tickets when I was active was spent on clothing items rather than scenery/building items so I have a lot of junk lmao...

Haven't had much to post about lately here. For a while my free time was just me rewatching The Good Place and Arcane, and finishing my Yuletide fic. Then after that it was playing catch up on the things I had put off doing while I'd been watching TV and writing instead. At least I'm all set for Christmas, though I keep thinking I want to make gingerbread cookies and still haven't done it. Really I just want to EAT gingerbread cookies without the making part, so that's been the main hindrance lol. I'm just not meant to be baking things that have a 20-step process smh.


The last of the packages I was waiting for arrived all at once, so now I'm swimming in excess stationery (my Christmas presents to myself lmao). I got the cuuutest notebook + matching memo pads/washi from an artist on Etsy, and a set of space-themed notebooks made by a different artist.

( stationery pics and chatter below )

I told myself no more purchases this month, but I'm only 200 stupid coins away from being able to afford the Cardboard D.Va skin in Overwatch that I want sooo bad (look at her!!!) but I don't want to give them any money. 😠 I wish you could buy the damn skin alone without the bundle items jacking up the price... So I guess I'll see which is stronger, Cardboard D.Va's cuteness or me not wanting to give Blizzard $5 lmao.

But that's enough complaining!! I hope everyone has a good Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year's, in case I don't update before then! ♥

I don't use Spotify much but here's my Spotify Wrapped, why not. I can 100% blame Veronica Roth for skewing half my results. ( Read more... )

While on the topic of music, TWICE just released a new track featuring Megan Thee Stallion lmao I love that they're working together. It's not my favorite English release of theirs ("The Feels" has yet to be dethroned) but it's catchy and everyone looks sooo good. Chaeyoung has lines and screentime! And Jihyo with the knives hello?????

Watch on YouTube

TWICE recently featured on a remix of Megan's "Mamushi" that's also worth a listen, and I just want them to keep doing collabs!!

A TV meme I stole from rionaleonhart. As soon as I had to think of 5 shows my brain blanked out so I picked 5 shows I've recently reblogged on Tumblr lmao.

TV questions: pick five TV shows you like (in no particular order) and answer the following questions. Don’t cheat!

1. Arcane
2. Interview with the Vampire
3. Star Trek: DS9
4. Black Sails
5. The Dragon Prince

( Questions behind the cut. )

I've done it.....63 hours and 158 screenshots later.....I've beaten Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

The non-spoilery tl;dr: I liked it! Maybe it was the high of playing a new Dragon Age game for the first time in ten years, but I had a lot of fun with it. The combat is snappy, the characters are charming, the sidequests aren't all tedious time wasters. I think a lot of the complaints online are bad faith arguments or personal preferences. (Not that the game is perfect or there aren't valid critiques, just that you can tell who's like, mad about DA being ""woke"" now or whatever lmao.)

So yeah, I'd recommend it, and I think people who haven't played any DA games could still have a good time too. There's callbacks and stuff that wouldn't really mean anything to newbies, and obviously there's spoilers for Inquisition (but I feel that particular cat is out of the bag anyway), but overall I think new players could definitely just jump in and have fun without having played the previous games. (But you still should play the previous games because they're great. DA2 is still my fave. Sorry Veilguard, you could not dethrone the king.)

Please look at some pictures of my beautiful Rook before I continue on with my very spoilery commentary below.

( Read more... )

I feel like I could probably go on forever about random stuff as I think about it. This post has already taken two days of poking at it on and off and is way too long so I should probably just wrap it up. If you read all this you should probably get an award or something. I don't even want to re-read it to proofread lol.

But I would love to hear other people's thoughts on the game, good or bad! I have to catch up on the reading list so if you already posted your thoughts I am on my way 👀