Wherein one Hex Flareheart, amateur writer and possessor of entirely too many characters, resides.
I currently write immortalsorcery and morsstellae, which are sideblogs of this one; if you're an RP blog and this account followed you, that'd be why!
This is long overdue, as I've been meaning to make this, for... checks date literally 10 months. I'm gonna go through the categories I use, what they refer to, and what tags are used for them, and then under a cut I'll go more into what certain specified details mean, mainly relevant to shows, comics, and games.
The Categories
In general, I group the things I review into "Movies", "Shows", "Comics", and "Games". These are mostly self-explanatory, but I'll get into the details hence:
Movies are fairly self-explanatory, and I don't feel any particular need to clarify anything on this.
Shows includes any recurring audiovisual experience that doesn't otherwise fall under the banner of movie, including those that may be associated with other terms first, such as anime.
Comics includes both traditional western comics, manga, and webcomics.
Games includes anything that can conceivably be fit under the umbrella of "video game", whether it's purchasable or not.
Generally everything I review will fall under one of these four categories, but may also be subcategorized in the tags where I feel it's appropriate, such as with notable subcategories (anime under shows, for example) or recurring reviews for works within the same franchise (such as Pokemon).
Each category has its own tag, as well as my overall reviews being tagged alike. The tags for each category can be found on relevant posts, but for convenience, here's the full list:
"hex reviews things" is the general tag for my reviews
"hex reviews movies" is the general tag for movies
"hex reviews shows" is the general tag for shows
"hex reviews comics" is the general tag for comics
"hex reviews games" is the general tag for games
None of these tags are probably surprising.
Next I'll get into some of the general details of how I review things, mostly the auxiliary details I provide at the start of reviews (for everything except movies). For the sake of post length, these'll go under a cut.
The Deets
I have a standard format I try to keep to for the header of reviews; the title, a silly quote relevant to the review, and then a block of information about what I'm reviewing. What exactly is included in this will vary depending on what I'm reviewing, so let's get into specifics:
All Reviews
All reviews will include a line specifying whether or not I recommend what I'm reviewing; this will typically be a yes or no, but may sometimes include a bit of clarification, or sometimes me just screaming. I do color-code these; green and blue are both unambiguous yeses, with the latter being an especially enthusiastic yes, while yellow is used for recommendations that come with a significant asterisk. Orange and red are used for no. There's theoretically a rare and elusive purple, but this may wind up never being seen, as it's hard to get me to be that enthusiastic about something.
This particular detail is the only thing present in the information block for movie reviews, as there's not really a whole lot worth clarifying otherwise.
Shows & Comics
Being explicitly serialized media, these actually have a lot in common, so most of the details to be clarified in the information block are shared between the two.
The big thing for these types of media is Structure. Specifically of the narrative kind. In general, I categorize shows and comics' narrative structure in four ways:
Episodic refers to shows/comics in which individual installments are largely self-contained; outside of the occasional storyline that covers a couple consecutive episodes/issues/strips, these have no overarching narrative structure to speak of. There might be an occasional call-back, there might be some mild changes season-to-season, but there's otherwise no real sense of continuity.
Continuous refers to shows/comics that have a conscious sense of continuity, and have actual overarching narrative storylines, usually built over individual seasons/runs. There might be more episodic-style hijinks thrown into the mix here and there, but the story is mostly continuous and rolling constantly.
Semi-Continuous is a weirder category; this specifically refers to shows and comics that are distinct hybrids between Episodic and Continuous, featuring a large amount of episodic content but also moving the status quo on a semi-regular basis. This is mostly relevant for shows, as a lot of cartoons will often start like this.
Epic is Continuous on steroids. These are shows/comics with one long, continuous story, with a very specific endgame. This isn't just long things (though that is one of the criteria I use), but also things that have one consistent, defined story from start to finish. Continuity is very important.
These of course are not necessarily rigid categories, and often a show or comic will start with one structure and transition into another; as mentioned under Semi-Continuous, this happens a lot with cartoons, which may start as Semi-Continuous and transition later into proper Continuous. I'll usually note if something like this happens.
There are two other relevant things to this: Format and Paid. Format is moreso relevant for comics, but it's generally distinguishing between web media and non-web media. This is also where "Paid" comes in; if it's paid, I'll specify details about it, and if it's not, you'll just see "free". If it's on TV primarily, it counts as paid, even if it's technically available for free via an antenna.
I will also usually specify Length, in whatever format is relevant for the specific work; if it's ongoing, I'll also specify that.
Games
This is where things get more complicated; for games I specify four main things: Genre, Platform, Price, and Length.
Genre is fairly self-explanatory; it's what genre I feel most fits the bill for whatever this game is. Generally I go with whatever the common consensus on that particular game is.
Platform is a bit more nuanced; for this I specify what baseline platforms the game is officially available for. Platforms that are technically available through backwards compatibility are not counted. For PC, I generally try to specify what operating systems the game is available for; if I just specify PC, assume it's only available for Windows. This is unfortunately a very common thing. I will however generally mention if the game runs well on Steam Deck, with a link to the game's ProtonDB page.
Price is exactly what you think it is: what the price for the game is officially, as of when I reviewed it. This is always in USD. I will usually just specify the price, but I may add in other details, such as relevant DLC, or a snide remark about how games shouldn't cost $70. For free games, I will specify whether the game has secondary monetization such as microtransactions, and to what extent they exist.
Finally, Length is just a rough guess at how long a single playthrough will take. This is usually based on my own playtime as of when I wrote the review, assuming I actually kept track properly. Notably, a "single playthrough" constitutes going from the start of the game to the end; I don't include postgame content or replayability in this estimate, but will specify an additional estimate if it's relevant. For roguelikes and similar, this will instead be how long a typical run takes; for continuously-operated games such as MMOs, this will typically be omitted.
The Fancy Number at the End
Final thing to talk about: my final ratings. It bears noting that the numbers I specify should not be taken too seriously. I'm just one guy with some fairly specific preferences; I tend to be very verbose with my reviews precisely because I think my actual outlook on the details is more important and useful than the actual number on the end. Accordingly, the final rating should only be taken as a rough gauge of how I personally feel about the piece of media I'm reviewing.
That said, I do have some mild criteria about how I assign the numbers:
I am theoretically willing to hand out 0's, however this is pretty much reserved for things I loathe with every fiber of my being.
1-2 is, as you'd expect, bottom of the pile. I really don't like this thing.
3-4 is for things I personally dislike, but not strongly enough to outright condemn.
5-6 are average. Usually I have no strong opinion either way, or I have a strong opinion one way that's hampered by a lot of caveats.
7-8 are what I genuinely consider good; 7s are appreciated, 8s are well-liked, but in either case it's not necessarily a strong appreciation. (If it is, I have multiple caveats attached to it.)
9 is for things I really like. Anything that earns a 9 from me is something I have a strong appreciation for, and usually comes with relatively minimal asterisks.
10 is illustrious; if something somehow earns a 10, as far as I care it's one of the greatest things I've ever experienced, no notes. This is not something I hand out lightly, and in fact as of writing I haven't given anything a 10 yet. No, Pizza Tower doesn't count, I've retroactively revoked its 10. Anything that warrants an asterisk (beyond things like trigger warnings) doesn't get a 10. End of story.
As noted, I'm very stringent about handing out 10s, and it is very likely you won't see many at all. Also as noted, don't take these numbers as gospel; they're heavily-generalized statements of my opinion.
Notably, for shows and comics, I may include multiple ratings for different portions of their runs. This will usually be by season or by arc. (For example, for Symphogear you might see me rate by season, with something like an 8, an 8, a 6, an 8, and a 9.)
being disabled and unemployed isn't contributing to society but joining the military is? going abroad to brutalise people for imperial interests is?? maybe that society isn't worth anything
pop health science is so annoying bc it'll be like "did you know? eating strawberries will give you mega cancer" and you're like pfft whatever begone influencer. but sometimes then you'll see a reasonably credible article like "Study Shows Possible Link Between Strawberries and Mega Cancer" and you're not usually the type to follow that kind of thing religiously but idk maybe you should consider not eating strawberries? but then there's another article saying "Strawberry/Mega Cancer Study Debunked" and it turns out the original study had a sample size of 3 and was funded by Big Blueberry, and strawberries may have a small connection to mega cancer but only if you are genetically predisposed to mega cancer and eat 50 strawberries every day. so you return to your strawberry eating life. but whenever you eat strawberries in public someone tells you about the mega cancer.
"rickrolling is mean" rickrolling is the gentle, kind, prosocial descendant of what we used to do on the internet, which was putting a redirect to goatse in every possible misspelling of a url
in hindsight, growing up as an aromantic person who didn't know aromanticism was a thing...it woulda been really easy for me to assume that something was wrong with me, that I was "broken" or "missing" some piece of humanity.
luckily I was autistic, oblivious, and had a huge ego. it literally never occurred to me to frame it as a "me" problem. i just thought every single person i knew was a dumbass
Junko didn’t think anything seemed out of the ordinary when Madoka finally told her that she and Sayaka were dating. If anything, Junko was a tad surprised it took her daughter this long to get together with the bluenette. Sayaka proclaimed Madoka her wife basically every other day, and even when they were kids, she had decided that she would make Madoka her bride one day. Not to mention, in Junko’s opinion, Sayaka was often a far bit too close to Madoka for someone who Madoka would see as just a friend. Not to mention, Madoka would still manage to blush every single time Sayaka declared it, even making Sayaka pinky promise that they’ll get married one day. It was so ridiculously obvious; Madoka would often even tell the other girl that she wished Sayaka would stop spending so much time their other friends and focus only on her. It also seemed something had changed recently. Madoka had always sent looks to Sayaka that Junko could at worst describe as ridiculously affectionate; lately, though, there was almost an edge to them, like the idea of having Sayaka away from her was a scary thought. Had something happened? Regardless, Junko was happy for her daughter; having someone as determined and protective as Sayaka by her side was good for her daughter; she was more than happy for her.
Junko was a tad surprised when Madoka introduced one Akemi Homura to her for the first time. Even more surprising was that Madoka was apparently also dating this girl. Junko wasn’t very happy that this was the first she was hearing about her, but she seemed like she had a good head on her shoulders. Madoka seemed to adore her, and it was clear as day that even the short responses Homura gave Madoka were so obviously filled with such utter love that it was almost too bright to look at. Madoka beamed at basically every single thing Homura said. And the way Homura would hesitantly reach out only to be grabbed by Madoka was soooo cute. Junko hadn’t expected her daughter to be the one to take the lead in a relationship. Still, she couldn’t help but smile with maybe slightly sadistic glee as she gave this girl the typical grilling every parent has the right to do. Of course, that meant asking where she lived and what her parents’ contact information was. She wasn't expecting to hear that Homura was living alone and that she hadn’t had contact with her parents for years. That stimulated Junko’s motherly instincts to the point that she had to hold herself back from immediately giving her the Kaname house contact info and promising that if she ever needed a parent to talk to or needed anything, to just give them a call. Junko couldn’t imagine how difficult living like that was, without any kind of family by her side.
Junko was starting to get concerned when Madoka introduced one Tomoe Mami as her girlfriend. At the very least, Junko knew who she was. Madoka had told her that she’d been going over to her home quite a few times. And she would always return home with a basket of freshly baked pastries and an adorable “Mama, look at what Mami made for me!” Junko was now realizing that those weren’t just friendly gifts. Madoka even brought them over to Mami’s to have dinner one night. The conversation they had was delightful even if they were interputed every few seconds when Mami would greet Madoka with a soft, warm expression that was filled with so much love. Every single time Madoka would just turn beet red and giggle. Junko was glad Madoka was dating someone who was seemingly so proper and capable. Junko adored Sayaka, but the girl was indeed a bit reckless, and Homura seemed like a very nice girl, but Junko still had her doubts. Junko couldn’t help but ask if Mami’s mother was into interior design; the entire apartment was beautiful, if maybe still slightly youthful. That was when Mami told her that she had picked out everything herself. Junko was very surprised that her parents allowed her to design the entire apartment herself; that was until Mami hesitantly told her that she had lost her parents in a car accident a couple of years ago. Once again, Junko felt that protective urge. Instead, she reined herself in just barely and settled with telling Mami that her door is always open if she ever needs something.
Junko was convinced that her daughter had a type when Madoka introduced one Sakura Kyoko as her girlfriend. Sayaka now seemed much more like the exception than the rule. Junko did have to admit it was very cute when the harsh expression the redhead wore melted instantly whenever Madoka spoke to her. She went from looking like a mean fox to a blushing schoolgirl whenever Madoka would wrap herself around Kyoko’s arm and lay her head on Kyoko’s shoulder. But still, she hadn’t expected her daughter to bring home a delinquent. Like Homura, she had a duty to make sure this girl was right for her daughter. Especially when this one seemed quite... rough around the edges. Tatsuya seemed to like her a lot at the very least, and despite being a toddler, her son was a very good judge of character. Still, she had to grill her all the same, though she had to make Madoka leave the room since it seemed that Madoka would stop Kyoko’s entire train of thought just by squeezing her hand encouragingly. It really took the fun out of the whole thing. She asked many things: how Kyoko met Madoka, what her intentions were with her; she had heard in passing that Kyoko wasn’t attending school; was that true, what about her parents? Junko, much to her dismay, could honestly say she wasn’t very surprised when Kyoko had told her that she didn’t have any family left. She didn’t go into details, but the point was made. The subject of school would be an issue for another day, and unfortunately the girl gave dodgy answers whenever Junko asked her about her living situation. But while Kyoko did seem rough, she also seemed to truly care incredibly deeply both for her daughter and the girls that made up the rest of their... polycule? That’s what their generation called it nowadays, right? Either way, that was more than enough for her. Still, Kyoko’s last name sounded eerily familiar to the point it bugged her. It wasn’t until she googled her that evening that the pieces clicked into place when she stumbled upon a new article about the Sakura family church. Junko couldn’t restrain herself any longer. The next day, she asked Madoka if she could tell her red-haired girlfriend that if she’d like to spend the night, she was more than welcome to and that they should work on getting her a phone.
Junko was certain Madoka had a type. Junko really hoped Sayaka was an exception, because now Junko was very concerned about the well-being of Sayaka’s parents.
It's always fun when an author claims their work contains no politics, because either they're blatantly lying, or they genuinely think they're telling the truth and you get a lot of insight into what assertions about human nature they regard as so obviously and self-evidently true as to lie outside the political sphere.
(Yoinked this from LinkedIn, genuinely interested in seeing how responses align with demographics) (so far it’s those of us over 35 being indignant but I wanna see how those fully plays out) (it’s cultural and technological history/memory, bruh)
I would actually go as far as to say that MOST abuse is unintentional. I think most people will go through their lives without ever experiencing intentional abuse. People are abusive because they're selfish, because they're stressed, because they care more about what society thinks they should do than the impacts of their actions on their children and partners, because they think what they're doing is correct, because they've made it make sense in their own heads, because they think they can fix their victims, they think they can fix their relationships, they think they can stop you from leaving, they think they can make you a better partner to them, they think that means you need to do what they want. We've sort of constructed mental illness in a way that doing this shit to other people counts as a form of mental illness because it is anti social behavior in the literal sense— it is behavior that causes social harm.
I don't say any of this to excuse it. I think everyone needs to be more aware of this because if you think abuse has to be intentional you will never realize you are capable of abusive behavior. You will never realize you are being shitty to the people you love, because YOU know what you mean, YOU know you don't mean any harm. But you're doing harm. You need to pay attention to the impact you have on other people, and you need to do it all the time, Especially when you feel least capable of doing so. Sorry! You live in a society. Get your head out of your ass.
I mean, in some very interesting Technically Correct ways, they didn't actually die? Now, they're very much no longer alive. But the forces involved are such that they didn't get any of the usual cellular processes of death, they simply went from biology to physics in less time than it takes a signal to travel down your optic nerve.
I feel like the oceangate incident is one of the only times you can accurately describe people as getting “unalived”. like “death” doesn’t seem like quite the right word for what happened to those guys but they sure as hell are Not Alive
A lot of tumblr discourse can be boiled down to people's inability to hold two different things as being true at the same time and not understanding that others can very well have had entirely different experiences that lead to what might seem like an outsized response to you but is a lot more reasonable from their perspective
Example: society is extremely focused on sex, gives it an outsized value and treats a lack of desire as suspect if not downright a sign of inferiority. despite that, sexuality is also aggressively punished and considered a sign of degeneracy. These things are both true, it's not like the existence of one cancels out the other, and which of these sides someone suffer the most from heavily depends on who you are or on the context.
But on Tumblr you get people from both sides arguing with each other as if they're superimposing the entire societal force they have a problem with on the other person and it's super annoying because there's literally no winning this. everyone has their reasons for dislking how things are and dismissing each other's reasons as irrelevant helps no one.
It's fine to dislike sex, to have had enough about it being pushed everywhere, to be tired of how much it's overvalued. it's understandable if some people developed a strong annoyance towards constant sex scenes in movies and tv shows and whatever because I understand having had enough of having a lifestyle focused on sexuality first and foremost pushed down on you all the time. But there's literally no way to argue for this that doesn't make you sound like a puritan, let alone enforce it, and dismissing art because it's sexual and believing it can't have any value is not just wrong but also groups you with a lot of fascists and conservatives in general. You need to understand that for a lot of people being able to express sexuality is freeing and important.
But going around constantly making a scene and laughing at people that don't care about sex in movies and going "do you people even enjoy anything" and in general acting as if all of them must have an inferior understanding of art is also not great! it sure as hell isn't particularly anti-conformist. we already have enough assholes going on about how sexuality elevates movies to Real Cinema and how You Can't Make Real Art if You Aren't Horny and how Sexual Passion is the Origin of all that is Good in the World and how movies without that desire are cold and soulless and that everyone who doesn't get it must be brainwashed by religion. You aren't the underdog Fighting the ultimate battle to protect good art for pushing back against some minority of Tumblr users who clearly are just all Catholics and Immature People who for some inexplicable reason developed a distaste for the awesome badass adult scenes as if their side has no greater societal force they're clashing against. You aren't going to solve the crackdown on adult content on the internet by shitting on all the teenagers and random people in general who have a complex or weird relationship to sex. Many of them got so weird about it explicitly because their little blog might be the only place they have to express that annoyance.
It's important to note that Chekhov's Gun was not originally about foreshadowing, but a piece of advice to playwrights about how every element in a play should have narrative relevance. The corollary to Chekhov's Gun is that if a gun mounted on the wall in act 1 is never used at all in the entirety of the play, then it should be omitted from the play entirely.
Very funny example of writing advice that is very specific to its medium getting overapplied outside its scope. Can you imagine how awful set design would be if people tried to apply this to movies. 60 minute post credits scene in the Matrix where Neo has to fire every gun that appears in the "lots of guns" scene
The thing about death of the author is I don't think you can apply it in ignorance. It's a deliberate choice you make. If you choose to reject the author's intent and substitute your own, you must first acknowledge what the author's intent was, and that means rejecting it says something about you. For a specific but nonspecific example, if you see a character that the author intends to be read as a transgender woman, and you go looking for a possible alternate interpretation... that's not a meaningless choice. Why are you rejecting that reading? What kind of person would?
The rise of overly dark Magical Girl shows, which contain suffering for no other purpose than to display said suffering, largely stems from a complete misunderstanding of what Madoka was, and what made it great.
Madoka spends two and a half episodes setting up a happy, cheerful, Magical Girl show, and then spends eight and a half episodes rejecting that premise, showing that hope only leads to despair, that a wish will lead to a curse, that things cannot fundamentally improve, and that trying to make things better will only bring suffering upon yourself and others. This is what derivative "tragical girl" shows were about; the suffering of young women for its own sake, as if that was the point of Madoka, as if the suffering was the entire point.
The last episode, however, has Madoka herself rejecting the show's entire premise. She's told hope leads to despair, and exclaims "If someone says it's wrong to have hope, I will tell them they're wrong every single time.". She's told that the very foundation of the universe leads to suffering being inherent, constant, and that the only thing one can do is to endure said suffering as long as one can bear, before falling to despair and inflicting the suffering one has experienced unto others; she's told that any wish will become a curse, yet ends the show saying "All those Magical Girls who held onto their hopes and fought against witches, I don't want to see them cry—I want them to stay smiling until the end. If any rule or law stands in my way, I will destroy it. I will rewrite it. That is my wish, that is my prayer.""
Walpurgisnacht had been set up as the most terrible witch to ever exist up until that point, and the viewer had been led to believe they'd fight to the death against it, and inevitably lose—as a Magical Girl seemingly always does in the Madoka universe. Madoka does not fight her, Madoka shows compassion, simply stating "It's okay. It's okay now, you don't have to hate anyone anymore, you don't have to curse anyone anymore. I'll go back, before you took that form, and shoulder that burden for you". There was no fight, and Madoka simply took on her despair, as she took on everyone else's, allowing them to once again have hope.
That's why the ending of that silly meduka meguca copypasta does make me cry every time; we pray, never to forget, that being Meguca was suffering. It's not anymore, there are struggles, but there always are in life; the Magical Girls who held wishes in their hearts prevailed against the very concept of the show, with the ending showing that you can make the world a better place through love, compassion, and the power of a wish. The twist in Madoka Magica isn't episode 3, where the first explicit death is shown—it's in episode 12, in which it shows itself to have been a completely normal Magical Girl show all along.
