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.)
So I wound up picking up Wuthering Waves, because Edgerunners is legitimately one of my favorite anime and I am sometimes an astonishingly easy mark, and there's a layer to it that's really funny.
My history with gacha games is... not limited, but they're very bad at retaining me and generally I avoid them like the plague. As it stands the list of ones I've meaningfully played is not particularly long:
Granblue Fantasy (c. 2019)
Arknights (c. 2020, was actually a day 1 player)
Disgaea RPG, briefly
Symphogear XDU, briefly
Magia Record, briefly
Honkai: Star Rail (c. Penacony, I guess?)
Zenless Zone Zero (Early but not day 1)
Arknights: Endfield (Day 1)
Wuthering Waves (c. literally yesterday)
Of these, Granblue and OG Arknights are the only ones that have gotten more than a couple months out of me- HSR, ZZZ, and Endfield got 1~2 months. Wuwa I literally just started.
I went into Endfield without much experience with modern gachas outside of my brief times with HSR and ZZZ- I hadn't played Genshin (no I'm not fixing that), I technically played Honkai 3rd once upon a time but that was eons ago and, again, extremely brief.
I have no shortage of complaints about Endfield, and a lot of them fundamentally have to do with it feeling like a substantially less deep experience than the game whose name it borrows. Its strategic depth is lacking by comparison, the roster is significantly narrower, the monetization is worse by a significant margin, and to top it all off as someone who actually plays factory games, the AIC is... underwhelming would be being nice to it. It is "baby's first automation game" in multiple senses.
Having spent some time with Wuwa now, something hilarious has happened with my opinion of Endfield- it's actually gotten worse. Because, uh, I mentioned that I haven't played Genshin, and have no intentions of fixing that. I know enough about Wuwa to know that it pretty heavily apes Genshin in several aspects. I also know that Wuwa predates Endfield's release by about a year and a half- certainly long enough to influence it.
Which means that as I see things that are near bit-for-bit, swing-for-swing identical to things that I have complaints about in Endfield, I now have a very easily traceable path of lineage, and also evidence that Endfield is aping Hoyoslop. Whether directly or indirectly!
This has actually made my opinion of Endfield go from "it's fine, I have gripes but it's fine" to "I actually kinda dislike you now". Through no direct action of Endfield. That's both hilarious and a little infuriating!
Comic #355 : Chronic pain is isolating - Website links here ~
Here's a comic for the spoonies, the suffering and the lonesome. Let's take ibuprofen together 🐻💊 That's right it's a double length comic! I had a lot to say that wouldn't fit in 4 panels 🥲
At the end of the day, my thoughts on job hunting are that it's incredibly stupid how every fiber of our current socioeconomic structure is screaming that you MUST have a job and nothing else matters because you MUST be working and that's the only thing of true importance so never forget that you MUST have a job, and I'm like damn okay so I'd like a job, can I have one? And the answer is No
Just watched Adam Conover (of Adam Ruins Everything) make such a solid point that I think we should spread far and wide. Yes, having AI write your emails is lazy, sure, but people love being lazy. We need to really emphasize that sending AI emails (or using AI responses on social media, or publishing AI flyers, or or or) is rude.
It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.
you can say "writing a genderbend manga doesnt make someone an egg" but then theyll say some shit like "to become a girl who is loved by girls is the desire of all humanity" like ok. come on
Okay I know it's an old thing everyone's seen a million times, but...
I really do love it when a character gets to safety after some grueling experience they survived and got out of by their own strength and skill and cunning, and... then gets drastically worse very rapidly afterwards. Just utterly collapsing, sick, out of strength, in so much pain, hardly able to get out of bed without help, probably emotionally an utter mess too
Because they've just been pushing their body on and on, to its limits and past, because they had to, because it was up to them to deal with it all, there was no help, no back-up, nothing to rely on but themself. So their mind and body have just burned up all the reserves and endured it all as best as possible, they've held together until they got out of that situation
But now that they're finally safe, their body recognizes it. Now that they're finally safe they no longer need to endure more, they no longer need to keep anything together, to push the pain and exhaustion aside and refuse to feel it in order to go on. They're finally safe to stop all of that. And so- they collapse. All of it catches up with them all at once, and they have no optipn to keep it at bay anymore, they just have to feel it. Have to suffer the consequences of all the injuries, exhaustion, whatever illness they might've picked up, whatever's going on
And they just feel so miserable and weak and vulnerable and tired, and have no real option but to allow whoever's around to care for them and deal with everything while they recover
Look I don't really care for AI. I'm scared about the increasing over-reliance on tools like chatgpt and Ai assist that repeatedly give flawed or false information, I reject the promise of AI writers and actors that might infect mainstream art. But like...y'all need to change the way you look at this stuff for real. So much popular anti-AI language is so abstracted from any material reality and human truth, making up slurs for Ai bots like that's a normal thing to do, wantonly accusing artists of using Ai like a witch hunt, and talking about the human element of art supplanted by AI in very Christian terms, calling it "sacred" or coming from the soul. You don't have to like AI, but I really encourage you to examine how you feel about it and what it's been making you say. Cause it's apparently making you say ethnic slurs
Should've known this post would've conjured people defending their right to repurpose real life racist pejoratives to talk about chatbots or whatever. Like is that not crazy to anybody else? That so many white liberals are frothing at the mouth to find a socially acceptable reason to put racial slurs on a t shirt at Spencer's?? I'm not even making this up somebody in the tags saw that shit in person what the fuck are we doing anymore
Good luck kid you're in a reverse beauty and beast situation. Do not let that princely motherfucker fall in love with your inner humanity or the spell will fail and you'll turn human again
"it would be so good if it was good" will haunt you but "it's extremely good, except for the one or two parts which are so bad it's genuinely kind of insulting" will straight up drive you insane
one has you making posts like "okay but if the author UNDERSTOOD the POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS of the story they were telling, and leaned into it, it would actually be a really interesting exploration of..."
the other has you pacing your bedroom at one in the morning going "why. why would you ever in a million years do it like that. genuinely what possible thought process was involved. was the writer possessed by a fucking ghost or something."
quirky fourth wall breaking character but theyre just fucking. wrong about the medium theyre in. they keep making references to cinematic techniques and directorial styles and the other fourth wall breaking character is like "dumbass we're in a fucking comic book" and they are in a video game.
Ultimately, she spent 20 hours redoing the copy from scratch — and with her $100-per-hour rate, that meant her client was shelling out $2,000 for copy that likely would have ended up being far cheaper had a human just written it in the first place.
