not today or tomorrow

I don't acquire commissions nearly as often as I could, mostly due to the Mortifying Ordeal of Deciding What You Want And Then Asking It Of Another Human Person. Horrendous! What if I just threw myself very dramatically onto a sword instead.

Fortunately I managed to get over myself long enough to commission an artist I've admired for a long time; though she mostly does Destiny work, it was her Pillars of Eternity art that inspired me, and I now have a gorgeous portrait of Neus :) One of the game's fun quirks is it allows you to upload custom portraits, so I no longer have to settle for the generic pre-builts and can instead enjoy all the fungal, sharp-toothed glory that once only lived inside my head. The downside is I am spending too much time staring at the character page.

I also just today 'purchased' an adorable little ficlet from dear Nem for the price of a donation to a raptor centre, as part of her 'Horizon Day of Service' - Shepard/Jack/Shiala in the same pocket universe as this fic. They are deeply weird and I love the way Nem packs in the xenobiology.

Apropos of nothing in particular, a smattering of various gen fics much enjoyed.

Title: Empty Outline
Author: bobafret
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Summary: 'Alpha-71 just wants Jango Fett to notice him. Even if it's for the wrong reasons.'
Rec: A ruthless glimpse into the lives and emotional turmoils of some of the Alpha clones in their youth. I particularly love their fragmented connection with Mandalorian culture, not to mention Jango himself.

Title: Balaenoptera levante
Author: bioluminesce
Fandom: Dishonored 2: DOTO
Summary: 'The creature sailors prayed to, the red at night and red in the morning, sat in front of her looking faintly seasick.'
Rec: Probably the most satisfying epilogue to DOTO I could hope for. Atmospheric enough to smell the salt.

Title: Raindrops on Roses
Author: Ghostinthehouse
Fandom: Finisterre: The Nighthorses
Summary: 'Scenes from Jennie's first year as a rider.'
Rec: A sweet trio of moments with lots of lovely little worldbuilding details.

Title: A Paper Wall
Author: Amicitia Revenant
Fandom: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003)
Summary: 'Following Karai's destruction of the second Lair, and Leo's return from Japan, the Turtles must find a way to rebuild their home and their family.'
Rec: The unusual narrative format took me a chapter or two to get used to, but i ended up finding it very effective. Great emotional catharsis for characters and readers alike.

singedsun made a post about video game music recommendations that I've been idly thinking about ever since, so I might as well do something about that. (As well as wholeheartedly second their recommendations of the Kentucky Route Zero and The Last of Us soundtracks!)

My personal predilections lean towards grand cinematic orchestrals. I love string music, strong drumlines, and harmonies. I enjoy drama, and melodrama, and exhilarating high stakes, and I appreciate it when the music takes me there as fully as the storyline does. It does unfortunately mean I unironically enjoy watching trailers, but at least that adds some extra value to my movie tickets.

The soundtracks most likely to stick in my mind thus tend to belong to the big games: Mass Effect, tapping into classic space opera; Dragon Age: Inquisition, valiantly striving to stay somewhere to the left of LotR; Halo, knocking my socks off since I was thirteen years old and my brother and I were making a solemn pact never to start the game until we'd let the main theme run through on the menu screen at least once. Curiously, though, it was Halo 4 that most often had me pausing in the midst of the playing to listen with interest. Belly of the Beast, Arrival, and To Galaxy are a nice sampling of Neil Davidge's take on the franchise. I wouldn't necessarily argue he had the more distinct sound, but there were some very striking melodies in there that I guess just worked for me.

Similarly, I seem to find myself preferring Destiny 2's OST to the first, and it's become a regular go-to if I need some background music at work. Inner Light is the central theme and deservedly so, while Journey is a melancholy counterpart to the sense of loss as you flee the sanctuary that early players will have called home for two years, before building to something more battle-ready. I really enjoy a lot of the gentler tunes as well, though: The Farm, Ikora, Holliday. And the best Destiny song of course remains Deathsinger Dirge. (Do not actually listen to that if you're easily startled.)

Outside of the blockbuster games, you get less of the orchestras but more room for unique twists. Sunless Sea, for example, is a game that for long stretches can involve very little but holding one's finger down on a single key; what makes this level of patient grinding tolerable is the visual and audio aesthetic. It's dark nautical if dark nautical were actually a genre, the sound of sailing on waters full of deep and hungry horrors, and it is a startling shift to breach a new region and suddenly get hit with a sound like Infernal in alarming contrast to the comforting familiarity of home waters. A nod must also be made to Hull is Other People for giving me a good chuckle when I first saw its title.

Oxenfree actually incorporates the background music into the gameplay in a way I found simple but really effective. It's not a soundtrack I would choose to listen to in the car, exactly, but it's a strong complement to the bright neon teen weirdness of the game and, like Sunless Sea, helps keeps things interesting in the slower moments of a storyline that is more about exploring and conversing than combat or puzzles.

And then there is Inside, whose soundtrack is of a flavour so subtle that it mostly does not exist, but deserves a mention solely because the composer recorded it from inside a human skull… which I can't even argue isn't a great addition to the metaphor. It's fascinating because ambient noise comprises most of the audio atmosphere throughout Inside, but it means when music does kick in, a tiny handful of notes end up having almost treble the impact. The interplay of absence and sudden, throbbing presence makes for a very lonely, oppressive experience overall.

Finally: it's not quite a soundtrack song, but I listened to Plasma3Music Remix's take on the Uncharted 4 variant of Nate's theme very nearly on constant delirious repeat during the final weeks of my post-grad. You'd expect there to be some negative associations but, no, I'm still fond.

A santa-stocking assortment of recs from this year, because that sounds like fun.

Fic

Battle of Eagles by wordswithout
Assassin's Creed; 203,290 words; Altair/Malik; pre- and post-canon

This has to be the stand-out since I've read it right through twice this year and still have not actually played this game. (Though I did end up buying Black Flag on sale just to give the franchise some kind of a go at long last.) The first fic in the duology is set pre-game, following Malik as he flees his burning home with his brother as a child, falls in with the Assassin Brotherhood, and slowly becomes entwined with Altair as both are raised and trained in Masyaf. The second picks up with the pair post-game, and diverges slightly from canon to tell the story of the Mongol encroachment and a threat that grows from within. It's ferociously well-researched and detail rich, with the kind of pacing and compelling character development that proves why slowburns are such a lusted-after crown jewel in the fanfic world.

Warnings for series-typical violence (including some quite gory descriptions of torture), explicit sexual content, historical racism and homophobia, and a relationship one cannot really call healthy.

ain't nobody left can sing the blues by Sorrel
Killjoys; 13,931 words; Dutch/D'avin; between seasons 2 and 3

This fic has been slightly jossed since it was written, but it's so good that who cares, really? Dutch, D'avin, and Fancy Lee try to get a workable routine going following the events of the season two finale. Absolutely killer dialogue won me over in seconds.

No warnings needed that I can think of? Grief, a little?

To Have and to Hold by Traincat
Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, 2586 words, May Parker/Olivia Octavius; mostly crack

Remember how Otto Octavius nearly married May Parker in the comics? This writer sure did. Laugh out loud funny, and I still haven't found a writer who nails Peter's voice like Traincat does.

No warnings needed unless you're really disturbed by two mature women making out.

Vidya

The Silent Age by House On Fire
A side-scroller puzzle game of the old King's Quest ilk. Neither too long nor too complicated, and the puzzle solutions did better at being logical than some games I've played. A solid narrative and an endearingly kind dumbass of a protagonist helped make a lasting impression. Great filler game between the 60 hour commitments of the AAA monstrosities.

The Stanley Parable by Davey Wreden
Are there people out there who don't know about the Stanley Parable? I have to assume so given I was one. To explain it is to take away from the experience, so - experimental, philosophical, extremely simple to play but extremely weird to do. Also an excellent low commitment option.

The Outer Worlds by Obsidian Entertainment
A 60 hour commitment - but a really fun one! You are a colonist who has arrived 70 years late, and a mad scientist has popped you out of the freezer life because he wants to help rescue the rest of your fellow popsicles. Alas, during your long slumber the corporate-run colonies have devolved into satirical high capitalism chaos, and navigating the twisted social structures will evoke some "oh, too close to home" winces. Great flexibility in terms of character creation and play-style; worldbuilding that isn't as fresh and original as Fallout once was but still sparkles; really pretty planet designs! One downside of note: first-person is your only option.

Music

Waterbound by Dirk Powell
Spotify's roundup declared Dirk Powell my favourite artist of the year, which was extremely funny because this is the only song of his I've ever listened to. But I am real fond of it. Folksy and poetic.

1955 by Hilltop Hoods
Driving around with co-workers has done wonders for broadening my musical horizons, and this has become something of my personal theme for the town I'm now living in. It's cute, it's boppy, and Montaigne's handling of the chorus makes it a stand-out.

Strawberry Blonde by Mitski
Did I stumble onto this song via a Moomin animatic? Maybe. Do I wish the rest of Mitski's music was more like this one? Kinda!

Singularity by Darlingside
Gentle, melancholy apocalypse.

Creation of Earth by Thomas Bergersen
Another gorgeous instrumental by one half of the Two Steps From Hell team. The melody that kicks in the second half is the part that really hit me in the heart c: You can feel the celebration of life in it!

syntheid  alerted me to the fact that on DW there apparently survives a tiny fandom for The Invisible Man, a short-lived television series from the early 2000s that charmed my younger self with the quirky characters, fantastical action plots, and occasionally witty dialogue in spite of (or, let's be honest here, because of?) the extreme hokeyness.

In honour of this I'm going to dig deep into some ancient bookmarks for my first rec post, featuring three I-Man fics I still find enjoyable to this day.

Title: Catholic Agency Boys in Trouble
Author: Helena Handbasket
Wordcount: 45,237
Summary: Darien and Bobby go undercover at a remote Catholic School where things are, shockingly, not what they seem.
Comments: A well-written story featuring an appropriately ridiculous plot and ridiculously appropriate banter. Content warning for being dated (nothing grievous, but if you remember your average show from this era then you should know what I mean when I say the attitude towards women is, eh, okay) and for a plot involving discussion and demonstration of eighteen year old girls behaving sexually in discomfiting contexts. It's plot-relevant but if that's a hot button then now you know.

Title: Quietly Screaming
Author: aces
Wordcount: 3,014
Summary: Shit's rough. Set in season 2 when Darien starts developing a counteragent immunity. 
Comments: A solid oneshot on QSM. Content warning for suicidal ideation.

Title: From Having Died
Author: moonchild2584
Wordcount: 3,588
Summary: Hobbes gets some closure. A post-series AU where the cure didn't work.
Comments: Sappy but sweet. Content warning for past euthanasia.