Objective Judgement Calls

• Blood Blockade Battlefront: Basically my first anime. Love the blood based combat. It was a really fun watch, it's by the Trigun guy, and if there's 1 BBB fan on Earth it's me.
• Bungo Stray Dogs: Such a fun anime. Goes well with Blood Blockade Battlefront or Jojo for being urban fantasy, but hot damn. Love that they just have Lovecraft. Obssessed with Sakunosuke Oda and his Flawless ability. Big fan of Osamu Dazai, Akiko Yosano.
• Dungeon Meshi: Absolutely buck-wild world building, it's such a treat. I know Falin's a lesbian but what about my needs for a big chimera lady...
• Frieren: I've never seen such a good piece on grief. Stunning.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood: Finally an anime with strong female characters. Every so often I clap and touch the ground in hopes I've learned alchemy but no dice.
• Inspectre: Loved the big tiddy ghost bitch but the pacing of s2 was so much better for getting a sense of the characters.
• Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Araki's musical/science/fashion hyperfixation shonen. Is it good? Probably not, I'd argue the same bullshit works better in JJK or Bungo Stray Dogs. Is it good, to me? Can I name at least 50% of stands at a moments notice? Has it permanently rewired my brain? Do i have a Jojo wallet and mouse pad? Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!
• Jujutsu Kaisen: Adored season 1. Love that our main boi is host to literally THE big bad, Kugisaki's Resonance is kickass, and hate to say but i'm literally Megumi. The intro OP and ending for s1 is basically my favorite of all time. s2 part 1 and 2 have songs that have finally wormed their way into my head.
• Kaguya-Sama: Love is War: I guess its a romcom. I love the idea of 2 top tier high schoolers who are madly in love but refuse to say it out of pride. They mature a bit so there's obviously less direct fighting but it was always fun to see "result: both lost." I have a couple manga books of it.
• Konosuba: It's like THE isekai parody. I love it to death. I love the party composition of extremely niche high-tier classes managed by one skillmonkey. It's rough that the characters can flanderized outside of the main media - part of the richness of the character is having goals within themselves that are at odds. All the characters are social failures and to associate with one is to miss the point. Understandably, some of my friends don't like it because Kazuma is such a letch some characters can blink to make their tits bounce. I have the light novels.
• Misfit of Demon Academy: Love having a really powerful protag sometimes because the shenanigans and plotting are handled completely separately. He's like 'this teacher is so racist I can't get a straight answer' and he kills and reincarnates heras that race. He's like 'wow cool castle with lots of magic defense but no phsyical defense' so he picks it up and tosses it. The s1 plot of figuring out why no one recognizes him as the Demon King was really fun. The s2 plot of figuring out why the fake Demon King's name belongs to a whole-ass person was more fun in concept than execution. I have a couple manga books of it.
• Mob Psycho 100: Season 1 is perfect. Really neat show about a sheltered gifted kid and his conman mentor doing psychic shenanigans. Broccoli is involved. Yo I watched Season 3 and it totally came back around it is worth watching the perfectly competent Season 2 for a buckwild S3. Aliens are real, the broccoli was actually relevant, and Mob finally makes peace with his powers as not a separate entity to himself.
• My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom: This popularized the villainess Otome subgenre. It's about how a reincarnated girl ends up attracting a mixed gender harem because she's kind and thoughtful as a byproduct of being paranoid. It's a fun watch! I'm looking forward to S3 because i want that return to doom plot (s2 was relationship/worldbuilding). The trope of fighting fate is one I love so much. I have a couple manga books of it.
• Nichijou: Cartoon improv that starts each skit grounded in a mildly quirky environment, and escalates to startlingly effective humor.
• SAIKI KUSUO: Idk why I didn't like it faster, but it's a satire with over-the-top characters where an extremely over-powered character tries to be uninvolved. It's ridiculous and very fun. The dub is great.

• Camel Up!: It's perfect. You're betting at a camel race and don't control the camels directly. Conceptually, it's chaotic and is one of those games that at best can throw off everyone's plans. Really it's ideal.
• Las Vegas (Royale): A fantastic concept of roll dice in hopes of big money, but ties between players cancel. Another one of those heavy chance with some genuine strategy.
• Skull: A fantastic party game - simple, social, stylish. It has basic bluffing but it's worth checking out.
• Jungle Speed: It's like Anomia (also killer) or Ghost Blitz, really great for 6 players or so
• Gloomhaven: It is absolutely one of the best board games. It's a huge box, hundreds of hours of gameplay doing a hex crawl of different places, and it's so so worth the effort.
• Escape: Curse of the Temple: Real time coop. Roll dice literally as fast as possible to move through a temple throwing out gems, gaining curses, sweating under the active sound track.
• Carcassone: Satisfying for how straightforward it is. I love the sheep expansion because it adds the perfect amount of hidden information to make things perfect.
• Luxor: I swear by this as a family game. Every turn is interesting, the board changes a lot, there's a lot of ways to win and plenty that you won't catch. Super balanced despite how much could go on
• A Tale of Pirates: I hate this fucking game. It's so satisfying to interact with the pirate ship and the pieces but it has some of the most unsatisfying mission design for what it's trying to do. It's so bad it's fully latched to my brain until I can rework it.
• Other mentions: Unsettled (beautiful scifi but not fun for me), Santorini (peak game design but it's such a stumper), Azul (really like this one but it's not as high a recommendation), Cockroach Poker (sheer hilarity of social bluffing but you gotta be ready for it), Blood on the Clocktower (it's like if werewolf/town of salem was based ie ran by a DM)

Video Essayists:

• Jacob Geller - example: I'm insane about him. He makes the sickest videos essays.
• DarylTalksGames - example: Extremely thoughtful game analyses with decent pyschology backing. A soothing voice to go with.
• Any Austin - example: Kind of calm and melancholic. Traces rivers and powerlines or rates undetailed places in video games.
• Squampopulous - example: Really good thoughts on plot design (fights, villains, more)
• LocalScriptMan - example: Professional script doctor
• Exurb1a - example: Philosophy and writing. Twists my brain in knots in a horrifying and satisfying way. Uses the word 'said' a lot in dialog, and I really only notice from his enunciation and emphasis. The first video I watched of his was talking about how he living off in the woods won't make you a better writer, on his channel Exurb2a. Also problematic so don't appreciate him too much.
• Hbomberguy - example: As good as they say. An engaging orator.
• PhilosophyTube - example: I had been recommended her channel by youtube for like a while, but when I actually sat down to watch it was way better than I expected.
• Tale Foundry - example: Honestly, it's a fine channel, short videos with usually at least one interesting perspective presented.

Gaming:

• RTGame - example: Also a Daniel, plays games to break them and frustrates everyone along the way. Super genuine.
• DougDoug: Coding + community challenges
• Let's Game It Out: Applies too much time into unimportant game exploits
• SnapCube: You know her from realtime fandubs but she's funny all the time.
• Charborg - example: Ok there's something wrong with this guy, he is a wet rat boy for real
• Minecrafters: MumboJumbo (he has exceptional pacing), Grian, ZedaphPlays (fun inefficiencies in survival), BDoubleO100 (exceptional artist but very funny too), Mysticat (bizarre coding experiments like round pools using armor stands)

Misc:

• Gamemaker's Toolkit - example: A reputable video game analysis channel, which is rare.
• Steve Mould - example: Science Guy
• Works By Design - example: Very strange home engineering.
• I did a thing - example: Significantly more dangerous home engineering.
• Stuff Made Here - example: Oddly satisfying home engineering.
• Simone Giertz: Invention Channel(s)

• VividlyVivi: She does whatever the fuck she wants :) She's funny, she plays really unique games, she's australian. I've made art of her and donated money to drop a sword on stream lmao. She retweets all art of her.
• ImamuraCross: Great voice, immensely talented artist, gives his streams 110%. Responds to pretty much every chat message. Extremely stylish displays, fun redeems/bot commands/voice lines. If you type "oh no" in chat, it will play the Knuckles Oh No sound effect.
• Piffle: Very cozy french emote artist. Definitely a human and not a vampire. I've made many fanarts of her.
• JeanFaymas: Jets is a delightful lil Aussie with a mecha theme.
• PorcelainMaid: Yells all the time, so relatively high energy streams. Extremely funny to watch his streamer friends (like Girl_dm_) get under his skin.
• Girl_DM_: Literally a :3 . She's cheeky, never swears, I feel like her "Terror Tuesday" weekly Thursday event says a lot. Her chat spams panic emotes when she has to step away from the computer. I got really thrown by her villainess model but after reading a lot of villainess Manwa I get it.
• GauntletQueen: A low-poly video game boss with a ton of alt costumes. Fun to watch, has some delightful redeems.
• Other mentions: Nyanners (used to watch a shitton, not so much), Naiyospede (i gave her like 50$ over time but her new model threw me so badly I don't watch her), Merryweather (he's both very cozy and very Yugioh villain), JuniperActias (a workaholic artist but really good vibes)

While this section is a WIP, here's the old content

• Everything Everywhere All At Once: It blew my mind. A great mother-daughter relationship explored through the multiverse.
• Into the Spiderverse/Across the Spiderverse: Actually using the animation medium to do interesting stuff, it was absolutely awesome.
• Videodrome: Dude the vibes are immaculate. It's a really satisfying body horror.
• The Iron Claw: Oh my god the cinematography. Impeccable. The Behind the Bastards episode on the family was pretty cool too.
• I, Tonya: Delicous unreliable narrator
• Stalker: Even for not knowing much about the games/books, it was a really satisfying slowburn.

• Guards! Guards!: My first Discworld book. It was hilarious
• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: It was interesting but ultimately it got too difficult to keep track of why things were happening throughout the 5+1 book trilogy
• Alcatraz vs the Librarians: A family with terrible superpowers (ie arriving late or breaking things) fight some soulless organizers for the good of the free world. The fact they can use their powers so loosely is what makes it kick ass.

• X-Files: The vibes are sooo good, the leads have incredible chemistry.
• Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: It's like a mystery series that was built for me. It's the urban fantasy mystery with luck and fate.
• Halo: One of my friends is convinced it was gonna be a Mass Effect show and I gotta say that tracks. There's only a bit that feels like Halo. Like Halsey.

• Relient K: I grew up with them and they're like my first love.
• COIN: Vibes
• Motherfolk: Also Vibes
• Saint Motel: There songs are so danceable
• Mother Mother: I haven't really listend to their latest album but I actually bought most of their discography
• Barns Courtney: Vibes
• Honorable Mentions: Friday Pilots Club, Young the Giant, Said the Whale, USS, Fuller, Wild Party, Billy Talent

• The Magnus Archives: Fantastic, highly recommend this horror podcast for the extremely unique horror concepts in writing and the excellent voice work. Johnny Sims is incredible for both. I was less interested by the last season per by his own explanation, the more you learn about a mystery the less exciting it is. It starts with a simple set of creepypastas, eventually goes into more of an ongoing story, and eventually you learn enough worldbuilding to know what's going on, which crucially it flips around at the last minute. I don't think it could have been better.
• Behind the Bastards: It's as good as they say. Some of the ones about American corporations/politians/fascism are legitimately disasterous to my mental health, but the Vince McMahon set was fun :)
• Wolf 359: It's decent. Sci-Fi space gothic. Either on or after the 10th episode things pick up to actual plot stuff. The characters are really well constructed and the acting is good. I won't lie there are several elements that will stick with me forever. It's just not an unconditional recommendation like TMA.
• Malevolent: It's spooky. The main character is blind and that gives a fantastic excuse for the voice in his head to narrate the surroundings. I'm pretty sure there's an implication that it's a tabletop rpg because sometimes it sounds like a dice roll sfx plays before he describes a room or listing what's in a desk drawer. The underlying mythological world building is delightful, i'm weak to any media that uses it frankly.
• The World's Greatest Con: Brian has an extremely soothing voice and it was fun to listen to this one.
• Death by Dying: It had an ad in an ending for a different podcast. Very short and a little unsatisfying as a story. Like I love the tongue-in-cheek writing but I think it's just underwhelming. I don't regret it I guess.
• My Brother My Brother and Me: I listened basically from the start to like episode 600. Hit or miss frankly. Not worth listening to all the episodes by any stretch.
• Cool Games Inc.: Yeah it has the ex-polygon sex pest. The content is alright, I did really enjoy the banter. If you want the content just watch the youtube videos, they're frankly the peak of what the podcast offered.

• The Critshow: Monster of the Week. Just absolutely love this one. What caught me immediately was how they play themselves, so pretense of doing something non-optiminally is because it wracked them as a person and they would do it. Really great team work between players and keeper. I got the MotW manual because of them.
• Dungeons and Daddies: DnD. Very rarely a BDSM podcast. Also did Really liked season 1, they did some really good shenanigans. I'd often recommend this one. Season 2 is alright, I appreciate that Anthony is making it weirder because that seems to me what he enjoys.
• The Unexplored Places: MotW, Scum and Villainy, assorted. I enjoy this one. Christine is an incredible GM. They really nailed down the vibe season 2, but mid-season 1 it was getting good. Christine does a killer high CHA fae conversation and it gives me shivers. This podcast is why I got the Scum and Villainy book. I still need to try Fiasco and Bigfoot Stole my Car. Really hated the Season 1 opening music though (i have to say this publicly so i can exorcise it from my head).
• The Adventure Zone: Listened to quite a bit, like up to season 3 (finished the water season)? Lots of good stuff, felt like because they care so much about a beautiful story they lose the good quality improv jokes. Like when they go off the cuff it can be really great. I realized eventually that's its just too much time to listen to something that isn't all that funny consistently.
• Androids and Aliens: Pathfinder. I listened to quite a bit of this one but eventually stopped. The DM is really good but the antagnostic vibes are a bit much for me. I think I spent too much time listening to this one.

• Notion: Notion is legitimately one of the best productivity apps I've ever used. It stores so much of my shit and makes tracking the in-progress ttrpg's and other nonsenses actually doable.

• Inkscape: Free vector editing tool. It's pretty good but the version that works with my old drawing tablet is only supported by an old version of the tool, so I'm sure it's fixed some of my irritations since.
• Jetbrains Rider: Jetbrains makes some amazing products, and their C# IDE is no different. I use it for work and I never wanna go back
• SpaceSniffer: Honestly you gotta get this one, seeing how much space every file/folder takes up on a drive is huge
• EarTrumpet: I literally swear by this. The ability to equalize sound per audio device is a lifesaver. Xbox games tend to ignore it an open at full blast, but everything else will be a good volume whether you use headphones or external speakers.
• Voice Meeter Banana: Gets the job done of being a virtual Equalizer. Really helps my soft-spoken voice get heard in discord and has further control for managing the different base volume levels between speakers and headphones simultaneously. I wish it was a little better with marking outputs as optional but it's alright.

• Ape Out: It's punchy :) The music is also a standout.
• The Darkness 2: Absolutely superb vibes, neat game mechanic approach. Possessed by the concept of darkness itself, shoot and evicerate foes and eat their hearts. Multiplayer was wack, gotta say.
• Deep Rock Galactic: To be honest, I didn't think I'd like it when it initially dropped. But the core gameplay and regular content updates have made it worth replaying over and over again. It is the best use of proc-gen destructable environment with class abilities (ie random map design but you can mine direct from point A to point B). I adore liquid morkite missions because it really highlights the driller's strengths, but I also love the self-given challenge to make the most unhelpfully direct routing of pipes onto strange outcroppings to maximize the 9 meter distance between nodes. Definitely one of my favs.
• Doom 2016: Again the design, the pacing, the invitation to hunt down demons instead of getting owned by them. Peak performance.
• Fortnite: I played the original Save the World mode at a friend's house and disregarded it. I've played 400 hours now because another friend is obssessed off and on.
• Gears of War 2: My first time really playing horde mode with a friend fundamentally changed how I viewed games. The specific pacing and approaches built my interests.
• Ghostwire: Tokyo: Extremely stylish. It's lovely to have a non-gun FPS, and far better with the magic powers where you rip out 'hearts' and do hand signs with seals.
• Iconoclasts: This is somehow one of the truest metroidvanias: mass application of a mysterious substance to important military assets to get magic powers.
• It Takes 2: Exceptional combination of strong coop gameplay and really well structured storytelling. I was stunned it wasn't just haha funny coop.
• Killing Floor 2: I really liked how the first game was slow and methodical, with some panic sprinting. This sequel fixed a lot of my dislikes (how you spawn with a basic smg instead of a pistol), you can sprint, there's a number of additional cool weapons to use.
• Loot: the Game: The best loot game hands down. By JMTB02, you're an elephant who can use swords/guns/wands and you fight a train. 4 healing cats and 90k DPS or whatever.
• Lawbreakers: It exploded, but it was a blast to fly around the map and explode people with rockets.
• Prototype 2: I'm obsessed with the stealth assimilate mechanics and the running around and flesh powers is dope. I wish there was a 3rd.
• Red Steel 2: Incredible game design and game controls. Love the world and the writing was delightful. Sci fi/magic cowboy FPS.
• RoboQuest: One of the few good roguelikes I think. Amazing weapon variance, very easy to parse, easy to make builds with. It just works with me.
• Saints Row 4: It was a ton of fun back in the day. It's been a while so I feel like I've played games that suit me better, but it was a blast on all sides.
• Satisfactory: I can just pour hours into reworking the arrangement of my factory.
• Shadow of Mordor/War: It's violent and meaty in a way I have felt since Gears. I love convincing enemies to fight for me, but I love making uruk heads asplode. War improved a lot of the systems and solved a core problem of leveling past the challenge of the game, but it really had some annoyances for putting some really solid kit improvements behind slightly more versatile improvements.
• Shadow Warrior 2: The best looter shooter, the second best loot game. I liked the story, short as it was. I played it to its fullest.
• Slay the Princess: It's such a beautiful love story packed into a fantastic timeloop story.
• Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army: Placeholder text.
• Super Mario World: My first console game (played on GBA). Finally 100% it. It's such a good mario game.
• Tactical Breach Wizards: An extremely stylish urban fantasy tactics game. It's so satisfying to puzzle out exactly how to combo the special powers of glowing skulls and defenestration-focused lighting pulses.
• Team Fortress 2: Love the structure and design of the game in a way that is so deep it's hard to get into. I've been obssessed over the design tweaks they've done over the years and even make documents mapping how weapons work.
• Unpacking: Clean. Minimalist but so personal storytelling.
• Yakuza 0: I was enraptured with the storyline. Weaker finish but one of the stronger Yakuza games (kiwami 1 and 2 didn't hit like the first one did). My first Yakuza so maybe that goes without saying that I'd be kinder to it.
• Placeholder Title: Placeholder text.
• Steam reviews
• Mentions: Phoenix Wright Trilogy (played w my sister), Danganronpa (played w my sister), more

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• YOU and ME and HER: I don't know that it's good per se, but it's one more of those meta genre-deconstruction games, in other words, a Trickster Game.

• Rusty and Co.: A DnD party of a mimic, rust monster and slime cube get into hilarious shenanigans.
• Clown Corp: Deadly serious high tech clowns
• Awkward Zombie: Mostly video game comics drawn by a rocket scientist
• XKCD: It's a mix of thoughts by a really smart guy - science, math, love, more.
• Beach Wizard: Beach Witch and a Beach Wizard disagree about things
• Order of the Stick: Drawn out to major preportions but I guess I'm still interested in it.

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• Hitmen for Destiny: Finished. Love the 'actively have to enforce fate' to get fate to cooperate, and honestly the world building and species design is incredible. The art stays the same over time but the writing was worth it.
• Casey and Andy: Finished. Stayed funny through the whole run, idk it's just my humor lol
• Brawl in the Family: Finished. Mostly Nintendo focused but I know all the songs by heart.
• The Last Days of Foxhound: Finished. I've never played metal gear but it was kind of a fun read.
• The Adventures of Dr McNinja: Finished. Really liked it during the middle of its run but it went on too long.
• Darths and Droids: I read ep 1 - 6, lost interest.

• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Precog
• The Mind is a Plaything of the Body: yeh