Fandom Promo!

[crantz]

Welcome to the Fandom Promo post, everyone!

Here's where you get those eyes on your fandoms for sign ups!

Share what makes your Yuletide fandoms the shiniest and why you love them. A big part of Yuletide is how small our fandoms can be, and this is a good way to make sure other people know what gems there are out there!

Suggested form to use:

<b>FANDOM NAME</b>:
<b>WHAT MAKES IT GREAT</b>:
<b>WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional)</b>:

Comments

The Room (mobile games) and March Comes in Like a Lion

[ladysorka]

FANDOM NAME: The Room (Mobile games)

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Are into puzzle games? Do you sometimes feel nostalgia for the Myst series? Do you enjoy a creeping sense of dread and existential cosmic horror? Do you possibly have a thing for late 1800s/early 1900s spiritualism? The Room series may be for you!

The Room is a series of four mobile games: The Room, The Room 2, The Room 3, and The Room: Old Sins. All four are excellent puzzle games that get more complex as you move through the series - in the first game you're simply opening puzzle boxes, then in the second you're solving puzzles in entire rooms, and in the third, an entire mansion. (The fourth both dials it back and doesn't, as you're solving puzzles involving an entire dollhouse, but, well. You're sort of inside it.)

The series also slowly builds up a story and a world. In the first, you're introduced, through letters he's left for you, to a man named only "A.S.". He's discovered a new element he calls "the Null". It's slowly driving him mad, and you are following in his footsteps. The many effects the Null has on the world, the people that wield it, and reality itself, are slowly revealed in a way that is simultaneously not scary at all to play and yet can leave you shivering and going "wait, oh god, fuck".

I highly recommend them.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: All four games are available for purchase on both the Apple Store and the Google Play Store. The first two games are also available on Steam.




FANDOM NAME: March Comes in Like a Lion

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: March Comes in Like a Lion is a slice of life anime/manga drama that about a 17 year-old shogi prodigy (shogi is basically Japanese chess) named... no, wait, come back!

Okay, trying again.

March Comes in Like a Lion is one of the best depictions of depression, and the very slow never quite complete recovery from depression, that I have ever seen.

Kiriyama Rei is a shogi prodigy. He became a professional shogi player in middle school, and was only the second player ever to do so that young. He was also orphaned at a very young age, and only became a shogi pro because it was the only way he could connect with his adoptive father, a shogi pro himself. At the beginning of the series, he doesn't even really like the game. He just thinks it's the only thing he can do, and so he does it. Unfortunately, this also put him at odds with his adoptive siblings, whose own shogi abilities weren't anywhere near his.

He never talks to anyone at school. He believes he has no friends amongst the other shogi pros. And he feels like he's drowning. The series is largely him, very slowly and with the help of those around him, picking himself back up.

The first and biggest help are the Kawamoto sisters, a cheerful family who welcome him into their home and their lives, even while he tries to keep himself distant. But they have their own tragedies and problems - absolutely no one in this series is one dimensional.

Then come his relationships with the other shogi pros, first his rival Nikaidou, then his mentor Shimada, and slowly it grows and it grows and it grows. But again, NO ONE in this series is one dimensional.

That is, in fact, perhaps the key feature of the series. Rei's opponent in a key shogi match? You'll learn exactly why he wants to win, what his motivation is, and why he's not quite what he seemed at first glance. That player fast approaching retirement? Here's why he's refusing to give up. Nikaido, Shimada, Akari and Hinata Kawamoto, even Rei's friendly homeroom teacher and his bullying adoptive sister, here are their stories. This series has empathy for every single character it introduces. It's amazing. And all the while, it never loses track of Rei's life, and Rei's journey.

And it never fails to make you smile, even while it's making you cry.

If you'd like a video introduction, here is an official AMV made for one of the anime's themes.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: Both seasons of the anime are available on Crunchyroll. The manga has not been officially released in English, but if you're willing to go the less than legal route, an English scanlation through volume 13 can be found here. (The anime as it stands has gone up through volume 8.)