#my wife did say she missed anime battles where the characters narrate everything they do

[daz4i]

bungou stray dogs season 1 episode 10 single handedly makes this anime a comedy to me

[kae-karo]

gosh,,,,,who could possibly,,,,,,,,,,have long enough hair,,,,,,in my own personal fanon,,,,,,,,,,,to be braided,,,,,,,,via #48,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,perhaps,,,,,,,,in one red pigtail,,,,,,,,,,,,,and one white one,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,no idea,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,none whatsoever,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

hello wife!!!!! for context (x - make me write things!)

48. “I can braid your hair for you…if you’d like.”

todoroki’s getting his hair braided cause my wife be like that but since she failed to specify who was doing the braiding i figured i would cater to her ot3 rights

–

It took three weeks for anyone to notice Shouto had been letting his hair grow out. Yaoyorozu pulled him aside, asked if he was alright, and he’d been left frowning and confused when she mentioned he looked a little less clean-cut than usual.

Ashido noticed next, when it’d gotten long enough to fall in his eyes every time he looked down at his notebook during English class. She offered a hair clip, though Mic had immediately shushed her, ‘unless you can say what you said in English?’ She’d shrugged and offered Shouto an apologetic smile.

It wasn’t til it brushed his shoulders that Shouto noticed Midoriya noticing, not that either of them said a word. Midoriya kept staring, though, during training when Shouto would pause to tuck it behind his ear.

Shouto will admit - only to himself - that it’s starting to become a hindrance, falling in his face when he turns too quickly, distracting him for just long enough to give his opponent the upper hand. But he refuses to cut it.

“Hey, uh, Todoroki?” Shouto pauses, holding a hand up to signal to Sero that he should stop his incoming attack. He turns to find Midoriya walking toward him, lips twisted in a half-frown that speaks of discomfort.

“Midoriya.” Shouto watches as he opens and closes his mouth, like he’s not quite sure what to say - he wonders if, after all the staring he’s been doing, he’s about to mention the hair. Shouto brushes it from his forehead and tucks it behind an ear, though he’s beginning to learn it doesn’t seem very inclined to stay there. 

He can’t imagine how the girls cope with their hair on a daily basis. Already, he’s struggling with managing it at just barely shoulder-length, he’s certain Asui’s must be a nightmare.

“So uh, I’ve been watching you- not like, watching!” he amends, hands waving frantically. Shouto waits - Midoriya’s just like this sometimes. “But like, I noticed, um…” he trails off, then his hands brush his own hair down into what Shouto assumes is an attempted approximation of his current hairstyle.

“My hair.” Shouto nods. Midoriya does the same, and the movement jostles his hair back into its standard wild halo of green.

“I figured, uh, it looks like it’s kind of hard to, like, see? Sometimes?” Now Midoriya’s hands come up to mimic Shouto’s hair falling in his face, and Shouto wonders if he’s always this animated or if he’s had extra coffee today. 

“It does that,” Shouto agrees - he’s failing to see where, exactly, Midoriya’s going with this. Perhaps he’ll suggest Shouto cut it, or ask why he’s allowed it to grow so wildly. It would be like him to pry into Shouto’s personal life. 

Although, perhaps that’s a normal question to ask of someone who’s decided to grow their hair out. He’s never tried it before.

“I was thinking maybe, uh…I can braid your hair for you…if you’d like?”

Shouto blinks at the words, the gears in his head whirring - he’d expected a question of some kind, sure, but…

“You can braid hair?” Had Midoriya had long hair prior to his arrival at UA? Perhaps he’s practiced, or has a sibling or some other reason for knowing how to braid hair. Shouto certainly has no idea, though the thought had occurred that he might want to find a way to keep his hair out of his face during battles.

But asking for help, that would be an admission of his failure - not that anyone else would see it that way, but the moment his father had deemed his hair too long, had said he couldn’t possibly do well in his hero training if it kept getting in the way…well, it’d been a challenge.

No, not a challenge, but a statement: that his father’s way of doing things isn’t always right, that he’s not the end-all, be-all of how to become a hero. Besides, plenty of heroes did perfectly well with long hair, and perhaps long hair was a part of who Shouto wanted to be as a hero. 

Or perhaps there’s just a grain of self-satisfaction in doing something to spite his father.

“I can, uh…” Midoriya starts, and Shouto recalls, now, that he’s actually asked a question. Midoriya seems to be mumbling to himself now, though, and Shouto doubts he’s missed much in his moment of introspection.

“I would appreciate the help, if you can braid hair,” Shouto says, mostly to stop the mumbling. Midoriya can get a little lost in his thoughts sometimes.

“Right! Yeah!” That seems to be enough to refocus him, and his eyes brighten as he grins at Shouto. “We should, uh-” His head whips around, then, and Shouto picks up on the unmentioned question.

“The bench?” He points, and Midoriya agrees with a fervor that Shouto can only blink at. How he’s so capable of wearing his heart on his sleeve, Shouto will never understand. It does make him an easy character to judge, though. He never has to worry about where he stands with Midoriya.

“Here, just sit, and I’ll, uh…maybe two braids?” Shouto sits as indicated and does his best not to startle when Midoriya’s hand gathers half his hair and begins combing through it.

“Whatever you think is best,” he says. He’d never admit it aloud, but he feels he and Midoriya are on equal footing. Deferring to his father’s judgement would go against everything he believes, but deferring to Midoriya’s? That’s entirely different. They’re allies, where he and his father stand opposite each other.

“Okay, I’m just gonna, uh…yeah, I think…and then…” Midoriya narrates as he goes, tugging gently at strands of Shouto’s hair. It’s soothing, in a strange way, and he’s reminded of his mother combing her fingers through his hair when he was young. His breathing slows, and he lets the scene before him blur into a mess of colors. 

For a few calm moments, he almost forgets where he is.

“The hell are you doing, you idiot, we’re supposed to be fighting.”

Bakugou’s voice startles Shouto from his moment of peace, his words just as loud as his explosions. Shouto’s always felt his entire presence represents his quirk well - even his posture, arms folded and chest puffed out, shouts ‘I am here!’ in a way reminiscent of All Might himself. He wonders if that’s Bakugou’s intent or if it’s inherent in his being, to be so bold a person.

“Oh, I’m just-” Midoriya stops, then, when Bakugou’s eyes narrow at him. The hands in Shouto’s hair begin to shake just slightly.

“Midoriya is braiding my hair so it stays out of my face during battle,” Shouto explains. There’s a pause, then, and silence stretches out, broken only by the miscellaneous sounds of their classmates training in the background.

“What kind of braid is that, Deku, god, completely useless…” He trails off, and Shouto’s eyes widen as Bakugou sits heavily on the bench beside him. For a few moments, Shouto wonders if Midoriya’s somehow duplicated himself, because Bakugou’s started mumbling under his breath.

He takes Shouto’s hair in his hands in much the same way Midoriya had, though Shouto can’t see much aside from the strands of red disappearing from his peripheral vision. Midoriya seems to start up again as well, his slow, uneasy movements matched by Bakugou’s sharper - though no less careful - attempt at braiding.

Shouto’s not exactly sure how to feel about this, but his body seems to decide for him as he slips back into the same distant relaxation he’d felt earlier. Both Midoriya and Bakugou work in silence now, and the sounds of the gym fade into the background, hidden behind the soft rustling of hands in his hair.

In spite of the opposing approaches, both Bakugou’s and Midoriya’s braids feel relatively even, and both accomplish the goal of pulling his hair out of his face. At one point, they’d had to ask one of the girls for ties to hold the braids, though Shouto had only vaguely noticed when Midoriya had disappeared from his side and Bakugou’s had rested his arm against Shouto’s back to hold both braids and prevent them from unraveling.

“Right Icyhot,” Bakugou grumbles, securing the end of the braid. “I don’t want any half-assed wins cause you couldn’t see. You’re fighting me next,” he says as he stands, though he doesn’t look down at where Shouto’s sitting. 

“There, all set!” Midoriya adds a moment later. Shouto turns to offer him a ‘thank you’, but he’s already rushing off, and Shouto can’t decide if he should go after him or not.

“Are you coming or what?” Bakugou asks, glancing back over his shoulder this time, and Shouto pushes himself up from the bench.

It’s only once he stands that the sensation of his hair tied up like this really hits him, and he allows himself a small shake of his head just to test out the feeling. With the length, the braids barely move aside from lightly brushing the tops of his shoulders, but the tickle sends a shiver up his spine.

When he looks over, Bakugou’s just watching him, lips pressed into a line. Shouto has a much harder time reading him than he does with Midoriya. 

“Thank you,” Shouto offers into the silence, since he’d meant to say that anyway. He’s not sure why Bakugou decided to help, but it was nice of him to do, and he doesn’t often do things solely for the sake of kindness. 

Bakugou dips his head and looks away, but Shouto wonders if the corner of his mouth turned up just a bit. He’s yet to see Bakugou smile for any reason aside from imminent victory.

“Whatever, just fight hard. Like I said, no half-assed wins this time.”

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

2010s Art: Music, Games, and TV

So I love all forms of art. It may not seem like it since I tend to stick mainly to movies, with the odd cartoon or video game thrown in, but that’s really because movies are more my thing due to not being massive time investments. Like, don’t get me wrong, I gamed, I watched TV, I listened to music, but it was a lot more casual than my deep dive into becoming a major cinephile.

With games and TV, it was mostly issues of money and time respectively. I have a few consoles, mostly Nintendo and Sony ones, and my wife helped me experience Xbox games, but I just don’t have the money needed to experience every good game that comes out. With TV, the time investment is the biggest roadblock, especially when all the best shows have hour-long episodes these days. With movies, I just have to spend 90 minutes to two hours on average; for TV, it’s countless hours I could be watching movies. As for music… well, I listened to a lot, I just don’t feel totally qualified to properly rank and list songs and albums.

So instead of the big decade-spanning list for movies that I’m doing, I’m going to go over some things I enjoyed from the past decade and maybe a few things I didn’t in music, TV, and video games. Here’s a little guide so you know what stuff is something I consider one of my absolute favorites in any given medium - if it’s from this decade, it will be in bold, and if it’s from a previous decade but I experienced it this decade, it will be underlined.

Television

I figured I’d get this out of the way first since it’s the medium I have the least experience with. Let me put it this way: I have seen only one season of Game of Thrones, the first one (and by all accounts I dodged a bullet by dropping that show). I also had the misfortune of jumping in to The Walking Dead right as it was gearing up for its abysmal second season, which turned me off that and led to me only watching an episode here or there. 

I had better luck watching live action shows on streaming. I managed to get through almost all of Pretty Little Liars on Netflix, which was a chore in and of itself; it’s a good show, but boy could it ever get arbitrary and frustrating. Speaking of Netflix, I think it goes without saying that Stranger Things is their best effort; from the likable cast of kids to the awesome soundtrack, even though it never really surpasses season one the show always has something cool going on in one of its plots. My other favorite from Netflix would probably be their take on A Series if Unfortunate Events, which is how you do adaptation expansion right; everything they add feels like it’s in service of fleshing out Lemony Snicket’s dismal world, as well as giving Patrick Warburton an incredible dramatic role as the Lemony narrator himself.

Amazon managed to score two hits in my book. The first is the unbelievably fun and charming Good Omens, a miniseries that somehow got me to love David Tennant and Michael Sheen more than I already did. The second was the gory joyride that is The Boys which while not the smartest or most original superhero satire is definitely the most fun.

While I didn’t watch the whole show and would not consider it one of my favorites, I do want to give props to Hannibal for introducing me to Mads Mikkelsen. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the only person aside from Hopkins worthy of playing everyone’s favorite cannibal. Another show I DO consider a favorite despite slacking on keeping up with it is Ash vs. Evil Dead; I only needed to see a single season of Bruce back with the boomstick to know this show was a masterpiece.

On the animated side I have much more to talk about. Not since the 90s have we been spoiled with so many genuinely great and varied cartoons. We got Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe… really, Cartoon Network raised the bar this decade and made up for an awful 2000s. They even finally gave Samurai Jack a conclusion, which despite the mixed results, was still a real exciting phenomenon to experience.

Of course, my favorite CN show came from Adult Swim. I am of course referring to Rick & Morty, a fun sci-fi adventure comedy that attracted the most obnoxious fanbase possible in record time. While certainly not a show you need a high IQ to understand and having an atrocious third season, it still manages to be funny and thought provoking in equal amounts. Seriously though. Fuck season 3.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is another great show that I sadly fell off the wagon of around the fifth or sixth season. It never got bad of course but it never really engaged me like the older episodes, though what I’ve heard of the last season makes me wish I’d kept up with it. It was a great show with a lot of heart and character, and I’m not sure we’ll ever see a show like it again.

Netflix did not slack in the animation department; I didn’t catch their most famous show (it’s the one about a certain Horseman) but I did catch their fantastic take on Castlevania, which as a huge fan of the series was a real treat. Where the fuck is Grant though?

My two favorite shows of the decade, however, are what I see as the pinnacle of East and West: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Gravity Falls. 

JJBA is a series I had vague passing knowledge of, only knowing its existence due to seeing Stone Ocean referenced on the Wikipedia page for air rods when I was younger and, of course, the memes that spawned from Heritage for the Future, which were inescapable back in the day. As soon as I got into the series, it became one of my biggest inspirations, teaching me you can be deep, complex, and filled with great character interactions while also being so batshit insane that every new and absurd power is incredibly easy to buy (looking forward to the rainbows that turn people into snails, animators). They managed to get through the first four parts and start up the fifth over the decade; so far my favorite part is four, mainly due to the magnificent bastard that is Yoshikage Kira (played time perfection by D.C. Douglas) and in spite of serial creep Vic Mangina playing the otherwise lovable asshole Rohan Kishibe.

Gravity Falls on the other hand is just a fun and engaging mystery show that manages to excel at being episodic and story-driven all at once. There’s only one or two “bad” episodes across two seasons, and it lasted just as long as it needed to, wrapping things up with a satisfactory ending that still gave fans a few mysteries to chew on. It also gave us Grunkle Stan, perhaps the greatest character in all of animation, the pinnacle of “jerk with a heart of gold” characters who is hilarious, badass, and complex all at once. This is my favorite western animated show…

...but then the last year of the decade threw a curveball and, if I’m being honest, is on par with Gravity Falls: Green Eggs and Ham. Netflix really wanted us to know 2D animation is back in 2019; between this show and Klaus, the future is looking bright for the medium. It’s a fun, funny roadtrip comedy that knows when to be emotional and when to be funny, and it’s all filtered through the wubbulous world of Dr. Seuss. It’s just a wonderfully delightful show.

And on the subject of JoJo, I had a kind of love-hate relationship with anime this decade. The attitudes of anime fans turned me off from anime for a long while. Sure, I checked out stuff like Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online, but neither series really clicked with me. The main anime I loved this decade were ones that started in the 2000s and ended in the 2010s, like Dragon Ball Z Kai and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I suppose I did enjoy My Hero Academia, which is a really fun show with an awesome and varied cast and great voice acting. Love Froppy, best girl for sure.

One of the most unfortunate things about this decade was how many great shows got screwed over by their networks. Sym-Bionic Titan, Thundercats, and The Legend of Korra were all great shows in their own right but were treated like shit by their respective networks. It really makes me upset that stuff like that not only happened, but continues to happen to this day.

But let’s not end on a bad note; let’s talk about the astounding returns old shows got. Invader Zim got a movie as did Hey Arnold, with the latter in particular finally wrapping up the dangling plot threads, but those are actual TV movies so they don’t really fit here; what DOES fit is Static Cling, the triumphant return of Rocko’s Modern Life. A forty minute special, it follows Rocko and his friends as they navigate the modern age, trying to bring back Rocko’s favorite cartoon. Rachel Bighead’s arc in this in particular is pretty groundbreaking and awesome. 

Also awesome was the first few episodes of Samurai Jack’s return, though it did end up petering out halfway through the season and ended on an anticlimactic note. Still, Tom Kenny’s Scaramouche, the sheer amount of continuity, and the awesome final curbstomp battle against Aku are worth giving this a watch. And if nothing else, stuff like this gives me hope for future revivals. What will we see next? Gargoyles comeback? Batman Beyond continuation? KENNY AND THE CHIMP REVIVAL?! Chimpers rise up!

Music

Much like everyone, I listened to a lot of music this decade. There was a lot of shit, and I definitely used to be one of those “wow no one makes good music anymore” morons, but I grew out of that and learned to look in the right places.

Let’s start with the albums I loved the most. Continuing her meteoric rise from the 2000s, Lady Gaga drooped her magnum opus, Born This Way, an album that successfully showcases her skills as she takes on numerous pop styles. No two songs sound the same, and with a couple of exceptions every song slaps. While we’re on the subject of pop stars, Gaga’s contemporary and lesser Katy Perry managed to hit a home run with the fun bit of pop fluff that was Teenage Dream.

Weird Al was sorely missed for most of the decade, but what albums he did drop featured some of his best work. While Alpocalypse doesn’t hold up quite so well, it’s still solid, but even then it is blown out of the water by Mandatory Fun, an album that just refuses to stop being funny from start to finish. And that’s not the only funny albums this decade; aside from artists I’ll get more into later, George Miller AKA Filthy Frank released Pink Season as one of his last great acts as his character of Pink Guy. The album is as raunchy and filthy as you’d expect. And then for unintentional comedy, Corey Feldman dropped Angelic 2 The Core, an album so musically inept that it ends up becoming endearing; it’s The Room of music.

As I gamed a lot this decade I got to experience a lot of great video game soundtracks, but the two I found to be the absolute best were Undertale and Metal Gear Rising’s. I couldn’t tell you which soundtrack is better, and I’ve actually made a playlist on my iPod containing my favorite tracks from both games. Pokemon had solid soundtracks all decade, but they definitely were better in single tracks such as Ultra Necrozma’s theme from USUM and Zinnia’s theme from ORAS.

And speaking of individual songs, there were a lot I really loved. The disco revival in the easel ide half of the decade lead to gems like “Get Lucky,” “Uptown Funk,” and… uh, “Blurred Lines.” The controversy to that one might be overblown, but it sure isn’t anything I really want to revisit.

Corey Feldman may be the king of unintentional comedy, but this decade was seriously ripe with so bad it’s good music. The crown jewel is without a doubt the giddy, goofy “Friday,” but I think the equally stupid but also endlessly more relatable Ark Music production “Chinese Food” is worth some ironic enjoyment as well. 

Meme songs in general were pretty enjoyable, though it came at a price. Remember when everyone tried to be funny by ripping off “Gangnam Style?” Remember when people took that Ylvis song at face value? Irony and satire were lost on the masses. I think the best mene song of the decade, though, is “Crab Rave,” a bouncy instrumental dance track with a fun music video and an absurd yet hilarious meme tacked to it. And then we have “The Internet is for Music,” a gargantuan 30 minute mashup featuring every YTMND, 4chan, Newgrounds, and YouTube meme you could think of (at the time of its release anyway),

Then we get into artists. Comedy music was great this decade, with Steel Panther and The Lonely Island putting out great work all decade, but by far my favorite funny band is Ninja Sex Party. Dan “Danny Sexbang” Avidan and Brian “Ninja Brian” Wecht are pretty much my favorite entertainers at this point, with them easily being able to go from doing goofy yet epic songs where they fuck or party to doing serious and awesome cover albums where Dan flexes his impressive vocals. A big plus is how all of their albums are easily some of my favorites ever, with not a single bad CD, and that’s not even getting into their side project Starbomb. These guys are a treasure.

Then we have Ghost, a Swedish metal band who play up the Satanic panic for all it’s worth. These guys captured my interest when I heard the beautiful “Cirice” on the radio, and despite that song rocking the fuck out, Imagine my surprise when it ended up being only middle of the road awesome for this band! With killer original songs like “Rats,” “Mary in the Cross,” and “Square Hammer” to a awesome covers like “Missionary Man” and “I’m a Marionette,” it’s almost enough to get a guy to hail Satan. I think they appeal to me mainly because they have a style very in line with the 80s, most evident on tracks like “Rats.” 

While I’d hesitate to call him one of my favorite musicians yet (he is really good so far though), one of my favorite people in entertainment is Lil Nas X. From his short but sweet songs that crush genre boundaries to his hilarious Twitter feed, this guy is going places and I can’t wait to see what those places are.

And finally, the guy I think may be one of the greatest creative geniuses alive and who has nearly singlehandedly shaped Internet culture with everything he does… Neil Cicierega. While it’s not like I only discovered him in the 2010s - the guy has been an omnipresent force in my life since Potter Pupper Pals debuted - he definitely became the guy I would unflinchingly call the greatest artist of our time over that period.   Whether he’s releasing the songs under his own name or as Lemon Demon, you can always be sure that the songs are going to burrow into your brain. His Lemon Demon album Spirit Phone, which features songs about urban legends and the horrors of capitalism, is easily my pick for album of the decade. And then under his own name he released three mashup mixtapes: Mouth Sounds, Mouth Silence, and Mouth Moods. All three are stellar albums, but only Mouth Moods has “Wow Wow,” the bouncing track about homoerotic bee-loving Will Smith and outtakes so good they deserve to be on the next album.

Video Games 

Having a PC this decade was great because it let me experience a lot of games I probably wouldn’t have otherwise, like Half-Life, BioShock, Earthnound, Mother 3, and Final Fantasy VI and VII. All of these and more are among my favorite games of all time now, but we’re here to talk about the stuff from this decade I consider great.

It’s hard to talk about this decade in gaming without mentioning Skyrim. Yes, it has flaws and the main storyline is a bit undercooked, but there’s so much fun to be had dicking about in the wilderness it’s hard to be too mad. And if you have mods, there are endless opportunities to expand the game. The same is true for the other game I have sunk countless hours into, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Not only is there a thriving modding community, but it has been supported and encouraged by the creators and some mods have even made the leap into becoming fully canon! It’s always a blast to revisit and see how far I can break the game with item combos.

Surprisingly, Batman managed to get not one, not two, but THREE awesome licensed games this decade! Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, and the unfairly maligned Arkham Origins all kick as much ass as the Dark Knight himself. The former two reunite Mark Hamill and Kevin McConroy as Joker and Batman while the latter features numerous stellar boss battles. The combat in these games is so graceful and fluid, you WILL feel like Batman at some point, be it after flawlessly clobbering two dozen mooks or silently eliminating a room of thugs before they even realize you’re there.

Pokémon had a bit of a rocky decade; it started out strong with the fifth generation, the best games in the series with a great story, region, and sidequests and then just went downhill from there. Not incredibly so, of course - the games were always fun at least - but gens VI through VIII were not the most graceful steps into 3D. Still, every gen managed to produce some of my all-time favorite Pokémon. Gen V had Volcarona, Chandelure,  and Meloetta; Gen VI gave us Hoopa, Klefki, the Fairy type in general, and a gorgeous mega evolution for my favorite Pokémon, Absol; Gen VII had the Ultra Beasts and Ultra Necrozma, some of the coolest concepts in the series, as well as Pyukumuku; and Gen VIII gave us Cinderace, Dracovish, Dracozolt, Polteageist, Hatterene, Snom, and Zacian. And those are just samplings mind you, these gens are full of hits.

Bringing back old franchises yielded amazing results. Look no further than the triumphant return of Doom in 2016, which had you ripping and tearing through the forces of Hell with guns, chainsaws, and your bear fucking hands. This game is HARDCORE. Less bloody and gory but no less awesome was the return of not just Crash Bandicoot, but Spyro as well in remakes that are easily the definitive ways to experience the games. And don’t even get me started on the remastered DuckTales!

Platinum games did not fuck around this decade, delivering Bayonetta 2 and Metal Gear Rising. The former is a balls-to-the-wall sequel to the amazing original Bayonetta that, while lacking in bosses quite as impressive as the first game’s, is more polished and has a fun story and a better haircut for Bayonetta; the latter is an action game so insane it makes the rest of the Metal Gear franchise look tame in comparison. The latter in particular is in my top ten games ever, with every boss battle feeling epic, all the music kicking ass, and Raiden truly coming into his own as a badass.

Speaking of Metal Gear, the divisive The Phantom Pain easily earns its place here. While much fuss has been made about the game being “unfinished,” it still has a complete and satisfying ending even if it doesn’t totally wrap up the dangling plot threads the young Liquid Snake leaves behind. The overarching themes as well as Venom and his relationship with characters like Kaz, Paz, and ESPECIALLY Quiet make this game, with his and Quiet’s being particularly beautiful and tragic. The Paz quest, Quiet’s exit, and the mission where Snake has to put down his men after they get infested with parasites are all some of the most heartbreaking moments in the franchise. But it’s not all tears; there’s plenty of fun to be had harassing Russians in Afghanistan while blaring 80s synth pop from your Walkman. Oh yeah, and fuck Huey.

The Ace Attorney series also thrived, with both Spirit of Justice and Dual Destinies transitioning the series into 3D a lot more graceful than some other franchises while still maintaining the with and charm the series is known for. And if that wasn’t enough for my point-and-cluck adventure needs, Telltale had me covered with The Wolf Among Us and the first season of The Walking Dead. The stories and characters of those games are so good, it’s enough to make you sad they never got a timely sequel or sequels that weren’t shit respectively.

This decade is when I really got into fighting game, though I’m not particularly good. I supported Skullgirls (and am even in the credits!), and got into Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle (and I also got into its spiritual predecessor, Heritage for the Future). But by and large my favorite fighting game of the decade and the one I’m actually pretty good at is Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the most ridiculously ambitious crossover in video game history. The fact that the game is STILL getting more characters added is a testament of how insanely great the game is because instead of being mad that there’s so much DLC, people are going rabid waiting for news of more. It’s such an awesome, complete game out the door that the DLC feels earned rather than half a game being held hostage. Other devs, take note!

A lot of franchises put their best foot forward for sequels. God of War III was an awesomely bloody finale to the original journey of Kratos, with more epic bosses than ever; now he’s off fighting Norse gods, and I hear that game is even better! Portal 2 is just an absolute blast, and easily surpasses the first game on the merit of having Cave Johnson alone; the fact we get Wheatley and the malfunctioning personality cores honestly feels like overkill. Then we have BioShock… 2. While it’s certainly not as good as the first game, I think it was a lot of fun, and it got way too much flak.

 I think it definitely aged better than Infinite which, while still a good game in its own right (it’s hard to hate a game with a character as endearing as Elizabeth), definitely was not warranting the levels of acclaim it got with such a muddled narrative. “Overrated” and “overhyped” are not words I keep in my vocabulary and I certainly would not describe Infinite as such, but I do feel like people got swept up in the gorgeous visuals and the story bits and characters that are effective and so weren’t nearly as critical of its flaws. It’s still a good, fun game with an interesting world, but it pales in comparison to the other two BioShocks. I feel like The Last of Us is in a similar boat. That being said, I couldn’t tell you why; it has a great story, good characters, plenty of replayability, and fascinating enemy design. But despite all that, I appreciate this game more than love it. It’s the Citizen Kane of video game sin that regard at least.

I’d be remiss to not mention the big indie successes of the decade. Shovel Knight is easily one is the greatest platform era ever made, taking everything great about the platformers on the NES and SNES, removing the bullshit, and delivering numerous bonus campaigns with unique playstyles. Then there was Abobo’s Big Adventure, a marvelous mashup of all sorts of games starring the beloved Double Dragon mook as he goes on a bloody quest to save his son. It’s a blast and there is tons of variety but some sections are definitely as hair-pullingly difficult as the games that inspired them. And then there is Doki Doki Literature Club, the free visual novel that brutally subverts your expectations. Sadly, I do feel the game loses some impact on subsequent playthroughs, but it’s still a great, effective story that skillfully utilizes meta elements.

Still, the greatest indie success of them all is Toby Fox’s masterpiece, Undertale. Charming, funny, emotional, and populated by a cast of some of the most fun and lovable characters ever conceived, this game was an instant smash and is still talked about to this day. Sure, things like Sans have been memed to death, but it’s hard to not just love and cherish the beautiful world Toby Fox managed to create. This game may not be the greatest game of all time, but for what it is I wouldn’t hesitate to name it the game of the decade.

There was a lot of great art in the 2010s, and while I couldn’t get around to all of it, I’m so happy with what I got to experience. Here’s hoping that the 2020s can be just as amazing!