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@SwampCreature I went to a small tech/gaming convention back in 2016 because a friend of mine was competing in a live League of Legends tournament. It was a lot of fun, and I got to have my only experience with VR to this day, but I really hope to see something of the scale of a SDCC or NYCC.

As I recover from a very fun weekend at an anime convention (Youmacon Detroit), I'm wondering if anyone else is a con attendee? I'm not hugely experienced with them but I've been to a few anime/comic/gaming conventions as well as some for oddities and tattoos. I've cosplayed a few times (Selphie from Final Fantasy 8, Vash the Stampede from Trigun, POWER from Chainsaw Man, some others I've forgotten, and I've got two works in progress). Tell me about your con experiences!

@mianngu I'm definitely with you on that one, I switch to fanfic immediately, but the hop back to novels always feels impossible I can for sure relate to sticking with bad books, but my worst weakness is books that I know are good, and everybody loves, but my brain and eyes will not keep reading (or worse with a series that "gets really good on book 3" )

@Mariano I tend to switch to short stories/fanfictions when novels become too daunting. Don't get down on yourself if you don't finish things, there is so much to read and sometimes when you start something it doesn't play out like you hoped. I remember once pulling myself through two books in a series because I loved the first book and couldn't bring myself to admit that it had gone to shit. In hindsight I should have thanked the first book for the experience and moved on. Life is too short to read bad books.

I tend to burn out from reading pretty easily, whether it's because I've been doing it too much, because I started something way too long and the dauntingness surpasses the excitement once that starts fading off, or because I force myself to keep reading something that's not too enthralling.

I'd love to hear your experiences with these burnouts, how you've been able to get our of them, and whether you had any book recs of something short and gripping that might get me back into the habit. I tend to prefer SciFi/Fantasy, but I'll take any recommendations if they're applicable.

@SwampCreature Two of my favorite scary games have to be:

• Until Dawn: maybe gameplay-wise it doesn't hold a candle to classic series like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Amnesia, etc, but the slasher movie pastiche really resonated with me. Amazing graphics for the time, recognizable actors in Hayden Panettiere, Rami Malek and Peter Stormare, and decision-making that decides who makes it out alive, were all a perfect combination for it to remain the first answer I thought of, almost a decade later.
• Alien Isolation: I guess the mid-2010s were the apogee of horror games, because less than a year before Until Dawn, this game came out. Probably my favorite horror game when it comes to both mechanics and immersion, definitely the scariest for me; and the Xenomorph AI(s) are really an outstanding combination of creativity and tech ingenuity, which I really appreciate.

Honorable mention to the Five Nights at Freddy's series. I haven't played them and I'm not the biggest fan of the gameplay, but they really didn't need to go as hard with the lore, but it's made for outstanding content where people are trying to figure out what's happening behind the scenes.

Truthfully, it doesn’t need to be Spooky Season for me to talk ad nauseum about horror games. I’m so in love with the Silent Hill series (Silent Hill 2 in particular - iykyk), the Fatal Frame series, and Parasite Eve. It seems for a while in the late 90s/early 00s there were a lot of very eerie games coming out of Japan, enough that I can’t even remember the names of all the ones I played. I remember a really scary one where you played as a girl with a dog companion, trying to escape a mansion full of people hellbent on killing you, and I believe you had no weapon - you had to hide and/or run, which is scary enough on its own BUT there was a very interesting mechanic where you could be overcome with fear and lose control of the character. There are a lot of super unique mechanics in horror games that you really don’t get in other genres! What are your favorite horror games? Have you played any horror games with interesting gameplay? What’s the scariest game you’ve played? Tell me about it in the comments!

@Mariano The Uzumaki anime is FINALLY dropping - I don’t think there’s a solid release date yet, but before the end of the year. And there’s a new trailer!!! I’m so geeked ahhhhhhhh

Other than that I don’t really have anything in particular I’m watching at the moment, but I’m going to Youmacon (anime convention) in November and we’ll see if anything catches me eye.

And I have no idea when the new Berserk anime is releasing but the teaser looked pretty decent! I’ve been burned before by Berserk anime so hopefully this one is better.

I watched waaaay too much anime last season, and honestly I don't know if I learned my lesson; I only went down from 15 to 12, but I think the quality of the shows this season is significantly higher (copium). Here it goes, don't judge me:

Definitely watching

• Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 (2nd cour): The Summer cour was outstanding and I'm looking forward to seeing how this arc ends; mfers even had me playing Fortnite in 2023.

• Rurouni Kenshin/Samurai X Remake (2nd cour): The first cour didn't blow me away, but it was a really good adaptation and it's been enjoyable enough not to drop it.

• The Eminence in Shadow Season 2: I binged Season 1 last month and was very impressed; very much looking forward to this one.

• Spy x Family Season 2: One of my favorite shows last year, very cute and entertaining, and genuinely has a very compelling plot.

• Shield Hero Season 3: Season 2 didn't hit as hard as the first one, but it's still a high quality show with some of the better worldbuilding among isekai in the last couple of years.

• Doctor Stone: New World Part 2: Really looking forward to this one because Part 1 felt like 75% setup for this coming season.

Probably watching

• Shangri-la Frontier: I love VRRPG isekaindas (?) because SAO was one my gateways into the medium, and this one looks awesome!

• Under Ninja: Dark horse pick for this season for me; I try to add to my list anything that remotely sounds appealing when it's not an isekai, and high school ninja with seemingly high quality animation checked enough boxes.

• Goblin Slayer Season 2: I'm halfway through Season 1, and while it's okay, I'd heard so much about it when it was coming out that my expectations were a lot higher. Depending on how I feel when I finish it, I'll decide whether to watch it or not.

Maybe watching

• The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy, Tearmoon Empire, A Returner's Magic Should Be Special: I love trash isekai. However, if there's a trope that might be even higher in my list, it's people going back in time/reincarnating and using their knowledge to be awesome in this second go. I must not be the only one since these three shows are coming out. When I go through the synopses of the shows coming out in a season, sometimes it feels like ChatGPT spits out paragraphs for a show that I know will suck, but that I'll watch every episode of; and these line up with that. Maybe I'll be strong and won't start them. But who are we kidding?

Let me know what your anime season will look like! Any new shows that pique your interest? Any old ones? I've been feeling tempted more and more by One Piece, but I'm not there yet lol