#saga-pattern

[ follow ]
Books
fromFlowingData
20 hours ago

Visual guide for Infinite Jest

Christian Swinehart created Infinite Digest, an illustrated companion to Infinite Jest, visualizing its structure and character connections.
Games
fromThe Verge
20 hours ago

The Exit 8 movie is even better if you play the game first

Exit 8 is a new horror film adaptation of an indie game, enhancing the surreal experience for viewers who play the game first.
fromArmin Ronacher's Thoughts and Writings
2 days ago

Mario and Earendil

Last year changed the way many of us thought about software. It certainly changed the way I did. I spent much of 2025 building, probing, and questioning how to build software, and in many more ways what I want to do.
Software development
US Elections
fromemptywheel
1 day ago

The Maggie and Swan JD Vance Fan-Fic - emptywheel

Trump's actions may signify the decline of American hegemony or lead to regime change in the US.
#romantic-comedy
fromInsideHook
3 days ago
Film

"The Drama" Has No Idea How to Handle Its Controversial Twist

The Drama presents a romantic comedy that takes a dark turn with a shocking revelation about a character's past involvement in a school shooting plot.
fromVulture
6 days ago
Film

The Drama Is Too Cowardly to Commit to Its Provocative Premise

The film presents a dark romantic comedy featuring complex characters and a central premise that challenges audience expectations.
Film
fromInsideHook
3 days ago

"The Drama" Has No Idea How to Handle Its Controversial Twist

The Drama presents a romantic comedy that takes a dark turn with a shocking revelation about a character's past involvement in a school shooting plot.
Film
fromVulture
6 days ago

The Drama Is Too Cowardly to Commit to Its Provocative Premise

The film presents a dark romantic comedy featuring complex characters and a central premise that challenges audience expectations.
Video games
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 day ago

How games capture the awe and terror of cosmic isolation

The Artemis II mission evokes feelings of solitude and vulnerability in space, reminiscent of experiences in classic and modern space-themed video games.
Music production
fromGameSpot
2 days ago

This Turn-Based RPG Musical Is Fun But Drags A Bit In Act 3 | People Of Note Review

People of Note is a whimsical RPG where music battles and friendship combat an ancient power, blending humor with a journey to fame.
Relationships
fromInsideHook
4 days ago

What Men Can Learn From 17 Unforgettable On-Screen Proposals

Real-life proposals differ from romantic comedies, but lessons from memorable on-screen moments can guide men in crafting meaningful proposals.
Games
fromKotaku
13 hours ago

Game Devs Explain The Tricks Involved With Letting You Pause

Pausing a game involves various techniques, including manipulating time and adjusting game speed, depending on the game engine used.
fromAnOther
2 days ago

Night Stage: Anatomy of a Modern Erotic Thriller

The illicit thrill of hidden desires definitely propels Night Stage, a riveting queer noir about an up-and-coming actor Matias and an aspiring politician Rafael who begin hooking up in public spaces.
Film
#literature
fromThe Atlantic
6 days ago
Books

Unconventional Novels About Conventional People

Aging revolutionaries and conformists share parallel narratives of disillusionment and the loss of youthful dreams in recent literature.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
6 days ago

Unconventional Novels About Conventional People

Aging revolutionaries and conformists share parallel narratives of disillusionment and the loss of youthful dreams in recent literature.
Philosophy
fromApaonline
1 week ago

Recently Published Book Spotlight: Aesthetics and Video Games

Video games possess unique aesthetic value that challenges traditional philosophical frameworks of games and fiction.
fromGameSpot
2 days ago

You Could Be In A PlayStation Game If You Write Well, Love PlayStation, Play And Own A Lot, Have Anecdotes, And More

PlayStation has announced a new contest called The Playerbase, allowing winners to have their likenesses scanned to appear in PlayStation games, starting with Gran Turismo 7.
Games
Film
fromVulture
6 days ago

The Twist in The Drama Is Not the Problem

The film features a controversial plot twist involving a character's past plan for a school shooting, sparking significant online speculation and backlash.
Books
fromThe New Yorker
1 week ago

The Sci-Fi Novelist Who Disappeared for Decades

Cameron Reed's science fiction explores cognitive estrangement, revealing alien worlds that reflect and challenge our own societal norms and moral dilemmas.
#film-vs-literature
Board games
fromMedium
3 weeks ago

Are games really "dumbing down"?

The Elder Scrolls evolved from a struggling franchise after failed games Battlespire and Redguard into one of gaming's most influential RPG series.
Television
fromInverse
3 weeks ago

10 Years Ago, One Conflicted Sci-Fi Reboot Dropped A Wild Finale

The 2009-2011 V reboot served as a transitional bridge between eras of science fiction television, featuring Morena Baccarin's standout performance as the alien leader Anna.
fromKotaku
2 weeks ago

I Can't Stop Playing This Terrible Game, So Maybe It's Good?

Timber Rush is about numbers going up in the crudest way imaginable, a clicker game that barely even features clicking, in which you move your woodcutter side to side as increasing numbers of increasingly silly logs fly around the screen.
Games
Psychology
fromPsychology Today
3 weeks ago

The Shift That Happens When You Write a Non-Fiction Book

Writing a book transforms tacit knowledge into explicit frameworks, forcing experts to articulate intuitions they've developed through experience into clear, communicable ideas.
Books
fromPsychology Today
2 weeks ago

Fiction Is Indispensable to Life's Journey

Fiction is essential for emotional connection, learning, and social cognition, allowing us to escape reality and engage deeply with narratives.
Video games
fromKotaku
4 weeks ago

I Fell In Love With Highguard And Now It's Gone Forever - Kotaku

Highguard, a multiplayer shooter that shut down after three months, provided deeply enjoyable late-night gaming experiences despite initial bland impressions and negative community reception.
Books
fromBustle
2 weeks ago

The 10 Best New Books About Women Breaking The Mold

Successful women often defy expectations, and quieter forms of rebellion deserve recognition alongside visible rule-breakers.
fromMedium
1 month ago

Things that don't matter when you write

To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul. The concept I stick to - my core principle - is simple: I write in plain English, and only when I actually have something to say.
Writing
fromThe Verge
1 month ago

What we're listening to, watching, and reading right now.

Whether it's a slept-on post-punk album from the '80s, a new sci-fi novel, or a cult classic horror movie, we're always finding new obsessions here at The Verge - and we want to share those obsessions with you. Sometimes that might be a new release, but often it's going to be something a little older, something not necessarily plastered all over TikTok or sitting at the top of the charts on Spotify.
Music production
fromDefector
3 weeks ago

Stephen Fishbach's Reality-TV Novel Is More Reality TV Than Novel | Defector

Each chronicle was the latest installment in a serial that began in 1492 and extended indefinitely into the future. A full-bearded Englishman (or Dutchman, or Scotsman, or Frenchman) landed on shores where everything was unfamiliar. After trial and triumph, the hero returned home to tell the tale.
Books
Music
fromwww.npr.org
1 month ago

Why music has become such a big part of the romance novel reading experience

Romance novel readers increasingly use pop music playlists to enhance their reading experiences, creating a community that bridges book fandom and music fandom, exemplified by Charli XCX's Wuthering Heights album.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
3 weeks ago

How Not to Recommend a Book

Reader's advisory—the skill of matching specific books to individual readers' preferences—is essential for successful book club experiences and literary recommendations across libraries, bookstores, and online platforms.
Philosophy
fromBig Think
1 month ago

The 3 colors: What folktales teach about how to grow wise

European folktales use red, black, and white colors to represent three modes of being that map human maturation: red as ambition and life force, black as introspection and shadow, and white as wisdom and transcendence.
Books
fromSlate Magazine
1 month ago

Something Strange Is Happening With Books. It Could Reshape Literary Culture.

BookTok readers increasingly prefer first-person narrative perspective in romance and fantasy novels, viewing third-person narration as unnecessarily complex and off-putting.
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Pieced Together review poignant narrative game gathers bittersweet fragments of a friendship

Through the ingenious medium of an interactive scrapbook, we play as Connie, glueing in photos, notes and memories of her friend after years of separation. The game begins with several attempts to write Connie a letter, before we cut-out, stick and sort the story of their lives together.
Video games
Writing
fromVulture
1 month ago

The Horny Girls Who Walked So Heated Rivalry Could Run

M/M slash fanfiction, often written by women and known as BL in Asia, evolved through fandoms like Star Trek, enabling mainstream successes like Heated Rivalry.
US politics
fromPsychology Today
2 months ago

A War of Narratives

Clear, simple narratives improve understanding; truth-focused, superior narratives are necessary to counter disinformation and avoid equating falsehoods with facts.
Education
fromeLearning Industry
1 month ago

Storytelling In Instructional Design: Turning Information Into Talent Transformation

Storytelling-based instructional design turns information into authentic, job-real experiences that activate emotion and memory, producing lasting behavior change.
Television
fromBustle
2 months ago

'Vanished' Starts Sweet, Then Drops You Into A Twist-Heavy Mystery You'll Devour

A woman’s romantic trip turns into a dangerous, twisty thriller as she pursues her mysteriously disappeared boyfriend across Europe, becoming a competent, action-ready heroine.
Board games
fromBoard Game Quest
1 month ago

A Wayfarer's Tale Review

A Wayfarer's Tale is a competitive roll-and-write exploration game with unique companions, shared dice pool, and intricate production across varied hex maps.
fromSilicon Canals
2 months ago

7 things people do when telling stories that make others tune out immediately without realizing it - Silicon Canals

We've all been there. Someone starts telling a story, and within seconds, your mind starts wandering. Maybe you pull out your phone, suddenly remember an urgent email, or find yourself mentally reorganizing your weekend plans. The storyteller doesn't notice. They keep going, completely unaware that they've lost their audience. After interviewing over 200 people for various articles, I've noticed patterns in how people communicate their experiences. Some captivate you from the first word, while others lose you before they've even gotten to the point.
Writing
fromBig Think
1 month ago

From myth to machine: The technological evolution of storytelling

I wanted to write a book about how the smartphone changed the world, but the more I researched, the clearer it became that phones were actually the latest step in this evolution of storytelling technology that stretches all the way back to prehistoric times.
Books
Video games
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

It's a loving mockery, because it's also who I am': the making of gaming's most pathetic character

Baby Steps uses deliberate frustration and an inept, awkward protagonist to transform player irritation into empathy, identification, and unexpected affection.
Television
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Competency porn: is there any greater escapism than watching a capable person on TV?

Audiences increasingly seek escapism through media that showcases calm, expert performance and everyday professional competence rather than sensational or fantastical drama.
fromInverse
3 months ago

The Best Character of 2026 Is Totally Unexpected

Trails Beyond the Horizon's new character, Ulrika, is like staring into the abyss of a broken TikTok algorithm, and while my knee-jerk reaction might have been shock and even a little disdain, over the next 100 hours, I grew to find the character's bit surprisingly genuine and, admittedly, hilarious. What first felt like a gimmick grew to become one of my absolute favorite parts of the game, enhancing the already distinct personality of the Trails games.
Video games
Writing
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

Taking the Internet Novel Offline

Depicting internet-mediated life requires new narrative strategies that ground online behavior in familiar forms like family drama to keep readers engaged.
fromArs Technica
2 months ago

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy tries something different, and I don't hate it

Ake accepts the job, and to atone for her mistake in separating Mir from his mother, she pressgangs him into the Academy as a new recruit. Oh, she's also a Lanthanite (technically a human-lanthanite hybrid), and 422 years old, which means she remembers working for the pre-burn Federation. She isn't the only academy instructor with pre-burn experience in Starfleet. Jett Reno (Tig Notaro), who came to the 32nd century with Discovery, teaches the cadets physics. And the Doctor (Robert Picardo) is chief medical officer.
Television
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

How to Put Sex in a Novel

Contemporary literary fiction increasingly avoids depicting heterosexual intimacy while queer novelists freely explore sex's complexities, as exemplified by Jan Saenz's unconventional novel about selling experimental orgasm-inducing pills.
fromThe Independent
1 month ago

17 great movies ruined by terrible endings

10 Cloverfield Lane Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman and John Gallagher Jr are locked in an underground bunker for the majority of this left-field sequel to Cloverfield, with thrilling results. In the film's final throes, Winstead's character exits the bunker, and finds that her captor was telling the truth about an alien invasion above - a twist that completely and ruinously dissipates the hard-earned tension that came before.
Film
fromEngadget
1 month ago

Layers of 3 revealed via a mysterious trailer and poem

The new chapter will include not only a game but a novel and music, the company said in a press release. The developer revealed the new IP via a live-action teaser, with an actor reading lines from William Blake's poem, The Sick Rose. A painting then fell from the wall, and the actor then turned over an hourglass with red sand, with a tagline stating "The door won't stay closed."
Video games
Television
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Eternally spellbinding': the TV shows that baffle you but you can't get enough of

Catterick, Monkey Dust, The OA, and Mrs Davies deliver surreal, darkly comic, and increasingly bizarre narratives blending crime, dreamlike animation, sci‑fi, and oddball humor.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

When Did Literature Get Less Dirty?

Philip Roth's Zuckerman Unbound functioned as a response to the controversial reception of Portnoy's Complaint, with Roth's protagonist expressing regret over writing sexually explicit material that drew accusations of anti-Semitism and misogyny.
Film
fromInsideHook
2 months ago

In Defense of Movie Sex Scenes

Onscreen sex scenes can be narratively essential but are often gratuitous, harmful, or disruptive when objectifying participants, reinforcing stereotypes, or damaging a film's flow.
fromSlate Magazine
2 months ago

The New Game of Thrones Show Flashes Something ... Huge in Episode 2. It's Not Even the Most Impressive Part.

Jenny G. Zhang: After a series premiere that seemed to be received pretty well by viewers-although the diarrhea smash cut was certainly divisive-we open the second episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms with another jump scare: big dong alert, courtesy of Ser Arlan of Pennytree, who is truly packing the heat. (While he is probably not a Best or a Worst Person in Westeros this week, he certainly deserves some kind of title.)
Video games
fromKotaku
2 months ago

Split Fiction's Director Dishes On Clair Obscur, EA, And Gen AI

The games industry must preserve diversity across AAA, AA, and indie projects rather than converging solely on perceived 'safe' AA successes.
Film
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

Zombie Movies Should Always Be This Hopeful

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple presents a hopeful vision of postapocalyptic humanity, subverting the genre's expectation of survivors preying on one another.
Television
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms review this is the Game of Thrones we all need now

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a gentle, endearing medieval buddy story about Dunk and Egg, bringing charm and warmth to Westeros.
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Gaming's new coming-of-age genre embraces millennial cringe'

A key difference between the millennial generation and that of gen Z is that millennials did not grow up curating an online image on social media, and therefore had a much lesser terror of being perceived. We'd put up entire albums of terrible, blurry photos from a single night out, write nonstop on LiveJournal, produce appalling juvenilia and then post it on fanfic or art forums.
Video games
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Myth, monsters and making sense of a disenchanted world: why everyone is reading fantasy

Fantasy is a dominant, all-pervading cultural form offering diverse subgenres, serious artistic value, and lineages from varied creators and traditions.
Video games
fromKotaku
1 month ago

Split Fiction Studio Already Working On Its Next Game

Hazelight is actively developing a new mocap-acted game as a follow-up to 2025's Split Fiction.
Video games
fromKotaku
2 months ago

Cyberpunk 2 Dev Explains The Beauty Of First-Person Storytelling

First-person perspective in Cyberpunk 2077 enhances immersion by aligning narrative subjectivity with a body-decay, consciousness-transfer story and avatar-like player identity.
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

A Biography Without 'The Boring Bits'

Sophia Stewart poses a choice that many biographers struggle with: "what to do with the boring bits."
Books
Books
fromArs Technica
2 months ago

TR-49 is interactive fiction for fans of deep research rabbit holes

Research notes in a cataloged database reveal interlinked authors, hidden computer commands, and an unfolding narrative converging on a metaphysical search and encroaching threat.
Books
fromDefector
2 months ago

Fanfiction's Total Cultural Victory | Defector

Fifty Shades of Grey's transition from fanfiction to mainstream publishing transformed the industry, proving fanfiction-originated romances can be highly lucrative and culturally influential.
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror review roundup

Subsequently, runaway children turned the valley into a fortress, surviving on food they could catch or grow, with occasional forays into the towns below. Riley has heard the rumours, but it is only when she sees a green-clad boy or is it a girl? hovering outside her bedroom window offering directions on how to find Nowhere that she realises this might be her chance to escape and save her little brother from their sadistic guardian.
Books
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Is listening to an audiobook as good as reading?

Audiobooks and comics are legitimate, effective forms of reading that expand access, boost literacy, and contribute significantly to the publishing industry.
Books
fromSlate Magazine
2 months ago

Are We Just Recycling Old Stories, Ideas, and Styles?

21st-century culture is abundant and accessible but suffers an innovation deficit, leaving a "blank space" where original cultural creation should emerge.
Books
fromwww.nytimes.com
1 month ago

Romance Glossary: An A-Z Guide of Tropes and Themes to Find Your Next Book

Lists 101 romance-genre terms (e.g., cinnamon roll, shadow daddy, fae) to help readers identify subgenres and find recommended books.
Books
fromSlate Magazine
2 months ago

The Unlikely Hit That's Popularizing a Whole New Type of Novel

Dungeon Crawler Carl is a bestselling LitRPG series blending RPG mechanics with post-apocalyptic adventure, inspiring fervent cosplay fans and a television adaptation.
Books
fromMedium
1 month ago

How to start writing (like it's easy)

A profoundly immersive book can deeply alter readers and provoke self-doubt about one's own creative abilities.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

What a Fantasy Can Reveal About Real Life

Fictional lies and imagined worlds can reveal deeper human truths through protagonists who fabricate realities, exposing inner desires, vulnerabilities, and psychological unraveling.
[ Load more ]