Entertainment Preferences

[Tailsy]

Ugh, what a rubbish title. Unfortunately I can't brain today, so you're stuck with it. :(

So I was arguing with my boyfriend about how everything he watches sucks (because it's true. If I didn't recommend it to him, it's probably shit), and then I was all 'HEY I SHOULD ASK MY FORUM BROS WHAT KINDS OF THINGS THEY LIKE WATCHING/READING/WHATEVER' and... idk. It was something like that.

I'm pretty sure we already have a similar topic specifically about music somewhere, so I don't give a sweet monkey's buttocks about that. Basically, what kinds of things do you like to watch/read/play? I'm going to include video games because I don't remember a topic about it and they're more fun than music is OK.

I'm asking about what genre you enjoy, any specific plot devices, character moulds... anything! If you like sci-fi Eastenders (HI BATTLESTAR GALACTICA), then cool. If you like pregnancy-based stories involving incestous rape and guro up the wazoo, that's sort of weird but cool, too. And if you like normal things then GET OUT OF MY HOUSE
but no seriously.
You can also list things you don't like! Par for the course.

Feel free to just list shit in no real order, I'm just anal <:3

-

TV & Film
+ I'm not very good at taking things seriously (HURF WOULD YOU HAVE GUESSED??), so a lot of weird shit happening and constant wisecracks from the smartarse character is A* for me.
+ I LOVE HIGH SCHOOL SHIT LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE
+ Gratuitous violence works for me too! In small amounts. I'm hardly squeamish but cartoon blood flying everywhere is boring after a while.
+ I'm also very fond of the lovable buttmonkey archetype. They make me smile. But they have to actually be lovable.
- Anything involving harem makes me want to gouge my eyes out. Which is sad, because I'm actually weirdly fond of the saucer-sized eye art style (possibly due to watching Cardcaptor Sakura repeatedly as a child) that's so prevalent in the genre. I just... blaaah. Blatant masturbation fantasies, why do you always involve being kicked into space for *not* doing anything wrong?
- Also that pathetic 'loser' main character who has no redeeming qualities yet still has five girls after him. Ugh. Can't you like someone who has at least one endearing trait?
- WAR FILMS OH MY GOD. Can't get more depressing than that. :( I like history and all but I'm not a military history sort of person.
- Sci-fi makes me go to sleep. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not, but jesus it bores the hell out of me. WHEE WE'RE ON SPACESHIPS AND I'M GREEN ALSO HOT ALIEN CHICKS shut up man!!
- Live-action horror films freak me the fuck out. If you wanna watch horror films I'm going to be at least a street away, okay. I don't sleep enough already, man...
- Confusing and ridiculous plots. What is the point. I'm watching shit because I'm too lazy to think about it ok. 8(

Literature
+ DRAGONS!!!! oh mai gaaaaah
+ Simple language that you need to think about to fully understand the connotations.
+ Wacky powers and Five Man Bands.
+ really lame fantasy stories. Involving animals. Yesssss can't get enough of it, man.
+ Alternatively, I love stories with high school-age characters. Shut up, I identify with them, maaan. Don't be hatin'.
+ BIOGRAPHIES INVOLVING ANIMALS \o/ Marley and Me makes me so happy every time I read it. ... Then I get to the end and cry for hours, lmao.
- FUCK YOU THOMAS HARDY I HATE YOU
- An entire chapter describing a fucking heath. AN ENTIRE CHAPTER DETAILING ONE CHARACTER AND HOW ~BEAUTIFUL~ AND ~TROUBLED~ SHE IS
- I don't CARE how awesome you are. I hate you. >:(
- Anita Blake can go fuck herself, too. I don't care if she's a character and not the author because I've forgotten the author's name. You're terrible. Get out. I'd actually *rather* read Twilight.

Video Games
+ Turn-based battling systems, mostly because I stress the fuck out in real time because I'm a loser with no reflexes! D:
+ Point-and-click! YAY EXPLORING THINGS
+ A large music selection, because... I mean... I like hearing lots of different tunes in-game!
+ COLLECTING A TON OF RANDOM SHIT MAKES MY DAY
+ Breaking the fourth wall. Don't like it so much in anything else, but in video games it makes me super-happy.
+ Epically long games with crazy plots. Sup JRPGs, I see you hiding there.
- I really can't work the Wii Remote. It stresses me out more than real time!! This is probably why I stopped playing Okami an hour in. I just - fuck that remote, right.
- Fuck those egg thieves. Fuck them to hell.
- Things that involve like... people actually dying realistically. Look, I'm going to jump off a cliff and you're going to have fun surviving it, right. >:(
- "HEY SARAH HOW ABOUT YOU HAVE A GO AT [generic FPS] *LOBS CONTROLLER*" "AUHGDHIJFHUOSFI WHAT ARE YOU DOING WHAT AM I DOING STOP CAMPING AND SNIPING ME I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SHOOT" "... sarah it's right trigger" "WHAT" "RIGHT TRIGGER" "BUT I'M LEFT-HANDED!!!"

OKAY I'M BORED OFF YA GO

 

[Blastoise Fortooate]

VIDJAGAMES:

+ Unique ideas that would be hard to find somewhere else.
+ Side pursuits so you can take a break from the main plotthing.
- Taking itself too seriously.
- No colors than gunmetal grey and city-sky brown.
+Cool villains.
- Unlikable protagonists; I don't want to be shoehorned into the role of someone I don't even like.
+ Being able to play effectively with different styles.
+++ Pointless customization (I'm looking at you, Ball Capsules)

SHOWS:
+ Phantasmagorical elements, for the most part, although some sitcoms are pretty good.
- Unvaried plots.
+ Multiple characters who are interesting (duh).
+ Show-related memes you can shout at other fans (SCREW THE RULES I like memes)
+ Good voice acting/casting.
- Unfaithful adaptations.
+ Sarcastic character(s).
+ Original, if not amazingly amazingtastic effects.
+ Hour-long episodes.

BOOKS:
+ Sci-fi/fantasy stuff.
- That 'going to a new school' crap, thank you. I like some relevance to my book's events, or at least some non-boring stuff.
+ The occasional light moment.
+ Satire/parody (Hitchhiker's).
+ Series, if at all plausible. One-offs are still okay, but more having than one book set the same universe is a plus.
+++ Available in paperback (I'm cheap).

MUSIC:

+ Electric guitar solos.
- Rap
+ Songs that actually have a point.
- Most ballads.
+ Songs from musicals/movie sound tracks.
- Pop singers who can't actually sing.

 

[see ya]

...Okay, I'll bite.

TV & FILM

+ Most of these are going to be really specific or character-based, because really, as long as it's well-done, i like just about any genre or subject matter.

- I can handle a constant barrage of animated violence, but if someone so much as gets a papercut in a live-action movie I feel like I have to throw up. This is why I avoid horror films like the plague.

- I think a lot of live-action movies these days are just lazy, both in writing and directing. A lot of animated films are like this too, but they have a better ratio of good to bad. PIXAR IS GOD.

- I'm really, really sick of tsunderes. Not all tsunderes, mind you, but the typical one you see in a lot of anime. (The one that screams "BAKA" every five seconds) It's just really annoying. In fact, a lot of anime stock characters piss me off. And I find a lot of Japanese female voices grating. (PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!)

+ I love it when shows can pull off comedy and drama equally well and use either one to take you by surprise through well-done mood whiplash. This is the reason my favorite show of all time is Futurama.

+ Romance is great, but unless the whole show revolves around a love story, it should stay a subplot and not consume an entire series. The "Will They or Won't They?" aspect is also a plus in my book. Again, Futurama played this perfectly.

- FUCK THE DOGGED NICE GUY. Anything that involves a guy sitting around whining because BAAAWW ALL TEH GRLZ NLY GO OOT W/ JERKS and fails to give us any reason as to why this loser is so worthy of the ladies' attention immediately looses my attention. (No, the aforementioned Futurama doesn't count as this, as Leela wasn't portrayed as a horrid bitch for constantly rejecting Fry, because we could clearly see the flaws that turned her off of him.)

- I also hate the expectation that all men care about is sex. Look, there's nothing wrong with having a pervert character, but when it consumes EVERY SINGLE MALE IN THE WORK, it gets annoying. So, following this, I hate movies that revolve around every male being a horndog.

- And one more along this line: not enough real female characters. they're always either shallow, vapid whores or over-the-top perfect role models. I really wish there were more women in movies that are just...people.

LITERATURE

+ Sci-Fi. Whether it be bizarre, out-there sci-fi (Hitchhiker's Guide) or subtle (Kurt Vonnegut's stuff), it's all great.

+ Realistic fiction is good too.

+ Dark humor is the best humor (Slaughterhouse-Five)

- Books written by women who do nothing but talk about their mothers/husbands/other family members. Come on, ladies. There's got to be something better to write about...

- When the whole plot revolves around some religious thing that, under closer scrutiny, isn't that important. What? Jesus was married? WHOOPTY-FREAKING-DOO. That doesn't change a damn thing about the New Testament and you all know it.

VIDEO GAMES

- Most JRPGs bore me to tears, especially if they're set in a European-fantasy setting. I like my RPGs quirky, yet intelligent, like the Mother series and the Mario RPGs.

+ GOOD VOICE ACTING PLZ. Bad voice acting was one of the things that kept Silent Hill 1 from being remembered as a classic.

+ Speaking of Silent Hill, video game plots that would be equally at home in a serious novel make me very happy.

+ A unique, pleasant artstyle is far more valuable than top-of-the-line graphics.

- Legend of Zelda. And I have no idea why this is. I respect the series, but I just can't get into it. Everyone thinks I'm weird because of this...

 

[Murkrow]

General
+ When things have a whole made up history thing going on. I might not know much real life history but I know *way* too many dates from Star Trek.

+ When each character has their own story and is developed. (Lost is over D:) Would've put this in with TV stuff but then I realised that Majora's Mask had something like this.

+ Alternate Reality Games. I might not be clever enough to work out any of that stuff by myself but I love the online hype.

+ A good soundtrack

TV & Films
- Most sci-fi dramas. HEY Stargate Universe I LOVE how well you're hiding trying to be BSG.

- Sad things. Because people talk about how sad it is and I feel uncomfortable and question my humanity when I don't find it sad at all.

+ REALLY sad things. Whoo I have feelings after all. Wait why am I cheering I'm supposed to be sad.

+ So-bad-it's-good. Laughed so much during Mega Shark vs Giant Octapus.

- Reality shows, game shows etc

+ I really like things that are set in the Victorian era, providing it has a plot I like. It has a certain charm, I guess.

+ Story arc that lasts more than a few episodes.

- When the story arc is too weak (hey USS Voyager is STILL stuck on the other side of the galaxy, and are STILL trying to get home!)

- Okay Doctor Who, Bad Wolf was fun but now having an arc word/plot device EVERY SERIES now is getting old. Stop it.

Literature
+ Sci-fi. Really like it when futuristic stuff is written about in a matter-of-fact way, and it isn't just a story written for the sake of having a story set in the year 10,000.

+ Twists that make you want to read it again (would apply to TV and film but not so much)

+ <3 how Tolkien's books have maps and family trees and stuff.

Video Games
+ Good graphics. And I don't mean high quality, I mean good. I love the colours in older N64 games because they were bright basic colours. Today games are too full of brown and bloom.

+ Unique gameplay. Depend on what sort of gameplay makes it unique but I love games like Majora's Mask and Portal that don't really have many other games like them. (Okay I know Portal 2 and Mario Galaxy 2 are on the way)

+ 8 bit. Not for the nostalgia or anything but since most of them are pretty simple, I really like analysing how glitches work and stuff.

- DRM. I like how hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on anti-piracy for one of the latest GTA games and it was cracked the same day as the release. Also how people who get the crack of games don't have to put up with "You have two CD drives so we won't let you play our game because you're obviously going to copy the disk".

- Over complicatedness. Hey Sid Meier I just conquered the world and all of my cities are celebrating "We love the president day" every turn so why is my leadership ability the same as Dan Quayle?

+ Competitiveness. Although people who are too competitive usually ruin games for me. Also I may like games like TF2 or Counterstrike for the competitiveness, but I'm really no good at them, So I don't play on them much because I often get flamed/kicked because I suck :c

+ Side quests. Especially if you're not told what exactly you're supposed to be doing. Speaking of which there should be more Regi-style puzzles in Pokémon. I might usually have to look it up on the internet but eh.

- Tier lists. Pokémon is no exception since the people who are way too serious about it ruin the fun for me.

 

[goldenquagsire]

TV&Film
+Funny is good but sitcoms are kinda ass.
-Fucking multiple series I hate them hate hate hate.
-Fuck soaps they suck ass.
-I hate srs bsnss films. Thanks to my dad, I've probably seen every film about the Holocaust, Rwanda, Nelson Mandela and every single imaginable human interest story. And I am damn sick of it. Gimme some mindless violence.
+Sci-fi is awesome why do people hate it so much? And whiny realism nerds can go watch Discovery Channel or something, I don't give a crap about science.
+Adaptations are my guilty pleasure. Apart from video game adaptations, those are normally shit.
-Anime! Seriously hate slice of life and anything to do with high school. It needs at least 20% Gundams or 40% mindless violence to pique my interest.

Literature
+Okay so I gave the impression that I'm a pretty uncultured yob! Well books is where I'm happy to read less violent stuff.
-I pretty much disregard modern authors. Not because of any specific dislike but because I feel there's a whole other bunch of stuff I need to catch up on before I can read new stuff.
-Trashy sci-fi, while good on film, isn't so impressive on paper. But good sci-fi like Ursula le Guin is godly.
-Fuck adaptations of anything not book-related. They. Are. Never. Good.

Video Games
+RPGs are good for zoning out a little.
+SRPGs are good for busting my nuts.
+Hey guys you know these funky Western games are just as good as JRPGs rite?
-Don't make too much plot. Endless cutscenes are crap just cut too the action please.
-Never tried online multiplayer in my life. irl multi is fun I guess although I have a habit of sucking.

 

[ultraviolet]

TV & Film
+ animated funny (simpsons, futurama) but not animated unfunny (american dad, south park). family guy is on the fence for me. :/
+ ...cooking shows :D masterchef in particular, but any cooking show I enjoy watching.
+ house/glee/merlin/dexter are good. I used to watch medium but it's not that good anymore. :/ Jekyll was a really good tv series, really interesting. :o
+ documentaries, especially about animals 8)

- any reality tv show that has anything at all to do with singing or talent or performing. :|
- 'current affair' shows, which I occasionally watch out of amusement at how horrible they are

I'm pretty happy to watch any kind of film unless it's gory, scary or marketed as funny because they nearly never are. I love pretty much all animated films (except shrek, I really want it to just gtfo) but I particularly like festival films. I also like cult classics like labyrinth, rocky horror, little shop of horrors, etc.

Literature
+ obligatory harry potter mention
+ I tend to read the less detailed fantasy series, like wicked, artemis fowl etc. I can't stand tolkien (seriously takes way too long to describe anything) but I do like C.S. Lewis, particularly The Magician's Nephew and The Horse and His Boy.
+ I love Oryx & Crake, but I have not read any other Margaret Atwood. :c
+ Hitchhiker's omg <3 but the film is terrible
+ A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears is a wonderful book, as is Life of Pi, Brave New World and The Book Thief.
+ Graeme Base, if you have not heard of this guy go and look him up <3

- I actually really don't like Twilight. :c
- Eragon is ehh... okay. I like to read it despite all its flaws but the fact there are so many of them makes it hard to read. I like the story even though I know it's a rehashed version of so many other things, but yeah. Dragons make it good I suppose.
- hugely immensely complicated fantasy series. I cannot retain all that information and still be interested in it.

Video Games
+ mostly playstation. pokemon is pretty much the only nintendo game I like.
+ driving games omg. <3 not that grand theft auto bullshit, like actual fun racing games. I will play any racing game whether it's mario kart or need for speed.
+ CRASH BANDICOOT BEFORE IT WAS SUCKY (that is, before naughty dog sold it) also SPYRO THE DRAGON BEFORE IT WAS SUCKY (before it was also sold by insomniac)
+ platformers mostly. so ratchet & clank, klonoa, kya: dark lineage, etc.
+ ff8 is the only final fantasy I like. :/
+ harvest moon! :D I own back to nature and DS.

 

[Zuu]

tv+film
+ psychological thrillers
+ horror movies that don't suck (so basically like maybe two films)
+ swedish films! the ones i've seen so far have been fuckawesome
+ i don't watch tv, but breaking bad is good
+ i suck at this

literature
+ ummm, horror/psychological thriller stuff still. i basically breathe this shit.
+ classic >>> contemporary
+ sci-fi can be good, but not usually. usually it has to be apocalyptic or like, on the brink of apocalypse to entertain me
+ generic fantasy shit can be okay. i liked the lord of the rings (shit i need to re-read it)

music
+ currently my favorite band is coheed & cambria, and i've been showing a growing interest in prog rock/prog metal
+ i'll probably always be a metalhead. sort of grown out of power metal, but i like melodic black metal, ambient black metal, melodic death metal, death metal, some thrash, a small amount of doom metal, a hearty dose of folk metal... i just heard of a band called "the funeral pyre" and they're pretty alright (meloblack)
+ every once in a while i'll listen to -core stuff but it's rare and usually short-lived
+ classical music is also good, except i don't have a good collection (or a collection at all really...) so
+ oh yeah, i like chiptune, and that's kinda what i make, i guess, though that's been dying out lately.
+ i still suck at this

 

[Butterfree]

General
+ Witty, entertaining dialogue and characters always brighten up a work.
+ Hot fictional men! And awesome personalities are totally hot even if they guy is average-looking or it's a book with no pictures.
+ ...who get tortured or otherwise put through horrible painful injuries. And they don't just shrug it off and walk away but actually spend a good portion of the rest of the story being injured! :D (Oh, shut up.)
+ Epic friendships! I frigging adore heterosexual life partners. Or they can be any sexuality or gender; I don't really care. As long as they have an epic platonic love going on and would die for one another. Yesssss.
+ Characters who go through emotional hell and back and slowly unravel or are otherwise broken. Especially if they're hot fictional men.
+ Awesome female characters (note that there are many ways to be awesome).
- Hardasses with no soul. If they're not emotionally broken, don't have any serious issues to speak of, shrug off injuries like they're nothing and don't have truly epic relationships to the other characters, they're just rather boring to me. May be salvageable if they have the greatest dialogue ever or something, I guess.
- Utterly shallow female characters. I don't mind works that fail the Bechdel test because the characters they focus on happen to be male, but if they do have female characters and they're prominent enough to make it apparent that they truly have absolutely no real lives of their own, or their lives revolve solely around men or babies or shopping, or they're otherwise all just generally painfully shallow compared to the male characters, it will bug me to no end.
- Characters who act painfully dumb in an irritating way. Stupid characters can be endearing when done right (Gumshoe!), but when the plot is driven by the main character(s) making one horribly stupid decision after another, such as in many romances where if people would just learn to communicate for once everything would have been resolved within five minutes, it's just annoying.
- Unsatisfying endings. They don't have to be happy, but I always feel let down if a work just ends with the conflict completely unresolved, if nothing has changed or been learned or if there's just a cliffhanger.

TV/Movies
+ Robert Downey Jr. And other hot actors. Preferably playing the aforementioned hot fictional men in pain.
+ Good, well chosen music! It can add so much.
+ Strong, continuous story arcs in TV shows. I don't care if it makes it hard to miss an episode; if I miss one I'll dig it up somewhere and watch it anyway because I hate watching things out of order.
+ Shirtless scenes for all those hot fictional men. Shush.
- Conspicuous CGI, models that move unnaturally, poor makeup or other lacking special effects. They bug meee. If you don't have the technology to make it look convincing, don't make a movie/show about it. D:
- Status quo is God. It always makes me cringe a little when something happens that could make for very interesting future developments is unceremoniously undone before the end of the episode so that nothing will actually change.

Literature
+ Fantastic elements at the very least. Don't know what it is, but books are so much more enjoyable to me if they're not set in just the plain old real world. I don't care if the fantastic elements would be classified as fantasy or science fiction or neither, but the perfectly mundane tends to not really appeal to me in book form. They don't need to be huge fantastic elements - just something to break it away from this-could-easily-happen-exactly-like-this-in-real-life.
- Cumbersome writing. My attention wanders very quickly if there are lengthy descriptions of things that aren't important or the like.

Comics
- Ugly-looking 'realistic' faces. The comics I grew up reading were all very cartoony in drawing style (Tintin, Asterix, Lucky Luke and Disney comics), and I have this really cringey reaction whenever I try to read stuff like most American superhero comics (even for instance Watchmen, which I otherwise love) because the art is trying to be realistic but can't actually go all the way thanks to the lack of ability to do proper shading and the like and ends up with this horrifying hybrid that makes all human faces without exception look positively grotesque. When they're cartoonified enough to avoid this, they'll look appealing without needing to be realistic. When they successfully cross the uncanny valley and look genuinely realistic that way, it's fine. In between... ugh.

Video Games
+ Turn-based or point-and-click gameplay. My reflexes are awful and I like having the time to think before I make a decision.
+ Mirrored stat and combat mechanics, i.e. the exact same rules apply to me as to the enemies I'm fighting. This is pretty much just a bizarre obsessive-compulsive thing; it bugs me irrationally if I seem to happen to be playing as the only people in the world who can level up and use these generic weapons and cast these generic spells or whatever (unless there's sensible explanation, of course). One of the things I like about Pokémon is how relatively mirrored it is.
+ Interesting, well-developed worlds and stories.
+ Characters I actually care about.
+ 2D (presentation-wise). I heart sprites, as long as they're well done.
- Lack of direction. When I play a game, I want to know what I'm supposed to do and have clear goals that are reasonably within sight. If I'm just supposed to play around in the sandbox, it kills my interest in the game very quickly. For me it's more about having played it, followed the story, solved the puzzles, etc. than about the actual playing and following and solving; I don't play video games to kill time (there are always a hundred more useful things I could be doing with that time); I just want to get on with it so I can finish the game. The exception here would be Pokémon.
- Platforming. There is just something about me and trying to aim jumps. Applies doubly if it's 3D; I can play some 2D platformers, but in 3D I'm screwed. Damn you, Psychonauts! ;_; I want to play you!
- First-person shooters. I am terrible at aiming guns, too. Portal would be the exception, but that's because it's a puzzle game, you have plenty of time and you don't have to aim very precisely.

 

[Storm Earth and Fire]

Film & TV
+ I like vulgar comedy for whatever reason.
+ War films. The more depressing, the better.
+ In general, though, it's quite hard for me to dislike a movie. If I was reasonably entertained, it's not a bad film. And I am surprisingly easily entertained. Basically, I'm not a hard critic at all.
+ Documentaries and such.
+ Cooking shows.
+ South Park, Robot Chicken.
+ The Office, both British and American.
+ Seinfeld.
+ Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. I fucking love this show.
- I don't watch much TV otherwise.
- Unstatisfying endings. If something isn't resolved, it bothers me.
- Horror films. Don't like 'em.
- I have yet to see a good adaptation of a game.

Literature
+ George Orwell
+ Harry Turtledove
+ Spy novels
+ Fantasy
- Sci-fi, odd as it may seem, I'm not particularly into it. It works for me in every other media, but I can't really get into sci-fi novels.
- I don't know good writing or any of that stuff, I just know what I like.

Computer/Video Games
+ A working first-person shooter. By that I mean the controls work, the multiplayer is relatively balanced, and has some fun element.
+ Fairly realistic FPS. Operation Flashpoint was too hard for me. Red Orchestra and Insurgency are just right.
+ Unreal.
+ Warcraft.
+ StarCraft II (based on the beta), was not the biggest fan of the first game, though.
+ Paradox Interactive.
+ The ex-communist states. Some of their games are bad, but if they can keep putting out things like The Witcher, The Void, Gothic, and such, Eastern (and Central) Europe will rise up to become a major game producing region. I like how some of their games are quite different, so to speak.
+ I'm not picky with JRPGs. As long as there are characters I can get into and a plot that I can follow, I'll give it a try at least.
+ Command & Conquer.
+ 2D. 3D graphics are great, but when a game makes the jump, the presentation in 3D always looks off to me. See RollerCoaster Tycoon.
+ Grand Theft Auto
+The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. It's my favorite Zelda game.
- The gameplay in many JRPGs. I have yet to find one which has gameplay I can actually praise. In at least one occasion, it's to the point that I am honestly thinking, 'Maybe if this were a series rather than a game...'
- Platformers.
- I don't think anyone likes a protagonist they can't like.
- People on Battle.net. They either don't know what they're doing (which isn't bad because you can simply guide them along) or get mad far too easily. Hope that you don't get someone who combines the two. Generalizing, to be fair, but I swear at least 2/3rds of Battle.net falls into one of those camps.
- Kids on Xbox Live.
- RTS on a console. Maybe the best one I've seen is Command & Conquer on the N64.

Anime
+ Romantic comedies and harems. I think it's a combination of the various tropes involved that endears me to them, though I've seen a number of terrible ones in my time.
+ Incest. Makes things interesting.
+ Good voice acting is always a plus.
+ When they use languages other than Japanese and English.
- Anything that goes past 200 episodes. Typically not worth watching for me.
- Almost all shounen action shows. Can't stand them, but there are a few odd exceptions.
- The goodie-goodie male protagonist in most harems. Doesn't bother me too much, but I really would like to see a different sort of protagonist here.
- Adaptations of visual novels. They can be quite good, but much of the time I am left just wanting to play the visual novel.

Visual Novels
+ Horror.
+ Psychological thrillers.
+ Any protagonist that isn't a mop-headed eyeless idiot/total nice guy.
+ Smutty sex romps.
- Smutty sex romps.

 

[spaekle]

Well, okay.

GENERAL
+ Sci-fi, things involving futuristic technology, big robots...
+ Cyberpunk/steampunk/biopunk/punkpunk/yeah.
+ Creepy/suspenseful/plain fucked up is always great.
- Not so much romance. I don't mind if it's like a subplot or whatever, but otherwise I can't take it seriously and it ruins things for me.
- I hate the medieval fantasy genre. I have a few exceptions that are video games, but as a whole that genre really doesn't do it for me. At all.
- There are exceptions here and there for this one, but in general I don't really like the "talking animals" thing. Especially in situations where the animals replace humans.
- If it's too long I'll probably get bored of it.

TV & MOVIES
+ Documentaries and travel shows.
+ I'm really starting to love old black-and-white movies, particularly if they're Sci-Fi or suspense.
+ The Twilight Zone is very awesome, by the way.
+ Yeah, yeah, I like hot actors.
+ I love action movies, especially in-theater. The more explosions the better.
+ Anything that has Liam Neeson talking in it is automatically great.
+ "The Joy of Painting" with Bob Ross. You can't turn it off, can you?
+ Old Nick/CN/Disney shows that are mostly good for nostalgia's sake.
- Horror movies that rely entirely on fake gore and startle scares. These are not what nightmare fuel is made of.
- Shitty comedy.

LITERATURE
+ Anything resembling creepypasta. Short horror/suspense stories are great.
+ I've been meaning to read more Dahl, Lovecraft, and Palahnuik.
+ I like Steinbeck. I dunno why, I just do.
+ Macbeth.
- I'm very prone to tl;dr.
- Fiction centered around important events in American history before the 1900's. If I have to read another Civil War novel I'm going to kill myself, and the Revolution isn't much better. Everything else that happened before 1900 is boring too.

VIDEO GAMES
+ Anything that allows me to spend hours leveling shit up and customizing it. I get addicted.
+ RPG's, most of the time.
+ Portable consoles. I can't seem to play home consoles for very long.
- I don't like racing games or most shooters.
- Games with time limits, especially if the whole game has one big time limit. Fuck you, pikmin.
- DS games that abuse the DS's features. I don't want to have to yell at my game to kill a monster.
- On the other hand, DS games that barely even utilize the touch screen. I don't really like having to controlpad through my items menu while my mage dude is dying, PS0.
- Really godawful voice acting.

MUSIC
~ My music taste is terrible. I'll be the first to admit this.
+ Anything with a nice catchy beat that makes me want to get up and dance.
+ Techno, electronic, and synth are all cool.
+ Anything in the above genres that has a quirky, sort of 'dark' feel to it.
+ I actually like some old rock music too, most of it from the 80's.
- Country is just terrible most of the time.
- I don't like depressing music. I use music to cheer myself up. :(

EDIT:

+ Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. I fucking love this show.

*high-five* :D

 

[Green]

TV & Film
+ animation, comedy and dirty jokes especially B]
+ comedians 8D that dunham guy is the shit.
+ meerkat manor
+ shows about psychotic animals
+ 80s transformers yes yes yessss 8]

- idk


Literature
+ long books that you want to read nmw
+ fiction yes
+ kind of science fiction :|

- holy fuck no twilight nnnnuuu gtfo

Video Games
+ mario bros. yes yes yes ommmmg major <3
+ grand theft auto and pretty much any game where you can hijack and run around crashing cars c:
+ pokemon :c
+ rpgs that are grappling :x
+ driving games

- pokemon c:
- rpgs that are mindfuck

 

[opaltiger]

If you like sci-fi Eastenders (HI BATTLESTAR GALACTICA), then cool

... what?

 

[Vladimir Putin's LJ]

Film and TV
+ Pretentious, arty stuff. I will devour it (American Beauty, Grimm Love, etc)
+ In the same line as the above, independent films. Small studios usually have to rely on a great story a lot more than big Hollywood blockbusters because they don't have enough money for amazing effects. This is good!
+ Britcoms.
+ Realistic love stories! They can be very satisfying or very frustrating but always good. Films that take serious issues and still manage to insert moments that are funny as hell are also in this line of thinking (A Serious Man, Little Miss Sunshine)
+ There's a weird line between silly comedies I enjoy (In & Out, Mannen Wie Wer) and silly comedies I want to drive a stake through (vast majority of Hollywood comedies, unfortunately)
+ Good satire, like The Naked Gun or Hot Fuzz.
+ On television, story arcs are coolio.
+ Well done WWII things, both comedy and serious. Not just 'generic ally smashes nazi w/ hammer' because no one gives a shit.
+ Films that deal with uncomfortable issues in a clever way (Hard Candy, Der Junge Torless, My Life Without Me, Lolita) and killer films with interesting murders/murderers (Se7en, Grimm Love). And films with woobies (The Browning Version :c 1950s version).
+ Dystopian stories. Children of Men, Clockwork Orange, here's looking at you.
+ Characters you can really hate but that do have some redeeming qualities (Pan's Labyrinth). Likewise, characters you're supposed to hate but love anyway (that... German guy from Inglorious Basterds was one of the only good things in the films for me, haha).
- Horrible satire like Meet the Spartans, etc
- Overly dramatic films or moments that completely ruin an otherwise alright story (The Lovely Bones for instance). The music is very important here.
- Remakes of things that don't need remakes (Lolita, Let the Right One In >:/)
- When films are about a specific event that took place in some random country (probably in Europe) and everyone still speaks English but with a stupid fake accent. Sometimes it's not completely detrimental, but it still really annoys me because it's always done to be able to cram famous actors in, when lesser-known actors from said countries would do much better (almost every fucking nazi movie ever made). The worst is of course when they do hire incredibly talented lesser-known actors but still make them all speak English because they managed to hire ONE famous American/English actor (Grimm Love. I hate that one woman, she really ruins a lot of the film for me. And it would have been much better in general if they just spoke German ffs).
+ i have a horrible guilty pleasure called Project Runway fffff. basically i like any real-life whatever programmes where the participants have to make/do things and then get torn to shreds by the critics because i'm a horrible person

Literature
+ Purple prose (Oscar Wilde)
- Purple prose (Stephenie Meyer)
+ I don't know how to describe this, haha. Stories that have really out-there elements but which you can see happening in real life? Good story telling? Ehhh (We Need to Talk About Kevin, Middlesex, Lolita, Roald Dahl stories).
+ Subtle humour.
+ This is going to sound horrible but stories with psychological abuse done right (The Browning Version, The Virgin Suicides, etc. If you read it right, Twilight can fit here too!)
- Good books that are ruined by being supremely boring due to pedantic writing (Os Maias).
- Teenage wangst stories. They hit too close to home

Comics
+ Like in my films, I love independent comics <3 they're not very popular but they're usually very beautiful and awesome.
+ Humourous retellings of trips to foreign countries (Pyongyang, Birmanie and Shenzen by Guy Delisle are great examples of this (I hope he makes one about his stay in Israel!), so is Kaboul Disco by Nicolas Wild). Comic about everyday life are also awesome because you recognize so much of yourself, haha (Lewis Trondheim's bio comics are my favourite).
+ Clever use of lines and colour can make an otherwise drab story very good.
+ Russian comics. Most have great art styles.
- Unnatural poses can turn me off completely.
- Almost every mainstream Japanese comic is shit. And they obscure genuinely *good* Japanese comics like Naoki Urasawa's stuff.

Video Games
+ Slow paced games with turn-based combat or the like are what I like best. I like some fast games (like Assassin's Creed or Mirror's Edge) but 90% of all FPS make me jumpy as fuckkk
+ Good worlds. This actually counts for all the above categories :v sometimes I hate a series but like the world a lot (like in Harry Potter).
+ Creepy god games like Sims.
+ Art games etc etc
+ Platforming
- Most FPSs :/
- Adaptations from films.

Also this wouldn't be a VladPost if I didn't mention my love of bromances and gay moments somewhere. I like platonic/strong friendship stuff as well, honest! Sherlock Holmes and all that.

 

[Tailsy]

... what?

Eastenders in Space was all I could think of when I tried watching it. :(

 

[Karkat Vantas]

GENERAL

+ Good, witty dialogue.
+ Dystopian fiction.
+ Whales!
+ Nerdy protagonists.
- Stereotypical nerd protagonists.
- Super macho protagonists, unless it's played for laughs.
- Mr. Faceless Guy With Machine Gun and Dreadlocks.
+ Clever villains.
- Card carrying villains.
+ Manipulative/Magnificant Bastards.
+ Well Intentioned Extremists.
+ Good character development.
+ Depression. True Art is Angsty.
- Shallow females that aren't played for laughs
+ Big Lipped Alligator Moments!

FILM

+ Pixar! Hell yes these guys are awesome.
- Shrek. Green ogres can go jump off a cliff.
- War movies. What are they good for? Absolutely nothing except boring the crap out of you!
- Mockbusters. Screw you, Ratatoing.
- Video game movies.
- Hollywood's incredible love of making unnecessary movie versions of random stuff. At the moment, we have movie versions of Marmaduke, The A-Team, and Prince of Persia out. Yay?
+ So bad it's good stuff.
+ Tim Burton. I don't give a shit what you guys think this guy is God.
+ Uwe Boll.
- Uwe Boll.

MUSIC

+ Band toons. Especially Gorillaz.
+ Well done rock opera. This is extremely rare nowadays, but w/e
- Death metal.
- Rappin' bout mah hoes n' mah blingers. Bullshizzle!
- Bands that don't even pretend that they want to write music and just make random monkey noises and sound disturbing.
- Emo music. Gerard Way, please go stab yourself. Repeatedly.

LITERATURE

- Twilight.
- Books that have an extremely shallow plot (ie; The House on Mango Street)
- Books with more symbolism than plot (ie; The House on Mango Street)
- Books with lots of characters that are pretty much the same as each other (ie; The House on Mango Street)
- Books where the chapters have no relation to each other (ie; The House on Mango Street)
- Books that hide their crappy plot behind layers and layers of confusing grammar and didacticism (ie; The House on Mango Street)

(tldr The House on Mango Street = WORST BOOK EVER)

VIDEO GAMES

+ Platformers!
+ Well done pixelated graphics!
+ Games that are difficult enough to remain fun but aren't too frustrating!
- FPSes
- THE NEXT GENERATION
- Games that focus on pretty graphics rather than gameplay
+ Yoku blocks.
- Yoku blocks.
+ Strumming on a plastic guitar.
- Tier lists (although Pokemon is an exception)
+ Good bad voice acting (Megaman 8/X4, Resident Evil, etc)
- Bad bad voice acting (Megaman X7)
- BURBURBURNING TO THE GROUND GROUND GROUND!

 

[opaltiger]

Eastenders in Space was all I could think of when I tried watching it. :(

Where the hell did you start?

 

[Chopsuey]

Video Games
EDIT:

+ Strumming on a plastic guitar.

+I liek real-time battle systems mostly. That way I'm pressured.
+Games involving projectile weapons, swords, explosives or any other destructive force that you happen to have control over. (MODERN WARFARE OH MY GOD SO AWESOMEEEEE)
+Long plots, after-story missions.
+The ability to create your own character.
+Multiple endings, different ways to play, i.e., good and evil. (Fable is a good example of this.)
+Scary and/or tense areas in the game that make you shiverrrrrrr.
+Has to be relatively tough.
+Lot's of items! Even random crap you don't need, that gives you evil points, curses you or is just plain bullshit! (Fable again. <3 I love eating raw baby chickens while wearing cursed armour that hurts me and fighting off wraiths and/or golems with a frying pan!)
+/-Blood is good and bad, depending on where it's put.
-Lack of difficulty, variation in missions, ect.
-Stupid requirments. (MUST HAVE A RECOGNITION OF MAXIMUM LEVEL BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE TRAINING AREA TO ACCEPT THIS MISSION.)

Books.
+Fantasy.
+Fiction.
+Battles, killing.
-Anything else. (Yeah, I'm a great book critic, ain't I?)

Shows, movies, other crap.
+Long, epiccc. (Thinking of you, Lost. I wish you were still making moar episodes. ;_;)
+Lots of characters, varying personalities.
+Slay the annoying characters, they're annoying.
-Slaying good characters. ;_; (Lost, thinking of you again. But you just *HAD* to kill Charlie, Echo and Boone. T-T)

Yeah. I'm tough on TV too.

EDIT: Forgot music.

Music.
+Metallica.
+Sabbath.
+Iron Maiden.
+Sweating Bullets. FEELING PARANOID TO ENEMY OR FALSE FRIEND
ANXIETY'S ATTACKING ME AND MY HAIR IS GETTING THIN
I'M IN TROUBLE FOR THE THINGS I HAVEN'T GOT TO YET
I'M SHARPENING THE AXE AND MY PALMS ARE GETTING WET
SWEATING BULLEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTSSSSS!
+Metal in general.
+Death Metal.
-Death Metal.
+Guitar solos/ fully instumental songs. (Dear god, The Call of Ktulu is like... immensely kick-ass.)
-Punk.
-Rap.
-Classical.
-Taylor Swift, Def Leppard, Justin Beiber and a bunch of other shit.

 

[Tarvos]

I like books about suicide, depression, bleak scenery, and for some obscure reason, mythological references.