The 2020s have been an exhausting six years marked by a fracturing society and an increasingly surreal reality, with its literature reflecting exactly that. We’ve spent the last half decade living through a meat-grinder of rolling global quarantines, algorithmic doomscrolling, and the kind of unchecked AI acceleration that used to be strictly confined to a Ghost in the Shellprologue. With the real world getting smaller, meaner, and infinitely more unhinged, the sprawling epics of the 2010s just don't cut it anymore.
Since premiering in 2023, The Apothecary Diaries has become one of Crunchyroll’s most popular series. That's thanks largely to its intricate palace conspiracies and the slow-burning relationship between the rapturously curious apothecary, Maomao, and the enigmatic imperial official, Jinshi. Season 2 revealed more about Jinshi’s true identity while a series of isolated incidents that Maomao investigated exposed an ongoing conspiracy that threatens the entire imperial family.
Ari Notis is deputy editor of games at Polygon, where he oversees the gaming section. Previously, he was Polygon’s guides editor. Prior to joining Polygon, he was a reporter at Kotaku, the popular gaming site, and a senior editor at the lifestyle publication Best Life. He also served in various editorial capacities at various Hearst publications, including Esquire, Veranda, and Metropolitan Home. Ari is one of the people who still play Halo Infinite on a weekly basis. There are dozens of them!
Peanuts' most famous joke is way darker than you think
The football gag as animated in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! (1966)Source: Charles M. Schulz/Bill Melendez
It's one of the most famous running jokes in Peanuts' 50-year run: Lucy holds a football for Charlie Brown to run up and kick, only to pull it away at the last second. Despite years of attempts to move faster than Lucy could react, Charlie Brown always misses the kick and lands flat on his back. Like much of Peanuts, it's a story about hope. No matter what happens, Charlie Brown keeps trying.
Brandon Sanderson has reflected on the cancellation of Amazon's The Wheel of Time series in a recent interview with IGN, describing the show's abrupt ending as a "tragedy" while reiterating his frustrations with some of the changes made to Robert Jordan's books.
Bribing people is the best way to make new friends
Image: Intelligent Systems/Nintendo via Polygon
Giving gifts in Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is a fast, if not always easy, way to increase support levels with potential recruitable allies. Giving the right gift that aligns with the recipient's taste results in a hefty support boost roughly equivalent to inviting that character to a meal they love. However, figuring out what everyone likes isn't always easy, not when some list their likes as "looks of fear" or other such things you normally can't buy in stores.
IGN can exclusively reveal the latest series from Image Comics, a quirky and downright trippy vampire story dubbed Vampire on Aisle 6. And given that it's a collaboration between rising comics star Zoe Thorogood (It's Lonely at the Center of the Earth) and cartoonist/musician Joe Whiteford, it's a book that should definitely be on your radar.
HBO
Image: Intelligent Systems/Nintendo via Polygon