Peak Fiction: The Survey

What do Alsion students consider “peak fiction” (the best media of all time)? Are there any recurring franchises, a shared taste?

By: Duronto

Throughout the centuries, it was always debated what the greatest piece of media was. Is it the Holy Bible? Shakespeare’s newfangled play, Romeo and Juliet? The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, published in the 1890s? Regardless of what the general consensus was, everyone had their own ideas about what peak fiction really was. In the modern age, with the most diverse media accessibility and means to create media, what do we, Alsion, think is peak fiction? In short, this laboriously-made visual:

The sample size, although a little on the short side, shows one trend: Alsion likes cool things. But why do we, or, the 10 respondents, like these cool things? Here’s some explanations from the responders:

MOVIES:

Killer Bean is a good movie.

A Bug’s Life  has the greatest animated villain ever, Hopper.

Cars is cars (analyzing this, we can see that this responder has a clear admiration for the storytelling seen throughout Cars 1, 2, 3, and Mater’s Tall Tales. Not only do they each expand the world of Cars, but they also flesh out the characters and their dynamics within each movie.)

Cars 2 – Cars (analyzing this, we can see that a second person has taken to liking specifically the second Cars Movie, which is wildly different from 1 and 3, and is instead a sort-of spinoff about modern day spies, akin to James Bond. A lot of cars die in this movie!)

The FNAF Movie: Markeplier and Matpat. Fnaf lore goes crazy, fnaf bouta fall off after march 9th.

• Two people said this was peak! The other response said: matpat moment.

SHOWS

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is an epic depiction of Star Wars in the Clone Wars period and got me into the franchise. Very brutal!

Madoka Magica – The music is great and compliments the situation as well as the tone of the show perfectly. The art style is purposefully juxtaposed with the darker themes of the show. It takes advantage of the magical girl genre stereotype to subvert expectations and balances the aspects of the genre with the other imagery.

Spornklebob – For the lives, the laughs, and the loves. Spongebob is a classic masterpiece which made up most of my childhood. It is a very educational show as well. (Sporkob is indeed a classic masterpiece, or at least the earlier ones were.)

Sponklebub – (!!!) (Three exclamation points that say everything about sprookbob)

The Garfield Show – No one likes you nermal. Garfield taught me that triple cheese lasagna is peak (just like the show). (Nermal totally sucks)

Ninjago – Jump up kick back whip around and spin. Made up the second half of my childhood, the holy grail of lego, and the reason I spent hundreds of dollars on plastic blocks

Yu-Gi-Oh (The show in English) – The heart of the cards has given me a crippling gambling addiction. Like pokemon cards but less confusing (no one knows what energy cards do) and also no one plays it because magic the gathering is more fun to play

VIDEO GAMES

Dead Cells – 170 hrs (this is their playtime, a mark of the peak-ness of the game)

Ultrakill – 90 hrs (also a recorded playtime, substantiates peak meter)

Hollow Knight –  Iconic and with an incredible storyline.

Celeste – Everything from music and visuals design to gameplay and level design come together to form an intricate and deeply symbolic story that should be taught in every english class.

BOOKS

GameKnight999 (Invasion of the Overworld) is an epic Minecraft book series that I read as a child. It’s what got me into reading, and it’s really well-made.

Harry Potter – Because it good

Lord of the Rings – Because it good

The Hobbit – Because it good

A Series of Unfortunate Events – Because it good

Life of Pi – Because it good

Children of Time – Incredible worldbuilding of a civilization of spiders that parallels our own enough to be realistic while being different enough to be unique and creative.

Foundation – A great tale of intrigue in which challenges are solved through the character’s wits and political geniuses; what Dune should have been. The other two books in the trilogy aren’t as good, but they’re not terrible either. To protect my mental state from some unpleasant memories, I’m going to pretend that the prequels don’t exist. The last two books in the pentilogy absolutely especially don’t exist they don’t exist pain anguish no stop no they don’t exist–

The Color of Magic – Funny and light reading. Same goes for anything else by Terry Pratchett.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief – Funny and light reading.  Same goes for anything else by Rick Riordan.

MISCELLANEOUS

Big Nate is a comic strip I have read since my peak (elementary school).

Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly – 1 hr (such a peak album that they had no words for it! Warning, explicit language in the album)

Star Wars – Iconic and with an incredible storyline. (It’s iconic and with an incredible storyline! So long as you ignore the Sequel trilogy, in my opinion)

DC – Iconic and with an incredible storyline.

Studio Ghibli movies – bc their just so aesthetic and each movie conveys a good message. (this is true.)

In all, the tastes of Alsion are pretty diverse. There’s animated movies, animated shows, classic/obscure books, franchises, stylized video-games, and even an album. Our frontrunners were Cars 2 and Spongebob, so give those 2 a shot if you somehow haven’t yet.

But what’s the definitive peak fiction of the school? Probably Killer Bean. Don’t @ me.