#i suck at reviews its just me rambling

[gibbearish]

Congrats on sending that application!

THANK UUUUUU

[koqabear]

Hii, I sent a super long ask review of only you darling earlier this year- just wondering if you got it or if tumblr ate it 🥺

HIII omg… i did some serious digging through my inbox, and from what i see, i only have one review that’s off anon that i still need to respond to…! i might have skipped over it when i was scrolling tho… do you remember maybe around when you sent it? i’ll try look again omg 😭😭

[caruliaa]

this is like. it feels insane to do and i feel like i might just do it for a bit of a break but like. i kinda wanna change my blog theme and url and stuff to be hatchetfeild themed. im still into cs ofc but npmd has meant iv felt myself rly getting back into tht stuff, with finally watching nightmare time and everything and idk. i feel like i associate this current like. aesthetic and phase of my tumblr is smth i associate with a phase in my life when i had someone be a part of it and now they dont want me anymore or ig. its a bit self pitying to say that but they still yk. arent in my life anymore and its hard to not feel a bit sad with how my blog is rn with how much i associate stuff like this with them. idk maybe not my url im very proud of being tuser caruliaa but i think it wld be good for my pfo and blog aesthetic yk. ill change them back to cs eventually (and i also know im not tht active in rly any fandom on here anymore but i do wanna try to be a little esp in terms of like. connecting and talking with others) but i think it cld be a good change. or even like a cs theme thts different yk idk . but cs while smth i loved before and can love after them its also smth i shared with them a lot so i think focusing on smth tht i didnt rly share with them as much at least for a little bit wld be good for me yk while also reclaiming tht interest we did share ofc

[todayisafridaynight]

happy one year anniversary to The Most night of my life

beat yakuza 7 last night *muffled screaming*

[pickles4nickles]

Pickles Played Persona 5 Tactica and Has Some Words

I finally finished Tactica and its DLC sans some challenge stuff and I do wanna do some cleanup, but I thought I'd write a review for it.

It's long (like, 3k words long) and there's spoilers and overall... it's an Okay(tm) game, but... here, just lemme talk about it a bunch:

Alright, I'm not gonna mince words.

Persona 5 Tactica is not a game I can reccomend to anyone.

But is it a bad game?

Well, no.

But I have no idea who it's for.

Maybe it's for people who want more of the P5 characters? Not exactly? Both stories' focal points are on new characters and the Phantom Thieves just kinda happen to be there. There are some nice interactions, but this isn't a story about the PTs like Strikers.

Is it for people who like tactics but aren't really into P5? Well... it might be the other way around, actually? It's an okay tactics game with persona elements, but both parts of that are watered down when compared to base game persona and other tactics games like XCOM.

With that being said, lemme just ramble about what I thought about the story and gameplay.

THE STORY

The best way I can sum up my feelings about Tactica are "the story was told well, but I'm not sure if I liked it." This is a game that's less about the Phantom Thieves and more about Toshiro and Erina and focuses around the internal conflict of rebellion versus self-preservation.

Toshiro is probably why I'm neutral towards the game At Best. Erina grew on me but Toshiro...

Ehh.

At the beginning of the game, he's a big wimp and he's constantly telling the PTs and Erina that they have to be careful. From a theming standpoint, Toshiro's behavior makes perfect sense.

But from the petty bitch inside of me, this is infuriating because not only do YOU know that this is the Phantom Thieves that have taken down Shido (and also Yaldaboth), but TOSHIRO knows it as well and he's being Like This.

Like, he kinda sucks in the beginning and does so for the first two acts, understandably, but by the third act, when The Big Persona Moments happen, my opinion of him just kinda stayed the same. They swayed in a different direction, but... still on the negative side of the spectrum.

The reveal of Erina as Toshiro's Persona... makes sense. She's Toshiro's spirit(?) of rebellion and is based off of his classmate that once inspired him to stand up for himself and others.

Did I like this revelation?

Hell no, I was punching my thigh and screaming in voice call "No fucking way, Toshiro's so lame, though" as loud as I could without upsetting my parents in the other rooms.

From this point on, Toshiro now has the resolve to do what's right, even if it's scary... but he comes off as a little too strong in my opinion. I kinda have the same feelings about Zenkichi once he gets his persona in Strikers. In the beginning they feel like a new character meant to balance out the insanity that is how the metaverse is, but once they get their persona, they're full on inundated in the anime stand battles and they're a little too extra about it.

Having two full acts of "hey guys maybe we shouldn't help the hat people out of hat people slavery," pivoting into "WITNESS OUR POWER AS ONE" has the same vibes as a relative who's not really an asshole, but one that you've been trying to convince for years that economic inflation is the reason why our generation can't live comfortably, and once they finally understand, they come off a little bit too strong and righteous about it that you're not sure they're genuine or if this is a "he's a little confused, but he's got the spirit" situation.

And then god happens.

In persona games, I usually don't fully understand how or why the god-being is doing all of this, but I especially can't wrap my head around how they work in Tactica. It's mostly because Toshiro's metaverse is kind of a Silent Hill kinda deal where it's a mental torture labyrinth for him personally, as opposed to Mementos, which is naturally the collective unconscious, connecting everyone's minds and hearts together.

The jump from "I'm going to bully this one guy in particular" to "now EVERYONE will be as lame as Toshiro" is lost on me. Maybe politics?

It's... it's fine, there's no reason to lose sleep over it.

The ending of the story is nice and reasonable, though. It sorta redeems Toshiro for me. It's one thing to yell in your own metaverse hellscape how you're going to do the right thing, but once he's back in the real world, he actually stands up to his dad and fiancé and steps down from his political position to build it back up from scratch, but better.

And, yeah! I respect that.

That being said, though, the game isn't devoid of new Phantom Thief interactions. There's some good ones like Futaba "I don't kinkshame" Sakura, casually bi Joker as seen in that one "who would you marry" bit, and a guys only sidequest in which they think they're looking for Toshiro's porn stash (yeah, I know) (it's not). I wouldn't say it's crumbs, but you're not getting the whole loaf that you'd get from, say, Mementos Mission or Strikers.

The story also does this thing where the Phantom Thieves can relate with Toshiro's issues, but something about it feels... off.

Toshiro's in an arranged marriage with Marie for political reasons! Just like Haru! His fiancé sees him as a pushover! Kinda like Makoto! His mom died when he was young and he blames himself for it! Wow, Yusuke and DEFINITELY Futaba can relate to that!! Eri, the real person that Erina is based on, had to transfer schools because she was accused of a crime! Gee, that SURE sounds familiar-

Part of me thinks I'm being a little too unfair on the game for creating parallels like this because Strikers also kinda did this. But in Strikers, the PTs being able to connect with the jail rulers was integral to the plot. Here, it's just kind of a wink wink nudge nudge kinda thing.

And my knee-jerk reaction to that is a small "I get it, shut uuuup."

Again, and overall because I think that rounds out what I have to say about the story, P5 Tactica's main story isn't bad. It's told well, but I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of it.

GAMEPLAY

I've only played Strikers and I don't think I've played a true tactics game, so I don't know how much weight my opinions hold.

So um.

I dunno, the gameplay was fine.

The pacing is weird because it's kind of a visual novel first, and a tactics game in-between, but I got used to that after a bit.

It's a really simple tactics game and... yeah things don't get too complex outside of sometimes there are buttons that'll open doors or raise and lower platforms, sometimes height matters, but the mechanics don't get too crazy outside of certain boss battles.

The game revolves around downing enemies to get Once More's so you can either encase the enemy in a triangle formed by your units to initiate an All-out Attack or you can chain together Once More's to extend your unit's range and move them across the map. This mechanic took a bit for me to understand fully, but I never really got tired of doing it.

Boss battles were kind of hit or miss in this game. The fights with Toshiro's Dad and Salmael I enjoyed as they were kinda formatted as "here's a weird stage, go figure out what to do." However, Marie and *checks notes* "the scary Eri Natsuhara that Shadow Toshiro made" I didn't care for as much since they changed the game from "your decisions on where to move your units are key for this" to "you need to do exactly as we say." Which always kinda sucks, y'know?

Character selection is also kind of a weird thing in this, too. It doesn't seem like it matters who you take with you into missions, which... feels weird to me considering past Persona games. The elements have all been kinda smooshed down into less of a weakness thing, but just a special move that can hinder movement, do damage over time, or change enemy placement entirely, but which type of special you bring along doesn't seem to be as crucial as other Persona games. Each character has a slightly different attack, gun spread, and movement limit, but it wasn't anything drastic that I noticed apart from Haru (she is very slow but apparently hits like a truck) and possibly Morgana (his attack was very weak for me, but I'm not sure if that's because I didn't have him kitted out properly or that's intended).

I played the game almost entirely with Joker and Ann, while swapping between Erina and Ryuji for the last slot and I didn't run into any problems.

The last stretch of the game is... a strange one gameplay wise. Toshiro becomes a party member except... he's Different(tm). He doesn't get a skill tree, is a permanent fourth party member, and can initiate All-Out Attacks, but isn't a part of the triangle that forms it. He does have a gun, but it's in the form of a 0SP attack that Ernesto/Erina can use... that also happens to ignore walls entirely. And he also gets Almighty attacks, which kinda just do big number damage for way more SP.

It's hard to say if the game did a good job scaling the level difficulties to incorporate a fourth party member as staying on top of your persona fusing, weapons, and the skill tree can kind of make the game a breeze. I also played on the normal difficulty, so maybe in harder difficulties, Toshiro becomes more of a necessity than a party member that breaks the game.

My only big gripe with the game is just... the weirdness of the undo button. I don't know how it is in regular tactics games, but the undo in this game doesn't work on a "clear the last action this unit did" basis, but on a turn basis. If you happen to screw up on turn one, unit one, you have to back out COMPLETELY to the mission start screen, which is hella annoying especially if you're playing on the Switch because of the load times.

"But Pickles, what about the DLC? Surely you have just as many thoughts about it?"

Y'know?

I actually don't.

I liked Repaint Your Heart a lot. Again, it's less a story about the Royal Trio and more about Guernica, but it's closer to the traditional Persona 5 story format where they're changing someone's heart. This story also had much higher emotional... fidelity? I guess you could put it?

Guernica needed to remember her main inspirations for creating art - being abandoned and homeless and her big sister dying because of it and she embraces that anger against society into art that inspires hope in people less fortunate. While being groomed into a political pawn from basically birth and then, later in life, being thrown into your own mental hellscape sucks, in terms of emotional weight, Toshiro's story feels like a feather compared to Guernica's.

Also her design is just cool and the paint aesthetic is definitely more my speed.

In terms of Royal Trio content, I think this was the best case scenario we could expect from Atlus.

Emphasis on "from Atlus."

Yeah, we didn't get Black Mask Akechi, but there are MORE THAN ENOUGH moments where he lets the facade slip. His default spell is Megidola, but his skill tree lets him have both Light AND Dark spells. He'll cuss at you if you hit an enemy into him. I don't know what he's doing viscerally screaming half the time he summons Robin Hood.

Sumi. Is also there.

She is fine.

Guernica's connection to the thieves is also written in the same way as Toshiro is, in that it's a little shoehorned in and doesn't add to the story beyond that. After finding out that Luca is Guernica's sister that died, Sumi definitely feels motivated and inspired to help her out, but Akechi also being an abandoned child, scorned by society, and angry at the world because of it is never touched upon. This is probably for spoiler reasons, but... still.

Because this is a story that takes place during Sae's Palace in the main game, they all have to have amnesia about it in the end. Which, understandable, and at least no one in the trio had extensive character development but...

*clenches fist*

Man,

Having tackled this after the main game, I enjoyed the gameplay a lot! It's basically P5 Tactica but with Splatoon mixed in. When a unit is on a tile painted the opposite color for them, they can be instantly knocked down and combo'd on, which adds a whole extra layer of complexity to the game. I wish there were a few more levels to play, but the length of the DLC never overstays its welcome.

Hokay.

If you made it this far, congrats! You reached the end. And my tl;dr section.

I think that's just about it on what I cohesively have to say about P5 Tactica. This isn't a terrible game by any means, but I don't know if the audience it's intended for actually exists. It has a just okay story and just okay mechanics, but the DLC has a more than okay story and the core mechanics are given a fresh coat of paint (yeah, boo, I know) that makes the game more interesting. I would not go paying $80 USD to experience the DLC alone, though.

Thank you for reading my review if you made it all the way to the end! P5 stuff (well, mostly Akeshu) has been my muse these past few years and playing a game that was "just okay but why did they..." got into my brain real bad, so I wanted to write some stuff out.

I'll close this out with some bullet points of thoughts that I couldn't really cohesively fit into my review:

I really really liked how they got little costumes for the old timey Japan kingdom and I was hoping we'd get more of that and every kingdom was based on a new theme... but we only got three kingdoms and the last one before "Smithy's Forge from Super Mario RPG" was............ School.

SATANAEL'S BACK IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS (BUT ONLY POST-GAME)

Erina also being Ernesto thing is mostly weird to me because she's still her own entity but also not???? The possible genderfluid connotations are cool though.

There's a quest where Haru asks Yusuke how to be fast. Yusuke tells her she has to "Become a Black Hole." I do not know what this means.

After the quest, Haru says that even though the axe slows her down, she's very partial to it as her father didn't like her chopping wood as a kid, but she'd sneak out and do it anyway. She later found out that her dad knew she was doing this, but decided not to scold her for it. She took this as a sign of kindness from her father and that's why the axe is so special to her. I do not know what this means as Haru's father was a horrible capitalist who basically tried to marry her off in pursuit of power.

The weapon designs in this game are generally kind of silly, but I appreciate that they exist in the game. There's a chompy gun with teeth that Joker gets and I really like it :)

God the Lyn tracks from the DLC FUCK

...what

Futaba says "sus" at one point in the end

[alexanderwales]

Review: The Case of the Sleeping Beauties

The Case of the Sleeping Beauties is a novella that I wrote back in 2015. Ambitiously subtitled "a Utah Sinclair mystery", it did not make any significant splash. It's got 67 lifetime sales, a 3.8 rating, and a single proper review. Some of this is simply a lack of marketing: back in 2015 I had written some fanfic and not much else, and was still working as a software engineer. I'm not sure why I wrote this novella, or decided to put it up for pay (unlike virtually everything else I've written, it's never once been up for free), but I consider it an abject failure, at least as far as writing for money goes. Also the cover sucks. The whole thing is 20,000 words, so short enough that I can easily blow through it in an afternoon. Also (still) available in EPUB, MOBI, and PDF for patrons, but I don't have firm numbers for how many people read it that way, nor if it did anything to encourage patronage.

But is it an artistic failure as well?

There is actually another Utah Sinclair mystery, it was intended as a trilogy of novellas that together would be long enough (and coherent enough) to stitch into a full book with the three cases being individual "acts". I don't know the last time I reread The Case of the Sleeping Beauties, but my guess is that it was while I was trying to complete The Case of the Slaughterhouse Prophet, and that would have been almost a decade ago.

The story was written at a time when I was playing Malifaux, a skirmish game, and is clearly heavily inspired by that, though with the serial numbers filed off. It follows Utah Sinclair, a private detective of the yonside as he wanders around a rambling city trying to figure out where undead prostitutes are coming from.

Mild spoilers follow.

Prose

The first thing I noticed is just how much noir it's channeling, and how much is being put into descriptive phrases. Stuff like this:

The first human through the portal from earthside had found himself on the outskirts of an empty city, one that seemed like it had been cobbled together by an orgy of deranged architects.

Or this:

There were a few maps of Cathopolis, but they only agreed on the areas that the Priz maintained control over. Everywhere else was a geographical bedlam.

Or this:

He was the sort of person who was waiting to disgorge his thoughts, like a mother bird ready to feed a starving chick.

Or this:

I had a revolver strapped to my ankle, one affectionately advertised in the back of the penny dreadfuls as the Silent Witness. It was supposed to be a subtle weapon, but it was still a gun, and if I’d paid chits for it instead of pulling it off a dead man I might have written a nasty letter to the manufacturer about its supposed silence.

Or this:

It took me a moment to realize it, but he was dressed up like a Catholic priest, all in black with a white collar. Even if he’d been standing in the middle of the Vatican with the Pope vouching for him, it wouldn’t have been convincing. Partly it was the scars on his face, but it was also the head that had been shaved with a secondhand blade. The snub-nosed shotgun at his side didn’t help matters either.

I assume that this is channeling Raymond Chandler, since I read a lot of detective fiction when I was a teenager (my dad had loads of the stuff) and Chandler was always a favorite. I think the density of these flourishes could be higher, and if you're going with this style, it's better that it's liberally peppered in. You don't want to sink into the rhythm "normal" prose only to have a tiny speck of flourish pop out at you.

There were a lot of things that I tightened up while reading, partly because this is the easiest thing in the world when reading in GDocs, but I don't know that I'll push a change to the ebook, partly because I would need to figure out how. Most of these changes are fairly minor. There's an overuse of semicolons, which I think I was in love with at the time, a romance that hasn't lasted. There are a few minor tweaks that are just on the order of "no, the phrase 'mechanical fingers' might be misread as poetic, it should reworded to be clear that these are prosthetic". A few of the tweaks are just to reduce down how much text there is, making it more punchy, so "the Priz didn't tax any property that a person might want to claim in this part of the city" becomes "the Priz didn't tax property in this part of the city", and this is essentially inarguably better, tighter, cleaner prose.

Also I fixed some typos, and those do make me feel like I need to figure out the reupload.

Character

I think I've gotten better at character voices through the years, but here I kind of doubt myself, since everything seems fine in that regard. Utah and his partner Ralph don't talk enough early on in my opinion, and there might be a few too many characters introduced in rapid succession, which is a problem when they're not advancing the plot. Cyanide Sally is a bartender who owns the House of Skulls, and she serves a bitter almond special that's (supposedly) fatally poisoned one time in every hundred, and this is very fun ... but it's irrelevant to the plot, it's just fun for the sake of fun.

I do think that Ralph gets speaking lines a bit too late, given that he's the second main character. My advice to my past self would be that he should be getting characterizing dialogue from the word go, and that this central relationship should be better understood by the reader much earlier. And they should be more distinct from each other: the orthogonality thesis is that every set of characters should only overlap where there's something interesting to say with that overlap. Cover up the names and see if you can tell who said what line! This does not work for Ralph and Utah, but I think it does work for most of the other characters. And I guess I wouldn't say this is fatal, since it's not like there's some grounding character arc between our detective and his sidekick.

Utah himself is ... fine. Some of his characterization comes through in the narration, and there were a few moments I particularly liked from him, but I'm not sure that I could sketch him out in a sentence. He's down on his luck, loves to break rules, lies through his teeth, scrambles around and gets back up from the hard punches. I'm not sure that this is enough. A job should be more than a job, I guess, and I do get the sense that he's skeeved out by the necromancy, but ... well, that brings us to the other thing.

Theme

This is, if you squint, or maybe even if you don't, a cop story about sex work. It also kind of doesn't have that much to say about either of those things.

Utah is a private detective, doling out justice for people who can pay him. In real life, private detectives come in a variety of flavors, but one of the most common is just the pursuit of things that are not actually criminal issues, like breach of contract, or adultery. This is a criminal issue within their world, but it's one that no one in power is pursuing. There's some clear contempt for the regular cops from Utah, and some further contempt for the law itself, since he breaks all kinds of laws in this lawless world, including murdering two men, which doesn't greatly affect him. This is self-defense, but still. I don't think there's some great thesis on criminality or justice here, and the novella overall is justice-neutral, seemingly unconcerned with what's right or wrong, only trying to work the problem. This is maybe fine?

And the sex work stuff is seen through the lens of Utah, and this is also seen as maybe being just morally neutral in a matter-of-fact way, something that people do in order to get by, no different from working in a coal mine or whatever. And there's exploitation, but that's no different from working in a coal mine. So I think this story has a viewpoint, but not a thesis.

Does a story need a thesis? Does a little novella like this need to have something to say about the world and the people in it? I don't know, I guess not, but I sure do prefer when there's something to grab onto. I am a sucker for story structure though, and a nice little character arc, and this piece ... does not really have that. Utah is challenged, but he's not challenged to his core, and does not grow and change, and this probably fine for a 20k word novella.

I think in the end it's more of a "wouldn't it be fucked up" kind of story, and in this case I don't particularly like that, since it's not fucked up enough.

Ideas

One of the other things that I look for in any story is cool ideas, and this is one of the things that I like most about reading long ago pieces, because sometimes I've forgotten those ideas.

The idea density is okay, but I would have liked to see more. A weird fiction setting is a playground for ideas, and I feel like especially in the back half, there's just not enough playing going on. It is only 20k words, but that feels like it's enough for easily twice as many little fucked up weird things. So that's what I would do, include more fucked up weird things. (The part where they go to the manor is the one that stands out clearly to me as needing more fucked up weird things, there should have been some kind of magic sculpture there or a steampunk maid or something.)

Of all the stuff that I had forgotten about, my favorite was the necromancy lobbyist, a guy who just really believed that necromancy should be legal, but was supposedly not a necromancer himself. So he's just talking about like regulatory schemes and social mores, and this is funny. I'm glad he wasn't a bad guy in the end, for some reason I thought he was going to be involved in the plot in a more critical way. Instead, he's just a happy little academic.

Conclusion

Fun to reread, and no, I would say not an artistic failure. Definitely feels like it wants a second mystery to follow after it. I believe The Case of the Slaughterhouse Prophet is approximately half written, which with editing work means only a quarter written, but again, the numbers mean that there's just no way that I can justify that as anything but a labor of love.

I wouldn't say that this is the best thing I've ever written, but I think it compares favorably to the other mid-length stuff. Definitely would have been stronger with a thematic core, and with more cohesion between protagonist and plot, but I also think that's fine.

I guess, having read it after nearly a decade, I'm feeling weirdly defensive about it for no particular reason. It might have been one thing if it had just not sold, that's partly just down to the lack of marketing and also the market for novellas being bad. But it also scored poorly in terms of ratings, and on top of that, never got enough reviews for me to get a picture of what was not hitting right, which leaves me grappling in the dark.

So I'd say that I learned approximately nothing from this, except that I had some more ideas for a Weird West kind of story, if I ever end up writing one of those.

[coconox]

the end of the gacha arc

ignore the fact that this is the first post in a while in which i actually ramble about something, but i thought it’d be fitting to go out with a bang to the end of playing a certain genre of gaming that altered my brain chemistry for better and for worse.

this post will contain a mass list of reviews/thoughts/reflections for every gacha game i’ve played, or at least, every gacha game that i remember playing. i will be going in chronological order from the first gacha that i played to the last, but the quit times for all of them will definitely be out of order, but i’ll list that ordering at the very end.

the formatting of these reviews will be as follows:

my ★ rating out of 5

status (e.g. f2p, casual, spender, competitive)

thoughts on the game and fandom experience overall*

why i left

* with story and fandom experience there was usually a 50/50 chance i would look into it, a lot of the times i was just there for the gameplay so i may not comment much on some stories/fandoms

there will be a lot of lightning rounds/chapters since my memory is either pretty foggy or pretty neutral lmao— should be expected but heed my warning as there will be spoilers, and now without further ado, here is my history on playing gacha games

chapter 1: honkai impact 3rd

★★★☆☆ status: f2p, casual

you’d think i’d have more memorable experiences with honkai considering it was my first gacha game, but honestly the only thing i vividly remember was wanting to collect every character in-game and failed miserably cause my luck was awful. needing to hit pity almost every time all while being f2p sucked, and since i rarely pulled for gear it just made my experience not that great since i would barely get the bare minimum rewards for memorial arena and abyss.

apho was a nice break from everything, i really liked the vibes of the first one which is definitely foreshadowing another game i’ll be talking about later. 

i don’t really have much really any fandom experiences. most interaction i would have is with my armada which i left a long time ago. there were very nice people there so at least i left the ‘fandom’ experience on a high note :]

overall, my experience based on my memory was kinda meh. i got tired of trying to keep up with every patch and just left since there were just other games that i found more rewarding at the time.

chapter 1.5, honorable mention: guns girl z

★★★⯪☆ status: f2p, casual

while in my honkai phase, i also wanted to check out hoyo’s previous game, which honestly was very fun while it lasted. the semi-side scroller/pick-up-and-play was what i was (and probably still am) into at the time, and i really liked the art style. there were a few hiccups here and there with localization (especially when the text would go off screen 💀), but it didn’t really bother my experience all that much since i was more gameplay focused than story focused. honestly, only reason i left was cause glb servers shut down. if they didn’t shut down (or if i was persistent enough to continue with a cn acc) i would’ve definitely played it for a lot longer.

chapter 2: genshin impact

★★☆☆☆ status: spent on bp once or twice i forgor, casual

i was originally gonna skip this game entirely when i first heard of its announcement, but one of my irls kept bugging me to play only to quit as soon as i fully caught up 💀

while i did read the main story, like i said, i was originally gonna skip this game entirely since honestly, it just didn’t pass the vibe check for me, and that vibe check was correct LOL. story to me just didn’t feel that interesting. while there were some fun tidbits here and there, i kinda clocked out after inazuma’s story.

around the time i joined was when childe was first debuting, and i really wanted him as his playstyle was vastly different compared to the other characters at the time and i just like him as a character when i encountered him in story. aaaand then that’s when i discovered that genshin had a 50/50 pity system and got spooked by mona. honestly i could’ve just left right then and there considering the reason i got into the game in the first place pretty much left as soon as i joined, but i liked the world exploration enough to where i stuck around for way longer than i should have :p 

if honkai didn’t already give the hint that i can’t get every character, genshin DEFINITELY sealed the deal for me. from the 4 years i’ve played this game i’ve won 50/50 maybe like 5 or 6 times? i never really kept a tracker but the main point is my luck was awful LOL. getting like 60 primos per day for pulls that are 160 each and have a hard pity of 90 just didn’t really sit right with me. i know there’s soft pity and all that but i hate that that even exists in the first place. idk i’ve grown to expect the worst case scenario and i hate trying to calculate how many primos i need to get a character that may or may not appear earlier than hard pity.

spiral abyss was meh for me, i didn’t really participate in it much unless i was either extremely bored or was desperate for primos.

fandom experience i avoided it as much as possible. i don’t even need to explain why given what has happened over the past years 💀

overall, i mainly just liked the exploration part of the game. it kinda became that one game i would play if i was extremely bored and had nothing else to do and just wanted to keep myself busy. max exploring sumeru was awful tho. i never want to experience something like that again.

chapter 3: punishing: gray raven

★★⯪☆☆ status: spender, semi-competitive

i assume this is the chapter most of my moots will scroll to to find my thoughts on this game LOL (luv u all 🫶).

i was originally interested in this game cause i saw lee in the promo art LOL, and also cause my honkai armada was gonna try it out and i wanted to join the hype. thankfully, because i had prior “experience” through honkai, pgr’s gameplay wasn’t that big of a learning curve as the main difference was the orb system.

story within the first 8 chapters is relatively slow, but it introduces you to the main squads you’ll be seeing throughout the story and it starts to pick up pretty quickly after that. the darker atmosphere definitely appealed to me more than i realized, and it kinda clicked that this is what i wanted honkai to be: lower pity, very f2p friendly, it’s not required to follow a meta to get max rewards, etc. 

during my lee simping era my experiences with the fandom were a bit, mixed,,, on one hand i’d have a group who are fully supportive and even add fuel to the flame of simping over lee together, and the other i’d get slandered for liking him, even jumping to conclusions as to who i am as a person (e.g. my only personality was that i liked male characters).

as much as i wanted to avoid the latter, those groups of people were in the same guild server as those of the former, and for essentially 2 or so years i felt a strong sense of not belonging yet persisted in pushing that feeling aside in hopes that it would change. spoiler alert: it did not, in fact, it got even worse.

posting on pgrtwt or in the guild server felt like i was stepping on glass, and i hated that feeling. being an admin in the guild server never felt like i existed, despite putting in a fair amount of contribution to the server. it felt like i was working overtime for a project that very little to no one cared about. if you wanna try looking for me there, head’s up, you won’t lol, i left the guild server a long time ago and i’m in a better place than if i were to be stubborn and stay. i’ve become a folklore at this point with my sudden disappearance which i find really funny.

but in general, as a former artist of the fandom and a former casual player, the environment now just doesn’t feel safe, at least everywhere except tumblr lol

the game itself wasn’t as bad as it is now, i’m only saying it’s bad now cause of the recent synchronization plan of having 3 patches happen all within a month and that just feels very overwhelming considering it’s all happening so suddenly and we just have to deal with it. based on what was shown in cn, future patches also just don’t interest me anymore. i kinda lost motivation to log in after noctis patch, but stuck around till qu’s patch just cause i wanted the matching cerberus skins lol. 

i’ve made quite a handful of friends whom i still talk to and appreciate to this day, but the nail in the coffin for me was the fandom experience, especially during pyroath's announcement. again, it doesn’t feel safe for artists or casual players. it feels like the meta is forced down your throat and if you don’t follow it you’re wrong. when alpha was first debuted after launch the amount of backlash i got for rather building a physical team with lee was absurd. i felt awful trying to make friends in the community, which bled into my feelings about the game. because i had majority negative experiences in the fandom, those feelings ended up transferring over to the game.

story kinda lost me after they started introducing the multiple timelines. it also lost me when there’s so much lore compared to gameplay in each chapter and to me that felt very heavy in a bad way. like i couldn’t really get a breather till i’m done with the chapter overall (i prefer to read story in one sitting since if i space it out i easily forget what happened prior and would need to start from the beginning). i also don't really like how skk is dragged everywhere. i'd prefer for skk to only appear when gray ravens as a whole appear, and have different squads shine with how they manage themselves without any of skk's involvement.

small side note the character designs confuse me from time to time. i kinda wish they looked more robotic to yk, emphasize that they're constructs, rather than appear more human-like just so their m.i.n.d stays stable or whatever.

overall it was fun while it lasted. i definitely have fun memorable moments like staying up all night in vc malding through phalanx just to get all the collectibles offered, or co-oping cause we needed to mald for a co-op gabriel collectible. the fun memories will always be cherished, but it doesn’t excuse the unhealthy environment provided by the loud incels of the community.

chapter 4: alchemy stars

★★★★☆ status: f2p, only bought skins, casual

love, love, LOVE the artstyle. the game also being strategy-focused was honestly so much fun, tho i’m a sucker for puzzle/strategy games. i pretty much only pulled for characters that i liked, so i rarely ran out of lumambers unless if i wanted to get characters that had back to back banners. story i didn’t really pay that much attention to, but from what i’ve heard it was also amazing. i rarely felt bored when logging on, and i just had a very fun time. i didn’t really expect leaving as soon as i did, but life got pretty busy and i just slowly decreased my playtime till i stopped altogether. if it wasn’t getting an eos, this game would definitely be up there for one of the games i would’ve played long-term if i didn’t have such a hectic schedule.

chapter 5: project neural cloud

★★★★☆ status: f2p, only bought skins, casual

joined cause of aki, stayed cause of story. each sector had a nice ratio of gameplay to story. it didn’t give you so much lore dump all in one go and battles are timed at the right locations to get sort of a breather from everything. it having auto-play and eventually auto-clear features made dailies SO much more easier to manage, it felt like one of those games where it was story first, gacha later. tho in my experience, really the only teams that i had to keep changing were my sniper teams, adding in clukay, clotho, and eos and managing how their synergy works. my warrior team was basically hatsuchiri, magnhilda, aki, and some other healer/support, and that team held up pretty well. to be fair i also played very casually, so the gacha part was the least of my worries since i was more interested in story. i think out of all the gacha games listed here neural cloud is gonna be the one i miss the most. i loved the story, the strategy gameplay, the characters, it just hit every check box for my kind of game i would play long term, except for the part where it’s a gacha game at the end of the day. i may just end up reading story elsewhere since there has to be some sort of archive of all the chapters so far.

chapter 6: tower of fantasy

★★⯪☆☆ status: f2p, casual

from the little i’ve played it seemed fun, my gacha experience wasn’t all that bad but i was mostly there for exploration and playing with friends. i left solely cause tof could barely run on my ipad, it crashed every like 5-10 mins and i got pretty tired of it :’]

chapter 7: obey me & obey me: nightbringer

★⯪☆☆☆ 0.75 of a star per game /hj status: f2p, casual

i’m merging the 2 into one chapter since my thoughts on them are very similar.

for the original obey me, i honestly still don’t get why the story continues past lesson 20. they could’ve fleshed out mc’s relationship between everyone while they were still there for the exchange program. a LOT can happen in one year, yet for example belphie hating humans kinda just goes away once he finds out mc is lilith’s descendant??? also beel, which was one of my favs, doesn’t really get much more out of his character aside from ‘he eats a lot’ which is so ????? like i get he’s supposed to be the sin of gluttony but surely you can characterize him more than just him wanting to eat a lot and feeling guilty about lilith. of course, i could be missing a few key details given i quit not too long after i started playing, but it just didn’t sit right with me and my brain just never came to terms with it, so i left LOL

nightbringer i honestly just got tired of playing the same songs over and over, i rarely stuck around for story and idk why they needed a separate game altogether.

the events and gacha in both games don’t feel that rewarding. as someone who has been f2p in both, trying to get characters that i want *cough, mammon* is like challenge impossible given how unforgiving the rewards are.

idk this game just wasn’t for me. given they’re supposed to represent the 7 deadly sins, you’d think there’d be more heavier themes brought up, but it just feels like i went to a school about how to be a wizard and the 7 people i met just so happen to have the names of the 7 sins.

chapter 8: what in hell is bad?

⯪☆☆☆☆ status: f2p minus juno, casual

oh boy, where do i begin,,,,

honestly mammon was a love at first sight moment for me so that’s really why i joined the game LOL 

the concept seemed interesting enough, especially when each of the kings actually dive into the good and bad of their respective sin. what threw me off the most was how much i hated the mc more than any of the devils or angels HGJFDHGK. idk it’s like their only personality is being addicted to corn, which i personally hc it as a coping mechanism for a mental health issue that we’re unaware of just yet. however as much as i wanna talk about story, there really isn’t much story that’s given in the first place since main story updates are insanely slow and majority card stories are borderline or straight up paywalled given the in-game income received. f2ps have been struggling since launch, spenders are probably getting tired of spending nearly every patch, and we’re constantly given empty promises cause the company underestimates the production time to execute said promises. we essentially wait for like almost half a year for at most 5 mins of main story excluding the tedious gameplay in between each story segment.

if you want a gacha tower defense game, just play arknights. whb doesn’t even know how game balancing even works. i even made a whole spreadsheet to show how rough this game is in terms of building their characters. they build the character’s kits as if no one levels them up, skill levels are way too expensive given our daily/weekly/monthly income, and not everyone can afford getting a character’s sig. 

this game is clearly meant to be more story focused, but again, there’s very little story and all past event stories are paywalled too, which limits f2p experiences.

there’s a clear meta of using only light characters, or more specifically, light L-rank characters, which sucks cause then that means all other elements are essentially deemed useless with how powerful light element is against all other elements except itself. there is also a noticeable pattern of there being very little to no supports, as if the devs intentionally planned on making the gameplay essentially ‘just krill everything before they krill you’ which is insanely dumb. mammon and lucifer being the only good tank and healer respectively (hell, even mammon can be a better healer than an actual healer) is just very disappointing. we have more than enough snipers and close-rangers— GIVE US MORE SUPPORTS.

for it to be more story focused, it is also very, VERY roughly translated. the constant misgendering just made me wish they kept mc as gender neutral so that the devil’s tango scenes can easily apply to everyone.

afaik they’re also currently in the works of creating a pg-13 version of this game, most likely so that they could release whb in their own country. which on one hand is understandable, but on the other, there’s already so many flaws and bugs with the *current* version of whb, and they’re just gonna amplify that with the other version. i just wish they could focus on debugging the game rather than borderline ignore it unless if it stops the user from logging on.

overall this game is very, VERY p2w. while the concept of the kings’ portrayals was interesting, the execution has been pretty lackluster. the gacha rates are awful and will worsen as more characters are added to the pool. no pity on either standard banners, pity on limited banners is way too high given the f2p income, currency income for limited and standard banners is very, very low. lots of bugs, mistranslations, even the bare minimum of game balancing isn’t even there. it feels like we’re the beta test players for a game that has yet to give its full release and not actual players playing a fully released game. quite honestly this is probably the worst gacha game i’ve played, you can probably even see my descent to heavily disliking this game through previous whb rants lol. only upside is that the fandom (on tumblr at least) is very chill, i love reading people’s interpretations about the blorbos.

chapter 9: wuthering waves

★★⯪☆☆ status: f2p, casual

i honestly just played for the exploration aspect LOL

given it was released during my summer break, wuwa just became that one game i’d play out of boredom. the playstyle’s fun since it gave pgr vibes, but the story was kinda meh for me. the lore dump at the very start followed by some of the dialogue not showing up kinda threw me off and i just stopped paying attention altogether. at least there’s a skip button so that’s a plus.

every time i lost 50/50 i kept getting lingyang which kinda sucked. don’t get me wrong i love the littol meow meow, i even picked him right after i got verina, but i did NOT need more copies of him LOL. aside from that my pulls were actually better than i expected. got early for yinlin and changli and early on their sigs respectively too.

fandom is just as rough as pgr’s but on a larger scale imho. tried to steer away from it as much as possible and that’s honestly for the better.

i really just stayed around for yinlin, mostly cause she’s wuwa’s vera and i love vera a “normal” amount. ended up leaving after max exploring everything cause i was just bored. school was starting back up again and wuwa just didn’t pass the vibe check.

conclusion

order of which i left these games from first to last:

guns girl z

honkai impact 3rd

tower of fantasy

obey me

obey me: nightbringer

alchemy stars

what in hell is bad

wuthering waves

genshin impact

project neural cloud

punishing gray raven

i think the biggest lesson i’ve learned in this era is that i’m very stubborn 💀

you may or may not be wondering why i’m quitting gachas altogether despite saying in a few reviews that i would continue playing some of them if they weren’t a gacha game, but the answer to that is just the gacha cycle needed to end and 2/3 of those games have been/are getting eos’ed 💀. there’s definitely better places where i could be spending my time and money, like investing in my oc universe and saving up for when robo ky is in strive.

will i ever go back to gachas in the distant future? i doubt it. i think i'm finally burnt out from it to where if i see it again in the future, i'd just have bad flashbacks appear and not want to play it.

i felt like a broken record throughout some of these reflections, but anyways, that’s all i wanted to ramble about honestly. i’ve been working on revamping my oc universe and my toyhouse by extension since i really wanna go back and actually finish what i started

that’s all folks! ty for reading 🤏🍪

[chrysalis-the-butterfly]

People who have been following me since 2022 will know that I have a bad habit of becoming obsessed with things I haven't actually watched. The Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers film became my new special interest in 2022, but I didn't watch it in full until 2023, when I finally got Disney+.

Well, it's happening again.

Right now, I'm mildly obsessed with Hazbin Hotel.

Now, I haven't seen none of it. I've watched the pilot on YouTube, and I've watched the first episode of the Prime Video series (which is freely available on YouTube). I don't have Prime Video, so I haven't seen the rest of it.

But I have been listening to the songs, browsing Tumblr for talking points, and watching scattered clips and reviews and essays on YouTube - which is basically what I was doing with Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.

I'm a Christian (awkward!), and it initially bothered me that the show didn't mention God or Jesus at all. Not that I'd have wanted them to poke fun at God or Jesus ... but I'd assumed the series was meant to be a satire of Christianity, pointing out how much it sucks that its believers can be so judgmental and unforgiving when the faith is supposed to be about love and forgiveness. So I was quite surprised by the reveal that the angels don't actually know what gets you into Heaven. What, you don't even have the Ten Commandments? You don't have any rules that you impose? You can't satirise Christianity if you don't understand what you're satirising!

But upon reflection, I guess Hazbin Hotel is meant to be seen more as a cautionary tale about hypocrisy and second chances and redemption - about those concepts in general, rather than how they're (mis)used specifically by Christians. It's about how the people preemptively labelled "bad" who do bad things are clearly proving they're bad, while the people labelled "good" who do bad things are defended and justified because there must have been a good reason for what they did. Even if a good reason isn't apparent. And the settings of Heaven and Hell are just being used as vehicles for that social commentary.

It seems as though Hazbin Hotel is not really about Heaven and Hell, it's about life on Earth. But there are still some things that are interesting to think about from a theological viewpoint.

To close this slightly rambling post, here are some even more scattered thoughts, which may evolve if I actually get to watch the full thing:

EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!

"You Didn't Know" is a banger!

As is "Poison". Kind of reminds me of "All You Wanna Do" from Six: The Musical - in that it's a bop, but the lyrics are dark because they're about sexual abuse.

I really enjoy the "I'm a Disney Princess in a Hellish landscape" thing that Charlie's got going on.

EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!

I hope we get to see more of Emily and more of Heaven in the second season.

I wasn't sure about Vaggie at first, but she's grown on me.

My favourite characters are Charlie, Vaggie, Emily and Angel Dust. I refer to them as Charlie's Angels.

EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!

After a year of basically binge-watching loads of kids' cartoons on Disney+, it's still feels jarring to watch a cartoon where people say the F-word a lot.

Wait, Angel Dust has a twin sister? Molly? And she might be in Heaven? Is that girl with four legs we see in Heaven supposed to be Molly, or is she just a random background character? Why is she in Heaven when Angel Dust isn't? Are they going to be reunited? Is Molly friends with Emily?

EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!

[cod-thoughts]

Sorry you got some bad news, I hope you're doing okay <3 Numbers for the ask game; 4, 7, 38 please!

I'll be fine, it's just stuff on top of stuff on top of stuff so uhh not the best time and i have my finals starting in a few days too so its uhhh not great but i'll be fine it is what it is :O

Ask game in question!

4: How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

Oh boy theres a LOT, i use notion to like keep track of all my ideas cause it syncs nicely and its a good archive, i dont use it to write cause the spell check sucks lol but its good storage. The problem with that system tho is the moment i get an idea i jot it down there so theres currently 47 ramblings and ideas, some are similar so i eventually combine them! I did a random number generator to pick the idea lol and it was number 13: reverse dating trope, basically people not believing that a couple is together! Havent decided who yet but its probably gonna end up as a 5+1 knowing me lol

7: Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

This was hard, mostly cause i dont think most of my stuff is that good but id have to say this section from day 1 of ghostpriceweek and its probably the work im most proud of to this day, i just think it flowed so well and that their voices are really solid. Here's a part of it that i like for no particular reason:

"He’d finished heating up a tin of beans, stirring it absently before putting the lid on it to keep it warm, and set the kettle on for tea, knowing Price would be done soon. The small tasks felt grounding, almost domestic—there’s that word again, strange but, maybe, it was what had been playing at the edges of his mind for a while now. This rare ease, this strange new rhythm. Ghost found himself watching the steam rising from the kettle, a bit lost in the warmth that filled the air.

He wasn’t quite sure when it happened—when the lines between Price as a superior, a mentor, had blurred into something… more. It was a disquieting thought, one he’d been trying to keep at bay, though not with much success. And here he was, cooking up beans and making tea, so utterly settled in Price’s presence that the prospect of leaving, of returning to the job, made him feel something uncomfortably close to hollow.

He never imagined this was even possible for him. To be alive and wanting something so fiercely. To want a life outside of being a soldier. It was all he ever knew but as the kettle clicked and he made them a cup each, exactly how Price liked it, it hit him like a blow: this was it. This was what he wanted, more than he’d ever wanted anything.

The bathroom door creaked open, and Price emerged, towelling his hair. He’d discarded his usual gear in favour of an old grey t-shirt, soft and worn, that clung to his still-damp skin. He looked… ordinary. Beautifully ordinary. Ordinary was the wrong word entirely for that man, Ghost realised, because there was something extraordinary in the way Price took up space, in how naturally he filled the room."

38: Talk about a review that made your day.

OOO this was somehow even harder omg i love every comment or tag i get they all bring me immense joy, even if its just a bunch of emojis i love it thank you <33 but i will say that these in particular made my day as it was an absolute mess of a day and i was really doubting everything; about to delete said story but @nekrosmos the angel that he is dropped this in the tags and so did @jgvfhl (excuse the light-mode my desktop for some reason decided its in light-mode lol) and it made me literally light up and altered my brain chemistry for that whole day so thank you both genuinely <33 and sorry for the random tag whoops

[pyromainiacc]

Buh... its 5 AM time to rant...

This is by no way meant to be hate or shade towards ppl personally... I don't like fighting :(( I just feel frustrated and sad.. I think ppl r so negative all the time.

I am upset SOTA is getting so much hate. Not just criticism, like performance issues or talking abt the story, but genuine hate. People saying it sucks, its bad, leaving bad reviews bc they think its too hard.

Maybe it's because this game is so tied to my very identity and soul that I feel personally hurt by it, or maybe I'm just another sensitive lil mf on the internet, but it just upsets me! The game is too hard? Yes! It's Elden Ring!! It's a Souls game!!! Collect Scaductree fragments, they'll make the game way easier! Use spirit summons, use sorcery! Summon co-operators! The game is as challenging as you let it be.

You don't like the story? Sure, that's completely valid and fine! It's not for everyone! But Fromsoft stories have always been convoluted, confusing, and complicated. And the story isn't the main focus of the gameplay... Why ignore all the beautiful environments, the beautiful designs, the gorgeous music, and all the love and effort put into the game because the twist kinda sucked for you?

And hell, if you just don't like anything then the game's just not for you... again, it's a Souls game, it's not gonna be for everyone and that's okay!!

Again... this is not targetted 2wards anybody in specific or supposed to be "how DARE you dislike something I like!". Its more just me rambling bc I'm stupid and sensitive and seeing my favorite game get hated makes me sad 😭 elden ring is such a core part of my soul and my identity, I had been waiting for this DLC like it was a goddamn new organ I needed to survive, and it's everything I wanted plus more. I love it, and I see so many beautiful things about it that people aren't talking about enough! I just want more positivity :(

[steeltwigz]

cross-posting my ii finale review from twt to here too. guys rambling on twt SUCKS >:( had to break i tup into TEN POSTS ARE YUO FOR RRAL

anyway.

WAITT im in a ranting mood ok. im actually rlly Happy NOT HAPPY uhmmm satisfied but NOT SATISFIED EITHER ughh. im. glad the choice was for mephone 4 to leave. i like that its left open, for the same reason i like why marshmallow leaving in ep 11 was written so definitively. she wanted to get away from the show. and so she Did, completely. she wasnt even in the Comics after that!! she got what she wanted, kind of, sort of. and i feel the same way abt mephone too. he NEEDED to step back from it all, for himself and the people around him, imo. i mean, like he says, he only Made the show to get one up on cobs, and now cobs is gone and mephone needs to figure out who he is Without cobs' influence anymore. i think this is ultimately good for him, the best that couldve happened. and im not upset the contestants aren't sad enough, or whatever. becuz mephones story is Explicitly one abt parental abuse, and like it or not he kind of did the same thing to the contestants that cobs did to him, just in ykno. kind of different ways. they have complicated feelings towards each other and im not surprised most of them didnt react. i doubt most of them knew What to do at all given the situation! i think it was a rlly good choice, narratively speaking. i think it represents the kind of mixed emotions that parental abuse can cause, esp when its in mephones case where it was rlly just a super unfortunate circumstance. ik mephone isnt rlly their parental figure and the crew has stated that he isnt their dad, which i agree with! i like how complex their relationships all are. they feel more real that way? i guess? idk.

sorry this is all becuz i saw a post that read how someone was sad mephone left his support system. but like. the contestants dont rlly Want to be that for him, and not even rlly for each other all the way either, and they dont Have to be. a lot of the cast arent friends and i like that perspective! yeah it sucks that mephone left them, but they all have rlly mixed emotions abt each other, i feel. mephone was in a position of authority that he would occasionally abuse, just out of inexperience and naivete. so the feeling left over is complicated. MUCH LIKE [insert anecdote from my childhood. waves hands nonchalantly to avoid revealing too much abt my personal life].

it resonated with me. i can see a lot of my own relationships reflected in mephone's with the contestants. so YEAH i think the ending was rlly good ^_^ it reminded me a lot of the sturggles i have both as someone with. Not Ideal but also Not Terrible parents. like cobs was inarguably awful, and i think partly mephone thought he couldnt be as bad becuz he wasnt Like That, but it made him underestimate his actions and he ended up overlooking a lot of stuff and hurting his contestants in more emotional ways. Not That I Would Know Anything About That Ha Ha. and now he feels bad. but he doesnt know how to fix it, because you Cant fix it, not without significant personal growth that he seems to recognize Isnt going to happen if he sticks around. so he leaves. for himself, but i think for the contestants also. he doesnt know how to apologize, and i think he feels really guilty too. and the contestants cant say anything becuz Its True and Hes Right, and hoenstly a few of them are probably Happy to see him go too, so they let him leave. idk. its just weird living in that middle space where someone who deeply loves you is also someone whos caused a Lot of your problems. I think part of mephones problem too is that he views them as characters on his show. not like entirely, they're People to him of course, not like how cobs treats his creations. but they also serve a purpose to mephone, to be his friends and entertain him. i do think he genuinely cares about them but i think he also probably has kind of an objectification of them in his mind? uhm. Not That I Would Kno- [gets shot]

tl;dr like. mephone didnt mean to hurt the contestants, but he did because of tragic events beyond his control. but that cant excuse his actions and its a hard situation to fix. tbh there isnt rlly a solution. so him leaving felt profound and understandable. there COULD be a reconciliation, another spin-off series to elaborate and write in a redemption arc. but for now there Isnt. and i dont think there rlly Has to be? i like the bittersweetness. idk. anyway rant over Probably Maybe Idk

[gontagokuhara]

teary rambling inbound

christ alive its not often i reckon with the fact that jump (the first fic of my “modern” writing era) is approaching seven (7!!!!!) years old. when i do think about it it’s often in a nostalgic way or a half-proud, half-self-deprecating way where i’m like “this was my peak when i was 17, god DAMN have i improved” because as much love as i hold for it and what it ended up as, it’s still nowhere near perfect! there’s so much i would do differently with my slightly more developed brain!!

but i get comments still on a more or less weekly basis almost 7 years after publishing, over 6 years since i last touched it. little ‘i just read this in one sitting!’ and ‘this brought me back into enjoying deh again’ and ‘i usually get bored during long fics but i wanted to finish this!’ that i have saved in their own special portion of my inbox specifically for jump comments because they all make my day every single time.

and then sometimes i get comments like these, all these years later, and i pump the breaks and just think.

unless i’m particularly out of touch this is like. the type of comments fic writers dream of. thoughtful, personal, crafted with a level of care that highlights how genuinely an author (even of just ‘silly’ musical fanfic) can move a person.

someone who never writes reviews was compelled to detail how deeply they’ve been impacted by *my* writing. something i crafted as a labor of love while i was still a teenager struggling through that same shit i was writing about had enough of a positive effect on someone that it spurred them to put as much into writing themselves, unsure if i’d ever even see it. this person walked away from something i created with the exact takeaways i hoped they would, and i very sincerely hope that whatever realizations this person had while reading, they take them and make their lives better because there’s nothing more i could possibly ask for.

jump, as much as a bit of an ugly duckling i think of it as sometimes, is like…a net good on the world. so many of my current best friends i met because i wrote jump. more than one person has embraced recovery and getting better and stepping into the sun (hah!), and that’s just people who have told me that — some of the mostly deeply influential fics in my life are ones i’ve never commented on myself. more people than i can ever hope to comprehend have had their day, week, month, life outlook altered in a positive way by something i created — by me.

in a period of life (not just my own, but more broadly speaking How Life Is in the present day, 2024) where things are pretty shitty and i’m agonizing more than ever over feeling useless and impactless and like i’ll never create anything of true value. sometimes i wake up to comments like these, and i slow my roll, and i can…genuinely appreciate that at the very least, despite everything else sucking pretty bad, people have made their own happiness through something i’ve created. i’ve made something of value, and even if i never know the impacts of that…those people are out there. if i could do it at 17 years, and still hear the positive influence of doing so 7 years later, i can do it again. i want to do it again. writing is making my happiness, and knowing that that could be true of other people makes it a happiness worth pursuing.

all of that to say: thank you, if you’ve ever read my silly stories before. if they’ve done something positive in your life, even for just a second, that means more to me than anything. and especially thank you to my more vocal readers because quite literally it’s people like the above comment, and people who i’m sure are reading this and know exactly who they are, who make me love writing as much as i do and make me want to do it forever, no matter the capacity.

i suppose i should wrap up now before my weepiness makes everyones tl all damp. thank you again, persephonescurse (even if you’ll never see this). your comment now also forever lives in the original jump discord server from 2017, so i won’t be forgetting it anytime soon. thank you.

[joyce-stick]

Here's my review of Bang Dream! It'sMyGO!!!!! on Letterboxd which incidentally is the only review of it on Letterboxd at this moment and I feel unreasonably braggadocios about having been the first one to leave a review for this particular show on that particular website

Okay so you should read that now but also I kinda want to mention a few specific things that really fucking got me in the show.

Scroll away if you don't want to spoil yourself or whatever.

First of all-ly. The live performances were really good. They surprised me a lot in that they actually very convincingly sold these girls as inexperienced amateurs who don't know how to work together.

When watching it, I was expecting the girls' first live performance to go like, y'know, big perfect hyper-well coreographed CGI anime girl song performance, like is normal in this genre generally.

Instead, THIS happens:

At this, I literally laugh-cried so hard so much. Like, god damn, the major anime music girls franchise let its girls just suck at the music, like actually seriously for real, just suck. And then they bounce back and do perform properly of course and get into a groove with each other, and it's really cool and energetic and stuff but

ALSO IT SOUNDS WRONG.

Like, the sound mixing is done wrong, on purpose. The instruments overtake Tomori's voice just a bit too much to still get across that they have still prepared really badly for this and are kind of still doing this sort of badly and that makes it cool when they give a good performance anyway.

Anyway. Then there's the whole arc with Soyo and her being emotionally manipulative to try and get her and Tomori's old band back together. And she's genuinely toxic and acts like an angry ex-wife who can't accept that her ex-wife has divorced her

(I need them to hatefuck about it. I need a hatefuck doujin of them now.)

And I kind of love-hated Soyo this whole time for being so emotionally manipulative and seeming almost hell-bent on burning all the bridges she has left but well anyway the thing that got me later is after Tomori gets everyone back together with her song poem and they all cry it out

And she's like "why??? I was so terrible and I used you" but even still Tomori expresses that it doesn't matter and she still wants them all together and just

AND IT'S SOO AAAAHHHHH

And that got me just because. Just. Forgiveness is just a really powerful thing and it takes a lot to do it and it's hard but sometimes you need to forgive your friends when they hurt you for things to move forward better than before and more often than not that's a losing gamble but it's so worth it when it pans out and aaahhhhhhhh

Oh, yeah, and then there's the ending reveal that Sakiko has an abusive father.

We'll have to wait to see how that plays into the Ave Mujica anime but that also really got me. That was something

And also um

I liked the gay aquarium penguins

Okay so anyway um

I have nothing more of significance to say at this time.

There. There's media talk rant ramble for that.

So here's our links etc if you want to leave a tip for this one

patreon | ko-fi

[calicodreamer]

Calico Reviews: Sun and Moon Show eps. 1-3

Welcome back to Calico rants about the Sun and Moon show to her tumblr page, because its to cringe to explain to people in real life.

We’re going to try to do at least three episodes a week, and then write down my notes so I can ramble about this to my Tumblr, become like, an actual content creator for the things that I like.

Does it count as spoilers for the show if its episodes 1-3? regardless, spoilers below

9:21 Montgomery Gator is the WORST Daycare ATTENDANT in VRCHAT

They have a Funny little intro right now! It's Cringe, and I would like them to not.

 I am looking forward to when they don’t. .

I had previously watched this episode during my trying to get all those juicy little lore bits by being picky and choosey with what I wanted to consume, and unluckily for me, there isn't a complete season one compilation for me to pick through

Moon, when we the audience are not looking through his perspective, hangs out in Vtuber form in the corner. We don’t see any of Sun's Vtuber model right now, but he does have one, so there's that.

Sun - upon the start of the video, is cleaning the day-care, Moon comes down to check on him. Sun is an upbeat happy guy, who is anxiously cleaning the day-care - this seems to be his only personality trait. Moon is snappy, uptight, and grumpy but overall quiet outside of when he is yelling, or being angry at Sun.

Sun has hired Monty the gator (Yes he’s here, no I don’t know why), for 1000$ dollars a second to look after the daycare for him for whatever reason. Why would they have this much money to afford to give it to Monty the gator?? Don’t ask me, they just do I guess. Moon hates Monty the Gator - this is a reasonable opinion of Monty the gator.

Moon has control of the bank account they have I guess.

Sun has to talk to Roxanne for whatever reason (Yes, Yes I do mean Roxanne wolf, No I don’t know why she’s here)

Monty sucks at his job - hence the title of the video. Monty is also an idiot, and happy music plays when he comes on screen, he also briefly thinks that Sun is a statue- this feels like Flanderization, even though this is an au, I hate that character choice, I wish they would not. 

Sun seems to be slightly intense about cleaning, he has a whole organization schedule. Moon can only be grumpy, I assume this is because Sun didn’t talk to him about anything he was doing that day, but eeeeeeeeeeeeeh - Moon stop being a dick to your brother.

There’s implied to be kids running around while everything happens, which is also concerning.

Monty leaves because Moon hates him for whatever reason, I dunno why. He was sent to get snacks and then doesn’t show up for the rest of the episode. I’m also glad Monty is gone, Fuck I hate this character.

Sun shows up, upset that Monty has messed everything up, Moon is largely apathetic to the whole situation. 

9:06 Sun and Moon MOVE to SPACE in VRCHAT

We are still intro-ing, I would still like us to not be. I have to forcibly remind myself that this channel is meant for kids every time the intro comes on, and that If I watch like five episodes a day I can get through this in 2 months.

I am not going to watch five episodes a day

They (The people) told me to watch this episode, You really don’t have to. Nothing of major importance here, but there is funny nonsense happening. 

Moon is starting a ponzi scheme I guess, or atleast is implied to have business deals with “Someone” or people? Idk between this and insisting how “Animatronic” they are I’m beginning to loose it.

Monty the gator is also here (For SOME reason), and he has a space station apartment building that he is using to actively kill people to get more money, they only reason Moon cares about it is because Sun spent 50,000,000 dollars on an apartment for Moon to live in, because he thinks Moon hates him (Poor baby), and wanted Moon to be able to have his own space.

Moon has to walk Sun through what sarcasm is a couple times. Sun you sweet precious baby. And remind him that No he doesn’t actually hate him, and would prefer to live with Sun

Moon goes to Monty to get the Money back

Monty doesn’t wanna give the money back

Moon threatens to expose him

Monty gives the money back.

Apparently Sun spent even more money on a tv sold to him by Monty

Oh boy howdy, I hope this character trait of Sun being gullible isn’t around long.

Other notes:

It's Directly stated that they have a bank account, and that Moon has enough money to buy himself a house for whatever reason? Why is he buying himself a house? I don’t know. Where did they get the bank account from? I don’t know. WHY DO THEY HAVE-

There's also apparently enough money on this account to afford a funky little space station apartment, and a house.

Moon invent things, why? Idk personality traits.

But they do have a good dynamic going or whatever, and the voice acting for Moon is pretty good

17:51 Sun and Moon Play AMONG US in VRCHAT

THERE IS NO INTRO LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Sun and Moon are playing among us, for some reason. With Some of the Funtime animatronics, Glamrock Chica, and Freddy - just regular old Freddy - he is here

Sun and Moon are canonically, Very Big boys, and have to crawl around the ship

This is just a Funny little episode, Nothing important lore wise happens here, but you do get more of Sun and Moons Dynamic. 

Sun walks around being anxious the entire time, and everything is too short for him to move around properly. Which is a shame that no ones drawn this scene yet because I think that would be hilarious - them just knuckle walking on the ground because they’re both too tall. 

“OMG YOU GUYS ARE CREEPILY WALKING EVERYWHERE!?!?”

“Bro, I am literally just trying to get around.”

Funtime Freddy has a stupid voice

also Funtime foxy what the fuck is up with your voice, I am literally begging you both not to show up again so I don’t have to hear you. I hate it.

Moon is so proud of himself for just doing anything - he could burn coffee and I'd still believe he was proud of himself

Moon has such a smug little voice and I’m 80% sure its all the deadpan tone he has when he’s not yelling. When he’s not being an edgy bastard he’s such a little goober. The dynamic between the two is very interesting, and I am HERE for it. 

Notable: Moon is Willing to Kill Sun, and kill for Sun without a second thought, Sun is willing to lie for his brother. Even to his own detriment. Sun is afraid of Moon to some degree in the episode? I'm not sure how much of a joke this is.

I am most certainly reading into it

Moon stop being an edgy goober for like, five seconds, I swear. The deadpan voice even makes him even better. I love him

Sun stop being Anxious challenge “level impossible”

This episode is just silly little filler, Not much of note happens.

Everyone is rabid, except for Sun who is a very good boy. I cannot wait to see him change that

Final thoughts:

So Overall, In the first three episodes. My favourite character is definitely Moon, mostly because I like his voice better. Sun and Moon definitely have some issues in their relationship, especially since Moon is grumpy, and Sun is constantly going out of his way to try and appease him most of the time.

Anyhow, hopefully this makes my watching of the series easier.

Previous post?:

[merge-conflict]

year in review

2023 is on its way out, and it's been... a year. First full year that I've actually been active on social media (i.e. not just lurking), and first time in fandom.

My first fic of the year? when her edges soften – the longer I wrote for Valentine and the more her relationship with Johnny got weird and intimate and full of casual innuendo the more I needed to write something where they were reunited. Also my first ever experience writing smut and self-indulgently adding a whole fencing scene. Goddamn that was fun! Feels like it's older than a year.

My favorite fic of the year? thread-safe – I became engrossed with cyberpunk because of Jackie but I imprinted hard on Takemura after that traumatic heist mission and perhaps the rest is history. Valentine's story has had a lot of tinkering and reworking and it was the thing that got me back into writing, but the original story in my head was something bittersweet and angry and grieving, one night only no encores, parting badly– and I finally was able to capture that in thread-safe and it feels so good.

Most fun experiments?? There are several of these. When I got stuck and discouraged and tired of working on the longfic and plotting things out I ended up working out a "shenanigans au" (fleeting fits of reason) where I could put Johnny and Kerry and V (and Alt and Rogue it turns out) together and just have them interact without plot. Well the plot crept in, but writing some loosely connected 1-1.5k pieces focused on a single scene or idea with minimal polish was incredibly freeing. Then I recorded some of my own podfic! I wrote a chapter of thread-safe in second-person! I wrote imago and decided to incorporate pieces of it into my longfic. Playing around like this has really kept writing fun for me when I don't have the concentration to play the long game.

Additional musings and personal reflections under the cut:

2023 the year sucked ass. It has been god awful. Just the fucking worst! Cyberhanami was in February? March? I remember finishing up some of my prompts that week while I was in another state with friends who were out and about while I was in bed too nauseated and weak to move. Writing was the only thing keeping me from going insane. My health has been shoddy, I had to cancel a much anticipated two weeks of international travel, spent at least two week long periods this year with anxiety so intense it made me almost physically incapable of eating. I had an incredibly expensive panic attack, and the world... things have been better!

I find it difficult to be honest about that sort of thing– my primary instinct is Not To Talk About any of that shit, because well... it's personal! And I handle reassurance about as well as I handle compliments (awkwardly. half in panic. friendly self-deprecation). But it feels disingenuous to celebrate accomplishments without acknowledging the yawning abyss we all struggle with from time to time. I remain cynically optimistic, as always, and I'm seriously grateful for all the connections and shared art and braincells and excitable messages, especially from folks tolerating my tendency to ramble onto tangents and use an oddly formal tone. I don't know what I'm doing, but who does? It comes easier with practice. It has to, right?

See you cool cats in 2024. :3 😼

[cartoon-buffoon]

Its about that time of the month where I get obsessed with a fictional man who is a total piece of shit and this month's furry cartoon man is—

God do I hate Fritz... Like, this dude is a fucking sucks and is piece of shit who deserves to be thrown in a meat grinder yet at the same time I love him.

Also a ramble/review but I watched the first Fritz the cat movie and the sequel which is dubbed "The Nine lives of Fritz the cat". Both movies are easily available to watch on a very public website that I will not disclose due to I do not want either of them taken down (just do a quick Google search and you'll see the website I'm talking about, also donate to that said website!!! It's been a life saver for finding certain films, cartoons, or old books) anyways: Jesus Christ the first movie disturbed me in a way that I haven't felt in awhile. The third act of the first movie particularly fucked me up because it brought up some trauma and I had to pause and come back due to a certain scene (if you know you know). I still liked the first movie despite EVERYTHING it has as it actually does somewhat try and give some commentary or satire on stuff— I also do see why Robert Crumb despised the first movie because of the whole painting leftists as bad thing, I can see his point of view—It does a good job on making you look back into how different times were of the 60s too. That's about all I'm gonna say about the content of the first movie because there is A LOT, and I mean A LOT of stuff that I'm not qualified to talk about, and I ain't gonna pretend I'm qualified to talk about it. I am not that guy/girl. As for the second movie?... I honestly don't have fucking anything to say about the second movie it's a quite literal drug trip because the entire plot is a drug trip, and honestly I'm trying to forget it. It's like they took the first movie and it's 3 loosely chained together plots that have NOTHING to do with each other and went "let's chain even more things that have nothing to do with each other and tie it all together by the fact that it's all one giant weed induced hallucination". I'm aware it's like an anthology movie but that doesn't stop it from being a piss poor one. Idk only watch the first one if you want anything of substance really and even if you do watch the second one get ready for a clusterfuck of a film. Oh and if you're gonna watch the first heed all the warnings you see in reviews of it because as the poster and marketing for the first one says: "we're not ain't rated X for nothin' baby!"

Like seriously there is a lot of stuff—adult stuff—people probably still won't be okay viewing and if you aren't valid I just watched it for the sake of my own animation history loving heart.