#suchobabbles

[mochlus]

This tiny gray cat showed up in our backyard and we were like oh shes so small she must be a little baby kitten, we have to help her, so we got her inside and took her to the vet and they were like nope. no she has all her adult teeth. shes just small. she's literally just that small.

#suchobabbles #although the black and white boy pictured here IS a larger than average cat #little gray girl will be rehomed to our cousins who have been thinking about getting a cat :) her spay surgery is next week! #cats

[sasaranurude]

Okay. I've been playing Tokyo Debunker today, since the release happened to catch me on a day when all I'd planned to do was write fanfiction. I just finished reading the game story prologue (it was longer than expected!), so here's a review type post. If you're reading this post not having seen a single thing about this game: it's a story-based joseimuke gacha mobile game that just released globally today. It's about a girl who suddenly finds herself attending a magic school and mingling with elite, superhuman students known as ghouls. If you look in the tumblr tag for the game you'll see what appears to be a completely different game from 2019 or so: they retooled it completely midway through development, changing just about everything about it due to "escalating competition within the gaming industry."

I'll talk about how this looks like a blatant twst clone at the end.

Starting with the positive: The story is charming. I enjoyed it thoroughly the entire time and am excited to read more. The mix between visual novel segments and motion comics was really nice--it broke things up and added a lot of oomph to the action or atmospheric scenes that visual novels generally lack. I like the art in the comic parts a lot. the live2d in the visual novel parts is... passable. Tone-wise, I think the story was a little bit all over the place and would like to see more of the horror that it opened on, but I didn't mind the comedic direction it went in either. The translation is completely seamless. The characters so far all have unique voices and are just super fun and cute. Of the ones who've had larger roles in the story so far, there's not a single one I dislike. It's all fully voiced in Japanese and the acting is solid. (I don't recognize any voices, and can't seem to find any seiyuu credits, so it seems they're not big names, but they deliver nonetheless.) Kaito in particular I found I was laughing at his lines a ton, both the voicing and the writing.

He's looking for a girlfriend btw. Spreading the word.

The problem is like. The gameplay is the worst dark-pattern microtransaction-riddled bullshit I've ever seen. Hundred passive timers going at all times. Fifty different item-currencies. Trying to get you to spend absurd amounts of real world money at every turn. There's like five different indicators that take you to various real-money shop items that I don't know how to dismiss the indicator, I guess you just have to spend money, wtaf. Bajillion different interlocking systems mean you have zero sense of relative value of all the different item-currencies. I did over the course of the day get enough diamonds for one ten-pull, which I haven't used yet. Buying enough diamonds for a ten-pull costs a bit under $60 (presumably USD, but there's a chance the interface is automatically making that CAD for me--not gonna spend the money to check lmfao), with an SSR rate of 1%. BULLSHIIIIIT.

There's like a goddamn thousand-word essay explaining the dozen different types of character upgrades and equippables and equippables for the equippables!! Bad! Bad game design! That's just overcomplicating bullshit to trick people into thinking they're doing something other than clicking button to make number go up! That is not gameplay!

In terms of the actual gameplay, there is none. The battle system is full auto. There might be teambuilding, but from what I've seen so far, most of that consists of hoping you pull good cards from gacha and then clicking button to make number go up. There's occasional rhythm segments but there's no original music, it's just remixes of public domain classical music lmao. I'd describe the rhythm gameplay as "at least more engaging than twisted wonderland's," which is not a high bar

At least there's a cat in the rhythm bit.

And like, ok, I gotta remark on how derivative it is. Like I mentioned in my post earlier, this game is unabashedly aping twisted wonderland's setting and aesthetic. (That said, most of the stuff it steals from twst is magic school stuff that twst also basically stole from Harry Potter, so...?) However, it isn't exactly like twst: in this one, the characters say fuck a lot and bleed all over the place and do violence. Basically, the tone is a fair bit more adult than twst's kid-friendly vibe. (Not, like, adult adult, and I probably wouldn't even call it dark--it's still rated Teen lol. Just more adult than twst.)

Rather than just being students at magic school, the ghouls also go out into the mundane world to go on missions where they fight and investigate monsters and cryptids. Honestly, the magic school setting feels pretty tacked-on. The things that are enjoyable about this would've been just as enjoyable in about any other setting--you can tell this whole aspect was a late trend-chasing addition, lmao. So, yeah, it's blatantly copying twst to try to steal some players, but... Eh, I found myself not caring that much. Someone more (or less) into twst than me may find it grating.

Character-wise, eh, sure, yeah, they're a bit derivative in that aspect too, but it's a joseimuke game, the characters are always derivative. Thus far the writing & execution has been solid enough that I didn't care if they were tropey. If I were to compare it to something else, I'd say the relationship between the protagonist and the ghouls feels more like that of the sage and wizards in mahoyaku than anything from twst. There's some mystery in exactly what "ghouls" are and their place in this world that has me intrigued and wanting to know more about this setting and how each of the characters feels about it. I have a bad habit of getting my hopes up for stories that put big ideas on the table and then being disappointed when they don't follow through in a way that lives up to my expectations, though.

So, my final verdict: I kind of just hope someone uploads all the story segments right onto youtube so nobody has to deal with the dogshit predatory game to get the genuinely decent story lol. Give it a play just for the story if you have faith in your ability to resist dark patterns. Avoid at all costs if you know you're vulnerable to gacha, microtransactions, or timesinks.

#suchobabbles #Tokyo Debunker #it's a global simultaneous release so I'm curious to see how it ends up doing in Japan #it's gonna be competing directly with stellarium of the fragile star which releases in a few days lmao. and is about a magic alchemy school #looks like the two games twt accounts have a similar number of followers #and then theyre competing with bremai releasing in may... #also adding this at the very end since i cant confirm anything: #but i found out abt this game bc it was rt'd by the former localization director/translator of A3en #i dont know if she worked on it or maybe her friend or maybe shes just hype! who knows! but i think her word (or rt) is worth something

[sasaranurude]

I just read SHWD vol 1 and it was everything I've ever been hoping for in a yuri manga I'm gonna explode for real. No words rn head empty so you have to just look at these panels in lieu of an explanation and understand what I mean through their vibes

#suchobabbles #shwd #i think leo is my favorite character maybe but i do love all three of the main girls

[sasaranurude]

This particular reaction to hypcharisma is going to stay in my head forever and ever and ever

#suchobabbles #charisma house #image id in alt text

[sasaranurude]

Given Myunna is dissolving a little bit in his art and his bio says something happens when he gets overwhelmed, I hope this little guy just deteriorates into a pile of flour when he's sad. Just disintegrates. I want Willmesh to give Myunna a hug to try to cheer him up and come away looking like this

#suchobabbles #fragaria memories #th fact that they arent human is the best part of framemo #i want to see Weird Fairy Behavior

[sasaranurude]

#suchobabbles #idolish7 #gif #re:vale #yukimomo #i liked them so i made a gif of just this :)

[sasaranurude]

Every time I open twitter I see framemo discourse. Please. Please come on. Can we at least wait until it has SOME content. Which will probably be in. Checks watch. Four hours. My personal guess is that they'll either drop an MV/theme song outright or announce an upcoming MV release. Or a drama track posted on YouTube. Maybe both!

There's arguments on twitter right now about whether fragaria will have a music element, which is a bizarre argument to have considering it's been confirmed since day one?

This section has always existed on the website...

#suchobabbles #the fact that story and mv are grouped is why i assume the story will be drama tracks posted on youtube #why group them unless theyre extremely similar in format? #fragaria memories

[sasaranurude]

I am ALREADY seeing people mistranslate Hangyon's bio, so to be absolutely clear, these are the words his bio uses to describe his relationship with Badobarm:

They are not brothers in a familial sense.

#suchobabbles #fragaria memories #& hangyon is the senior of the two i believe

[mochlus]

I've seen an uptick recently in posts that go something like "If you have to read some external bonus book or comic to understand a character or plot point, then you've written the main thing badly" and I fully understand that sentiment, if your media/narrative is based around One Main Thing then that main thing should stand on its own. But as someone who's spent way too much time being into multimedia series it does make me laugh really hard like You would never survive hypnosis microphone. I don't know how I survived hypnosis microphone

#suchobabbles

[sasaranurude]

Kawagoe Boys Sing's nonexistent art budget aside (curtis... man... your hair...), these two are sososo cute and I am obsessed OBSESSED with how they're completely glued at the hip. oh my god it's adorable.

#suchobabbles #kawagoe boys sing #yes i did have to look up that his name is curtis. because in the episode they only called him magic. PLEASE. #AT LEAST HAKASE'S NICKNAME IS DERIVED FROM HIS ACTUAL NAME #curtis also doesnt seem to have much of a personality outside hakase -_- but. this show isnt the most well written thing in the world. so. #hes not alone in not having all that much of a personality outside his relationship with someone else. looks at the twins

[sasaranurude]

I've seen Kamen Rider W (I loved it) and am currently watching Gaim, so which should I go for next? This is kind of a random handful of ones I'm most interested in. If you have a case to make for another one then put it in a reply :)

#suchobabbles #suchobabbles toku edition #not tagging further bc i dont want this to spread hfghf

[sasaranurude]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Charisma House (Audio Drama) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Ensemble Additional Tags: Comedy, Humor in the style of canon, Trans Characters, almost definitely this is only funny to me. Summary:

The seven charismatics discuss each others' genders.

My first Charisma House fic, and don’t worry, it’s just as terrible as all my posts

#suchobabbles #fic #charisma house

[mochlus]

You have to learn what a foraminifer is. Your life will be better if you learn what a foraminifer is. Ok. Especially if you live near a carbonate beach. Because. You can pick up a handful of sand and see all the Little Guys in it. You know? That sand is made of little guys. Little amoebas that made funny little shells. And they have all different shapes. They're endlessly diverse little guys in the sand! You have to learn about them okay!!! WIKIPEDIA FORAMINIFERA RIGHT NOW

#suchobabbles

[sasaranurude]

I lied I actually am going to post charisma house clips that sent me into hysterics. Unleashes one single angelic note while being laterally skewed beyond comprehension

#suchobabbles #charisma house

[sasaranurude]

I knew Bravern was gay because I had seen a handful of jokes about it (I'd pointedly avoided watching any clips though 'cause @indigoretsu said it would throw me for a loop and I wanted to preserve that feeling if possible FDGHFHG)

But I did NOT expect a... Love triangle (???) Between a mech, his pilot, and the other guy who wants to pilot the mech?? Incredible development. The contrast of Bravern himself living in a brave style super robot show while everyone else is living in a gritty realistic military real robot show is amazing also

#suchobabbles

[sasaranurude]

Watching kamen rider specifically because of the upcoming joseimuke IS backwards I realize this but I prommy the series has been in my peripheral for years since so many transformers fans are also tokusatsu fans... I've always kind of WANTED to get into it but never really had any particular prompting to. So like ride kamens was just the catalyst for something that's been a long time coming u feel.

#suchobabbles #even telling my friends abt kamen rider doot was like 'how has such a rosiecore series existed without you actually getting into it' #so like HAHHFDGDFDGDF it was. invevitable. #suchobabbles toku edition