straightforwardly

I’ve been taking part in

auctionsasthreatened, and it’s been a blast! …And terrible for my sleep schedule, since the six hour window where the start/end times of auctions take place in overlap almost perfectly with when I should be sleeping on work nights, but idc, worth it <3

But that’s not actually the main point of this post! During the auction for my own sign-up, a few people expressed interest in my Cinderella Phenomenon request—and specifically, in wanting to hear a pitch for the game. Words cannot express how delighted I was by the opportunity, so I did that—and ended up having an incredibly fun conversation with someone else who was also familiar with the game <3

Anyways—long story short, I decided I wanted to preserve said pitch on my dreamwidth as well. This is exactly what I posted to discord (outside of updating the markdown to html so that it would display properly & inserting the single [non-custom] emoji I used), meaning this was originally posted in a series of messages rather than being meant to be read as a blog-style post, though I think it still flows clearly enough.

( beneath the cut )

Reading:

The Burning Stone

Listening:

Playing:

Watching:

Writing:

I have such a long list of things I want to make entries about (most Snowflake Challenge-related, but not all), which is honestly kind of a delightful problem to have, considering the usual state of affairs! Today, I think I’m going to tackle a general media round-up, starting with that rapidfire version that I sometimes use (seen above), and then talking about all the little media-I’m-consuming-related things that I’ve been wanting to cover.

► It’s been a good long while* since I talked about my progress with High Rollers: Aerois! Like I mentioned above, I’ve reached episode 15, “The Ironwick Mystery”. (as in, I listened to the very first few minutes of part one this morning while doing the dishes).

*I just checked, and apparently the last time I made an update, I was six episodes in. So I’ve literally doubled my episode count since the last time I recorded my ongoing thoughts and reactions!
( spoilers beneath the cut )

► In my last post, I mentioned that there was something I wanted to comment on in regards to Karma’s non-Lucette interpersonal relationships in Cinderella Phenomenon. ( beneath the cut )

► Finally, another update listing my fills for the

threesentenceficathon:

Cinderella Phenomenon, Klaude/Lucette, for the prompt any, any, only bought this dress so you could take it off

Cinderella Phenomenon, Lucette & Glaceon, for the prompt any non-Pokémon fandom, any, Pokémon trainer AU

Aladdin, Jafar/Jasmine, for the prompt Aladdin, Jasmine/Jafar, AU where it's mutual

—Which may also be the last one? I’ve definitely slowed down, in any case.

I replayed Karma’s route in Cinderella Phenomenon tonight, and—love, love, love. I still very much understand why his was my favorite back when I first played the game. ( beneath the cut )

Me realizing it’s been nearly a year since the last time I posted… whoops.

Anyways! This week, I’ve been playing Kindred Spirits on the Roof, and today I finished it! I was told this was a visual novel, but the choices are more cosmetic than anything—like, apparently you can unlock more extra content with them, but that’s about it? There’s only one story and one route that you follow to a single end, so it felt more like a kinetic novel to me in the end.

I actually played the first six minutes of it in August 2021, according to Steam, before setting it down and wandering away. Either I wasn’t in the right mood, or the beginning was really that much weaker than the rest—I can’t say, as I didn’t go back to redo those six minutes, lol. Still, while I have criticisms, overall I enjoyed it.

I think I’m going to break down my thoughts by just talking about each of the canon couples, in more or less the order each relationship was introduced in.
( more beneath the cut, including spoilers )

What’s this, a wild update?

Earlier this week, I played The Rose of Segunda, and I’ve had a hard time thinking about anything else ever since. ( spoilers beneath the cut )

We’re four days into 2020, and I’ve already completed my first visual novel of the year—Heart of the Woods, which HLTB logs as taking between 5½-8 hours to beat and complete, though I completed it in four. ( spoilers beneath the cut )

Guess who just accidentally dedicated her weekend to playing visual novels. First it was Lake of Voices, then it was Cinderella Phenomenon. Two very different games—but I enjoyed both. I will say that Cinderella Phenomenon was more like the usual otome experience—but seeing as I love those type of games, that wasn’t a problem for me.

(I should mention that this game is actually for free, both on Steam and itch.io.)

I played the routes in this order:
Rod -> Karma -> Rumpel -> Waltz -> Fritz

( spoilers for the whole game beneath the cut )

I finished playing Lake of Voices today, after having started it yesterday. It’s a short visual novel that’s available for free on Steam, and overall, I’d say it’s worth the time I invested in it. The mood and atmosphere are fantastic, and though not every route stands well on its own, I found the characters and overall story to be compelling, especially once all the secrets of the story were revealed.

( massive spoilers for the whole game beneath the cut )

► Sign-ups for the Be the First challenge have opened up! So excited for this one this year—I think I’ll actually post something for it this time, haha. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it’s a challenge where you write a fic for any canon which doesn’t have any English-language stories already written for it. Like I mentioned in my last entry, I’m planning to write for ~~and have already started on a story for oops~~ the web novel Who Dares Slander My Senior Brother. So excited!

► Two more last-minute Chocolate Box fic recs before reveals: ( beneath the cut )

► While I’m at it, have two non-Chocolate Box fic recs—one for a canon that I’m not particularly fannish about but the story itself hit me hard in my time travel-loving id, and one for Scum Villain which made me internally shriek with glee a lot while reading it.
( also beneath the cut )

► I didn’t get around to talking about this last time, but, in the spirit of “finishing visual novels that I started then put indefinitely on-hold for various reasons”, I went and finished playing Hustle Cat not long after I finished OZMAFIA!!. (You can find my initial impressions on it and Finnley’s route over here, for the curious.) It’s… been some weeks since I finished it now, and I didn’t take any notes, so this is going to be short and pretty vague.
( and not super-positive, sorry )

I’ve finally completed OZMAFIA!!! ( many, many spoilers + images beneath the cut )

Overall, I really liked this game! Which is surprising, considering both its reputation and how hard I bounced off it the first time I tried playing it. This has been a true enemies-to-lovers experience for me, haha.

I have so much (too much?) to talk about re: OZMAFIA!! today! Since my last update, I’ve played through Hamelin, Soh, and Caesar’s routes (in that order), meaning that I’ve now finished all of the routes — I only have the overall ending to play after this.
( hamelin’s route — spoilers beneath the cut )
( soh’s route — spoilers beneath the cut )
( caesar’s route — spoilers beneath the cut )

All that’s left is the overall ending. I’m...a little nervous about it, actually. I still have so many questions, and I have no idea if it’ll answer them all satisfactorily or at all. I hope so — I’ve gotten pretty invested in this game at this point, and I really want it to wrap up well.

► Media consumption/creation at-a-glance:

Reading: Currently at the beginning of Book Six in The Iliad.
Listening: I finished up TAZ Dust! Verdict: I mostly liked it, but wasn’t satisfied by the ending. Now I’m catching up with Buffering the Vampire Slayer — just finished episode 4.07.
Playing: OZMAFIA!!, of course!
Watching: Still in that same holding pattern with YGO DM.
Writing: Splitting my attention between potential Chocolate Box treats and the lingering remnants of the FFA Prompt Fest.

► The OZMAFIA!! update:

I finished the Robin Hood route a few days ago, and… well. I went into the route feeling fairly neutral about him as a character, and I left it— really, really disliking him, honestly. Maybe even hating him? Which— isn’t ideal, obviously. ( spoilers beneath the cut )

After that, I decided to play Pashet’s route next to wash the bad taste from my mouth. ( spoilers beneath the cut )

In short, I am 100% on the Pashet/Fuka train.

► I’d almost forgotten that I used to do this...

Reading: The Iliad for

classiclitclub. I’ve already bounced off of this one once, when I tried to read it in 2016, but here’s hoping that it works out this time. I’m also eyeing a few T. Kingfisher novels that I got for Christmas (Clockwork Boys + the sequel), but I haven’t started on them yet.
Listening: The Dust Arc from The Adventure Zone. Mostly while doing the dishes. No spoilers, please!
Playing: I think everyone knows it at this point, but OZMAFIA!!.
Watching: Technically still Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters, though I haven’t seen an episode in about a month now. I’m so close to finishing the Grand Prix arc! But my co-watcher isn’t being very cooperative.
Writing: Not focusing on anything in particular— mostly just adding to various WIPs in 50-100 bits, poking at a few potential Chocolate Box treats, and considering OZMAFIA!! fic.

► So, the Brothel Route in OZMAFIA!! turned out to be much shorter than I expected— I finished it one day. It was also… kind of weird. ( as always, spoilers beneath the cut )

So, yeah. Weird, weird route, but I did find some enjoyment in it. Next up is Robin Hood’s route, which I’m not too excited about yet, but I am definitely willing to be convinced. Though, there was an intriguing/promising moment with him during Scarlet’s route…

I finished Scarlet’s route in OZMAFIA!!. ( spoilers beneath the cut )

So that was Scarlet’s route. I’ll be doing the brothel route next, I think. Partially because of the route order recommendations I mentioned in my last post about this game, and partially because I really am curious what a brothel route might look like in an otome game.

► Yes, I’m still playing OZMAFIA!!. Most recently, I just finished up all the endings for the main three (Caramia, Kyrie, & Axel), including the transferred affection endings. I have a lot to say! —Mostly about the transferred affection endings, because I took pretty detailed notes for those, but I do have comments on the Caramia and Axel routes overall as well.

( spoilers, images, and a truly ridiculous amount of words beneath the cut )

tl;dr the transferred affection routes/endings were universally and overwhelmingly better than the standard routes! (I was about to say “with the exception of the love triangle sections”, except it’s not like those sections were any better when Fuka sticks with her original LI, so.)

► I’m still not 100% decided on whose route I’m going to do next now that I’m done with the main three, though I’ve narrowed it down. I did google the recommended route order, and ( more beneath the cut )

...I also wanted to talk a bit about one of my theories for something that didn’t show up in the main three’s routes / that I am now thinking might show up in the brothel or Robin Hood routes, if it shows up at all, but the above turned out to be so much longer than I thought it would be (almost 6K!!! holy hell), and I am exhausted. ….Seriously, this update took me so long to write. I really should have updated more in-between if I wanted to talk about this playthrough in that much depth. Someone save me from myself. ;_;

► Unlike the rest of this entry, this has nothing to do with OZMAFIA!!, but I also posted my usual writing wrap-up post for 2018 over here.

► I’ve gone back to playing Ozmafia!!!! The last time I played, I only did one of the endings (one of Kyrie’s, for the record), which some of you might remember me talking about over here. At the time, I’d fully intended on continuing to play the game, but then real life got busy, and one way or another I didn’t get back to it until now.

That being said— I’m kind of glad that I waited until now to get back to it? Mostly because I’m enjoying it much more now than I did back then. Some of it, I think, is because I have my expectations properly calibrated this time. ( more (including spoilers) beneath the cut )

► I’ve been playing Nadia’s route in The Arcana on and off again (mostly off) since sometime in the beginning of this year. While the later chapters have been really good, I’m mostly just along for the ride on this one— I’ve forgotten so many of the plot points over time. But when I played through “The Tower” today, I found that I actually had a few things to comment on! ( spoilers beneath the cut )

► I don’t play Pokémon Go super-regularly, but last Sunday I picked it up to participate in my first Community Day! ♥ I didn’t catch too much, but I got enough to evolve one Mareep to Ampharos, plus I got my first shiny! So that was exciting. ♥ Since then, I’ve googled my town + Pokémon Go and discovered that it has a whole website dedicated to where the best places in town to catch Pokémon are, so I’ll probably be taking advantage of that information the next time around.

► My Naruto reread’s slowed down again (I think it’s been over a week since I last read anything, whoops), mainly because I got distracted by gaming/

fandom5k. But I still managed to get a pretty decent chunk of it read before that, so I have a few things to say. In bullet-points, as always.( spoilers beneath the cut )

► In the interests of cutting down my VN backlog, I started playing OZMAFIA!! not long after my last update. I… didn’t get very far; I only reached one ending, and then tried and failed* three times in trying to get the other (hopefully less horrifying) ending for that character.

*Not even following the walkthrough I looked up choice-by-choice worked! I’m not sure what was going on there.

( spoilers + lots of images beneath the cut )

► This update is basically all the various little things that I wanted to talk about during the end half or so of October/first few days of November, but didn’t get around to because of ToT / real life stuff / because the entries I did make took too much time to write and I didn’t want to make them longer. So it’s more of a hodgepodge than usual.

► I did finish the second Oden Cart game. I think it was a bit over a week ago? There are a few brief things that I wanted comment on.( spoilers )

► Me, while watching flying witch: “I want to be a witch T_T”

Which isn’t exactly a new feeling, tbh, but it was particularly intense while watching that anime.

(Very soothing series to watch, though.)

► Apparently, Solmare (the company behind the Shall We Date? games), now has an online store with merchandise? ...Nothing for Niflheim, though. That’s not too surprising, seeing as there hasn’t been any events or anything for it since the one that ran February-March 2016, but I still had to check.

► Speaking of Solmare, I’ve started playing one of their newer games—the first time that I’ve picked a new one up in quite a while, actually. I think the last one was Blood & Roses? The one I’ve started playing is Shall We Date? We the Girls, and it was actually a misunderstanding which led to me picking it up. ( no real spoilers, I think? but this is a bit whiny )

► The other day, my brother sent me a Kotaku article about how mini-maps might be going away in games, and all I have to say is, noooooooooooooooooo. I already have a hard enough time finding my way around in open world games with the help of mini-maps! I don’t even want to think of how I’ll flail around without one.

► I decided to (slowly) start catching up with Dragon Friends, and episode 3.05 was pretty fun! Two highlights: ( spoilers )

► I came across this tweet on twitter, and had to share it here:

Inktober: all your artist friends flood your TL with beautiful new pieces every day
NaNoWriMo: all your writer friends go radio silent for a month and post cryptically about wanting to die
— 「SPOOKNYTE ٩( 🎃 )و」 (@goodnyte) October 6, 2017

Hee. ♥ It kind of makes me nostalgic for NaNo, though—it used to be such an essential part of my November, but I haven’t touched it in years. ...Probably because I haven’t really written much original work in some years, oops.

I am actually doing Inktober this year, though, despite not being an artist at all. I decided to do 31 days of Pokemon, and even drew a prompt list up for myself to direct my efforts. ( brief chattering; no pictures, sorry )

► In other news, last weekend I completed Date Warp! And:
( spoilers, so many spoilers )

Seriously an excellent VN.

► I also picked up Hustle Cat recently. This game’s been on my radar on a while, but I probably wouldn’t have gotten it anytime soon had it not shown up in this HumbleBundle—it’s in the first tier of games, so you only need to pay a minimum of $1 for it if you want the Steam key. There’s still about six days left on that bundle as I type this, in case anyone’s interested.

I’ve only played one route on it so far. ( spoilers beneath the cut )

► I’ve been checking out some canons based on the Yuletide tagset—mostly things that were already on my radar/that I already owned, but a few things have been new to me.

I started with her tears were my light. It’s a cute, short (as in, it probably took me about 10-15 minutes to complete it 100%, though I didn’t actually time it) f/f visual novel about anthropomorphic versions of Space and Time. It’s also completely free to download. It also happened to be one of the many unplayed visual novels sitting on my computer, which is why I started off with this one.

It’s a very sweet game (with bittersweet moments), but it was actually the mechanics that caught my attention with this one. ( I don’t consider this a spoiler, but you can choose ) So, yeah. I recommend it.

► After that, I started on Date Warp. Another visual novel, this one made by Hanako Games (the creators behind Long Live the Queen!, A Little Lily Princess, Magical Diary, The Royal Trap…). I actually played the demo quite a few years ago, but I didn’t actually buy it until a year or two ago during… either a Steam sale or a Humble Bundle, I don’t remember which anymore.

Anyways. I’m really enjoying this one! I’m not quite finished with it yet, but I’m close—the only route I haven’t gone through yet is Bradley’s.

( cut for spoilers plus length )

► I also read through all of the manga Gokusen, though I don’t have much to say about it specifically. (This was also one of the canons that was completely new to me—I first heard about it from a rec on coal.) It was really, really good—completely sucked me in, though I’d only started reading it on a whim. ( mild spoilers? )

There's apparently also an anime and a drama? But I'm not sure if I'll check out either, yet.

► I did get a little further on Ocarina of Time, but not much—mostly, I was too busy with the above. I’ll wait until I get further to talk more about it again.

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Entries tagged with interests: video games: visual novels

307 | cinderella phenomenon pitch, as seen on auctions, as threatened

264 | update on high rollers: aerois + more musings on karma

262 | some very brief flailing about my favorite cinderella phenomenon li/ship

241 | Kindred Spirits on the Roof thoughts

231 | Rose of Segunda feelings

220 | Heart of the Woods

217 | Cinderella Phenomenon

216 | Lake of Voices

207 | Be the First, fic recs, and Hustle Cat

205 | final thoughts on OZMAFIA!!

204 | OZMAFIA!! — Hamelin, Soh, and Caesar's routes

203 | OZMAFIA!! — Robin Hood & Pashet's routes

202 | OZMAFIA!!, brothel route edition

201 | more OZMAFIA!! - Scarlet's Route

199 | in which I make a ridiculously long update about my OZMAFIA!! playthrough

197 | visual novel hour: returning to OZMAFIA!! and The Arcana

187

171 | a grab-bag of topics

164 | Date Warp, Hustle Cat, and some brief ramblings on NaNo/Inktober/Pokemon

163| Yuletide fandoms! Playing Date Warp, her tears were my light, & reading Gokusen