Oh Great I’m On A Danganronpa Kick Now How Dare You All Do This To Me

Unironically I adore 'cheap' things being rendered beautifully. Someone designed that packaging that we overlook every day and it feels like it finally gets the respect it deserves. It's a damn fine painting OP.

A little different than my usual sort of post but here’s an art school assignment I’m proud of :) And progress pics!! oil paint is so much fun

Game Review 2: Meeting in the Flesh

4.5/5 (I dislike one character)

MitF is straightforward text adventure, with basically no combat, movement, or sex you can interact with. It is, by all accounts, a choose-your-own-adventure. And any CYOA fan can tell you to not count them out. MitF is about the best you can hope for from this genre, and only has a lower rating for personal preference and it's dubious game-hood.

Part 1: the premise and setting.

I adore the setting of this game, full fat no mixer, it's genius. It's set in a fleshy landscape filled to the brim with uncertain ground, acidic pustules, and wide salt fields to dry the groundsweat in. The people who call this place home as closer to the description of a creature than anything else, but have a love and genuine comfort for their home. As alien as the shapes and sights, the game reminds you there are people in all the ways that really matter.

They have holidays and customs, dietary restrictions and cultural cuisine, in groups, out groups, discrimination, farming, home decor, delivery services, lust for adventure, love of family, the list goes on and on. These are people. Sure, they kill criminals by bleeding them into a vat of salt to flavor it. Sure they subsist on literally nothing but salt. Sure they are twisted and have a few extra, fewer, or altered limbs and body structure. As alien as the environment, the feeling that struck me the most was how frequently this place did feel like their home, even in the parts the narrator consider boring.

Speaking of, the game is narrated from the perspective of our main character, a salt deliveryperson of unspecified gender or sex (not that it is even guaranteed to be adjacent to how humans tend to do it) who makes their living by using their unique build to sprint to and fro about the city. This is how you manage your time in the game, you decide what events you have time for based on who you engage with in-between your deliveries, since you only have the time to talk to one of the eligible bachelors each day.

The character feels as though they have a history, a story, and what strikes me is their need for that same comfort. They need a home to truly place their heart (or equivalent) in. The usual bad ending of the game is just, returning to your apartment. Alone. The room feels darker, and the night feels colder, and the contrast between your space and the revelry outside crushes your confidence. You sleep fitfully. It gives a sort of context of stakes that really makes them vulnerable. On the topic of writing...

Part 2: the quality of characterization

I am a person who likes to read aloud the events of my text based games. I find the voice acting to be engaging and fun, and it gets me more into the headspace of the characters. This is all to mention that at no point in the game did I grow confused as to who Is talking to who.

The character writing gives a unique writing style to each character that almost always tells you a lot about how they interact with the world. The protag's manager is rough and tumble but caring, the old man they deliver to seems amenable but quietly lonely, the people in the street are excited by the execution and lap their lips at the idea of the blood spilling on the cobblestones.

Each of the bachelors expresses themselves uniquely, whether cautious and reserved, calculating and intelligent, or wild and impulsive, they all have a unique style of speech that carries through in every word they say.

Okay so the text game is very good, but that's not what these reviews are about. I'm not here to give you something objective, I'm here to provide my opinion. So the most important question is, are the bachelors sexy and how good is the bone?

Part 3: Horny

To preface, the game has a SFW mode, where it doesn't get too explicit. Don't use it.

The writing of these bachelors is great 2/3rds of the time, not because it's on and off, but because I adored two of the bachelors and thought the last one was the coward pick for the uninitiated, and didn't like his character. The other two? Oh yeah.

First, the problem child. Brattan. B is a big, buff wolfman with an adventurous spirit and athletic bent. You'd think I'd love him, but I find him so irresponsible and abrasive. Routinely he drags your character beyond their comfort zone, assuming you don't play to be just as of not more reckless than he is, seems to genuinely not engage in empathetic thought, and overall has this 'jock wannabe' vibe that's just sort of uncomfortable. Plus, his ending centers around finding a portal to earth and becoming a strange, flimsy, hairless ape that has to pay taxes. And like, I get nothing out of those scenes, unironically. He was Beast, why would I want prince Adam's scrawny cousin. D tier bachelor.

Second is Yiestol, a lithe (almost effeminately designed) insectoid man. He works as the sole individual who watches over the citywide security system, and has a hardworking, if calculating, earnestness for his job. He wants to help people, protect people, he's not sure if he has the right perspective to help this place the best, so a lot of his conversations are long discussions about his beliefs. His story focuses around how he struggles with intuitive moral decisions (girl same) and how the protagonist's perspective could balance his calculation with kindness. He makes sure, double sure, triple sure, that you want to be his partner, that you know what it entails, and what you'd be getting into. When it ends, you climb into the security system together and he engages in something between sex and absorption, as he proceeds to melt with you into a collective goop like a butterfly getting rearranged in a cocoon. I'm not usually one for Vore but WOW this scene hits hard. It frames it as becoming one in body and soul, and in the end, you live on within him, and he within you, with his final design having four arms and a heart design on the chest. Extremely good, A tier Bachelor.

Finally. My sweet, my darling Nyargh. I have never claimed to be objective or even handed, he is my favorite. A mass of tendrils and mouths hovers and bobs like a balloon, slithering red mass shifts and undulates to mimic traditional speech. Speaking is hard for Nyargh, and coupled with his cagey and brusque demeanor, he would surely have no visitors if he didn't run the only honey store in town. The rarest of all, the third food beyond blood and salt is honey, and he makes a pretty penny by protecting and rearing fat, cat-sized bumblebees. Nyargh is unfriendly to most, and respects those who can respect his taciturn nature. Throughout his route he asks many questions of the player, and rather than the reckless or well considered answers of the last two, he prefers the voice of respect and kindness above all. Eventually, you help him at his shop enough that he trusts you enough to invite you into his private sanctum. A lushly furnished and comfortable space, the smell of the setting-equivalent cookies in the oven, and even rare and precious tea is served to you to repay you for your time. Nyargh reveals that he is not unfriendly, he is simply a very private man. His romance path is one of tenderness and kind gestures, gifts, treats, and smiles spent in quiet quality time. Eventually, it comes to a head when you learn the reason he is so secretive. His kind do not eat much salt, they thrive primarily on the pheromones of others. Specifically, Nyargh feeds off of happiness. He sells honey because people feel happy when they buy it, or buy it for a celebration or payday. If they knew he was feeding off them, he'd be ostracized or even killed. When the protagonist accepts him for who he is and truly believes his gestures of kindness to be honest, the result is the most tender scene of tentacle fondling and mutual body exploration i've maybe ever read. Though he has trouble with communication, I was glad to see him always asking for permission at every step. Consent is sexy as fuck, guys, and I'm not exaggerating on that.

Closing thoughts

I adore this title. It's writing is so natural that I was able to do Y and N's routes first try by literally just being honest with them. Would have preferred a route to tame B's wild side, but you need to give the people with mid taste something to eat I guess.

Quintuple S-tier on the visualnovel scale

Solid A for Games in general, and I don't mean that lightly.

all snuggled up for the cold

for @/mrgumtwo on twitter!

Among gold and jewels, her shine is brightest

Muscular Dragon Dude

Made with MediBang

The pure eroticism of an Ace Bandage is not fully taken advantage of, I feel. The implications are clear.

Barely covering scarred skin, vulnerable flesh, a package to be unwrapped but also a rough texture made to protect them. The elastic and cotton arguing over it's texture pulled just barely not taut by skilled and gentle hands. To apply it is sex. To allow it to be applied is sex, to peel it away is sex, to reveal yourself as healed or still damaged is sex.

some of my favorite woven tapestries, by Cecilia Blomberg:

Point Defiance Steps

Mates

Rising Tides

Vashon Steps

Funny thing about text.

I have been extremely sick this past week (like, all the water in my body has decided to leave in the least fun ways it knows how.) And this has made me tired, like, really tied, bordering on delirious. My job barely noticed but the way I text to my friends has immediately set off alarms apparently???

Normally I write very formal, just extremely dryly, all punctuation, proper Grammer, all that shit. But when I am really tired or cannot allocate any extra energy to typing I type like I talk and boy does it show. Weirder still, I start using word adjacent phonetics, like texting someone "yeyeyea Igoddit" is not my normal MO.

I do genuinely wonder if other people have this sort of discrepancy when they're really sick or something.

So this is a maybe uncomfy one, since it's about my own pseudosexual preferences.

A lot of my knowledge of my wants and likes comes from experimentation. This is usually how people learn stuff, but I've always felt strange about learning tricks to do with my own body that I'll never teach anyone to do to me, but I suppose it can't hurt to be informed. The part that confuses me is information that seems like it would imply something deeper but it just doesn't. Some examples of this (try at home!)

1 - Leg positioning. Going full spread eagle frog legged while laying down is peak positioning, and feels the most intense.

Therefore, one would extrapolate a similar affinity to catching, due to similarity in position and overall dominance structure. This is... Incorrect. I may have made an expensive purchase or two before realizing it just wasn't me.

2 - Blindfolded, gagged. I like not seeing things and knowing that I cannot for the time being. It feels more private than being alone and makes me bolder. I also find myself enjoying biting down on a wad of cloth, it makes me more vocal.

Extrapolation would state 'BDSM enjoyer, enjoys a loss of control and a sense of not knowing what's next'. Also wrong, I think I just spent so much of my sexual life in a dark room, being quiet, that cloth that blocks my vision and muffles my voice just makes me feel at home. Besides, the light pressure on the eyes lets my Neurodivergency just give up on visuals, which lets me relax.

3 - underwear and t shirts. I have genuine preference for a body clothed rather than not. Feeling at a torso through a shirt or gloved hands, or (a personal favorite) oral sex done through a pair of boxer-briefs.

Extrapolation would state that I'm an exhibitionist and like doing it in secret in public places, but the truth is I just have a texture issue with skin. Wet skin is... Just awful. Cotton just feels more appealing to the touch. It's just a sensory issue. The underwear thing is pure kink tho, cuz the mild ambiguity of a tent or bulge is great, and I've got a filthy weakness for a big sticky mess, gift-wrapped. Same with leaking.

So yeah, uncomfy I know, but it really is odd how harshly a line is drawn between two ideas about how best to be treated. Til the next episode of 'dude describes what makes his nonexistent desire for sex flare up'