Happy Spring!...I think.
After an extremely long day of work and an extremely hellish week (sewage water in bathroom. thats all I will say) I decided it's finally time I have a yuri weekend! I have over a 1000 games on my private "things I want to play" collection (actually it's 462 as of now. that's kind of nice to know) on itch.io and I used to actually play yuri jam entries yearly back in hs. I'm not gonna get through a lot alot, but I'll at least finally get aquainted with devs in the yuri space during the 2020s starting with...
Malaika's toxic yuri jam game What is it like to tatse I feel like with most media I just kinda go in and don't read the description to just see where things take me ( I DO look at content warnings especially from entries from this game jam in particular.)I've watched my gf play a couple toxic yuri jam entries before and it can be a little much for me sometimes. This one felt very very relatable though. The obssesion with wanting normalcy, things to be easily "fixed" and the difficulty with communication. It was so so interesting seeing the ways each of the characters miscommunicate in such specific ways.
I've been noticing I've been seeing the world in black and white a lot again and I feel like playing this helped with that (Especially as a mentally ill person who always feels stupid and bad because oh no my brain works funny!!) But it's the big reminder that we are capable and deserving of love and that we have to be care about how we act in relationships bc it can very quickly become toxic! Not on purpose all the time, but from caring too much. (Something I'm very prone to do). That being said I liked it a lot. And don't even get me started on the art!!!! I really adore Malaika's art style especially when it comes to the fashion + hairstyles.
Whoa. I was going to play another game but then I read this Black Characters zine by Malaika. I know this is the games section, but that was truly something. Social media has made it so easy to be fearful. Like, SO fearful about opinions, consumed media, etc etc. I am one of the people who kinda despise Hazbin Hotel from what I've heard, but I knew nothing about him being from teh 30s and it is true! A lot of 'good representation' is all just make something super obvious for a character and add no depth! And focusing on what's good vs what's bad stops us (me in particularl) from writing at all or even looking at things with nuance.
To get a little personal I feel like I struggle a bit with nuance bc of being nd + not really understanding my ocd that well. i want to be good, do good, support ppl, etc etc so bad I don't stop to really think about things. And I say this because seeing Hazbin Hotel in this zine made me raise an eyebrow in curiosity because I don't want to let myself consume problematic media, but it's like. I do! I still regularly enjoy the "classic" shounen stuff! And we all know how many mangakas are/are friends with creeps!!! But my brain then upon realizing this went, well vivziepop also mistreats/underpays workers according to stuff I've seen that I don't feel like looking for at 2am. But that case, I can still find other ways around these issues.
The thing I'm willing to admit is that I really really like musicals and wish I could watch the musical sequences from the show even if they're bad or whatever. I also saw a clip going around (maybe it was from helluva boss im not sure) but of this one character signing to a child while doing a performance and I just kept thinking whoa. And even reading this essay just remembering hey, this is a very messy queer adult animation even if i hate the art style it's moved away from the fricken yucky realistic family guy ass style. I think I need to fight the "cringe" of wanting to watch out of curiosity but also just think about my morals and shit. My brain still clings like crazy to that good and bad mentality still so. I don't think I'm a bad person for thinking of things with nuance and I wam not a bad person for having mild interest in wanting to watch this after curiosity. I think.
RAMBLE TIME OVER LET'S GET TO THE NEXT GAME!!!
So I didn't play all these games in one day, but wanted to keep them all here so here goes. I played Butterfly Aeffect and now I feel absolutely sick to my stomach. Honestly it was a solid game and I adored the ost+art, but the WRITING. The strong switch up in those part 2 endings are really what makes it. Getting to actually learn about the love interests since our foolish protagonist fails to try to learn a thing about any of them besides 'oh no girls are complicated!' which yeah! That's the point. It was just gruesome, nauseating, and I think I'm not good at playing dating sims with men as the protagonists (even though again, that's the point). Let's just say my hatred for men grew 10 fold with this game and seeing the varying ways each of the LIs can take their anger, toxicity, and hobbies to do what they do in each of their endings was like. Wow.
Give it a try if that sounds interesting to you, but definitely mind the CWs! When I said it's nauseating I mean it. Honestly the only ending that did not make my throat feel acidic was Raine's ending. Not sure which is my favorite, but Raine and Ollie are definitely my favorite characters.
Moving on....
