#and im starting...at 25...this is my story U_U

[arinmoss]

Mabel :^)

(she/her)

[freshlybakedspiderbread]

history of gacha for some reason

If you've ever before this point thought that maybe i wasn't a total loser, then I'm about to change that! i was doing my eternal routine of mindlessly cycling through my various smartphone games and now that i'm slowly starting to get tired of my 50th or something mobage, i started thinking just how many gacha games i've played and been playing... and also how many unfortuate impulse purchases i made -_-

the simple truth is that i like collecting things. i like seeing numbers go up. I like having spaces filled in. and I am often bored and lacking in motivation to do other things these days, so i’m like the natural sucker for all these. But which ‘these’ exactly?! Let’s start from the beginning, or at least as far back as i can remember....

fate grand order

im pretty sure it started in 2017 when just about everyone i came across in the cirlce of my tumblr rping days was into fgo. I only had a very vague knowledge of fate stuff beforehand, but i saw posts and memes about it every day, so i figure i might as well try it out for the heck of it. Now I could actually understand the unfunny memes!

I distinctly remember it was the ‘prison tower’ event featuring the count of monte cristo (the guy who looks like komaeda) where I started getting actually invested in the story, and i remained invested until i just finally drifted away from it sometime in early 2020.

my fav character is probably still florence nightingale but even back then, i was already weirded out by the whole concept considering the actual person in history still has living descendents!!

how much...: I only remember buying like one instance of gacha currency for ‘comfort’ sake, under some terrible logic that this is the amount i’m paying to ‘buy’ the game if it was like a normal game. It was to roll for medb who i didn’t get. I think it was 20 or 30 dollars?? bad but far from the worst it’ll get..

bandori

I don‘t remember who, if anybody else i knew was playing it which got me into it, but I started playing the global version i think not too longer after it started up in 2018.

It was fun and i like just about every one of the initial 25 characters! (I dont think i can muster much affection for Eve though...) Playing this game every day for nearly a year or so, i got a preeeetty good at consistently Full Comboing songs on Hard n_n  Misaki/Michelle remains at my number 2, even though harohapi is probably my least fav of the bands over all... (Actually that’d be Morfonica because I don’t know anything about them!)

But yeah, i sorta just naturally drifted off the game at some point. I realised i might as well stopped when i was no longer paying attention to the event story. That said, I am actually just waiting for Raise a sullen to be added to the global version and that will be when i poke back in. Chu2 might actually be my fav?

how much...: I remember buying more than one booster pack for some coloured materials I was lacking in. Also like 20 or 30 dollars? Are all these prices just generalised across all mobages?!

girls frontline

oh ths was a big one.... So after hearing about it from a few friends, i tried it the global version out of curiosity as soon as it released in 2018. I would have liked to just try the original chinese version but......... i was and still am illiterate in my own mother tongue u_u;;; Moving on...

i played this game every day until like, god, I think until just the beginning of this year?! And i still like reinstalled and logged back in on a whim every now and then.

There is a lot of story and cutscenes in this game, and i’ consumed maybe like 50% of it, and of that I must’ve only actually paid attention to 70% of it. Yet this post here showed that there was plenty that stuck with me... for life, for better or worse!! Also there were some days where I came really, really close to buying a figure of ump45 n_n;

one of the reasons i eventually stopped other than just naturally feeling like moving on, is the fact that the gameplay itself just got too stupidly demanding for me. Like i had like dozens upon dozens of max lv dolls and i had hit most of the caps in all abilities a long time ago, yet the game’s content kept throwing bigger and bigger damager numbers and every single new thing to fight was suuuuch a pain.

how much...: Okay this is extra embarrassing compared to others because the only gacha in this game exists soley for costumes for the t-dolls. And. Sometimes. I really wanted those costumes ._. If I had to guess or estimate how much i spent in total across the two or so years i played this game... probably over a hundred dollars? That’s if i’m being really generous to myself...

cookie run overbreak

It was October 2019, when someone I knew was asking people to click on this link to play cookie run, part of one of those ‘invite friends to get prizes’ things, and I clicked it and started playing the cute little game where you make cookie people run and jump. My first epic was Whipped Cream Cookie, as it happens!

i actually don’t think i played the game for that long then though, maybe only for a few months before i decided to uninstall. But then, on january of this year, i jumped back into it on a whim, and i’ve been playing every day (and only now am i finally, slowlly beginning to feel like i can/should put it down again...!!!)

every few weeks, there’s a new super wonderful design that I just Gotta see run and jump and squeak. They’re soooo good and im not even joking when i say touhou has gotta start ripping off designs from this game immediately!!

Lotus Dragon Cookie and Hydrangea Cookie are probably my favs and the entire lotus paradise story is like striaght out of a classic chinese movie (not that i’ve watched more than a handful of those...). also dark enchantress and pomegranate are just cookie eiteru which is also why i love them.

how much...: there have been multiple instances across the year where a thing will pop up and be like “spend 6.99 for this thing, now!!!” and i’ll just be like ‘well, alright...’ and like it seems like a small amount, but i’m afraid of thinking about how much it adds up...

cookie run kingdom

started playing as soon as it came out, also some time in january of this year. I dropped off after about a month, and then came back like two months ago? I’m still playing it and logging in everyday, but that’s despite the fact that I think the actual gameplay is Miserable. It sucks, i don’t like it, yet i do it!!

I used to think girls frontline could have a real slog of gameplay sometimes, but crkingdom’s progression is so, so, utterly glacial and there’s soooo much micromanagement. You have to click on a million different things just upon logging in or else you’re wasting time and/or resources. And you need to do all these things because it takes a billion years to level up a cookie, and the story content keeps getting harder and requiring bigger numbers. and yet, im still at it at the moment because gambler’s fallacy i guess!?

anyhow, cookies have voice acting in this game and also the story is a lot more elaborate as befitting of an ‘epic rpg’ kind of game. I actually do really like a lot of the plot and lore elements [which I have to watch on youtube because it’d take me years to see it myself in the game >_>] and also sonic the hedgehog is in this game!!

how much...: i think i spent like six dollars once really early on for some small boost, but it did not help in the long run. the prices for things are utterly absrud, and i knew no matter how much i spent, i would just very soon hit another wall where i’d be unable to progress without another week or so of micomanaging..

project sekai / d4dj

putting these together because my experience with both are similarly short-lived. I was falling out of bandori so i just on a whim decided to try these really similarly structured game. Project Sekai is only in japanese so i obviously couldn’t really get into the story much. Whereas d4dj... i would have really gotten into it, especially Merm4id’s story,  but at the time i think i was just handling too much on my plate. Every time i played the usual day’s worth of daily prizes, i had my ‘fill’ and stopped instead of watching any of the story i wanted to be watching. So i guess it was just a matter of timing that i didn’t get into either very much.

that bleach gacha

it think its called brave souls? I played it earler this year on a complete whim and logged in every day for about a month before i was like ‘yeah alright this was fun for while, time to move on’. I realy don’t have much to say about it. I got like three different yoruichis, but i arbitrarily decided that the ones to make up my best team were senna (wind girl from movie 1), ying and yang (rando fire and ice henchman from movie 2), and shuren (fire guy from movie 4).

how much...: I didn’t intend to spend any money, but i was just browsing the shop to see whats its like, and i was eating breakfast with my other hand and like, half-paying attention, so i ended up accidentally buying some orbs or something for five dollars :l

rockman x dive

embarrassing to say but i found this specifically because i was looking for more smartphone games to replace the ones i was falling out of, and i just happened to see it on my appstore in either march or april of this year.

I like rockman! And as you’ve seen, i guess I like these kind of mobages, so... a good match??? Anyway, the gameplay itself is an awkward-to-control platformer and you roll the gacha for a bunch of weapons and more importantly all your favourite(or really random and niche) characters from the mega man franchise. my go-to for a very long time is Servbot n_n .

I thought i was i finally getting tired of it, but after deciding to spend all my saved-up currency at once a little while ago, i now have like a bunch of shiny new interchangable units to play with so uh, i guess i’ll be sticking with it for a little longer.

how much...: bought one booster for what i think (i hope) was less than 10 dollars? It didn’t mean much in the long run though! Progression in this game is so slow but after crkingdom, i can tolerate it...

touhou lost word

(aurgh......) its fgo but touhou! so. the thing is... you’ve noticed by now its pretty easy for me to just get sucked into the routine of these games and the basic appeal of collecitng pngs that say lines at you when you tap them. you add in touhou and it becomes tailor-made to trap me. the gameplay is all secondary to the above.

i could speak about some of the good points of it or the story, like the occasional neat idea or funny line, but there’s no point, honestly... this game is first and foremost a very easy device for instant satisfiaction for me, and all that is why I glance past the fact that every other character design has their clothes vacuum sealed to their balloon breasts!! i wince every time patchouli or sanae come on screen (and can only despair when komachi shows up).

i like literally every touhou so i get ansty at literally every banner. only mercy is that LW’s most insidious money-grabbing banners come from these super duper exclusive Ultra Fes units which are alternate versions of existing characters, but i have no problem ignoring these because I don’t care. ...Unfortunately, i care too much when a rando like Nemuno suddenly gets included.

anyhow, i started playing the original jp game when it released, and just mindlessly went at it for like half a year before dropping off. Then the global version released five or so months ago, and i started all over again but this time able to read the words!!! i log in way too many times a day because i need the distraction from the growing void in my heart and mind...

how much...: the prices on things is even more absurd than in crkingdom. that said, and understand... for the last few weeks/months, i’ve at been quite a low point for various reasons i won’t get into here. but the point is, collecting talking pngs of touhous has been a very easy form of stimulation and distraction for me, and so in the midst of my mind-numbing clicking routine and desire to just hurry and get the next new talking png I want, i just say ‘f*** it’ and click the buy currency button. Just know that i felt bad before doing it, and felt bad immediately afterwards. There was literallly not a single millisecond where I ever think it’s worth it, but i didn’t care ._. (I disabled the google playstore function in my phone after the worst of these instances. will it last...?)

touhou danmaku kagura

its bandori but touhou! I mean, basically the same as my experience with project sekai and d4dj, except i’m still playing it as of now. I log in, click some things, have fun playing songs sometimes. my preferred difficult is extra B)

The cards you gacha roll for are all done by different artists, so there’s a large variety of art, ranging from cool and magnificent (i love the azmaya one of aya I have on my home screen the most) to utterly vomit-inducing (so there’s this one, with cirno.....) So. quite the range of experiences, much like whenever i browse touhou art on twitter and pixiv.

also i like watching the cutscenes that come from increasing ‘bond points’ between characters even though i can’t understand them most of the time.... Pretty sure that’s just my usual touhou experience though.

how much? none!: After the horror story above with LW, I don’t plan on spending a single cent on this game! Or any other mobage ever again!!!

some other random ones i remember playing for a brief time:

pokemon mastersex, touhou cannonball, dx2 smt liberation, touhou dungeon dive or something, kamen rider city wars. I wanted to try love nikki too but i think i got intimidated by its mechanics. Yes, the mechnaics of a dress-up game I find initmidating.

[taniushka12]

🌼 hmm for that writer ask game: 11, 25, & 45 !!

11.  Books and/or authors who influenced you the most

hmmmmmmm. Im not sure, I read a lot of different books as a kid, I remember trying to emulate a couple things from carole wilkinson’s Dragonkeeper back then but idk if they stuck? other than that from rick riordan’s the heroes of olympus I really liked the “this chapter is told from this character’s pov and we hear their thoughts and feelings and nobody’s else” angle and i Do think i assimilated it into my writing! Its fun to mix narration with thought stream while leaving one to wonder What the other character in the scene is thinking! And also its fun to see the different cadence in each pov

25.  Favourite part of writing

when im on a roll and rly in the character’s mind, the dialogues! i have entire fics that are just, one (1) conversation between two/three characters :D also again mixing narration w/ thought stream bc it starts to get messy and its a nice change of pace 

45.  How much world building do you do?

OH MAN, it really depends but lets just say once i took a canon fantasy au of a show that shall remain nameless and started adding History to it, different magic devices and ways to Achieve magic, the story of an entire small town and the folk tales told in different places Around said small town, cultural believes from the different races on a kingdom etc etc

the thing with worldbuilding is that im a very character centered person so the worldbuilding that i make is mostly centered Around the characters, and once it gets too detached from em its like “and over there are some guys *waves hand vaguely*”. So to answer the question, i try to do enough world building for the characters and their actions make sense on a larger scale u_u

[send me a writer ask!]

[heather-holloway]

how i, kiara heather-holloway, would plan and write the upcoming live action dylan dog tv show (thats being produced by james wan rn):

OKOK first off. my god. this has to be as comic accurate as it can be. this has to be better than the fucking movie or ill literally d*e oh my god. the movie was so bad and was only dylan dog in name and outfit. 

he needs the clarinet. and not for one scene. gotta have that shitty car, hes gotta be broke, hes gotta live on that craven st, hes gotta have the fucked up doorbell nd hes gotta have that p*lice officer backstory (though i dont want them to go too full into the backstories of the main characters cuz that takes away from the main story of the episode, and is really just unneeded)

this shit will be set in london. but as for the time im kinda on a fence? its always had a timeless sorta feeling, esp as of late with the comics only now starting to establish itself in the 21st century, but i would really like for it to be set in the 80s cuz a lot of the classic comic stories r from the 80s and it would fit in with how old timey he is with his car and movie references

i hope they have the budget to actually get the rights to use groucho marx’ likeness cuz like... the biggest thing the movie was missing was groucho nd even though there was a little easter egg in the beginning of the movie with them dressed like him... it wasnt enough bro, it’s not the same without him :(

if they cant get the rights then i hope they go the felix route, by making him act like groucho and shit but hes not like.. actually groucho i guess

i dont know where this show’ll get distributed, but im hoping netflix, since a 10 episode format (which is what it was confirmed to be) would be perfect on there with all their other shows with short seasons. 

im biased bc i love monster-of-the-week type shows but i think it would be perfect, since the comics are exactly that, where the story is self contained within its episode. i guess they could have some small overarcing story (maybe abt morgana and her tie to dylan?) over the season but idk how something like that could also fit in with the amount of story needed for the monsters and shit

id think itd be perfect if they adapted the first comic “dawn of the living dead” for the first episode of the series, since that comic is the introductory comic for dylan and groucho and how his shit works yknow? the audience could be like following sybil for that first episode as shes asking for their services and is just seeing their BullShit at close hand

idk about the rest of the series, but id love if they adapted the anna never story for an episode tbh

the tone id like for the show would be gothic, with european style of horror, but still crackheaded and bullshittery with grouchos and dylans antics and jokes. i hated what they did in the movie, making it a generic american action horror movie with the club scene of vampires vs werewolves. im so tired of vampires vs werewolves. let this represent european horror and bring that style into american culture Blease

idk who id cast for dylan. someone lanky, british accent definitely, early 20′s/25 maybe. i like brandon routh but hes too old for the part now u_u and honestly, though he kinda looked like dylan in face, he didn’t fit into dylans lanky profile at all. i hope maybe he’ll get a small cameo in the show tho😭 he got did so dirty by that shitty movie

the cast would be revolving, with only dylan and groucho and maybe bloch (if hes in the episode) being the main characters. the romantic interests and side characters for the specific story would last for the episode like in the comics.

this is just for me but id love for there to be a throwaway line about dylan and groucho being married at one point, to reference their marriage in the recent comics

also make the show rated r. i think the titties are the most important part of the comics

while id like for it to be set in london, id also like for it to travel to other places in europe, and take it to interesting scenery nd shit like they always do in the comics. idk how id feel about that one werewolf school story thats set in germany being adapted, but id like to see that german forest scenery lol

there needs to be a few groucho, la pistola! moments where groucho tosses him the pistol ok............also there needs to be the classic pistol

oh and dylan has to say dancing judas at least like 4 times ok .. god

umm for the effects of the monsters, i think itd be best if it was practical, rather than cgi. ive seen netflix’s cgi monsters nd while they work...... the practical effects i think would fit really well in the timeless/80s tone by being like various 80 horror flicks with their practical fx. since the comics were inspired by those classic horror films, like night of the living dead and shit

instead of making dylans personality be the cocky action hero that the movie made him out to be, i... would like for him to still be that jokey loner romantic that he is in the comics, getting himself into trouble cuz he accidentally slept with the monster or the killer or whateva. 

like he’s smart with paranormal shit but he only has 1 braincell and neither him or groucho have it most of the time

oh my god i just realized i hadnt even thought of xabaras ok fuck uhhh OK maybe he is part of the overarcing story. maybe yes he gets introduced in the first episode like hes first introduced the in the first comic. but maybe in the end, with the finale he comes back again, after you thought he was dead but noo ho ho hes alliivee and hes always gonna fuck with you dylan you cant get rid of him. whatever fight happens in the finale, it ends in a sort of draw where maybe dylan thinks he defeated him for good, only for the final scene to be xabaras just chilling, clearly not dead, maybe watching over dylan

(if there was to be a season 2, id like for them to do the “i am your father” reveal then, instead of doing all of that in the first season)

(id actually really like for dylans backstory with the time traveling shit and morgana in the second season to be honest now that i think about it)

the first season can be about the monsters of the week and the second possible season could actually focus more on his character story and how he even got into this shit lol

this show really has the potential to be a really great show that breaks out of the usual horror genre and im going to be SO disappointed when it inevitably becomes like riverdale or sabrina the teenage witch’s unnecessary edgy teen adaptions OR just becomes the generic horror franchise shit that james wan usually fucking does with saw and insidious. 

im really fucking praying that he actually pays attention to the source material and accurately brings the more gothic and european style of horror forward with it, introducing it to a larger american audience... blease for my sake .. i cant do dylan dog: dead of night (2010) again...

[clownmoontoon]

25 29 35 40

25: What is an anime you regret watching?

ghgHGHGH TBH EVEN IM SURPRISED BUT...I ABSOLUTELY HATED PANTY AND STOCKING CRIES

i wanted to like it sO BAD BC THE AESTHETIC IS...INCREDIBLE.... ITS SO SO SOOOO PRETTY TO LOOK AT SO GORGEOUS LIKE LITERALLY ALL ART IN THIS ANIME IS GOALS and bc of that i watched the whOLE THING but...bad...one ep i even had to look away from the screen for most of it bc it was so gross I WAS SUFFERING BC OF HOW BAD I WANTED TO LOVE IT 

I WAS BORED AND GROSSED OUT FOR P MUCH ALL OF IT SOBS so my biggest regret is that i held on for the whole thing bc i was DESPERATE to enjoy it that i just kept watching hoping that it would suddenly become good to me ghghg

29: Has an anime's fanbase ever made you hesitant to watch an anime?

OH YES VERY OFTEN i try to not let it bother me or affect my opinion and some times the fandom isnt even bad!! or at least what i see of it but its kinda hard for me to get into shows that are like SUPER POPULAR at the moment bc the content is so overwhelmingly EVERYWHERE it just turns me off to them u_u

35: Have you ever dropped an anime, if so why?

OH YES LOTS!! especially recently bc ive been trying lots of new animes 

there havent been any that i like.. hATED but a few i thought at the start i was going to like but ended up either getting bored or annoyed w the story/characters TWO I REMEMBER OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD: yuru yuri and asobi asobase u_u

40: Thoughts on live-action adaptations?

i havent actually watched any live action adaptions! bUT PART OF WHY I LOVE ANIME ARE THE EXAGGERATED EXPRESSIONS AND UNNATURAL COLORFULNESS so i would assume i prob wouldnt like a live adaption as much ; v ;