Booting Up... - [31/01/2024]

Don't walk alone in the woods or you might bump into the big Frankendino! Perhaps Jacenstein? Well... The name still a work in progress.

Happy Spooky Month!

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'

Food Art by 日菜乃

Sometimes I have to question my brain's idea of who I should be. Like, these cotton gloves feel more like 'me' than my hands do. Girl, is this some kinda a self image issue? What do you want from me? Get better hands?

In short, I'm wearing gloves for now. When it starts getting warm again, I'll hope this isn't still an issue. ¯\_(= ͢ =)_/¯

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.

To add to this, because I realized I hadn't said It, this sort of 'non-aversion' applies to depictions of love or romance in a work. I have never, and expect I will never, develop a crush on someone beyond the (I think uniquely asexual? Lemme know.) Concept of 'friend-lust' where you end up thinking 'i like them so much platonically, if it meant getting closer, I'd do a relationship for their benefit.' (a usually wrong or unhelpful thought.)

I'm actually a sucker for vicarious romance and the more tender flavors of love in a literary work. I've never felt these things myself, but isn't it the purview of great authors to make you feel emotions you've never felt?

It's that very thing that made me genuinely unsure whether I should put Aro in my blog name, but I do believe that to be true for me right now. Maybe other Aro's experience this, but I sometimes find myself wishing I could feel it, even though I don't. I wanted to add context to this, but it's getting long and is its own post, so find that if you want.

We putting the diary in aroacekinkdiary today, gamers.

The name of this blog might be confusing to some, I realize.

For context, I am asexual and aromantic. For those that care, I'm mixed to sensuality, but platonic touch is nice.

I'm genuinely unsure why, but while the idea of having sex, watching sex, or otherwise engaging with sex personally makes me something between nauseous-due-to-anxiety and digusted, I have no such hangups about writing or art containing it. I find it to be a very interesting way for characters to express themselves conceptually, and even find a not insignificant amount of -uh- personal gratification from it. Not sure if that counts as sex repulsed, I'm no expert, but at the very least I know I have libido.

Part of this blog is me trying to figure out how that, and a few other pieces, fit into the puzzle of who I am. If you're Asexual or know a lot about it and think you have good input, I invite it.

Plus, I love this stuff a lot as an art form, and I think I'm tired of wishing I could talk about my thoughts on it. So, I'm gonna post it instead, follow for more DnD content and Art I reblog and porn game/webnovel reviews I make if you want, I guess??

Recent LISA drawings

Something I've noticed in recent years is my habit of rationing out the things I enjoy. I take each bite carefully of the meals I really love, just make sure I don't miss them. I rotate the games I play and the books I read so I don't end up too deep in one when it runs out. Hell, there are some fanfics that I've had sitting in the wings for a rainy day.

I'm not sure where it comes from exactly, but there's a real sense that there's simply not enough of the things I truly like for me to consume. Webnovels, even with thousands of chapters, run out, either because it's ongoing and I've caught up or because that's all that there will ever be. It's part of the reason I read them. They last long enough to fulfill my ability to hyperfixate.

But the better the thing the stronger the fixation, and I still find myself hungry for some games, webnovels, or fanfics, even years later, and a part of me wishes I'd taken more time to savor the meal. I'm the media equivalent of a broke 22 year old dude kicking himself for buying a pizza when he was 16, I know, but you can't experience anything for the first time twice.

No matter how much you enjoyed it the first time.

Alt Version of last piece without stars or text