Have been meaning to watch Frieren after I saw a comment on a Dungeons and Dragons subreddit awhile back. The conversation was about the fantasy trope of elves being isolationist and sticking to their own. Someone gave a nicely-written explanation of how you could run that in your game as being because everyone else lives shorter lives than them, that it's a phase in most elves' lives where they say they'll never be like their elder elves and they go adventuring, and then their friends die before them and they are heartbroken, and they go back to their walled elven communities because "what elf could bear that loss ten times over?" or some other closing line that hit the spot. The reply said Frieren was basically about that. Also have been meaning to watch Spy x Family!

About cute girls doing cute things: slice of life and themes of friendship are gender neutral. Men might fantasize about being with them: no significant male characters to threaten the fantasy, not even a "self-insert" MC who might not actually be relatable to the particular man. But what I think less people realize is that for women, it's a female-dominated show, and there are no important men, so naturally the girls talk to each other about doing things unrelated to men. In other words, shows in that genre are nigh-on guaranteed to pass the Bechdel test. I'm a woman who watches cute girls doing cute things. I don't spend much time thinking about the Bechdel test when consuming media, but I know other women do and I figure it's a cool insight.

Honestly, I tell myself I play otome for the men, but really I get sucked in by the interesting premise or the main character's personality or the main character being relatable to me somehow. From what I know of Variable Barricade, absolutely none of the guys appeal to me, but I want to play it anyways because of the tsundere MC and it being a dramedy. Playing My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom -Pirates of the Disturbance- and I'm only interested in 4 of the men, but because I'm enjoying the story/characters I'm going to play all 6 routes. If I get sucked in by a love interest it's usually because I heard something about the way his route progresses, or he hits a particular character trope that I want to see in a love interest character that I rarely get to see in them. Although I do think part of the appeal for me is still romance—I consumed quite a lot of shipping fanfic up until a few years ago. For what it is worth I am attracted to men.

I really enjoy social interaction and relationship building mechanics in video games, and would love to see more games entirely focused around them, though with more mechanics than you see in visual novels. I also personally want to make a game some day about messing with them like a villain in a soap opera or teen drama, but I do not know if I'd actually commit to it, and I am definitely not looking forward to "so was she a bully in high school, or is she a bully victim looking to take the role of the oppressor?" questions asked in a similar vein to "so how many people have you killed?" questions for people who work on violent video games.

I also am enjoying this conversation! It feels like something that would not really be done on Reddit, but that is okay here. Or at least culture is not established enough here for anyone to tell us to stop and go away :P On Reddit I would have tried to take it to DMs and here, given issues with federation, theoretically I should be able to DM you from Mbin and you should be able to get it on Lemmy, but it might not work in practice.

Also, even with the owl stuff, there's political crossover, where I get a bit angrier about loopholes in laws that destroy ecosystems and inaction to saving endangered animals.

That kind of politics is very likely to be nearly universally agreed with on an owl community... at least I think, so you're probably safe.

I usually won't stalk profiles, I really only do to check "are you for real or are you just trolling", and now what with the Fediverse being a new thing I'll sometimes check on people to see if they stopped commenting too.

I'm a bit oversensitive and politics gets a lot of engagement, naturally, and there are so many politics magazines or magazines that aren't strictly politics but will post a political meme or about where inflammatory politics intersects with their usually non-political point of interest, and that's so so so many to filter out that I just don't trust I can look at All on my instance without seeing something enraging or "look how awful the world is today!" when I already know about that thing and don't want to spend my time getting worked up over it yet again. I know it means I lose out on fun interactions like the ones you have, though, and that's a tradeoff I take, especially since I supplement by subbing to [email protected], and either that or Fedigrow has the active communities thread. I also used https://sub.rehab/ when first coming here from Reddit to replace all the subreddits I enjoyed, so I tried to hit all my interests I would be remotely interested in talking about online.

Yeah, given the games are visual novels and usually don't have much gameplay besides that (there are stat raisers like the Tokimeki Memorial series, I'm not really personally interested in Anchored Hearts but am aware of it because it is supposed to have some gameplay beyond just usual visual novel making choices, Boyfriend Dungeon is hack-and-slash) they put a lot into story or characters in order to keep it engaging. As someone who started with more traditional gaming before I found otome games, I would love to see more otome that also includes more traditional gaming. Some of the otome isekai genre things I consumed (more detailed explanation of what otome isekai is here, but in short the name should tell it all: girl/woman isekais into an otome game) feature otome that also is a real RPG with levels and everything (off the top of my head, Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I'm Not the Demon Lord, Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte, definitely have the game in the story be an RPG otome, and I don't recall what kind of genre The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior was but the title should tell you it definitely wasn't just a visual novel) which, if it isn't another misunderstanding of otome or artistic license being taken, implies that such games exist in Japan and just went unlocalized. But most otome are just straight up visual novels, so you have to sell them to us on the story, characters, and art only. Sometimes the music is really cool, but you don't really sell an otome on its music. Even if it's Band Camp Boyfriend. It's pretty cool. I've seen that some men play otome for the story and/or the romance and I definitely welcome that and them.

Curious what anime you like, and if you've joined any anime communities on the Fediverse. Or on Mastodon. Thinking of finally trying Mastodon after a year being on Lemmy and Kbin only. (I know my account age has me starting in September, but I instance-hopped.) I think I remember people on Fedigrow talking about anime communities they set up.

As a person who uses Mbin on iOS, I'm really surprised no app support is an issue for people. It's really easy for me to use in the browser. I'm not saying this to put down people who want an app, I want to understand what an app would have that makes it better. I'm curious.

I feel if it's hot button issues like politics you might want to do a separation, but you're otherwise good. Most people aren't going to look at your other posts at all, just engage with you on the post you made and move on. However, there are people who, when arguing with someone else, often check the profile (sometimes a valid move: "this person seems to be using a dogwhistle, is it an overall innocent person using it because dogwhistles are designed to go over peoples' heads and they don't realize what they are saying, or are they subbed to [email protected]?" sometimes not a valid move, just someone looking to get nasty and personal and cast any aspersions possible regardless of how true they are).

I have several Fediverse accounts for different aspects of my life but it is because I just feel better and more anonymous that way. There are way fewer people into, say, the exact same combination of 10 interests than people who are into the same 2 interests. This is my gaming and animal account. I care about more things than that and it might bleed through in my posts (e.g. me knowing about PKMS and digital gardens) but at least it takes more effort to find that. More effort to cross-reference posts and figure out Elevator7009 is also ElevatorsAltAccount is also ElevatorsAltAccount2, and ElevatorsAltAccount2 says this personal anecdote happened to her which sounds just like the anecdote Jane from accounting, who is into the same things Elevator7009 and their alt accounts post about, told me yesterday… Yes, I'm a little nobody unlikely to get a weird stalker. I may have seen someone a little higher profile than me get doxxed with something like this as part of the method though, and sadly regular human nobodies also sometimes have to file harassment and stalking lawsuits, so… I am a bit paranoid.

What other things do you want to talk about? I may know some communities.

The plots can definitely be pretty wild and dramatic. Even Hatoful Boyfriend, a sort of satire/parody of the genre, gets that way. Although like any genre of fiction, we do have our subtropes/subgenres, we have our screwed up dark dramas and our lighthearted romps. If I recall correctly though, the darker stuff tends to get localized from Japan more often… I prefer more lighthearted stuff and often the OELVN (original English language visual novel) otome appeal to me more conceptually or through the personality of the main character, but I usually prefer the Japanese art even though most people making an otome, even in English, draw anime. Probably has to do with the Japanese ports having commercial artists and the English visual novels having indie devs and artists.

I also just came here to have fun. I feel because of the lack of algorithms pushing controversial content and engagement in general, I am actually enjoying my time here more than on any other social media besides Discord.

Oh goodness error pages I am so sorry. I heard we were having federation issues a bit earlier and I hope this gets resolved, I want to keep this community on kbin.run and make Kbin viable, keep the Fediverse diverse, instead of just shifting to Lemmy… Might need to go to Lemmy and check what things look like from that end.

Do not feel bad about writing a lot. I love reading enthusiastic paragraphs about something I also find interesting. It is why I am here on Lemmy/Kbin instead of Mastodon.

I need to read that linked PDF. I also need to reread this one.

For many, having a rabbit occasionally hop through the lot is a valuable experience.

Favorite sentence in an academic paper.

I am on Fedigrow! Waiting for some more otome game news to come out so I can post it on [email protected], and frantically trying to complete some life tasks so I can go play some otome games and make a post myself about my thoughts on one. We originally had some people on [email protected] at kbin.social which died and left me, a non-mod, the only one posting, and then I found out that kbin.social was having issues to the point a lot of the posts I was making were not even making it to kbin.social. So I started over and definitely need to generate content.

It helps that I love reading and research and that I value teaching.

I am curious if you know about personal knowledge management ([email protected]) or digital gardens ([email protected]). I think you might be interested in both of those things, even if their Fediverse communities are not that active. I want to find posts to make them active.

I'm a bunny person, not an owl person, but from your comment owls suddenly sound much more interesting… thanks for sharing!

I also realize I anticipate expending mental energy for clicking and reading a scientific article, but just reading your comment wasn't intimidating at all and was neatly incorporated into my day as "just wasting time online" except, you know, actually learning about something. Even if it's not that applicable to my not-a-birdwatcher life. Just realized this is how certain YouTube channels get big, by presenting interesting information in a more accessible way. Or a more entertaining way. Wondering if I can hack this to my advantage somehow so I learn more instead of wasting time online lol.

I definitely appreciate when someone posts a long-form article about the animal in question, even if I don't always have the energy to read it.

Look up how social norms in that country differ from your own. It would suck to need the bathroom and to then find out, while in the bathroom stall, that toilet paper is not provided because the norm is that everyone brings their own, and to hope that 1) there's someone in the stall next to you 2) who understands you and 3) is nice enough and 4) has enough to share with you.

Re: pictures of things that have already been photographed a million times

You want to remember your experience. And although the place you went is certainly part of it, when you are older you will be more likely to want to see you and your SO's past selves having a good time, than a picture of the sights some photographer has captured much better than you have.

Feel free to disregard this advice if either of you are photographers, whether professional or amateur, as you would probably reap more enjoyment from taking that picture than the rest of us, and are probably way more likely to be the person capturing the place better than the rest of us can. And if it is a unique moment or you really think nobody else has put this sight on the internet already, your choice!

I needed to see it explained this way for it to really click for me. I think the part about the pictures of the sights alone being easily found online was what clinched it for me. I can go "see" that again easily, the scarce part is the part where I am there. A picture of me and a loved one at the sight might be valuable to us two no matter how amateur my photography skills. A picture of the sight probably will not be.

But it's also relevant that some people already know this and still derive a lot of pleasure from taking a picture of the place themselves, knowing that a lot of other good pictures also exist. If you are one of those people who know that you really like taking pictures of it yourself, feel free to disregard this advice! It's useful for quite a few people (I think most people?) but not universally applicable. Exceptions almost always exist.

Piggybacking to add that it will make you feel disappointed when you plan for 5 things and don't get to them all, or don't end up fully enjoying them because you were rushing from place to place. Plan some things, but give yourself room to want to take a lot of extra time at one place, or to explore stuff nearby.

This is why I feel so so lucky to be a small-breasted woman who does not live somewhere hot 24/7.

If I ever do put on a bra it is because I expect I'll be running (only situation I have been in where breasts hurt braless, very thankful), or because the silhouette of my nipples is visible through my clothes and I don't want it to be. A good deal of my wardrobe won't show nipple even if I go braless, but not all of it is like that and so I put on a bra.