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I hate the term "visual novel. To me, it sounds pretentious and cringy. Oh, your game is heavily story-based, and the gameplay is mostly about picking choices and reading? Well, then just call it a narrative game; there is no need to invent a new term.

In Japan they just call them novel games while stuff with gameplay elements such as Ace Attorney is referred to as ADV or adventure games.

to each their own but at face value, it is a visually presented novel (with occasional interactivity). The reason it stuck in the west is because at its core, it's like reading a book that's presented in a gamelike format. Is it a weird descriptor though? admittedly, yes? but adventure game risk clashing with point and click adventure games in the west, so the term visual novel has to be used to quell confusion.

Society having strong negative reactions towards male-to-female trans people or femboys/drag queens but barely any negative reaction towards female-to-male trans people or tomboys honestly only shows there is a deep seated issue with misogyny and/or toxic masculinity within society itself (this is why I'm putting this in "unpopular opinion" instead of vent, because it legit seems to be an unpopular opinion to point out legitimate examples of society having issues with misogyny and toxic masculinity). Why is "loss of masculinity" seen as such a problem, but yet traditionally feminine people embracing masculinity is seen as a cause for celebration? If tomboys and transmen can be embraced by society easily then it's bullshit femboys and transwomen have such a harder time gaining acceptance, but I'm noticing for transwomen in particular it's especially hard because I know some communities who will go "awooga!" at femboys or even futas, but yet the moment you go "actually this character is canonically trans" or say "really transwomen who haven't gotten bottom surgery are just real life futas" they suddenly go "EW, FAGGOTRY, GTFO!" And yes this very fucking website has shown me examples of this in action.

Yea know, modern society as a whole just hates anything feminine, even the whole group touting itself as woman's rights activist. As soon as something super girly and feminine is made, dudebros and their pickmes will unceremoniously tear it to shreds for a slew of reasons. You have clowns doing it to seem feminist, but wind up more regressive and sexist than even a backwater hillbilly. and it's always the feminine that isn't aimed towards men and their simps like Lolita or actual girl-aimed media. Once women make a safe space to avoid the wider male-dominated society, suddenly the very dudes that gatekept them wants a slice of the pie. You can't have one popular fandom vibe in without dudes flooding through the cracks and shitting up with ooc porn and sexualizing comments which alienates everyone not into that shit.

These past several months have made me realize how many feminine folk struggle to carve out a niche. I've grown to hate a lot of male aimed media for that reason alone.

You can't have one popular fandom vibe in without dudes flooding through the cracks and shitting up with ooc porn and sexualizing comments which alienates everyone not into that shit.

Have you ever browsed a fanfiction site for almost any form of media popular with girls, where most writers are female? Or have you browsed the Twitter, Deviantart or other sites of female artists? Sexual content made by female artists is more common that you may think and it is just as alienating to anyone not into it. It's not only girl-aimed media that receives that form of attention, a lot of male-focused or more gender-neutral media also gets adult fanfiction and fanart made by women.

I don't see a problem with males taking interest in female-oriented media. Gatekeeping it only promotes gender stereotypes. If anyone wants NSFW content, regardless of gender, it's their choice. Just keep it in sites where it belongs out of respect for anyone who doesn't want to see it.

In a way, I sort of miss Tumblr. Granted, it ain't perfect (most of these were transferred to twitter for the worse), but Tumblr does feel more interactive and fun compared to its competitors before 2018 so long as you can avoid the more weirder crowd, especially Twitter which has absolutely little to no redeeming qualities.

Once women make a safe space to avoid the wider male-dominated society, suddenly the very dudes that gatekept them wants a slice of the pie. You can't have one popular fandom vibe in without dudes flooding through the cracks and shitting up with ooc porn and sexualizing comments which alienates everyone not into that shit.

These past several months have made me realize how many feminine folk struggle to carve out a niche. I've grown to hate a lot of male aimed media for that reason alone.

Seems to me like you have a problem with bad faith actors, not with men or male-aimed media per se.

Long ago I used to be the kind of guy that tried not to consume female media at all because "it's just for girls Xdddd". One day I admitted to myself I felt curious about some female-oriented media, and once I got over my insecurities I realized I loved a lot of really "girly" stuff, and I developed a much more educated and empathetic opinion of media enjoyed by people not in my demographic group (and of media in general). If I had been gatekept I would have stayed a close-minded fuck forever. Do you think it's worth gatekeeping me for the possiblity that I may sometimes feel attracted to a character? Is this battle of the sexes the best we can do?

I know some people think Mitch McConnell freezing is meme worthy or just worth making jokes but it has affected me mentally in a bad way. I suppose it's my own past health problems that cause it my problems. But still, he may be a politician, but this looks like it's got him. I have no idea how anyone can make jokes about that.

Because his actions have directly caused people to suffer
I don't feel one ounce of pity for parasites

Like I said "past health problems" which included temporary instances of my body not being able to move and me not being able to speak. I had experienced it but never seen it. I used to hate Mitch McConnell, now I don't think I can.

It’s good to have empathy, and what you weant through sounds utterly horrible and it’s aweful you had to go through that
but do remember mcconnel would happilly put others through what he’s got for money

Have you ever browsed a fanfiction site for almost any form of media popular with girls, where most writers are female? Or have you browsed the Twitter, Deviantart or other sites of female artists? Sexual content made by female artists is more common that you may think and it is just as alienating to anyone not into it. It's not only girl-aimed media that receives that form of attention, a lot of male-focused or more gender-neutral media also gets adult fanfiction and fanart made by women.

I don't see a problem with males taking interest in female-oriented media. Gatekeeping it only promotes gender stereotypes. If anyone wants NSFW content, regardless of gender, it's their choice. Just keep it in sites where it belongs out of respect for anyone who doesn't want to see it.

see here's the thing, there's not that much explicitly aimed at cishet women media out there. sure they exist, and there's countless popular ones which have and since entered the cultural zeitgeist. But most of them hailed from the 80s and 90s with anything past that a ill-forgotten fever dream. It's a surprise then, when some media franchises of the 00s do get a new lease in life (though sometimes not for the better). The reason most women "put up" with largely male aimed and gender neutral media, is because it's the best they got. Even when the showrunners mock their for dare shipping their characters together, they're the only reason they remain relevant after all these years. Even the mcu, realizes chicks dig their movies and maybe toss them a few bones, as lackluster as some are tbh.

now, I personally don't read much fanfiction, but I do consume fan comics and fanart (mostly of the AU slant). I'm hugely aware that women can be horny as well, myself included. female sexuality, however, is a wholly different beast in contrast to male sexuality. Maybe I'm super generalizing here, as I've encountered some men who don't see female characters as pieces of meat, but after reading a reddit post about the differences between male and female gazes, shit really opened my eyes. How a man treats his waifu is vastly different to how a woman treats her husbando. Men see their waifus as pedestals of purity (if not that, debauchery) able to enact their every desire but by the guy's own terms, not hers. She's in a way, a robot, who's gate sealing off sex has came undone. Though some woman may see their husbando in a similar light, most instances of yumejo/self inserter content is vastly romantic in nature. Sex, to them, is something that just happens, not the sole requirement of a relationship. There's also the husbando still retaining some agency as just a subject, rather than an object. Sure, he may still exist to cater towards a woman's whims, but ultimately, has indirect final say on almost everything. Even in shoujo and josei media, the male love interest is usually the one taking the proactive role while the heroine is more passive. Some may be remised in believing this is sexist, which I get.

When I was a young feminist NLOG, unless you were pretty cure or Tokyo mew mew, all shoujo was trash and for little baby girls rather based gigastacies. But as i've matured over the years, I then realize the source to my dismissal of these stories, I was only doing this for the approval of my male peers. I didn't do this out of my own volition, but as a result of years constantly seeking validation which turned out to be worthless in the end. If i'd went back in time and told my younger self to just stick to drawing yoai, cute boys, and not expose herself to literal male-aimed fetish porn, maybe my path in life would've changed.

Seems to me like you have a problem with bad faith actors, not with men or male-aimed media per se.

Long ago I used to be the kind of guy that tried not to consume female media at all because "it's just for girls Xdddd". One day I admitted to myself I felt curious about some female-oriented media, and once I got over my insecurities I realized I loved a lot of really "girly" stuff, and I developed a much more educated and empathetic opinion of media enjoyed by people not in my demographic group (and of media in general). If I had been gatekept I would have stayed a close-minded fuck forever. Do you think it's worth gatekeeping me for the possiblity that I may sometimes feel attracted to a character? Is this battle of the sexes the best we can do?

it's impossible to prevent someone from enjoying (and even wanting to bone) a character from some form of media that isn't aimed for them (refer up). and though your correct about me beefing with bad faith actors (to the degree I hate it when female fans of male aimed media harass writers to make their otp canon), I still annoyed when I see dudebro normies ask what do they have to gain from watching something aimed for girls. Nothing, because the creator never had such a demo in mind. If they did, they'd at least add some fanservice or winky nudges for a quick buck. Mlp was a freak accident setting a president for anything female aimed to be the next in line to get their brony equivalents. Yet somehow, most men just can't be arsed to like a lot of girly things. Yet women, to this day, crave out niches in largely male fandoms as a space to speak with others like them. you rarely if ever see the reverse, since half the time it never feels organic. The reason MLP and pretty cure are expectations and not the rule, is simply because they have things men might like. But more girlier shows don't have prerequisite.

however, I get where you're coming from, perhaps not every dude who likes girl things is secretly a pervert or whatever or girls into guy things are only in it to make slash fiction out of it.

I apologize if this comes off as super unpopular even by the standards of this thread, but as someone trying to dip her toes female-aimed content creation, I just want to lower the number of sexist assholes who aren't here for a good time. If you're one of these guys who is a dick and actually cares about the content being made, then honestly, you can stay,

You're right, in that your opinion is acutely unpopular, though I do have to respect that you were willing to explain your opinion in depth.

I personally don't interact much with fandoms, but I have my share of second-hand knowledge. (For instance, every artist I've seen complain of the "male gaze" in respect to their art draws exclusively sexy women, so I don't know what they were expecting to happen)

Though I think the only thing worth significant further discussion is this:

Maybe I'm super generalizing here, as I've encountered some men who don't see female characters as pieces of meat, but after reading a reddit post about the differences between male and female gazes, shit really opened my eyes. How a man treats his waifu is vastly different to how a woman treats her husbando.

You are super generalizing, and your first mistake was letting some Reddit post "open your eyes" (given the content of your post, I'm presuming this was written by some femcel on some extremely sexist subreddit). It is true that material differences exist between the sexes and how they approach sexuality, but this conception of "women are uwu pure beans who think mostly of romance, men are grrr mean oafs who only think of sex" is wildly sexist and patently false. As it turns out, people run the gamut between these two extremes, and one's sex only has some correlation on this. There's guys who want their waifus to dominate them, and it's not rare, either. I feel you're comparing two narrow subdivisions, one chosen to be as unfavorable as possible and one chosen to be as favorable as possible… which isn't necessarily your fault, depending on how much you're echoing from that Reddit post. This came off longer and more critical than I expected, but my point should be clear: sexism isn't a good answer to sexism, and reality is complicated.

Some of those takes were from one reddit post, so admittedly, some of it colored the post somewhat. Not to say it was all thanks to it. A few of my own takes are 100% from myself and my narrow observations over the years. I will say this however, I'm well aware that women and men aren't too different from each other. In the end, we're still humans and as humans, we do very human things. Just because I lay out two obvious generalizations, doesn't mean every single human can neatly fit into those extremes. I myself may lean towards seeing the world in a slightly different way due to my individual upbringing. I personally find bargain bin romance taking place in our modern world with nothing cool or interesting going on mind-numbing, but plenty of other women eat that shit up like hotcakes. But despite those differences, we can at least agree that media appealing to emotional depth and interpersonal character driven stories are the goat for most women regardless of genre taste. Of course, there's the tomboy whose taste is nearly identical to a man, but those sorts do exist.

But let's examine the men who want a dominant waifu? I've had personal experience with these men before (I'm on a discord server riddled with them), and though I'm still baffled as to why, maybe it could make sense? See, society as a whole has some insane standards for everyone, men and women included. Men are expected to be providers, protectors, builders, and leaders, which is forced on young boys and men till their graves. And though some do fit the criteria of an idealized man society wants, the overwhelming majority aren't as lucky. So you have young men thrust into the world with no purpose or a future because the higher ups feed them lies on being a better man.

So, some men don't wanna play the game called society. They wish to be whisked away into the comfort of their home, playing vidya all day while time passes them by. And what better fetish enables this than being into a dommy mommy who basically lulls you into subservience? Self-reliance? Self-sufficiency? "No need, mommy is here. You don't be fussed my dear, I'll take care of everything and make you my thing by the end of the day."

The prospect of a woman who basically overpowers everything in their lives is tempting, even for the most dominant of men. And in a sense, it's almost primal. If a woman reminds a man of his mother, then she's the most primed mate for marriage. The same could be said for women who have similar fantasies about men who remind them of their fathers. We all have the carnal need to be parented yet society at large expects us to be self-reliant even at a young age.

But here in lies some damning divergences. Some might apply to some, others to most, but something I've noted with most male-aimed femdom is the power dynamics involved. There's always a physical reason the woman dominates the man. She could be a powerful sorceress, an orc barbarian lady, or even an older woman. There has to be a reason a woman is stronger than a man. Rather than exploring the skillsets most women possess, they always implant masculine senses of power in the way that subverts femininity, even if the woman is a garden variety ara ara mommy.

It's why you have men (mostly nerds from what I've seen) lusting over giant women, tomboys, wheyfus, and the like. They display a power imbalance that is taboo yet alluring. Of course I could be overthinking a literal fetish. I sure as hell am not going to elaborate on why something makes me horny. Maybe they just like femdom or dominant waifus because it's hot. I'm personally not a femdom person regardless of who it's for.

But I will say, I can at least stomach gentle, femgaze femdom the most. Half the time, it manifests in ways you'd least expect it. Relations between a mistress and her servant or a princess and her knight. Not some femboy maid shit, like actual segs butler serving is equally fine lady. And lordy, do not get me started with that cute beauty taming the beast shit because she's really nice. Shit's nice as fuck. but uh, anyway, on the subject at hand.

If it's true as you say that people are ultimately nuanced. but why is it that some people go out of their way to think white girls fuck dogs and men are secretly all rapist pedos? Sometimes stereotypes are true, and most normie dudes and ladies are partials towards stuff aimed at their sex. but if reality is so complicated, where are my sane somewhat masculine guys who's cool with girls liking girly things? maybe he not partake (the most he could do is bake some fine ass cookies), but that's aight. The beauty of heterosexual couplings is two different energies playing off each other rather than both are masculine and both are femmine. That might sound regressive, and believe me, i'm not your mom. If you want a butch tomboy wife who wears a dress once a year, more power to you. Maybe it may work out in the end. I mean the world's a huge place and i'm just some woman on the internet spilling some shit takes on a meme forum.

An eye for an eye makes the world blind, I don't like the man either but he should at least retire.

I have more respect for people like Keemstar, Leafy and DSP who are honest about being assholes than shameless sellouts like h3h3, Idubbbz and Fantano.

Critics werent wrong for calling Mario a bad movie

I really wished that the Mario movie ended up at Dreamworks instead. Sure they’re more hit or miss compared to the consistently mediocre stuff that Illumination does but their hits are absolutely amazing (Kung Fu Panda Trilogy, How to Train Your Dragon Trilogy, The Bad Guys, and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish). Also Dreamworks has a TV branch and we could possibly get a new Mario tv show.

Heck I’ll just say that I’d trust Dreamworks to do a Fire Emblem movie. Especially if they have a version that swaps out the inevitable celebrity voices for the voice actors that play the characters in the games. Then again, that’d be unlikely.

I LOVE femboys! And liking them does not make me gay! >:( I say as I now have a folder all dedicated to femboys

Based.

I don't like how "trap" has disappeared from the internet's lexicon. People have largely rolled it all up into femboy these days, but there is a difference between a trap and a femboy.

Maybe it's because "trap" is nowadays mostly used for referring to a style of hip hop.

I doubt that. Don't think there's much, if any, reason for the two concepts to interact, much less push the other out as a term.

In this website a couple of years ago we stop using it cause trans people hated that term and there was a backlash from them, I dont fully get why but for the sake of being polite and not make their lives harder I went with it.

Still yeah I dont know why it just happened

There is no unpopular opinion. Even the most unpopular, controversial and messed-up opinion you're expressing will be somebody else's entire cosmotheory.

Also, trap music sucks.

The Nolan movies, despite being rather good, have been a very bad influence on the Batman mythos.

Everyone and their mother are trying to replicate them and often failing at it, but what bothers me the most is how many of the more supernatural or sci-fi elements of the Batman mythos are now often downgraded or even downright ignored because of it, like Jokers laughing gas, yeah, remember that? Because it hasn't made an appearance in an uncomfortably long time now.

What is the difference?

Ok actually i am lying out of my teeth 100%.

I might regret admiting this, and there might be consecuences later for me for saying this but whatever….

I didnt repect shit actually it was 100% just apathy and "god this is stupid but whatever" feelings from me

I actually found that whole discourse to be extremely stupid. I dont want to bring it back but yeah… a war was fought against a random anine term and it was like "wtf?…ok whatever I will just go with it":LMAO

There i said it, sorry but yeah. It was dumb I am sorry but it fucking was

Oh, definitely. I never went along with it because of how fucking stupid it was; anyone bold and crazy enough to pester others over a harmless anime term with, by now, a 20-year tenure, isn't worth interacting with.

IIRC the whole discourse was precipitated by some popular "breadtuber" making a shitty video on the subject in late 2018; being popular, a lot of idiots (especially on Twitter) parroted everything. There was also another video from around the same time by some irrelevant anituber that gained traction in the wake of the former video; between the two, I'm pretty sure this is the one that made the legitimately insane claim that "every single trap, regardless of what is actually stated in canon, is secretly a trans woman, and therefore trap is a slur", but I could have them confused.

As for the distinction, I consider "trap" to be narrower in scope, while also simultaneously describing a subcategory of "tomboy". "Femboy" I consider to be a synonym of "tomgirl", and its implications about appearance are less strict. I also think it sounds a bit shit.

Oh so THAT is how the whole "all feminine men masculine women are trans" started, huh, yeah that is also damn dumb.

Fucking youtubers and there awful takes smh.

Whether or not they crossdress and do girly things, basically.

A femboy is feminine physically but otherwise unremarkable compared to another man. I'd point towards Saika Totsuka from Oregairu as an example of one.

A trap on the other hand, is feminine physically but also dresses feminine. They're more likely to have feminine mannerisms or behaviours. Examples are Astolfo from Fate or Daruku Hoshino from Nanana's Buried Treasure.

There might be some overlap too of course, like both having girly mannerisms. Though I'd say you'd see it more often from a trap.

Previewing single players games (through things like early access or closed betas/alphas) sucks the fun out of them. You play the game unfinished and unpolished.

I don't understand why people are always hyped about it.

I miss when games used to have demos, there was unique content on them sometimes.
Or the 90s games with the shareware mode.

Less of a hot take but given we’re getting a remake of TTYD, I’d like to bring up Miyamoto’s suggestion he gave to the modern Paper Mario team to focus on pre-existing characters, a suggestion that was taken to an unhealthy extreme.

Personally, I think such a suggestion could work if they focused on obscure characters and if they don’t go as far as Sticker Star did.

Like imagine this for a Paper Mario game, it’s set in Jewelry Land from Yoshi’s Safari and you’re partners are characters from the SNES version of Wario’s Woods that Nintendo hasn’t rereleased. It’d make use of pre-existing characters and introduce people to some lesser known faces. Also maybe they could have Luigi off on his own adventure like in TTYD, this time with Yoshi, Toad, and Birdo in reference to the three starring in Yoshi’s Safari and Wario’s Woods respectively.

I don't really have an unpopular opinion this time, I just wanna respond to two comments.

@GeneHunt
I also miss demo discs, especially since they often had identities of their own with cool menu music and other ways to hype up upcoming releases. Even though his video focused on demo discs released in the UK, Caddicarus' video on PS1 demo discs still brought back a lot of nostalgia on the demo discs I used to play as a kid here in the States.

@MisterZygarde64
Chuggaconroy brought this up in part 3 of his Sticker Star rant series by mentioning Miyamoto never requested keeping NPCs as generically designed as possible, and never said they're limited solely to characters and enemies introduced in the NES games, it was someone within Intelligent Systems basically taking the suggestion a bit too far all on their own. Like yeah nothing was stopping them from using the likes of Wario, Waluigi, Daisy, Rosalina, Cappy, and more, and if such a restriction was real then explain why every mainline Mario since Sticker Star still introduces new species and characters on a regular basis. More likely Tanabe was the one who took the suggestion the wrong way.

so femboys/tomgirls are basically tomboys? Well I guess i hate them less now since I do like somewhat feminine (mainly long-hair) but beefy men.

I like Dark Souls II more than III
There I said it
I don’t like where 3 took the story with the ringed city and overall I found it much less interesting then II stary wise, gameplay is slightly better, but they never fixed poise

You know. Its okay to just disassociate with everyone around you on a regular bases on the internet and only focus on the minute things that matter to you/your interest. In the end, who gives a damn about some faceless dweeb, influencer, or whatever internet personality online. It’ll do well with your mental state, time, and energy.

It works for me. Still miserable, but not as miserable as everyone else.

For all the crap Tumblr had in its own userbase and the drama that ensued from it, not to mention the userbase being used as an insult, it honestly did have its share of good. Twitter itself though, even though it was crap then with how many transferred from Tumblr for the worse, has only gotten even worse as time passes on between hot takes that honestly sound obnoxious no matter how much a person is correct as the best and the worst being things like bots running amok or people being able hold echo chambers that can be no better than whatever Tumblr had in 2014. Sure Tumblr of old had its problems but the future is now and that present day future is just the pure circle-jerking and reward Twitter manages to offer.

I enjoy DS3 more, but I still have a soft spot for DS2, always felt it was underappreciated. I loved the introduction of powerstancing ability and Majula is my favorite "hub" out of the three games. The crown of Ivory & Iron King dlc was stellar imo.

I think Son of The Mask is overhated, it isn't THAT bad.

demos are on steam now

You can say that again, the story of DS3 was way WAY too overreliant on fan service.

I am glad more and more people are starting to appreciate DS2 more and more.

I legit have no idea if this actually counts as unpopular but I gotta be honest, F-Zero 99 is way more fun than I expected it to be, and if this game is what leads to F-Zero getting the green light on a new mainline entry (one where "battle royale" could be a separate mode) then I'm all for it.

Ilim actually hyped to play it. Since Tetris 99 was worth the Nintendo online for my family, then f-zero 99 may just be what convinces me to get nintendo online for myself personally.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land is a wonderful game and I’m glad that HAL can managed to make their game to transition well into a 3D platform. Generally, most 2D platformers don’t boat well when having to replicate the same mechanics of the 2D game to 3D. And yet, Forgotten Land still keep everything I’ve love about the franchise with the whole new format…

Is just that I don’t like the newer “fans” that comes from and during this installment. Smugly saying that everything before Forgotten Land was mediocre at best because now Kirby plays like Super Mario Galaxy. I was wonder why suddenly I’ve keep getting these snarky takes about this series and now I found out why. It’s disappointing how Kirby used to be a neatly-keep community of fans who’re just happily content with the franchise and respect each others’ opinions to… what it is currently…

I'd agree with the statement if you meant you have zero respect for Keemstar, Leafy and DSP and your respect for Fantano, h3h3 and idubbz is in the negatives

Araki's obsession with rock bands and his fetishization of Italian culture start getting annoying after a while.

Y'all taking purposely stupid jokes like "I gender your mom last night" super seriously but then going "it's just a joke bro" at "memes" where the entire joke is "haha disgusting faggots amirite?" are making it super obvious at this point a bunch of you guys are hardly as "apolitical" as y'all try and claim.

I basically won if I have 9 dislikes on my post, in unpopular thread. Like, holy crap, do poeple actually believe that stupid theory?