June 8th 2025

We’re not just about waifu gacha games here. We also like the ones made with love, attention to detail, and to some degree a sense of humor with the way the AAA industry is currently at. SsethTzeentach has always looked at some of the most obscure of games. Some of them outright hilarious while others being worth every moment of your time. If you need to freshen up your reaction skills from years of auto-play games, maybe Intravenous II might be right up your alley.

In an ever escalating war of stupidity with YouTube and their arbitrary rules of the month, more and more alternatives are being shot down by the day with adblockers. Workarounds use to be numerous, but slowly they are being targeted and obsoleted. Thankfully some methods still work, and CNVMP3 is one of those workarounds. The trick of using certain browsers and searching for the title of your video while playing the imbed also works. More details in the audio blog.

If you live under a rock, Stella Blade launches on PC this week. There has been a ton of buzz in “certain communities” revolving around mods, and to be frank this is really just to beginning of the avalanche. If you like fan-service dialed up to 11 by a very dedicated community, you might want to jump into the game day 1. I’ll see you all there of course. Thanks to Wak4863 for the insight.

Some music to chill out your week. Artist is the talented MODERNS and they have quite a catalog of other tracks to check out if you dig the vibe of the song.

Artist is HanamiArtX

I like my waifus green and ridiculously short stacked. HanamiArtX also agrees and has the talent to draw them into existence. I suggest if you are of the same persuasion, head on over to their social media and give an encouraging word. Or maybe even look into doing a commission!

June 1st 2025

This video by Pseychie is going to be old news at this point, but there’s a reason why I didn’t want to include in it in last week’s update where it would of been more appropriate. Whenever a game closes, emotions tend to run hotter than usual and logic (potentially) can take a back seat. I’m curious if anyone out there would like to chime in on why they think this game (or similar games) fail so quickly? Comment section bellow if you care to share. I share my rather simplistic reasons why I think games like these fail in the audio blog.

No matter how much older I get, I’m always in the process of learning lessons. Some of them are hard, while others are reminders of previous knowledge gained. But admitting your stupidity and showing your scars is part of the process, and I’ve definitely been burned by stuff. In terms of gacha games, my three recent painful lessons come in the form of Refantasia (2023), Otherworld Mercenary Corps (2024) and recently Star Force (2025). More details about my “L” in audio blog. Feel free to share yours in the comments.

A final word of warning this week comes from Sefhi in the form of the recently released game Mirren: Star Legends. The TLDR is that this game closed before a while back and is being rebranded and relaunched with a new publisher. Considering the history of the game and the history of the new publisher, it’s best to be very guarded with expectations on the longevity of the title. If you treat it F2P and a side game, you can probably enjoy it for what it is.

Slow news week means a song recommendation. This is a pretty old school dubstep track that I had in the playlist for a while and thought I would share it. It won’t be anything overly exciting for regular EDM listeners, but it’s pretty cozy considering the dubstep trend from 2008 to 2014 and might trigger some nostalgia. Artist is Areeb Mahmood.

Artist is 23

The only real “W” this week is the artist 23 and their love of tanned muscular waifus. They’ve been around for a long time doing fantastic work, and have published a number of material over the years. Show them some love on their socials and support them however you can.

May 25th 2025

The only “real” bit of news this week, Combo Breaker 2025 is going on live now if you’re seeing this day one. As a matter of fact, I’m going to probably be launching this week’s update a bit early just to get the news out about the tournament so you can all watch it fresh. Even if you miss it, vods will be available on the appropriate twitch channels.

Fun little story this week to start things off, so please bare with me. Have you ever been so slightly above mediocre that you’re accused of cheating? That’s pretty much what happened to me in a recent interaction with a guild I was (am still) in. Now the story has a happy ending (I cleared my name, apologies were given) but it’s quite the back handed compliment to get from decades of playing video games. Lots of extra details in the audio blog, but I guess this old cat still has claws! Now excuse while I eat some pudding, take my medications and start my afternoon nap. (Names redacted above, but I’m the fish avatar)

Out of pure cosmic coincidence, I recently restarted an incremental game on an old tablet I found in storage. The game is called Clickpocalypse 2, and it’s both on PC and Android for free. I remember thinking to myself “there’s no way anyone can beat this game in a reasonable amount of time”, and a decade later Emily (u/CoinForWares) shows how it’s done. I was able to beat the game (1 run) in less than 72 hours (horrendously un-optimized by the way) but all because of the advice given in the reddit thread above. This is why I didn’t loose my cool when I was accused of cheating in the other game, because I easily could have been on the other end of it in another context entirely with a different game.

Since we’re on the topic of speedruns / jaw dropping times in games, I thought I would upload a run by Daravae of the recently released Doom The Dark Ages. It goes without saying MASSIVE SPOILERS if you decide to watch the above video and have not yet played the game. The fact that runs like this exist when leaderboards for the game haven’t even launched yet just shows how dedicated and skilled some folks are. And why I want to remind everyone I’m some dusty middle aged man with marginal skills on my best days.

Artist is bluefield

Artist of the week is the talented bluefield with their image of some Hololive members. There’s something about this composition that I really like, because all the waifus seem to have their own space but not crowding one another or hogging the spotlight. Hard to put into words, but I just think it’s “striking” for all the right reasons, and it straddles that line of being borderline inappropriate. Well done!

May 18th 2025

The only bit of gaming news this week, the much anticipated PC launch of Stellar Blade will be hitting stores on June 11th 2025. I literally have been waiting for this game for about a year now since I never played the original PlayStation exclusive due to not owning a PS5. It goes without saying that all the content that has been generated for the game in the past year will be included in the PC version, as well as new content for both platforms at launch.

I promise you this isn’t drama, but more of an update on what’s going on with Discord as of late. I was introduced to Discord in 2017 and thought it was one of the best things out there for simple communication between folks online. Fast forward to 2019 and I (all the way back then) started to distance myself from using it because it was showing signs of bloat. I still use it today in the most limited of fashions (literally checking for 5 minutes then logging off) for news, but let’s just say the good times ended quite a while back. For those who need the anime waifu vtuber commentary, you can check out SmugAlana’s video reaction.

Doing my best to go back to the roots of the website, talking about weird and paranormal stuff now and then. I’ve mentioned in the past how western paranormal content can get a bit formulaic at times. It’s best to broaden your horizons by looking at other cultures and what they consider spooky; especially if they bring their own form of “evidence” to the table. Farrell McGuire brings us some content from the Arabic side of the world, and I loved every (over the top) moment of it. You should also check out the Russian version too. As with all things paranormal on the internet, bring as much “grains of salt as you would popcorn”.

Artist is Ultra1311

It’s starting to get hot where I’m at signaling the beginning of summer. So I thought I would kick off the swimsuit season with Ultra1311 and one of his original characters. Hope you’re all doing well as always and I’ll see you in the next week!

May 11th 2025

Starting off this month with a previous recommendation for all of you to check out. It’s a gacha game that recently got a TW server release, and more importantly there is an English patch possible for its native PC client as well. I still haven’t tried it out (remember my new year’s resolution) but let me know if all the trouble was worth it. It looks really pretty, and TW based server means minimal (if at all) censorship. It’s also possible to link account via Google Play, so that’s a plus for global players. Scion Storm is the second video just in case you’re locked out of the first video.

Handheld gaming has been in the news a lot lately due to the impending release of the Nintendo Switch 2. But I would argue there’s a lot of good stuff out there already for handheld gaming. Especially in terms of android emulation in the past couple of years. I have recommended everyone check out dedicated emulation devices in the past, but I know there are some folks who just want to use their cell phone for everything. So this video from Retro Game Corps goes over one of the latest dedicated controllers for cell phones. Personally I think it’s ridiculously priced, but I do have a much cheaper similar variant for my old tablet for $50. If you’re serious about these type of controllers for your phone, maybe look into Gamesir.

Long time visitor NoidsEdstrom has recommended this game for a bit now. It finally has reached “global” release on the Steam platform and you can download it for free and try it out. It’s obvious AI artwork, but it’s also free to play. I’ll let you judge with your own time (and potentially money) if you think it will be something long term to play.

EVO Japan 2025 happened this weekend past. By the time you’re reading this, it’s either going to be at finals day or the entire event has already passed. You can watch the vods using the YouTube channel above for the various on-stage events (use the “live” section, not video). There’s also this Google Doc that archives all the independent streams that were hosted while it was live, so there’s all that content too to dig through if you’re into fighting games of all sorts.

Got another song recommendation for this week since news is a bit dry. Funnily enough, this song has two variants that I both like. I am recommending this one specifically because I’m assuming my audience would like it more. If you want the other (original) version, you can do so here. Just for fun, let me know in the comments which one you like more!

Artist is Kokonattsu

Artist of the week was mentioned here AGES ago, so I think it’s been long enough for me to reintroduce them once more in case people forgot. It’s Kokonattsu and those keen eyed observers would remember that they draw a lot of very good Last Origin fan-art! Extremely talented, so give their pixiv a once over for a lot of good stuff.

May 4th 2025

This week is a friendly reminder to go through your list of games you already own. I know it’s exciting to talk about and anticipate games that are on the horizon, but we live in an era of DLCs and patches greater than 100GB. Once a year I go through my list of stuff on Steam and check up on EA (early access) titles that I have bought to see if they’ve reached the 1.0 full feature release. Other games I see if modding has matured or become a thing yet and jump back into it. Whatever the case may be, you may have something you already own waiting for you in your library that’s overlooked to be played.

Quick shoutout to Baldur’s Gate 3, a game I played upon release once and put on a shelf. Recently the game announced its “final patch”, meaning no more content updates and is now “complete” outside of hotfix bug patches. One of the reasons I waited to replay the game is the modding scene. I knew that if I gave them some time to cook, they would come up with content like you see above. That is a picture of my latest character, and I’m doing a run of the game as we speak.

I know I’ve been simping for mini pcs lately, but it’s my website and I’m really interested in the technology. I want to make it very clear; these pcs are cool but not worth the price at launch. What makes them very interesting is two to three years down the line when newer technology comes out and these drop in price drastically. Then we start getting into real value proposition, while being inside an energy efficient design. For a very long time now I felt iGPU’s have gotten the short end of the stick in terms of development. I’m glad they’re starting to be worked on again, as I feel they’re the wave of the future.

Artist is FoxHound220

Artist of the week is FoxHound220 for bringing us some Pulchra Fellini. Although we all owe her a new top, you all owe me a few comments! Don’t forget to leave anything interesting down below for me and others who visit to look at.

April 27th 2025

Fun little game recommendation this week, although it is not a F2P gacha game. Instead, it’s a regular paid game involving simple mechanics and a lot of butts. The game is lewd but also not serious, which is right up my alley and hopefully yours as well. It’s called Butt Knight, and your life is now better off.

With prices on electronics right now in a bit of flux, there are still some consistencies out there depending on what you’re looking for. I mentioned a while back that I’m really starting to get into mini pcs that double as decent (not cutting edge, but good enough) gaming rigs. The 2025 version of this spreadsheet is located here. The video refers to last year, but it’s the same process with the current year’s sheet.

Music recommendation for the week is another chill banger I came across randomly. Artist is FLOTE of course and has a library of other songs on their Spotify and YouTube channel.

Artist is Skeb

Artist of the week is easily artist of the month for me. Out of respect for my normie monthly visitors however, I’m placing the sexy horror here. Skeb is extremely talented and has a portfolio of all types of waifus or husbandos in monster form. When I say I like monster waifus, Skeb draws the ones I’m “actually” referring to than the overly cute and clean obvious humanoid ones you typically see nowadays. But love is love, and I want them all!

April 20th 2025

There is no way in the world I can operate a “pop culture” website and not address all the adjacent news in the past week. I have a policy of not talking about drama related stuff, so I’ll absolutely do my best to condense it as much as possible. But the long and short of it is that one of the biggest vtubers is “moving on”, 4chan gets exposed, and absolutely everyone has no idea what is going on with the tariff situation in regard to pricing of any products. The above video is related to a talking point I have even though it’s a bit older, featuring SmugAlana. More details in the audio portion, but it’s been a handful to say the least.

In an ever-growing escalation of YouTube trying to be the most annoying platform out there, they’ve recently stepped-up measures to block 3rd party apps or other methods of saving videos or watching videos privately. It’s always a cat-and-mouse game with them, and at the moment there are few options available without using a throw-away google account. Cobalt-Tools is a very ambitious (but amazingly awesome) site that allows you to privately save videos off YouTube if you need to. Feel free to donate to the cause if you use the website a lot, as it helps.

Came across this track amongst the chaotic week, and it had enough of a chilled vibe to make it to my recommendations list. The song is quite dynamic, with the first half of the song being very different from the 2nd half, which is cool in itself. And personally, the 2nd half is kind of fire, and I wish the whole song had that vibe from the start. Credit to 2NATURAL, Lama, Wendy Wang. By the way, if you’re trying to save songs offline via YouTube, you need to use the full link and not embedded links (like what you see above). Just a heads up if you get an error using a site like Colbalt Tools.

I know it’s strange for my regulars to put gacha gaming news at the end of the update, but this news isn’t really a “new” thing, as it’s an update to a game I’ve mentioned here before. Horizon Walker is implementing a “very requested” feature that a lot of fans have been looking for, and I’m just here to say I applaud the developers for understanding their demographic. This is a good example of business minded folks who understand the concept of reading the room. This skill has apparently been lost in the AAA gaming industry as of late. Also, as much as I love monster waifus, the recently released chubby nerd waifu “Berga” has me thinking of starting the game back up again.

Artist is Honkibooty

Artist of the week is Honkibooty bringing us a fitting tribute to the graduating Gawr Gura. Naturally I’ve never been a fan of petit characters in general, so I’m glad Honkibooty agrees with me and puts his interpretation of Gawr in a much more mature form. Support the artist on their Patreon, or at least send them a nice word on their social.

April 13th 2025

Lots of drama in the news as always, so I thought I would lighten up the mood a bit with some historical shenanigans. Back in high school, I remember my history teacher regaling to me the story of Timothy Dexter. There are a lot of philosophical lessons to be drawn from his life, the most important being success is not tied to hard work. There’s also a parallel to be made from a business perspective, that those who are fearless (but not careless) with their money tend to grow it the most. More nuance in the audio portion of the blog.

I recently upgraded my phone and being the stingy bastard that I am, I wanted to see what was out there that I could save a few dollars on. To my surprise, digital image stabilization has become so much better than it used to be, I kind of question the need of gimbals for anything other than actual professional or enthusiast work. Agree or disagree feel free to let me know in the comments.

Got a song recommendation this week that comes from a “strange place”. I say this because I can’t distinguish whether or not the vocals used in the track are human (tuned) or a vocaloid. Whatever it is, it sounds good and thought I would share. Blaine Hunter is an indie artist (as far as I can tell) and you can find them on various platforms.

Artist is Ara / Aranee

I mentioned vocaloid, so it’s my civic duty to post Brazilian Hatsune Miku because of it. And one fine example of such is done by the talented Ara / Aranee. Feel free to support them on Patreon or visit their pixiv page for more works done by them.

April 6th 2025

News is picking up this week but it’s still a bit complicated getting something coherent together. A recent beta Silver & Blood was showcased, and you can all make your own conclusions whether or not this game interests you. I swear the style of the gameplay looks familiar, but I can’t really put my finger on it. Not a global release as far as I can tell, so there’s a little bit of hoop jumping if you want to try it.

This video scratches a lot of nerdy itches I have in the modern era of video gaming. I really care not what technology can do “at its best”, but what can it do with minimum resources or requirements. With typical games now requiring the likes of “15 GB patches”, I think we’ve all lost the plot collectively in terms of efficiency and optimization. 4K 240hz gaming looks amazing on a standard PC, but 30FPS DOOM played on your refrigerator screen is just funny and amazing. More stuff on the very interesting Budget Builds Official channel.

There was a time a few years back when everyone apparently on YouTube decided to move into a Van and show you how awesome it was. Once the fad died out, you were left with those who do it out of necessity and those like Ryan Twomey who do it just because. Excellent chill vibes content creator, I promise you he’s 100% douche free and rant free. Can’t be said for most van lifers unfortunately.

Artist is AnimA

Artist of the week is the talented AnimA gracing us with one of his OC characters. Make no mistake, the classic elven bombshell waifu is very much appreciated by me even if am always looking for the more obscure waifu types out there. If you want more (and there’s a ton of it) head on over to their Pixiv. Support them, if possible, even if it’s just a kind word of appreciation. I promise you it means a lot to them.

March 30th 2025

Whang! this week brings us a compilation of stories so random; he had a hard time putting them together into a themed compilation. Side-note YouTube is being an absolute bitch again with ads, so a quick elegant web-based way of bypassing them is using Skipvids and entering the video link there. It’s annoying having to paste the link for each video you want to watch, but at least they’ll be ad-free. You can also do an entire channel if you know their “@” handle, which will then show you all the latest uploads by them. Recommended for desktop users or those on wi-fi as the site pre-loads a lot videos at once.

Stix put together a list recently of games he’s currently playing and his rationale behind them. I generally like these types of videos because I always want perspective behind what people are doing on a daily basis in terms of gacha. I would like (if possible) for any of you to share your current lists with me even without context. In other words, dropping the name off is good enough. I go over what I’m still playing in the audio blog, but it isn’t anything new from the retrospective if you saw / read that.

Came acro this random chill song that became an earwig very quickly. Apparently, it’s from an Indie artist Luli Lee and she’s from South Korea. Considering a lot of the more cultured games right now are from South Korea, I thought it would be fitting to throw a recommendation. Not my usual genre of music, but something haunting about it hooked me.

Artist is Shexyo

Artist is Twisting Toxic

Got a couple of artists this week for the abrupt news cycle. First one is a newcomer (I think?) in the way of Shexyo and their lovely Frieren. Second artist is a multiple returning guest Twisting Toxic with an even more returning guest Muffet from Undertale looking all lovely. Links to both artist’s good stuff is under their respective pictures.

March 23rd 2025

This week is a bag of memes cause the well of content is still dry. I promise all of you I’m not in full panic mode thinking of what to talk about for next month’s blog (I am), but at least we can all find comfort in Your Mother. Similar to a previous game I talked about called Your Wife, this is a desktop companion. It’s slightly better than the former due it having “some” voices and has workshop support for… content. Check out both and reevaluate your life choices afterward.

Is the wave of robot waifus finally coming? Probably not, but at least this figure exists, and we can all enjoy it for various reasons. I randomly linked you a place to buy it if you’re so inclined, but I have no affiliation with the store.

This came across my feed last week right as I uploaded the previous blog, so I didn’t get to add it. It’s an interview with a gacha gaming “whale” and goes into detail (from his perspective) on why he spends / spent so much on these games. It’s an interesting look behind the veil, and a welcome one since a lot of similar interviews are text only and tend to lose the minutiae. Credit goes to the content creator himself (2hu) over on his YouTube channel.

Artist is Tohirokonno

Can’t end the week seriously, so might as well go all the way with a “meme” waifu image, courtesy of the talented Tohirokonno. This artist is a full blown NSFW content creator, and although they have a pixiv page for you to check out, always be aware it’s going to go into the deep end of the lewd spectrum unapologetically. You have been warned!

March 16th 2025

Absolutely nothing to report this week, due to a few factors. Chiefly, the pop-culture space is full of nothing to report of note (non-drama). More importantly, people are just busy. That’s a good thing, because being busy with stuff to do means not being “bitchy” about stuff in general. I’ve been putting in hours with Elin as you can see above, and hopefully you’ve been busy too with stuff you like. Monster Hunter Wilds modding community going ham by the way and I’m all for it.

This week has been hard to find anything to scrape together, so I’m digging through the archives again until something new arrives. Nexpo has the creepy stuff typically saved for October, but it’s always a good time to revisit even in March. He also recently launched a new podcast if you’re so inclined.

Dead malls, dead buildings, dead ideas. Cryptically fascinating for a nerd like me, and a history lesson for those who care enough. I absolutely love watching the hubris of people who have a lot of money, but not a lot of common sense. Expedition Theme Park has been a long-time recommendation on the site, just bringing him back into the spotlight it’s been a while.

Artist is Enmanuelart

Artist of the week is Enmanuelart bringing us lovely Zenless Zone Zero waifus. I don’t play the game, but it doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the concept. Head on over to Enmanuelart’s Pixiv for more images, or support them on Patreon for the super hidden stuff.

March 9th 2025

I can’t afford a dozen eggs at the supermarket anymore but apparently; I can afford a waifu figurine that’s of decent quality. Not much news this week per usual, so I’m just going to send you a heads up that stuff like this exists and you can grab one if you like from stores like HLJ if you so desire. As always ff you want figure news, EXkurogane Studio is your man.

I want to be clear that I was aware of this game (Anchor Panic / 锚点降临) for quite some time now but also knew that it was never really intended to be a “globally” available game outside of SEA / KR / JP. It’s hard enough to get folks to play a game in a different language, let alone get them to jump through a lot of hoops to just even launch it. This game is about a year old now and if you like what you see in the video courtesy of Scion Storm, feel free to check it out. Be forewarned you will run into hiccups along the way.

Familiar face LGR has a recently out of character video reviewing some extremely modern tech. Those who have similar interests like me who mostly play non-modern AAA tittles but everything else under the sun might find this small form PC interesting. I’ve read other sources by the way that the maximum power draw for this unit hovers around 130W, which is absolutely insane given the fact realistically it uses under 75W for moderate loads. Those who wanted a detailed written review can check out Nascompares writeup which is very detailed.

Artist is Gurimjang

Slow news week means super talented artist. Gurimjang has a draw dropping portfolio over on their Artstation page which you check out at your leisure. Sign up for an account if you want the spicier stuff. See you all next week with (hopefully) something new.

March 2nd 2025

We’re starting off March with some pragmatism. I have a few app updates and suggestions to recommend, starting with Bluestacks 13 being recently released. This is actually good news considering a lot of modern games and apps are being “muscled” into requiring later versions of Android to function properly. Keep in mind Bluestacks is a bloated whale of an emulator, but it is the most “above board” emulator out there in which you can trace all the bloat in the code. Everything else out there is “here be dragons” when it comes to what it’s doing, but I’ll leave it up to you what to use. I have no horse in the race, just bringing the news.

Chances are if you’ve been watching YouTube as of late, you’ve probably come across a lot of ads again. More confounding for some of you who remember installing various ad-blockers. The game of “cat and mouse” with Google is always evolving, so finding programs to bypass the ads is going to continue long after I’m dead. None the less finding alternatives that are also user friendly is hard, but I find FreeTube to be the easiest to use and recommend to non-tech minded folks.

One of the biggest fighting game tournaments of the year will be held this week spanning a couple of days. That tournament is Capcom Cup 11, and the grand prize is a life changing $1,000,000. There’s a lot of spectacle and production with these types of events, so if you would rather have a more streamlined experience; wait until the tournament finishes and watch the vod. Since the tournament concludes on Sunday in Japan, most of my site visitors will be able to watch the vod the same day due to time zone differences.

Artist is Rubee

Lovely waifu of the week is Alcyone from LO, courtesy of artist of the week Rubee. There’s a mix of styles that’s pleasing to the eye yet unique about this artist, so check out their pixiv for more of their work.

February 23rd 2025

Beginning this week with an actual mainstream gaming recommendation, it’s going to come in the form of a recent Yakuza game called Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii. I don’t need to go over the finer details as my man ACG does so in his review I’ve linked above. ACG is one of the few people I go to for mainstream reviews anymore, so maybe check out his other videos to gauge whether or not he aligns with your style.

Videogame tournament this weekend, it’s the long running and established Mastercup series for Tekken. The format of this tournament is more exciting than single participants, as it focuses on 5v5 teams which adds to the “story” if you will of the competitors involved. Please visit the YouTube channel to see the live stream or vod for the Tekken 8 Mastercup when it finishes. If you don’t mind Twitch, you can also watch MajinObama vod in English here.

Slow news means song recommendations, and this one just sounds fitting considering I recommended you all a Tekken tournament to watch. Heylu has nothing to do with the series, but this song easily could fit into one of their soundtracks. Naturally if you like the vocals or the sound, check out Heylu’s other tracks on their channel. VPN if the above video is blocked in your area.

Artist is Huffslove

My need to post monster girls or I die shows itself this week with long time site familiar Huffslove. He likes goblin waifus; I like goblin waifus - we walk the same holy path. You know the drill at this point, support the artist at their Patreon so the world may be a better, greener place.

February 16th 2025

Some interesting gacha gaming news this week in the form of Last Origin finally coming to a global market via EroLabs. Not sure what to feel about this news, as the emotions are a bit mixed. I have a lot to say in the audio blog with the announcement, but I’ll be brief here and point out it’s good to see the game finally reach a wider audience in one form or another. Can the game survive on its art alone in 2025 is the real question down the road.

The only other topic this week, I tend to be upbeat and happy go luck on the site. However, sometimes I feel the interesting non-ficition stuff warrants watching even if it’s a bit of a downer at times. Scary Interesting has a ton of stories for you to binge of actual historical and recent tragedies. Good stuff to balance you out if you’ve been surrounded by too much sugary stuff and need a hit of “reality”.

The last story was kind of “metal”, so it’s only fitting I recommend a song this week fitting the theme. I feel like Dancewiththedead doesn’t need an introduction as they’ve been quite popular in the video game / pop culture circles for their great music. But if you haven’t heard them before, you have a lot of potential songs to add to a playlist. Their style is definitely more energetic + metal, so maybe save them for the odd FPS session or two.

I love waifus of all type, and one of the rarest breeds is the furry waifu in 3D form. This lovely girl was in development for years and sold out immediately on her first batch in 2023. A re-release is currently being held and selling out quickly, so I suggest if you like what you see head on over to Sakura-Gear (official store) and pick her up now while you can.

Artist is Hyulla

We talked about Last Origin, so it’s only fitting we put in my OG waifu Labiata from the OG lewd artist Hyulla. Keep in mind Hyulla is old school and still employed by various companies, so a lot of his art is going to be locked away into physical formats and copyright walls. You’ll have to scour the internet pretty hard to find archives of his recent works, but they’re there.

February 9th 2025

Playing off the “old is new again” theme from the monthly update, I just wanted to share this repository of excellent replays of older games. The channel is Replay Burners and their extension channel RB Video Library. My older audience might get some nostalgia, while the younger ones might laugh at what we all played back in the day.

You don’t need to understand or play a game to enjoy content from it. It’s one of those things I try to educate nerdy folks I come across to broaden their horizons. Ambiguousamphibian has been doing playthrough of games I’ve never touched (except Kenshi). That doesn’t stop me from enjoying his story telling of absolutely absurd situations for eclectic games. It also helps he’s genuinely hilarious, and one of the best dry humor creators out there.

There’s a particular genre of music that fits well with relaxing and grinding. At least to me anyway. As someone who has put in about 140 hours into Elin since I bought it, I definitely need something to play in the background while I do what I need to do. Cannons has a particular sound I’m found of when I need to do my dailies, so hopefully you might pick up on some of the same vibes I do.

Artist is Aoi Nagisa

Artist of the week is the legendary (I mean that) Aoi Nagisa. Although he’s still very active with modern projects, he doesn’t have a lot of online presence due to his old school nature. Out of respect, I’ve linked his only publicly known contact source, and you can branch out from there to appreciate or see more of his work.

February 2nd 2025

Small life update in terms of California not being on fire so much anymore. A needed day of rain came and went in LA county where I reside and saturated enough of the area to help get things under control. It also provided precious restocking of our “laughably” dry ground water reserves. This is only the beginning of the “repair and taxes” phase, so I’ll definitely make a bookmark on how things have changed in my neck of the woods in the retrospective for 2025. Thanks for all the kind words as well.

As I’ve been knee deep in other stuff recently, this gacha game slipped under my radar. It’s called Lost Swords Tales of Britannia. It has a lot of fan service (which is why I noticed it), but it also is an auto-battler. I have nothing against the genre, but I was recently heavily burned by another game in the same category (check my weekly retrospective for 2024). If any of you try out this game, let me know if you went deep. I’m tired of being a canary in a coal mine and rather have someone else take point this time around and shot first.

Piggybacking off of the monthly update, some folks might have missed this video checking out all the other great content on Majin’s channel. The reason why this video struck a chord with me has nothing to do with Street Fighter (I don’t even play it), but the talking points about communities and “missing the point”. I go into detail in the audio blog, but the jest of it is that newer gaming communities need to adapt to a way of doing things that isn’t like what “we” older folks did that worked. It worked because it was the only option we had.

Artist is OlchaS

Artist of the week is OlchaS, bringing us this lovely unamed FGO waifu. Literally I was looking for themed waifus for this update (Snake year and all that) and this was what first popped up. In any case, check out their Patreon if you like their work.

January 26th 2025

Some gaming news to start off this week, but it isn’t necessarily Gacha gaming related. As a matter of fact, none of it is! But hopefully you’ll consider them anyway cause they all definitely go into the “weird but strangely good” side of the road. Let’s start off with NunHoly - a recent Steam release game that got a lot of attention for its… well Nuns. It’s a bare bones Hades clone with a much prettier protagonist roster. Feel free to hunt down the heretics if you’re so inclined.

Next game we’re looking at is Elin, a direct sequel (technically prequel) to the absurdly underground indie game Elona. Make no mistake, these games fill a very particular genre (farming sim / rogue-lite), but they do it extremely well and are highly addictive to those who get caught in the moment. Technically there’s a mobile version of Elona, but it’s more of a stand-alone spin-off with a different vibe.

Going into a bit of a personal struggle story here, but I can’t for the life of me find a physical wireless (non-BT) volume control knob for my PC. There are many 2-in-1 solutions (like wireless keypads with a knob) or wireless keyboards with the knob built in, but no knob by itself wirelessly (without BT). It’s strange I know, but something I eventually came to terms with and found a temporary alternative. That alternative is Volumouse from NirSoft. Pretty self-explanatory, but it’s a freeware software that allows you to reprogram anything to control your volume - even your mouse wheel.

Artist is Edemevas

I needed to post a monster waifu this week, so here she is courtesy of the talented Edemevas. I was looking for a fire themed waifu due to recent events for comedic relief, and a fire dragon waifu fits that bill just fine.