The maiden and the elephant in the room

I've been playing some otome games to try to distract myself. Ok, that's not entirely true. I'm avoiding thinking. It's slightly different.

Anyway. I'm going to write about them here because it saves me from writing about the stuff that's really bothering me and dwelling on it. Because, avoidance, right?

At least Joel is cute,
even if he is a bit of a tsundere.
Why he loves the MC is a
mystery to me because she's
a total idiot.

The first one that I didn't delete immediately after trying (I tried a few that were complete stinkers -- horrible writing or clunky apps etc.) was Wizardess Heart. It's one of those free to play apps where you have to jump through a bunch of hoops. I don't actually mind (and kind of prefer) straight out buying something rather than having to collect coins and play mini-games and silly things like that, but on the plus side, I'm really glad this one didn't cost money now because I kind of want to kill the main character with fire.

She (the person you're "playing") seemed promising at the very start. She was capable enough to be living on her own, she had her own magic, and liked to help animals and people. But the further along I progress, it seems she just gets stupider and stupider. Like, literally, she's dumb as a post. People can flat out tell her things and she's, like, "What does that mean?" The guy THAT SHE LIKES just flat out told someone that he's her boyfriend and when she's all "But, wait, that's not true, is it?" (and this being after they were out in the fairy woods alone all night and he was making a big deal out of how he had to sleep with his back to her because, you know...things...and how he's been waiting half his frickin' life to run into her again after they were childhood friends...even though she doesn't remember diddly squat about that...where he used to pretend to be a FREAKING GIRL because, you know, reasons...) and he's like "Yo, it's fine. I'll make you mine" and she's all "Huh?"

Seriously. Nearly half of her dialogue is "Huh?"

I've had to look up a walkthrough to get the appropriate amount of "points" for the romance to continue because all of her options/answers are stupid and I kept picking the one that made the most sense, which, apparently, isn't applicable to this girl.

I'm not sure why I haven't deleted it yet. Maybe because it's the furthest along I've made it in any of the apps so I kind of hate to give up. I don't know. I'm sort of waiting to see if they can redeem it. But I do know that I won't play any other routes in this app because this one has been so frustrating. I can't see how they'd make her any smarter in any of the other routes (i.e. guys). I tried another one of their otome apps (the Nifelheim one, after it was recommended on a blog) and it had the same problem -- passive, idiotic heroine stumbling around like an idiot. I deleted that one pretty quickly because the guy options weren't all that enticing to begin with.

As a professional writer, I'm actually a bit offended at the crap they get away with and make money on. Lazy, crappy writing. Ridiculous barely-there plots held together with contrivance and wishful thinking. With typos! Though some of it may be translation issues since I think a lot of these originally came from Japan. Not sure about this one.

On the plus side, the art is pretty nice and the app actually works (unlike some other ones that I've tried). And the guy characters are pretty interesting and attractive, though there's a few too many on the "I'll treat you like a dog and you'll like it" scale for my personal taste.

Anyway. I'll write about some of the other apps in another post.

Did, at least, also work through 4 chapters today. Two more to go and then the manuscript is back off to the agent.

And there's the fireplace going in my office. I think that's saving me from going crazy. Maybe. Might be a lost cause.

EDIT:

Wait. So I just googled Joel and Wizardess Heart and found this review of his storyline. Er...okay...well, I'm glad she enjoyed it!. It's amazing to me that she finds the heroine to be so good. Yeah, I can see the MC as determined, definitely. That's her one good quality. She'll do her all for her friends, even ones she has just met. So, yay!, you go girl.

I probably shouldn't have, but I read all her spoilers and I can see that the Joel storyline is somewhat interesting, except for the clunky bits, some of which she sees too. The amnesia trope is always generally annoying, but in this case it's actually more so if Joel himself was the one who made the girl forget. I mean, if that's the case, why is he continually surprised by her not remembering something? And, honestly, I'm also pretty over the "childhood friend" trope which is so prevalent in anime/otome/manga. If I'd know that was going to be part of Joel's storyline, I wouldn't have picked it at all (especially if I'd also known about the amnesia thing).

Meet Azusa. Who apparently
likes to kill pigeons
and stupid, daft girls
who follow him into the forest.

So, after reading that, I was thinking, okay, I should probably just delete the damn app, right? Joel is cute but do I really want to struggle though more of that annoying Eress bug-fairy-thing and the dishrag main character? But then I thought, hey, there was that other route, which one was it? That looked kind of interesting and not all blonde prefect-y? Oh, yeah, Azusa! So I just googled him and found this review.

He's a freaking murderer psycho.

HAHAHAHAHA oh, thank you, random internet blogger for saving me. That's just...HAHAHAHAHA OMG Really? FFS. I am, for once in my life, literally LOLing out loud.

That's a big old bucket of NOPE from me.

I mean, okay, yeah, I kind of wanted to kill her myself but seriously? That's...that's just really, really effed up. And possibly even weirder is that someone claiming to be an adult left a comment on the review DEFENDING the character route. I just..I can't even...

Well, at least one thing has made me laugh this week. Brilliant. Freaking brilliant.