#I just have a big old back log of stuff from last year

[pilfappreciator]

Did another oopsie and accidentally deleted another ask (*bangs head on table*) BUT HOPEFULLY THE LOVELY ANON WHO SENT IT SEES THIS!!

DADZONE & Child! Reader: John Dory

Includes: GN! Reader, Child! Reader, Adopted! Reader, accidental DILF John Dory, slight angst

TW: mention of spiders and body horror near the end (nothing too graphic but just in case)

🥽 This man doesn't trust himself enough not to fuck up another meaningful relationship ://

🥽 Personally, how I see it, becoming a father is probably the last thing on JD's to-do list. I mean he's definitely got the skills (being the oldest of five and having to raise his brothers means he's picked up a few things), and I like to think that it's something he longs for deep down, but considering how BADLY he fumbled with his brothers the last time they were all in the same room...

🥽 So yeah. In theory would be SO down to start a family of his own, but in practice?? He is EXTREMELY hesitant

🥽 THAT BEING SAID!! Chances are he probably found you as an egg

🥽 He was out one day, hiking out in the forest or exploring coastal coves or rock climbing, when all of a sudden he just… stumbles across an egg. Just sitting there in a patch of moss or nestled into a log

🥽 Ends up taking the egg with him back to Ronda, but not before an actual HOUR of confused staring? Distressed pacing back and forth?? Panicked rambling all the while???

🥽 (the fact that Ronda tried to eat the egg upon his return doesn't help at all)

🥽 John Dory spends the next month or so visiting nearby troll villages and asking anyone who crosses his path "Hey man did you drop this? 😬"

🥽 In the end he decides to take you in himself. Partly because he's gotten tired of all the looks other trolls keep giving him for trying to force an egg into their hands, and also because he… may have grown attached to said egg in the past few weeks. I mean by the end of day 3 he'd already given you a name so you know he's screwed ahsjkakaa

🥽 He tells himself he's taking you in because it's what any good citizen would do (He is a lair. He is 100% doing it for himself)

🥽 The day you hatch is LITERALLY one of the best days of his life? Like he's just making himself some dinner and suddenly he hears crackling coming from his hair?? And then there's babbling???

🥽 This man is going about his day with you nestled in his hair (basically the troll equivalent to carrying a baby on your hip lol). He's choppin trees, foraging for food, and driving his armadillo van all while he's got an actual egg sitting on his head. Absolutely talks to you the whole time, too. He has no idea if you can actually hear him but like.. this man spent the last 20 years all alone in the woods, okay, his ass is lonely :((

🥽 Yknow that thing parents do where they hold up headphones to a woman's womb and play Mozart or whatever to make the baby "smarter" or some shit?? Yeah that's JD. He's doing the same thing to his egg

🥽 no Mozart tho ONLY BROZONE 😤😤 HIS BABY HAS GOTTA HAVE GOOD TASTE AND NOTHING LESS

🥽 If he's really feeling himself then he'll sing the songs himself. And then proceed to give unprompted lore behind the lyrics and the songs "true meaning" (songs include Brozone classics such as Baby Boy Got My Heart In A Headlock Boy and Baby Baby Love You Like A Pizza But Hate You Like There's Pineapple On It Babe)

🥽 "holy crap YOU'RE SO SMALL—"

🥽 UGLY CRYING HOLDING YOU IN THE CROOK OF HIS ARM CARESSING YOUR SOFT LITTLE FACE WITH HIS FINGER

🥽 Will die if you reach for him with your tiny baby hands or just smile up at him

🥽 He's still gonna carry you around in his hair while he goes about his day and stuff ngl. Like for him, it's a signature of your guys' bond and you bet your ass he's gonna be milking it for as long as he can (definitely dreads the day you become too big/old for it)

🥽 Most definitely tries to teach you survival skills as soon as possible. He's teaching you how to fish, he's demonstrating how to start a fire with the bare essentials, he's letting you DRIVE RONDA—

🥽 "It's an important skill to have, champ, trust me!"

"...but I'm only five."

"Never too early for a learner's permit!"

🥽 Defnitely tries to reel in that controlling/perfectionist mindset of his, at least for your sake. The last thing he wants is a repeat of what went down with his brothers. As a result he's probably more lenient when you get into trouble or do something wrong

🥽 Fr tho like... you'll accidentally(?) cause an explosion and his ass will be standing, hands on his hips like "I'm not mad, just disappointed 🤨"

🥽 You thought you were getting spoon fed Brozone content as an egg?? Well congrats on being born cuz now you're getting served Brozone content for BREAKFAST 👏 DINNER 👏 AND 👏 LUNCH

🥽 JDs most definitely the type of guy to break into song whenever he's doing the most mundane of tasks (laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc), and yes he fully expects you to join in and know all the lyrics helloooo?? You've basically been raised on Brozone songs at this point like cmon, don't leave him hanging!

🥽 FR THO!! If you grow up to be a Brozone stan, he's never gonna be more proud of himself <33

🥽 This man definitely has a physical collection of every song/album/cover his band has ever done (I'm mean this is the same guy who kept his brothers underwear in a frame for 20 years so ://). He treats every CD, record, cassette tape, etc. like the priceless artifacts they are and YES, HES GONNA PASS THEM ONTO YOU LIKE THEYR FAMILIY HEIRLOOMS DID YOU EXPECT ANY LESS

🥽 If you grow up to lean more towards a different genre of music or Brozone just doesn't end up being your cup of tea... JDs gonna be a lil devastating ngl

🥽 Pls assure him that he has not failed as a father

🥽 Jokes aside tho! I feel like despite his wounded ego, JD will at least TRY to see your point of view. I mean he's definitely gonna be a bit of a grandpa about it—

*while the two of you are listening to your favorite song*

"I mean, I GUESS it's okay... not nearly as lyrically genius as Brozone's hit single: Baby Girl Ur Sweet Like A Milkshake Girl But I'm Lactose Intolerant Baby 🙄"

"Dad. Please shut up."

—but rest assured that he WILL support you and your music taste <33

🥽 You want merch of your favorite band/artist? No worries he's (stealing it right off the shelf) got money to pay for it! Is there a new album about to drop? He's (breaking into a store in the middle of night like a rabid racoon) patiently waiting in line just to buy it for you! You wanna go to a concert? He's using Ronda to (break speed limits, run people over, disobey every known traffic rule) get good parking at the venue!!

🥽 SPEAKING OF CONCERTS!! I feel like he'd be able to offer solid advice on the do's and don'ts of attending a concert. Like... my guy was in a popular band back in the day and he knows first hand how outta hand concerts can get. He has SEEN some shit ajskskaka

🥽 JD definitely has a photo album full of pictures from back in the day. Some of them are snapshots of him and the rest of Brozone, but a majority of the pictures are just of him and his family— away from the stage and cameras. Just him and his brothers and grandma Rosiepuff too...

🥽 He remembers the exact moment every picture was taken, and he'll tell you every bit of context. Birthday, pranks gone wrong, holidays, first day of school— there's a snapshot for just about every milestone. All you have to do is ask and JD is more than happy to relay every childhood anecdote he can remember

🥽 It gets to the point where you eventually know just about everything about your uncles... WHO YOU HAVE NEVER EVEN MET YET AKSKSKAKAK

🥽 It's definitely something that freaks them out once you finally DO meet them

🥽 Like you'll have a conversation with Clay and they'll be like "yeah I'm not a big fan of spiders haha" and you just go "Oh that makes sense considering you used to have vivid nightmares about them crawling under your skin and tickling you to death" and Clay's just like "how the fuck did you know that????"

🥽 "Dude stop telling your kid everything about us"

"I haven't seen you guys in 20 years! I just wanted them to feel close to their uncles ;(("

"THEY DONT NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HOW I USED TO PICK MY NOSE WHEN I WAS SEVEN"

🥽 John Dory, Older Brother Who Overshares About His Younger Siblings my beloved <33

Ermmm yeahhhh this was originally gonna be one big post including ALL the brothers... but then I started writing for JD and got carries away... so yeah this ask is gonna have to be a multi-parter AJSJSJAKKA SORRY ANON I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF 🤥

NEXT PARTS ARE IN THE WORKS!!

Bruce | Clay | Floyd | Branch

[strawberrymilk-sunshine]

I hope it never updates!

What can I say? Inspiration suddenly struck. I hope it continues to, but I can't make any promises.

Warning(s): the formatting of this story will be a bit different compared to my other fics (exactly how will be immediately obvious), implied self aware character, yandere first person pov, gender neutral first person pov/reader, holding someone captive technically

Hi guys!!!!!!! Sooooooooo............ this is going to be a little bit of a... different post.

So Twisted Wonderland got an update recently. It's for Cay-Cay's birthday! I was so exciteddddd (frequent readers will know how much I LOVE Cay-Cay~✩) you know me, I was r e a d y to use the keys he gave me at log-in to pull on his latest birthday banner~

Aaaaaaaand that was when my game crashed ༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ 💔 it's not like it was that big of a deal, but it's still annoying!!!!

But for some reason, my game is acting strangely now...

It's not something that messes with the gameplay or anything, and it's not corrupted or broken (that I know of??? I'm so bad with tech stuff sorry >.<) I still had all my cards, so I really couldn't care less about whatever caused the crash or if it messed with anything tbh, in my mind: all's good!~✩

I logged back on and it looked like everything had saved before the crash, the game skipped the log-in bonus screen and the birthday message from Cay-Cay, and when I went back to the gacha tab I still had the tenfold key set, so everything looked okay, for now. So I pulled on Cay-Cay's platinum jacket birthday card! you've all seen how much I suffered getting the bloom birthday card last February, so I was hoping to everything that he'd come home easily this year (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)........... AND GUESS WHAT??? HE DID!! Aaaaaa guys he loves me soooo much it's unreallll♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡ :D

But........... that's when the weird stuff really started. You know I've always looked for spoilers the moment a new event that includes Cater comes out, scary monsters, firelit sky, tsumsted, playful land, beans day, his club card, his birthdays... hell, even his chef and new years cards!!! I'm a fiend for Cay-Cay, I love him so much!! Honestly I don't even care if I like how the outfit looks anymore, I just loooove Cater Diamond!!!!

That's getting a bit outside the point, oopsies- The point is, I already know ALL of platinum Cay-Cay's voice lines, summon line, vignettes, home screen lines, and obviously all his battle and levelup and guest room etc lines, since those stay the same. I have everything memorized atp! So, of course I noticed when there was a completely different line than expected once he successfully came home. You know, the part of the summon that has a teeny tiny story dialogue segment?

Platinum jacket Cater is supposed to say something about how the museum he's visiting is more than a century old, then goes on about tagging a selfie. But for some reason, the line was slightly....... off??????????? It was worded differently than it should have been, and Cay-Cay didn't even say "hashtag" before saying his post tags! Can you believe that?!

Obviously I assumed it was just a translation mixup. I know twst en has that sometimes; changing a line that implies Cay-Cay is bi, getting rid of the word "master" in relation to Jamil's hypnotism, forgetting that Floyd calls Vil "betta chan senpai" (tho that mistake might also be on jp server, tbh I can't remember lol sorry Floyd but I only have eyes for Cay-Cay~♡) shit man they even called Kalim "Kamil" at one point in the endless halloween night event! With all those issues, and how the game is translated in general, I really really didn't think anything of it that Cay-Cay's summon line was a bit different than I thought it would be.

But then the weird things just....... kept happening??????? Cay-Cay's home lines were different than they should be, and some of them actually looked like they changed every single time?? But I just thought I was misreading, who wouldn't assume that?! Especially since I've been awake for two days straight---

So I just went to sleep for the night (day?) and assumed the game would be back to normal when I was back to normal!

I woke up at liiiiiike 7pm?? It's a bit hard for me to tell, I'm always in such a haze when I wake up! I'm completely conscious and safe, I just don't really know what's going on for a good hour or so after I first wake up, just how I am and how I've always been ╮⁠(⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)⁠╭ sadly this means this part won't be very coherent, but it's so vivid in my mind even despite the wakeup fog bc like..... I could NEVER have expected what I experienced.

I still needed to level up platinum Cay-Cay since I was too sleepy to earlier, so I immediately went to do that! I gave him all the honey he could ever want (I felt soooo bad since he doesn't like sweets 💔) and thanks to the birthday levelup rate bonus, I got excellent and was actually able to entirely level him to max immediately! I obviously did the same with his vignette lvl and spell lvls and buddy lvls (THANK YOU TWST EN 3RD ANNIVERSARY UPDATE 😭) and used my ssr perfumes to fully uncap him♡♡♡♡

I was sooooo happy to just have alone time with him, it feels like the game never allows that in the stories ughhhh why must Ace of all things be this game's favouriteee....... Cay-Cay deserves it so much more and I will argue that until I die ಠ⁠︵⁠ಠ

Sorry, sorry, back to it again! I went back to the card lvl tab, since I fully uncapped him and had to do more levelling since I forgot to uncap beforehand (silly me!) and that's when I noticed the strangest thing of all.......

The level line was....... different? And like, way too different for it to just be me not remembering the line properly. It looked like the way he speaks when he drops the act, but not trying to hide it? The text wasn't shown to be just his thoughts, it was written like he was actually speaking. The line wasn't voice acted or anything either. A voice line still plays, but it was clearly his second default levelup line, not whatever this was???

You know me. Even if it's unrealistic, I immediately assumed the worst lol, I thought someone hacked and modded my account or something!!!!! AGAIN, I know this is unrealistic so there's no need to make fun of me, I was outtttt of it :( Then, you know, panic started happening. I thought I'd get banned or something (emotions have already been really bad lately, and I did not need this stress!!)

The weird lines just kept happening after that. My panicking went away eventually, and I started realizing, none of these strange lines had proper voicing or model work, they always borrowed the voicing and model work from other normal lines. So, I could definitely tell these were completely outside the regular pool of voice lines. That made the panicking worse, sadly, since I thought more than ever that these were added by an outside force... of course I was also still worried about getting banned, but also that would mean someone was messing with my lovely precious Cay-Cay!! >:(

After the panic 2.0 -now featuring slight rage- settled, I started truly reading these weird lines. They never repeated, each one was unique. He started talking about someone "outside"???

Ahhhh, but that's when the best thing happened~♡! I said something out loud, and Cay-Cay actually directly responded with the next line!! It referenced what I said perfectly... like it couldn't have been randomly generated, or even ai (but then again, I said I don't know much about tech), it felt like someone I have conversations with regularly responding to me....

And after that, I was just so............

..happy.

That's it, I was happy.

I was happy that he was actually talking to me.

I didn't care what he was really talking about, I just knew he was.... there. And he could understand me.

Cay-Cay was speaking directly to me.

He said he was trapped in there, somehow... and he wasn't Cay-Cay, just some guy stuck using him to communicate... ehhh, he explained it all in so much detail, but if I'm being honest, I really didn't give less of a shit about what he was actually saying!

I didn't care, because he was trapped.

Cay-Cay was trapped.

He was trapped with me.

And you know what? I was happy. I was so, so happy that he was trapped.

All of you know how much I love Cay-Cay, and hey, I'll even be the first to admit that it's a liiiiiittle bit of an obsession with him. I just love him so, so much. Cay-Cay is just so important to me... he's such a perfect character..... everything about him. Everything.

I love him.

I love him so much that I'll even accept someone who just resembles him in looks alone. I can make them act like how they're supposed to.

That's why this was such a wonderful situation! I had a sentient Cay-Cay just......... literally in the palm of my hand, and I couldn't be happier.

I love him... I love him so purely, so wholely, anyone reading this will know...

It doesn't matter if Cay-Cay doesn't act like how he should yet, I can help him. That's why I don't care about his problems, he's just solved all of mine. My game is perfect now, I hope it never updates! I love him!!

Dearest readers, I'm living my fangirl dream!! I'll talk to you all later, Cay-Cay and I have a date set up tonight, and I gotta get ready~!✩

[demi-shoggoth]

2024 Reading Log, pt 2

006. Gardening Can Be Murder by Marta McDowell. I honestly thought that this book was going to be about something else. With the subtitle “how poisonous plants, sinister shovels and grim gardens have inspired mystery writers”, I thought it was going to be about, you know, that. True crime themed to gardens, discussions of poisonous plants, that sort of thing. The book is actually about the mystery books that have gardening as a theme. And while the author’s dedication to not spoiling anything (seriously, anything, even 150 year old stories like The Moonstone or “Rappacini’s Daughter”) is admirable in its own way, this leaves the book feeling like endless buildup without any payoff. Big fans of murder mysteries might enjoy this—especially the last chapter, which interviews writers about their gardens—but I found it more boring than anything else, and finished it only because it was very short.

007. Antimony, Gold and Jupiter’s Wolf by Peter Wothers. This book is about how the elements got their names, and most of it deals with the early modern period, as alchemy transitioned to chemistry and then into the 19th century, when chemistry was a real science, but things like atomic theory were not yet understood. The book goes into fascinating detail, and has a lot of quotes from primary sources, as scientists then were just like scientists now, that is, opinionated and bickering with each other over their preferred explanations. And names! Many of the splits between elements and their symbols (like Na for sodium) are due to compromise attempts to appease two different factions with their preferred names. A book covering arcane minutia of history always has the risk of feeling like a slog, but this is a fast and fun read.

008. Doctor Dhrolin’s Dictionary of Dinosaurs by Nathan T Barling and Michael O’Sullivan, illustrations by Mark P Witton. This book is an odd concept, but one that I was immediately on board with—a D&D book written by paleontologists with the intention of bringing accurate and interesting stats for prehistoric reptiles to the game. The fact that it’s mostly illustrated by Mark Witton definitely clinched my backing that Kickstarter. And this book is a lot of fun. So much so, that I read it all in a single sitting. I don’t know how accurate the stats are (like, a Hatzegopteryx has a higher CR than titanosaurs or T. rexes), but they seem like they’d be fun in play, and the writing does a good job of combining fantasy fun with actual education. Even for someone not running a 5e game, the stuff on how to run animals as not killing machines, and the mutation tables, could be useful. There are multiple types of playable dinosaurs, all of which seem like they’d work well at the table and avoid typical stereotypes, and a lot of in-jokes and pop culture references (like the cursed staff of unspared expense, which looks like Hammond’s cane in the Jurassic Park movie).

009. Romaine Wasn’t Built in a Day by Judith Tschann. I’m a sucker for books about etymology. And this one, on food etymology, is a pretty breezy read. I had fun with it, and it even busted some misconceptions that I had, etymologically speaking. Like, there’s no evidence that “bloody” as an explicative originated from “God’s blood”? Wild. Etymology books tend to be written in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style, where talking about one word may lead down a garden path to the next one. The book also has a couple of little matching quizzes, which is something I haven’t seen in a book since like the 90s.

010. The Lives of Octopuses and their Relatives by Danna Staaf. I was previously a little disappointed in The Lives of Beetles, another book in this series, but I knew I liked Staaf, who wrote the excellent book Squid Empire about cephalopod evolution and paleontology. I’m pleased to report that this book is also excellent. Staaf takes the “lives” part seriously, and the book is arranged by ecology, looking at different marine habitats, the challenges that they pose to living things, and the cephalopods that live there. Cuttlefish get slightly short shrift in this book compared to squids and octopuses, but that’s about the biggest complaint I had. I like how the species profiles cover more obscure taxa, and information about the best studied (like Pacific giant octopus and Humboldt squid) is kept to the chapters.

[lifegoeson-wecarryon]

A rereading of Carry On, by an amnesiac: Log 2

(Or, I guess, ARROCOBAA. Chapter 3-4)

I’m Jace— though I used to go by Simon, largely due to how much this book meant to me when I needed it most. But due to amnesia, I forgot everything about it— so now I’m reading it all over again. This is the second part of my thoughts log while reading.

Log 1 | Previous Log | Next Log

· · ──── ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ ──── · ·

Healing is a long process, and my first log was 20 days ago. And that’s okay— this isn’t something I should be rushing anyway. It took a while, but I’m ready for the next chapter. These are a bit more scattered thoughts than last time.

Chapter 3: Simon

I do not mention it here, but CW Car Crash for those reading along.

The way Simon was talking about Candle in the wind made me spit my drink out— and it was worse by the implications of it setting on fire! I don’t even have one, but that’s terrifying!

I had no idea Simon gets kidnapped much less in CHAPTER 3? And why is the goblin singing Elton John? Is this implying Elton John is goblincore?

Simon makes everything about Baz somehow. I thought his obsessiveness was a fandom designated trait since that’s just how fandoms treat some ships, but MAN. DOWN BAD AND IN DENIAL!!!! But also me too, I would love to be Simon and have Baz start speaking to me in French….

Simon just casually decapitating a goblin in one sentence, no big deal. Taking a sec to shill the podcast Inn Between, I am thinking about it because that’s how the inn there was named, haha. If you like found family, DND, and queer main characters, go check it out.

Simon not knowing how to drive is actually real. I’m 24 and still don’t have a license.

I don’t know Simon, the mage has got a point for once. Regional slang is important, I’d be damned if I wasn’t allowed to talk about my jojo fries or grabbin some steamer or a little jimmy. But that is not to say, eating people and regional slang are equal issues! One may be more important than the other!

Ebb mention :) Love how it’s a little lore drop but also ebb crumb :) I sure do hope nothing bad happens to her :)

I remember now, back in high school. I would write Carry On fan fiction for creative writing club, and my instructor would get so excited by names like Crowley, Merlin, Methuselah, stuff like that. And I would just sit here like “they just say this normally in the book why are you praising me for mentioning these people😭” But he was just really excited over literature.

Is this the first time we actually meet Penny in person? I love her so much already. We love a snarky best friend that will tell you the truth straight up.

Elspeth mention! I think she was in one of my fanfic series where I shoved a lot of background characters in there to give them some attention. Congratulations for your perfect attendance, sorry for the interruption!

It’s unlisted now, but I made a book trailer for Carry On for class way back in the day. I remember it now because I threw in the scene here, where Penny was mad at Trixie for coming back. Her dynamic with her was always really funny to me, I wish we could have seen it explored more.

The Humdrum looks like the 11 year old version of Simon, does this mean that it’s supposed to represent his childhood, somehow?

The chapter ends on that little lore drop that brings about my million dollar question.

Chapter 4: Penelope

Our first chapter without Simon, featuring Penny! I love that for her, but it already looks short.

She cares about him so much and that much shows from her perspective, though his state also worrying to me… every autumn he came back like that? No wonder, the mage never even attempts to care for him. I’d like the idea of a little AU where Penny does run off with Simon and get that flat in Anchorage— or Casablanca, or Prague. Wherever it is, it feels like a cute little slice of life. I’m not sure if she means they would live to see the far end 19-20 years old, or 2019-2020. For their sake, I hope it’s not 2020, haha.

But as much as she is willing to run away, I’m glad she also recognizes his importance other world… sadly. But, and this may be an uncommon take, what obligation does he have to save this world in the first place? I’m not sure if he would pose the question himself, with his reluctant devotion to the great mage.

· · ──── ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ ──── · ·

I think ending it here is good. We got a few lore drops, a few surfaced questions, and I feel more at ease getting further. I don’t think it’s gonna take another 20 days for the next log to come out, but I can’t make any promises. Once again, if you made it this far, thank you for listening. I hope that if you’re trying to heal, you find a way that works for you— like revisiting a beloved book is for me.

[muse-matrix]

So... It's been a while since I last logged in here. Longer still since I properly did... much of anything here, outside of a few scattered posts. Part of me had been kinda dreading coming back here but looking at when my activity really dramatically dropped off, I think I understand what happened.

So, way back in february of last year, I was bouncing between a lot of things. I was running around doing a bunch of stuff to try and secure a new job, and I did manage that- A big component of my not being here was just me adjusting to having to work again, after being unemployed for almost an entire year. It was tough to get the right structure going, but I managed it. And despite starting college just a couple weeks ago, I've mostly managed that too so far, I think.

But that isn't... the main reason why. Probably. I think.

You see, what else happened in february, was that I got booted from a community I'd been a part of for years. It encompassed my involvement in a card game I loved, as well as the FF14 free company I'd been part of at the time. Someone who was, at one time, a good friend of mine misinterpreted something, and was so incensed by it, they took some things I said out of context and absolutely slandered me to the mod team of that community. (Yes, it actually is as bad as it sounds. I checked.) As a result, I was privately labeled some pretty nasty things, and shunted from their discord server without so much as a word. None of them would speak to me, none of them would even give me a chance to tell my side of things.

Obviously, that stung. A lot.

It had me pretty dejected about a lot of stuff, for a really long time. Probably why I mostly got off of here- I retreated to a different blog where there was less pressure (self-imposed) and more freedom for me to just, kinda, do whatever I wanted without fear or worry. I needed space and freedom to move myself around how I wanted for a while. And then that led to me feeling bad about not coming back here, which made me put off coming back here even longer... You see where this goes.

But at this point, it's been a year and a half. I'm pretty much over that fiasco, I haven't spoken to any of those people since, and they've evidently been content to leave it alone too, given I haven't had any mobs of angry pitchfork-wielding card game players coming after me.

And recently, Kako came back! She's RPing again and that's fun to see. I know a lot of you I've still been in contact with regardless, her included, so most of you probably are already aware of a lot of this stuff, but writing all this out is part of my process, so bear with it. The important thing is, after a lot of time and thinking about things, and seeing friends return to RPing and watching things happen from afar... God, do I want to get back into it with you all.

I very likely still won't be super active, but I'm going to at least try to be consistent. This is supposed to be my main, after all. I'll probably take the next week or so to clean up the muse list, cut a bunch of stuff, get a bit more focused and the like. Not that I'll actually stop playing any given muse- I'm wont to flip-flop between characters I enjoy, and I'm loathe to let fun interactions pass me by just because a character 'isn't on my muse list', but I ought to give myself a bit of structure, at least.

So... I'll try to be here every day, at least. Even if it's just to check in. This'll be a fresh start for me, I'd say, not that any of my old lore or whatever is getting abandoned. It's just... It's been a long time. It'll take some easing back into things for me, so I'm not even going to worry about whatever asks have been left to rot in my inbox, stuff like that.

Given it's been such a long time, some of you may... have blogs that I'm not currently following, cause I've missed them or what have you. So uh, if that's the case, please shoot me a message so I can correct that.

[ineedseveretherapy]

Worries, pt.2

Donnie found Kendra sitting on the rooftop of the apartment complex near the Wiki Mart, just like she said. He sat down next to her on the edge. She smiled when she saw him,

"Long time no see Von Ryan~"

"I saw you last week Kendra."

Kendra leaned over and bumped into him in a playful way.

"Your no fun"

"Yep."

They sat there in silence for a while, just staring out at the city.

"So.... I'm not good at this, talk about something, the silence is getting awkward."

"I went on that date."

"With that girl-what was her name.... Abby?-"

"Rebecca."

"Yeah-sure, whatever. How was it?"

Kendra lifted one of her legs and rested her arm on top of it.

"Meh... I don't think we really connected... How's Sheldon going?"

Donnie pulled up a log of his progress on rebuilding Sheldon. The log showed a full 3D model of the new Sheldon plus other science stuff that Kendra could understand but didn't care to read. Mostly test results.

"His new body is built and fully programed, i'm just having trouble accessing the memory chip, I was messing with it when you texted me."

"Hmm... do you have the chip with you?"

An arm sprung out of Donnie's battle shell, it was holding the memory chip. The arm dropped it into Kendra's hand, and she examined it as the arm retreated back into his battle shell.

"Hmm..."

Kendra fiddled with the little chip, it looked like a computer hard drive but fancier.

"How exactly did you build this to work?"

Donnie scooted closer,

"The chip's supposed store all of sheldon's memories inside it like a safe so to speak."

"Are you sure this will even activate his memories if you hook it up to his new body? Were the memories not destroyed with his old body?"

"No, see, I built it to protect the memories inside the chip, so incase the body was damaged the chip would activate a defense mechanism storing all the memories in the form of both code and video recordings inside so that all I would have to is take the chip, log into it and hook it up to a new body. But i'm having trouble getting into it."

He pointed to various spots on the chip as he explained.

"You got anything else in that shell of yours? I wanna try something."

Donnie had almost everything in his battle shell, at least the basics. He unlocked his battle shell and removed it from his back. The cold evening air brushed up against his soft shell sending a shiver down his spine. He set the shell down in between the two of them, pressed a button and suddenly it turned into a makeshift toolbox. Kendra took tools from it and tinkered with the chip. After about a couple minutes of silence a little buzzing sound came from the chip. Donnie's head jerked around at the noise and he saw the lines outlining the small little box glow a bright purple. Then suddenly a light, holographic, purple screen burst from the chip. Donnie could feel a weird knot in his chest as Kendra handed him the chip. He almost felt like he wanted to cry as he scrolled through all of Sheldon's recorded memories.

"It works..."

Donnie felt his eyes light up as he spoke, almost as if it was a dream. Another minute of the general shock went by before it eventually wore off and he turned to Kendra in disbelief.

"HOW DID YOU GET IT TO WORK!?"

She laughed a bit and then leaned back, putting her arms behind her as a support.

"I think watching you work in your Lab has really been a big benefit for me. I'm even better than you know!"

Donnie scoffed, as he continued scrolling through the code and recordings.

"Keep dreaming Kendra."

Kendra chuckled, she didn't actually believe she was better than him, not even close. While they're almost the exact same in intelect, she could never match, or even top, his mad creative genius.

"Your not the first one to be able to mess with my code in ways that I can't, especially not when it comes to Sheldon."

"Oh yeah? Who beat me to it then?"

"My brothers. They messed with Sheldon's coding a couple years ago, turned him against me, almost killed me."

"Damn, I can't believe your brothers did it before me!"

"You'd be surprised what they're capable of."

Donnie turned off the chip and set it beside him. He turned his head up to meet Kendra's gaze.

"Thank you."

Kendra was honestly shocked by the sincere apology. She knew that it was unusual for him to be so open, around her at least.

"Of course!"

Donnie pressed a button on his battle shell and it morphed back into it's original form. He locked it back onto his back and put the chip back inside. They sat there in silence for a couple minutes, just admiring the view of the city lights. To a normal person, the sight was very depressing, but they lived in the city, and to them, it was the prettiest sight they've ever seen. Donnie looked down at all the humans walking by, working, just living there life.

"It's so weird, it's like, the invasion never even happened. Everyone's just able to... go back to normal."

"..."

"Did you get in another fight with your brothers?"

Donnie groaned, he knew he was being to insightful for his own good.

"Just some stupid fight with Leo."

"What happened?"

"Nothing just-... Raph and him were being all protective towards each other, fighting over who would pick up food. Leo came in and vented to me about it and when I sided with Raph, he flipped out."

"Oh... Flipped out like, throwing stuff flipped out? Or screaming his ass off flipped out?"

"Called me an emotionless robot."

Donnie made his voice sound flat to hide the fact that it did actually hurt, he knew it'd probably be beneficial to just vent or something, but that didn't mean he wanted to.

"Oh! Jeez..."

"Whatever... I mean he's not wrong so I can't really be that mad at him, I guess..."

"Donnie-"

"Oh! Hey! I've been meaning to tell you."

Donnie pulled up a purple, holographic, screen on his wrist tech.

"I got a new request from some rich bloke in the Hidden City, wants us to do some tech work for his business."

Kendra leaned over to the see Email.

"How much is this guy paying?"

"Like $800"

Donnie's voiced had an amused tone to it and his response sent Kendra laughing hysterically.

"Yo-Your joking right? $800!?"

Donnie put the screen in her face, clear as day, the price said $800.

"No fucking way! This has to be a scam..."

Kendra took a couple more seconds to examine the Email, it seemed legit, well as legit as an Email could get, but that didn't always mean it was real. Donnie and her have had scam requests in the past before so, this wouldn't be their first time, but this request definitely looked a lot more professional than the scam ones. In full honesty, Kendra was intrigued.

"Wanna check it out?"

Kendra was mostly joking and Donnie knew he should've said no, he knew it was probably just a waste of time, but he noticed, just like Kendra, how professional this Email was for a "scam" job. But it wasn't just curiosity that compelled him, it served as a distraction. A distraction from the discourse and despondence that has plagued his home and his family.

"Fuck it, why not?"

Donnie stood up,

"You got your cloaking broach?"

Kendra pulled a choker out of her jacket pocket and put it around her neck. She tapped the blue stone attached to the choker and with a flash of blue light, Kendra changed from Human to Yokai. Her were gone and replaced with dark purple spikes that matched her scaly magenta skin, those same spikes also covered her upper and lower parts of arms, right near her hands and shoulders, her fingernails were replaced with claws with same dark purple that faded down her fingers and into the rest of her hands, her nose was replaced two little slits, and eyes were yellow, and her pupils sharp like a cat's, the only things that remained the same were her clothes and her hair.

"Ok, let's go."

For reference this is what her Yokai form looks like. :)

Anyways, the next part will be the final part in the chapter.

Pt. 1 | Pt. 3 | Masterpost

[escherstrange-ffxiv]

Because @lynxden somehow missed [this post], I am going to make up for it with a slightly longer, wordier post, because, well, nine years, folks.

This involved digging into my external HDD and Facebook for old pics since everything pre-SB was lost. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Feb 2015

When I finally jumped into the PS3 Free Trial (it only had 20 days playtime and would delete your chara if you didn't buy the game in 90 days so no meme) I was in a very shitpost-y mood, giggling during character creation.

Pink hair so healers could see him a mile away. Make pink his thing. Give him facial hair because SE men don't have enough facial hair. The scar is from a shaving accident (you can tell I don't shave).

There was no gpose function, only hide HUD but back then screenshots were only to show funny ingame things, not as a form of photography. He wore this robe for AGES because apparently no other gear was better.

2017

"What do you mean I have three lights and they all shine into his face- oh."

The first Gpose I put on IG! This is special because I read a guide that told me how to position lights.

And then I learned how to pretend he was taking a selfie. The world of Gpose was opening up.

I also removed Escher's facial hair because it didn't go with the Aymeric hair. Suddenly he was ✨handsome✨!

Oh no.

2019

Permanently free from my mother's voice in my head telling me to be a functional member of society, I dived into FFXIV with a gusto I never had in any other MMORPG in my life. I actively spoke to my FC, joined raids at 3 AM because EU, started looking up screenshots on Twitter wanting to replicate certain shots for practice.

And then the prevalence of shaders and mods hit me like a brick to my PS4.

A new feeling was born: Spite.

Spite converted my FC room into a studio. Spite that said I would take good shots from my PS4 as the biggest middle finger to anyone who said, "oh vanilla pics will never be good without shaders/mods".

Spite earned me almost USD 50 worth of Mogstation credit from winning screenshot contests so don't knock it until you've tried it!

Escher also turned into a Lala! Lalascher was suuuper cute but it made ingame relationships weird (their words, not mine) and I didn't like the jump animation so back to-

-I MEAN I BOUGHT A SET OF 3, MIGHT AS WELL USE IT?!

Catscher lasted even shorter than Lalascher. I REALLY couldn't stand the tail sticking out of everything, even long skirts (shouldn't a tail technically be under a skirt and pop out like a bustle or-).

2021

In 2019 my house burned down so I had to get an emergency laptop. I finally had a PC capable of playing games so I installed FFXIV on it...with Gshade.

But then stuff happened. You know, the point in every FFXIV player's life where interpersonal relationships affect their mental health. Yeah, that.

I resubbed wanting to use more shaders EXCEPT my laptop's framerate would drop to single digits if I activated anything above gameplay presets so my laptop was only used to log RP chats.

I still play on console because I can play on a big TV screen while still looking at Discord without the overlay wigging out on me. So if I take pictures in new expansions it's always going to be vanilla.

The spite had calmed down a LOT but I already knew what I was capable of. The next step was just figuring out more new and interesting shots.

I also went back to taking pictures of interesting things in game.

2022

I bit the bullet and built a PC. For Gshade. I am 100% serious. Then the whole Gshade thing happened but I ALREADY HAVE A NICE PC FOR THIS, YOU THINK SOME DRAMA IS GOING TO STOP ME? FOOL, SPITE IS MY BLOOD. (I use reshade now)

So have more vanilla pics!

Also Escher became a bani! He was very handsome but the lack of hats was a dealbreaker. Bunnyscher lasted 6 months and was incorporated into the lore as Campanella Strange, First of Their Name, who kicked Escher's soul into the lifestream and borrowed his body-

I'll stop here. Feel free to ask for more details.

Learning to use crime tools meant I could take an alt to JP studios and pose different characters in them. Guilty? Yes. Thrilling? Hell yes.

2023-2024

Aka "The Moon Years". That's it, that's all you need to know. Gosh, there sure are some beautiful clothes out there. Also Escher finally changed his hairstyle after...five years???

I will still die on the vanilla hill though.

Bonus shot of Escher's hairstyles:

And that's it! Thank you for reading the great wall of text, I hope you found it worth your time!

Tagging? I don't know, looks like everyone on tumblr has done this by now, but I'd tag @furys-mercy just because I'd like to see what Mercer looked like in the early days.

[i-sveikata]

Omg I just read your reply to the other user about your laptop and I felt bad for you … luckily you managed to recover everything because the mac turned back on (and let's hope it's just the battery). I've never been a big fan of the Cloud but I have to say that in some cases it could be useful, I use the few GB that Apple offers for free per month (at least in Italy) to keep just the texts or minimal things … but as always I almost had to lose something to look for resolutions. I'm happy that you found everything even the drafts (and I'm not just talking about your Lover VP) and that your work is safe .. keep it up … thanks as always!!!

Ahhh don’t be!! It’s a really old laptop like I’ve had it for 10+ years now it’s no surprise it’s getting to its last legs.

I was low key stressing once it started flipping out and just constantly rebooting so I couldn’t log in and retrieve my stuff but it calmed down enough that I could get all my writing off it before I took it to apple. Tbh if I had lost graveyards that’s would have been a HUGE set back for me because I have so much of it already written 😅 but thankfully I got it!!

But yeah kind of got the answer I was expecting when I took it to apple- it’s too old/ no point replacing the battery/ they hardly have any of the associated parts anymore for that specific version so the answer is I have to buy a whole new laptop. Which might take me a few weeks to afford because I also have my car service due atm 😭😭 but in the meantime the guy helped temporarily get it back online so I could extract everything from the laptop this time around so if it does die for good I won’t lose anything.

But yeah in the meantime I’ll just have to write in a notebook and transfer it once I get the new laptop no big deal! I did it before when I went on a trip so I could still write and not have to bring all the tech with me so it’ll be fine. I’m not ready to post again yet anyway so it won’t affect the posting timeline either- just mostly the inconvenience of it all. But hey I knew it was slowly dying out I just hadn’t got around to saving up for the replacement yet so it wasn’t really a surprise just my usual poor planing lmao.

Yeah honestly it is a good habit to get it saved in another place I’m not really a fan of the cloud but you’re so right I defs need to consider multiple options whenever I’ve got important docs I don’t want to lose. Luckily in this case I didn’t!! Universe was looking out for me today and was like damn this girl is unorganised but I gotchu hahahhaha

[minmin-vs-physics]

Hey! I’m gonna be a physics major next year, and I was wondering if the Mac and iPad combo have worked well for you, or if there’s something else you recommend tech wise?

short answer: yes.

but, im gonna use this has an opportunity to yap about my current study set up. this goes without saying, but what worked for me may not work for you, and my set up evolved over the years as i found what was best for me.

i use an iPad for lecture notes and homework. i think its the most organized you can get them to be without straight up LaTeXing the shit out of them (and i know people who do exactly that, more power to them)

i just write faster than i type, and an ipad allows me to copy paste equations and add photos and stuff which is helpful for diagrams. i use goodnotes 5, and i will sing its praises till the end of time.

i think it pays to develop a clear style for your homework and lecture notes, bc your work will be easier to navigate. here's an example of my lecture notes and my homework.

[hehe general relativity moment]

HOWEVER, you will mostly be having paper exams as a physics student so i recommend you don't get too reliant on your iPad. i tend to do all my studying in notebooks, or loose sheets that i can refer to. practice problems are always on paper.

[stat mech studying i did last week]

i started using legal pads for this from the end of junior year bc they're so convenient! im also incentivized by the stock our dept keeps in the mail room.

i have to do a lot of calculations for research and i prefer to do them on paper or a blackboard if it's something im reasoning out. idk it's so much easier to be stupid on paper than on goodnotes. ofc my research log is kept digitally, but i keep a binder with all my old calculations (both correct, and incorrect) along with my main reference papers.

[i was flipping through this just now and realised how much bs is in it.]

LaTeX is a good skill to have which i didn't realise until too late. if you have to write any paper that's remotely scientific, LaTeX is the way to go. none of that google docs bs.

i use both vscode and Overleaf for editing. i mainly just LaTeX my finalized research calculations into one big doc. it's much easier to show my advisor. also it looks cool.

i got a monitor when my laptop screen broke sophomore spring (something inside me broke as well that semester it was so fun). and if you have the option, i would totally recommend getting one. it's useful having a second/bigger screen.

i use mine for a bunch of things: coding, reading textbooks, genshin impact, Netflix, grading.

on the topic of textbooks, i use digital bc im cheap. but i do buy secondhand physical copies that i rarely reference, but keep around bc it doesn't hurt to start your hypothetical professor office bookshelf early. i only buy the ones i actually respect, like Peskin's Intro to QFT. but the digital copies are usually much handier. i keep an extensive digital collection of books and papers i might never need.

don't be like me keep your digital library more organized!

and yeah circling back to electronics! i use a Macbook Pro rn which has served me well. i guess things are different if you need to run solidworks or other specialized software, but you can always use the lab computers, so that was never a problem. i have an apple ecosystem bc im a slut for capitalism.. i mean i was already halfway there and now im just really used to it, so i like all my devices being friends with each other. my tip is always get more RAM than you thought you needed, and double the storage. but maybe that's bc im mean to my laptop and love hoarding files.

i also keep all my previous notes and printouts so may be i have an academic hoarding problem in general.

in the end, a mix of old school and new age technology bs works best for me!

thank you for your question! i hope this helps :)

[knickynoo]

McFly July Day 13: Campfire

Lone Pine timeline

Marty scooted closer to the fire, reveling in the warmth it provided in the chilly night air. He was bone tired from the day’s activities, and the thought of crawling into his sleeping bag sounded amazing. But he resisted, knowing full well that while his body was thoroughly exhausted, his brain hadn’t quite gotten the memo yet. It was still swirling with thought, pulling his attention in ten different directions at once.

The last time he’d sat by a campfire and slept outside, he’d been in 1885, his entire future hinged on one big decision and a fragile plan.  

Now he was home—or, at least, he was back—having spent a full day hiking and fighting to set up his expensive tent and collecting wood for the fire Dad and Dave built.

When his mom first casually mentioned the “annual McFly family camping trip,” he’d thought she was making a joke. He’d been camping a handful of times, but never with his family.

Never with his family.

Except these people were his family, and Mom hadn’t been joking. They’d all, minus him, reminisced about past trips on the drive to the campsite, unknowingly providing him with small pieces to add to the slowly growing mental puzzle of this timeline’s version of him. Of the life he did but didn’t live.

Last year, they’d had a race to see who could assemble a tent the fastest: parents versus kids. Mom and Dad had won.

Two years prior, it’d stormed so fiercely that they had to leave the first night and stay at a nearby motel.

Marty had learned that during their 1978 trip, he’d somehow managed to lose his balance during their hike and end up in the river—twice.

“You were like a little drowned rat,” Mom had said through a laugh. “Remember that, Marty?”

No, he didn’t. But he’d returned her laugh, along with the dozens of others shared during the car trip.

It all sounded nice, the stories they swapped. It sounded like the kind of stuff he’d longed for as a kid.

His quiet ruminations were interrupted as Linda dropped into the folding chair beside him. Even after a day spent out in nature, she still looked put-together, as if prepared for the possibility that she might have to hurry off to meet a date at any moment.

Linda bumped him with her shoulder. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You’ve been weird today.”

A chuckle worked it’s way from Marty’s throat at the blunt, but accurate, statement. He met his sister’s eyes, seeing the mixture of teasing and concern.

“Just today?” he asked with a smile.

“Weirder, I should’ve said,” Linda clarified. “What, are you too cool for these trips now?”

“No. I’m having fun.”

“Could’ve fooled me. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, Linda.” Marty held his hands out toward the dancing flames and focused on the heat and the crackling logs. He felt her gaze on him still—observing him as if he was some riddle to be solved. Some unknown specimen that needed dissecting.

Just as her staring approached unbearable, it stopped, releasing the tension that had been building in Marty’s chest. Linda reached into a bag beside her chair and pulled out a bag of marshmallows, a box of graham crackers, and some chocolate bars.

“Wanna make some double-decker s’mores?” She offered a wooden skewer to Marty.

Marty’s breath caught at her words—at the memory that they brought to the surface. Not from this timeline but from the old one. From his timeline. A memory of him, Linda, and Dave making double-decker s’mores over the stove on a rainy autumn night after their parents had gone to sleep. Of setting the marshmallows on fire and melting chocolate dripping onto the countertops and graham cracker crumbs scattered across the floor. Scrambling to clean it all up and leave no evidence of their late-night sugar fix.

Had that night happened the same way here? Or had it come about some other way, maybe even during one of their camping trips?

He supposed maybe it didn’t matter how, just that it did. That he’d found one of those rare connecting threads—woven through both timelines and providing him with a brief feeling of being anchored.

Giving him hope that, over time, maybe both his memories and this place would feel like home.

Marty took the skewer, then got to work helping Linda tear open all the packaging. He thought of the stories he’d heard of past trips, how he’d had nothing to contribute or look back on fondly along with his family. Maybe he’d never gain any memories, though he hoped he would, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to make some new ones of his own.

[halfcourtyeet]

This Week's News, 3/22 (And SRPG Dev Lore)

Hey. I'm going to try posting regularly on what I'm working on creatively. It's always very satisfying to show my friends, but now I'm wondering if I ought to keep a log of it.

We'll see if this pans out, but here's some stuff in the meantime.

I went to GDC

(pretend there's a photo here. I hit the image limit on Tumblr.)

It was awesome. Those who know me have probably seen the photos of me with Tarn Adams and Derek Yu. It was a seriously great event, much more chill this year than usual. I feel like I met less people, but made stronger connections overall.

If it wasn't 11:30 at night I'd draw a picture of bunny me with Tarn.. I wonder what Tarn Adams' fursona would be. Let me know if you're reading this.

I've really enjoyed getting to know devs in the Bay Area. Since I came home in September it's felt really lonely, but in the last few weeks, it seems like everything changed, and I couldn't be more grateful.

This DOOM level's coming along

This is like a 15-20 minute level. That's a pretty long level. If you look closely, you can see I'm revealing a secret to you when you play it.

I'll be releasing on Doomworld, most likely. It's not my first foray into DOOM either, as I made a 5-level WAD in 2020. As a summer project, it was really my first attempt at doing a somewhat long-term project in games, since it took (to my memory) 2-3 months.

Concept Album is coming along, too

Damn that's blurry lol. Sneak peek of some of the collage I'm doing for an album cover.

I didn't do much music work this week, but I am still working on my concept album. A lot of it was just talking to people about it at GDC, without revealing too much.

To be honest, I've been listening to a lot of great songwriters lately, and it's making me want to rewrite a lot of the raps on my album.

What is the album about? I can't say. It's very personal and introspective, and kind of about light vs. dark.

If it wasn't for the damn concept album I'd be working on my SRPG again

You go, girl!!

I learned so much over the past few weeks, not just from my new pal Nathaniel Jones, but from plenty of other people about Game AI and how to make a strategy RPG.

For context, when I return to this midway through the year (assuming things are still stable enough to just work on games), It'll be my... technically 5th attempt lifetime to make a Strategy RPG engine.

You know, I almost feel like showing you each of the 4 times I tried to make a strategy RPG. Next week's blog isn't gonna be nearly as long, I'm letting myself have that.

Attempt 0

So this all started when my Game Systems professor had us play a game called the Battle of Dan-no-Ura. It was an old Japanese electronic board game, and we were assigned to make mods for it. In many ways, it was like a strategy RPG. All units moved on one team's, then another. There were some really cool mechanics related to movement advantage based on turn (water flow) and zone-of-control. Our mods involved a "comeback" system and cards that increased the "drama" by having certain things happen.

But the whole project got me back into Fire Emblem. I played most of the remake of the first game on SNES on our apartment's big-screen TV, while my roommate watched. And to be honest? Aside from a few really tough missions, I felt like it super held up. The simple gameplay, vibrant graphics and strong cast of characters (now considered archetypal and serving as blueprints for many future characters in the series) drew me back into the series in a way I didn't know was possible. I had finished Fire Emblem for the GBA back in 2022, and always enjoyed Advance Wars as well... And spent dozens of hours in Final Fantasy Tactics, which is my favorite game of all time... Maybe I should have seen this coming.

Well, what came next was, my Game Programming Patterns professor wanted us to do some sort of topological grid-based game for a programming patterns final. It didn't even have to be a game- it just needed a few specific criteria like a domain-specific language (DSL) in the code (internal or external), and a few other features like on-the-fly translation. This build doesn't seem to have any of that, but you can see what started to form.

Attempt 1

Going into my capstone in the second of the 3 quarters of the school year, I really wanted to try to do an SRPG, but with in-battle gardening mechanics. Here's one of the only prototypes we made, and that it's broken should tell you something about how things were going otherwise.

Attempt 2

Started from scratch and achieved the most pedestrian gameplay in a 6-day solo coding marathon. Proud of how fast I worked, but it fell apart fast. This was in like, the last two weeks of that capstone class, which is not when you want to barely be getting something running based off of someone else's tutorial.

I have a lot of thoughts about these first two attempts, but it's getting late and I'll have to go over them someday. But yeah, overscoping and boilerplate and not knowing architecture or doing enough research on architecture, will burn you bad. Also burning out will burn you bad. I burnt out super hard in the middle of my senior year of college.

Attempt 3

This was after I got home in September, and is built out of Attempt 2's code. Okay, this also deserves its own like, separate article, because I started trying to do video devlogs during this time, but once again, burnt out hard. Still trying to do Fire Emblem with plants though.

Gave up, burnt out again, released a PICO-8 game on Steam, and now we're in the present.

Attempt 4

Yeah, they're from an asset pack- but man, do those characters look spiffy! And behind the scenes, started writing a story i was really excited about. But of course, things went south again.

The new issue I ran into on my latest attempt was trying to polish too much before I got the bread-and-butter (Enemy AI, pathfinding, equipment, etc) working. Also just did the architecture in ways that are really frustrating to debug. This is about when I met Nathaniel Jones from above, who has been absolutely cooking at making the same sort of game, and has been incredibly generous in sharing a dialogue with me, and giving me tips for how to code all these damn systems.

Lately I've been talking with Nathaniel about SRPG dev extensively. Since I'm on break from actually working on an SRPG right now, I've just been figuring out how to ambiently plan to do it next time, which will be technically the 5th attempt. But only once this album is done. So, that's where I'm at.

Thanks for reading through all that. Remember: Fall down seven times, stand up eight.

Let the sauce of the JPEG drape over your eyes.

[wakraya]

My Experience With Roblox

Hey! Hi! Hello! I have just gone through some pretty frustrating stuff and I wanted to share some experiences I've had with the Scam Formerly Known As Roblox.

So let me tell you a little bit of a story.

Back in the day I used to be a small Roblox Creator. And when I say 'back in the day', I mean like a decade ago, before a lot of the current extremely shady monetization and exploitation practices weren't implemented yet. And mind you, there WAS the 'Builder's Club' and there was Buying Robux, but it wasn't as blatant, and you still had Tix as the Free Currency.

Roblox was a place where I found quite the community. I was still not all that good at English, and it was through interacting with others that I pretty much taught myself to speak English. I met some of my longest-lasting friendships, I had my first Hyperfixation... Hell- It even introduced me to Homestuck!

But then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

And by the Fire Nation, I mean that Roblox updated something that broke several of the scripts inside of my game. It dropped without warning, without a Legacy option, and forced Creators to simply adapt and update. Now, it wasn't even anything too big- I believe all I had to do was add 2 lines of code to my scripts, and they'd be fixed.

But, you see. I was inspired to make my own place, because of the work of other Creators. A major inspiration, in fact, was a pretty legendary Bleach Fighting Game, whose... Maker hadn't been on in years.

That was the day I learned the words 'Backwards Compatibility' and realized that Roblox had unceremoniously broken a lot of classic things that now had no repair. Alongside security concerns and the increasing monetization of the place, I decided to simply leave and never look back.

... A few years back, I got an email, telling me that there'd been a successful login to my account.

I quickly got in, changed my password to complete nonsense, reiterated my distaste for the state of the site, and left.

I didn't think much of this event for half a decade, but today. Today I was trying to see if I'd gotten a verification email from a different thing, and I ended up rummaging my Spam Folder, only to find someone writing an email... Asking, politely, for trading of some of the limited items left on my archaic account.

Unsure if this was a scam or not, and wondering what 'cool' items I even could've had in my inventory (Apparently I've got some unique octopus that sells for 22K Robux or something? Shrug-) I decided to log into the site, and... Just on a whim, I checked my messages.

Every single message for the last several years going back were just scams, which truly speaks volumes to how the site had developed. But, more importantly. Going further back, I found people asking me to please come back, and fix the game... Or. 'Make it free'.

...

Apparently. Apparently. In the time I got hacked years ago. Before whoever did it changed my email or password. They had, effectively. Updated my old game, with a message that 'it was back', and monetized it.

Apparently for the past few years I've gotten an insignificant but existent stream of Robux from some poor kids or nostalgic people trying to get back into my game.

I immediately went to try and fix things, only to realize there were no Options to remove the 'pass', and I couldn't find a way to remove the monetization, either.

Now. Mind you. I was doing this on the Browser. Maybe from the client it would've been better, easier, and clearer, but let me tell you- I have not. Seen. SUCH a Hostile UI in my entire life trying to just. FIND what to do to stop this from happening, and eventually I just. Opted for privating and taking down the game entirely. It's broken anyway, after all.

Following that I tried to make a statement on the description of my account, only to see, in horror, that my 1000 word message turned entirely into ####### because apparently I'd written one too many banned terms, because I was, in fact, talking about my account getting hacked, and monetization.

I tried writing a few other messages, and I swear, that was one of the most aggressive content filters I've seen in my ENTIRE life. 'Consent', 'Whole', and several other completely innocent terms just constantly eaten by the censorship algorithm, making writing a new description one of the genuinely most frustrating experiences I've ever had with any website online.

So. I guess. There's not much I want to say here. I am mostly venting about what an awful, awful experience this whole thing is, but like... Seriously. The hacking and security was rampant back then, and I doubt it's any better now. Even if it was, the sheer scope of the scams and exploitation that this... Service is even allowed, is genuinely a Late-Capitalism Nightmare.

Anyway, that was a wretched experience, and as nostalgic as I am for Those Days, and as sure as I am that there's people who still love Roblox and who have made incredible friends through it...

That... Thing... Is a monument to Humanity's Hubris, and shouldn't exist-

[mdhwrites]

Hi can you please do anthro cutie mark crusaders bimbofication story

So I have good news and bad news for you! The good news is I HAVE done one of those actually! At least somewhat. Good Slut Charm is one of MANY MLP fanfics I did back when I did them. It is admittedly seven years old but it exists which is the good news.

Here is the bad news: I don't do MLP fanfiction anymore. I don't even condone some of what I have on my old account anymore now that I'm older and wiser and just away from all of that. The big reason though is that when I broke from Fimfiction, I kind of needed it to be clean. I got to a point there where worrying about how well a story did would put me into a panic everytime I released one and I kept having stories that kept being responded with "So when is chapter two?" instead of anyone ever appreciating what was there for the one offs. It drilled into my brain in a really unhealthy way and I haven't been back properly for over four years. The last time I logged on was to remove some stuff I REALLY couldn't condone anymore, minus like one of that sort of story that was commissioned from me.

It's not helped either that my final memory of the community was everyone crawling out of the woodwork to wish me the best, say how much they loved my work, stuff like that... And the one MLP story I ever converted to original work not selling even a single copy. In fact, that entire week, I didn't sell a single book. People were very happy about the amount of content I made but that words were where any support they gave me stopped. That's fine, I don't demand buy my works, but when you are going to treat me like a content mill purely for your free pleasure, only ever demanding more, until the moment I leave...

It feels bad and so I'm just not really interested in going back. Sorry. Thank you for the request though! I'm always happy to at least consider it if anyone else ever wants to pitch me something.

[nothing0fnothing]

I want to tell a story about financial abuse and how I experienced it at different points in my life while being abused by narcissistic unfit parents and later my abusive ex partner.

This instance happened when I was 20 years old and freshly graduated from university.

I was living with my mum in the short term while I worked and waiting for my graduate course to begin. I only agreed to stay with her because she had told me she was in active therapy and she promised me living with her would be different this time.

It lasted for less than two weeks before we were back to her rage outs and her vile comments. But I'd just moved all my stuff in and it was only 3 months so I decided to stick it out.

One of her promises when I first agreed to move in was that she didn't expect me to pay rent. It's a massive faux pas in our culture to expect your adult children to pay rent to live with you and its not like my mother was hurting for money, so I believed her.

Four weeks before I was set to leave I lost my job. It wasn't a big deal. I had enough savings to get me to uni and a little extra for the short term.

My mum started to ask when I planned on getting another job. I told her probably after I enrolled in my course since I would only be in the city a few weeks now. She didn't like that. She told me that she had changed her mind, and now rent was expected in return for me living with her, and if I didn't have a job by end of week she'd evict me.

Obviously this was a fucking nightmare. Nobody was willing to hire somebody for 3 weeks and the jobs that would were scammy and predatory as fuck. My mum took my savings as "back rent" and made clear that the rent was not enough, I needed to be in 40 weekly hours of employment to live in her house.

Then, after days of constant abuse and horrible-ness she came to me with a new ultimatum. She had just joined a MLM scam and needed a downline. I could agree to be her downline or I could move out tomorrow.

I spent the last of my savings on the cheapest "starter kit" she offered and the next part of the job was to reach out to everyone on my Facebook friends list to offer them product. It was embarrassing and demeaning. It felt like I was begging people for money.

Over the last weeks I lived with my mum my routine was to be up into the early morning on facebook watching "inspirational" livestreams that the company broadcast from the other side of the world. I'd then sleep till no later than my mother's alarm to "network" (ie, sit on Facebook joining community groups) eat lunch, run errands then log back into Facebook to advertise the product to strangers until the companies started it's livestream at midnight my time. Where I'd take notes for my mother who'd gone to bed.

According to my mum I made £700 of sales that week. I never saw a penny of it. I was exhausted and I felt horrid about the whole situation, but it's not like I had a minute free to process my feelings. I was even expected to cancel my own therapy sessions while this was happening.

Three days before I was set to leave, my mum had a massive blow up at me and my sister. I'd "done something wrong" on the marketing side, caused Facebook to freeze our accounts.

It started at 7am. My mum screaming at my sister and slamming doors woke me up. Then the sound of her stomping down the corridor, punching the walls on her way down. Then she was in my room calling me a cunt and a bitch and stupid and god knows what else. I sat up and looked at her sleepily, but I could tell all she wanted was for me to be terrified like I was as a little girl, and I wasn't going to give it to her.

"You've stopped all the work" she raged at me "we can't work now we can't sell and it's all your fault."

"So what do you want me to do about it?" I said.

To be honest, I didn't and still don't accept that it was my fault. I think we were just joining a mass number of Facebook groups and advertising tat in them, obviously enough people had reported me for Facebook to take action. I wasn't going to jump through hoops to apologise for what any MLM scammer will tell you is a risk of the trade.

"What can you do? You've lost your own job, you've cost me mine, you're swanning off to university this week and you've left me with all this."

"Well if there's nothing I can do there's nothing I can do." I said plainly.

She mimed smacking me then said in a snarl I know she tried her best to seem menacing "you're not too old for a beating you know."

I laughed in her face.

She'd tried to beat me 2 years before when I was 18. I defended myself and she didn't like that, she came out of it just as bruised as I did and she never tried it again. She obviously thought that me being broke and sleep deprived would change the situation in her favor. We never found out because she stormed off angry.

I spent the last two days there with my sister. We went shopping and drinking and had a good time. I told her my flat would be waiting for her when she was 18 and legally able to move out. It was a good send off, all things considering.

When I left I left behind the untouched starter pack. My mum sold it for £15 on ebay. She never apologised to me, she never admitted she was in the wrong. If the attempted beating when I was 18 put us on the path to the relationship we have now, this 3 month experience living with her cemented it. I was open to an apology for years afterwards, but she didn't think I was owed one. Eventually I just stopped expecting it to come. I'm not going to forgive someone who isn't sorry.

[trgdaily]

Happy Anniversary, IDOLiSH7!

Alright! A bunch of stuff got announced to celebrate the series' 8th anniversary today, so lets break down the most important things regarding our favorite group, TRIGGER!

You've probably heard this stuff already but hey. I do what I want and I'm making this post anyway.

First up, let's get all the smaller 8th Anniversary stuff out of the way! Plenty of stuff has been changed and announced to help bring the series into its latest era, and all of it is very exciting!

Special Anniversary visuals by the series' main character designers have been shared and released!

... Also I feel like it's worth noting that Arina-sensei has made it clear that we've reached TRIGGER's numbers in terms of anniversaries, and that reflects in her art. Meaning, maybe it'll reflect in other things too...?!

The game is hosting weekly free 11-pulls which bring back Heavenly Visitor, Wish Voyage, Kiseki, Music in Your Thoughts, and Light Future cards! On top of that, there's a log-in bonus for nanakores and 80 Stellar Stones in total!

The game has been refreshed with a few new features like notifications on screen when you get a message from an idol/manager, more idol storage, and even special voice lines that play before a live, after an auto live finishes, and if you manage to full-combo the song. The "hey, there's an event going on" home screen line has been replaced, too, thank fuck.

A new Namjatown collab has been announced that covers the idol in glowy clothing!

The official website has been completely overhauled including brand-new bios for the idols!

Now, onto the really fun stuff...

Shuffle Units are back!!

As part of the yearly anniversary story, we're finally getting Shuffle Units including Re:vale and ZOOL! As of Producer Letter 26, it's been confirmed that these units will be themed and have special songs for each, but the themes haven't been shared yet! We may have to read the two-part story to find out!

Part 1 will release September 5th, and Part 2 will release September 15th! It won't be voiced, though. Voice acting will come at a later date.

Kuji Memorial Video & Cards!

What's likely the most surprising thing of all for the anniversary is that it's big surprise looks back on all of the dramas IDOLiSH7's cast have starred in over the last seven years - down to releasing an animated memorial video that covers everything from La Danse Macabre to the Last Dimension musical! There's a lot of shots of TRIGGER to spot, so if you haven't seen it yet, go watch it! It's pure emotional eye candy!

On top of that, the yearly revival gacha deals with it, too, featuring special UR cards that focus on specific scenes from Mechanical Lullaby, i7 Police, Hoshimeguri (now known in English as The Stargazer?), Karatoga, La Danse Macabre, Mission (Yamato's movie from Part 3), and BLAST! (Part 5 drama)

The best part is all the old cards, including the same kujis shown here, are in these pulls, too! Best of luck if you try to bring them home!

Producer Letter #26 Takeaways

As is tradition with i7 anniversaries, there's a new Producer Letter that goes over what the current and future plans for the series are that has a few interesting tidbits fans should be aware of! I'll break it down, but if you can, I suggest reading it in your own time.

The team is still figuring out what exactly comes "beyond the period" in terms of the story, so no updates on that just yet.

They're wanting to do another 16 person live, but they're trying to book a "difficult venue" so many fans can see it. Some fans believe this to be a hint that they're trying to book the Tokyo Dome. 😱 But 16 person live isn't an impossibility!

They've implies that they're working out international distribution and screening for the recent movie Beyond the Period! So sit tight if you haven't gotten a hold of it for yourself yet!

That's about it! Pretty damn big anniversary, isn't it?! Let's enjoy it to the fullest and keep supporting TRIGGER and their friends!!

Happy anniversary!! 🤍💖💙

[hotdamnmadison]

Well geez. A year sure does fly by pretty quick, huh?

I feel a bit rusty - haven't blogged, journal'd, or yelled from a rooftop in quite a long time. Try and stick around for the ride (if you're reading this... or maybe I'm writing it for myself).

For those of you who care to doomscroll - you'll see that I took a hiatus from Tumblr, and from a lot of things. I wrote a pinned post (since swapped for this one), detailing all of the things I intended on working on. Finances, Mental State, Physical State, and Sexual Frustrations.... Here is how I made out.

Number one: I wasn't careful enough with my other self and unfortunately I was caught red handed at the beginning of this year. It got pretty messy and I've essentially tossed out my fem side. the 60/40 split male to female is now 100% male. No more panties, no more wigs.... all gone... more on this later (though if you disappear now I wouldn't blame you).

Finances - ugh... up and down. Currently down but never count me out. I won't bore anyone with the deets. Just know that my job relies heavily on my activity and effort. And I've dumped a ton of time into it. I am hoping to see the fruits of that labor very soon.

Mentally - Day by day I think. Today - not great. When I'm doing the things that I enjoy doing I'm obviously distracted and life is manageable. Pressures from work, bills, money, blah blah blah. Typically human stuff.

Physically - probably the only real bit of good news is in this section. No alcohol since early March, and fuck me has it been hard. Multiple weddings, parties, holidays, and free days where I could've bought a 12 pack or bottle if I really wanted to. But I didn't. And I haven't. And I won't. I've been running, exercising, and even competing a bit. I'm not binge drinking every day, and my body thanks me for it. Sleeping better. Waking up earlier. Not hungover all the time. Feels good.

Sexually - Yeah, again to reiterate the above I got busted stashing clothes and experimenting. Truthfully, it could've gone worse - but it was still ugly nonetheless. I'm really not experimenting at all these days. But every now and then - the days of old slip back into my mind. Hence why I logged back in today. I remember the parts of "madi" that I enjoyed (not the booze, not the secrecy)... I just loved being someone else for a while.

All in all - I'm alive and well for those who care to inquire. I had a lot of big plans back in December of last year. And honestly, I'm heading in the right direction for a lot of those goals... I'm not quite there yet. But I feel like I'm progressing little by little. And that has to count for something.

I felt semi guilty signing on and writing this - because it felt like sexual relapse. But as I'm writing and the thoughts are pouring out, I realized something. I'm allowed to have a fucking journal - and I'm allowed to have a private blog. I'm allowed to have a safe space. And I'm allowed to be here.

This doesn't mean I'm going to be super active on here, but I may sign on and enjoy my blog every now and again. Maybe relive some old posts, discussions, and see how may of you goobers are still active. Maybe I'll see how much of what I used to say and do I still actually agree with. Or maybe I'll be gone for another year. To be honest I really don't have a clue. And that's fine.

One day at a time, Madi. One day at a time. ❤️