#I'll be releasing the list itself super early

[spoopy-but-safe]

It is currently late June, and I'm already stoked for Halloween.

So, I want to gauge interest.

Please reblog for visibility, I'll stick with it if enough people are interested!

[theycall-vn]

About "They Call"

In depth information regarding They Call will be shared as soon as testing starts; until then, the content will remain a secret.

If you have any general questions that aren't answered below, asks are open, and I will answer as much as I can.

(Real information regarding vn will be added to this with the release of the demo!)

Release date: To be determined.

FAQ below cut:

Why keep the information to yourself?

To be blunt, I'm paranoid. I do not want someone to find and use any of the work I've put into this before I can even put it together. I will give sneak peeks through development, but they will be very small sneak peeks.

Theme?

They Call is both dark and not? The story itself is dark, but it's intended to be balanced out by... mundane fluff. Both with and without the other main.

Who is the other main?

They have been called the guardian, protector, and BB, now officially named. I will continue to call them BB and I'll be tucking their name away from public posts. I'm doing this so it can be a silly little surprise for you to discover when you play!

Anyway, they are the (entirely optional) love interest. You can develop the relationship you have with them any way you want - you can even complete the story as total strangers that vaguely tolerate each other's company!

Are there bad ends?

Technically, yes, but it has nothing to do with the relationship you have with BB. There are a lot of bad ends, and I do mean a lot.

What about other endings? Any "true" ends?

Without getting too into it, there is more than one. The good ends are all the same in that they are all the "true" end. They're merely... flavoured by your choices throughout the story.

18+?

Yes, this game is definitely 18+! Not just because of the (optional) sexual content, but also because the story itself can get very heavy, gory, and generally unpleasant. At current, I'm unsure how bad it's going to be. It's already very dark, but it's still super early in development. Content warnings will be clearly displayed once I'm able to list them all!

When can we expect sneak peeks and updates?

I am working on this entirely alone. I'm writing, programming, and making all the art for it (characters, backgrounds, CGs) on my own. Which, obviously, is going to take me a super long time. Especially considering this is my first time ever making something like this! Basically, you'll get sneak peeks when you get them - sorry it's not a more concrete answer!

How much will it cost?

After giving it some thought, I've decided to keep it free. On Itch.io, anyway. There will be an optional payment thing, of course. Only $3, (the price may change) seeing as this is the first time I've ever done this.

But! If things go well, I'm happy with the finished product, and I can drum up the courage, I will put it on Steam too. (if they'll let me) But that one will not be free - same price as whatever the optional Itch payment is.

What inspired this?

In truth, it started with a (literal) dream. (You can find out more about this dream in the very first progress post!)

It was dark, violent, and I could see BB and the UI used perfectly. So I made it a reality. I will also mention that most of this is written as catharsis, using my mind and mental struggles as inspiration and creative fuel.

In terms of technicalities, though, I was inspired by my favourite visual novels. That specifically being story structure and how you develop the relationship you have with the other main.

FAQ will be edited as time goes on.

As I said, if you have any more questions, (or even suggestions based off the "progress" posts) do not hesitate! Asks are open and will remain open. I'll answer as soon as possible.

Progress posts are not structured currently, they're mostly rambling about what I did or thought about that day. I might structure them and make them less... my brain flavoured as time goes on.

Important tags: - theycallvn (general tag) - theycallvn progress post (progress posts - what i've worked on) - theycallvn peek (sneak peek tag - writing & art) - theycallvn chat (ask tag)

If you'd like to keep track of future projects, you can follow @chasm-critter-studios (link)

[featherymainffins]

Haha yeah, it's been a bit of time!!! I think I'm doing fairly ok, had some trouble with university and also went no-contact with my mother and i have a tattoo now (got it for my birthday lol). How about you, are you doing well : D?

I wouldn't call it impressive but it's pretty fun when it's not infuriating dkshkjdhk. What will be impressive will be the moment I finally manage to play the waltz I composed some time back correctly. I keep fucking it up even though the melody is really easy. Oh that reminds me, I have no idea if I ever posted my new ukulele, whom I call Henry, to Tumblr? I got him for Christmas because I really wanted a wooden ukulele but of course I had to customise it, and I know that I have showed him to people on Discord but unsure about Tumblr because it's possible I deleted before that. And no, it isn't a secret jdkfhkdjf. I've just been modding Baldur's Gate 3 since like early December and at first I was like "I'll just make one single head so that my characters is accurate and then I'll stop." and um yeah I have not yet stopped. I'm mostly making heads both my own and just making pre-existing but unusable heads usable for players (which can be either a nightmare or easy breezy depending on why exactly it isn't usable. Like nightmare nurse heads? A breeze, easy as hell, at least resculpted their ears for all races as to avoid the task being too low effort lol. Oh yeah the textures sucked hell but like the 3d models themselves were fine. On the other hand...Gerringothe Thorm? Awful, no good, a horrifying experience, would do it again but yeah I wouldn't recommend. That is because she is a monster and naturally does not use the same skeleton as humanoid characters nor is her UV map anything close to normal and her textures sucked and Chainner was not available when I was making her meaning I don't even remember how the hell I upscaled those textures but I did and it was a nightmare. So yeah.), but sometimes I also make armour if I have a particular vision. I post some progress stuff and general BG3 modding stuff on my sideblog @featherymuffins-moi (long story but when i started making mods i jokingly wrote moi, meaning me in French, in the author field that mods have and then I forgot to remove it when I decided to publish the mod so ever since then I'm "featherymuffins - moi" on Nexus) if you wanted to take a look but I haven't posted much there, you can see more of my stuff on Nexus, but I also have some stuff that's private for now that I haven't really posted, usually because it isn't really super release-ready yet or because I keep forgetting about it but I can show you some photos of, for example, Wrestling, which is a head/character I made like a week ago and proceeded to make armour for them immediately. I haven't posted Wrestling as a head anywhere yet because...idk...

Yeah, I was just mentioning the Toymaker analysis specifically because that is something I really want to do and I feel kinda bad about how I seem to be incapable of doing it in a decent time frame? Like I feel like the list of my tasks/projects/hobbies keeps getting bigger and never gets any smaller dsfsfsf.

Right, right, right, so I'm actually not sure if I was posting about it before I deleted or if I finished the book only afterwards, but around New Year's I read this book by Stephen King called Dreamcatcher, and uh, it's very difficult to recommend because the ending sucks shit. But if you ignore like 5 sentences that completely ruin everything and pretend they do not exist then it's a good book. So that's what I do. Funnily enough I do not like it for the plot, the plot is in itself fairly unremarkable, but I like the themes present and the execution of them. Like what is actually going on is your typical sci-fi horror stuff and is cool I guess but what I like way more than that is the psyche of the characters and who plays what role in the narrative etc etc. The book is long, has about 700 pages, I do have a PDF if you're interested (I have a physical copy but I'm in the process of analysing my fucked up idiot meow meow and it's a real damn hassle to analyse characters when you have to flip through pages and can't just skip to your highlights you know? So that's why I also have a PDF now.). There are also audiobook versions. I do not know if they're good. I hope they are because I would actually like to listen to one later. I can provide a link to at least one.

And this is getting like real long so I should cut it off but just a bit of info about the character whom I'm like insane about, the only problem is that he's hard to talk about because the themes, they do slap way goddamn harder when you do not expect them. But the total basic gist is: the freak in question is called Mr. Gray and he's an alien from what was an alien hivemind before the rest got absolutely annihilated in a battle, and he's just,,,,he's so everything. You know how that one meme is kinda like "Stop giving me your toughest battles I am not your strongest soldier I am your weakest soldier." or whatever the counter-meme to "God's strongest soldier" was like? Yeah well he's definitely the aliens' weakest soldier. I'm willing to bet the whole hivemind cluster that go to Earth was the race's weakest soldier. They have to be from alien Florida or something. It's also really funny how he like almost always says complete bullshit? Like sometimes it's really funny because he'll be like "Hmmm yes well you see unlike the primitive human race that cannot be considered sentient, we truly think and aren't weighed down by these 'emotions' of yours." and in the next breath he'll be like "We came to Earth because your mom. Lmao." When he doesn't want to answer a question truthfully he'll either just ask you a question or he'll say something that is so clearly either a lie or a straight up shitpost. Alien fungi is funnier than some Tumblr users for real sdkjhsfkss.

But that's just the absolute basic gist that doesn't say anything but if you would like to hear more about the alien I can definitely talk at length about like everything about him including the themes, I just didn't want to talk about him too much in this reblog because it's,,,,so long jksdhskjdhk.

Hey! How have you been? Sorry for disappearing, I deleted my Tumblr for a bit and then I uh forgot to remake it because I was 3D modelling in Blender for 3 months and learning how to code. Long story. I still haven't done the analysis of the Toymaker that I promised back in December. So there is that. But the good news is that I am not currently spending my days 3d modelling all day every day, which does actually make the possibility of me ever doing an analysis much more possible.

Also I might have a book recommendation for you. I have been recommending it to literally everyone around me lol. It has weird little men. Who are fucked up and pathetic but in a bit of a cute way? Depends on what genres of books you like tho. There is also an audiobook version if you prefer that. Oh and a film adaptation but that one...well...it is technically a good adaptation but it also kinda completely glosses over any of the deeper themes. Like yeah the plot is very faithful. No themes present though. Not sure about the quality of the audiobook but I personally want to listen to it later because I want to see what direction they took my favourite freak's voice in.

Anyway, I hope you are doing great!

Ira oh my goodness you're ALIVE!!! 🙈💖💖💖 hello my dear friend, how are you doing? it's been so long!! 🥰 ooh wow, sounds like you've been super busy!! please don't worry at all - real life can always pull us away from our Internet sillies, but i'm so glad you've been doing something so interesting with your time!! 3d modelling in Blender and coding is so impressive - are you working on something specific, or is it a secret? 😉 oh pal, don't worry about the Toymaker analysis at all! if i had a penny for every time i've said i'll do a fandom-related thing and then didn't, i'd be very rich indeed 😂 if the mood strikes you i would be delighted to see it, but don't let fandom fun become another job, you know? :3c ohoho i am very curious about this book recommendation - what is it? 👀 you know i love weird little men!!!! and it's always fun to see what gets other people fixating hahaha i'm so glad you're back buddy!! welcome home, settle in, and i hope to talk to you more soon 🙏💖

[anotherdayforchaosfay]

Yay! Husband is picking up some GF pot pies for me! Just pop them in the oven and wait. O think he may pick up some GF egg rolls for me too. They turn out beat when deep fried, but I'm scared af about trying or using the deep fryer. Thankfully, he is not.

I also took my edible two hours early. On an empty stomach. I'll be silly soon. Let's see how successfully I play Crusader Kings 3, shall we?

Oh, yeah, it's available on XBox. I have Game Pass, wo playing it for damn near free. Humankind will be on XBox next month, and it's a personal fav of mine. Free via Game Pass, but if you preorder, you'll get all sorts of goodies. I preordered because I know it's gonna be good. My computer hates Humankind, I have no idea how to physically upgrade my PC (nor am I gonna try seeing as I'm likely to fuck things up), otherwise I would because I loooooove gaming. Yes, there are games safe for epilepsy.

Ooooo! Husband just texted to let me know he's gonna get egg rolls for me. Nomnomnom! These things are HUGE. Gods, I love that so many more GF foods are becoming available and more affordable. I have celiac disease; eating even a single bite of something containing gluten will wreck my body and take weeks to recover. Oh, what do I mean by wreck my body?

Vomiting - if I'm very lucky, this will happen immediately and prevent things from getting too severe

Gut swells up - I look six month pregnant when this happens. My intestines swell up, and will stay that way for several weeks. This leads to more problems.

Malnourishment - because my intestines are swelled tf up, they cannot absorb nutrients from what I eat.

Diarrhea - again, from swollen intestines. No joke, I lived on the toilet for a week. Slept on it too. It was about every 10 minutes that my body just...emptied itself. Pepto bismol had no positive effect; all ot did was make everything black. I ate rice and drank water. The rice came out about looking like it had just been chewed. I opted not to eat anything on day six because it felt like I was shitting glass. When I was finally able to get to the hospital, the dr informed me that I should eat unripe bananas when this starts again. They were considered the "cure" for years and treated like a super food. He also told me to get the diaper rash medicine called Monkey Butt. That stuff is AMAZING and will destroy your underwear.

Seizures - my seizure medication isn't absorbed because of my intestines. Comes out looking the same as it did going in. For that week on the toilet, I crushed my pills, as suggested by my neurologist, so I could get something out of them. The pills have a thick coating in them because they're extended release. Without treatment, epilepsy is terminal.

Dehydration - do you know how difficult it is to stay hydrated when dealing with severe diarrhea? Dehydration is deadly! Gatorade is the only thing that kept things from getting to that point.

Rash - this is a weird one. I had this symptoms for two years, but none of the more recognizable ones listed above. The rash was symmetrical on both sides of my body and looked like oozing blisters. It itched beyond description. I had it on my knuckles, the sides of my breasts, along the lower half of my spine, on the sides of my buttocks, back of my thighs, and the top of my toes. Saw three dermatologists, they all gave me medicine and when the prescription was gone they examined me. All three gave up. It was a random stranger online who suggested I may have celiac disease because this rash is so specific. I cut gluten out of my diet, and less than a week later the rash was gone. It shows up if I so much as touch something containing gluten

Yeah, really gross. This is what millions of people deal with when exposed to gluten. It's not some mild inconvenience and it has no cure. The only treatment is dietary restrictions and avoiding exposure. I cried when I discovered the GF bakery here. All their food is safe for me to eat! A local pizza place makes GF pizza crust, and when I ordered one, they completely washed the counters and all other work surfaces, and the person prepping my pizza changed their apron, washed their arms up to their elbows, and put on gloves. I gave them a 100% tip for doing that. Fuck, I may cry again.

Well...this got lengthy. Okay, yeah, the edible has now kicked in.

[ladyzayinwonderland]

End of The Year Reading Tag

Thank you, @senadimell for tagging me! I love learning about others' book experiences :)

1) Did you reach your reading goal for this year (if you had one)? I did! I began 2021 with a goal of reading 25 books and I actually (miraculously lol) doubled it. Technically I read 52 books but 23 of them were manga... I haven't quite decided if they should count or not yet.

2) What are your Top 3 books this year? It's always hard to choose favorites, and this past year I read a lot of really good books in my opinion. But I'll take this as a Top 3 New to Me Books and say: Piranesi (Susanna Clark), The Way of Kings (Brandon Sanderson), and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (V. E. Schwab). I also read and loved Words of Radiance by Sanderson, so consider that tacked on to WoK.

3) What's a book that you didn't expect to enjoy quite as much going in? The Way of Kings! Okay so you have to imagine. I've spent years hearing about Stormlight. Two good friends of mine talked about them all the time (looking at you, anna and elle). My husband finally read them in 2020 and incessantly raved about them. I had no choice but to pick up WoK in early 2021. I had no idea the beauty that awaited me within those pages. I was hooked so quickly and so deeply. Wow. I'm a changed woman.

4) Were there any books that didn't live up to your expectations? For better or for worse, I did finish rereading the Inheritance Cycle. I had decent memories of the first three books but had never read Inheritance itself. Underwhelming doesn't even cover it. Inheritance was the antithesis of Way of Kings. (apologies to any lovers of eragon. I do love the idea of the books and the world and the dragons, but woof the end was baaad.)

5) Did you reread any old faves? If so, which one was your favorite? I 'reread' the Lord of the Rings trilogy in audiobook form and it was so good for my soul. There were several little details that I had forgotten over the years that made me fall in love with Tolkien all over again. They brought me hope and joy, two things I definitely needed last year.

If you're interested in listening to the same audiobooks, they are on spotify! They're absolutely delightful and I highly recommend them.

Also, this really was the year of Tolkien, as I read the trilogy and watched the trilogy like five times (a new record, huzzah)

6) Did you DNF (=did not finish) any books? I started Mister Impossible by Maggie Stiefvater but I don't think I was in the right place for it at the time. It is, however, on my list for 2022!

7) Did you read any books outside of your usual preferred genre(s)? Like I mentioned earlier, I read a good bit of manga this year? Brandon and I had watched the second season of The Promised Neverland as it aired earlier this year and it was fairly disappointing, but the tumblr community for the show was ranting about how the manga was so much better and so... I caved. and let me tell you I consumed those 19 volumes so quickly.

I also don't read a non-fiction too often, mostly because undergrad was just so much information and I need a break, but I did read Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl by N. D. Wilson! It was a wonderful book about life and God, and I highly recommend it to all!

8) What was your predominant format this year? Due to how much I've been knitting and driving, audiobooks from my library have been incredibly valuable! Most of the books I reread were books I already owned.

9) What's the longest book you read this year? I think it was the Way of Kings weighing in at just over 1,000 pages!

10) What are your top 3 anticipated 2022 releases? I used to be super into What's New, but these days I don't keep up with too many authors. The only book I can think of is the eventual release of Cornelia Funke's fourth Inkworld book, which, as far as I'm aware, has no publication date in sight.

That said, three recent books on my personal list I'm looking forward to reading are: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden, The Theif by Megan Turner (because I see you all talking about it and, curiosity piqued, I asked for it for Christmas), and Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve.

11) What books from your TBR did you not get to this year, but are excited to read in 2022? I didn't have a chance to read Oathbringer or Rhythm of War this year, so they are definitely on my list for 2022! I also had aspirations of reading the second half of the Miss Peregrine's series by Ransom Riggs but didn't quite get there either.

Thank you again for the tag, Poly! As for people to tag... @thatfriendlyanon, @taleweaver-ramblings, @fortes-fortuna-iogurtum , @swinging-stars-from-satellites , @as-dreamers-do, @fairytale-lights, and whoever else would like to talk about books from the last year! The more the merrier ^_^ no pressure though.

[happymetalgirl]

Skillet - Victorious

I won’t lie, Skillet was a small part of my musical adolescence; I liked the uplifting, Linkin-Park-inspired alternative metal heaviness of Collide and the parts of Comatose that came closest to that. But since Awake, the band have just been on such a downward trajectory as their radio rock success has cornered them into reproducing the same formulaic Christian hard rock into oblivion. 2013′s Rise was chocked full of stale attempts at recapturing of the essence of “Hero” and “Awake and Alive” from the previous album due to their chart-topping success, and that was the last time I listened to a new Skillet album. I didn’t have any desire to listen to Unleashed when it came out in 2016, but I figured I’d check back in this year and see what Skillet were up to with their tenth studio album, Victorious, and God I wish I hadn’t.

I have said on here before that I think the offensiveness of Imagine Dragons' meteoric success through mediocrity is often overstated, their omnipresence just annoying status for the time being much in the same way that Nickelback's was back in their peak of relevance. But while I would definitely rather get stuck listening to Imagine Dragons than most of the other top 40 drivel, I will agree that they are really annoying and I grimace a bit any time I'm stuck somewhere where I have to hear their songs. What has been more annoying even than their music itself has been how pretty much any band trying to break onto the Billboard top charts is copping Imagine Dragons' brand of hollow, overproduced arena rock grandiosity, and that it exactly what it happening here with Skillet on Victorious.

I still haven't listened to Unleashed, and Victorious has not made me eager to go back and hear it, so I don't know how much of this they were doing on that album, but I truly can't imagine it being as horrifically, transparently focus-grouped and disastrously executed as it has been on this album. The production on here is right in line with what is expected of bands trying to get in on Imagine Dragons' radio success. From the thin, artificial, overdone arena rock drum pounds that sound devoid of any really invigorating punch, to the gutless and overly synthetic production that gives the guitars the bite of a newborn kitten.

The songwriting too is equally appallingly formulaic and, again, focus-grouped, with the predictable token throwback to the band's heavier sound on the closing track "Back to Life" (ironically titled there, Skillet), being the only diversion from the drab, sterile, and downright annoyingly repetitive compositions, and the songs aren't just repetitive in their use of the same motifs within them over and over again, but also in their consistent approach across the track list. And again, it's all really predictable; the reptitive "woahs" and chorus refrains, the bland vocal melody features from drummer Jen Ledger, the super processed delivery of the vaguely Christian lyrics about getting up and fighting. It is a truly annoying album.

And look, Skillet has never been the most original band on the planet; Collide was very derivative, and the band have been following the trends of radio-friendly alternative metal since then. But the issue with Victorious is not just its being unoriginal. At least Collide and Comatose sounded like the band was really passionate about the Linkin Park imitations they were making, but Victorious sounds so phoned in and corporately directed that I can't believe a word this band is saying about the same nonspecific rising up and fighting they've been singing about for the past decade.

I suppose I should get into the ugly details a bit. Thankfully I think this will be brief and relatively easy since the album is such a homogenously bland, lifeless trash fire. The tedious choruses and unenthusiastic arena rock aesthetic over the soulless production that I brought up earlier are pretty universal across the album. So I'll try to keep it quick and just highlight the most egregious examples. The "woah" melody on the first track, "Legendary", is so annoying I can't believe it made it out of the studio, the same of which can be said of the thin, verses on "You Ain't Ready", but honestly, these "woah ohs" are the least irritating of those on the album. I can see the electronic rock pump-up that the band were going for that people think of when they think of pop rock in a positive light on "Finish Line", but there really isn't enough muscle in the song to pull it off. The woop-woop vocals on the minimally instrumental, yet still over-produced "This Is the Kingdom" make it sound exactly like an Imagine Dragons song that even that band wouldn't want. The song "Rise Up" so lyrically generic and phoned in and so instrumentally thin that it's insulting the band actually consider this effort enough to incite any kind of rising up. The pop rock lighter-waving of the title track is so nauseatingly top 40 with its artificial string backing, Jen Ledger's bland melody even before the post-chorus "woah"s, but those indeed bring it home. The completely inattentive and forgettable balladry of "Terrify the Dark" is obviously an attempt at making a Hillsong-type ballad meant to be the musical backing to inspirational church video montages. It's just a transparent foray into trying to get a contemporary worship music hit in the worst way, and to call it half-assed would be generous. Even worse perhaps is the saccharine "Jesus is by girlfriend"-type pop rock ballad of the faux-orchestral piano number "Anchor". Okay, so that wasn't as brief as I was hoping, but it's over now.

I know I mentioned Collide being a part of my early musical life, but my distaste for this album is honestly independent of my nostalgia for the band's earlier work. Yes, it's disappointing seeing a band whose music I have fond memories of just tank while trying to do something that seems rather contrived that clearly isn't working for them. I was kind of already expecting some stale radio alternative metal and alternative rock going in, but this album really defied those expectations in the worst ways and I know that I would feel just as negatively about it if it were hypothetically released by some other band or if I didn't know Skillet prior. I know my disappointment is probably influencing the degree to which I am frustrated with this album, but I know that my negative reaction is not just because I expected wanted a rehash of Collide or Comatose (I didn't) and got something different. Really, I'd already heard the essence of this very unoriginal album before I even heard the album itself; I mentioned Imagine Dragons earlier. The contrast with the band's better earlier work just makes this hot pile of garbage all the more tragic to hear.

I keep a roughly ordered list of all the album's I've heard throughout the year, and earlier last week before this album came out, I was thinking about how great the output has been over the past few months and how I hadn't heard a truly atrocious album in a good few months, which sparked my curiosity to look at the bottom ten of my list at the moment. And I know the year's not over yet, but when I saw the album I had tenth from the bottom, I felt bad because even though I don't like it, it didn't feel like it deserved a "ten worst albums" spot. I suppose the silver lining of Victorious is its nudging that number ten album out of the bottom ten. But the other ugly aspect of Victorious' awfulness is that im going to have to listen to Mark Morton's Anesthetic to determine which one is worse.

Don't listen to this inauthentic, radio ploy cash grab/10