#but since i only have basic images i found for in game icons.

[chynandri]

How to Survive Enstars Events Without Wanting to KYS

The event of my Enstars life is coming up next week on the English server (the only server I actively play on): Rouge&Ruby. I can’t describe what Melting Rouge Soul did to my brain in February 2023. It’s an incredibly important song, card, event, story to me! And my goal is to get max copy of Ibara’s card, just as I did for Bogie Time Ibara.

My pride and joy. It’s funny that this card is called ‘Extra Undurable Time’ cuz that is exactly what enstars events are.

However, we don’t play gacha games for fun. We play for collecting the little guy they make you get deeply attached to. If I get adhd hyperfixated I can deal with it. But how the hell did I get max copy Bogie Time Ibara in 2023. I remember how mind numbing it was, even if by some amazing stroke of luck God and the universe created the perfect situation to allow me to no life enstars that week.

So this post is to compile my personal ‘strategies’/mindsets, how to even want to keep playing this game - basically to steel myself for the biggest trial of my ensemble stars ‘career’. Because to me, grinding enstars events is always a battle of the mind more than anything else.

Song events just seem more daunting to me, even if they’re technically ‘easier’ gameplay wise because you can just spam autoplay - compared to manually playing 120 songs for a tour event (and then spamming autoplay). I will not say tour events are better. They’re all their own equally terrible hells to me.

Motivation Notes Staying motivated and focused is SUPER IMPORTANT. I find that visuals like ‘motivational posters’ I make for myself are fun and helpful. See above my specific home screen page JUST for enstars. I don’t really play cnstars, but since that server allows you to change the app icon I use it as additional visualization. Calendar can be helpful for keeping track of how much time you have left.

Customizing your enstars in-game homescreen and profile to match the character you’re working so hard for is also fun. Overall, it’s like a vision board but for your goals in video games (important) instead of real life (not as important).

I have this homescreen for (Ei/)Chiaki purposes but honestly the small movements of the live 2D can be extra sensory input. Treat your brain and eyes like a sensitive little baby.

I REALLY should’ve done this for the Universe event, but as of writing this I’m nearly at the 1 million point goal of getting the Chiaki 4 star card. Now this is the most flat, ‘boring’ layout that will not subtly tire you out.

There needs to be minimal audio and visual stimulation in-game. I found that even changing the MV background to no image but the stage image to be helpful in reducing visual stimulation. Putting the game audio on mute is a good way to reduce audio stimulation. The UI/UX of enstars is clunky, tedious, and busy itself so any effort in reducing its sensory input is a plus.

Simple mode is the most basic you can get. Turn off lyrics here and in the details settings if you want even less stuff on screen.

As much as I love the azukisan notes, a note style that’s not too confusing/designed is probably better too.

Another thing I have not personally tried out for playing the game, but have done so to turn my iPad into an ‘e-reader’ is to turn on greyscale mode for the entire phone. I believe e-readers are usually greyscale to simulate a real book, and to limit distraction. This concept could be used for playing games too… Enstars is quite colorful after all and that is also - sensory input.

Here’s how to toggle greyscale on iOS: Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters

Beyond that, publicly sharing your progress is another source of motivation - whether on social media or with friends. Be careful not to reveal too much info about your account at the same time (exact dia count, don’t show ALL the cards you have, etc.).

But you have to be your own biggest hypeman. Channel the energy of the most annoying and loud characters you know (Chiaki, Madara, and Ibara are good examples - I say this with LOVE AND AFFECTION). Celebrate as many event point milestones as you can. RISE AND GRIND!!!!

Gameplay Notes

Important info to know for song events is what is your highest scoring song. You can use the search button in the Live page to filter all the songs by score.

Favorite it so you can make your song menu as simple as possible. This isn’t relevant for tour events tho.

Song Events: Have not maxed out a song event card before so I don’t have any experience to draw upon. I just go for 10BP sometimes 3-6BP each time as I can’t open the game that often during the day. Maybe it’s not technically efficient but I’d rather not be anxious over keeping track of BP regeneration. Very helpful to turn on notifications for Enstars so it can inform you when your BP and work tickets are at max.

Tour Events: I remember at some point I tried spending 10BP on EACH song even if that is not wise. But still mostly kept to the 3-3-6-10 format. Tried 3-6-6-10 too. Maybe I was just losing my mind during Bogie Time and wanted to mess around with the pattern for some sort of ‘fun’.

I can’t wrap my head around the technical aspects of BP spending strategies tbh. The consistent effort is what matters I think. I will not and do not spend much brainpower on this.

Spending Real Life Money: I did spend Real Life Money on prime mission and the 15 whistles per day perk for bogie time. Did it help? A bit. Did it make me want to die less? Idk it feels good to get extra rewards from playing the game so much from prime mission. I used to subscribe to it more often when I first started playing but have long since stopped. The autoloop song vip perk is useful but if you are playing on your phone - I need to use my phone for other things so I can’t keep the game open to complete loops that long. Perhaps a setup of grinding on a tablet instead would be less anxiety inducing/less to keep track of. But I also use my tablet for other things. So from this angle is it truly an upgrade…?

I think the best deal is to buy as many permanent whistle packs from the store as you can and save them for the event. But especially when they have special deals or at the same time as those top up reward events so you maximize your purchases.

I’m not sure if I will buy VIP or more packs for Rouge&Ruby. I had around 76k dia for Bogie Time and did not burn through it all. I must’ve spent around 50k dia. But I read that song events are much more expensive. I’ve saved over 100k dia this time, but I did also buy/win (thru minigames during events) over 500 permanent whistles. I have no idea how this will all pan out so it will be interesting to see how much I burn through. I feel very prepared, so that’s why I don’t see a need for more store purchases right now.

So basically - of course throwing money at things has its benefits. But if you don’t go all out on the perks and spending, it still requires some willpower I think. I got to 80k dia from clearing every single song/song difficulty in the game, clearing the story objectives, and completing all daily free missions in a period of 3-2 months. The rest came from freebies, stories, or seasonal events as they happened. I didn’t start from 0, I think I had somewhere around 10-20k dia before I decided to painfully farm dia from every single song. I used to diligently complete starry live but I don’t think it’s worth the time for a random amount of dia. This is also why I banned myself from scouting (unless it’s limited cards) - only care about what you can get GUARANTEED. Event cards do not rely on rng.

Event Point Ranking: The validation you get from having a high point rank is great. It’s hard for me to ignore and pushes me to grind more. But I also think it’s bad for my brain to care so much when my goal is NOT tiering for the sake of tiering. It’s an extra source of anxiety. I really don’t have any tips for this but to just try to not look at it. Progress - but also reasonably taking care of yourself - is all that matters. You can’t compete with the hardcore f2ps or whales. Just forget it. I’m not here to excel. I’m here to survive enough to get 22 million points.

Event Card Bonus: I had the 4 star bonus card for bogie time. It did feel helpful, but I’d rather not spend tickets or dia on characters I don’t produce so I won’t try to get them anymore.

Live Score Dia Boost: I’ve never tried using dia to boost my score as it just feels better to me to keep dia for BP purposes.

I think that’s about it… Writing this all out was pretty helpful for outlining what’s in my mind. I genuinely can get so over-excited for things. I was so excited/anxious for New Start Go I had trouble breathing right at the very minute the event started 💀 And I was only getting one card of Hajime. Hopefully this all will help me deal with the mounting anticipation of the Ibara event/song/card ever and maybe something was of use to whomever read all this.

[vyxated]

finally answering asks I've been keeping for a while ~.~

📝 sims2 & chalk'd ui, phone icons & wallpapers, cas bg recolor, font replacement, and some more (reshade & rig helper asks will be answered at another time ;; )

tysm anon!! I had to wrestle a bit with the file to make the taxi image work, and at the end it came out looking super neat! Especially if you have the sims 2's music playing (found a super cool music override that does that). It's such a cool idea, and I've been researching on how to do it 😆 ngl, making cc objects is something I wanna do someday, tho from the looks of it it's gonna take me a while to understand the process lol. If/when I make any breakthrough, I'll be sure to post about it :p (It'd be neat if it costs money too to use the taxi.)

jdfklsjf tysm @hellofears & @oshinsimblr !! I've been doing some final adjustments so hopefully I can release it within this week c:

thanks anon ^7^ you can replace them as long as you have access to the files (pancake1 made a pie menu & wants sound replacement and buurz replaced the in-game music with ones from other sims games). I looked around and found these resources you might want to check out: TS4 Sound Tool, UI sound kit & UI audio instance list

hehe tysm anon! My UI mods won't remove the shop icon so you'll need to grab other mods that do that. I decided not to do it myself to avoid having a new mod conflict ^^

Hii @simplyamazingsims, I've tested both mirroredup & triple mirror and both v3 files are working w/ the latest update. The reflection setting must be set to low or higher for the reflection to show up. You can also try clearing your caches and try removing the resource.cfg file (file will regenerate, and doing this fixes the issue for some). Oh and ofc having other cas backgrounds can cause mine to not show up so make sure there's only one in your mods folder ^^

@claravizeu it's a map override that I'll probably work on whenever I'm in the mood 😆

Hi anon! For the phone icons, I used xosdr's phone icons psd to create mine. For the wallpaper, I haven't found someone who've gathered & shared the files for it, so I'll see if I can do that myself :)

Heyy anon, it's a CAS bg that I made for the previews so it's not available to download. I haven't got the chance to prepare the files yet, but I'll try to find the time to do so ^^

Hey anon, unfortunately the notification wall is associated w/ the texture file that handles most of the UI panels, so you won't be able to remove a specific file to achieve it. I've received a request just like yours so what I can do is share it a separate file later on ^^

Hii as well, it's compatible yes ^^ you can use both mods as they don't have any files in common that conflicts with each other.

heyy @icyaliyah, sorry it took a while to respond! While I don't have plans to recolor them, you can download these pink recolors by estellics & dumbabie ^^ and thank you very much!

Hii as well, it's been a while so I don't know if you're still having the issue or if it's already been fixed. Afaik my mod shouldn't cause any loading issues on its own, as well as if you have the conflicting mod & files present and if you remove the conflicting files. So far, I've not received any reports of this exact issue, so I can't be of help. Sorry if that doesn't answer your question 😅

ahhhh @veone thank you as well for using it ever since it came out!! 🙈

Heyy anon, basically you'd want to only remove the files that conflicts w/ the mods that you do use, and not the other way around. For example, if you use TOOL, you'd want to delete the files in the Additional Files > TOOL folder (either both text and texture files or just the text file alone, depending on which one you prefer). If you don't use TOOL, keep the files be. So, if you only have the UI Cheats mod and none of the listed conflicting mods, then you don't need to remove any files ^^

heyy @swithdream, well very belated happy new year to you as well despite it being april already lol there's an update to the cas organizers that I haven't done yet, and when the time comes that I update those, I'll try to include the psds for all the templates I did ^^

Hii @kneptoone, it's a font replacement using TS3's Helvetica Rounded font that I made & haven't shared yet, yeah ^^ I can try putting it up for download since there isn't one out yet.

Heyy anon, I've been focusing on other things so I haven't yet found the time to work on my older uploads >< I'm definitely interested in doing those, but not sure when that'll be.

Hello anon, tysm! I'll do it at some point but not sure when :x I haven't properly played around w/ CAS since last year :X

[xfolex]

Looking through Project Moon's old YouTube channel, there's some interesting stuff. Originally I was going to write about the Tumblbug as well, but there was a lot more stuff there than I realized, so I'll just talk about the YouTube for now.

The first video shows some very early concept ideas for the game. There's actually a lot of information in this first video, which I suppose makes sense as it's the first introduction to the game and the oldest as well. I've added some markings on my thoughts of some of the images and also brightened some of them as well.

Throughout the video we get to see pages from a manual that gives some basic information about the game. These are in Korean so I put them through Google Translate to read them. It's interesting how even from the very beginning the concept of the Sefirot and the Tree of Life was being used. Page 5 has the same list of Abnormalities that I was straining my eyes to figure out in my NDC post, but then there was the same list in color so all my effort trying to figure out each Abnormality kind of went to waste.

The list that explains the attack types corresponds to the way the attack types worked in the legacy version. With Black damage affecting the facility and Blue damage being Instant death (though attack types are very inaccurately assigned in-game). You can also see how it originally seemed like there were going to be only three types of work: feeding, cleaning, and suppressing. Though there's more information about that on the game's Tumblbug.

It's kind of hard to see, but page 15 shows Tangtang being part of the "Command and Surveillance Team" which is something mentioned in the game's code in early versions. According to the game's code, it seemed like the Control, Information, Safety, and Training teams were originally called the Command and Surveillance, Solution Development, Emergency Planning, and Material Management teams respectively.

This manual seems to be missing page 16 and 17, and it doesn't seem to be shown anywhere in any video.

The line of never forget/we remember the day the Abnormality first escaped that occasionally pops up here and there seems to be referencing Nothing There since it's a line from the first training video where Nothing There escapes.

The second training video was released on October 30, 2015. I don't have much thoughts on this video, but I thought the pixel art was very cute. I mention the date this video was posted because this is the last video with the square employee art style. The next video posted on February 15, 2016 has the Legacy art style, so between October and February the art style for the game changed. I'll talk more about this shift in art style when I look at the Tumblbug.

I also want to take this time to mention Jeremy, the original Lobotomy Corp mascot (not really) who appeared in only three videos but still managed to capture my heart. This post is dedicated in loving memory to Jeremy.

The Teaser Trailor video has a few key things I wanted to mention. First, the assign work UI seems to have the Book w/o Picture or Dialogue as the default icon for every Abnormality, and has a very different UI that I'm not quite sure how it works. Next, you can see some silhouettes of various Abnormalities, and most of them I recognize, but there's some I'm not 100% sure on. Throughout the video we see some Abnormalities that ultimately never made it into the game, but we can see My Sweet Orange Tree in the containment unit at the very end, which made me wonder how far along these unreleased abnormalities were in development. Even the ones in the very old videos, were they actually semi-functional Abnos or were they just placeholder images that never got developed?

The Proto-Demo video shows a manual and a line that leads to the target. The manual isn't in the demo version I have access to but can still be found in the game's files. I don't have much else thoughts on it other than how purposely bad the person playing the game is doing. Just absolutely picking the worst option consistently.

I also don't have much to say about the other game test videos except in the Day 14 video where we can see some very minor differences. First, the entire game seems a lot darker than normal, but that might just be due to the recording. Second, the Abnormality's Damage Type is listed instead of the Attack Type, which is honestly more useful information that I wish was kept for the Legacy version. Third, the hallways are all very dark as if Big Bird was breaching, and generic irrespective of the department. Fourth, the employee assign UI is very slightly different not that huge but just enough to be noticeable. Lastly, I found it funny how PM just left a broken icon for Snow White's Apple in the video.

The third training video with Queen of Hatred is pretty interesting because it seems to be following QoH's story where an employee talks to her over the course of a few days and her moods gets worse every day. But specifically the old version of QoH's story, since it seems like a lot of Abno stories were ever so slightly changed sometime after the 1.0.2.2 version. The new version of the story omits the fact that QoH was neutralized with anesthetic, which was probably because that mechanic was removed after the legacy version. Also, another interesting thing about the video is that the background containment unit seems to be different that usual, where some stuff is in different places and the number written on the wall is 76 instead of 27.

The Lobtomi♥High video was PM's April Fools for 2017, released alongside version 1.0.1.0 which introduced Little Red, Big and Might be Bad Wolf, Central Command Team, and most importantly You're Bald...! PM has historically celebrated April Fools a lot, whether intentionally or not. There's a lot of random abnormalities in this video, including some released, unreleased, and joke abnormalities. I find it interesting that Fragment of the Universe was the only abnormality that was unreleased and not shown before when the video was published that was then released later on. This video was the first time Fragment of the Universe was ever made public.

[ I can't show a screenshot of the video because I reached the max image limit for the post :( ]

There's two launch trailers for the game, one for when the game was first released in early access, and one for when the game was about to fully release. Between the two, I personally like the first one better because it has a better sense of progression rather than just showing bad things happening out of context, but maybe I'm just biased since I like first trumpet more.

Ok, I think that's enough for this post. There's a lot of stuff to unpack with these videos, so it was nice to look back through them again since I haven't really sat down to watch them all in years.

[krello-png]

Feelings on Xicor and DB AF as a whole!

Posting a thread I had back on Twitter here, though I'll be expanding on a fair bit since I have MUCH more room to breath so, let's get into one of my favorite subjects in this fandom, AF fan culture!

The fandom in the 2000s is really fascinating to me as someone who wasn't "there", the show and manga were 100% DEAD, there were only games that retold the same story from Z to GT during that time and yet because of a certain localization that was happening the fanbase was kinda thriving, constantly making new stuff. There was ZERO actual new story content and yet the fans just took it upon themselves to make shit and keep that flame going! New transformations, endless sagas, whole multi work fan manga that just spawned from a dead series that happened to get an English Dub with a different soundtrack.

Arguably at the center of most of this was this guy right here, XICOR, third son of Goku and the main villain of AF (or at least, it's first arc.). People talk about how a character like Xicor is rather boring and yeah that is true, the character of Xicor is boring, but it's not he himself that's the fun part, it's what he represents that makes him interesting!

He's undeniably fascinating if ya think about it.

His design? Ripped from a fan form. This pic is from like, 04' if I recall correctly and it's not even a new character, it's Goku in Super Saiyan 9. That's why he has Goku's Gi but green, the spikes are there cause apparently it's a dragon form??? Who'd have thunk it eh?

His character? Basically every villain that came before him and then some, a high and mighty powerhouse with an ego to match. Eager to take the throne atop the universe where his father supposedly sat as West Kai had told him. Ruthlessly evil to his core and merciless, in other words, very generic.

His backstory? A hodgepodge of several different fanfics from around the same time that combined into what we know now. The illegitimate third son of Goku, born of West Kai and Goku's DNA because she had taken his blood (or seduced him depending on the fic!).

It's just endlessly interesting what he represents, he feels less like a real character to me and more like an icon. Something that embodies DB's OC culture and general fandom in a lot of ways, whether the fans would admit it or not, he's a mainstay in this fandom that won't go away. No matter how far removed we get from that era.

And that's not even getting into the story he's attached to, or rather the concept. DRAGON BALL AF, After Future! Or perhaps it's April Fools? AF is never concrete. It could be anything and everything. It's far beyond what it originally was, beyond what the creator of that "SSj5" image intended. Hell, it's not SSj5 at all, it isn't even Goku! But as far as the fandom is concerned, that didn't really matter.

What had originally began as one fan story, one image really, eventually became something that would define basically any Post GT story line. A lot of them having similar elements with wildly differing execution, from Goku's third son to Cellbuuzer or any manner of unholy creations one could dream up in their heads.

I think to some degree everyone involved in spreading the idea around knew it wasn't "real" but there's something insanely cool about how it became this big community fan project with ideas anyone could use in their own stories.

I honestly can't speak to the quality of AF Origins cause I've never read it myself but Toyble and Jiji's AF Doujinshis are probably the most well known versions of the story aside from maybe PGV's take, but I can't speak on that either cause it's insanely long and it's lore is.. complicated to put it lightly.

Toyble's version of the story takes the Xicor premise and runs whole hog with it, the majority of Xicor's agreed upon characterization is found here and the action is a damn fun read if you're into this kinda thing.

The real highlight is probably the art and what little bits of humor are present, it feels very Toriyama like at it's best and I've no doubt it's why he landed a job doing official work.

It's a darn shame that it never truly finished but the ending we did get was kinda sweet and I'm more than happy with that.

Jiji's AF is a lot longer and has the benefit of actually being finished, with multiple arcs that are quite fun. The highlight is probably the story with Marble and seeing Goten, Trunks and Uub handle a threat on their own.

The last arc being a repeat of the Shadow Dragons is not my favorite conceptually and their designs even less so but it's really nifty to see everyone handle their own Dragon so, I give it a pass.

Both are rife with heavy amounts of ripping shots from the original manga and tracing in some instances but I can't say I'm too bothered by it. As they're still fun to see as real takes on AF in some form. There's definitely better fan manga out there but these are the ones I wanted to highlight.

There's so many more fun and bizarre things from this era of DB's fandom history that I wanna highlight and go in depth on but I'd be here for a million years if I did so I'll leave on this:

I honestly believe there's no fandom that's like Dragon Ball's, Sonic's fandom is close, but that was never a dead franchise. This fandom can be annoying, offensive and quite unfun sometimes, but I adore it at it's best. It's a wildly interesting ride I'm happy to be part of!

[vikenticomeshome]

Cyberchase on Pixter Console (part 1/?)

Hello all,

I wanted to talk about the Cyberchase game that was released for the Pixter handheld edutainment console during the early 2000s. To my knowledge, this is the only licensed console game released for the series. There were, of course, PC games released in the form of "Carnival Chaos" and "Castleblanca Quest". And they also had their various web-games.

Unfortunately, I don't own a copy of this game at this time. I can't really play through it on the real hardware and give my thoughts. I am aware that MAME has recently added a preliminary emulator for the Pixter console, and they did obtain the data from the cartridge. However, the emulation isn't yet sufficient to play the game.

The purpose of this post is to document that this game exists, given its obscurity. There is also some material available to look at, like the manual. I hope that I can eventually provide screenshots, either by obtaining a cartridge, or waiting long enough for the MAME emulation to be ready.

I don't have a cartridge or box, but I found some photos. These images of the box-art and cartridge appeared on an eBay listing at one point.

This console image appeared on a blog from Liz Herrick, one of the designers.

So, now that we've established that this thing exists, let's look at the manual for the Cyberchase game and see what we can figure out.

Here's a PDF download of the manual for those interested, but I'll post images of individual pages as I go.

So, the manual cover and box-art feature some classic Cyberchase artwork that got used for alot of stuff. We have Matt, Inez, Jackie, and Digit on hand. I'm not sure which Cybersite is in the background here, since the full-color version is so small, and the black-and-white version removes alot of context. My guess would be "R-Fair City".

And now, we can see the standard instructions for logging in as your user.

It's hard to see them due to the resolution of the scan, and perhaps Fisher-Price using bad screenshots to begin with. However, I can see Jackie (third row from the top and third column from the left) as one of the icons.

We get five games:

Sorting

Patterns

Logic

Creative Fun

Drawing

For "Sorting", we have Digit sorting Poddles by shapes, colors, both shapes and colors, or number comparisons. The screenshots are low-resolution, but it looks like we are sorting this poddle into one of two train cars, choosing between "hexagon" and "rectangle".

We can see the page that leads to the next level. I will say that the kids appear to have been badly cut out from something else.

For "Pattern", we have a challenge to fit planks into a bridge based on patterns. We have an option for simple patterns, complex patterns, and number patterns. I don't recognize the character on the bridge.

For "Logic", we have what appears to be a game of "Klotski". Klotski is a sliding block game where the goal is to get a single sliding block off the board by shifting other sliding blocks around to make room.

For "Creative Fun", we get to mix and match parts to create a "cyber-robot"? Is this a borg, a bot, or something else?

We can see some face options here.

We also get to add the giant frog from "Eye of Rom" apparently.

For "Drawing", we get to pick a background and use it to create a scene.

We can also put some stickers on it, like two classic pieces of Inez art.

And here's some Delete stickers.

And here's a Digit sticker.

We can view high-scores for the activities.

We can also check progress on these five activities.

And then we log out and let someone else play, I guess.

Yeah, I know this is pretty basic by today's standard. Someone in the intended age group for this probably would have enjoyed it though.

I wonder if this was distributed through FlyingMinds back in the day, who was responsible for alot of Cyberchase merch around 2005. Their site is gone, and several pages of content were missing. I suppose we'll have to wait until we get a good scan of the box to see if the FlyingMinds logo made it on there.

I hope to be able to share screenshots at some point, since this game is not well-documented online. Hopefully, I will either obtain a cartridge copy, or the Pixter emulation will improve.

[aihoshiino]

hello there! first of all i wanna thank you for your translations of the side stories! we get so little about b komachi and I found it really fascinating to see that some of the lyrics from idol seem to have been lifted from 45510 especifically. ( could be mistaken, haha)

but in any case, there's a particular outfit of Ai's that you tag as beautiful dreamer, at first I had only seen this outfit in cosplay websites and I was skeptical of it even being anything more than an effort to sell more costumes. I was wondering if you knew what official art it is from? I'd love to see the original picture, cuz as hard as I try I don't seem to be able to find it!

even if you don't have i still thank u lots for all the theories and analyses you've been sharing here! ( not enough people talk about ai being neurodivergent and the ai on stage being a mask)

thanks!!!!

ANON THIS WAS SUCH A LOVELY ASK TO WAKE UP TO, THANK U SO MUCH 🥺 Honestly it has been years since I actively took part in a Big Fandom enough to contribute meta so knowing that people are enjoying reading my thoughts about this silly little series is kind of mindblowing to me lol. Ai's neurodivergence and the way it factors into the way she navigates the world is suuuuuuuch a key foundational part of understanding her (at least imo) so it makes me glad to see people are vibing with me talking about it so explicitly.

You are correct, tho! IDOL's lyrics are directly based on 45510 and parts of Ai's dialogue scattered around the first volume of the manga - it's always kind of a surprise when I go back through it and I'm like oh my god right, yosasobi just came for the THROAT with some of these lines!!! I've been working on my own TL of 45510 just to keep myself occupied and I've been having a lot of fun trying to make my translations of those lines actually scan to the appropriate lines of IDOL hehehe.

To answer your question tho! That particular Ai design is an official alt outfit/AU design for the Lies and Ai (展 嘘とアイ) exhibition and collab cafe that was held in Japan!

As you can see, everyone got a cute, mahou shoujo inspired look as a tie in.

You can read a little more information about it in this news article but it was basically a little art installation based around Oshi no Ko where certain iconic scenes and outfits from the anime's first episode were recreated for folks to see and a collab cafe with character-themed foods was also hosted. If you'd like to get an idea of what the exhibition looks like, happyuchannel (who does a lot of videos on OnK events in Japan!) has a video about their visit where they show off the parts they were allowed to photograph and some of the merch they got.

The reason I tag this as 'Beautiful Dreamer' is because I run a magical girl AU roleplay called Beautiful Dreamer over on Dreamwidth and Ai is one of the characters I play there! By total coincidence, this art dropped like the day after I decided to play her there and had to work out a mahou look for her and then I guess the universe rewarded me for good decision making LOL

("Claire is this a transparent ploy to get people to come over to Dreamwidth and play in your mahou game?" Of Course It Is)

Unfortunately there aren't any full/high quality images of the art anywhere that I know if since it exists just for the collab cafe but I imagine that when an art book specific to the anime inevitably drops, we'll get full spreads of a lot of the collab cafe/promo art.

BONUS: Here's what those mahou Ai standees look like in real life. Aren't they cute?

("claire how many ai standees do you–" normal amount.)

[maria-mga2024mi5015]

Modeling Game Asset 1 - Chair (Spencer Gore's apartment)

09/03/2025

Hi everyone! So, I'm back to start modeling my game assets since we need to have a decent amount of them for stage 2. Today I will be starting with the chair inside Gore's apartment.

Concept artwork for the assets in Gore's apartment vs Painting reference

Now, I noticed a small detail that I missed to had in the chair for my concept artwork that is the 'chair slat'. But no worries, I will be including it to my 3D model.

Reference: -

Tutorial: -

Work in progress: -

Maya -

The tutorial that I found was quite simple and a quick one too. So, I was able to model this fast. I had to mainly made use of the modeling tool kit with the multi cut tool and the extrude tool.

I came across an issue when selecting the edges for the 'chair slat' because the edges moved oddly when I checked from the perspective view. But I figured out that you need to double click the edges on one side, then press shift and double click the other side. (It will sound much clearer in the screen recording I made down below)

Here are some screenshots of my work in progress in Maya!

Render images of the chair -

2. Substance Painter -

After you UV unwrap your mesh, you have to 'export selection' as a 'fbx' file. Then go to substance painter > File > New > Open the fbx file. (In my case, the chair fbx file)

But, before adding in the texture, I decided to do a step called 'Baking'. This helps substance painter properly texture your mesh. I followed the tutorial down below to recap on how to do this step.

Below are some screen shots of my texturing process in Substance painter. I added the 'wood walnut' materil to the chair since it's similar in color to the furniture in Gore's painting of the Richmond Apartment.

After wards, I exported the textures as pngs on the 'Arnold 'AiStandardSurface' output and save all the textures in a separate folder.

But there was a big issue in terms of adding in all the textures to the mesh in the usual method. Usually, I go to assign new materials > arnold > aistandardsurface > then I go to the color, roughness, metal, and normal individually and add in the textures. However, when I was working on this earlier, the 'BaseColor' texture was the only one I was able to apply. I probably tried to add in all the textures again at least 6 times before I decided to give up TOT

So, I decided to search for an alternate method of adding in the textures, and luckily, this tutorial saved me from the stress!

Now in this tutorial, before exporting to textures, the output should be in PBR Metallic Roughness and the format of saving the textures should be in png. Then you can save these textures and add them to Maya using a different method. (I made sure to delete the old textures I saved)

Once you go back to Maya, you should add in a substance plugin and select all the textures at once. Next you click on 'HyperShade' and you will see the textures as an AiStandard Surface. Then select the mesh, right click on the AiStandard icon and add the textures to the selected areas. And vala~ all the texture files have been added to the mesh without you having to individually add them using the AiStandardSurface!

Below are some screenshots I took while following the above linked tutorial.

Final Chair Design-

That's basically it for this post! I know I've explained in quite a lot of detail on how I created the asset, but it'll be the last post I make with this much detail. I explained everything in detail here because I've tried out a lot of different methods of exporting textures and such so, I need to make note of it to memorize the steps.

I will avoid future asset modeling posts with high detail for 2 main reasons:

I need to save time for modeling the rest of the assets and to try out more game features.

I will basically be using the same steps except for the modelling work in progress in Maya. (I will continue to explain those well.)

As always, thank you for reading! :3

[theseabass27]

Video Game Collage Project: Draft 1

I decided to choose the Video Game collage idea due to it being the most fun to play around with, plus I like Video games in general, since I grew up with them and it's what jumpstarted my path/dream not only as an artist, but a graphic designer as well. what's listed below is the process of me crafting the collage. There will be progress along the way, so I will showcase what I have. 

Project Title: "Virtual Realms: Video Game Evolution"

Project Vision

"Virtual Realms: A Video Game Collage" will be a digital collage series exploring the nostalgia, adventure, and impact of video game culture. Through surreal, layered compositions, the project will celebrate characters, landscapes, and iconic elements from various game genres. Inspired by the vibrant storytelling found in gaming, this series will combine elements from multiple gaming eras to reflect the evolution and artistry within video games. Each piece will present a narrative, using distinct scenes, characters, and symbols to transport viewers into the world of games and evoke the emotions they inspire.

Technical Process

The project will primarily use Adobe’s Creative Suite to craft each digital collage. Image manipulation and composition will be handled in Photoshop, using vector graphics created in Illustrator for icons and game-inspired design elements. Additional textures and lighting effects will add depth, blending digital images with illustrated assets to create immersive, multi-layered artworks. Subtle animations on select pieces—created with Adobe Animate or GIPHY—will enhance dynamic elements like character movements or glowing items, adding a touch of interactivity and nostalgia.

Three-Week Timeline

Week 1: Collect and organize assets, including images, screenshots, and vector illustrations. Begin background composition and initial layout in Photoshop.

Week 2: Complete primary compositions, refining colors and lighting effects. Start integrating character placements and key objects, then begin animations for dynamic pieces.

Week 3: Finalize artwork compositions, complete animations, and prepare for presentation. Polish each collage for cohesion and detail, preparing the pieces for an interactive digital viewing experience.

Presentation

The collage series will be showcased on Adobe Portfolio using a clean, immersive layout to let the vibrant colors and complex compositions stand out. The minimal design will highlight the artwork without distractions, with each piece accompanied by a brief description and insights into the games or genres it represents. The title "Virtual Realms" will introduce the gallery, and subtle interactivity within the site will invite viewers to zoom in on layered details, enhancing the storytelling within each composition.

Next Steps

When all of that is done, Ill begin by collecting and processing all source images and creating initial vector elements in Illustrator. Ill lastly set up the basic layout in Adobe Portfolio, documenting key steps in the creative process along the way.

[ryuuseirune]

As someone who likes DoL a lot (240 hours logged since last year)... I've never felt like there's a shortage of fanmade content for it. Many of my favorite artists on twitter are DoL fans and regularly draw art for it. Typo (typpo8), Tnso/rabbitguy, and Baiwa/Frog (byebyefr0g) have posted some cool DoL stuff if you're looking for recommendations. There's so many DoL fans online if you know where to look! It has a massive Chinese-speaking fanbase, so if you understand how to navigate Chinese fandom tags you can probably find even more. I feel like I see Sydney stuff at least every other day on the bird app lol.

I've also played a bit of CoC, but I've never seen it in the wild. So... I looked it up to see if there really is a shortage of fanworks, and found that there's actually quite a lot. On rule34, there's like 1.8k results for CoC 1 + 2 and only 1.6k for Funger 1+2. On Sad Panda/exhentai, there's a 432-page ongoing CoC comic that was last updated 3 days ago (September 30, 2024) and 73 other user-uploaded media. In comparison, funger only has 19 entries on exhentai as of the time I'm searching. (DoL has none, in case you're wondering).

I think it all depends on what sites you're on and the people you engage with. What kind of people like the media you're searching for? Are you considering all avenues? As someone who has scoured the deepest parts of the internet to discover pornography that suits my (incredibly specific) tastes, sometimes you'll find hidden vistas around every corner. Discords, surprisingly active forums, image boards (aka booru), Reddit communities, mastodon instances (aethy, baraag)... the list goes on and on.

If you're having trouble finding fandom spaces, I think all of the sites I mentioned above are decent options. It's really easy for fanworks to get lost on larger sites, so I'd stick to the smaller sites if possible. And, if you still can't find anyone after exhausting all your English options, maybe learn a couple languages for fun. (I'd say just kidding, but I'm really not.) Go join a super topic on Weibo. Support Japanese artists on Fantia and Pixiv. There's 2ch.hk if you speak Russian, though you might need to dig a bit before you find fandom stuff lol.

Also, I was talking with a fandom friend about image boards and she actually didn't know they existed, which made me realize that there's probably a lot of newer tumblr users who are unfamiliar with imageboards as a concept. They're basically sites exclusively made for uploading visual media (images/videos/gifs) and sorting them via functional tagging systems, usually with an entirely separate forum section for discussion.

There's a lot of imageboards out there with a lot of different uses/fanbases. I mentioned Rule 34 earlier, which has a lot of stuff for Western cartoons and Overwatch but it's also probably the most well-known image board nowadays just because of its iconic name. Danbooru and Gelbooru are the most popular ones for anime-adjacent stuff. There's also joibooru, which allows captions to pictures. Don't use Sankaku Complex (does that site still exist?); its tag search system is horrid and it doesn't provide image sources (not cool!). If you're a furry, e621 is good because it lets you sort between types of furries (canid, bovine, avian etc). Ehentai technically isn't an image board since you can also share files other than images, but it's been around since 1999 and has one of the largest databases of manga/doujin like... ever. And it has sooooo many images. If you're not using it as a fan of 2000s-2010s manga/anime/games, you're missing out. Its sister site exhentai hosts more extreme/controversial content, and you need an ehentai account to access it - otherwise you get a picture of a Sad Panda. Hence why users colloquially call it Sad Panda. You can also find scans of certain official media on there, so I'd consider getting an account if you want to scrounge up a high-quality PDF of that Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver guidebook you got from the Scholastic book fair when you were a child... just saying.

Anyway, all this to say... never give up hope in finding the porn you want. It's out there somewhere. And if it isn't... I guess that means you've just gotta make it yourself! Or pay someone else to. Or both. (If I revealed how much money I've spent on commissions over the past three years, I think I'd feel a moderate amount of embarrassment at my poor financial management.) I hope you find what you need, anon. I've struggled similarly but just know your people are out there somewhere.

do you ever think about how even though sex and sexuality is a HUGE part of fandom culture and often the main appeal for many people, it's considered weird to be a fandom-level Fan of something that is objectively meant to be porn? like, i somewhat get it with 3-episode shows that clearly just exist to be fetish material and have no real depth, but when it comes to genuine works of art like Corruption of Champions, or Degrees of Ludity, your usual fan spaces have so little room to work. i find it odd, seeing as horror doesn't seem to have the same issue? there's a LOT in Fear And Hunger that you just straight-up cannot depict on tumblr, but that doesn't stop people from drawing tons of fanart and openly loving the characters. but for so many amazing porn games, it's total radio silence.

--

There are fanvids of CockyBoys on AO3. There are some regulars at ye olde slash cons who are always ready with the live action porn recs. Tagame is pretty popular.

You phrased this like it was a general question, but you're talking about something very specific: porn games.

I think the fanworks makers who like CoC hang out on image boards full of dude users and f/monster noncon content. At least, that's where I remember seeing it mentioned.

[hawkiors-blog]

[Watching the last kingdom kind of got me debating on using uthred as a fc for either Hawke or an OC. Hmmmm]

[octavianstar]

MC Concepts?

ok, so even before the Au I had in mind, I had a couple of ideas upon what would MC would be like or based upon the character and even had some weird plot idea a few years back.

So let's begin upon the first idea concept, the first idea upon how I would imagine Mc in the AU (or even in the main thing) would be of a familiar someone that would kinda makes sense in context, a Disney character rather so underrated that he's rarely seen in Disney.

That is being, this guy...

Basically from what I know at least I haven't seen anyone making a MC or a Oc version of him since there were rather easy clues in Twisted Wonderland that had some deja vu in Epic Mickey (blots, Mickey from the other side of the mirror, rarely has much interractions, and some more evidence that I'll add later) and I would want to have Oswald to have some light and popularity again, even if it's just a minor thing since I had found out he was cancelled out of the content for a kingdom hearts game.

And I would also think it would particularly work since of this rather particularly scenes in Epic Mickey comparison to Twisted Wonderland.

Notice how in Twisted Wonderland, Mickey looks like from the old cartoon of his and not his iconic one.

The image you seen in Twisted Wonderland is not only a reference to a Mickey Short "Thru the Mirror", but also the beginning scene to the Epic Mickey game. And with some evidence I had mentioned, it would mainly make sense there would be referencing to the actual game, but few things particularly had me questioned. What about Oswald? What ever happened to him?

So upon theory that MC can secretly Is a Twst Oswald (even if it's not canon sadly, at least in a headcannon) who needed to fix something that Mickey could not (or is trying to do but failing). Of Why Crowley would particularly needed MC to begin with despite with the possible pretending he's making of him trying to send them home and meeting them for the first time, believing it was another student. Or Rather in Chapter Seven..

Before we continue, I suggest that you may want to move past down or don't read this part cause it has some contain spoilers of part 2. Just know, SPOILERS AHEAD!

. . .

Are we good..? ..good!

Anyways, or like in Chapter Seven of where Malleus had said "You will all become the protagonist of this fairytale" after he overblotted and cast everyone, even Yuu/MC to sleep/kidnap them in thorns? Likely how Maleficint comes to Philip's prison cell to taunt him of how he's the valiant hero of a fairytale come true. And I would think upon the theory MC's dreams would be either similar to Oswald's or what would had it been like if Oswald was still with Disney/Mickey never exist, of what shorts and movies that Mickey made would become Oswald's instead.

And perhaps then, maybe, Mickey might have been the one to take Oswald's place. Of where everyone knows and loves Oswald and Mickey became a forgotten toon just like many others.

To have the dream that Oswald never had achieved because of what happened between Universal and Disney years ago that he cannot easily control. That he was once happy before he was then ripped away from Disney's arms. Just like in this video.

(Thinking about it, it's almost a similar backstory to Lotso's from Toy Story 3 but didn't turn evil)

Actually speaking of which, from what I also remember Oswald was supposed to be in the antagonist in the original Epic Mickey game thanks to some concept art of it. Which they had a plan but decided to scrap most of the main idea of him being the villain but would still act a bit mean and jealous over Mickey since he was replaced by him and both Mickey and Oswald technically didn't know each other at the beginning until both warmed up for each other. Despite his flaws, he's still a good person that is helping around the forgotten toons to have a place they feel belonged and is rather devastated after loosing Ortensia to The Blot after sending it away.

Which there is a potential chance that this would be a Overblot version of MC/Yuu if pushed comes to shove.

But thinking throughout upon Twisted Wonderland, Yuu/MC becomes cleared and clever throughout the other chapters of how to attempt to stop the "villian" and save the day though luck and planning. Not to mention in part 1 of chapter seven, Yuu/MC immediately recognized who Maleficint was and headed to the plaza where her statue was where Yuu/MC would be both conflicted upon their dream but also finding clues how to try and prevent another overblot. of course Yuu/MC would have some antagonistics upon them of where they had been stressed and almost died mutiple times (or more likely wanting to kill their/her/his friends after many stupid shenanigans they dragged them in or Crowley gaslights them so he wouldn't be the one in trouble. This is why we prefer Mr. Crewel as a father figure, Crowley.)

Ok..hopefully with Concept idea #1 out of the way, here's Concept idea #2.

So for the other concept of mine is Mc/Yuu being another Disney Character but this time in a obviously well known movie you all probably would know or already watched Encanto. That MC/Yuu being a Twst Mirabel.

Hopefully this will be a lot shorter but I'll try my best to clear some things out. To not be confused, the concept idea is Yuu/MC being twst Mirabel, not Yuu/MC being a part of the Madrigals or Mirabel in Twisted Wonderland thought I like the concept upon those ideas since they were creative.

So upon context that I would believe that Mirabel wanted to belong in the Family Madrigal despite her having no gift and how some of her family members (Mainly Alma and Isabela) sees her as a sort of outcast of the family like her uncle, Bruno, who's painted as the villain but is actually a nice guy. When she suddenly sees the cracks from the house, she's trying to find answers of what is happening and how to save the Miracle. Going onto a adventure and talking to the other family members in hope of any information, luckily thanks to Luisa, she finds out that there was a vision that Bruno left behind that of her having two possible outcomes, either her destroying or saving Casita. That the reason why Bruno left because he wanted to protect her from making Mirabel having more of a worse outcome than it already is with her. Soon Mirabel and Bruno found a way to help the candle by hugging her sister, Isabela which at first doesn't want to and thinks it's pointless to try but needed to given a chance. Also promising that she will help Bruno come back home. Of course Isabela and Mirabel talk it out, shared a moment, hugged and shown how Isabela was forced to become perfect in the daily based until she realized she didn't needed to be perfect, she needed to be herself.

Every seemed fine until Alma came and blames on Mirabel for Bruno leaving, Isabela out of control, the cracks from the house, Luisa losing magic, having no gift when she was litterally five years old person and basically saying that Mirabel is the one who is hurting this family, concidering that she wasn't apart of this family to begin with. Mirabel rightfully lashes out of how neither of the family wouldn't be good enough to Alma's standards and how Alma is the reason why the magic was dying to begin with because of her fear and standards pushed to far upon the family that without their gifts, they are nothing because she expected perfection of everyone and leaving Mirabel out of it as if she's never considered as family. Soon the Cracks got worse, house got destroyed and Mirabel runs off where the others are looking for her. And Alma confronts Mirabel who's apologizing but Alma sits by her, admitting her faults and her actual story, knowing now that it is her fault and Mirabel becomes to understand and forgives her, they hug out and returned home with Bruno to fix the house and having the family repairing, the magic returns with everyone in the family included. (Minor Critique that I would think Mirabel wouldn't completely forgive Alma, but would need a bit of time to forgive her but still does understand like in the deleted scene without the mom dying but I would think in time she and Bruno would eventually forgive Alma. But i think the reason they forgive her immediately or didn't question about it because it's Disney and wanted everyone to have a happy ending and it was almost over.)

While Yuu/MC is isekaied into another world filled with magic, who is magicless and must solve and stop the incidents and overblots that are happening to NRC. Having to involve/dragged themself/herself/himself into this scenarios of life and death from the overblots, some bullying that had been into or had gotten into with either the dormleaders or dorm students, Crowley gaslighting, neglect and blackmail, and which would eventually lead them into PTSD after the shit they had been through and eventually needed a therapist of their own, but does and can relate through the people that Yuu/MC are close to and to learn upon their mistakes to make up what they have done while trying to find a way back home.

of course some of it's similarities between Yuu/MC and Mirabel that both are magicless, needing some therapy and is helping people getting through their problems and their mistakes to become a better person. And I would especially think we would need to get Yuu/MC's Backstory since the Manga's MCs/Yuus are different each time (most likely) and I would think Yuu/MC having a very similar scenerio with Mirabel would probably be a compelling way of a backstory since both with Mirabel and Oswald are overlooked and wanted to be belonged, showing them that they got what it takes to be a somebody to them.

Though of course both of them are vastly different but I would think either of them might work for at least my version (Either Aus or headcannon) of Yuu/MC, regardless of what gender or race they are.

And now, hopefully for the most rather weird plot/backstory idea of what I would think could be interesting but not exactly sure due to how unsure how it's going to work since it would work for another Au where Twisted Wonderland is in a more Fantasy Era.

So to Kinda keep it short as possible, Yuu/MC is cursed by a unfamiliar source that endangers both their/her/his home and Twisted Wonderland where they are "the outcast" upon their family and noticed something was going on due to a black marking on their hand, like a cut that's dripping down a drop of black ink mixed with blood, having the cracks seen as a sign of danger. They talked to their/her/his family to see what's going on, realizing some of them knew about something that they won't tell Yuu/MC.

Eventually some disaster insurance after finding a mysterious spell book, glowing green-glass shards and paintbrush and eventually Yuu/MC in a angered state decided if their/her/his family won't tell them/her/him about the mysterious curse, they'll have to find out themself.

As they were just about to leave their home, they spotted something from the distance that calls to them to follow. They do, leading upto where they see the very thing falling into a rabbit hole that looks like a very deep well. They fell into the well's water before a few spects of magic began surrounding them as they became a shooting star before suddenly falling down to Twisted Wonderland, or at least the gateway towards it.

They are tested to pass through the gate and succeeded, Confronting either some of the RSA or NRC students in the Fantasy AU where they believe Yuu/ MC is the powerful magician that was gifted upon one of the most powerful artifacts that along with it's guardian was lost centuries ago along with the one whom had possessed the very two rare artifacts.

The mysterious spellbook is not only a book full of almost every spell but actually a storybook of all Disney Characters posing a sort of prophecies coming to life into an alternate retelling that can change fate, ending, and how they became to be, that being called The Book of Legacies, and with the Paintbrush of Imaginations, it can create living beings, pathways to worlds, even items that seemed to be lost.

The second being a candle that granted a miracle that can provide or in case help the adventurer upon what they would need to set things right and save the day. And to prove whom is worthy and whom is not, or more likely who can be redeemed and who cannot.

There will be more Lore with the Book and the Candle upon the Pomfiore Arc, which it would possibility merged with the Glorious Mascarade event.

However when the students and Yuu/MC opens the Book to Ambrose the Wizard, (Since he's possibly Merlin from the Sword and the Stone). Where they shown of a story of how their/his/her ancestor who was a student of the eldest sorceror (Yen-Sid) who lives upon the farthest star, the second star to the right, whom locks away a powerful god that was cursed away, never dared to be freed for he's the eternal ruler of evil that brings death and destruction to all, (That being Chernobog from Fantasia)

However Yuu/MC told them that they're/She's/He's not their ancestor and ended up there by accident because they follow something glowing from the distance and showed the marking that they had on their hand. Of course most of them were surprised, afraid and shocked of the very marking.

For it was a marking of a dark prophecy, a curse that would come to Twisted Wonderland and release Chernobog with the Seven Crystals of Darkness alongside "the Great Seven" returning back from the dead and would receive their "gracious gift" to whomever is the one who's with/brings the Cursed Chosen to it's destination and release him from his eternal cage upon the highest mountain. And in order for them find out how to break the cursed is to find their family member that too was in Twisted Wonderland years ago but had been captured into a far kingdom where no one could have or dare to find them because they were the only one who knows how to break it.

And it is up to Yuu/MC to find clues of where their/his/her family member is and rescue them and hopefully save everyone.

As for the Non-Disney School Au, I would think Yuu is particularly a mix of being Non/Disney that is stuck in a world of magic. They would be tricked into staying their for a while because they thought the headmistress would understand and be the one to promise their way back home. Or at least that's the jift of things.

But like I said these are just some concepts of my version of MC/Yuu and probably can eventually figure out the full version of it. But I did not expected to be this long than I wanted to be. So I'm very sorry if it's already too confusing as much but hopefully, hopefully we might have a more clear viewing upon the Au. Of course I'm still looking up a few Non Disney movies to intell and I know I'll add DreamWorks in it, but if you want to tell me any other non disney villians that I can see added in (besides DreamWorks since it's more likely going to be added in). Let me know, but remember it has to be a animated film that isn't Disney so sadly no live-action ones. Until then, hope you guys have a very lucky day! (And hopefully some images/videos pop up normally and not randomly missing, but if somethings up in this post, let me know.)

[miasfoxxden]

I tried to quit when you went to shit, when you proved to the world that you only cared about yourselves and not the people who needed you most. But here I am coming back for more like a god damn junkie. I kinda hate this, not gonna lie, but there's really nothing else like VRchat.

VRchat is a weird and amazing thing when you're queer. The aging 2019 Unity Engine LTS build it uses, although held together by duct tape and super glue, provides near infinite capabilities for self expression to those who have the time and patience to understand how to use it's SDK toolkit alongside other community tools like various Blender Plugins. It goes without saying, for those such as myself who have struggled with their own identity for a long time, this shit will crack eggs. And it shattered what remained of mine in the beginning of 2020. This is why this badly written and mismanaged clusterfuck of a Unity game holds a special place in my heart.

To make a very fucking long story short, I've been on VRchat since basically the beginning. My earliest memories of VRC were in late 2017, early 2018 where everything was far more raw, simple, and experimental. VRchat itself was a blank canvas, and on that canvas was a tight knit community that spawned an iconic culture all to its own. And yes, before anyone asks I do know de wae. But for those early years, mainly because of my lack of budget and stable income, I was tied down to just keyboard and mouse controls from a desktop PC. It's a sub ideal way to play VRC but you make do with what you have in that kind of situation and make the best of it. So when I had the means to get my own headset in the beginning of 2020, an Oculus Rift S, you can bet your ass the first thing I loaded into was VRchat.

Before we continue, I need to introduce the concept of phantom touch or phantom sense. Phantom touch is a term that was originally for amputees who could feel their missing limbs when given certain stimuli, typically some form of mirror therapy or sometimes via ones prosthetics. Phantom senses in VR are along the same lines. For all intents and purposes, your avatar in VR is the same as your body to your brain. Now, not everyone gets this, and those who do get it in varying amounts in just different ways. I'm admittedly on the more extreme end of this, as far as my brain gives a shit my avatar is my body and that ends up causing some interesting sensations. Most importantly, it pretty much drives my own choice of avatar since a lot of options out there just don't feel right. Yeah an avatar may be super cute or super funny but with that level of immersion for someone like myself it becomes very apparent that a lot of things will give full on dysphoria. This isn't really limited to anything either, I've noped off of cute looking avatars for a variety of reasons, sometimes even just small things like clothing, hair style, body proportions, height, etc. On the flip side of that, the right avatar can relieve a lot of dysphoria for someone like me who does experience gender dysphoria regularly in their day to day lives. So what were my options then?

Wade through a lot of public avatars until you find something anywhere between just right to perfect. The world of public avatars available is almost limitless, as games driven by user generated content tend to be so there's plenty of options.

Make your own avatar, either from scratch or a prefab base. This is again where the limitlessness of the engine comes into play, where the only limitation is your own technical abilities with Unity SDK, and tools like Blender or Maya.

I got lucky and took option one. I found one that felt just right, a Tda based red haired fox girl in a cute hoodie, crop top, and jeans, and only needed a few minor tweaks. While there was a bit of a language barrier, the creator of this avatar and I got something worked out and the image above is the result. This is me. This was when what remained of my egg, so to speak, was completely fucking shattered into oblivion. This was where I realized that "Nah yeah I'm not fucking cis," after years of going back and forth and being on the fence about my own sense of self. Ultimately, VRchat ended up a coping mechanism for my dysphoria. I was free. I was me. I ended up parting ways with the guy who made the model posted above for reasons I won't get into. I was never given the source files to update the model to SDK3 so where it is now is where it will be forever until SDK2 gets dropped entirely. So, in mid 2021 when I found a prefab base that was relatively well support and easy to work with on booth.pm called Imeris, I jumped on that. I re-made me.

Maybe to a bit of an extreme, but whatever. Bouncy squishy boobs on my chest makes girly gender euphoria go brrrr in a way I can't get over. But this is how I stayed for about a year without any major changes save for some new outfits every now and then.

In August, 2022, VRchat implemented EasyAntiCheat into the game. The reasoning for it is all over the place and while I have some insider information as to why it's not been stated publicly and I don't feel like getting sued into oblivion. But regardless of their reasoning, no matter how much public backlash they got, no matter how many members of the community who relied on third party client mods for accessibility for various disabilities and basic usability and quality of life functions not present in the base game, they pushed the patch out live anyways. They pushed out a patch knowing it broke compatibility with some Oculus headsets and software, this even was noted in the patch notes. They didn't care about us. That much was clear.

I swore off VRchat then and there, but the reality is the other options all sucked. NeosVR had NFT integration which is something I despise on principle. ChilloutVR, while promising, still lacks a lot of the functionality for their dev tools that makes a lot of my shit work. It was on par with early VRchat SDK1 and SDK2 tools, which compared to SDK3 with Udon were beyond archaic. I tried to give that some love, but it's so far from ready to take the place of VRchat that I couldn't switch over. Maybe some day, though, CVR will be in a position where it's a suitable place to call my home in the metaverse.

So after dealing with VRC being broken for months on my machine, I finally figured out a workaround. Turns out my main issue where VRchat was crashing to desktop was because of some sandboxing options I had enabled way back when I was still running Windows 10. Disabling these settings fixed the crashing to desktop, but Oculus overlay still crashes any time the virtual desktops are used. This, however and unfortunately, is a documented issue because of how EAC works, and there's no real fix for it. In any case though, I can be me again. And while unfortunately a lot of my friends have left VRC entirely post EAC update, there's still enough to justify sticking around.

At the time of writing this, I'm a month out from hopefully receiving hormone replacement treatment and beginning my transition proper. It's a bit overdue, admittedly, but I know some day soon I'll feel comfortable in my own shell. For now, this will continue to be my escapism from the dysphoria that's plagued me for years.

Stay floofy~ 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈❤️

[paleontaxi]

Thoughts on Lola aka The Lola Giga Post™

➭ Lola never looked much like Jarod at all, the spitting image of her mother, with slightly wavy caramel brown hair and green eyes.  Jarod never resented her for looking too much like her mother, though.  She was his little girl, and he thought she was beautiful and perfect at every point in her life.

➭ She was taller than Jarod by the end, standing at 5′7″, getting her height from her mother as well.

➭ Lola was very competitive, about a lot of things, to a fault.  Anytime there was even a perceived competition, she wanted to win.  When she was 4 or 5, she cheated at board games, and Jarod would let her because she was adorable when she thought she was being slick.  Eventually, she tired of the lack of challenge, though, and started playing games right.

She even came to despise cheating in others, especially when it resulted in her losing something, and she was extremely vocal in calling it out.  One year, at her school’s book fair, there was a book about dinosaurs that she wanted, and when she dragged Jarod in to buy it for her, she found it missing.  Not a moment too late, she spotted a boy from her class bringing it up to the desk to buy it and peered over his shoulder, only to see that he had swapped the price tag with one from a cheaper book so that the teachers would think he could afford it.  And she did not take that one lying down, screaming that he had cheated and stomping through the book fair to find the book with the dinosaur price tag on it.

This early competitive spirit and subsequent obsession with fairness and justice is a small part of what drew her into the Brigades.  Tyrak had been winning elections by intimidating voters, and once she thought about it for too long, that method of cheating started to get under her skin.

➭ Her favorite dinosaur when she was very little, around 4-6, was the Iguanodon, which she liked for its funny little thumb spikes.  Instead of doing the T-Rex arms when she played dinosaur, she went through a phase where she would walk around with two thumbs up, pretending to be the Iguanodon.  The thumb spikes were used to ward off predators, and as such, she would make Jarod play the T-Rex and “stab” him with her thumbs in order to “defend” herself.

As she aged, her love of the Iguanodon specifically started to wane a little, but only because her love of other dinosaurs grew.  By the time she was 10 or so, she stopped even trying to tell people what her favorite dinosaur was because she liked so many of them.

The Iguanodon is the dinosaur in Jarod’s icon border on this blog.

➭ I mentioned in this post that Lola basically held Jarod at gunpoint and forced him to learn how to dance with her, but the truth is that she liked dancing well before that, anyway.  Both before and after the competition, chores would always take her a little bit longer to do because she would dance her way through them instead of doing them in the most efficient way possible.  They didn’t have a lot of money for formal lessons, especially since the costumes for dance lessons rack up pretty quickly, and they were a one-income household.  So, both she and Jarod are self-taught through things like music videos, improv, and a lot of determination.

Although Lola is very competitive and wanted to win the father-daughter dance competition against the girl she didn’t like, she might have eventually lost steam if she didn’t already have some interest in the art to begin with.

➭ Lola was in karate lessons from the ages of 7-9, and she had a fat little dinosaur plushie that served as her karate buddy, which would get a new ribbon of a matching color tied around its stomach every time she earned a new belt.

She did lose a lot of her karate / self-defense knowledge once the lessons stopped, but she was retrained how to fight a little by some of the Brigades, who also taught her how to fire a gun.  However, she was still a very novice shooter by the time they sent her to the wall in 1986.

➭ She knew how to cook fairly well.  Jarod did hire a lot of sitters in the earliest years of her life, of course, since he worked such weird hours.  But he also wanted to make sure that she learned how to cook early on in her life in the event that she did find herself home alone.  And going into her late childhood / early teenage years, she didn’t have the sitters anymore, so it did help her, being able to feed herself.

She would often cook and leave dinner out for Jarod when he came home from working late.  He did cook for Lola as often as possible because he felt bad leaving her on her own, but she didn’t actually mind it too much.  She came to enjoy cooking to some extent, especially after she made it a goal to get better at it than he was and force him to admit to it, too.  She rather liked coming up with new combinations and fancy-ish ways of presenting things.

She never did have any qualms leaving Jarod with the dishes afterwards, though, regardless of which one of them cooked.

➭ She was a fan of movies, a bunch of different ones, including - maybe even especially - campy, cheesy, silly, over-the-top horror movies.  Jarod would put them on for himself after she went to bed, but she would hear the screaming and get curious and come out of her room to see what he was watching.  She scared him more than once, standing behind him in silence, not alerting him to her presence, until something happened, and she would let out a quiet ‘oh no!’ and make him jump out of his skin.

After she sneaked out of her room to join him enough, he started openly inviting her to watch them with him.  When she would bury her face in his chest, he would ask if she wanted to go to bed while he finished it by himself, and she would immediately protest and pull her head back up, determined to tough it out and stay up late.

Because of this, she acclimated to gore and other creepy morbid shit at a young age, and she was at least moderately more difficult to gross out than a lot of her other peers.

➭ She did well in school, averaging As and Bs, because of course - what was the point if she couldn’t outdo her classmates just a little bit?  However, she did struggle more with algebra and basically anything that was math just for the sake of math.  She did love applied math, like the math involved in science, such as in chemistry and physics, for example.  When she could see the use for the math, she was decent at it.  But when solving for x for “no reason,” she floundered a little bit.

➭ Just like she liked to dance, she liked to sing, although she wasn’t very good at that, just a little bit tone-deaf in that regard.

She liked music in general, really, and was able to connect with her peers about that, when she wasn’t being kind of morbidly weird or annoyingly showy.  She listened to a bunch of different stuff, with a special fondness for pop and jazz, although she would never admit to the latter.

The jazz was picked up from Jarod who played it often because it helped him relax, and she was far too fond of ripping on him for his “bad / boring taste,” unwilling to admit that she enjoyed it, liking it especially because it made her think of him.

➭ Lola did ask Jarod about her mom a handful of times since she was too young to remember her.  He tried his best to answer her questions patiently, but she could tell that they got under his skin, regardless.  She did ask him at one point why her mother had left them.  And at another point, whether or not her mother loved her, and if not, then why not?

Jarod did not have a good answer for any of those, not one that he could think of that wouldn’t hurt Lola’s feelings in some way, so he gave her a somewhat noncommittal response and then assured her that she still had him and that he loved her and that was what mattered.  And it worked a little bit.

However, despite his efforts, Lola’s feelings were hurt.  Because Jarod could not articulate Lola’s mother’s reasons for leaving, Lola started to feel like there weren’t any reasons, that she and her father had done nothing wrong to warrant the abandonment.  And whatever curiosity she had about her mother dissolved into a bitter resentment, a deep hatred of the woman, although she never mentioned this more than a few times.  She kept her hatred of her mother close to her chest and resolved, simply, to stop talking about her altogether, to spare her father from any more questions that might rip open old wounds.

➭ When she turned 15, Lola started to struggle with her identity, developing new insecurities and no longer feeling wholly comfortable in her own skin.  Had they lived a while longer, they would have found that this disconnect between their perceived self and their current body was an issue of gender identity.  Lola would have, at some point, ended up identifying as either nonbinary or a trans man.

However, because Petria does not really have any easily accessible LGBT+ resources, she never had the terminology to express it.  They never would have been able to pinpoint why they were feeling bad, not without trying on a lot more things, over the course of the next several years, which they never got to live to see.

I will be referring to Lola using both she/her and they/them pronouns interchangeably from now on.  I do not consider referring to Lola with she/her pronouns to be misgendering them because at the time of their death, they still identified as a girl.  In her mind, she was still fully a girl, a confused one who felt bad about herself, but a girl nonetheless, nowhere even close to thinking of identifying as trans as an option.

➭ Lola’s internal struggles with their identity did cause them to pull away from Jarod, feeling exhausted and repulsed by the notion that they had to live up to the expectation of being “daddy’s little girl.”  This was almost completely subconscious on Lola’s part.  They had no idea where their sudden lack of interest in interacting with their father came from, just that they felt he “no longer understood” them, but they could not put a finger on what they wanted him to understand.

This is yet another thing, a big thing, that drew her into the Brigades - the desire for a sense of belonging that her home life no longer provided for her.  Bob was able to take her and her complaints that her father “didn’t understand” and make her believe that he did understand, even if she was unable to articulate anything to him as well.  He was incredibly charismatic and someone Lola looked up to as a role model and as someone who would accept them as a person rather than a daughter.

So, she joined the Brigades and latched onto that as an identity and a community, to try to work her way through her confusion.

➭ Lola had a tendency to externalize her problems, to project outward and find other causes for them that she could latch onto, instead of turning inward and reflecting, which is a trait that she picked up from her father.  (See: him going on a revenge quest instead of sitting down with himself, working through his problems, and healing properly.)  As such, their displeasure with themself was easily twisted into a hatred for Petria’s government.  All that they knew was that Something Felt Wrong, and seeing few other options, they pointed at President Tyrak - with some guidance from Bob - and assumed that that must be The Thing That Is Wrong.

Externalizing problems in this way made her feel less confused, at least temporarily, because she had a clear path forward to solving what she perceived to be The Problem.  In reality, even if Brigades succeeded in dismantling Petria’s government entirely, Lola never would have been fully satisfied until they came to terms with who they actually were, which, as mentioned, would have taken a lot more years.

➭ Their codename with the Brigades was Fossil, obviously alluding to their interest in paleontology.  It was, of course, used so that the Brigades could talk to and about her without the authorities finding out her real identity.  Pretty much all Brigades use codenames with each other, such as John going by the name Ursus or Mr. U.

However, Lola’s codename, which they picked for themself, served another purpose in that it helped them start to explore some of their identity issues.  “Fossil” allowed them to shed “Lola” and some of the baggage that came with it.  They never acknowledged “Fossil” as their real or even preferred name consciously, knowing that it was just code, but it did give them a rush, being able to be known as somebody else.

They spent a lot of time with the Brigades, more comfortable living as Fossil than as Lola, although they filled up a lot of time with training and plotting, too much so to really sit down and examine what their Fossil identity meant to them.

➭ Lola got her hair cropped short about a week or two before her death, as part of her experimenting (even if she didn’t call it experimenting).  Jarod never got a picture of her with her new short hair, so the picture on the tribute he set up for her depicts her with long hair, a little bit past her shoulder blades.

➭ To be added to, as I feel like it.

[themadlostgirl]

Tech Wizard

*School is kicking my ass but I finally caught a break! Gonna pump out as many requests as my dumb brain can muster while I can!*

Prompt: Modern reader with modern tech amazes our Lost Boy. Also some cute fluffy flustered reader cause I couldn’t help myself.

Requested by: anon

Warnings: none

~~~

Being of the modern era on an island with absolutely no modern technology--let me rephrase--being on an island with no technology outside of rope pulleys and ladders is horrifying. I am a girl that is used to having things such as wi-fi and smartphones and electricity and indoor plumbing! Now I am on an island that doesn’t so much as have an outhouse!

But I can manage. I am fine. Because despite this place having no technology like cellphone towers or outlets electronics still work. Because time doesn’t move or whatever my phone battery never dies and I have full bars and service everywhere I go. It’s actually amazing.

It was me flashing my tech that kept me from getting locked in a cage my first night on Neverland. The Lost Boys were amazed and Peter Pan especially was intrigued by my technology. The first night on the island was spent with me sitting down with him showing him everything my smartphone could do.

“And if you tap this icon it’ll open the camera.” I pressed the camera button. “See?”

“Fascinating. The last time I saw a camera it was this huge contraption with this bright burst of light and a bulb. Yet you can take pictures just with this hunk of glass and metal?”

“Cool right?” I showed him how to zoom in and out. “Oh and if you swipe the screen like this it’ll open the front facing camera. That way you can take selfies.”

“Selfies?” Peter asked, confused.

“Yeah, they’re picture you take of yourself. Here, let me show you. Scoot in closer so you can see both our faces in the screen.” I pressed my cheek against his to get out faces to fit. “Say cheese!”

I took the picture and pulled it up in the gallery. “See? And this is the gallery where you can look at all the other pictures you’ve taken.”

“The quality is amazing. Who are these other people in the your gallery?” He asked as he scrolled through the other images.

“Oh, those are just old friends I lost contact with after I moved.” It was sad seeing all their faces again.

“And this one?” he clicked on a picture of me kissing my ex’s cheek. “You seem rather close with this particular friend.”

“Ex-boyfriend. Things didn’t end well.” I took the phone back. “I know I should have deleted the photos by now but I just haven’t gotten around to it.”

As if sensing that the subject was making me uncomfortable he asked what other features my phone had. I was glad for the distraction and brought up my music app. “It’s basically like having a music box with hundreds of thousands of songs at your fingertips. Here’s a good one.”

I clicked on Man with the Hex. Maybe I should have started with something softer but honestly since stepping onto this island it was all I could think of. Well that and Somewhere In Neverland. I wonder how he would react if I told him about the songs and movies Peter had inadvertently inspired.

“What other music do you have?” Peter asked.

“Tons. I basically got a little bit of everything. There are some songs inspired by the fictional you that I told you about. Did you want to hear one?”

“Songs? What else has this fictional counterpart of mine inspired?”

“A stage play, tv shows, a couple of movies. The animated one is a classic and hilarious but the 2003 live action film is just so wholesome and innocent.”

“Did you refer to me as wholesome and innocent?”

“Well, your fictional counterpart is a kid not a teenager. I’d say he’s at max maybe twelve or thirteen years old when they show him in films.”

“I see...”

“If I can get my hands on a projector we could set up a movie night and I could show you guys one of the movies. I think everyone would get a kick out of it.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“I can’t wait.” Peter and I sat there all night as I played him different songs and we played app games. I started to fall asleep but he still wanted to play with my phone so I handed it over for him to use while I caught a couple hours of shut eye.

I woke up a couple hours later to soft music playing near my ear. The surface I was sleeping on was also a lot softer than I remember falling asleep on. I peeked my eyes open and noticed that at some point I had slumped over and fallen asleep on Peter’s lap.

“Hey, sorry for falling asleep on you.” I yawned. “Still having fun?”

“Yes. It is a fascinating piece of technology.”

“I know.” I realized what song he was playing and smiled. “I see you found my Disney playlist.”

“Disney?”

“Movie company. They’re the people that made that animated feature I told you about.” I sat up, “I don’t have any movies saved on my phone but I can pull it up on YouTube. Give me a second.” I took the phone back and looked up the song he had been listening to.

Cause of course it had to be Kiss the Girl. I wonder how Peter would react to seeing a movie that portrayed mermaids as nice instead of the vicious killers Neverland has.

I started the video and watched him as he watched the video. It was like watching a little kid. He was so impressed by things I thought were so commonplace. “And this was all hand drawn?”

“Yep. Cool, right?”

“Very.”

Our eyes met and my heart leapt into my throat. He was a lot closer than I thought. I could practically feel his breath on my face.

Yes, you want her Look at her, you know you do Possible she want you too, there is one way to ask her It don't take a word, not a single word Go on and kiss the girl

Why couldn’t I have played Poor Unfortunate Souls or Circle of Life? Why did I have to put on this song? It was giving me ideas I don’t think I should be having.

Look like the boy too shy He ain't gonna kiss the girl Sha-la-la-la-la-la, ain't that sad? Ain't it a shame? Too bad He gonna miss the girl

It was only made all the worse by the fact that he wouldn’t stop staring at me now.

Now's your moment Floating in a blue lagoon Boy, you better do it soon, no time will be better She don't say a word and she won't say a word Until you kiss the girl

He looked at me with a smirk. “Is it true?”

“Hm?” I didn’t trust myself to speak at that moment.

“Are you not gonna say a word until I kiss you?” His grin grew wider and my panic grew deeper.

“No. No, I can talk.” I stammered out. “I was just--you know what? I never showed you how to record videos on this. Check this out.” I quickly closed the app and opened the camera again. “See, we click this button and when he tap the center button now it’ll record.”

“It records anything?” He asked with that same mischievous smile of his.

“Yeah. Sure does.”

“That could come in very handy. Let me see.” He took the phone and aimed it at us to record. “There is something that I’d like to hold onto.”

“What’s that?”

“Your flustered face.” He pecked my cheek and my mouth dropped open.

“Peter!”

“And now I have that face forever!” he laughed as he played the video back. “You are going to have to bring more of this stuff over, my little technology wizard. I want to have much more fun with these devices.”

“Yeah. Sure.” I nodded furiously. “I’ll be sure to get right on that. There are tons of movies and video games I think you guys would really like. I could also bring over some flashlights. They’re like torches but they won’t set stuff on fire. Who knows, I might even bring over a karaoke machine. I think that would be really funny to witness.”

“Whatever you say.” Peter lounged back. “Now explain to me what a karaoke machine is.”

[nebulations]

Tagged by @thewrongshop, thank you so much!!

1- Why did you choose your url?

I'm gonna lay myself bare, here: I literally found it on a list of potential usernames I'd made when I was in SIXTH GRADE. None of them were good, but for some reason THIS is the one I chose 😭 In my defense, I didn't realize I'd actually use this sideblog when I made it, and by the time I realized I was more active on this than my main it was too late to change :')) I like to think I've gotten better at writing since I was twelve, at least!

2- Any side blogs?

Yes, three! This is one of them, and then I have another dedicated to just doing image descriptions and one more where I reblog art for fandoms I'm not but wanna appreciate works for! The latter is newer, it was just a saved url I had for a while before I decided I could use it to get over my guilt from ignoring great posts I had little to no context for

3- How long have you been on Tumblr?

Three years, I think?? WILD, it feels like it's been so much more

4- Do you have a queue tag?

I do, it's #that's my queue! Possibly not as witty as I thought it was when I conceived of it, but it serves me well! It posts three times a day and usually has a backlog for ten days (I actually get antsy if it dips below 30 posts, which is... insane, I think)

5- Why did you start your blog in the first place?

This was meant to be an overflow blog for Every Other Fandom I was in during my days as a hardcore Sanders Sides fan, but inevitably my obsession with that ran out, and now this is still that but with even more fandoms; my main is basically just funny text posts and videos now

6- Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

MOB PSYCHO SEASON THREE, BABY! I actually broke my no-characters-as-icons rule for Mob because I love him so much and was so excited :)

7- Why did you choose your header?

To be completely honest, it was the only aesthetic photo I could find that I liked and also went with my theme, but, aha, MP100 fans will probably recognize that there's a pretty mean reference there too

8-What’s your post with the most notes?

This silly post I made a few days after MAG174, I think!

9- How many mutuals do you have?

I had to do some math for this since I don't have xkit and can't check as easily, but holy heck 210!!!!!!! Hello all of you I love all of you so so much

10- How many followers do you have?

More than 300, less than 500!

11- How many people do you follow?

1210!

12- Have you ever made a shitpost?

I've made a few dumb posts, sure, but I don't know if any count as shitposts per se

13- How often do you use Tumblr each day?

Too often 😭 I'm on it basically all the time and it's bad

14- Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

Absolutely not, just the idea stresses me out

15- How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

They raise my hackles, I don't reblog them or "reblog for good luck/X thing to happen" posts

16- Do you like tag games?

They are so much fun, I am just terrible at answering them :') Case in point being that I literally did not see this in my activity and only found this by accident. I also don't like adding on to very long chains, so if I get tagged in one I generally am filled with awe and affection for the person who tagged me and then do not respond

17- Do you like ask games?

Basically the same answer! I don't always do them because I can get overwhelmed with the feeling that I need to be as witty and personable as possible with each answer, but they're fun!

18-Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous?

I don't know who is and isn't, but I personally think all of them should be :) Minus the many many cons of being Tumblr famous I mean

19- Do you have a crush on a mutual?

No, but there are many I'd like to send hugs and/or kisses to :)

Tagging @rosie-with-knives, @exactlyonebraincell, @coulson-is-an-avenger, @maxwellmybeloved, and anyone else who'd like to participate!

[catbot158]

Imposter Factory: I Beat It (Non-Spoiler)

So I finished Imposter Factory, the sequel to Kan Gao’s To The Moon and Finding Paradise games. I have been in love with To The Moon since I played it all the way back in 2012, and I have never stopped loving it, no matter how many times I have replayed it. However, I only played Finding Paradise once, and while I thought it was just as good as its predecessor, I had a harder time connecting with it as I did with To The Moon, even though its themes were more relatable to me as a person. Still, I was excited for Imposter Factory; Kan Gao never fails to make me laugh, think, and cry in the span of a few moments, and the few images we’ve gotten over the last two and a half years since its announcement have only made the hype grow. So of course I forgot about it until release day, and in a panic I bought it and played it right away. Naturally.

The only two things I knew going into Imposter Factory were twofold: 1) the basic synopsis (which even that I doubted) on the Steam page, and 2) the concept that IF’s main themes were “in-between” TTM and FP. Other than that, I was going in blind, and I think that’s for the best. The game is at its best when you are surrounded by the mystery of everything going on. What is this mansion you found yourself invited to? Who is this mysterious woman who is lurking around the place? And whose is murdering this lovely old couple with very wealthy connections? It hits the Agatha Christie vibes just right. You never know what is going to hit our intrepid hero, Quincey, next. 

But like the Steam page says, that is only the first third of the game. I won’t go into too much detail about the other two-thirds of the game, but I will say that the second half is more or less what you would come to expect from a Kan Gap game: exploring memories, collecting orbs, and moving on to the next memory. Except this time, there are no bickering scientists one-lining their way through a person’s life- instead, Quincy is the one in control, and this alone is an interesting concept. Quincy has no clue as to where he is and what these orbs do, and that makes for an interesting twist on the formula. We aren’t following indifferent but sympathetic workers, but a person with a kind heart, and so his reactions to the memories he witnesses are much more raw and emotional...when he reacts. There are times where he just seems emotionless, even when he really shouldn’t be. That’s a shame, because Quincy is a fun guy to hang out with otherwise. He actually cracked me up more than Dr. Neil Watts has, and Neil is a comedic king in these games. Just it feels like he probably should’ve had a companion with him to bounce off of during the second third of the game, to add some levity to the proceedings. While a little cheesy and unnecessary during the serious parts, Rosaline and Neil were fun characters to hang out with, and its a shame they’re not controllable this time around. 

That isn’t the only issue plaguing IF. For one thing, there isn’t as much interactivity with the environment as there is in the previous games. You barely talk to NPCs and there are barely any items to click on and read funny descriptions on. Also, the “memento” system is done away with: the orbs break open a barrier and you move on to the next section, no puzzles to solve to progress. I will admit that I didn’t miss the puzzles as much, but I did miss trying to find the next memento and seeing where the memento leads to; they gave a break from all the story we’re constantly surrounded by. These, along with Quincy’s relative silence during the second third, means IF has a more serious tone to it than the previous game before it, and while it does make it stand out from TTM and FP, the game also feels less memorable than those other two. TTM and FP were meme machines and had a lot of quirky moments to break up all the sad. Oh, except for Ricebot. Ricebot and the weird long cat were good.

My final problem with IF, however, is much grander than the other problems I’ve mentioned, but it is unfortunately a spoiler. I will do a spoiler post about IF later, but suffice it to say, it majorly affects everything about the game, and it did affect my overall enjoyment of the game. I know people are going to disagree with me on this, but I have to say what I feel. 

Overall, IF was definitely a fresh new twist on the series. The art was spectacular, there was actual animation this time that looked wonderful, I (mostly) enjoyed the new characters and the music is beautiful as always (though sadly Laura Shigihara did not sing anything this time :( though Leafpie did, so check that out). I do think, however, it’s the weakest of the three Sigmund Corps. games. The script isn’t as tight as before and the darker tone means we’re missing some of the series’ iconic humor, but there is still some good stuff to chew on here. I still almost cried again, so that is a good sign, at least.

(Also one note I want to make: Kan said that, like before, IP can be played without having played the other games in the series. I agreed with him when it came to FP, but this time I am going to have to disagree with him on IF: You should at least play Finding Paradise before playing Imposter Factory. I will not spoil why here: let’s just say that there are some things in FP that pop up again in IF.)

EDIT: I HAVE SAID THE SPOILERS. HERE ARE THE SPOILERS. Don’t kill me please lol