#feels ranty

[14dayswithyou]

💖 Day 3.5 is now available! 💖

For the last couple of months, only Server Boosters had access to the 3.5 update... Buuuuut now it's available for everyone to play in the 14DWY Discord — and soon itch.io once I'm happy with the QA and state of the game — so please don't feel pressured to join unless you want to!!

The full devlog + even more screenshots are under the cut ^^

What's been added to the 3.5 version?

📺 Streamer Mode!

I've been told that it's difficult to stream and monetise age-restricted videos on YouTube and Twitch, so I added an option to remove the sexual content and strong language used in the demo.

Now y'all can invite Ren into your bed for cuddles without putting your streamer career on the line /silly /lh

This won't affect the 18+ rating or dark themes/elements of the game, however! Although Streamer Mode will prevent you from seeing any "gruesome" CGs in the future, most of the core elements of the game will still be tied to the choices and decisions you make. So you won't miss out on the overall experience by using streamer mode!!

⚙️ Custom Pronouns!

It only took me one entire year to get around to it, but you can finally choose your own preferred pronouns (or use a set of pronouns instead)... At the cost of being able to change them mid-game ^^;

Since the original pronoun screen wouldn't update until a new scene was displayed, I temporarily disabled the feature. But once I find a workaround, I'll bring it back!

💗 Choose how others perceive you!

You can now choose how the cast and narration perceive you! Originally, the narration was kept strictly gender-neutral (outside of pronouns and genitalia picked by the player), but this will soon change in future updates.

For more clarity: you don't get to choose the words specifically, but you can choose between masculine, feminine, and androgynous terms!

📋 Separate top and bottom genitalia!

You can now choose your tatas and pps separately! >:3

Alongside that, you can also choose your preferred body type!

I removed the "both" genitalia option because a few players still assumed it was an obscure version of "intersex". That wasn't my intention and I don't want to mislead anyone, so I took it out for now ^^;

I also didn't want to include a screenshot of the new genitalia choices in action (because it's NSFW), so y'all get the same character menu screen for the nth time instead lmao

📱 Relationship Screen Overhaul!

You can now change your own status for more immersion, and long-term Server Boosters will eventually be able to submit and use their own icon within the game as well!

Stalking finding your friends has now become easier by using "Buddy Maps"; a new app that allows you to see the location of all the cast members!

I want to offer players more incentive to check the relationship screen since they tend to miss the status updates, so hopefully this might help ;v;

It also says it "updates every few hours" so folks don't go overboard and check every 5 seconds to see where Ren is gdsghf (also keep in mind that he's a hacker lol)

🖤 Additional Scenes Update!

Day 2 received a brand new CG!!!!! Originally, I planned on only adding a few CGs sporadically throughout the game, but it didn't feel right to leave Day 2 so... empty... so I added a brand new CG to (hopefully) make things feel more balanced and natural!

If you decline Teo's offer on Day 3, Leon will now call and try to convince you to reconsider. However, players are still allowed to decline, and if they do, they'll reach a dead end.

After listening to feedback on itch, I changed some of the dialogue during Days 1-3 to make it seem more consistent! They're only small changes though, so it's honestly not worth looking for sdgjssga

🎶 Updated BGM and SFX!

I wanted to try out a different style of music to see if it fits the vibe of 14DWY more! The BGM features more acoustics to suit the "beachy" theme of Corland Bay, though I made a conscious effort to include piano elements as well to stay true to the original!!

I figured it'd be better to give players a live example before I make a poll (to see if they prefer the change or not) and publish it to Itch.

Some new SFX have also been added, though it's very minimal and honestly not that noticeable.

How to download and play the update?

(warning: clicking on the following links will open Discord!!) To download the Day 3.5 update, simply join the 14DWY Discord server, verify your age, and visit the "14dwy-updates" channel!

Alternatively, you can also wait until the update is publicly released on Itch to play it as well!! (It normally gets released shortly after a round of QA testing/getting feedback from the server, though I may release it earlier if I feel like it hehe ^^)

Enjoy!!

[xxplastic-cubexx]

🧙‍♀️🐈‍⬛

[letthesunshinein]

I’ve been musing on adam’s sexuality and I know some folks feel like he’s been bi the whole time but having just done a deep pynch-focused dive through the books, I actually think adam hadn’t realized that he was into ronan Like That until they kissed. like he obviously knew ronan was into him (and actually, knew ronan was gay since like, the beginning of trb probably), but he had sort of convinced himself that the reason he enjoyed it was vanity/attention. and right before and after the kiss we get the line “adam didn’t understand anything” which feels to me like he hadn’t even comprehended this was a thing he wanted until he was doing it.

and that’s actually a very common queer experience, especially for folks who are interested in multiple genders, especially when they’re young.

so adam, despite wanting to know everything and being the perceptive one, has these increasingly big moments of “I feel like I’m missing some data here” but the data he needed was the actual experience of kissing ronan/making the conscious decision to kiss ronan again and THEN he has his eureka moment. And he can look back at the moments where he found his Latin teacher hot, or when he put a picture of an attractive man in his glove box and realize he was bi the whole time.

[arthur-lesters-middle-c-key]

I’ll forever be annoyed that Malevolent doesn’t stop to recognize the significance of a PIANIST choosing to bite off part of his PINKIE FINGER. No matter the hand, the pinkie is maybe the second most important digit for piano playing, behind the thumb. (Second and third fingers, SIT BACK DOWN.)

Your pinkies are hyper-attuned to hit the right notes in a root chord, pick out an overall melody while the rest of your hand is playing a harmony, hell, it’s the start of most scales. As a pianist, I’ve put years of procedural memory into training just my pinkie fingers to do their jobs and if I lost part of one I would be devastated, even as a hobbyist.

There’s so much symbolism potential there, too! I love that John in general has control of Arthur’s left hand, which on piano controls the low notes, the accompaniment to the melody, and the root and stability of almost anything you play. It mostly supports, though can sometimes intertwine with the right hand or branch off into cello-like melody of its own (chopin does this a lot it’s great). That conceptually fits John SO WELL. Not to mention the idea of Arthur being so guilt-ridden with Faroe’s death that he distances himself from being a pianist at any opportunity, only to be reeled in by an Eldritch force that explains EVERYTHING to him as piano… the possibilities make me scream.

…Unfortunately though, I don’t buy the ‘the symbolism is there’ argument for this one, it’s FAR too niche to expect the average audience to know what exactly a professional pianist would value (besides the ~oooooo no don’t break my hands~ beat that every pianist character in a thriller/horror/action story ever seems to have gone through at some point), and malevolent goes out of its way so often to explain symbolism.

I think my frustration is that Arthur having trauma surrounding piano, losing direct control of his left hand, and losing/replacing his top pinkie joint, doesn’t have many narrative consequences. (Didn’t even talk about how a wooden pinkie would probably fundamentally change the sound/timbre of your playing, which would be cool to see reflected.) Arthur seems to be able to play piano fine even with John controlling his hand, and enthusiastically does so at several points post- starting to process Faroe’s death in the dreamlands. It’s fine as a narrative choice, there’s a story to tell after all, but I’ll always miss the character intricacy that could come from exploring these consequences and backstory specifics.

[peridotporygon]

i saw the tv glow is so impactful because they're right. there is still time. i know that literally everyone and their mother has been saying it but god. they're right.

i was suffocating. i felt apathetic at most times and generally lost motivation. i couldn't see a future for myself. i couldn't look inside myself because i was so scared, i didn't want to have to confront it. but i did. i can see a life for myself now. i can see a life for ME. i found my heart. fuck. i found it and it was so cold but i felt a heartbeat, i dug myself out of my own grave. it took me years. it took me my entire life but there was still time. there is still time. there's time for you too.

[bookinit02]

genuinely i am going to say this once only because it’s the middle of the night but the level of tiktok hating i’ve seen on this app pisses me off so so so badly. you are not better than anyone else for not having tiktok downloaded, you are not smarter, you are not “more evolved.” tiktok is used by such a wide variety of people and of course there is low intelligence and empathy present on there, there is low intelligence and empathy EVERYWHERE. including here. there are also some of the kindest, most intelligent, most hopeful people i’ve ever seen. i do experience extremely low lows and high highs while scrolling tiktok because it is an insane range of content—it shows you pretty much everything you could ever imagine out of the range of human experience. i’ve seen a man who spent his life savings to buy out land and provide free housing for people. i’ve seen a woman document her journey to learn english and receive nothing but unconditional support and positivity. i’ve seen dogs learn how to “speak” and new mothers speaking openly about their depression and women encouraging each other to leave their abusive spouses. i have learned SO much in the last few years that i never learned in school. i guess really what i’m saying is that i don’t love the app itself so much as the power of human community, and it’s genuinely really upsetting and disheartening to see people continually shit on a platform that has done so much good for so many. it really does connect a lot of us to the world in a way that’s not comparably possible on any other app (yes, including this one), and i personally will be extremely upset if it really does get banned. not to mention how nobody should be championing government banning of any app, regardless of if you like it or not. just genuinely. can we cool it with the pretentiousness for a day or two. that is all i fucking want

[canisalbus]

I really appriciate how often Machete is depicted struggling and feeling like a burden, while still being loved and supported by Vasco. It gives the top tier angst of "i'm not good enough, I'm not worth it" but you frame it in such a way where it's clear that's just how he *feels* and is not how things really are, but also it's so nice to see someone who struggles quite often in a loving and unique relationship that suits them. The narrative of not being able to love or be loved unless you're consistently healthy is really tiring lol.

.

[hidingoutbackstage]

Something about Tucker being held to a higher standard than all of the other Reds and Blues in the later seasons. Sure he likes sex and makes “that’s what she said” esque sex jokes, but like, especially during Shisno trilogy, the show seems to really like putting him down or treating his love for sex like a comedic punching bag. Oh, Tucker’s a single dad who genuinely loves and cares about his one alien kid despite how that kid was forced upon him? Well actually he had sex with a TON of women on Chorus by using the fuck temple and now has a ton of kids that he’s reluctant to pay child support for. And speaking of the temple, despite it being said to make everyone on the planet super horny and sex obsessed, Tucker says he didn’t feel any different, because making him hypersexual is funny (why is it funny, RT?). And remember how Tucker’s arc during Chorus had him emotionally dealing with Felix’s betrayal? Well now he falls for the most obvious manipulative lies from Temple, I guess he’s just dumber now. And you remember that funny scene in season 5 where Doc is giving Sister a physical exam, and Tucker obviously really wants to see her naked, but because Doc keeps telling him to not come in, and likely out of respect, he doesn’t, while Red Team is secretly perving on her (which they never fucking get called out for), plus all the funny moments of him trying to flirt with her, and her either being receptive or so fucking weird that it takes him aback? Well Tucker still REALLY wants her, but he’s now a childish asshole who can’t stand the idea of her not wanting to sleep with him, and is now super self centered despite the arc he went through showing how he values others, and the series basically keeps fucking with him and making him miserable and barely ever giving him a moment of relief. And you know how he was mercilessly tortured for M O N T H S during Restoration? Well he doesn’t get to process that trauma, and despite all the growth he’s supposedly gone through throughout the series, his last moment is an offscreen sex joke because Tucker’s the perv, get it? We can’t let him have a fucking break despite literally everyone else being treated comparatively nicer or given some kind of levity. Why specifically Tucker, Rooster Teeth? What has he done that’s so bad to you that you continually treat his character this way despite the fact that he’s truly the best (and should have been main) character in this whole series?

[honeycreammilkshake]

Reading your anons and your answers I think the problem with those fans is that they only accept a character if it's involved with satoru.

Like, apparently you are not allowed to like Sukuna anymore nor like both yuji and sukuna, but you were only allowed to like AND analyze Sukuna when he was fighting Satoru loool

I'm sorry but Sukuna is more than that, sukuna doesn't need THAT fight to be a character in his own, Sukuna also kept analyzing and having cool moments with other characters, just because your favorite character was dead doesn't mean other things stopped existing. This is one of those cases where fans keep thinking the manga is about some secondary character

hi, anon. thank you so much for this ask. i'm going to follow this up by making an unnecessarily long and ranty post nobody's going to bother to read, but i felt the overwhelming need to go in-depth for this anyways. apologies for the length of this.

to start off, i'm going to point out something that will probably get me a lot of hate or at least criticism from gojo fanatics, but i think it should be said for all those out there who keep twisting jkk to fit their own problematic concept of morals.

so we all know sukuna is the big bad of jjk. he's the main antagonist, the evil cannibal monster, a god of chaos and apathy and murder. i'm not here to argue against this, though. it's been clear from the beginning sukuna is a true villain in all of his actions and beliefs. however, we really need to look at the contexts behind how he became such a monster and consider if he's actually the most "evil" sorcerer/curse in the jujutsu world or not.

i'm going to address the underlying problem with the pro-gojo/anti-sukuna fans who twist the story to suit their own views first.

so gojo was born with a tremendous amount of power, so much that he's been branded the strongest jujutsu sorcerer of the modern age. he literally shifted the flow of cursed energy and from the start was set apart from others. it's truly terrifying how much power he has...

so it's a good thing he's a real sweet and caring guy, right?

if only.

gojo is irredeemably self-absorbed, unhealthily egotistical, obsessed with his own abilities, demeaning and insulting to others, brutal to his students and dismissive of their safety, and more than willing to commit mass murder.

when fighting with jogo, for example, he doesn't seem bothered at all by the massacre of innocent people during their battle, and is even willing to sacrifice bystanders all in the name of winning.

he's displayed this same kind of general apathy for the lives of others in his past as well.

in his past arc, it was geto who saved gojo from becoming an actual villain and instead managed to set gojo on the path of becoming the slightly less evil antihero he is today. however, after riko's death, the experience turned both of them on each other as they settled on opposite sides of "good vs evil."

without geto there to guide him, though, gojo would have easily lost his way and turned evil .... so where was a person like that for sukuna?

the jujutsu world is extremely heartless and obsessed with strength. the jujutsu higher-ups were willing to kill yuuji - an innocent teenager who just happened to become dangerously involved with the world of curses and the host of sukuna - as well as risk the health and safety of countless others, sorcerers and normal people alike. the whole jujutsu world is full of corruption and cold, cruel people.

but this is just in the modern world - during the golden age of jujutsu, in the heian era, conditions were even harsher and crueler than they are now. during this time, existence for regular people in japan was demanding, quality of life was very low, and so many died of sickness and starvation. the amount of curses that arose from all this suffering was immense and required the extreme powers of sorcerers to balance it out.

this is the context of sukuna's birth. he came into this world as a child of a starving mother and he himself would have starved if he didn't consume his twin in the womb.

during his conversation with kashimo, who asks if sukuna was born with that much power or if he gained it throughout his life, sukuna himself seems to not know. all he can say is... he was an unwanted wretch.

societal demands and religious fights back then would have led to an overwhelming stigma and dehumanization of anything that people feared or didn't understand... which probably means that sukuna, who was able to be born from the act of eating his own unborn twin, was seen as monstrous from the day of his birth on. and if he was indeed born with such strength and a body merged with that of his twin's, or at least the compacity to become that, he was also most likely villainized for his nature as well.

where gojo was more embraced and highly coveted by the jujutsu world, the world sukuna was born into most likely shunned him and led him to adapt the kind of mindset he has now.

sukuna sees strength as the only means of survival, rising above the cruelty shown to him to become the cruelest himself. this philosophy, which a lot of people at this time believed in - especially in the jujutsu world - shows us that sukuna probably saw his own really option to endure was to become a monster. those at the top are above all the weak feelings and suffering of the ones beneath, after all, or so he believes.

and it seems like so many of the strongest sorcerers still believe in that concept as well. both yorozu and gojo thought they could reach sukuna by challenging him, but in the end... only yuuji ever connected with the king of curses.

(yes i will fit sukuita in here... even if you don't ship them romantically, it's an undeniable fact that their relationship is much more complex than it seems and that yuuji does in fact care for the very monster he's supposed to destroy.)

when sukuna's dying in chapter 268, yuuji makes it clear that he's willing to serve the kind of caring, understanding role in sukuna's life that was most likely never given to him.

instead of dehumanizing sukuna, yuuji actually accepts that sukuna turned out to be the monster he is and says it was all a matter of chance how they became like this.

this a level of empathy, intimacy, and compassion that someone like gojo (and pretty much the vast majority of jjk characters) could never show. sukuna himself seems at a loss for words for this unbelievably caring treatment from yuuji - he's even surprised enough to use the brat's full name.

and i dislike that fans are starting to twist this interaction between them to make it fit their own views of sukuna and gojo.

look, i like gojo objectively. he's a fine enough character and serves an important role in jjk. i'm not against him or his fans, and i certainly don't want to hurt or make light of other people's feelings towards him. however, i do want to point something out that some fans should really know better. so many antis are against us sukuita shippers and/or sukuna fans and their main argument, over and over again, is how evil and monstrous sukuna is and that gojo is obviously better in every way. they claim that because gojo is on the side of good, it means sukuna is the worst in terms of morals (when villains like kenjaku are arguably just as terrible if not more so but dismissed so easily) we are delusional or wrong for sympathizing with sukuna.

so i would like to say to these people... please stop using these pallid, baseless arguments against us sukuna lovers because they're just so inaccurate and keep misunderstanding the whole story. it's more than okay to have your own headcanons and depictions of a fictional character, whether they're sukuna or gojo or any of the others - but do not force that depiction on others and do not force your interpretation of the source material on us just to appease your own opinions.

please be more respectful to others, please keep your own dislikes to yourself instead of lashing out at other fans you could instead just avoid, and please stop being so mean to gege. whether or not he makes gojo return should not be a reason to spread such hate about him. it's disrespectful towards both him and all writers who work so hard to make the content you treat so harshly.

thank you.

[sovereignsystem]

Can we like, stop shaming people for having DNIs?

I don't understand why people think it's... stupid or "a chronically online thing" to have a DNI, like. It's a helpful tool? We read people's DNIs, not just to make them as comfortable as possible (by not interacting if we are on that list), but also so we can tell if we want to interact with someone.

Do people not understand that DNIs are mutually beneficial? Completely harmless? Just stating boundaries?

If you don't like someone's DNI or find it stupid for having certain things on it, Don't Interact With The Person.

It's literally the entire point.

-🧟‍♂️ (he/him)

[spiderbirdo]

Thinking about all the mxtx fics that gave effy names to their ocs/bg characters or straight up named them something that could not exist in Chinese pinyin again...

Just so you know these are the basic pinyin combinations that exist.

That's not even going into dialects which is a whole other thing but as far as I've seen no one has tried to write LWJ speaking in gusu dialect yet which is the irl suzhou dialec

And please be careful what you name your characters, I've seen someone name their characters Blue Book, Blue Radish, Blue Smell, Blue Bag, Scenery

Also be careful with naming them after flowers because they might end up sounding like prostitute names

The thing is WWX's birth name is literally the character for baby so weird literal names can and do exist

Hell my aunt's Chinese name is literally 'rainbow', my yeye's name was 'genius' and my nainai's sworn sister (idk how to describe it they were basically such good friends they basically call each other sisters alongside like two other women and their and my family have reunion dinner once in a while) her name was literally High Cloud 高云

Even in svssss (not counting six balls) LBH's name is literally 'the icy Luo river'

But even then they at least have nice meanings even if they ate very literal, and not like objects (tho ngl 蓝香 lan xiang, is very pretty but the author intended it to be mean spice xiangliao香料 but xiang by itself really just means smells/fragrance)

Just, please please note that Chinese words meanings changes when paired with other words and lose that meaning when it's by itself.

Like 包 bao by itself means bag. 包子 baozi means dumpling. You cannot take out the zi子 away from baozi and keep the meaning of dumpling.

But the thing is, they were all not educated. I feel like educated ppl or people with money to go to a fortune teller get nice poetic names if not then the child gets a very literal name. Though I guess birth names could get away with being more literal. LooKING AT YOU CCSR AND WCZ YOU LITERALLY NAMED YOUR CHILD WEI BABY

[higuchisora]

Y'all might hate me for this, but the more and more I think about it, the more I think it was incredibly short-sighted of them and weird as fuck to cast a black man for the role of "World's #1 deadbeat dad with so many unpaid child support checks that they had to bar him from having kids." Yes I'm talking about Zeus. Yes I know they probably didn't mean it that way. No I don't think that intention really matters when you've got an entire team of professionals working on the project with the expectation that millions will watch it.

Like did we forget that we didn't like Zeus. He was never really a villain but NO ONE in the fandom liked Zeus. Hell, the CHARACTERS didn't like Zeus. He might as well have been a villain, with what he does and how they regard him. Why the fuck did they cast him like this.

It's especially weird when you consider the way Rick initially wrote about the gods' appearances as basically caricatures/physical cues for what they're supposed to represent. Battle-hungry god of war Ares being a "scary biker guy", and goddess of love and beauty Aphrodite oscillating between "all the supermodels in the world"/whoever you're in love with, for example, make total sense for obvious reasons. Hence it made sense to me for Zeus to be a white man in a suit in the first book, seeing as being the "king of the gods" and general self-centered prick, his whole thing is being more powerful than anyone else (and an asshole about it). So it made sense that he would look like an alpha male Podcaster's wet dream. It made sense that he'd look like the face of capitalism and patriarchy incarnate. Unfortunately, a white, rich businessman kind of IS the face of power in America. Making him black feels like a weird confirmation for those Ben Shapiro fucks who think white people are being oppressed or replaced.

"Appearances don't matter" vs the importance of visual storytelling, fight!

[klutzytomb]

I never thought I'd say this, but there's no way I'm one of the only ones here that isn't chronically online. Right? Right??

[a-really-cool-blog-name]

I think we should give Rise!Casey a little brother named Angel and do something angsty with that

[ciderjacks]

ik everyone and their mother has said this already but I appreciate how many episodes of puppet history focus on non-white stories and are both respectful and dont just focus on mass suffering at the hands of white people, and when they do have episodes involving that they still make sure to focus on the people fighting back and not just "oh this horrible thing was done, sad!"

Also I appreciate how Shane makes an effort to pronounce shit correctly, and to be respectful of people's cultures and spirituality, and to find lesser known stories from these cultures. It's always cool to go into the comments and see people who usually don't see their history or people acknowledged talking about how happy the episode made them.

[virmbot]

Random ass post but like, people being open and accepting of autism n stuff is great but like... it might just be me but i like never hear people talk about adhd. Its probably stupid but like people are always like "this character has autism" but i never see the same for adhd and whenever i do its usually overshadowed by autism hcs or whatever, i didnt even know there was an adhd awareness month until recently and i fucking HAVE adhd, i grew up with this shit! Dont even get me started on representation in media, like, i dont relate to any of those characters at all! Like wow, thanks, the representation i get is bart fucking simpson. Idk i just wanted to yell into the void, people are probably gonna hate me for this but i don't really care