#i've got the next interaction posts planned out i just need to make the art for them

[asktotallyhuman]

Oh my goodness! I wonder what questions we have to ask to see what happened?

//Well if there's something you wanna know about, you gotta ask about it! Whether or not the character answers, or answers in the RIGHT way...well, maybe there's a way to get one character to "loosen their lips", and maybe there's another character who's already willing to answer. Or, perhaps, the other can tell you how to get the first to talk. Who knows?

[ambrosiagourmet]

thistle for ask meme!

Thistle :0

First impression

No joke I was convinced early on that Laios & the party were making like a huuuuge leap in assuming that Thistle was the Lunatic Magician TM like guys you can't just go accusing every random person you find in a living painting of being the manager. Alas... he was, in fact, the manager.

Impression now

He's so jester coded👍

I think Thistle is very interesting and a great foil to Marcille, which I looove. They are both magic elf(-ish) advisors, they both get caught up in wanting to help the people around them live longer, they both become dungeon lords in pursuit of that... I think Thistle's story as it is works well for the narrative and I don't necessarily think he was underutilized exactly, but it is a little hard not to want A Bit More sometimes. Even if I do think it would be hard to add that more in without sacrificing some of the pacing overall :')

Favorite moment

I was initially going to say the ending for them, because I do love it, but you know what? I've got a more interesting answer. My favorite Thistle scene is.... this:

This fundamentally changes the trajectory of the story. In trying to find someone to stop the Winged Lion, Thistle launches Marcille into becoming the next lord of the dungeon. The next victim of the Lion. If Thistle hadn't resurrected Marcille, then the plot would have played out totally differently. She wouldn't have been able to finish unsealing the book. Laios would have been on his own when the canaries came. Would they have just cleaned everything up more easily? Would it instead have become something worse? Would Laios somehow have unsealed the book and become the lore of the dungeon right away?

I dunno. But this action reshaped Marcille's life, and Laios', and so many other people's. And it was done out of a desire to keep fighting. To not give in.

Augh idk. It's good. Their connection is good.

Idea for a story

Thistle & Chimera Laios.

But not just a "Laios gets eaten by the dragon instead," I think it would be cool to explore an AU where for some handwavy magic reason, Laios gets his soul bound up w/ the dragon during Falin's resurrection, and he gets poofed into a dragon form.

There's a note somewhere that says that chimeras start popping up the more the lord of the dungeon starts to lose their hold on things, but having met Laios before might help Thistle eventually realize that something is Off about the dragon. From there... well maybe he starts to ask questions and gives Laios more freedom to actually answer, and things could continue from there as Laios gets enough humanity back to start to understand what's happening, and also Thistle takes more time to question the Lion's plans rather than just continue to act. They'd be stuck together, probably with Laios still under Thistle's control, but maybe as they figure out more of the truth, they'd actually work together? Need to rely on each other? I'd like to see how each of them would deal with that situation...

PLUS then on the flip side I think switching Falin into the group part way through the story (rather than at the start) could be really interesting. So the adventures on that side would be fun too.

Unpopular opinion

umm idk. Is Thistle widely regarded as a Marcille foil? Because if not then why. They are so inchresting. funky little mages.

Favorite relationship

Hmmm okay so like obviously Thistle & Marcille, but also as seen in my story idea I want to explore more of Thistle & Laios bc their interactions were fun, soo... I'll just say the Dungeon Lord quartet as a whole. I like when people draw art of them all together. Let them bond through shared trauma. And also all of them have tried to kill at least one other person there at some point. It's great. They should go on brunch dates.

Favorite headcanon

This post about Thistle's goal to eat a meal with Delgal fundamentally rewired my brain

[sanddusted-wisteria]

An update on my fics

hey wow it's been 4 months

Nearly six months on both longfics lmao. I've been busy and will continue to be busy, unfortunately. Grad school is a different beast entirely to undergrad (be careful taking 3 grad classes in a semester. 2 heavy ones can really make you regret it), I need to prepare for job interviews and PhD program applications, and this summer I've been wrangling an internship and research work.

Even so tho, my MTAS brainrot is far from dead. It takes a lot of time and effort, but I still have a lot I want to do with the My Time verse and my OCs, both art and fic. So here's a quick update on where I am and what the plan is with my fics and fic series going forward, and some previews of what I have so far (on a separate post bc this one's already too long lmao)!

TL;DR: busy, but still writing! WIP snippets on the next post.

[Long post and rambling belowwwwww]

Earth and Sky

Currently my primary focus. E&S has evolved a TON since I decided to rewrite it. How much? Well...

[Drafting = first draft is in progress; Revising = draft is plot-complete, set aside for future editing passes]

In fact, I haven't even outlined the ending chapters since I recently had a change of heart in the kind of resolution I wanted. I got stuck on it enough that I decided to forego outlining anything for now and playing that one more by ear. I think any more time I spend tweaking these outlines might put me off this fic altogether :P

As someone that started writing with nameless/generic builders, writing for an OC is a different kind of challenge. I'm working to try and strike a good balance of focus on Wis vs Qi vs them together, and making Wis a very human, if not enjoyable character. Still, I think that this is one of those projects that if I can get right, it will be VERY right. It'll just take a bit to get there first :>

At minimum, I'll wait until most if not all of the chapters in the first third/quarter are done (chapters 1-16) to start posting, though hopefully I'll also have a solid idea for how some of the later chapters will go as well. Those are the really (internal) conflict-heavy chapters and I want to make sure it won't come out as shallow :P But I am excited to show you what I've got cooking!

A Cosmic Garden

This is the broader series for Wis and Qi. E&S will be the biggest fic, but it only goes up to a little beyond MTAS's Act 2. Beyond that, my plan is to write some side stories that go into Wis's Lore(tm), namely her origins as an Old World clone and her interactions with other Wis clones around the Alliance.

Why side stories? Well, a) any plot involving Wis as a clone is relatively spread out across the timeline of MTAS's story, since it's actually not that closely tied to her "main" storyline (being the first clone I made when the clone story was just kind of just a bullet point on their lore descriptions, it's less involved), b) it therefore doesn't really affect the story of how she and Qi get together, and c) I know that people might be far more interested in just the romance story with Qi (which is totally okay! I understand, I'm pretty much in the same camp with OC-centric stories a lot :P)

As for the equivalent of MTAS's Act 3, this won't be one cohesive fic, but a small series of smaller stories, since I don't really have too many ideas for a fully fleshed out telling of Act 3 that doesn't just walk through the main missions without much deviating from that. Some of those stories include:

A series of conversations between Qi and Miguel post Act 2

A Nia/Mi-an story

A silly little oneshot of Qi and Rosie interacting (tentative)

The original idea that Strangeness and Charm sprouted from; Wis and Qi conducting a methodical study on non-sexual intimacy (tentative)

The finale of the MTAS main story

A Builder, a Researcher, and a Rooftop

Currently on pause. For now, there's just too much OC brainrot for fics and on OTAS that I just need to get out. Don't worry! I'm absolutely not abandoning this one. I just can only really focus on one big project at a time lol. We're close to the end of this story's act 2, though not much of the remainder is written. In fact, chapter 34 is already done, but not chapter 33, so I can't quite post it yet. I think after I get the first part of E&S done (or I suppose whenever I feel like picking it up), I'll switch gears to at least get to the end of Act 2. Act 3 will need some reevaluation...I've hemmed and hawed over it forever, but I do want to finalize the plot for that one, and also potentially get started on that as well.

Others

To the...5 people that read my Grace/Wis miniseries, I really do still want to get that done a;sdlasdralsdrkj It's been hard since my thoughts on how Grace and Wis interact after Act 2 have changed a lot. But even so, I hate to leave it hanging there, so I've started working on it again. It's already outlined, I just need to get it filled in.

Someday I should come back to Quiet Moments in Sandrock... My art's gotten a ton better since then and there's a few ideas I still have leftover that I never got to. Unfortunately I need to make room for it somewhere in the 13438525 other art ideas I have that I can only do like 1 per week at MOST asdlrkasdasdrjksdrj

Sitting on the back burner forever in my writing folder is a fusion of Junji Ito's Uzumaki and MTAS... An MTAS version of Uzumaki's story works SURPRISINGLY well, and Wis and Qi I think make for stronger protagonists in this setting than Kirie and Shuichi in theirs if I do say so myself lol. It's fully outlined and everything, but that's gonna forever be on the back burner until either my longfics get done or I figure out how to write horror, whichever comes first 😂

So all in all...still cooking! Thank you if you read all this, and thank you for your patience, especially if you've been closely following any of my in progress fics. Hopefully once the interview and application cycle is out of the way this fall, I'll have more brain capacity to really plug away at all these and share with you all! :>

[likegemstone]

I have been in a really good groove with creating lately, and just with like "working" in general. In the past, creating has often involved a massive and constant mental wrestling match against myself—second guessing every decision, fighting through constant discouragement, rarely if ever feeling confident in what I'm working on, etc. Just all this emotional/mental exertion on top of the regular emotional/mental exertion that goes into making art.

But lately I have felt really in sync with myself—we're dancing instead of wrestling. I've been brave enough to try out new things that I've never done before (which is REALLY hard for me, like REALLY hard), and been able to notice and accept the areas of my work that I can see need improvement without beating myself up bc they aren't "good enough" yet. It has been really nice, and has shown me that, when I can care for and take responsibility for myself properly (which I now have the skills and tools to do thanks to a lot of inner work and also therapy), I can learn, grow, and improve pretty steadily, and without all the agony of that fucking exhausting wrestling match.

However.

I made a post recently about how I want to draw Daivad getting his ass kicked (and also kicking ass), right? That is in great part due to the fact that I was, at the time, rereading Kengan Asura/Kengan Omega (which is an MMA manga) and I was Very Inspired. And I still am. I've been gathering reference and inspo ever since then. And today I ran out of Haikyuu!! to watch so I was like okay now is the time—I want to draw some sick action scenes with Daivad.

But then. Here comes the anxiety. The overwhelm. The "there's no way you can pull off some sick action scenes—you can barely place characters in a scene and make it look legit, you want to try to do multiple characters interacting in a scene in extreme and dynamic poses?? no shot. and once you try and inevitably fail then you're going to be discouraged and start beating yourself up again and you'll ruin this momentum we've got going on."

So, this post is going to be me using those tools and skills I have now to work through this. Because I know I can. I've done it before.

First skill I'm going to be using: recognizing what exactly is triggering this anxiety, and figuring out a plan to care for the Part of me that's triggered. I want to ensure I'm making my decisions from Core, not from a triggered Part, and I also want to ensure I'm caring for those vulnerable Parts!

I think the thing that is making me feel so anxious and overwhelmed is because dynamic action scenes are so far out of my comfort zone and I haven't come up with a plan for connecting the dots of my current skill to Dynamic Action Scene Skill. It's a whole big leap, and that Part of me sees aaaaalllll of those, like dozens of really tricky dots that I have not mastered yet (perspective, composition, conveying movement, dynamic poses IN perspective, and so on) and is like "!!!!! HOLD UP THAT'S TOO MUCH I CAN'T FIGURE THIS OUT ALL AT ONCE. Trying to master all that stuff will take literal years and probably good money to pay for lessons from people who know wtf they're doing!!"

So, I'll care for that Part by saying: That's true! And it's okay! I'm not going to try to get the perfect action scene down right away, because you're right. Trying to force that would absolutely wreck our confidence and be really frustrating as well. And I appreciate the reminder that biting off more than I can chew can knock me back a few steps. Small bites are best sometimes.

Next skill, now that that Part has calmed down a lot and also feels steadied: coming up with a plan. I want to draw Daivad getting his ass kicked, but don't currently have the skills to pull off a whole Dynamic Action Scene yet. So how am I going to meet that desire/feed my inspiration (Daivad getting his ass kicked) while still protecting my Parts, challenging my skills, and caring for my mental health?

One dot at a time.

I could start with just breaking down some of my favorite panels from KA. Examining how Daromeon frames his scenes, how he works with perspective, how he conveys movement, etc. But specifically I want to see Daivad getting his ass kicked—so maybe I'll start with just one pose that feels doable for my skill level, use KA as reference for the pose and put Daivad in it, and since I have gotten decent at capturing his likeness, I can challenge myself to put an extreme expression on his face and still have him be recognizable. That's totally doable—it'll take time and work and lots of effort, but it's doable! And it will bring me one step closer to Dynamic Action Scene skill level!

Alright, now I'm feeling excited and fired up and also I have an exact pose in mind and I think I already have it saved somewhere, so I am off to draw Daivad, Bloody and In Pain. Wish me luck y'all!

[pokerninja2]

This is my banner for my Twitter account, and I decided to (temporarily at least) make it my tumblr's as well! The Sparks of Hope one was mainly just a placeholder until I got something more appropriate set up. I plan on making something new for this account, mainly because this one doesn't fit the dimensions of a tumblr banner, but I think it's good enough to leave as for now.

I haven't talked about my OCs outside of Pearl on this account, so I suppose consider this the "introduction to my OCs" post. I've had all of these girls since 2017 (or later in some cases) and I love them. They're my babies! A lot of my followers on Twitter like them as well, which I'm very happy for. While I wouldn't say they've made a huge impact on my life or changed it in any significant way, drawing them has generally made me a happier person over the years.

This particular piece of all my girls (except one who I came up with after the pic was made so she missed out, maybe next time!) taking a group photo together is probably the one I'm most proud of. I've never really drawn them interacting together despite really wanting to, and I'm very happy with the end result! It's definitely inspired me to do more stuff with them in the future.

Anyway, now I wanna talk about each one!

I already posted about Pearl a few times on this account but I think it's only fitting I start with her, considering she's my mascot and all. She's always been my go-to to draw whenever I wanna do something like a seasonal drawing or event. She's also been my pfp on everywhere aside from discord occasionally, so chances are if you know me, you're familiar with her.

A little girl like Pearl needs little friends, which is something she has in droves!

All six of these girls were made at around the same time, both so she'd have a friend group and so I could make even more characters and worlds that fit into the Mario universe. Obviously, Belle, Brooke, and Brittany are a closely-knit trio, and they're ones that I tend to use a lot alongside Pearl.

I've also been using Squishy more too. She was retired for a few years before I brought her back and came up with the idea that the girls haul her around (or she hauls herself around) with a wagon. Then I loved her even more!

I regrettably don't use Sarina or Diamond very much, which is a shame because I think they're great designs. I just don't think there's as many good opportunities to use them compared to the others.

Following them is Kia, who I made a few years later. While she technically falls closer to a Donkey Kong OC than a Mario one, I'd say she counts enough! I think my reasons for liking her are pretty self-explanatory - a cute Kremling who was abandoned by the rest of her people and taken in by the Kong Family, becoming an ape in everything but blood. She lives with the Kongs on DK Island so she doesn't get to interact with Pearl and friends much, but they're definitely friends!

And last but certainly not least is the character I made after I made the banner, Rabbid Pearl! As the Rabbids are supposed to be extreme parodies of the character they're portraying, I thought it would be fun to do the same here. Pearl is nice, friendly, and outgoing, while Rabbid Pearl is so friendly she will trap everyone she meets in a hug and make them her new best friend! She has no concept of personal space, so she can be a bit of a hassle to deal with. She was originally made as a one-off joke when I was caught up in Sparks of Hope hype. But then I fell in love with her, and decided to just make her a part of the friend group anyway. Next time I do another one of these group shots, she's definitely going on there!

If you've read all the way down here, then thanks for letting me ramble on and on about my girls. I love them with all my heart and I love using them for art pieces. Hoping you like them too!

[solarsavoy]

Sorry if this is a lot but 🏅👮😈👨‍👧‍👧✨

It's never too much! I'm happy to answer all the asks!!

🏅 What is something you recently felt proud of in regard to your writing (finished a fic, actually planned for once, etc).

I haven't been too happy with my fics lately tbh, however, I was really proud of finishing Karmagisa week back in July. I was really worried I wouldn't, considering my recent streak of updating irregularly. (Guess I'm just like every other fic write now. 😅 I just miss being able to keep up with posting regularly, because then I got regular comments which are like my lifeblood.) But yeah, so, Karmagisa week.

👩‍🏭 If one of your fics was going to get you arrested, which one and why?

I still don't think any of my other fics will have anything on Students of Despair. However, if I do it right, Pandora's might be worse in that respect. The reason is the same for both: I'm going to be googling a lot of dead body stuff and possibly adding in methods of killing. Yeah, that's probably gonna get me arrested. 😅 So if I do, somebody please point out this post to the police so they can see that this was in fact the intended purpose and I wasn't googling that stuff because I wanted to do anything.

😈 Is there anything you enjoy doing that you think your readers hate?

Strangely no? I did initially wonder if my readers would hate that I don't feel the need to make every ending happy, but I actually think that makes readers more interested, not less. (Looking at you, tuuli. XD)

There is one thing though. I love writing whatever ship the story may call for for the sake of the story. I won't change it just because some people don't like a certain ship. This makes me sad because I'm not intentionally trying to ever hurt someone for writing about a ship that I love and/or appreciate (because strangely not all ships I include are ships I personally ship, like NagiKae, but I do appreciate them) but as a writer, I feel it's my obligation to follow the story. I don't always know where my ideas come from, but it sometimes feels like if I'm not following the story, I'm disrespecting the thing that gave me the idea in the first place. Maybe that's weird, but I also attribute my inspiration to write at all to the same thing that gives me ideas. If I try to write a specific idea just because I want it, it's very hard to write without the backing of my muse. (It's hard to write at all lately, but that's a separate issue.) Anyway, that's less of speculation and more of a fact, but I do wonder if it hits more readers than I'm aware of. I know not every person is going to like every ship, but I still feel bad.

👨‍👧‍👧 Do you tell people in real life that you write fic? 

Oh, all the time.

In fact, there's a round of questions I ask literally every new person at one of my jobs. 1. How old do I look? (because they often guess I'm around 20-25 when they're actually a decade off and it makes me feel young XD) 2. You like books and reading or anime and manga? And then their answer to 2 will direct how the next part goes, which is either "I wrote a book and it's an isekai!" where I then blabber about my book for 30 minutes, or "oh, which anime? Have you seen Assassination Classroom? Great, cause I write fanfiction for that!" and then I proceed to blabber about that for 30 minutes. I do this because otherwise I never bring it up and there've been a couple people that were disappointed they didn't know I wrote/drew sooner, so I've just decided on this introduction of "yes, I draw, I write, I'm awesome, please check out my stuff" and then I proceed to never bring it up again because I haven't practiced my social interactions beyond that first one. (Did I mention I'm socially awkward despite being very chatty? Well, at least I got it out. I'm very bad at marketing otherwise.)

It always touches me when they ask how my art/stories are going later and it makes me not regret my word vomiting introduction as much, so I keep doing it. It helps because otherwise I feel way too into myself, introducing myself like that, like I'm a salesperson selling my stuff, which I am essentially doing. I know this, but no one will know about my stuff if I don't talk about it so, this is how I do.

✨ Choose three adjectives to complement your own writing.

Deep, intuitive (as in with the characters), and smooth (usually because of flow and/or how smoothly I tend to do AUs or mix ideas in crossovers).

Thank you for the ask! Love you Hailey!!

[randomnameless]

I'm gonna answer your questions and elaborate on previously stated hcs. Will probably make a part 2 sometime in the future. Lots of things to share but I keep losing steam writing it all down.

He was a scholar in Zanado! He's the naturally curious type, decently knowledgeable at flora & fauna, weaponry & warfare, and art & literature. He tries to learn about anything he finds interesting, including humans doing human things, even post-WoH. That's one of the reasons he knew what Faerghus' situation was and decided to help them.

No, he doesn't dual-wield (often). He uses the less fancy, non-healing sword for skirmishes and stuff, and uses the cool nabatean one for bigger conflicts.

Hair colour thing is from the crest stone damage. Supreme Leader has more than enough reasons to hate him lol. 1) he keeps killing TWS agents. 2) Stalks the ones he couldn't kill and thwarts their plans. 3) Somehow Knows secrets she's trying to hide. She doesn't find out he's a lizard until much later. (There are many benefits to premature greying)

I have this post-canon scene in mind where Rhea comes clean to her fam about the stuff she was up to. Seteth and Flayn are utterly shocked but Pan's just sipping his tea, his entire being screaming 'disappointed but not surprised'. Rhea is surprised at this reaction and Pan just says "I've known you your entire life, I know the kinda unhinged stuff you're capable of. Doesn't mean I approve tho."

I also have another thingy that's part of a different set of hcs on how Pan could interact with canon. So Pan first meets billy post-timeskip (or just before timeskip) and immediately starts trying to figure out wtf is going on with them. He comes to the conclusions that 1) billy is a hybrid, hence must be protected 2) they are not Nemesis-spawn but have Sothis' creststone in them because that's the other (original) way to get a crest AND is needed to use a heroes' relic 3) this better not be Rhea's doing, he swears to Sothis he's gonna bury himself under a mountain for the next millennia.

His opinion on Sothis resurrection is that it's impossible. Like, She's their progenitor, capable of creating countless nabateans without breaking a sweat. It is impossible for them to even comprehend the kind of power she holds, much less awaken/bring back that power with the means they have. It's much more productive on focusing on the betterment of Fodlan and protect the ones who are still alive. But he understands her feelings of wanting her mother back and doesn't comment too much on this.

I've also got a whole another au where Pan is a sulking little dragon on top of Conand tower, getting pestered by multiple generations of teenaged nobles.

- Lizard pan anon

Hi Lizard pan anon!

He was a scholar in Zanado! He's the naturally curious type, decently knowledgeable at flora & fauna, weaponry & warfare, and art & literature. He tries to learn about anything he finds interesting, including humans doing human things, even post-WoH. That's one of the reasons he knew what Faerghus' situation was and decided to help them.

What do you mean humans doing human things lol

Maybe he was part of the "older ones" who taught about the world "outside" and "humans" to younger Nabateans or people who only lived in Zanado?

No, he doesn't dual-wield (often). He uses the less fancy, non-healing sword for skirmishes and stuff, and uses the cool nabatean one for bigger conflicts.

Oh, it'd make sense in a way. Granted, idk if you took into account weapon durability in your hcs (i never do lol) but sure, it'd make sense to take out the big guns only when needed, and not, say, use a lvl 100 Palkia to defeat a lvl 2 Bidoof.

Hair colour thing is from the crest stone damage. Supreme Leader has more than enough reasons to hate him lol. 1) he keeps killing TWS agents. 2) Stalks the ones he couldn't kill and thwarts their plans. 3) Somehow Knows secrets she's trying to hide. She doesn't find out he's a lizard until much later. (There are many benefits to premature greying)

:(

Would she try to recruit him, as Flamey? Maybe pull something like the enemies of my enemies are my allies (unless they're stinky lizards, they can be my allies for 2 seconds before I backstab them)? When she finds out about him being a lizard though... I guess it'd play in her paranoia of "they're everywhere and controlling Fodlan, living among us, humans!!!"

I have this post-canon scene in mind where Rhea comes clean to her fam about the stuff she was up to. Seteth and Flayn are utterly shocked but Pan's just sipping his tea, his entire being screaming 'disappointed but not surprised'. Rhea is surprised at this reaction and Pan just says "I've known you your entire life, I know the kinda unhinged stuff you're capable of. Doesn't mean I approve tho."

Daww

I hcd Seteth being disappointed, hurt, but more angry at Rhea, not for trying to resurrect her, but because she never told him a thing, and how desperate she was (she doesn't trust him anymore? why) and feels bad for not having seen signs earlier, whereas Flayn just, hugs her - it doesn't matter if she's not the super uberwoman she thought she was, nor if she actually cannot look and guide Fodlan on her own - she's still her super cool aunt and it's her time to look after her now.

Macuil is the one who goes "idiot I knew you were useless and worthless" but leaves a Zanado fruit - on her table - just because his pockets are full! - while Indech is the one who doesn't say a thing, but looks at her with the "disapproving older brother glare" but wouldn't say a thing.

I also have another thingy that's part of a different set of hcs on how Pan could interact with canon. So Pan first meets billy post-timeskip (or just before timeskip) and immediately starts trying to figure out wtf is going on with them. He comes to the conclusions that 1) billy is a hybrid, hence must be protected 2) they are not Nemesis-spawn but have Sothis' creststone in them because that's the other (original) way to get a crest AND is needed to use a heroes' relic 3) this better not be Rhea's doing, he swears to Sothis he's gonna bury himself under a mountain for the next millennia.

Oh!

Nabateans trying to figure out what the frick is Billy is always funny lol, and Pan is right in all three hypothesis!

Poor Pan though, but I wonder how he would have reacted to Jerry if Jerry told him his kid wasn't "normal", would he become protective of Billy who's, regardless of everything, part of his fam, or would her berate Rhea on not having told that human a thing about this Billy child?

His opinion on Sothis resurrection is that it's impossible. Like, She's their progenitor, capable of creating countless nabateans without breaking a sweat. It is impossible for them to even comprehend the kind of power she holds, much less awaken/bring back that power with the means they have. It's much more productive on focusing on the betterment of Fodlan and protect the ones who are still alive. But he understands her feelings of wanting her mother back and doesn't comment too much on this.

Ooh

Did he disagree with her about the "revised" Fodlan History, painting Nemesis'n'his Elites as fallen Heroes or how she hid the secret behind relics and the existence of Nabateans?

I've also got a whole another au where Pan is a sulking little dragon on top of Conand tower, getting pestered by multiple generations of teenaged nobles.

"Hey Matthias, I bet you 2 beers I can take a scale from that weird wyvern on top of the tower."

"Lambert, don't be stupid. That's obviously not a wyvern."

"Why not ask the wyvern if it can give us a scale?."

"Rodrigue, wyverns don't understand human language."

"It has been glaring at us since Lambert mentionned taking one its scales."

[lotus-btas]

BTaS Update: May-July 2023 - Pages of Lotus

Back again after a VERY long while without an update. Sorry for that, I'm forgetful.

Let me catch you up to speed on how the progress for Beyond Time and Space has been going these past few months, where we are now, and how we'll do things moving into the future.

Starting with the past, I'm gonna be fully honest: I haven't made a lot of progress with episode 2. Towards the end of May and the entire month of June, I've been suffering some serious burnout, to the point where interacting with my work would make my physically ill and exhausted. For a while I thought about skipping episode 2 entirely and moving on to 3, but then remembered that I stopped working on ep 3 because of my dissatisfaction/change of ideas with ep 2 that mentally stopped me from moving into the next arc. I'm still semi trying to get over it, but every day I can feel my creative drive starting to kick back in. I just need to sit down, focus, and get to work, which is a lot harder these days than ever before.

I also mentioned in the past how I was gonna host a beta reading for the first episode of Beyond Time and Space on the 20th of May. That also didn't happen. Not only was I sick with a headache on the 19th of that month, but I was rushed to the hospital for treatment, and spend the 20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd recovering. Plus, that post got little to no interest or attraction, so making a sign up that no one would bother to mess with seemed kind of pointless.

As of the present, right now I'm working on trying to balance my energy between BTaS and my other projects and interest, to make sure that my burnout doesn't get as dangerously bad as it did in May and June. It seems to be working. None of them are making much sound progress, as I keep getting distracted by my own thoughts, but it's keeping my energy in check, which is all I need.

I also decided to start working on a pilot for Beyond Time and Space! Yeah! The one thing that I should've started with, especially because this is an animated series, I'm doing now, a full year after I wrote the first episode! Kinda ironic! I find a huge benefit of this being that I know my characters super well now, but the big disadvantage is finding something for them to do; how they can interact with this new environment that I'm putting them in for a single short episode. That's also been a little draining. Might need to brainstorm some more.

And, last but not least, going forward. My plans from this point on is to hopefully have a more consistent update schedule (every or every other Saturday, if I can remember), maybe create and show off some art made specifically for the updates, like a visual summary. I'm also working on a twitter account for Beyond Time and Space that is currently up, but probably won't have anything on it for quite a while. I'm a full believer that it's never too early to share your work, but I'm an anxious gun that needs some sort of visual content to back it up, if that makes sense.

Anyways this is really long. Apologies for that. I would add a TL;DR, but I'm kinda in a rush now because I gotta cook dinner. Just getting this out of the way beforehand (and because the time it took to write this was the same amount of time I had left before the time to cook dinner struck, so it kind of just fell in my lap). Maybe I'll include one once I reblog with the tag list.

Thanks for spending your time reading this update! Your eyes are a blessing :D

- Yors Truly

[feelin-kinda-cocky-bmc]

FKC Mini-Update 2/21/23

Alright, don't have a lot for this update, but hey, I thought I might as well keep posting so people are aware this project is still very much active! I'm currently on Mardi Gras break, and will be utilizing the next two days to work on writing Dustin's Route. There is a bit in Dustin's Day 1 that was originally going to take me a hell of a lot of time, in which I would be writing eight unique chunks of dialogue based on three options the player chooses in a row. However, for the sake of getting a rough draft out ASAP, I have streamlined it to where each topic will flow into each other without much of a missed beat. The eight interactions might appear in a later installment of the game, though.

However, while I'm here, I'd like to announce that the FKC Tumblr now has a new header image, courtesy of our new artist: Rose! I'm extremely happy with the art and I'm so glad we have another great artist on the team. Here's the full image because Tumblr dimensions are wack lol

Anyway, in an absence of content on my end, I'll go ahead and put out what is completed, what is currently being worked on, and what I'm hoping to achieve in the future:

The rough draft of Rich's route is done. However, in an effort to keep up with momentum during the earlier stages of writing when I wasn't on ADHD meds, I ended up skipping a whole part and promptly forgotten that I had skipped it. It's still very much a draft with a lot of repetition that I need to iron out, solely because when you work on something for so long in spaced out intervals, you forget what you did previously.

Once all of the incredibly messy drafts of each route are completed, I will be going back to revise them and hopefully get to a point where I can personally playtest the early stages of the game.

Also, in addition to completed routes, Rich and Jeremy's routes will have secret routes. These won't be as important and as high priority, as they are genuinely just me throwing some OCs into a fangame. But hey, if you like hot, borderline criminal bad boys, or flower-loving, theater kid soft boys, then I've got just the routes for you ;)

With the way I'm writing the routes, I'm also simultaneously coding. Or half-coding, anyway. I'm writing it all in a way that makes it easy for me to simply copy and paste it into ren.py, and then I just edit the Python from there. Double tasking woo!

I also have basic GUI assets that I made,,two years ago,,so I'll need to revise those. But aside from the title screen art, everything looks moderately okay and is completely functional.

At the moment, I'm working on Dustin's route. This is going to be heavily headcanon-based, I'm warning everyone now, but it doesn't stray far from canon. He's just a little unique because there's not a lot of canon information about him

Also, I don't know if I ever clarified this, but each route will be structured in the same format: The default exposition (where you choose your route), around 5 in-game events (or days), the dance day (where your bachelor of choice has invited Michael to the school dance), and if you're lucky, the date day (self explanatory, only available on good endings). In addition, each route with have a bad, neutral, and good ending. This does not include secret endings

After the Dustin Route, I plan to start Jake's, and then Jeremy's (sorry Boyfs shippers!). When all are completed, I'll start revision and the addition of the secret routes.

When the writing stage (which I'm almost entirely sure will be the longest) is mostly complete, we'll be going into the art stages. I have several talented artists already volunteered to help out, and I will likely make a hefty portion of my own. Art will include backgrounds, GUI assets, sprites, and possibly promotional pieces.

And after the art stage, we'll start playtesting a beta version so we can figure out bugs, adjust the stories as needed, and overall gauge the interest of the BMC fandom :)

I would love to create background music for the game at some point, and have the capability to do so, but that genuinely might not get there until later stages of development

Though this is far off, after the game's release, I'd also like to release events. These events would allow for a new storyline to be played regarding Michael and the rest of the BMC crew. These will largely be either self-indulgent or catering towards the fandom as a whole, such as writing all the characters in FKC into an AU. These sort of events would happen for things like Halloween, Christmas, Valentines, etc. Again, far off! But I'd like to make it at least known

Discord | Community Idea Drop

[savevsfacemelt]

Post-game Musings - Heart

Back in December, when talking about Scum & Villainy, I said that I was also running a slightly intermittent game of Heart.

Well, 'slightly' became 'very', and 'intermittent' became 'sporadic', and faced with the campaign continuing to not happen for the next few months, I decided last week to pull the plug. It's a bummer, but that's how 90% of RPG campaigns end - not with a bang, or even a whimper, but the nagging whine of incompatible schedules and commitments slowly grinding into each other just below the waterline.

...but what the heck is Heart, anyway?

--

Heart's great: This game? This game fuckin' rules. It throws wonderfully evocative classes (Wizards made of bees! Train paladins! Debt priests! The Crow, from the movie The Crow!) into a nightmare world of meat dungeons, subterranean moons, gangster druids, blooddrenched angels, electronic hells and interdimensional subways. The art's great, the writing's great, the setting's crammed full of evocative ideas, and the system... reads slightly better than it plays, and the exploration subsystem needs clearer explanations for how to make it work at the table, but it's still pretty bloody good. If the opportunity comes up to run/play Heart again, I'll do it in a, well, heartbeat.

Meaty beaty big and bouncy: The strongest element of Heart are beats, which are the core of both its experience system and its approach to GMing. At the end of a session, each player picks two beats - events, consequences or choices - that they would like to happen (or at least start happening) to their character. These range from the minor ('kick someone off a roof') to the major (''convert an important NPC to your cause') to the extreme ('take final revenge upon your secret master'), and the character gets a corresponding minor/major/extreme power-up when the beat is fulfilled. The GM's job is then to set up all those beats in the next session - and that's how you design scenarios and sessions. No maps, no scripts, no big plans, but a focus on giving the players what they want while building on what came before.

Planning is my heroin: I, of course, fucked that up immediately. Not by pre-planning a big story arc or dropping in railroad tracks, but by getting caught up in the coolness of every character. I wanted to see where they would end up, which meant I started getting ideas about where they'd end up, which meant I planned (rough) arcs for each character and dropped hints and foreshadowing and plot threads for players to follow those arcs. And my ideas are good! The players seemed to like them! But they're my ideas, and I struggle to put my ideas to one side even when a game pushes the players' ideas to the forefront, or to let myself take a reactive GMing role rather than actively driving things. The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle - me riffing on player inputs, the players riffing on mine, everyone being happy - and maybe that's how the game would have turned out in the end, who knows.

Everyone's busy again: Look, I'm not saying pandemic lockdowns were a good thing, but at least they meant everyone was home, bored and desperate for online interaction on a Thursday night. It was a good time for gaming - I think I was running 4 games a fortnight (via Zoom) at one point. But that's over now, and folks have a lot of things on their plates again, and I'm back to competing with things like jobs and children and sex for attention again, and I tend to lose those competitions.

Am I advocating for another pandemic? Yes No. But sigh.

--

What else is happening in gaming land?

I tried to get a Lancer campaign off the ground, but I have a limited number of friends interested in a tactical-combat-focused RPG, and most of them were busy, so I'm putting that off until autumn.

I've just started running facilitating guiding a Wanderhome game, and it's got lots of promise, but it's a challenge in some ways. A game with no conflict, no plot and little-to-no external drama? Just vibes? That's not my strong suit - but then again, it's been a long time since I had to learn new gaming skills, so I’m into it.

And I should (fingers crossed) be running a one-shot, maybe even a 3-shot, of Achtung! Cthulhu next month. That'll be fun.

Nothing is more fun than shooting Nazis.

[meme-archivist]

Folder number 2 is... we're gonna save that one. Folder number 3 is labeled overall design and techniques.

We have some advice from https://twitter.com/Verseshi/status/1758568438363279456 on the arrangement and shaping of 'tactical' characters. It's a multipart set.

A tutorial on edging. I haven't actually reviewed this properly. https://twitter.com/Subakeye/status/1756953963604115536

The Etherington Brothers are always helpful, and republish advice from multiple sources. Here's one for the arms in the hands on hips position. https://twitter.com/EtheringtonBros/status/1754155929245728983

Ditto, but for motion and action speed emphasis. While intended for animations, the smear can be applied to stills as well. https://twitter.com/EtheringtonBros/status/1759981371965989135

This next one seems to also be much the same. For drawing the head at high angle, specifically chin.

Shadows, again from Etherington Brothers.

There is this I have saved for both scarring and muscular definition. Useful for weathered characters. https://x.com/nr4CES/status/1750902684616712462

This is more niche, it's a reference for what someone's conception of gestalt infantry armor (signalis) might be. It is also however for me personally a good look at what a target look of a sketch might be. From https://x.com/ReiTuki

...ok this one's a little risque I'm gonna

exercise my power of discretion.

You use Krita? This might be handy for you. https://youtu.be/n3PIdyzVGAI

The same effect can be done by selecting the Contiguous Selection Tool and clicking inside the object you want to color. Note that this can be rather finicky and will usually require detailing work, but it saves a lot of time when you can 100px quickfill something.

Etherington Brothers again, this time about perspective of something.

I'll let this one speak for itself, it's interesting as an alt way of doing silhouettes.

Etherington Bros again. Foreshortening hands and perspective this time. https://twitter.com/EtheringtonBros/status/1774212481751142471/photo/1

This one is just labeled as "neat". Probably useful if you plan to do any animal heads or antho... Anthropromor... ANTHROPOMORPHIC, designs, and it also includes some interesting interaction with the outline. Note how OP creates lighting by changing the outline color.

From here. https://s-milesart.tumblr.com/post/747802690437939200/clairen-comm-i-did

Comically large Otter, apparently. Useful for looking at what a sketchier style resembles and also shading techniques , the classic darkened half-face, etc. https://www.tumblr.com/drawligator/747343275642568704

Next up... Big Rabbit. Good example of grayscale, but I'm not sure how OP got it to look like construction paper texture. https://kiserinn.tumblr.com/post/748757010545295360/kitty-girlfriends

A little retro mecha reference as a treat. Game is apparently "Advanced Power Dolls 2 // Kogado" https://x.com/PC98_bot/status/1788271106824048701/photo/1

...why isn't this in Armor and Materials? Gundam but like, power armor. This seems to be OP? https://x.com/DTZ1200WG/status/1543940133572866049

Sometimes you just find a character Neat. Ya'll like eldritch stuff? I think the new kids call this horrorcore. Out of the sake of not being Murdered by moderation, I've cropped it down a little. https://x.com/nan_just_nan/status/1721575054327034024

Wanna make something look biological? More ambiguously sorted materials!

Another art of a scarred character. Lighter weathering compared to the previous, but fullcolor.

fnuy https://www.reddit.com/r/MoeMorphism/comments/185i003/green_hill_zone

I'm gonna split this in half and not fix it with flex tape so that I don't need to flex seal CPUs and GPUs back together.

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

[haarlen]

This may be one of the most painful announcements I've ever made, one I didn't think I would make this soon, but here we are.

I will go on an *Indefinite Hiatus*, officially starting next year.

This means that, while I might appear every once in a while to randomly interact, I will no longer post art for the foreseeable time. The plan is to rest for a year, or maybe even less than that, but only time will tell.

I've been thinking about this for a few days, seriously contemplating if this was the best outcome and, while I cried my eyes out until I stopped feeling anything, there's no other option.

The physical and mental strain art has given me lately is unbearable, and I can't keep going like this... I, at some point, had decided to give up the last remaining dream I had. Which is why I want to go on hiatus now, before I do.

I will take the rest of the year to post everything that I have already drawn, and will take the time to work on my final piece, and after that, the hiatus will begin. I will put my everything on that last piece, I plan to go out with a bang.

My Redbubble and Ko-Fi will still be up, but none of them will be updated either. If I were to receive a commission I will complete it, but that's about it. I still kinda need the money after all hahaha...

I'm incredibly thankful to all the people that have always supported me, those that liked and shared everything I posted, those that got just as excited as I did when I drew something, I will never forget your names, and I hope that, if I ever come back, we get to see each other again.

As a final though, I would like to say that I don't regret coming back and doing art, no matter the amount of struggling and desperation I surely went through. Every piece I drew, I loved it with my heart. If I was given the chance to go back in time and stop myself from drawing like this, I wouldn't accept it. I loved doing this, for the years I managed to handle it. If I were to be reborn again and had a chance to do this again, I'd take it without question.

Thank you.

I'm really sorry.

[fineartsjournal]

213341 Art Studio IIIA ⋆ Week 9 - Veejaysaurus Rex

Everything happens faster on the web. A hundred year's worth of culture has sprung up within a temporal blip, and history is made, recorded, and subsequently yearned for in the space of months.

In the old times of the internet, which well-adjusted folks call the mid-2000s , plunderphonics lived on, albeit transformed by the kooky, sunlight-deprived qualities of online culture at the time.

This entry is about YouTube Poop.

The idea behind a YTP is straightforward, and in the context of this workbook, quite familiar. Just take a preexisting piece of video - usually from some quirky bit of media, or otherwise any video you please - and re-edit it to form something.

On the early YouTube sphere, this usually meant some nonsensical parody, with hallmark techniques being the sentence mix, 'earrape' (the sudden increase of volume to headphone-cracking levels), and 'sos', which is to reverever a worow inni theeht middlddim for comedic effect. An entire subculture formed around this, but for the sake of brevity, it's Ryan Trecartin's filmography and daB by John Oswald over and over.

Where things pick up is with users eventually adapting this edit-heavy formula to create entire songs from their source material; being the YouTube Poop Music Video (YTPMV), and is the third time that plunderphonics developed in isolation.

What makes the YTPMV special is how, with it rooted in the video-edit formula of YTPs, each sound has a video clip displayed from which it originates, directly communicating to the listener what the layers of sound are, and where they come from.

The class critique went well, what now? With all signs pointing to interactivity, I reckoned the best way to get the same response to EIBY would be to put the audience in the same level of control over a video.

Searching up how to accomplish this led me to a forum post from 2001...

Oh hell nah.

The amount of learning required for this, especially before the finish line, has got me reconsidering. What else can I do?

Cue The VJ Book. As I found out, it comes with an attached DVD, featuring VJ'ing software!

Around this time, I went to a friend's costume party wearing an all-black morph suit. While uploading a video of me breaking it down in the kitchen for the socials, I found myself adding effect after effect, eventually re-recording myself dragging around the playback slider in Davinci Resolve, creating a jumbled, micro-montage video.

If it weren't for the fact that my studio piece was to be interactive, I probably would've continued down this path. Alas, this is the life I've chosen.

Scrolling past the bundled documentary, test images and template videos, I found two demos of VJ'ing software on my CD, the first being VIDVOX GRID2.

I got to downloading, which included installing QuickTime and ticking a few-too-many boxes. I suffer for my art.

Opening up the grid, I found myself back in the familiar territory of having absolutely no idea what to do.

All things considered, a 15 page manual was forgiving.

Around this time, it was also worth planning ahead for my presentation itself. Did I want to project it? How many speakers did I need? Was I going to follow my principles and avoid the cliché of being that-one-student-every-semester-that-presents-their-work-on-TV-monitors? I had to get Mike on speed-dial.

I was truly struggling with thinking of how to incorporate an interactive element, especially with a video work performed in software that I hadn't even heard of 20 minutes prior.

Until I saw this line in the manual.

MIDI notes can be used to trigger clips. This is discussed in Section 3.4, which deals with MIDI settings.

Bingo. I also regret selling my keyboard back in June.

And god damnit, it had the makings of being the next big thing for me. I'd press a key and the test video would jump, reverse and speed to my content. But then it crashed. And crashed. And crashed again.

Isadora, the other software bundled on the VJ CD, was another hopeful contender. A glance on their website showed that it did support MIDI.

And it just plain didn't work.

Downloading 20 year-old demo software onto my computer was making it act up, and it was about time I gave the thing a break.

Back to Cycling 74's Max. Begrudingly.

Although not for long. A second glance on their website lent their editing workflow to be less intimidating than I'd thought.

With a 30 day free trial a perfect fit for a nearby hand-in, I got to downloading.

To my shock (and delight), I had just opened the damn thing and it had already connected to my laptop camera and was now remixing my face.

We had a keeper.

[lovelywingsart]

Plans for after 'Dear Mother' (kinda long plan update shite!)

So y'all have probably noticed that I'm going ham on 'Dear Mother' - Thats because I gave myself the goal of finishing it before years end. And, good news, its almost done!!! So really, im just here to say my plans afterwards since I really haven't been updating much at all;

> Immediately after Dear Mother is finished, I'll be going on a partial hiatus to finish Baldurs Gate 3 and give myself time to relax and just... give myself a fucking break. The only times I'll be on the computer are the 2 days a week my fiance uses the PS5 to play with friends, so those are the only time I'll be doing any kind of art, be it personal or commission work. So if you happen to get a commission, please do not expect it right away. The general TAT for small things is 2 weeks, and with this hiatus and minimal energy, it might be longer. But I'll be giving myself a very... VERY much needed break to finish BG3 and have more shenanigans afterwards.

> When hiatus is over, be it immediately after the game or giving some time to work on other things, I'll be starting a new comic, and will try to pace myself a little bit because its going to be... huge. There will also be one more Survival AU written story before it starts- because this comic will be the fight against Miranda, involving the Lords, Emelia and Ethan. It is going to be huge, and its going to be difficult. There will be no other primary written stories until after its done unless there's a drabble or something someone asks me to make. I'll be finishing up and perfecting a few stories for after that's done, though I will primarily be working on the Survival AU with art, as well.

> Now, when the Survival AU comic is done, I may take another break, because there's yet another comic I'm going to start, which will be Emelias arrival to the factory. The start of this comic will also kickstart primary work focusing on the first few years of Emelias arrival. I am going to say now that while yes, they may have their moments, there will be quite a bit of mildly uncomfortable subjects, as the first few years involved some heavy mutual abuse from both. You'll get to see how she got there and how they managed the first few years as well as quite a bit with her having... well, two eyes 😂 I'll give another warning when I get there but yknow. I've said before how genuinely dysfunctional they are with a few written examples, but I feel like it'll be a different story with proper visual...

And while I'm working on that fun little bit, I'll also be introducing a new written series that I've been secretly chipping away at- While I work on Emelias background and arrival, I'll also be working on Karls.

I will be working on/posting a small(?) mini(???) series of Karls own backstory. It will include his own 'arrival' to the village, interactions with Miranda and occasionally the Lords, and even smaller things such as the loss of his leg and how he got the scars across his nose and throat, all up until Emelia is dropped off. I don't plan on there being VERY many stories, though I will absolutely be more than open to writing for him if anyone has other ideas! 💙

And... thats it for now! Noting that the next two comics are going to take quite a while, ESPECIALLY the Survival AU one... I've no idea how long everything will take exactly, and all this is going off of if life decides to give me a fucking break. There's still alot going on, and I'm struggling alot... but I still have plans. Dear Mother will be finished before the new year (if not nearly exactly ON new years depending on our plans for the next two weeks and me not getting burnt out) and I'll have January to attempt to recuperate. Will I take the entire month? I'm not sure. But given shit doesn't go wrong like it did this year, we might be ok.

But... yeah! Thats about it. Right now I'm focusing on Dear Mother and trying my best. Comms ARE still open but will just take a lil bit more time than usual, so if you're fine waiting, hit me up 👍

[veebs-hates-video-games]

Look at me continuing to not talk about 13 Sentinels next. I hope this doesn't turn into another XC3 thing where I keep saying I'm going to for several months before actually doing it. Definitely at least one of the top three things I've played this year that I got the most out of/had the strongest reaction to though.

Anyway I keep trying to find something else to play next after that that my brain will cooperate for and that I like enough. Persona 5 clearly wasn't it, but it did get me to go back to Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore for a bit, and that was fun. I remembered why I like it so much (same reasons as my previous post(s?) about it) and do still plan to finish it one of these days since I'm on chapter 5 of 7 or something, but I also remembered why I keep taking breaks from it too.

As much fun as I have with it it also could really have stood to streamline some things so they waste less time. The game would be like 20% shorter if I didn't keep having to go back to talk to Tiki and suffer through the most annoying menus ever every time I want to unlock a skill or upgrade a weapon, and also if it actually had a quest journal or some non-garbage way to keep track of stuff. I'm sorry I don't remember what this random NPC told me to go do last time I played the game literally a full year ago, and it doesn't help that they'll only repeat a single line of their dialogue to me that isn't enough to go on. It still never gets old that my party members will occasionally randomly burst into song and go 🫶 with each other and obliterate something with the moe moe kyun beam though.

And then I messed around with AI: The Somnium Files for a bit because it was on sale pretty cheap and people kept saying it was good. My initial impressions were that the detective vibe wasn't super my thing and that moving around the cursor to interact with stuff was more annoying and fiddly than it needed to be (seriously just put a tiny bit of "gravity" on interactable objects so you don't zoom past them accidentally and it would feel a lot better).

And then suddenly like 15 minutes in it went full nonsense, and mostly in a bad way. Like I'm all in favor of weird dream logic, although unless they get really clever with it later it would make puzzles/progressing the story essentially just guess and check if it's anything like the first dream sequence, which is not great. I could get over that and be slightly disappointed if that was all it was, but then the AI that lives in my character's brain gave a ghost handjob to a doorknob and a whole series of lazy horny jokes (not even clever or original ones) happened, and I was reminded that a friend had warned me it gets so much worse than that and decided to just pass on the game. Oh well.

And then the Children of Morta demo went even worse for me. The game is supposed to be rather good from what I've heard, but the Switch version doesn't seem like it. I just didn't love how the character felt to control, which is entirely personal preference, but also the load times are atrocious. It's a 2D game that's just pixel art. I have no idea what the heck it's doing when it takes like 30 seconds for load screens.

I'm still glad the devs seem to have finally had some success with it though, even if it's not a game for me. I always thought they had potential after they made Garshasp like 12 years ago or whenever. It was basically just a God of War knockoff, but it was still fairly impressive that a random small indie team in Iran decided to make a game about Persian mythology with very little previous experience and no local gamedev scene for support and somehow pulled it off anyway, and I was hopeful they'd get better with time. It's nice that they seem to have stuck with it and actually managed to get a pretty positive reception for this one.

The Fuga: Melodies of Steel demo was pretty compelling though. It seems like it's basically the horrors of war from the point of view of small children as not!France is invaded by not!Germany and they find a fantastical tank that they're using to try to save their friends and family, and also everyone is cats and dogs because why not? Some day when it goes on sale again I look forward to playing more of it.

And then finally another thing that went extremely poorly: trying to go back to The World Ends With You after not touching it for 547 days, according to the in-game message I got. After like 10-15 minutes I was reminded that it's completely genuinely and unironically one of the worst games I've ever played. Like specifically as a game. Lots of the non-game aspects of it are good or even great. I'm a big fan of the art style and music, the characters and their weird relationships are interesting, and I was curious about where the story was going, but I just can't suffer through the UI and controls and especially the combat any more to find out. I know I've said it before, but I still can't understand how a major publisher said "yeah this is fine, ship it the way it is" when it's barely playable. NEO: TWEWY supposedly throws all of that stuff out and starts fresh, so maybe that would go better for me.

I guess we'll see what my actual next thing I manage to latch onto is. Not any of these, apparently, although I did at least get several more hours through TMS#FEE this week.

[elviratheepic]

Idk if I'll stick with this, but I've been in hospital for over a week now and I can feel my brain turning to mush, so I'm thinking it might be good to post like a journal thingy here. I can just throw my thoughts to the void and if anyone feels like throwing any thoughts back at me, maybe I'll reminded what human interaction is lol

And who knows, maybe some bits and pieces of my experiences rn might be handy to someone who ends up seeing it. This is a weird time for me, maybe someone else around here's having, has had or will have some similar weird times and we'll have made a little connection even if we don't speak :)

I mentioned it briefly in a post on my art blog, but to flesh it out a bit, I've been generally run down and really quite unwell like all summer and now into autumn. Been back and forth to the doctor, told I have chest infections, possible asthma, etc. I get booked in for an xray and then something looks weird so a ct scan, still thinking it's pneumonia with some odd symptoms, then a couple days later I get a call from my doctor telling me i am going to the hospital asap, there's a bunch of fluid in my chest that should not be there and also they need to check for lymphoma. I've never been to hospital for more than an orthodontist appointment and while not as surprised as I could be expected to be by the thought of cancer due to having had a weird anxiety fixation thing on the idea for a while (fun coincidence), it was still a bit of an ordeal lol. This was 10 days ago and I have not been home since. I've been coping pretty well considering the wild lack of control I feel over literally anything rn. The steroids they've got me on rn while I wait for further treatment have me feeling better than I have in a long while, and mentally the worst I've been dealing with is some fairly mild dissociation. Just kind of taking things as they come for now, rolling with things as best I can especially while so many things are kind of a bit up in the air and subject to change.

But I mean drama aside, the current diagnosis for me is pretty good. The cancer as it appears right now is treatable and has a pretty great cure rate. It's a "primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma" according to the leaflet I've got. It's high grade, so fast acting and aggressive but that actually makes these easier to get rid of than low grade slower working ones. It's hanging out next to my heart so that's the reason I've had all these bullshit symptoms in my chest cuz it's just been fuckin shit up in there and irritating its roommates. They've got me booked in for a pet scan day after tomorrow cuz the scanner was having issues so they couldn't get me in sooner, then the plan is to start chemotherapy the next day. Which will be an experience. The treatment plan we've basically already decided is 6 21-day cycles of chemo where I'll be in hospital for about 5 days getting monitored and adjusted treatment, then going home for the rest and coming back to start the cycle again. It's not going to be the most fun and easy experience of my life but tbh I've done hard things before and I know I'm capable of doing this. Not that this kind of thing can ever really come at a "good" time, but I think that personally I'm pretty lucky this came along at the point in my life it did. I've been able to spend the last couple years basically building myself back up from feeling entirely lost, shattered and directionless after a pretty traumatic attempt at university durring covid lockdowns. I'm maybe lacking in some life experience people my age tend to have, but ultimately I have confidence, strength and self-awareness now that I do not take for granted. Basically I got the chance to reinforce my foundations in unkowing preparation for this whole thing. Honestly, I'm kind of just curious who I'll be on the other side of this experience - wherever that may be.

My main concern has been my siblings. I'm the oldest of 3 and we're all very close, spend a lot of time together and are at the core of eachothers' support systems. One of them's got college stress and deadlines, the other's out of school with anxiety issues rn, and my instinct is to be there as a support. And of course they would be supporting me too, it's not all give, they're amazing at being there for me too especially while I've been unwell (I love them so so much and I'm proud of everything they do can you tell lol). But while they have been visiting when they can, we don't get so much time together rn with me being in hospital and I feel like it's hard to get a gauge on how things really are with eachother at the moment which is rough with there being so much change going on rn. I know we'll figure things out, but I can't help worrying about them a bit, I feel like it's kind of my job lol

Oof can you tell it's getting late and my brain's going sleepy ramble mode? Idk if I'm even making much sense but hey

The ward I've been moved to for this is good. It's a cancer ward for teens and young adults with a common room area funded by the teenage cancer trust. There's guitars, a ps4, craft supplies and free snacks. It feels so weird that like that space is for me to use, like I'm kinda tresspassing on something for people who need it more than I do. But the ward's fairly quiet and not so busy at the moment, so when my siblings and briefly my friend came to visit me today, we basically had free reign of the space without having to disturb anyone. I feel more comfortable in there than I did, and I think it's a good space for my siblings to be when they come visit. I'm really greatful they get to use it with me - even if I feel kind of like others deserve the space more (ik im being silly), seeing them get good use and some fun out of it today was good and reassuring. It's reassuring to hear people talking about there being support systems for siblings too should they need them. Especially when it feels like I can't look out for them so much in the ways I normally would.

But yeah, I think that's about all that's in my brain for right now. I'll look back on this tomorrow and realise none of this actually made any sense lol

But yeah basically got thrown a bit of a curveball lately as life tends to do, but there's answers now where there wasn't before, and the path ahead's starting to make itself visible. It sucks, but I've been worse. I'm not just saying that for the sake of offsetting the fact that it sucks, I'm just taking the the little wins where i can cuz I know that's gotten me through plenty rough and sucky times before.

Some little wins:

Woke up to magpies outside the window this morning. One came right up to the glass to say hi, but I couldn't snap a picture in time lol <3

My friend brought me a rainbow sensory slug companion, and I made a pipecleaner creature named Spigley while my siblings were here. They are friends and will be my chemo companions :)

(Idk if that's a mouth or a moustache but i think it suits him either way)