#long post that I'll fix when i get to pc

[tempestforged]

[raguma1002]

i have some thoughts about what would happen if bojack and mr peanutbutter got together before the start of the show. @fandomfreakstudios have a wonderful post on this topic and i like their au very much. i just want to speculate on this from a slightly different angle.

i agree with freak's vision in many ways, but thinking about it, i've always found their relationship in such a scenario to be more messy and extremely ambiguous. ambiguous in terms of the fact that they themselves do not know who they are to each other… okay i'll try to explain

they meet for the first time at some event: an award ceremony, a party, whatever. then they see each other again, again, again, and in the end bojack reluctantly gets closer to pb - out of boredom, maybe - they drink together, chat about everything, discuss acting and so on. gradually they grow closer, their relationship becomes more trusting and intimate.

and before they knew it, they suddenly started spending nights at each other's places; mr peanutbutter recently divorced katrina, and he doesn't want to feel lonely, so all his attention is now focused on bojack. he became attached like a faithful dog (literally) and it will be almost impossible for him to let this man go, no matter what a jerk he actually is.

and bojack, who completely destroyed his previous relationship with herb, sees this. he doesn't reject pb when he becomes more intrusive for two reasons: firstly, he is afraid to ruin everything again, to lose a loved one, and therefore he tries to play a good friend; secondly, he likes this attention. he craves it. he longs to be wanted, to be admired, to be needed no matter what.

so, yes, their relationship is growing, and so is codependency. bojack tries to be kind, fair, supportive, but when he discovers how difficult it is - and most importantly, when he sees that his efforts don't matter, because pb won't leave him anyway - he stops. and, when there is not only an agent who will get you out of any trouble, but also a close person who is ready to love you no matter what disgusting things you do, and justify your behavior in any way, you stop not only growing, you become much worse than you were already.

nevertheless, he still has bright sides, some kind of concept of morality, and he is literally eaten up by guilt for what he is doing with their relationship. he, from time to time, makes some attempts to fix it - with well-known grand gestures - but it doesn't last long. then he gets tired again, realizes that everything he does is pointless, and turns to alcohol, drugs - everything, just to calm the pain and guilt consuming him from the inside.

mr peanutbutter also tries hard at first. he genuinely believes that if he makes enough effort, their relationship will be as happy and trouble-free as it was in his family, as it was on his native peninsula. he keeps ignoring all the red flags until everything turns into a real disaster. he still doesn't want to leave bojack because a) he is afraid to be alone, b) he is attached to him, he actually likes him very much; c) he feels sorry for boj.

we have seen how mr peanutbutter can behave in a relationship if he is really displeased or upset about something. eventually even his patience comes to an end, and maybe he makes the first attempt to leave, but quickly returns - either on his own initiative, or because of bojack's conviction that he will change. then everything repeats again.

this time, pb stops ignoring the bad attitude and goes on the offensive - he responds to manipulation with manipulation, to neglect with neglect etc. as a result, he becomes little better than his partner. they start quarreling constantly, it exhausts both of them. but that's all they have left when they just can't let each other go.

if we draw analogies, then this is something between bodiane, pb/diane and bojack/pc relationships, but i hope you understand the course of my thoughts.

bojack's career is still a failure, but at the same time pb's one is much less successful than in the original, obviously because of his personal life. well, now he has much more time to, for example, fight with his life partner again and eventually drive off to the other side of the united states together. for some unknown reason. they're sick to death of each other and yet still codependent. well. you know how it is

i could write more, but it seems like i've got a cold and i also want to sleep (whimpering whimpering) and the post already came out kinda long. so yeah. but maybe i'll talk about it later again

oh and i almost forgot

[a-friend-of-mara]

Hello hello

It's been a long long time since I made an intro post so time to do it again

Hello everyone, I'm Mara, I'm an 18 year old autistic trans girlie on the interwebs. I'm mostly into women but recently have been getting bi-curious, I'm poly and in a relationship with some lovely people, I am okay with you flirting but don't get upset if I don't reciprocate your feelings, my partners come first.

New: I'm pissed as fuck that I have to write this, I'm turning off asks because I got five "help my family" asks today alone...

Rant below in green

At first I was like "idk, I don't have money so I'll just delete it" now I'm sure it's bots doing the whole "help my family" garbage. I don't have a better word for it than "evil"... people are fucking suffering and some dickwads are trying to scam people out of money...... "oh but Mara how do you know its a scam" Hello there hypothetical goober who I made up for the sake of argument. I know it's a scam because the only thing I get more often than those asks are mommy doms in my dms saying "hello bitch" ... I'm not happy... I'm just not, tumblr should be for funny videos of fennec foxes, cats, queer shit, sad girl hours, and saying "mommy? Sorry" to other trans girls who I think are cute... NOT FUCKING GILT TRIPS

:(

I am a transgender woman, if you call me a sissy you're getting blocked

Stop asking where I'm from! I've heard that a hundred times and I'm tired of it!

I swear to Satan herself if one more guy is creepy in my DMs then I'm gonna start blocking all of them

Blank blogs I do not trust and will be presumed bots/scammers until proven otherwise, likes, reblogs, and a PFP take almost no time

My non-horny intests include

Computers

TTRPGs

Video games

Fixing stuff

I love talking to people and love attention even more so feel free to DM me*

*Dni list

Racists

Homophobic people

Transphobic people

TERFs

Anyone who calls me "sissy" or "tranny" or "shemale" because those are all derogatory terms and if you use them you're either an asshole or uneducated and I don't wanna take the time to figure out which

Favorite video games

(Last updated 5/13)

Titanfall 2

Team Fortress 2

Deep Rock Galactic

Beat saber

Project wingman

Cyberpunk 2077

Armored Core 6

Lethal Company

Pizza Tower

I love spreading little pockets of happiness around here sending messages saying "Heya you're loved and valid" to people on here

I frequently talk about Charlie, she's my PC, I built her with my own hands and seeing her damaged or malfunctioning hurts my soul

Ask me for money and you're being blocked instantly

Horny below the line

Dirty ask list

When giving an ask please give the question number and question, thx

I LOVE TO RP, PLEASE ASK ME ABOUT IT!

[countesspetofi]

Today in the Department of Before They Were Star Trek Stars, Leonard Nimoy guest stars in "The Shipwreck," episode 30 of the first season of Sea Hunt (original air date August 2, 1958).

Nimoy plays one of a trio of shipwreck survivors Lloyd Bridges picks up in his life raft when he's stranded in a storm after a scuba diving accident. The four refugees struggle to stay alive for a week until they come within swimming distance of land.

Nimoy's hair is really giving Conrad Veidt in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in this one.

Other Trek connections: Dick Dial was Lloyd Bridges's stunt double on Sea Hunt, and he doubled for William Shatner several times on Star Trek. He also played a number of small, uncredited background roles on the latter series, such as Security personnel in "And the Children Shall Lead" and "The Apple" (far left in both images).

This is the last post I have in the tank. All the images and video files I have to make more are on a PC that gave up the ghost, and may or may not be able to be fixed. I'm using a borrowed laptop right now. I hope I'll be able to get back to this series soon, because I've had more fun doing it than I've had in a long time. It's been especially interesting learning how much more of a small town Hollywood was in the 1960s.

[tikvin]

For the other durges you showed a while ago, which ones accepted/denied Baal? If they denied him do they have specific reasons for why?

Well this will be long, lol. I have full descriptions of my durges I plan to post separately for each, but I'll try to cut a lot to just accommodate to the question.

Some of them aren't that close to this matter, plus I'm waiting for evil epilogue to be added, I also have a bit of a soft spot for resisting durges because of that one camp scene in act 2, so most of them are resisting durges, just differ by smaller details like what quests they do/dont and who of PCs and NPCs dies and they kill during travels.

So, sorry for my boring durges :D

Eshra - I think you can already guess.

Vice is close to accepting Bhaal, because it likes Minthara a lot (even though it didn't initially sided with her) and she's is a bad influence. It already got the slayer form, also the first to consume the astral tadpole so far. How it will all end? Who knows, Vice loves Minthara and it's a novel concept for it, hence the drow is able to sway it's opinions, but Vice also likes to have a control over it's own body. So Vice is on precipice

Evann is THE evil Bhaalspawn™ 100%. With this one, I will tell for sure, they're a cruel evil bitch-bastard, but probably doesn't fully realize that their actions are considered cruel. For them it's pure curiosity and pursuit of fun, they are not concerned when they first have the urges. Probably remembers more than other Durges. Probably had relationships with Gortash.

Jericho is the one who was terrified and disgusted from the very start. I think it was easier for her to resist, because she is a wild magic sorcerer (who I headcanon to be masterful before amnesia) and she had to be careful from the very beginning. She's skittish, in constant internal panic, a coward when it comes to perspective of getting back her memories. She was the one who tried to fix everyone else's problems just to not face her own. She had a lot of growth during the travels and now researches bhaalspawn to prevent anything happening.

With Cadere (who will later rename themselve as Ithildin) is absolutely out of question, they will not be accepting Bhaal, simply because... Karlach. You see, that's a Karlach kisser in front of you, and with all anguish that this whole shit caused to her they just cannot allow that to happen. Cadere was indifferent at the start, which caused quite a few deaths, but Karach energy just rubbed on them and they did the ol switcheroo

Thana is all about freedom. Bhaal is out of question. Freedom for herself, freedom for everyone else, freedom!!! She probably planned to defy Bhaal somehow even before the tadpole.

Thalissa - No. No Bhaal, we're having fun kicking devils' asses in hell. Has hots for both Wyll and Karlach, and their righteous do-gooder demeanor rubs on her. Not completely tho, she's quite bloodthirsty on her own, which is why she's most likely going with them to hell to justly kill shit without consequences. At least if Karlach won't sacrifice herself for Orpheus. I planned more than one play through with her, so it's undecided, maybe she will have one game where she's evil, who knows

Mortis is very power hungry, even though their overall demeanor is quite chill. They might not go completely towards Bhaal but they're sure are tempted to kill Isobel...

Jago - was a simple person, but not dumb. No Bhaal. Much like Thana, he wanted freedom, and he teared and ripped and clawed for it. He wasn't very caring for others, but he got what he wanted, without hurting too much people.

[cidthesquid]

Monster Hunter World | Character Creator Chat

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Welcome back to CCC, (Formerly Character Creator Critique) where I just kinda yap a bit while working through a character creator. This Time it's Monster Hunter World! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Just as a bit of a disclaimer: this is just really my (mostly uninformed) views on design and character creation, I'm mostly doing this 'for fun'! And will mostly just serve as a 'snapshot' of my current views and perspectives. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I thought about going a bit further back, but I figured, this was the first entry designed from the ground up for an HD console, so we'll start here. (For reference, I'm playing on PC with no mods or DLC)

And wow, it's been so long since I first started this game, I completely forgot about the cinematic intro that's your first introduction to this new high fidelity world Anyways, let's jump in..

The First option is your basic Gener selection, and it appears that they use this to also showcase their diverse option for skin tones. ..being someone with darker skin myself looking to make a darker skinned avatar, you may think I'd see this as a good decision! But I think this misses the point. I by no means kind this offensive or anything, but I think the #1 purpose of any selection menu in a game like this, is to allow the player to make a choice, compare and contrast, one major area at a time. Yet, you can't simply compare the male and female character options here, even aside from the skin tone differences the expressions are different, hair color, eye color, ear shape, lip spacing, how light reflects off skin, etc. I'd argue it takes too much focus away from "what general body shape do you want", and instead gives you two wildly different character presets. A quick and easy fix would have been to start with two models with a closer look, and including an early option to set the skin tone, so you can have a more accurate comparison of that this initial choice is for. Alright, on to presets:

You have 10 charter presets to pick between, offering a few different styles. I'll aim to try creating my normal avatar for simplicity. So we'll start with preset 5, Next up us face:

We have 24 presets for this, with no advanced options for tweaking. But we have a good variety of face designs:

Next up is skin:

They offer a 2D-gradient scale map, With each corner representing a different skin tone with a center point of a fairly neutral looking tone:

This is not really a bad idea on paper, and it still means you can choose to have lighter or darker skin, But I feel that basically making skin tones a 2d graph, a lighter skin tone as your (0,0) origin point, it makes it a bit harder to dial in darker skin tones, as most of your quadrant would lean to the lighter side, but I still think they offer a pretty decent selection. There's also an option for wrinkles if you want to give your character an older or more grizzled look. Next up is hair style:

And this is where things actually get to be disappointing, I planned to be a little lenient on Monster Hunter, as you won't really see your hunter much when decked out in super cool looking gear, Like with a few other games, if you want long hair, you only really have the one I selected above, a 'priests' styled one, or wavy. Medium length is treated a little better, but the game favors short.

But I feel like the hair would be the one thing that would be most notable, since you have the option to disable your helmet when in cutscenes, or in all gameplay. it would be nice to see a wider variety on display, But, if you want anymore than what's shown above, you gotta buy them as dlc:

The hair color options are pretty good though, a fair number of presets, and a hue slider with saturation and brightness tweaks:

Next up is eye brows:

This is where the labels start to get a little confusing, it seems like you have two sections that both have a selection of eyebrows, But in fact, the top selection 'eyebrows' determines the eyebrows design and thickness, (16 choices) While the second "Brow Type:" adjusts the height and angle. (24) I ended up going with brows (6) and type (5), as or the more subtle/refined variant of the energetic look that the rest of these selections seemed to be pushing me towards. Next up is eyes, and it looks like we're getting some real sliders now!

30 eye shape options, a seprate2d-positioning sliders, and full color customization for both eyes. This may not seem like much but I feel like a few tweaks here really help open up the look, but may necessitate further tweaks to earlier steps:

Like I don't think any of these are 'clearly better', But (image 1) shows my brows choice with the preset eyes, But (image 2) shows when I selected larger eyes, as they fit my avatar's look better. they still work well with the original brows, but I decided to go back a step and re-evaluate. But while I previously passed over the thinner eyebrows, I feel they fit much better with the larger eye choice, and get me closer to the original slightly more mature look I was going for. Next up is nose:

As always, I never know what to do with these, (24 presets) I just try to pick one that's not too distracting, I guess. (someone explain noses to me -_-) There's also a position slider, but I'm not touching that. Next up mouth:

(24 presets and a position slider) This is also a little tough to pick, but I went with the slight smile, The original idea for this design was to go with my slightly sassy punk rock look, but because of the presets I've I've been stick with, I've had to dial that back quite a bit, to a 'quietly energetic', I was going to go with a neutral expression looking lips, but instead I'm going with #3's slight hint of a smile as I think it can brighten up the design overall Next up is facial hair:

(21 options with a few common styles, but I'll be skipping this) makeup gets a little messy...

You basically have two 'slots' both containing all of the same options. These options contain face paint, eyeshadow, lipstick, blush, etc. So basically, even if you just wanted a freckled look, and eyeshadow, you'd already have used up both slot, so no lipstick for you! The position and size sliders are a nice touch, allowing you to adjust how they're applied, but the 'color' options were extremely underwhelming, as both brightness/saturation mainly just change how transparent the color is on your face. The only option to adjust the actual color is 'hue' and it seems very imprecise, In the above image, I tried to give myself the most punchy purple lipstick option by pretty much maxing out the sliders for the color, and you can barely see it. You could argue that they don't want everyone walking around looking like clowns, but at the same time, 1.. that's my right. and 2, why not just offer a separate transparency slider? and color picker? This way we could dial in the exact color we want, and then adjust the transparency to fade it as much as we want. (make up finish like matte/gloss would be a nice touch too) expression:

I think this is for facial expressions, they all look pretty similar, I'm not really sure where these are used, maybe cutscenes and combat? Changing the default clothing is a nice touch,

This is pretty much your character underwear, but you can select between a few different styles and you can adjust the accent colors Alright, and the last option, (before plaico customization) is selecting the armor you'll be wearing when you start the game

And with that, we're done!

I think the creator in this game is pretty detailed, considering for most people you'll only see like 60% of their face, because of the way armor works in this game, I can understand why further body customization is not offered. But it would have been nice to at least have like a muscle slider or something, to give our character a more 'buff' appearance, even if it's just a texture. I really don't understand the point of the expressions, I think a "personality" option may have fit better with options like "serious, confident, silly, cute, and cool" would make more sense as options, And it would be even cooler if they affected your idle animations and walk/run cycle. but I get that it's asking alot. So maybe just better labeling would do,

overall, I had a lot of fun, making a character here, the only real disappointment was the free hairstyle options, the makeup was finicky too, but the lack of hairstyle variety for short and medium, in a game that does not seem to gender lock hair was really sad to see.

But, anyways, next up is Monster Hunter Rise, So We'll see how the creator changes for that game!

(Ok, yeah, that lipstick is a little intense, but STILL NOT PURPLE!) Next CCC: Monster Hunter Rise! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Thanks for reading! I had a lot of fun making this, so I hope you had fun reading it as well!

As always, comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome! And If I describe something 'objectively wrong', or use the wrong terminology, feel free to correct me, I'm always looking to improve! (But If it's subjective/personal preference, please let me figure it out myself, so I find my own style! :D )

[pinkcannibal]

are you coming back senpai? :‘((

hi!!!! yes im coming back!!! eat ur young IS NOT abandoned and im so sorry its taken this long to update everyone. it's very much still going and ive never been more pumped to write. its just recently well. my pc refused to turn on and it's been a 3 month battle with the manufacturer of my parts to get it up and running again and fixed, and my beloved pc is what i write fic on, so sadly i haven't been able to write for a hot minute :(( my gf has been so so nice in lending me her laptop when she can, but as we don't live together it's been sporadic 🥺😭 trust me im trying really really hard to get this new chap out, bc i love this story and marilynreader sm, and know the readers love them too!!! im planning to post a short exerpt of it or sneak peak soon to tie yall over and answer headcanon asks in the mean time, it rlly sucks but hopefully my pc will be sorted soon and I'll be back on the milf train ❤️

[nyaawn]

Adding to my previous 'Graphical Update and Derplander's face' post now that the benchmark has been updated, and overall it's an improvement. Rejoice user of hyur face#5, your WoL won't suddenly turn into old man anymore!

It's rather hard to take pic with similar light for ver1.1 because they had revamped their lighting placement big time, especially the indoor one. But hoo-boy ain't it look good. It register multiple light sources now? Making things like his collar and ears cast subtler shadows from different angle. They fix the fading facial hair and eyebrow too. Nice.

While face#5 regain its youthful visage, players who DO want their WoL to age can look to face#7, which retain its middle-aged-man look from previous benchmark, that stubble come complete with nasolabial folds, wrinkles, lines and all intact. Heck, you can argue that it look even more rugged now.

(note: When the first DT benchmark released I was on break from playing XIV and didn't have access to in-game Character Creator, so I used EW benchmark for comparison pics on my previous post and the updated ones above. They were captured on PC and labeled from patch 6.0. Since then I had subbed again, so part of pics below was taken from current-build CC, captured on PS5 and labeled from patch 6.5. I thought it wouldn't differ much, but 6.0's shadow is much darker compared to current (6.5) build. Huh. Is it because of different hardware? Different setting? Benchmark fault? Idk)

Yep. Same face structure, different direction. One brings youth, one brings the age. Two-toned echoes tumbling through update.... Well, anyway, they did a good job distinguishing face#7 from #5 with this graphic update. And it's nice to have more options. People who like this face type (and it feels almost every male hyur player use this one) but want 20s or youthful 30-something WoL can go with face#5. Those who don't mind 40s or 30-something-who-spend-too-much-of-his-life-standing-one-millimeter-from-blazing-inferno-or-toxic-fumes-AoE-too-keep-his-uptime-resulting-in-rough-skin WoL can go with face#7. That's me and I'm happy with this update. I just wish we can turn that stubble on and off without need of fanta($$), like every other facial hair options... But I guess that ship has sailed.

Looking at updated benchmark cutscene itself, there's improved lighting but all in all the change is minimal imo. And I'm sad to say that villain-esque eyeliner I mentioned in previous post is still there. Not as thick as previous, but still appear anytime I use hairstyle with bangs that drop shade on his eyes. Sigh maybe I should use that new DT hair afterall...? But ngl I don't really like it...

Don't get me wrong, it's great! ....It just doesn't compliment this face type.. On my previous post I wrote about how they add highlight to this face#7's forehead, and in theory I understand why they did it. But in practice and with this hair, I found it make his forehead distractingly bright and plastic-like and flat compared to the rest of his face that's carefully detailed and contoured. It looks odd, is what it is. That bright forehead also highlight (hurhur) how the front hair and roots don't have shadow at all, and my brain can't help thinking how wrong it look like every time I put this hair on him. Also I deliberately capture the above pic with indoor lighting, because in outdoor that forehead shine like lighthouse, good lord @_@. Being a Warrior of Light doesn't mean you have to become literal sun, dude.

So yeah that's my main wrinkle with this expansion, his hair and forehead. (first world problem) (while a throng of BLM and AST have a meltdown out there (*´・ｖ・). Tho I do feel pretty miffed right now regarding how they replace many gap closer with no-damage skill. Like, I can't surprise enemy by poking their head from above while laughing maniacally anymore?? HOW DARE YOU--- but this aimless rambling post already hella long without those rants. I'll keep it for another time..)

[annakie]

Never Fade Away

THIS IS A VERY LONG POST with big spoilers in both words and pictures for Cyberpunk 2077!

But it's also all my feels about a playthrough that's taken me many months and almost 300 hours to complete.

----

I played Cyberpunk 2077 on release. As I said in this "Games I played in 2021" post, which is a thing I wish I'd remembered to do every year, I loved it. That said, it probably wouldn't have cracked my top 10 or maybe even 20 favorite games ever, but I thought it was amazing, right out of the box. I ran into a couple of bugs, like couldn't complete the Delamain questline, and definitely agreed with some popular opinions about the game that parts of it didn't seem quite done, I had a couple of crashes and times I had to reload from something weird happening, but playing on PC I didn't have a lot of the problems console players did apparently.

It very much felt to me like another Andromeda situation -- another game that needed another couple of months to finish ironing a couple of bugs out but was mostly a victim of its own over-anticipaiton and overhyped-edness by the fanboys (and girls.)

That said, when I finished it I set it aside to wait for major updates before I'd pick it up again.

So last fall when it's one and only DLC, Phantom Liberty finally released, it was right around when the BG3 hype was happening so BG3 came first. But I kept having to wait for mods to update after patches dropped, so during one of these breaks I went and started playthrough #2 of Cyberpunk 2077.

My first time through I was a Nomad, so to mix it up this time I went Corpo. I really enjoyed Corpo a lot more and thought it had some much cooler interactions than Nomad ever gave me. Although, I thought the introduction and subsequent friendship with Jackie felt more natural with Nomad.

There were several goals I had going in to this playthrough.

Different origin - check.

Send Jackie's body to Mama Welles -- with no spoilers from my first run, I thought sending the body to Vik to work on first would be the most logical choice and either he could help Jackie or at least get him interred properly so Jackie's mom WOULDN'T HAVE TO BE TRAUMATIZED by her son's body just showing up. Guess that was the wrong choice and it was way too late to change once I found that out. So yeah, start things off right with Mama.

Complete the Delamain quest now that the showstopper bug a LOT of people ran into was fixed. (Didn't mention it later, but check!)

Find all the Hidden Gems

Pick a different ending.

Install cool mods to enhance things without breaking the game.

Generally, just do everything. Except maybe the Sinnerman questline. (I aborted halfway through and didn't regret it.)

Understand the main storyline in ways that had confused the hell out of me the first time around.

High quality Screenshots screenshots screenshots screenshots screenshots.

So with 1 checked off, I decided before advancing the main storyline much, I'd try to raise my fame level a bit and also just let Jackie live for awhile.

I did some research and landed on installing the Welcome to Night City mod collection. It's well researched, well maintained, the creator is really responsive, and has a Discord with a well supported community. Importantly for me, it also didn't have any "sexy" mods, just great gameplay tweaks, fixes, customizable on how much harder/easier it made the game, and added a lot of flavor and experience but felt like everything just worked in the background. Also since I have a Premium Nexus Mods experience, the install and upgrades were very, very easy. I didn't do the upgraded CyberpunkTHING experience, since it makes the game harder. I was here for a good time.

(And yes, I endorsed every mod in the collection!)

Honestly it added so many things that I'm sure there was a ton of stuff I just experienced thinking that that's just how the game was now, but it was a part of a seamlessly integrated mod collection.

I'll definitely use this mod pack again the next time I play. But also I didn't install ANY other mods really for a very long time, and I now really wish that I had. But we'll get to that.

I also installed several other graphics mods on my own, like a high-res skin for River (and the... shall we say... anti-Kendoll mod for him lol) and like, this mod (and several others from that author) that tones down the hypersexuality of the ads in the game. I realized early on that they don't bother me in-game -- it totally fits the aesthetic and tone of the game! But also I didn't want all that in screenshots that I will have rotating on my desktop for years (shoutout to DisplayFusion) and would have the possibility of like, my AC guy or my neighbors kids having to see as my Office is my living room (and my living room is the smallest bedroom of my house).

I did a lot of the gigs in Watson before advancing the main storyline so I'd have an OK character for storming stuff this time. I recently found a list of places Johnny talks in early Watson jobs to avoid doing early next time:

Side Job: Losing My Religion (where you have to free the monk from Maelstrom)

Fixer Gig: Backs Against the Wall (recover stolen medicine from veteran)

Fixer Gig: Scrolls before Swine (get the CCTV footage for the cop, only if you watch before downloading)

So you can do all NCPD hustles, the first 10 Fixer gigs and and all side jobs except Losing My Religion without losing out on any of the Johnny experience.

Leaving that there for next time. Anyway, it feels like it makes more sense to get this chance at the big gig when you have some experience, and can pretend you and Jackie were living life together a little while longer. Next playthrough -- use AMM to take some hanging out with Jackie screenshots early on.

---

Eventually I advanced the main storyline enough and finished the Heist, and was able to check #2 off my list. Loved not getting yelled at by Mama Welles this time. And felt with the added time that I had a right to be doing this -- still extremely stupid in retrospect -- gig. But it was more fun have tools to deal with the hotel guards this time.

Knowing who Takemora was and meeting Johnny again were really enhanced by knowing what the fuck was going on the second time around. Keanu really knocks it out of the park when you finally really understand the character.

Though I hate the early adversarial feeling between him and V, I get it a lot more now. Watching the relationship grow is really worth it.

---

I wasn't invited to Jackie's memorial the first time. So getting to go the second time and help repair Misty and Mama Wells' relationship was great, and I really loved getting to know Jackie better by picking out something for the funeral at his garage, and the added time with Misty.

---

I told myself I'd do a different spec than stealth-hacker. I was wrong. I still did that. I love using Contagion and Overheat to take enemies out non-lethally while crouched behind something nearby. The ones that really deserve it get a shot from Skippy later.

Yeah, as soon as lockdown was over I hightailed it down to Valentino's territory and then headed back to Watson / Japantown. I gave Skippy up as late as possible, when he was outliving his usefulness. I got him back as fast as I could, but I miss his voice. I miss his quips.

After that when I needed a weapon I mostly used the Arasaka experimental smart SMG. IDK, I just liked the feeling of stealing shit from Arasaka and using it to fuck up their own people whenever possible. But again, I didn't shoot weapons much anyway.

---

I spent so, so much time just driving around taking pictures of my cars and the amazing ways the light looked while driving through the city. I absolutely fell in love with the aesthetics of the city, every part of it, over and over again. I posted a few photosets. There are more in the queue. There are so many screenshots I didn't use.

Like, honestly out of everything I love about this game just... looking at it is maybe my favorite thing. There's so much to see, all of the time, everywhere. Your eyes can never take it all in. I'll be in a place I've been a dozen times and still find new awesome things to look at. I just can't describe how much I enjoy just... looking at this game.

I never fast travel anywhere -- except out of the Megabuilding 10 apartment. I took the metro a few times just to sit back and relax watching the scenery go by but normally I just drive everywhere.

Jackie's Arch and the Porche 911 (and its variant in the bottom screenshot) are my favorite vehicles. Bikes for maneuverability, but also likewise the Porche has better handling than a bike while still being really easy to weave through traffic in.

Night City is one of the few locations in any video game I've ever played that TRULY feels like it could be a real place. Every neighborhood is distinct. Though there are some familiar things, one Captain Caliente doesn't look like every other one. You'll see a few of the same signs around, there are some generic small building structures but where it makes sense. Yeah there's a few monolithic Arasaka buildings but of course they would be. How efficient. The megabuildings are similar, but different enough. It feels like every detail of the world was crafted so carefully. There's so much beauty even in the ugly bits.

I never want to stop looking at it, or screenshotting it. I just love the city so much.

I'm going to run out of screenshot space on this post.

---

I romanced River again. Look, I'm a basic primarily het romancer in video games. I love Judy, she's amazing, but River ticks my boxes -- the Paladin archetype who gives it all up to do the right thing even when it costs him.

I hate that he's the most undercooked of all the companions plot and time-wise. But there were some huge improvements this time. All the companions had gotten extra text message interactions. A fun little quest that added a bit more content in PL. They Really Want To Stay at Your House! And along with that, amazing mods are now available to make those things even better. (River Romanced Enhanced, the Really Want To Stay At Your House and Romance Interactions Enhanced mods)

Around the mid-point in game after seeing some amazing photosets on my desktop, I got brave and installed Appearance Mod Menu and a bunch of other pose and photomode mods that go along with it. Also some outfit mods for River. And then things really got cooking screenshot wise.

Even though it took a lot of effort to set this stuff up and to get poses to work right sometimes, I got to feel like River and my V went out and had real dates on the town.

Also sometimes... we just uh... stayed in.

There's so many photos that won't ever make it to tumblr. And so many more sets I want to take.

Well, that's what reloading old saves is for.

You'll see some of these screenshots again, or have before. I have a lot of things queued that will pop up... sometime. I like to surprise myself with my own photosets. :D

---

I finally installed the Virtual Atleir and started modding in outfits a little while after doing AMM, was trying to install things in waves as to not break too much. I got a few crashes here and there, but not as many as I was worried about, after installing stuff on top of Welcome to Night City.

I kind of regret waiting so long to do Virtual Atlier and clothing mods but also not. I think I manually collected like 95% or more of all the ingame clothing. I still stop by clothing stores but they usually have nothing new for me, or just things like... masks that I never use. There's such a huge variety of clothes already in the game that I didn't get to build a lot of outfits around pieces that I love. I made a whole post of ingame-outfits I made and love!

And there's one in the queue somewhere of modded-in outfits, too. Not even all of them.

Cyberpunk 2077 is the ultimate Dress-up my dolls and make them kiss game, and I may never stop playing that aspect of it.

---

Hey speaking of Kerry Eurodyne, I love him. And Panam. And Judy. And Vik. and Claire. And Misty. And Rogue. And the rest of Samurai (Well, I chose Denny and always will.) The only thing I don't love is how it feels like you still don't get enough time with any of them, except MAYBE Panam.

I would love to be able to space out all of their missions even more. I try to put as much space in between the companion missions as possible, but this time it backfired on me a little because i crammed Judy's stuff in way later in the game than I should have, around when I was doing Kerry's stuff. When all of the main quest and most of the side quest stuff was done. And we all know that we don't get Kerry until way too late anyway. But doing Panam's stuff happened so long ago that sometimes I'd just drive out to see the Aldecados and hang out for a day because I missed them. (And, as you can see in the River screenshot above, I "brought him along" to introduce him tot he family once or twice.)

I have a great photoset in the queue of all the main characters hanging out at the Corpo apartment together I can't wait to come up someday. Not posting a preview screenshot here.

Except I forgot Claire. It took me like an hour to set that scene up and now I'm thinking about doing it all again to include Claire.

Anyway, mostly I just want to say that aside from just loving River, I love them all and don't want to leave them behind either.

Or the Fixers. Or Reed. But we'll get to Phantom Liberty.

---

Just one more quick stop here to talk about the music.

I installed the Improved Radio Continued mod and wow it really enhanced the music experience for me.

I am a 98.7 Body Heat gal, with a flip to Pacific Dreams when Ponpon Shit or History would play, but loved about half the new music on Growl FM. It took some finagling, but Improved Radio let me make my own custom radio station with JUST the songs I wanted. So it's a mash of those three stations, without the songs I disliked. (There's one on Pacific Dreams, the REALLY long one that has the interlude of someone saying the same word over and over really slowly? That one... ughghgh) and that was amazing. There's a handful of songs from other stations I liked too, that got added in. And, I'm sorry, no Us Cracks allowed. I love them as characters, still hate their music.

What I didn't expect was to really fall in love with the music of Samurai this time around. Like, I knew I should have the first time but I didn't put effort into listening to them since metal isn't my usual vibe. But it IS my brother's, at least when we were in High School and College, so I listened to it a lot back then and there are still metal songs I do like.

So this time I put all the Samaurai songs in my playlist and holy shit I fell in love with them.

A couple of weeks ago I was driving to visit my parents IRL and the entire way up there I just listened to the Samurai songs on repeat. I'm a big fan now, thanks second playthrough.

----

So, Phantom Liberty was the big reason for the new playthrough. Let's talk about it.

I absolutely LOVE Dogtown. oh, Pacifica, but worse? Amazing. So much new stuff to see, and do. I loved exploring every nook and cranny.

It added SO MUCH to the game, I can't imagine playing the game without it. I didn't even go to there until I was like 2/3rds of the way through the rest of the content and I wish I'd spread it out EVEN MORE.

I will say that I thought some of the main quests were a bit long. I felt myself itching to get out and go do something else throughout some of the long sessions like basically having to do most of the stuff with the President in one big long chain, though it made sense. I loved those quests, though! And I think I'll like them even more on a subsequent playthrough some day.

The only part I really did not like at all in Phantom Liberty was -- ok look I made the choice to side with Reed the entire way. It's Idris fucking Elba okay, I have loved him since The Wire. And I absolutely understand why Songbird did what she did, and what she would have done if I'd have sided with her. And maybe I will next time. But this time, I was all in on Reed -- though I didn't become an Agent for the NUSA, fuck that. And I gave Songbird her final wish. Because again, fuck the NUSA.

But oh man, that last quest? With that FUCKING ROBOT following you around the base at the end, that is an instakill if it finds you? FUUUUUUCK that. It was so frustrating that I stopped playing for over a month because every time I thought about going back into the game to finish that my head wanted to explode.

Eventually I watched a couple of Youtube videos and read a couple of articles about exactly where to go and how to hide from it.

Look, I love exploring, I love taking my time, I love making sure I explore everything and miss nothing. That fucking robot harshed my gaming style so much. No regrets about cheating my way through that part. Zero. I made it through with only dying to it one more time and got the fuck out of there. I was also glad to see in the comments of the video I watched and articles I read that I was very much not alone in that opinion. I might side with Songbird at least most of the way to the end in future playthroughs JUST to never have to do that base again.

Otherwise, though, Phantom Liberty was a triumph. I want a mod that makes the Dogtown apartment not shit but also not luxury, and then I want to just stay there a long time.

----

So, I'm almost done with the game.

I installed two Hidden Gems mods that turn the easy-to-miss stuff into Fixer (and Ronald in Dogtown) quests and LOVED THEM. I wanted to see and do it all. And I did. I'm done with that. It took me many more hours of gameplay to get through all of that. Worth it.

In my playthrogh, River is waiting for me at my Megabuilding apartment to spend one more night together.

And then I'm calling Panam and having the Aldecados come help me storm Arasaka.

Last time I had Rogue help, and to be honest, I feel like that's still the right choice. Rogue helped start this. She should help end it.

But one of my goals was to do more things different. And to be honest, I hate the endings, so much.

It's not that I necessarily think there should be a happy ending for V. But I think that the game should let us help make sure other people have happier endings.

So here's the thing. V is richer than like 95% of Night City by the end of the game. She's got like six apartments, at least a dozen cars even if you don't buy many at the car store, My V still has like 8 million eddies.

I don't care what the game says.

In my game, V went to a financial lawyer.

V set up trusts with each of the Fixers, or maybe one for all of them, where they can access funds to hire mercs to help people who couldn't afford a Fixer but needs one. I'd trust most of them to use this wisely, or maybe Regina, or Rogue, or Dakota or Padre would help oversee it. At least a million eddies out there, to help those who get fucked by the system most.

V sets up a trust for Judy, so she's always got enough to get by. She sends her the best tech she's gotten her hands on to ply her trade with. Maybe a new van. Set aside some to help the Dolls.

V sends her heavy duty vehicles and Scorpion's bike to the Aldecados, along with a huge stash of weaponry and half a million or so eddies to help them stay solvent.

Misty's and Vik's rents paid up for at least a year. A vehicle each. Another 250k or so for each of them. They have room to breathe. Whatever Cyberware is laying around goes to Vik -- but if River wants a couple of pieces installed, he gets them (within reason. No cyberpsychosis for my man.)

Same for Claire. Set her up with her shop's rent paid up, and a trust, give her The Beast back, and another car of her choosing.

Kerry doesn't need much, but she gives him Johnny's outfit to remember him by. Or maybe to Rogue. What do these two giants want? Whatever it is, they can have. Split the memorabilia.

And then River.

First of all, a trust for Joss and the kids. 250k each, the kids get theirs in small chunks as they age. If there's a note on either of the trailers, it's paid off. If Joss wants to move into the city, done. Set the kids up with scholarships to the best schools they want to go to. A decent, reliable car for each of the four of them. Maybe Randy wants the Megabuilding apartment for when he's ready to live on his own again.

River gets most of what's left after all that. The Glen apartment specifically, that's where they made their best memories. There's still going to be like 4 million and a bunch of cars and property left. If V dies, it's his.

This is the closest thing to happily ever after that they can get, and in my mind it absolutely happens, at some point.

Honestly, if it were me, if I didn't know the "two years later" of it, then V would have taken the President's offer and gotten Johnny out of her head surgically and lived. The will probably would have triggered. Or knowing that the surgery could be risky she'd at least have put in a provision that a percent of it triggered so Joss, the kids, River, Judy, Claire and Panam would be taken care of.

She'd never have left River destitute and desperate to take care of the family. I can't accept it.

V would wake up maybe with less money, but her assets protected enough that even without being a Merc she'd be OK. The people she loved would be OK. River would have taken care of things, and would love her without her implants.

It'll never be happily ever after in Night City, but the people that matter most will be OK.

---

But I'm going to finish today, maybe tomorrow. I planned on it today but then I spent 4 hours writing this post and have a PF2E game tonight to DM that I need to prep for.

I installed the River's Epilogue Enhanced - Nomad Star Ending mod and.... so I'm bringing the Aldecados to Arasaka, and am going to have the happiest ending possible modded into the game. With my headcanon that a trust is waiting for him and the family. They'll be fine.

I love this game. I loved it before, I love it so much more now.

I can't wait to play it again someday.

[yooniesim]

Btw, I removed Curseforge link from my pinned. When I get on the pc I'm gonna go through and remove the links/cf mention on individual cc posts. The goal is to get everything fixed by the first few days of March, when funds are paid out. I'm working on drafting a specific message I can send to CF as to why I'm not uploading to the site anymore- if anyone has any ideas on how to word it with the updated info from my post yesterday, let me know. I wanna make something very clear that doesn't go on too long, and yall know I ramble lol. I want to specifically mention the crowdfunding campaign, the ILF connection, and something about them being deceitful with their "not funding the IDF" claim but I'm not 100% sure on how to word it.

I haven't gotten any messages/asks yet for suggestions about the boycott. Which, is a little surprising to me- I kinda thought people would jump at the chance to organize more action, with how they've been talking about CF on anon. Maybe it was a little too much effort compared to a reblog? I don't know. But there is one thing I'm thinking about for sure: EA is going to have to be a focus of the boycott along with CF. They are profiting from CF more than anyone else, obviously, and the reason Sims content is being uploaded there at all. If independent creators are funding and profiting from genocide by using CF, EA is doing it to an extreme scale. If anyone has any ideas about organizing that with specific demands/goals, let me know that too. I know a stuff pack is going to be announced soon, so maybe that could be one aspect of the boycott, if we could get it going quick enough. I have to admit, I'm not entirely hopeful considering simblr's track record lol. But who knows, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised!

[songsofwaterandnight]

With discount season upon us, remember to avoid Google products, guys. Not because of data collection and privacy or anything like that. It's just that they're really really shitty.

Google's phone series and streaming devices suck but you'll see a lot of fanfare around them because tech bros love to circle jerk about how cool it is that Google makes hardware. In this manner Google is essentially the Tesla(MUSK not Nikola) of personal tech. I've used a Chromecast with Google TV(this is the name of the product and yeah I have to specify like that because the Chromecast by itself is a whole other device with different capabilities) and a Pixel and both felt like I was beta testing them because of all the bugs and barely useful features. When I would look online for fixes and tips I found that a lot of the issues and questions I had were widespread and Google either didn't care or would release updates that would break something else. That last bit applies to the phone more than the Chromecast. The Chromecast was useable but all the advertised features sucked real bad. (I've made a post about this before and I'll probably reblog it or make a new one with extra tech shopping tips soon) It blocks certain websites when you try to cast them and so on. You are way better off just buying a very long HDMI cord if your reason for getting it is to stream from your PC. The HDMI cable won't police your content and the lower latency (lag) is really nice.

The Pixel was a hot (quite literally) mess with lots of bugs that made it so unusable I traded it in shortly after I got it. Camera was great though. I will give it that. When it wasn't overheating or not messing with my calls, it would take some great pictures even in low light. It really can claim that whole best camera on android title. Shame about everything else around the camera though.

[ibeta]

Plot Bunnies... Plot Bears... Plot... Plot... Stop. Stop. Stop?

Too many. I need a way to stop them from breeding. I've moved some notes I have on my phone to my PC's MSWord. Let's start with the favourites.

———

The Dancer and His Musician

"TDAHM - First Dance" was hastily written on February 14. On February 18, it was "TDAHM SSX".

Red in First Dance is a nervous dancer. Red in SSX... he's dipping his favourite dancer, and they've done some things because Red is smooth. Those are two Reds that need to be written within days from each other. It took two real-world days for Red to go from clumsy to powerful (this is a lie. It took him months).

———

Four Terribears

Ah, yes. It just... breeds on its own. We don't talk about the Plot Bears. They're a big problem. It's an infestation of four Sanses and four Papyruses. The World can talk to Sans. The Judge can talk to The World. It's too many plot devices all in one.

———

No-Bodies in Math

A bunch of four Sanses, with kustard. The inspiration is: that twitter/x post where they think gaming terms are funny. It's all written in lowercase, so I thought I needed Sans to say it absentmindedly and Red would absentmindedly reply, "yes, sure, fine, i'll give you a kiss after we beat this guy to dust, snowflake."

They have different professions and join a math server for inspiration. They really don't talk a lot of math. Sans ruins everything with math puns and then Red ups the ante. Black and Blue get competitive, so they join in the fight because they make puns too and aren't shy to let others know.

Then, Black creates a game for his brother from some ideas that Sans brought up in a hypothetical situation, and they all test it. Then, somehow, the game is released, and they become one of the experts of the game and... they math their way through. It's embarrassing because they all make math puns with each other as they're streaming the game to show its functions. But they make it up by being absolutely godlike in their team-ups.

Then, somehow, the game becomes popular enough to be an e-sport, and their group receives an invitation. No one knows that they helped create the game, and Black's getting a headache from getting so many calls on his personal line. He's a part-time programmer for his company. Sans is a famous performer by accident. Red has a really shady background that he's trying to fix. Blue is a doctor known for his baking vlog. (Blue seems to be the most normal one, but he really isn't. He always chooses the most violent characters in the game.)

They discuss and accept that they're meeting for the first time in an e-sports event.

When they meet... Sans comes late.

He sees Red awkwardly standing stiffly at the podium, so he bumps into him, stumbling and announcing his presence. He keeps his face covered until they ask who he is. He confesses that he ran away from his brother and then reveals his face.

Everyone focuses on him and forgets Red, who knows that Sans took the attention away on purpose. Black and Blue stand proud and happy, greeting their friends. Black seems to recognise Red, and Red acknowledges Black's background.

They play the game and easily fall back into the habit of making jokes at each other. They frequently forget that they're sitting with their friends and keep saying they'll have to meet up. Red and Sans fall into the habit of casually flirting with each other, easing up their meeting. Red thinks it's friendly flirting. Sans is a hundred percent certain he wants to date the scary skeleton that makes his soul quiver.

So, when Papyrus picks up Sans to leave, Sans shakes Black's hand, gives a hug to Blue, and then with Red...

It's something vaguely like this:

Sans leans close and lowers his skull, peeking at Red from below. The other skeleton stares at him, blinking steadily in confusion.

Then Sans smiles, and Red flushes brightly. Sans thinks it's an adorable reaction. He digs it hard.

"i like stargazing," Sans tells him, "and i don't mind long walks on the beach. our place is big, so you can bring your whole family over. i like sleeping in and, heh, you look very cuddly. maybe we can go out on our own next time?"

He slips a card into Red's vest as he leans up to plant a kiss on Red's cheekbone. Then, he smoothly moves towards Papyrus, who drags him away before he causes more commotion as a public figure.

Red's frozen in shock. Black and Blue laugh together and demand that he give them invitation cards to their bonding.

In another scene, Sans goes for a kiss, and Red drags him close, kissing back after getting over the shock. It's only afterwards that Sans tells him he likes stargazing and walks on the beach and that Red should bring his whole family over to his place. (Red thinks Sans is offering a safe place for him, and he's right).

———

Only Lie About Me

A singer Sans reveals that he can switch his voice to his manager. Sheila, his manager, goes crazy over this. She makes him join a singing club online that does singing competitions and duet competitions. She wants him to use a woman’s sultry voice to prank the singers for a long time. Sans meets a punny and yet serious skeleton who seems familiar, but he can't tell why.

(Red meets him once during a low part of his life, and Red hears him singing. Then the dog he's walking darts away from him as Sans imitates a siren and lures every living animal within the hearing range. Sans is embarrassed to be caught with so many animals listening to him and returns Red's dog. He and Sans have a short life-changing conversation. Sans leaves without his animal parade. Red stays and thinks he's fallen in love with his voice.)

Red doesn't know that the new singer that joined the club is Sans because Sans is using a woman's voice.

They talk, keep talking, and Sans discovers that Red likes Sans. Sans helplessly listens to Red as he bemoans that he lost contact with Sans. The famous singer likes Red, so he plans for an 'accidental' meeting. Then he sees Red and is stunned to see the same hot skeleton whose dog he accidentally lured away.

...then he has to deal with keeping his identity a secret as his new secret identity accidentally makes Red fall in love. Sans is a desperate sap that keeps dropping hints that he's keeping secrets, that Red might be surprised at his identity. He likes Red a lot. He might even love him. (He loves him. He's a super sap.)

Fortunately, Red figures that his new love can't tell him things, that she'll reveal it to him when the time is right.

Then Sans, the famous singer who doesn't sing a single love song, composes music that sounds like one. He drops a big hint that he's in love without saying anything.

In a concert that he and his manager attend, he finally has the chance to reveal his new album.

———

The Star and The Mer

A misunderstanding makes Red think that the god that helped him is... The Moon. Actually, Sans is just using the moon as a medium to communicate with him. Otherwise, he'll turn Red into a tasty grilled octopus if he touches him.

Red learns about cults from the other monsters on the surface. (He's about to start his own.) So, he makes sure to thank the god. The... moon.

Sans has to watch the cute half-skeleton offer things to the moon, even when the intent from the offerings calls to him. He practices hard to have a monster form so he can interact with Red.

Then, when Red gets the courage to offer up his magic pearl, Sans feels the unspoken desire for his love and courtship. Red sees the pearl float up into the sky before he faints from the strain on his magic as the connection stretches. Sans has to hover above Red's world so Red doesn't snap away.

Red wakes up, remembering that his god has accepted the pearl. He had been vague with his explanations about the relevance of a magic pearl from a mer. He likens it to a personal line to his hearing.

He hopes his god likes the pearl, that it might call for him if his god needs him.

Then, Red leaves for the ocean again, so Sans just publicly descends to use the scraps of a sailfish that Red offered so he could chase his red pearl. Adjustments be damned.

The World announces his presence as a great star god that has descended upon its surface. This information is sent to every soul on the world, which includes Red, who doesn't care about some star because he thinks his god is the moon. He simply looks at the squiggles that he seems to understand and dismisses it.

Sans encounters many obstacles in his way, but Red has offered him the fastest sailfish. He uses its properties to escape strange creatures.

Red hears that there's someone looking for him. They mention that they're desperately searching, that they're fast and strong, and they seem to be part of some kind of sailfish.

Then, before he can look for them, a half-skeleton finds him, and he calls Red by his name. Red can hear him so clearly that his soul starts pounding when he realises that there's only one person who has his pearl.

His god has come for him. And, he's so beautiful. His fins of magic are bright and healthy, and his bones are white and smooth. His god's voice is deep and melodious, better than any siren from the ocean. He speaks to Red so gently, so happily, like Red’s someone precious to him and—

Sans, his god, tells him he's actually a star, not the moon.

Red wants to kill the moon for this misunderstanding, but he now knows that it's just a piece of rock that looks pretty. It's always the glow that Red watches as he'd been staring up at the moon.

———

The rest... the rest I can't type up for now because I'm sleepy. I won't remember to type them down. I'm too scattered.

If you want to know, I guess you can ask, and I'll type about it if you pick a title from the list. I just posted this because I need to vent out the bunnies from my brain before they take over. Like placing a spider egg away from my brain before it spreads and needs a flamethrower.

It rarely works. I still have at least five bunnies in my head.

[kozachenko]

Big Touhou Anime idea that has been marinating in my brain for a while

Alright, so I just wanted to compile my ideas for a potential Touhou anime I had here because I just needed to get them out. This is also going to be a very long post, so get comfortable

So I would like to call this hypothetical Touhou anime "Touhou Project Definitive Edition." So what I mean by a definitive edition is that it goes through all of the Touhou games from 1-19 as well as some of the side material (this part is optional) and polishes them up. This would be fixing some plot holes, establishing parts of Gensokyo's world earlier on (mainly in the form of foreshadowing until the story actually gets to those places), and re-writing pre-existing material if there are any glaring problems or inconsistencies that are present in the original material. This also can help tie together the PC-98 games and windows era games together in a nicer way and can further solidify Gensokyos world and cosmology. This option is also pretty newcomer friendly if handled correctly. This option could also help expand on Reimu and Marisa's personalities, the plot potentially following them as they grow up together, the PC-98 games following them throughout their childhood a potential in between arc to more smoothly transition into the Windows era as well as adapting the Vampire Incident before EoSD, and from then on they would probably be in their mid to late teens.

Now of course this idea is very unrealistic and could go very wrong pacing-wise if not handled correctly, but I do think it could work. In regards to the pacing problem, some arcs could be lengthened or cut down depending on how long the events of the games are, with some taking longer than others. Of course, there's also the issue of the anime falling into the same traps that Memories of Phantasm, where the episodes become very formulaic very quick. Now this relates to an issue with the translation between mediums. If you were to directly, one-for-one, adapt the games, it would end up formulaic because the actual games all follow the same 6 stage format with an extra stage. The pacing of the plots in these games work best in their original 6-7 stage format because that's what they were designed for in the first place, not TV-Anime episodes. I feel like a better way of adapting the Touhou games would be to treat the events of the games as the latter half of a larger arc out depending on the game's story.

I'll use EoSD as an example of how you could do this, but remember, I'm not a professional writer so there will be flaws in this approach.

So, this potential EoSD arc would probably start out more as a mystery, with a mysterious red mist going from a weird, once in a blue moon weather phenomenon to a daily occurrence. We also see it go from just light tints of red on a misty day to a blinding scarlet. Reimu and Marisa take notice of this and start asking around the human village and witnessing the effects the mist is having on some of the humans. Normal people are starting to become lifeless husks depending on how much of the mist they've been exposed to. Reimu and Marisa have been lucky enough to not live in places where the mist is most prevalent as well as not being normal people (Reimu has the benefits of being a Hakurei shrine maiden and Marisa is just used to weird shit like this in general due to living in the forest of magic, so she's basically developed a strong immunity to it. The village nurse, Rin Satsuki, has been trying her best to help the villagers as much as she can. As the mist gets worse and worse, some people just start disappearing, eye witnesses saying that they last saw the victims walk towards the strange lake by the Youkai mountain. Some grizzly murders even begin to pop up. When asked, the villagers state that they could never hear any sign of a struggle. Rin, who is also handling the autopsies, notices that the bodies of the victims have been precisely dismembered and disemboweled, the organs producing the most amount of blood being suspiciously missing. At this point, Reimu and Marisa have been slowly connecting the dots between this and the vampire incident, now finally getting the last piece they need to connect the two together. This is when we finally get to the events of EoSD and learn that the villagers killed ended up being made into food for Remillia and Flandre. Of course, we also learn that Sakuya was the one doing the killings.

The set-up phase (as I'm calling it for now), would of course be different depending on the games and it can take as long as it needs to, even overlapping with other arcs as it slowly builds up overtime. This is how I imagine the Moriya Shrine conspiracy arc plays out, we slowly start to hear about some things in passing (i.e. background characters mentioning some stuff casually) and then once the anime can get to those games it can actually expand on some of that stuff, you get the gist it's kinda hard for me to explain. Now of course, this can still get very formulaic if handled incorrectly, but this can be avoided by shortening the length of this setup phase depending on the game the anime gets to as some games in the series don't really need it to be super long (i.e. Imperishable Night, Mountain of Faith, and Unconnected Marketeers). You could also tackle this issue by having some anime original episodes in between arcs, and by this I don't mean filler episodes like Naruto or One Piece, but more of what Hunter X Hunter 1999 did in it's adaptation. Taking some more time to expand on the characters personalities and setting up some individual character arcs as well that can be later resolved within certain games. Individual arcs for the actual games themselves can also differ in length depending on the game too.

Overall, this idea for a Touhou adaptation would probably not have a big overarching plot, but be more like a long form anthology series, where we just get glimpses into the strange world of Gensokyo. However, if it were to have an overarching plot or theme, it would probably be about the importance of connection and relationships, and by that I mean any kind of relationship whether it be romantic, platonic, or in some cases antagonistic. If you wanted to have all of this build up to something, I have another very long post about a scenario where Marisa becomes a Youkai that could very well work as an ending to this hypothetical Touhou anime.

As I mentioned before, this idea is very very unrealistic and would take a heck of a long time to make, not even accounting the other hurdles this would have to face in order for this to happen, but let me know what you guys think of this idea because I often play around with this potential adaptation in my brain. Again, don't think this could ever really happen and if it does it would probably be very different from what I described, so please tell me what you think, if there are any potential problems that could happen or any alternative ways a Touhou anime could happen.

[ensemblesongs]

There we go! I tried to get to many requests I have gotten, some recent, some not so much. Hyper specific/tricky ones will be gotten to eventually, so please do not lose hope.

I've tried to put more care into the presentation of my posts in the subtlest of ways, when it comes to album covers (when they are low quality, or even too high to the point it pixelates because of it's large size, it is no good. There are a few like this, so I will go back & fix them. This problem only really shows for PC users and is insignificant to most but, still.) There is a lack of consistency IRT how I title the uploads, whether or not I include the literal TLs or romaji or kanji or both, etc... I hope it has not been bothersome to notice if anyone has. I think I will edit posts later. 🙏 I hope the care I put in shows... from now on, I am also planning on including the album names when I can (even when they are too long) because it looks nicer to me. Small things that matter to nobody other than me.

Thank you for the kindness & patience. I do it all for you and your enjoyment. I really appreciate the politesse I receive in return for my service, because it makes me feel warm, even if it is silly. Because you don't know me, I am just your MP3 provider. But, even so...

Anyway; here are all of the anonymous requests that were uploaded. Since they are many, I did not want to spam by answering them individually, so, I hope the people who requested them see them in due time. I'm sorry for my tardiness. Then again, it is out of passion.

🛠 I also want to do maintenance on some uploads. Considering I've already done plenty of it, I'm unsure of which others could be better/louder/fix if they are too loud. But I'll get to it soon.

[brinehater]

a ladder, arisen!

Hello, welcome, this post is a lot of nothing right now especially for being pinned, but it'll probably get updated and edited (or just replaced) with more useful info as I maybe slowly do stuff. If this blog goes dead for long periods, it's fine, I'll still probably be around, just doing other stuff.

If you would like to hire my pawns, I play on PC and you can find them via the following ways.

Dragon's Dogma: Pawn is named Sage with creator named Aurinia (Auronia if coming up as just moniker); currently in very low levels when I am playing. If you see a big lady with the right names attached, you probably found her!

Dragon's Dogma II: Mint (level 140+, Straightforward) is KGY0E67I95GC, Wildrose (under level 30 currently, Kindhearted) is OX5O4BB1KQSV

Important to note I try to dress my Arisen and pawns more for aesthetic depending on where I am in the game, but their weapons should always probably be good, and if they aren't it's probably because I'm up to something and it'll be fixed soon.

[the-hummelverse]

In terms of the hummelverse.com website, it's online again by the way! Been online for a couple months again already actually after the catastrophic failure and year-long downtime caused by moving it over from my previous hoster. But I didn't have any time to do much needed post-move maintenance so far, which I am slowly catching up with now.

Notes:

The website is now SSL-enabled (using https instead of http), but this doesn't really change anything except that some browsers/extensions should now be less likely to act like it's a malicious page trying to steal your credit card data... (This was genuinely the main reason why I had to change hosters, since the previous one would have charged me 10€ per month extra for it when most others out there have it as a free default for your contract???)

I thought the newsletter signup form was broken, but it only doesn't show up when I use Firefox on my desktop PC so maybe my adblocker is overly zealous. I haven't been writing any newsletters lately partly because of that, but now that I know the signup form isn't actually broken, I'll try to get back into the habit. That means if you cannot see it either on the homepage, please try a different browser or check if one of your browser extensions might be blocking it!

The art gallery works again, but uploading the images is very tedious and time-consuming. I forgot to move over the folder that contained all the images on the server, so I had to wipe the database and have to re-upload them all. It shouldn't interfere with the functionality of the website otherwise, though.

The tumblr post feed on the website is broken and I don't really know how to fix it since the API seems to have changed and I am not fully able to wrap my head around the new code. There's a chance that I'll figure it out eventually but it's very low priority for me right now, especially since I set up a webhook for the HV discord server that does the same job but in a more convenient manner.

The pages for the LEGENDS card game are there on the server, but I have to rework and update them with more current content/info. I'll do that as soon as I'm able and will add a link to the homepage once that's done. But it leads me to the next and last point:

As I've mentioned before I want to look into alternative solutions for selling/distributing both my books and my trading card game and the merchandise (bet most people didn't even know there IS merchandise....look, I'm very bad at this whole marketing think, ok?). There's also other Hummelverse things floating around like the free short horror video game I made ages ago and the pen&paper ruleset, for example. I am thinking of adding a sort of "hub" to the homepage that either provides a proper and complete list of links to all these miscellaneous things, or maybe even find a way to consolidate them onto my own website as completely as possible. This is still in the early musings phase, so don't expect to see much of this until a couple months down the line...