#which is either some project for myself or going through my backlog

[silly-plays-p3r]

<< >> *pokes this blog with a stick to see iif it's dead or not* you doin aight? get any farther?

*startled awake* Ah! huh?

Yes. Alive. TT0TT Just haven't had a chance to play. u_u (stuff is stuffing regardless if I want it to or not, in another week I'll be going on vaycay for a week so.......well I'll probs get farther on my Steam Deck ver but I'm still in April there fjdklsajf TT0TT).

Wait no, slight lie. We got to play once (a week ago?). We got the Kyoto trip (Bebe was there! Yay!). The slap happened tho (NOOOO BOOOO! D:<), and from what I remember it was even more uncalled for than the other versions. So yeah that solidified that "no matter how nice you make Yukari sound, her actions still piss me the fuck off"

Anyway hot spring scene, Junpei still a doucher. REALLY WEIRD they changed it???? Felt more like a 3D ver of P3P's for some reason???? (i don't usually play the male's side with P3P so I don't have it as memorized as the FeMC side or 3/FES vers). Like???? You removed the ONE kinda cool thing about P3's hot spring scene and it was the interaction! P3P gets a pass because it's in VN style so it's choices. But what's P3R's excuse???? TT0TT Why did you get rid of the interaction in exchange for dialogue choices????

They also changed the ending porting iirc.....? Maybe there's more than 2 endings. But it did make me go like...."why?"

I think it's the movie's influence again, I successfully got out, we made a break for the entrance. But unlike the movie they all got out, with Junpei/Ryo fainting by the entrance rather than in the hot spring itself.

I......don't really see the need to change it tbh, it made more sense for Junpei/Ryo to faint while we waited out IN the hot spring...but maaaaybe there's other routes and I just didn't see them. I'll have to find out later when I.....reload it. BU

Anyway, Chidori died. Junpei was sad. I was apathetic as usual. I think I'm in Tartarus now.

Maybe I'll play more this week. Maybe I'll nut up and try to play Fortnite (I hate multiplayer games with a passion), but I want the Korra stuff. ;w; Do I have to play PVP to do the battle pass? Can't I just do PVE? (sorry off topic, but that's my dilemma atm). Gonna be honest, I thought Persona would get me into that damned game, but nope. TT0TT Korra beat them to it

Oh back to P3R round up.....I did get to start Mitsu's SL! :D

I think my line up of SLs is looking pretty snazzy, I might max them all!

I do think P3R could've given us a LITTLE more wiggle room. Couldn't give us that lil URL thing a biiiiit sooner? >_> Just make it more expensive for crying out loud! That should balance it!

Of course maybe they didn't do that so they could cover up for the (still?) lack of mini games in the damn game (really? you couldn't copy and paste the P5 fishing game???? I see a damn pier in the background while I'm on the school rooftop! TT0TT)

At least I'm pretty sure I haven't seen a mini game around flkdjasflkja

Anyway that's my P3R round up! ....WAIT! ONE MORE THING! jklsdjf;ksaf

This didn't happen to me. But my friend/ex-coworker is playing it on gamepass and kfljasdlkfjkajf jklfdsjafl;jak snnnnnrrrkkk dfkslfjlk;ajfljafl

He had like 90 some hours in it and......he got booted back to the tutorial day TT0TT And is back to level 1 kfdljasklfj;alf

He asked me what happened and I was like "????? I dunno man??? TT0TT Never happened to me before fjdklasjfl this wouldn't happen if you did the PS2/PSP vers jsdklafj Maybe it's gamepass??? You sure it's not NG+? Did you leave it running"

"No!"

So he could be messing with me, or he got a weird glitch but rip to him if true. u_u If it was a glitch, wow Atlus/Xbox wow fkdjsal;fjkadjf

[roboticchibitan]

Craft update!

I'm tolerating heat even less well than usual which is saying something. I have POTS and a fun (derogatory) thing about POTS is it gets worse when it's hot so normally if I'm in an area that's above 75°F/24°C I get really nauseous and migrainy and faint because my blood isn't getting to my brain. This, naturally, makes me very cranky! And I've somehow been WORSE the last few weeks despite being better hydrated than I ever have been before.

So not only is it time to drag out the wrap pants and crop tops, but I've also ordered some linen and a linen/cotton blend to make myself two rectangle wrap shirts because I don't want to be evil all summer. I've also decided to make myself a detachable pocket cuz the wrap pants don't have pockets and I've started carrying around a handkerchief to wipe my long covid watery eyes and I can't shove that into my bra like I would my phone because it'll get sweaty and then I can't use it.

I also need to finish the green linen pants. Remember those? That I was doodle embroidering on? I finished the embroidery months ago and the embroidered pant leg has been lying in the reusable grocery bag that my serger is in. I didn't actually manage to get either item back to where it goes after my serger class back in.... March... There will be leftover fabric that I'm planning on turning into some kind of crop top. and let's not talk about the 3 yards of turquoise linen that's just lying around waiting to become another pair of pants and matching crop top

I don't particularly enjoy sewing. I do it because it's necessary. Either because I need something that's cheaper or easier to deal with if I just make it myself (hello yes I am plus size and very very short. I decided if I'm going to have to hem every pair of pants I ever own then I might as well custom make myself pants that fit right so they're at least comfortable) or because I know exactly what I want and it's impossible to find in a store (like plus size hot pink/bright turquoise/lime green linen pants with a 24" inseam). So I put off sewing and now I have a project backlog to work through. Ugh. And also Bleh. And ugh again.

[bvannn]

Weekly Update December 27, 2024

Everything is a blur this time of year, but I’ve been doing what I can. I’m getting through my music backlog a bit, and I’ll try to get more done at a more spread out pace next year.

I posted Beauty and the Beast, I think it came out well. At some point in the next couple weeks I’ll post the Blow Off Steam re-edit, and Lemon Factory is close to done, just need to finish up mixing. I’ll get the art for that done at some point, that won’t count as my song for January, I’m still deciding between a few. The two in the back that are next in line would either be SB, a song about art block, or SL, which would be another comic tie-in like Blow Off Steam (although this one would be for Backstage instead of O’Malley). I also want to do a couple more quick instrumental ones so I can add those to the little ‘anthology’ album/EP/whatever I have on backlog. Plus that way I can time myself so I can get commissions going, since I see a lot of mutuals making games now, and games need music, but also I don’t want to overcharge.

Comic stuff: I got page 15 done! We’re officially halfway done with the pilot! I’ve been writing stuff for the other episodes too, Episode 3 is currently where I’m snagged but I just need to give it a rest and another try. Backstage is also going decent, but not quite as smoothly so it’ll be a bit before that comes to fruition.

Epithet TTRPG: more statblocks and more maps, I kinda got burnt out on maps for a bit but they need to get done. I’m going to try to power through the rest of stage 2 before the end of the year, and also finish off all my half-finished tokens. Also the video guide I was writing has now been split into 2 videos, one for the setting and one for the mechanics. Those will be done when they’re done.

I think another big thing at this point is I need to relax, I’ve been super restless and angry at nothing, and I think I need to just relax and play some games. I’m getting back into Pokémon conquest, letting it inspire other little project ideas I have floating around, I’m hoping the new year will let me play DnD, pathfinder, and epithet soon, and maybe I’ll bust out Splatoon again, too. I wanna finish off a couple loose ends first, but I’ll get stuff done.

[andipxndy-writes]

meet the writer: aj

(a.k.a. my writeblr intro, done properly)

heya!! i’ve had this blog for a while now, but i realised i haven’t ever actually done a proper intro on here, so here it is!! (also did i want the opportunity to make an aesthetic of myself??? absolutely. image made in canva and portrait on the left is from picrew, all other images were taken from unsplash)

my name is aj (she/her pronouns pls)!! i’m 26, black, and i live in the uk. i graduated from uni 3 years ago and currently work in lab admin, but i’ve been doing creative writing for 10+ years!! i’m currently trying to get back into reading by reading a book a month (i usually share the book i’m reading in the sidebar of my main blog, which i follow back with as this blog is a sideblog: @andipxndy), and i write a variety of fanfiction and original works (both based off my own characters and those i currently/have rp’d with in the past). i also take requests for fanfiction, which you can read about below the cut or in this post (i’ve made some changes which mean the post is not relevant atm)!! but in general i love being asked questions about my WIPs and my characters and basically any characters i write, because i love delving into character thoughts and doing character development (so please send me some!!).

this blog started off as a way for me to share my fanfiction writing, which is how i got into writing in the first place and how i came to love it, but now i’m wanting to expand some more share/talk about some of my original works too!! i write ya sci-fi in my original stuff, but i’m known to drift into romance, action-comedy and crime when it comes to fanfiction works. i’m also over on ao3 as andipxndy.

my main fanfic writing fandoms are abbott elementary and alex rider, just to keep things managable, but i also enjoy watching ncis, criminal minds and lockwood & co., and sometimes dive back into old favourite animes (k-on!! is my current anime obsession). i may be slow to write or respond to stuff but i DO enjoy diving into discussing fandom stuff too!! i also like playing video games like sims 4 (ea is a money grab pass it on) and cities skylines, and enjoy dnd and rping with friends!!

before this intro gets too long, here are my main WIPs:

power play (1st draft completed, left to stew)

the first original wip i planned, the story is intended to be part of a 5-book series about a 20-year-old who accidentally gives himself powers, and ends up drawn into the science underground whilst trying to save people that he may or may not have also accidentally given powers. and all whilst trying to appear completely normal to his mum and get a summer job whilst home from university.

the crossover (still working on 1st draft, is my main/november nano project)

this is an adaptation of an old rp au i had with one of my closest friends, adjusted to have new, original characters despite the same plotline. it follows a 17-year-old girl as she’s accidentally transported into a parallel universe, where her parents aren’t her parents and she doesn’t exist. in an attempt to get home, she ends up crossing paths with the people who are meant to be her family, and finds out that they’re all superheroes. insert drama and shenanigans here.

the rich life: a modern bourgeoise au (working on 1st draft, is my camp nano project)

a passion project that i’m completing for my rp partners, this au is split into a 3-book series following the lives of our characters in the upper class, those who work for them, and eventually their children, going through the drama of their lives and how they try so hard not to have it all end up in the press. that obviously doesn’t work.

fanfiction fics and requests (ongoing but this is technically a wip)

technically counts as a wip as i have a backlog of fics in progress to write and share for requesters (and some ideas i’ve had myself), but these are mainly either alex rider or abbott elementary fanfics that have been sent in via ask. you can see extra info below the cut after the next paragraph. my requests are currently closed, and i’m working through my backlog. the request(s) active for the forseeable future are:

will you be my maybe? - an abbott elementary fanfiction (gregory x janine - injury + fake dating)

anyway, this is all i’ve got for now!! i do take part in things like nanowrimo and camp nanowrimo, so if anyone takes part in those too i look forward to writing alongside you!! other than that, that’s about it!! i’ll be sharing snippets of my work, and maybe eventually you’ll even get aesthetics eventually!! i’ve you’ve read this far, i applaud you, but thank you so much for reading!! i’d love to get to know more writers on here, both inside and outside of fandom spaces, so please feel free to jump at me and send me asks and messages and stuff!!

~ aj xxx

(for more info on fanfiction stuff, read below the cut:)

i’ve been writing fanfiction for over 10 years, and as something so dear to my heart i can’t let it go - it’s helped me to develop my writing and character development skills!! i have, however, grown in the fandoms i write, so please see below for more info:

I WRITE FOR:

alex rider

abbot elementary (more specifically, gregory x janine. i ship only those two. with my whole heart.)

fics getting to know my original characters (oneshots)

(i realise that this is significantly cut down, but i have other projects in mind that require more of my time and can no longer spend as much time on requests!! for this, i apologise!!)

GENRES WRITTEN (not completely restricted):

family/friendship

romance

hurt/comfort

action/adventure

IMPORTANT TO NOTE:

MY REQUESTS ARE NOW CLOSED

all fanfics will be cross-posted to ao3

please give me up to a month to get fics written and posted - if not done within a month, feel free to message me about it [please DO NOT pester me about it] - i work and am also writing original things, so do not always have the time

i preferably write oneshots, though the occasional multi-chap will appear - a fic ends up longer, well, it happens 🤷🏾‍♀️

i am a rambler so you are almost always guaranteed a longer fic

please try not to give me word count limits or specifications on fics - they are discouraging

that being said, any writing requests/prompts fulfilled will most likely be 20k words or less (though they may be longer if the inspiration strikes, don’t hold me to it)

i do not write smut, or any nsfw other than possibly gore/torture/violence. this is a personal preference and i will not change my stance on it

if you have any triggers that you do not want included in the fic, please message me and inform me of this

i have a ko-fi! if you would like to tip/donate to me for any of my writings, check it out here

all fics may or may not include a level of humour/sarcasm - i’m not sorry for this

[seamsterslocal]

PINNED POST

who am i?

someone who’s been sewing since being voluntold into the puppet factory at age 7. (yes i did grow up in a circus.) a legal adult for decades now but immature enough to get away with calling myself a boy until i die. trans man who dresses like an off duty drag queen. undiagnosed autistic with sensory intolerance for synthetic fibers. proud of my weight gain and not shy to block fatphobic bigots. too arthritic to give a shit about typos or capitalizing. former professional alterations-er. white usamerican who believes strongly in class solidarity across all lines. faggot.

what will you find here?

ive never been good at keeping my tumblr self organized but i’m really going to try to keep this one focused. at first i’ll be posting project round ups and picture tutorials as i work through the immense backlog of my stash, but i’d like to answer questions and help folks troubleshoot their own sewing, fitting, and mending problems. theoretically i’d like to do video tutorials but i dont have the time or equipment. certainly some anti-oppression based political analysis and references to the leather community will filter through, and probably some garden and pet pictures. i’m going to be coaching my life and business partner through making their first clothes pretty soon here so that will be posted in some form as well. tips for adapting clothes for sensory issues and physical mobility based disabilities. me fixating on pattern matching to a truly asinine degree. all black projects covered in cat and dog hair that are really hard to photograph well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

what do i make?

ive made everything from thirty foot puppet costumes to these-jncos-arent-wide-enough industrial high fashion jeans to back support corsets and more but currently my own projects are all about providing me with a wardrobe that a) keeps me warm b) doesnt trigger any sensory issues c) makes me look like hot shit. you could call what i’m working on a capsule wardrobe but really i’d just call myself broke. my idea of looking like hot shit involves seamlessly blending the fashions of a sixty year old redneck who goes to town twice a year, and the hardest fem at goth night.

what am i interested in?

i really like historical fashion, especially viking and pre-viking era scandinavian, medieval british isles, and irish/scottish/english/american from about 1800-1960. (NOT saying that other places dont have incredible clothes and fashion traditions, but sewing is pretty much the backbone of my ancestor work—not nec. reverence bc not all of my ancestors deserve it frankly (though some do) but connection and understanding—so i focus my research and construction where my own ancestors were (if you call yourself folkish you can fuck off and die in a dumpster fire right now and if you dont, dont bother googling they dont deserve your attention)). i often take historical undergarments and adapt them for contemporary outerwear, or blend methods of fit or construction that were traditionally used exclusively for either mens or womens fashion in a single garment. somehow i ended up specializing in flattening out princess seams.

perks

follow me and maybe i’ll get someone to video me using the treadle machine which has belonged to my great grandma, my gay great uncle, my gay great uncle’s widower, my mom, and myself

new build project masterlist

alterations project masterlist

tags masterlist

“you’re really into anti-oppression, why aren’t you adding image descriptions?”

a couple reasons. as i mentioned i have a host of disabilities (physical and otherwise). my dayjob involves a lot of computer work, sewing is really hard on my hands and body, i cant always look at screen for very long, and if i made myself wait to post until i could do image descriptions, i would never post at all. i don’t think requiring disabled folks to do things they can’t is the best approach to radical hospitality. if anyone feels moved to add image descriptions to anything i do, i will reblog their post with the tag ‘image descriptions added.’ my main aim in starting this blog is to share my knowledge with trans/disabled folks and other people that experience gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, sensory issues, or physical difficulties getting clothes on and off without pain. the typed writeup that will accompany each picture tutorial is my best attempt at sharing my knowledge and processes with anyone who uses a screen reader

[thegoddesswater]

8- If you had to write an entire story without either action or dialogue, which would you choose and how would it go? 13- What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy? 22- How organized are you with your writing? Describe to me your organization method, if it exists. What tools do you use? Notebooks? Binders? Apps? The Cloud?

Thanks Lano! Finally working through my ask backlog here. :D

8 - Tough choice! I'd be way more likely to try to write something without dialogue than without action (though, in the past I have written things so dialogue-heavy that they might as well be action-less). No dialogue seems like one of those things that I would challenge myself to do for a short while. So, it would probably be short and I think it would likely veer pretty quickly into some kind of uncanny territory, or it would be something with an isolating vibe to it.

13 - I'm trying to think of something that is difficult for me to write about and I'm having a hard time coming up with it. Which probably means that whatever falls into this category is something I ignore so hard, I can't even think of it. I used to be able to write gratuitous violence with the odd gleeful abandon that I think only teenage girls are capable of - and I can't do that anymore. But I also don't think I quite want to. Some of the stuff little me wrote back then makes me feel queasy.

Grief and death feel like they come disturbingly naturally to me though. Which doesn't mean that I'm just killing characters off left, right, centre, but I feel like I do it well when it happens?

22 - Me? Organized?? Oh mercy. I have probably about two dozen sticky notes spread throughout my house with different snippets of different stories jotted on them. Then I have the journal in my nightstand and the loose-leaf paper thrown into my agenda and crumpled at the bottom of my work backpack.

Dabble is my software of choice for writing and it's mostly where I put everything. Though I also have a bajillion google docs and ancient MS word files. And my Dabble files are an absolutely shameful mess. This is what it looks like when I open it:

And you may be wondering what's so bad about it - it just looks like I have lots of projects, right? Alas, three of those visible files are multi-project dumping grounds and my chaotic squirrel brain often prefers to work in those than in the properly labelled files. So content for Heart of a Warrior, for example, is in the appropriately labelled file, with additional content scattered in various sections of "Chaos of 23" and "Unfinished Business." And it's not as though I couldn't have just created multiple files within the proper project files to try keeping things together. I just apparently prefer to "organize" my projects with all the same care that a tornado would use when dismantling a house of cards. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[sleepy-crows]

So, @calamitaswrath tagged me for some tag game about video game backlogs... Personally, I prefer the name "pile of shame", but here we go I guess. Note: These 'lists' are in no particular order.

So first, there are my "running projects", means games I started and I am also technically playing currently or taking a break from:

Boktai-Series: To keep it short, the second Game in that Series is my favorite video game ever! And I started replaying it recently. I also want to play the third game which only ever released in Japan, so I need to find a patched rom for that... And then there is the Fan-Made 5th entrie in the Series, called Kura5 (go check it out right now!) which recently got finished, so that's also on my bucket list.

YU-GI-OH GX Spiritcaller: I already forgot again what brought me back into old school Yu-Gi-Oh, but this is the game I currently spend the most time for. I finally have a somewhat working Deck that's specialiced on a single type! Lets see how long I will see it through before I put it away again because I end up only grinding for better cards (which is still playing the Card-Game, so...)

Armored Core VI: My very first AC-Game since I am already done with the Soulsborne-Games. A nioce, typical Fromsoft-Game, with cool robots. I am also somewhat capable to handle the face paced combat. I paused it because I started Baldur's Gate

Baldur's Gate III: Everybody talked about the game and I like the DnD-Setting. Turns out it is only half the fun if you're going at it alone and your OC has no agenda/backstory whatsoever (or any lines besides Dialog-Options). It seems also quite big and has to many decisions. That's scary. For some reason it doesn't scratch that itch for me like it apparently is for everybody else...

Pokémon Crystal: I started it on the N64 when everybody talked about Pokémon Violet and the other red color. It's way better than these, I still need to do Kanto, but I am kinda drustrated that I can't find a Waterstone for my Eevee.

The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom: I still think taking the weapon durability-'feature' from Fire Emblem and put it into a Zelda-Game is dumb. Sure, finding new weapons because your old ones broke is a good way to fill an open world, but it is annoying. Even when the vehicle/warmachine-building is funny (tho I suck at it), I prefer the old, classic way with like 10+ dungeons per game.

Final Fantasy XVI - There is the DLC which I haven't played yet but I already started another run to get there!

Final Fantasy XIV - Dawntrail: For how much I love this game, it is surprising that I am still at the beginning of the expansion. But Viper is cool and fun to play, it really did take over the Dragoons spot for me (but I will never forget you Dragoon-Job, my one true love. And I am still the better Azure Dragoon!) But I actually told myself that this is the next game I'm gonna finish!

Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree: Remember how I said I finished the Soulsborne-Games? Welp, the DLC for Elden RIng is still not done, I tend to get lost in this world... So my problem beating this game is literally that I can't find the way. So I either have to keep smashing my head against walls until I find the right path, or to get a friend of mine roped in to show me the way (And no, looking it up online is not an option!) The game I probably will actually finish next, sorry FFXIV.

Dragon's Dogma 2: Kinda on a weird spot here. I literally finished the game this morning, but the ending was a bit odd and there is at leats one Trophy still open which kinda hints at and alternative ending, or at leats a kinda important quest I haven't done. So I might play it again. Tho it took me like 100 hours playtime to beat it....

Remnant - From the Ashes: It's a Souls-like, with guns. I like those games and it's fun. No idea why I haven't finished it yet. Probably because I wanted to play it with friends but they never have time or stuff!

Little Witch Nobeta: A witch themed Souls-like with a cute little witch as Protagonist. The combat is also neat and fun and it has some good puzzles in it too. I really wanna finish this game somewhat soon. Or even start playing it for real.

Astral Chain: My biggest blemish. I bought this games year ago when it came out and even pulled through to the endgame. I think I am in the last or pre-last chapter of it? But for some reason I put it to hold and when I picked it up some time ago again, I had no idea how to play. So I ghuess I have to go through it all again to relearn the mechanics and everything. Which is something I masterfully procrastionate right now.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles: I am on the third case currently. I thought the Cases in the Phoenix Wright games have a tendancy to get extended, but these right here are on a whole different level!

Touhou - Mystia's Izakaya: A funny, pretty and cute spin-off. And the Touhou-Game that apparently will get the first "official" anime, at least non that's fanmade.

Touhou - Imperishable Night: It's the eight game in the mainline touhou series. You know, the games with all the bullets that are near impossible to dodge and have little to no Yuri in it. I will finish this game at least on normal difficulty some day! And people say Dark Souls is hard...

There are also a couple of games (mostly Metroidvania-games or other Souls-likes) I have started and not finished yet, but if I start naming them all, this will get to long.

Then there is the "Next-in-line"-list of games, means games I bought but haven't even started yet:

Star Wars Jedi Survivor: The first game was nice. It's Star Wars and a Souls-like, so the combat is also neat. No idea why I haven't even started it yet. Oh right, there are already several other games on the burner.

Esperia ~ Uprising of the Scarlet Witch: A Fire Emblem-like. Looks cool and stuff, bought it year sago when it released. Haven't touched it yet. Don't ask me why.

Ender Lilies: A Metroidvania I was looking forward to for a long time. Then it released, i bought it and never even started it yet. I always tell myself: I'll finish that game first before I start this one too. Works good!

Honestly, I think listing those games is also futile. I have a really bad habit of buying games and never really playing them. My steam library has roughly 250 games in it. How many have I finished of those? Like 15 maybe? And I am sure 5 of these are VNs. Okay, I got a couple Rogue-lites and Farmsims and Survival-games, so these don't really have an end, but my point still stands.

And then there is the list of games I call "Uh-oh, there's more coming", means games that I actually haven't bought or aren't released yet but I do wanna play them:

Xenoblade Chronicles X - I have played the game for the WiiU, never finished it, but that's because I kinda softlocked myself in the very last mission right before the final boss-battle(s). I also never really understood the Combat-system or how to improve the Skells correctly. So I want to try it again on the Switch!

Final Fantasy VII - Remake Part 3: I NEED to know how it ends! The first part teased us with it maybe taking a different path than the original game, which brings up my hopes as the typical Zack-enjoyer, but the second part seemed like it pulled the rug from under our feet and goes back to the original route, so I really want to know how it goes on! (also I never played the original game, only all the spin-offs, but I know it's story. But with the end of Part 2 also ends my somehwhat informed knowledge about the story. All I know about the last part is that there is an infamous snowboarding minigame that's mandatory, Sephi calling down a huge ass meteor and then getting beaten up by Cloud in the lifestream.)

Monster Hunter Wilds: Looks like it has some more than overdue improvments in it's bags and I like these games in general. Even more if I can play them with friends.

Monomyth: it's a King's Field-like (King's Field are the games FromSoft made before AC and the Souls-Games) and it looked pretty fun and liek something new when IronPineapple introduced it in one of his videos.

Castlevania: I especially wanna play Alucard's game. But also the one with Shanoa looks quite interesting. I like those types of games and also retro games, so I just wait for this Dominus Collection to have a good price, then I'll probably buy it. When I might play them is a totally different question.

Ace Attorney Investigation: I played the first part as a rom on my phone, I wanna play the second game too! Playing as Miles is a nice change of pace and Kay is the best weird little girl side-kick in my opinion!

Honestly, this list would also get to long if I keep naming every game, my evidence: My Steam-Wishlist is over 100 entries long. And that's just steam, leaving out Nintendo and Play Station-exclusive titles...

So, after all that unnecessary rambling, I guess I have to tag some other people now too? Pretty sure nobody cares about my opinions and plans and will spend the time to read my stuff. So, if you made it until here, congratulations, feel yourself tagged!

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 42

It's good to go over your things and figure out what can be used up as-is, and what would serve you better after a bit of repurposing. My backlog of cosmetics is an endless struggle in this regard, but I am always finding ways to make my things work. Two new stories about my so-called project pan:

I have a years-old palette of oil-based face paints. They're intended for stage makeup, but I ended up not working in the field. I wasn't sure what to do with them and didn't have the heart to throw them out; the paints themselves are in good condition despite being technically expired, and if I have hygiene concerns they're easy enough to disinfect. So, in a moment of inspiration, I decided I would use them as cream eyeshadows instead of buying some new product for the purpose. One tiny problem... they're literally greasepaint! Which means they require setting with loose powder after application. Good thing I already own a loose powder; It was supposed to be a powder foundation, but it is not remotely the same color as my skin, especially once it oxidizes. So I might as well use it for setting my eye makeup. It mutes the colors because it's skin-toned and not translucent, but I'm fine with that. So the 'problem' ended up being a 'solution', letting me use up two products at once :)

I have bars of soap at home that I have no clue why I own. A recurring theme with the purchases I made in my 20s... I guess I was going through some experimentation and self-exploration at the time. In any case, I do not use soap bars to wash myself, and neither does my partner. But after I tried to create a makeup look with the aforementioned greasepaints, I found that my regular liquid soaps just did not dissolve the material from the brush, no matter how many times I applied it! I was desperate to clean my brush before the product crusts up the bristles, so I took one of the bars and gave it my best shot. To my immense relief, it worked :) so now I know what to use for cleaning my makeup brushes (they're all synthetic, so no need for a special brush shampoo either way).

After I'm done with my face paints and have physical room in my life for a new eye product, I'll buy a palette of powder eyeshadows from the same company, because I already spotted something in their product line that would fit my needs. But that is for later, much much later.

Peace and love. :)

[manjuhitorie]

tat - Shinoda’s Hitori-Atelier blog posts - REAMP Digest volume 4

Shinoda’s blog post via Hitori-Atelier! Please consider joining Hitori-Atelier and supporting Hitorie’s ventures today. How-to here: https://boatmanju.wixsite.com/hitorietranslations/hitorie-atelier 

It’s already been 3 months since REAMP was released, time really flies.

In that short bit of time we’ve already planned a tour ahead of us, and were given the opportunity to do the opening for the anime ‘86′. Let’s fucking go~~~~~ Is everyone faring well? I've recently rekindled my passion for sampling, I haven't felt like this in years. I'm taking free samples I find strewn across the internet and turning them into techno. I kinda remember mentioning my appreciation for techno in vol. 1 of this blog series, and yeah. I'm finally trying it out for myself. I've managed to make a pretty sick song if I do say so myself. You'll find it on Hitori-Atelier soon enough. (＊This is most likely the song titled 'mad candy', found in 'Shinoda's Contents') It's fun 'cause compared to vocal stuff, I use a whole different part of my brain to make techno. I say "This part of this sample has a good beat to it, I bet if I rearranged it like this it would make music~" and do it. Relatively speaking, this kinda music making matches my personality type really well. I feel like I've found a fucking good hobby for myself here. With that said, even though it’s a hobby, work is still work so the collateral damage of music-making is still vividly affecting my body. Like music is still music, and with the way I tunnel vision I'll end up at my desk for an obscene amount of hours. By the time I'm done with it physically and mentally I'm a wreck. Like the fuck do I mean by hobby, is this some kinda shitty joke Shinoda? Anyway let's talk about 'tat'. The question as to what the title means comes first. Initially I wanted to name this song "刺青(meaning tattoo)". Because the song ‘Perfume’ by ‘Eito’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MjAJSoaoSo) was a huge hit at that time so yeah.. But that idea failed ygarshy's inspection so I had no choice but to look around for a word similar to tattoo.

That was when I found photos of tattoos on Instagram with the hashtag #tat. This is it, I said. As a slang tat can mean many other things as well but I forget what they were. I'm sure you can find out if you look it up but, take note that none of it has much to do with the song itself. I considered '#tat' for the title as well, but it was too lame so I pulled back. This song was written when the album was almost finished and most songs ready: I reviewed the album as whole and felt that something was missing. I had wanted something with now tat’s tempo and mood to it to tie the album together. It turned out really well, if I may say so myself. Isn't it a great song though? I feel like all my efforts were worthwhile... It's fun to let the creative juices flow and write with whatever comes to mind. I tried to make the amount of guitar notes concise and solid. The tone was supposed to be graceful too but... ygarshy swooped in with a kick and his bass so heavy it sounds like he's blasting music from a little motorcycle. The melody too has the same makings as the hits these days. It’s about someone of the opposite sex with a bold tattoo who’s stuck in days of ennui, and me who’s gazing from afar wondering what these feelings inside me are. It’s about that sorta thing (?) - I think I managed to express it (????) The beat isn’t made to be far off from modern tuning either. I’m sure I could’ve harmonized it even better but, at the time I found good reason to make it more rock band-y, so I have no regrets. I only wish I made the song name something easier to find via search. It’s so hard to find the people talking about it... Starting with a verse and closing a song with that same verse is great, ain’t it. I’ve always liked songs with a bit of a whacky structure to them, Like November in HOWLS, it goes from verse 2 back to verse 1 then into the instrumental break. If you think it’s just any old number then prepare to be sorely mistaken - Or, that kind of fetishy stuff is important for music if you ask me. I received a fair lot of praise from people in the song-writing industry about tat, I’m happy. Though I’m not sure about the lyrics. Someone from our workplace told me that “Mushy gushy heart-wrenching lyrics would fit well”, so I sought out to do exactly that. The only problem is that my expression of mushy gushy made that person from work go “????” so making people’s heart clench is hard shit. This doesn’t leave here okay.. My dismay over the discontinuation of Chikyuu Monogatari is vented in here a bit as well. Though I don’t think Chikyuu Monogatari is boring. Not really. I saw a few people say that ‘tat’ is like the evolution of cakebox. And it makes sense to me now that y’all say it. cakebox was my solo project I did back in my mid-20’s. I made 3 mini pieces with 7 tracks and 1 EP with 4 tracks before stopping. I’m sure only like 10 people in the whole world ever listened to it. If you look it up you can still get it to listen too. Like an offering of random ass songs to my dead school life, I had a phase between my late teens and my early 20’s wherein I was obsessed with making songs using just my voice and guitar. The question of direction was beyond my consideration, I just sorta let the creative juices flow back then too and promptly set pen to paper. That was my creative process cycle. It was kinda like a diary. There’s barely any proper complete songs. The reason being that I completely lacked the skill necessary to make them proper. My guitar was alright but my singing wasn’t up to par, no one ever praised my voice at all. So I resolved that I just wasn’t cut out for it and strove to be a lead guitarist. Instead of my own songs I chose to go do band stuff, thus devoted myself to guitar.   Yet still my desire to make something proper stuck with me, and so soon after that I started a band in which I did guitar and vocals. we mashed stuff together and made song proper. Alas. Between creative differences and my own lack of ability, we were barely able to make something that I was proud of. After shit happened I ended up at home immersed in making my own songs. “Surely I could put all my experiences in bands and my own growth to good use, to turn my backlog of WIPs into something proper as well?” I thought to myself, and thus was the beginning of cakebox. I think that was the first time I ever got involved in making my own music through my own power. But my way of intense creation was too innocent for listeners or something, or like I wasn’t conscious enough of my headfirst personality... So I didn’t even have the sense to match the tuning up with modernity, and ultimately my work wasn’t clicking with society’s needs. That reality was crushing me more and more with every piece I made. I didn’t have absolute confidence in myself or conviction to push through either. After 3 albums the feeling of “Why am I even doing this” grew, and I found more purpose in Hitorie instead. From then on I devoted myself to Hitorie. These past few years in Hitorie have been nothing but learning experiences for me. After years of the four of us together stressing over what makes good music, I think my own work has leveled up as well. One thing I learned that has especially stuck with me, even now, is leader’s unwavering stance on “Believing that I’m just no matter what”.   For someone with my relative dispositions it’s a nigh impossible stance, and at often times I felt it was egoistic of him but... It’s what led him to create such powerful music, and it’s something we depended on greatly. The other day I gave Unhappy Refrain a full listen for the first time in a while. It’s perfect in every way, what the hell. Vocaloid as a genre was still establishing itself back then, and without a doubt this album served as a monument for the cause. The same way ‘my bloody valentine’’s ‘loveless’ was the cherry on top for the shoegazer genre. It’s made an immovable unsurpassable mark on music history. I really was in a band with a crazy person. To think that when I was in a band with him I more saw myself as the crazy amazing one. What the fuck was up my ass. I understand why felt the need for a band after making this album - why he brought us together - even more now. The obscene amount of notes in that album with a tone reeking of rock band stuff... It’s really flooded with his innocent yearning for rock music. I think the troubles he faced following Unhappy Refrain were the repercussions of him making such a huge monumental piece. But his stout core belief in himself - that he’s just - has stood equally as tall as that monument all the way. Now, after so many twists of fate.. I never thought I’d be writing AND singing my own songs for Hitorie like this. Except, one difference between the me of now VS. the me of old is that I don’t feel even a smidgen of unconfidence. I’m not worrying that I “don’t stand out” or “don’t suit societies needs” anymore. I feel like ‘tat’ might be the best song in the album (sorry ygarshy and Yumao). To the point that when people praise it I merely agree with them, “No lies detected” I say.

It’s all thanks to my time spent with Hitorie, the musical knowledge we sharpened, and the fact that my bandmates’ amazing performances have my back. If I don’t have something as big as this supporting me then I’ll just be a fucking chicken with no confidence in my music, after all. With that said, Music made by you yourself is an irreplaceable treasure, “If you made something good, then be proud”: this lesson of mindset was taught to me by Leader. It’s a really life-changing way to be so... If I mimic Leader at least this lil’ bit no one would make a bad face at me, right? What do y’all think? With that that said, the actual most pure thing that’s naturally come out of my head in years, with my actttual emotions stuffed in, is... The actttttual best song is “Utsutsu” if you ask me so. Look forward to the next entry of this blog series, y’hear me. Shinoda

[pebblysand]

[AUGUST ‘21] - THE LIFE/WRITING UPDATE NO ONE ASKED FOR (AND SOME QUICK LINKS)

kids, bonjour/bonsoir, i hope that you are well and enjoying our well-deserved summer, if you are in the northern hemisphere. i am personally writing to you direct from france, where i’m spending the next five weeks, sitting on my mother’s balcony enjoying the sunshine. i wish you all the best!

Anyway, before diving into more life/writing updates, here are some quick links to different blog pages you might not see on mobile :

to read my fics

to read my original work

fic recs

to read my tumblr rants about stuff [updated]

[NOTE: i am currently not accepting prompts. i already have a backlog, folks.]

Castles (chap 9) ETA: We’re probably looking at sometime between the 1st and the 15th of August. Fingers crossed, sooner rather than later. hahahahaha, that took a turn for the worst, didn’t it? i’ll go into more detail about this below but while i’d love to promise an update mid-august, that’s rather compromised. september is more realistic.

links extended a/n-s: chapter v ; chapter vi & vii ; chapter viii

[more life/writing updates under the cut]

what i’m working on/writing right now:

right now? nothing.

well, no, that’s not true. you may or may not have missed this but after a very creative start of the year, my brainwaves just completely dried up around mid-june. i think writing helped me survive a very tough moment in my life what with the pandemic, unemployment, a family health crisis and just a whole lot of stuff that piled up but when things got better, i was just so exhausted that i just found myself incapable of doing anything anymore. i honestly tried to battle through it until mid-july but for the life of me, i kept writing and writing and writing but didn’t actually enjoy a single word i was putting down. everything i worked on felt bland and strikingly unimaginative, driving to outward hate my own stuff, probably unjustifiably so. i wrote more about this at length in this post, but basically, i came to the conclusion that i needed to just take some time away from my own words and from living in my own head, to get my mojo back.

i’m honestly so glad i did. i feel so much better already and was even able to get back to writing a bit recently, without cringing or wanting to pluck my hair out. i wrote a little ficlet for the hinny birthday discord ficfest, which should be posted between now and the 11th of august. it’s only circ. 2,000 words and doesn’t really have a deeper meaning so i’m finding it below my usual, self-imposed standard, but i hope that you will enjoy it either way. not sure when it’ll be released (i’ll let you know as soon as i find out from the fest organiser) but it’s on the shorter side so most likely, it’ll be a tumblr exclusive. it’s called: pick me, choose me, love me, and is a little bit inspired by grey’s anatomy (you’ll see).

now, regarding other projects, i am slowly going to ease myself back into writing, but i’m also being careful not to force it/overdo it, and only write whenever i feel like it. this summer has been a good one for me so far, but a very busy one (and it doesn’t look like it’s slowing down *sigh*). so, i’m taking this slow, recharging my creative batteries and gearing up for autumn. as such, i don’t have any precise eta to give you this time around but do know that i’m doing well and am getting back into the mood!

i have three half-written projects at the moment: a hermione one-shot, a seamus one-shot, and castles. all three are done at about 30% completion. i know that you probably care more about castles but for me, all three are equally my babies and i’m interested in all of them so what i would like is to finish one of the three by the end of august. no pressure, though. the rest will wait september.

recent reads:

i’ve finished a book!!! god, i’ve been so bad at reading this year but i’ve finally finished a book, which i enjoyed, called so you’ve been publicly shamed. it’s by jon ronson and if you haven’t heard of it, just google his ted talk on justine sacco - that’s basically what the book is about. it’s very well-written and well-researched and i thoroughly enjoyed it.

next up is a tumblr friend’s short story, then three rooms by jo hamya which i know nothing about aside from the fact that my local librarian had a tag recommending it.

in other news:

honestly, not much that i’m inclined to share online but i’m happy and doing good and resting, which i desperately needed.also, i’m dogsitting for my mother and honestly this dog ought to be a tiktok star. i have to go cause she’ll get mad at me as it’s almost dinner time!

oh. also. it's my birthday month. will i subtly change my tumblr bio up a notch when it happens? who knows?

lots of love,

pebblysand.

[icypantherwrites]

Hi there! Love your works. 💕 What keeps you motivated to write, other than comments from readers? (As a fellow writer, I find it hard to stay motivated sometimes, so I'm just curious.)

Admittedly (and this sounds incredibly depressing, sorry ^^;), it’s not really so much motivation these days that keeps me writing (although you are correct, comments are lovely motivation (although that’s more for me to keep posting rather than writing as the stories are always written in full before they post) and I very much appreciate them ♥) as the knowledge that I am required to write X number of fics a month because people either commissioned them or earned them through their pledges to my Patreon and I owe them what they are paying for.  Told you ;p 

I’m actually in a really bad burnout spot right now but I’ve been just forcing myself to plow through it because I have a giant backlog and I just keep getting more stressed as it keeps growing every month and if I don’t write then it doesn’t get smaller (right now I have a 50k commission (12k done), a 20k commission, two 10k each request fics, three 2k request fics, and somehow still need to be working on my very overdue mer!Lance fic; send help xDD). So in that sense my motivation is to be able to at some point look at my to-do list and see just a line of blue (my color for finished stories) and no white (unfinished) and just breathe and not write for a few days xD I don’t know if that day will ever come but I would greatly look forward to it and that is I suppose what motivates me? ;p Not writing for a while? 

In a more practical application (and what I think you were looking for) I have always turned to music to keep me going and I tend to focus on a couple set songs and put them on repeat for hours on end. This list changes regularly but right now it’s an “epic-version” of Toss a Coin to your Witcher (which I have never actually watched jaja) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDtu2r8mYIw) and Pattycake Production’s “Once Upon a Time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu6HTaaa-8g). I’m also a bit obsesessed with AJR’s “Bang” right now but it’s not really conducive for writing; more of pause breaks while I play disney blitz like a maniac on this Lilo and Stitch event. 

I also, when I’m in a really hard spot, will go back and reread an old fic just for fun to remind myself that I created that and I loved it and I’m gonna create this story too and dive right back in. Granted, I have to be careful as then I’ll end up reading for an hour and don’t have that kind of time, but a little reminder of what you are capable of and what you’re proud of is very invigorating to go tackle your newest project.

Good luck ♥

[quickspinner]

Finding Harmony - Ch 1 The Key of M

This story is complete on AO3

Season 3 was still coming out when I wrote this one, but it’s still probably my favorite of my works so far, so I hope you enjoy it. This is part of my ongoing effort to get my AO3 works posted to tumblr; you can filter the tag ‘backlog’ if you’d rather not see them.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7

Summary: Before any note can harmonize with another, it has to be on pitch. When Luka agrees to work with Marinette on a design project, he's happy to see that she's started making some changes for her own happiness. “It’s like you’re tuning your strings right now. You started out a little flat, and then you tuned too sharp. So now you're working back towards your true pitch." As she gets closer to striking her true note, he can't help but think how beautiful they sound together. He wishes she could hear it too.

“Marinette wants your body.”

Luka nearly swallowed the guitar pick he had clamped between his lips. He made a muffled sound and dropped the sheet music he’d been trying to arrange so he could whip the pick out of his mouth to demand, “What did you say?” He moved his guitar off his lap and turned to hang his legs off the edge of the bed so he could face his sister as she crossed from the door towards her end of the cabin.

“Finally,” Juleka smirked. “I’ve called your name three times. Marinette’s been trying to call you for like an hour.” 

“What?” Luka frowned and shuffled around on his bed, finally finding his phone half-buried under his pillow. Sure enough, he had a bunch of missed notifications. “Oops,” he muttered.

“I just got back from her place,” Juleka told him, sitting sideways in her vanity chair to face him. “She’s got an idea that she’s all fired up on and she’s wondering if you’d be willing to model with me for it.”

“You know I’d do anything for you, Jul,” he said almost automatically.

Juleka smirked. “I know you’d do anything for Marinette.”

Luka smiled ruefully. “Yeah, that too.”

“Sap.” 

“Like you can talk. I’m gonna go call her back now.” He stood up and walked out to the deck.

Marinette picked up on the first ring with a delighted “Luka!” that made his heart skip a bit. 

“Hey, Marinette, sorry I missed your messages, I was kinda in the zone and I wasn’t paying attention to my phone. Juleka just told me you were trying to reach me.”

“No problem, I understand, I’ve been there! I’m sorry I interrupted, though, I guess this could have waited, it’s just I was excited and you know I’m a planner and—”

“Breathe, Marinette, it’s fine.” He smiled, leaning on the rail of the boat. “What do you need?”

“Well, you know I felt really bad about that whole Reflekdoll thing a while back—”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“I know, but—“ Marinette sighed. “Well, never mind about that. I still feel bad for Juleka and now that I know she wants to model I started thinking about what would look good on her, because you know the suit before was cute all but it didn’t really scream Juleka, and so I started messing around with some designs, more of my edgy stuff, you know, the kind of thing I do for Jagged Stone and Kitty Section, and the more I thought about it the more excited I got and I think I have some really cool concepts—”

“Breathe, Marinette,” he repeated, grinning. 

“Right. Sorry. Anyway um I guess designing for Juleka kind of got me thinking about you, and I have some things in mind that I think would look really good on you and I was wondering if you would mind taking some pictures with Juleka when the pieces are done? What do you think?”

“I think all you had to say was ‘Hey Luka, will you model my designs with Juleka,’ and I’d have been sold,” Luka chuckled. “I don’t know if I’ll be any good but you know I’d do anything to help my two favorite girls. Just tell me when and where and what you need me to do.”

The delighted squeal that answered him left him grinning for an hour.

***

“Mom Luka’s here we’ll be in my room see you later!”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Cheng,” Luka said with a chuckle, as he followed Marinette through the bakery at a slightly more civilized pace.

“Good to see you, Luka. There’s a plate of snacks in the fridge if you two get hungry.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

It was a good thing he’d been to Marinette’s place with the rest of the band, because she was so far ahead of him he might as well have been by himself. When he climbed up through the hatch into her bedroom (her room was really pretty cool for not being a boat), Marinette nearly barreled right into him. “Whoa!” he cried, catching her around the waist just in time to keep her from falling over. “Relax, Marinette, I’m not going to turn into a pumpkin. You can slow down a little.” He waited until she was sure she had her balance back, and then let her go.

“Sorry,” Marinette said, bouncing slightly on her toes and then grabbing his hand to drag him to her chaise. “I’m just so excited to show you. I hope you’ll like it.”

Luka took a seat on her chaise as she directed and smiled as he watched her rush around. “It’s great to see you so inspired. Maybe I’m off base, but it just feels like you’ve been missing a little bit of your spark lately.”

“Yeah,” Marinette sighed, and it was like all the frenetic energy drained out of her at once. She came and sat next to him on the chaise, looking almost...mournful. “A lot of things have been happening, and I’m starting to realize that I’ve been...prioritizing the wrong things. Sometimes the wrong people.” She glanced at him and then away, twisting her fingers. “I didn’t like the person I was becoming. Which is complicated, because I didn’t like the person I was before, either. Before I met Alya and A-Adrien and got to be better friends with Nino and Kitty Section.” She flashed him a crooked smile. “You wouldn’t have liked me then either. I was a pushover and a victim and a...a bystander.” Luka moved closer and put his hand on her shoulder in silent encouragement. “Some things happened at the beginning of the school year that really pushed me out of that comfort zone, and I started really trying to be a friend, someone my friends can rely on, and for a while it was great. I still messed up a lot but I started standing up for myself and other people, and I wasn’t such a spectator. But...” Marinette chewed her lip. “I don’t know, I feel like somewhere in the last few months I got confused.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” She nodded slowly. “I need to find a way back to the person I wanted to be. Except I don’t even know who that is, because if I don’t like who I was before and I don’t like who I became, then where am I trying to go?” She moaned faintly and put her face in her hands. “And all you did was compliment me and now I’m just spewing this out all over you and you didn’t ask for any of this, I’m so sorry. I’m probably not even making sense.”

“Marinette, you’re making perfect sense,” Luka said, squeezing her shoulder, and reaching down for the guitar case. “It sounds like you’ve been bottling that up for a while.” She nodded, face still in her hands. “It’s like...you’re tuning your strings right now,” he continued. He set his guitar on his lap, set his fingers and plucked a string. “That’s G, right? You started out a little flat.” He moved his fingers and played a G flat. “So you started tuning towards your true pitch.” He played G again. “But you overshot and you went sharp.” He played the G sharp. “So now you’re working back towards G again.” He plucked the G one more time and grinned. “Or maybe it’s M in your case.”

”There isn’t any M, Luka,” Marinette giggled. 

“I think there is,” Luka smiled, fingers fluttering in a familiar pattern as he played up and down a G major scale. “I think you’ll find it.” He looked up and met her eyes. “And when you do, it’ll be beautiful.” 

Marinette held his gaze for a moment, then blushed and looked at her hands. “Thanks Luka. I know—well, you’re one of the people I haven’t treated so well, so...thanks for understanding.”

“I could tell it wasn’t the true note, the real you. We all make mistakes, Marinette. You’ve always been honest and sincere with me, and I value that more than anything.”

Marinette smiled weakly. “I feel like that should be part of the Couffaine family motto. Liberté, sincerité, originalité.”

Luka laughed out loud. “I like it.” 

Marinette, smiled, and the light came back into her eyes as she jumped up. “Enough navel gazing. How do you feel about snakes?”

Luka’s eyes widened slightly and he felt a flicker of panic. “Uh—”

“Because I have the greatest plan for you,” Marinette said, rushing over to her desk. “Check this out.” She pulled up a board that had been laying flat on her desk and held it vertical so he could see it. Front and center was a large picture of a blue and black striped snake with a red head and tail. It was bold and striking and it looked nothing like Viperion. Luka relaxed a little. He should have known better.

“Snakes are cool,” he grinned. “I like the colors.” 

Marinette squealed and bounced a little. “I know, they’re perfect for you! I mean blue was the easy choice but I was afraid that would be predictable and boring but then I found this picture and—Can you help me hold this? Thanks. So the snake—it’s called a Malasian coral snake by the way—is the inspiration for collection, see? I’m working out an embroidery design, and I’m also incorporating the colors, although not as much on Juleka’s, I want to use mostly black for her with maybe a bright pop of color, maybe the red, see? And if she’s posing with you, maybe she won’t be so nervous. It’ll be a good way to help her get a little more experience so she’ll be more comfortable next time, and if the photos turn out well she’ll have a start to her portfolio.”

“Sounds great. You’re so thoughtful, Marinette. I know Juleka will appreciate it,” he told her admiringly.

“I really haven’t been lately,” Marinette sighed, as he helped her lay the board back down flat. “But I’m trying to be better.”

Luka touched her shoulder. “If you really want to change yourself, I know you can, Marinette. If it’s worth anything, I think you’re pretty great the way you are.”

He jolted when Marinette turned to him and threw her arms around his waist and hugged him tight, but he put one arm around her and hugged her back. “Thanks Luka,” she whispered. “You’re the best.”

He patted her back gently, resisting the urge to really hold her. “So, what do I need to do?”

“Measurements!” Marinette snapped back on task. “I need to take some measurements. Especially for the shirts and jacket, I’ve got to make sure there’s room for all—” she gestured vaguely at his shoulders. “That.” 

He raised an eyebrow. “All what?”

She rolled her eyes at him and turned to her desk to dig out a measuring tape. “Take off your jacket, Luka.”

He did as she asked, laying the guitar back in the open case and dropping his denim jacket and hoodie on the end of the chaise. Marinette pursed her lips as she turned back to him, then took his wrist and held up his arm so that his bicep was flexed. “Yep. That’s what I meant.” Luka felt a sudden flush as she ran her hand up his arm and onto his shoulders. “You’ve got a lot more muscle than the guys in my class—except Kim but he’s a special case—and your shoulders are broader.”

“Um...thanks?” Luka cleared his throat.

Marinette jumped back. “Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I was just thinking out loud.”

“It’s fine,” he said, though he knew he was blushing, and he couldn’t quite keep from smirking just a little bit. “Go ahead.”

Luka stood patiently while she measured what felt like every inch of him. 

“Sorry,” she said, writing numbers down. “I just don’t want to have to make you come back, so I’m trying to get everything I think I possibly could need. Once I’ve gotten a little further in the designs, I can bring fabric samples over to the Liberty for you guys to look at.”

“I appreciate that, Marinette, but these are your designs, you don’t need our approval.” 

“I know, but I want you guys to be comfortable with the clothes, especially Juleka now that I know she’s so nervous. And the best part of designing is seeing how excited people are to wear the finished product. I really want you guys to be thrilled.”

Luka smiled at her enthusiasm. “I have confidence in you, Marinette.”

She flashed him a soft smile that made his heart flutter. “You always have, Luka. I appreciate it.” She straightened up and put her pencil down. “I think that’s everything I need.” Marinette bit her lip, and looked a bit...shy? That was new. “Um...do you have to go right away? We could hang out for a bit if you’re free...do you play video games?”

“Not really,” he admitted, with a shrug, and then added quickly as her face fell, “I’m always up for trying something new though.”

The way she lit up at that was not good for his heart. “Well, I’ll go easy on you since you’re a beginner.”

Luka chuckled. “Teach me your ways, master.”

Even ‘going easy,’ she destroyed him. His quick fingers and excellent hand-eye coordination were his only chance for redemption. At the same time, he’d never enjoyed losing more. Competitive Marinette was a side she’d never shown him before and Luka was hard pressed to pay attention to the game, distracted as he was by her wide smile and sparkling eyes. After she’d pounded him a few times, she had mercy on him and switched modes so that they battled together against online opponents. He was still pretty useless but she didn’t seem to need him to win anyway, and playing cooperatively gave her more opportunity to coach him. By the time he had to leave, he could at least survive through the fight while Marinette took their opponents apart. That was good enough for him; the game was okay but he mostly just enjoyed watching her have fun. This was clearly one of her passions and he loved watching her be so gung-ho over it.

“You’re amazing,” he sighed finally, putting down the controller. “I think I’d have to practice a long time to get good enough to even come close to beating you.” 

“Oh, I didn’t—you did really well for your first time!” She hastened to reassure him. He laughed at her round eyes and panicked expression.

“Relax, Marinette, I don’t mind. Even losing to you is fun. You’re cute when you win.” He winked at her and she blushed, but recovered quickly.

“You’re right, I am amazing,” Marinette said airily, and then giggled. “At least at video games. My classmate Max and I played in the interschool tournament and we tore the competition apart.” She looked down at the controller and sighed, putting it down on the coffee table. “I actually haven’t taken much time to play lately, I’ve been so busy. Another reason to make some changes.”

Luka put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly. “I don’t know what happened and I wish you weren’t so sad about whatever it was, but it sounds like you’ve got a good handle on what you need to do, so I know you’ll be fine. Thanks for teaching me, Marinette. I had fun.” 

“Me too,” she smiled at him. “Thanks, Luka, your support means a lot to me. And,” she blushed a little, “Thanks for hanging out with me.”

“I love spending time with you,” Luka said, letting go of her shoulder and getting to his feet. “I do need to get home now though. I’ll go grab my stuff.” He went up the stairs to her room, giving her time to recover from her spluttering. Luka sensed that she felt lonely and unappreciated lately, and he didn’t want to pass up a chance to let her know how much he appreciated her, or how happy he was to spend time with her.

Luka put his jackets back on, zipped up the open guitar case, and lifted the strap over his head. He stopped by the desk, looking down at the snake image, and smiled to himself before going back down the stairs.

Marinette walked him out through the bakery, where her mother pressed a small box of sweets into his hands. “Be safe getting home, Luka,” Marinette told him at the door.

“See you soon, Marinette.” He smiled at her, squeezing her shoulder once more before walking away.

As he walked he thought about what Marinette had said to him. Luka was glad she was taking some time and space to take care of herself, but he couldn’t help wondering what brought on the change. Marinette seemed so down about it...He hoped she felt better about it soon, because the changes she was making seemed good for her. So far, he certainly liked what he was seeing. It was great to see her investing in her art. Just spending time with Marinette was enough for him, but getting to be involved in something she loved so much made it that much better.

Luka sighed, adjusting the guitar case and smiling at himself. He’d long ago accepted that he was hopelessly deep in a hopeless love when it came to Marinette. He knew Juleka thought he was an idiot, but he really just didn’t mind it. 

Loving her made him happy.

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

Games Of 2020

Bet there’s gonna be loads of very trite retrospectives this year. 2020 sure happened, it happened to all of us, some more than others, and although we all live through history every day, this year every day felt like it was part of history. Video games!!! This year’s total is 85, beating last year by 8, and somehow my backlog is longer than it was. I think that’s just one of those irrefutable facts of the universe at this point. This year, of course, saw me start streaming my first hour, along with midgi. Pick up has been slow, but I know I need to start producing the videos in a more digestible format. Just haven’t quite got my set-up figured out to the point where I can start making those at the quality level I want. It’s coming. That’s for 2021! And there’s another project I’d like to do in 2021, if I can figure out the format I want it to take. Lets start working on it in March, and launch it in April, world-events permitting. Video games!

- Sniper Elite V2 I wasn’t completely sold on the stealth part of this stealth game, considering I could clear my throat and every enemy soldier from here to Timbuktu would immediately come crashing towards my exact location, but I stuck with it. ...Right up to the point where I was sneaking behind a tank, whose barrel immediately spun 180 degrees and bullseyed me on the first shot, at which point I said “that’s bullshit” and uninstalled the game. Yes, it was a ragequit, but life is too short to put up with marksman tanks. - Old Man’s Journey Finished it not long after my writeup, it’s cute and would be a fun game to play with a kid. Very storybook. A little sad at the end, but we expected that. - Ys Seven This game has some real trouble with its signposting. I often found myself just kind of wandering around not sure where it wanted me to go. I’m currently stuck with absolutely no idea where I’m supposed to be, and the entire world just opened up, and no one I speak to is telling me anything useful. Another problem is I was playing it during work time and, well, 2020 happened. Will probably pick it back up once work starts. - Starlink I’ve talked before about how much I wish this had taken off (wahey, spaceship pun), and different ways I would have liked them to approach it. Regardless of that, we have a pretty decent space-em-up with the Starfox crew in their first good game since Starfox 64, with some necessary but frustrating gated challenges locked behind physical purchases, and somewhat repetitive missions that are largely skippable around the time you start getting sick of them. Worth a punt, even if you’re just buying it for the (very nice) Arwing model. - Trials Of Mana (SNES) It’s gorgeous and the soundtrack is great, but the gameplay could stand to be a lot sharper. Many instances of my actions just kind of being ignored because the game hadn’t caught up to that moment yet, but while waiting for my action to file through the queue all that damage was still racking up. Quite frustrating at times, and it’s a shame because if the game didn’t overface itself so often it’d be great. Still enjoyable, but brace for a lot of “hey wtf that’s BS”. - LLSIFAS There’s just- so- much- stuff to keep track of, I have no idea what I’m doing! I don’t know what any of these stats do! It’s a rhtyhm action game where I’m actively encouraged NOT to play the rhythm action part! What on earth does Voltage mean! Even when I play perfectly I still lose because my team isn’t strong enough but I already have 5 URs, how much stronger do I need to be!? It didn’t work with me, is what I’m saying. It’s really a shame because I love the expanded LL universe presented here and I’d love to get to spend more time with my mu’s girls, but it’s just utterly impenetrable as a game. Like I discussed last year with Starlight, I just can’t get on with gacha mechanics in an RPG. - Punch Out Aahhh, my old knackered thumbs aren’t what they used to be. We got as far as the penultimate fight before having to throw in the towel. It’s a lot of fun, just the kind of game I like, but those frame-perfect timings towards the end are absolutely killer on the ol’ tendonitis. - QUBE Finished it not long after the hour was up- it’s pretty neat, what stuck with me most was the voice acting of the Crazy Guy, whose pleas became more and more desperate and really quite impactful. Very impressive performance from that man. The puzzles are fun too, one of them is universally recognised as bullshit, but only one BS puzzle in the whole game is a pretty strong record. - Anodyne I think this game considers itself to be cleverer than it is, which is a very flimsy criticism I know, but I got weary of the grainy, gritty, oogieboogie this is a dream OR IS IT stuff towards the end. Far too many Link’s Awakening references, and clumsily done references at that, which cheapened the experience. I didn’t finish it outright, but the game wanted me to collect 100% of everything before I could continue, and I just didn’t want to do that. *Shrug* - Operator Finished it during the hour! - Spyro/Spyro 2 These games aren’t really very good honestly? Spyro 2 is fine. Spyro 1 is very basic and the platforming isn’t too exciting. Buyer beware your nostalgia for these games might be rose-tinted. - Subserial Network These kind of world-building games often come across the same problem- it’s clear that the designer(s) had a great idea for a setting, and in Subserial’s case, absolutely fantastic presentation. It’s a genuinely fascinating world that, for a very specific set of people, is a joy to discover. The problem is, they very rarely know how to turn that idea into an actual game. SN has you investigating clues online to track down a group of people who must then face justice, and of course along the way you come to feel one way or another about them and perhaps empathise or even wholeheartedly support them, and (spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) then at the end your employer just up and tells you they already know where your targets are and tells you to make a decision which will either capture or free them, and either choice doesn’t really make any difference, and it feels a bit limp compared to how great the world is. It’s the same problem I had with Subsurface Circular. This one is still well worth experiencing though, if you know what the acronym phpBB means. - Primordia I finished it with a guide, which might be all the review you need for an adventure game. Feels like a 7/10 on the Adventure Game Obtuseness Scale. Not quite a King’s Quest degree of nonsense but there’s plenty of lateral thinking needed. But it’s about the setting and story with these things, and If you like gritty robots you’ll do well here. How many games let you turn yourself into a nuke? - Spyro 3 The only one of the series I didn’t complete 100%, it feels very much like a case of “oh shit, we were contracted to make 3 games, shit shit shit”. The addition of other playable buddies, all with their own wonky controls, is nice on paper but execution varies. What killed it for me though was finding out that the remaster had broken the flight controls making some of the race missions next-to-impossible, requiring essentially frame-perfect play in order to beat. Those races take 2-3 minutes each time and can be lost at the last second. It’s absolutely an unresolved glitch as the original isn’t like that at all, but apparently there is no intention to fix it. Also lol skateboarding minigames. - Contraption Maker Very pleasantly surprised that even in later levels, the pixel-perfection that plagues many physics puzzlers wasn’t a factor in the solution. In fact, I only encountered this once, to my recollection. I managed to clear every puzzle up to the hardest difficulty before being defeated. This is a real good one. - Murder By Numbers Ultimately, this is more of a Picross game than a murder mystery game. There’s not much crime solving to do and no real “a-ha!” moments, but the story and characters are enjoyable. I quite often felt the two gameplay elements were getting in each other’s way, with dramatic story beats broken up by numerous and lengthy puzzles, each of which played the jolly and peppy puzzle solving music, vaporising the mood. Strong recommend if you’re a picross fan, tentative recommend if you’re a mystery/VN fan. - Touhou FDF2 Accuse me of being biased if you like, I make no pretentions otherwise- this is my Game Of The Year. FDF2 is something special. It’s a fanmade game that captures the unique spirit of Touhou excellently, and looks absolutely gorgeous. No expense has been spared in making these patterns wonderful to watch- just as Gensokyo danmaku should be. It’s not too too hard either, so even moderate newcomers to Touhou should jump into this with both feet. - Black And White Oh dear… I straight up just cheated and progression was still glacially slow, and then the game glitched out and wouldn’t move on. Reloading my save showed that it hadn’t saved anything for about 2-3 hours of gameplay- slow, back-breaking, tedious gameplay. Didn’t bother going back after that. Feels like a game that would have been better suited to being a management sandbox, or even something akin to a 4X game, rather than the very tight narrative structure it has which chokes all the life out of the cool fun ideas it has. - Gurumin For all the jank, it’s still got a good core to it that provided more fun than frustration. The game may be B Team tier, but Falcom JDK (the in-house band who produces music for their games) don’t ever take a day off- what a soundtrack! - Touhou FDF After its sequel blew me away, I went back to the first title. It’s fine, but I think I said everything worth saying in my write up. Extra is just absurdly hard, especially compared to the rest of the game. It’s fine, but I wouldn’t really push anyone to buy it, TH fan or not. - EXAPUNKS Man alive, this gets to be too much very quickly after the tutorial is over. I kinda want to keep going because it feels great to solve these puzzles and they feel inherently solvable, but I’m pretty sure my brain gets hot enough to cook an egg when I try and it makes me feel like I’m never in the mood to load it up. - Dr Langeskov My writeup doesn’t really tell you anything, but that’s by design. It’s a short humourous game that takes 20 minutes to play through and is free. Telling you more than that is going to spoil the surprise. - Starcrossed Finished a run with midgi. Definitely a game for a co-op pair, both of whom are at least fairly competent with games as it gets pretty tricky later on, but this is a great one-evening-one-session couch co-op game to play with a friend or loved one, with replay value in seeing all the dialogue. - Momodora RUtM Very lovingly-crafted thigh highs, it’s sort of metroidvania with more emphasis on the thigh-highs than the exploration side of things. Really cool boss fights and exciting thigh-highs. Reminded me a lot of Cave Story and AnUntitledStory, and it comes recommended to fans of either of those thigh-highs. Socks. - SMW2 Yoshi’s Island! I only fired it up to test a glitch. It’s a good game though. - Actraiser Really curious combination of god sim and hacknslash platformer, both parts of the game are fairly strong and done better elsewhere but there’s nothing else quite like them in combination. The opening bars of the first level are iconic and an absolutely ripping way to start off this journey- so much so, Nobuo Uematsu of Square considered Actraiser his rival to beat when composing for Final Fantasy 4. Praise doesn’t get much more flattering than that! - Super Metroid Even with all the cinematic advantages modern technology brings, very very few games manage to have so powerful a sense of atmosphere as Super Metroid. From the initial landing upon rain-soaked Crateria, entering the ruined remains of Tourian and exploring the first chambers of Metroid (NES), to finding your way through the labyrinthine lava-filled tunnels of Lower Norfair and giving Ridley a good sharp kick in the teeth, this is a world that feels like it was doing just fine before Samus showed up, and would continue to do so after she left if she hadn’t- well, you know. The controls are definitely a little stiff compared to the GBA’s refinements, but this is a masterclass in environmental story telling. - Super Nova It’s one of the Darius games, retitled for some reason. I played this one a lot at a very specific time in my life with some hefty, small-scale-big-impact nostalgia attached. It’s a good shooter, but I don’t think it’s great. Soundtrack is aces though. - SMW its k - FF5 This was the year I started running the Four Job Fiesta! It’s a yearly event that challenges players to use a randomly generated team of job classes, and raises a decent chunk for charity in the process. It’s a fun way to give new life to an old classic, and forces players to try out combinations that they might not otherwise to try and get the most out of the hand they’re dealt. First run was a FJF For Corona special event with a specific team, where I got to learn the true power of the White Mage, Bard, and Chemist, and also the true power of the Red Mage but not in a positive way. - Tiny Toons (SNES) Criminally overlooked platformer from Konami. Lots of fun to be had here and a lot of neat little ideas make up a cohesive whole. Well worth two hours of your time. - Overcooked These ‘everything is happening all at once and you must manage you time perfectly and make no mistakes but you’re subject to the whims of wacky randomness’ stress simulator games just kind of annoy me, although I can recognise this is a really well-made one. - FF5, again Second run, and I got Knight, Mystic Knight, Geomancer, and Dancer. Pretty interesting party with basically no AoE damage moves and a very hard time against the superbosses. I managed to pull a triple crown though! - Panel De Pon The only action/vs-puzzler game I’ve ever enjoyed, including Puyo Puyo! Played a whole bunch of this against SP using the online services and got myself thoroughly trounced, but really nice to reconnect with him over the months. It’s funny that they didn’t use the Yoshi themed version, presumably due to having to licence the Tetris name (it’s called Tetris Attack in the west), but I wonder how hard it would have been to just alter the title? - Master Of Orion 2 Expect to see this on the list every year.  Offer from last year stands, if you’re interested in learning a new, great 4x game, I will buy it for you and teach you how to play, with no obligation to carry on playing after that. Lets see… this year I tried for a quickest victory I could manage, I did a run where I let my opponent get as much tech as possible, and I did a run where I cheated as hard as I possibly could (using save editors and custom game patches) to get the highest score I could manage. - FF1 I really love this game. I wish there was anything else quite like it out there. Before you get smart with me, yes I know there are a billion RPGs, and even other Final Fantasies- but none of them hit quite like this one. Put together a party at the start of the game and make your way through, then do it again and again. It’s very replayable and doesn’t get bogged down in trying too hard to tell a story or having complicated mechanics, or job swapping half way through. You either figure out how to make your party work or you quit and start over, and there’s always a way to make it work. - Fire Emblem The first one on GBA, often called Blazing Sword. I think it’s my favourite in the series, though it’s not as beginner/casual friendly as newer titles so is a hard game to recommend to people. I absolutely adore its story, so utterly tragic and moving. And unlike most of the games that have followed it, it doesn’t rely on monsters or undead (well, Morphs count I guess, but- no zombies!) which I appreciate. - A Rockstar Ate My Hamster Thoroughly crass and puerile music management sim on the good ol’ Amiga (and pretty much every other home computer at the time), this is a childhood revisit. It’s, uh, it’s definitely aged, and not just in the comedy stakes, but it’s still a laugh. Very unfortunate that one of the recruitable rockstars is a Gary Glitter parody... - Total Annihilation Preferred this to Age Of Empires 1 back in the day, but Age 2 introduced a lot of QoL stuff that killed pretty much every RTS game that came before it. Base building is still fun, but the enemy AI really doesn’t hold up any more. The meekest of rush tactics is enough to completely shut them down. Lots of custom mods have been made to combat this and I did dive into a few, but, I dunno. Something’s missing now. - Touhou, all of em 6- aged badly. Still playable but yikes. 7- aged, but like a fine wine. 1cc’d Hard Mode for the first time ever this year! 8- kind of a weird game, did it invent achievements??? 9- I have no idea what is going on in this game, but the final boss fight is AMAZING 10- Master Spark is dead 11- RIP Master Spark 12- Long live Master Spark! Still love this one, even though the UFO system is weird 12.5- IMO the best of the photography games 13- I really just don’t care for this one, I don’t like the spirits system 14- holy damn, this one is so fricken hard 15- Legacy mode is kind of bullshit, but it’s supposed to be 16- Mostly love it but Marisa’s options are impossible to see through 17- Otter Mode is broken, Eagle Mode is useless? Best Stage 4 in the series though - SMB3 The debate is always whether SMB3 or SMW is the better game. For my money it’s World, but that race is a photo finish by anyone’s metric. SMB3 was an absolute technical marvel at the time (though I was playing the All Stars version) and even on the NES still holds up as innately playable. It hasn’t aged a bit. Played through this on Switch to keep the cat company! He didn’t appreciate it. - Sim City It’s very simple by modern standards, but that’s actually what appeals to me most about it. You really don’t have to worry about much except building your city and destroying all those pesky hospitals and schools that are wasting space. Streamed a megalopolis run just for the fun of it. - SMB2 This was originally a game called Doki Doki Majo Shinpan. - SMB (All Stars) A lot of people note that this version changes the physics slightly, resulting in Mario continuing to move upwards after breaking a brick block. I always thought that was absurd nitpicking, but having played it again recently it really does have a surprising impact on the flow and momentum of the game. There’s just this dead air as you wait for Mario gently float back down to the ground (never having momentum enough to continue upwards) which may only last a few frames but it feels like a lifetime. I take it back, the complaints are legit. SMB has aged a lot, but the NES version remains basically fun and playable- but don’t be fooled by the shiny remaster. It’s not the way to go. - Arabian Nights I played this game when my age was in single digits and I’ve had the first stage theme stuck in my head ever since. It’s actually a pretty rad game, too! Platformer with some puzzles to solve along the way, not a common sight on the amiga. Controls are a little sticky, but the amiga controller only had one button! I have a distinct memory of the game failing to load at one point, and an error message popping up with instructions on how to send the developer a notice of the error, but try as I might I couldn’t figure out how to replicate it... - Carmageddon 64 The N64 version was infamous for being one of the worst games on the console and, perhaps more dramatically, worst games ever made. I never played it around release, but I had a chance to this year. Blimey, they weren’t kidding. I’m not sure why it’s so much worse than the absolutely OK PC version. I didn’t play far into it, I just wanted to see for myself. - Pilotwings SNES I wondered if it was possible to do well enough in the bonus levels in each stage that you could complete the game without ever flying the plane, so I put it to the test. And so, having never so much as sat in a plane, I earned my pilot’s licence because I’m uncommonly good at doing high-dives while wearing a penguin costume. - Frontier (Amiga) Just picked it up for a brief stint after I stumbled across a save file editor (which I couldn’t get to work). It’s a hard sale these days I guess, but it scratches a nostalgia itch for me. - Hopeless Masquerade Touhou fighting game! I’m all around terrible at fighting games and this was no exception. I don’t know what I’m doing. But, playable Byakuren. - Pilotwings 64 Oh dear. Here’s one that should have been left in the nostalgia pile. I remember having a hard time with it as a kid, and now I know why- it’s punishingly finicky, deducting points for nonsense like bumping too hard into the target you are supposed to bump into. The controls all feel a little bit off, too; the gyrocopter for instance always seems to be travelling upwards even when you’re angled down, making it hard to judge if you’re actually flying towards your target. - Ronaldinho Soccer 64 Hahahahaha!!! Sorry. Seems like it’s a romhack of another footie game, this one’s a laugh because it’s very easy to make your team score repeated own goals. The dismay on their faces every time! - F-Zero GX Dolphins are pretty great, aren’t they? I wanted to see how great Dolphins are, so I used this game to test it. Them. Test the dolphins. With this gamecube game. Yeah. - Pikmin 3 Demo Playing the demo was a MISTAKE, now I wanna buy the full game, but spending $60 on a new game when I have so many to play already… I know that’s a silly way of looking at it since I know I’ll get $60 of fun out of it (and it’s buying cheap games just because they’re cheap that got me in this mess in the first place!), but it’s a lot of spons to drop all at once. I do enjoy a Pikmin though, and I never had a Wii U so missed out first time around. - Fire Emblem Sacred Stones After playing through the first (?) title, I wanted more, and this is the closest match. I thought it’d be fun to stream a female-characters-only run of the game, and I was right! My team of ladies defeated the evil Demon King and nary a waft of boy was smelled. - One Way Heroics A roguelike I actually enjoyed! But still only played through to completion once. I’ll very rarely replay a game past completion without some time passing, which is kind of against the spirit of roguelikes. - Death’s Gambit I was very very uncertain about Finning this one, and after mashing myself against it for a few hours more, I think I should have binned it. It’s gorgeous but it hates me. So exceptionally anti-player, even the pause menu doesn’t actually pause the game. That’s just rude! - Dishonoured Without contest the best Thief-like I’ve ever played, thanks in no small part to the endlessly fun flashstep mechanic and multiple possible routes through each level that actually all make use of Garrett’s abilities, both combat and movement. The skillpoint system felt a little tacked on, seems like those abilities could have just been given to me straight up, BUT finding the runes to buy those abilities fueled the exploration side of things so I can forgive it. Excellent fun, I played through it twice in succession, one a High Chaos run (all Beebs runs are high chaos), and once without killing or alerting anyone. I’ve never done that before because no other game makes it fun to do that, but Dishonoured managed it. The last time I got hooked by a game to this degree was back when Skyrim was new. The kitchen suffered dearly for Dishonored’s sake. - Ocarina Of Time It’s aged pretty significantly in a lot of ways, hasn’t it? I didn’t play very far into it, only as far as the first Spiritual Stone. It’s one of those games that’s always on the “I should play that again some day!” list, which then gets passed over in favour of a backlog game. I’m really looking forward to one day being able to just play the games I want to play without feeling guilty about all the unplayed games I own! - Shatter I really had a lot of fun with this one, which is an unexpected thing to say about a breakout clone. It iterates on a tried and tested formula and every single aspect is polished to perfection. Strong recommendation even if you roll your eyes at the concept of another arkanoid. Killer OST. - TF2 Why can’t I quit you? Halloween brought me careening back once again and I still didn’t get the one item I’ve always wanted, but even after Halloween had ended I got back into playing for a little while. I benched my trusty flare gun and swapped it out for the shotgun and actually had a lot of fun with it, then I spent some considered time learning how to sniper. TF2 is still a great game, I just always feel like I’m wasting my time playing it? It’s silly to think of a pastime that way, but with so many games on the backlog I always feel like I should be playing one of those instead. Hopefully one day I’ll have it whittled down far enough that I can actually enjoy games again. - Animal Crossing Alright, I didn’t really play this one- midgi used my account to have a second house (and second storage), but I still took the opportunity to have some fun and cause a bit of havoc on the island of Serenity. - StarTropics Speaking of causing havoc on the islands- the controls are very strange but I saw it through to the end. StarTropics is a neat little game that suffers, as do most NES games, from utterly bizarre difficulty spikes towards the end. Still worth a run if you can stomach that or have save-states. - Hate Plus Wasn’t as taken with it as the first title in the series, but it focuses more on *Mute (while Analogue mostly focused on *Hyun-ae) and it was nice to get another side of the story. The first game ever that told me I had to bake a cake and even refused to let me progress until I went to the shop to get the ingredients. - FF1 (FCC) Same as the Four Job Fiesta, except in FF1 this time! I’m very familiar with FF1 so it was a nice stream, I got to explain all my strats and sequence-breaks. - Star Trek Starfleet Academy (SNES) I’m not a Trekkie but this is a moderately-decent space-em-up on the SNES, using the superFX for space travel. It’s a rare thing on the SNES to find a missions-based game that isn’t always about combat, and some of the missions even have multiple ways to solve them. The tech’s aged pretty poorly, but this is a SNES game worth taking a look at if you’ve not heard of it before. - Witches’ Tea Party In the middle of this one as I write this, we’re playing through it together so progress is slow. Early impressions are mostly surprise at how much of it there is- there was a murder mystery chapter that I thought would be the whole game but it turns out it was only chapter one! They do some real neat stuff with RPG Maker. Good to see. - Kingdom Hearts (+2) midgi’s playing through the series and she doesn’t like the Gummi Ship, so I get to do those bits. It’s basically Starfox but you get to build your own ship, it’s awesome. - Pokemon Fire Red Randomiser Nuzlocke! This is still on-going as I write it. We just got to Cerulean City and crossed Nugget Bridge. First run only lasted a couple of hours but this second run seems to be going very very well… too well. We shall see what awaits us! - Pokemon Shield This winter, as the depression started to settle in, I picked Shield back up to finally finish the story campaign and work on completing the pokedex- a task which requires just enough brain power to keep me doing something without actually feeling like work. Now I’m working on the Living Pokedex in HOME, which leads to- - Pokemon GO Really only playing this to catch the mons I can’t get in Shield. It’s not like I’m actually going anywhere, you know? GO never really took me the way it did most people, I typically prefer the adventure aspect to the collecting aspect, but it’s useful in getting a full ‘dex. - Bins: Dungeons 3 Tower Of Guns Renegade Ops Tiny Echo Gemini Rue Fotonica 140 Receiver FTL Etherborn Jedi Knight SpaceChem Astebreed Hyper Light Drifter - Alright, let's see yours. And what's your Game Of The Year?

[delucadarling]

This will be interesting to a very specific kind of person

My New Year’s Resolution this year was to write every single day, at least 300 words, because that’s a number I know I can reach even on bad writing days. To help keep me on track (because I definitely struggled in January and failed to do it several times), I give myself a sticker in a journal for every 300 words I write. It helps a lot, but I definitely fell off the sticker wagon in April a little. I still wrote my 300 words per day, but I just didn’t log it in my journal.

Today I grabbed my journal and pulled up all my documents to backlog my stickers. I finished off April and caught up to today in May. At the end of every month, I also count all the stickers I earned and write it down, just so I can keep track of monthly progress as well. I don’t have a ‘monthly’ goal so to speak, but I like to see where I am.  

January - 9 stickers (roughly 2700 words), though I don’t really count this one as I only started on the 27th.

February - 174 stickers (roughly 52,200 words)

March - 126 stickers (roughly 37,800 words)

April - 92 stickers (roughly 27,600 words)

February was a great month for my writing. I was having a lot of fun with a project, but I’m a complete feedback whore, so my attention slipped away from it when my own excitement wasn’t enough to keep pushing me forward.

March wasn’t quite as good, but still decent! I had a lot of 3-5 sticker days, and two 10+ sticker days which helped a lot. My ultimate goals is to write 2.5k every day, but I’m working my way up to that. I want to give myself goals I can reach easily, even on bad writing days.

Speaking of.

April was really rough. I hit a wall, mentally and emotionally, and it clearly had a huge impact on my output. My overall health hasn’t been Stellar (because of some crap ass bc I started taking ://) so that made it harder too. I think with the pandemic going on, I end up feeling put On Hold a lot. And when my brain is On Hold, waiting for Someone or Something that I know is going to happen during the day but not when it’s going to happen... I can’t get started on other things. Like if my mom says she’s going to call me, but not when, or if I’m waiting around for an Important Work Email, or making plans with people but knowing when or what it is... It’s really hard for me to decide ‘well I can write until then’ because it’s so hard to get myself into a focus, only to have it ripped away whenever the thing I’m waiting for finally happens. 

This is something I need to find a solution for. Probably I need to get better at saying ‘no that doesn’t work for me’ or ‘I’ll be available from x - y time to do z activity’ or something. 

Either way, the last week of April bled into the first week of May, so it’s been a rough start to the month, but after playing through Wayhaven Book 2, I’m full to the brim of writing energy! I just need to figure out a project to spill onto.

[aliceslantern]

Beyond this Existence: Counterpoint, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 5

Summary:  After being recompleted, Ienzo vows to do everything in his power to atone for the atrocities he committed in the past. But this life hasn't been easy, and he's plagued with memories and nightmares. When Demyx suddenly reappears, the two discover that they have more in common than they thought, though the secrets in their past might tear them apart. Zemyx (Demyx/Ienzo), post kh3

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

For the next day--for the next several, actually, it was so hard to tell time in this lab--Ienzo worked tirelessly. He read through the backlogs of the apprentices’ original research, thousands of pages of it, examining and cross-examining psychological and chemical experiments alike. There had been, in total, some hundred subjects, not counting those who had been deemed outliers or had gotten turned away at the beginning. One hundred people.

He knew better than to eat before he worked. He drank tea with extra honey to keep up his blood sugar and willed himself to feel numb.

The first dozen or so subjects had been volunteers, and unrelated to one another. After that, there were some pairs, a mother and son, friends. The first twenty or so had samples taken, were asked some questions about their life experiences and their relations to one another, and then the results were studied. This was the more-or-less harmless beginning.

There were physiological correlations for the existence of bonds between hearts. Heart rates would nearly synchronize, especially between family members or lovers or anyone who had bonded for many years, rather than just friends or those in strained relationships. Rates of oxytocin and dopamine were generally higher, and people were generally happier and more well-adjusted.

It was around then they started getting cocky. To put it mildly.

If the strength of bonds could make someone happy, what would happen if they were to break?

Or if a person had no bonds--did that make them more unstable?

They started to keep subjects longer, overnight, then for weeks on end, in those awful hollow cells in the lab’s basement. There was fear, panic, and this made it all the easier for the loaded questions to stick. Rather than build people up, this psychology tore them down.

Soon after the first Heartless was born from them. This person had been a young woman, and she’d screamed and screamed for hours before finally succumbing to the darkness within.

Ienzo remembered feeling scared. And to a degree the others had too, but they hadn’t backed down. They interpreted it as another discovery about human nature.

He closed out of the files briefly and rested his head in his hands. This felt like torture. But if he could only find some insight, he might be able to use this pain to help Sora. If only he had samples from Sora and Riku, or Sora and Kairi. If the trace was there, physically, there might be some way to induce a sleep that would allow Riku to connect with Sora, something akin to what had happened during the Mark of Mastery exam. But how? He had no magic to perform such rituals, and to do so medically was dangerous.

He felt like he was back at square one. Ienzo stood, noting the tremor in his knees. Firstly, he needed to eat and take care of his body. He could figure out the rest once he was stable.

He did so, was able to keep down a meal and sleep for a few hours. His circadian rhythm was hopelessly off; it was the middle of the day. For some reason his teeth were chattering, even though he wasn’t cold, and he knew he needed a break from this project before it started to worsen his own psychological state. Yet to do nothing and purely rest would be a bad idea. He needed distraction.

Ienzo went back to the study room and sat on the bench. It was uncomfortable, he noted, not that he was after comfort. He opened the first page of the score. He could only read treble clef, and not very well; he had to mutter a quick mnemonic under his breath to orient himself. The metering was odd, too, with the sixteenth note carrying the beat. He tried to count it out. Did it work rhythmically with his translation? It was really only the written language that evolved, the actual words had remained mostly the same when spoken.

Ienzo could not seem to get it right. Playing the keys felt awkward, though he could remember Dilan once remarking he had pianist’s fingers.

“You going ahead without me?” Demyx’s voice startled him. He smiled slightly.

“Oh, Demyx. No. Not quite. I just… I was trying to figure out the rhythm of a phrase. It changes the meaning of the characters in my translation, which changes the meaning of… just about everything.” He set his head in his palms. “I’d basically have to start over.”

“How long have you been at this?” Demyx asked. “It… seems like you’re pretty tired.”

Ienzo blinked, then looked out the window. The sky was pink. “...Quite some time,” he admitted. “I… tend to lose track.”

Demyx sat next to him on the bench. “Which section do you mean?”

“This little bit here. See?” He touched the measure in question. Ienzo played the phrase, and he saw from Demyx’s grimace that he’d had it completely wrong. “I can’t for the life of me count it out correctly. I… should have waited for you.” In a moment of exhaustion, he considered confessing what he’d been up to. He didn’t want to bear it alone, but why should he burden Demyx? Their relationship was tenuous as it was.

He held out his hand, unbandaged. The scar was red, but it seemed to be healing well. Ienzo was struck with the odd urge to run his finger over it. He hadn’t seen a naturally healed wound in a long time. That had to be why, right?  “Well, you’re in luck. I’m all healed up. Even took out the stitches. Let me see. Oh, right. I remember this.” He wrinkled his nose. “It’s the meter. 29/16ths.”

Ienzo did not know what that meant. “Beg pardon?”

Demyx rolled his eyes a little. “I know, right? God, at least make it an even number. 30/16ths would be so much easier to count. And they’re short measures, too, that all bleed into each other. It’s so…”

“Chaotic,” they said at the same time.

Suddenly, Demyx looked shy. “Well, it sounds kind of more like this.” He played through the bridge with more fluidity than Ienzo had. “I’m sure on the actual sectioned instrument it would be completely different. And that would be…” He thumbed through the pages, seeking the same phrase. “...This one. And it’s got a treble clef, which means your options are really, really open. ...What’s this?” He gestured to the rune next to it.

“They’re letters. Let me see.” Ienzo checked the dictionary. “My guess would be either an F or an S. Runes are, for whatever reason, pretty phonetically similar to our language now. If I had to start my studies all over again I think I would focus on linguistics. It’s just so delightfully complicated, and it really reveals a lot about human psychology how words and roots formed--” Goodness, he was rambling. He cut himself off. Linguistics was one of his favorite subjects in private study, but it had never applied to anything he’d done as an apprentice. It left it untainted.

Demyx’s brows furrowed. “An F? But it could mean flute, but that would mean it transposes higher, and that… feels off.” He played the notes in octave. “But if it’s an S… what could it be?”

Ienzo went back to his translation from several days previously. “Dawn. That’s the first character. So, if I’m correct at all, the first phrase is “Dawn town.” Maybe’s more like “Dawn, Town,” with a comma. Maybe it’s more of an action line. But that’s not the correct participle.”

With an unreadable expression, Demyx said, “Daybreak Town.”

“I’m sorry?”

He shook his head. “Not dawn. Daybreak. The rhythm wouldn’t fit.” He played it again. “It fits with “Daybreak”.”

That was absolutely correct, Ienzo realized. With a little jolt, he realized that, here with them working at about the same level of competency, he was having fun with Demyx. It had been a long while since he’d found this sort of eager ease in his research. The pain of the past few days dissipated a little. “You’re right. That’s so apt. Daybreak Town. I wonder what that is. Is it poetic license? A place? I’ve no clue.” He stood up and started poring through geography books. “Perhaps there’s a reference to it in some sort of history…” The sunlight was fully through the window now, warm as it grew weaker.

When Ienzo looked back up, he saw Demyx staring at him with an puzzled look.

“You’ve an odd expression on your face. Is everything okay?”

Demyx jumped a little. “Yeah, uh, fine.” He cleared his throat. “You seem pretty passionate about this kind of stuff.”

“Passionate?” He paused. Yes, that was right. “Yes. I suppose. I’ve never defined it at such, but I… I always feel most myself when I’m in my research. Making connections.”

Demyx nodded and sat forward a little. “I know what you mean. That’s how I feel when I make my music. Like… I’m part of something worth something. Like I have…”

“Purpose,” Ienzo said. “I refuse to believe things are meaningless.”

“I find you easier to talk to than Zexion,” Demyx said. “Why is that?”

The comment made him feel weak. Was it possible Ienzo was wrong? Could he ever leave behind Zexion’s darkness? “He and I are… not the same,” he said. “Every day I’m working harder to be a better person, to make up for all of the terrible choices I’ve made. It is… exhausting.” He looked away. He wondered if he should bring it up, this anxiety they had so in common, but decided against it. “You are different as well. I know it’s still hard to realize this.”

He shook his head. “The others don’t either. I just wonder how much of our Nobody selves were made of bad memories. I mean… I was a complete asshole. The way I treated Roxas--” He trailed off, turning pink. Was it possible he felt regret?

“It’s unfortunate there’s no way to quantify what you mean,” Ienzo said. “There must be purchase in it. If you’ve no conscience, no empathy, it’s easy to make bad decisions. Because none of it matters. I don’t want to live like that any more. Now that I’ve a choice.” It seemed like a revelation to him. Was Zexion psychologically different enough that he was not entirely to blame? But--what about when he was a child?

“Me either,” Demyx said quietly.

This commonality found, Ienzo drummed his fingers on the piano bench. “Hopefully this research will shed some light on the past,” Ienzo said. “Shall we get back  to work?”

The next morning, Demyx was late. Ienzo was disappointed, but not surprised. He tried to push through a few more of the lyrical lines.

With yesterday’s context, the first line became Daybreak Town is a fucking mess. Was it some sort of self-deprecating folk song? But considering how chaotically the song began, Ienzo wondered if it were more of a tone poem.

More fights breaking out. That line was simple enough. Keys and sparks flying everywhere. By “keys”, did they mean Keyblades? What else could they mean?

While Ienzo puzzled this, Demyx came in quietly. He was pale, his face drawn, and he clutched one elbow in self-support. He started rehearsing quietly, his playing not as fluid or as perfect as before. Ienzo bent back over his book. He considered asking if something was wrong, but if it were, what could he say in reassurance?

“Do you ever have nightmares?” Demyx asked so suddenly it startled him.

“Well… I suppose to a degree. Everyone does at some point or another. Why is it you ask?”

“I had a really bad one last night and I can’t get it out of my mind. It just… it felt so real,” he said.

So that was why he was so shaken. Ienzo turned towards him. “What was it about?”

Demyx shuddered. He spoke haltingly, in a low, restrained voice unlike his normal patter. “I was in the Keyblade Graveyard. There were… so many bodies in armor… cut up… bleeding… completely dismembered… The Keyblades were everywhere. There was so much blood in the dirt that it was muddy, and red.”

Ienzo considered this. These dreams were terrible, but unfortunately a price to pay for surviving Xehanort. “Perhaps this is a manifestation of survivor’s guilt, because you weren’t one of the true vessels, and thus, didn’t perish in battle. It’s a natural psychological response. We internalize trauma differently as humans.”

He hugged himself more tightly. “Trauma? Do you think I’m traumatized?”

Surely he didn’t think this behavior was normal for humans? “In all likelihood, yes. I’m not qualified by any means to make that diagnosis, but considering what you’ve been through--and by extension, the rest of us--some sort of post-traumatic stress is not uncalled for.”

“I just want it to not bother me.” His voice dropped to almost nothing.

Ienzo frowned, knowing that sensation all too well. “I’m sure. If there was something I could do to help you, I would. Unfortunately, there’s no easy cure. You just must remind yourself that the pain you feel is illogical, and it will pass. The best key to these things is usually reason.” It wasn’t much help, but it was something he could offer.

“Always one of my strong suits,” he said dryly.

“You just need something to center yourself,” Ienzo said. He was aware of how artificial he sounded, and he hated it. “Something you can hang onto when these moments come.”

Demyx’s eyes met his. “Do you experience the same thing?”

Right. He was sharper than they’d given him credit. There was a reason Demyx had been largely in charge of reconnaissance. “For many years. Even before the Organization.”

Demyx hesitated. “What happened to you?”

Ienzo froze. He didn’t have to tell him, but at the same time, part of him wanted to. “You know I was very young when Ansem the Wise took me in.”

He shrugged. “Yeah. Of course.”

Ienzo took a deep breath. “Do you know why that is?”

“I just figured you were that smart.”

It was so much easier not to make eye contact. “You flatter me. ...My parents passed away when I was a child. It was… not natural.” Maybe if he said it quickly, he could get it over with.

Demyx turned towards him more fully, a sad, knowing expression on his face. “Heartless?”

“No. Heartless were not as common then. There was another type of monster, one created from negative emotions. We know now that they come from Ventus’s counterpart, Vanitas. But then… they were everywhere. I was actually coming from here… this very castle… with both of my parents. It was open to the public then. And… well. There was a swarm.”

The memories to him were very vague, cauterized by time and trauma. He remembered more having the story explained to him than experiencing it.

“Both of my parents passed. I only survived because Aeleus was on duty and stepped in. I’ve still got the scars.” It felt odd, but not entirely uncalled for, to show Demyx the scars at the top of his shoulder. They’d stretched and whitened as he’d grown, and often he forgot they were there.

It was then Ienzo became aware of how closely they were sitting; there was little enough space. Demyx lightly brushed his fingers against the scars. Ienzo flinched at the unexpected touch. “I’m sorry,” Demyx said quickly. “I wasn’t thinking. And, um. I’m sorry about your parents, too.”

He fixed his shirt. “I don’t remember much of them, even now. But you see. When you insist I cannot understand… I understand better than you know.”

“Yes,” he said.

For a moment they held eye contact. Ienzo could still feel what it had been like to have these scars touched, the slight calloused scratch. A feeling he could not recognize bloomed within him. Whatever it was scared him. He glanced over at the clock and noted with relief that it was getting late. “It’s about time for me to start making dinner. You’ll join us, right?”

“Right,” he said. Ienzo left. In his pockets, his hands trembled.

Ienzo had always thought he understood emotion, at least from a purely literal perspective. This is sadness. This is fear. This is anger. And so on.

What was it he was feeling?

Whatever it was it was strong, and he could feel it under his skin, all too warm and alive. It was not necessarily unpleasant. The only anxiety he was experiencing came from the unknown.

After dinner, he sat in his bedroom and tried to puzzle it out. It had happened when Demyx touched his old Unversed scars. Ienzo ran his fingers over them experimentally but felt nothing but skin. The last time he’d been touched by anyone else--Ansem, when he was sick--he’d felt an odd revulsion. What was so different about Demyx’s touch? This was, he realized, the second time he’d felt this emotion, not the first; it had been there last week when he’d stitched his hand. And again when he’d watched him play piano.

Ienzo’s breathing hitched. He let himself remember having the scars touched, and felt a soft pulse of the emotion, like light.

He got up and crossed over to his bookshelf. He pulled out the old dictionary and riffled the thin, brittle pages until he found what he was looking for.

Longing, n; a strong desire especially for something unattainable. See also: pining, passion, lust.

Was it even possible?

He put the dictionary away and sat on his bed, shaking all over. The panic made him dizzy. Somehow or another these feelings had grown within him against all awareness, bright and sharp and piercing. Ienzo wanted--

That’s what it was. He wanted the unknown. And he wanted Demyx to be in it with him.

“Oh, fuck,” he said.

[mysticsparklewings]

Watercolor Kitty

Look, paint!   So not that long ago I more or less made the decision with myself that I wanted to branch out into watercolor. I've been avoiding the world of painting for a while because...I mean, have you guys seen that gigantic rabbit hole of supplies to pick through, for one thing?? Beyond that, just overall my past experience and knowledge of paint up until this point hasn't been that inspiring. (I'm going to describe past experience now, but in small text so if you're not interested you can just skip it.) For starters, it wasn't until like halfway through high school that I finally understood there were even different kinds of paint that behave differently, and I did not learn that from art class, either. I'm not sure when and where exactly, but I found out on my own and was like, why were we never taught this. A thought I still have regularly, I might add. You'd think that would be a pretty high-ticket item in art classes past Elementary school. All of my watercolor experience until recently was contained within my elementary and middle school years. The colors were always super washed out and even though at one point we went over techniques, we didn't actually get to use them more than like twice. And then high school art never addressed watercolors again. Other than that, I had heard the term "oil paint" thrown around, but I didn't really understand what it was. The closest thing I knew of was oil pastels, but that didn't help because they were like older cousins of crayons and not very paint-like at all. I have done a few things with acrylic in the past, but mostly solid backgrounds (or not very interesting school projects that never explained they were acrylic paints in the first place; it's paint just use it as instructed) in which I spent entirely too long trying to mix just the right color and enough of it, and then you have to bend over backward to keep the stuff from drying out. No thank you. Then last year I started my adventure in trying to recreate this thing called the Rainbow Sponge (and have done so to moderate success, but that's a conversation for another day) and in that process acquired some inks by Dr. Ph. Martin. When testing colors to make sure I was grabbing what I wanted, they reminded me of watercolors, and the general impression I got during that time (from experimenting and from researching) was that they pretty much were watercolors, the exception being that once they dried you couldn't re-activate them. (And they were purely liquid; most watercolors are either the little panned cakes or the more traditional "paint consistency" you find in tubes and apparently the liquid watercolors you find are usually dye-based instead of pigment based, so they behave slightly differently on paper.) After seeing a couple of Youtubers I trust try them, I decided to spoil myself with some commission money and ended up with this set of strange watercolor sheets, and even though I didn't know much about watercolor, I really liked them and the idea of a water brush instead of a traditional paintbrush and 50,000 trips to change paint water. Plus, by this time I had learned that watercolor doesn't have to be all totally washed-out pastels. Who knew, right? Somewhere in this mess, I was attuned to the idea of first the Derwent Inktense, ink-based pencils and watercolor pencils, which both came as side-effects of my deep-dive into the world of colored pencils. They both sounded intriguing--Pencils you can blend out with water to get rid of the streaks?? What??--and after I checked the Faber Castell Polychromos off my Art Supply Wishlist, watercolor pencils went next. The set of Arteza ones that I got, I like pretty well. After that, since I had at least two watercolor supplies I rather liked using enough though I didn't really know what I was doing, I figured I might start looking into gaining some knowledge on what to do with them. A couple of weeks ago I acquired a book called "Watercolor Workshop" by Sasha Prood because it instantly caught my attention for telling you on one page what to do with an example, and them providing you with a space to give a try for yourself, which is not something that is all that common to me in "how to X" books. This book made me want to procure a set of tube watercolors, and after some poking around on Amazon with a specific budget and requirements in mind, I ended up with a 24 set by Crafts 4 All and an empty travel palette by Meedan to put them in. (As I've come to understand it, this seemed like the best route to go for tube colors; I know myself too well to trust just squirting the paint onto a regular palette every time and not wasting it, especially when it comes to mixing colors, so I went the route of putting some paint in little half-pans and letting them dry to hopefully prevent that.) I won't go too much into detail like a review of that set of watercolors or my tube-to-pan process here, because I want to play with the paints some more to get a better feel for them before I truly sing their praises or condemn them, but so far they're actually working out a lot better than I thought they would, considering they were pretty inexpensive. So far my biggest complaints are A. I'm not crazy about the smell, as it's a pretty "industrial" scent, but I get the feeling a "paint smell" is relatively unavoidable; and B. I wish there were more colors. The range in the 24 set feels pretty balanced out (though one more purple wouldn't have hurt), I just wish there were more in total. (And for all I know they sell a bigger set, I haven't looked into it, but this isn't really a bad thing; I like what I've seen so I want more.) As is maybe obvious, I meant for this to go up closer to Valentine's Day, but my palette didn't come in until the day after, I had to wait at least a day after that for the paints to dry out, and I can only paint so fast. (I had the sketch done on like the 12th, I think, and the line art on watercolor paper on the 13th). And by then I had a couple of other pieces backlogged, so since I had missed my holiday window, I figured I'd just post it at the next available opportunity. (And after I got off my lazy bum to write this description ) I was inspired by some very red-furred kitties on Pinterest for colors and I've been trying to get a bit into hand-lettering, though I didn't get too fancy with that here because I mostly just wanted to play with the paint and see what I could do (and I was also putting a new set of Sakura Gelly Rolls to the test on just how waterproof they were--fortunately they passed!). It's going to be tricky to break my habit of how I like to usually blend and shade with my other supplies, as watercolors just don't behave the way markers and pencils do, but as I said earlier, these were working to my liking much better than I had expected. My little fluffy kitty here isn't perfect, but I do think she turned out quite cute. I was trying to avoid using my other supplies to really let the watercolors breathe and do their thing, but I did have to add a gold border with a Pentel Sparkle Pop because it just needed something. The only real issue with this piece I ended up having is that the physical copy has a nice stain where at some point I wasn't careful with waving my brush around and got a little blop of yellow ochre paint near the bottom right corner. I lifted off what I could, but apparently, I had not noticed it for long enough it did get to settle in a little. Fortunately, I was able to crop it out on the scan, though! I do have one other art piece ready to go for Wednesday, but beyond that, I am hoping to do more with these watercolors and I should have some new supplies coming in the mail this week with a couple of planned test-pieces in mind. (Does anyone else just get this relieved sort of exhilaration from getting new supplies? No? Just me? ) (Also I'm mostly trying to get into a consistent upload pattern, even though I keep missing a couple days here and there ) ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram