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アゲハの夢

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Friendly reminder to not feed the trolls. You don't have to give that person any attention.

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You have to remember touhou characters are assholes. Many of them are very mean. Do not forget.

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[GMT +8:00] It's Wednesday! Suwako shows up to Sanae, where she just finished the special Valentines day Chocolate! They seem ready to visit the Kappas for mass production... Please look forward to Valentines day!

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love her design but drawing her is hell

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A portrait of Remilia

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Im gonna be replacing the laptop fans, but for the laptop's safety I won't be using it until I can replace the fans.

Sucks but at least I know I can keep using it.

No programming anything until the weekend probably. Ooooooof.

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Laptop recovery failed! My right fan still sounds like it's trying to kill itself after my cleaning attempts.

I can't let it stay like this, I'm gonna have to call my local repair shop.

Please don't be an expensive fix I don't have money :(

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I've played a game called "Cursed to Golf" recently, and I think that game might be the best example of a game that is held back by being a roguelike.

It's a 2D golf game. I'm gonna break down the non-roguelike mechanics before I go over everything else. You have access to 3 clubs. The driver, iron, and wedge. No putting. This is likely due to the fact that the game is a side scroller.

The image here gives a good example of what the golf courses look like. Levels are laid out almost like 2D platformer stages. There's a lot of height, terrain, obstacles and platforms to navigate with the ball. You're not just worrying about water and bunkers out here!

Like normal golf rules, you must get the ball into the hole with as little swings as possible. Unlike normal golf, you must score at least Par to complete the level. Essentially, you have a hard limit on the maximum amount of swings you can do before it's game over. Due to this, you're heavily encouraged to scope out the whole level and figure out the best path to victory. Hopefully you have the execution skill to perform the path you chose! (In a way, it's both a puzzle game and a precision game)

To help assist you, you're also given a small deck of cards. Cards can do a whole variety of things like give the ball special properties, open up new paths, give you a practice swing, and more! Your deck will influence the path you try to take throughout the course as you may be able to skip entire sections if you have the right card!

Cards are of course a randomized element, so we're in roguelike territory now. The mechanics so far work pretty well, but this game has to be a roguelike. What does it need to be a "roguelike"?

Levels must be procedurally generated

Permadeath. You lose everything and start from the beginning if you fail. (In this case you lose your deck)

Equipment is obtained randomly (again, this is your deck)

I wouldn't say the cards create the problem here, so I won't discuss them too much. The problem is the procedural generation.

Each level in this game is a randomized course. Normally, a "Par" is about 2-5 swings depending on the golf course. The game keeps this number (it starts you with 4 swings), but procedurally generating levels that must be beaten within 4 swings can be tough. Not to mention that this game is a side-scroller. How do you approach this?

Chuhai Labs (the developer) has a tile-based approach to this. The terrain is blocky due to this, but it makes procedural generation much easier. However, the randomization isn't tile-by-tile. Instead, there are tons of pre-built sections that are stitched together to create the course! I can't confirm this since I haven't played it enough, but each of these sections probably require 1 to 3 swings.

We have run into our first problem: The procedural generation needs space. By that I mean, if a level must be beaten within 4 swings you would be extremely restricted with what you can put together. Cards can't be taken into account because there's no way of knowing what cards a player will have. Forcing the use of cards is a no-go. With these restrictions, the variety in the level design could easily become boring. So Chuhai Labs went bigger, but how do you make bigger levels with only 4 swings maximum?

There's a mechanic I didn't mention: statues. There are special statues scattered all over every level. Hitting a statue grants you more swings. This is a really good way to address the issue with a boring level by increasing the size of levels. With the statues, you can implement level design that requires card use. If the player lacks the card, then you can create a route with statues that will give them more swings! You can even introduce high-risk routes with little to no statues. Now the player needs to figure out which route works best for their gameplan. and this challenges their navigation because they MUST hit the statue if they don't want to run out of swings.

This is good, but as a result, every pre-built section made for the procedural generation must get bigger. They have to take alternate routes into account. This makes the levels fairly large, and golf is already a slow game. This is a roguelike that can't be beaten in 4 hours easily. You might be spending 7 or more hours to reach the end of all 18 levels. Most players will likely need multiple gaming sessions to get to the end of the game, and since it's a rogue-like, failure means starting it aaaaalllll over.

Okay, not the end of world. Roguelikes are heavily punishing already. The player should be able to handle it. The level design changes every run so each attempt will be unique!

More problem: the player's tactics do not change. Despite the level design changing for every attempt, the player never needs to change their approach to the gameplay. It's golf. You want to make it to the end with as few swings as possible. That's the puzzle. The cards can certainly help you in a pinch and even give you access to different routes, but the player is not that incentivized to use them. Instead, they're incentivized to stockpile them to save them from mistakes.

The statues could have been used to force the player into maybe making a risky shot for the safety of getting more swings, but they're mainly used to extend the level so it has the space to use a variety of level design to the player. The player already needs to hit them, so statues can't stray too far from their main role.

Okay, that's fine the level desi-

Uh oh more problems: The level design fails to be engaging. What? But it's procedurally generated! It changes every time!! The statues are there to make it more interesting!!! All true, but each pre-built section in the procedural generation needs to account for the player lacking the cards to engage with certain setups. It must account for how many card-less swings are required to make it through the section. Sections must conform to having entrances/exits since without them they can't be pieced together. Despite all the cool mechanics and obstacles that exist in the game, individual levels cannot be distinct. They all blend together like a blob.

To combat this, the game has different environments the further you go, but they basically amount to a new tile set and obstacle set. The difficulty ramps up with the type of obstacle being used in the procedural generation, which is nice, but you have to get there. As usual with the roguelike genre, the game is difficult. When you get sent back to the beginning either through a knowledge check or poor execution, you're back in familiar territory.

After just a couple runs, the level design has already shown its hand to you. The only way to experience anything new is by progressing further. Unfortunately, progression is a slog. Failing even once means spending hours in levels you have already "solved". You know how to approach the obstacles now, and you know how to navigate a particular tile-set, but you gotta do it again.

The appeal of a roguelike comes from the spontaneity of every attempt. Each run IS different due to the layout and equipment heavily influencing every moment in gameplay. It's hard to adapt this idea to golf. Golf is about the precision and navigation of a course. You need to figure what tool is most appropriate for each swing and be able to land the ball exactly where you want it to land. It's a score-chasing sport, but that aspect is removed in Cursed to Golf to conform to roguelike ideology. Yet, you never have to change how you golf no matter how much you have to change your navigation.

I rambled a ton, but I haven't really got to my main point here. What if Cursed to Golf wasn't a roguelike? What if it was just an arcade golf game? You're no longer restricted by anything in the level design. Each course can challenge something specific and you can even have strange layouts that wouldn't quite work with procedural generation.

Alternate routes can still require cards. A player can strategize their deck now that they know courses. Players will also be able to practice a course. On their first encounter they may keep it safe, but on a different run they might go for riskier plays to achieve a better score. Players are no longer incentivized to stockpile cards as much since they won't be as heavily punished.

You can afford to make smaller courses to lower the run-time of each attempt. You won't have to worry about overexposing a player to a certain aspect of your level design.

I didn't mention this, but there are boss levels where you play against a character in this game. What if instead of needing to beat enough levels to reach them, you can play against them for a certain amount of holes. Instead of beating them in one level where you reach the hole first, the goal instead is to get a better total score than them over the course of several levels. You can move on to the next environment after defeating the boss score.

This progression would feel miles better compared to the roguelike progression Cursed to Golf is working with. Plus, it would allow the level design to have way more freedom now that it doesn't have to be procedurally generated.

This isn't me saying, "Cursed to Golf sucks!" by the way. Rather, I'm saying many of its flaws are inherit to its choice to be a roguelike with its style of gameplay. The gameplay itself is pretty fun, my problem lies with its structure. There's other roguelikes that encounter this problem for me, but Cursed to Golf has been the best example I've encountered so far.

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A Feminist Reading of Junko Touhou

The following is a slightly reworked thread I posted to the Everything App last year, using Euripides' Medea as a device to explore how Junko Touhou (from Touhou) subverts our expectations of stories of women seeking revenge.

One of the reasons I adore Junko and why her story features so heavily in my art is because of how she subverts the typical portrayal of female rage and revenge in literature and media. I often see her as Euripides' Medea-if-she-was-fucking-awesome. Traditionally, 'female rage' is depicted as something rooted in romantic betrayal, often directed at a man who has been unfaithful, with his mistress also falling victim to the scorned woman's wrath. While feeling anger over infidelity is obviously valid, literature often acts as though this is the most intense pain a woman can feel, as though it is the only justifiable reason for her to unleash her rage and seek revenge. Even when it comes to the loss of a child, stories frequently assign the role of avenger to the father, while the mother is left to express her grief in a quiet, restrained manner, expected to endure rather than act.

Junko completely rejects that mold. While her grudge is initially directed at Hou Yi, a man, it has nothing to do with romance, infidelity, or rejection (at least in Touhou canon; her mythological origins vary). She isn't heartbroken over love; she is a mother whose child was taken from her, and she is out for revenge, pure and simple. And once Hou Yi is out of the picture, her rage turns to Chang'e, not because of a petty rivalry, not because of beauty, not because of a man, but because she needs to avenge her son at any cost. There is no underlying romantic narrative, no love triangle, no traditional "woman scorned" trope. Her rage is unfiltered and all-consuming.

What makes Junko's depiction even more striking is that her grief and rage are not presented in a way that is easy to digest. They are not subtle, delicate, or aesthetically pleasing. They are messy, relentless, and brutal. Even her danmaku lacks beauty. It reflects the rawness of her pain, an expression of fury that refuses to be softened or romanticised. Junko does not conform to the palatable, almost sanitised versions of female vengeance often depicted in media, where anger is neatly packaged into clever manipulation or quiet suffering. Instead, she embodies something far more visceral and real.

There is something deeply relatable about Junko’s need for revenge, particularly for anyone who has ever experienced loss or injustice. Her rage seems directionless to those who haven't felt that kind of grief. After all, Chang’e didn’t personally kill her son. And yet, if you’ve ever suffered a wrong so profound that the thought of seeing the perpetrator go unpunished feels unbearable, Junko’s quest makes perfect sense. Justice is not always attainable, and the idea of having to simply accept that reality is its own kind of hell. Junko exhausted every possible avenue for vengeance, and ultimately, her pursuit is futile. The one person who remains as a final target for her rage cannot even be killed. And even if she could kill Chang’e, it would never bring her son back. Her story is a bleak but brutally honest portrayal of grief: there is no true resolution, no catharsis, just the endless, aching persistence of loss.

Her identity is almost entirely consumed by this loss. The idea of grief shaping or even erasing identity is something worth exploring on its own, but in Junko’s case, it is clear that she has stripped herself down to nothing but vengeance. In many ancient cultures, particularly in antiquity, a woman’s identity was intrinsically tied to her role as a mother. When Junko lost her son, she lost not only him but also the identity that had previously defined her. And yet, instead of fading into obscurity or assuming a different role, she reconstructed herself around her grief and her fury, becoming something entirely new, something purely vengeful, purely wrathful.

This is where the connection to Medea feels so strong. One of the reasons Medea is often regarded as a ‘feminist’ work is that she does not meet the expected tragic end for a woman who enacts revenge. She does not get sent to hell, does not beg for forgiveness, she isn't put back in her place by her husband. Instead, she ascends, outwitting Jason and becoming something greater in the process. In much the same way, Junko’s rage does not destroy her. It transforms her. Her purification and ascension into a divine spirit mirror Medea’s ascension. Her wrath does not lead to her downfall, it's the very thing that elevates her. That is such a subversive and powerful way to depict a woman’s quest for revenge.

Sometimes I feel guilty for always drawing Junko suffering, but there is so much depth and untapped potential in her character. Her story is so much more than finding a neat resolution to grief or a moral lesson about the perils of holding a grudge. i love you Junko touhou ❤️❤️❤️

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Ain't no way Facebook gets away with profiting from piracy while the Internet Archive is struggling to survive after briefly doing piracy for no profit.

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So I watched Natsume Yuujinchou

or "Natsume's Book of Friends" for the English title.

I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It's a real nice slice of life anime. I'm writing this as of watching season 1 and I'm absolutely going to continue watching this one.

Anyway what's it about? Youkai! Easy way to hook me in immediately. If you involve youkai (or similar folklore creatures) in a story I'm immediately interested. Even so, despite my strong bias on the subject matter, I promise it's done very well.

The titular character, Natsume, is a highschooler born with the ability to see and interact with youkai. Growing up while being able to see supernatural phenomena while everyone else can't was rough for him. (If you don't know what youkai are, think of Natsume's situation like being able to see ghosts.) His parent's weren't even sure how to deal with him and sent him off to their relatives instead of raising the child themselves.

Natsume's character is defined by his isolation, but also by the few people he has met that has shown him real kindness. His current family earnestly cares about him, but he hides the fact that he can see youkai from them, as he does with everyone. He has learned that doing so will lead to isolation, but ironically hiding what he can see isolates him from other people as well.

However, Natsume's ability isn't unique to himself. His grandmother could also see youkai, and she's infamous for creating the "Book of Friends." This book contains the names of tons of youkai, and with that book, you can essentially control any youkai whose name is written in it. For a long time Natsume would have to deal with some youkai targeting him, and this was why. Having now learned that he has his grandmother's book, Natsume resolves to return the names of youkai.

Why?

Well watch the show. I could sit here and summarize it, but that doesn't make for a good review. The story....or at least season one of the story....focuses on that theme: isolation. It's not just Natsume, but many of the youkai he encounters that deal with it in their own ways. As a result, each episode ends on a pretty bittersweet note.

Isolation comes in many forms; loss, rejection, protection, selfishness, resentment, and much more. People, and in this case, youkai experience it in many ways, but instead of wallowing in its own despair, this anime focuses heavily dealing with it positively.

I appreciate this anime's willingness to show very sad situations and the characters involved are pretty mature about it. I can imagine this anime helping actual people deal with their own struggles with isolation.

Now, that's not this anime's only theme. It would be fairly shallow if that's all it had to say. You got some action, comedy, and drama here or there. There's some nice character development going on as well. I really like how the show is written overall.

I wouldn't say its at a "masterpiece" quality since there are definitely some jumps in logic that happens sometimes. It definitely makes some poor excuses to set up certain scenes, but I can't complain too much. These issues only show up for a few episodes.

Speaking of the episodes, they're all self-contained. There's a linear narrative of course, but every episodes concludes itself and does not inform what happens in the next episode. This made it strangely hard to binge for me since there isn't a hook to keep you watching. I loved the show, but each episodes ends on such a satisfying note I want to do something else and come back to it later. Weird.

Anyway, Brain's Base was animating this one! Y'know these guys really take on a wide variety of stuff huh? Natsume is an interesting one since it's both very laid back and has some action. I wouldn't say Brain's Base went particularly crazy here, but you can see the effort put into a lot of shots. The animation looks good, but it's humble. Nothin real fancy going on, but the visual direction does a great job at conveying this story.

I have a feeling this is one of the shows Brain's Base is proud of, and it's successful too! This anime goes on for several more seasons and I'm pretty excited to keep going with it.

What's real crazy is that I've never heard anyone talk about this anime before. This is good! Real good! I highly recommend this to anybody, even if you have never seen anime before. It's rare that I get to say that because there's usually some caveat to an anime that makes it hard to recommend to anybody, but there's nothing to worry about here! It's good, great even.

Maybe it just couldn't reach a large western audience. It is dealing with youkai after all. That's a shame, but hey, it doesn't mean you can't watch it now! Give it a try!

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Trying to save up on money, but I'm gonna get screwdrivers tomorrow. I gotta save my laptop!

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There's something in my laptop's fans but I don't have the equipment to properly fix it. There are screws I cannot turn. Aaugh. I literally had the right equipment before and now it's suddenly gone!? I probably shouldn't use my laptop right now, but I need to if I want to do anything I actually want to do.