#I definitely felt like I learned some things from trial and error

[floorpancakes]

princess in my head

happy belated birthday saki my cute sparkly darling fluffy frilly beloved fictional bestie please eat all of the desserts and wear all of the pretty dresses as is your right <3

#art jumpscare #idolmaster sidem #idolmaster #idolm@ster #idolm@ster sidem #saki mizushima #mizushima saki #im@s #imas #eheh #as always check the og posts on twitter and tiktok at @ateliermelty #if you wanna #I worked so hard on this and the concept totally evolved into its own things #the colours and sparkles just kinda HAPPED I hope it’s not too obvious #can’t tell if it’s good too much or bad too much but technically speaking I think I did a rly good job! so that’s cool #I definitely felt like I learned some things from trial and error #funnily enough this was gonna be one of their rly cute official outfits but then I tripped over and designed something totally off the cuff #sakipyon my beloved #theyre so important to me #水島咲 #is it obvious that I hc saki as nb and I blacked out and my nb sleeper cell braincell just took over #charm points of this img r probably the seamless rainbow flowing out from the original one and the way I rendered the hair #am I using that word right i still don’t know what rendering actually is and I’m too scared to ask at this point

[florsial]

Slytherin Skittles HCs

I actually call them Hogwarts' Pantheon but the Skittles are a more recognizable name lol

-Pandora and Evan are twins (the classic)

-Pandora is a Hufflepuff which does not bode well for her family so Evan gets easily angered/protective if anyone even insinuates something derogatory about her being a Hufflepuff

-Evan and Regulus were friends first, meeting at a weird pureblood party and being attached at the hip since, during said party, Pandora took a liking to Bellatrix

-Someone has to explicitly tell Regulus he's coming to a hangout or else he won't show up, usually it's Barty

-Pandora and Evan are very precise about being on time

-Barty likes to spin them when they hug, and Regulus acts like he hates it (he doesn't)

-Privacy does not exist at all between them, there have been so many times when Pandora would waltz in while Barty and Evan are just making out or when Dorcas is changing, or when Regulus is trying to put on his trans tape (she usually steps in to help if needed)

On that topic:

Regulus is trans, use he/him, and gay/demi

Pandora is genderfluid, uses any pronouns, and bisexual

Dorcas uses she/they and lesbian/ace

Barty uses he/they/it and pan/cupioromantic

Evan uses he/him and aro/ace

Yes Evan and Barty are dating, ppl on arospec can still date 👌

okay that's it back to the main lol

-Evan is the tallest and Pandora is the shortest

-Dorcas has the best and most versatile singing, whatever you want she got it

-Evan is the one that has the most oversized clothes so everyone would casually snag a shirt or jumper here and there, it got to the point where people were questioning if his relationship with Barty was actually exclusive (that is if they were even dating or just fwb, they actually were but wheres the fun in that??), and Barty fueled the rumors by excessively flirting with everyone, Dorcas even played into it for shits and giggles. James and Lily held back on asking Regulus and Pandora out because of it, which Evan found hilarious

-For the twins' birthday, Barty, Dorcas, and Regulus made two flower crowns (through much trial and error) with only roses, Scottish green roses for Pandora and simple white roses for Evan

-Every time the Blacks and Rosiers are at the same pureblood event, Regulus makes a beeline for Evan

-Evan had a bit of a hard time accepting Regulus' relationship with James because he felt as if James wouldn't hesitate to leave Regulus over anything at any given time. it was only after hanging out with the Marauders for some time that he finally understood that wasn't the case

-Barty and Dorcas got their first tattoo together while drunk off their ass

-Dorcas likes to shorten their names for fun, Regulus is Reg, Pandora is Pan, Evan is Ev, and Barty is just Bart but he later made her change it so now it's BB, which Regulus doesn't think is much better

-Pandora would give her many rings to Dorcas and Regulus because steers them away from skin-picking

-Dance parties but it’s just them

-Sneaking out during the night and hanging out on rooftops and racing on brooms and intense gossip sessions

-Regulus knows about people’s drama before meeting them because Dorcas and Barty always forces everyone (Reg, Pan, and Ev) to listen to the shit about everyone

-Dorcas has the cutest outfits, and is definitely the best dressed in the group

-They are all pretty touchy with each other, kisses on the cheek, hugs that go on forever, handholding etc, especially Barty, though everyone understands not to do headpats on Reg or ruffle his hair (that’s reserved for Sirius)

-Pandora can get really aggressive when angry and often says things she doesn’t mean, she later apologizes though and they all learn to not take what she says when angry to heart

-Dorcas’ preferred method of anger is the silent treatment, idk it just fits

-Regulus prefers extreme temperatures, takes burning hot showers, drinks water that’s 80% ice, drinks tea with water straight from the kettle, he hates anything warm, so with that, he also hates cake because of it. To fix this, they all tried making ice cream cake, which came out as a disaster so when he found them he helped clean up the mess and Dorcas snuck off to buy one

-They never use magic when cleaning, Dorcas thinks it’s a good hangout time and thus makes them put their wands away and they play music and dance when cleaning

-Barty comes up with insane muggle theories and Dorcas fuels then knowing full well they are complete bs

-Dorcas loves drawing or painting Pandora, there is just something so mystical about her that makes the artwork so much more beautiful

-Barty and Regulus would bicker or argue in French and Italian respectively, Dorcas would throw in Spanish for shits and giggles

-They get weirdly sentimental during the night and they all agree to never speak about it the next morning

-Barty developed a habit of curling up on Reg’s lap when he’s crying or just upset in general and Evan would just run his fingers through his hair, Dorcas would just hold hand his hand, and Pan would comfort him verbally or talk about something to take his mind off it

-Dorcas gets the most expensive gifts from them

-Dorcas is very passionate about jewelry and will go on hour long talks about them, Evan listens very intently and takes mental notes

-Pandora actually has a box, a very decorative box she painted herself filled with photos, handmade jewelry, gifts, artwork, and letters all collected through the years

-Evan has a tendency of staring intensely at people talking to Pandora in an overly friendly or rude way (she knows he’s doing it)

-Since a portion of Regulus' hair is naturally blond (a hc of mine lol) Barty insisted that he dye it green for quidditch

-Barty has the hardest punch only because they wear rings but Dorcas can and will hit harder with her bare fist

-Regulus and Evan aren't ones for physical altercations, they prefer verbal attacks that are personal, these guys will burn down your family tree with their words alone and without any hesitation

-Pandora is very noticeable with her very colorful wardrobe, so at a party, Evan and Regulus always keep an eye out for bright splashes of pastels dresses within hoards of dark fabrics

-Pandora wears lots of jewelry and her presence is often noticed by the small sounds of bracelets clinking together

-They own a black snake that Dorcas just one day picked up and never let go, her name is Victoria, and she just hangs around

-Regulus does embroidery and has embroidered a personal handkerchief for everyone with their initials, Barty doesn't use his but instead keeps it as an accessory that is a prop for his dramatics

-Barty keeps a photobook filled with photos that he takes on a muggle camera, some of the photos he pins onto the curtain of his bed

-In fact, Barty keeps his bed oddly decorated, photos pinned into the curtains, strings of beads hanging on the top corners of the beds, stickers, and stuffed animals that Pandora and Regulus make, his bed is never clean

yea that's enough have a nice day

#marauders #slytherin skittles #slytherin #regulus black #dorcas meadowes #pandora rosier #evan rosier #barty crouch jr #the slytherin skittles #slytherin skittles hc #barty and regulus #evan and barty #evan and pandora #dorcas and pandora #regulus and barty and evan and dorcas and pandora #headcannons #harry potter #regulus and pandora #rosier twins #evan x barty #james x regulus #evan and regulus #i love them #rosekiller #jegulus #dead wizards from the 70s #dead gay wizards #marauders era

[odinsblog]

“Iggy Azalea is the walking embodiment of how white women will fetishize Black womanhood — from co-opting our speech and vernacular to paying thousands to replicate our physical aesthetics to birthing Black children — but will refuse to stand in solidarity with Black women.”

THAT part.

Not only is Iggy Azalea a culture vulture, but she also lied about having no contact with Tory Lanez because she mistakenly thought her sloppy ass letter wouldn’t be public.

Shoutout to Meghann Cuniff, the reporter who broke this story. She don’t miss 🎯

Iggy’s full letter (grammatical errors and all) beneath the page break.

👉🏿 https://www.legalaffairsandtrials.com/p/iggy-azalea-to-tory-lanezs-sentencing

Iggy Azalea’s full letter written to a Los Angeles judge prior to Tory Lanez’s sentencing, obtained by @meghanncuniff:

“Dear Honorable Judge Herriford,

I'm writing to you in regards to a case in your court.

My name is Iggy Azalea and I've been a successful musician for the last decade.

Ive sold over 65 million records throughout my career, had number 1 hits on the billboard hot 100 and broken records previously held by 'The Beatles'.

My music has been nominated for 6 Grammys and I have a multitude of other musical awards.

Throughout my career I've toured with some of the biggest acts in music: from Beyonce to Pitbull.

Ive also collaborated with everyone from Britney Spears to Jenifer Lopez. In short, like yourself, I'm great at what I do and I'm well respected by my peers.

Becoming successful is incredibly hard to do and maintaining success is even harder.

The music industry is not designed to empower Artists - especially not women.

You learn to expect misogyny at every turn, no matter how much you've personally achived.

Sadly I've spent my entire career battling sexism and bad behavior behind the curtains.

One unfortunate consequence of that is I am victim of abuse myself.

I must make note of the things ive suffered through so that you understand definitively:

I would not write to you on behalf of an abuser.

In fact, its the very reason I felt it imperative I share my viewpoint as a woman in music: in regard to Daystar Peterson.

You are presiding over his case and It would mean a great deal to me if you'd please let me share with you why "Tory Lanez" is far from your average entitled rap star.

I believe in justice and I know you do too. You've dedicated your life's work to it and I respect that deeply.

Thats why im taking my time to do this, because I know the person you are understands in order to truly conclude what a fair sentence is, You need better understanding of who the person you're sentencing IS at their core.

Judge Herriford, I was elated when I saw your name in relation to this trial because you have a reputation of being a very fair judge.

In fact its one of the reasons I was sadnned Daystar had subpar legal counsel and did not take the stand at his own trial.

We've all been frozen in fear before. The unfortunate side effect of his choice is he's been painted in the most unrecognizable way: to you, the jury and the public.”

And a big fuck you! to all the other sorry ass celebs who tried to excuse or minimize what Torey Lanez did and then tried to drag Megan Theee Stallion - The Shade Room, Drake, DJ Akademiks, Kelsey Nicole, EJ King, 50 Cent, LeBron James, Remy Ma, Meek Mills, 21 Savage, Tasha K, Joe Budden, Lil Baby, Kylie Jenner, Nicki Minaj

#megan thee stallion #iggy azealia #culture vultures #tory lanez #anti blackness #meghann cuniff #alabama people beater #misogyny #racialized misogyny

[blimbo-buddy]

Tallstar is Jake's boyfriend but also not. They both felt mutual attraction but they never took the next step so it's not official. They yearned but alas!

Tale I imagine has the similar markings to Tallstar but they're orange and white instead of being a tuxedo.

Tale is an adventurous little guy like his siblings and more interested in the clans than Rusty is if there were possible lol.

Rusty, Matilda, Filou, Tommy, and Luna are great older siblings to Tale and often play near the forest and in the fields.

Tale's favorite snack is Crickets!

The kingdoms have recipes they made.

One of the first things they did learn was that you can boil their kibble into water and soften it into a mush. They created stews and experimented with adding different things.

They recreated some human foods like desserts and bread.

They're evolving at a pace. A slow pace but considered the state they were at during Mapleshade's Vengeance timeline, they're a lot better than before lmao

What are some recipe ideas you have that cats would enjoy and make?

Ah, I see I see. I'd imagine the clans would not like it if one of their leaders was openly with a Kittypet. Man, imagining a scenario where TallStar ends up changing and he's like "Sorry babe but I don't yearn anymore lol I'm a true clan cat" and Jake's standing there cartoonishly clutching flowers trying not to cry.

Also I think that's neat with how Tale looks! I dunno why but I always thought orange and white looked the best with cats, especially if they're a very specific sort of orange. Reminds me of this stray cat who came by often and he was a really cool shade of orange with some white undersides, nick named him Creamsicle. I like Tale's older siblings being great like that and letting his adventuring nature run wild (with proper supervision of course), seems like Tale likes crickets because he found a cricket one time and didn't hesitate to crunch down on it.

Also gotta appreciate some good recipes that would be appealing to cats. Chop up some vegetables and boil in some bones and that's a perfect stew to sip on for when the days and nights start getting colder. The vitamins also help with cats who are sick, number 1 thing that you'd be recommended if you came down with a flu. I'd definitely imagine it took alot of trial and error to figure out what the cats can and can't eat when recreating human cuisines and desserts. They'd probably be shocked that humans don't drop dead from things that can easily kill an animal (Like mint).

I've mentioned them before but I got a few:

The crickets that are becoming a popular snack in Warriorclan/Present day Chelford

Dry cat food mixed with an egg or two, garnished with Rosemary. Simmered over medium heat

A buttery breakfast bun that is mildly sweet. Glazed with a thin layer of honey

Lots and lots of differing kinds of jerky. A nice, tough snack to chew on, helps keep your brain active too so that's a plus

Only ever accessible during winter season (Though there is also the option of stealing from freezers, but that's difficult 90% of the time), meat and fish ice pops for everybody!

For a delicious, crunchy or chewy starting dish: Dried, fried, or boiled bird's feet or rat/mouse tail. Twolegplace cats, like clan cats and outsider cats, value every single part of the prey item

Cooked bones that are cracked open so that the marrow inside can easily be slurped out

It's important to remember that the things that cats may enjoy, we as humans will see as gross. Cats in this case won't make the exact same food as we do, they'll most often than not have their own feline-twist to the dish that also falls in line with what they can and can't ingest. Though, that part's up to you if you want to have the Kittypet Kingdom cats evolve to grow stronger systems and become slightly more immune/unaffected to specific things that may make them fall ill

#blimbo rambles #ask #wc

[pahrak-the-sinnoh-slizer]

[Games in 2023: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective]

I was pleasantly surprised when the Switch port of Ghost Trick was announced: under-appreciated DS games are kinda my thing, this game’s stylized look conveyed a real sense of personality, and I’ve only ever heard good things from people who have played it.  “Why have I never played this before??” I asked myself, wracking my brain for the answer.  Then I played the demo and remembered “Oh yeah, I suck at puzzle games.”  But despite that, I still really wanted to see where things went, and boy am I glad I did!

Spoiler-free tl;dr: Ghost Trick is a wonderfully engrossing story about whacky characters uncovering insane plot twists that all build towards a satisfying and heartfelt conclusion.  I would recommend going in as blind as possible, but even without shock, the game is easily clever and fun enough to be a fantastic experience.

(Also content warning for animal death; the game is all about undoing deaths so it’s not permanent, but it can still be distressing to see it happen.)

The premise of Ghost Trick is simple yet creative: you play as a newly-dead ghost who has completely lost his memory, and must use your ability to possess and manipulate objects to solve this mystery and save the lives of the many characters you meet along the way.  The full narrative is anything but simple by the end, but I felt it was a steady, easy-to-follow escalation—though I have been told I have a high tolerance for plots involving time travel, so a grain of salt might be in order.  In my opinion it’s not especially hard to keep track of the game’s time shenanigans since you only ever go back 4 minutes before a person’s death to influence the situation in a way to avert their fate…until the very end, where you do learn a lot in a short time, and I could see a player struggling with that.

The style of the game really is impeccable.  Characters have very unique designs with bright colors and expressive actions, making it hard to mix anyone up despite how many people you meet over the course of the game.  Everybody makes a strong impression, and it’s easy to care about them and want to save their lives and find out how they tie back to the overall plot.  The connections between various characters are a bit tighter than you might expect going in, and it’s so much fun to steadily piece things together, each answer leading to only more questions.  There’s a point about halfway from which plot twists start to come one after the other, but instead of piling up, they come together, all building towards the same goal in a masterful manner.  It’s a very hard game to put down.

So, those puzzles!  I have to admit I was hesitant after struggling for the better part of an hour on one in chapter 2, but in the end I was able to solve all of them without looking up any answers!  It came real close a few times, and there was definitely an occasion or two where I stumbled into the right answer without realizing it, but hey, it counts.  The hints provided do a good job of leading you to the solution without just stating it, and can easily be ignored by players who don’t want their process interfered with.  I feel like I started to do a lot better once I started expecting I wouldn’t get everything right first try—don’t be afraid to do some trial and error.  The mechanics are sound: an item will clearly tell you how you can manipulate it if you can, and what items can be possessed are all easily identifiable whenever you enter the ghost world.  The trick (heh) most often is in getting the timing right, as you have a very limited range to “jump” between objects and can miss your chance completely if you don’t act fast while objects are in motion.  You’re explicitly taught this very early on, of course—the tutorial is very nicely structured, giving you all the information you need while a puzzle is unfolding around you with all the moving parts and tension you can expect all throughout the game.  The prison escape sequence stands out as a one-off with unique mechanics; it can be frustrating, as escort missions tend to be, but if you take it one step at a time it’s not too bad.  The only major addition to the basic structure is towards the end of the game where you gain a second ghost who can reach much farther, but in lieu of manipulating objects, he instead swaps the position of objects with the same shape.  It may only affect a handful of puzzles, but I think there’s a benefit to giving the player time to fully master the core mechanics before adding this new layer to things, and the possibilities it opens are well-utilized when they do come into play.  What tripped me up most often was needing to move each ghost to different objects out of each other’s way, since they can’t inhabit the same object; a minor annoyance, and quite possibly a skill issue on my part.

That’s essentially all there is to say on a mechanical level, so let’s talk more about the narrative.  The tone is largely playful but not afraid to be serious when it needs to be—you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be aghast in horror, etc.  Again, the plot is continually escalating and building more and more tension, quickly becoming too fascinating to put down, and the fact that it manages to stick the landing is no small feat.  It seems to me the moral of the story is selflessness: every character is shown to be in the wrong when only serving their own interest, yet when they do something with others in mind, the narrative consistently rewards them.  Sissel says his only real goal is finding his own memory, but what makes him the hero of this story is his willingness to use his abilities to solve others’ problems.  Cabanela is painted in a villainous light when it seems he cares only about his career ambitions, but when we find out this was a means to the end of helping Jowd, he’s presented as unequivocally a good guy.  Jowd may say he’s so eager to take the fall for Kamila’s sake, but when Sissel calls his methods out as ultimately selfish, he changes course and takes on an active role in resolving the night’s many mysteries.  Yomiel obviously embodies the selfishness the story is speaking against, but in the end, he makes the choice to do something selfless, and the narrative rewards him with a second chance. (More than that, the game wouldn’t have happened at all had he not brought Sissel with him to the junkyard; while perhaps not entirely selfless, I think it’s important to note that Yomiel’s path to a better future began with his desire to not leave his only friend all alone.)  It’s really cool to see this theme reflected in so many different ways across the cast!  And of course, the one who embodies the virtue of selflessness above all else is the top Pomeranian himself, Missile!  The very first time we meet him, he basically ignores the fact that he’s dead and instead prioritizes saving Kamila.  After he develops his powers, he makes the decision to remain dead so that he can use those powers to help Kamila and Lynne.  And at the very end we learn that he went back in time 10 years, and while waiting faithfully that entire time, he devised a brilliant and complex strategy to ensure Sissel’s cooperation in saving his family once and for all.  “Because that’s what doggies do!”  This whole wild ride that ends up saving so many lives was all possible purely due to the awesome, selfless love of a dog.  That’s beautiful.

It’s hard to think of any major criticism.  Ghost Trick is just really, really good.  It may be a few years overdue, but I’m really glad I finally got to experience this game!

#Ghost Trick #Games in 2023 #Game Night

[schismusic]

Ripping it up and starting again with Depeche Mode

A version of this post existed a month ago already. It was supposed to be a piece more in the vein of the Lou X one, but I decided not to post it because it was really bad from a moral standpoint. So back to the drawing board we go. Which is very funny to me because Depeche Mode's career seems entirely based on that, trial-and-error, or more exactly successive approximations. Vince Clarke leaves them, they start from square one again with Martin Gore as lead songwriter. Alan Wilder leaves them, they start kind-of-sort-of where they left off. Andy Fletcher dies, they finish up the record and it's actually good, which surprises many, myself included. Andy Fletcher's death, as terrible as it is to say out loud, was that extra push I needed to actually get my ass onto Depeche Mode for real and not just as vestigial remains of something my mom told me once when I was like five.

Rationally, I kind of just thought Depeche Mode were some run-of-the-mill synthpop band who nailed a couple songs here and there, and depending who you ask that might even be the case, so when I was 16 my initial reaction was something along the lines of "okay so aesthetically they're slightly edgier than Talk Talk, aka the renowned and incontestable pinnacle of '80s synthpop, that's cute, anyway back to The Colour of Spring" which in retrospect makes me want to slap myself across the face. And it's definitely not Talk Talk's fault, believe me, not one bad record except maybe The Party's Over but y'know, growing pains! The one thing I'll allow artists, but not myself. Until at one point my mom goes "hey, can you make me a CD for the car? I want Stairway to Heaven in it." For reference, my mom basically had no clue who the fuck Led Zeppelin were until my old band decided we actually were crazy enough to try playing Stairway to Heaven to an actual human audience — and for some reason my mom liked our version better. Damn, being sixteen and vaguely cute really lets you get away with some crazy shit. But yeah, I had seven minutes filled, alright - what do I fill the CD with? I knew that my mom is, usually, more aligned to my music tastes than my dad is (I think I actually showed my mom '90s Swans and System of a Down on two separate occasions, somehow not getting consequently, uh, retroactively aborted) and I knew my mom liked bands like Duran Duran and Depeche Mode back in the '80s, so what the fuck, let's google "depeche mode" and see what pulls up.

Take a wild guess what pulled up.

And ironically, even that didn't entirely stick the landing. I had this whole ass conversation with my friend R. about how Depeche Mode's production decisions were dated "but like in an iconic way and unintrusive" or some backwards ass shit, I don't even know, I guess I was trying to justify myself for not liking a fucking record as much as I expected (????) and into the mnemonic toilet it went. Until March 2023 rolls along and at A.'s birthday, on the Bluetooth boombox that A. never separates from, this plays:

And it was, again, cute, right. It's dated in a very endearing way that makes it somewhat compelling. And so was Strangelove, which for some reason felt like a natural next step to take from there, but nothing else came of it. I never went out and listened to the singles, minus some of the ones I'd known as a kid: in case you're wondering, they were Peace and Blasphemous Rumours, which are definitely not babby's first Depeche Mode songs. For some reason I still couldn't cut the same slack I'd been cutting for — again — Talk Talk, whom I still love dearly. Maybe it was just a question of time, or simply of just learning to get along with the fact that things age. For some reason it took me a good five to seven years to actually realize that, god damn!, I'd never listened to a full Depeche Mode album before. So since I'm a smartass and it has an edgy title, I started out on Black Celebration and it's good, don't get me wrong, but definitely not the best possible starting point for Depeche Mode I think? If you're looking for veritable bangers front-to-back maybe go for Violator, or Songs of Faith and Devotion if you're feeling like some extra zest. But whatever, I don't know what the fuck happened that day in the car. Anyway that's how I came across my favourite Depeche Mode song, which on my worst days still gets me if it catches me off guard.

And that's what made it click, for some fucking reason. Real talk — it barely gets any more stereotypically '80s than the single mix of this song, and yet here I am bopping my shit to the beat, genuinely rocked to my socks and in a frenzy. Add to that this interesting conversation I had with this friend of A.'s, a Russian girl who immediately charmed me with her wits and unique makeup game (on a different occasion she referred to a Soviet-era children's TV show called Приключения Буратино — "priklyucheniya Buratino", which translates to "The adventures of Buratino" — as a major inspiration point for her aesthetic choices). For a very peculiar coincidence, it turned out that most of the people at the party were of Eastern European descent to some degree, and when A Question of Time played literally every single one of these people popped up saying "damn, my mom loved Depeche Mode" and this here girl I was talking about told me that back in the '90s, I'm talking immediate post-USSR years, her mom once got detention because on a school trip to Belarus she skipped class to go buy Depeche Mode posters at a newspaper stand. So since I'm very normal about this kinda stuff, I obviously went back home and googled "depeche mode russia", which led me to this here Dazed article which in turn led me to depeche.ru, a small miracle of a Web 2.0 time capsule where a treasure trove of pictures taken by Russian and Eastern European fans of Depeche Mode from the mid-'80s all the way to 2006 — last update of the site so far.

The beautiful thing about Depeche Mode is exactly this: the fact that they aren't afraid of being endearing and even vulnerable to an extent. It's hard to think of a rock act as big as Depeche Mode are that's able to pull that stuff with aplomb: Springsteen, maybe? I'm not expecting Metallica, Green Day or Kid Rock to ever put out anything that competes with Nebraska — or even Born to Run, just to be fair to everyone involved. And it cracks me the fuck up that someone would think that Springsteen is anywhere close to the hard-rock-minded hard-headed bastard that his fans on average are: which admittedly is a very wooden and unfortunate way of tying together Depeche Mode and Springsteen, but they were for me. Nebraska and Songs of Faith and Devotion came to me almost simultaneously, as the result of a musical discovery that saw me navigating a moment of true crisis, a moment where once again the answer was: ignore the noise. Rip it up and start again. And that third verse on Atlantic City very gracefully paired up with a track like Walking in My Shoes because they are unapologetic in their presentation, direct and deceptively raw — all qualities that all rockers like to pretend they have, but that very few people are able to properly handle, let alone effectively weaponise. They hide nothing, and yet find a specific, unique perspective on feelings that at some point bite any and everyone of us. It's insane to me that the most blue-collar of all the classic rockers, the one guy who never really lost touch with what he represents and stands for, and what some people still derogatorily refer to as "a synthpop band" managed to stumble upon such similarly expressive aesthetic markers at similarly crucial moments in their respective careers. And both things mean the world to all fans involved, because they remain in touch, they know themselves and who's coming to the shows — which warrants a constant stream of new people. "What you see is what you get" is not about repetitiveness: like it was meant to be for Sonic the Hedgehog, it may be a statement of intent and transparency, something simultaneously simpler and deeper than shallowness can ever allow for.

(On an unrelated note, I would literally kill for Springsteen's Butterscotch Blonde Telecaster, and while I perfectly know that's the most basic possible Telecaster color and literally any other American-made Butterscotch Blonde Fender Telecaster would potentially have the same aesthetic and practical functions as Springsteen's, it's a bit like that Borges story where he meets himself but forty years younger: sure, it's the same, but ever so slightly different in a way that feels a bit uncomfortable or counterfeit. Telecasters are great guitars. Rationally speaking if I had the money I would probably go with something with humbuckers on, but fuck me, that twang is something else.)

Necessarily, this entails the ability to pick up the pieces no matter what gets thrown your way, and rearrange them at the best of your abilities. And it's hard. Legitimately speaking, I don't think neither of the parties involved (including, possibly as the biggest offender, Sonic the Hedgehog) really did it every single time. But putting away our necessarily partial perspective as listeners who are not in the band, does it ultimately matter? Martin Gore's divorce produced a track like Precious, which in the context of any other band would probably have been met with some backlash of the "they've-gone-soft" variety; and yet Playing the Angel is widely regarded as one of their late-era records, because the ability to honestly process emotion was always part of Depeche Mode's vocabulary and tricks of the trade. It's what makes a song like The Things You Said fly, especially in the 101 concert movie. During the film, there's an extreme close-up on a kid with puffy cheeks, messy bangs, clear eyes and a tooth gap singing the most teenaged fucking bullshit ever and still, it flies, because Martin Gore's lyricism — while maybe not as elaborate as Tom Waits*', sure — hits the spot. It's not its simplicity as much as it is some form of universality, perhaps.

Case in point: the latest Depeche Mode record, which came out in March 2023, is called Memento Mori, and apparently the title was chosen before Andy Fletcher's untimely passing. There's a song on it called Always You and it's a very passionate and heartfelt elegy to passing time, and a paean to things that stay. It's easy to think it's a love song of sorts: it literally says "my love" as a constant refrain in verses, so I guess it is, what the fuck can I say guys?, but there are many things that you can love, and many ways that you can love. It doesn't try to be "hip" and "cool", it doesn't sound old-man-yells-at-cloud contrived, it does its thing and gives no fucks and as such it sticks the landing. A little honesty and conviction go a really long way.

*If there had to be a third act with irremovable cred, that's absolutely my man Tom Waits, but that gets a bit more on the intellectual side of things and requires a little bit of irony and suspension of disbelief I'd argue. He deserves his own post, in short.

#schismusic #music #schism writing #depeche mode #dave gahan #martin gore #alan wilder #andy fletcher #long form content #Youtube

[albireogames]

Ren’Py stuff and cool things I put in the demo (part 1)

This is the first game I’ve ever made for myself and I learned a ton from the past couple of demos, so I wanted to showcase them here!

Title screen

The title screen has a star field with a stereoscopic effect that follows the cursor, creating an illusion of depth.  

This was done by putting a Creator-Defined Displayable in the main menu screen. To be honest I just copied the example CDD code from the Ren’Py docs and edited it to suit my needs (which in my opinion speaks to the importance of example code and how I wish documentation in general included more examples, but I digress). I replaced the child displayable with four layers of star images to create the depth effect and a constellation image that’s randomly chosen every time the main menu is displayed, and did a bit of trial and error to figure out the offsets for how much each layer should move relative to the change in cursor position. The effect is really satisfying and I’m proud of how well it ended up working… I also wanted to have the movement lag behind the cursor a bit so it feels smoother and more weighty, but I don’t know how to do that (yet) lol… I’m sure it’s possible though.

Fte system

The game features an unassuming-at-first-glance free-time event system that lets you view slice-of-life scenes at a range of locations and hang out with the dragon of your choice (as long as you’ve unlocked their events), all independently from the pace of the main story. Our goal was to increase interactivity and incentivize repeat playthroughs in addition to the five existing main routes, as it’s very likely you won’t see every event in one run. We also wanted to flesh out the world and show how the characters and protag exist within it, as it’s an important part of the story we want to tell.

This event system is actually held together by a veritable spaghetti mess of data structures and classes (that I need to refactor lol… when I haven’t looked at it in a while I get confused by my own naming conventions and some objects that are a little too multipurpose… plus I’ve been learning about good object-oriented design practices thru work recently so the jank is even more glaring). Right now it’s functional, but since I kinda took an ad hoc design-as-I-go approach, it could definitely be a lot cleaner and easier to understand…

Once I have it cleaned up I might discuss it in more detail, but for now it’s like taking the mess on the floor of my room and shoving it all into my closet so that the houseguests won’t see it… for now the most interesting snippets are these clones I made of Lark for easy testing.

Screens

Screens are your best friend. At first I hated it because the syntax felt so weird and loose and confusing (especially because it’s so similar between screens, ATL, and transitions but they’re not at all interchangeable) but it’s super powerful once you figure it out. Here are a few things that I wish I’d known sooner and would’ve saved me a lot of headache (read: sad debugging hours).

1. If you’re using an image as a background for something, especially for buttons that change appearance on interaction, wrap them in Frame() displayables!!! It takes five extra seconds to type “background Frame(“filepath/image.png”, Borders(2, 2, 2, 2))” instead of just the image name and will keep things from shifting around in unexpected ways.

2. However, if you’re lazy like me and like to use images as-is, and you have a parent screen element that has children whose contents will vary (like a frame containing an hbox), don’t use xalign and yalign to set the position of your parent displayable or it will scoot around every time the child changes and you’ll tear your hair out like I did when I was making the fte menu. Use xpos and ypos it will make everything better I promise. If you need to center something, take half your game resolution width/height and subtract half your image’s width/height to get your xpos/ypos.

3. If you ARE using xalign and yalign for something, make sure you use a float i.e., 0.0 instead of 0 and 1.0 instead of 1 or your shit will be fucked up

4. In my opinion the way that style prefixes are explained in the docs is kind of confusing, but basically they just save you some time on typing. For example, if I’m editing my choice menu screen and I have “style prefix “choice””, and I have a frame, a vbox, and a button, it’ll automatically search for and apply the “choice_frame” style to my frame and the “choice_vbox” style to my vbox . For buttons it’s split into “_button” and “_button_text” suffixes, so putting font properties into the “choice_button” style wouldn’t change my button text appearance at all. The built-in choice screen already uses a style prefix, which makes it a convenient example:

5. This one might be obvious but it took me a while to figure out—wrapping your screen displayables in a transform (using the “at” property) renders any of its position style properties outside of the transform ineffectual. 

Because of the transforms wrapping the frame and textbutton, those elements don’t have position properties defined. Strangely enough, this (thankfully) doesn’t apply to the button text properties. Adding these transforms results in a menu UI that moves on and off screen elegantly and feels responsive to the user, and I was pretty proud of being able to code it and bring the artist’s design to life.

6.       You can use screens for literally anything. The demo has a screen that just overlays another instance of the background image on top of everything in order to create the effect of hiding every sprite on screen without having to a) figure out which sprites are being shown and hide them individually and b) keep track of where they were on screen so you can put them back afterwards. Shoutout to the users on Lemmasoft forums for this clever trick, it saved me hours of not having to hack together a stupid sprite hiding implementation lol

The stupid menu problem

If you set menu captions to be spoken by the narrator instead of displayed as an empty button, your menu choices will be shown at the same time as your menu caption. Unless you have text speed set to instantaneously appear, this results in the weird experience of seeing your dialogue options before the character even finishes talking, and there’s no way to change this in Ren’Py’s default options.

My first solution was to have two instances of the menu caption: one that was a normal say statement with a {nw} tag, placed right before the menu, and then in the menu itself, a menu caption that had {fast} on the end to make it appear instantaneously and {done} to keep the duplicate from showing up in the history. This way, it looks like the character finishes speaking before the menu seamlessly appears to give the player their options. However… the problem was that when I added a click sound effect that plays whenever the player clicks to advance the game, the menu textbox will click twice since it’s actually split over two textboxes (making the game Literally Unplayable).

The next idea was to rewrite the choice screen entirely to handle waiting for the caption to finish displaying, but I was worried that I’d no longer be able to use the typical menu statement with indented blocks (which I really like for readability) and I didn’t want to dig into stuff built into the Ren’Py engine… but honestly the solution was way easier than that.

In the screenshots for the choice screen in the previous section, you might’ve noticed a “wait” parameter—every time I use the menu statement, I pass in a call to my menu_caption function that takes the current text speed and the length of the dialogue to calculate how long the menu’s “on_show” transform should pause before it slides the dialogue choices in:

And it’s used like this:

BAM, easy. While I was brainstorming solutions and googling stuff I strangely didn’t find a single other person with this problem, so it could totally be that I just missed something obvious or the default design choice makes sense to everyone else, but hopefully this is helpful for anyone else that was frustrated by this.

I think that’s it for now—I might do a part 2 later focusing on ftes or specific screens, and another one on the writing process that went into the demo. If there’s a feature or function in the game you’re curious about, let me know and I’ll write about it!

#game dev #renpy #visual novel #perihelion

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

Louis at Kiss FM 103.7 (Chattanooga, part 2)

What is your favorite line from Bigger Than Me?

I’ve got a few. Probably the pre-: all of these voices, all of these choices. I have to come up to a lot of opinions in this job, in general. So it’s just about sticking to your guns and just owning what you do.

What is the favorite lyric that you’ve ever written?

I always just go off the first thing that comes to my head. So this may not be my ultimate favorite, but instinctively, of all the songs I’ve released, probably the opening line of Walls, Nothing wakes you up like waking up alone. Kind of hits you right in the heart, I think.

How do you feel like your writing has evolved, through Walls, One Direction, and now?

I feel like every song you write, you learn a bit more about songwriting. I’m lucky enough to be in the room with some amazing artists and songwriters, so you definitely gain something from that from every session that you have. I suppose as you get older, your lyrics kind of mature with you. so I’d say that my lyrics are more mature, especially compared to some of the stuff I wrote in One Direction.

Can you talk about the title name, Faith in the Future?

I wanted to have a big title that would be thought-provoking and hopeful, that was the most important thing for me. And I had a title before I had anything else. I put it on my Twitter in isolation, with no context. I just felt like there was this weird, like, magnetism towards that phrase, and it got to a point where I thought, well, it’s got to be this now. And then everything happened in the world, and it just felt too appropriate. It was a good time to put out a positive message like that.

Are you going to be releasing an EP or deluxe edition that includes unreleased songs such as All Along and Copy of a Copy?

There are a couple of deluxe versions knocking around, but I won’t include — the thing is, Copy of a Copy is on there, but— I won’t give it away too much— it’s like not a studio version. Those songs, like All Along, or other demos that have found their way online— they’re really like a moment in time, and some of those moments in time are the trial and error part of creation, so they’re not necessarily— there’s a reason that those songs are not on the album. So I don’t think I’ll be putting them on. But Copy of a Copy— wait and see.

Part 1, Part 3, Part 4

#btm radio tour #louis quotes #chattanooga

[sneep29]

Hello, Sneep. I've been a fan of your work for a long time and it's a huge inspiration for a beginner like me. If you don't mind, can I ask you 2 questions? 1-What books/videos/content do you recommend for someone who wants to start to animate sprites like you do? 2-How do you make anti-aliasing? I know a bit of color theory, but I struggle a lot to make my lines look smooth. Thank you!

Hey, Anon. Appreciate you feel that way about my work. Means a lot, man.

Your first question is a little difficult for me to answer. I've never looked at books, or videos for animating sprites. I just started doing it back in the day because video games and animation were pretty cool to me, and emulation was a big thing for me in the early 2000′s.

I used to (and still do from time to time) check out a lot of sprite art of classic games on Spriters Resource. I’d look at stuff from the SNES, Arcade, Sega Genesis, PS1, etc. Some of my influences were simplistic and fun stuff, like The Simpsons Arcade and Super Mario World, or other styles like games from Capcom, such as Magical Quest and Marvel Vs. Capcom, and some of Treasure's Sega Genesis game art is really appealing and prolific as well.

I didn't grow up with a GBA, and not well versed with it's library, but it seems like there's a lot of decent stuff on that system as well.

Here’s a link I do remember from back in the day by pixel legend, Cure. Definitely a good place to start. I wasn’t heavy into tutorials, because I’m stubborn and find it hard to buckle down and read, but started reading it seriously a few years ago, and it’s a pretty well written piece:

https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299

Been looking over this guy’s video, Mort Mort. Goes over stuff I don’t wanna clog in here, but he’s got some pretty good information in this, so I recommend to check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWKhytYUGTg

Would also suggest to check this site out, Lospec. It has tutorials, communities you can find, software for pixel art. Seems like you can find some really good stuff hopefully.

https://lospec.com/

Check out youtube videos if you wanna study the motion of sprite art in games. Youtube lets you use the < and > keys to go back and forward with frames. Use 60 fps quality if you can. NintendoComplete is an excellent source for game footage in 60fps and 720p or above from what I’ve seen. Principal’s of animation are important. This has been in my watch later list for what’s felt like 2 or 3 years, so checked to see if it’s a decent source, and it’s actually pretty helpful. Pixel artist use these rules as well, so study stuff like this. I’ve never been well versed in technical stuff. I just liked animating, and learned over trial and error, which is actually bad and wouldn’t recommend being that stubborn.

https://youtu.be/uDqjIdI4bF4

I’d say keep it simple if you’re a beginner, and I’d like to say the same for the subject matter you study. I’m pretty sure you’ll have an easier time starting with pixel art from stuff like NES, Gameboy, or other simple contemporary consoles.

I also feel that you should try looking at simpler stuff like Super Mario Bros. than say starting with something more complex like Shatter Hand. I think Japanese companies like Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, Sunsoft (Japanese only), and definitely some others out there, are the best influence in my opinion when it comes to just good overall design.

Second question, I really didn’t want to answer this question, because AA isn’t the easiest thing to explain, I’ve never really written a tutorial, or talk to people about art. I just do it because I’m just drawn to it I guess.

Really didn’t wanna do this because it takes up some time to explain everything, I do not feel like a tutorial guy or have any experience writing them, and I really need to jump onto other things.

Spent some time putting this together, but I don’t know. I can’t really recommend taking this seriously. If you want to learn about anti-aliasing, I will say go check out the link from above on Cure’s Pixel Art Tutorial. It’s more helpful.

Hopefully, at the very least, the links I sent you can be of better help. Keep an open mind, not all old pixel art is perfect, question why you put down blocks the way you do, and don’t count down the days you been at it and focus on having fun doing and or learning it. Good luck with whatever you do.

#ask

[isabelle04]

Evaluation

What went well?

I am surprised to say that I really enjoyed this project as I was quite worried that I would be behind other students as I haven’t had any experience in any of the programmes that we are now using. Despite this, I have liked learning to use Unreal and Photoshop and feel like I did a lot of work on the art side of things. It felt really natural to draw using pixel art and create animations because this is something that I have always wanted to do. Therefore,I think the things in my game that went really well were the tile map creting, the animations and the level design. The level design was an element that I had been struggling with until we started playtesting and eventually I felt more and more confident with it.

What could have gone better?

Whilst I didn’t hate coding, it was definitely the part of this project that I struggled with the most. I think the main reason for this is that I am someone who tries to avoid trial and error as I never know where to start. I need to get over this as it has sometimes restricted me increating new ideas for my game and sticking to what we have been taught. However, I am still really happy with the progress I’ve made from the start of college till now because I am completely new to this. 

What would I change next time?

There were some elements of my game that I would have liked to improve if we had more time. Firstly, I think I could have improved my tile map to have more variety if I had gone back to it more whilst I was making progress and researching. Also, I think I could definitely engage myself in doing more research as this would allow me to think more creatively so I can come up with more ideas and new concepts. Furthermore, it would have been nice if the game itself was much longer as this would make it a fully fledged game but this is something that I can aim for in the next project.

Overall, I have had a lot of fun learning all of the new skills within this project. I’m looking forward to having a whole different concept in the next project as this will give me the opportunity to challenge myself.

[laurarolla]

Lost Planet is finished but not entirely uploaded yet, will be by tomorrow probably. Time for thoughts on it!

Overall, it was a nice, short campaign that had just enough variety for the length except the final stage but I'll get to that in a bit. Most levels took about 30 to 45 minutes and there were 11 missions. The game feels a bit awkward to play in terms of reticle speed and general weapon precision and lethality, and the tutorial really doesn't teach you all the important information, although thankfully each time you get in a new VS (the game's mechs), you get a control popup that tells you what it can do, excluding the VTX-40A since it plays exactly like the VTX-140 (that kinda round mech in the playlist picture). The grapple is awkward as it doesn't grab anything but walls, so you get launched straight up after grappling and have to land on the platform you want to land on, even if you want to grapple to a platform below you. The story is alright, with shades of Gundam, Dune, and Tekkaman Blade here and there, and I also have to wonder if some of the game's elements started as some kind of Bionic Commando project way, WAY early on and just had a few bits left over after completely changing to a mech piloting shooter.

The game's difficulty is my biggest complaint. I'm sure that on Hard mode it's probably more of an actual challenge, but the amount of times it felt like there was some tiny thing the game did to increase the difficulty were a bit hard to ignore. Taking away weapons and thermal energy between gameplay sections, throwing a few one hit kill hazards at you from unexpected places, and a couple missions where you have to win a fight with the limited health bar of your VS and die instantly if its defeated. None of these situations really hurt the game overall with one exception: the final level. In that stage, you are in control of the L-P-9999 aerial combat VS, starting with a max load of 9999 thermal energy and equipped with sword arms and a vulcan cannon that is really only good for shooting down missiles in the final battle. You have to get used to a new control scheme, quickly reach the final boss area (because your thermal energy clock is ticking), and then figure out, mostly through trial and error, how to actually fight the final boss. It took me quite a few tries to beat him and it didn't feel as much like I'd learned how to use the machine as it did that I finally learned when the safe windows to attack were. I got him with very little health left in no small part because I was fighting with the controls, which don't feel quite like anything I've ever used in a mech piloting game before, of which I have played many. I guess what I'm saying is that if you want a cool mecha air combat sword fight, go pick up Zone of the Enders The 2nd Runner: MARS on steam instead. That game's full of those exact experiences.

I'm glad I played through Lost Planet, as it feels like something that other creators have managed to perfect perhaps by learning some lessons about what felt awkward in this game. I do also own Lost Planet 3, so that might come up later on, but unfortunately Lost Planet 2 as well as the definitive edition of Lost Planet 1 are both trapped in Games for Windows Live purgatory for who knows how long.

To end on a particularly positive note, I like all the mechanical and creature design in this game. The mechs almost all immediately communicate their gimmick or general usefulness, and the Akrid are neat enemies to fight with great designs.

#backlog resolution #lost planet #lost planet extreme condition #video games #gaming #review

[gaminganxious]

Outward Review

Genre: Open-world survival RPG

Release Date: March, 2019

Playtime: 7hrs

Completed?: Lol No, not even close.

Would I play it again?: Honestly probably not unless I had someone else to play with.

"I have no idea what I'm doing" is a pretty good summarization both on how I feel writing this first review and how I felt through most of my time playing Outward. So it seems the RNG picked a pretty good first game for me.

Outward is an open-world game with an emphasis on 'open'. You awaken on a beach having survived a shipwreck and are given a pretty spartan tutorial on how some of the game's mechanics work as well as your first objective before you're cut loose to venture into the world proper. From there you can pretty much do whatever you want, but you're likely to get a rude awakening if you venture out unprepared.

While you try to figure out what you can and can't fight through trial, error, and common sense (tip: if it glows it's probably bad news) you'll also have to keep track of your health, food, water, body temp, stamina, weight, and eventually mana. Weight was the one I struggled with the most as my need to horde literally everything that wasn't nailed down had me running back to town every few minutes until I learned to prioritize what I needed.

Combat was tough but fair and it was pretty easy to grasp the basics. There are a variety of different weapons and attack styles from swords and shields to magic spells and traps. There's no indicator to tell you when you've been spotted but enemies do signal through their movements when they're getting suspicious that something (you) is rustling through the underbrush nearby and will come to investigate. Sneaking doesn't really seem to be much of a thing as far as I could tell, once you're within a certain range they pretty much know right where you are regardless of how well you're hiding. Death is also forgiving so long as you don't die to a bandit (they steal your shit!) you might wake up in a random cave but all/most of your stuff comes with you.

Outward was not visually impressive to me. The open world feels rather empty and honestly kind of bland and I expected it to be a much older game than it was when I first looked at its release date. The caves and cities are definitely better in terms of substance but considering you'll spend most of your time traveling it was a bit of a bummer to find almost nothing of interest along the road. There is a map but it does not have an indicator of your position and does not show all the areas you can explore. Instead, much like a real map, it notes some key structures and pathways in the area. You have a compass and you'll use the two together to figure out approximately where you are on the map. I can see how this might annoy some players but I found it weirdly satisfying to navigate this way. It definitely helped the whole survival aspect of it feel more immersive.

There is a considerable amount of crafting in Outward. In fact, if you can find it you can probably craft it. Camping, supplies, weapons, armor, food, and potions are all craftable if you learn the recipe. Alternatively, if chaos is more your flavor you can just throw a bunch of random junk in a pot and see if you get an item out of it.

I didn't make it very far into the main storyline but, at least in the beginning, the quests were relatively simple. Be prepared to write that shit down though. Your "journal" only offers vague info about the quests you take on and side jobs are not listed at all. So if someone tells you to go to a cave to get something specific you'll need to remember what they've told you and who you spoke with. Key info is notated in blue when you talk to them.

Like a lot of survival games, I got the impression that Outward would be a lot more fun when played with a friend. You'll spend a lot of time traveling some pretty vast and visually empty distances and it made the game feel a little lonely to me. There are also several monsters that I felt would be easier to fight as a duo based on my time in the purple mountain with the candle man but maybe that says more about me than anything else. It has a split-screen feature (which I honestly love and I wish more games would include) as well as an online co-op mode.

Currently, the game is listed for $39.99 on Playstation's store but it was included with my monthly subscription at some point so I got it for free. I wouldn't recommend it unless it went on sale personally. If it's something you already have in your library and you're looking for something to play with friends or if you're really into survival games in general I think it is worth a look. 

#Outward #playstation #review #gaming #Jim died three times to a deer #this post has died the three times ive tried to post it

[kafkaoftherubble]

哇啊啊啊干你娘干我娘干姐妹兄弟的娘，我终于干完这个星期的稿了, 他妈的复活了! 手要残了，屁股要变方形了

I finally finished this week's quota! On a fucking weekend! God fucking damn it I hate working on weekends!

I was so worried that I wouldn't have time tonight to watch my Jujutsu Kaisen! And then maybe I can finish the last two episodes of Pluto? Nah. You're right. We can only handle one episode in a day. And we're near the end, too, so I bet there's gonna be a lot of heart-wringing for you, and way too much information and tangential thoughts for me.

Oh! I can finally reply to some of the messages on Discord (or Discordo..? I don't know. That start-up sound in my sister's laptop for Discord sings it like that). I know I'll talk whole fucking paragraphs again because I can't help it whenever I'm chatting with people, and I have only a few minutes left before I have to do The Chores. And also my eyes hurt. And also my hands hurt. I should find some other time.

Bummer that I lost my diary time to this weekend grind, though. I also lost my study hours, too. It's my fault. I'm just always so slow. Slow in understanding; slow in writing; slow in thinking. Lyi was right; the real reason why I have way fewer books than everyone expected is because I take such a long time to finish one book. Because I don't just read them, I also always make notes. I just have to remember shits, or I can't even say I learned anything at all. Oh, it reminds me of that Junji Ito story! The one about a guy who memorizes every book in his library because he thinks it's the only way to keep them from disappearing to a strange lady. He went pretty mad from it, and his girlfriend kept trying to stop him. But he couldn't! He was compelled to! That story was so hard to swallow! I wonder if Junji Ito realized he had written the perfect allegory to...

Yes! Because I lost my diary time, I'll write here!

I'm glad our Sunday plan for Dollmaking remains because I finished work today. It has been so long! My incomplete Fushi doll has basically started to look un-pristine now, being a felt doll. All that friction causes spotty lint-thingy on their face. I still adore them, but I felt bad that the only time they looked really nice was when their skin had just been done and they were naked. If I were to show pictures of them, I would have to show some of those naked pictures.

Until now, Fushi hasn't gotten his inner shirt right right yet. I've made two by this point, and he's wearing the second trial, but it looks so bad. I have to do it again.

This is so like us, isn't it? Because we like things we aren't actually talented or good at, we keep wasting resources on prototypes. And then because we suck at understanding YouTube videos, or a teacher, or a book, yaddi-yadda, we have to experiment shits and waste even more resources.

I don't even know how to use a sewing machine! Remember that time one of our past selves accidentally made the one at Levi's come up with this burning smell? That was just a practice round! And then Veronica immediately ordered that I shall never perform alterations on any jeans. Hahaha, less work for me! Less responsibility!

Anyway, the original plan the Lyndis of last year had was to finish the doll before That December Convention—ya know the one—so we can bring Fushi along. But I don't know... It's mid-November now and I'm gonna have to remake his inner shirt for the third time. How the hell am I supposed to do the shoes, the parka, the gloves on time... when all of those will definitely need trial-and-error again?

Gah. It's frustrating being slow and talentless.

I know, I know. We came from a long line of talentless Lyndises. Still manage to be useful enough for people despite that; being slow and talentless is not that big of a deal. Could have saved a lot of time and resources though.

But again, in the end, the Fushi doll is for us. And we're definitely talented at excusing our work as "a representation of wabi-sabi" whenever it falls under everyone's expectations!

I still have minutes or so to rest before I do The Chores. But here lies the quandary—what good can minutes do? What is the perfect thing to do in minutes? Getting straight into The Chores is taxing, ya know? It recharges the mind, sure, but it tires the body. The Chores lasts for hours. 3 hours 30 minutes at least. That's longer than... uh... the time it takes for 3pm to become 6pm. That's late afternoon transitioning into the evening. That's long!

I can't take a nap. I'm not sleepy. And a nap risks making you feel too lazy to get up, and then I'll do The Chores too late, and then I'll finish late, and then I'll have dinner late, and then I'll bathe late, and then how am I supposed to watch both JJK and Pluto at night and sleep before 12am?

Oh no. Fionn, I know what you're suggesting, but really?! You know it will take at least 20 minutes! I mean, sure, it relaxes both the brain and the body, but for me, it's 20 minutes at least! Really, I don't know how some people can just do meditation for a measly 5 to 10 minutes. Just the first part of Anapannasatti alone takes 5 minutes for me, if I'm concentrating well that is. And it's just watching my breaths! It's the Tutorial level! It's also both tough and genuinely so booooooring. Until the dreams and the thoughts start to arise, and it becomes training. A boring training.

But if I go over 25 minutes it becomes disproportionately harder to concentrate. The dreams and thoughts become more and more vivid. Optic neurons begin to try bombard themselves with self-made stimuli to prevent other neurons from trying to poach them into their domain, like listening and feeling. I tried opening my eyes and lowering them instead of closing, but that ended up making my brian and I mistake that we're trying to go to sleep.

I high-key think the whole "Maya, King of Illusions, trying to distract the Buddha from Nibbanna" part of the legend is just someone being overdramatic with the way his brain was distracted by his own thoughts and daydreams and stuff when he was trying to focus on his quest for liberation. Heh!

I don't know how some people can meditate for 1 hour or 2 or 3 hours. Why the length? What's there to be occupied about that you can sit there long enough that it's comparable to me doing The Chores?

I should ask you, Fionn! It's much easier for you to go for long sessions because you're not the one who's in charge of the body and the brain. Not like me. And yet you get distracted, too. Differently than I do, but you do. And you feel pain.

Oh no! The minutes are up! I have to do The Chores now! Hahahhah what was the debate even for? In the end, time left me anyway. Time is so impermanent and here I was, fooling myself into thinking it is permanent as I wonder what to do next.

For the Lyndises so ahead in the future they have forgotten, The Chores is the chores done every Saturday late afternoon to evening! Remember? Vacuum the whole house? Mop the whole house? Dust some of the places? And if no one's helping, wash the bathrooms? That's why our room is always kept tidy. Because it saves a lot of time when I have to do The Chores!

#a piece to the rubble

[kariachi]

Who wants a quick Pern au fic featuring one of my OCs and her dragon?

~~

Owiweth’s’s scoring is worse than she’ll admit.

Got it.

Laid out on his ledge, Cometh kept track of Owiweth’s mental presence as she came in to land, beelining for His. Her worry was stronger than her pain, and though he knew she could see it in her eyes he still passed some of it along to Al’sin. At the sense of confirmation through their bond, he turned his attention back to Owiweth, pressing comfort into her mind and easily accepting her gratitude in return.

No doubt they would learn later how the standard stone run had gone so awry, a job that was supposed to be safe from Fall. The entire point was to stay out of the way, watch how the Wings handled Fall, as toss the graduated pairs new bags of firestone when they fell back for a reload. They shouldn’t have been at risk of Thread at all, especially since if things were going oddways there’d have been more pairs coming back to the Weyr. But the other greenpair were a reckless twosome…

With a little sigh, he readjusted his position, twisting about and stretching out his wings to catch more sun. A fragment of instinct wanted to kick off the ledge and join their class, to help against their ancient enemy as they had been made to do, but it was no more than a blip dismissed with a flick of his tail. For one, just going would require leaving his Al’sin behind, and even having her just across the Bowl sat poorly in his chest. He was a protective thing at heart, and didn’t like to be too far from her. Secondly, the Weyrlingmasters hadn’t taught them how to Between. Fuck, they hadn’t even wanted to teach them to fly, only acquiescing when it was made clear that he had two fully functioning wings and was going to use them one way or another. There was a big difference, though, between planning to learn to fly through trial, error, and Al’sin’s observations of their classmates, and attempting to Between without any sort of instruction or any real coordinates. He wanted to help, not die.

Finally, there was the fact they could help perfectly well where they were. Cometh wasn’t fond of speaking to anyone other than His, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t relay updates to and through her perfectly well. Normally it was an older, retired pair that took on the role of making sure the folks in the Bowl knew what they were dealing with before it was right in front of them. Threadscores, yes, but also burns from mistimed flames or Betweenings, sores from poor-fitting tack, pulled muscles or worse from maneuvering. All could get the right care quicker if those below were pre-warned, and he had high hopes they could find a place in the job. If nothing else, though she was young and in no way a healer, his Al’sin had already shown herself as someone willing and able to take on the load of organizing these things. Those in charge would have to be fools not to see it.

I’ve pulled my wing, Ovuth said as he and His popped from Between, and Cometh felt a trill of pride in themselves as he sent confirmation back and directions to the southeast corner of the Bowl. After all, it was one thing for their classmates to turn to him, but that others in the Weyr did too said much of the trust that the other dragons at least had in them.

Ovuth’s pulled his wing, he sent Al’sin’s way.

Looks like the left one… He could almost hear her, if he really focused, yelling to one of the others about the new injury coming in. Or maybe that was just knowing her so well. Think you could send the next non-emergency Nako’s way? M’sena isn’t making this easy on anybody, and it’s making Owiweth difficult too. The idea of speaking to the other human rankled, but he huffed a little and nodded in a gesture nobody could see. The job needed doing.

I will, Mine. Do you need help with Owiweth? A brush of fondness passed through their bond.

No, Avelath’s already stepped in. We’re definitely going for a fly when this is done though. Oh, that was a pleasant thought. An easy flight over the countryside, wind under his wings, air cool and clean in his nostrils, Al’sin in saddle where she belonged. He pushed the image and his own fondness back to her, their shared anticipation briefly echoing between them.

As soon as everything is done and dealt with.

#fanfic

[pucchiaca]

So another thing that's been on my mind is what im do in my free time. Untill last week i was spending my free time reading and i think it was really rewarding and i felt good about that. recently I've only been scrolling instagram and honestly it feels disgusting that that's how i am spending my time. So i think it would be a good idea for me to read in my free time. The last 2 books i read that were parts of a duology were so so good and i think it will take some time and sampling to find books that will hold my interest like that again but yeah that's what it will be trial and errors. Apart from that one thing i need to prepare for in the future is the ielts exam and i think reading is a great way to prepare for it instead of just sitting ajd cramming words that i would/might do at some point to prepare. So as part of my preparation i think it is a good idea to learn all the new words and phrases that i encountered while reading ( which are a lot) i think it will be like learning so much so fast and it is also definitely a better way to learn. So i think after reading any book i will think about what i took away from it and then i will practice the words and phrases. Ao in my free time rn i will practice the words from those 2 books that i read and then i will move on to finding a new book.

[dex-starr]

I know like some people talk out loud to someone who mattered to them who’s deceased like for comfort or advice. I didn’t really do that with my dad — it’s been 16 years since he passed. He was different from me in a lot of ways but similar in others without us being the closest bc of reasons. The only time I did do this was when I decided to just talk about my whole situation and if he’d tell me to just go for it. I don’t know if he would bc he had a complicated relationship with my mom to say the least. I know they loved each other but being honest I didn’t have a functional version of how people get through disagreements and arguments. Letting someone down that you’re with. That was all uncharted territory with trial and error and only what I learned from my field and previous mistakes in relationships but that was still different because this one was functional at a point. It felt right. I know it’s skewed my definition of how love goes because things are handled behind closed doors here but I don’t want to be that.

I mean I know it’s too late for advice on what to do, it’s too late to prove myself, it’s too late to spill my guts and be truthful. It’s just too late. I can’t do anything and it bothers me. I felt so useless towards the end of us and still do. I upset myself so much that I get a tremor because why did I do that. What’s wrong with me, why did I let you go so easily? I talked such a big game but my dumbass wired brain just imploded like it does for everything else. I guess the only thing I can do is say I’m sorry to the empty space where you once were and see what happens, most likely nothing will change. I don’t get to try again.

#shut up pls dex #feelings are difficult when you're a dumbass