#One Click Demo Importer

[service12]

https://tinyurl.com/426eu8v2

[valeisaslut]

Hey val! just wanted to say collide is genuinely incredible. genuinely one of the best pieces of writing i’ve ever read, not exaggerating. I’ve been seeing you absolutely burning ellie to shreds and it made me wonder, what’s popstar!reader’s backstory? read she came from the voice but is there more to her pre-ellie life? she seems so layered and complex on her own, and i’d love to know how she got to where she is now. any lore you can share??

omg first of all—thank you so much for this, seriously. it means the world that you’re even asking about reader’s backstory. i’ve spent just as much time building her as i did ellie, and i love that she’s getting some of the spotlight too!

popstar!reader’s backstory is a little quieter than ellie’s, but it’s just as important.

she was just a normal girl, honestly. small town, two parents, one younger sibling. soft-spoken, always lost in her own little world—writing lyrics on her forearm in pen and humming melodies while unloading the dishwasher.

her parents were sweet but practical, the kind of people who clapped at school recitals and told her to make sure her dreams had health insurance. supportive in that detached, surface-level, “good for you, honey” way.

she taught herself how to sing, how to play guitar, and later piano—mostly in secret. lessons felt like too much of an ask. her family wasn’t struggling, but money was always discussed with that careful tone, like even wanting something made you selfish. so she figured it out alone. saved up for her first guitar by babysitting, bought a secondhand keyboard off Facebook Marketplace, and sang quietly into her pillow late at night so no one would hear.

she taught herself how to produce on GarageBand when she was fourteen, recording rough demos on an old laptop that overheated if she used too many vocal layers.

she'd mimic runs from old YouTube covers, learn chords from blurry tutorial videos, and practice until her fingers went numb. there were nights her voice would crack and she'd cry out of frustration, but she always came back to it. because no matter how hard it was—music made her feel like someone.

she wasn’t popular. not disliked, just… overlooked. you’d find her sitting in the back of the bus, hoodie up, scribbling verses in the margins of her homework. she barely even spoke in class, but when she sang? people shut up and listened. she just didn’t let them very often. the want was always there, but the fear was just as loud.

and then came 10th grade. her first real heartbreak. a girl from her English class���older, confident, the kind of girl who knew the effect she had on people. reader fell hard. it was messy, unrequited, and when the girl said “i’m not into girls like that” with a casual shrug? it destroyed her. she wrote ten songs that month. none of them were happy. she posted one of them on SoundCloud under a fake name. it got 43 listens. she made it her phone wallpaper.

no one thought she’d actually do anything with music. her teachers told her to “focus more on the sciences,” and her guidance counselor literally said, “sweetheart, music is a lovely hobby, but not a career.”

no one ever really believed she’d make it.

and honestly? most of the time, neither did she.

but something clicked her senior year. she was tired of being scared. tired of hiding. so she said fuck it—and auditioned for The Voice with one of her own songs without even asking her mom about it.

the rest happened fast. all four judges turned. her clip exploded online—TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, everywhere. people were calling her “the girl with the pain in her voice”. and yeah, she won. of course she did. got signed to a label before she even had time to process it.

her debut album was a glittery, razor-sharp pop masterpiece. dramatic, vulnerable, unapologetically girly. every song sounded like crying in the back of a club bathroom and screaming in your car on the way home. girls memorized the lyrics. gays dissected the bridges. critics tried to play it cool but couldn’t help calling it a cultural reset.

but through all the fame, reader stayed pretty much the same. she never really leaned into the chaos of it all. she wasn’t into parties. barely drank. never touched drugs. she didn’t care about being seen—she cared about being good. her team would throw her into red carpets and she’d sneak out early to finish demos in her penthouse. at one event, she literally left mid-party to go sit in the parking lot and hum a harmonie she couldn't get out of her head into her voice notes.

she barely dated. not because she didn’t want to—but because she didn’t have time. she never let herself have time. the industry was demanding, to say the least. she had something to prove. to everyone who doubted her. to herself.

she built herself from the ground up. no shortcuts, no handouts, no famous parents or flashy connections. just talent. obsession. the belief that maybe—maybe—her voice mattered. and a little bit of spite.

she gave everything to her career. and she became a star.

and then came ellie. and for the first time… she stopped thinking about the next song. because suddenly, someone made her want to stay in the moment. and god, that scared her.

[melodic-haze]

I have kind of Ruan Mei brainrot rn… imagine Ruan Mei running a test on you but reader is a girl w penis I hope you know what you mean and well, the reader gets hard from the little touches Ruan Mei gives… okie I’m leaving the rest of the job for you 🫡

-🐿️

☆ — DEMO TRACK: sub!Ruan Mei x dom!gp!Reader

☆ — TYPE: NSFW

☆ — CONTENT WARNINGS: Fem reader with a dick ☺️, consensual use of aphrodisiacs, semi-public sex

☆ — NOTES: Oh my god a post?!?!? From ME?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Anyway may this bless my rolls please HALLELUJAH

So really it probably would've started off as 🤷‍♀️ a favour 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ yk, just some harmless (lied) tests she wanted to do and you just happened to be in the right (wrong) place at the right (wrong) time. She wanted to test how one would react to certain stimuli, especially when it comes to more........"medicated" states

For the sake of my peace of mind you've probably both already talked about it before in the past anyway at one point, with her getting curious about chemicals and what it could do to one's libido ever since she started dating you 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ though she doesn't necessarily say when she'd ever do it lol

"Y/N, there you are."

You hear familiar heels click amidst the station floor, the sound now distinct enough to separate from all the ambience in the Station—the pace was languid yet decisive, soft yet forceful.. and so very her.

"Ruan Mei," you tore your gaze from the vast sea of stars to smile at her, "you need something?"

She shakes her head, stepping into place right next to you, "No, I do not. I simply thought to.. find you, is all."

"Taking a break from your research just to see me? Wow, did Herta do something or..?"

"No, she hasn't. Though I do admit that I had an ulterior motive for my actions," she says before holding out a small plate that you hadn't realised were there until now. "I had a new recipe I wanted you to try."

You picked one of the two lotus cakes up to inspect it in all its golden brown glory, "Trying to change up your recipes? They're already good enough, though."

"I had a new ingredient or two that I wanted to try using for such delicacies. It makes for a nice experiment."

"That so?" You raise it to your mouth, "Well, I trust that whatever you make is--"

Wait.

"--did you say 'experiment'?"

"Yes, I did. Why do you ask?"

You lightly furrowed your eyebrows in suspicion as you lowered the pastry from your lips, "Ruan Mei."

"Hm?"

"..I'm not going to ask what, exactly, you used. But could you at least tell me if this is gonna hurt me one way or another? Maybe have another moment of 'unexplained' amnesia?"

The scientist shook her head, though her expression doesn't slip from that ever-so-present mask of indifference, "I made sure that the effects don't harm you in any way."

"So there are side-effects to this."

"I never had the intention of lying to you."

"I love you, I really do, but you're very evasive with very important details like that."

"Because you simply don't ask."

"Yeah, well, I'm not your labrat," you say as you take a bite of the pastry anyway, "I'm your girlfriend. ..Though whatever you put in this, it's really sweet. Could you maybe make a drug-free version of whatever this is?"

The smallest of smiles graced her lips as you chewed and savoured her creation, and you just can't help but melt on the inside at the sight as she swipes off some stray crumbs from the corner of your lips with a thumb. She licks said crumbs off her digit (and your eyes widened the slightest bit) before responding, "I'll be sure to look for such an alternative."

"You better. You know I like whatever you create."

"I do."

"Even if it involves getting spiked for your own curiosity."

She leans in to press a gentle kiss on your cheek, "I appreciate the constant indulgence. Truly."

And as she ghosts her fingers down your arm before they snake over to hold your hand, you can't help but notice that you're just a touch bit more sensitive than you were a few moments ago.

Or maybe it's because it was your lover doing the touching.

Yeah. Maybe that's it.

...

"Hey, babe."

"Hm?"

"Why did you make two of them? Usually it'd only take one for it to hit me."

"In case we need another one."

"..Uh huh."

She doesn't just leave you, which is a wonder but also kinda not? Cuz she's observing you, not because she's affectionate 🤷‍♀️ sorry gangalicious she needs her baby steps towards understanding love in her own way 🫶🫶🫶 personally I'd be patient with her always (she's so me)

So the both of you are just chatting about whatever, like she asks you about how your day's been and then you ask her about how hers was. With you, while still a bit cryptic, she's much more of an open book to you than to anyone else, so you can just freely ask her whatever as you both take a stroll around Herta's Space Station and enjoy each other's company (I'd ask about the cats personally they're my babies :()

But then you start getting a bit......feverish, let's say. Just a tad bit hot under the collar 😊😊 which gets you to wonder like. Did Herta turn up the heat??? Like it was fine before, and why would she ever even need to mess with the temp settings when all that's here are her dolls?????? And why didn't your beloved seem unaffected??????¿????????

It's when she starts to give you touches here and there—her 'casual' handholding, naturally drifting close to you, clinging onto your arm—and noticing details you'd never have ever thought about in usual times that you think that Perhaps There Is Something Going On Here. And THEN you realise What Exactly Is Wrong when you feel that tension (and tent) centred at the bottom half of your body 😜

She's WELL-AWARE of it too, with the way her eyes drift down and her free hand going from resting on your stomach to moving to your lower abdomen.......before stopping 🫶 which gets on your Nerves to the point where all caution's thrown in the wind, your mind nothing more than a lustful haze (lol) and your only priority being to beat this heat......and your meat too, but really that's kinda obvious

It's as if she knew too!!! The moment you find some empty spare room, propriety be damned, she locks you both in IMMEDIATELY before putting the small dish to the table on the side (and you could've sworn you heard her breathe out "finally", though your braincells lost their way amongst the stars or something so you didn't know OR care) and walking back to you. At least until, yk, you grip the fabric of her clothes and slam her to the wall before THEN slamming your lips to hers 🤷‍♀️

She's surprised at your brazen forcefulness at first (who the heck wouldn't be ngl even you'd be surprised somewhere in your basically melted brain) but then she immediately relaxes. Hell, maybe there were remnants of whatever chemicals she put into the cake and she's having a taste for herself, bc she gets more daring by the second as her hands roam around your body and squeeze at your tits and her nails cling onto your biceps as she pulls you in deeper

Coincinentally just like how her nails dig deep into your back as you plow into her senselessly 😄 technique be DAMNED man bouta call yourself a carnivore bc GOD you're hungry for that meat HAHAHAHA (if not you then me I'm hungry for her thanks)

You could just barely register your lover's whines and pleas for you to slow down, but you couldn't care less as you hammered your length into her hot cunt over and over again.

And really, why would you slow down? This is what she wanted, isn't it? Having you fuck her like some simple-minded animal in heat with your only instinct being to fill your lovely little scientist up with your cum until its dripping out of her abused hole... This was her end-goal, so who was she to tell you to slow down?

It was better to lose yourselves in the moment.

..Even when you could hear quiet murmurs on the other side of the door. You could just barely make out what the voices are discussing—they had wondered why there were faint sounds of impact beyond the walls.

You've never seen Ruan Mei in such a state of panic before, with her eyes widening in concern as she pushes through her breathless state and keeps telling you to "stop" and that "it's too much" and "they'll hear of our experiment" (is that what we're calling it now?). Unfortunately for her, however, such words fall on deaf ears; especially when her body language says otherwise, with her limbs refusing to let go of you and her left heel dropping to the floor with a clack that is easily drowned out by the sounds of your explicit duet.

"W-We need to be qui-- mmnf..!"

One of your hands had reached out to the remaining cake before stuffing it in your lover's mouth, "If you wanna be.. ahhh.. quiet so-- ffffucking badly, then have something to c-chew on-- ohmygods, A-Ruan, you feel so good..!"

Her hips buck up in response to you using her true name, her eyes rolling to the back of her head as she lets out a particularly loud yet muffled moan. You actually slow down this time, though you make up for the speed by plunging in as deep as you can as she eats her own creation—even you were able to recognise that her choking on something other than your dick would be one hell of a bad idea, and whatever effects that cake had on you was going to hit her rather quickly anyway.

You don't help the rising heat beneath you either, even when you've slowed down; your head bends down to play with her soft tits, tongue licking and mouth sucking as if something was going to ever miraculously come from it. You are a woman-- no, a bitch starved.

And from the feel of your partner's desperate grinding movements on your hard cock, from the looks of your pretty little scientist's pupils being blown, from the fact that her, from the fact that you've managed to reduce your Genius' brain to some sort of needy mush—the same state that you're in—you're pretty sure that she is the same state as you are right now.

Really, who cares about the people outside?

Let them know of your shared depravity with each other.

It stands to reason that neither of you finish for. A long time. Who knew that sharing the effects of two potently-crafted aphrodisiacs would make you two fuck like rabbits? 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ you're there for HOURS, doing whatever you two can manage to do—every position, whatever kinks you two have managed to discover yourselves (plus some new ones you hadn't even realised you were interested in until now, go figure)......hell, even when you sit there to catch your breath, you're still inside her 😭

You Are both at least Slightly aware that you're making a huge mess and you're probably gonna be so fucked AND fucked out by like idk tomorrow. Did you have the capacity to care? No not really, but Herta's possible wrath about dirtying up her Station like this was more than enough to have you both think that MAYBE you should take this to one of yous' quarters (though really it's a 50/50 but either way she'll still ridicule you somehow tbh)

So she cleans you up, crouching down and shamelessly sucks you off like a cheap whore—her enthusiasm and fervency is a CLEAR contrast to her usual lethargy and stoicism. Your shared cum drips to the floor as she did so, though not for long when she stands up and puts her panties back in place. Are they ruined to all hell???? Well yes but she won't really need it at your place so it's not like it matters

Once you've got yourself and the room cleaned up (that's a stretch I'm ngl but you get ⭐️ a gold star for trying), you quickly leave as soon as possible. It's both bc neither of you are far from done with your 'experiment' AND bc you two are such messes. Like you could be a mess on the daily, who knows, but Ruan Mei NEVER has a hair out of place and now she looks So Very Dishevelled My God

But again, none of that matters once you both get into your room and continue for round........who knows

But after you both inevitably end up passing out and the effects wear off? Lol she wasn't joking about how it won't do anything negative to you—the both of you remember precisely Everything you've done

"So."

"Mm?"

"At the end of the day," you spoke, voice raspy from the sleep and the overexhertion from the day before, "what was that research even for?"

She snuggles into your embrace—a rare moment of tenderness between the two of you—as she thinks on her words, "..Sexual potential?"

"..Could you elaborate?"

"..Not right now, my apologies," her voice is in the same state as yours, and you couldn't help but laugh.

"I figured."

Whatever research it was, it turned out to be Very Good Research 🫶

It also helps that she kept the recipe AND found a non-drugged alternative. Win win!!!!!

[cerastes]

Monster Hunter World - Drimo Edition

I am going to sum up my thoughts of the pre-post game, base game experience of Monster Hunter World as someone who used to actively dislike Monster Hunter and who, in the last 2 weeks, has had a veritable blast with Monster Hunter World, and who defeated Xeno'jiiva last night. Most of the intended readers for this are familiar with my background, but in case an unrelated reader finds this to be something they'd like to read, a fast and dirty breakdown of my background is that I am in love with fast action games and in true love with FromSoft games, by which I mean not just Soulsborne, but also Armored Core, Shadow Tower and King's Field (and The Adventures Of Cookie & Cream, but that one's not important here), having grown up with FromSoft well before Demon's came out: The first Armored Core for the PS1 is a childhood favorite of mine and my first FromSoft title. I have done speedruns of Dark Souls 1, have cleared DS1, Bloodborne and DS3 in no level up challenges, and DS2 in a no death challenge. This intro is not to stroke my epic gamer penis, rather, it is to contrast this experience with my Monster Hunter experience prior to World: I gave Tri a go, and I did not like it, dropped it fast, then many years later, I gave Rise's demo a try and did Not Jive With It. I am a Complete Noob when it comes to MH. I want to credit @kc5rings for selling me an extremely compelling look into this game franchise I had basically written into my No Flight List and made me want to give it one last, third try. I want to thank @lc87 and @fractalanimus for playing the game with me when the time came to do sidequests, grind out some rare drops, and in general teach me the finer minutia of MH that you only learn through word of mouth, experience, or looking up guides, the last of which I'm allergic to. Three Wonderful People! And I want to thank a lot of different people in my notes through the Posting Of MH World that gave me different useful tips.

Very long post to it'll be under a cut.

The first thing I want to say, after this foreplay, is that to everyone that, through more than a decade, told me "dude you like Dark Souls, play Monster Hunter, you also dodge attacks, you'll like it!", you do not know how to sell your game. These games have a few overlaps, but they are very, very different beasts, they play fundamentally different and dare I say opposite in many regards. The moment I stopped trying to play Dark Souls in Monster Hunter, no, the moment I stopped trying to apply my prior knowledge of nearly all action games in Monster Hunter, was the moment it really started to click that this is more of an action positional turn based game than an action game. In Dark Souls, for example, you and enemies have really good tracking and adjustment, and even in Dark Souls 1, a game slow by the modern standards of the formula, you find speed similar to the fastest in the base World -- I've not played Iceborne -- there is a relation of economy of action and speed of action equals the amount of turns you can take. You take turns in Soulsborne as well, but the way you take and steal them is by knowing your attack speed, how many times you can swing and roll before running out of stamina, and how these factors interact with each of the enemy's attacks. This is reactive turn based action combat, where your main way of staying alive is properly timing your i-frames to the enemy's moves and then not overextending your stamina usage so you can both attack and get ready for the next affront. In Monster Hunter, you have way fewer i-frames, but conversely, both Hunter and Monster are extremely committal in their attacks, there's almost no adjustment, and the relation is instead economy of action and position instead of speed of action: Faster and less positionally important moves are weaker proportional to their convenience (Dual Blades, Bow for example), slower and more positionally important moves are vice versa stronger due to how inconvenient they are (Great Sword TCS). Your main way to evade attacks is to move to where you shouldn't be and not being there; your have a super high i-frame universal option in the sprinting dive, but this is entirely defensive and sacrifices your turn for a very safe move, which is antithetical to the offensive defense MH likes to encourage.

Once it clicked, the combat went from "holy fuck this feels awful to play" to "ohh this makes so much sense", initially there was a certain desperation of me trying to do things Fast because I like playing Fast, but that only resulted in missing attacks nonstop. You don't need to be Fast because nothing is Fast in this game. And just like Dual Blades and Bow, if a Monster is Fast And Its Attacks Are Convenient, it comes with a price tag: Odogaron and Tobi Kadashi are fast! But they are VERY linear, and what few moves they have that swipe or hit horizontally, they telegraph three business days in advance. Odogaron attacks 1 to 4 times in strings depending on its HP, but all you need to do is Move To The Side for the most part. Hunter and Monster follow the same rules, but you have to follow the rules! In fact, the reason Deviljho is so dangerous is because it doesn't follow the rules with its advancing body slam and with the Beat A Motherfucker With A Mother Fucker mode; Body Slam comes out relatively quickly compared to how it makes its entire body because a meteor sized hitbox advancing at you. And even then, it has a tell that gives you enough time to Move Out Of The Way (depending on where it cocks it head before the slam, it swerves left or right, meaning you can dodge towards the side its head is to get out of the way), as for the Holding A Monster, it gets insane and fast horizontal attacks, meaning disarming it is essential (Flash Pod).

Now, the flow of the game felt pretty good, but what I like the most: Scoutflies. For an environment rich in detail, Scoutflies allow you to properly parse the world without needing to strain your eyes by giving you all sorts of useful info and highlighting items of interest in the environment. The more you learn about a monster, the easier they track it for you. This is great, because, personally, I like the Fighting Part of the game more than the Tracking Part of it... But! The breathing living nature of World was still very fun to engage with.

In terms of difficulty, I think the game was pretty tame. It lives and dies by its rules, and I think the postgame will disrupt that with its superbosses and such, but at least the base experience was very strictly tied to the rules of combat. That doesn't mean it's boring, it was incredibly fun! Engaging with the rules per each Monster's needs means not only having to know the rules well, but also to be able to identify where a monster is not following them! So, for example, Odogaron overcommits, Xeno'jiiva has a tool for everything but only mediocre tools, Teostra is strong from the front and back but very weak from the flanks, Nergigante has good attacks but they are all highly telegraphed with high start up, Kirin has insane damage output options but can only land them on Stun, and so on. Just like your weapons diversify how you engage -- and skip some of -- the rules, so do Monsters. It's an incredibly level field between you and the Monster, almost like a fighting game where you can't pick half of the cast and the AI can't pick your half.

Initially, I thought the rhythm of having to grind the fuck out of stuff was going to make me hate it; the thing is, the fights were sufficiently fun for me to not mind doing some Monster fights several times in order to craft the gear I wanted, and this gear didn't need to get replaced often, that's great! However, this does lead to something the game disappointed me with: Weapons. The vast majority of weapons don't look good, and are small variations of the same base model for the tree. Sure, you got your Kirin Bolts and Bazelgeuse Hachets, but the majority is just... Generic weaponry with small modifications. In fact, Xeno'jiiva, the freaking final boss, doesn't get unique weapons! What the actual hell. The armor is great, but man, big fumble on the weapons to be frank!

The story is obviously just there, and the Handler -- I hope on purpose -- legitimately just exists as an entity that gets in trouble for you to see a Monster being dangerous for a while. But I didn't hate it or anything! It's Just There as a wrapper for the Monsters and the Hunters. This is pretty explicit, I think, considering all monster are named yet no human/wyverian is named. The only non-monsters with names are your Hunter and your Palico (Big Al my man). That said, I appreciated the angle of the story! We are a research commission, we are here to Learn Shit and not kill god, because god is part of the ecosystem, it's just Nature. It's Animals. We don't fuck with the environment, except when something has already fucked with it in ways that will be catastrophic to Everyone Involved, so we get involved to Unfuck It. I like that.

Overall, my experience with the game was very positive, and I am happy to have given this game a try. These two weeks have been pretty busy for me, but getting home and carving Odogaron and Deviljho to get those damn parts I am missing (Deviljho Scalp is rarer than Deviljho Gem, the spirits told me) has been a pretty fun activity to destress and beat the fuck out of Monsters with cool moves.

The Thing Is,

I Get It Now.

I get why you like this.

Looking forward to doing the rest of High Rank and then Iceborne and later on playing Rise!

[crispsandkerosene]

New programming adventures while I wait on my dad for a code review of the overlay cloner:

Editing DJAlex's Blender plugin to support pet meshes!

tldr, those have mysterious additional data which is now stored in custom attributes. The main purpose being for it to survive the trip through Blender. This means the game finds everything it expects when you reimport the edited pet mesh, which means...

Custom pet sliders should be possible now :D

(Demo with very lazy mesh replacements.)

The code is on my Github, but there's no one click package download yet.

I also added the handling of morph normals as custom attributes, since morphs get imported as blendshapes and those can't have different normals from the base mesh. Will need to make helpers to actually edit/transfer them, though.

(Going through MilkShape to fix waist seams on fat morphs annoyed me too much. Still no idea why morphs on meshes exported from Blender explode there, sadly.)

[susiekern]

6. the one with the dm

a/n: hi so I'm dumb and forgot to add the small text part to chapter 4 so if anyone's interested, check it out! it's not really that important so it doesn't change much if you don't

warnings: swearing

word count: 755 (but with quite few texts that I don't count in)

lyrics from: Rain - Sleep Token

masterlist

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For the past month, you’ve only seen Megumi during your regular meetings on the rooftop or passing him in the corridor. When asked about it, he simply said he spends most of the days at the studio, recording music for some artist who hired him as a guitarist for their new album. Between the rooftop and corridor, the only signs he was still alive were a few messages and sounds of him practicing behind your wall. Sounds that you got used to and started to enjoy. At least for the most part.

“Sorry for the noise, guys, he’s just wrapping it up.” You say to your viewers and focus back on choosing the game for tonight’s stream. “Should we do that card trading sim? It looked fun when we played the demo.”

With the game chosen and in the process of installing, you fill the time answering the chat and drinking your coffee.

zeyde_: hot neighbor back at it

sammie: is hot neighbor actually hot, tho

y/nsmarshmalow: she never confirmed, no?

sammie: Y/N IS HE HOTTT?

“Well, I can’t say he’s bad-looking. Depends how you define hot.” Shrugging, you smile a little. They’d flip if they knew.

sammie: okay miss avoiding the answer.

eleffa32: am I flipping, or is that the same sound from Yuji’s stream

rooney_: hot neighbor reveal pls pls pls

sammie: @/eleffa32 no literally, my bf is watching his stream next to me and IT’S THE SAME

eleffa32: stfu are you guys living together?

plumbobo: YUJI X Y/N CONFIRMED?!

You almost spit your coffee all over the desk reading this, and you don’t know whether you should laugh or cry. Not again.

“Yuji and y/n neighbors confirmed, guys; the hot one you like so much is his roommate. Chill out.” Deciding to laugh, you inform the chat and wipe the coffee from your chin. A few moments later, your game is ready to be turned on, and miraculously, Megumi stops playing right when you click on it. Typing a quick thanks to him, you tune back into the stream for the next three hours. The game turns out to be a nice one, perfect for a calm Sunday evening. You decide to slowly finish the night when Nobara texts you that she’s going back home with food for the both of you, so you go through the last few questions.

sammie: y/nnn, have you heard that new song The Fallen released yesterday???

“Yes, I’ve listened to it like twenty times already!”

When you woke up on Saturday, the last thing you expected was a notification about your beloved band releasing a new song. There was no forecast about it on their social media, not even one post; it just randomly showed up on Spotify, and the fandom went crazy. Was it planned? Leaked? Does this mean the new album is coming soon?

“It’s amazing, like everything they released. I swear, Zenin was chosen by gods to be the scribe, because how could a mortal human write something as good as their lyrics? There’s this part, ‘I know what I am, the mouth of the wolf, the eyes of the lamb.’ I got chills hearing it, seriously. I would do anything to talk to this man about his lyrical genius.” You sigh and lean back in the chair, reading messages from your followers who express their opinions on the song. There’s a knock on the door, and Kugisaki peeks into your room.

“I got dinner, you nerd.” She says and comes closer, waving to the camera.

rooney_: NOBARA HIIII

eleffa32: omg hi queen

zeyde_: QUICK QUESTION

zeyde_: IS THE HOT NEIGHBOR ACTUALLY HOT???

“Hi, guys! Eh, I would say he’s okay. Not my type.” She shakes her head and leans on your chair back. “Sorry for busting in, but I need to feed this one, since she won’t do it herself.”

“You’ve heard the boss. Thank you for joining me tonight, and I’ll see you on Tuesday!” You smile and wave to the camera before turning off the stream. Nobara goes to the kitchen to prep the food, and you stay back to turn off your setup. Soon you’re both splayed on the couch, eating the takeout of her choice and paying half-mind to some rom-com she turned on the TV. Finishing your meal, you put the bowl on the coffee table and grab your phone for the first time since finishing the stream. There are a few notifications, but only two catch your eye. Texts from Yuji and a DM on Instagram.

tag list (lmk if you wanna be added!): @nytylie @fresa-luna @syrooo @zaranobiyuyu @jvpit3rr @pandabiene5115

[kore-arts]

Au where Janet Drake lives

Tim was relaxing with Dick on the hedge between their houses when they both heard it.

Now Tim had a grin, knowing he wasn't the Drake who released that growl and shriek as he heard the click click of the heels he and his mother favored. Now if he could just figure out what she said, his mandarin being rusty. He giggles as he jumps down with grace to follow the beautiful fury his mother trailed

But Dick's hair rose on his arms. His eyes wide as he watches what had to be a demoness push open a gate that even he never knew was there. No alarms, no surprise yet to be seen on the gardener's face.

But Tim's reaction was… reassuring. As he follows his brother by emotion and vigilante bond his heart races.

Tim knew his mom. Janet Drake, the Dragoness of Artifacts and Business. Her eyes honed in on the sunbathing Bruce as she steadily walked with grace. Ah she screeched Bruce's name. He hides a grin as he perches on a chair, his mother long used to his eccentricity while in a comfortable place. Bruce's eyes are wide, truly caught off guard as Janet taps her nails on the seat she took. Her hat shading her face with her blood red lips twisted in displeasure.

“Do tell me dear Bruce. Whenever were you going to let me know my son is following you officially” Janet's nails click as her fire like tone wrapped around her words.

Tim… did not expect that. He already told her. His eyebrow raises as Janice grins

“I- wait. Tim, you didn't tell me that your mother was Jannie?!” Bruce exclaimed “whenever did you move back?”

Tim mouths ‘Jannie’ the nickname, feeling weird. Dick does the same and they look at each other.

He blinks slowly before it hits him

“Bruce. Please don't tell me you thought I was just a random kid named Tim Drake” Tim groans as Janice looks even more disappointed

Bruce's eyes look away.

Tim decides to be a menace and his mom nods in approval “Bruce. Bruce, did you even think about where I learned my detective skills? My ability to stalk you for years?”

Dick's little ‘’what the fuck' goes ignored

Bruce does look ashamed. His face red but not from the sun “I thought you just were a natural”

Janice and Tim both laugh at that. Both knowing that talent was earned not given at birth.

Tim presses on “oh and what about my knowledge of the Arkham Family? or how I already knew tiny bits of the league?”

“History hyperfixation?”

Tim blushes, yeah thats true. But he still shakes his head “No you Deaf Bat!”

Janice shakes her head “I understand you keeping me away because of the night activities Bruce. But no calls? I just have to see our boys on the hedge like the family version of Romeo and Juliet?”

“Hey! The hedge is comfy” Tim and Dick say at the same time. Tim winning the Jinx and getting handed ten bucks as Bruce sputters

“Jannie! No no! I thought you cut me off! Jack said so”

Janet's scowl deepens into something murderous. Her hair spilling out like black ink as she takes her hat off and holding it as she holds back her fury.

Dick's confused shout startles her “Uh! Little explanation here?”

Her eyes blink slowly as she looks at a shrugging Tim.

“Oh. That's right, you never actually met me. My maiden name was Janet Arkham-Woosan. I am one of Bruce's cousins. Albeit what most would say I am a Bastard born out of an affair in a very tiny village. Not that my sister is any different.” Tim giggles as Dick's face slowly cycles throughout emotions. Janet gently ran her hand through both boys' hair.

Bruce shoves his hands in his face and slowly drags them down “Jack's lucky to be dead.” It's a whisper before he straightens “well. It's lovely seeing you Jan. But yeah, This is my son Dick, The rest are inside”

Tim smiles and helps her stand “you gotta meet Cass! Oh and you'll adore Damian! He's such a serious little guy, almost killed me three times! Oh and Babs!”

Dick stares at Bruce as Tim practically drags his mother into the Manor

Bruce shrugs “Janet and Sandra were probably the two most important people to me other than Alfred. I did wonder where Tim got his penchant for the more subtle things. I am glad to see her. Honestly it wasn't even us finding out we were blood related that connected us as teens.” Bruce looks happy and haunted at the same time “we separated still, I was still out to discover myself and train. And they had a different path to that.”

Dick nods as he walks alongside Bruce “and that was? She looked weirdly familiar”

Bruce hummed. “Let's just leave it as Janet was not her birth name and Barbara is going to be even more surprised then I was to see her”

Dick startles hearing a shriek

“Lady Shiva?”

“Oh you've worked with my sister!”

[talonabraxas]

"Make sure that consciousness flows into what you do. Keep one foot in this world and one foot in the transcendent—this is the dance." - Eckhart Tolle

Simhanada Avalokiteshvara

Avalokiteshvara is a popular archetypal Bodhisattva in the Sutras, in which he strives towards enlightenment. Within the teachings of Vajrayana Buddhism, he is said to be a Buddha, who attained full enlightenment during a past aeon only to manifest as a Bodhisattva on the path to inspire and bless many in our current aeon. Within the Sutras and Tantras, Avalokiteshvara is known by many names including Lokeshvara, Avalokita, Avalokiteshvara, Lokanatha and Mahakarunika. He is famous as he is considered one of the Eight Great Bodhisattva disciples of Buddha Shakyamuni and for his landmark sermon at the behest of Buddha Shakyamuni as narrated in the Heart Sutra.

The Sanskrit honorific ‘arya’ meaning ‘noble’ or ‘noble one’ is often used at the beginning of the name for each of the Eight Great Bodhisattvas as well as notable enlightened beings such as Tara. Arya Avalokiteshvara, known as Chenrezig in Tibetan, is the patron Bodhisattva of Tibet and is still widely revered and worshipped throughout the Mahayana Buddhist world. Within Tibetan Buddhism, there are many lineages of various forms of Avalokiteshvara that span all four classes of Tantra alongside numerous other oral traditions and terma (treasure teachings) traditions that have arisen within the Nyingma order.

The great Indian and Tibetan masters who proliferated the practice of Avalokiteshvara are Jowo Atisha, Bari Lotsawa, Mitra Yogin, Machig Labdron, Kyergangpa, Tsembupa, and so forth. It is said that the Indian master Jowo Atisha promoted the practice of Avalokiteshvara as one of the most important and thus, he is widely practised as one of the Four Deities of the Kadampa order which arose from Jowo Atisha’s teachings. In fact, Avalokiteshvara is also linked to the creation myth of the Tibetan people. He is said to have emanated as a monkey and mated with a demoness who is said to have been an emanation of Tara. Their offspring became the Tibetan race.

There are four popular forms of Avalokiteshvara that are more commonly practised than others and they are Sahasrabhuja, Amoghapasha, Chaturbhuja and Simhananda. The practice of Avalokiteshvara Simhananda is one of Thirteen Golden Dharmas of the Sakya order. It is regarded as an important practice within the Sakya order and descends down through great masters such as Bari Lotsawa Rinchen Drag to Sachen Kunga Nyingpo (1092-1158 CE). The practice originated in India, from ancient masters such as Chandragomin and Suvarnadvipa. It then entered Tibet in the 11th century through the efforts of Rinchen Zangpo, Jowo Atisha, Bari Lotsawa and others. This practice is now found in all traditions of Tibetan Buddhism.

Historically, Avalokiteshvara Simhananda was also proliferated in Mongolia and China by Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen (1182-1251 CE) after he healed Goden Khan of leprosy using the special healing rituals of the deity. Avalokiteshvara Simhananda is propitiated particularly in rituals to appease nagas. Therefore rituals and pujas associated with Avalokiteshvara Simhananda have a healing effect on those with skin conditions like leprosy, cancer and other related illnesses which are commonly believed to be caused by nagas. Furthermore, these rituals are also used in the offering of torma (ritual cakes) and incense to appease nagas as they are partial towards the great compassion of Avalokiteshvara.

[adoriels-tears-if]

hi Arielle.

just finished the demo and i really liked it. especially the world and characters. i admit in the beginning i had the feeling that the story moves too slow, but this changed quickly to excitement.

i have a few questions:

1.) at some point some choices had emojis added to them. since they only appear with arthur so far i assume that they have something to do with romancing arthur? anyways could you explain what exactly those mean? i think one was an embaressed face and the other someone fencing?

2.) something i noticed was, that neither MC´s appearance nor their personality bars changed over the course of the demo. is this a bug or simply not integrated/coded yet?

3.) how important will the personality bars/choices we make during the early chapters (like being angry at arthur and the adults) interms of the story? will they greatly influence it and potentially lock you out of certain choices/endings/romance? or can a angry and well... more evil MC get a good...er ending?

4.) do you have an update schedule, like trying to update the IF every few months, or is it more like "you update, when its finished"?

i also found 2 bugs. i hope its alright i add pictures of them here:

A) when clicking on the arrow at the top of the screen to then click on e.g. your character "sheet", there is one option called"relashionship". clicking on it leads to a page containing something along the lines of "doubleclicking to edit".

B)

B) as you can see, at some point this link appeared and clicking on it leads to the error message.

anyways, like i said, i really like your IF and hope you will continue it. thank you for your answers.

Hi dear ! Sorry I'm late !

I'm glad you like the characters and the world since I work a lot for it. As for the progress of the story, I admit it may seem slow, but it simply follows Mc, a simple, quiet life in the prologue and chapter 1 that accelerates in chapter 2 until it becomes extremely confusing with everything that's going on.

As for the emojis, yes, they're the first point of romance. That's how it works.

🤗 This one is for this variable $ArthurRofriend, so basically does Mc see Artie as a friend it's the platonic choice

💋 this one ($ArthurRoboldlove) comes into play if your Mc is well aware of his crush on Arthur and is more assertive.

😊 This one ($ArthurRofriendmance) comes into play if Mc is friends with Arthur but there's a possibility that this friendship will turn into more over time. Although Mc isn't fully aware of this at the time.

😎 This one ($ArthurRofriendvale) comes into play for the most self-confident Mc, those who have a friendly rivalry with Arthur and whose feelings may evolve into something more.

💗 this one ($ArthurRoshylove)is for the Mc's most shy about their feelings towards Arthur.

😳 This one is for those who are currently rivals with Arthur, but whose hearts take a leap when they see him ($ArthurRorivalmance).

🤺 You don't love him, pure disdain.

(What the hell kind of code is that? Where exactly was I going to go?)

2.) 3) not coded yet ! I'm not a big fan of stats, per se. But I do track the actions and words of your characters that have consequences. I don't want Mc to be blocked by certain choices unless they're radical. There's always a chance to evolve, to redeem.

4) Up to now I've been updating every 10,000 words, but I've noticed that a lot of people prefer to play at once and wait for the chapters to be finished, so more regular updates will now take place on Ko-Fi and I'll post the next public update only when chapter 2 is finished.

I'm still struggling with this sort of thing.

5) The bugs have been squashed, so you shouldn't have any more problems with the next update.

Thank you for your kind words.

[zorlok-if]

Zorlok Playtesting Application

Oh, hello! Since it's been (checks watch) over two and a half years since the first demo dropped, I'm looking for a few new people to join Zorlok's beta testing team. I've opened a new application for playtesters so, if you're interested, you can check out the link below or read more about what playtesting involves under the cut.

This playtesting application will remain open through February 21st. People chosen as playtesters will hear back from me (Albie) by February 23rd. I'll only be selecting a few people at this time but, if you aren't chosen, rest assured there will be more opportunities to apply in the future (and I encourage you to do so).

Note: If you were a beta tester before, you are more than welcome to continue on as one. There's a post about this in the Discord server. If you've lost access to that server for whatever reason, let me know.

Thank you so much for your interest and your time! (regardless of whether or not you want to playtest, I just appreciate you)😊

APPLY HERE (CLOSED)

For more information on what playtesting entails, check below the cut.

What is playtesting?

Playtesting is the process of combing through the unreleased version of a game searching for bugs, typos, grammatical errors, and other mistakes. Playtesters are expected to point out any errors they find so that the public release is as polished as possible. Playtesters are also expected to provide feedback on the game's content, continuity, choices, and may be asked for input on other topics related to the game's future storylines and character arcs.

Because this game is heavily impacted by choice with many different customization options and paths available, playing through the game multiple times and exploring different options is an important part of the playtesting process.

Playtesting is a volunteer position. Those chosen as playtesters can decide whether or not they'd like to be credited on the Zorlok masterpost, the itch.io page, and/or in the game's credits.

Most importantly, playtesting is not just a way to get early access to the game. If chosen, you will be expected to provide feedback within a specific time window. Playtesters must keep links and passwords private. All discussion of unreleased game material must be kept to the private Discord server. Playtesters who leak info or share the unreleased game with others will immediately be removed from the team. Playtesters might also be removed from the position if they are repeatedly inactive during the playtesting process.

If at any time—for any reason—you want to opt out of playtesting, that is fine. You may do so with no questions asked (just please let me know you won't be participating anymore).

All communication will be done through Discord in the private server.

Thank you so much for your support and time. If you are interested in playtesting for Zorlok:

CLICK HERE 😊

[lnkinpark]

being 2000s lp’s bestie 🔙

linkin park headcannons .. no specific pronouns

(all pictures and gifs from pinterest)

- cutting/ dying their hair on tour

- playing video games all!! the time

- brad constantly flirting with you

- pranking everyone with joe and dave 24/7

- being present for all their rehearsals and cheering when they’re finished

- being invited to the studio and ordering food (food fights may break out, it depends on who makes the wrong joke)

- being invited to tours and photoshoots too

- being one of the first people to hear mike’s demos

- you pop up in livestream and all their fans know/love you

- waking up to one of them knocking on your hotel door because they’re bored

- playing their instruments during rehearsal

- and also teaching you how to play

- late night sneaking out and walking to gas stations with chester (coming back to the tour bus gone, on its way to the next show)

- pretending to be a fan at their meet and greets

- attempting to surprise them in the crowd of a show and one of them spots you and has you sent backstage

- free merch!! literally gets thrown at you

- finding shows to binge together and getting mad at one another if someone watches an episode without everyone else

- lots of inside jokes

- texting each other in public environments to talk shit

- them showing up to all of your important events and being the loudest when congratulating you

click the title for more stories 🔝

[kranae]

let the sky fall, let the day break | club introduction/wallpost code

i also made this for myself to match with my other club content!!! apologies for the yucky demo image quality >_< but originally, i made the darker one (let the sky fall) for my cherry work on woo EU (launch soon!!!) and decided to post it! and my lovely friend said they wanted to steal it, so i went, oh okay let me make a lighter one then xD

can work as both a wallpost, or as a club introduction!

very important! make sure that your code has NO LINE BREAKS or else the spacing will not be nice!!! it all needs to be in one line!

if you want like, a pfp with a name and stuff for an intro on the side, dm me and ill add it

it can also scale down fully on smaller screens like a phone i’ve been told it’s pretty on a phone

let the sky fall | let the day break (<— click these!!!!)

do naur touch my credit thing even if you edit because i’ll be really really sad and cry :( let me know if you have any questions! also fair warning on site, the pictures look a little biiiit funky, but still pretty: see below!!!

[snaccpopstudios]

Hi everyone! We're here with the long awaited post on our newest bachelor, Simoun. We know you've all been abuzz with questions about him so we hope to answer some of that in this deep dive into his creation. This post is in lieu of our usual Wednesday devlogs as we've been writing this over the span of several weeks, and was co-authored, edited, and reviewed by Tobias, Jude, ToyboxToonz, Primarvelous, and Sauce. The above image was drawn by @toyboxtoonz.

You can read the full post for free on Patreon, or click the readmore to see it all!

Personally speaking, some of my concerns since Simoun's debut are thoughts like "Do people think I'm making SnaccPop Studios push an agenda?" and "Do people think I'm going through a checklist while making new characters?" It's made it difficult for us to write this quickly because this is quite personal to myself and the rest of the sensitivity consultation team on the DachaBo team.

Concept to Creation

The story of DachaBo begins way before SnaccPop Studios itself was even a concept (that's Sauce's story to tell though). Early Patreon art of Simoun exists from November 2022, back before I was signed on to manage the Patreon and any other projects besides Sunny Day Jack. Sauce had some ideas laying around for several other characters in the DachaBo universe that didn't make it into the proof-of-concept demo:

I dug up an old draft for the DachaBo cat character we teased and it featured a story concept where the cat character was originally a female DachaBo character, referencing the original female design. And overtime he got tired of how he was being treated and decided to change his own self to reflect who he wanted to be, not the sycophants who collected the toys and whatnot ... It was shelved because I didnt have the means to sensitivity check it The designs are half cooked is all but he was supposed to be Indian ethnicity coded for no other reason than I've never seen a character like that

One thing that's important to note is that there definitely are Indian folks who are gender diverse (see Hijra on Wikipedia for a quick primer on one of the traditionally recognized nonbinary genders in South Asia) so it's not a novel concept by any means, but it's also not very common in media whatsoever.

Why The Long Wait?

One of the other contributing reasons as to why Sauce wasn't able to do much with the concept at the time is because we didn't have a VA for him confirmed yet, as I explained in May:

One thing that's rather unique to SnaccPop Studios in all of my experience as a game developer is the fact that all of our series involve coordinating with Voice Actors from the start, which means we need to take the VAs themselves into account when making characters. Adding another layer of complexity in hiring is the fact that SnaccPop Studios is a strictly Erotic Adult brand focusing on masculine love interests, and even if we focus more on the softcore, there's still the unfortunate stigma that any 18+ work has when attached to your name. All of these contributing factors make the potential talent pool that much smaller. This isn't to make excuses: I know SnaccPop Studios can do better on this front. While we can't make changes to some of the existing series' main cast (we don't want to put people out of a role they've been promised), we will do better moving forward to incorporate more diverse characters into our future titles, and that's a pledge

In the field of voice acting, it's best practice to cast actors with similar backgrounds to the character they're voicing, particularly for characters from marginalized populations (ethnicity, culture, gender, etc.), because it's a recurring issue in all professions where marginalized folks are regularly turned down for employment or career opportunities. You don't have to look far for instances where other voice directors failed to cast the proper talent for a character, even in the AAA sphere where they ought to have the resources to be able to find the proper talent; at SnaccPop, we wanted to avoid that situation at all costs.

Finding Simoun's Voice

So we had to confirm a VA first before we could do anything. Sauce, Reece, and I all tried to put private ads out for a trans masc POC (any ethnicity with dark skin) actor for a R18 game, which was largely met with silence at first, then responded to by folks who didn't fit the role in a full capacity (many only hit one or two of the criteria we laid out, some of them none at all). And it's not hard to imagine why: it's common knowledge that the majority of erotic works often fetishize marginalized people who are otherwise underrepresented in mainstream media. Things such as skin color, body type, hair color, age, etc. are treated as traits to be objectified, and on the off chance that queer folks or people of color might see themselves in porn… it's usually not for the most flattering or empowering of reasons. How could we, an exclusively Adults-only studio, convince someone who isn't familiar with us that we wanted to make something for people like them rather than something that turns them into mere masturbating material?

We were almost about to give up on the Catboy until I decided to take a chance on contacting a VA whom I hadn't had any formal and proper interactions with before. I'd been a fan of his work and knew him from an audition he sent in from a previous game I had worked on, but he knew me solely by name at best since we were following each other on Twitter. Still, it was a lead, and after chewing my nails for half a day, I shot off a message to Soren Viloria.

And what do you know? He said he'd give it a shot as his first NSFW role.

Naming the Lad

Soren is a Filipino VA, and despite the fact that I myself seem to be mistaken as Filipino by other Asians quite regularly, I'm actually not as well-versed in that culture as I ought to be.

There's actually a reason why we were so secretive with Simoun's name for a while: he didn't have one yet, so internally we just kept calling him "the Catboy." We wanted to pick a culture-appropriate name for him, something that was meaningful: Soren initially suggested "Siopao" as it was a common cat name (it's a type of Filipino Steamed Bun, so think of how many pets you've seen who have names like Cupcake or Nacho Supreme), but that didn't seem serious enough for a tsundere catboy like him. A few days later, Soren did a little research on a few well-known characters from Philippine media/culture that fit the bill a bit better:

Elías from the Philippine Revolution novel Noli Me Tángere (a required reading in the Philippines). Cat may like his radical tendencies for revolution and his deep, devoted connections.

Simoun from Noli's sequel, El filibusterismo. Holds revolutionary values similar to Elías, but far less noble and more of a loner. Violent at times, and will do what it takes to get his way.

Panday/Flavio, a very popular hero. Part of his charm is that he doesn't have special powers, but took matters into his own hands and forged a magical blade. Has been portrayed in both 'cool' and comedic ways.

Ricardo "Cardo" from the Philippines' longest-running TV drama Ang Probinsyano. Just a cool action hero dude who cares about family, but is also very ambitious and angy.

Seeing as how we already had an Elias Gallagher, Simoun seemed to be the perfect fit, and the name stuck pretty easily.

Simoun's Boundaries

Now that Simoun had a name, we were able to talk about him more seriously beyond the simple "tsundere cat" tropes. You've all already met Gil Finnegan, who we originally brought into SnaccPop Studios to handle the narrative design for DachaBo but was then onboarded to help with Sunny Day Jack, and those of you in the Patreon Discord server are familiar with our mods Tobias and Jude; along with me and Soren Viloria, that brought the grand total of openly trans masculine members on the team.

We all talked about our personal experiences as trans masc/AFAB people, what things we rarely saw reflected in both mainstream and indie media, things we wanted to see more of. Something we all agreed that was difficult to find was trans masculine folks in sexually dominant roles in erotic media, whether that was live video, audio, writing, art, or a combination thereof; there was only a handful of series we could count on our fingers as far as sexually explicit content that featured trans masculine people in roles that weren't exclusively submissive/bottoms, and the majority of us had already seen those or at least heard of them before (ie. Gummy and the Doctor and Sasha From The Gym were prominent ones). Either discovering this content was difficult due to Search Engine Optimization favoring depictions of trans feminine folks, or it simply didn't exist.

All of this, along with the backstory that Sauce had for Simoun, led us to determine that Simoun would be adverse to submissive roles in intimate situations. Simoun isn't the type to want to be penetrated either due to previous trauma surrounding his gender. Bear in mind that this isn't meant to imply or suggest that there is only one "acceptable" sexual preference for trans masculine folks, nor is Simoun meant to represent all of trans masculinity; he may be our first trans masculine character but certainly isn't the last, as we hope to feature more types of characters at SnaccPop Studios.

As an aside, it should be noted that the trend of erotic trans feminine content being more readily available doesn't necessarily mean that trans women have more positive representation per se; for every kinky piece of art created by trans feminine folks out there, there could be ten more works that fetishize and objectify their bodies. We probably don't need to tell you about the common derogatory slurs that have been used to refer to them; trans feminine and trans masculine people deal with varying levels and types of transphobia as well as situations that oversexualize (or even undersexualize) them, and it's important to focus on content that doesn't strip them of their autonomy.

There actually was a period of time between the release of his concept art after Soren was onboarded where the team observed comments both on Patreon and in the Discord regarding Simoun, and we discussed how we could avoid having people try to ship Bo and Simoun together; because Simoun hasn't had bottom surgery of any kind, we wanted to ensure that tokophobia (fear of pregnancy) or dysphoria wouldn't become a thing for any of us involved in the team or for our trans masculine Patrons. It was a bit of a chicken or the egg situation, trying to keep up with the evolving comments about Simoun to try and anticipate what people might accidentally say.

Debut Day Thoughts, & Moving Forward

We were quite happy with the general reception everyone had with Simoun, and we're excited to see so many people taking a liking to Simoun after his reveal. SnaccPop Studios has always strived to provide inclusive and diverse stories for those who don't often get represented in media, much less NSFW media, and the team was quite elated to see folks who were just as happy to see Simoun.

We hope that the love and care we put into building Simoun has shone through in this post and will continue to shine as we write more of him for DachaBo, because we're just getting started.

[sunny-day-jack-official]

Sunny Day Jack Report 07/11/2023

Wednesday means it's time for our weekly development report, and this one's a nice big one for everyone to enjoy! Those of you who have been following us on Twitter may have noticed that we redesigned our logo for SDJ. The majority of the devlog will talk about our process behind that, so read it for free on Patreon or click the readmore for the important bits!

Unity Demo Version 0.03

Changelog:

Fixed video rendering while playing on the Steamdeck (via Windows Proton Compatibility)

Added missing CGs

Game extended slightly past the kissing on couch scene

Select narration from Y/N reworded for clarity

Macintosh OS compatible version has been added

Known bugs:

Certain voice lines may be missing or cut-off

This update was largely focused on ensuring stability before adding in more content. Those who backed the SDJ Kickstarter can access their beta testing keys via this link, while SnaccPop Patrons who pledge a minimum of $12/mo can access their beta testing key over here.

For our MacOS players, you may encounter issues launching the game due to Apple security, so please follow this tutorial to temporarily disable Gatekeeper (we recommend turning it back on afterwards). We're investigating ways to avoid Gatekeeper flagging the game, so please bear with us! As for our Linux/Steamdeck players, for the time being, please use the Windows version and use Proton Compatibility to play the game.

Logo Graphic Redesign

Like with the previous SnaccPop Studios logo, the SDJ logo was due for a makeover. For starters, the old logo was tiny.

Yes, that's literally the largest size we have on hand for the original SDJ logo source file, and everything else is just blown up bigger in size if need be. Astute viewers may also notice that the Something's Wrong With portion of the logo was also slightly off-center this entire time, as With was hanging off the edge a lot more than Something's. Another issue that came up as we continued working with our translators was the fact that we'd most likely need logos in the target language too; adapting the old logo was near impossible because all we had left of it was a .png file. At this point, making a new logo just made sense.

The new logo largely retains the important elements of the original one. Using the Buddy Belt motif as the background image and the use of two distinct fonts, a formal serif for SWW and a more bubbly sans-serif for the SDJ that essentially captures the essence of Jack's dual personality, were ideas Sauce carried over. Additionally, his signature primary colors palette is much more clear in the text, making this logo more easily identifiable. After nailing down a good foundation and centering the text, Sauce overlaid faint scanlines reminiscent of old CRT display monitors then splashed some blood here and there; all in all, the new logo is a nice visual of the ludonarrative dissonance the game itself aims to achieve.

We'll pass the mic to Gureii here when it comes to the localized logos!

Translation & Localization

Hey there! Gureii (she/her) here. You might know me from one of the previous devlogs posted here on Patreon not so long ago.

 I’ve been asked by BáiYù to present you a tiny (okay, not that tiny) little treat for both the Russian and the Japanese-speaking folks out there who are interested in our upcoming game, Something’s Wrong With Sunny Day Jack.

Let me introduce you to the new localized logos real quick:

One of the most interesting aspects of working on these was the brainstorming session behind both of them. As the Lead Russian translator of this project, one of my main concerns was to come up with the title translation that would be both both simplistic and catchy, hence the name change from a statement to a question. The localized version of the title - «Что с тобой, Джек?» - includes both the questions a player would ask to Jack himself: “What happened to you?” and “What’s wrong with you?”, either depending on their opinion towards him or both of these at the same time.

The Japanese translation team, on the other hand, opted for something much more laconic, to which I was happy to comply! They're only using Katakana to translate the commonly abbreviated title into【サニー・デー・ジャック】, which will be easy for Japanese speakers to read (it'd be pronounced "Sanī dē Jakku"). It's short and punchy, and it's not unusual for Japanese logos to have the English text as well.

Another aspect (a tricky one this time!) was looking up the Cyrillic and Kana fonts that would match the mood of the English logo we got: it gets quite tricky when we talk about anything but Latin fonts, and it gets even harder when we talk about something that is as bold, youthful and bright as it is. For example, with the katakana transcription the Japanese translation team and I had to search for something that would not scare the person interested in playing the game, something much more inviting than the crimson lettering used on the English logo. The bloody Buddy Belt portion of the logo will still indicate to potential players that this is a horror game, so it works out.

By the way, you might be asking yourself, "Why isn't there a Spanish version of the logo?" Both Pierre and Nana expressed that translating the title wouldn't sound nearly as good as the original English title (a literal Latin Spanish translation would be "Algo Malo Pasa Con Día Soleado Jack"). Luckily, both English and Spanish share similar alphabets, so it's as big of a difference compared to Russian or Japanese.

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And that's all we got for this week. Thanks again for your continued support of SnaccPop Studios!

[gaiaxygang]

rereading ena3 because i'm unwell

(condensed for character limit)

first, i am very proud of ena for facing this assignment head on and instead of giving up or trying against next time, decides to bring it home and try again.

putting the rest under the cut because this got HORRENDOUSLY long lmao i just love this story so much.

to my pit babe mutuals..... this is the story focused on the pair i mean when i say Omg This Reminds Me Of KentaWay. the direct cause of my 50k++ pit babe wordcount on ao3 even. they are very important to me!!!

something to be said about ena drawing herself first before eventually basing her artwork off mafuyu instead... very gay. and also another thing that points to them not being so different after all (which is the realisation ena comes to at the end of this story).

ena hates asahina mama so much i think it's cute. this is so telling of ena's hotheaded approach to things and her not really understanding mafuyu's circumstances. mafuyu can't just tell her mom when she's unhappy with something.

mafuyu changes the topic to the new demo and ena is so frustrated and rightfully so. that's what ena's kindness is like. she knows it can be hard, but she just does not understand why mafuyu would keep quiet even when she is clearly suffering. and she is frustrated for mafuyu too.

when ena sees that mafuyu would rather get drenched in the rain than go home because when i go home, it feels a little cold, and it's painful, ena drags her to her home. ena gives mafuyu shelter from the literal rain, as well as a warm place to stay away from the metaphorical storm. and in true ena fashion, she expresses this with an angry face.

mafuyu's arc is covered with rain imagery (no, ena is not the Rain Imagery Character even though watashi wa ame is her song. it has always been the key symbolism in mafuyu's arc) and this is the start of it!

if you get sick like this, i'll sorta feel bad!

this is when it clicks for ena, i think. because ena's dream of becoming as an artist has been rejected by shinei before. 2 years later, she still remember how much it hurt, and how it haunts her to this day.

but ena doesn't understand keeping quiet in order to prevent rejection. why would she? when her family always speaks their mind, even when it hurts others. when shinei, despite his good intentions, crushed her heart by saying what he believed in without any tact or context. when he talked to her like a fellow artist rather than his daughter, even though what ena needed was the support of a parent.

this is only mentioned later on but one thing i find interesting is that this story takes place while shinei is out overnight for work. shinonome mama, ena and akito are all on good, bickering terms. however ena does not talk to shinei at all and avoids him as much as he can. i imagine the dinner scene later in this story would be quite different if he was there lol.

ena: that... i might be able to understand that, a little.

geh. ena is so frustrated seeing mafuyu fall deeper and deeper into that cycle her and niigo have been trying to get her out of.

which is why ena takes the phone from mafuyu, puts on a cheerful, polite front, and lies to asahina mama. her act here reminds me a bit of mafuyu's fake smile honestly. she hates associating herself with shinei but she knows asahina mama is the type of person who would fall for it, so she uses it to her advantage, to help mafuyu. and it works!

(it pisses me off to use his name, but...) yes, he's shinonome shinei... do you know him?

gah, the dinner scene... ena giving all her carrots to mafuyu is so cute. akito thinking mafuyu must take care of ena a lot when it's actually the other way around is so cute. mafuyu meeting the in-laws (who adore her) is so cute. everything about this scene is so cute.

shinonome mama can understand asahina mama's feelings, because she can get worried about ena the same way. for a second mafuyu thinks that her mom truly is just worried about her, but...

the difference between shinonome mama and asahina mama is that shinonome mama unconditionally supports ena. she isn't perfect (she seems to be unaware of just how hurt ena was by her fight with shinei, but tries her best to support ena when she sees ena shutting herself away) but just by being supportive she is already so much better than asahina mama, who wants mafuyu to discard the only thing that makes her happy in order to become what asahina mama wants, and invades mafuyu's privacy.

asahina mama always phrases it in such a way that seems genuine, but mafuyu can feel something different when she hears shinonome mama say this. when she watches ena and akito bicker, she notes that even though they're arguing, there's a warmth at the dinner table that is absent from her own.

(it shouldn't be any different from my house, but something is different. but... what is it?)

and here comes the confession: mafuyu has voiced out her opinion before, like ena wants her to, but it didn't work. asahina mama, again, does not listen to mafuyu.

i told my mom that i wanted to do music, but she told me... "make sure you don't regret it in the future". i'm sure she's worried about me, so i...

mafuyu's if i be patient now and study for my exams, when i become a university student, i might be able to do music again breaks my heart because even if asahina mama really did allow and encourage mafuyu to do music after getting into medical school, it doesn't change that mafuyu will be unhappy.

because mafuyu doesn't want to be a doctor, like asahina mama wants. she wants to be a nurse, and that's been her dream since she was young. if she obeys her mother and goes into medicine, it'll be hard to back out. that is not where her happiness lies.

and either way, i'm not sure if mafuyu would have been able to endure another year under her mother's control if she quit music. she's barely holding it together as it is (both before she was open with niigo and now when they're all working to help her). music is her only escape, her only outlet and happiness. not only that, it's something she does with her precious friends. without that, ena knows, mafuyu would only go back to being who she was in main story. that girl who had given up on wanting to be saved and now only wishes to disappear.

i draw because i want to, because i want to believe my happiness lies beyond that. ...(i don't understand. i know your parents are important, but why won't you face what you want to do?)

ena finds her happiness in art. even though art is also a source of her pain, she continues drawing because that is where her happiness lies. she knows that mafuyu, too, has something she wants to do. something that her mother is trying to dissuade her from. and mafuyu simply gives in, not even fully realising how she is only sinking deeper into despair.

being told "it's for your sake", having your parents' thoughts pushed onto you- would i have also... turned out like mafuyu?

this. this is the part of wish that shows exactly how far ena and mafuyu's relationship has come since main story. back then, ena couldn't understand mafuyu's feelings: mafuyu is admired, talented, and has expectations placed upon her. ena has none of these, so she can't comprehend why mafuyu would want to disappear like she does.

but here, she starts to understand the pain that was driving mafuyu back then, the same pain mafuyu will be in if ena doesn't do something now.

in ena's side story, she thinks about this a little more. she comes to the conclusion that she if it were her, because she is stubborn, she would've kept drawing even if shinei told her to quit. that's another key difference between the two! ena is rebellious and strong-willed and even though it'd hurt her, she would never stop trying to pursue her happiness. she even acknowledges that despite the hurt shinei's words caused, he never told her outright to stop drawing. i would argue it was implied and hurt as much as if he did but ena4 doesn't seem to agree with me... i don't like that story anyways.

ena is so happy when mafuyu finally admits that what she truly wants, disregarding her parents' wishes, is to keep creating music with niigo. look at how soft she is! it makes her so happy to hear that this truly is something mafuyu wants to do, and that she's able to say it out loud.

in that case, i'll help too. as a niigo member. first, as practice, why don't you go all out and do what you want for today, at least?

this expression!!! mafuyu is so into her lyric writing because even though she doesn't fully know it, this is what she loves. this is what she is happiest doing: creating songs with her friends. even ena is shocked that mafuyu can make such a face.

again, ena starts to understand mafuyu more. expressing her true feelings and desires like that IS a huge step for mafuyu, even if she's only expressing them to ena, who... already knows this.

i was just thinking, that creating music is important to you.

look at my baby. so much determination in her eyes. she has learned so much from her girlfriend.

and that, that is the face ena wants to draw. those are the feelings she wants to convey in her assignment, "hatching". mafuyu working seriously on what she wants to do, not unlike ena herself. mafuyu helps her draw feelings she wasn't able to previously, simply by being herself.

(...so mafuyu can make that sort of expression. even though i thought she would make a bored face no matter what she does. it's just as i thought - what she said earlier, "i want to create music with everyone", might be related to it. it's not because someone told her to. it's because mafuyu herself thought that she wants to.)

so that's how ena sees me...

that, my dear mafuyu, is homosexuality. you are gay. for ena.

again, ena's expression is just so Soft. moment of appreciation for enamafu.

AND MAFUYU TOO!!!! this exchange of looks makes me feel like i need to be sedated good fucking lord THERE'S SO MUCH LOVE IN THOSE GAZES. mafuyu's heart feels warm because ena has been able to help her confront these feelings of hers and give her temporary peace at a low moment, and ena, kindhearted ena, is glad she's able to help mafuyu.

ena doesn't know if she's right in how she sees mafuyu, but she tries her best to capture mafuyu's willpower. in hopes that one day, mafuyu will break out of her shell with her own strength, hatching into the vast world, as someone who is more like asahina mafuyu.