cisthehuman

[cisthehuman]

Casio PT-80 Synthesizer Japan, 1984 {x}

[cisthehuman]

Cis Rambles #12--2024 Accomplishments

Howdddyy

It's been a hot second since I've written on here! First of all, Happy New Year! 2025! Wild Stuff!!

As this is my personal dumping ground of creativeness and personalness, I wanted to share some accomplishments from last year!

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✮Personal✮

Health wise, the hormones are finally working!! My PCOS symptoms are finally becoming more manageable! I'm not bone tired randomly, my skin is getting clearer, and I feel much better in general! In November I hit 1 year of taking hormone pills, and I'm happy that I'm seeing a positive change!

I've been doing some research lately and found out that I actually have a lot of symptoms of high functioning autism recently as well. As I'm not officially tested, I'm only saying that I share a lot of the main symptoms. While it explains some things, I'd have to get a professional opinion.

Along with that I had some thoughts on my identity and I'll make a fun little post about that later~ I wanted to draw some art to celebrate. I've done little hints at how I identify to the world, but I finally feel strong enough to share this part of me properly. I am nervous and excited.

Lastly, I've mentioned before that I've mourning the sudden passing of my dad. This year will make four years, and while I know I will never be 100% whole again, at the end of last year I finally felt stronger to live for myself. I felt bound by a promise I made to him while he was still around. I let this promise consume me to a point where I forgot to take care of myself. The past few months I took care of myself, and I think I can keep my promise while making sure I'm okay.

I also read Dear Gene, which is probably not only one of the greatest BL stories I've read, but one of the greatest stories period. It totally ruined other literature for me. I started reading The Three Musketeers and I kept thinking, "I love this story but it's not Dear Gene..." LOL

✮Streaming✮

I streamed kinda consistently for at least three months! (I'm making a big guess based off my steam wrapped lol) Those streams were really fun. When I think of streaming, I think of what I heard a comedian say about doing standup (I unfortunately don't remember who said this, I'm sorry to this person)--'If you do a standup set, and you completely fail, and you still want to do standup, you're meant to be a comedian." I feel like that thinking is the same for streaming. I know for sure there were streams where there was no one there, but I was having the time of my life and planning streams like I was a bigtime streamer.

Just for fun, I wanted to list the games I finished/played on stream~

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood

Our Life

Our Life 2 Demo

2064: Read Only Memories (I didn't finish it before I got on hiatus, but still played a good bit of it on stream)

A Date with Death

Magical Delicacy (only played a bit before I got on hiatus)

Makoto Wakaido's Case Files

Marlon's Mystery

Plantabi Little Garden (used for chatting stream)

Refind Self

Cats Organized Neatly (used for chatting stream)

During those months, I thought hard about my branding and while I love what I commissioned, I can see where my novice in streaming showed in the ideas I had. Because streaming is so saturated, you have to set yourself a part somehow. While I do think I was different in some ways, I think I was also a bit too scared to be out of the box with what I wanted to do.

With that in mind, I wanted to create a fun interactive-ish story for people to enter with my streams. Instead of doing a lore video, I thought of doing a lore visual novel. Well really, a kinetic story, but still! One major accomplishment was completing the main story. The extras are almost done, but main content is drafted and just needs some edits!

I also started watching some renpy videos to get a grasp on things.

Another thing I noticed when I was going over what needed to be changed was my darling streaming child Lunar. I liked her design, but I feel like it wasn't doing enough. I felt like I could push her to a stronger character visually. And through Goldbullet's community post in hopes of getting featured, I redesigned my girl!

Wow!! Dramatic change!!! I'll go through the design changes later, but the biggest one is she's not just a cat girl based off of a domestic cat! She's based off a caracal now! She's also more of a gyaru now, which is actually something I've written in her background for a while, but now it's in full effect!!

✮Gaming✮

According to my steam wrapped (is that the official name? i don't remember anymore...), I played 69 games last year (nice). I mean it was nice until it became a burden I had to bear due to the fact that I wanted it to stay at 69 so I couldn't play any new games for several weeks. Luckily I'm addicted to Galaxy Burger so we're good.

This year, I fell massively in love with Indie Games. I love them so much. Sometimes the big name studios just don't really make games that just hit that little spot in your brain. Indie games have been scratching the little itch that big name studio games we missing.

Top faves were:

Slime Rancher 1 & 2

Wilmot Works It Out

Our Life

Galaxy Burger

Tavern Talk

Yaoling

Beastie Ball

Coffee Talk 1 & 2

For some reason I forgot that I love creature collector games despite playing pokemon solely for a large portion of my life (again I'm realizing how big the signs of the possible autism is now lol)

A part of me wants to write mini reviews on some of the games I finished. I started in Bluesky in this thread. We'll see if I make longer reviews. Also follow me on Bluesky! I'm kinda done being on twitter it sucks ass LOL

✮Hobby✮

One of my major hobbies is quilting! I was able to get 2 done last year!

Music wise, I completed another album! Unfortunately, it is in the 'Hey actually put this on youtube' list. I got the video ready at least! I just...need to upload it lol

I did upload the 2024 Halloween Album! Whoo!!! Listen to it!! It's the best yet! And follow my youtube for more!!

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And that's it!! 2024 in a nutshell! Another thing I did was take more breaks. I got really burnt out at the end of the year, and I finally took time away to just relax. I feel much more energized and ready to do things! I'm gonna go write up the goals for the year~ See you neextttt possssst~

[cisthehuman]

New Halloween music dropped.

[cisthehuman]

Cis Ramble #11--Halloween Tunes 2024

Howdy! It's been a while! I've been enjoying my little hiatus! I actually did some fun planning and completed this years Halloween tunes *before* Halloween! I'm very proud of this one--so proud I wanted to chat about how it was made! Come on down let's delve deeper into these tracks!

Which by the by, the way I make tunes is through soundtrap. I use their music loops and fit them together to make these songs! I have no music bone in my body, but I love listening to music, so I've been going by ear on how to create these songs. In soundtrap you can find different sounds and voice clips. It's a bit difficult because I usually have to search by a general word like 'scary' or 'poetry' to find something usable. I was genuinely surprised how I was able to find a lot of clips using the same person for this. It felt so on purposely cohesive when it was purely luck!

Track 1: Cold Blooded

Believe it or not, this was the last track made. At this point, I was honestly burned out from putting my entire brain into the other songs. When most songs took maybe 3 hours in one day, I worked in smaller amounts of time over the course of several days. It was interesting because this was one of the tracks I was looking forward to, but it turned into a hard puzzle to crack.

As I wanted this song to convey the vibe of the rest of the songs, I wanted to include certain things--strings, guitar, some music change ups, and possibly an outro. The first iteration was very messy and felt very forced. There were too many moving parts and changes. When things get messy, I usually make a new file so I can start on a clean slate. However, I couldn't do that this time. I really wanted to keep the 'Let me out!!' sound clip, but I couldn't remember what words I used to search for it so I kept working in the same file. Since I couldn't restart on a fresh file (and you can't duplicate songs you make on soundtrap) , I went back to my thought process that worked for the previous songs--what's the story?

I've said this before, but my main background is writing! And when making these little tunes, especially the Halloween themed ones, I try to picture a music video and have the music follow the video playing in my head. With that in mind, the story we follow is essentially 'person is walking around a grave, gets kidnapped by a witch, and gets a spooky cast spell on them'. Very easy to piece things together--especially when I was able to find so many spoken clips of the witchy character (which you hear more of throughout other songs). Despite being a mess at the beginning, I think it turned out really good in the end! A good opener!

Track 2: Lurking in the Deep

This was fun! And I believe one of the few songs that doesn't have any spoken voice clips. This song was the fifth one completed, for those curious.

The main conceit of this song was 'weird monster in the ocean that's chasing you'. I imagined this playing during a chase scene or something similar.

One of my favorite things is the sound of the monster. That consisted of two different monster noises I found. One of them is a growl and the other is gurgling noise. I changed the effects of them to make this creepy monster noise. I find weird gurgles scary and uncomfortable, and I think really sells the idea that this being is otherworldly.

I'm also really proud the 'underwater' section. I love when a scene shows characters interacting with music. For example in Brave Bang Bravern, when Bravern first appears his theme music is playing. At first you think it's just a directional choice in the show, but then it's mentioned it's actually playing in real life from his speakers. I wanted to do something similar to the track where the music sounds like its muffled underwater because the person is literally underwater.

Track 3: Come Alive

I wanted to make a fun club like track LOL

So some context, I make characters for these little albums I make. The character here, BATTY, currently has the most albums since Halloween comes around every year and I'm always inspired by the holiday. The first album was really fast paced and dance-y, and I wanted to make another dance-y song.

This song was one of the ones I made in 3 or so hours in one sitting. It was a fever dream. I don't even know if I have much to say about it. This one came together pretty quickly. It was the seventh song made, and is partially the reason I had some burnout when trying to finish Cold Blooded as I put the last bit of my brain into making a Halloween club song.

One thing that I find interesting is there are so many loop that sound spooky. A lot of the trap loops in soundtrap lend themselves to a Halloween-esque sound. I will say, a part of me kinda wants to make an extended version, but I'm not sure. I can be easily convinced though LOL

Track 4: Bloodsucker

This one is a personal fave. I play it all the time lol

It was the sixth song completed, and at first I was a bit lost at what to do, but after I found the main voice clip (I don't remember what I searched for it--I think vampire?), I got a game plan.

I believe the voice clip is a poem focusing on healing mental illness (at least that's what I think), but I found it kinda compelling as a comparison to a vampire settling with their newfound monstrous side. (It also would be good for a Jekyll/Hyde metaphor!)

Props to the guy who recited this poem, he really gets emotional in it. I really love it. His voice reminded me of the guy who speaks in Thriller by Michael Jackson at the end of the song. Really cool. I think the 'Insomnia' vocal clip (a soundtrap loop) is a nice juxtaposition with it. The idea of pairing them together was to perpetuate the idea of being able to settle with the good and bad parts of ourselves. As humans, our ignorance causes us to be bad people at times, but we still have good in us and we can nurture it to live alongside the bad.

Like I said before, this is the third album under BATTY, and I kept thinking about his first one where it was kinda 80s inspired with some of the tracks. I wanted to bring the techno vibe back and I think it fit with this song a lot!

Track 5: Lucifer, Fallen Angel

This is where we get to my artistic fascination with the devil. Ol' Luci is an interesting character and I wanted to make a song kinda describing his descent into hell.

This song was the 3rd one made out of the group! And it was made as a pair to go along side Hell.

Here you get to hear the witchy voice again! It was only on a relisten that I noticed that she's heard here and in the following track, Hell. Accidental cohesion there. It kinda adds a layer of 'maybe the speaker who was kidnapped by the witch is going through a bad trip or something through the spells' to everything. Imagine to your heart's content what the overarching story is!

One thing that was cut out from this was a sound clip of like a metal scream of 'SAAATAAAAAN!!!'. I was going to use it during the metal section of the song, but I was afraid it was going to be a bit too hokey LOL Maybe next year I'll use it. I love making metal songs now since soundtrap finally added TONS of guitar loops

I was unsure of adding this one at first, as I thought it didn't sound Halloween enough. But then I said fuck it and kept it in LOL

Track 6: Hell

Whoooo!!! Let's give it up for the track that set the tone for this little collection of musiccc!!! Whoooooo!!!

That's right folks, this was the first completed song. It made me so pumped. I love intros that build up, and this one has like an over minute long intro.

This one probably has the most sound clips used. I just love all of the demon clips I was able to get. After piece them together, I thought 'ohhhh....I could do all of the songs like this'.

Piecing voice clips together actually came from a previous song I worked on that I'll use for my new stream opening. I know, I'm on hiatus and I'm working stuff for when I inevitably come back lol That song was like my trial run, while Hell was the like proper execution of the skill if that makes sense.

And we have an outro!! I never really made outros too much, and I just listened to KNOWER's song Nightmare that has a fun little outro, and I thought 'I gotta make an outro for people to groove out to'. I'm kinda obsessed with outros now because this one was so fun. I'm really happy with this one, and I'm glad I finished it first because I didn't have a direction when making tunes this year and this totally put me on the right track!

Track 7: Rest in Peace

This was the second track to be completed! And originally the final song.

After the high I had on finishing Hell, I jumped into making this one the day after. The voice clips of the first girl is actually the same in my new stream intro and outro music lol, she has a lot to pull from.

This turned into a very uplifting song. This and the last song, Ashes to Ashes, are my exploration of death. Death is a major theme in Halloween, and one I often avoided for years. This song didn't touch on my thoughts with it too much as the next one does, but I was surprised how calming it ended despite the strong intro.

And there's an outro! I told you I became obsessed with them after I finished Hell. What was cool was this particular music loop pack had a sample of the main melody in two different ways. So I could start and end with the same melody but with a different tone. lol it makes me seem more masterful than I am.

Track 8: Ashes to Ashes

Ahhh the namesake of the album, and another high key favorite.

This was the third song completed, and it made me very reflective.

I mentioned this several times of my little blog, but I lost my father suddenly three years ago. It has made my relationship with death much closer than I thought it would be, at a time much earlier than I thought.

I was never someone who liked talking about death even when my dad was alive. My dad on the other hand talked about it as if he was just talking about the rain lol that's just the kinda guy he was. At first I was a bit scared to do this song, as I believed it would make bad memories come up. The more I found sound clips and pieced everything together, I felt this wave of calm come over me.

It was very weird. I felt more and more at peace with everything. It was a bit of a full circle moment. I saw a post online of an ignorant person who talked about a celebrity who's personality is grieving her partner, and it made laugh. I don't wish ill on that person at all--in fact, I hope they remain ignorant. Grief is a body altering thing. It's something you won't understand unless you experience it, and I genuinely don't want anyone to experience it for a long time. Trauma changes everything about you, you turn into a different person, your brain acts differently, your body changes.

Rebuilding yourself from the ground up takes so much work. I've come to terms with not being able to be at 100% anymore. I'm happy I can make it to at least 60% every day.

With that being said, yes, I'll keep talking about my grief. It's only because my grief led me to making music and streaming as an outlet.

I know I didn't really share any tidbits about making the song with this one, but I think its more important to share how I felt when making it. I hope it makes you reflective as well!

And that's it!! Whoo!! Thanks for reading and for listening to the tunes!

I'll try to have more music out--I know I have a huge backlog lol

Either way, enjoy the spooky season!!! I'll see you on the next oneeeeeeee

[cisthehuman]

Cis Rambles: 10--The Future of Streaming~

It's not a goodbye! It's a 'See You When I See You' type of deal.

Trigger Warnings: Family Tragedy, Self Harm, Suicidal Thoughts (while I don't go into great detail about these thing, they are mentioned)

To explain myself and how I've been feeling, we should talk about why I started streaming in the first place.

I've said it a few times on stream, and possibly on here in a post, but I started streaming a few months after my dad suddenly passed. At that time, I was thinking 'Oh shit, we really don't have long to live. I need to do stuff I've been wanting to do before I kick the bucket too!'. At the same time, I've withdrawn from my friends a bit at the time, and I wanted streaming to be a thing to show them I'm okay and hanging in there.

And not everyone will understand the pain and energy it takes to grieve. It's been three years now and it still sucks ass, but it was even worse during those first few months when the wounds were very fresh. I don't even remember those months now as it's blocked it out of my memory. On top of navigating this new normal without my father, I went to graduate school which required even more energy and time. And to make matters even more confusing I was beginning to experience my first symptoms of PCOS which made my mental and physical health even worse.

I'm unfortunately not a stranger to poor mental health. I've considered cutting my time on this planet short enough times to know that I have to take extreme care of myself to be strong enough to fight off these thoughts. The stress of taking up some of my father's responsibilities, dealing with loss, school (which then turned into work stress when I got employed), and the ups and downs of chronic illness made me very weak to find happiness and enjoy my hobbies.

Now, don't get me wrong--streaming positively affected me during this time. I was able to do some streams with my irl friends, meet new people, and experience new stories/games that I never considered playing. The highlights was playing Our Life. The small group that amassed during that time was very fun. It made me feel lighter and brighter! And in the future when the sequel comes out, you bet your bottom dollar I'll be streaming it!

Tangent aside, while streaming was fun and did give me something new to do, I became a bit too ambitious with it. That is all on me. I started trying to make this into my third job and the two that I have take up a lot of my time. I started to bite off a bit too much than I could chew. I wanted to make a big overarching story for my streams and make all of these cool things for it...and with my limited energy I usually missed my self imposed deadlines which would make me very upset and feel even worse for myself. On top of that my lovely (but fairly cheap) set up would sometimes make streaming impossible, which added unnecessary pressure. I would think the small viewership I had would forget me, I could never get this to take off, all of this was for nothing.

That was when I realized I lost sight of what I was doing with streaming. I forgot that my original goal was just to sit around and have fun, whether no one or several people showed up. It was something I wanted to do to just relax. Instead I turned it into something I avoided.

I needed to take a step back. I took a small vacation from my job and truly sat around and did nothing. It was the first time in the last three years that I just enjoyed being alive. It was a sobering experience for me as I realized that I also haven't fully processed all of my grief and traumas. Resting also helped me get more energy to feel more present with people I care about and be more mindful of what I was doing healthwise.

This brings us to now! Streaming is going on an indefinite hiatus. There may be times where I randomly have one, but I won't stick to a particular schedule. I need more time to myself to get to a place where I'm mentally and physically able to bring streaming in as a bigger piece of my life. I've been in this place mentally before, and instead of giving myself time, I ruined things for myself and wasn't the best person to other people. That's a scar I'll keep, but I'd like to be better this time around!

So yeah! If you made it through this half planned/half stream of consciousness, thank you! Like I said, it's not a I'm completely gone type of thing. I just need to rest properly. I like putting my whole self into things, and I just don't have enough 'me' to put into this sadly. But don't worry! I'll still pop up with things! I'll still make posts on here as well!

One day, CisLunar will be back and ready to roll!

[cisthehuman]

Cosmic Canary Radio Vol 3 is here!!!

Whooooo!!!! I want to say this is close to a year of being made! But finally 54 tracks later, we are finally here!

I am really happy with the variety of genres I was able to play with and just my skill level getting better with soundtrap. Please enjoy~

[cisthehuman]

I have a worldbuilding blog now~ Please take a look at one of the latest posts!

Hoshi*ga*Hoshii Sparkles Again

In today's issue, we are lucky enough to sit down with one of the most popular Venusian musicians, Hoshi*ga*Hoshii. We get to hear more about her new release The Sun Glares at You along with her past and future. Please enjoy this illustrious interview!

Thanks so much for meeting with us Hoshi!

Thank you for having me. It is always a pleasure with Cadenza.

First things first, congrats on the new album! It's a little different from your usual sound.

That's what most critics are describing, aren't they? I'm not sure if I truly understand what is different about it. What, pray tell, makes this one different than the others?

Ah well...uh...

Don't worry--I'm quite patient and tolerant of criticism.

Oh no! It's nothing negative at all! I'm just nervous describing your own music back to you.

A fair fear, but needless. I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to know your thoughts. Music is one of the many ways we can connect with each other without touch. It is something that startles and comforts us. Your thoughts may mirror mine, and I am curious if we have that connection.

That does ease my nerves, thank you. One thing I can say is you seem to have gone for a slower tempo for most of the songs on this album. I remember your debut album was quite fast paced.

Ah, is that why people find this one so different? I can agree I am much more reflective than I was when I first started. I was eager to prove myself after several denials from agents and labels. I could feel my dream of performing on stage so close to my fingertips and always falling before I could grab it. Those days were tough. I felt very foolish for leaving my previous occupation to run after a frankly frightening goal.

What was your previous job if you don't mind me asking.

I was a professor in mathematics and astral predictability at Aphrodite's University on Venus.

Wait, that's one of the most prestigious universities in the solar system.

I was very close to reaching tenure when I left. At the time, I was kicking myself for leaving. My dear students wished for me to become a singer. Their faith in me provided faith in my own abilities. Some were able to come to my first concert. There were several times I was close to laughing on stage due to their enthusiasm.

I'm sure any student would go wild over their math professor becoming a major performer.

That is a true assessment!

That explains a lot of the mathematics referenced in your lyrics as well, right?

You are correct. I tried to steer away from it when writing, but theories always have a way of weaving themselves back into my work. In this album, I focused more on Earthling mathematics. I found their thinking quite interesting.

Speaking of Earthlings, this will be their first time experiencing an album release from you! Do you have any things to share about yourself or Venusian culture for them?

It is a shame it has taken Earth this long to connect with the rest of the solar system, but most of their kind have adapted quite well with our societies haven't they? As for Venusians, one thing that comes to mind is our skin tones. We run at pretty high temperatures like our home planet, and our skin can change color due to the heat within us. Some of my people are fully different colors like pink or blue, and some are like myself with colors on different parts of our bodies. There are even some who can only change when they feel a strong emotion or randomly during a sneeze.

As you can see, my arms and legs gradually change to dark blue. I am lucky to have flickers of glitter on my skin so it truly looks like the galaxy is on my person.

Thank you for your explanation! I suppose it makes sense to ask you--weren't you recently voted as the Vision of Venus for the fourth time?

That is true! I never expect to receive such an honor as there are others who are equally as deserving of such a title. Not to play into stereotypes, but Venusians are very particular about aesthetics so I am genuinely surprised when we are able to come together about an opinion.

With you, I believe your people will always have a positive opinion. For example, your signature outfit for this tour has been trending for days now!

I'm also quite fond of it! I usually don't perform in long gowns because I dance a lot on stage. However, I broke my ankle and couldn't move. The gown we decided to be the signature outfit was one that my stylist had been eyeing for an event. After my injury, they decided this would be the best time to use it. Fate had their eyes on this situation it would seem.

We hope you have a speedy recovery!

Thank you. I have been faring well, but I am eager to move more on stage. Seeing my background dancers makes me quite envious. I want to join them.

Your performances so far have been equally electrifying! I genuinely didn't know you were injured until now.

That is the most pleasing news to hear. I cherish my time on stage, so I put all of my effort into it.

Thank you so much for spending time with us today, Hoshi! As always you bring a calmness that is unlike any other. Any last comments for your fans?

Thank you as well for you time, Cadenza. For the readers, may your skies be filled with stars. As you see them above, they will guide you to your dreams and wishes.

--Cadenza Magazine

[cisthehuman]

Cis Rambles #5--Hoshi*ga*Hoshii

Welcome to another devlog! Today is a special day!!! The first collection of tunes is released!!!

(Technically it is the 4th, but this is the 1st with all of the goodies attached)

To broaden the world of CisLunar, I wanted to create different musicians within the solar system that are played on Cosmic Canary, Lunar and BonBon's radio station.

While there are other videos posted on the youtube, Hoshi*ga*Hoshii was the first collection of tunes where I really found my footing in creating a specific sound for a character. So let's delve into how she was made!

First things first let's start with her name.

I am off and on teaching myself Japanese as a hobby. I quite like the language and I've always wanted to learn it. You've probably noticed that I've named some characters after different Japanese words. In Hoshi's case, her full stage name is a sentence: I want stars/Hoshi ga Hoshii. I liked how it rolled off the tongue and it felt like the space-hop vibes I was going for.

Let's talk music next!

The main inspiration for her sound actually comes from the anime Carole & Tuesday! I admittedly didn't a lot of it despite it being right up my alley. From what I remember, two girls are trying to make it musically and there's like a competition where musicians from other planets compete. I remember watching videos of the different performers and one stood out to me--GGK

(I don't think she won the show, but she won my heart)

With this as the main inspiration, I wanted to make music that had this same chill, spacey vibe. As you can tell, if you listened to the album that is, I got a bit experimental with some of the songs in terms of some of the songs going a bit darker in tone. All in all I think I matched the vibe I was going for! One thing I liked doing was adding in jazzier elements such as pianos and saxophones and pairing them with strings. I think it turned into a very unique listening experience!

With the music done, next was settling her design. Here are some of her inspiration pics from pinterest:

The main idea I wanted for her was to weave as many infinity-esque symbols as I could.

This was her first pass. I wanted to get the hair correct as I was especially fond of the reference I found. Another key thing I wanted was to make her plus sized. I don't do it often due to my own lack of skill, and I wanted to get better at drawing different sized people. Plus in my mind I never pictured her as a thin person. Either way, I know this is something I gotta keep working on!

Here I wanted to see which eye shape best fit as well. Just like with body shapes, I tend to do the same eyes. I wanted to push myself more on creating diverse characters so I took out some time to really think about my choices. (I worry it still looks like my usual though lol)

Then came the sketch of Hoshi's full design! It took a while to get to this point. I thought of several different dress shapes to go with the top portion of the dress. I wanted her in a gown this time as I wanted to go for a very elegant feel. One of the most elegant characters I can think of is Morticia Addams. There's something about how she slithers around the house in her dress to me. So I decided to emulate that for the skirt portion of the gown.

I really like the top. Like it really makes me happy. I find it very elegant!

For the album cover, I did end up with a bust photo. It always happens to me--I choose the pose before I think of the outfit and the cooler part is always cut off lol

It was actually at this point that I decided to give Hoshi galaxy gradient arms. When I was planning colors, I wanted to add a sparkly element, and I thought to myself: wouldn't be cool her name implies what she already has? She wants stars, so she's getting them.

And this is the final picture!! I am EXTREMELY happy with how this turned out! I haven't really done dramatic lighting before and I was scared to bits, but it really turned out!!! T^T I'm just really happy. I have no words.

And to give my own criticism, she can be chubbier. With more practice I'll be able to draw her to what I truly see in my minds eye. For now though, this is a very good start! Below is a quick timelapse! (I forgot to do it when I was sketching and doing lineart, but we got the coloring!)

And to complete the post, I'll add the complete album art~

Yaaaay Hoshi!!

Thank you for reading this devlog! There will be more of these as I continue pumping out tunes~

Seeeee youuuuuu next timmeee

[cisthehuman]

CisLunar DevLog #6--CisLunar is liveeeee

And by that I mean the site where all of the world building takes place is finally available!

I'm very happy to reach this point in CisLunar and I hope everyone enjoys it too! It is probably the most self indulgent thing I've ever done, but it has given me a lot of joy. As you already know, the stream bgm are tunes I made with artist ocs in mind. They finally have a place to live and for you to learn more about!

Some things to look forward to:

Music releases!

Interviews with musicians from the solar system from Cadenza Magazine!

Cosmic Canary (Lunar's and BonBon's radio show) Transcripts!

And more!!!!!

There are already 2 posts on there!! Wow!! Go check it out!

And for even more fun: here's the sneak peek of the first Cadenza Magazine cover featuring Hoshi*ga*Hoshii!!!!

Wow so pretty!!!

Have fun and let me know if there are more things you would like to see about the world of CisLunar.

[cisthehuman]

more pokemon netsuke

[cisthehuman]

Introducing Hoshi*ga*Hoshii

A popular singer from Venus.

Her newest album The Sun Glares at You comes out 5/18.

See you then~

[cisthehuman]

Cis Rambles #9--Cis the Human: April 21,2021

Trigger warning: Discusses loss of family member, suicide ideation, self harm, PTSD, and depression

TLDR: April 21 is a very, very bad day for me. CisLunar is heavily based upon my own grief I'm experiencing.

I have thought heavily on whether to share these things about me. However, I feel like having them out in the open will not only show more about the human running this blog and streams, but shed light on the CisLunar story as a whole. This will be a stream of consciousness type writing as most of my posts on here. So please bear with the changing topics and such. As this is personal, I won't go too in depth in some of the harder things. It is, to put lightly, a bummer to remember and rehash. But here we go.

T.S. Elliot, one of my least favorite writers, famously started one of his most famous works with the line: April is the cruelest month. Who knew I would agree with him?

April 21, 2021 is when I watched my father leave for work as usual and received a call in the middle of the day with the news of him passing away suddenly.

To put things in perspective, I was raised in a very sheltered household and some of my closest relationships are with my family. My father has his own shortcomings, as we all do as people, but he was a major part of my life.

Dealing with the heaviness of surviving him was hard. Not only that, my whole family was grieving the missing piece in our unit. As someone who has some unchecked/undiagnosed issues, it set off poorer habits I thought I left behind. I thought of different ways to end things, I used a razor to scar my skin again, and impulsively sought out to destroy things that made me happy. I forced myself into isolation because I believe it was what I deserved.

I would relive that day for months, and became extremely anxious and afraid of everything. Now, it is a complete blank space in my memory. All I can remember is feeling everything and nothing at the same time.

I have a very vague recollection of getting out of a terrible setback, and remembering a moment between my father and myself. He told me to remember to take care of myself in these bad times. I didn't know what to do take care of myself aside from doing what has always given me peace--creating.

I started writing about grief and the emptiness it brings and the weight is has on a person. This writing slowly turned into the story for CisLunar. While it has now gotten a lot more fictional parts, there are some particular details that are based in my reality.

I'm not sure why I wanted to share this aside from April being a very hard month for me. I always try to stream a lot during this month, and some how I always get something to make me go on a hiatus. Maybe the universe is telling me to take it easy during April.

Today makes 3 years since I lost my dad. Three years ago, I changed into a different person. While I'm not whole or the person I used to be, I have been able to rise out of the darkness that consumed me. I'm not saying these things to get pity points or any condolences. I guess I'm just trying to finally allow myself a little space to share this uncomfortable news.

Don't worry too much about me though, by the time you're reading this, I would be well into my at home spa day. I've been able to make positive habits to combat the bad ones.

I'm going to awkwardly end things here--my tolerance for rehashing this is going away. I'd like to think/talk about happier things now lol

For those that read--thanks. For those who understand what I'm going through--let's hope it all gets better for us.

See you on the next one.

[cisthehuman]

Cis Rambles: Lunar's Design Rules pt 1

I've said this a couple posts before, but one thing I'm working on is a second (and third and fourth) outfit for Lunar! However, I really want to put some thought behind it so I wanted to dedicate some rambles on different elements of her second outfit (and beyond). Please enjoy!

In terms of thinking of different designs for Lunar, I've already made some attempts before.

The one on the left was a very very early first pass. The right picture is when I sat down and was like "Cis let's try a bit harder for your streaming child". Both were done when Lunar still had her old design. Below you can see I changed the sixth one because I didn't like it.

The first time I was planning outfits, I was still planning on making the pngtubers myself, make an overlay to go with them myself, and even a corresponding intro track. Somehow I didn't think this was ambitious and every streamer did this lol

However, I was following styles I liked. I was still following what Vtubers did when they got a new outfit--getting a new style that may or may not fit their character's personality. This is not a bad thing of course, but sometimes I've seen new outfits where they seem to follow more of the streamer's style than the style of the character. Again--not a bad thing just a little observation. All of the new outfits people get is really amazing since it takes time to design, fully render, and animate the new outfit.

For me personally, I couldn't really do that with Lunar. Maybe because I separate us so much, I felt a little weird in giving her my tastes if that makes sense. Obviously, I know Lunar isn't real, but her style isn't my style. So I decided to venture into what her style could be. I thought doing this would be important as character should be recognizable not just based on their face, but on their silhouettes as well.

So I decided on making some character rules if you will to help guide me in designing different elements of Lunar's new outfits. As I said before, this will focus on her hair!

After designing her 2.0 look, I was on a high of making a cool design that I just went wild with creating looks for Lunar.

We'll be seeing this picture in the next few posts about this, but for now let's focus on their hair.

Like last time, the main key element I kept was her hair color. Every thing else changed dramatically with each outfit. Some of them I don't mind (like #3), other's I'm kinda like eh it's missing something (like #2, #4,#5,#7) and some I'm like nooooo (#6).

When I realized these conflicting feelings, I had to think about what made me feel this way. Why did I think something was off? Her hair color is the same, everything is fine, right? And then it hit me--it didn't feel like her. I know I'm kinda repeating myself, but I'm just stressing how interesting the process is.

As I'm writing this, I'm still in the process of completing this fun little pic of Lunar. Again as I was working through this, I was thinking, why/how does this feel like Lunar and the other styles I gave her don't?

So I decided to closely look at her "default" design to see what made her hair look/feel like Lunar.

The key elements I noticed were the shapes in her hair. At the ends, I flicked them out, giving them a bit of a wild edge to them. Another key element are her little pigtails. As they are by her ears, they kinda provide her with another key element to fool with. I also noticed the shape of her bangs. I gave her different bangs before, but I realized I made them a bit too fluffy. I drew them almost using the same lines as her head. So to wrap up my musings, the three elements I noticed to keep in mind were:

Hair flicking out at the ends

Pigtails/upper element with hair

Thin bangs close to forehead

With this information I set to work on going through pinterest and finding some inspos.

Here are the first four! lol enjoy this rare look of Lunar without her glasses.

So let's chat a bit about some of the design choices I decided to do while exploring different hairs. I found inspiration pictures of different twintail wigs. Fun fact: a lot of my design inspiration comes from drag queen wigs.

As the twintails in Lunar's default design are a minor part of her hairstyle, I wanted them to major part of her hairstyle for this second outfit. I drew them much bigger and behind her ears for this reason. I forgot to color it in, but I also played with different accessories for them also! Another key thing I wanted to add for this second outfit was colored streaks or gradient to her hair. I tried coloring the secondary color as the main and it gradating out to her natural purple hair color but it looks strange and unrecognizable to me so I stuck with coloring her hair at the ends or adding streaks. I quite like what I did on the four one, as it plays with the upper element of her hair by just having one little sprout there. And there is a secondary color in the back of the hair (kinda like Stocking's hair in Panty and Stocking). I kinda like that one for a dark look.

Here are the other four!

For this set, I played around with shapes and texture. I quite like the first one to be honest. I think Lunar looks really cute with a curly textured hair. The pink also is very cute. The second one in the first row is also a fav because of the hair going outward horizontally versus vertically. I also think the green gives a really cool look too. Very skateboard chick. The two in the bottom row I also like but I feel I need to put back in my brain to cook more. I like the long pieces of fringe and the shapes of the twintails. I just feel like something is missing.

I'm sure you're wondering if I found a final hairstyle yet--and the answer is no lol.

But I did have fun exploring Lunar's style! I genuinely would like to have all of her outfits planned so then when I can commission the artist who does her png is available, I can just send them the file and not stress about not having anything. A stitch in time saves 9 as they say.

Either way, I'll see you next time as we go over Lunar's outfit exploration! I haven't started fully drawing out what's in my head, but I'm already very excited~

See youuuu neext timmeee~

[cisthehuman]

CisLunar DevLog #5: Ginga

Aiyetoro Madzimoyo III

Another instalment of development posts is here! Today we are going to be discussion the last side character of the group--Prince Ginga Aiyetoro Madzimoyo III. Out of all of the characters, his design had the least amount of drastic changes. I refined some of the details of his character and his style.

His design stems from a doodle session I had on 4/1/22--I only know the date because I actually dated these doodles lol. As you can see, he was always thought of to be princely, but was originally just going to be a subject for a painting and never used again. It was when I decided to make CisLunar a bigger story that I thought of including him in. The idea of three shady individuals (Lunar, BonBon, and Champs) happily socializing with an extremely high ranking person intrigued me so Ginga was added along with his status.

Even at this stage, I had already given him the name Ginga. I off and on study Japanese and one of my favorite words is ginga, which means galaxy (and I believe it is used for the Milky Way as well but don't quote me on that). I just like the phonetic sounds of it. However, I wanted a strong African influence to him as well. To make a long story short, in my younger years of creating I've been embarrassed and made fun of writing things about my race. It's only in my 20s that I started finally reclaiming that part of me and embracing writing/drawing black characters. With that being said, I wanted his middle and last name to be African to tie him to the culture. Plus like afrofuturism is really cool and I wanted to dabble in creating in that genre. This is where we get his middle and last name: Aiyetoro (Nigerian meaning peace of earth) and Madzimoyo (meaning nourished by water; unfortunately I couldn't find specifically where this name originates within Africa).

He's also the 3rd because I like giving my royalty character suffixes like that.

Another thing Ginga always has is his horn. I've always found horns very magical and mystical and as the Prince of the Cosmos, I imagine Ginga to be a very magical guy lol

Ginga also has human ears. When I set him in this animal appendaged world, I didn't realize that he is the only one in the cast (outside of Cis the Parasite) that has human ears. So I came with an answer as to why: cause he's magical.

At this point, I made him BonBon's boyfriend because I thought it would be cute to have 2 couples in the story. Plus there's an opposites attract thing and I like that trope. It's my story and I get to do whatever I want lolol

Another thing was him being a run away from home for very dire reasons. I'm very poor at writing action stories, so I scratched that out. He still leaves home a lot, but now its because he won't be ruling for a long time so he's just living his life lol. I also went back and forth on his eye color. I finally settled on blue as I liked the contrast against his skin.

As I continued drawing him, a new thing started happening--I began giving him what I can only call a lizard like smile. I did it once for some reason, but I just thought he looked cute with it. So Ginga also has a little reptilian in him as well because, you know, magic. I like to think his birth is peculiar because he's ruling over the stars you know? You kinda have to have a lot things happening to rule over several planets and galaxies. At this stage in his design however, I was already ready to change some things about him. His color scheme matched with Champs, and while they are foils, I didn't want them to wear the same exact colors. I also didn't like that I didn't really try to make his royal attire look regal. So when I started redesigning everyone, I jumped at the chance to make my prince look princely.

Which brings us to our first final sketch! I based his attire based on traditional Nigerian clothing. I made the sleeves a bit puffier to add the grandeur along with a flowy sash. As you can tell, I switch colors around. It was originally orange! I'm very aware that I like using cool colors with a lot of my drawings because I favor them, and I was going to use warmer tones to add some more brightness to the group. However, the orange didn't feel like Ginga to me so I changed it to this really lovely turquoise. in this sketch I loosely mapped out where all of his embroidery and detailing is, but when I do more detailed art I'll add it in. I'm very happy with this! I wanted it to be very special but also easy enough for me to do over and over again. But we don't stop there with Ginga. He wouldn't always hang out with his underworld pals in his robes, plus he needs to blend in or else crowds will follow him. So he has two designs!

Yaaaay!

And surprise! The pearls are a headdress he wears! I made this decision before writing this post actually! For the longest time, the pearls were actually his hair, because magic, but when I sketching out his casual outfit, I really liked him without the pearls. So headdress it is!

Speaking of his outfit, I decided to base it off of some Japanese street styles I saw pics of on pinterest. Ginga is an aquatic type of alien, and I like to think his kinds needs to have some coverage to keep from drying out. I also see him as the type of guy who dresses the complete opposite of how he has to dress while attending royal things. The color scheme came about because we were missing some pastel colors in the lineup, and I think pastels show a sense of peace, calm, and naive cuteness to a character which describes Ginga to a tee. His headphones are from his magic, by the way!

Whoo! We did it! The characters for this part of the stream lore (yes there are more parts planned) are complete!

It may be a little while until the next dev log as I need to make things for it, but it will probably be about some of the artists I created that plays on Cosmic Canary radio! I'm going to actually spend some time working on one now. Here's a preliminary sketch as a teaser~

Thank you so much for reading~

Seeee youuuuu next time!

[cisthehuman]

[cisthehuman]

Link Wins ‘SoulCalibur II’ Gamecube

[cisthehuman]

CisLunar DevLog #4: Cis the Parasite

Welcome back to another Devlog! I'm really cranking these out now!

Thank Spirit City Lofi Sessions. This is what is helping me focus on work and I'm really grateful. If you haven't gotten it, please get it if you're someone like me and need the incentive of watching your cute character work alongside a cute animal and lofi music to actually work on things you need to do.

ANYWAY LOL

Today we're chatting about the second main character of the CisLunar stream lore kinetic story: Cis the Parasite.

And I suppose I should start by explaining the difference between me, Cis the human, and Cis the Parasite. When I first decided to become more serious about streaming, I at first wanted to go the full vtuber route. I wanted to stream under the guise of a persona and really go all out with creating a world for that persona to live in.

However, I felt a bit weird doing so. I knew I would screw up and say either my name and get large amounts of anxiety about being found.

Thus I decided to settle on using the internet name I've used for several years--Cis. I'm not going to divulge too much about how this name came to be, just know that it has nothing to do with the gender LOL

(A lot of pictures you're seeing are taken from my busted phone and I did the best I could with editing as I was too lazy to scan these lol)

**Trigger Warning** Mention of lost family member

At the time of wanting to become a streamer part time, I was still mourning the sudden loss of my father. I'm unsure if I ever mentioned it, probably two years ago when I was off and on streaming probably, but I wanted to stream to let my friends know I was okay. After this tragedy, I kinda went inward and didn't really talk much. I wanted a way to connect with them and more people who just needed a space to just chill. I also wanted to play games and be happy too, don't get me wrong lol

Along with this, the persona I created for myself was one that had devil horns and was very moody. I was mad with the world and hated everything at that time, and luckily I realized this probably wasn't the best character to welcome people in with. However, I still partially identify with this idea--my character in Spirit City has horns currently lol--and in the future when I eventually rebrand Cis's look, I will probably give them horns and more devilish features.

I then decided to go for a robot look. It was then I wanted to go for a futuristic/Y2K vibe. Cislunar was always the name, as I quite liked the sound of it and how it included my online name. At the time I think I stylized it as CISLUNAR. I was even going to put a filter over my voice to sound more robotic as well. I still rather like this idea, and maybe as my streaming career continues, I'll actually follow through with it!

I still felt like I wasn't being fully me. Or rather as much "me" I want to put out to the world.

I continued watching vtubers, and in my research to understand the genre, I got hooked into some of them. (Some of my favorites are actually from Holostars! I especially enjoy watching Shinri and the new ARMIS unit!)

((Side note: the dream is to have one of them, or another big named vtuber/streamer to say I'm they're favorite obscure streamer or like lore or something lol))

Anywho! I noticed that there were so many different characters people play as their vtuber, and it made think about things like "wow where would all of these vtuber designs live?" "do they know we're borrowing their bodies to play games and chat with others online?", "how would that make them feel?"

And then I thought...instead of Cislunar being one person, the name stands for two people. Thus CisLunar was born. (Yes, the capitalization matters!) Of course, Lunar was the stream person and Cis (me) was the person behind it. The idea of a symbiotic parasitic relationship came to mind as I often watch nature documentaries and follow a lot of nature things online. In a way we humans are borrowing a body of a character, right? And here, Cis the Parasite was born. It's also a nice neat way to make the persona I present online "me" enough, without it being actually me. (Another reason why this blog is called Cis the Human. This is even more me than Cis the Parasite, if that makes sense lol)

Because I love space, I make a lot of my stories set on different planets lately. I have a rather big story (a future project that I hope people will enjoy!) set in my version of the galaxy with its own rules, I decided to set CisLunar in that same world.

With that making Cis the Parasite's design was a bit tricky. I wanted to make a cool dolled up version of myself that fit the world, but also didn't want to stray too far from reality lol

The first sketch was one I just threw together based on things I wanted to present and liked. I like stars, third eye glasses, and blazers. I was also going to be a bit daring in the color choices to slyly show what I am without it being too obvious (gotta make sure my folks don't realize anything lol)

After that initial sketch, I made a first pass at a pngtuber design! I quickly made it for a birthday stream and it did the job! But even then, I was like "lol let's do a better job next time with some actual thought behind it".

After I redesigned Lunar, the core themes of CisLunar began to take full form. Lunar's story was now more fleshed out and Cis the Parasite's story also beginning to take shape. This was very fun for me because I was able to get a better separation between me and Cis the Parasite. While she is based off me, she became her own thing that just happens to share my online name lol.

With that being said, her energy also changed. Her energy stemmed from the misery and anger I felt when I first began to mourn my father, and with that I want to show that closed off emotion in her style.

Instead of her clothing being open, I decided to give her a turtleneck style top with very form fitting attire. To me I find someone who wears, not necessarily tight clothing, but not loose clothing they want to keep to themselves. Think like thieves in comic books and stuff like that! I also wanted some parallels between Lunar’s and Cis the Parasite’s clothing as well. They both wear gloves and shades for similar reasons.

Seeing the two of them together makes me really happy, as I think I created the perfect pair of “girl who borrows a lively persona to connect with the world” vibe.

Whoo! Another character fully fleshed out! I’m so happy! We’re getting near the end of the character designs. Last but not least, we’ll be discussing the moral center of this group of misfits—Ginga.

Seeeee youuuuu next time!