#hopefully there’ll be lots of screenshots

[lesbianstarlightglimmer]

HUNTER…

[noodyl-blasstal]

Review-tribution - Best Served Cold Chapter 6

Day 6 of @tazsapphicweek so it's time for chapter 6 of Best Served Cold!

Read below or on Ao3. Missed the start? Here's ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4, and ch 5.

-

Sloane leaves Davenport a message, she’s very concerned about a company trading under the name she has trademarked. Hopefully he can help her sort out the confusion when he’s back from his voyage.

–

Raven doesn’t check her phone until the morning after their date. She’s alternately furious and delighted to see what they found. Thank goodness for friends, she could never have proved this on her own. It’s too early to tell Istus yet, they need some more evidence behind them, but they’ll get them. They can’t be allowed to get away with this. They won’t be allowed to get away with this.

–

It doesn’t take long to swap out the QR codes. Hurley and Sloane easily dupe and switch out the posters.

It turns out that one of the benefits of owning your own website is being able to delete the negative reviews.

It turns out that when ‘you’ direct everyone to a different website which you’re not in control of, your 5 stars perfect rating (from names which, on a quick cross examination by Hurley, largely match the ones on the complaint emails) drops quite dramatically.

Worst customer service I have ever experienced If I could give this place 0 stars I would. The owners were so rude and the portions are tiny.

Weird texture Everything is just so powdery? For the price they charged me I expected more. I won’t be going back.

Do they even want customers there? I have never been so aggressively negged by staff members before. I called my therapist when Ieft.

They wouldn’t let me take anything branded The staff said that they didn’t want their brand to be associated with me and wouldn’t let me have any of the cups with the logo on. It wasn’t even that nice! If they don’t want to be associated with me then I certainly won’t be back.

Hurley approves all of the new reviews. There’s a carousel of terrible feedback on the main page now, she set it to cycle through the comments. She’s sure that there’ll be an influx of good ones once they realise, but they don’t seem to have yet.

–

“Hey, Raven! Look.” Hurley turns her phone round, delighted smile on her face.

“Hang on, let me get my glasses.” Raven is so glad she finally caved and got a chain for them, no more forgetting where she last put them down... Well, she’s so glad Istus found one that was tiny bones and ravens and therefore was too good not to use. “What am I looking at?”

“Facebook.” Hurley says, like that will mean something to her.

Raven looks blankly back at her in the hope she’ll explain.

Hurley doesn’t even roll her eyes, which Raven appreciates. “It’s The Good Lick Store’s Facebook page. They made one when they realised… somebody…” Hurley looks side to side shiftily… “had made another website and they must have figured that whoever it was would also nab their Facebook page if they didn’t set it up. People are leaving reviews. Lots of them. They can’t delete them on there either!”

“These are bad.” Raven says, scrolling slowly through the list of complaints about quality and customer service. She’s smug to see how many people recommend going to Happy Scoops instead.

“They’re really bad.” Hurley confirms.

Raven loves to hear the joy in her voice. The last few weeks have been a stew of tension and worry, it’s nice to feel like the tide is turning. Hurley’s joy bubbles over into a laugh and soon Raven joins her, it’s irresistible.

–

Sloane snuggles into her side as Hurley presses send on the email.

“And you’re sure that’ll be anonymous?” She asks.

“Absolutely.” Hurley says. “All of the evidence, but no way of knowing where it came from.” She doesn’t bother trying to keep the smug tone out of her voice. They all deserve a win, and the management company deserves to know the truth about who has been ‘complaining’ about Happy Scoops.

It doesn’t hurt to add screenshots of the reviews, but that’s just for her own gratification.

Sloane plants a kiss on her shoulder. “You’re a brain genius and I love you.”

Hurley closes the laptop and pulls Sloane into her lap. “I love you too.”

–

“Istus! I’m so sorry, I heard what happened.” Cherity looks genuinely bereft.

“Thank you so much for your kind thoughts, Charity, but I’m afraid I don’t quite follow?” Istus hands over Cherity’s usual cone.

“You know, dear, the…” Cherity looks to the side furtively and whispers “... the fro yo people.”

“Oh, well, you know, there’s plenty of space for two businesses.” Istus tries to smile as brightly as she usually would. There’s no need to trouble customers with this, no matter how friendly they are.

“No no, what they did. We know it was them who cancelled the events. Ziad told us in the group thread.”

“The what, sorry?” Istus stares blankly.

“They posted something on the wrong Facebook account, and Ziad took a picture and sent it, and then Mustafa told us about how confused you were about the cancellations and we put it together. May the gods have mercy on their souls, but we certainly haven’t in the comments. Anyway, goodbye dear, I’ve got to pick up Mercy from play group, but we’re with you!” Cherity drops her bombshell and leaves.

–

“Raven?” Istus asks. “Do you know how to make Facebook happen?” She shuffles the sparkly, cloud shaped mouse of their elderly computer again to see if that can speed up the ever spinning wheel on the screen.

Raven creases her brow as she looks up from the book she’s reading. “Is this a test, beloved? Do you think I’m some kind of replicant?”

Istus takes a deep breath so she doesn’t accidentally sound terse. It is definitely an out of character request, but she needs to work out what’s going on. “No. I just need to get on. Cherity said something odd today and I just want to check what she meant.”

“It’s definitely a website. You have to type in the bar at the top for those.” Raven says, letting her glasses fall on the chain and pushing herself out of the seat. Istus has long since stopped teasing her about the grumbling noises when she does it (since she started doing them too, in fact).

The computer finally chugs to life and lets Istus click on the kind swooshy fox that takes her to the internet (Kravitz let her pick her favourite one, and the fox was much more fun than the coloured ball). “This one?”

“I think that’s the google bar which is different. But try putting facebook in there anyway?” Raven leans down, uncertain, one hand on the back of Istus’ chair, and squints at the screen.

Istus types ‘Facebook’ into the bar and waits.

“Do you think we should get a faster one?” Raven asks as they both watch the spinny wheel on the screen.

“Maybe we can ask the boys?” Istus muses, leaning back to rest against Raven as the computer screen goes black and then starts to load the next page.

Raven rubs her chin against the top of Istus’ head, and Istus smiles up at her despite the fact that Raven can’t see. It’s easy to send up a thought of gratitude for this moment. Istus spends a lot of time thinking about the future, it’s a good thing, it’s why her business has lasted so long, it’s why they have the house, it’s how they can afford to retire if they ever get round to it. But sometimes, sometimes it’s important to stay in the here and now, and being here with her wife is a wonderful now to stay in.

“There we go.” Raven points at the screen. “You need to log in.”

“Huh… where’s the little book got to?” Istus cracks the desk drawer.

“I’ll tell Kravitz on you.” Raven’s smile is evident in her voice.

“You wouldn’t!” Istus plays along as she shuffles papers aside. “My love, how could you betray me like this?”

“But if you write your passwords down then everyone can steal them.”

“I don’t have anything to steal in the computer.” Istus finds the little book rammed right at the book. “Anyway, Taako gave me the book because he was sick of us calling to get them to do the reset thing.”

“A wise man.” Raven nods.

“Shall we use yours?” Istus is fairly sure hers doesn’t work anymore after the time she kept mixing up the order of the numbers and exclamation marks Kraitz said she needed.

“Go on then.” Raven reads her the details and Istus types. It’s a well practised routine.

“I’m in!”

“What are you looking for now?” Raven leans back down to peer with her.

“Well, Cherity said that The Good Lick Store posted something strange in the wrong place.” Istus types the shop’s name into the search bar, proud not to have to ask this time.

Their name pops up next to their logo - Istus has begun to think it more garish than fun as time goes on… though that may be more to do with the shop’s owners than anything else.

“I don’t see anything.” Istus says.

“Try scrolling down?” Raven suggests.

Istus moves the mouse down, nothing happens.

“I think you use the wheely bit.” Raven points.

Istus tries again and the page shoots by until there’s a blank spot and the loading wheel comes up again.

“Maybe try a tad slower?”

Istus moves the wheel gingerly the opposite way and Raven fully drapes herself over Istus’ shoulders.

“Hmmm, maybe they deleted it.” Istus shrugs. “Nevermind.”

–

“How many fish?” Carey asks Killian

“Not that many.” Killian smiles the smile of someone who has hidden an amount of fish very north of not that many in a frozen yoghurt shop.

Carey smirks and nods. “...and I assume you’ll need a shower, you know, because of the not very many fish juice.” She wiggles her eyebrows.

“You can’t talk about fish juice and seduce me!” Killian groans and pretends to push her away, pulling her closer instead.

“Can’t I?” Carey grins happily as Killian groans.

“It’s you, not the fish juice.” Killian scoops Carey into her arms.

“To the bathroom!” Carey points the way.

–

Sloane smiles, grimly satisfied with her work. She slips away into the shadows.

–

“It’s just terrible, what happened to the sign.” Carey says.

“So awful.” Killian nods.

“Sadly there’s no leads on who was responsible.” Hurley shakes her head. “I’ve been trying to figure it out all morning, but there’s simply no evidence.”

“Such a shame to see mindless vandalism like that.” Sloane shakes her head. “What is the world coming to?”

Raven barks a laugh and tries to quickly cover it with a cough. “Mmhmm, terrible.”

“It is a little bit funny.” Istus says, primly. “Such a shame those letters were in the sign in that order.”

Raven looks up surprised.

“Of course, no one here would have stooped so low.” Istus narrows her eyes at them all in turn. “But hopefully they can repair it easily enough…” There’s a long pause and Istus adds in a stage whisper. “Did any of you get a photograph?”

–

It takes three days before the sign is repaired. Raven makes sure to pass by at least once on each and every one of them. Partly to glare at the twins through the window and partly to enjoy the sight of the queues dwindling. The sourness on the faces of the hosts increases with each visit.

–

Raven’s busy scarfing down a sandwich between appointments when her phone ba-bings, then pings again, and again.

Istus’ Army Hurley: Quick! Everyone! It’s happening Hurley: Check this out!

The link she sends next takes Raven to a statement.

We are a group of concerned locals and we’re calling for a boycott of The Good Lick Store. They have been sabotaging other businesses (see screenshots attached). They created a fake profile to reduce other business’ revenue and, in the process, took away a community lifeline. They selfishly put profit in front of people. We’re not going to stand for it, and you shouldn’t either. Don’t let yourselves be used to harm the businesses who are there for our community!

Underneath sit three screenshots of posts from The Good Lick Store’s new Facebook page, clearly written as if they were Happy Scoops (cancelling yet more events).

“Incredible.” Raven laughs to herself as other messages begin to pop up.

Sloane: YES! Killian: Take that, dick store! Killian: Carey says “wahoo with three exclamation marks at least” Raven: Good job Hurley Hurley: Not guilty! It wasn’t me. Raven: Then… who? Carey: Yeah, who’s our saviour? Hurley: Customers Hurley: I messaged the page after I saw the post, it turns out it’s people who come to the events, they’re furious. Raven: OH. Istus did say that Cherity mentioned something about Facebook. We couldn’t find anything though. Hurley: They’re obviously angry about being lied to, but coming after Istus? It’s never going to be good PR Hurley: Wait, Raven, you went on Facebook????? Killian: Are you reading the comments? Please read the comments Hurley: Incredible Killian: I think it has broken Carey, she just keeps snort laughing. Raven: How do I get there? Hurley: Hang on.

A screenshot pops up in the chat.

Francisco ‘A boycott won’t be hard, the ice cream’s shit anyway.’ The Good Lick Store ‘It’s not ice cream, it’s frozen yoghurt.’ Francisco ‘Sorry, my bad. It won’t be hard, the frozen yoghurt is shit anyway.’

Raven: You’re not supposed to argue with people on the internet, Kravitz said. Hurley: Kravitz is very very right. Sloane: I’ve gone on a deep dive. Did you see their statement? Hurley: Share with the class?

A screenshot quickly follows. The Good Lick Store believes in quality, belives in luxury, believes in pursuing your dream. Our dream is to bring you sophisticated flavours, challenging topping combinations, and real-world business practices. We believe in our product and we believe in challenging our competition. In business there’s always a winner.

Sloane: But wait for this

Another screenshot of the first comment. Aoife: ‘Well the winner’s not you, is it?”

Sloane: Do you think they’re feeling good about their life choices? Hurley: Snrk Carey: Get’em! Raven: Has anyone showed Istus yet? Killian: No! Don’t! She’ll feel bad for them. Hurley: They don’t deserve cheer-up cake Sloane: Or restorative cookies Raven: You make a good point

-

Enjoying the story? Find the final chapter here.

[idanwyn-et-al]

State of the Idan~

After all the Moving Madness has finally (mostly...) settled down, I started wanting to write stories for my characters all the time...only to end up RPing a bunch of them all the time! I only have a handful of my crappy screenshots, but it’s been a ton of fun building some stories big and small with friends old and new. I got to start a new chapter in Anne-Sophie’s story (she’s returned from the First Shard a little heartbroken after Oberic didn’t make it back with her, but is now adventuring with two other Ishgardian knights, one of which is who Oberic’s player fantasia’d Oberic into). I got to play Sonorous River, my big boy Hellsguard bard that I haven’t played in several months, during an introductory event for a new member of my FC that was well-received. The Nixie’s crew is enjoying the Moonfire Faire before the ship weighs anchor in the early autumn for new adventures. Idanwyn even got to bake a wedding cake and (last-minute) officiate a handfasting for two fun cattes! I’ve decided to fantasia Nepenthe, my Allagan/Meracydian heritage summoner, because she was just too difficult for me to PC the way I wanted to. She was definitely the character that lived most fully in my head, I think; my long, deep obsession with what life would have been like on the religious side of the Allagan empire, the first summoners tempered a little bit by the gods they sought to conquer is a lot of fun for me to play with in my head, but not so much with other people. That said, I’m going to be writing her a little closing chapter, making her an NPC (because I hate killing my characters if I can avoid it), and rolling the Allagan/Meracydian thing into a couple other old idea-tendrils that that seek being together into one character. Nepenthe and her crazy family are definitely in my book that I’m always poking at writing, though, so I’m grateful for my time in FF to allow me to develop them.

Rambly, rambly, berry brambly. Hopefully I’ll have some stories here soon, although I’m certainly not lamenting writing many of them with others! Either way, I’m very much looking forward to FFxivWrite2021; there’ll be stories then, for sure.

[pretty-prism-hell]

idol land pripara, huh?

maybe me having more interest in the pretty series these past few weeks was a premonition. Anyways here’s my epic analysis post (also as i write this pripara is trending on japanese twitter. Epic)

starting out with the pre-registration image. this confirms we’re getting new coords in the game. pretty cool. also this image confirms the currency used in game, ai$ which i assume is a pun on “aidoru” because the dollar symbol is pronounced “doru” in japanese.

here’s a screenshot of the main menu/overworld? the entire game looks as if it was built using all idol perfect stage as a base which is likely. we see the photo studio directly behidn the player character, which i’ll get to in a bit. i assume the kuma that’s on the screen is the player’s mascot and will change depending on the player. we can see a shop wagon, which is how we’ll get new coord pieces i assume. it’ll most likely be a gacha system because it’s a mobile game and pripara already uses gacha systems in its non-arcade games but who knows.

mychara creation screen! we also get a glimpse of the rank up system above. considering this is a mobile game with a gacha system (probably) i assume this will work similarly to other mobile game level up systems but still using iines as exp. by this is mean itll reload whatever stamina system they have and also unlock new content.

onto the creation part. the sections here appear to be face type, hair style, hair color, eye color, voice, glasses, and Other™. anyways this means pripara is carrying over prichan’s “choosing voice separately from face type” system which is very cool. hopefully this also means they’ll have the new voices prichan introduced too.

coord select screen! (sorry for the youtube bar over it i took this screenshot myself). first of all the rank bar looks different here. the numbers displayed are different on both sides which leads me to believe yeah this is an exp bar and it resets when u rank up.

anyways onto the actual coord select screen. it looks sort of plain compared to past ones but in terms of efficiency it is much better because u dont have to scroll through coord items one by one. i assume you can filter things through pressing the search button on the right.

(only vaguely related but i do wonder how coord color will matter? it’s displayed so it means something.)

bad quality here but photo studio! this is personally a feature im very excited for. anyways at first i thought the sidebar was for choosing characters but i think it’s for choosing poses considering the character’s pose is identical to shion’s in the sidebar also the “pose” button is lit up”

ok my theories on what these buttons on the bottom are left to right:

- return. this is pretty straightforward you exit out of the photo studio

- flip. just flips ur character horizontally

- pose menu. u choose the poses.

- this one probably changes the orientation of the photo? who knows.

- background select. in another screenshot its shown that you have a gallery of photos to pick from but a lot of the backgrounds arent displayed on the menu so. idk whats goin on there. maybe a camera roll select function? the backgrounds do appear very realistic

- photo button. pretty straightforward

- video button. on the sidebar the characters on the right have video icons on them so i think there will be static poses and also video poses to take video of. pretty cool!

- log of photos you’ve taken? maybe.

back to the overworld! here’s the building you use to play songs. im really hoping the screenshot above is like... accurate to the features in-game because it means we’re getting characer hairstyles/colors for mycharas again (epic)

prism stone! this is also marked w/ a shop icon so it’s also a shop area. maybe it’ll work differently to the cart or something? idk

movie! this is very interesting because it looks like it’s a gallery for anime lives. i mean i’m certainly excited it’s kinda hard to find good quality versions of the anime lives on youtube nowadays

exit. it’s an exit. exits you out of the game

this is a very interesting screenshot! because it means we’ll have actual multiplayer? not just exchanging tomotickets but like.. actually playing together. also very cool stamps.

sorry for the horrible quality but it looks like there’ll be some sort of photo-taking function that isn’t the photo studio? in motion it looks basically the same as the prichan photo taking function so i think they just put that into pripara

anyways that’s all the content i have to look at for now.

other thoughts:

- at launch i think they’ll only have the mychara parts/coords from all idol perfect stage because i cant seem to find anything that wasnt in there. however this is a mobile game so it’s only natural that they will update it with new content over time

[gaming]

Indie Game Spotlight: Bravery Network Online

Think you got what it takes? This week’s Indie Game Spotlight, Bravery Network Online @braverynetworkonline, is a game in which you coach a team of fighters to victory in the future sport of Bravery. Winning a game of Bravery means making your foes give up by either beating them up, being really nice to them, or blowing them up with digital magic. Ka-boom.

We got the chance to speak with Damian Sommer (writer, lead designer, backup programmer, and handler of most of the boring stuff) and Min-Taylor Bai-Woo (creative director, art director, lead programmer, keeper of the wheels in motion) about the post-apocalyptic game. Ready to go? Let’s do this!

You said something about digital magic earlier?

Yeah. The game takes place several thousands of years into the future, and technology has evolved to the point in which it’s indistinguishable from magic. The main technology the characters use, Fire, is a kind of advanced internet, which is always present and affects all your senses. There are weird glitches folks can exploit to hurt others, which is usually frowned upon, but in a Bravery match it’s anything goes. There’s lots of implications of an always-on, augmented reality internet, and something we like to play around with in developing the game’s world.

What are some major influences to the game?

The biggest influence, and something a lot of folks picked up on when we released our first trailer was Pokémon. We really like Pokémon’s battle systems, and wanted to have an alternative take on the genre. Other games have tried to riff off of Pokémon’s “catch em’ all” formula and stick pretty close to it. Our main goal is to, instead, take Pokémon’s battle system and run with it in a completely different direction.

Our other big game influences are Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Android: Netrunner, Ragnarok Online, and the unofficial battle sim Pokémon Showdown, which we love and still play from time to time in the office.

Funnily enough, another influence on the game is actually our very own character artist Guillaume Singelin (@blackyjunkgallery), who’s done a whole bunch of amazing character art. Min actually has a copy of his book Junky in her desk that she uses for inspiration here and there.

We pull inspiration from all over the place though, with shows like Mob Psycho 100 and Avatar: The Last Airbender, to books like The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin and Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson, to just our experiences with friends and family. We’re putting a lot of ourselves and our influences into this game, and hopefully, people are into that!

Bravery Network Online is described as taking place in a post-post-apocalyptic world. What does that mean?

This is our shorthand for “things were really bad, but they’re sorta fixed now.” Lots of pretty nasty stuff happened in the game world’s past (environmental collapse, nuclear war, meteor impacts, and more!) to get the world to the point that it is in BNO, but people are largely in a stable environment, and lots of those problems have been solved or at least mitigated.

When coming up with lore for the game, we didn’t want to play off of the super common tropes in games, like the gritty cyberpunk dystopia, the generic fantasy setting, or the typical post-apocalyptic wasteland. Something we wanted to explore was what a utopia in games would look like, and how that would operate. Pretty quickly, in needing to create some sort of conflict for players to solve, that utopic vision cracked, which created what we like to call a questionable utopia. The game’s world is in some ways better than our own, or at least easier to live in, but it’s certainly not objectively nicer. There’s a reason that in our first trailer and all our screenshots feature snow outside the window.

How does the game allow you to connect with others online?

While Bravery Network Online will have a decent-sized single-player component, a good chunk of the content we’re working on is dedicated to building up your teams for Bravery matches versus other players. There’ll be ranks and matchmaking and all that standard stuff, but we’re also adding in a few twists to really make it our own.

One kind of weird thing we’re doing is adding in something we call the “Rival System.” It allows you to mark different players you play against as rivals—basically strangers whose progress you follow, see when they’re online, and easily challenge them. If you win against a rival, once a day, you get little goodies. The longer you’re a rival with someone, the bigger the goodies. Hopefully, this gets this friendly competition going on where you’re like “Oh yeah! Gerald94 is online! Hope they’re up for a fight, because I think I’ve finally figured them out.”

We’re currently working on a few little systems like that, but they all need a bunch of testing, as is the nature of online games! Above is just a taste of what to expect.

Where can we purchase the game? What platforms is it available on?

It’s not out yet! We’re working hard to get it out late 2019 for PC and Mac. If you want to be sure you don’t miss it, you can wishlist it on Steam!

Want to be in the loop with all things Bravery Network Online? Make sure to give their official Tumblr a follow over at @braverynetworkonline !

[becausewerehere]

Hello! I thought I’d write something for tumblr, as it’s been a couple of months now. Even around the time I was posting semi-regularly on twitter (circa the Act II release in Sept), I wasn’t always posting here as well - and I feel like I should try to rectify that! It’s nice to have a devlog.

So, here’s an extremely general BWH update! I mean, I’ve not got a huge amount to say. And I’m aware that’s a pretty bad start to an update post! But I really must stress that if you want to enjoy this post to its fullest, it’s very important that you immediately please lower your expectations. Have you done it? Are they low? I’m going to trust you! If they’re sky-high, I’m going to be livid.

This isn’t a 100% exhaustive list of current BWH developments, by the way! There are one or two things I’m saving for their own post sometime soonish~

Act III Development Update!

Act III is going swimmingly! I took a little time away from BWH after the exhausting last couple of months of Act II’s development, and it was nice to come back with a fresh perspective on Act III. It’s very handy to take a step back and look at it all from a distance! As you may know, the entire BWH story was planned out in 2015, but there were still a handful of plot elements that I’d drafted in that period that I really wasn’t happy with, so I wanted to make sure I’d managed to fix them before starting on the nitty gritty of the actual script. And I’m very happy to have done so - that ought to be the ‘plotline revisions’ stage of Act III sorted now, and it’s definitely much better for it. (Parts of Act II had the same journey! And parts of Act IV definitely will as well, ha.)

So I’ve now started on the script itself! I was very curious to open up the files again - the last time I’d touched the draft was early 2018 (i.e. before BWH went episodic) so it was a bit of a shock to see just *how* rough a lot of it was, hahaha. But it’s nice to finally be fixing it all up into something real, after it’s spent so long as a cluster of chaotic shorthand~

I’ve also been talking to some of the game’s various artists, and I’m very excited to see the new artwork for Act III! Some of it’s arrived already and it’s excellent. But, as always, a huge amount of it is currently top secret. ;)

So I’m happy with how everything’s coming together! As I said on the Steam forums recently - I’m not really giving estimated release dates for Act III because I’ve learned my lesson after my optimistic ETAs for Act II kept being pushed back!! But, extremely unofficially, I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t in 2020, and most likely at a similar time of year to the past two acts~

Minor Updates to Acts I + II

I’m working on these right now! They should be up before too long. They don’t change a massive amount, but just do a little bit of tidying. The Act II one is slightly bigger - I was playing through it again and I’ve found quite a few lines of dialogue I thought could be sharpened up. And they’re generally concentrated in the same scenes! So it’s not a huge overhaul or anything, but still, if you were planning on starting Act II soon, I’d hold off for a very short while until v1.3 is out.

Revamping Publicity

I’ve been fixing up the Itch/Steam pages over the past couple of weeks! I’m not sure they’ll look much different if you’ve not looked at them in a while, but there have been lots of small changes, and hopefully they give off a better first impression now. I’ve also been making new versions of the Character Profiles here on the devlog! They were a little ugly before, but I think they look quite nice now. And a lot of them have been rewritten, to get rid of slightly clunky phrasing from when I originally wrote the descriptions. Check them out!

And Remember! We have a Discord!

A timely reminder about the existence of Windmill Corner, the Because We’re Here Discord! I hadn’t previously linked it on the Itch page / the devlog sidebar - but I realised I should, uh, probably do that. So take a look if you haven’t already! It’s a very nice community, and it’d be great to get some fresh members. (And I’ll post it on the Steam forum near to Act III’s release, I think!)

So! That’s it!

I’ll try not to leave it so long before the next update! But there’s not much to say in the long periods where I’m just working on stuff. Especially as the further BWH progresses, the more spoileriffic the screenshots and artwork become! So there’ll likely be a lot of nice Act II art used for social media over the next few months and precious little from Act III, haha. Anyway, thanks for reading this absolute marathon of a post! You are cool and decent.

~~~~~~

Because We’re Here is a bittersweet otome visual novel in an unforgiving WW1-inspired setting.

Acts I + II are out now on itch.io and Steam!

You can also support Studio Elfriede on Ko-Fi! You’ll help towards the cost of the new Act III artwork, and get in the Special Thanks if you’re not already~

[precurenoobliveblogs]

Precure Liveblog Update Stuff

So first off, there was a lot of stuff going on this past year that I just plain didn’t have much control over, that negatively impacted my doing this. Sorry about that, honestly, but again, there wasn’t much I could do about it. I can say at least that the worst of it has passed, though there is still stuff I have yet to resolve, so I can’t promise perfect consistency with this, even in the most ideal scenarios.

That being said, I want to keep doing this again, and again the worst of the IRL stuff has passed, so I think I can. And there are some elements of why it wound up going so slow that are down to how I was doing this, so changing that should hopefully help as well.

With Star Twinkle Episode 1 I wound up taking a... lot of screencaps compared to with Fresh, to the point my commentary basically turned into a play-by-play of what was going on. I think part of the reason was that I was taking the screenshots and making posts as I was watching, whereas with Fresh I was going back through the episodes after the original viewing and picking out particularly relevant moments to discuss. (Or shitpost about, but shhh) So I’m thinking that may be the way to go from now on, watch the episode all the way through first, then go back through and post about it. Not really ‘Liveblogging’ in the technical sense, but close enough that I don’t have to change the name. XD

Then the other matter is the series themselves. I was originally just talking about Fresh, but then I added on Princess Precure, then Star Twinkle started up, and before things truly ground to a halt I was even considering adding KiraKira Precure A La Mode on top of that too. And now, I’m thinking that wasn’t a particularly wise decision either. So I think that for now it’d be best to take a minimalist approach. I’m definitely sticking with Fresh, and if that goes well and I feel like resuming Princess and/or Star Twinkle is viable I’ll add them back in. If not, then once Fresh is done, they’ll still be next in line anyway.

Speaking of Fresh, since it’s been a while now, before I can resume I’ll need to rewatch the episodes I’d already seen, as a refresher. Some things I remember well, but others are more vague, so there’ll probably be a little bit of radio silence while I’m doing that. If there’s anything that sticks out to me now that I didn’t catch the first time around I may comment on that, but overall planning to not make a big production of it; hopefully won’t take too long as a result, and I can carry the momentum forward into the new stuff.

There’s also the matter of Healin’ Good on the horizon, but again I want to avoid spreading myself too thin. I plan to watch it as it releases, but I won’t livblog or ‘liveblog’ it, just enjoy. May make some posts if I have anything big I want to talk about, but overall I just want to be able to enjoy a Precure series as it airs rather than after the fact, so trying to give it the same level of detailed coverage would probably wind up as counterproductive as it was with Star Twinkle. But believe me, I am excited!

All in all, I can’t wait to dive back in! Hoping this time works out better. Please be patient, and wish me luck!

[blookmallow]

i dont have the energy to go through all my outlast 2 screenshots right now, i have one liveblog post drafted that i was working on before, and now i have a huge pile of screenshots to go through again so there’ll be. at LEAST two more... play by play type posts lmao

so anyway the order’s gonna be kinda weird but my brain is screaming and ive been going through wiki pages for like 2 hours so heres. some thoughts and a lot of questions and some observations i think im. sort of starting to get it,

---

ok so... knoth believed the antichrist was going to be born, apparently he DID think it was going to be from one of his own people, but then. blake and lynn obviously aren’t from his people so i have no idea why he suddenly decided it was on them 

marta was his “angel of death” hitman going around murdering people in the name of god

people who got sick (definitely STDs, believed to be the Curse of Sin or whatever but it might have just been anyone who was diseased at all) got banished to the scalled village where they all got HORRIFICALLY sick and infected and have completely lost their minds now abandoned by the church

val broke off from knoth’s church and started the heretics cult, they seem to be. satanists now and are trying to allow the birth of the anti christ but are also constantly trying to kill me to death too 

according to the wiki val is almost definitely a trans woman, which. the Only trans character in outlast is a woman who is a violent sexual predator who might be a devil worshipper and has wet dreams about child murder. granted everyone in outlast is fucked up but THAT’S A PARTICULAR KIND OF FUCKED UP

lynn was not visibly pregnant when they crashed, blake claims they hadn’t been sexually active in months so if she was pregnant, it’s not his child. when he finds her again she’s not only very visibly pregnant, but actively going into labor. she calls it “our baby.” blake doesn’t have the chance to ask her how this happened. this is never fucking explained : )

like it doesn’t look like lynn was just like.... reverse c-sectioned and even if someone raped her to force pregnancy she wouldn’t have gone through an entire 9 month pregnancy in ONE NIGHT, so what the FUCK was that about

the wiki mentions its possible the baby isn’t actually real, it apparently doesn’t cast a shadow and lynn has the “there’s nothing there” line, but even if blake hallucinated the pregnancy and the baby (which. at least would explain how the process of “giving birth” took like 3 seconds and she became suddenly 9 months pregnant in one day) why would lynn be reacting as if she was pregnant too. or if they both hallucinated it why did she say “there’s nothing there,” wouldn’t she be able to see it too 

anyway jessica, lynn, and blake were all friends in. high school middle school whatever age.  it seems like there was some kind of love triangle going on, jessica seems into blake in the flashbacks, blake seems unsure

he starts getting lynn and jessica confused near the end so he might’ve had some kind of feelings for her though, the wiki mentions his complete obsession with saving lynn might have been partly fueled by “i couldn’t save jessica but im going to save lynn im not going to lose them both i HAVE to succeed this time” to the point that they just kind of became the same person in his head by the end 

there’s some weird parallels with jessica playfully jumping on him and val pinning him down so its very possible jessica was acting... sexually aggressive toward him, on a much smaller scale of course, but enough that val’s assault triggered the memory

jessica was almost definitely being molested by one of their teachers/church leaders/whatever and blake seems to blame himself for not doing anything about it

i thought jessica killed herself and blake felt responsible for it, maybe figuring the abuse she was enduring from the teacher (and possibly her father, she reacts very afraid when he threatens to call her father) might have been one of the causes, and he didn’t help her 

but the wiki says the teacher actually may have killed jessica and forced blake to help cover it up as a suicide, hence... finding her on the stairs. which i guess makes sense too 

but the whole flashback thing is never explained?? i guess maybe it really was just trauma manifesting in really fucked up ways and like, that’s still narratively interesting but the fact that it kept crossing over into the real world (the recordings from the flashbacks showed up as corrupted files, so Something happened and it wasn’t just in blake’s head, frequently you get stuck somewhere you can’t escape from, get pulled into the other world, wake up somewhere else entirely) means it’s not just internal so why the FUCK is he crossing dimensions. they don’t tell you!!! i had to go digging on the wiki to figure this shit out

from the wiki:

“The "apocalypse" Blake had witnessed, as well as the nightmarish flashbacks to his childhood, were all just hallucinations induced by the Murkoff Corporation's local Radio Towers.“

WHAT???? IT WAS MURKOFF THE WHOLE TIME 

but like. are you telling me it was all a hallucination that was just kind of vaguely mentioned Once. the big reveal/the truth behind it all was literally just hinted about in One Note/One weird encounter with a distant radio tower in ONE SCENE randomly in the middle of the game and never expanded on. what the FUCK kind of writing/game design is THAT

it looks like the “voice of God” knoth was hearing was actually the murkoff frequencies too, but like. fucking why. why were they telling this guy to kill babies and create a murder cult. was it just a “how far can we take this” experiment like the “how badly can we fuck someone’s mind up if we take away their meds and exacerbate their mental illness” thing at mount massive. i mean i guess a corporation that would do That would also probably fuck with a bunch of hyper religious hillbillies too but it just seems way too convoluted for “idk just wanted to see what would happen” 

and “maybe if we hide subliminal messages in the radio frequencies we can convince some random guy we’re the voice of God” is. way too specific to actually Work, i guess maybe if they could induce hallucinations they could maybe manipulate peoples’ minds that much more efficiently but like. still. it doesnt fucking make sense!!!!!! why would it manifest as “flashbacks of childhood trauma” in blake and “suddenly im pregnant” in lynn and “God Said I Gotta Kill Everyone” in knoth and “satan said i gotta fuck everyone” in val NONE OF THAT MAKES ANY FUCKING SENSE!!!

APPARENTLY there’s a whole mess of comics that go along with this and hopefully explain shit a little bit more but “explaining what the fuck happened in your game by means of a side comic that isn’t mentioned in said game” is : ) 

I DONT KNOW. iM SO TIRED ITS 1 AM SOMEHOW

ill go through all my screenshots and shit later maybe that’ll help. something :’) god. I MEAN TO BE FAIR, outlast’s strengths have never been its story telling, it’s a great game for being absolutely scared out of your fucking mind and boy did they ever deliver on that front so like... i guess ultimately i got what i wanted out of it but im still CONFUSED,

i should really have expected this though lmao this is the same thing that happened at the end of outlast 1 i didnt understand anything until 900 wiki pages later and still hated the ending even when i finally did sort of almost understand it 

[eclectia]

A Hell of a Month!

It’s been a hell of a month. I started March pretty satisfied with my progress and almost convinced I’d have finished building the levels by the end of the month. I think I jinxed myself with that because March was not an easy month.

I’m not going to go into the details because this isn’t a personal blog. But there was a lot of personal upheaval and a lot to deal with, and it was all incredibly stressful. I have a habit of saying I’ll take a break and then not - even in my breaks I’m doing something or other.

I’m not taking a break. I’m just absolutely exhausted, physically, emotionally and mentally. I’m slowing my progress a bit for a little while. I feel a lot of pressure to keep up blogging and progress information because of the fact I have a Patreon that people pay into in exchange for me working and producing game stuff. I feel guilt if I take a break from updating or posting because people are paying me. I’m already acutely aware that the release date I announced ages back, was really, really damn optimistic and I’ve missed it by quite a margin. I feel a lot of pressure to produce content for you guys.

I’m loathe to give a new release date yet, because I don’t know yet. I’ll say some time this year, and that I am working on and conceptualising new projects to work on after this one and none of that has changed. As for a vague release scenario, “soon” is about as good as it gets right now. It is soon- I have music, SFX, and dialogue to code in and then it’s pretty much finished, minus bugtesting. I’m closer than ever and not giving up.

But a lot of the personal stuff that’s gone on has really taken a toll, and physically, I’m really sick. Sicker than I’ve been in a while. I might actually, genuinely, be having to go into hospital for a bit to recover. So that’s where I am right now. 

Like I say, work will, and is going to, continue. I’m still conceptualising future projects and so on. I’m just slowing down a bit before I end up too sick to function. There’ll still be updates, and progress screenshots, and there’ll still be a game to play -hopefully soon-, as well as more projects in future. I’m just slowing down.

[ether-solrac]

Game Idea 1- Pokémon Snap: Expedition

           Hey there. Welcome to my first game concept post. The basic idea is that every once in a while, I’ll come up with a dream idea for a game or mechanic and build it up so that we can get together and geek out over the possibilities. It makes for a good mental exercise and even if the official devs may never see and acknowledge the idea, it’s still fun. And who knows? Maybe one of you fellow aspiring creators can combine your ideas with my own and create something new from it.

            So as the title suggests, the first idea up to bat is the ever elusive and much sought-after Pokémon Snap sequel.  Pokémon Snap: Expedition is, in it’s simplest form, the idea of an open world Pokémon Snap game where the objective is to explore and take photos of Pokémon and the antics they get up to. It’s a bit of an old idea I had once that I tried to clean up a bit but it’s still an interesting subject to imagine. Feel free to leave your own thoughts and ideas in the comments. Enjoy.

Plot

           Much has changed in the many years since Todd Snap first photographed the inhabitants of Pokémon Island. A mysterious event has caused the island to expand to near triple its previous mass. With this event Pokémon from across all the known regions have begun to migrate and appear on the island. This had lead researchers, explorers, and trainers galore to flock to the newly expanded islands. And just like that new settlements and cities were practically sprouting overnight. Now, the National Pokémon League, with the aid of the various regional Professors, have decided to recruit you, a skilled photographer and explorer to traverse the island and take advantage of the newfound diversity to create the most advanced edition of the National Pokédex ever created.

           As you explore the island you’ll be taking photos of all the native and incoming Pokémon as well as their habits and shenanigans all the while discovering new secrets hidden in recently unearthed ruins, and hopefully solve the mystery of the island’s expansion.

 Gameplay

           Gameplay for this hypothetical sequel would very much be inspired by the recent Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with its direction of exploration and free roaming and use of third person movement and first-person camera. If you want those photos, then you’re going to have to go to them this time around. the Pokémon will be moving in their own herds and within their own habitats which means adapting to the situation depending on what you want to catch on camera.

* Time for Some Strategy

           Want to catch a good shot of Aipoms swinging between the trees? Climb up after them. Want to catch that photo of a school of Magikarp? Time to go swimming. And if you want to see the rest? Well that’s going to take a bit more work. The idea is that if you want to catch certain shots then you need to work with the environment as though it were a puzzle. Want that photo of the highly skittish Rattatas munching on their favorite berries? Sneak in and hide behind the bushes and try your best not to startle them.

And when traditional methods don’t work, then you’ll have to try and force the situation a bit. Maybe a massive male Pyroar is too far into protected territory? Then you’ll want to get the attention of the Feraligator in the nearby river and bring it the den, causing that Pyroar to emerge and protect its territory.

* Pokémon Requisition

           When you take enough photos of a certain Pokémon you gain the ability to requisition a Pokémon for use. This Pokémon takes on attributes from both Pokémon ranger and Pokémon sun and moon as they take on the role of hazard removers as well as trusty mounts. A landslide has blocked off access to a nearby cave? Good thing you’ve taken all those Rhyhorn photos lately, you’ll be able to call up the professors and have them send you one that can charge right through those boulders and clear the way for you. Find a Pokémon that can light that new tunnel and you’ll be off getting more incredible shots in no time. and that’s not say there won’t be more utility based requisitions such as a Rapidash that can help you speed across open plains.

* Side Quests/ Part-Time Jobs

           Like in most open world games there’s going to be a lot of little side-quests that you can find that will put your skills as both a photographer and an explorer to use that will reward you with unique photo opportunities. For example, you can come across a little boy in need of help living in one of the new settlements. He tells you that his best friend Riolu is missing and he needs help to find him. After finding him and returning him to his young trainer, they’re both so happy to be reunited with each other that Riolu begins to evolve into a Lucario before your very eyes. It’s a unique opportunity to snap a pic of an evolution in progress as well a rare opportunity to add Lucario to the database as well.

           Then there’s the part time jobs that you can participate in such as a photographer for the local news station that covers local Pokémon battles. Or a job in a local Pokémon café that can help by teaching you the various foods that can attract different types of Pokémon. Or maybe a Pokémon center needs an extra pair of hands which can earn you a few shots while you care for the injured Pokémon or oversee link trades.

* The Mystery of the Ruins

           Scattered throughout the island, mysterious ruins have appeared along with the expanded territory, and the Order of the Unown are an organization that’s trying to discover them all. Discover what mysteries they may be hiding in their depths and see if you can find the answer to the strange colored plates that seem to resonate so strongly with the various Pokémon types. Will you help aid them on their quest? And just what exactly do they hope to uncover?

* Customization

           And finally, in another breath of the wild based feature, the game would offer plenty of customization options regarding outfits so that we can not only show off some style, but also have another set of tools for exploration. It goes without saying that there would be various outfits to deal with certain extreme weather conditions (let’s be honest, trainers really shouldn’t be able to entire volcanic caves, icy forests, or deep in to the ocean in jeans/shorts and a t-shirt.) But I also feel like they could also be used to implement systems such as camouflage (i.e. white snow gear to blend in with the snowy mountains to take a pic of a Beartic) or uniforms/disguises to enter various buildings and participate in certain events (i.e. wearing a lab coat to sneak in to a research facility and take a picture of a Porygon that’s being created.)

 Share

And finally, the last aspect of the game would be the opportunity to share those pics with others. A system like that of the Windwaker remake on Wii U would be would be greatly beneficial to the game as it would promote active sharing in the community for completing entries. Furthermore, with the switch’s ability to share screenshots on twitter, it’d be fun to se a wave of interesting in-game Pokémon pics flood social media. Nintendo/The Pokémon Company could probably even make some fun contests out of it. I think it’s safe to say that there’ll be that one player who lures a Pokémon from one side of the map to the other, just so they can see an epic fight that was never intended to happen.

[analytic-chaoticism]

HIVESWAP: ACT 1 LAUNCH TRAILER And Press Kit Analysis

When I saw this video in my subscriptions on a humble Wednesday morning I thought the game dropped without warning on a school day and I was going to hypershit into the nth dimension and I’ll be discussing the Hiveswap press-kit exclusive screenshots so buckle up this is probably going to be a thicc bih

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAEs-NlcRtU 

First, we have the thumbnail, which is great. In case anybody was confused (because I’ve seen a lot of confusion) Dammek’s beam is red, not orange, as in the red/green cherub dichotomy. I really like this piece it’s AesthetiqueTM (which is something I’ll say about this game a lot), I like how they’re just ogling each other as they hurtle through space and time, and I like how you can see Hauntswitch reversed behind Hiveswap. You just know in the Hauntswitch launch trailer we’ll get a reverse of this shot. 

Sorry that the following pictures all got compressed ew

Not much to this besides noting the sacrilegious Signless plush, which is great and I hope will be official merch one day. Just thought I’d point it out because it’s The BestTM and I’ll address now the fact that everything that was branded has been fictionalized (which would have taken a long ass time to change everything which accounts for some delay time) and I’m not sure if they were threatened with copyright or if they were just hedging their bets but that’s what’s happened. 

Oh hey look a mysterious fucking Nuclear MissileTM dropping from the fucking sky. Note that we’re working with a dark blue and light purple palette here (which will be relevant in a few frames). 

These monsters (which I call antiguardians) are either really easily startled (which makes sense because they legitimately don’t have eyes - note that the no-eyes trend has been bucked for animals and adults in Hiveswap so these things are legit just blind I think) or are just as scared as Joey as she is of them (or enemy varieties have different personalities and the T-Rex arm-leg beans are just TimidTM. I can see this one being the case and it’s cool and interesting so hopefully).

The return of the dark blue and light purple palette. We keep returning to these scenes of fear and destruction throughout the first half of the trailer, and @theenglishmanwithallthebananas and I are willing to bet the nuke from earlier was what destroyed Xefros’ neighbourhood, which would explain how everything got fucked up so quick and why he’s so scared in these sequences. 

hi,m., angery,, . 

Bye bitch. In case anyone was interested, the red and green stripes turn blue and yellow for some reason, and whether that’s a nod to trickster palettes or will be developed as colour imagery later is yet to be seen. Also this portal looks... amazing. The art in this game is phenomenal and I really really love the lighting it’s so high quality and everything is good and this portal design is rad.

The closest view of the weird neighbour mansion we’ve seen so far. I can’t say yet how prominently events on Earth will feature during Hiveswap (but for a cohesive narrative with the games playable in either order they have to affect each other somehow, especially considering how what happens on Earth has to be as important and predestined as what happens on Alternia), but we probably won’t see much of this for a while. Looks cool tho. And big. Real big. 

Every good game needs a good death screen. Now I won’t say that antiguardians can’t shapeshift, but all of the ones we’ve seen have flat teeth and don’t have mouths this big, which makes me think this is perhaps the first boss encounter of the game? A giant antiguardian? Maybe an upgrade on the centipede enemy. 

Xefros panicked, traumatized, and roughed up by the destruction of an entire fucking neighbourhood. I’m assuming that the cherub portal survived, if not all of Dammek’s hive - considering that his lusus is still around after this. I hope Xefros’ house was lucky enough to make it too if Dammek’s survived the blast, being across the street from each other and all. If it didn’t... that means bye bye sloth, which will make me real fucking sad (but doesn’t line up with concept art we’ve seen of the sloth walking with the trio, unless that’s been changed as we haven’t seen it in the trailers). Of course, this could be another neighbourhood, as we saw the destroyed areas in concept art from Dammek’s lusus’ back, meaning they already rode it somewhere. Who knows what this is. I just hope the sloth is okay. Please. Also I love Xefros’ hive???? so??????? let them be okay.

What the fuck is this Actual TesseractTM????????? We’ll come back to this later, but we will say now that it’s most likely that Joey finds this on Alternia after arriving at Dammek’s hive (considering it interacts with his doors). @theenglishmanwithallthebananas noted that it looks like a “perfectly generic object but useful” which is so true and thematically really interesting (and likely intentional). I can’t wait to see more with this Mystery BoxTM. 

In case anyone was confused like I was, Jude’s text is now light green and Joey’s light blue. This palette swap is the same as John and Jade’s and I love it. I don’t know when this change was made but I never noticed and I am here for it. There’s some gerbil tubes on the wall, so unless those are used for a transport system, the Harleclaires have more pets than Tesseract and

OH MY GOD I JUST REALIZED THEIR DOG WAS CALLED TESSERACT AND

WHAT DOES JOEY FUCKING FIND

God fucking dammit I swear to God... If the likely plot-critical Glow CubeTM is actually called ‘the tesseract’ I’m going to have a conniption of fucking course this would happen. ANYWAY. Potential rodents, not just Tesseract and the pigeons. Also notice the captain mummy off to the right who survives to become one of Grandpa’s esteemed foyer couch guests. 

This is possibly an entry-level style of puzzle, where Joey dances hard enough to JiggleTM the environment and Make Things HappenTM. A cool use of her dancing mechanic I really like it. 

Y O U T H R O L L also???????????????????? why is Dammek such a fucking nasty boy? We’ll see how fucking FilthyTM it gets in the next frame but he really needs to do some dishes (I’m not sure how he affords them all as a bronze but he also has 1000000000000 guns so hey). I love his deercat lusus so so so much and I want to know how it feels having another of the same lusus taxidermied and used as a fucking sockrack in it’s son’s basement. This is the recording area from promotional art we’ve seen, Xefros and Dammek are cool and good moirails, Dammek needs to do his laundry as well as his dishes, the Bandcestors print exists in-universe, there are some references in the other posters I don’t get, and trolls eat giant bugs in stew which is gross and I’m absolutely not here for it at all. 

Look at all these dishes. And all these guns. Wow are there a lot of guns. I mean I guess rebels need guns but... that’s still a lot to just have lying around. Maybe he has a riflekind specibus. The same dark blue/light purple sky as the missile shot is seen through the window so we definitely know the missile is on Alternia, and we can see one of Trizza’s cool imperial drones skulking around ominously too. I really love their design. Other things of note here are a potential microwave and those cool headphones which curve out for his horns. How are those sold? Horns don’t all grow in the same spot, so are headphones custom made, or are there a set amount of standard areas that horns grow from and you can get different headphone styles designed for each? It’s attached to some sort of Walkman. 

My favourite shot from this trailer. I love Xefros’ room. The lighting is again, fantastic, and also really concerning. Pool balls on the wall, on the floor, in the lights... Obvious connections to LE and it makes sense if you consider Doc Scratch’s involvement. We know Xefros is a Sports BoyTM (we can see his helmet and uniform in the back there) and we know he’s a butler (nice to see the cutlery and proper cutlery position chart on the wall) and I was thinking that billiards is a real sort of refined sport which would align with his gentlemanly image and - if he’s influenced by Doc Scratch, a very gentlemanly aesthetic’d individually who likes to raise proper servants - possible outside interference. I love his little butler suit. His bunk recuperacoon is nice. I like how the UI changes between humans and trolls. I like the telekinesis button design. I like how he has a FLARP manual (FLARPing My Chemical Bromance please), and this writing is fantastic. It really speaks to troll society in a really succinct and witty way which is reminiscent of the earlier Homestuck style and will be great for exposition and I can’t wait to see more. Cohen seems really capable and I can tell the writing will be fantastic already. Also of note is the athlete poster who seems to play the same sport he does based on the gear, and the sexy poster by his recuperacoon. His recuperacoon is a cool shape too, it actually looks really comfy in that reclined upright position. That would be so good for me RN because I am sick and My SinusesTM are Not Happy With Lying DownTM. I absolutely love Xefros’ hive (I just adore those pink and blue trees, and also treehouse houses) so I can’t wait to see more. I really just can’t wait for a lot of stuff.

Rebelgram. I wonder how many messaging systems there’ll be in this game (if we want to count Prongle as messaging). I like the style and simplicity of this UI, as well as text option convenience. Speaking of, we see some rudimentary dialogue choices which I’m sure will get more complex and interesting as the story and relationships progress. Quirk wise, it seems Xefros uses perfect grammar with no capitalization besides ‘X’, removes ‘e’ from ‘ex’ pairs, and uses ‘X’ in his emojis for his horns. I’d like to note that ‘X;)?’ is probably Joey being confused about the use of the ‘X’ as me and @theenglishmanwithallthebananas looked into together last night and Joey could very feasibly be familiar with emojis considering the date of their invention preceding 1994. I’m excited to see more websites in-game, like troll!eBay, which will potentially make for an interesting mechanic. 

Dammek’s bedroom is a mess too. We can see another gun in the foreground as Joey climbs out of this vent (presumably from the basement), and another fucking dish stack. There’s a giant hole in the floor and ceiling from the cherub portal beam. His recuperacoon is fucking WeirdTM and... I honestly have... no idea?????????????? how you get in that or why it has so many oddly placed holes (and speaking of how it retains the sopor slime?). There’s a weird magenta box there and I’m really not sure what it could be. A drum set up the back there, and... are those more guns by the window? Really. Where the fuck did he get all these guns? Troll!eBay? More posters in here: Grubbels on the ceiling on the right, some more deercat lusus stuff. Troll!Judge Dredd. Troll!Robocop. I don’t recognize the two at the back, but I do know the troll!Anarky symbol (I feel like that might specifically be a Batman reference because of the antihero/gritty-inclined superhero theme going on here? Could very easily just be a normal anarchy thing tho). 

Here we see what I think is meant to be a troll!Terminator poster which I swear we saw in HS cuz I remember those horns but I might? be crazy. Another gun is held above the door, which is locked by a biometric bypassed by the tesseract (which goes dark in the next few frames). It’s too small to see because unfortunately these screenshots all compressed, but during this sequence, the cube emits some white sparks, as if the whole ‘lime green and probably really important’ stuff didn’t already make it look related to first guardians/the Green Sun. I’m not sure why it loses power here but... I mean it’s interesting. There’s also a model of a troll getting abducted which is of course A Very Funny CoincidenceTM. From all of these posters I’m getting a very strong Lawless Law, Moral Code, Violent Disestablishment And Vigilante Action vibe for Dammek, which makes sense considering he’s a rebel (potentially a leader??? with all these weapons and the infamy of the Grubbels? with in-world merch? how is that allowed?), and I’m sniffing some Mind on this boy, but obviously that’s super tentative bare bones. 

Wow this is beautiful. 

Fucking same.

So that’s the trailer! I figure I might as well also go over the presskit while we’re here: 

https://www.hiveswap.com/press-kit

None of the info provided here is new, but to recap: Hiveswap takes place in 1994 as a prequel to HS and the birth + arrival of the beta kids on Earth, who will get here in... two years. Enough time for Grandpa to pack up shop and ditch the wife (is Anna Claire still alive?). Every item combination is possible with unique flavour text (I can’t wait to extend the standard 4-5 hour play by testing everything), there’s at least one third wave ska song, frenemies is a possible relationship option (quadrants please and thank you), and Hiveswap and Hauntswitch will be playable in either order. Moving on to those good exclusive screenshots: 

So many dead animals. I find the bear/deer combination quite tasteful myself, as well as the bull head and hooves mounted above the fucking door. Wow that wolf, am I right? Really happy to see ‘play haunting x’ is still a thing, and I’m excited to see what recurring commands/gags pop up in these games. The rug coordination in this household is awful but I love it and the texturing on these things is fantastic. I’d also like to draw your attention to the corned of the shot, in the back corner above the arrow on the piano and behind the stair rails: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVEQ3v9RRR0

It’s this monster from the concept art in the asset reel that came out oh my God 2 years ago. Anyway, it looks lime green in the former screenshot, and if there’s one thing I know about exotic snake monsters (which we’ll get back to in a second) and Grandpa, this is probably a new denizen minion, and subsequently a hint at a new denizen design! Nothing else on Earth looks this cool, right? With the colouration and AesthetiqueTM I considered this being an Abraxas minion but Abraxas looks - from Jake’s browser - to be bird themed so that doesn’t quite line up, but the prospect of finding minions for more denizens and thus new denizen designs in the Harlehouse is really exciting to me. Basically this is all just Really Fucking ExcitingTM. Also trust me to focus on this one background thing.

Here we see the fight with the centipede antiguardian in the basement which we see later that Joey is in to turn the power back on:

I’m still really here for dance combat and this game’s beautiful art and insane attention to detail. Most of note for me here are the Typheus minion head and what I’m 100% positive is a Cetus minion head (purple narwhal AKA purple whale AKA Cetus). Although Cetus was never shown Rose’s browser showed a human woman head so if denizen minions can vary a bit from their denizens design then perhaps that snake on the stairs up there is related to Abraxas. I feel like of all the denizens to include a nod to, the one associated with the cherubs - so potentially a Yaldabaoth minion too? - makes sense. 

More messy rugs and I still love how ugly and tasteless it is. I also love this little blue lady corner with the tiger skin armchair by the French doors we’ve got here. There is so much illegal game in this house. 

God bless these family photos (pretend Joey is standing on those stairs a little more - I’m fine with the models not quite lining up considering it’s 2D). As we saw in the photo of Grandpa and the buffalo by the piano, it seems Joey and Jude specifically decorate Grandpa’s hunting photos. But I don’t think this is because it unnerves them:

Once again the art and lighting in this game is phenomenal. But Joey seems quite excited by all these dead things so no I don’t imagine the hunting bothers her very much. That’s funny to me because Joey wants to be a vet, so maybe the excitement is just standard for one of her dance cycles and she’s not actually normally very happy about all the dead things. I guess we’ll see. Note the katana below the orange cat. @Dirk next time Grandpa. It’s cool to see more nods to the alphas and the environmental storytelling is going to be great in this game. 

I like how Jude’s calling the antiguardians the cryptid vanguard and I almost want to do the same. 

I only just realized that we’ve seen all this gerbil tubing before but it’s what got me to freak out about Tesseract so I’ll leave that in there. I’m still not really sure how the combat system works at all from what we’ve seen but it looks interesting UI-wise and I really like the death bubbles that pop up at collision points. It’s a cool skull graphic I think we only saw once in Homestuck, and that one on the left looks a bit like the ~ATH face.

Also wow that bat thing has a manly chin.

I love Jude a lot. 

These theatrical encounter screens are still great.

All in all: WOW! SO MUCH STUFF! WOW! GREAT! I’M! E!X!C!I!T!E!D IF YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED. Hopefully you enjoyed my thoughts and I’ve pointed out some details or ideas you might have missed. I’m also sorry for being too lazy to edit out the YT bars on the trailer screenshots but hey whatever.

This game looks so fantastic and I can’t believe it’s going to be here in 13 days after I’ve waited for so long (since 2013) and I’m just... yeah this is going to be cool. 

Stay tuned for more Hiveswap theorizing and coverage, which will only increase by a Whole Fucking LotTM when the game actually comes out. Hopefully I’ll be hot on the scene the day it drops but that’s also a Friday so I might lose some time at school but we’ll see how it goes. 

For reference, I will be tagging Hiveswap spoilers as ‘HS spoilers’ and/or ‘Hiveswap Spoilers’ in the future. 

My Hiveswap theories are here:

Antiguardians: http://analytic-chaoticism.tumblr.com/post/164851214030/hiveswaps-antiguardians-possibly-solving

Horror: http://analytic-chaoticism.tumblr.com/post/158878144610/hiveswap-and-horror-possibility-of-scary-segments

Plot: http://analytic-chaoticism.tumblr.com/post/155283894895/hiveswap-cherubs-fantrolls-first-guardians

The Handmaid/Doc Scratch: http://analytic-chaoticism.tumblr.com/post/154670995195/the-handmaid-in-hiveswap-homestuck-ancestors-in

God Tiers: http://analytic-chaoticism.tumblr.com/post/151553862535/tentative-hiveswap-classpecting 

[tvdoes]

Voltron: Legendary Defender Episode 1

As I begin this post the screen to my left is displaying the Netflix logo. It’s about two seconds into an hour long video, which I did not expect when I decided this is what I wanted to do next. We’re in for a ride.

I was unsure as to whether Voltron was what I was going to go with, I’m a screenshot based liveblog and screenshotting Netflix is surprisingly tricky. It’s not like good old MPC, where I can just right click and save the current frame I’m on. Ah I miss that. Nonetheless I figured out something that appears to work, so we’re going with that. Hopefully it’s not too much of a pain.

I don’t know, really, how my liveblogging style will apply to this show. I’ve only done Samurai Jack and, while this is an assumption, I feel pretty confident saying there’ll be a LOT more dialogue here than in that show. Does that mean I’ll have more to say per minute? Less? Who knows.

I was prepared for a half hour episode when I decided on this, so an hour long is intimidating. It usually takes me an hour to do a roughly 20 minute Samurai Jack episode, so the time blowout here is... intimidating. Given I don’t have work tomorrow, I can commit to this full thing tonight, but if anything else like this jumps out in future, I absolutely can’t do a full episode weeknights. I can’t make that time appear.

Anyway it’s almost time to begin, so let’s start with what I know about Voltron: Legendary Defender.

Not that much, really. I’ve seen plenty of art. I’ve seen plenty of people expressing opinions. I could probably formulate a good guess at each character’s personality and I’m like 99% sure I know the names of the main five. I know about Pidge. Who doesn’t? That’s not a twist to me.

Aside from that, what’s actually going to go down, I don’t know. That’s exciting. I’m excited.

So without further ado, I think it’s time to get started. I’m going to begin watching, take screenshots, say thoughts that occur to me, and pray I finish this within the next three hours. Here’s hoping.

See you on the other side.

[evak00l]

All things considered im pretty fucking secure in who I am, but it irks me quite a lot that I seem to have so little in common with most other transwomen other than obviously going through a transition process. Idk its just like, well, if there’s a group of people I should be able to bond with without feeling like an outcast it should be them. But nah still feel out of place. I don’t know any trans ppl who would happily spend half a day listening to grime crew radio sets from 2004 and the other half torrenting old Ring Of Honor pay-per-views watching Samoa Joe and Low Ki kick the fuck out of each other. I don’t relate to cutesy anime aesthetics or anythin to do with gaming or these hobbies an introverted queer fucker like myself is likely to have. Not to mention, yknow, that whole kinkster/fetlife subculture brings bitter earwax-esque taste to my gob for personal reasons. On the whole I feel a little side-eyed by aspects of the trans community and in some ways I return the favour

Without wanting to sound like a ‘speshal snoflake’ I think I’m just too unique to truly bond with my trans sistren. And that sucks arse tbh Idk it’s far from the case with everybody it’s just a on-the-whole feeling that I don’t relate to the one fuckin group of people I feel I should be able to

Im only typing this cos every so often there’ll be a local transgirl who finds me on a dating site and takes an interest, and I feel almost like I can’t say no, or at the least feel a deep sense if guilt for not reciprocating cos we share that one long thing in common. Nevermind if we’re not remotely on the same wavelength, nevermind if we have a single hobby to share in common, nevermind if they’re so overly forward it makes me feel uncomfortable, nevermind how awfully awkward and stifled the conversation would be. Like this is just one lame example but this trans lass on OKC invited me round STRAIGHT TO HER HOUSE, WITH HER UNNAMED, FACELESS ROOMMATE, to watch Frickin anime, smoke MY weed with them and then I dunno what but I didn’t reply immediately and got sent unasked for drunk-pix of her arse(!) and hey! It was a nice arse! But why do you think you can utterly disregard what my actual interests are and then just thirst on me regardless? I’m sure they wouldn’t do that to a cis woman Like Nah I don’t want to go straight to some strangers house, do something I have no interest in, share my own smoke with them and some rando and then..?? Random sex stuff? Presumably? And that's giving them the benefit of the doubt that they're not some predatory abuser trying to lure me into her trap. Which wouldn't surprise me because nothing fucking surprises me anymore Hardly anybody would actually want to go on a date like that, and the only reason this woman had the nerve to ask me on such a self-serving ��date” is cos I’m trans. And local, but mostly cos I’m trans. And of course I decided not to go in the end, but I felt an absolutely fucking baffling level of guilt at turning it down, mainly cos I know dating as trans fuckin sucks n that but it’s still utterly illogical. If a man came on to me in the same way, I’d have fucking screenshotted them into oblivion and let them know exactly what I think of the sheer volumes of slime emanating from them

Aimless ramble over. I have no mates. I hope I don’t look too out of place standing on me todd in the front row when I go to see Kota Ibushi live in Colchester on the 11th. I fucking will look out of place, cos I have no place but what I mean is hopefully nobody tries to pick on me and then I go to jail for whipping them to death with my keychain

[joshua-dagostino]

Back at it again:  Onward towards year 1!

Or 1.1 in this case... There was December. And what an interesting 2 weeks back it’s been so far. Time to finally dust off my Tumblr!

Well, It’s been a while since my last post! There was Christmas (Pretty good), New Years (also pretty good) and my 23rd Birthday. Which happened to land on the day we went back to AIE. 

I used to absolutely hate just going back around my birthday during my school years, but this time around I found myself actually looking forward to it quite a lot! Which I’m putting on the environment, people, and instructors. It feels good to be back around people that are in a similar mindset as you are and who want to make the best of this.  On that point, the December intake was divided into 2 classes and the new (younger) January intake came in to fill the gaps... And I suddenly felt old as heck. Also, hello to my fellow classmates who I know are quite a bit older than I am! It was funny to see that almost everyone that was left in the December intake moved to one side of the room for their new seating positions. You can almost put a straight line between the two intakes now. The December intake also got pulled aside at a point and we were told about our schedule, that because we started last year, we had a whole month break coming up.  We were then asked if we wanted to sign a document, allowing us to NOT take the holiday in exchange for more classes. Which I used to think was near impossible to consider anyone doing that... But instead, we all jumped at the chance. It was admittedly pretty inspiring to see! This just goes to show my point earlier about the “environment, people, and instructors” being great! Back to the class. It was interesting seeing just how much we’ve learned in a month when working along side the new students. 

Like already having a rough idea on the scope of the project and how much to cut back on when thinking of new ideas and mechanics to implement.  Hopefully, they catch up quickly! We’re all still extremely new to Design, but right now, the December intake has a slight head start in a few areas. So I’m looking forward to seeing just how we all work together later on in the year when we’re all on the same level. I just need to remember to screenshot and (when I get a new phone) take some pictures of the progress i’m making throughout the year! I’m sure there’ll be points later on where I'm kicking my own ass about a project or something, but right now it’s a lot of fun getting back into the swing of things. Can’t wait to see how this year goes!

[eulaliasims]

Below the jump: a lot of replies. Like, a lot. For @dramallamadingdang, @littleblondesim, @katatty, @soloriya, @didilysims, @kayleigh-83, and @ousmeo. (◠‿◠ ✿ ) Uni, light up hood deco, and a teeny tiny bit of politics.

dramallamadingdang replied to your photo “How many snowmen do we need, May? There’s already two others!”

She's planning world domination with her army of snow warriors. The only thing that will stand in her way is....Well, the spring thaw. :)

Ah, I should’ve known it’d be someone unassuming like May who has the world domination plans. All she needs is a Weathernaught 57X and a bunch of magical top hats!

dramallamadingdang replied to your photoset “Emilio?” Maria leaned past the door to peek into her brother’s room....”

More people need to be like Emilio. Or rather, the *world* needs to be more like Emilio. So much unnecessary drama over sexuality, smh. OK! Off the soapbox! :D (Sorry, I've been very activist-y lately. It's hard to shake it off. :) )

That’d be a nice change. I will never get why some people get so het up about others’ sexuality or gender identity when it affects them approximately 0%... like, I do kinda understand the sources (toxic gender roles/culture, religious taboos, etc), but it’s never gonna make actual sense to me. ANYWAY~! No need to apologize, I think a lot of us have been feeling like that lately.

littleblondesim replied to your photoset “Emilio?” Maria leaned past the door to peek into her brother’s room....”

This was awesome! I wouldn't mind seeing more story-like from you :)

katatty-main replied to your photoset “Emilio?” Maria leaned past the door to peek into her brother’s room....”

i like seeing story stuff from you!

soloriya replied to your photoset “Emilio?” Maria leaned past the door to peek into her brother’s room....”

aww i like his conversation :3

Thank you, guys! I’ve been trying to psych myself up to share more story stuff lately, so hopefully there’ll be more in the future. :D

dramallamadingdang replied to your photoset

What telephone poles are you using? They look so nice in your pics, but the ones I have...don't look so nice. :) So I never use them...

CuriousB’s retexture/repositoried set. Julsfels’ OMSPs for placing objects outside lot borders is really useful for decorating with them, also. :)

dramallamadingdang replied to your photoset “It’s almost the end of the round. Things are pretty slow in the last...”

Uni is a pain because it's an even number of days when everything else (days in a week, season length, whatever) is an odd number of days. :P Didn't they think of us rotational players when they were making this thing???!!! ;)

didilysims replied to your photoset “It’s almost the end of the round. Things are pretty slow in the last...”

The struggle is real. Why can't university just nicely line up with everything else? :(

Yeah, the number of days in uni were a bit of a pain while trying to figure out how to make it sort of line up with the regular hood. :| Like I’ve said, even with a shorter uni mod, it’s just like... eternal. Doesn’t help that Community Lot Time doesn’t work on uni (for obvious reasons), so you have to play the time twice if you take your sims to multiple lots and ughhhhh make it stop.

littleblondesim replied to your photoset “Bernadette: Hello Mister Kitty. You’re a cutie, aren’t you? Radar:...”

can I be Bernadette

You can if you really believe in yourself! I aspire to be Bernadette too, tbh.

dramallamadingdang replied to your photoset “Before and after. Have I mentioned lately how much I adore the...”

Y'know, ever since people started sharing lit-up deco, I thought of this exact screenshot of yours... It's even lovelier now! :)

didilysims replied to your photoset “Before and after. Have I mentioned lately how much I adore the...”

Mm, agreed. What an amazing difference. ♥

kayleigh-83 replied to your photoset “Rooftop dining! That is literally the name of this lot. I’m not great...”

T_T It's soooo beautiful!! I've gotta get it together and start making over my downtown with this kind of stuff. Along with all the other projects I have going on in game haha!

Thanks y’all! ♥ ♥ ♥ And anyone else who left a comment, because I think I might have missed some, oops. ♥ It makes a huuuuuge difference in the view and atmosphere! The lights just add so much life to it, it’s amazing. Now it actually looks more like how I wanted it to all along.

ousmeo replied to your photoset “Before and after. Have I mentioned lately how much I adore the...”

It was actually one of your previous pictures of a skyline without light that made me want to make working night hood deco! :D This makes me so happy to see + it looks so much better. crazy difference without and with light! :)

Oh my god, I helped inspire the deco? :D *Squeeeeee* I’m still so excited that we have light up deco because of people like you and Criquette. It’s been my sims dream for years, lol.

[ozsaill]

Planning a passage: Bonaire to Colombia

There is a good chance our upcoming passage will suck. Yay…

How do we know it’s not a simple downwind run in the trades? Enough friends, cruisers with miles, have told us how uncomfortable the stretch across the top of South America to give credence to the oft-repeated quote that this is one of the “five worst passages.” That quote is never sourced (if anyone knows a legit data source, please add in comments or contact me!) but experiences show there’s more to it than hyperbole.

How are we going to mitigate the misery? Jamie’s outlined our planning process as an exercise for the people working with us as cruising coaches. A summary of planning factors are and shared via email and our coaching Facebook group. We’ve helped as coaches with information on identifying tools to use, sources to check, questions to ask for developing a plan, as well as fleshed out details that make up the dynamics of this route. The exercise is broken into parts over a few days to facilitate discussion on different aspects in the safe space of the closed group, where there are no dumb questions or tridents thrown by Salty McSaltypants. What follows is pared back version of this exercise-turned-teaching-tool.

Passage Planning Basics

Totem lies in Bonaire over a pretty coral reef, safely secured to a mooring. Next stop: Santa Marta, Colombia! This is the planned route:

The route: Bonaire to Santa Marta, Colombia

YOUR TASK:

Assess passage for risks

Learn historical conditions AND track current conditions

Develop a safe, efficient route

Identify the weather window to depart in

identify BAILOUT options, should an issue require getting into port sooner

Know destination clearance processes

Prepare a float plan, if passage complexity necessitates it

At this point, coaching clients are asked to think about what they’d do: to pretend it’s their own passage. Identify tools, research conditions, create a plan, and especially: ask questions! They can document for feedback, discuss on our coaching Facebook group, or just let it sink in as future fodder. Below are the top notes of information shared back with them.

1 – Assess risks

Every passage has them; these are particular to our transit from Bonaire and Colombia. The purpose is to break them down and think about how they impact planning.

Dangerous waves: Comfort underway is all about the sea state. Three factors set up risk here: 1) a long fetch creating bigger waves, 2) deep water bunching at the continental shelf, and 3) strong katabatic winds.

Shipping: This is the highway to/from Panama Canal. The radar and AIS will get a lot of use watching out for traffic!

Debris in Water: River outflows send floating mats of weed and large deadheads; it’s also the leeward end of Caribbean Sea. Risk of hitting debris is higher, especially closer to the coast.

Security: Colombia and Venezuela present security risks of different dynamics, with aggressive incidents at sea and coastally.

2 – Historical weather and current conditions

Historical weather first! It trends in three-month periods, alternating between rough and calm conditions. December to February has rough conditions – lucky us! (It’s a choice. It’s always a choice.) Key dynamics are the prevailing trade winds, from the east (speeds increase in the western part of the sea), and strong katabatic winds off mountains on the continent. These katabatic winds can create sever conditions, including rough/confused seas. Helping Totem along: there should be a positive current, up to 2 knots at times, for the first 12-24 hours. It may not help the sea state, though.

Now current weather conditions: this is a complex 2 to 3 day passage. Begin watching weather well in advance to look for patterns. Look for systems that disrupt/ease prevailing trade winds/waves. The katabatic winds aren’t well integrated to GRIB models. PredictWind has more detail along the coastline, but may understate their effect.

Watch the currents for flow pattern – is it linear or disjointed? Will you have to navigate eddies and meanders? Now that we’re in countdown mode, weather and current are closely tracked to make a go, no-go decision.

OpenCPN with Climatology plugin overlay

Sources

Historical weather trend data:

Pilot Charts, like Cornell’s Cruising Ocean Atlas

Climatology plugin for OpenCPN (shown above),

Communication / blog posts by cruisers that have done this trip

Current weather conditions and forecast: note these are what we’re referencing on this passage. Other passages may add regional-specific sources!

PredictWind (various models and tools)

GMDSS (text) forecasts

local marine forecasts

observations for cruisers (when possible- thanks Itchy Foot!)

3 – Develop a safe, efficient route

We use PredictWind routing for an efficient path based on wind, waves, and current from four different GRIB models. The results show generally good grouping between the models, suggesting they agree on conditions. This still requires interpretation, however. Wave GRIBs are not good at representing real conditions when waves are affected by some land features; there are also the katabatic wind induced waves to consider.

PredictWind routing models based on different weather algorithms

The first third of the PredictWind route is free of increased risk we’ve noted earlier, and takes advantage of good current. Beyond that, we want to keep to deeper water – giving a wider margin to the continental shelf and mountainous headlands, and avoiding shallow banks. Hopefully this will reduce the katabatic wind affect and the chance of debris in the water. On the other hand, there will probably be more shipping traffic.

The wider route adds distance, making it roughly 400 miles. Estimating our boatspeed in these conditions, we hope to transit in a little over two days: a morning departure for a midday arrival after two nights at sea.  It’s possible we’d need to slow down, as we did sailing to Bonaire from Martinique. At least the moon is waxing again, so there’ll be nice light until midnight.

If seas get sloppy close to the islands, we may go further north. OpenCPN screenshot

4 – Weather window

Watching weather for the last week plus observations from cruisers in Santa Marta to helps index what forecasts show. While the forecast is for  a moderate 20 knots, to 25 knots on approach to Santa Marta, local observation is that wind is actually much stronger – up to 40 knots! Long range forecasts showing a possible window on December 26. That’s our ideal departure date, to give us a few days in Santa Marta before Jamie flies up to Puerto Rico for a rigging job. Six days out is just too far to count on at this point, but we’ll keep watching, seek local reports, and shift Totem’s plan as necessary.

5 – Bailout Options

Curacao and Aruba are options for the first part of the passage. Beyond, bailout options wane, but a helpful post on our Facebook page recommended Cabo de la Vela (thanks James!). In general, we have security concerns about stopping along Venezuela or Colombia and will avoid it if at all possible. Most passages should have multiple bailout options: find them by using guide books, charts, Coast Pilot books, and asking other cruisers.

6 – Destination clearance procedures

Outbound clearance in Bonaire is easy: one stop, one window, and they’re even going to be open on Christmas! For inbound to Colombia, the Marina Santa Marta makes it a snap. They facilitate the paperwork and cover the cruising permit, a costly process required if clearing further west at Cartagena.

7 – Float plan

I won’t get on the float plan soap box except to say – it’s important. We’ll update our existing float plan for this specific passage:  download our float plan template from here.

From our crew to yours, our warmest wishes for happy holidays! We have our festive frolic going on here on Bonaire, and hope the weather window holds for a departure on the 26th.

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