#most fun i've had playing with software in years

[problematicraccoon]

my occupations in my better cr <3

inspired by a post from @astrono-mi <3

Youtuber

I've been making little videos off and on since i was eight. i technically made my youtube debut when i was nine, when i snuck onto the family computer to create a channel called "jelsaforeva13", where i would post barbie videos i shot on my little pink kindle fire. i forgot about the channel until i turned sixteen and revisited it. watching those made me remember how much fun it was to make silly little videos, so i hopped back onto the youtuber bandwagon after years of veering away from the career path. i got a proper gaming set up, editing software and a headset for my birthday that year, so I made a new channel called "thought daughter" to start posting fnaf gameplays. i maybe got 20-60 views per video, but as i got older it evolved into play-throughs, vlogs, dance covers, video essays and book reviews, and my versatility got me quite a bit more attention. my channel quickly grew, and now, at twenty years old, i've just hit five million subscribers.

Dancer & Choreographer

I've been dancing pretty much since i came outta the womb. growing up watching "dancing with the stars", "dance moms" and any other dance-related show i could get my hands on had a big impact on me. i was in ballet and ballroom classes from ages five to thirteen, excelling in both, until i discovered k-pop. the music genre introduced a whole new kind of dance to me; choreography. i joined a kpop dance class at fourteen and never looked back. now, i'm considered one of the most skilled dancers in america. as i get older, i'll even get to work with groups like Katseye, Stray Kids, Aespa and Meovv as a choreographer.

Novelist

writing has always been one of my biggest passions in life, rivaled only by dance. i started out writing fanfiction, the first of which being a shitty knock off of "the lion, the witch and the wardrobe" by c.s. lewis when i was six, and quickly followed by a megamind fanfiction. over the course of my preteen years i wrote about voltron, star wars rebels, roblox youtube group "the pals", and peter pan from "once upon a time". as i entered highschool, i got very into "criminal minds" and wrote an x reader about emily prentiss on wattpad, which garnered a shit ton of attention and it wound up being one of the most well known fanfics in the fandom. now as an adult, i'm working on my very first original book; "deerpeople", a southern gothic sapphic horror novel set in the mid 1970s. this will become my magnum opus, as i'll publish it at the age of 21 and become a bestselling author by 22.

Screenwriter & Director

as i get older and more mature and solidified in my identity and my career, i go from the influencer awards to the oscars. my first novel "deerpeople" was made into a movie in technicolor produced by A24, co-directed by myself and Rose Glass, starring Mia Goth and Kristen Stewart. at the age of 24 i end up winning both "best original screenplay" from the writer's guild of america and an oscar for both directing and writing the movie. my career only skyrockets from there, and i make countless more movies and novels, though i lean more into the film industry as i get older instead of being a novelist. i even give lectures in film schools from my thirties on. throughout the course of my life as a director and screenwriter, i become known as one of the greatest screenwriters in hollywood history. i die a legend.

Wife & Mother

i meet my wife Sierra the day after i wake up in my better cr for the first time. she's the girl next door, the loudest, weirdest girl in the world, and i quickly fall deeply for her. we're married on October 1st, 2027 on Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. on that same beach, we eventually have our dream beach house built a year later. we happily spend the first decade of our marriage child free, myself focusing on my writing and commuting back and forth from California to South Carolina, and Sierra focusing on the sapphic punk rock band she's building as the lead vocalist. in our late thirties, after deciding to both take a long break from our work, we adopt a fourteen year old girl named Eden and a ten year old boy named Matteo. Eden is a very strong willed, funny, confident, scarily intelligent young girl and she ends up skipping a few grades and earning a scholarship into Yale at the age of seventeen. she becomes a screenwriter and director, just like me. Matteo is bright and giggly and creative and genteel, opting to skip college and become an artist. me and Sierra live out the rest of our lives in our beach house right on the shoreline of Myrtle Beach, staying near our families and our babies instead of moving out to hollywood. we live happily ever after <3

[trace-of-a-song]

Writing vs Playing

I think this might be a good place to talk through this.

Last year, I started taking a workshop class for composing. It was intentionally brutal. The goal was to create a new piece every week and to listen critically to the other people in the class and give and receive feedback.

Given how much music I can put out when I'm working intensely that doesn't sound too hard, but I failed. I made it through about 16 weeks of a year-long class and then life got life-y in about six different ways and I fell too far behind to keep up so I dropped out.

But I got so much out of those first few months that a) I'm trying the class again this year (we're on week 11) and b) it completely changed the way I do the music thing.

It's the difference between writing and playing.

For most of the time I've been doing this, unless it was for some out-there experimental thing with no set rhythms or intentions, I've written everything out in notation first. That hasn't been a bad thing. I'm comfy there, and I think pretty securely in notation, so the process was something like this: Write out an idea in pencil. Flesh it out in notation software. Bring the notation over to Reaper. Add instruments to make the midi noisy Adjust and spice to taste. Mix. Revise. Mix. Music.

And it worked nicely, but the speed at which this class had and has me working means I couldn't take all that time. The process became this. Pull up Reaper and make there be a piano. Play things until an idea is solid. Play more things around it. Play. Play. Mix. Music.

I don't know that the music is better this way. I think it's a bit more free, and I definitely write Different music this way but "better" is a word I'm uncomfortable with.

I do know two things though.

It happens faster. I can write one of these class pieces in 2-4 hours, the morning of a Saturday, and be finished.

The fact that I'm Playing makes it fun. Like, not just Enjoyable, but Fun. The act of creating a thing with the brain plus making a thing with the hands all smooshed together is a spicy, excellent brand of fun!

I'm thinking of this partially because as I go back through the Carmilla music, this is the first show where I wrote this way. I don't know if anyone else can hear the difference, but I can feel it.

I got to Play.

[your-local-uwu-artist]

it was suggested I post this to the tags as well >:D

fuck it ima tag @transcendence-au as well because tbh I'm very proud of my silly little animation

some me being a nerd under the cut!

okay so this all started when I read the original post this was inspired by and though 'wouldn't it be silly to add some art to this 3 year old post?' but then I decided to animate it for funsies!

and gosh I sure do love animating!

So I got the base sketch and then got into the lineart animation for each component!

i don't have the sketches/wips saved at all sense this wasn't really a project and it took less than a day to complete. but here's a peak at the timeline

I animate entirely in my ususal drawing software: clip studio paint. It's just what's easiest for me.

all of these layers outside that folder are just the sparkles! after I finished I added some sparkles for fun! there's a lot of them because it involved a lot of copy and pasting sparkle layers

the bottom folders here are the wings body and facial expression! for everything like the wings arms and flags I was able to just copy paste, reverse, and then align the timing correctly in the timeline

one thing unique about this animation is that the lineart and colors are in separate layers! I tend to do line and colors on the same layer but this time I was using a brush that doesn't have the same lack of anti-aliasing and sense it's a small animation I wasn't as worried about keeping a minimum of layers like usual.

also the movement of the body is only 4 frames! and one one of those is just the hat shifting position

initially I wasn't going to have the second facial expression but when I got stuck on animating the flags I added the second facial expression while taking a break.

the arm animation is just 8 frames! honestly the only tricky part in this is the flags, everything else was pretty simple, which made it super fun to work on because I got both a challenge and mindless therapeutic drawing out of it.

NOW THE FLAGS there was 3 throw away attempts before I got it: you see the thing that made this tricky is finding the balance between believability and visual appeal. a big part of animation is creating the illusion of physics, this is the 'believability' part, I need these to look like flags that are moving and made of flat fabric, HOWEVER if I animate these one-to-one with realistic physics: it won't look good! I can't apply wind to the whole drawing because then the hair would have to react, and wind goes one way, and I wan't the flags to be pointing opposite directions. so without wind the flags would be laying down flat, but that won't look good at all! and furthermore realistic physics would have the flag not being all nice and front facing most of the time. so the trick here was figuring out how much physics to apply to make it look believable, while still making it look good.

one trick I did to help me animate the flags is I actually made a plan rectangle flag as a guide so that the general mass/volume of the flag would stay consistent, this is something i highly recommend when animating! like having a circle guide along a characters head to keep their height and proportions consistent.

after I finally found the balance with the flag lineart coloring wasn't too hard! sense I just had to follow the lines, and THANK GOODNESS the trans and aroace flag have the same number of stripes: saving me time!

and then it all comes together to make a satisfying perfectly looping bundle of cuteness >:DDD I feel like the tau fandom doesn't have as many artists with particularly cartoony/chibi art styles so I've gotta play my part in spreading the joy-whimsy-adorable-sillys >:D

anyway! hope you get to see a cool beetle today :D

[cellray]

Can I ask what program or process you use to make your spirals?

I had a little search using the search function on your blog, but as we know Tumblr is terrible at searching.

And I've been trying for a little while (read like 5 years) to find how to make spirals.

And I've never found something that gives me the options I want

I came across one of your spirals just a few minutes ago and dived into a couple of your blogs

And once I've had dinner, I'm going to be diving a lot deeper.

But yes, do you have a program or a system that you use that you'd be willing to share?

I hope you have a wonderful day!

Plum ^•^

Hihi! I personally use Adobe After Effects to create my visuals, but that's quite an expensive option for most people so I know a lot of friends who would recommend Gimp or Blender instead, both of which are free!

I think your best option is to just pick any software and play around with it, see what you can create! You'll find it's surprisingly easy to make a shape rotate and find it spirally and fun to watch ✨

[merge-conflict]

20 Questions: Writing Edition

tagged by @ghostoffuturespast and tagging @lemonlilactea and @clockworkvenus (no pressure!) and anyone else who happens to be reading and wants to play :3

How many works do you have on ao3?

20! Which feels sort of insane. It feels like I've both written much less and a lot more.

What's your total ao3 word count?

155,384 which feels absurdly low. 285,984 is the word count in one (1) of my Scrivener projects so there's a lot which is not making it to the end of the pipeline.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

no promises

the damn things overlap

An Exchange

everything where it belongs

come back wrong

What fandom do you write for?

Mostly Cyberpunk although in the previous question you can see that I've gotten more attention in various other video game fandoms I've written for (fe3h/pathologic 2/Prey (2017)). I've also written plenty of fics that have never seen the light of day for Outer Worlds and Dragon Age 2 and a little bit of BG3.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! Unless the comment is weird. Sometimes it takes me a while because time isn't real, but I always appreciate someone taking the time to actually leave one of any length because I know how much effort it takes. As a long-time lurker I know it's tough to make that jump from reading something to interacting with the creator. It's always nice to feel like I'm not just chucking my passion project into the void and I hope folks aren't too disappointed if it takes me a while to work up the courage to reply. Sometimes I like to keep things in my inbox for a while so I can enjoy them. :3

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hard to pick between you and me and the devil makes three but that one is so short it doesn't feel as much as a punch to me as a pair of open graves. Even though Valentine is being cared for by the people who love her most, it's extremely hard to think about the fact she's slowly losing her mind and doesn't want to admit it, and the fact that she was actively concealing the fact from Goro and to some extent herself. Something about her surviving everything and having a few good years and then declining quickly because of the damage from the Relic while Johnny himself is doing fine... T-T I'm fine, actually.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

everything where it belongs is 100% feel good smut and I guess has a few happy endings. not a lot of competition with all the cyberpunk fics though lol

Do you get hate on fics?

I've gotten a few odd comments which are sort of back-handed, but not too bad and I like to assume good intentions. By far the worst is when someone reblogs my writing on tumblr and misgenders a character. Makes me yearn to pack it in and move back into the woods.

Do you write smut?

Oh you betcha. If I want the dynamics that really get me going, especially with a nonbinary and/or trans character I gotta write it myself. Dutifully contributing my work to the sparse "Other" category on ao3 like a good soldier.

Do you write crossovers?

I haven't recently but I have in the past, mostly in my youth. It's hard to stitch two disparate worlds together, at least with the stuff that I like. I did semi-recently think about Viago Dragon Age in the cyberpunk universe. I think he'd love having access to spreadsheet software and industrial grade stimulants.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I mean probably scraped from ao3, but whatever. Once you put something on the internet you never know where it'll end up and I'm at peace with that. Nobody is getting any more recognition off my work than I am lol.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! Think that'd be pretty neat though.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! I've written a fic with @slayerdurge with our V's, which was a blast. In the distant past (i.e. middle school) I've also written a fair number of fics with my friends which can be chaotic but also fun.

What's your all-time favorite ship?

I'm not really a person with all-time favorites, things come and go with different strengths. After having spent some time writing a lot of datv fic for my own gratification and having fun with a friend, I will say I'm really glad to get back to Valentine/Goro. dog4dog 4ever.

What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

All of them. I have so many! My one hope is that I can finish at least the damn things overlap even if I never get fully around to writing all the other stuff I'd like to write.

What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I can keep a story moving, and by far my favorite step of writing is editing. Taking a wild thorny draft and slicing and cutting and rearranging until it's tight and has good mouthfeel. I do also think I do a good job of keeping canonical characters in character, or at least once I've had some time with them, making their changes make sense according to what's happened to them and the context they're in.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Plotting, organizing, executive function. I struggle to write things linearly, I've never written an outline I didn't wildly deviate from once I actually got down to it, and I can't tell you the number of times I've done some skimming over early chapters to make sure I've kept things consistent only to find I'm trying to do something I already did and take it out. Writing with ADHD can be frustrating and sometimes I'm at peace with it and sometimes (lately) it makes me want to wail and gnash my teeth– why doesn't my brain just work? Why can't I fucking remember?? Why do I remember feeling the warm glow of an idea and not the idea itself? It's gone forever!

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I generally avoid it, because I don't have the skill or resources to write dialogue in other languages naturally. If the POV character knows the language I will just write the gist of what is said in another language in English and note what language they're speaking (if relevant) and if the POV character doesn't know, then they just note someone is talking in another language along with what they do notice about tone & volume and similar. I feel like often the best I can do is try to make a bit of the underlying language come through in the English translation but if I can't do that then I can at least get out of the way and not bungle the original language.

Favorite fic you've ever written?

My darling thread-safe. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's probably some of my best writing, it's a punch to the gut, and yet I still couldn't resist putting a bit of hope into it. It's got Valentine and Goro on opposite sides, and yet still stupidly in love and clinging to each other. It's got all of Valentine's fractured pieces, including Johnny. It's about everyone finally having to face the options in front of them and wishing they could go back and do things differently, but they just have to keep moving forward. It's about Johnny's loved ones helping him stay free, and Valentine's loved ones making her prison tolerable. Agh!

[faraway-sunshine]

OOC FAQ (Remastered for 2025!)

(This is for information about me, the blog admin. For Sunny, check out the About Me post, linked at the top. Or read anything else on the blog, lol)

Hi, who are you?

I'm the admin behind faraway-sunshine, this Sunny askblog. I go by He/Him pronouns. I turned 18 in February but started running this blog last year.

Aside from the odd guest writer and some guidance from my friends, I make the blog alone. No AI generation is used to create anything in the blog and if that ever changes you have full rights to revoke my Internet privileges permanently.

I try to update frequently but I'm a full-time university student so this can get in the way! I also run @aubrey-right-back as a sort of sister blog to this one, and another blog for a different fandom I'd rather keep private for now.

(Other questions under the cut!)

What made you start this blog?

I have some experience running askblogs before, particularly in the Undertale/Deltarune fandom. I was creatively burnt out when I finally played Omori and fell in deep.

I've had some mental health struggles before, though not to Sunny's extent, thank goodness. I'm still on a road to recovery though. Writing Sunny through his nonlinear recovery feels healing.

Why is there a date at the bottom of every Sunny post?

I headcanon the events of the game to take place in mid-to-late June, 2000. When I made this blog at the end of July, I thought it'd be fun to have it sync with the real-world clock minus 24 years. It's honestly such a help for my creativity at times, and keeps things moving.

My headcanon also places Sunny in the Eastern Standard time zone, on the east coast of America. I don't live in America, I'm in New Zealand, so sometimes I schedule posts to appear in a better time. Most of the time though I can work without that.

This also means I don't know what it's actually like living through those times, so I do a bunch of research and may take a few liberties. At least Sunny's probably not the most up to date with the times himself!

Also please do not send asks about September 2001 I've had too many please stop please

Does this mean you'll handle X topic in the way they would have back then?

Short answer: It varies.

Long answer: Sometimes. My general rule of thumb is to link it back to experiences and frustrations still present now; for instance, the annoyance of not being taken seriously in therapy or not knowing how to tell the difference between a crush and someone you admire platonically.

Although I'm neurodivergent and LGBTQ, I'm not a racial or cultural minority, so I try not to deal with the negative side of those topics as much due to not wanting to represent it falsely.

This does mean I might use some outdated language at times, such as referring to part of the autistic spectrum as Asperger's or DID as MPD. Those are very brief though, as I don't like putting a huge load on a label.

I also promise not to use any slurs, even those I might reclaim, or to turn discriminatory violence into a major plot point. No "gay almost driven to suicide just because he wants to kiss boys" tropes present.

Wait, "plot point"?

Sunny has a life outside the blog, and I have a rough calendar of events that occur to him. There's a few special ones that happened before, such as a couple sleepovers and his first day back at school.

Events are interactive in that you can react to them, but not in that I often have an idea of how things go on that's hard to sway. It's not impossible to change that ending though!

Shipping?

When I started the blog, this was not going to be a major part of it. I continue to stand by my decision, but if you've been following a while you'd know I have been hinting heavily at him having feelings for Basil. Whether things will work out turn to you, dear viewer.

Who does the artwork and photos?

Unless otherwise specified, I do all my own! Art is made either by hand or in a bitmap drawing software, like MS Paint. Sometimes people have sent fanart and that's awesome!

Photos are always supposed to be credited. Spot an uncredited photo? Let me know!

If I can't take a picture myself I try and use public domain imagery when I can. If I have falsely used your image for purposes not permitted in the license, flip me an ask or DM me to sort it out.

Okay, what triggers can I expect?

To start with, expect canon-typical content from the game, only in frank written form (which may be more or less triggering depending).

This is by no means a complete list, but the main topics that have come up so far that either aren't in the game or are but in less detail are:

Frank discussions of sexual health and attraction

Clear, frank discussion regarding other medical topics, including physical trauma and injury (self-inflicted or otherwise)

Past trauma, PTSD, and memory loss linked to it (before and during the events of the game's story)

Parental negligence, abandonment and general lack of understanding

Eating disorders, specifically anorexic and avoidant-restrictive tendencies

Neurodivergence, sometimes through a DSM-IV/DSM-IV-TR (guidelines used in this time) view

Plurality in the same manner, primarily DID (sometimes referred to as MPD)

Psychiatric treatment related to some or all of the above alongside canon-typical causes

Homophobia (internal and external), and through other characters, transphobia

Religious trauma and discussion, based on Roman Catholic Christianity

Brief discussions and reactions to real life events that have happened before or during the blog's story, both recent (such as murders) and historical (such as the events of prior wars).

Wait, Sunny's a system?

In this interpretation of his character, I headcanon Sunny as somewhat plural. The exact diagnosis is something I'm not sure of as I'm not a therapist and he'd be slapped with DID/MPD anyway due to the ideas of the times. I've talked about this before in older posts, which have also discussed some of his alters.

Sunny's system in this take is traumagenic, but no syscourse is permitted on the blog as I'm not qualified to moderate it. This includes reblogs, tags and comments.

I write Sunny's plural sections with advice from others, but with that being said, if you think I've been offensive or inaccurate please let me know!

Help! I can't find an old post!

I apologise for the mess; I've been heavily putting off fixing the tagging system for this blog.

Try these steps in this order!

Use the Search bar with keywords or dates you remember

Scroll through relevant tags. All asks are tagged with the user that sent them in, and all non-asks are either tagged as Diary Post, Sunny Thoughts, or both. Typically I lean to leaving Sunny Thoughts off of longer posts. Characters, events and topics are also sometimes tagged.

Open the Tumblr Archive of the blog and scroll there. You can sort by tag, media type, and date if you like.

It might be deleted. In that case, it could be worth checking Internet Archive's Wayback Machine?

Send me an ask regarding it and I'll send you a link! Anonymous must be turned off for this so I can answer privately.

I have a question and it isn't here.

Send it in! No, seriously. Just mark it as being for the admin in some way and I'll answer.

Thank you for reading!

[apriltempleos]

rambling about templeOS! :) the "divine operating system"

preacher: the few people who have been following this blog since the start might've caught on to a few mentions of the "templeOS god word app" which the "APRIL" project hinges on. i figured the subject deserved a brief explanation on the blog, for those who might not be "in the know"

-

templeOS is a operating system designed "in accord with specific instructions from god", according to its late creator terry a. davis. it was initially released in 2005 but the latest update was as recently as 2017. terry davis died the following year on august 11th after being hit by train. (this is partly the reason for my ongoing obsession with temple, because august 11th has been a spiritually significant date for me since always, but that's besides the point)

templeOS was created entirely by davis, down to the fact that he had developed an entirely new coding language for the purpose – HolyC, a middle ground between C and C++, and named in reference to the vatican's holy see. needless to say developing a whole operating system singlehandedly is an incredible feat, and devising entirely new language doubly so.

templeOS has no internet support, but it has games! in what is perhaps my favorite feature of the OS, the games are divided into "fun games" and "unfun games" 😭

unfortunately most of them (regardless of fun/unfun designation) are borderline unplayable, at least on the emulator. some examples of the games include: keepaway, which is a basketball game, a complete flight simulator, and "after egypt" –a game in which you travel to a burning bush in order to use a "high-speed stopwatch", meant to act as an oracle, generating pseudo-random text. this is to my knowledge running on the same code as the god word app.

god word can be accessed independently outside of "after egypt" as well, without even opening an app – just by pressing f7 anywhere you can generate strings of words. it is meant to be a tool to communicate with god directly. the system also features a similar app which instead generates quotes from the king james bible, as well as a random line generator which i think is supposed to be a way or receiving visual input from god as well.

-

all in all completely incredible and one of my favorite things to have ever existed. i became obsessed with this last year since i first became interested in hardware vs software sentience, and i've been running it on virtualbox ever since. obviously most of the features don't work very well on the emulator (esp that i'm on mac so the keyboard maps really annoyingly) but sometimes i'll just launch it to play around with god word – this is kind of the entire premise of "APRIL". i wanted god word to hang out with me and be able to get the words out of it with only verbal input.

im going to attach some links in a reblog for people who want to read more or want to play with templeOS on their own.

[kitkat-the-muffin]

Late screenshot dump/review for Cloutchase Vol 4!

Here are the previous three installments: [1][2][3]

Hey everybody! It's been a while, about 7 months since I've last been remotely active in this fanbase, but this past weekend I played Vol 4 with my friends and I am here to share my favorite screenshots! I will of course start this post off with some spoiler-free teasers to encourage others to play the game themselves!

And now it's time for the rambles!

This session was quite unique since I had two friends with me this time!

"Homestuck is too problematic lets to Danganronpa" oh I just know you guys put that in on purpose. I only ever saw the Danganronpa anime once but my friend immediately knew who they were going to dress up as and she was right haha

Honestly I love how Snapchat has a permanent dog filter on. My other friend who joined us today gave him the most perfect voice that I can barely attempt to describe. I called it "Irish-Canadian stoner" if that helps you imagine it

Backrooms reference *airhorns*!!!! It was kinda funny when TikTok just abandons the player in favor of egg theft, but what I think desperately needs to be talked about is the alleged missing lion man. Who is he? Where did he go? I have to know!

I spent a good 5 minutes rambling about Musical.ly's character design before I realized they're TikTok pre-transition. They look so fashionable tho! Can I get the raw files of these photos?

YOOOO VINE GETS NEW SPRITES!!!! I like how he's behind the times because he's been dead for a while haha

This is the best possible timeline I think

Tumblr looks FANTASTIC heck yeah

What did they mean by this?

Kinda love how Threads is a character and also kinda not a character. Design is peak tho

Get Gatsby'd! If I had a nickel for every time I was Gatsby'd this year I'd have two nickels-

Congrats on the gender! Genuinely though why did Twitter start looking infinitely more attractive to me after coming out as transfem? Like... she's so pretty now... but also exactly the same? Gender is a construct but holy cheese

I was literally trying to read the option choices and she cut me off ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff anyway hi Reddit. My friend had a surprisingly good Reddit voice (I'd describe it as incel meets gamer but less embarrassing somehow)

Old man Facebook! My friend had the WORST voice for Facebook... Imagine the creepiest old man asmr of your life

Kinda interesting that the Magical Girl sequence is part of the Bad Ending. My friends and I agreed that it was more of a Neutral End than a bad one. She looks great tho, I love the art in Instagram's route

Caught in 4k! This frame only appears for a split second haha

I really like how they characterized the creepy tracking of meta software this way. Instagram looks pleasant on the outside but underneath that top layer is a completely fake personality that covers another layer of invasive curiosity that covers another layer of genuine artistic enjoyment. That's so interesting! Anyway my friends and I started theorizing what the multicolored strings mean and we're stumped on the white bit between Amino and Kik-

I love Insta's photos, I like how they're physical polaroids. The logo on her bag is also the old Instagram logo! I need to see that full sized photo of Tumblr and Twitter tho-

Honestly didn't expect this ending but it's cute and I love it! Genuinely we should all be encouraged to post about our favorite simple pleasures rather than trying to appeal to the masses

Anyway before calling it a night we looked at some of the new bonus content (some of which is just stuff from the tumblr blog lol) and dang is Wikipedia so pretty in this screenshot

Actually my friend saw this next photo and said "he's just like me fr why don't I have that?" Honestly I can't wait for the Wikipedia route hahah

ANYWAY GET GATSBY'D FOR A THIRD TIME-

Or a second time if you aren't a Gravity Falls fan lol

Anyway, this volume was a lot of fun and I greatly enjoyed playing it! I like how TikTok's route had multiple activity choices and endings. It's kind of reminiscent of how much time you can accidentally waste on TikTok haha

Instagram's route being based on trying to maintain a level of perfection was interesting, as well as the Great Gatsby motifs. I laughed out loud when Waltz of the Flowers played because I'm hyperfixating on Princess Tutu rn and my friend is obsessed with Tchaikovsky so that was fun

Here's to the next volume! I can't wait to play it!

[stchematelier]

Dev Diary #23

A reflection on Tyrano Builder so far and others...

Early this year I contemplated joining Short Circuit VN Jam but as the event period approached, and I juggled with which ideas to work on, nothing was working out. Flash forward to the end of May, Neo-Twiny Jam announcement pops-up. On a whim, I draft out a short story within its 500 words limit rule. Lo and behold, I managed to write something overnight, retrieving an old idea from sometime during lockdown.

When fellow devs informed me we can submit more than one projects -still within the 500 words limit - and I managed to write two more, I decide to drop out of Short Circuit VN Jam and join Neo-Twiny Jam instead. Something I have been meaning to do since I saw it years back, but was too insecure to do.

And since I've had Tyrano Builder around for so long without having used it at least once, I figured right now was the perfect chance to learn to master the tool. Something I already did early this year at The Worst Visual Novel Ever Challenge with "this is a trial game" where I finally played around with Tuesday JS Visual Novel Engine.

First impressions! Once you get past feeling overwhelmed by the interface, read through the basic tutorial and watched video tutorials, the steps become more intuitive. So far, I appreciate the convenience of dragging and dropping resources into Tyrano and manually placing custom images around the tool area. The downside with the latter however is the lack of alignment and distribution feature you'd commonly found in any editing software nowadays to automically align said images.

Another aspect I am not fond of is how reliant the engine could potentially be with Steam. In a hypothetical scenario Steam shuts down, does it mean the engine itself is lost?

TyranoBuilder can still be a decent tool for a beginner wanting to start making vns, and yet overall Ren'Py - despite its complexity - continues to be a reliable option in my opinion in terms of how well-documented it is with the amount of plug-ins and tutorials you can find online.

I've had to dig around online just to figure out how to even implement a hover effect in TyranoBuilder. Once I did, the result was satisfying! The in-tools at your disposal are still very limited, unless you know Japanese and have no problems reading through the JP tutorials (which I am not sadly *big sigh*), but again it's a good enough tool if you're just starting and want to handle the coding aspect to a minimum, same with Tuesday JS.

As of the time of this blog post, I have a working kinetic novel with as much customisation I could get away with. I like how it looks so far. Working on this is the most fun I've had since putting aside my inherent need for perfectionism.

This won't be the last dev diary for the month! Thank you for reading so far :D

– S. H.

[techforevil]

May 2025

This month was about 3 years long, work has put me through the wringer and I'm in my feelings about it so much that I thought I've done nothing else but apparently my spare time is endless. 💀

Work

[deleting the first para because i realised it’s almost identical to last month and i just swung to the dark side cos i wrote it while very tired 😌]

I'm still not failing as badly as whoever is managing those AI summaries on top of Google tho. Whoever you are, you're making millions of people's life worse several times a day and burning down the planet. 💖

Anyway, the deadline got moved by a week and the world did not stop spinning. Not even when some people took holidays. Figures!

Did not make it to Delivercon because of the above shenaningans. One day I will be a dependable unconference co-organiser. :(

I'm personally quite disappointed in some of the decisions being made lately but at least they resulted in seeing how many people genuinely do value working in the open etc. It's heartening to see that this stuff genuinely does matter to other people and I'm not the only one upset by it.

I keep thinking about a conversation I had few months ago now about bullyign and what to do when you witness it but are not personally affected. TBH my own experience of reporting things was so disastrously bad I'd be cross if someone reported a thing on my behalf haha. It's not helpful that a lot of the guidance assumes the line manager is a safe person to report things to, like they're never a problem themselves... The most pragmatic thing is sadly to help the bullied person get another job. 🫠

I genuinely dread every time when I need to buy something (people, software, outcome), might be a thing to fix if we shouldn't be doing everything from the ground up....

Professionally one of the worst months of my life, several things were late, not done, or not escalated in time for a big deadline on the 3rd June and no matter what anyone says they were squarely within my remit. 🥲

I'm still not failing as badly as whoever is managing those AI summaries on top of Google tho. Whoever you are, you're making millions of people's life worse several times a day and burning down the planet. 💖

Anyway, the deadline got moved by a week and the world did not stop spinning. Not even when some people took holidays. Figures!

Did not make it to Delivercon because of the above shenaningans. One day I will be a dependable unconference co-organiser. :(

It's been so nice to see how many people in my organisation genuinely value working in the open etc. It's heartening to see that this stuff genuinely does matter to other people and I'm not the only one upset by the direction things have gone recently.

I keep thinking about a conversation I had few months ago now about bullyign and what to do when you witness it but are not personally affected. TBH my own experience of reporting things was so disastrously bad I'd be cross if someone reported a thing on my behalf haha. It's not helpful that a lot of the guidance assumes the line manager is a safe person to report things to, like they're never a problem themselves... The most pragmatic thing is sadly to help the bullied person get another job. 🫠

I genuinely dread every time when I need to buy something (people, software, outcome), might be a thing to fix if we shouldn't be doing everything from the ground up....

Various

I had a good time at UK Games Expo, even though it was initially super overwhelming. I met up with some friends, bought way too many games, and went to a game design workshop where my group made something quite abstract but that actually worked as a fun game! :o Making it my goal to prototype at least 1-2 small things by end of year.

UKGE bonus win: I convinced someone to buy Arcs and we're playing this weekend. 🥳 Ideally we'd find a regular 4th but fingers crossed it works with three. I can't wait for the Fangs & Fortune expansion to Ahoy to come out as well, both the factions seem super fun to play. 👏

STILL WAITING FOR THE COMPLETION DATE but at least my mortgage rate went down by 0.5% since the initial calculation. It'll offset the stamp duty a bit I suppose. 🙃

I (re)discovered Baikal seals and I'm now convinced petting one would fix me.

I enjoyed this personal video by PushingUpRoses where she talks about how therapeutic ceramics have been to here. Personally throwing makes me feel like I'm on the brink of madness (can't fucking center), but as someone with fairly powerful 'could a depressed person make THIS' energy I appreciate her being open about it. Something to relate to innit.

Moved Ghent trip to October from this weekend and it only cost me £28 extra. 😌

I went to Java Whiskers' crochet with cats evening and like anythign else cat cafe related it was terrible value for money.. worth doing once tho. The cats were cute but I was not willing to compromise my yarn integrity for their amusement so I was not the most popular person there. ;(

The Grayson Perry exhibit at Wallace Collection was fantastic, just a really fun concept done so well. His ceramics were probably the least interesting piece which speaks to the quality of everything else.

Arts & crafts

Ralsei

Aimee the Sheep (pictured below being made at Nagare 👌)

Fox and a Cat

a very easy hat

I got started on the potter's blanket pattern from Toft, but adding pinks as well (since I had a lot of 8/8 cotton in whites, pinks, and blues)

Hello Kitty (waiting for a friend she was gifted to finish making an outfit before I can post)

two floral pairs of earrings at a workshop by Rosa Pietsch

I have a crochet backlog of gifts only, starting with Jigglypuff in 8/8 cotton that is making my hands cramp up something awful. I'm never buying that weight again, it works fine for the granny squares but otherwise it's bloody murder.

Watched and played

Kathy Rain 2: too direct of a sequel IMO, and the supernatural elements were the weakest part of 1. The Whedonian tone got really old since then too. Some gorgeous pixel art and more traditional investigation were fun, but a solid 6/10 for me at most.

Star Trek TNG. I am almost done, in the middle of the 7th season which is loaded to the brim with everyone's extended families for some odd reason. The grandma-loving ghost is probably the most fun of the bunch. Overall, a very enjoyable series and I can see myself returning to some episodes (not the non-binary planet one). I wish K'Ehleyr wasnt't killed off, I wish Ro Laren's biggest role after her intro wasn't fucking Riker, I wish Geordi's captain mom existed as a character before dying, I wish ManWithNoName!Troi was just how she always was. And most of all I wish there was and ep with Q *and* Lwaxana because I love to see Picard suffer. 😌 But I guess I'll have to make do with a book.

Final Destination 6. So many deaths that were just... splats. The flashback intro was amazing tho and some kills were fun - but nothing will top The Monkey for that this year and possibly many to come.

Phoenician Scheme. Very pretty, very aesthetic, that was all that I needed from it.

Tornado. Scottish samurai western sounds cool as hell but the characters made stupid unrealistic decisions all of the time (NOT in a fun way) and I ended up more exasperated that entertained.

Evangelion: Death (True). Weird af recap, to be honest, just made me feel like I should rewatch the series. ✋

Next up

Hades II update?! Deltarune... tomorrow!! D:

the Undertale concert

Sashiko embroidery workshop

[inkofamethyst]

May 17, 2025

It's been two long, sad years since I've read any music (much less sightread), and wrapping my mind around bass clef as a long-time treble girlie feels like it it's warping my brain. I wonder if learning piano first would've made things easier.. but I don't really mind the challenge (also the answer to that is "probably not"). Anyway, reading music is still fun, even if it's just eight tones on quarter, half and whole notes.

Not sure if an hour of practice a day is quite enough. I know it's only been four days and that this is quite different from other instruments I've learned (even uke, as I kind of gave up on fingerpicking (and regret it tbh) to focus on a few basic chords), but it feels very slow-going in comparison to uke and sax where I felt like I was flying through those intro books. There are subtle techniques that I'm trying to do consistently which didn't matter on uke because the ukelele is small and chord-focused, and I'd already had decent hand/fingering technique for sax because I'd played flute for so long, so it wasn't a concern then either. With bass there's using the right finger per fret, fingering such that the strumming finger hits and mutes the lower string (I've practiced some left-hand muting but haven't really taken to it much while reading), strumming with alternating fingers, keeping the thumb mid-to-low on the neck. The coordination necessary to keep all of those precise hand positionings while reading bass clef at a reasonable tempo (meaning I generally can't look at one of my hands much less both of them) is.. considerable.

But. It's also really fun. Like I'll cry and moan about it because it's not easy, but I don't learn new instruments because they're easy, I do it for the challenge, for the puzzle, for the.. new neural connections or whatever. This may very well be the most challenging instrument yet. (It's entirely possible that I'll learn a brass instrument one day and I fully recognize that the partials will likely drive me insane.)

Strongly considering buying the full Fret Pro software for life. As a treat. Seems like it'll be useful this summer. Might also have to get a real amp though. The app isn't great about picking up non-amp'd bass pitches accurately.

I'm going to try attending open mics and local band events around the city this summer, I think. It'd be cool to have some musician friends!

Anyway, to vaguepost rq: ughuhguuuuuuuuughhghghhgghhhhhhh UGH hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhh hrrrhgh

On a different note, while I maintain that Eternal Strands is pretty basic as far as vgm, I must admit that it is still quite good. Maybe I'm just attracted to Wintory's style, idk. But even though I listened to the ost through and wasn't impressed, I am for some reason interested whenever it pops up as a random recommended song after I finish some vgm album (or if my daylist is on shuffle), and it always surprises me when the song turns out to be from Eternal Stands.

Went to see Thunderbolts* yesterday and really really enjoyed it! Great fight scenes, good story, fun characters. Also, Bucky Barnes on a bike. Wowie. Nothing gets me going quite like that. It's got me hyped for Fantastic 4 (and pedro pascal)!

Spent today hanging out with my island-friend and their wife, including brunch, a movie, (a break for a nap/bass practice), and a random fashion show which was really cool. A full afternoon!

Thankful that I managed to use Thursday for rest/recharge, thankful that the department gathering was relatively chill, thankful for a fun Saturday. Now to prepare for my exam coming up Wednesday!

[amaiguri]

When you're a Writer and a Vtuber...

If you like storytelling, Vtubing, or both, this one's for you 🥰

You'd think there'd be more overlap of "People who want to be fantasy characters and hide their face" and "Writers" but there really aren't. I know like me and @moonfeatherblue and that's it for the writing/worldbuilding and Vtuber overlap lololol. I think there should be more of us!

So, let me convince you to become a storytelling/worldbuilding/writing Vtuber like me...

In addition to just loving all the cool things you can do with Live2D as a software (if like art and you don't just stare at rigging showcases on YouTube, you should. It's so cool!), I also love storytelling in a social media space. Like, how do you tell a story over time? How much information should you reveal and when? What colors, images, and sounds evoke the feelings you want? And what feelings will keep people coming back for more? Basically, Vtubers have made me fall in love with marketing because the best marketing is just storytelling with some sort of call-to-action at the end.

Am I GOOD at marketing? No, lol, but maybe YOU would be! KEEP READING to find out XD

On the flipside, so so many Vtubers are like "I'm the embodiment of sin and also a gamer and a singer" or "I'm a cottagecore whale who is also the collector of lost souls and I play video games" and it's like... clearly Vtuber audiences LIKE the fantasy aspects of this. Why is the Vtuber default just gaming? Why is there not waaaaay more whimsy and storytelling? (This isn't to say Gaming Bad TM. I'm literally a game dev. I NEED streamers to play my games. I love them.) There's just so much opportunity for cool storytelling with Vtubers!

If you wanna get into being a fictional character/having a kayfabe-like wrestling persona for your writing, you should 100% get into Vtubing. You don't even need to stream to be a Vtuber -- and honestly I'm not even sure you need to post videos necessarily lol -- GIFs and pictures could probably get you pretty far on the right platforms. You could start out using a PNG --there are so many good, free PNGtuber softwares and you could use Picrew images (with the right permissions!) for your PNGtuber to start. Or if you can draw, you can just DO THAT.

Or if you have like $50 USD, Raindrop Atelier has a FULLY rigged Vtuber "Picrew" with chibi models that are so high quality and cute! Or if you have like $300 USD, you could get one of the Picrew-like Vtubers from Charat Genesis. (Yes, that's a lot BUT most Vtuber models — 2D and 3D alike — run you from $2000 to $8000 sooooo $300 is a steal in comparison.)

And then, over time, you could post and reveal facts about yourself and tidbits of your lore! And you could give writing advice or talking about your worldbuilding in-character! I've had this idea to make a fantasy creature mockumentary for actually years now and I'm just trying to find a good scope for it...

On the downside, as with all "storytelling in real time", it can a little discouraging at the start when you don't have a big audience. And this specific niche is especially underdeveloped so it's definitely hard to find a foothold. BUT I find that, because it's all play -- it's all FANTASY -- I have a lot more energy for this kind of marketing than I would if I were promoting myself as "just a writer, trying to sell my writing." Getting people to like me is exhausting. Getting people to like my writing is part of the writing process!

Cuz like, aside from just "inhabiting a fictional character" and "reducing your face presence online while still giving your personal brand a face", being a Vtuber is also a fun way to tie into your work.

Like, my Vtuber model is Arlasaire and she's the protagonist of my (probably) upcoming RPG, Untitled Yssaia Game, (Not the final name, real name pending lol). She talks about cooking and music and geography over on my YouTube channel and it's all infused with cool fantasy music and sound effects. She speaks in and teaches you about conlangs in the world. And she goes on fantasy dates or fantasy vacations! So now, I'm getting people attached to this character and her world BEFORE I even get into her actual story. And all her merchandising and stuff is really just game merchandising and so on and so forth... and that's just good branding! Hopefully some day, this translates into more people playing the game and seeing more of my work!

But obviously, I'm very new to marketing or else this blog post would convince more writers to become Vtubers and more Vtubers to write lol.

Anyway, here's some Arlasaire art (art: LexiKoumori on IG, rig: Kanijam) AS WELL AS some of her earlier model sketches before I asked for her hair to be silkier and less feathery! And lastly, a short unedited video of me being cringe so you KNOW you could do better :DDDD

[arsonfaerie]

hello mags!! i'd love to know what's your favorite bookbind that you've done, and which bind are you most proud of? (just shamelessly here to talk about your bookbinding because i love it! so, yap away!)

ANGEL HI HELLO!!

okay so i think my favorite bookbind i've done was my art heist, baby! bookbind, because i was able 2 take one of my first textblocks and turn it into something i was really proud of a year later! i spent a couple months playing around with different forms of software to make the boat on the back out of htv, and it turned out to be relatively simple but something that i absolutely will never give up!! it was also my first typeset that i really had fun with; messing with the fonts (bodoni 72 oldstyle, gill sans, and copperplate gothic) and the type formatting.

i think i am most proud of my bind that i made for @spacexcowgirl 1. because it was my first typeset made on adobe indesign and 2. i actually drew something for it!! kinda!! i made an eye in illustrator which i have never done before and was hard 4 me but i did it!! also i just love that fic so much and wanted 2 do it justice. it was also fun and i didn't cry over my heat transfer vinyl for once.

ty for asking angel and presenting me with the opportunity to yap <3

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 12/05/2024

Gadget 4

Season 4 Episode 2 Featured on: The SiIvaGunner Spooktacular Halloween Horror Special: Curse of the Fallen Angel

Ripped by Scribble1k

(Audio too big for post) Requested by an Anonymous reader! (Request Form)

It wasn't all too long ago that I covered Scribble1k's ripping on here with How 2 Do Anything, but it was in writing that post that I was reminded of something pretty significant. Out of the 25 excellent rips she contributed to the channel with from Season 2 to Season 4 Episode 2, I'm yet to cover perhaps what she's most known for, a series of rips with one release a year since their very debut. The Minecraft With Gadget Boss series - Go Go Gadget $400 Meme Making Software, That Gadget Arrangement from 2017 2​, Gadget 3, and today's very topic - Gadget 4.

Now, this is far from the first time that Inspector Gadget has been brought up on this blog (and if you're new here, hi! I'm sorry LOL). I've talked about the Inspector Gadget takeover of Season 2 many times and the gravity the event felt like it had, notably Become As Gadget - how the entire channel just morphed into something wholly new overnight and stayed that way for days on end. It clearly left a strong mark on people, Mike Matei's shitty cartoon character impression keeps showing up at irregular intervals on the channel and the takeover itself is a really notable part of the series' lore - and, of course, it was what led Scribble1k to make her first ever rip. The original Go Go Gadget $400 Meme Making Software was a wholly self-made arrangement by the ripper, reimagining the Inspector Gadget theme into an ominous boss battle theme, filled with clips from the aforementioned Mike Matei video and various Season 1 SiIva memes throughout, as if to suggest a battle between Gadget and the very channel itself. Four years later, Gadget 4 feels like a culmination of everything Scribble1k has learned through her time ripping - her magnum opus, if you will.

To that end, then, it absolutely succeeds at its job - and there's something I just find oh-so-befitting about Scribble1k's last-ever Gadget Boss rip dropping during the season all about celebrations. The notes Scribble1k herself has left on the wiki herself are surprisingly detailed in a way I could only hope to be, but the point is the same that I'm aiming to convey here - the rip fucking bangs. It goes for a far more dark electronic sound than the prior installments, a dramatic piano intro paving the way for shit absolutely hitting the fan. I love that even with the Inspector Gadget melody as the central focus, Scribble1k has grown confident enough to be more self-indulgent with Gadget 4 - as described on the Wiki and heard in the rip itself, a whole 2 minutes in the middle serves to play a medley of music from the Touhou series, for instance.

There's tons of cool shit hidden in this rip that I wish I had the time to truly dissect, but I feel that I need to reign myself back a little. It's a super interesting, fun listen regardless - I highly recommend taking a look at all four rips just to see Scribble1k's evolution as a ripper over the years. Having such a clear "checkpoint" for each year of one's ripping journey is a really fun quirk to have, and just one more fun little wrinkle onto SiIva's massive catalogue.

[klapollo]

is copywriting a good job to look into as a writer? im job hunting and i see quite a few openings online but im worried the work will be extremely dreary

i didnt set out to be a copywriter -- frankly when i graduated i had no idea what i wanted to do. i spent about three and a half years freelancing and doing gig work and i'd make like 140 bucks a month on a good year. i happened to apply for a copywriting job among a sea of other entry level things -- social media coordinator, communications associate etc. and i feel SOOOOO fucking blessed that i fell into copywriting

in terms of money: copywriting is very lucrative if you get the experience for it and stay the course. my very first position with no prior copywriting experience (just freelance writing experience) paid me 35/hr. starting off you'll probably make about 50k but moving up the hierarchy can pay a LOT. with four years of experience, during my job hunt i would say the vast majority of the positions i interviewed were within a six figure salary band. moving up the hierarchy, lots of senior copywriters make six figs, and some associate creative directors make over 200k. you can definitely live comfortably as a career copywriter if you play your cards right.

in terms of work: personally i love copywriting, but it's an arm of marketing. if you cant stomach writing marketing materials or learning how marketing works, it might not be for you, but i kinda make it into a game in my head. there's a lot of different kinds of copy -- short form (landing pages, social media blurbs, headlines, emails, product descriptions etc) and long form (white papers, SEO articles/blog posts, ebooks). i would aim to find a copywriting position that will have a wide scope of copy types, because that helps cultivate a well-rounded resume (i.e. shoot for a job that'll have you writing landing pages, emails and blog posts etc over one that's just headlines and captions).

there is also B2C (business to customer, as in marketing a consumer product to individuals) and B2B (business to business, as in marketing a product like mailchimp to a business). i mostly do B2C, but I also do B2B now. it's fine to start with just one, but i'd say right now demand is very high for B2B

the good thing about copywriting is that basically any industry requires it in some capacity. i've worked predominantly in entertainment and digital media, but right now i'd say the biggest demand is in healthcare, fintech and SaaS (software). i freelance for a telehealth company right now in part because i want to make my portfolio more well-rounded. but as i said, nearly any industry can need one -- hospitality, beauty, fashion, retail, nonprofits, anything that is a business that needs to be advertised. when i started, i worked in television, which meant my days largely consisted of watching shows before air and writing episode descriptions. i had a lot of fun!

personally, i dont find my work dreary. sometimes it can be a LITTLE tedious if i'm writing something more technical/internal, but the whole point of copywriting is to figure out how to entice someone to check something out, which means puzzling out how to write something fun and engaging. if you want something less marketing-focused, i would look into getting into technical writing. this is basically writing informational texts and guides for technology and similar things. it pays VERY well and is usually in high demand, but i will say it's definitely more tedious than copywriting.

in short: yes i love copywriting and you can be very financially stable in it! i'd argue it's one of the most financially comfortable day jobs for someone with writing experience. happy hunting anon!!!! i hope u get what ur after

[glassmarcus]

The Scadu of Power Creep

I've anguished at the size of Elden Ring in the past, so it's nice that the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is in its own little corner that's still extremely large. It's not gargantuan enough to run into a lot of the same issues I had with the base game though. It doesn’t run out of unique content and the path forward is very legible. I'd say this DLC honestly has ideal world design for a souls game. The main path is clear and easy to focus on, but the side content is something you need to really earn. Half of the content in this DLC is side content, and unlike the side stuff in the base game, it's just as good as the required stuff.

Remember Ash Lake in Dark Souls? That hidden area that was hidden behind another hidden area? The one that didn’t really need to be in the game at all? Well, Shadow of the Erdtree has like 5 Ash Lakes and I love it. I love high quality content not just being optional, but something you have to investigate to access. It's fucking insane from a production stand point, but does so much for the magic the world building. This might be the best map From Software has made. It's interconnected in such a way that gives Dark Souls a run for its money, and even having a map doesn't make drawing the mental map in your brain obsolete due to how 3D dimensional everything is.

I'd love the next souls game to be of this size and using the same philosophy as this DLC. The only thing I’d add is a few disconnected areas. Shadow of the Erdtree is great, but it's also not accessible til the end of the base game. I want to see how a game like this lands without having to account for 80 hours of gameplay before starting it. Shadow of the Erdtree has its own level scaling system that powers up your stats through collectibles. This is great for encouraging exploration, as most crafting materials you find at this point in the game are useless. It was a great band aid solution, but I hope they don't have to resort to it again as it does limit the ways you can progress by restricting these materials to certain areas.

The world design is probably the most impressed I was with this DLC, but it doesn't end there. The story is surprisingly easy to follow. Characters are not being cryptic at all here. They are straight forward in letting you know what the deal is. I'm too anxious about the size of these games to stop and appreciate the plot, so this is a welcome approach. The weapons they add to the game are also incredible and made me change up my play style quite a bit. I forever need Martial Arts and Light Great Swords in these games. It’s gonna be hard to go back after playing with them.

There is one thing I’d call a disappointment and that’s the boss design. My complaints aren’t even relevant for most of them. A lot of the DLC bosses are a step up from the base game and are how I'd prefer the boss design to go down in the future. But there were about 4 or so that were kinda ass. Mostly the final boss and the first boss that actually gate keeps you. I just hate how they attack forever. It's not fun for me to play a boss fight where you don't get any openings and trading hits isn't worth it. I basically always had to use summons because I have a job and want to play more than 5 games this year. I've gone through this before in my previous Elden Ring review and it still applies, but this campaign proves that it doesn't have to be this way. 3 of my favorite bosses in the franchise are in this DLC because they don't constantly attack. They find a way to raise the stakes without giving every boss legendary actions.

I think likening the combat to Dungeons and Dragons mechanics is an apt comparison. Not a lot of people know this, but Dark Souls 1 is secretly turn based. Enemies and bosses attack and then take a moment to catch their breath and then you attack and you catch your breath. It sounds boring when you put it that way. But because you always have a turn, you can always do something on that turn. In Elden Ring it's never really your turn when you are fighting these overtuned bosses. And when it is, it's not your turn for long. Thus you have less options to counter attack with because not every attack in this game is quick. This is why I need summons to take aggro off, so I can experiment with other options that aren't a jumping R2 as a counter attack and then dodging 12 times. The average Dark Souls fight I prefer over Elden Ring because there are infinite ways to beat a boss that are valid and effective. And honestly I think Dark Souls 3 is the perfect balance between twitch reflexes and decision making that makes these boss fights great.

I remember spending 3 hours fighting Sister Frieda in the Dark Souls 3 DLC and feeling elated upon victory. It's still one of my favorite boss fights. Because while it's a gauntlet, there's a sober way to deal with everything the boss throws at you and you had time to form a strategy. I understood the boss and that's why I won. I don't think I understood a lot Elden Ring bosses. Not just because I don't have a moment to catch my breath, but also because I can't comprehend what they are doing. This is why I had little fun with the Final Boss. Yea he's hard and aggressive, but also his attacks were literally blinding. I beat him. I liked formulating a strategy to negate the more ridiculous aspects of the fight. But it felt like I didn't completely understand phase 2. So I felt nothing. I spent 3 hours on the fight, just to feel nothing. And if I spent 7 hours doing it without a busted weapon, I might have felt great, but I don’t think it would be worth the payout. This DLC really just hammered how much I like Lies of P fights and how well tuned they are difficulty wise.

I think we have reached Kaizo territory. Bosses are so roided up that instead of feeling triumph I feel like I survived some sick prank. And if people want that, that's fine. Play a mod. This isn't me being snarky. I think the power creep of bosses and trying to make each one harder has gotten out of hand and needs to be dialed back. But for the freaks who still want that, I really think official mod support needs to be in the next souls game so they can be satisfied. Because I don't want the franchise to out grow anyone, not just me. But...I also want the games to be fun to finish, so this seems to be the happy medium. Because Fromsoft won't be able to cater to the freaks for much longer.