First off, there's this site itself. I've wanted to make a site for a while now, after seeing there was a niche community of similar people. Social media has its place, but a simpler time where it wasn't about Likes and Reblogs feels more wholesome and "real." The chances of any stranger stumbling upon this and actually showing interest in my content is extremely slim, but I've enjoyed clicking around some people's blogs and taking a peek into their lives, if just for ten to twenty minutes, so maybe someone will feel the same to me, someday.

But more than that, it's for myself, as stated above. My memory is terrible, so a place where I can compile my thoughts is nice (so long as I organize it enough; oh no, if only I had a Search Bar for keywords).

Creative Clash Woes

As for what's been going on recently, I've been in a bit of a slump, which is pretty normal. Like last year, I participated in Creative Clash (an online drawing "competition" to draw other people's characters for points), and also like last year, I felt really anxious and bad about everything. Drawing for strangers is tough, and even when they give a nice comment, I worry it's all fake and I'm actually hurting them by making them feel obligated to think up a comment to thank me. I was going pretty hard for the first half of the competition, but I've taken nearly two weeks off now, despite being over halfway done with a tenth piece. I've instead distracted myself with this Neocities, but today I forced myself to open up Photoshop and draw, given I should at least submit that last drawing (that I'm simply not happy with) before it ends. My goal was to draw ten pieces and earn 5000+ points, and if I submit this, I'll reach both of those goals.

September 30th Edit: I did it. I finished and submitted, and it's finally off my chest outside of the anxiety of the person seeing it. I liked the joke in my "main" comic, at least, even if I really can't draw their character well. My presumed points total for the month is 5360. Hurray. I'd like to draw some quick dumb thing for amy sole friend on this game to end it off, but I've had no ideas all month, outside of the one I already drew. Come on, think up some dumb MS Paint slop, self.

Keyboard Problems

As for other news, my "q" and Windows key have deteriorated over the last month or two. First, it was just "q," but then Windows decided to join it. It was very frustrating, given I use emoticons (Windows + .) and the Screen Capture tool (Windows + Shift + S) very often, and quite like the word "quite." Thankfully, Autokeys came to the rescue, and with a little research, I could make a script to turn my Right Shift into "q" and Right Control into Windows. Q's certainly take a lot longer to add, given the lack of muscle memory, but at least I don't need to copy-paste the letter anymore, or use an on-screen keyboard. Speaking of computers, this laptop is right around three years old now, and I always use laptops for four years, so I just need to suffer one year longer with this. This laptop also has the problem of being incapable of updating, ever since I got it in October of 2022. It's so sad still not having access to a second counter on my clock, due to that. What kind of clock doesn't show seconds; stupidest decision ever, but I heard the option to add it was added in a later update I can't get.

Media: Shows

The Traitors (UK)

This month, my dad and I started watching a British reality show called The Traitors, and it's been pretty interesting, albeit I certainly liked the second season better than the first, due to the cast. The first season rarely had leads, but the second had two pretty smart people in Jas and Diane, and one of the Traitors was very good too.

Common Side Effects

Earlier, we also watched Common Side Effects, since my dad got HBO Max, and that was very good. It had a unique style, both in design and writing, having that sort of "awkward realistic" feel to some of the dialogue. I would recommend it, though it's not a one season excursion; Season 2 isn't out, but has been greenlit.

Panty & Stocking

Just yesterday, I noticed (from a YouTube Short preview I didn't click on) that, after fifteen years, Panty & Stocking Season 2 was out, so I binge-watched that, often at 2x speed or above. It was what one would expect, which is a compliment overall, though it's never been some standout must-watch show for me. It was good fun, and I appreciated some of the jokes, and commend the animation, but it's not a show I ever need to watch more than once. Perhaps a 7/10 for me personally and an 8/10 when trying to be objective. I didn't like the cop out explanation of the cliffhanger in the first episode, but I suppose even that kind of "fits" the show, which doesn't really take itself seriously; I can't judge it too harshly.

The Dragon Prince... or King?

This was almost from a literal year ago, but since the Kickstarter for a potential new installment is out, I should also mention The Dragon Prince. That show had so much potential, but man, they cannot stick the landing. I'm very interested in what a new "seven years later" series would be about, but it's not out of a sense of optimism; I want to see how they waste their potential a second time. I do love my train wrecks.

Velma Rewatch

I already watched all of the fabled Velma (season 1 and 2) ages ago, but my friend, Void, and I started watching it (her first time) during Art Fight (July) and went on hiatus for about a month, finally finishing Season 2 and the Special last week. While it's not a fantastic show, it is way overhated. I actually quite like a lot of the humor, and the animation is pretty good (not amazizng, but above average). I'd probably go as far as rating it a biased 7/10 and perhaps an objective 6/10. Fred and Norville don't always hit (Fred's idiocy can be overblown, and Norville's "I hate drugs" gets old), but they are genuinely enjoyable most of the time. Fred is so Deems-coded, just taken to the extreme (in stupidity), and with less of a fragile ego or obsession with being mature/manly. A lot of Fred's leaps in logic would be the same kinds of things Deems would say. Love him. That said, I ironically use images of the show as reactions and the like, just to be cringe, since so many people hate it. That, too, is fun. Thank you for being overly hated, show.

Media: Games

Monster Hunter: Wilds

One of the only games I tend to buy close to Day 1 is Monster Hunter, solely because I play it with my friend, Void (otherwise, I'd wait a year or more for a price drop). Wilds released this year, and I ran the benchmark test previously and no surprise, did terribly, but I bought it anyway, and... yeah, as expected, it's pretty bad. I lowered all settings, and I think even did some trick or two in the code someone offered might help (and I think it did?), but I still get anywhere from 19 fps to 40, I think. That said, I knew what I was getting into with this computer (with a worse Graphics Card than my last laptop), and as someone who isn't a FPS nut, it's still playable, just not... optimal. I suppose in a way I'm playing on Hard Mode, given I don't have the power to precisely dodge attacks as much as someone else would. Ha.

That said, Void stopped playing the game ages ago, and we didn't get far at all, so I do somewhat regret the Day 1(?) purchase. I, myself, have beaten Low Rank ages ago and got a bit into High Rank, but have only played it once or twice in the last 2-3 months. I should pick it up again, perhaps after Creative Clash ends.

...Or I should finally play Valkyria Chronicles 4 that I bought two years ago and never even opened.

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

Months ago, Void mentioned wanting to get into Fire Emblem and I don't remembered what I offered, but I know the Tellius games were pretty low on my list (as newbie recommendations; personally, they're some of my favorites), but the sheer fact that she liked Michaiah's design made her decide on Tellius. Sure, I'm not complaining.

I played on Hard and she played on Easy, save-scumming levels, but hey, I get it; I love making power-houses too (I did that with Sacred Stones, my first game, on GBA (not emulated). Making powerful characters with maxed stats is fun... and tedious. We played quite often for perhaps two weeks, but then (perhaps around Art Fight) that stopped and we haven't touched it since. We're nearing endgame, to boot, Jill's dad already dead.

We both memed Oliver, of course, and ended up finding a beautiful picture on DeviantArt that we used as a "shared" profile picture for probably half a year, me as Oliver and her as Reyson. We only switched to an Art Fight Attack with Piper and Gatlin in July, but our banners are still the Oliver/Reyson drawing. Good times.

Hopefully we can complete the game by Christmas, at least.

RPG Maker: Deems' Not So Epic Adventure Redux

I've put it on hiatus due to Creative Clash (and PERHAPS will continue to do so for #NotReallyInkingInOctober if I try to do that, despite my art slump), but after finding an old Google Drive upload of my 2017 "Deems' Not So Epic Adventure," I decided I really wanted to remake it and add in my new characters, so I started that project in August. I haven't gotten far at all, but I recreated maybe half the maps of Los Tokyo and drew Talking Busts for my Main 5, outside of Absit, and also added Battle images. Only Zane has a quest right now, and Idunn exists and can join the party. Not much, but it's a start. As usual, my problem is that I'm probably biting off way more than I can chew, which will lead to me giving up early: right now, it's my attempt at making there be a time system, which over-complicates things, and also just isn't easy to make work correctly with Day/Night cycles. But darn it, I want Deems to be able to see that Gatlin has his apartment lights on late at night, and without forced progression, I can't do that without a time system. :(

Fire Emblem: Shadows

Fire Emblem: Shadows, a mobile game, was shadow-dropped, and initially, almost everyone was panning it, including me. The opening cinematic was intruiging, but then they showed the gameplay and I was unimpressed. That said, after a day or two, people started giving it another chance, and many actually enjoyed it, Excelblem coming to mind. Watching his stream was my first experience with the gameplay, and while I can tell it's still very much not for me (I really dislike real-time PvP...and frankly, PvP in general), I can see that there are a lot of mindgames that can go on, and the combat system is a lot more nuanced than everyone's "it's just autobattle with spell-slinging/healing" statement people were initially throwing out. That said, I still feel the game doesn't have much lasting power; surely the three-man deduction gameplay gets old after a while.

I do have to praise it for its soundtrack, thoguh. As usual, Fire Emblem music is pretty good. I was super impressed with Shadow Lyn's theme having "Shocking Truth" as the "reveal" theme, before going into the main battle theme; that's an extra bit of work they didn't really have to do, but it adds so much flavor and nostalgia to it. If nothing more, I'm very excited to see other games get remixes.

Ace Attorney

I have not pllayed Ace Attorney recently, but I want to, and Void bought me the Investeigations Collection for my birthday and showed interest in me streaming the games, so I hope to someday. But we still have Path of Radiance to finish, and potentially Monster Hunter: Wilds...

Games on the Horizon

I'm not much of a gamer, but there's quite a lot on the horizon I'm at least minorly intruiged by.

Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 comes out in October, and while overall, the reception has been mega mixed for months if not years, with some initial gameplay footage coming out, a few people are giving the game a second chance. From the start, I didn't expect to buy or play it, but good or bad, I'm very interested in watching someone else play. If it's good, that's great, and if it's bad, I get to watch people tearing it apart on YouTube. Both are wonderful.

Finally, while scrolling YouTube for background noise, I saw a video about how someone is chosing "Digimon over Pokemon," and through that learned that a new Digimon game, seven(?) years in the making is coming out in literal days. Wow! And apparently, the demo's pretty good. I downloaded the demo but have yet to play, but I do hope it's as good or better than Digimon World 3, my love, since I'd really like to play another Digimon game. That show was my childhood, and I also kind of have an itch to play a new game.