First of all: expect some inactivity on the site this month, I’m taking a “loose break” from my projects due to being so busy with work, gaming, a roleplay I’m doing with friends (which has made me fixate on my old OC again like crazy), and some other unrelated personal feelings I am working on untangling. (Makes a vague handwave and alludes to my mysterious past). So the expansion I announced, again, has no fixed date for when it releases. I am slowly working on the graphics for it but, again, “loose break”.

Also, I finished Dawn of Sorrow’s Hard Mode. Order of Ecclesia Hard Level 50 is up next. I absolutely love OOE and POR’s level caps, they’re so fun! So I’ve really been itching to get back to playing them.

Also, a whole entire week after the book came out, the new Warriors installment Star finally got delivered to my house. I haven’t read it yet since I want to be in the mood for it, but I’m hoping Frostpaw gets a nice conclusion to her arc. HOWEVER what’s more exciting is that they released the preview for The Elder’s Quest so we finally get to know what’s up with Moonpaw!!

The prologue and first chapter with Tawnypelt made me groan. This has to be the most generic Warriors slop I’ve read in a while, and I cannot sympathize with “kids these days don’t respect their elders!!!”. Leafstar’s chapter about the strange sickness and encroaching human development- and her missing the gorge- was mildly more interesting, but still didn’t inspire confidence. BUT MOONPAW? I am so fucking excited for Moonpaw. Looks like my prediction about the twin absorbed in utero was CORRECT and I was correct about the orange tabby twin being the ghostly one... I really like how it is written, a very playful but mysterious presence. Its curiosity about hearing a fox bark and other things make me feel bad for it, being deprived from its own body and autonomy since its soul is tied to Moonpaw, at least from what I can tell. I’m actually quite excited to see where they go with her! (Also I LOL'd at Sunbeam mentoring Moonpaw.) As long as they don’t make her another generic medicine cat protagonist (said as someone who enjoys a fair share of them). I think I’m still set in my decision not to buy new installments, but I might keep my snout out to learn about Moonpaw’s story as it happens. It looks like she’s going to carry the arc, lol.

That’s all for now!

First bit of news: So! The famous “Most Mysterious Song On The Internet” is a mystery no longer. Say hello to “Subways of Your Mind” by FEX! To be honest I was satisfied knowing that the band was likely a Horfest participant even without knowing a specific band, but the true ending was better than I hoped. Looks like the members of FEX are still in touch and intend to record a new version, and are enthused about the song’s cult following. Not only that, we got two other songs by the same band and two new-to-us recordings of the famous lostwave song- very cool hearing how they changed and tinkered with the lyrics and structure. So, all in all, a satisfying end to the mystery and I wish FEX the best with their newfound fame. (Is it pronounced F-E-X or F-X/effects?) Their other songs go pretty hard (especially Talking Hands, what an earworm!) but Subways of your Mind is still my favorite.

Other bit of news: apparently Kate Cary, one of the original “Erin Hunters”, is leaving the Warrior Cats team. It’s a weird feeling given she’s been with the series since the very beginning, has always been very active with fans, etc.”Star”, the final book in A Starless Clan (which releases today but still hasn’t arrived... I swear these pre-orders used to be so you could get the book on release day...) will be her final contribution to the series. She says she intends to start work on her own independent projects seperate from Warriors so I hope she has good luck with that. I can only imagine being a ghost-writer for decades really stifles your creative voice. She couldn’t even get to name characters (See the Sparkfire vs Sparkpelt thing...), I can’t imagine that. I also can’t imagine what Warriors will be like once Cherith retires as well, the other remaining Hunter. It’s a thought I’ve been chewing on since I saw the news, and I think the end of A Starless Clan will be a good cutoff point for my time keeping up with the series’ new entries given this context. Given that Kate Cary has said that Frostpaw has become her favorite character, I’m willing to give Star a fair shake and enjoy her final outing despite some of the more questionable-sounding spoilers I’ve seen posted around. I know you won’t see this, but... Thanks for helping to write the books that were a constant in my childhood, Kate. Despite my criticisms of the series, I wouldn’t be the same without it!

It was super weird getting these bits of news on the same day. Feels like the end of two separate eras.

I hope everyone had a lovely Halloween! It always feels like October is finished before it even really began. Mine was quite enjoyable! We enjoyed some home made treats and watched Over The Garden Wall, and had some pizza and wings for dinner. I also got to visit with some of the new neighbors (given that I moved recently) and got some candy from them which makes me feel a lot better about that whole “no adult trick or treating” thing I was angsting about in my last post- it's not the sort of thing my parents would have let me do. Maybe next year I’ll make a costume again and see if I can get away with trick or treating “for real” :P I still feel like there's kind of a stigma there, but whatever. For such a hectic October, I’m glad I had a memorable first Halloween shared in this house with my lovely girlfriend.

Since it's November, this also means that the Halloween event on my site should be coming to a close in the next day or two, whenever I have the time since I have work for the next couple days and don't always have an opportunity to get to working on my computer. I hope you enjoyed it!!!

Anyway, I have a ton more to talk about... The new Vampire Survivors Castlevania DLC is CRAZY! It's gotta be as big as the base game just on its own. The castle map is just huge and there are so many characters I’m so eager to unlock. I just have to figure out how to evolve all these new weapons...! I played nonstop until I was able to unlock Shanoa and then promptly went to bed. (Full review coming later I’m still in “HOLY SHIT!!!!” mode).

Also, I beat Portrait of Ruin’s Richter Mode a few days before Halloween. After having never finished it on DS I am pleased to have finally cleared the mode, including its ridiculous final boss fight. It took a lot of patience but I’m glad I stuck through it... And never even did any level grinding. Hell yes! Now I’m going to work through the hard modes of the DS games again and eventually pick up Old Axe Armor Mode. I’m working through Dawn of Sorrow’s hard mode right now and since it doesn't have any level cap it's honestly not super different. I just beat Paranoia, so I’m pretty far in, though it's on pause while I obsessively play Vampire Survivors ;)

And, finally, today is a rather exciting anniversary for my site. On this date last year, I released Clovenglade, my weird little interactive horse-world. It’s my labor of love and my favorite thing I’ve ever put out. While I consider the shrine in its current form to be “finished”, I figured now is a great time to announce my next mini-project: expansion packs! Much like how real card games get expansions that add new content, I’ve had ideas in the works for Clovenglade expansions- mini-updates to work on between larger projects, that add some kind of small new functionality to the shrine, as well as a set of 14 new cards to be found in the Wellspring. There will be three in all, and the first one will be called “Beast Friends”, my take on Bella Sara’s magical creature focused expansion. It will add a wealth of new content to the Merchant’s Faire area since I’ve always been super bothered by how sparse it is in content. I think this was just a matter of energy- having made around 60 graphics (with a good amount being hand-animated) for the original version of the shrine, the idea of making a boatload more made me want to just rush to the finish line. Well, no matter. I’m focused entirely on updating the page, which mitigates that issue. Since it’s not lost in the sea of a larger project it will get the focus it needs. I’m working on cursors, page dividers, desktop backgrounds, page adopts... And, of course, cards!

When will this expansion be released? Whenever I finish drawing the new stuff for it. I’ve got some other stuff going on in November so don’t expect a breakneck pace, but yeah, shouldn’t take too long?

May November treat you nicely!

Halloween always gets me in an odd mood now that I’m an adult, it’s sort of bittersweet. While it’s still my favorite holiday and I always look forward to it, it just feels weird the way trick-or-treating and other fun Halloween things are “kids only”. Like, yeah, adults go out to Halloween parties and watch horror movies and stuff, but that’s not what I want. I want to do silly arts and crafts activities and trade candy and dress up and visit all the neighbors and it’s always been so messed up to me that I just... can’t anymore. I wish there were at least, like, adult trick or treating events in the park. Like, the renfaire of trick-or-treating. I hate that people have been telling me I was “getting too old for it” since I was eleven. That's messed up! I don't know, sometimes I still feel like I’m “not an adult” and it feels so weird and arbitrary how all the fun things that make me happy get restricted after a certain amount of time has passed- I think it's part of why I enjoy dressing up in goth fashion since you always have an excuse to be “in costume”. And I think that's why I’m so grateful I have this site as a place to express my more childish interests and use them to create things that make me happy. The only reason I can make a little Halloween celebration with games and spooky skeletons and scavenger hunts, or make something niche like Clovenglade is because this place is mine. But I just had to get that off my chest... It just makes me a bit depressed. My house has some really cool decorations though, and Laura and I are planning to make dirt pudding cups and watch movies on All Hallow’s Eve again, so we're at least celebrating in a fun way.

Speaking of movies, it's been way too long since I’ve paid a visit to the historic theatre in my area, and I’m always excited for their Halloween film lineup. Yesterday we went to see Murnau’s “Faust” adaptation. What a cool silent film!! Gretchen was the standout character for sure, her actress had so much range- from naivety to utter despair- and the visuals are just incredible for its era. The middle drags a little bit but it's absolutely worth seeing, especially with live organ! I thought the way Gretchen is failed by the society around her- preyed upon, deemed “impure” for her tryst with Faust, denied help in raising her child, and then executed as a “child murderer” when the infant dies- is a poignant injustice. I really felt for her as a character. So yeah, great film, not perfect, but it holds up nearly 100 years later!

What else, what else... I’m about halfway(?) through Richter Mode in Portrait of Ruin now. I definitely intend to beat it, but I’m definitely at the part where it “gets hard”. In every extra character mode where you start out a little overpowered, you eventually get to that part. For Albus it's the castle. I believe I’ve mentioned it before but I never beat Richter Mode on my DS copy just because of how intense the Dracula fight is. And given that I’ve elected to skip the first Death battle already... Oof. I’ll have to see if I can get away with no level grinding. Yeah, right... I miss being able to teleport, I should've saved Albus mode for last. Anyway, other than the expected difficulty spike, I’ve been having a lot of fun with Maria’s moveset. I think Richter is a little less interesting because all of his abilities are ones Jonathan already had, and I still wish there was a John/Eric mode instead, but Portrait of Ruin is always a fun experience regardless. (I crunched the numbers and I’m on my 10th playthrough, if that tells you anything). I feel bad site updates have fallen by the wayside while I’ve been working on obsessively replaying these games (no doubt that the Vampire Survivors DLC will further compound this lol), but the new collection has two of my favorite games of all time and it's my special interest so cut me some slack :P I definitely have some big stuff planned and I don't want to rush out or half-ass the ideas I have for the site additions! Especially since the next one I want to work on is almost entirely graphics and artwork, and if I rush that I inevitably end up unsatisfied.

Also, though I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers, the last book in Warrior Cats’ A Starless Clan leaked and based on what I’ve seen... oof. Looks like they didn't stick the landing. But I’ll reserve my full judgment for when the book releases. And probably write an angry review or something. Typical Noa stuff.

One last thing, I’m so glad the Angel Hare plushies are open for pre-orders again since I missed out the first time. I was nearly in the first 50 people to back the campaign this time around (#52) and I will eagerly await my soft and huggable Gabriel’s arrival in March... Because of the price I forced myself not to double-dip, but I’ll probably snag Zagzagel and Camael if they run the campaign again next year.

That's all for now!

Castlevania fans have been absolutely feasting lately! The new collection, the new menagerie of glitches and speedrun tech, and now apparently Vampire Survivors is doing a Castlevania crossover DLC and I’m freaking out! The trailer is sick and it looks like just about any character you can think of shows up. (As one of the only Cornell/Albus crackshippers I was very amused that they show up next to each other in one of the group shots). It comes out on Halloween (Unsure if the mobile port will get it later?) and promises 10 more hours of content. WHAT!!! This is like having my birthday and Christmas at the same time. Super excited to blast through everything while playing as Shanoa. And I’m glad Sonia is there. Poor girl needed a win after having a game cancelled and getting decanonized for sexism reasons.

In other news... I beat Julius mode like a week or so ago. I used Yoko throughout nearly the entire game, just holding my breath for when one of the other characters would prove useful until Alucard finally saved me during the Abaddon fight... Which I still finished off with Yoko because I ran out of MP for the bat transformation. Ah well. Poor Julius got to do nothing in his own mode, but I suppose it’s only fair given how powerful he got to be in Aria of Sorrow. Overall a lot of fun and a great character mode. I enjoyed how you can tackle all the bosses in any order you like, so I gladly saved Puppet Master and Gergoth for the end since they are certainly troublesome. Now I’m playing Albus mode and I really missed him, he’s definitely my favorite alt character. Positioning yourself just right to get those sweet multi-hits with Optical Shot is just so satisfying. I’ve cleared everything, I just need to go kill Dracula, which I’m admittedly a little frightened of since that’s a tough fight and I haven’t done any level grinding. I want to avoid grinding wherever I can since that’s the cowards’ way out, and if I could beat Eligor I can do anything. After that I’m gonna round out all the achievements by beating Richter mode in Portrait of Ruin, which I actually never completed on my DS copy because the final Dracula fight is pretty tough. So I’m excited for round 2... And still to this day questioning why Portrait didn’t have a John and Eric mode.

After I beat the alternate character modes I’m going to clear all the Hard Mode settings which I’m super hyped to revisit. I have very little experience with DOS’s hard mode. The other games though? Hard Mode makes OOE a whole new game and it’s a perfect sandbox to play around with all my glyphs I’ve collected in New Game+, on both level caps... POR has easier Hard Modes since you have more balancing factors like Ancient Armor and infinite potion glitch (which has been restored to the ported version in a new update, creating a hilarious patch note that they added bugs back into the game...) and Charlotte’s heal spell and so on, so to spice it up I’m going to be playing Hard Level 25 as Jonathan only, with only the de-powered Vampire Killer as a weapon until I can upgrade it. And for Hard Level 1 I’m going to play around with the brand new glitch character Jarlotte! This bug looks easy enough to set up and essentially creates a Jonathan with Charlotte’s stats and properties, but all of Jonathan’s weapons and equipment. Hilariously this makes my old ROM hack that buffs Charlotte in a similar way a little redundant because you can now do the same thing in the original game! I’m really excited to play around with what Jarlotte is capable of, it’s appealing to me in the same way that I’ve always dreamed of using a Missingno on my team if I ever revisit Gen I Pokemon. Also, the character implications of Jonathan becoming a witch instead of trying to live up to the memory of John are just *chefs kiss*

Edit - Apparently Jarlotte cannot complete pushing-related puzzles and can get softlocked. I think you can at least have a casual Jarlotte endgame once you've finished up the train puzzle. I'll keep you posted.

Also, the last patch for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night comes out tomorrow, which is definitely good since it's had some nasty bugs on the Switch port for some months now.

I’ve been having so much fun with the new Dominus Collection and I’m really glad that the amazing DS Castlevania games are available to a wider audience now. Uh, what other news do I have... Well, I’ve been super busy with work but I finally have all the preparations for this year’s advent calendar finished, so once I’m in a project mood I can start work on my next little project idea. Unsure when I’ll get around to that but I have a couple ideas on the backburner I want to get around to creating... Okay, yeah, I think that’s all for now.

Today I was sent a twitter link of people stating they were moving to Nekoweb because Kyle Drake (the dev of Neocities, the service I use to host this site) “supports AI”. Pretty scary news on the surface, given that Neocities has always been against data scraping and pro-privacy. I like my privacy and I was afraid that these ideals may be compromised.

Then I actually read the actual blog post people were talking about- and it was an extremely milquetoast “AI discourse is hyperbolic and fearmonger-y. Let’s all calm down, there's Nuance and good things AI can do” statement. I don't agree with all of it, I think he understates some of the harm it is capable of, but there was a lot that I found myself nodding along to, actually. Like, I feel like both sides of the debate have bought into absurd amounts of hype over machine learning, when in reality these predictive models are kind of mundane. There's so much misinformation about what machine learning actually is and does that only stokes more fuel onto the fire.

I don't really consider myself “pro-ML” as it were, as the privacy/data risks, the labor stuff the actors’ union had a strike over recently, the spread of false information (like those machine-generated mushroom foraging books that could potentially get readers killed) and other factors make me feel some trepidation about the technology. But I do think there could be some interesting applications (imagine a video game that could generate potentially infinite character dialogue and quests without needing to put more work on the devs after its release?) and I don't think there's a way to “un-invent” it now that it exists. (I also find some of the art-focused discourse to be borderline reactionary- though my stances on the idea of “real art” and my opinions on IP and copyright law are a different tangent!) It's not a technology I’m especially interested in ever using for myself, but I do think that there is, indeed, room for more nuance in the conversation.

So, uh, I think this might upset people, but I think Kyle Drake is (mostly) right. Comparing ML to nuclear weapons is ridiculous. And here I am, echoing the same points about how we should calm down rather than give in to fear. I don't think this statement makes him “super into AI now” and I doubt we’re going to see Neocities turned into “AI slop”, given how one of its selling points is privacy, a lack of data scraping, and no ads. Like I said, very milquetoast take and I don't think there's any reason to be dropping Neocities because of a mild take on a dev’s personal blog. At no point does he express interest in adding machine learning related features to Neocities’ services.

It's gonna be okay. As far as tech-guy stances on ML go, this one is pretty lukewarm. (I mean, compare this to the recent Nanowrimo debacle... *shudders*)

Also, my power is back, thank goodness! They were predicting it would come back on Tuesday but it only took two days. Hooray!

Just a quick one since I’m without power and writing on my phone: WE LIVED through the big scary hurricane of doom. No real damage to the house, but the shed is destroyed and part of the fence came down. No flooding, thank goodness, and the windows stayed intact. The power stayed on for a WHILE before giving out.

So, we lucked out a lot. Fingers crossed power comes back soon like with the previous hurricane, as that's the last real thing to worry about at the moment. We have pals with a generator if the need arises.

I hope everyone reading this is well. I’m very thankful for how fortunate I am.

I feel very “into the frying pan, out of the fire” right now. I’ve been so busy this past week- we took Autumn to the vet for booster shots, I got called in on one of my only non-busy days off, and I went on a fishing trip... All very fun, but apparently another hurricane is headed my way, so that's not the best news ever. (Especially since I was meant to go to this year’s Absolution Fest this weekend...!) So, yeah, a lot is going on right now. Why’d another hurricane- and a huge one at that- have to whip up after Helene, haven't we had enough? I’m in a pretty safe place but jeez. I’ve been so burnt that I had to call out from work today!

Well, in better news my first fishing trip was really cool!!! The first (and only thus far) fish I’ve ever caught was a massive tilapia, and the only keeper we caught that evening. We fried it up with lemon pepper and it was absolutely delicious. Autumn was having a great time as well, chasing frogs and trying to jump into the pond while thankfully limited by his new, heavier-duty leash. I had a migraine on the long car ride home. It was just awful, the worst migraine I’ve had in years, but overall it was a great night aside from that (and finding out about the Great Hurricane Sequel Of Doom.)

Time to finish up my Angel Hare commentary since the season wrapped up- I like how the “game logic” of being “beaten” repeatedly is part of what caused Camael’s decline, and what made their methods so effective in teaching assertiveness. Trying so hard to do their job made them push away their only friend, Francois, and they had no way to uplift themself. It's kind of neat how they're almost a parallel to Jonah, and Camael going back to reconnect with their friend parallels Jonah reconnecting with Segen. So I was kind of right about the idea of reconciliation, but not who Cam would be reconciling with after a falling out. I really hope there’ll be a season 4 since I have so many lingering questions about Francois- where he went, the specifics of how a Fran can leave in the first place, what a Fran even really is, who was holding the camera in the last shot- and I’d love to meet him face to face. The ending leaves Season 3 feeling not like a finale to the series, but just another chapter in a larger story- I hope to see more. Also, Camael’s hare design is so cute. The floppy ears...!

The reconciliation with Segen feels earned- given Jonah’s season 2 arc about being there for the friends he relies on- but I wish he had more screentime, he seems like such an interesting character. I also like that Cam has to learn their own lessons that they usually teach to others- to focus on yourself, to set boundaries, and to be a good friend- much like how Gabriel learns to let someone else be her guardian sometimes in Season 2. God, I love this show. It's so thematically consistent and I enjoy how focused it is on the central idea: friendship. It's good stuff! I really hope to see more. This doesn't feel like the ending at all.

That's all for now I think. Wish me luck with the storm... Just as I wish Camael luck on their quest of self-discovery. I’m happy to have experienced the new season of Angel Hare as it was coming out.

Most important site announcement at the moment: my yearly Halloween event is up and running (for the second year in a row)- just go to the homepage and follow the hints from there to find your way to the Halloween Party! (I was planning on having it go up tomorrow, but due to a recent storm my wifi has been a little on the fritz so I figured it was safer to put up my decorations when I knew I could get online.)

Also, uh, video games! I finished my 100% replay of OOE, meaning I’ve got 100% files on all of the DS games on the new Castlevania collection. It's a little bittersweet- OOE was my first real “hard game” after spending my childhood sticking to easy stuff like Pokemon, and it got me to appreciate that kind of action-oriented difficulty more than I used to. My first 100% playthrough was a months-long endeavor, now it took about a week of on-again off-again gameplay. I’m proud of how far I’ve come- I wouldn't have dreamed of challenging the Large Cavern area at only level 34 back then, let alone winning and then doing the Training Hall three times in a row for the chance to get the Alexandrite drop- but it is an odd feeling for sure! But replaying Order of Ecclesia only reminded me why it's my favorite game in the Castlevania series, and why I love it and its characters so much. I’m always happy to revisit it. I really love the stage-based outdoor sections before you unlock the castle; I think that's part of why I like Simon's Quest so much as well- any time there’s a pretty outdoors segment in a Castlevania, I’m bound to love it. And the village sidequests are always such a treat.

I’m also slowly making my way through Haunted Castle Revisited, the newest (!!) Castlevania game and a bonus included with the collection. It's pretty nice, I like the difficulty options and being able to select not only the stage you left off on, but the exact room- as well as the option to turn it off for a more retro experience. It makes it a very approachable little adventure and a perfect beginner Classicvania. The boss designs are pretty freaky at times and I’m having a lot of fun mastering a stage every day with my breakfast.

I also replayed Portrait of Ruin’s Sisters Mode since it takes about an hour to beat, and I was curious how the touch controls fared in the modern port. My conclusions are that Loretta works just fine with the right-stick touch controls, but Stella very much doesn't. Luckily if you're playing on Switch or PC you can use the touchscreen and mouse respectively, but I wouldn't worry too hard since Loretta can carry you through most of the game and Sisters Mode is extremely easy regardless. I still wish Brauner had served as a final boss (albeit with a scripted ending for the lore, of course.) I intend to beat all the extra modes- Yoko- I mean, Julius mode, heh- is next once I finish up with Haunted Castle Revisited. I’ve played around with most of the extra modes on my DS copies, but never touched Julius mode much since I never beat Dawn back then. So it's going to be really interesting to play!

I kind of feel like I overreacted to the dialogue changes, weird as they are they are pretty infrequent. They do butcher a lot of Barlowe’s earlier cutscenes though, and I really have to question why they changed a bunch of instances of Shanoa saying “Master Barlowe” or “Sir” to “Grand Master Barlowe”. It just sounds worse. It's not really experience ruining and the majority of the script is the same (hilariously not fixing any actual known mistranslations from the original like the Ordinary Rock/Leap Stone goof or the fact that one of Laura’s lines got mangled from “In my work, and in love” to “For my work, and for him”... Yeah) but I still would prefer the original scripts in any circumstances.

Now for the obligatory commentary on the newest Angel Hare episode:

Oh my goodness, those twists! The game map looking like a closed hand, the single voice actor for all the game characters, Jonah facing his doubts ingame, a bunch of Chekov’s guns firing at once. Camael was there the whole time! I’m happy that Jonah didn't let Camael’s words get to him. He knows he isn't “using” Gabriel, that's kind of what the climax of season 2 was about, after all. I’m very curious about the way Camael tries to make everything wrap up properly in the ending cutscene with a “moral”- to no avail, since Jonah used speedrun tricks on the game, lol... and I imagine they're not happy that Gabriel dragged them out of Hyrax in the Rocks and into the titular Angel Hare. Very curious to see how this resolves, but my guess is that there was some sort of falling out between Camael and the other angels that parallels how Segen feels about Jonah. I’ll be waiting for the final episode with bated breath, as I am quite excited to finally see Camael’s bunny form.

That's it for now! And happy spooky season :) What an interesting September it’s been.

So! I finished my 1000% replay of Portrait of Ruin on the new collection, finally- all quests, unlocked all alternate modes, and a fully completed map. It was fun finally playing the game “as intended” without relying on the potion glitch at all.

It was also a solo-Charlotte run, since I had never really committed entirely to playing as her and never quite clicked with the playstyle. “Why did they make a really squishy glass cannon cast so slowly?!” I wailed in sorrow. She seemed so much more nerfed and underpowered compared to Jonathan, and he got all the good movement tech like high jumps and divekicks- it's like the game is telling you to use her exclusively for support. It's to the point that I even made a romhack that buffed her. However, I think I get it now! And I want everyone to appreciate Charlotte a little more, so here's my advice for running Charlotte Aulin. She's definitely got a bit more of a learning curve than Jonathan, but she really shines once you get how to use her. The biggest issue is that her best gear comes when you're already mostly done with the game and requires some decent effort to unlock, but it makes her a powerhouse for new game+ (particularly running the Sorceress Crest and Magus Ring to fire off spells quickly and consistently) which may be fun and useful for hard mode. Despite this, she still performs very well on a fresh file depending on how you build her. Just get ready for a lot of spell-swapping in the menu, as it is unavoidable. Anyway, here are the tips:

I think that’s all I got right now. But she’s seriously pretty good! The Nest of Evil was like a cakewalk, it was pretty surprising.

Ahh, what else is going on with me... Well, in case you missed it, my new shrine is out!! “WARRIORS: RECLAIMED TOMES OF THE CAT GIRL” is intended to be the finale of my weird girl trilogy and it comes from a place with a lot of love. Check it out if you want (not like I can force you, of course!) Also, I finally got around to adding the new Order of Ecclesia concept art to my Order of Ecclesia shrine, so if you want to go look at wacky unused Shanoa designs and Albus with glasses, there you have it.

Also! The new Angel Hare episode... Not much to say other than “wow we are in gaming creepypasta territory and I am so excited”. That hyrax is starting to creep me out... Looks like Jonah will have to face the rest of the game alone, which makes a lot of sense for his arc. He learned to rely on Gabriel, then to let Gabriel rely on him, and now he has to rely on himself. The series has struck a nice balance between letting him grow as a character beyond his dependency while not feeling like it’s cruel to him for having “childish interests” because, YES, you can have both!!! I am quite curious about Zagzagel’s comment about Camael being manipulative (especially since Gabriel took offense to it). They’re a fellow angel, after all. How bad could they be? What did they do to make Zagzagel say something like that?! I’m anxious to see how they can wrap this up in the next couple of episodes.. We haven’t seen Camael face to face yet at all.

Uhhhh yeah, that’s all for now. Now that I’ve finished 100%-clearing Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin on the collection I am eager to replay Order of Ecclesia, it’s been forever since I’ve played my absolute favorite game..

You can officially expect my next shrine project “very soon”. The page layout is done, and the interactive elements are fully implemented, and the text content needs one good final pass to make sure I’m satisfied with it. Then it will be ready to go up, I think. I’m quite pleased with the page layout! I don’t know why I’ve been so secretive about it in my updates, but yeah. Be prepared for it to be unleashed into the wild! I’ll be very happy to finally finish it... This should be my final status update on its development, for now at least.

Also, since I’m commenting on new Angel Hare episodes weekly, apparently: the new episode is exciting and I have some THOUGHTS on Jonah trying to sequence break. That’s how you end up missing the good ending... Also, I really really like the rogue design for Gabriel. The feathers in her cap as little bunny ears is just way too cute, and I like the little expectation-switch by having her go rogue instead of paladin, and vice versa for Zagzagel. As always, I’m super impressed with the blend of live action and animated footage. Also, the bugged out jester dialogue... It’s pretty much confirmed the jester is Camael’s Francis-equivalent, right? What with him being called their friend and partner. Very disquieting that he’s missing. There’s also a new letter/Q and A episode, it’s pretty cool seeing Francine interacting with the Angel Hare medium. I love her fox design! (Honestly, getting to see the characters play dress up in each medium is part of the fun of this series...) I’m also quite curious that it seems like all of the characters in Hyrax on the Rocks came to life, not just the angel and their companion. I wonder if Camael is splitting themself across multiple characters to make the varying gameplay work, or something like that. I’m excited to finally meet them on screen. So far I’m enjoying how much this season has felt as mysterious as season 1 did.

Still grinding away on 1000%ing Castlevania Portrait of Ruin. The last few quests I have are super grindy or involve the Nest of Evil, which I’m not sure if I’m ready for just yet, so I’m debating saving that stuff for later on and just going to complete the game for now and return to grind out the last several quests later, because I don't feel like mastering any more subweapons at the moment. I mean, come on, this is a Charlotte-only playthrough! We’re all about spells here!!! I’m a bit eager to play Order of Ecclesia again soon, too....

Other than that, not much to report. Hope you're all doing well!

Well, I finished it in about 3 days. Probably would have been 2 if not for work. Anyway, I like reviewing books I’ve read, I should get more into the habit...

Might as well get the cons out of the way first: Ivypool’s Heart is pretty good but struggles from some pacing issues and “tell don’t show”. The first half of the book is filled with “random kittypet/dog/horse/whatever” events as the cats travel to their destination, which can get a little grating. I will give them points for the interesting settings, though, like the apple orchard, the beach (which we don't see so often), and the spooky animal zoo. Also, like I said, Ivypool tends to “narrate” her grief in moments where I think it would be more effective to let the obvious go unsaid- her disdain for the Sisters letting Slate and Beach leave (I mentioned this before but the Sisters get done dirty in this book. Poor gals), her lashing out at Dovewing, her using Dark Forest moves, her determination to save the wildcats’ kits... All of these moments could have spoken on their own without her internal monologuing going “God I miss Bristlefrost!!!” and spelling it out for us. I also think the supporting cast gets a little underutilized, especially Dovewing and Rootspring- I would have liked to see more conflict between these characters and their individual grief, and I didn't really get a solid idea of how Rootspring was coping in the aftermath (I really liked Icewing’s inclusion though! And I might be shipping Ice x Ivy now... Don't think I didn't catch that comment about how you’d like to be in a Clan with her, Ivypool...) Also not a fan of the teasing that Rootspring needs to have another mate and a family and stuff. I kind of just prefer him single, maybe with Spotfur if absolutely necessary. But Wrenflight? I don't even know who that is! Root’s a main character, Spotfur was close with Bristlefrost and also experienced immense grief during the Broken Code era, Bris even offered to help raise her kits and Rootspring could fulfill that promise in her place. Spotfur is obviously the most interesting choice if you NEED to pair Root with a random girl.

However, things pick up once we meet the wildcats. This books is LORE HEAVY and part of what helps Ivypool to overcome her grief is having her small-minded conception of the situation be expanded as she learns more about the nature of the world. Which makes sense, given how that was the root of her conflict with Dovewing, too, not understanding the full context of her situation. I think including Scottish Wildcats was a totally inspired decision and I loved learning about their unique conception of spirituality, which seems to be the “most correct” one in that they are the only ones who know about the River of the Dead (that Styx imagery was pretty cool! And seeing Ivypool tempted to run into the Dark Forest looking hopelessly for her lost kit was a memorable scene...) and learning that faded cats become part of the earth and that it's a wonderful experience honestly confirmed all my headcanons about fading souls. And it's another point towards the idea that the Clans’ spirituality and moral code isn't infallible (I sure hope they do something with that...!) With all the fascinating new additions to what we know about cat afterlife, it's the first Warriors book in a while that has a sense of “wonder”, you know? I hope we see more of the wildcats and the river of souls in the future. They could be a real game-changer. I also thought the parts where Ivypool felt Bris’s presence were quite touching and well-done.

And ooh, how about StormClan? The idea of two Clans combining, led by two leaders together? AWESOME. I hope this era of the Clans gets explored further down the line since the tragic story is tantalizing! I love Galestar, she's fascinating, and I thought her crumbling relationship with Stripestar was handled super interestingly. I hope they do more with these characters.

Overall, the main theme is that the world is wider than you know. And I think it's a good theme to touch on, considering how close-minded the Clan cats can be at times. It's interesting to see them get proven wrong and have to open their minds to new ideas. Good stuff all around! The book reminded me a bit of Firestar’s Quest, but with more of a clear thematic vision.

If you're into the series and able to put up with the usual hallmarks of “traveling books”, recommended.

OOF, work has been BUSY lately. Ah well, at least I get a little bigger of a paycheck this week. In better news- Ivypool’s Heart has finally arrived at my humble abode (I swear pre-orders used to arrive on release day, but here I am a week later...) I’m about halfway through and I’m enjoying it (well, apart from the constant bashing of the Sisters every time they’re onscreen... I mean, it makes sense for Ivypool as a character but jeez! Especially weird to see from Rootspring considering his arc was about taking pride in his Sister heritage). I like some of the interesting setpieces, like the apple orchard, the little vacation spot, the beach with all the crabs, and the exotic pet hoarder house. I left off after the group met Stalk Purr and Tumble Leap and alluded to the mystery of StormClan... I’m super eager to learn more about these wildcats.

Also! New Angel Hare episode. Apparently the third angel is Camael (and seems to be referred to with they/them so far), who people are saying is the angel of war...? Who trapped themself in the Hyrax on the Rocks video game due to its constant availability to the player- the conclusion I can draw here is that Segen’s refusal to move on has continued to trap Camael in the loop, so sort of a smaller-scale version of what happened with Gabriel in season 2...? Still, Jonah only remembering Segen as “just some neighbor I was friends with, idk” is interesting and suspicious. There’s definitely more to the story and Jonah probably remembers very little. It’s neat seeing the on-screen footage filmed on the screen and synced up and everything, seeing Gabby and Zag interact across two different monitors adds a lot to the immersion of the series. Yes please! Not much other theorizing to add at the moment, but I’m thrilled to keep up with a new season as it comes out, since I only got into Angel Hare once season 2 had already wrapped. Anyway!

As for shrine stuff, I’ve made it to the fun part of the essay, and I have one and a half sections yet to be completed. Then I’ll give it a reread, fix up anything that needs fixing, then it’s coding time. Again, I’m super busy, so no guesses as to when this will be finished, but I hope to start working on things for this year’s advent calendar once it’s done, so fingers crossed for at least before mid-October? This is the true cost of making a shrine about something you have like 1000000 thoughts on constantly... It will be worth the wait, I promise.

Also, I’m playing Portrait of Ruin and doing a solo Charlotte run. I’ve gotten through two of the portraits and have found the third, so far. I intend to 100% all the quests again like I did with my DS copy. The old infinite potions trick seems to not work anymore so now I have to actually play the game...! Hell yes!!!

Also, Autumn is doing very well. He’s got his shots, and he’s a super quick learner, so a lot of his habits (like chewing on everything, struggling with bathroom training, not eating, etc) have improved a lot, which makes sense, since those are puppy behaviours he was bound to grow out of anyway. He was an absolute angel for the vets and they absolutely loved meeting him, which makes me happy, since that means he probably isn’t going to have socialization issues down the line. Which is a pretty reasonable fear to have, given he was abandoned as a puppy. But surprisingly, he's just an absolute saint behaviour-wise. Extremely quiet, too.

That's all for now!

HUGE NEWS EVERYONE??? I am now the proud owner of a dog. It was a “family friend found him abandoned and long story short we ended up with a dog” kind of situation. He’s super sweet and well behaved, great on a leash and already kennel trained. We think he’s about 5 months old and part golden retriever. I’m excited since I’ve never owned a dog before! My family used to foster dogs but it's not really the same. People always would say I’m good with them though, which is kind of a badge of honor. Given that I have experience with caring for horses I imagine a dog can't be too difficult, right? Our schedules are already pretty ideal for keeping him out of trouble, and I’m already a huge morning person, so early, crack-of-dawn walks aren't an issue at all. Overall I’m super optimistic about it; I think Autumn (that's his name, btw, though we call him Otto for short) is in good hands. As I type this, he’s sitting next to me on the bed...

Also! Still working away on the mysterious shrine project. I’ve got the most difficult/tedious bit of the main essay writing done, now I just need a couple days to focus on the analysis stuff and how I want to structure everything in it. Which is less easy than it sounds since I’ve been getting so many shifts at work!!! Moneyyyy (that's going to rent and dog food, mind you ;P) It will come out when it's ready! Be patient- I can't rush writing.

Additionally, I’ve finally settled my score with Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow and 100% completed the entire game- yes, including every single soul. Honestly even though I used to be a bit of a hater because of the magic seals, Dawn is pretty alright! Still the weakest of the DSvanias to me, but considering Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia are like, perfect masterpieces I think that's a pretty nice place to be. I’m probably going to replay Portrait of Ruin next, but I’m also getting around to playing Cattails: Wildwood Story finally, so maybe it will wait a little...

ALSO! New Angel Hare season! The first episode is out and I have sooo many thoughts. The new adventure game setting is so exciting and the production values have clearly gone up with each season. I’m super intrigued to learn more about the new character Segen, considering his status as Jonah’s alibi- the friend he went to visit after killing his abusive father, as Gabriel instructed. Segen- and his experiences as recorded within Hyrax on the Rocks- will be fascinating to learn more about since I doubt he had the full picture of what his childhood friend was going through. And considering the game has an antagonistic version of Jonah inside it... It's an interesting dynamic for sure. I wouldn't be surprised if Jonah wasn't the nicest kid in the world given all the horrible stuff he went through. Season one is about uncovering his past in a relatively safe, comforting environment, but this provides a new window into that same past, through different eyes. How will he react to this? I’m so excited to find out! And I like that we're getting to learn more about who Jonah is as a person, as well as an imperfect adult child abuse survivor. Since the creators of Angel Hare have said the main theme of the show is relationships and friendship, I imagine Jonah and Segen getting to heal and reconcile is a likely outcome. But other than that? No clue where we’re going next.

It's also going to be fun to see Gabriel as an active character in the mystery! I feel like we haven't really gotten to see her much outside of flashbacks and stuff. Given that her and Jonah are now equal and see each other as peers rather than a caretaker and child, it's going to be so cool seeing them work together to understand whatever lies within the game...

So yeah, those are my quick little updates for now. Lots of stuff going on, but most importantly, I’m so excited to be a dog owner now.

Welp! Looks like we’ve got a surprise release for Castlevania fans to sink their teeth into, yay! It's a collection of all the DS entries (+ Haunted Castle and a little remake of it!). Eager to turn my Switch into a Castlevania machine (given that I own the other two collections and Bloodstained on there) I of course bought it immediately. So here's my review for anyone interested.

Granted, the main question anyone has with regards to this collection is how the DS’s touch and dual screen mechanics were implemented. In my opinion? Fairly well! Dawn of Sorrow’s magic seals (a mechanic I’ve always detested) are replaced with a QTE, a change I appreciate. Other touch mechanics let you use your secondary control stick to point a stylus, and ZR to “touch” (controls may vary on other platforms). It's a little awkward but shouldn't cause any gameplay problems (Unsure how Sisters mode fares with these changes as you need to beat POR’s main campaign first!) So you can still break ice blocks/teleport/play with kittycats/etc etc.

The dual screens come with a variety of different display settings, but I like the default one that shows both top screen settings to the side. The resolution of the games are crisp but faithful, and it's pretty seamless to play until you need to take out the cyber-stylus (but I think they incorporated it as best they could.) The collection also comes with a music player and a ton of concept art. There's a ton of OOE stuff that's never been seen before, and higher res versions of the stuff we do have. (Making a note to add the new stuff to my OOE shrine once people have ripped it from the collection... Some of those proto-Shanoa designs are wild!) There's even high res versions of the games’ intro movies!

And, a new (sort of) game! Haunted Castle Reimagining is really fascinating as the first “new Castlevania” in years (and, no, Konami, gambling machines don't count!). It's really slick visually, I’m just in awe of the graphical style. I haven't played it much yet, just dying a couple times on the first stage to get a feel for it, but it's super cool getting to see one of the most unknown titles in the series get the Rebirth treatment. Mostly I’ve been playing around in Dawn of Sorrow, since I’ve never actually beaten it legitimately- only through ROM hacks. So I have a bit of a score to settle, and souls to collect (much like my experience with COTM, where my DS lite broke right before I got to the final boss... I 100%ed it out of spite when Advance Collection came out!)

A DS collection was like my personal pipe dream. People told me for years that it wasn't going to happen, and I believed them, because Konami isn't known for bothering with that kind of thing, lol. But no, this release was a shock to pretty much everyone. So, everyone’s happy, right?

HOWEVER, there is one pretty major issue: there's a new translation. There are some odd changes to lines of dialogue and some pretty weird typos and mistranslations, so if that impacts your purchase, take heed. I have the original scripts memorized at this point from all the playthroughs and speedruns I’ve watched, so I’m not too upset, since the gameplay is what I wanted, but I hope they’ll patch it out and use the original localization, since lines like “I am here to see your dead” are, uh.... erm... Yeah, it’s not great.

It's odd, since the games already have perfectly fine localized versions. If this is your first time experiencing the games, I’d wait and probably emulate in the meantime. (If you’re emulating Dawn, give this rom hack a try! It makes a ton of small improvements to the gameplay and removes those detestable magic seals...)

Also, I’ve got the whole Order of Ecclesia script over on my OOE shrine. So if you're playing the collection and would like to use that as a guide/companion to Order of Ecclesia, there it is. The Fandom Wiki is run by awful people but it has the scripts to Dawn and Portrait as well. It's a shame that there's this fatal of a flaw to an otherwise great collection.

Okay, time for the more general updates, I finished everything for my next shrine except the main essay portion and, obviously, the page code. So, yeah, we’re in the home stretch- I’m eager to start writing about this specific topic... I’m super excited for this one, I think it’s going to turn out really good. I’ve been getting decentish hours at work too, which is nice considering how slow it’s been for the whole summer.

ANYWAY! Why the title? It’s because it seems like everything I’m excited for is happening in September. First of all: Ivypool’s Heart, the new Warrior Cats Super Edition. I’ve been super excited ever since they announced it’s part 1 of 2, and the next SE will be continuing its story (which they’ve never done before)- the way the authors discussed the book makes them seem particularly excited about this one, too, so I’m really curious to see what they have planned. And then the preview dropped and I got even more excited, because it’s going to be an exploration of Ivypool’s grief over losing Bristlefrost, and all the cats on her journey- Icewing (who also had a kit die in a very similar way back in Omen of the Stars), Whistlepaw (who doesn’t love Whistlepaw?), Dovewing (RECONCILE WITH YOUR SISTER!!!!), and Rootspring (HELL YEAH!!!) are all perfect picks to explore this theme through their interactions and character dynamics. And every little bit of information they’ve revealed- seriously, what is with those mysterious animals they find trapped in a house that the summary alludes to?!- has made me even more stumped about what the “ancient wrong” they’re supposed to right is. Apparently they even meet wildcats, according to the map and some early reviews. I think the ancient wrong might have something to do with faded spirits, but I’m still not totally sold on it- WHICH IS REALLY EXCITING. Warriors can be a super predictable series sometimes, but Ivypool’s Heart is like... mysterious and has a compelling and interesting concept. I’m super eager to get my hands on it and I will probably write up a review for the blog once I do.

Next up: ANGEL HARE SEASON 3 CONFIRMED and it will be coming out in September. I absolutely loved the first two seasons of this little web horror series (and wrote a gushing review of them back in ‘23). The words “Not all of us could be an Angel Hare child” are setting my mind on fire with excitement and theorizing. I think that it’s probably going to focus on someone who was possibly abandoned or failed by their guardian angel, maybe even Gabby herself- given her line in the season 2 finale about “not being the perfect guardian you remember”, I think this will be super fascinating to see Jonah contend with as he comes into contact with this person somehow. And the thumbnail implies we’ll be FINALLY meeting the third angel, teased all the way back in season 1’s letter episodes. (I think it’ll be Michael, personally.) Whatever the case may be, the conflict being hinted at here- one of jealousy and resentment- is JUICY and I’ll be eagerly tuning in.

And finally, September means more Halloween stuff going up in preparation for October. And if you can’t tell based on (gestures vaguely) EVERYTHING going on in my site layout, I absolutely love Halloween. And cold weather will eventually be on the way, and I can kiss goodbye to another miserable, hot summer...

So, yeah! Not much else to share right now. Hope everyone’s had a good August!

I figured I wouldn’t keep you all in the dark. So! Like I teased before, I’m working on another shrine. Mostly text focused, has interactive elements, centered around a piece of media very close to my heart, etc. So, here’s the status update:

Pretty much all the graphics are done. Anything else I’ll need are things I won’t have to draw myself, just edit, and are probably best to put off until I’m done with the text content so I know what I’ll need pictures of. And on to the writing... So, the interactive element of this shrine involves a LOT of text. A LOT. So, I’m halfway done with writing that. Once it’s all written it should be piss-easy to implement into the actual shrine. The code part of this is extremely simple which will be a nice breather from my more complicated projects. (Looking at you, Clovenglade...)

Once I’m finished writing out the text for the interactive elements I will finally, FINALLY be ready to tackle the actual meat of the shrine, the essay content. Oddly enough, it’s usually what I end up doing last when I’m working on a shrine. I’ve had an outline of what I want to say in the essay since the start, of course, but I almost always do text last. Then once that’s done, I just need to format the HTML and the shrine will be ready... whenever that happens. Again, I don’t want to make any specific time estimates. Writing especially can be pretty difficult for me to get done when I’m rushing. I want to take my time.

So, for those curious, this is my basic creative process for shrines and other big projects:

-Outline basic idea, text content, page(s) necessary, functionality etc.
-List all graphics I need to create.
-Test functionality to ensure I know what I’m doing.
-Make the graphics.
-Write!
-Format and code!

Then I make sure everything’s in working order, then link it on my Shrines page! Wahoo!

I always do the graphics first- I also do it this way with games and stuff too. It creates a sunk cost fallacy effect where I always follow through once I already have the difficult/tedious part done. I also like making lists of everything I need because crossing things off my checklist feels like tangible progress.

So, hopefully all that was interesting. Keep your nose out for when I finally have my shrine finished! I think it’s going to come together really nice.

Okay, I got a lot of random stuff done on the site these past few days so I figured I might chronicle it:

-New logos/icons for Clovenglade and The Wolf Den that kind of “standardizes” them. Since they’re thematically linked- horse girls and wolf girls- I figured I might give them similar logos. Clovenglade’s is mostly the same but a lot cleaner looking overall. Go check them out! They’re stylish!

-New pets in the Pet Shop (that are also old pets). I remade my first adoptables, the cats from OOE, in my current pixel style. They’re very cute!

-The Record Box, the first page I ever had to retire, is back! As a physical music collection page!!! Come check out my cool vinyls, I took pictures and everything. (It’s in the Misc. section.)

-I have a kinlist now! (Also in the Misc. section.)

-Some new graphics and small edits in Clovenglade. On the landing page you’ll see a new illustration of the princess that looks much nicer. I also touched up some older sprites as well as finally made it so that you can seamlessly enter the Riding game with your horse on the Go Riding page, without there being a separate “character select”. (hilariously I figured out how to do this around when I was implementing the Riding game... So why didn’t I do it? Silly.) Since you’re supposed to be able to go to the stable to swap out your horse and all, I think this is a bit more immersive. And, finally, I added a sound to the brush. Once you’ve finished brushing your horse it’ll make a nice little sound. It’s something I kind of felt was missing, so it’s nice finally having that there. I wanted to make it so the whinny that plays when you pet your horse is randomized, but I couldn’t quite get the code working. I may revisit this idea later. Jeez, I make a lot of edits to this shrine.

-Probably some other stuff too I don’t remember lol

Since I finally finished off my checklist (for now), my attention will probably go toooooo.... MY NEXT SHRINE!!! I don’t want to give too much away but it’s about a series that’s very close to my heart (for better or for worse) and it will round out a sort of “trilogy”. It will be in my usual essay format but will have some interactive elements.

Hmm, do I have any life stuff to share...? I went out to a Mexican restaurant with Laura yesterday and they served us massive portions, so that’s dinner for tonight sorted as well. It was absolutely delicious, I got shrimp in the richest cream sauce I’ve EVER had and she got a whole tilapia. YUM. Work’s back to giving me more hours again- hopefully it sticks, it’s been slow as hell lately and I was getting kind of worried.

So, yeah. No specific time estimate for when my next shrine goes up since it’s still in the pre-planning stage, I’m going to be a bit busier, and I have a LOT to say when I actually get down to writing it all, but that’s my next project now that I’ve finished up everything else on my to-do list. It’s a nice feeling!

Yikes, I barely posted in July! To be fair there wasn't much to comment on. I'm mostly just busy with the new house, but it's nothing too exciting. But today's post is about... page ideas!!! And sharing some for new webmasters to play around with. I get a lot of people telling me that they're inspired by me to start making websites, which is really a high honor. So I figured this kind of post would be nice to have, for those kinds of viewers. Basically, some cool stuff to put on your site. I’ll keep it beginner friendly.

However... first things first, the boring life stuff. Things haven't been too hectic over here apart from our AC being on the fritz. Despite that it's been decent temperature wise. We have plenty of fans and repairs aren't coming out of our pockets, which is nice. Speaking of things not coming out of our pockets, my parents treated Laura and I to a fancy dinner over by the beach at a certain historic restaurant, as well as some rum cake, which was delicious! (It was because my grandma was in town for her birthday dinner.)

Sitewise I’ve got preparations done for Halloween several months in advance. I’ve said it before but I like the idea of making one small addition to the Halloween page per year, so it becomes a little more spooktacular every time it comes back to the site. I’ve also made a secret update...! That I can't tell you about. So you’ll have to go look for it. It's located on a pre-existing secret page and it is horse related. See if you can find it!

ANYWAY onto the main content of the blogpost:

It's always so hard for me to find lists of page ideas for inspiration online that aren't the basic stuff everyone already has like about pages, guestbooks, “have you tried making a shrine”, etc. (or are corpo-web focused). I mean, the indie web is all about creativity! So I figured I’d take things into my own paws and make my own little list of page ideas to share that are maybe a little different from what most lists will give you and will help spice up your site a little, in my experience.

1. Aquarium Page

Set your background to a watery background, download some decorations to litter the page with, and draw or find some fish gifs or images to marquee across the page- simple as can be for the beginning webmaster but super cute. I’ve been meaning to make one of these but I keep getting distracted with other projects... For added effect, check out all the bubble and seaweed effects over on http://www.mf2fm.com/rv/ and practice your scripting by messing with their properties to make your aquarium look as good as you can. If you want, you could make a guide page to familiarize your viewers with your digital fish and share facts about their species. Similar ideas to play with could be a digital garden (like mine!), bug terrarium or graveyard.

2. Interactive Story or Quiz

This one is easy, in fact one of my first major site additions was a (very short) interactive story called The Dungeon. It's as easy as making pages and knowing how to link them together. You can always use an engine like Twine to make one of these, but it's extremely simple to make one of these purely through HTML and I would recommend giving it a try, as it helps you conceptualize how different pages flow together and how you can direct it. Like I said, extremely simple to create, but very effective!

3. Secret Pages

These are so fun and easy to implement. It's as easy as making an innocuous graphic or invisible link to secrets beyond your viewers’ wildest dreams. You can use these to hide “exclusive” content, confess secrets, or just make something beautiful or serene that your viewers will feel all the more rewarded for having found themselves. Anything goes as long as it's a little harder to find.

4. Seasonal Content

If you’ve been around my site for a little while you might be aware that I do little site events for Halloween and Christmas. But those aren't the only holidays, of course. There's Valentines Day, New Years, Easter... But there's really no limit to what you can do. You could even just celebrate the passing of seasons through changes on your website. Regardless, seasonal events make your site dynamic and change over time in fun ways, which will make it more interesting to revisit for your viewers. And it's just nice! Everyone loves putting up decorations, why not do it digitally, too?

5. A Simple Game

Making interactive webgames is as easy as looking up how to make things click-n-draggable and copy-pasting some code to get the job done. From this you can make just about anything, from dressups to room designers. If you want to make something a little more complex, I also recommend taking a peek at the free game-making tools I have listed on my Arcade page. It’s not difficult at all to create simple games for viewers to enjoy!

6. A Cookbook

This one is all about the text content- share your favorite, yummiest recipes! It's a good opportunity to focus on practicing your CSS to make a cute "booklike" layout for the page and share something personal to you.

So, there you go. Some fun page ideas for beginners. I know when I was just starting out it was hard to come up with what to add next once I’d made the obligatory guestbook, blog, graphics page, art page, etc etc etc. And I love seeing more creative stuff on others’ websites and I want to encourage it as best as I can.

SO! I’m finally all moved in to my new abode. I’m rooming with my girlfriend and we’ve got all our creature comforts, all the utilities we could need (as we are renting it lol, for pretty cheap considering how much we get out of it), and so, so many chairs. I think I brought too many :P As I speak, she’s making breakfast and we’ve got Hounds of Love spinning on the record player, and I couldn’t be more happy.

Moving itself only took a couple trips since I travelled light for now. Our room already feels lovely and lived in. The house reminds me a lot of the cabins I’d sometimes stay in during vacations, and it’s got some lovely 50’s architecture and a really cute little vintage oven. It truly already feels like home, and it’s not far from my workplace either. It’s truly the perfect little place!

I think my only worry is making sure I get consistent hours at work and stuff, gotta pay rent you know :P But I requested more availability and let my manager know I was moving so. FINGERS CROSSED. If not I have plenty saved up and I can always go looking for another job with more hours if I really really need to.

I’ve had such a lovely time in my new place already. I have a feeling I’ll really love it.

As for other news... My new shrine went up a couple days ago, go check it out if you haven’t! I’ve also sorted my shrine directory by format/category (mostly as an excuse to keep Clovenglade at the top of the page since it is my site’s crown jewel, hehe). Once I’m fully settled in and used to all the newness in my life I want to see about finally making a dressup game, I’ve had one in the plans for a little while...? We’ll see.

So, yeah! Hopefully everything continues smoothly :)

So, I just beat Dominique’s Curse! I took my sweet time with it and got the true ending, and I greatly enjoyed my time with it. I’m not going to echo what I said in my “first impressions” blogpost too extensively since... I already wrote all that, but I will say that this is absolutely the most definitive Simon’s-Questlike. The secrets feel more rewarding (I cannot stop raving about how cool the “hunter” miniboss mechanic is) and the difficulty is just right. There were some real nail-biters and it made it even more fulfilling to get to the next checkpoint with a narrow escape. It really is like if Simon’s Quest was a proper metroidvania AND classicvania all in one. Highly reccomended. I had a huge grin on my face the whole time I was playing, and I am very satisfied to have beaten it with 100% completion. Genuinely a perfect DLC.

This has also like, reinvigorated my fixation on Bloodstained and especially Dominique as a character, so I kind of on accident started working on a character shrine for her...? Pretty much everything for it is done, I have all the graphics and stuff ready, the text just needs a final proof-reading to make sure it’s ship-shape, and then when I have a nice long day at home to work on getting everything set up it should be on the site shortly :) Of course, getting a non-busy day is easier said than done... Because I’m moving next month!!!

That’s right, after months of assuming it was happening in October, nope, it’s official: we’re moving in July basically as soon as we’re able. I’m super excited to finally be out of my parents’ house and living with my lovely girlfriend, albeit nervous about bills and everything, naturally. Wish me luck! The future seems so promising, and I apologize ahead of time for if the site has some radio silence while I’m dealing with moving house and everything.

Alright, so, like I said I was going to, I’m playing the Dominique’s Curse DLC! I’m not super far in, just beat my first of the mansions, but here’s my first impressions:

-The gameplay loop is very accurate to how it feels to play Simon’s Quest. Explore, grind for cash, collect clues, and venture into the mansions. It looks like there are a ton of items, upgrades and secrets to find, maybe even more than Simon’s Quest!

-Controls are smooth but appropriately “Classicvania-y” (for example, the jump, I THINK you have a bit of mid-air control but it still feels like you need to be deliberate with your movements in the same way.)

-So many quality of life improvements! Lies from the NPCs are clearly telegraphed, there’s FAST TRAVEL, potions, save rooms, you can access dialogue you’ve seen from the menu (no notebook necessary!). It’s a dream come true, a perfectly modernized and seamless version of Simon’s Quest. All the bits of dialogue with references and spins on the dialogue from the original makes me really smile.

-I really like the backgrounds! I know Bloodstained’s graphics can be a little janky but so far it’s looked really pretty. Performance has also been very very smooth, especially considering I’m playing the Switch version.

-It’s super fun to play as Shardbinder Dominique, I always thought about how her or Gebel would fare as alternate modes given that they have similar abilities to Miriam!

-From what I’ve heard, the ending is tied to Logaeth pages and item completion, rather than amount of days taken to beat the game, which is good for me because time-based objectives stress me out lol. I like to take my time! And speaking of the good ending...

-SO UH. Apparently the true ending involves Dominique coming back to life but losing her memory, and Miriam deciding to nurse her back to health. And bridal carrying her. Dominique/Miriam has been a bit of a rarepair for me for a while so I am going absolutely bonkers about this. I am incapable of being normal. I made a small celebratory video about it.

I am overall EXTREMELY pleased with this DLC! I absolutely loved Simon’s Quest, so having a whole modernized version with all the quality of life features it desperately needed is a DREAM COME TRUE!!! It has everything I loved about the original, and what I loved about Ritual of the Night. It’s just... so wonderful. I’m so thrilled and excited to continue exploring Limbo.

EDIT 6/18 - Now that I'm a bit further along in the game... I think another cool thing it addresses is how people often criticize the original Simon's Quest for being too easy. There's some tough as nails platforming, the combat is a little more thoughtful, and there's a whole clocktower area to rage at (and cheer when you finally beat it!). It's like if Simon's Quest was even more Classicvania-y!

-Also, I like how the currency exchange thing was handled. You gain currency by trading in monster parts, but you should be strategic about when and how much you do, since you lose coins when you Game Over but not monster hearts. It's kind of cool to have a lot of focus on conserving my resources just like in the original!

Jeez, I haven’t posted in a while. I think the bad parts of summer are finally catching up to me. The weather’s unbearable and I always have a weird little seasonal slump around this time.

I think a good 80% of it is due to the fact that my parents work in schools, so summertime means they’re at home all the time. I would KILL for more alone time. I can’t get moved out soon enough... Waiting patiently for October. Been getting decent hours at work which is nice, but mostly I just kind of want to lay in my room and avoid everyone. I feel constantly weird and overstimulated! Not to be angsty but I just want some peace and quiet...

On the bright side I think I have every flower species in Flowergame, my garden has been growing nicely. I don’t have every variation but I’m satisfied with having one of each species for now! I might see about getting a Biting Dandelion maybe.

Also, Dominique’s Curse (the Bloodstained DLC) is finally out so maybe I’ll give that a whirl since I’m the world’s biggest Simon’s Quest apologist. Excited to give that a try!

This is such a short update but I literally have nothing else going on LOL. Ah well. Please bear with me and my slight summer depression.

I keep abandoning my blog orz... Well as of late I’ve been rewatching Revolutionary Girl Utena with a few of my friends (who are first-time viewers). I’ve never discussed it a ton on the site but it’s my favorite show ever, it’s just such a perfect dissection of societal structures of power and what is necessary to change the world and your perspective within it.

However, for the longest time I never really “got” what the Black Rose Arc was about. I loved the individual episodes and fights, as well as the general darker tone and aesthetic- the show taking time the flesh out the background cast in this way was super cool. But the plot arc itself- what the hell was happening with Mikage, why he was making the students duel, etc.- that was what confused me. I was almost relieved to find out that everyone forgot what happened immediately after. HOWEVER! I think I get it now that I’ve rewatched the arc. And I figured I’d share some of my thoughts on my blog just to have it all written down in one place, and because why not?

Unfortunately it’s very hard for me to formulate this into an essay that makes sense. Instead I wrote up some quick notes about my feelings regarding it (which probably make no sense if you haven’t seen either the show or the movie):

-Elevators progress you towards revolution, car drives regress you. See how the Black Rose Duelists have to acknowledge a truth about their situation whereas in arc 3 we see Saionji, who began to question the dueling game, regress back to his arc 1 personality following his encounter with Akio, for example.

-All Black Rose Duelists are sidelined or repressed in some way, either by the narrative itself or by society via gender, age, sexuality, etc.- people who’s only choice really is to “revolutionize the world”. The elevator confessional unrepresses their feelings and allows them to act on it. however, they’re called to act on it by turning their swords towards the Rose Bride, the universal scapegoat.

-Utena defeating them “quells their revolution” and they forget the desires they wished to act on. She becomes more complacent with the duels as a system compared to her initial distaste for the whole dueling game, making her a more ideal candidate for Akio’s “duel of revolution” to revive Dios by drawing her in further. (Akio and Anthy were manipulating Mikage after all)

-Black roses = eternity, false revolution, a dried rose preserved in death. Eternity is sort of the opposite of revolution in that it is stagnation and stillness as opposed to the upheaval of revolution- both are pursued by the characters of the show. When Utena asks the Prince to show her something eternal as a child, she sees the eternal suffering of Anthy. The Black Rose Duelists’ feelings are “severed” to bring them back to the “eternity” of the status quo of Ohtori. But eternity can be surmounted by revolution- it’s what the show is about!

-The morgue at the bottom of Nemuro Memorial Hall is a house of coffins that are burnt as the character arcs are “severed” by Utena... Interesting.

-Utena and Mikage are parallels, both fixated on falsified memories. Mikage’s fate, where he is ejected from the school entirely, mirror’s Utena’s.

-Mikage, trying to change the world in his pursuit of eternity/immortality to save Mamiya, has trapped himself in the stasis of eternity, much like the rest of the school. If Anthy's suffering (in addition to her life) is "eternal", trying to make Mamiya the next Rose Bride is a wal to make his life/suffering "eternal" as well- preserving a dying flower, turning it black.

-”Living corpses” in the movie = remains of societal structure, buying in to the structure of the world leads you to the “land of the dead” and you become a living corpse- Akio tries to convince Anthy to return to being a princess and a living corpse during the escape sequence. Mikage is pretty explicitly a living corpse. Whereas Touga in the movie haunts other characters who must wake up from their delusions of Touga that trap them in the past/Ohtori, Mikage is haunting himself.

-Once Mikage wakes up from his delusion and questions his little eternity, the structure of the world rejects him as he has rejected it. When he rejects his own haunting of himself, he can no longer exist, as his existence had become the delusion.

-In the movie, Utena must first ride the elevator to turn into a car, which is the catalyst for her and Anthy achieving revolution together after she lets go of her delusions of her idealized memories of Touga in the elevator, which I feel like plays into this idea. (Worth noting that the other characters who become cars, including Kozue, Wakaba, and Shiori, are all Black Rose Duelists in the show!)

This all sounds like the ramblings of a crazy person but Utena really is that esoteric and symbolism-rich of a show... I’ve really been appreciating my rewatch of it since I can take a step back and enjoy the details with a greater understanding. And I’m really glad my friends are enjoying it so far too!

I feel bad I haven’t been making a ton of site updates lately, I always feel so sleepy in the summer almost, with regards to my creative pursuits. But I do have some ideas for little games and stuff lined up for when the creative mood strikes me so we’ll see. Mostly I want to eat popsicles and lay around in bed with the AC on and go for the occasional swim at the moment! I always get in a weird headspace when I’m in a creative lull, especially because it felt like a faux pas to not post art super often when I was still on social media and that hasn’t quite worn off yet. It’s kind of interesting that I haven’t made just straightforward visual art pieces in a little while. Most of my artistic stuff has been tied to larger projects, so my actual gallery page is collecting dust a little. I think I like it a bit better this way since it lets my work be a larger whole, but it’s just such a curious shift I’ve noticed. I just don’t draw things for the sake of drawing as often. Huh!

ALSO since I was on the topic of the Black Rose Arc, I just want to shout out this really cool AMV centered on Mikage, I’ve watched it through like 15 times at this point. All the imagery and the color pallet and everything is just totally on point.

I always find it a bit funny that they announce the new arc before the previous one is wrapped up, but I’m pretty excited by the blurb (which you can find on the Warriors website). We knew previously that the arc would feature an arc 1 character, so I’m pretty glad it’s Tawnypelt, I always thought she could benefit from a little more development. She’s one of those characters that is super interesting on paper but just doesn’t get enough screentime to make good on it. The arc seeming to have a partial focus on Elder characters is pretty new, too. It feels like all of our POV characters have been young warriors or apprentices up until now.

Based on the blurb I can’t tell whether Leafstar is a focal character or a full POV character, but I really hope it’s the latter. Seeing a leader operating a Clan throughout the arc and dealing with her waning leadership will be really cool if it’s from her perspective. I kind of hope Leafstar stays leader but based on the title of the arc (Changing Skies) I imagine she’ll be killed or step down by the end, possibly through acknowledging that her Clan needs to move forward. She’s been the leader of SkyClan since they were reformed in the gorge. Considering how the past two arcs have had a focus in shifts in clan culture, I think this could be likely.

And omg, MOONPAW. It looks like she’ll be in the obligatory Shadowsight/Frostpaw “tormented by visions” role, but that’s my favorite archetype so I’m openminded and excited to meet her. Since there’s drama surrounding the Moonpool possibly being built over by humans, I can’t imagine her name is a coincidence. It’s so fanfic-y in a way I really like. I hope she’s a WindClan cat, I’ve been craving a WindClan POV, especially since they’re supposed to be closest to StarClan.

The mention of human development kind of makes me hope they’ll move territories again like in The New Prophecy. The cover features Tawnypelt and Crowfeather who are both focal characters in TNP, after all... And I’m honestly just a bit sick of the lake territories, they’re honestly so boring compared to how “real” and fleshed out the forest territories felt even in just one arc. A bit of a soft refresh is totally welcome. TNP is also my least favorite arc in execution, so seeing it “done right” could be really fucking cool.

Also, if our POV trio is Leafstar, Tawnypelt and Moonpaw, is this our first arc with all female protagonists? That’s awesome if true.

God, I’m gonna be stuck reading Warriors forever at this rate... I’m excited to see where they go with this plot. Fingers crossed. Like, I think it’s a prime example of how poorly written or mediocre stuff can still be engaging when it comes out on a schedule so you can speculate on stuff as it comes out, you know?

Digital Horror is a subgenre I want to like so badly. Indie horror stuff on youtube based closely on the Flash games, edutainment and online experiences I remember from the late 2000s and early 2010s? HELL YES. But for some reason most of the digital horror stuff I’ve watched doesn’t quite hit for me and I have no clue why. Maybe because I just don’t have a whole lot of nostalgia for girlsgogames specifically, which a lot of these videos tend to invoke- lots of dark twists on dressup games and makeup games and the like, but it never quite got me in the right place. (I also think that having these games being presented in video form rather than being directly able to be played is kind of a mistake with regards to immersion. Like I find scary games 100000% scarier than scary movies, you know? I guess that’s more of a skill and execution thing though) I guess I’m just sad there’s already such a well-established formula.

I will say- I have criticized Lacey Games (the most popular digital horror series atm) before for being unsubtle. But I think I understand it now, especially now that the series has made it more explicit that it’s about the creator behind the games and that they’re meant as shock games, in a sense. Once that clicked into place and that it was about some troubled person’s spiteful art projects rather than a “ghost in the game” situation I was fully on board. Like, yeah, oh course it’s unsubtle. They’re like the screamers your asshole friends would make you play in middle school... (Some of the commentary on femininity and gender roles in the newest episode was very appreciated too especially the bit about the “concerned parents”. Plus seeing endless runners and platformers being used for horror! That’s my nostalgia getting corrupted and it feels so good! More please!) I also enjoyed what I’ve seen of Milton’s Math Games since I was a huge coolmathgames FREAK back in the day and I can smell the influence on it! And their actual website has some interesting interactive games too! Hell yeah! I’ve also enjoyed some digital horror adjacent games like Last Seen Online...

So, I think I’m warming up to the subgenre. I really hope it finds its legs, so to speak! I think there’s so much potential. So here’s a list of free story ideas since I don’t have the patience to make youtube ARGs:

-The protagonist goes searching for an old childhood favorite edutainment CD-ROM game and begins a let’s play on their youtube channel since there is no footage of the game online. During the let’s play, the protagonist comes to the sobering realization that the game was an obscure piece of propagandistic media made by a (fictional) cult, and now that they’re older they understand some of the messages the game was trying to send. And the series would be about untangling their feelings about it and how one’s perspective on childhood media can change over time. No supernatural elements, just kind of playing on the weird and eerie feeling that cult-y media has.

-A somewhat popular super-monetized online kids MMO akin to Club Penguin or Animal Jam, that is soon to be shut down. Eventually the players realize that in addition to spending real life money, they have also spent their souls, which are due to be taken by an evil angel figure of sorts when the game shuts down. Player dynamics between members and non-members shift accordingly, both with some members trying to get out of their contract through more and more desperate means, and some trying to convince themselves that their souls were sold for some higher purpose. Some non-members become fixated on exhibiting their new power over the doomed members, and some users just try to ignore the inevitable... It’s an exploration of online classism in children’s games, with kind of a “Lord of the Flies” approach with scared kids forming a really shitty online society while trying to keep themselves alive. The banner on the UI counting down the days to the game shutdown is a constant element.

-An endless runner focused short video wherein the format of the game is used as a metaphor for the inevitability of death, for no matter how much you score, your round in the game must end in sorrow... Set the day before Flash officially got discontinued, and the game itself is aware. A memento mori of sorts.

-Duck Life: Evil Version

-Less nostalgia-baity but I think some kind of Facebook-inspired surveillance horror would be cool :) Based around the feeling of being watched, but specifically by a cold unfeeling algorithm...

-We’ve had scary Bonzi Buddy. I think it’s time for a horror project based on those stupid toolbars that would clog up your computer.

And in site related news: I’ve got another project cooking up (a potion creator choose your own ingredients sort of game I’m planning to make with Twine, that’s got about everything I need except for the graphics, and I’m waiting for a proper “drawing sort of day”... It will have 18 unique potions!) and I also converted my Guestbook page into an archive, due to the impending death of the guestbook service I used to use. I’ve also got a nice little directory for miscellaneous pages, now, replacing the Guestbook button on my homepage menu. (For those who want to leave messages, my chatbox is probably the best place for now!)

So that’s absolutely everything I think!

So, recently the song “Everyone Knows That” (Or to use its proper title, “Ulterior Motives”) has been found, based only on a low quality 17 second clip. It was an example of a lost song, one that seemed to exist without any trace of who made it or how it came into existence. People searched for years to find the source until it was located in an adult film. Now the original creator of the song has embraced their new following, intend to remake, remaster and rerelease the song, and give it a new life. So it’s ended happily for everyone! (Apart from the people who felt “Ulterior Motives” was “ruined” by the media of origin, which could warrant a whole essay about how sexuality and sexual art isn’t considered worthy of respect, but this website is loosely PG-13, so I’ll leave that up to others who can probably write that essay better than me anyway)

I barely kept up with the search for Ulterior Motives, but the thrill of it finally getting located (and in such an unexpected way) was palpable! (Despite all the questions it raised about how exactly the original poster of the clip got access to it, and if he knew its source all along...). It felt like one of the “big mysteries” finally getting solved. Apparently recently there have been a ton of successful finds, like “Dancefloor Was His Name”, “Fond My Mind” and “Try To Smile Again” as well as other notable “Lostwaves”. (I also remember having some investment in “Digital Girl” before it turned out to be a huge hoax, I’m still very pissed about that!)

My absolute favorite remains unsolved though. (“Like The Wind” aka The Most Mysterious Song) Something about it is so perfectly emblematic of Lostwave. It’s a song that feels like it should be a hit, and yet there’s just no information. It’s likely that it was only ever broadcast once, and that the only existing copy is in the hands of the lucky person who taped it as a kid. The melancholic tone and themes of paranoia, running and hiding end up feeling almost prophetic with regards to the nature of the song. Plus it’s clearly a goth-adjacent song, and like... That’s a genre that’s super important to me, so it feels closest to my heart.

As for how the song will get found, I think the current push to look through security transcript archives will be make or break, and if anything is discovered it will likely be a band name and song title, and probably not much else. The likelihood that the band’s other work (if it exists) got archived online is very very unlikely. I personally believe it must have been a demo tape sent into the radio station that got carelessly discarded after being broadcast, and the band never really went anywhere after that. It’s a miracle that it got taped at all and that we can still listen to it now.

I think it kind of ties into that idea of how media preservation is often not considered “legal”, right? Like I can think of at least one “Lostwave” that was originally located on limewire, and like, there’s that old “home taping is killing music” thing (awfully ironic). Same with circulating the tapes for old movies, or emulating classic nintendo games, etc. I have a lot of thoughts about piracy and copyright and stuff and like, should these concepts even exist? I believe art must be shared and loved freely. Lostwave is a testament to that, the nearly-forgotten being kept alive through scant remnants.

Not all searches will end as beautifully as “Everyone Knows That” but it’s definitely made me optimistic. If a garbled 17 second clip of a song can be located I think just about anything is possible! Even if “Like the Wind” remains fully lost then I still think it’s worth appreciating that it’s stayed alive this long. It’s a beautiful song. (And at the very least the search is introducing people to a bunch of cool post-punk and goth bands!)

My girlfriend’s birthday, to be precise :0 and we had a huge sleepover about it, despite the fact that I got a bit ill beforehand (I got it from her lol, so I had no risk of infecting her. my throat hurt like hell but it’s feeling a lot better now.)

I’m really glad she liked all my gifts (including Pokemon Violet, the Tasting History Cookbook, a Jirachi plush, and some jewelry...). And we also went to a record store and found some absolute treasures- Bauhaus and The Cure and A-Ha and Cocteau Twins and more. But the absolute COOLEST record I found was a promotional single of the Kate Bush song Experiment IV, specifically it’s one that was sent out to radio stations to promote the song (and was never meant for resale), and the station was even written on the packaging of the record :0 What a cool little oddity! I’m a huge Kate Bush fan and I think Experiment IV was the first song of hers I remember listening to (my dad showed me the music video and it scared the hell out of me since I was like 7) so it was like, perfect. It was only like $10 also lmao.

We watched some nature documentaries while I suffered from my various illnesses and symptoms, and eventually fell asleep. The next day we snuggled in the morning and then we went to the AQUARIUM!!! We saw sea turtles, sharks, jellyfish, hogfish, lemurs, penguins, and more. AND STINGRAYS!!!! We’ve been wanting to go to an aquarium for a while so it was nice to finally go :)

We wrapped up everything with some Pokemon and I finally got the opportunity to trade over some eggs I bred for her (an extra Sprigatito since she went with Quaxley, and two Hisuian and Unovan Zorua that I went to great lengths to ensure hatched female LOL). I’m glad she’s already enjoying the gifts and that our sleepover was overall a success despite some of the circumstances.

Going to the aquarium makes me want to play Finfin again, I kind of stopped due to some errors with my emulator preventing me from opening the game very suddenly but I miss the Real Computer Creature. It’s also put some thoughts in my head about maybe putting an aquarium page on my site...?

Oof, I feel bad for not blogging in a long while! I’ve just been busy with work and other projects (especially work, it’s been brutal lately! At least I’ve been getting better hours...?) Here are some quick “patch notes”.

-I got weirdly fixated on adding more stuff to Clovenglade while I was redrawing and touching up some of the stable sprites. (I think this was compounded by finding out about the wonderful Bella Sara Digital Archive website!) Reliving some of the old memories got me to try and experiment a little with js to get functioning hunger, thirst, etc. bars on the Stable page. There’s also a cute hand cursor for when you’re petting your horse to make it more clear that’s what you’re doing. I’m especially proud of the functional brushing mechanic :D (Edit 4/26 - The food and water is a little more interactive now too, you basically fill up the troughs.)

-There’s now a wider variety of items in the cottage for use in customization! Including an exclusive wall ornament or decoration for each horse. Here’s my layout, isn’t it cute?

-With these updates, the recently-added interactive game, and the touched up sprites, Clovenglade is pretty much “finished” apart from if I want to do card expansions. I mean, it was “finished” when I released it last November but think of this as the “expanded edition”.

-The final Pokemon creepypasta is done. I think I’m not as fixated on Pokepasta as I was earlier this year so the idea of a Pokemon creepypasta shrine is OFFICIALLY on the backburner for a later date when I’m more interested in exploring that again. I think I said a lot of what I wanted to say already via my writing, at least for the time being. I feel bad because I’ve been tossing the idea around for a little while and I still have the “oh but I have to keep making Content for my Followers” mindset. Ah welllll....... I don’t think anyone cares that much but y’know.

-I’ve got a page on Melon’s Everyone Website! There isn’t much on there apart from a repurposed scrapped game, but consider checking it out! (And make your own pages, too! It’s a website anyone with a Melonland account can edit!)

Uh, I think that’s it in the digital realm. In other news my girlfriend’s birthday is coming up very soon and we have plans for a big sleepover party! I’m super excited for that. I already got all the presents way in advance so I’m excited to see how she likes them.

Book #5 of A Starless Clan has arrived and I tore through the whole thing in less than 3 hours as soon as I got home from work. It’s about on the shorter side and almost skirts the line of being “filler-y”, (and it’s one of those times where I think Warriors could benefit from having arcs not be 6 books long) but I think it really works altogether, and has some nice plot developments as well as some great character moments for Sunbeam in particular. I think it’s probably easiest to chunk my review by each POV character since they all basically have their own cocurrent stories.

I liked seeing Frostpaw get some moments and interactions with Shadowsight and Whistlepaw in this book. It got a little repetitive seeing her have so many visions and having everyone around her not believe her, but the main plot of this book is about her eventually earning some trust to get more cats on her side (particularly WindClan) so I can forgive a little repetitiveness in this case... It was also really enjoyable seeing her become a more assertive character, sneaking around and spying and gathering evidence. The final act of the book, the storm and the rescue of the WindClan kittens, was pretty cool, and I always like a big scary storm as a setpiece in these books! It’s also the first time we get to see Frostpaw, Sunbeam and Nightheart all working together. It also puts a nice cap on Frostpaw’s main conflict for this book- she predicts the storm will harm WindClan’s nursery, they don’t believe her due to her lack of credibility, then when it actually happens and she helps save the kits, Harestar re-evaluates what he thought of her, so he's more willing to back her up and potentially go against RiverClan's new leader. It’s just a nice and neat little story there. Warrior Cats can often feel like its individual books don’t really have their own internal conflicts and resolutions so it’s nice to see that kind of thing in A Starless Clan especially, they’ve been knocking it out of the park. It just kind of works on a conceptual level, I think. I was hoping we might learn a bit more about Curlfeather as well but looks like there wasn't much about her in this book which is a shame.

Sunbeam’s main conflict is about trying to care for her exiled and injured mother despite their poor relationship (made more difficult by Berryheart’s pride causing her to refuse help in many circumstances). Sunbeam being torn between caring for her mother while also being disgusted by her actions as she’s further radicalized and involved in secret political meetings has been a throughline throughout the arc, and we see Sunbeam at her most sympathetic to her mother’s plight in this book, now that her power and sway within ShadowClan has been taken away. Of course, in the end she finds her mother has joined with Splashtail’s leadership over RiverClan! It’s a cool scene and it’s really nice having her back in the villain spotlight again since I find her a more interesting character than Splashtail overall (I kind of hope book 6 further explores him though, since this book LOVES implying that leadership isn’t his real goal and that he wants something “more”, and I’m so excited to find out what that is! The prologue also has some interesting details about his relationship to Curlfeather, also, and I hope that gets further elaborated on too...) It’s easy to imagine how conflicted Sunbeam must feel that all her efforts were wasted on her mother. I also want to know what’s up with all the times she feels like Nightheart is always away when she needs him, I wonder if it’ll come to a head in the next book. (Unsure where to put this but I really like that scene when they’re preparing for the storm and she’s nervous and distracts herself by frantically complimenting Nightheart’s eyes in way-too-poetic terms, I think it says something interesting about the way she thinks about relationships... I dunno! Interesting stuff. I also like the scene with Squirrelstar that’s like “You can go sneak on WindClan territory but don’t get caught wink wink”. I love you squilf <3 Or do we have to call her squilst now? I hope not.)

Not much to say on Nightheart’s chapters but I think it’s interesting that he has a moment where he (gasp) ADMIRES A STORY ABOUT FIRESTAR??? Also I love the moment he has where he’s like “once upon a time if someone said that to me I would have literally attacked them, now I’m only mildly annoyed.... #Progress” he’s so funny. It’s also sweet how much he cares for Frostpaw after they became friends in Thunder! And how he became Wafflepaw’s mentor! He’s come so far :) I think right now he’s definitely sort of acting as the glue between the other POV characters rather than having a focused arc of his own, but I honestly don’t hate it? I do wonder if they’re gonna do anything particularly interesting with him before the arc’s over, though, since it feels like most of his conflicts got resolved halfway through the arc and he’s just been chilling ever since. Again, not bad on its own, just an observation.

So, yeah, pretty solid book as far as Warriors books go. Not as great as Thunder but I’m still pretty amazed at how consistently solid this arc has been.

Anyway, on to site related news... Have you played the interactive Clovenglade game yet? If not I think you should! I’ve also made some smaller updates like making it so you can actually save the trophy image you receive for winning at the racetrack, as well as some other small, teensy updates like that. I’m also planning on redrawing some of the stable sprites to make them all look a little more consistent and nicer... I know I redrew Moonshadow’s sprite already however-many-months-ago but even in the redraw her shoulders look a little odd. I think my grasp of anatomy is a little better now and I’ve already got a decent part of Flash’s new sprite done and he looks a lotttt better. I’m kind of debating on redrawing all of them since they’re kind of the most important sprites to get really “correct”, you know? I think after that I’ll be well and truly satisfied with Clovenglade, apart from some small things I might do like draw some more cards or whatever if the fancy strikes me. (And yes, I am still working... Very Slowly.... on my final Pokemon Creepypasta...)

And I’m a supporter account now. Neat!

As I mentioned before- I went to my first Renaissance Faire on Sunday! (And I went with my lovely girlfriend. smiles) Even though my parents were always into this kind of thing they never took me along, so it was my first time. There was definitely a bit of a road trip to get there but the drive was pretty scenic and nice! The line to get into the parking lot was crazy though. Once we were parked it was pretty seamless to get in. It was about noon.

Almost immediately after we got in and wandered through the shops and tents for a little bit, a joust began. I actually got a few pictures of the jousters and I uploaded one of them to my Piclog, it’s a pretty nice action shot! It’s always cool seeing horseback stunts and tricks and it was kind of awesome seeing the joust basically right after we came in, and getting to pet the winning horse!

After that my girlfriend went off on a quest to get us a turkey leg and some street corn, since the huge turkey legs are a pretty iconic part of Renaissance Faires and I was told I was obligated to get one at least once. I went to go take a bathroom break in the meantime, got lost for a little while, and then we reconvened. (The turkey was delicious.) It was fun wandering around while snacking and gnawing on it. I was pretty glad I didn’t opt to wear any makeup that day because what a mess that would be...! I also got a cup of mead and it was pretty alright! Not my favorite ever but it was definitely tasty.

Apart from seeing all the cool jewelry and leatherworking, a lot of the memorable things we saw were live animal related exhibits. We saw an elephant, a horse dressed up as a unicorn, a little show with birds of prey (one of the falcons was PISSED at being taken out of its box lol), and there was an EXTREMELY cute petting zoo with an adorable calf that tried to eat my lacey black sleeves.

My girlfriend was looking to get a cool ring so we were also on the lookout for interesting jewelry. She ended up finding a cool bat ring with a beautiful Labradorite stone and it looks AMAZING on her <3 My biggest purchase was at a stall featuring very cute posable handmade pet dragons made of silicon. There was this whole little adoption process where we picked out our dragons, tried them on our wrists (ours were also glow in the dark which was really cool!!!) and we were encouraged to think of names. My dragon was dark royal blue with lots of glitter so I named him Orion since I thought he looked like the night sky and it was the first constellation I could think of. My girlfriend got a black and red dragon, I think we eventually settled on Brimstone. I’m quite pleased with my purchase, it’s so cute and you can have them as bracelets or wrapped around lamps and stuff. The immersion of the whole adoption process was a nice touch too. Orion is currently wrapped around an old wine bottle I use as a vase for my black roses.

Of course after a while we eventually left, after enjoying some bubble lemonade and sitting in on some singing performances. We had a full day and left merry- there were so many costumes, sights to see, and just everything was so delightful. I spent the night at her place and then came home after lunch the next day. So to conclude I think I’m a fan now, this was one of the most fun weekends I’ve had in forever and I definitely want to come next year! It also really makes me want similar-ish events for stuff like Halloween or other themed stuff. I just love a themed area, in general.

Also, game status update- the “default build” is totally complete, apart from the audio, I’ve got a couple ambient tracks for the different areas I want to get implemented. After that it’s down to making the various builds of the game, giving each horse its own unique NPC dialogue, collectables, etc. And then I’ll need to get a Neocities supporter account, and hopefully everything should work perfectly? I’m really thrilled with how well it’s come out. All the areas are almost exactly like how I imagined them, all the sprites scaled how I wanted them, and it’s just so fun to explore- and, I mean, I made the damn thing! So it makes me wonder what it would be like to play with fresh eyes. It’s all very exciting stuff! So probably expect it by the end of April? Probably sooner but I like to be generous with regards to time estimates. Only thing I’d really worry about is if the AGS web export somehow ends up not working when I host it on my site, and if that happens I’ll probably host it on Itch.io or something like that... Hosting on my own website is always preferable though.

Since I’ve been working on a Clovenglade-related project again, one which involves drawing a lotttt of horses, I got thinking about the various horses I featured in the cards as well as in the stables. And I figured it’d be fun to make a quick blogpost about the influences behind them, since they’re pretty closely based on what I remember of playing with and collecting the real life Bella Sara cards when I was a kid- both in terms of extending credit for my inspirations as well as giving a little “behind the scenes” taste.

Oskar - Oskar is “that horse”, the one you probably rode if you got riding lessons as a kid, the one who's by far the most patient around younger riders and maybe a little on the older side. You're like 7 years old so you probably gravitated towards the cooler or prettier horses but the instructor directed you to “that horse” instead- I wanted to tap into that energy for Oskar since he's the horse you have by default when you first visit Clovenglade. His breed is Norwegian Fjord, so picked because of one I used to work with IRL. But the interesting thing is that Oskar is repurposed from a previous project/idea/thing, an outline I had written up for a “Pokemon-like” story driven horse game where Oskar was the default “starter” horse as well. A lot of plot elements like the princess character and the Wellspring area were (loosely) brought over from that original idea, though the setting of that concept was more cold and Scandinavian aesthetically. Also, Fjord horses just look really cool!

Juliana - Juliana is more of an expy of pre-existing Bella Sara characters, she's based on my half-remembered impression of both Jewel and Fiona (hence the name). I’ve mentioned before I got into Bella Sara through the books, and Jewel’s book was one I owned back in the day. Juliana is also based on the “blood bay” coat coloration, and I think her red coat is really striking! Due to Fiona’s influence on the design, she has a bit of a fire motif as well.

Toby - Toby is the more rugged “western” design archetype within horse media to contrast with all the more flowy designs, as he’s a relatively normal horse (he shares this appeal with Oskar, but Oskar is “softer” while Toby is more tough and pointed, in an abstract sense). And paint horses are just cute and Mustangs are a really cool breed. I think his charm point is definitely the streak in his mane, it's very cute to me. I initially added it to his design as a highlight color but I became so smitten with it that I kept it. I also think he’s got probably the cutest of the stable sprites tbh?

Flash - Flash is very much a “horse movie” horse, the unstable and skittish horse that bonds with the main character and then wins every race through their friendship. Flash is similar to Juliana, though, in that (mostly design-wise) I based him on my half-remembered impression of Thunder (another Bella Sara horse), with the twist being that he’s a fraidy-cat rather than being strong and courageous. I feel like all horse media has at least one Fresian somewhere... Flash is also, of course, named after Adobe Flash Player, which is actually his full name. (This is canon.)

Moonshadow - Moonshadow is a fantasy unicorn, rounding out the various horse archetypes. Bella Sara had a big emphasis on magical fantasy horses so I knew I had to include at least one, and unicorns are one of my favorite mythical creatures, so it just worked out. Dappled grey coats are my favorite to design, so I included that as well, and I like how she turned out. I feel kinda bad having put a cool glowy unicorn in the stables though since everyone I’ve asked has said they picked her over the other horses... Ah well.

Dawnbreaker - So, back when I still had my Bella Sara cards, my favorite one I owned was named Zephyros, which was all holofoil and shiny. Dawnbreaker’s pose on her card is closely based on that card’s design. As the first winged horse I designed for this project I also made her intentionally contrast with Moonshadow’s design as well, since they were both mythological horses.... And then I designed more winged horses and unicorns afterwards, of course. She’s the princess’s horse, so her orange and purple pallette is intentionally reflected in colors associated with the royal family (you’ll see these colors featured in some decor in the game- more on that later!)

Dandelion - Dandelion is closely based on my horse from Breath of the Wild, who I had from nearly the start of the game. She was loyal and strong and we fought Ganon together, and most of my fond memories of BOTW and TOTK are horse-related. She’s living a nice life with maxed out stats in TOTK :)

Mircalla - Mircalla is based on this image I saw months ago, of a horse looking in a mirror inside of a room with red walls. And Bella Sara always had some creepier horses mixed in with the pretty ones, so why not a vampire horse with no reflection?? I'm a huge fan of vampire media as you can probably tell lol

Amora - Vague memories of cards like Anemone and Rosebriar. The design is pretty simple, but her rose bracelet is a cute detail.

Daisychain - Felt like designing a foal, and I think her braid is a fun detail even if it is hard to draw... Thinking back, the pale grey coat and black mane is pretty reminiscent of Wings!

Lurelei - Based directly on a Bella Sara toy I owned back in the day, a little fuzzy miniature of Mermaid. I wish I still had it but to this day I still don’t know what I ended up doing with my tin of cards and stuff. Ah well. There are also more than a few cards of ghost horses lurking by the water, so Lurelei is based on what I remembered of those, as well as myths of creatures like Kelpies. I really like fish horses/merhorses in general so I’m surprised I didn’t design more.

Speckle - We love spotty horses!!! And since the “plot” of Clovenglade takes place during a celebration/festival I wanted to theme a card around that, so the playful and silly Speckle has the honor.

Shatter - Needed more dark, edgy horses. So, we have Shatter. Not much to say about his design since it’s by far the most simple, but I imagine he lives in the woods and can talk to wolves.

Amalthea - Based directly on the unicorn from The Last Unicorn, and the art is referenced from one of the famous Unicorn Tapestries, which is also featured in the film’s opening. Amalthea’s design is based on the film, but certain details like her seafoam color and the lilac wood are references to details from the book.

AND AS PROMISED: THE GAME STATUS UPDATE... Nearly all of the graphics are done, I just need to finish one more room backdrop. I’ve also started tinkering with Adventure Game Studio and learning how to use it, and I do have my first playable build of the first room, I have an NPC working, I have a collectable working. And that’s a big chunk of what functionalities I’ll have in the game (still need to figure out switching between areas and editing some of the movement since the default controls are a tad.... slidey?), so I’m pretty confident that I’ll be able to get everything working smoothly. I’m also intending to bring my computer with me next week-ish? When I go to visit my girlfriend, so we can work on the game together, as she’s the one who recommended AGS to me.

So, once I finish that initial version, it’s just a matter of making different edits with the different playable horses, as well as their exclusive dialogues and items and such, and exporting them for use on my website. So, unless something goes horribly wrong, the game should be pretty easy to finish up once I’m into the swing of things. It’s really exciting to be making a “real game” and I’m excited for everyone to be able to walk around in the world of Clovenglade just like how I was able to in North of North in my youth. I’m really really excited for this project, it’s one of the most ambitious things I have planned for the site.

Also in a couple days I'm going to my first Renaissance Faire so I'm super hyped for that as well! I'll be sure to write up a huge blog post about that too :D

UPDATE FROM 3/23/24 - Wellwellwell I decided to try and test out my first build on Neocities to make sure everything's compatible and, uh, whoops- turns out that most of the associated files are supporter-only! So it looks like I'll need to get a supporter subscription to host my game. I'm not too upset, I'd been meaning to for a while and getting to host stuff like audio and stuff myself rather than externally will be very nice, but I would like to take a moment to plug my Kofi. If just one person decides to send me a donation per month, that's the whole cost covered, which is pretty sweet. No pressure of course and no one is obligated to donate! But since work has continued to cut my hours and all that I just wanted to mention it :)

Awfully dramatic title, but as of today I’ve officially “100%ed” TamaNOTchi, in that I’ve raised one of every species + gender variant and got them every equip item (the highest is the Candy Dip, at 5k clicks). I started on my journey around when ownership of the site got transferred, I think last June? with my Pixmao Bela, so it took around 9 months to do this. You could definitely do this faster since earlier on I was averaging about 50 clicks a day, but later I tried to hit a stride of around 250. I have been... weirdly invested in getting All Of Them. Well, now my 6th tamanotchi, Caper, has hit the milestone! Yippeeeee!

Also also! Looks like I hit more than 3,000 unique visitors on my site, that’s really exciting...! It’s hard to imagine 3,000 different people, it’s really an unfathomable number for lil’ ol’ me. I’m truly thankful!

Also I had a lovely date today, showing my girlfriend the true jank of Wolfquest 2.5, snuggling, and we also went to Olive Garden :) I had a delicious berry sangria and a tasty tiramisu and some alfredo and salad and everything. I LOVE SANGRIA. Sangria and cider are like, the top two alcoholic drinks ever, to me.

Not much else to share, but the progress on the next update to Clovenglade is chugging along nicely! Most of the graphics are done which is probably the most time consuming part, I hope.

I dunno, I’m just in an awfully chipper mood right now :)

OOF I haven’t blogposted in quite a while!!! (Partially because I spent part of the last week being sick and miserable lol) Well since I have several projects cooking up I should probably ??? share what’s going on and what I’m working on.

So, the third creepypasta is still being worked on. I have the beginning bit and the ending bit finished; the middle connective part is what I’m struggling with. I know what happens but writing everything out is the hard part! But I try to work on it a little every day, so it’ll get finished eventually.

Second, and this is the huge one... I think near the beginning of the year I mentioned wanting to make some kind of walkaround/riding game for Clovenglade... Well, plans are underway, since I found a perfect tool for it that I can use to make it playable in-browser and everything: Adventure Game Studio! I’m working on getting all the assets done first so that when I actually get into the coding bit I have all the pieces I need, plus I’ll be sunk cost fallacied into not getting too intimidated to finish it. Because I drew all those sprites, you know? I’m halfway done with the player character sprites but those are definitely the most complicated ones so it should be smoother sailing after that. Creating something that replicates the feelings I had for Bella Sara Adventures will be so fun and exciting! Fingers crossed that I learn the interface quickly and easily haha. But once I figure out the basics of “put NPCs and collectable items in a room” and “let the player move between different rooms” it should be easy peasy. It’s something I think that would really “complete” Clovenglade. (And if I really take to it maybe I’ll make more point and click stuff for the site? Could be fun.)

The Pokepasta shrine I’ve been talking about wanting to make is on the backburner until these two projects are completed, but to give you an idea of what it would be like, it’s probably going to be most similar to The Wolf’s Den in style and format. But once I finish that, I was thinking about making an interactive digital witch altar where you could click and drag stones and plants and stuff around, and it would come with a spellbook of silly “digital spells” simply because I think it would be fun and cute.

I put in an availability request at my job so I might get more hours, so I may end up being more busy. We’ll see, we’ll see. But the aim there is to gradually ramp up how much I’m working in a week as I prepare for Getting A House Maybe(?!?!?!?)

I feel like early this year I haven’t really been super focused regarding web stuff simply because there’s just a lot going on in my life but it feels good to be getting back into the swing of things and having a big project to work towards. Like, I have direction, which is nice. We’ll see how it all shakes out ^_^

I woke up like 15 minutes before the annual Pokemon livestream so I watched it then and there. As far as announcements go, there surprisingly weren’t very many, beyond the usual “we have an event going on on our Apps” stuff and what have you. The actual new stuff was a TCG app (which I don’t really have much interest in) and... a Legends game taking place in Kalos?! HUH?

All throughout the stream i could have SWORN they were teasing Johto, but I guess I was wrong! And I’ve never been so pleased to be proven wrong, honestly. Kalos kind of needed a revisit, fans have been lamenting the lack of a “Pokemon Z” for years, and seeing beloved mechanics like Mega Evolutions return will be pretty nice. Lumiose seems to be the hub city similar to Jubilife. Other than that, and the title, Legends Z-A, they’ve been fairly sparse on details. No gameplay footage yet. I've also seen some speculation that it might be taking place in the future rather than the past...! We'll have to see.

HOWEVER... The most exciting thing to me? The 2025 release date, especially since there aren’t any other upcoming games in 2024 from Gamefreak, meaning Z-A will get all the focus and dev time. It seems like the rumours about wanting to reduce the blistering release schedule are true, and I hope they take all the time they need to make Z-A as best as it can be. They might actually be listening! (Watch as it comes out in January and I have to eat my words, lol)

So my overall thoughts are that it looks promising and I hope they take their time.

ALSO I finally finished all the research tasks for my Hisui dex! Yay!! So I have the Shiny Charm now :) So now all that stands in the way of 100% completion are the last few Path of Solitude quests and the final star rank which I need around 5,000 EXP to get. Shouldn’t be too hard, right?! ...Right?

My new GBA has been treating me nicely as well so I’ve been playing some Leaf Green, I intend to finish the post-game quests at some point so that’s my goal once I’m finished with everything in Arceus. I’ve also been playing Pokemon Pinball RS because I was like “well why not?” and loaded it onto my flashcart. It’s pretty fun when I’m bored.

Ah, other news... Peeper has a hole in him D: It’s where his incision was made, the stitching came loose so we are going to have to restitch him next time we see each other. His fabric is made of a kind of weird faux fur material so it keeps stressing me out even if the hole is pretty small. The initial stitching was a bit rushed/sloppy according to my gf so we are going to give him a tighter, stronger ladder stitch, which should hopefully hold up better to snuggling. It’s only a small issue but my brain is of course taking this seed of worry and planting a whole garden out of it -_-

Edit 2/29/24 - Peeper has been repaired! He's nice and sturdy now and as a result of the strong stitching one of his legs is very cutely off-kilter. He looks like he's prancing, it's adorable!

That’s all for now. Nothing huge to report with regards to my job or anything, Still working on the third and final chapter to my loose creepypasta trilogy, but writer’s block is a bitch rn..!

I was talking about my personal tarot readings with my girlfriend and came around to joking about using trading cards for divination (for example Pokemon) and then I mentioned that Bella Sara feels almost purpose-built for that kind of idea, what with the inspirational quotes and everything. So just for fun I decided to make a sort of “guide” for reading Bella Sara cards. Since there are so many cards I mostly wanted to make a framework that would apply to any card if pulled, and for whatever spread you like.

-The quote is the most direct communication of the card’s message. Motifs within the card can be used to clarify its intent or interpreted to apply to your life.

-Is the horse in motion or is it still? A horse in motion can indicate that the message is to be applied to a future change and upcoming chaos; a horse that is still or serene may indicate meditation on your current situation.

-Does the card feature the sky, the sea, or the land most prominently? The sky can represent external emotional conflict. The sea can represent internal emotional conflict. The land can represent the physical and material.

-Color motifs, though this is more up to interpretation, what does the color make YOU think of? How does it make YOU feel?

-Is it night or day? The day is exuberant, the night is introspective and quiet.

-The presence of other beings or creatures can indicate outside assistance or influence from those in your life.

-Holofoil or shiny elements mean that the influences of the card are particularly strong and wide-reaching.

For example, let's take this Thunder card. Say the person reading it is on the verge of taking a new job which pays better, but would have to leave their current employment, which has thus far been stable and reliable.

Thunder’s message indicates facing this with courage, the stormy sky and the red color indicating the chaos of the change. Thunder is in motion, but moving in a controlled and poised way, he is walking forward with determination rather than galloping with his head reared- he is handling the chaos.

This card could indicate to move forward with the change, but keep level-headed about it, as it may be tumultuous.

This was mostly just for giggles but if anyone does decide to use this idea please let me know how it works for you.

Though my birthday was like half a week ago, some celebrations yet remained, as I had still yet to receive gifts from my Beloved Girlfriend... God I just want to gush about how sweet she is and how considerate her gifts are.

The first and most impressive one: a GBA SP! I had been needing another means to play my GBA games since my DS Lite’s GBA slot is a bit fucked. And it’s so cute, it’s dark blue with a yellow star pendant attached to it, almost like a beautiful night sky. AND she also got me a Pokemon Silver copy to test it out with and... GUYS she totally Lost Silver’d me!!! The classic prank. (the save file being “...” and being totally empty except for a Cyndaquil named HURRY made me smile a lot). Gen 2 always kind of stressed me out to think about playing because it’s sort of ticking time bomb with regards to the save battery but I think 7ish years is more than enough time to enjoy the game and use one of the many, MANY methods to back up a save file when the time comes (there are definitely warning signs for when the battery starts to go, from what I’ve read). I feel like digital impermanence is something I stress about a lot compared to most people. I have a lot of empathy for inanimate or digital things. I dunno, just some thoughts I’ve been kicking around lately :P

I also received some Pokemon cards (and I pulled a holo Zoroark which made me smile) and some hand sanitizer (always wanted/needed since I’m a bit of a clean freak with a handwashing compulsion :P) an Amazon gift card, a delicious sushi dinner, and, the most “Noa-specific” gift ever: Peeper!!!

Peeper needs some explaining. So, as some attentive readers may know, WolfQuest is one of my favorite games ever, and my gf also dabbles in wolfing and questing, mostly to play multiplayer with me. Well, we wanted to do co-op pup rearing, and what they don’t tell you about that is that it’s definitely balanced around more than 2 players... Our poor litter of puppies was easily fed and mostly well defended... Until the stranger wolves. They picked them off one by one as we struggled to keep up, diligently keeping our remaining offspring fed and protected, until there was one: our little brown puppy Peeper. And we defended him with our lives.

However... Just as we were on the verge of finishing the final mission of the game and reaching “Endless Summer”... The Rescue Creek pack attacked once more. I was away on a hunting patrol, and while carrying a freshly-killed fawn back to the territory... Peeper was slain before I could return. And because he was our last pup, we lost the game, and we were promptly booted out of the session.

We mourned. My gf hadn’t thought to make any saves while we were playing, so we assumed he was lost... until we remembered the deeply ephemeral autosaves. If there was one where Peeper was still alive he may yet be saved. And so, we scrambled to rescue him. There were two autosaves, one mere moments after he was killed, and one mere moments before. And so she reloaded, and we snatched him from the jaws of death. With our ritual, Peeper finally was able to live once more! (And we made sure to make a proper save.)

Anyway, why is this story relevant? Well, one of her gifts was a plush wolf with an SD card containing the save file, screenshots, and our messages to Peeper stitched inside (+ a tea bag so he smells like the tea we had on our first ever date (Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice)... He smells SO GOOD I can’t stop sniffing him ToT). She apparently put the SD card inside him during a candlelit ritual and I find this like, so deeply profound? Like he’s our pup. In the flesh. He’s gone beyond an in-game construct, he is a sort of spirit given effigy. (This definitely ties into my general feelings about empathy for the inanimate and digital preservation, it’s something that’s very important to me...)

Peeper lives; Peeper is an idea; Peeper is eternal.

Peeper is the cutest wolf pup in the entire world.

ALSO I couldn’t find where to put this but YESTERDAY in Legends Arceus I finally found a shiny Zorua! My dream shiny!!! He’s so cute, I named him Angel and he is now my best friend. I don’t intend to evolve him, but if I find another shiny I may evolve that one into Zoroark. (I’ve been finding a lot of shiny ghost types in Legends lately...)

Yay it’s my birthday :) I’m going to pick out a cake later today and I’ve already opened the presents from my family... Though of course the biggest present is one I was already allowed to open (my new laptop!!!) so all the ones left to open today are smaller gifts since the laptop was quite expensive.

The spoils included a dragon figurine, several books including an illuminated manuscript style Pokedex, and a Sandman collection, a mouse for my new computer, and new JoyCons for my switch. I’m surprised I’ve managed this long without having to replace them! The amount of drift on my old ones is manageable and mildly annoying but it’s nice having new ones, particularly since they’re the orange and purple ones :D Pairing them to my switch this morning was a bit of a wakeup call with regards to how bad the drift had actually gotten though, and how much I had trained myself around it lol

I’ve already been out for an early birthday dinner at a local French restaurant, and enjoyed some escargot, scallops, and profiteroles. But I’ve also got plans to go and have a big sushi dinner with my girlfriend later this week, which I am quite excited for!!!

But I think the real birthday gift is knowing how much promise this year holds. Finally moving out feels like it’s really in reach and a lot of things in my life are seeming like they’re on the right track.

I love you all! Have a nice day :)

IT’S OFFICIAL- My website is now one year old!!! It’s surreal to imagine keeping this going this long, especially trying to put myself in the shoes of when I first started the site (exactly a year ago). It’s kind of funny how much things changed over the past year for me.

I just want to say thanks to everyone who visits and supports my creative endeavors, I’ve put a little bit of my soul out for you to see, and you’ve all been so kind.

As a special treat, here’s a picture of my website around when it first began... Isn’t that such a garish purple?! The contrast on those links... Is just awful. It’s kind of cute.

Well, here’s to another year. And five more, and ten, and as many as I can keep the site going come hell or high water >:) Happy birthday, wygolvillage.neocities.org!

Since the Warriors website has finally- FINALLY!- revealed the blurb, title and cover for the upcoming 6th book in A Starless Clan (before we even got book 5 no less) I figured I would write down my theories for how things might end...

First, I think Frostpaw will become a leader. Riverclan has very few interesting characters who feel like leader material, and she’s by far the most central character in the arc’s drama. Seeing her rise to dethrone Splashtail would be extremely narratively satisfying, and it would make a lot of things in the arc, like her connection to Riverstar and the fact that the leader chosen will be an “unexpected” candidate (like an apprentice who never even got a full name, perhaps?), make a lot of sense and click together. It’s also nice to see that sort of progression, with the main character going from a naive apprentice to a strong leader ready to lead Riverclan into a new era. I mean, she’s on the cover of the last book, and it IS called Star...

If not Frostpaw, I think Nightheart might be the candidate, but I think I would like it a lot less, mostly because it feels like his arc is kind of dependent on him realizing he wants to remain in Thunderclan. I do see it as a possibility, though, with how he was chosen by prophecy to be Frostpaw’s companion on the journey to the park cats, and how he would be equally “unexpected”. But I feel like having his arc end with him becoming leader like Firestar would either be cool in a sort of “living up to the legacy not by upholding tradition and imitating his forebearer, but rather by being himself” way, or being extremely lame in an “everyone was right to expect this of him” way.

As for Sunbeam... I think with the way the arc has been playing with the idea of her viewing her own value and place in the world in the context of idealized romantic relationships (as well as overcoming that fault), my biggest hope is that she breaks things off with Nightheart but remains in Thunderclan, as well as close friends with him due to their shared experiences. I think Berryheart will probably come back as a secondary threat, and Sunbeam will grow into her own and express her opinions and defy Berryheart more openly, and be given the big moment of defeating her mother once and for all, or at least that’s my very idealistic theory for how it plays out. Realistically I think she might remain mates with Nightheart, but I do think she’s going to remain in Thunderclan with how much emphasis has been put on how much it feels like home to her. I also hope that Sunbeam and Frostpaw get some kind of interaction, I think a side effect from the split POV between the clans is that the authors, like, forget to have the main characters interact with each other (see: Bristlefrost and Shadowsight)

Curlfeather... I’m kind of intrigued by her since a lot of attention has been given to her loving Frostpaw despite the ways she had lied to her, and how she has given Frostpaw visions while being a Dark Forest cat. I think that she might posthumously redeem herself after seeing how Frostpaw was hurt by her ambitions? I dunno, we’ll see. I think she’s a fascinating character, all signs point to her having a lot more nuance than people think. I don't think she will be purely good, but I do think that she will likely try to atone for her involvement with Splashtail. Maybe she’ll be able to give a life to the cat who becomes Riverclan’s leader?

Also I really hate to say it but I’m so worried that Squirrelstar is a fakeout and that she didn’t get her 9 lives. The framing of her ceremony seems so odd, and I really hope not because I’ve been waiting for her to be leader for YEARS she really deserves it.

Well, that’s all for now. It’s kinda funny I think I’ve been “fandom posting” a lot more on my blog lately, i wonder if that’s because I would have otherwise posted this kind of thing on Tumblr in the past...?

WELL WELL WELL I have some really good news, and that’s that it’s looking likely that my girlfriend and I will be able to live in a house for $1200 a month, which is not bad at all :0 We had been hoping to get an apartment but the surprise Possible House is even better. It’s right in the area we already live so I don’t have to worry too much about changing where I work or anything, and it’s a really nice place. It’s just a matter of if/when the current resident moves out... Fingers crossed!

My job is going okay but I’m not hyped for this weekend, given that it’s the Super Bowl and inevitably everyone’s gonna want their chicken tender sub @_@ I have two 8 hour shifts this weekend and everything. Woof. I’ve also been getting less hours lately, and I like having time off and it’s normal for it to be slow season rn, but I kind of wish this wasn’t happening as I’m gearing up to get moved out (HOPEFULLY). If I really need to I’ll ask my managers about it, they’re pretty nice as far as managers go.

My Hisui dex is going good, I’ve finished the entries for 152/242 Pokemon, so there’s still a ways to go but it’s nice to relax and unwind by working on 5-10 dex entries every day. I’ve also done every sidequest apart from most of the path of solitude ones. The Ultimate Balloon Race was really tough but a lot of fun to finally triumph over :) It’s kind of funny I basically put the game down as soon as I had caught Arceus at the time that I had gotten it, but it only makes returning all the sweeter :D Also also! I found two more random shinies!!! A Drifloon and a Haunter... I swear my shiny luck isn’t rigged... (Still hoping for a shiny Zorua someday)

Also if you haven’t seen it yet, a second Pokemon creepypasta has mysteriously appeared in the library oooooh... I’m really glad I’ve been getting back into writing, for years I had such extreme writer’s block that it just feels good to finish something.

And... My website’s birthday is coming up!!! And mine as well lol. The 15th and 19th respectively. It feels surreal that a year later a project I started on a whim is still going strong <3 It's also hard to believe we're also already a third of the way through february already...

An very brief, late night update- I’ve gotten one of my birthday presents a bit early, which is a pretty expensive high end laptop. Not exactly a Gaming Laptop but it can run WolfQuest a lot smoother than my old desktop. This means I’m not sharing my computer with my sibling anymore and I have a lot more time to update and work on things. It’s also nice being able to snuggle up in bed with my computer!

I feel like a lot of my plans and ideas I outlined in my new years posts have gotten out on the backburner. I very suddenly got my interest in writing back, so a lot of what I’ve got cooking up is related to that. I’m also weirdly fixated on edgy Pokemon creepypastas right now so I’m considering making a shrine page... We’ll see we’ll see. I’m also nearly at a month without social media now which is pretty exciting. Mostly I’m just chilling.

huh I thought I’d have more to write right now. Can I just mention how weird setting up a computer is now? So many preinstalled programs I’ll never use @_@

Welp it's been a good while since early October but I’ve finally attended another live music event (featuring one of the bands from the music festival I went to, Astari Nite!!) Like usual I’ve refrained from looking too deep into the opening acts I wasn't familiar with prior, and the two opening bands (IAMYOU and Obsidian) did not disappoint.

The venue was particularly fun since it was split in two halves, a bar and restaurant and then the actual live music area itself. So we got to have dinner before the doors opened, and I had the absolute crispiest, tastiest cuban I’ve had maybe ever? Before we went I was looking at the menu and someone left like an 1000+ word essay about how good the cuban was and honestly I get it. After dinner we got into the concert hall and on the way in the singer from Astari Nite said hi to me, which was really cool... I just said “hey!” back but internally I was quite starstruck lol

The first band up was IAMYOU which is notably pretty hard to track down online and they were selling thumb drives with their music at the merch table, lending an air of mystique which I respect but... Oh my god please get on bandcamp... ANYWAY their dark synthetic sound and frantic, pleading vocals were really atmospheric and the first thing that comes to mind is “being trapped underground and being extremely cold”, at an emotional level. The performance with the large mirror was particularly memorable. I wish I could share their music with you more easily!

Obsidian I was also not too familiar with but HOLY SHIT that has to be goth rock at its absolute pinnacle. Every note felt absolutely perfect and I was dancing like crazy (apparently my dancing earned me a thumbs up from the keyboardist so that's Noa Gets Starstruck Moment #2 of the night). Also can I just say I love goth rock with metal-esque screaming? It’s not common at all but it always sounds AMAZING, not something you’d expect to be such a match made in heaven.

Astari Nite was the headliner and they were just as good as they were at the music festival, it was nice to see them perform again and they played some of my favorites which was really nice.

All in all an amazing night! Shoutout to live music!!!

So, real oldheads(?) will remember I used to have a page called “the Record Box” where I filled up an SCM player widget with a bunch of music I really like, until Youtube broke it, because apparently they hate the idea of playing youtube videos outside of their website. (Has anyone else noticed that? Like, lately when I try to play an embedded video it doesn’t work most of the time and just tells me to open it in youtube.) So, yeah, the Record Box is long gone which means I have no giant list of favorite songs on my site any more. A simple blog post may have to do... But this time it means I can write a short description of why I like each one, which is a little full circle, since that was my initial concept for my Record Box page before I found out about SCM player. I think I’ve narrowed down my list a bit...

This Ascension - Ashes Don’t Burn: This is my default answer when someone asks me what my favorite song is. I even have a funny story about first discovering it via a youtube recommendation I clicked on a whim, and suddenly getting blasted by The Most Beautiful Song In The World. I really do love songs where the main emotional focus is just sheer passion- even now when I listen I feel like I’m hearing the sound of an angel breaking free of a mortal shell. That’s a bit pretentious, so let’s just say this- This Ascension is a really good band, and Ashes Don’t Burn is, indeed, my favorite song.

The Shroud - Prophecy: Another one I randomly found on youtube one day, specifically I remember this was around the time I was really diving into the wider world of goth music. After finding it, I listened to it on repeat as I took walks around my neighborhood at night, when the weather was chilly enough to do that. I did that with a lot of other songs by The Shroud too, but Prophecy is still my favorite. I love how the lyrics paint this picture of a tormented prophetess who just wants to be normal, you know?

All About Eve - End of the Day: Another funny story with this one, I remember years and years ago I was listening to someone’s goth song compilations and mixes on youtube and hearing this absolutely beautiful song that I vaguely remembered having lyrics about the sun and the day. I tried to find it again much later but the mix I heard it on had been taken down due to copyright, so I assumed I’d never hear it again... And then, much much later, as I was listening to All About Eve on shuffle to get a feel for their music, there it was. As soon as I heard the “A golden sky, a golden sunset” part, I knew: I had found it again. I hope the fact that I remembered it for years is a suitable endorsement.

The Cure - Lullaby: One of the first Cure songs I remember listening to and still my favorite. It’s got such a good groove too it and who doesn’t love a song about being eaten by spiders?

This Burning Effigy - Communion with Sophia: As you can probably tell I go down a lot of rabbit holes discovering music I haven’t heard yet, and this was one of them. One thing I like about This Burning Effigy is how big and echoey some of their songs can be, almost “gothic” in the “gothic cathedral” sense. God, what an awesome song.

The Mission - Severina: Not much to say honestly, just a really good song. Goth songs where the chorus is just howling some lady’s name always go hard for some reason...

New Order - True Faith: Again, not much to say, I’ve just always liked this one. I hear it on the radio a lot.

Cocteau Twins - Musette and Drums: One of my favorites of Cocteau Twins’ darker sound. The wall of sound and anguished vocals are everything.

Cocteau Twins - Persephone: See above!

Switchblade Symphony - Clown: Again, not much to say. Huh, I thought I’d have more. But I love how spiteful it sounds, like the song itself is mocking you.

The Changelings - Earthquake at Versailles: My mom gave me the CD for the album this one was on around Halloween years and years ago and I was obsessed with it ever after.

Bauhaus - The Passion of Lovers: My favorite Bauhaus song... I remember I was listening to it a lot when things were really ramping up in Dracula Daily in 2022 so I always sort of associate it with Lucy Westenra.

Oingo Boingo - Dead Man’s Party: The first song I remember considering as a “favorite”, when I was very very young (and literally in preschool... damn). And I still love it!!!

Autumn - How it Came to Be This Way: I discovered this band a year or so ago and their album “The Hating Tree” is absolutely to die for :)

Kate Bush - Cloudbusting: I thought long and hard about which Kate Bush song to include since she’s one of my favorite musicians EVER, but I ended up going with Cloudbusting because of the lush strings.

So yeah, that’s my list :)

I wasn't sure what to expect from Blueberry Academy when I booted up the new Pokemon DLC update about a week after it actually came out. I wanted to wait until I was really in the mood for Pokemon since I think that's when Pokemon really is the most fun for me. If you read my final 2023 blog post and kept up with my status updates you’ll have heard about a few of my exploits in the Indigo Disc, particularly all the shinies I found, but that really only scratched the surface of all the content in this second installment.

Perrin, the NPC who unlocks the Bloodmoon Beast for you, returns, now tasking you with catching 200 different Pokemon. Expecting something as breezy as her task in Kitakami, I set to work catching ‘em all as my first priority, since I suspected that completing her task would unlock something cool (and it did, I got two legendaries out of it in the end). But you can't just catch every Pokemon you see, you have to unlock more biodiversity in the Terarium by doing sidequests for BP. The system where you can upgrade the league club and receive cool bonuses by spending your BP is really neat in theory, but realistically if you want to catch the new legendary paradox Pokemon Raging Bolt and Gouging Fire, you realistically will need to put all your BP towards the steep 3,000 price to upgrade each biome, so I haven't gotten the opportunity to truly explore this system and all the interesting things I can get from it. The tasks themselves are simple enough and I especially like all the photography quests where you're tasked with photographing a certain kind of Pokemon, or one performing a specific action like swimming or flying. I will however take a moment to complain about how the raid exclusive paradox Pokemon aren't DLC content, as I assumed they were. When Iron Leaves and Walking Wake were first rolled out, I was actually unable to complete the raid to catch Walking Wake since the raids, especially the high level ones, are balanced around multiplayer. This wouldn't be a problem, except that on the Switch, multiplayer requires an online subscription, which I frankly refuse to pay for- this was a free service for the DS and 3DS. So I just gave up since I could barely get through half of its healthbar, and I’m still pretty sour about the experience where I could have potentially missed out permanently on such a cool Pokemon. Thankfully they returned to raids in late December so I could finally reclaim the paradox Suicune, but this shouldn't be the precedent, especially because you can capture the other two members of their respective trios whenever you want in the DLC. It's all fine and dandy now, but what happens once they aren't bothering to push out new raids every so often? I’ve always had this sort of problem with event Pokemon, and locking one behind being able to perform well at the game is itself somewhat even more user-unfriendly. Anyway...

The Terarium itself is... decent, I thought Kitakami was better. I think the four biomes could have benefitted from a little more diversity (maybe 6 or so instead?) but the actual designs are pretty cool. I especially like the bright blue water and barely visible coral in the Coastal Biome, as well as seeing Mandibuzz and Vullaby nests in the Savanna. When I heard we would be in Unova I was really excited because that's my “home region” so to speak, but Blueberry Academy and the Terarium reminded me more of Galar aesthetically if anything. Hearing new remixes of songs from Black and White did get me though. Obviously they couldn't have included the whole of Unova, but including a small section like the first few areas added in BW2 would have gone a long way. Maybe they're saving that for remakes (even though I’m still hoping for a Johto revisit first...) I was also surprised that there weren't any Unova character cameos afaik, considering how many of them would fit right in as teachers at the academy. I mean, Cheren literally is a teacher, and Lenora could teach archeology, etc... Felt a bit like a missed opportunity, considering how back in the DS and 3DS era there were tons of character cameos in other regions which made the games feel like a more connected world. I did notice Pokemon interacting and showcasing unique behaviours a bit more in this DLC, like seeing a Zangoose get into a fight with a Seviper, which is pretty neat. I also like the addition of the Syncro Machine, getting to run around as a Pokemon just makes me very happy. I also like that Meloetta is now no longer an event exclusive, and I hope this sort of thing continues like how Deoxys, Mew, Jirachi, Keldeo, Arceus and more can now be caught without limited time events through various means. I much prefer having them be special encounters in the DLC areas or rewards for having multiple games’ saves, especially because you can borrow cartridges from your friends to get most of those particular bonuses with little effort. Limited time content just sucks and I hope this pattern of moving away from time-limited mythicals continues.

The puzzles included for the elite four are pretty fun, I was surprised they were about on par with the minigames you get to play before the gyms in the main campaign. I quite liked the trading sequence in Crispin’s trial, the replayable flying minigame which makes me want to replay Pokepark Wii, and Drayton’s challenge to only use Pokemon you caught in the Terarium, though I wish that extended to his actual boss fight as well. The battles themselves were pretty fun. I always love double battling and they showcased some interesting strategies (the Harvest Exeggutor was a particularly memorable one)- I particularly like that they aren't monotype teams either, I wish all teams for gym leaders and such were like this and were more varied and balanced in this way. I also thought the battle against Kieran was also enjoyable (I especially love his unique dialogue if you decided to use Ogerpon! It's a nice attention to detail). His new haircut is a little goofy though.

With the league defeated, it's time to head to Area Zero next and finally find out what's the deal with that turtle thing? Area Zero is one of my favorite locations in the Paldea games so having the opportunity to explore further and discover more lore was definitely a welcome one. The new depths of Area Zero are pretty short but they're suitably pretty and mysterious as a set piece for the final act. And I loved how they finished Kieran’s arc, where he finally learns he isn't inferior- because his support is what allows you to finally triumph over the out of control Terapagos. And what else does he use but his ace Hydrapple- a Pokemon that evolves by learning a support move! It's just so smartly done and I think having the DLCs tie into each other was a really good decision. The ending is satisfying and all the battles are consistently quite fun. I particularly like how the final Terapagos battle has it switching type constantly without telling you which type, it was a nice challenge, and it just felt right catching it in a Dream Ball. (Whenever there's a guaranteed catch I like using my unique Pokeballs on that) You also get some nice bonuses for finishing the DLC story like the super fun legendary flight mechanics, unlimited tera charge, legendaries to catch (which I caught in all premiere balls because I am crazy), and some new story content. You also unlock the hardest mode for the flight course, which is a much faster way to gain BP.

When I reviewed the Teal Mask I said that whether the DLC was worth it would depend on how well Indigo Disc delivers. Well, I think it absolutely makes good on its promise. I really do think the best thing to do is to take your time and really enjoy it and all the new features and mechanics it brings to the table. I especially like how well it ties its story to that of the main game without feeling like too essential a piece of the puzzle, so those that don't have the DLC still have a complete story. And I especially liked how Kieran’s arc was handled. The DLC basically gave me everything I was hoping for! But the story wasn’t over yet. Today, a final epilogue chapter was released, featuring the new Pokemon Pecharunt.

...And, unfortunately, the “Mythical Pecha Berry” item to trigger it is a mystery gift, though there hasn’t been any indication it’s on “limited time”, this still kind of sucks, since it means an internet connection is required, and it may even be locked away if the Switch’s online functionality gets shut down. It’s really a shame that not only are Pokemon being locked behind events, but substantial story content as well!! Well, on to the content itself... I was already smiling as I realized that I’d be teaming up with Arven, Penny and Nemona again, my friends from the main story. It’s pretty nice seeing them all hanging out together again after everything that happened in Area Zero and just being kids and having fun. (I will add, this wasn’t an intentional addition of the new content but heading back to my house in the dusk on Koraidon’s back was just magical. The lighting in this game can be pretty at times...) It makes me kind of wish the main friend group was a part of the DLC, though I also kind of liked that the DLC told its own story. Seeing Kieran after his whole character arc was also really nice. I always forget how much I appreciate the characters in Scarlet and Violet, there’s something a bit cozy about seeing all of them again. The possession storyline was really silly and fun too, and the battles were a fun excuse to test out my newer team members- I particularly like how heavily the battles focused on poisoning, for thematic reasons. It was almost like a kid-friendly horror scenario with the whole mochi curse and I’m all for it. Kieran getting to be in a more heroic role was also nice to see. Arven being just lucid enough to be embarassed by the goofy possession behaviour also got a genuine laugh out of me. The super high leveled rematch against Nemona was also appreciated! Maybe I’m just high leveled, though, but the Pecharunt boss fight itself was a little easy- my shiny Kingambit shreds through that HP bar easily. As for Pecharunt itself, I think the concept of “evil mind control Momotaro” is just funny enough to work, and the way it ties into the lore of the Loyal Three and Ogerpon was neat. This is probably the most substantial story we’ve gotten for a mythical Pokemon in a long time and it’s definitely welcome, though the limited nature of Pokemon events very much is not.

So, yeah... Like I said in my Teal Mask review, I mentioned how I wish that this kind of stuff was just post-game instead of DLC, and in the past this sort of thing would just be post-game content. Still, even if you think about it that way, The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero would be one of the best post-games in the series. Is it worth it? Sure! Do I wish this wasn’t behind a paywall? Absolutely. It feels like whenever I want to gush about a new Pokemon related thing there has to be some huge asterisk, be it the matter of the mystery gifts or the DLC or whatever. It's an odd feeling.

Now that (presumably) all the story and content in Scarlet and Violet are finished, I think my next goal in Pokemon is to boot up Legends Arceus again and finally finish up my dex. While I have caught every Pokemon, I haven’t actually gotten every dex entry via research tasks, or my maximum Star Ranking, and I’ve really been hankering to play in Hisui again. I also have a couple ideas for other blog posts cooking up so be on the lookout for that.

And to my readers: thanks for putting up with me, lol

Sorry for all the Pokemon related posts on the blog lately ;^_^ You know how special interests can surprise attack you out of nowhere... Well, I think I’ve mentioned before that Legends Arceus is one of my favorite Pokemon games. I think it’s got such a refreshing take on the Pokemon formula and truly brings the Sinnoh region to life. While Unova is my favorite region, Sinnoh and Johto are always neck and neck for my second favorite, and, hey, isn’t Johto due for a revisit sometime soon, like how Kanto got two remakes? I’ve been thinking a lot about how well Johto would fit the atmosphere and gameplay of Legends, and I honestly hope that “Legends Celebi” happens... someday.

Celebi is the perfect excuse to bring the player character through time, much like in Legends Arceus, and the theme of past and future also makes it thematically consistent with both Legends Arceus and the recent Scarlet and Violet. Rather than timespace distortions in the style of Arceus, where beings are pulled from the future, the player could be able to jump to different spots in time themselves (with “past” and “future” variants on specific areas in the game with their own encounters and settings). The Johto games have a strong emphasis on the passing of time and nature vs technology already. As for regional forms and new Pokemon, there’s already a beloved Pokedex full of scrapped Johto Pokemon from the Spaceworld demo! It would be a perfect opportunity to breathe some life into those old designs. But there’s also the question of which era the main gameplay would take place in. Would it take place in the timeline a couple decades before Gen I, with a much younger Giovanni as a key player? (Celebi does allow you to meet Giovanni in HGSS after all) Or would it take place much further in the past, with the story of the Unown and possibly even Sinjoh (to tie in with Legends Arceus)? Or perhaps even around the time the Burnt Tower was destroyed and the legendary beasts were reborn, which seems like the most likely candidate? Johto has such a rich and mysterious history that it’s really hard to decide. But with Celebi as the central Pokemon, the ability to travel between multiple times and their own story campaigns makes the possibilities infinite. This would probably necessitate a smaller world to explore than in Hisui or Paldea, since there would be multiple versions of that world based on which time period, but if it was detailed enough and the different times were exciting enough to engage with, I wouldn’t complain.

So my vision is this: The player character is from the era of Gold and Silver, and is pulled back in time by Celebi while wandering the Ilex Forest, to the era shortly before the Brass Tower is burnt (with the pre-death version of the Legendary Beasts being a newly introduced species of Pokemon, which are extinct in modern Johto apart from the ascended trio.) This is the era where the main gameplay takes place, and goals involving filling the Pokedex and fighting real-time boss battles akin to the Hisuian Nobles are completed, but when the player travels to certain locations during the story (possibly while trying to find Celebi in order to return home) Celebi will pull them into either the ancient past of Sinjoh with a cryptic story on the history of the Unown, or into the “future” (which is technically still the past for the player character, but it’s the most technologically advanced map you can visit) which chronicles how a teenage Giovanni became who he is and Team Rocket was founded. Late in the game (possibly when you find Celebi) you gain the ability to swap between maps at will, but before that it’s tied exclusively to story progression. I imagine it sort of like a flow chart, like if you progress a Major Plot Beat in the main time period you then unlock the portals to either ancient Sinjoh or future Johto, with the game allowing you to complete those in whatever order you wish, but you must complete both before you can make progress in past Johto. This would allow the game to maintain its pacing and not resolve any one plot thread before they’re supposed to.

Once all three plotlines have climaxed- the player finally discovers the truth behind the Unown and the ancient civilization; the player witnesses Team Rocket’s beginnings; and the Brass Tower is burnt down and there’s some sort of climax involving Lugia and Ho-Oh leaving their respective towers and the player pursuing them. (Possibly even with Lugia and Ho-Oh having been recurring characters within the plot before this, while they still lived in the towers as local deities)- the player can find Celebi at a final dungeon, a surreal version of Ilex Forest that’s kind of detached from time. Celebi or some other character there then reveals that something you did during the plot helped stabilize the timeline (possibly there’s some villain character in the past era who was trying to cause some kind of paradox or seize control of the power of the Unown?) but that returning to your own timeline is now impossible since you are similarly as “time detached” as Celebi is. After an exciting boss fight, Celebi becomes your partner Pokemon and you can now travel freely between time, but never return home, as a sort of bittersweet ending. Maybe as a reward for 100%ing the game, the player can capture Mew and Mewtwo with their own boss battles and explore a smaller-sized Kanto based map, similar to how you can unlock Kanto in Gold and Silver.

Those are just some loose ideas though, I think the idea of Johto getting the Legends treatment has a lot of potential. I really hope that gen 2 gets at least a small revisit. I know people are guessing that we’re going to get Unova remakes next, but let’s not forget we haven’t seen Johto since the DS era either!

Happy 2024!!! I’m excited to see where this year takes me. Since this is my first post of the year, I figured it would be nice to list out some things I accomplished and was proud of in the past year, and list some future ideas I want to tackle.

I accomplished a lot in 2023- I began working on my own website, I’ve begun making plans to move out with my girlfriend, I’ve gotten a job and a car of my own, and I’ve learned a lot of new ways to creatively express myself. I’ve created a lot of new and interesting online projects and have gotten really into having my own online journal and “home”. I’ve also, very recently, quit social media. Yes, for real! On the last day of 2023 I said my farewell to Tumblr, because it wasn't making me happy anymore and I have plenty of alternatives to what I used to get out of it. I’ve also generally become more happy with myself, and I honestly feel like I’ve grown a lot over 2023.

What will 2024 hold? Well, I don't have any specific projects cooking up just yet. But I do have a small list of concepts I want to explore in the future, though most of these aren't going to necessarily be in the next year.

I want to add more interactive stuff to the website. Particularly, I’d love to add a sort of walk-around game to Clovenglade where the player can ride their chosen horse through the countryside and enjoy the sights and some NPC dialogue and so on. I’m not sure how I’ll accomplish this, but I’d especially like to have it seamlessly display the horse the player has chosen. Making something that's mechanically satisfying while still being able to be compatible with the rest of Clovenglade will be a challenge. I’m not sure when I’ll start attempting to act on this concept but I definitely have some ideas on the backburner there.

I also want to make some kind of potion cooking game and have been wanting to for a while. I want to make it so the player can select 2 or 3 different ingredients and get a different result depending on which they picked, and each potion has a different “effect”. I’m not sure how I’ll go about making this but I’d love to create something like this for my Arcade page. I’d also love to make some kind of dollmaker at some point, the hardest part would probably just be making all the assets lol

I also want to look into Twine! The Dungeon was one of the first projects I even finished for the site and I think making an expanded remake of it using Twine would be really cool sometime. I also think it would be cool to make a 3D page someday, and add an Oekaki board... But I’ve always found all the tutorials for implementing those really confusing. I’ll have to investigate further.

Again, no promises that any of this stuff is for sure coming in the next year, but that's just what’s been swimming around my head. My New Year's was pleasant, we made a pie and some snacks and I spent the night with my girlfriend. 2023 has been one of the happiest years of my life so I’m excited for what 2024 holds.