Just an Update (includes Nintendo Wrapped)

[elyusion]

Hello whoever may be reading this. Hope you're doing well, and if not, I hope things get better. This entry is like a combined journal entry + dump of links.

Starting with how I've been: The semester ended and now I'm on winter vacation. Pretty cool. I finished Virche Evermore and started Angelique Luminarise, finally. I'm liveblogging it on my website (will link later), so I'll probably talk more about it when I'm done. Especially when I still want to make that giant Angelique post about all the games. I fell out of my flashcard habit, so I need to get back on that ASAP. Since I've been playing Japanese games I don't feel too bad about missing my Japanese flashcards, but I'm not obsessed with anything that's from a hispanic place, so I haven't been reading much Spanish... Uh oh.

I've been trying to kick the social media habit: with Leechblock I've been doing well on desktop (I'm only allowed 45 minutes a day), and on my phone I deleted every social media app except Bluesky, and even for Bluesky I've set up a shortcut that redirects me to Libby (the library ebook app) whenever I open it. Sometimes I still will open up Twitter or Tumblr on Safari though and mindlessly scroll...

[i stopped writing for a bit here] I don't know why I turned off website blocking on my phone (maybe I was so addicted that I gave up), but I've turned it back on ^_^ So if I want to use my socials so bad I have to at least get out of bed and to my desk for them. Bluesky and my Fedi account and Plurk aren't blocked on there because they run out of content for me to scroll through eventually. Maybe I'll do better at school next semester if I'm not always on Twitter, but even if I don't, I'll be using that time gaining more knowledge with more context (provided by being allowed longer/no character limit) and developing skills and actually having fun playing/watching/reading something. Here's to hoping!

I also paid for a little driving school. The actual driving part was only 3 days, but I finished and got a certificate. The instructor wanted to get to know me and asked me questions about what I study and stuff, and he was really impressed even though I think it's all nothing. I guess because I don't get out much, and where I hang out online everyone can do what I can and more, or way better. Everyone is better than me online. This is probably a place where thinking more local would help. Like how artists seek an audience online and flounder when they should be showing up to events in real life, of course I look pathetic compared to the millions of people who post content online, and the couple hundred who have been able to extend their visibility to me.

I wanted to spend the vacation practicing driving and getting my license. I even signed up for an in-person class next semester as incentive. ... But my car's battery is broken. It needs to be jumpstarted again after every time I turn it off. I told my dad, but even if he gets me a new one, will he get it with time to spare for me to learn to not get scared on the road + master parking? We shall see.

I guess that's all to say about life stuff.

Things I've Made or Done:

• My website! Please check it out :)
• I translated the theme song of From Far Away/Kanata Kara from the Drama CDs. You can find it on LyricsTranslate, or on my website.
• I drew art of Angelique and Fem!Clavis, although I'm not sure if the boobs aren't actually big or if 1. living where I live with who I live and 2. overexposure to recent anime boobs have raised my standards. I mean, realistically, I think she's a skinny woman, so if I give her really really big boobs her spine would snap in too or something... Anyways, since not many people (especially not the few Angelique fans on the anglophone internet) surf personal websites, and I don't want to post it on my socials because [i would sound so mentally ill if i explained this], I've been thinking again about art social media and which to use. If I were to use something I think it'd be either Sheezy or Pixiv, but I still don't think I should make an account or become active on those until I have enough art that's good. ....... Oh yeah, I also drew chibi self portraits for decorating my site, but Angelique is more important than me.
• And since I started Luminarise, I also started a liveblog at... well, you can guess. Updating it is a bit of a hassle. So much so that I'm thinking I might need to look into static site generators. But if they take a while to set up, I don't think I should be spending so much of my vacation coding. I really have other things I should be doing (like more gaming! and art and translation but whatever)
• I've cleaned the raws for Angelique vol. 6 :) I'm thinking of spending my vacation cleaning all the rest of the volumes or as much as I can, because that's the most tedious part. When school starts I'll start translating and typesetting. Redrawing shouldn't be a big annoyance, as I've decided to leave sound effects in. That seems to be what most redraws spend their time handling. I'm a one-man team, so I'm not going to try to make an Awesome Amazing Fantastic Above-And-Beyond scanlation. That's how people burn out and die. :D
• This isn't an achievement like the things above, but I bought 40+ (I think it was like 47?) Neoromance books, almost all Angelique except a few that are Harukanaru Toki no Naka de yonkoma. Now, my problem is: I plan on moving across the country sometime late next year, and no one here gives a fuck about Neoromance (you have to take into account the language barrier bottleneck too). I want to scan them all before I go, but I don't think I want to actually KEEP them all... I want them to land in the hands of a fan though. Well, i suppose that's a future me problem.

Things Others Have Made:
These are all things I've collected since my last entry with casual reviews!

• Goth Boyfriends - a webcomic. I like how you can see the artist experimenting with new techniques :3 Learning about themself... growing... and the story has me curious about the characters, so I can't wait to see where it goes.
• Matchmaker - a webcomic. A fascinating look into being queer in the Pacific Northwest (? I think it said it takes place there?? it definitely doesn't take place where I live at least). 🔍 So fascinating. Not just the story alone, but the humor and stuff. I think it was an entertaining and fun little read, even if I think it lowkey made me crazy jealous.
• Revealed: The Operators Behind Four Major Neo-Nazi X Accounts - a news article. Knowing this information didn't really make me gain anything, but I like being nosy.
• This Geocities site ran by Miaka of Fushigi Yuugi fame herself, holy shit, except she seems to like Hotohori more than Tamahome? - a website. I do not remember why I had this in my list of things to show DW. The names of the links in the photo album make me smile though :) Also, liking Hotohori more than Tamahome... good taste.
• Mobiles, PCs, and Privilege (Or, Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly) - a blog post. One that's too true, I might add! It may seem counterintuitive to millenials and old zoomers (I'm old zoomers), but smart phones are way more common than computers in other places. When people on the indie web say things like "no mobile view, common mobile L, etc." I think they have no clue who they're really excluding. The TikTokers and Normies they're imagining likely have a laptop somewhere but just like to chill on their phone, but people with only phones just can't use your site easily, if not at all.  This is outside the realm of the blog post, and also technically not my business as a native English speaker, but I wish people whose mother tongue's were languages that aren't English made more content in their language. For one thing, you'll find more of #yourpeople that way and keep away monolingual anglophones and their weird politics. I know for fandom and stuff it's good to have a common language for reaching across borders, but... when people say things that imply their first language isn't as expressive or cool, I get sad. Well, this is off-topic, so I'll save it for another DW entry/my head.
• Eat What You Kill - an article, which I found through longreads . I don't really have any commentary on this. Capitalism is literally soul-sucking.
• Addy Walker,  American Girl - an article, which I also found through longreads . I've actually thought about talking about Addy for a long time now, way before I read this article. The doll parts about the article are absolutely true. And so are the parts specifically about Addy, but I mean, I think black people's reactions to Addy are :/ bro... She's only a slave for the first book anyways... Slaves are people with lives and stories worth sharing too, even if they never escape slavery... but I've already derailed earlier, I won't write another paragraph here.
• Celia, A Slave, Trial - an article. Reading this I was reminded of a Wikipedia article I read once but can't find again. I've searched for an hour. It was about an african-american girl executed for (I think) killing her white boss. I can't even remember if she really did it or not. Regardless, the article had in it the letter her mother wrote begging for her life. While I didn't find the article, I did find about a dozen other similar murder cases, both true and falsely accused. African-Americans have been through so much. It should be no wonder why we may talk about white people (as a group) with such casual dislike at times. And it should be no problem when that dislike is easily erased - it's soooo easy to win some people over. Bare minimum stuff will get you "in the club." But again, that's neither here not there.
• Slipping Away from the Pages of History: Taking a look at Celio, Wyler, and Sabre - a blog post. Fire Emblem fans can have something to read, as a treat. I love seeing Behind The Scenes and fun facts like this.
• These Out of Control Booty Shaking Kittens Are Ruining My Castlevania™! - a game. Without flaw, unless you count possibly needing to draw a map. I considered it, but I couldn't think of where one starts when drawing a map, so I continued to walk in circles until I got it. One day I'll play a game that forces me to learn how early gamers drew maps, but that day for sure wasn't 2 days ago. It probably takes.... 10 minutes to beat? 20 if you have no sense of direction, like me? I think my first run took 20 minutes and second took 10, at least. Would love to see how small I can get that number.
• [DCB] La Mulana (a blog post) which lead to me reading The Designer's Heart Laid Bare (a google doc?) and Dialogue 3 (a blog post disguised as a kinetic visual novel) as well as playing Booty Shaking Kittens (see above) - I played a bit of Sylvietower but found it took a bit more brainpower than I wanted to use at the moment, but I still found it endearing, so by going through the creator's other words I found Booty Shaking Kittens. Pretty cool. Now, as for La Mulana and the related articles.... It's nice seeing someone else put things you feel into words, right? It's really fun being in "dialogue" with a game's dev(s), although I wouldn't have been able to word it like that until reading these. Normally people say they like it when it feels like a game hates you. That sounds negative, but I suppose it's nice being reminded people were behind games and they did things to have fun with you. A shame they can't watch every player struggle. Unless my elementary-school-era theory that the NPCs in Mario Kart Wii were genuine Nintendo employees playing with you is real. (I didn't even know the DSi and Wii had internet until a year? before Flipnote died, by the way
• Creative fields can't be treated as content factories - a blog post. I have nothing to add but sooooo truuuuuuuuue (capitalism sucks souls btw)
• The Color of Memory: Albert Kahn's Archives of the Planet - a journal article. Human fandom, this one's for you. (aka anthropologists i suppose)

Near-Future Plans:

• Set up Neoromance fansite, which will look like just an Angelique fansite for a good while as that's all I've played (but I know I will like the other games too #trust). If I make a page here of the books I have and am willing to sell, hopefully that will take care of the "I have to move and don't need all these books but I have 29034908240 of them and half aren't even in English" problem.
• Finish website for very much pornographic art/links too. I have no idea how I'm going to advertise this in a way where I can get people who want to see it to see it but keep it from those who don't (but are overcurious clickers) and those who would cringe at my bad art... But that is also a future me problem. Let me worry about finishing it and filling it up with content first.
• Get confident with driving. This will happen. Or else.
• Oh, and I suppose before the vacation ends I should hang out with the one person I know who lives in this town. Hanging with him makes me nervous because I'm so bad at socializing... and I have even less conversation topics than before now, as I've become obsessed with a franchise of otome games and he likes normal things like Zelda and stuff, but I'll figure it out.

And here's my Nintendo Year in Review! :]


 

Like how I never want to decide between Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, I don't want to decide between Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2. When I beat 3 I'll probably feel the same. So I'm using MGS1 as a representation of all 3. Or all 2.2. Because I haven't beat Snake Eater. That's a 2025 goal for sure.

You know what's funny about my hours suddenly dipping in March... I think that's when I started Angelique. :P

That's all for now. See you around.

(This entry was started at 2:29pm and posted at 6:25pm, for my own personal record.)