(no subject)
Jul. 8th, 2025 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kradeelavthere is a lot i still really dislike about bsky -- the culture and the short form UI borrowed from twitter, also its tendency to ban certian artistic kink with a 'shoot first, ask questions later' mentality, but two things i have deeply enjoyed recently are:
a) it's by far the place i've had the most wholesome interaction with JP fans/artists.... one of my childhood 'made it' goals was to get noticed by JP artists, and hell, several of them have ordered my doujinshi....... :D;;;; like, legitimately, what an honor. to respect/remix something from their culture so well that they notice and appreciate it.
b) the ability to turn off *all* notifications except for replies/mentions is seriously a game changer \o/ i used to have an extension on twitter back pre 2020 specifically to remove numbers and this effectively does the same thing. doing that on both bsky/tumblr helps curb the worst 'check frequently' impulses so it's like returning to dA-era culture. poast art. reply to comments. give cute compliments. (don't read shit on there; i have a list specifically for only showing pictures/art from people who i follow). touch grass. etc.
a) it's by far the place i've had the most wholesome interaction with JP fans/artists.... one of my childhood 'made it' goals was to get noticed by JP artists, and hell, several of them have ordered my doujinshi....... :D;;;; like, legitimately, what an honor. to respect/remix something from their culture so well that they notice and appreciate it.
b) the ability to turn off *all* notifications except for replies/mentions is seriously a game changer \o/ i used to have an extension on twitter back pre 2020 specifically to remove numbers and this effectively does the same thing. doing that on both bsky/tumblr helps curb the worst 'check frequently' impulses so it's like returning to dA-era culture. poast art. reply to comments. give cute compliments. (don't read shit on there; i have a list specifically for only showing pictures/art from people who i follow). touch grass. etc.
clair obscur: expedition 33 retrospective
Jul. 8th, 2025 03:46 amqueenluaOkay, yeah, as people watching my Tumblr may have already noticed, I gave Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 a try on a whim (mostly because of this post tbh) & I had a grand old time & now I'm here to dump some thoughts about it before I lose them forever.
Full disclosure, a big reason that I got SO into this game (devoured it in ~2 weeks) was because Bird Guy got into it too, at exactly the same time, and did you know it is VERY fun to blast through a big bombastic game in Your Favorite Genre alongside the love of your life? Highly recommend it. We were heckling each other and swapping strategy protips and speculating wildly about the plot together the whole time; it was SO weeby in our household lol.
We historically have somewhat divergent tastes in video games (he plays FPSes, Soulsbornes, and grand strategy games; I tend more toward turn-based tactical RPGs, narrative-driven RPGs, stealth-action games, and platformers). There's also a lot of places where our tastes overlap (we both love a good puzzle game, hence both of us getting oneshot by Blue Prince a few months back, and we both enjoyed e.g. Breath of the Wild), but up until now I don't think he's ever liked anything in the (admittedly fuzzy) space of "big, bombastic, narrative-heavy 90s/00s-style RPGs."
( a list of all the ways this game is a big fat love letter to A Specific Era Of RPGs )
So, yeah, the game nailed a 10/10 on "bottling up a bunch of highlights from the RPGs-of-a-specific-era into a modern Essence Du Jour." This will probably make me sound either sappy or deranged or both, but I really do feel like it let me share something precious and lovely with my husband in a way that finally got him to enjoy it too, and I'm pretty grateful for that. Sort of like the first time I took him to see fireflies in Kentucky because he, a west coast boy, had never seen them before.
Combat, however—combat is very different than any mainline Final Fantasy game, and it rules, actually.
( what the combat is like )
The plot's another thing I was a little apprehensive about going in. The premise sounded a little stilted/weird/cheesy to my ear, and the vague rumblings I'd heard about the game online made it sound like it was all going to be some sort of philosophical-dilemma-disguised-as-a-story sort of deal, which is just not interesting in to me. (I very seriously entertained majoring in philosophy; I've taken classes on "what if we were a brain in a vat tho" kind of dilemmas; I get the appeal. I just don't find it as appealing these days :P)
Without spoiling, I'd say it doesn't really demand deep philosophical wrestling any more than, say, Christopher Nolan's Inception does—it's there if you want it and I'm sure forum nerds are arguing about it at we speak (<3 you forum nerds, you are my people), but it's mostly focused on some broader thematic concerns and the attendant characters. I don't think the characters or their world are quite as juicy in terms of their interpersonal dynamics or as fully-fleshed-out-in-relation-to-their-world as, say, the Final Fantasy 10 cast... but they're interesting enough (Verso and Maelle prove particularly chewy), there's good synergy in the ensemble, and the game REALLY leans hard into the light-and-dark interplay suggested by the title. The bright/charming bits are SURPRISINGLY goofy and silly and disarming for it; the grim bits are grim in a PG-13 way but no less satisfying for it.
Okay that's al lthe general stuff. Some more spoiler-y and off-the-cuff thoughts below—no major spoilers but if you're like "I do not even wish to Know The Name Of Potential Bosses In The Game," yeah, here's your chance to stop reading.
( vaguely spoilery stuff )
oh god also i forgot to mention the soundtrack. straight bangers, every single one of them. i have the sheet music for "alicia" and "verso" sitting on my piano as we speak. truly it is the 90s again and they got their own damn Uematsu lol
Full disclosure, a big reason that I got SO into this game (devoured it in ~2 weeks) was because Bird Guy got into it too, at exactly the same time, and did you know it is VERY fun to blast through a big bombastic game in Your Favorite Genre alongside the love of your life? Highly recommend it. We were heckling each other and swapping strategy protips and speculating wildly about the plot together the whole time; it was SO weeby in our household lol.
We historically have somewhat divergent tastes in video games (he plays FPSes, Soulsbornes, and grand strategy games; I tend more toward turn-based tactical RPGs, narrative-driven RPGs, stealth-action games, and platformers). There's also a lot of places where our tastes overlap (we both love a good puzzle game, hence both of us getting oneshot by Blue Prince a few months back, and we both enjoyed e.g. Breath of the Wild), but up until now I don't think he's ever liked anything in the (admittedly fuzzy) space of "big, bombastic, narrative-heavy 90s/00s-style RPGs."
( a list of all the ways this game is a big fat love letter to A Specific Era Of RPGs )
So, yeah, the game nailed a 10/10 on "bottling up a bunch of highlights from the RPGs-of-a-specific-era into a modern Essence Du Jour." This will probably make me sound either sappy or deranged or both, but I really do feel like it let me share something precious and lovely with my husband in a way that finally got him to enjoy it too, and I'm pretty grateful for that. Sort of like the first time I took him to see fireflies in Kentucky because he, a west coast boy, had never seen them before.
Combat, however—combat is very different than any mainline Final Fantasy game, and it rules, actually.
( what the combat is like )
The plot's another thing I was a little apprehensive about going in. The premise sounded a little stilted/weird/cheesy to my ear, and the vague rumblings I'd heard about the game online made it sound like it was all going to be some sort of philosophical-dilemma-disguised-as-a-story sort of deal, which is just not interesting in to me. (I very seriously entertained majoring in philosophy; I've taken classes on "what if we were a brain in a vat tho" kind of dilemmas; I get the appeal. I just don't find it as appealing these days :P)
Without spoiling, I'd say it doesn't really demand deep philosophical wrestling any more than, say, Christopher Nolan's Inception does—it's there if you want it and I'm sure forum nerds are arguing about it at we speak (<3 you forum nerds, you are my people), but it's mostly focused on some broader thematic concerns and the attendant characters. I don't think the characters or their world are quite as juicy in terms of their interpersonal dynamics or as fully-fleshed-out-in-relation-to-their-world as, say, the Final Fantasy 10 cast... but they're interesting enough (Verso and Maelle prove particularly chewy), there's good synergy in the ensemble, and the game REALLY leans hard into the light-and-dark interplay suggested by the title. The bright/charming bits are SURPRISINGLY goofy and silly and disarming for it; the grim bits are grim in a PG-13 way but no less satisfying for it.
Okay that's al lthe general stuff. Some more spoiler-y and off-the-cuff thoughts below—no major spoilers but if you're like "I do not even wish to Know The Name Of Potential Bosses In The Game," yeah, here's your chance to stop reading.
( vaguely spoilery stuff )
oh god also i forgot to mention the soundtrack. straight bangers, every single one of them. i have the sheet music for "alicia" and "verso" sitting on my piano as we speak. truly it is the 90s again and they got their own damn Uematsu lol
(no subject)
Jul. 7th, 2025 11:51 amkradeelavi've been doing a thoroughly deep dive in the last month (in part because of a large secret project with one of y'all) on whether sketchup models can be a legitimate part of my comic/illustration pipeline. sometimes some illustrators make it look good - Chance Kubesh's work here made me give this research another go; been elbows deep in Style Builder this past weekend seeing how i can replicate his linework.
that said, what i'm discovering for me is that there really is no match for personal drawing & art direction in terms of sheer time efficiency x quality.
a) most free sketchup models look like 'baby's first cyanogen model' (remember that program back in the day?). the human proportions are always off (easily seen in a comparison of cathedrals - see the crudeness of this one versus the accuracy here) what historical era is it from? are the textures even right? etc.
b) sketchup is very, very picky about which file formats it imports. by the time you've narrowed down free models of the specific architectural model you're looking for, that's in your file format, with hopefully no errors or cheap hacks with the modeling, you've probably wasted an hour or two. it's also something that still needs to be tweaked stylistically. if there's one even available.
b) i can draw insanely fast precise lines now, apparently(???). doing said secret project has me cranking out actual three point perspective cityscapes in ... two hours? with very minimal mental overload, and that's just me on the early side of getting used to an architectural mentality/pipeline. i really think this year is going to be the mythical 'krad figures out backgrounds' year. XD
c) models in general tend to miss the context. the ~character~ that makes good architecture/environments/levels come alive. i really noticed this when i saved 100+ 360 photogrammetry files from sketchfab -- these are not polygonal models as much as they are a "camera/video" scan of real world surroundings, so they do a far better job capturing the lived-in imperfections of surroundings, even in otherwise sterile areas.
d) you're still reliant on one program that forces you to sign-in online with some hellish DRM (i'm using my dayjob enterprise license lol). does not bode well to longevity/stability compared to your own hand.
in a very limited context i can maybe see a 3D model worth it in drawing pipeline assistance, namely in the scenario below: (a) a historically-famous/accurate setting that already exists (vs a fantasy location), (b) all camera angles set in one room/location for 10+ panels, (c) with the setting being incredibly complex in details (lots of a historically-specific era column carvings, arches, railings, steel beams etc). an action scene on an outside fire escape, i might consider it.
otherwise though? personally, i can freehand it faster. :v
that said, what i'm discovering for me is that there really is no match for personal drawing & art direction in terms of sheer time efficiency x quality.
a) most free sketchup models look like 'baby's first cyanogen model' (remember that program back in the day?). the human proportions are always off (easily seen in a comparison of cathedrals - see the crudeness of this one versus the accuracy here) what historical era is it from? are the textures even right? etc.
b) sketchup is very, very picky about which file formats it imports. by the time you've narrowed down free models of the specific architectural model you're looking for, that's in your file format, with hopefully no errors or cheap hacks with the modeling, you've probably wasted an hour or two. it's also something that still needs to be tweaked stylistically. if there's one even available.
b) i can draw insanely fast precise lines now, apparently(???). doing said secret project has me cranking out actual three point perspective cityscapes in ... two hours? with very minimal mental overload, and that's just me on the early side of getting used to an architectural mentality/pipeline. i really think this year is going to be the mythical 'krad figures out backgrounds' year. XD
c) models in general tend to miss the context. the ~character~ that makes good architecture/environments/levels come alive. i really noticed this when i saved 100+ 360 photogrammetry files from sketchfab -- these are not polygonal models as much as they are a "camera/video" scan of real world surroundings, so they do a far better job capturing the lived-in imperfections of surroundings, even in otherwise sterile areas.
d) you're still reliant on one program that forces you to sign-in online with some hellish DRM (i'm using my dayjob enterprise license lol). does not bode well to longevity/stability compared to your own hand.
in a very limited context i can maybe see a 3D model worth it in drawing pipeline assistance, namely in the scenario below: (a) a historically-famous/accurate setting that already exists (vs a fantasy location), (b) all camera angles set in one room/location for 10+ panels, (c) with the setting being incredibly complex in details (lots of a historically-specific era column carvings, arches, railings, steel beams etc). an action scene on an outside fire escape, i might consider it.
otherwise though? personally, i can freehand it faster. :v
No True Crossover 2025 Prompts
Jul. 7th, 2025 12:16 pmnuh_s posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no_true_pairHere are the prompts for no_true_pair's 2025 No True Crossover Mini-Challenge, along with the dates for posting!
If you haven't signed up yet, SIGN UP BEFORE LOOKING AT THE PROMPTS. If you accidentally looked, please forget what you saw and go sign up!
Feel free to share your favorite combos in the comments!
There are no set minimums for works, and whileno_true_pair has traditionally been fic/art, if you're inspired to work in another medium, go ahead! Works can be romantic or platonic or the space in-between. The prompts are for inspiration; you don't need to justify how you got from the prompt to the finished product and interpretation is up to you. ^_^
The prompts use numbers so that you can find/replace from your list(s).
( 2025 No True Crossover Prompts )
no_true_pair's 2025 No True Crossover Mini-Challenge, along with the dates for posting!If you haven't signed up yet, SIGN UP BEFORE LOOKING AT THE PROMPTS. If you accidentally looked, please forget what you saw and go sign up!
Feel free to share your favorite combos in the comments!
There are no set minimums for works, and while
no_true_pair has traditionally been fic/art, if you're inspired to work in another medium, go ahead! Works can be romantic or platonic or the space in-between. The prompts are for inspiration; you don't need to justify how you got from the prompt to the finished product and interpretation is up to you. ^_^The prompts use numbers so that you can find/replace from your list(s).
( 2025 No True Crossover Prompts )
fe:fates fic, YRMR sequel
Jul. 6th, 2025 02:51 pmkradeelavi don't think this post-YRMR epilouge/(breeding) fic is going to Actually Happen, alas.
that said i found a decent chunk of it written and throwing it in here under the cut for y'all to enjoy. :) keep in mind that it's an obvious draft, chunks of paragraphs are not written, etc. it's not the fun sexy stuff proper, but y'all might enjoy the lead-up to it.
(set roughly a year after Revelation, YRMR version)
Gunter/f!Corrin find a new game in the tomb of Anankos, rekindling old ghosts. implied spice (sexual hunting/CNC). sequel to YRMR.
(crossposting from tumblr if/when it goes)
( Read more... )
that said i found a decent chunk of it written and throwing it in here under the cut for y'all to enjoy. :) keep in mind that it's an obvious draft, chunks of paragraphs are not written, etc. it's not the fun sexy stuff proper, but y'all might enjoy the lead-up to it.
(set roughly a year after Revelation, YRMR version)
Gunter/f!Corrin find a new game in the tomb of Anankos, rekindling old ghosts. implied spice (sexual hunting/CNC). sequel to YRMR.
(crossposting from tumblr if/when it goes)
( Read more... )
Happy Birthday to my mom~!
Jul. 3rd, 2025 02:05 pmsuzumeI may have mentioned it when I commented on my Pageant of the Masters trip, but while I was out, I bought two puzzles for my mom- one to give her right away and another to save for her birthday. It was a great opportunity to shop while not with my mom *lol* (we go practically everywhere together (especially because she can drive, I cannot. I do have a driver's license, but I haven't driven anywhere in years) first because after I got license she wasn't going to make me drive and then because I got on meds that I'm not supposed to drive with)
Anyway, I know she really likes when I draw and color traditionally, so I had that in mind as I drew this over the last few days:
![](https://i.imgur.com/Mi6Afh9.jpg")
Sasarai, Mags, Kimblee, Yun
I decided since she has a July birthday to show them all in beach attire. (She could recognize all of them from my drawings, except for Sasarai who's she seen much more of in black and white XD;)
Oh, I love her so much.
Anyway, I know she really likes when I draw and color traditionally, so I had that in mind as I drew this over the last few days:
Sasarai, Mags, Kimblee, Yun
I decided since she has a July birthday to show them all in beach attire. (She could recognize all of them from my drawings, except for Sasarai who's she seen much more of in black and white XD;)
Oh, I love her so much.
(no subject)
Jul. 2nd, 2025 10:35 amkradeelavi've been kinda in the weird state of quietly grieving the old internet this past week ngl.
basically readying myself mentally to cold turkey leave social media for good if it comes to that with the recent slew of age verification laws (since my state was included in it too). uploading identifying documents? not gonna happen. that's a red line for me. i'll fuck with VPN's/minor workarounds as long as those work but I'm one of those bastards who actually gives two shits about privacy regardless how "dead" it is lul.
social media i'm most likely to leave/most likely to enforce age verification, my guess: tumblr, bsky, discord, mastodon, itch.io (honestly i'm this close to just deleting mastodon and cara.app. they're just not worth it for me).
social media i'm least likely to leave: email (with a privacy conscious host), dreamwidth (i feel like they would fight it all to the bitter end), website (they already have the legal documents you need for website hosting, but are exceptionally privacy conscious too).
so like, i'm not just gonna up and desert my website/this diary, but it'll be much more of a "write only" approach.
i've got enough books & steam deck games backlog to last me at least another five-ten years, at least until a better version of the internet comes along. also got some delicious art projects to occupy me for about the same time, and the pen pal group all has each other's addresses. in the oddest of ways i'm actually looking forward to ~returning to offline~ since that was always kinda... my default? (i kind of like being slightly unapproachable? not in an unfriendly way that makes people feel bad, more of a chronic exhaustion way.)
grieving the potential of the internet. but i feel like it's better for me to just accept that what i knew ain't comin' back. frankly ai slop/DDoS'ing broke it irreparably the last three years. so it's a long overdue coming-to-terms. frankly i feel better already just... letting it go.
it's wild re-listening to old music when i first "got online". remember supermassive black hole by muse? i remember when it was uploaded lol.
anyway that's the soundtrack in my head for this mood. wrapping up loose ends for this next phase.
basically readying myself mentally to cold turkey leave social media for good if it comes to that with the recent slew of age verification laws (since my state was included in it too). uploading identifying documents? not gonna happen. that's a red line for me. i'll fuck with VPN's/minor workarounds as long as those work but I'm one of those bastards who actually gives two shits about privacy regardless how "dead" it is lul.
social media i'm most likely to leave/most likely to enforce age verification, my guess: tumblr, bsky, discord, mastodon, itch.io (honestly i'm this close to just deleting mastodon and cara.app. they're just not worth it for me).
social media i'm least likely to leave: email (with a privacy conscious host), dreamwidth (i feel like they would fight it all to the bitter end), website (they already have the legal documents you need for website hosting, but are exceptionally privacy conscious too).
so like, i'm not just gonna up and desert my website/this diary, but it'll be much more of a "write only" approach.
i've got enough books & steam deck games backlog to last me at least another five-ten years, at least until a better version of the internet comes along. also got some delicious art projects to occupy me for about the same time, and the pen pal group all has each other's addresses. in the oddest of ways i'm actually looking forward to ~returning to offline~ since that was always kinda... my default? (i kind of like being slightly unapproachable? not in an unfriendly way that makes people feel bad, more of a chronic exhaustion way.)
grieving the potential of the internet. but i feel like it's better for me to just accept that what i knew ain't comin' back. frankly ai slop/DDoS'ing broke it irreparably the last three years. so it's a long overdue coming-to-terms. frankly i feel better already just... letting it go.
it's wild re-listening to old music when i first "got online". remember supermassive black hole by muse? i remember when it was uploaded lol.
anyway that's the soundtrack in my head for this mood. wrapping up loose ends for this next phase.
(no subject)
Jul. 1st, 2025 02:48 pmkradeelav> random dude on linkedin messages me all 'i see we both work in the femtech industry, did u go to x conference, blah blah.'
>> record scratch
femtech????
...... putting aside the fact he actually got my industry wrong (lol) i think i loathe that word even more than "content creator" if possible.
good god are the techbros even ok (lol) (no)
(it's so weird b/c my tiny bubble of coworkers are so reassuringly all Normal gays(tm) compared to all the trad-extremes that family-friendly places can be.)
>> record scratch
femtech????
...... putting aside the fact he actually got my industry wrong (lol) i think i loathe that word even more than "content creator" if possible.
good god are the techbros even ok (lol) (no)
(it's so weird b/c my tiny bubble of coworkers are so reassuringly all Normal gays(tm) compared to all the trad-extremes that family-friendly places can be.)