welcome to extrospection.
yo.
This is extrospection, the place that I've made where I talk about stuff. That's it. It's essentially an outlet for me to express my thoughts about things that I otherwise wouldn't really talk about normally.
Date Select:
Yo.
Honestly I've been having a lot of thoughts lately so I've decided to make this section of the website so that my brain doesn't explode (or implode!). Everyone needs some sort of outlet (of the non-electrical variety) in their lives, so extrospection was made for that purpose.
So let me talk about some of the manga I've read for the past year or so and my general thoughts on them:
I'm gonna have to make a separate entry for the entirety of Junji Ito's work because holy hell I read a lot of this man's work...
I suppose that's all for now... see you next time.
One more thing. I am EXTREMELY dissapointed that I used frickin markdown when coding this entry lmao...
Yo.
Have you ever had a moment where you're so focused on gaming that you forget about literally everything around you?
That happened when I played modded Terraria today. Made my way all the way up to the Devourer of Gods (who took the most attempts out of any boss to beat, though the pack I'm playing with is pretty easy given I'm doing expert revengeance). Anyways HOLY SHIT Wrath of the Gods has content! Solyn is a very neat character and I am very scared of the dimensional rift that is now blocking the sun and causing an ice age...
Also Fargo's souls is neat... maybe I'll use it with an Infernum playthrough next world... tho I am def removing Community Remix and the piss mod from the pack because they exist solely to be a menace.
I'm gonna get back to dtawing now.
Yo.
Ended up playing more modded Terraria today. Wrath of the Gods is a good mod, though I encountered a few game-breaking bugs... well technically one that bugs out the overlay. Shame! I guess I'll have to leave that world in purgatory whilst I wait for those to get patched... or perhaps it might be with one of the mods fuckin around with it, who knows.
Speaking of games, I finally got my grubby little hands on FRACTAL BLOCK WORLD!!!!
While the dungeons I find kinda tedious it is more than made up for in the exploration factor alone, along with the size-changing mechanic. You shrink/grow pretty rapidly via usage of green/red rings (specifically, each changes your size by a factor of 16 (or 1/16 if you're shrinking)). This is honestly what puts the Fractal in Fractal Block World; if you use the green ring 6 times, a block that said green ring was next to would be the size of the entire earth... assuming that that block is a cubic meter.
Talk about depth!
I also got Caves of Qud today... I'll try it out tomorrow.
Yo.
Ended up playing a lot of Fractal Block World today. I really enjoy it, and I especially like how the cannon's secondary (right-click) mode allows you to watch as your enemies are obliterated one by one by a homing projectile that bounces through enemies... Shame I couldn't get through the third level of the stoney caves... there are FAR too many menaces in there for me to just go in right now.
Fractal Block World, inside the yellow cube
Just look at that above image! There is so much to explore and I know I haven't even scraped the surface of the metaphorical iceberg...
Also tried out Qud today. I got stoned to death by baboons at Red Rock. The game's atmosphere is really great and I love the sound design especially. I'll have to play it more.
Another Saturday comes and goes...
Yo.
Honestly I just wanna say one more thing. Or rather, talk about one more thing.
Moriwo recently did an update on Yume 2kki and I saw people absolutely bitch and moan about it. Foliage Estate got revamped and people hated it. So I went there recently to check out what all the hubbub was about.
Verdict: it isn't that bad of a map.
Even if the music is still the same as last time, the whole map gives me a 90s PSX type of vibe which can be best demonstrated by showcasing its visuals:
For comparison, here is an image of Foliage Estate pre-overhaul:
While I do like both versions of the map, I kinda feel like people's outrage over it is a sign of how cynical the part of the community I'm in is currently. Maybe I'm overreacting a bit: people don't really like changes to things they already like, after all.
However, I am still kinda disappointed with the moriwo update. Why? Because they didn't add any new worlds. Yep. They just overhauled Foliage Estate and that was it. I was looking forward to some new worlds from them, but nothing on that front dropped. It's unfortunate, but I have to bide my time...
Now, back to drawing...
Yo.
Ended up playing a LOT of Cornerpond today. Dunno why but I am afraid to touch Caves of Qud again because I might fuck up... but fucking up is obviously a part of the gameplay. Literally there's an achievement for dying the first time in any playthrough. I will build up my courage and dive into it tomorrow.
Also played some Fractal Block World. The scale of the game is honestly something I can't get over. You should play it. Speaking of which, you can add music to the game. There's a section of the dev's website that has a template you can download which has folders corresponding to all the sections of the world which you can put mp3 or ogg files in. You can find it here. I added some Super Mario 64 music along with songs from Yugioh Forbidden Memories and the PC-98 version of EVO Search for Eden among other things. Also have some images of the environments of the game:
I should also say that the Internet Archive has a lot of gems when it comes to videogame OSTs...
Yo.
Remember that post about me being disappointed in moriwo? Well that disappointment has...
moriwo not only reworked whispering sewers but also added TWO NEW WORLDS!!! I'm not spoiling them. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content. You will witness the new content.
Yo.
It's been a while, but I would like to not discard this section forever maybe perhaps!
Anyways, did you ever get the urge to do something spontaneously in a fit of ... I dunno how to describe it... but uh, yeah, that kinda happened today when I spat out an entire story today (you may find it in the short story corner.). Dunno what came over me but I had to write something.
Dunno what to call it but the closest analog is the fey moods from Dwarf Fortress. You ever have something similar?
Yo.
I am still alive, just haven't really bothered to work on the site until now. I've been rewriting my Persona fanfiction for a while now, am considering whether or not to keep or get rid of the original. I'll try to rewrite up until Jo gets her persona until I publish the rewrite of the fanfiction. Organizing my thoughts on a Google Doc has really helped me a lot with writing the story.
Also did a huge chunk of inktober but I probably won't draw the rest of the prompts. me me lazyyyy...
Also have been playing a lot of spiral knights since August. Even if the game is almost dead I am still having fun with it. The grind, tho... the grind...
Have this gameplay of a shadow lair... I am going to use this as inspiration for my fanfic incidentally...
Yo.
I have been playing far too much spiral knights for my own good... the mmo grindset is fully taken hold of me... anyways, as I write this I'm currently working on a drawing of Suintha that I'll be putting on my Bluesky later tonight hopefully...
Conquered this dungeon twice recently... this is a screenshot from the first time I did that. Shadow Lairs provide great inspiration for my persona fanfic
Speaking of my persona fanfic, I cannot decide what persona I want Momiji to awaken to after her fake Yuki-Onna facade shatters. I want its lore to mirror her arc (i.e. longing for home whilst in a foreign land) fairly closely... I will have to do more research.
Yo.
I really should get to writing the rewritten persona story soon... funny thing about that, I got the perfect idea for Momiji's persona just after the Nov. 15th post. While the figure does mirror her arc, it also contrasts with her initial state of mind coming into Bridgepoint, which I think is quite suitable for her end state of mind. I just need to get this shit on: the road...
I really need to draw some illustrations for this story too... it's honestly a good idea because putting stuff in art will allow the text to be unburdened by adapting the game mechanics to a story format. That happens to be one of my big pet peeves when it comes to fics of that franchise. The more it flows like a story, the better the entire fic becomes.
I got a lot of inspiration for this fic from various different sources (games, books, etc. (man I should read more)) which I wanna talk about. I categorized them into the following on the google doc I'm writing the story in:
Yo.
I have reason to believe that I'm done with chapters 1-4 of the fic... which means it's nearly ready to get out onto the website! I just gotta do some drawings for it that I'll add to the story (doing this on the suggestion of one of my online pals). It's turning out really different, but I like what I've got so far. Hopefully it'll stay that way...
Also I forgor to mention Godhusk in my last post. Once I remembered it, I knew I had to use it for some environment/monster inspo in the future. Go get it if you haven't. It's by the same artist behind VERMIS and it's awesome!
Also I forgor to mention that I'm likely gonna be making a playlist with music that fits with the story... yeah I'm going full effort into this...
Yo.
I'm very pleased that I managed to publish the first four chapters of the New Revised Version of the persona story today... I would've liked to illustrate more things but I just needed to get shit out there lmoa...
Anyways I made sure to outline more things in the Google doc so that I have a better idea of what to write next... I have a few other illustrations I want to make as well and each of them will be put in the relevant chapters. I still need to make the music playlist too lmoa
Yo.
Managed to conquer yet another Shadow Lair in Spiral Knights today, but I forgor to upload the screenshots... oh well, I'll put them up tomorrow.
I can't believe the year is almost over, man... I just wanna rewind back and stay in the same moment forever sometimes. But time moves in one direction and I've gotta live with that.
I just started work on Chapter 5 of the persona story. I wanna get as much done today and tomorrow and publish it on the site. Creating this is one of the things I find enjoyment doing, even if part of me feels it to be a bit cringe sometimes lmoa...
Yo.
I was very stoked to have gotten City of Darkness by Girard and Lambot (the revised 2014 edition), but holy balls is it a fucking chonker of a book. JUST LOOK AT THIS MASSIVE FUCKING BOOK!
Absolute unit. 11 inches per side, look at the ruler for scale
I'll have to read into it a lot more, the photos do a really awesome job of capturing the lost, legendary slum that was the Walled City of Darkness... the descrptions in there reminded me that there are a lot more senses than just sight and touch too lmoa
Yo.
Recently found out about a band by the name of Der Eisenrost (that is German for "The Iron Rust" if I'm translating correctly) thanks to this video on Godhusk. It has some absolute jams within it and I highly recommend that you give it a listen. As for the band itself, based on some research it appears to be based in Tokyo and was formed in 1993. Their album Armored Weapon is what the video revealed to me and it's a very nice listen. Mayhaps I'll add it to the playlist once I get around to making that.
Yo.
Inexplicably I've decided to fool around with some Python stuff and I managed to make somethin that makes a figure of the spiral of Theodorus. here it is!!!
# Based on code by John D. Cook
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from matplotlib.patches import Polygon
def next_vertex(x, y):
h = (x**2 + y**2)**0.5
return (x - y/h, y + x/h)
# plot setup
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.set_aspect('equal')
ax.set_xlim(-3.5, 4.5)
ax.set_ylim(-4.5, 3.5)
ax.set_axis_off()
def next_color(number):
if number % 3 == 0:
return 'blue'
elif number % 3 == 1:
return 'red'
else:
return 'yellow'
N = 17
x_old, y_old = 1, 0
for n in range(1, N):
x_new, y_new = next_vertex(x_old, y_old)
color = next_color(n)
# vertices to draw triangle
vertices = np.array([[0, 0], [x_old, y_old], [x_new, y_new]])
# draw the triangle
triangle = Polygon(vertices, closed=True, facecolor=color, edgecolor='black')
ax.add_patch(triangle)
# setup for next triangle
x_old, y_old = x_new, y_new
plt.show()
Yo.
I'm gonna be real and say that I'm not sure if I like the way the site currently looks or not. Whole thing is kinda... disorganized and unclean methinks... If I do reorganize things there's no doubt that:
but the whole style of the site will be different. Idk I'll have to test things out to be sure.
Yo.
You might've noticed the new look of the website and yeah. I fucking did it! the new design is up and running!!!!
I'm quite proud of how it turned out, even if it turned out to just require reorganizing some stuff and otherwise leave things untouched (also i lied about the MS Paint Dungeon haha). It feels a lot more like geocities, especially due to my usage of a few gifs and a background image I made using GIMP. Kinda disappointed in how underwhelming it is but I jive with it. Also nice that this happened about a year after I first started making this thing lol
Yo.
Picked up a few games recently: World of Horror, Cloverpit, and Buckshot Roulette. Managed to try out all three of them these past couple days and I quite liked them all (I am still salty about losing to the dealer twice tho). I'm not entirely sure how I did it but I managed to survive a couple World of Horror scenarios (hell idk what the hell is even going on in that game in terms of gameplay lmao)...
Also I decided to play minecraft create mod... After trying out a stranded at sea modpack for a bit I switched to all of create and achieved FLIGHT:
I still wanna try out World of Horror some more tho
Yo.
So the new year finally started... surprised I managed to stick around this long lmoa
Anyways I got sucked into minecraft create mod again... managed to get an airship added by the add-on immersive aircraft:
It's big and beautiful and it's got gunz!
Also picked up Cloverpit, Buckshot Roulette and World of Horror and tried them out. They're all good but Cloverpit is the one I'm addicted to at the moment.
I might draw my sona which is something I've put off for a long while now. Playin around with ideas... just dunno what she should look like...
Yo.
I played the hell out of Minecraft: All of Create modpack and made a fairly sizeable factory that I carved into a huge stone arch that generated due to one of the biome mods:
Look at it: Look at: the factory...
Idk why but suddenly I didn't want to play Minecraft anymore so I moved onto Cloverpit... and beat it twice!
The first time with default memory card
The second time with fixation... honestly that one was really easy... dunno if I should do the opposite of that where I get one huge-ass 21-spin round
Also managed to decide what special material-summoned Personas Josephine will have access to in The Persona Story™... I will draw her with one of them soon mark my words...
Yo.
Wrote a little bit more of the persona story since last time... I need to finish chapter 6 soon...
In other news, I have played the mod of garry yesterday, and won cloverpit again. flux2 is an especially good map from the mod of garry. Feels like a yume nikki fangame in the best possible way while still being completely different. Here are some screenshots:
Yo.
I just played some Signalis and it is MAKING ME FUCKING BONKERS OMG... the puzzles... so many puzzles... (also I made it to chapter 2 and I am mourning the loss of my precious map data.... aaaaaahhhhhhhhh)
also snow. lots of it.
Yo.
I finally beat signalis holy balls!!! it drove me bonkers but! i did it! i didn't understand what the fuck was going on but I liked it!
You will witness: the environs.
You will witness: the environs.
You will witness: the environs.
You will witness: the environs.
fr tho i was hesitating to watch flawed peacock's signalis video bc i wanted to beat the game at least once first... but i have now! (i took a lot of damage so i got the promised ending)...
also this game has influenced me to draw a robot gril in the very near future so yeah. GO PLAY THE LESBIAB ROBOT GAME IF YOU ARE INTO SURVIVAL HORROR
Yo.
February is a hard month to spell...
Anyways I have fallen into the deep dark rabbit hole that is the Signalis universe after beating it for the first time... (considering playing it again to 100% the achievements on steam but my timbers have been shivered by the experience)
So much so have I fallen into the Signalis rabbit hole that I may make a signalis oc in the near future... I am that much in love with the game... anyways my thoughts on it are (or at least some of them are):
Honestly, the whole cyclical nature that's touched on by several video essays (including Flaw Peacock's) does make a lot of sense to me. What I think may be happening is that multiple Elsters are being dragged into the whole time loop, which may account for all the Elsters seen in the fake ending and the artifact ending and other places... also there's the game over screens you get which see the Elster you play as change designations suddenly.
I think that there was one timeline which had the unshakeable bond form between Ariane and LSTR-512 and end in a long, drawn out death of both of them as they flew further out into interstellar space. Then Ariane's latent bioresonance echoed throughout time and space, causing other replikas to have the memories of their time together embedded into their subconscious, and that was the root of the corruption... well, corruption might be a bit generic... more like corruption caused by agony unraveling the fabric of reality and making it conform to that one timeline.
As for the world itself, I'm certain that both governments are oppressive in their own unique ways, though we obviously see more of the Nation's Stalinistic flavor over the Empire's monarchical tyranny... It's quite interesting that the rulers of both factions of the Eusan system are female as well. I also wonder what sorts of replikas the Empire might use, or if they even call them replikas. The more spiritual side that the Empire represents would give them a unique flair, though ultimately they would serve the same purpose of being cogs in the machines of both their workforces.
The mystery of bioresonance is, while certainly analogous to whatever psi exists in WH40k for instance, very key to the world. Ariane has it, firstly, and then there's the fact that it's used to manufacture Replikas. There's also the stunting of progress in terms of electronics caused by that as explained in one of the documents, though I'm still fairly sure that, because they at least have Windows 95 on their computers, they could've used... PROBES to send out into space in lieu of a gestalt and replika in a spaceship... tho maybe the Nation wants to show the Empire that they have bigger balls or something idk (they also have radio tech, as seen in gameplay and in flashbacks).
The dichotomy of the more materialistic Nation and the spiritualistic Empire shows in how they look at bioresonance. The Nation sees it as an object of scientific study whilst the Empire sees it as more of a spiritual force, perhaps emanating from one greater being. That reference to The Festival by Lovecraft leads me to believe that there could be a greater force in the Signalis multiverse. Perhaps a god laying beneath all existence, emanating its power and thus consequently giving humans bioresonance. Maybe it heard Ariane's agony somehow and amplified her powers? idk maybe i'm getting floppy with it
I have succumbed to the signalis...
No, but for real, I am considering writing something with Josephine that's signalis-themed, much like the persona story I have going on at the moment. I'm kinda torn on doing it because I would rather not have my effort be spread across two projects, but maybe I should just focus on one story at a time, paying attention to what interests me in the moment.
I have made a couple art pieces which you can see in the gallery that point in that direction, after all... also my bsky has been nothing but me talking about signalis for the last couple weeks or so...
Signalis truly is special lmoa
I have started writing a Josephine!Signalis story, which is currently a little under 3000 words long at the time of writing this, and which includes various documents of both Josephine!Signalis and some OC replika units I've created.
yeah this game got me good
Also, I've been playing the getfixedboi seed on terraria and holy fuck is it quite an ordeal, mostly due to the environment. All the pre-hardmode bosses (with the exception of Eater of Worlds) I felt were pretty easy, though.
This is the character I'm playing as in getfixedboi. Her name is Fern and there is a non-zero chance I'll draw her in the future.
Yo.
I could not resist the urge to play Signalis again and so I did and got the artifact ending. Also going for the 100% but holy balls how the FUCK can Eules one shot you from full health in survival?!
My signalis fanfiction is also coming along, I suppose. Its just not in a state that I want published at the moment (i want to write more of it), and I haven't been writing a lot as of late.
There is this one persona 3 story I came across where Makoto gets trapped in a time loop where he relives the game over and over again; said aspect does parallel signalis, especially in how the two (Elster and him) feel agony (though in 2 different flavors). It really gets going when, after 570 something cycles, FemC appears which surprises Makoto. Kinda reminds me of the concept of gestaltzerfall, and that parallel grows as the story continues.
Really made me think how I might implement the cyclical nature of agonizing time loops into my signalis story if I do do it...
I should draw the other 2 OC replika units I have soon as well... I made overviews already for all 3 I have which will be posted in the signalis story once it's up on my site.
EDIT 6:10 PM:Yo.
Showed one of my online friends around signalis yesterday... I was losing it by rotfront lmoa
But man I keep getting new thoughts with each playthrough I do... no I DO NOT want to play it again at the moment... unless I want to 100% achievements on steam but again, Eules can one-shot you in that difficulty.
I'm currently drawing some more art for my upcoming signalis fic...
Yo!
FINALLY got the signalis story to a state where I'm confident in publishing what I have. Scroll all the way down to writing and find "The Reconstitution of a Human Being." It's got a few pieces of worldbuilding attached for more context but all in all I'm pleased to have released it (ignore the persona story crying in the background).
signalis has terminally infected me with brainrot istg...
Yo.
Output a lot of art regarding my signalis story over the past week... I'm kinda proud tbh but still, there's something that feels off in the air... idk how to describe it without revealingthe secret... That fanart's gotten more likes and reposts than basically anything I posted on bsky thus far (though there was that one time on twitter where I screenshotted a funny review that went viral and got 3k likes, but that doesn't count). Still, even if my art kinda sucks, I can't help but feel I'm not going anywhere at all...
i still have something i need to do, i suppose...
I wrote a singular sentence of my signalis story last night before continuing the mission... i need to write more istg... but yeah, i will reiterate once again that I love signalis a lot... space cyborg ladies go wild...
I noticed that the drawings of the OC replika models I made got a lot more attention than those of the Gestalt characters... I attribute that to the replikas being among the more interesting elements in signalis's world.
ahhh idk i'm rambling again... and i still need to do something
Yo.
As the signalis story comes along, I've gone ahead and gotten Lucid Blocks, a game which I've wanted to play for quite some time. The world is an extremely liminal and dreamlike version of Minecraft's, but it also has a completely different crafting system and enemies from Minecraft which help it really stand out. I got pretty into it during a vc in the Captain KRB discord server lmoa, so here's some screenshots:
I like the zigurrat that leads to my personal qualia in particular (qualia is what dimensions are called in this game)
Yo.
Played a lot more of Lucid Blocks today. After I saw someone dig down and into various different locales in their qualia, I had to do the same. These screenshots are the result of that (+ my personal qualia build progress):
As for the signalis story, I'm writing some of that now (or at least trying)...