conventions and game jams and dolls, Oh My!

Quite a few things have happened since my last blog post, both good and bad. I got to go to a local convention the other week, and that was fun! I got an ear infection more recently though. That's less fun.

A friend told me he's planning on entering a mixed media queer visual novel jam, and it makes me think about finally making a serious vn of my own. I clarify "serious" because I don't consider a joke vn featuring a piplup who builds a clone of metal sonic that I made in one night at 13 years old to test renpy as a serious vn lol. I played through one of the games listed on the game jam page as an example of a queer mixed media vn, Molly: The Near Mint Hero, and enjoyed it a lot. The characters are really charming and the story and worldbuilding is fascinating. I definitely want to take some inspiration from this game, even if I don't end up applying to the game jam and just make the game(s) on my own time.

Also, because of M:TNMH, I started looking up BJDs (Ball-Jointed Dolls) again and OH MY GODDD I WISH SHE WASN'T SOLD OUT FUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!! She's based on hydnellum peckii, the bleeding tooth mushroom!!! (would Not recommend looking up the mushroom itself if you have trypophobia lol)

I have a bunch more stuff I'd love to talk about, but I'll leave those for some other posts given that I'm not the best at organizing my thoughts lol. See ya later!

I like a yummy Rom's Hack

I have a ridiculous amount of games, both on Steam and otherwise. I like your usual candidates; Pokémon, Kirby, Sonic, your usual indie games, but I also enjoy the really obscure and esoteric stuff. Weird RPG Maker games from the depths of itch.io and whatnot. The Good Stuff.

I also like ROM hacks, specifically ones that are strange and unique in some way. To this day I still yearn for a mainline Pokémon ROM hack that makes the game really strange and surreal, with Kube Kreatures: Bleached White (eyestrain warning) and Strung Up By Sketches being good examples of what I mean. (I'm a little anxious about actually linking these, but honestly what's the actual likelihood of a ROM hack being taken down because a tiny blog run by some rando linked it in a post lol)

Recently I've been playing Pokémon AlteRed, a ROM hack which type-swaps every Pokémon in the game, giving them new designs and names. I've been enjoying it so far, I love what they did with the designs (I will protect Yumpluff with my life,) and I'm really looking forward to continuing it and filling out my team more! I'm personally VERY fond of Pokémon hacks with Fakémon (for those who don't know, this means fan-made Pokémon, hence it being a portmanteau of Fake + Pokémon,) and will honestly tend to gravitate towards a hack more if it has Fakémon in it. Much less so if the designs aren't to my taste, but probably still a little bit. Thankfully, a good chunk of AlteRed's designs are VERY much to my taste.

I recorded audio of myself beating the second gym to put up as a kind of field recording single on Bandcamp, inspired by Shiny Hunting for Duskull in Pokémon Ruby for a Few Minutes by Trainer Yellow. I'll get around to that sometime soon hopefully.

The post dates are kinda fucked up. Also my tone tends to shift weirdly lol

 The dates for my previous posts appear wrong for some reason, at least on my end. They say they were both posted on May 24th, even though I made both during and after midnight of that day. Strange.

Anyways I also wanted to mention that I probably won't write in a consistent manner all the time. Sometimes I might write a blog post with semi-formal grammar and phrasing like you see here, and sometimes i might like. Talk Like This because that's how I tend to type casually lol.

Honestly, not a huge fan of the super formal blog speech I've been using so far. Doesn't feel like me. Probably gonna be more casual going forward.

"Favorite" Things

If you were to ask me what my favorite colour is, I'd probably answer with the truth: I don't exactly have one. I'd probably then elaborate and say that I mainly enjoy reds, purples, blues, and black and white. If you were to ask me what my favorite Pokémon is, I'd most likely say "Well, one of my favorites is Meowstic." I also like Reuniclus. And Espurr. And Malamar. And Mismagius. And...

Do you see the problem here?

I personally can't bring myself to truly pick a Single Favorite Thing. Logically, I know I'm not obliged to, but more often then not I find myself squeezing my enjoyment of a wide spectrum into a singular concrete answer for no discernable reason. "What's your favorite color?" asks the quiz, and I pause for a minute before selecting purple, or black, or red.

Another problem I have is just kinda...forgetting everything ever when asked what my favorite media-related thing is? Like, if I'm asked "what's your favorite Pokémon?," more often than not, the reason that I default to Meowstic is that I kind of just draw a total blank on nearly all other Pokémon.

Do not even get me started on when it happens with music.

But yeah if it wasn't already obvious I am the Various Neurodivergences Man lol

Been wanting to start one of these for a bit.

I've tried starting blogs in the past, mainly as a tween if memory serves me right. Never did anything with them of course, but hey, maybe that'll finally change now that I'm actually making one.

I should probably actually introduce myself. Hello! My name is Michael and/or Poly, feel free to use either. I decided to finally start this blog because of the realization that I have WAY too many thoughts that I find interesting to not share in some capacity. I have a quite frankly obscene amount of google docs just full of random shit that pops into my brain. Story ideas, band names based on weird shit someone said...honestly it's mainly story ideas. But the point still stands!

I don't really use social media all that much, save for youtube and discord (and just a little bit of tumblr and bluesky for cool art), and mainly enjoy scrounging for the more obscure parts of the internet, like neocities and nekoweb, and sometimes even the occasional old personal blog from years past. Sometimes I wonder what the owners of abandoned blogs and websites are doing now, or if they're okay...

To be completely and utterly transparent, my mental health and general outlook on the state of the world and myself for the past seven or so months has been, for lack of a better term, Quite Shit. I figure that maybe getting some of my more fun and/or interesting thoughts Out There somewhere would be a fun thing to keep me somewhat occupied at least.

But yeah, probably not gonna post anything too heavy, probably just random trains of thought about stuff I enjoy, and maybe the occasional story idea. Yippee!!

If anyone is actually here reading this...thanks for being interested in weird little blogs lol

(Blue star background from https://kaizocore.neocities.org/Deltagraphics)