Decided I want to stay more on top of making progress learning blender so I reorganized my discord where Im going to keep notes and progress pics (am also going to use it as just a hangout mostly centered around bulls/bovines)

Still in the process of setting everything up but the link is here https://discord.gg/dHdHaDNM

Everminne hit another threshold, he's hoping to finish a raffle before he hits 600 *but* he just posted more on his comic of a dragon being forced to be a test subject for potions made by his 300 kids that have no experience making potions, at the very least I'd recommend checking that out <3

He's in classes at the moment so his updates are a little erratic, but he's well worth it if you're fond of TF~

(The raffle he's hoping to finish before 600 is here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/60.....#cid:185273954)

Tonight I want to try starting something. I don't really want to try to schedule sketching with my current situation, but I am going to set a timer for an hour and try to just write and whatever I end up with is what I'm gonna post. I've got a prompt in mind for tonight already, so if I don't have anything posted by like 11PM ET (12ish hours from now) and you have me on discord poke me and ask me wtf I'm doing <3

I've had the idea in my head for almost a year now to get something done of a bunch of characters merging into a multicolored macro lion for pride month. I'm starting to plan a group comm from  Sarvak and am looking to see who's interested, but I'm terrible about not having reached out to a lot of people in the community that didn't reach out to me first so if anyone is interested or knows anyone that may be interested feel free to poke me on discord (notafox) or note me. I'm currently planning to start a discord group chat to figure out specifics, but the general idea is to get 5 people at minimum to match the voltron scheme but am not opposed to figuring out a way to fit more in if there's interest.

Edit: had the thought that I should clarify that I'm not specifically looking *for* lions, that's just the end result

Oh boy, I've got a new fixation.

I don't know how many people have played The Witness, but I recently finished playing through it (I have been vehemently against it for the longest time despite having not finished it, I still don't think it's the "end all be all" of puzzle games, but it is worth playing if you haven't and like puzzles)

Anyways, I've also been into speedrunning for a long time. I haven't had a category to grind recently (I've been working on trying to play Tetris: Grand Master, but haven't gotten a full clear yet because that game is HARD), but in The Witness is a puzzle room where there's a timed gauntlet of puzzles, you have 400 seconds to clear it. I normally wouldn't do puzzle game speedruns because the main speedrun has a lot of "memorize all of these puzzles", but due to the random nature of the challenge I've been loving spamming it over and over.

Anyways, there's a category for The Witness speedrunning where you have to clear that challenge 20 times in a row. I think my goal for it is sub-90 minutes, I've only done about a night's worth of runs on the single challenge but I got a single run down to 4:11 so it should be doable.

... and while I'm thinking about puzzles, anyone that's into sudoku and up to try interesting variations on that, I'm going to mention Logic Masters Germany.

https://logic-masters.de/Raetselportal/

It's a German site, but you can bring up the page in English. I'm sure most people that are into more unique sudoku are already aware of this (from places like Cracking the Cryptic), but might as well get it out there. If you're overwhelmed by the number of variants on their, my three favorites at the moment are:

Chaos Construction - the regions aren't the standard 9 3x3 regions. Usually these start out with no regions defined and you have to figure out where the 9 9-cell 1-9 regions are, also usually with some rules restricting them further than "9 orthogonally connected regions with 1-9 in them" to help figure out where the regions are early.

Killer Cages - Extra boxes placed over the puzzle marked with a number. The number is what the numbers in the box have to sum to, and usually no repeats in the box, so e.g. a 2 cell box with a 4 has to contain exactly a 1 and a 3 because it can't contain two 2s

Anti-Knight - In addition to normal sudoku rules, cells also can't share a number with a cell that is a knight's chess move away from them. Allows for some additional interesting logical deduction when you know that a number has to be in one of a couple of cells.

Anyways, that was it. I had an idea for this week's weekly prompt that I need to finish still so I should go do that @_@

I don't normally do these but (I keep wanting to type his name as "Ervine" because of talking about Irvine from FF8 around the time that I found him @_@) is doing a comic raffle here https://www.furaffinity.net/view/59591714/

He's the one that did the two udder growth comics, and he does a bunch of tf/wg/etc comics on his page. Worth checking out if you haven't in my opinion <3

Thinking about changing Atty's name to Adelaide. Could keep the same nickname and I feel weird every time I type "Atremath" or read it (like an "I-was-12-and-thought-this-sounded-cool" feeling). I don't want to go back and change everything I've already written, but I plan on revisiting the Gabriel plot stuff after I get a bit into it anyway and can change it then. Just need to change his folder name here and his tag on e6.

In other news, wizards unbanned mox opal in modern? So I'm going to be flitting around looking for a new deck. Between that, GSZ, and Faithless Looting I don't think I'll be able to play my fair birthing ritual list at least until my fnm meta settles. Debating between uwr energy, uwx control, and grixis wizards, but I did *also* consider becoming the problem and making Dredge or storm (I don't see twin doing as well as it used to, but I did hear someone put it into a list that's been doing well that I saw a screenshot where they put it on an ocelot pride and I'm kinda interested in that.

Anyways, that was it. I'm going back to procrastinating on the Christmas story I started

Just some random thoughts while I'm debating on how I want to write this.

Working with a character that has three separate voices that speak at the same time, but say *slightly* different things (a couple of words replaced)

Originally I was going to just have this happening at the ends of sentences and finish each statement off by adding additional lines for the extra voices, but then I started writing lines where I wanted to change around things in the middle of the sentence. I've got a couple of possibilities I tossed around that I figured I'd put here, but I think I know which one I'm going to go with.

Option 1: Cut off when they split and treat them like I was originally going to treat them.
I do *not* like this option, I feel like it breaks the speech up way too much and just awkwardly fill space.

Option 2: Include the whole line three times, once for each voice
I also don't like this option, I feel like it's better than option 1 because it doesn't break the speech up but I don't like the extra repetition

Option 3: Include the extra voice changes in different notation, (voice 1) [voice 2] {voice 3} or voice 1 (voice 2) [voice 3].
It's a little clunky but I think this is the best way I can think of to do it with just text, and probably what I'm going to do. I'm leaning towards the ()[]{} style to make it clearer where the voices differ, will see how it ends up

Option 4: I have been messing with manually creating PDFs for a couple of weeks now, and I think it'd be cool to make a PDF export of it and then like... overlay the additional voices slightly offset from the original in a way that they're all readable. We'll see if I end up getting it done, I definitely have the *technical* knowledge to do it but will have to play with getting it to look good and be readable. Maybe even use a different font for each in that case?

Finally getting some writing done and in the middle of it had some inspiration for a *totally unrelated* thing that I've had in the back pocket for a while.

Had the idea for a sort of detective story a while ago, not going to say too much here in case I actually write it, but the current plot is an investigation in a medieval-ish town where several individuals have been found dead from heart attacks that have a bit too much of a connection to each other for it to be a coincidence.

Atty and Gabriel are probably going to be investigating it, with a snake bartender that has been doing some dealings on the side he may want to cover, a brewer that may be slighted by patrons thoughts, a competitor that could be trying to drive people away... we'll see what the finished group looks like when we get to it.

Anyways, that's not my current writing focus but I'm posting it because I thought of this exchange and didn't want it to just disappear forever:

"If he's not unbound before I get back, you're going to deal with parking violations for as long as I can have you there"
"Uh, sir?"
"Yes?"
"... what's a parking violation?"
"Exactly."

Oh, and I bought a domain! Currently setting it up to put tournament reports for MtG on, but I may end up putting story ideas/worldbuilding/character bios on there and if I do I'll link it here. Gotta get it set up first though <3

I've been distracted by speedruns, character design, and M:tG recently, so now that I'm getting back to it I'm going to try to be more organized.

I've started this trello, if I hear or think of an idea I like it'll be added to the list. Anything that has had at least an outline started will link to a doc. I was going to keep them in drafts on sofurry but it doesn't appear to be possible to link those to people without also having them listed in the regular post search.
https://trello.com/b/OvazP0uR/story-plans

On the non-writing side, I've been getting back into Magic, tossing together an all minotaurs EDH list with Sethron and another EDH with every playable Ajani that has been printed (which does great art for Magic and also furry stuff in general so if you haven't seen her stuff it's worth a look) I get a mat every couple of years and while I think I'm going to get one this year I'm unsure of what... Debating on getting a commission of a few chars this year to get printed, possibly something around a table playing cards but alternatively a character representing each of the two EDH lists I've got together with a bunch of gear around them referencing individual cards. Who knows.

Anyways, just typing this up so I can try to get thoughts together, I've been talking to people about getting better about finishing things up instead of moving on to other new things. For that, I think I'm going to pick up some half "requests", things I'm already interested in writing that have been mentioned by friends. Hopefully having a bit of visibility and working on some prompts that aren't just for myself help with that - we'll see how it goes

<3

Going to start posting the outlines when I'm working on a "side" WIP (not for the main-overarching-plot WIP) as a journal, in case anyone is curious.
This one is shortly after the events of the current planned "main" WIP, and is partially written already, but I adjusted the outline a bit today.
Was going to try to fill it out a bit more, but got sidetracked playing with cloth physics in blender instead.

Atremath, alone in desert landscape
-Emphasis on alone - general feel should include that he still thinks he deserves to be punished
--Note: desert landscape is manipulated by him, but subconscious block prevents. this would be his 'Domain'
-Sweeps tracks behind self with tufted tail, alluding to later events
-Set up description of summoning, establish that it's possible to resist (though gets forced in the end)

Summoned, first time
-Set up second locale - back room, small library setup.
--Cheap shelving, lots of notes/texts, enough space for summoning circle
-Establish that summon was done by someone inexperienced
--Signs of rough corrections to circle
--deformities - lines aren't straight, runes maybe misaligned, but not enough to prevent cast
-Establish fear of Atremath in young wolf character (the "summoner")
-Bring in "abuser"
--covered, not a lot of features to make out
--young wolf more afraid of him than atremath
---moves to keep atremath between the two
--drunk
-Atremath makes connection
--own tail wipes across circle when he starts reacting, scattering sand
---sand scattering sends Atremath back
-also establish fire-breathing somewhere in here?

Atremath, alone again
-breaks down afterwards
-shock>denial>anger>bargaining <- summon sensation happens during anger or bargaining?
-blacks out for an implied time skip?
-summon sensation again

Summoned, second time
-young wolf runs to atremath for comfort this time
-atremath notices scarring/etc
-triggers subconscious form change thing
-pick up wolf pup, place on shoulders/back/etc for safety
-burn summoning circle into floor, works to stabilize
-feral form comes out, scents around, takes off, implied hunting the probable "abuser" from before

Wrote some notes today, figured I'd post them for ideas/critique/etc. These are unedited and were pretty much just jotted down as ideas came, so they are probably very unorganized and chaotic. I'll be working to expand them into articles on the worldanvil page at some point, but for now I need to go get some stuff done.

[Coastal Trade City #1]
Built on the remains of a relatively large dragon, the city is both a center of agricultural and marine development for one of the magic-based societies of the world. Despite having a sizeable occupancy, most of the residents of the area are short term. The positioning of the leyline, on the tip of an inlet of Kletheria's main ocean, makes it a perfect hub for farming - the sizeable magic source allows for druidic magic to be used in a wide area surrounding the town, producing a far greater yield than would be possible elsewhere, while also causing residual effects on the land at the outskirts. The value of being able to have such a source available globally, as well as the need for the city to occasionally be defended from the side effects of its own magic (aggressive/territorial species enhanced by the druid magic empowering the farming operations occasionally prove to be a threat to the town itself) mean that the region tends to be held as a very strict neutral zone.

Notable locations and groups
- Several inns and taverns that are gathering places for adventurers looking for either assistance or work
- [Location 1]: The inn that Atremath visits due to being run by descendants of his first love is here. He occasionally drops what he considers vague enough hints to direct parties to attempt to prevent major disasters, but he has to have made a particularly terrible prediction in order to actually go through with this.
- The inn harvests a particular crop for themselves that they use to make a dish entirely because Atremath always wants it when he is in the area. They believe that, while him coming around is a bad omen, as long as they keep serving said dish, he's a "guardian angel" to them (because of food). In reality, the inn's original founder was in a relationship with Atremath at a time that two individuals with similar features being together was frowned upon, and both of them were minotaurs.
- The inn is also a hub for adventurers - it's well known that the inn has been the source of direction for many well-known legends, so hopefuls show up of all levels of capability that want to make a name for themselves.
- Markets where traders from all across the world bring crafted works from their home regions in order to trade for crops and meats.
- Typically, the public markets deal in trading adventuring supplies for meats or high value materials, while the harvesters prefer prearranged deals to be able to most efficiently plan their quotas.
-Available meats can vary wildly, due to very few domesticated species existing. Most of the traded stock comes from hunting in the outskirts, where the residual effects keep game stocks high.
- Local garrison/political hub: As a neutral zone that is always exposed to the danger from the wilds around it, to aid in the town's defense (though it doesn't necessarily need it with the number of adventuring parties that are always coming and going) it is a custom that each individual political entity that wants to start consistent trade within the city send a single member as a political delegate that also joins into a militia for defense against

Language
- A neutral common phonetic written language exists that is used, and as part of the cooperative custom a trade language (developed just enough to facilitate important communications - typically ) though such a wide range pass through the city that would not necessarily be fluent in it that businesses such as inns or taverns that deal with travelers tend to rely more on imagery in signage. Local scholars can be arranged for to facilitate communication if needed - note that no known magic currently exists to translate spoken/written words, while magic does exist that allows for sharing of emotions and memories.

Apologies for the post spam, found a bunch of old stuff I hadn't posted and figured I'd get it into folders and organized. Probably a couple more to come up later, not sure I got everything in.

I almost forgot to continue this! While I have a moment, here we go:

I mentioned having been thinking about the class system in three layers, and the visual presentation of it has definitely been heavily affected by certain recent games (cough TUNIC cough). I really liked the design of Tunic where the player was building a "manual" of sorts by collecting pages as you go through the game, giving a collectible that does a good job of helping teach game mechanics when they're expected on the first playthrough while also being unintrusive on future playthroughs (and for Tunic, I believe nearly completely not required? [spoilers redacted]). For the RPG project I've been keeping notes on, the following are all things that I wanted to keep in mind for a class system:
-Randomizer viability. I'm a big fan of randomizers in general, mostly e.g. Super Metroid, other metroidvania/platformers, but have been known to dabble in a couple of the final fantasy randomizers or Lufia, so while I may not design entirely around randomizer viability I want to keep it in mind.
-Clarity of information for a first playthrough. At least the ability to provide enough information to get started in a clearer concise way.
-Depth of information for subsequent playthroughs, as well as depth of customization. A lot of this is also in keeping earlier classes balanced against later, but that's scope creep for this discussion I think
-Nothing else comes to mind at the moment but I'm *certain* I'm forgetting something

With that in mind, and going back to tunic's example and the layers I mentioned yesterday: On the surface, I'm currently thinking of dungeons and dragons style class blurbs. Describing what it is that a class does from a thematic standpoint, hint at important things or intended synergies. When you pick up a page, it's a front and back with stat blocks for abilities and equippables/etc on one side, with maybe a key art and the thematic description on the other. Unlike Tunic, the system would function more like the final fantasy job crystals - you can't use a class until you pick up its page. (The pages themselves then would lend to randomizers on several layers, the pages themselves can be an item that is randomized, and then the information *on* the pages could be rendered in a way to make it easily changed, providing an easy way for class features to be shifted around and pieced back together into new classes)

From the characters standpoint, I'm thinking of the (main, at least) characters knowing they're inside of a game (tactics advanced/many isekai series) and that the pages are partially what gives them the abilities, which also explains why they *lose* these abilities when they change class (it always bothers me when games have characters suddenly not able to cast certain spells just because they're not -x class- without having an in game reason for it, but it's a minor pet peeve)

... I definitely had more to write but I'm blanking on it for now to the point of not having *anything* to keep noting down related to the project, so this is all of this for a while. I just wanted to pick back up writing and with the games I've been playing I had thoughts on game design rather than story plots to work on. :)

So it's been a while since I've posted anything, and a decent amount of that is that I just haven't been writing/drawing - I made the best/worst mistake of getting a 90 square foot plush blanket, and found it significantly easier to use a controller than a keyboard or the art tablet while wrapped in several layers of fluffy fabric. Now that I'm back at a keyboard for a bit, I wanted to get down whatever is on top of my head re:: game design, partially to put out the same thoughts that either are way off base or have probably been said a million times before, but also to get back into a rhythm of just being able to type what I'm thinking without stressing over every word that I'm putting down.

Recently, I'm slightly embarrassed to admit, despite having played through all of the mainline final fantasy games to their end except for two, and also quite a few of the side games: I have NEVER finished Final Fantasy Tactics. Since that's what I've been working through lately, I've been thinking about the class system and what I would change about it if I were to fit it into the project notes that I have scattered several places. There are three levels of system design that I've been taking into account - What the system looks like to the player, what the system would look like to a character (and does it need to), and how the system operates from a software/game mechanics level when you strip away the surface.

Where Tactics really shines, in my opinion, is that last level. At its core, each character is a single job that then gets to pick essentially four features (one of each category) from the others - the command list, a reaction, a "support ability", and a movement tech. This lets the player have a ton of flexibility for the system, which Tactics feels like it balances to a reasonable point - of the jobs I've tried out so far, the only one that felt absolutely useless early on was the Archer, and that could have been easily fixed by giving players easier access to a different bow that did slightly less on its own but arced over allies and walls, like the ones used by the NPC archers (this may be player error - will see when I start experimenting after my blind playthrough), and I'm vaguely aware of the system being abusable enough that people have finished completely single character runs from having looked into variant runs of games a while back.

Where I think Tactics (Disclaimer: I am partway through the original release, and have not looked at the War of the Lions rerelease at all) could improve is in how this information is presented to the player. As an example, there are multiple ways to get to what *appears* to be the same information for each class for each character, but the player is only allowed to spend points in one of those locations. These menus all look exactly the same, but the lines on abilities that the character has the JP to learn are black and selectable on the menu that is specifically "learn skills", and they're all grayed out on the other spots. It's not enough to ruin the game, but it's enough that I've (more than once) felt like I've been fumbling around a giant set of spreadsheets looking for the right one to edit.

On top of the clunky menu, when a new class is unlocked, you get the name of the class and a long list of abilities and costs. It does tell you what unlocked the class, which is nice, as classes have to be unlocked on a per character basis, but also a description of what each thing does. It's nice that all of the information is there, but the way it is presented is clunky, in my opinion. You have to individually open the description of every spell/ability/passive/class/stat that you want to look at, and then it has the problem of giving you all of the raw information about a class at once. It doesn't seem too difficult to even miss that the reactions/support skills/movement abilities are options at first, which is probably acceptable given how much they tend to cost to learn, but I would still personally prefer the default tab show everything with the option to tab over to filtered lists.

I've been sitting here for a bit longer than I meant to, though, but I'll leave this to be continued later - I have some thoughts bringing in ideas from Tunic that I wanted to get down, and some thoughts about what I'd plan to do with a system like this if I was able to magically implement everything as it currently (Subject to Change, as ever) sits.

P.S. gave it a quick reread before hitting create - just wanted to note that I don't dislike the system as a whole, and have definitely been enjoying the game, just the things that I didn't like about the systems came more readily and are more of what I want to expand on later with how I'm thinking about changing it rather than "I liked this, so I plan to draw from this"

I don't know how many people read these, but it's a new year! That always means people are coming up with their big plans for the year, and while I feel like for most people it's a spontaneous decision that doesn't get carried through, I'm going to make some plans anyway.

I want to get more stories to a complete state, so I'm going to stop trying to write "x words or bust" and instead pick a theme each week, and then work on that and wherever it's at when it's time to pick the next one (probably friday or saturday, it'll be unstable for a bit, hopefully get more of a schedule if I keep with it) I'm going to tie it off and call it done. This week's going to be a minotaur transformation. If I get finished with one early, I'll pick a second theme and start something sooner, unsure if I'll have those themes be things that I want to write that I don't think can be/need to be as long.

On that note, I'm going to plug the discord again (I should probably put this in my profile instead): https://discord.gg/wsjGgj856D
I'll probably muse about upcoming themes in there so I'm ready for them, but also just open to anyone's discussion. Now that I'm writing this, I'm playing with the idea in my mind of turning it into a "weekly writing theme club" where as a group a general theme is picked (always very general, maybe just one word?) and everyone writes something (or doesn't, I don't control your life) related to that theme for the week.

Following up from the last journal: I'm trying out a site for organizing world notes. I haven't put too much into it so far because I've been doing practice sketches and having other holiday engagements, but anyone interested can find those here: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/kletheria-atremath

Anyways, I'm going to tie this off because I need to get somewhere and if I keep writing I'm going to be here forever. Happy new years ^^
-ACluelessBull

I need to get finishing/organizing things, and I keep starting new WIPs and projects, so I figured I'd put up a quick note to gauge interest in things/figure out what exactly I should focus on:

1) I'm starting a discord. Link is here: https://discord.gg/wsjGgj856D
It is currently empty. I plan to use it to discuss random WIP ideas and characterization, and maybe get ideas to write about. I don't want it to be about my writing in particular so much as writing in general, but I do want a place where I can talk about my own characters idly when I come up with dumb ideas and then have people tell me the ideas are dumb (or not) without messaging the same two friends thirty times because they're the discord contacts that I have that I'm comfortable sending furry content to. If there's enough interest to get it running, I'll actually block out the channels based on what whoever joins wants.

2) I need to figure out a good place to store character notes/world notes. I've thought about putting them in scraps, and I think I have some notes stored over in a folder on SoFurry, but I've been really bad about updating them. I may end up keeping them on SoFurry because I like the editor over there better than the editor over here for updating a post. This may be something that down the line I build my own website for as a long term project - maybe a general website specifically related to character and world organization. One probably already exists. I'll have to go looking.

3) I need to set up my profile. This isn't actually relevant to anyone else, I just need to put this note as many places as I possibly can so that there's a chance when I look *anywhere* that I remember.

4) A trello? I have one that I set up for myself but it has my name on it. Not that I think my name is particularly well hidden if it was searched for, but if I'm going to post one specifically related to furry stuff I want to make people (from both ends) to have to work to find the other.

I'd also love to hear any specific feedback anyone has about anything that is finished that is up so far (writing-wise), or even just things people want to see written more about in general - I have a list of things that I am hoping to improve from previous pieces, and plan to go back and reread them to see more, but it's always nice to hear from other people what they think - definitely notice different things from a reader's perspective. I also know I am definitely fixated on Atremath at the moment because I just want there to be more minotaur content out there, especially more content that specifically meets my tastes :p So if my interests align with someone else's I'm definitely keen to oblige...

Lastly, unrelated to the organizational things: I am planning to start working on a very cursed project (blending All I Want For Christmas Is You and Last Christmas), and I'll be streaming it if people want to hang out. I'm in EST, it'll probably happen when this post is ~7 hours old if it happens. This will be the first large-ish audio project I've done, I've cleaned up audio clips before and cut up/melded them end to end, but never tried to pick apart channels of tracks to piece together and make something new. Progress will be probably be non-existent to slow, as I'm going to be learning a lot of it from scratch, but if people want to be around and talk about whatever (related to the project or not) it'll be there.