Hello!

I think I'm ready to get back to writing. I've been doing a little bit of it the past month, but now I'm going back to a "regular" schedule, which includes my commissions! About time, eh?

The next one's another big one, and I haven't even finished the outline yet, so I can't give a good guess on when you'll see it. I'll say not this year, and hopefully the next.

Happy holidays!

- yoshielder

Heya!

I'm... still sorta on my break, and will be until the end of the month. That's not to say I won't be writing, but I likely won't be work-writing until then. I've got some interesting ideas for other stories, though...

Until then!
- yoshielder

Hello once again!

...So, what'd I miss? Nothing too calamitous, I hope~
But yeah, I've finally finished my latest TTGS character-- and a little surprise story! If you're new to Royale Harem, I really hope you give it a try, and if you've already played, I hope you enjoy my contest entry!

I don't want to say I'm back back, though: I'm still in the middle of some heavy RL stuff, but I'm now able to get some writing done. I still need to finish Patricia's Extended Thoughts (and Gauthier's, jeez...), but I can't give a timeline for them, or my next commission. More concrete news and dates will probably come in a few weeks, once things have calmed down some!

Until then,
- yoshielder

...Hi.

So I'm gonna just nix the now-yearly tradition of me apologizing for going missing and cut to the chase: things haven't been great for me, and they're likely going to get worse. And then they're going to get better.

I'm starting some intensive (and likely overdue) therapy that'll go for ~3 months. I don't want to go into details, but it'll be... pretty big? Like, I'm taking time off work for it. And that unfortunately means I'm taking time off writing. I'll be gone until at least October.

Because you're all absolutely incredible, I don't feel nervous about leaving for so long, but if you're currently on my TTGS waitlist, I hope you don't mind waiting a little longer. I'm not gonna say I won't do any TF writing during my break, but if I do, I don't think I'll post it until I'm back back, y'know? I can provide updates to those on my waitlist, if need be.

Again, thank you for being so understanding and incredible and everything else. The next few months are gonna be really scary... but it's something I need. Hopefully, when I come back, I'll be in a much better place. I guess it's about time [b]I[/b} get some TF/MC, eh?

Seeya soon,
- yoshielder

Hey y'all!

Bad news: I haven't got much done on my next character, due to work projects and finals. Good news: Both are now finished! That means I can spend my break writing, both new characters and other fun surprises, maybe~

In other news, stomach bug's got me acting silly, yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

- yoshielder

Welp... it's here. I think this is the longest I've ever took with a character. In my defence, it's also the longest character I've written.

I'll just get the boring whiny stuff out of the way first, since that's the main reason why this character was so challenging. This character is cursed. Nothing really to do with the content itself, as is the case with most Cursed items. But while writing this character, I had to do with mood swings, mental health bs, physical health bs (since flu season was so goddamn terrible our province brought back the masks), and a sprained wrist (from lifting 10lb weights because I'm baby). I wrote the final stages (and these thoughts!) one-handed, which in my line of work, should be a lot more fun. But I had to get this done; if I didn't, my house would catch fire or something (OH WAIT UPDATE IT ALMOST DID WHILE I WAS PROOFREADING WATER SPILLED ON MY CHARGER AND WAS A FEW CENTIMETRES AWAY FROM BURSTING INTO FLAMES, WTF WAS THIS CHARACTER).

Okay, now that I've got that whining out of my system, let's talk about the character itself. Forgive me if this is more rambly than usual; it's a big character.

This character was a commission, and my client came prepared. Six pages of notes, which I absolutely adore. I consider my commissioners cowriters (they're the ones with ideas!), so the more information I get, the better. While it was long, I'd just finished Samantha Brody, so I knew how to write for two characters. And it had a lot of themes I've never written before, but that's fine. Also, hooves. The outline had hooves. I could do this.

Some of the themes turned out quite well; I think the mid-game switchup, where Skye becomes the focus, is really well-designed, and it basically adds 20 more stages of transformation. Other themes were a little tricky; this is one of the most sexual characters I've written, and while I wouldn't call the first few TFs uglification, per se, it's definitely the first time I've written something akin to it. And then there's the big theme, the one that I had the most trouble with.

The incest themes. Or at least, the thoughts. It's something I thought I'd be able to write, but realised that I just can't. Maybe I'd have had an easier time if the character wasn't so long, and if I and literally everyone I knew weren't bedridden with colds, but it robbed a lot of my motivation. And this is entirely a me thing: I should've recognised that I can't write everything well. Still, I don't regret it: I think the character turned out great, and you can't know your boundaries unless you push. It also helped that my commissioner was so, so patient. As Cursed as this character was, I know our next one will turn out just as good, hopefully better!

Trivia time, and then I'll pass out:

- The names were all my client's, so I don't have any dumb facts for them... oh! Emrita was supposed to have a circumflex above the r (like ř), but I couldn't find it used in Latin surnames (and more importantly, I didn't wanna code it into the game, lol).
- This does take place in Sonja Grier's reality, since our host Volpes has a tail. I like that the one thing that consistently pisses them off is contestants taking off their clothes; there are rules to clothing transformations, dangit!
- Again, a big motivator for me was the hooves in the last third... weird, man. I mean, I don't judge foot fetishes, so I shouldn't judge my hoof fetish, but still, no idea where it came from. Major tangent, but I once went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, saw the demon Baphomet had hooves, and immediately searched for their pronouns. I have a problem (they're he/it, btw).
- Speaking of feet, when researching mouse paws, I found out they're called skates! ...And then I learned that's what a <i>computer mouse's</i> feet are called. I don't think real mice have skates.
- Y'know what they do have, though? Really fast gestation periods. Apparently it only takes ~20 days for mice to come to term! I dunno if that's actually a short time, or if we humans just take our time with it; I was a little wary of Googling how fast every animal gets pregnant. My search history's fucked as is...
- I can only really remember the last few music choices, and as usual, they were frenetic, from techno remixes to smooth jazz. Instead of Joji or a pithy credits tune, however, I proofread to Paramore's Brand New Eyes so I could belt the lyrics in order to stay awake. I fell asleep as soon as the album ended.

My question: what was the last thing you really struggled to complete? Hopefully you were pleased with the result, as I am for this!

And now I shall pass out:
- yoshielder

Hey there!

I have finally, finally, finished my latest commission. This took waaaaayy too long, for reasons I'll get into during the extended thoughts, but for now I'll just say that I'm writing this update with a sprained wrist and 2 hours of sleep. This character was more cursed than the one where they literally died. To clarify, it wasn't really the character itself; I enjoyed the content and the writing, and I feel I did a good job! But... I knew if I didn't finish this character soon, I'd die in seven days.

Actually, I joked in my extended thoughts that my house would likely catch fire, and as I was proofreading the character, it almost did. Maybe God's finally had enough of my degeneracy.

I'm glad I pushed through, though, because I feel you're all in for a treat. 123 stages, multiple TFs, and so many themes that I have no idea how I'm gonna make the thumbnail. The character is finished, and it just needs to be uploaded online; if that doesn't happen in a week, I'll post the offline version. Or I'll be found dead in a spooky well. Either or.

Seeya soon!
- yoshielder

Heya.

Been a long day, huh? Felt like three! I had intended to treat Thursday as a full writing day, but... that third problem, Life, took over, and kept at me for days. I don't wanna get into detail, since I feel I'm still making excuses... but this'd be a real good excuse, lol.

Regardless, I am now halfway through this character, which sounds pathetic, but I know these things fly by after the halfway mark. That, and I'm close to finishing a major choke point: not completely finished, like I'd planned, but close. I'm gonna continue to smash out more stages until it's finally done, and I can come to you all with good news for once.

Also, by the time you read this, it'll probably be my birthday. Happy birthday to me...

- yoshielder

Hi,

I don't really know what to put here, so I guess I'll just cut to the chase: things haven't been great. With the commission, my work ethic, and with life. Can't really do much about the third thing, so let's talk about the other two.

I have not been keeping up with this current commission, and that really sucks. Every time I work on it, it feels like it gets even larger. It's a big character (and a good one!), but it's mostly me, just stuck in a rut. So I've decided to do a full-on writing day tomorrow: I'm gonna work on this character all day, and at the end, I'll check in with you all with a "daily update", and we'll see where it goes from here. This update is... mostly self-serving, but at least it's some kind of update for you all.

Seeya soon,

- yoshielder

Boo!

Hope you're all having a fun Halloween. I'll be celebrating it with the scariest activity I know: university parking.
I've just started the newest TT character, and this one is long. It'll be the largest character I've ever written, three stages more than the behemoth that was Samantha Brody! Based on that, you might be able to guess some of the things you'll see in this new character. I really can't say when it'll be completed, but I'll try to make it fast!

Booooooo,
- yoshielder

What a fun commission this was! I haven't done mental changes this extreme since Ralphie Frye. There's no personality tweaks or gradual acceptance this time: it's allll identity play (/death, if you're a bad boy like me). And some great physical TFs: definitely the most animalistic in a while, maybe since back when I commonly did feral!

Let's start with that. I do believe this is the first time I've ever written a bird TF over here, and what a character to start with! This character features a lot of bird anatomy, so I had to do a lot of research about birds... which just meant Google and Wikipedia. Still, I learned a lot! I took Zelda's rito as a starting form, and added my own little things, mostly making her more birdlike. It's definitely the most form-intensive character I've written in a while, up there with Sam and Hana! Enough that I had to split all the bird facts I learned into its own section in the trivia...

The mental changes are extreme too! This character let me do some real intensive mental stuff, but it came with a bit of a problem that player characters have: since the story is second person, how do I write a transformation where the character does not realise they're transforming? It'd be a pretty boring character if the last dozen changes were just "nothing changed this round". The solutions are to either write "beyond" the second person perspective at times, or to write the changes and mindwipes in real time, which is what I settled on. The last couple transformations run a very strict formula: Cecilia/Lucille sees a change, gets fed false memories, and then declares that there was no change. Hopefully it didn't become too formulaic!

I think that's it. Again, I had a lot of fun with this character, especially the mental changes, both the subtle and extreme ones. Here's the trivia!

- First comes names, then comes music. Cecilia Sharpe was meant to sound overly sibilant and kinda gross. Her initials are also C. Sharpe! Lucille Larke is juuuust similar enough to her original name to make it a gradual shift, while also having the "Name Animal" trope .
- Music choices started off with my typical mellow post-rock, but it got heavier and heavier, until I was listening to metalcore for the final stages. Not sure why. For proofreading, I chose Miss Misery as the “end credits track”.
- Speaking of, I cribbed a line from Elliott Smith for my epilogue, after he performed at the Oscars. The full quote is “I wouldn't want to live in that world, but it was fun to walk around on the moon for a day.” Such a great line... rest in peace.
- A cesura is a pause, whether in poetry or music. Kinda fitting that the name of a soulless music corp is the absence of sound~! It also has a symbol that works as a gross corporate logo, "//".
- I was a little nervous including that "AFTRA-ass" line, but I think it works for the character: I don't think corporate shill Cecilia would be so keen on workers rights. You should be, though! ♥
- Shoutout to my friend who taught me how underrated the human wrist is!
- I think I closed all my brackets first try with this character! Might be the first time that's happened. To make up for it, there were waaay too many typos for me to fix. Can't win 'em all.

Now, it's time for bird facts. So many bird facts.
- There are so, SO many birds out there. I decided to base Lula on a tanager, one of the many birds that sing! Though Wikipedia claims tanagers “are thought to have dull songs”, because Wikipedia has no chill.
- This did give me a bit of a problem: tanager males are more colourful than females, and I wanted Lula to have bright red feathers. My workaround was to have Lula's “hair” dyed brighter, to play with gender expression!
- Lula's four-toed feet are called “anisodactyly”! What a fun word.
- Bluejays have been known to decapitate other birds. The moment I learned that, my playlist put on this song, which was very creepy. Felt like I found the final boss of Bird.
- The final boss of Bird is an eagle, btw
- Birds don't have hollow bones because it makes them lighter; it's because it helps them take in more oxygen! I had to rewrite a section because of that...
- There's apparently some confusion/controversy about how many “fingers” birds have. It's mentioned on Wikipedia, so I picture a bunch of ornithologists getting into heated arguments/fistfights about it. I'm not gonna comment on it, lest I make a bunch of birdwatchers angry, and they all poop on my car.
- I... really didn't know how to research bird cloacas (cloacae?), but I assume the bigger and omnivorous birds have'em, too? I... just didn't wanna read more about duck sex, okay?? I don't wanna know about people doing it, let alone birds...
- Lula's scared of cats for a reason: cats have caused sooo many species, especially birds, to go extinct. Apparently the mere existence of cats in an area could harm some species; they're that much of a threat to wildlife. Keep an eye on your pets, y'all!
- The great potoo is, objectively, the best bird. Great potoos, cats, and eels are all my comfort animals: when I feel sad, I look up pictures of potoos.

My Question: I know I've asked this before, but what are you listening to? Last thing I've listened to was some Evanescence, cuz I'm very dark and mysterious.

You've just read Birded Up, the worst journal on FA. <SQUAWK!!>:
- yoshielder

Hello, and welcome to spooky month!

I'm celebrating it by taking some terrifying classes. Even so, I'm making great progress on my next character; I'd say it'll be finished in... around two weeks, maybe? Other than that, nothing else to report, really. Oh! And play Outer Wilds!

- yoshielder

Hello!

...Yeah, I know, late again. But this time I have an excuse! ...Okay, that's also not new, but this time it is, cuz now I have a good excuse!

First off, character update. I've been making good progress on my next character, and while I don't wanna promise anything, it'll certainly be finished quicker than the last one. This character's given me a chance to write something that's been absent in my last few characters: ✨hardcore identity death!✨ Yippee~! It's got some other fun surprises too, which has made it very fun to research (birds are weeeeird...).

Now for that good excuse: I've been lucky enough to contribute to Monline once again! It's a TF game with... I think over 200 endings. I've done four in the past, and now there's four more! And as is tradition, I've got save files that will take you right to them; I highly recommend you play it in full, but... well, that's the reason why this update's late. It took me over 10 hours to get to these endings, and that's with me cheating through all of it!

The first ending is more of a vignette, where our main character (named Diablo, for his cheating) is TFed into a Leanan sídhe. The save file is here. Talk to the woman to your right, and ask about Kim. I'm... not terribly pleased with my writing here (probably because I wrote pages of variations for things that can't happen, whoooops), but I hope you all enjoy it!

The next three endings... are part of a set! Here is the save file. Walk down, and you'll likely trigger it: if not, go up and down a few times. This one is a playable ending, with four different transformations, and variety that actually works! And since you and me are best friends, I'll tell ya how to get them... Talk to the six stationary fairies, where you'll be asked a question. You can answer honestly, ambiguously, or how the fairies want you to answer. It can be a bit vague sometimes, but you'll be "locked" into an ending if you say three answers from a set; you don't have to get all of them right! Answering honestly will TF you into a ditzy, sort of boilerplate fairy; answering ambiguously will TF you into a slutty trainwreck of a fairy; and answering like a fairy will TF you into a masturbatory...err, prim and proper, verse-spewing fairy. And if you're very clever, you can get another ending, written by the creator himself! No joke, I cannot play these endings without manically giggling: it's amazing to see my work in this game, and it's work I'm really proud of!

That's it for now. I'm gonna collapse into a bird-watching book.
- yoshielder

This character... took a lot out of me. Not because it was hard to write-- it's a great idea from a great commissioner-- but because of some turbulence in my life that made it hard to do anything. I know I've promised at least three different dates for when this character would be finished, and once I'd finally written it, I... didn't really wanna see it again. Which is a shame, because again, the character itself is great!

Since this character isn't my usual identity death fare (if I wasn't on a list before now...), I decided to reeeeally focus on Pete's resistance to the changes. He's one of the characters that doesn't understand the game, so I had fun with him overlooking or ignoring changes at the beginning: I think I even interwove that with the gameplay, since there's a couple changes that don't really alter the descriptions. Then the host (more on that little pest later) reveals what's going on, and he's thrust into a gender crisis... and maybe an existential one, too? A lot of him questioning why he's so adamant that he's a guy, even when being a girl feels so much better. All my characters have some trans symbolism, by the nature of being TF/TG stories, but I think this one is a bit more acute in those themes, while still keeping it ambiguous: was the gameshow more extreme in its mental changes than Peter thought, or did the game just help crack her egg? And should I really keep broaching this subject when I'm woefully ill-equipped to tackle it? ...I know the answer to that one, at least. Let's move on to the other changes.

This is my second reality change character! I wanted to make it very different from my last one: Stanley Simms was more personal, its reality change focused on Kendra's family and friends. With Peter, the focus is more on the world. It also gave me an excuse to put in some other mental changes! I even had the explanation pretty secure before I even started writing; I was finishing up the epilogue for Samantha Brody as I was discussing Peter, so it was easy to put in some little hints to the next character, with good ol' Volpes...

My original outline put a lot of emphasis on the host. Too much; I ended up dialing back their presence, because it felt weird inserting what's basically an OC into someone else's commission. But I still wanted them to be a character in the story, someone to react to Peter's changes, since the rest of the world cannot. I still probably put too much focus on them, but I really like what I've created! This snarky slick brat who's gender is “nuisance”, too slimy to trust but too charismatic to hate. With a fair amount of self-insertion: we're both people who present and enjoy transformations. There's also some other things we share (short bushy hair, high alcohol tolerance, annoying), but I hope I'm not as much of a dick.

There's something else with this new furry world that I'm a little pleased with: unlike the last reality change I did, Transformania Time! still exists in this dimension, which means some characters can be written in this universe... or retconned into it. Whenever there's a character that off-handedly mentions furries in the crowd (I can think of at least two), I can now say that it's in the furry universe, so everyone's used to seeing furries! And I can also claim that other characters are in the human universe, which explains why people might react differently!

...I'm getting very close to “A wizard did it” levels of retconning for my dumb TF game. Though I guess this time, that's literally what happened...

Before I spew out some trivia, I wanna talk about uploading the characters themselves. When I started writing these characters, I'd have to upload them as a file, and then get you to download and upload the files yourself. I don't like that, because it feels like I'm putting busywork on people who've already done enough for me by checking my work. Then, when I got control of TTGS, I could send off the files and upload the “file” on FA while the character is online; then all you needed to do was choose them from the site! Unfortunately, it's taking a while for the characters to be uploaded, so in the interest of time (I wanted to upload this at the start of the month...), I might revert to posting the characters as soon as they're finished. It'll mean more work to play them, but it'll also mean characters will be released quicker.
And now, trivia: Not much this time around.

- For the first time, I don't have any name trivia for you! Both names were requested by my commissioner. Volpes the fox-eared host, however, is mine (you can tell because it lacks subtlety!), and I'm a little proud that I revealed it in the last character!
- My commissioner called it the Yoshielder Cinematic Universe, which is very kind, and also clued me in that I should maybe pull back on my own creations, lol
- Coincidentally, after my last journal about the host becoming too much of a self-insert, I almost caved and made them ace with hooves. Thankfully, I grew a brain and cut that out, though I did leave little hints. In the end, I think their orientation and gender are “whatever benefits them at the moment, or at least annoys others”.
- Second creepy coincidence? My commissioner requested a scene where a TGing deer is comforted by her TFing wolf girlfriend. As it turns out, that's exactly what my favourite punching bags, Clarke and Claire, were gonna turn into before it was abandoned! I swear, if I actually finish Clarke and Claire one of these days, I'll have a lot of retconning to do...
- And yes, the two contestants Peter fills in for are Clarke and Claire.
- Music choices started off regular, but became more unhinged the more I became unhinged. Started with study music and post rock, then it gradually curdled until they were a mess. I wrote the last stages to Astronaut in the Ocean, so I know I'd have regressed to straight up circus music if the character was any longer.
- Malypsis used “Aura of Purity” as her spell, which is (from my very basic research) only self-inflicted, and therefore (I assume) easy to mess up as an AoE. Unrelated, but I've gotten into watching DnD campaigns! It's enjoyable, but very intimidating.

My question: ...uhh... i forgor 💀 Sorry for not responding to all your comments, and thank you for posting them!
- yoshielder

Hey y'all.

Sorry about missing last month's update, and being late for this one. I wanted to wait on this update until I had some better news to share, but... if I wait for the best case scenario to post, I'd never post, eh? Truth is, I'm not in the best place rn (nothing dire, just a slump), but I still plan on finishing this latest character by the end of this week. I have less than 30 stages to go, so I just need to power through this funk and get it done.

Seeya then!
- yoshielder

Hello!

I've finally got my computer back, after maybe a month of waiting. That means I can finally get back to writing for y'all! I've already finished the outline for my next character, and while I don't wanna make promises, I'd maaaaybe say it'll be close to ready in a bit more than a month. Maybe two. Until then...

- yoshielder

Hey y'all.

I feel a bit weird posting a "monthly" update before the month is over, but I also didn't wanna wait to give an update. I think I mentioned in my last post that I had to send my computer off to get fixed. I had assumed it'd take at most ten days... but it's been three weeks, and still no computer. I'm currently using a dinky little laptop that doesn't have anything I can use to write characters. And as long as I'm complaining, I've also got some kind of throat infection. Not sure what kind, but it's making me tired and gross.

Through all this, the thing I'm most concerned about isn't the bug or the computer: it's all the work I'm missing. So I've decided to give y'all this update, if only to put the pressure off myself. I know you all are incredibly patient, so the pressure I'm feeling is entirely self-imposed. But yeah, I won't be able to start my next character until my computer comes back. I wanna say it'd take another week, two weeks at most, but I really don't know. When it comes back, I'll put out another Monthly Update. Until then...

- yoshielder

Hey there! Quick journal this time, to say that my newest character, Samantha Brody, is in the online version of TT. I got a couple of very kind comments looking forward to playing them online, so I thought I'd make a journal instead of replying to each of them. I might do this sort of thing in the future, if I release characters before they're put online!

120 stages. And my first “real” double TF. Even if I split it between the two characters, that's two 60 stage characters, which is an average size. There's a lot I could talk about-- the notes I was given for this character are three pages!-- but let's focus on Hana first.

I wanted to have her inclusion kind of a twist. That at first the reader would see Hana's inclusion as a sort of “accessory” to Sam's changes; Lillian Desmond, another beast of a character, has that for her husband and daughter. Perhaps the four stages dedicated to Hana might strike people as odd, but maybe they'd assume Hana will change in the audience. But then she storms onstage, and the game changes quite a bit. Even format-wise: when she joins the game, Hana's name is coloured similarly to Samantha's. Which was an absolute horror to get right; more on that in the trivia...

But Sam also changes with Hana's appearance. Her mental changes don't really start until she's with Hana, and Hana makes more appearances in the transformations. Over time, Hana's transformations begin to overshadow Sam's, until the game mainly focuses on Hana; the last couple of stages are exclusive to her. She also receives a bit more mental changes than Sam, though I'm not as pleased with how they turned out as I usually am. I guess the focus is more on their changing bodies, and their changing relationship. Speaking of...

I wanted to have somewhat of the inverse to Elspeth and Mina. Those two were very different, and yet truly loved each other, and so even when they became even more different, their relationship continued. Sam and Hana, however... aren't in the best relationship. While they're also very different, neither feels comfortable addressing the issues they have with each other, which snowball into misunderstandings. And since both women are combative type A's (though Hana stuffs it down), neither of them will stop arguing until they've '''won'''.

I tried not to “take sides” with the argument; both women are in the wrong. While Hana does start the argument, Samantha takes things way too far. But she's the first one to apologize. And yet, she doesn't accept the response she gets. It's a relationship that brings out the worst in both of them, and it really wouldn't have survived long. That's why the only thing that keeps them together is a severe change in dynamic. Now Hana is the capable extrovert, and Sam is the brooding subordinate. And both have fun fighting each other. Even so, I'm a little worried I made Hana more unlikable... eh, it's not like the blame is equally spread in RL breakups. And I don't think either are bad people... they're just horrible together.

I think that's it. I'm kinda surprised at how short this section is. As for the trivia... well, just look:
- Names first, as usual. My commissioner came up with Samantha Brody (named after Jaws and Hana Serizawa (named after Godzilla). Their monster names were super fun to make! ...At first. Baskinbolt hits both the water and electric theme for her, and Ryuzako was... tricky. I wanted to make Hana's name an amalgam of two Japanese words, and I think it involved dragons and fire? It used to be “Ryuzanko”, and it's only now, literally as I'm writing this, that I decided to google that word. And it is... not fire dragon. Google Translate might be wrong, but I don't wanna risk it. So I had to scramble to change it to Ryuzako, which is probably nonsense... but at least it's not that. Moral of the story: languages are tricky, and I am dumb. There's a reason I mainly use Latin to create new names...
- Here's something I don't often talk about: the pacing of the changes. I not only have to keep track of what stages have happened, but how many stages. The game can do 1-3 transformations each round, so I have to be careful not to say that a certain TF is “the only one this round”, because that might not be true. There's an instance in this character where the game goes on a “commercial break”, and comes back after a stage; if my calculations were right, that stage will always be the last stage in a round. Math is fun!
- Music choices were... frenetic? Some Renard, some JPEG, a lot of Pizza Tower... and one session that exclusively had penis music. Remember penis music? Good times... I think. For proofreading, I followed the cheesy credits theme, and chose Simon Says by Pharoahe Monch for that hard af Godzilla sample.
- I'm... really connecting to the Host in these characters, enough that I'm worried it's turning into a sort of self-insert? They're a mix of things I am (somewhat male-presenting, optimistically nihilist, presents weird transformations to a crowd) and things I wish I was (confident and showy, comfortable playing with gender, attractive). If in my next character they've got hooves and are annoyingly ace, you'll know I've gone too far.
- Also, I just now realised that the host could be in a situation where they're got kaiju contestants on one side, and a reality-changing contestant on the other. Poor host... :(
- That lawsuit they mentioned is a reference to the aforementioned Lillian Desmond, who TFed into a succubus and kidnapped her family. Hopefully people don't pit her against Samantha, cuz continuity...
- I had to put in two blatant monster movie references in, because... because. The “we're gonna need a bigger ceiling” is obvious, but the host talking about “the greatest thing your eyes will ever see” is a King Kong reference.
- A recent character from thriller12345 mentioned the show's “high ceilings”, which gave me the perfect opportunity to canonize it in my character. Thanks, Thriller!
- “Thagomizers” joins a growing list of words I had to add to the Character Creator's dictionary, joining “Mesoamerican”, “pilates”, and “parentless”. I have no idea when I used any of those.
- Hot damn did I struggle with the format of this character. Like I said, I wanted Hana's inclusion to be a sort of twist, which meant I'd have to colour her name. I used a variable for all instances of Hana... and then found out the character wouldn't load if the same variable is used twice in one section. So I had to replace every multiple of $HANA$ with <pink>Hana</pink>... and then found out that the game only colours the first instance of a name. And all the code nearly crashed the game. So I had to delete all the colourations. I'm still kinda impressed this beast works at all...
- Because I'm me, I replaced the Groin stages with descriptions of the two's skin; that way, its description would come directly after their bodies were fully described. This meant if I wanted to mention Skin's variable, I'd have to type $GROIN$ instead... which led to a gross situation where I had to write about Sam's hair “gaining the same slimy texture as her $GROIN$”... yuck.
- That Grand Canyon marathon is a real thing! I don't think it's possible to complete twice in one day, though... it's 126km!

My question for you: What's the biggest project (writing or otherwise) you've completed? I doubt I'll write something this big any time soon... or at least, not for a couple characters xD

*Deep breath, scream of victory, then collapse*
- yoshielder

So... a lot has happened over the past few months, which made this character perhaps the hardest I've ever written. It wasn't because of the subject matter (which was great) and it wasn't because I didn't like writing it (I loved it); it was how long and complex this beast was... and several huge shifts in my life. And I figure I've traumadumped too much in these journals, so let's talk about all the positives in my life now. Fear not: they'll be equally as TMI.

Within three months, I got a new job, finished a gruelling semester, dipped my toe into real-world social interactions again... and moved out. My keyboard also broke, and I think I've cracked a rib, but again, positive stuff only. It's all been immense, but I've been so busy that I haven't really stopped to think about... everything.

The job is good, pays well, and best of all, has a really flexible schedule. That means I can insert it into my “work schedule” for these characters. Just as planned, treating writing like a job helped me with a real-world job. I've also gone out a bit more, which... still feels scary, but I think it's necessary. But the biggest change, obviously, is moving out.

It happened in the span of a week. Obviously the preparations took longer, but it felt like I'd moved in in a manner of days. And had to take a crash course in adulting; not the kind I write about, but real, boring adulting. Like groceries and rent and laundry and cooking and upkeep. All the while, I was working on the biggest character I've ever done, and possibly the biggest story I've ever written. As well as other projects, such as at least two other games. As I mentioned, I'm only now realising how much has happened.

...I feel like I'm blowing this all out of proportion (as usual), but I think back to where I was when I first started this “career”. Some of you might remember it, but I... was in a very interesting place in my life at that time. Not to traumadump (or worse, doxx myself), but the 2010s were... not good for my health. I can say for certain that when I was writing my first characters in 2017, I did not expect to make it here; take whatever meaning you want from that, since all of them are true.

But I did. Somehow. And now I'm facing “normal” problems, like schedules and taxes and if I turned off the porchlights. I still haven't really... considered it? It's still kinda surreal, and I guess I'm still terrified that it'll get stolen from me again. I think it's called “post-traumatic growth”, but I'd prefer it just be “growth”. I don't want the trauma to keep influencing things; not anymore.



...So that's great and all, yoshielder, everyone's very impressed, but what about your TF stories? What's next?

Unfortunately, what's next might be a bit of a break. A very tiny one, like a week at most, while I get my computer fixed. Then, it's off to the next character; this is the cat one! It and the next character (the bird one) will likely be shorter than Samantha & Hana, but the one after that... is even longer. No rest for the wicked: I should've considered that before I started writing smut.

I also have a fun project on the way, that I'm looking forward to showing you. No word on when it'll be out, but all I'll say is I've worked on it before~ Also, while I've got you, play Vampire's Curse! It's a vampire TF game with a ton of content by thriller12345 (who's also done loads of TT characters!), that I've been lucky enough to bugtest.

I think that's it. The next time I talk to you, it'll likely be next month. As always, thank you for joining me on this wild ride.
- yoshielder

Hello!

I'll cut to the chase: either tomorrow or the next day, you'll see a new character.
It's been finished a few days now, and I'd normally wait until it's been uploaded online before I publish it here, but there's been some... circumstances, that prevent me from waiting. Mainly, me sending off my computer for a week to get fixed. Not sure how long that'll take, so I wanna get my character to y'all before then. There's also some other nonsense in my life rn that I'll have to focus on, so I'd like to take care of this newest upload so I can focus on them. I'll have more info on all of that in my Extended Thoughts; I had to split it into two parts!

This does mean that I'll (likely) have to release an offline version, which is a pain, since I hate having to force y'all to go through hoops to read my stories. Can't be helped, though; I'll give more instructions when I release it, but all you'll have to do is download the file, then upload it to the site itself. Pretty simple stuff, but I'm more worried for the people seeing my stuff for the first time, who might be turned off by the extra steps. At least this'll be temporary, and I'll have an online version for you to see pretty soon!

That's all for now. Expect a new character on either the 1st or 2nd of May. It, and the extended thoughts, are gonna be my biggest projects yet...
- yoshielder

Hello!

So... no new character yet, huh. That sucks. And I could once more prattle on about how busy things are rn (I'm in the middle of moving out, alongside like a dozen other things), but I'm not really satisfied with that, and I'm not satisfied with the amount of writing I've done... so I'm gonna set a goal for myself: I'm hoping to finish the newest character by this month.

I had written out this weird diatribe about how I'm trying this "new concept" called the "soft deadline", only to realize that normal people just call that a goal. So that's what I'm gonna call it. Because I am a normal human being.

I'm also gonna try to give a positive spin on things. In a few weeks, most of the business in my life SHOULD be settled. I'll be moved in, my semester will be over, and several other RL things will be dealt with. Even so, I'm still gonna try to get way more writing done, when I'm free from all of this real life BS. Don't be an adult, y'all: it's super expensive, you'll have a million things to do, and worst of all, you'll be able to read my stories.

Hopefully the next time we meet, it'll be an Extended Thoughts, and not an update. Until then...
- yoshielder

Hello, all (I hope)!

I'm... certain I posted last month's update, but it's not showing up in my journals. I might've forgotten to actually post it after writing, and if so, I'm really sorry about that; I should've noticed something up like... days after the post didn't go through. But I'm here! And I guess I need to cover two months...

So last month was really busy for me. I had a new job, a new semester, new RL projects, and most importantly, a new TT character. Sadly, everything else took up too much of my time, and I didn't get much writing done. I claimed the word of the month (January) was "busy".

But by the end of January, things looked to be settling down. I was getting into the routine of the job, my university shut down for a time, and several of the RL projects had to be put on hold. So I was confident I'd be able to get a lot of work done on my character. Not all of it (this beast is well over 100 stages), but a fair amount. I proclaimed that February would not be the month of "busy", but the month of "productivity".

And it turns out I was half-right: February was no less busy, but it was also productive! Most of my non-writing projects started up soon after I '''posted''' that journal, but I'm pretty happy with the amount of writing I've done regardless; in a month, I've finished a third of the character! Unfortunately, that still leaves over 90 stages to go (as mentioned, utter beast of a character), but I've always found that I write faster the further into the character I get. And if things are going this fast already, with a turbulent real-life, I'm pretty confident in my pace, especially when things begin to calm down. I'd say the character might be finished within two months, and it'll likely take a month for you to read. Or should I say... characters~?

A part of me's still a bit nervous that I'm going too slow, though. Especially as my waitlist keeps getting longer. Thankfully, the next few characters likely won't be as long, so you all won't have to wait as long. Hopefully I'll get those characters done quicker... until the character that's even longer than this current one, lol. You're all too kind and patient and incredibly attractive.

That should be it; hopefully this journal gets through. And hopefully my high spirits aren't from my high temp: currently got a nasty flu, so I might crash and break my rosacea-coloured glasses. And hopefully I can learn to stop rambling in these journals and treating it like some pervy tmi dia

- yoshielder

So this is a first for me: I don't have pages upon pages of thoughts for this character. There's a few here and there, but no long diatribes, no pretentious themes, and most importantly, no dour tangents!! It's a Christmas New Year's miracle!

Ralphie Frye comes from my oldest commissioner, who's been with me from the start, and he always has great prompts. He also has been waiting on this for way longer than he should've, but no dour tangents. It's a fairly standard character (no earth-rending deities or canon-breaking AUs), but one that I'm really pleased with, both the starting form and the transformation. Let's talk about it. As in just me; I'm gonna talk about it. Apologies in advance.

I wanted to really emphasize the laziness of Ralphie, not just his slobbiness, so I leaned heavily on the meta of the game itself, and how you (the player, not the reader) would react to a lazy opponent. The confidence from having an easy game, alongside the paranoia that it won't be so easy after all. Because Ralphie is far from inept: he's quite intelligent, and it shows even in his mechanics. Ralphie has one of the highest “intelligence” stats I've had in a character, around the same as the professors and doctors. “Reflex” and “prediction” are both some of the lowest, though, so if you're one to play through the minigames (where these stats dictate how the AI performs), you might also think that something's not right. Of course, Ralphie isn't really playing to win: he wants to lose just enough to get rid of some of his weight, all the while sandbagging his opponent so he can turn around and win the game. But those pesky mental changes might make it a little harder to purposefully lose... speaking of changes...

From the beginning, I'd planned the character's trajectory to look like an exercise routine. The changes start slow, then have little “spikes” followed by periods of rest, ending with a “final sprint” of changes. I also put in a theme of exercise in general, and its real world “transformation”. Ralphie works hard, and he sees some changes: then the changes stop, and he wonders why he's “plateaued”. It takes some willpower for him to push through, and realize that he's still changing; that the plateau is “all in his head”. Of course, the willpower is actually the game's will, and the changes are, literally, “all in his head”.

Huh, managed to get a lot here after all! Let's talk trivia:
- Name time! “Frye” is pretty self-explanatory, while “Ralphie” was chosen so there'd be two f sounds in succession, which not only sounds kinda gross, but it also sounds like a sharp breath. Cuz exercise! As for Gao Hu, uhhh... I can't remember. Whoops.
- Shoutout to the weirdest typo I've found in a while, where called Ralphie “Bradley”. I have... no idea how that happened.
- I couldn't resist quoting perhaps the most infamous bodybuilding line of all time, from a pre-Terminator Arnie. I'm surprised that I didn't even have to paraphrase it!
- My music choices for the first half were, fittingly, workout jams. The second half was more of a mishmash, but mostly post-rock. And in a disturbing trend, music choices for proofreading once again took the form of cheesy end-credits themes: Drift Away, and Kung Fu Fighting.


My question to you: what's your usual form of exercise? My new year's resolution is to get in shape (I know, original), so I'm gonna be doing some cardio to get me into the routine.

- yoshielder

Hey there! Hope you enjoyed your holidays.

I had planned to lump together this update and the upcoming Extended Thoughts, but I've currently got a high fever, so I'll wait until I'm a bit more clear-headed. But yeah, I've got a new character written! It's been finished for a while actually, though not in the online version (and TFGamesSite got attacked, so I felt nervous about the offline version), but I would think things'll settle down, on all sides, by Monday. If not, I'll release the offline version as a placeholder, just so you all have something.

That's kinda it on my end; hectic holidays, but otherwise decent. See ya in a few days!

- yoshielder