APR
APR 27 2025
I can focus on archiving The Crystal Bearers because I don't have to worry about Crystal Chronicles. This greatly streamlines my work. I bought a copy of the game for Gamecube for like $15 at a secondhand store and dreaded playing it through yet again because I'm still salty about getting to Raem at year four and getting my ass promptly handed to me. I minmaxed by getting all the available artifacts per year up to that point from every location and going ham at the crafters, but Raem is a prick. I had less drive and knowledge when I beat Jegran with NO extra myrrh fragments (I did not understand how campaigns were supposed to work and skipped every fight I could skip in favor of beating the game ASAP), and fought him until I had his attack patterns completely memorized. Same with the crystal armor aboard the Aerial Prison. I beat them all because I had been ten and knew nothing but brute forcing my way through any obstacle before me. I only stopped doing this when I learned about speedruns and ended up digging into strategy guides because it's mentally exhausting and I got too old to be that mentally tired all the time.
The TCB subpage is going to be its own thing. Like completely divorced from the site as much as I can manage with its own stylesheets and assets. I might replace the spinning Layle cube with it (he'll be safely relocated). 99% might. Pretty much going to happen. I don't have a lot of limited physical media, but I have a lot of digital media like old ads, some pdfs, and a lot of magazine scans I manually scraped off the web from the web archive. I can't upload flashes but I have those and can strip them apart for my own entertainment I guess (Bon Jovi x Crystal Bearers button? Hell yeah). Once payday hits at the end of the month, though, I'm gone. I'll have Oblivion money and get to play the game I always played in the summer at my dad's house when I got to visit for like a week or two while rats the size of small cats were zipping around. It's a great game. Fantastic. Even when it kinda sucks, it's endearing.
Anyways, Crystal Bearers. I still have to rip the game's textures and figure out how to decompile and retrieve models. I already managed to piece together the Undub and have a functioning copy of the EN and JPN versions because people keep making sourceless claims about the translations and I really want to know if they actually did water down their dialogue. I really want Vaigali's model and textures, though, because he is my favorite favorite. Layle is the main character and so disliking him is difficult (but so is particularly liking him outside of that framework), but I used to have a ye old fictional crush on Vaigali. I'm pretty sure they also just offed him to force Keiss to play his role for next game they hinted at BUT NEVER ENDED UP MAKING so I'm kinda salty. Like a lot kinda. Kinda as in kinda like the ocean. Yeah. Fist fighting whoever made that garbage call in my mind. I'm still out here waiting for the promised sequel like the prophesized rain on a desert planet and the latest string of unlikely remakes gives me so much hope.
APR 24 2025
I added a color toggle because I could. No other reason, really. It takes advantage of the filter overlaying the entire site and the greyscale assets I'm (mostly) using. I made the frames myself and then fit all the elements into place afterwards. It's two floating elements that are never showing at the same time. Toggle A is hidden after changing the color and showing Toggle B. You can't press them both at the same time and so they just endlessly cycle through if you really want to sit there and clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick
It's hard to tell, but the circle is darker before it's pressed because they're still both showing at the same time the first time the page is loaded. I could fix that, but I figured there's no point. They follow rules that keep them from misfunctioning and I only noticed because I made them. I'm slowly sinking into this lazy attitude about stuff like this. Have you noticed the name for the Pattern (PTRN) page is misspelled? I did. I just don't want to redo every single page linking to it. The number of people who notice and care are just too small to bother.
And now to address my previous crash out:
I am legit extremely paranoid and become aggitated and aggressive when I feel intimidated. The only reason I am still getting to the point where I go absolutely ham is because it's not medically significant so I have to rawddog every ounce of negativity in my system. Crashing out is an indicator of a lack of impulse control and emotional regulation but does not constitute the kind of unwellness that needs to be professionally addressed. As my therapist put it 'There's nothing I can do for you, you just need to quit being sensitive.'
It also doesn't help that most of my family is significantly unwell on record. The thought of something happening to them is easily enough to tip me over. So, as things continue with the rat and fowl, I might pop off again. Especially now that I'm not legally bound not to by some insultingly stupid series of rules I agreed to at the ripe age of 'Too Young To Know Better'. Seriously. I could have been tried for calling the Duck Under Command and idiot. Even if it didn't hold because that's a wild thing to charge someone for doing, it would have been gov sanctioned and funded lolcowing. No thanks.
"But the first amendment, Asp! Freedom of speech!" Article 88 and an admin that not only fails to understand the law but seems to have no issue bending and breaking to benefit them. It's meant for officers, but the scope can be expanded to regular service members, too. I'm outside of that scope entirely, though, so I can be noisy about my discontent now. Plenty of Max UwU OwO Hotdog Bong Water Vibes to go around.
For the very few still around:
This is a Lavender Site and I uphold certain morals and ideals here. I'd sooner delete than let my site be warped into something it has never meant to be. If that changes, I am not me.
APR 23 2025
The website has gotten the dreaded 'keep me safe from these unleashed dogs' update. RFK (Mr. Autism Is Ruining Families Yap Yap) is going through private medical records. They're scraping up as much information as they can, I fear. He says people can choose to go to 'Wellness Farms' to recover from things like addiction to opiods or antidepressants, but what does it mean to 'choose'? Can you be deemed incompetent and forcefully sent like a ward? He plans for there to be no phones or screens which also means zero unsupervised communication with the outside world.
You can point out he said 'can' to imply a choice, but things have literally changed overnight. Rights have been violated already. Overreach is actively happening. Plausible deniability is the weapon of those who'd seek to take everything from you if they could just find the excuse to do so. Even before all this, when things were 'good', these people with an endless appetite for whatever they could get their hands on were strangling the lower class with any means they had available.
"But this ONE politician is-!" Doing their job, I hope. Do not try to glorify someone for doing what they're paid to do. Especially if they're paid a disgustingly large sum of money to do it! That is NOT their reward! That's supposed to be their fucking paycheck for the skills they possess and most people in these positions can't even get to the damn point when their one skill is supposed to be a voice for the people they represent!
