You're afraid to be corny, but I was born on the cob

Challenge #6

Top 10 Challenge.

I struggled for a looong time on what subject to use for this, but I finally settled on my top 10 favorite vocal synth songs released in 2025! (With links!)

( Bonus: Top 10 under the cut... continue? )

(Cross-posting from the vsynthrecs community.)

Type: Song
VSynth Featured: Kasane Teto
Link: MINIMUM RAGE by MonochroMenace



Reccer's Note: This and Billionaire Buffet both coming out within a few months of me getting my first retail job... Somehow, I've been feeling a particular kinship with Teto lately, idkkk. Also, Teto's purple hair is a reference to the artist's previous song featuring Teto, Regret Rock!

Challenge #12

Create a Rec Countdown.

This was a very well-times prompt, because I just finished writing up the contents of my reclist page for my personal site! I'll be recommending 5 video games, 4 series, 3 vocal synth songs, 2 movies, and 1 YouTuber!

5 Video Games Recs

1. 31st March, Midnight
Genre: Visual novel
Commentary: This is the first of many free games available on itch I'd like to recommend. This short visual novel follows Amy, a game developer working on a spinoff for a game studio, as she thinks about her experience working in the game industry under capitalism's duress. I find myself coming back to reread this often, as it provides both pointed commentary on how visual novels are viewed in the west, and an honest depiction of how queer-focused games are often made behind the scenes.

2. BAD END THEATER
Genre: Visual novel puzzle/adventure
Content Warning(s): death, cartoon gore, implied homophobia
Commentary: BAD END THEATER is a visual novel-style adventure/puzzle game where you get to select your character and explore a wide variety of terrible fates! This cast of characters follows a set of tropes found in adventure stories. There is The Hero, The Maiden, The Underling and The Overlord. But don't let that fool you into thinking this game is cliche! BAD END THEATER is one of the most creative games I have ever played. It, too, is delightfully queer, as well, with 3 out of the 4 main characters being canonically queer in some way. Such a shame that all of their endings will lead to tragedy, right?

3. EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK
Genre: ?
Commentary: This is the sort of game that, by its very nature, does not want to be summarized or sorted into a defined genre. EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK is available on a pay-what-you-can basis on itch, and is described as an "interactive zine" by its creator. It's a vignette of multiple non-linear, interactive 'scenes', informed by the creator's struggles with trauma. This game has a very distinct visual style, displays a masterful usage of humor to humanize traumatic experiences, and contains many standalone quotes that I come back to often.

4. Fields of Mistria
Genre: Farming sim RPG
Commentary: Fields of Mistria is the only Stardew-alike that I consider to surpass the game it was inspired by. With a ton of quality-of-life improvements, a gorgeous 90s-anime-inspired art style and aesthetic, and a magic system to set it apart, I feel like it really shines best in how it puts a lot of love and care into its characters. The town feels like a genuine community, characters have relationships to each other outside of you, and I have yet to run into any repeat dialogue in my 40+ hours of playing. Characters are also very reactive: they will bring up when you hit certain points in the mine, complete mini-quests, talk about upcoming holiday events, comment about things you've submitted to the museum, and more. The dating sim aspects are especially very reactive and reciprocal. Additionally, the game is very clearly made with a queer audience in mind. Many romancables feel like they were made with the intent of capturing the interest of queer players (Hayden, Valen, and Balor, namely), and it is the only game that I know of at all that allows you to not only select your pronouns, but allows you the options to use he/she, it/its, and no pronouns at all. AND you can romance the dragon.

5. Love & Dehumanization
Genre: Adult fantasy visual novel
Content Warning(s): Violence, torture, suicidal ideation, and BDSM, and discusses negative body image, negative views of sexuality, and trauma. Much more extensive content warnings are provided in-game.
Commentary: Obligatory THIS GAME IS FOR ADULTS. IT HAS SEX. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS GAME FOR THOSE UNDER THE AGE OF 18. For those who are above the age of 18 and who have an interest in discussions of kink and trauma, though, I cannot recommend this game highly enough. This game is free on itch, and it takes place in a fantasy RPG world, following a girl who willingly becomes a monster. It is a story about the desire to be violated and dehumanized, how that desire can manifest, how it can traumatize people, and how to reclaim those desires in the name of self-love. It is a truly rebellious story which takes difficult-to-understand concepts (even and especially to those who know them most intimately), and boils them down to easy, but incredibly impactful language. After completing this game, I physically layed down on my floor and stared at my ceiling for multiple minutes on end in silence, and, if that's not high praise, I don't know what is!


( Continue? )

I would make this video required watching for everyone in the entire world, if I could. It discusses over why they literally don't make things like they used to, and why so many products are so shit nowadays, with multiple real-world examples throughout. Not only that, it explains what you can do about it.

Support Right to Repair!

I felt like this was truly the only choice for a highlight this week, given how popular Honey is. Fair warning: this is a "part 1", which isn't clearly advertised in the video title, but it still contains a lot of damning evidence about how Honey steals from creators, and purposefully gives their customers worse coupon codes while telling them it's the best one available, to stop them for searching for better ones. Among other things.

Frankly, it all stops being surprising once you remember Honey is owned by PayPal.

(Cross-posting from the vsynthrecs community.)

Type: Song
VSynth Featured: Gumi
Warnings: Heavy religious themes and imagery
Link: Pray To Me by Mizu



Reccer's Note: This is probably one of my favorite vocal synth songs to come out recently!! It really hits the "proud sinner"-type beats that I love to see in fiction. Plus, the MV rules -- I admire the details of the upside-down cross in her eyes, and her form changing slowly over the course of the song.

This week's video is about news on the older side (relatively)! I feel like it did a great job summarizing why, exactly, Watcher's proposed streaming service received such a violently negative reaction in comparison to other streaming services started by YouTubers. It also briefly covers the topic of Watcher's financial mismanagement, and, yeah, I've definitely passively thought it seems like they're spending way too much money for a while now.

You'll recall I previously posted about being interested in NaNoWriMo alternatives. As such, I've gone through some of the most commonly-recommended ones, and written up a list of relevant information! This was originally written just for myself, but I thought it might be useful to others, too.

I considered:

• Timing
• Professionalism
• Inclusiveness
• Community
• Gamification
• AI stance
• And anything else that may be interesting or relevant!

So, here is the information I've gathered!

( Continue? )

I thought this would be a fun, reoccurring thing to do -- recommending a video (gonna try to aim for longer videos in particular, like video essays) that I've watched that week!

You may have noticed, but I started uploading my backlog of Misc Things! Namely, I've made myself a community for me to upload my icon edits to. The iconing community on this site seems pretty lively, and I saw a few different communities just for one person. The community is pastelveil, and I've managed to upload almost all of my icon backlog there. There are, of course, many older icons that I decided not to upload there, but I went as far back as I could stomach, haha.

In the meantime, since I've been hoping Dreamwidth would replace my Twitter, I decided to go back to my old, abandoned Twitter accounts, download them to Iris (my 1TB external drive; I like to name my electronic possessions), and then delete them. While I was at it, I also updated my archive of my boyfriend and I's tumblr accounts, and I finally got around to archiving my boyfriend and I's personal Discord server as well. I don't know how often I'll update it, but I at least wanted to archive it in its entirety now, as we made it very early on in our friendship and it basically contains the history of our entire relationship. So, of course, the archive is taking a while. It's still happening right now, actually! But it's gotten through the entire general channel, so the rest of the channels should be a breeze in comparison.

I've linked all of the things I've used to do this! Iris was a pass-me-down from my father, who never used her after buying her. But I think she's a decent price. Also, the extensive step-by-step guide for the tumblr downloader, and the user-friendly frontend for the Discord downloader, basically makes them idiot-proof. (I did it, so you can too!)

I'm probably going to finish uploading my icon backlog today or tomorrow. I also plan to make an alt Dreamwidth account, to crosspost my fanfics to. Communities are great and all, but the inability to crosspost to both a community and a journal is suuuch a pain. I'm probably just gonna copy-paste the HTML of the icon community posts, but still.

Oh, before I forget: here's a list of my named possessions, since I mentioned it here!

• Misty: my laptop and drawing tablet! She's a Windows Surface Pro 6. I would NOT recommend her to anyone, she's AWFUL. As I always say to my friends: "She's just a little piece of shit, and she's trying her best." But I love her!
• Lillie: my 3DS! She's not an N3DS; she's an old purple model, and the same one I've had since I was a child! Within the past few years I hacked her (they were right; it WAS surprisingly easy to do!), so she's been seeing a ton more use lately. Check out the custom 3DS themes I've made!
• Iris: my previously-mentioned external drive! I linked to what she is; she's a black MyPassport Ultra, and I use her to archive personal stuff I don't want to get lost! This includes all of my digital art, my boyfriend and I's tumblrs and Discord server, my 3D model of my persona, my old Twitter accounts, my commissions (still working on getting all of those together!), my edits and digital zines I've downloaded!
• Dawn: my Nintendo Switch! It's a Pikachu and Eevee model, and it had the WORST JoyCon drift for AGES. Within just a couple of months of getting her, too! Thankfully, I pre-ordered the pastel pink Joycons that came with Princess Peach: Showtime (predictable bitch I am), so I've been enjoying playing on her a lot more lately.

Yes, I do name all of them after female Pokemon companions! It started with Misty when I got my first computer at the age of around 11 (my first computer was Misty, and every computer after her was also Misty), and I've just continued the trend from there. I'm still deciding on what to name my Quest headset, but I'm thinking maybe Bianca.