Naka's random musings

borderlinereminders:

The other day, I asked my partner, “What are you doing?”

Simple question, right?

Except… he suddenly got defensive. His tone changed. I could feel tension building, and I had no idea why. So I took a breath and asked, “Wait, what did you hear me say?”

He paused, thought about it, and said, “I thought you meant ‘Why aren’t you doing anything?’ Like you were mad I was being lazy.”

But that wasn’t what I meant at all. I’d genuinely just been curious.

And that moment reminded me how easily things can go sideways when we assume intent. Our brains, especially when we’ve had messy pasts, trauma, or relationship anxiety, tend to fill in the blanks with the worst possible meaning.

But that one question, “What did you hear me say?”, turned what could’ve been an argument into understanding.

It gave both of us a chance to clarify before our brains made up a story that wasn’t true. I was able to explain, and he was able to listen. Understanding what I meant changed his tension entirely.

Sometimes the fight isn’t about what was said. It’s about what was heard.

“What did you hear me say?” can defuse a storm before it starts.

(via kumakaori)

quantum-dragon:

getuponyourgoodfoot:

quantum-dragon:

Guns smuggled from the US are blamed for a surge in killings on more Caribbean islands

Officials are blaming illegal firearms for an increase or a record number of killings in a growing number of Caribbean islands this year.

AP News

I just want to say, thank you, sensible people of tumblr, for giving this more notes than my other post where idiots were calling gun control racist.

(via kumakaori)

A dream I just had

Dream started in a resort home deep in the woods. I was in the resort owner’s office. He stepped away for a minute and said his husband could keep me company while he was away. His husband was also in the room, a large muscular man with short blonde hair. After a moment the husband walked into a door on the side of the room. I knew that there was a one-way wall he could see me through, which was proof to me this was not a trustworthy organization. I knew there was a one-way wall because I remembered having at least the beginning of this dream before. Not enough for it to be a lucid dream, but enough for me to know the effect of some decisions. The first time I spent a considerable amount of time in this resort before I figured out it was untrustworthy, but this time I knew straight away. So to cut to the chase I got up, walked out of the room, down some stairs and out the front door. There was a deep forest ahead and I took off running as fast as I could, not stopping even when I wanted to because I knew they would be on my tail.

There were a few encounters here I do not remember, but a few include spotting someone filming a documentary wearing obvious cultist clothes, trying to dispose of a cereal box in a place that wouldn’t tell them where I was, and opting not to climb a short rocky peak (maybe 30-40ft tall) to see my surroundings, because I knew they would see me. By now it was day time and I eventually saw a road and realized that I should go there where there was a house and use their phone to call for help, which I remembered not realizing I should do until it was too late last time. I made my way to the road and there was just an average commercial center on the other side with gas stations and restaurants and such around. I spotted my dad, with his car not too far off, and ran to him thinking that’s even better than a random house. We exchanged pleasantries and after a second I remembered I needed to get out of there. I asked him if he could drive me somewhere right then. Like literally that second, no delay, and he said sure. He leisurely waled to his car, and then past it. Already in a panic I realized that he was with them and I saw a search party quickly approaching. I jumped in the car and tried to start it (It was push-to-start) and shockingly it did. So I quickly pulled out and drove off.

I wasn’t driving for long before something forced me out of the car. I don’t remember what. Thankfully there was a large white moving truck nearby that I hopped in and drove off in. I had to cross a very narrow covered bridge filled with people, and I could tell the people were all there specifically to prevent me from crossing, so I drove through anyway, the people just sort of bouncing off the truck. Eventually I was forced out of the truck, I don’t remember why, but I was scrambling for another vehicle. I knew I had to get off of the road. The people around knew who I was and every civilian was closing in on me. I spotted a small, open-frame helicopter. One of those that’s just a seat, some support poles and the rotary blade. The blades couldn’t have been more than 5ft long. I got in and took off. It was awkward to control and couldn’t get more than 20ft off the ground. People were swarming under me trying to get to me. I managed to go fast enough to lose them and after a short time dodging power lines I came across an actual aircraft parking area. It was like a warehouse with aircraft all backed up to the buildings like semi trailers would be. I remember thinking “Great I can find a real vehicle here” and I clearly had a specific type of aircraft in mind, but as though the thought wasn’t my own I wasn’t sure what I meant and assumed I was looking for an airliner, which I saw several of. I flew over several planes until I saw a dark-gray chunk of metal I wasn’t immediately able to identify. Perfect, I thought, and even called the name of the craft, which I don’t remember (It was like Sidewinder or something). I nearly crashed my helicopter while landing it but was mostly unconcerned. I climbed on the aircraft and it looked like one of the sentinel ships from No Man’s Sky. It opened in much the same way and I climbed in.

I recognized it was a sentinel ship and realized that I must have been looking for this specific ship because it could take off vertically. I launched into the air but no screens turned on, leaving me blind to outside. Eventually a very small screen turned on off to the side which showed me outside. I could barely tell what was going on. There was an AI speaking to me and telling me where to go. I wanted to get away from this place, but it seemed to be taking me back to the cult headquarters with the intent of destroying it. I was swerving and spinning and had a very hard time controlling the ship. We were very quickly back at the cult headquarters. It was night time now and the headquarters was a sprawling futuristic techo-metropolis lit up by all manner of lights. There was a large tower I understood as being the control center, and a large rotary turret almost as big as the control center. I was also being shot at from below. There was a kind of red force field over the city that I banged into several times making the whole ship shake and set off warnings. I quickly realized that the AI wanted me to stay under the force field, and that it was piloting the ship all on its own. I was just making it worse. It did, however, want me to shoot at the tower, which I did. We weren’t making much progress and dodging the main turret’s fire was proving difficult. I tried shooting the main turret but the “game” clearly didn’t want or intend me to. We eventually sprayed the turret with water (I don’t know how or why) and that disabled it. I initially thought we were spraying the control tower, not the turret, and didn’t realize until I saw the turret disabled and wet. We parked, or crashed, the ship into the control tower, I’m not sure how, and disembarked.

I’m not sure why we boarded the control tower. It was virtually identical to the warehouse dock I work at when not dreaming. I felt I recognized the people here despite never having seen them before. Perhaps from the resort section of the dream. They were all generally not antagonistic, but I was very defensive and they were unbothered by it. I was waiting on the ship’s AI, which turned out to be a Mexican man in a technician’s suit. He was here doing something. I’m not sure what, probably planting a bomb or shutting the place down. Warnings were going off and security started closing in. I desperately needed to leave. More small interactions happened here that I don’t remember. Eventually other warnings started and the building appeared to be collapsing. It was then that I realized the ship’s AI was actually just the ship’s AI and I could leave whenever I wanted. So I hurried into one of the semi trailers attached to the building where the sentinel ship was parked, I got in and took off. I’m not sure how we got back outside from inside a semi trailer.

Outside it was late morning and many of the buildings were collapsing. Realizing that the AI was just the ship’s AI I told it to put the outside camera on the big screen instead of the small one and it did. I was high in the air and from the rubble of the control tower a giant monster, clearly some kind of experiment the cult was working on, but not in complete control of, broke out. It looked very alien. Smooth, transparent, with several, but not too many, limbs. It was chasing us. We were flying as fast as we could but couldn’t gain distance. It was ambling, but its size let it keep up. It reached for us a few times but we were never in any danger. We realized it would follow us forever if we couldn’t lose it. There was an ocean nearby and when flying over it the monster quickly sank into the water, disappearing. I had a memory of it coming back up but it never did.

Flash forward. I’m back at the control center ware house after everything has settled. I guess I’m helping the area recover. I overhear someone having trouble and mistake him for a celebrity of some kind. He just wants to buy something. I go back inside and from the rubble find the thing he wants. I’m not sure how to process a sale now that everything has broken and collapsed. The back door opens and a tall man is there. It’s clearly not the same person from the resort part of the dream but I immediately recognize him as the cult leader. He’s having trouble standing. I pounce on him, knocking him to the ground and start repeatedly punching his face. He begs me to get off of him and panicked, is trying to tell me something. I stop and he warns me that now that the building is destroyed a second monster is going to break free and we have to stop it. Just then a second monster breaks free from the ground which I can see though the half-missing roof. Then a giant xenomorph-looking creature walks up to it. They embrace and then fly off into the sky, the monster having thrusters on its bottom half.

I’m laying in a grass field as they fly into the starry sky. Space warps around them. Planets and stars spin around their path. Text appears saying that was the only time the monster was known to fly, and it was never seen again. The text “Staff” appears and end credits begin rolling. The cult leader is standing next to me. I say “What the crap was that!?” I wake up.

2024 retrospective

A retrospective on 2024… I don’t actually feel like this was an eventful year, so I didn’t think I was going to have a lot to say. It turns out it sure was eventful, just not in the way I was thinking, and somehow this post became this long.

Here on the channel I’ve been spending a lot of my solo time on the Kirby series. I originally started the All the Kirbys series because I felt like I was in a constant state of having to find something new and didn’t have any strong enthusiasm for anything. I wanted something that I could rely on for a while to keep me out of that funk. As the series has gone on I’ve found that I’ve already done most of the major Kirby games, so the ones I’m covering for the series are mostly side-games and spin-offs. Games that haven’t gone through the refinement process as much as the main games and I’ve found myself struggling with them. This led to a few breaks this year where I just needed to play something else for a bit. This did allow me to get to some oddball games that have been living in the back of my head for a while. I also finally got to show off R-Type Final 2. This also means there haven’t really been any “big” projects on the channel lately. We are very near the end of All the Kirbys and while I do love Kirby games I’m ready for it to be done. There are so many other games, even large ones, that I would love to get to. I feel like I’ve spent most of the year playing hard or frustrating games so I’m excited to be free and maybe play something I’m more enthusiastic about.

In the co-op sphere I usually let Ogre choose what games we play, but I’ve found myself choosing a fair number of games last year. This has given me a chance to play some other weird games I’ve wanted to show off like Ninja Saviors, Psychopomp, Diablo, and I outed myself as a Hololive fan (this was not the first time). Ogre’s choices have been more nostalgic, with him taking a look at some of my childhood favorites like Super Metroid and Link to the Past, and him getting me to play through the early Dragon Quest games. I’m really happy with a lot of the game choice on this end and I feel like it’s been a bit of a release for me from my solo stuff.

Of course I also stream several times a week and that as well has been a mixed bag. For starters on Thursday I would typically stream as Vivian.exe. Vivian’s development has a bit of history that stems from some self-identity issues I’ve had for a very long time, and my making the Vivian model and later giving her her own voice and persona have been a way for me to explore that. Late 2023 I ran into technical issues and burnout that made me retire her. Though her streams have never been terribly popular a few viewers were sad to see her go, so I made an attempt to refine her model to something I was happier with and solve my technical issues. My hope was resolving these issues would also make me happier to do her streams, and for a time it did. I brought her back in early 2024 with most issues resolved. We came back with Outer Wilds, an amazing game, and it was my first time seeing the expansion. I got to check out a few other games I’d been wanting to play as Vivian but eventually, between House Flipper and Control, I started to burn out again on playing the Vivian character. I was originally wondering of it was the technical issues that made me burn out and was thinking that resolving them may prevent that, but no. The issue is partially the games I chose to play but largely I think, as far as my self-identity issues go, I’m starting to figure myself out and wasn’t really getting anything from playing Vivian any more. So as the holiday season ramped up and I got busier I decided once again to retire her.

I also stream on Fridays, just as myself, and I’ve had a wonderful time there, by comparison. I’ve played and discovered a number of games that have gone on to be some of my all-time favorite games, like Voices of the Void and Lunacid. I’ve also played a number of games that were given to me directly by developers that actually looked at the content I make and thought I might enjoy. These games, like Goldenheart and Mars 2120, may not have been to the same quality as some of the other games I streamed but they were still amazing experiences and I’m really happy to have been given the chance to show them. I’ve also been happy in this slot because of the model I’ve been using. I really love the chocobo, it feels the most “me” out of everything I’ve used thus far, which is probably another reason I’ve been less satisfied with Vivian. I’ve even had some fun changing the model for the seasons. We changed to pink for most of the year and very recently I changed to blue for winter. I have a tendency to lean more towards feminine representations and I think the pink was part of that, but I feel like the blue actually much more fits my personality.

The Saturday streams have also been a bit of a mixed bag. Saturday is my work night. I stream mostly as a way to hold myself accountable while I get work done on any number of my personal projects. I have spent more than the past year working on replacing all of the standard Doom 2 monsters with enemies from the Jumping Flash series. This is done to accompany my prior mod which replaced the player with Robbit. This was a long, painstaking process that I knew would not pay off in any real way since it was just a monster replacement pack. That said I did an absolute ton of work that I’m unbelievably proud of. I finished the pack and finally released it late last year. I learned a lot, did a ton of work, and it’s all work that I really impressed myself with. The only parts of this project I’m not as happy with are that I knew it wouldn’t really be worth the trouble from the start, and that it took me so unbelievably long. Time that could have been spent on other projects. But this is now done, released, and I can start planning for the future.

I’ve been working on other projects as well, though not streaming them. I released Clean Up Hell, a Doom mod that turns the game into a cleaning simulator; and I’m still updating Beyond the Horizon, an idle game available on itch.io. I managed two updates this year and I’m happy to see people attempting (and sometimes failing) the new boss. I’ve got another update in the works.

My wife has also drug me out to a few anime conventions last year (for work, not play), which were the first I had ever been to. Though I do have a strong interest in anime and the community I still felt very uncomfortable there. Largely I just felt out of place and scared I’d be recognized. I felt like a grumpy father just there because he was drug there, despite that I was actually interested. I’m mostly just socially anxious and worried about how I appear. Similarly, I take my separation of personal and online lives seriously and was worried someone might identify me by proxy of being with my wife. I did, after a short time, find a kind of mask that not only hides my identity but also makes me feel more like I’m supposed to be there, like I’m one of the people there, excited, all walking around in some kind of love-filled cosplay. Once more comfortable I really loved this experience. I loved seeing everybody in costume, seeing everybody so excited, enthusiastic, and yet also so comfortable, often even expressing a wide range of self-representation. This did a lot to improve my own mood and also learn about myself. This also contributed a lot to figuring out myself, what I want to do with myself, and how I want to appear. This certainly contributed to my not feeling Vivian was necessary any more, as well as my want to redesign my chocobo to be something I think better represents how I want to be represented (and not copyrighted). Mostly a lot of personal growth here that I can take advantage of going forward.

Emotionally things were looking up right up until the end of August when I hurt my back. It was a muscle strain, no nerve damage, but it was the worst I had ever hurt my back in my life, and I am not a stranger to back injuries. I was chair-ridden for a week and it was difficult to move for a month after. To this day I still have to be careful and I will probably never be the same. Especially for someone like me, who is known to throw themselves around and push themselves physically, this is really disempowering. I wasn’t able to get any physical work done for the rest of the year and started falling into depression as time went on. It hit me hard. Over time my back has felt better and I’ve even gotten more and more recognition at work which has helped improve my mood. I’m feeling much better now, both physically and emotionally, but I pretty much wrote off the last three months of last year. It was a bad time.

That said, the year is over and next year is looking much better. We’re nearly done with Kirby and I’m excited to start something new. Vivian is retired and for the moment that slot is going to be reserved for tying up loose ends. Jumping Flash Doom is done and I can start working on new projects. I’m currently modifying my chocobo model to better appear how I want to be represented (and not copyrighted). It’s been a bit of a slump year I feel, but a year is a long time for nothing to go wrong. My channel has also been all over the place in representation until now. I’ve got Miss Naka as my avatar and on thumbnails, a chocobo on my stream thumbnails and as my stream avatar, and then Vivian making an appearance in effectively her own series.

Going forward I’m excited to turn over a new leaf. We’re going to be starting new projects on almost every front and I’d like to soft rebrand under a consistent brand. This may not be quick, as I am just one person who can’t do any of this full-time. Thank you all so much for supporting me and the things I do, especially those of you who have been around for years and years that I just can’t scare off. I’m going to be counting on your continued support in the coming year, and I very much hope you enjoy what I have in store.

cazort:

mlembug:

ibetitdoes:

not to enforce gender roles but a computer should NOT fucking have apps okay. if I wanted an app I’d go on my phone my laptop is for Programs. I mean this.

bringing the ancient meme back

really glad to see hate for this concept.

count me among the haters. i’ve been a hater since i first encountered this conflation of many different well-defined concepts into one ill-defined one

it’s part of the general trend of hiding the inner workings of computers from the user, which is something i hate since it tends to promote computer illiteracy which tends to promote incompetence and dysfunction in society as a whole

(via kumakaori)

I just realized I never showed off the art for the newer characters in my idle game. I think the initial four are up, so here’s the next four. A troublesome imp, a tired mother, a bored soldier, and a quiet assassin. There’s also a new character in the most recent update, but I’ll wait a bit before showing them off. If you want you can play the game here:
https://naka.itch.io/beyond-the-horizon