I will be discussing the album The Post-Traumatic Manifesto by WeevilDoing and the song “covetous” by GHOST and Pals. These are are pieces of art that discuss some EXTREMELY triggering concepts with ZERO ambiguity, including:

• Pedophilia
• Necrophilia
• Threats of mass violence
• Human trafficking
• Self-harm
• Eating disorders
• Suicidal behavior
• Religious abuse
• External and internal ableism (specifically regarding ME/CFS)
• More shit I'm absolutely forgetting

These are pieces of art about being brutally, deeply traumatized, and the nature of how people ended up traumatized. I very staunchly stand on the side of art that is willing to be transgressive just for the sake of it, but this art that is transgressive because it documents real shit that happens to real people and how it makes them feel. I believe it is unethical to force people to prove that they're “licensed” or whatever to talk about a triggering topic just because it happened to them, but both GHOST and WeevilDoing have explicitly stated that these works are based on real life experiences, and I genuinely believe both are fucking gorgeous works of art that should be experienced by anyone willing to stomach them. With that said, there is a reason “covetous” is the only song I've ever gotten an 18+ warning for on the vocaloidlyrics miraheze, and “Chocolate-Box Girl” is the only song I've seen that has been outright excluded from having its lyrics hosted on the site (for context: “Zako” by Hiiragi Magnetite was allowed under the Akita Neru version, and other songs just as blatantly about CSA like Utsu-P's “Adult's Toy” or, of course, “covetous” by GHOST remain on the site). While this essay will not delve in depth on the songs and their topic, I do fervently recommend both and suggest that people listen to both in full.

I also want to start by saying this: I am going to say a lot of things that indicate that I do not like The Post-Traumatic Manifesto. I want to make it abundantly clear that, aside from a few technical qualms and matters of taste, I think it is one of the most fascinating albums I have ever heard, and that the majority of people who will find and listen to this album will fucking adore it. I do not want people to come away thinking that WeevilDoing made “bad art”, or that they have made anything other than a masterpiece. I want more people to listen to this, to have the experiences I didn't, to have gorgeous and difficult conversations on the nature of mental health, mental healthcare, trauma, everything. I want someone to find this album and have it awaken within them a feeling that, like the characters depicted within, they too can find hope and salvation. We good? We good. Let's go

Act I:

A few days ago, I was scrolling through a few tags on VocaDB, and kept noticing a single album across a plethora of the most interesting ones to me. I clicked into the page for The Post-Traumatic Manifesto by WeevilDoing and was greeted with this across the page. If you have known my artistic tastes, both past and present, you should know this shit is like catnip to me. Within the hour, I had the album pulled up on my phone, excited and ready to listen to something that could have been my album of the year. Forty-one minutes later, I was sitting around wondering just why I felt so disappointed, nearly repulsed, to the point where it was the least favorite thing I had encountered in half a decade.

I think it's easiest to start with the less controversial parts. While VocaDB lists this as an industrial and experimental album, I think the “noise pop” tag here is probably most apt. Even within that space, this is a little closer to the poppier end than I generally find myself enjoying. I'm also just...befuddled at the choice to use SeeU here. There's a 15-year-old song from a Korean producer literally making fun of how poor English-language SeeU songs tend to sound. “Splitter Girl” would likely be one of my favorite tracks on the album if it was intelligible. English-language vsynth is already playing on fuckin'...Producer Must Die mode. It's not that WeevilDoing is a poor tuner (in fact, they're a fantastic tuner. “Caliber Girl” is fucking gorgeous on that front), but this just hubristic. I also personally tend to like music where the vocals are mixed a little quieter into the mix, feeling like part of the instrumentation rather than rising above it. Vocals here tend to stand out a little too much for my preferences here, but that's an extremely minor thing.

It's also worth stating that this wasn't originally an album meant to be listened to in a single sitting. Each track was released serially, alongside a carrd.co page for each character explaining who they are, giving them a sona, and a short blog post from each of them. Listening to this as an album robs it some of the breathing room each of the characters needs and deserves. Thankfully, an interlude gives room between the two songs I think need it most, in the transition between “Caliber Girl” and “Chocolate-Box Girl”. I think the sequencing of the songs in the album (something I do care about) is great. Mayyyyyyyyyyyybe I would move “Refraction Girl” somewhere else, but beyond that, zero complaints. If these were my only issues with the album, I'd sit it solidly next to something like All Hail West Texas by The Mountain Goats, something where I can see exactly why and where people love it but ultimately is something not for me. I'd've listened to it, told people I know to listen to it, and promptly put it down and never think about it again.

Unfortunately for me, The Post-Traumatic Manifesto has a tenth character, with her own song, and in one fell swoop loses me entirely. Objectively speaking, “Nurse Parallel, PMHNP” is the gorgeous and correct way to end this album. A soaring anthem of hope, and likely an anthem describing the creator's own hope through inpatient therapy. It's likely most people's favorite track off the album, and I can't fucking stand it.

Intermezzo:

So, this is where the turn happens. The next part of this is gonna be pretty abrasive, and a lot less cohesively structured. It's a ramble. Maybe get a drink of water or something before you go in.

You ready? Let's go.

Act II:

“covetous” by GHOST and Pals is a song about your father wanting to kill you so he can rape you. I discovered it the same day I listened to Manifesto, and the dichotomy to my reaction to the two is why I'm writing this in the first place. It is pulsating, grinding, industrial darkness. It is vile. It is aggressive. It is threatening. It is raw. It is unambiguous. It is voyeuristic. It is a window into the worst things that people can feel, can do. This is what I want. This is the feeling I get from art that can't be bought anywhere else. I have enough music spreading messages about how you can get better if you just do the right things society asks of you. Go to therapy, take your meds, put down the knife, put down the blunt. Do all these things, magically things get better. I don't fuckin' care. I'm glad it worked for y'all, but it ain't worked for me. I want art that lives in that pit of darkness in your chest. I want art that reminds you of its buried presence, ripping it out from deep within your heart and making you stare at it. That black, pulsating mass that infects from within and without. “covetous” is bleak, terrifying, despair-inducing. It is what almost art is afraid of being. The same societal forces that tell you “Go to therapy, get a job, and you'll find friends that way” are the same ones that scare people away from making art about how shit just fucking sucks sometimes, that people do things to you that leave you feeling angry, hurt, alone, scared, weak, and that all you can do is fucking sit in it. The VN space calls this “utsuge”, literally “depressing game”. I feel no connection to folks who are getting better and channel that feeling into art. It's not that it's bad, it's that I can derive no value, no meaning from it. When art talks about how it gets better, it loses me. When art talks about how trauma can linger, festering like a wound, it grips me. It is a feeling I know all too well, and it's one I don't particularly get to share too often. I didn't go through what GHOST went through, but I'll be thinking about that bridge in “covetous” long before I can pick a favorite track from Manifesto. I don't want bittersweet, leaving you with a slight lasting saccharinity as relief from off-putting bitterness. I don't want kintsugi, strands of gold leaving that which was broken looking more beautiful than when it was fixed. I want bitterness that leaves you begging, not for sweetness to override it, but for something to wash it away clean to let the agony you just went through resonate throughout your mind. I want to cut myself sweeping up the shards of broken glass from a dropped plate, a reminder that brokenness is a state that itself produces something worth feeling.

This is something that Manifesto could never be, nor should it have tried to be that. It is not a lesser album for telling its story the way it should be told, but it is an album I cannot fathom caring for as a result. Earlier this year, I encountered viagr aboys by Viagra Boys, an album where I struggled to pick out a single thing I enjoyed, surrounded by friends who loved it and who were excited to hear me rave about it when I finished listening to it. The best thing I could say about viagr aboys was that the first two seconds of “The Pyramid of Health” reminded me of “Sex and Candy” by Marcy Playground, a song I actually liked. Despite being full of songs I absolutely enjoyed more than the entirety of viagr aboys, Manifesto immediately landed itself at the bottom of my list of albums I listened to this year, and even relistening to it to write this did not warm me to it at all. If anything, I enjoyed it less knowing that “Nurse Parallel” waited for me at the end of it all. This is a uniquely frustrating relationship to have with a work of art, but I would rather be frustrated and honest than lie about enjoying something I didn't.

Encore:

Writing this was mostly an excuse to explore my own emotions on how art depicts hope. Yes, the fact that I am using the term “hope” for art like “Nurse Parallel” while describing “covetous” as “despair-inducing” is because I have been recently going through the Danganronpa games with a friend. If you can find a better dichotomy of terms, please feel free to send them to me by snail mail. They end up on my back porch a lot, I'm sure one of them will relay the message to me. If you derive literally anything of value from this then uhhhhhh...

👍

Recommended prior reading: Nyalra's Self-Harm So I Don't Kill Myself

Hi, I'm someone who just spent a few weeks learning that what I thought was 5 years of forward progress away from an unhealthy coping mechanism was, in actuality, me bottling up my emotions for half a fucking decade and wondering why I felt like worthless garbage. I'm pissed at a world that's so thoroughly ABA and CBT coded that I stalled on what ended up being a core part of my mental health recovery for 20% of my lifespan thus far. This is not going to be “good” writing. This is a vent post.

The societal relationship and understanding of self-harm is genuinely one of the singular most destructive things I have had to interact with on a regular basis. Few things are as conducive to helping people seek “remission” (a term I bear a significant grudge with), as the way we react to seeing people who self-harm. We treat self-harming as the problem, not a symptom of some greater issue. We treat the idea of self-harm as something appalling; a sign that someone is truly so far gone that there is literally nothing worse they could do to themselves than commit suicide. This attitude is utterly counterproductive. Everyone I know who has or does self-harm cites a very similar experience. When you're in a truly dire situation, when it feels like the worst it's ever been, the answer is simple: grab that razor blade, spark that lighter, pick up a sewing needle, bare your teeth, or just find a fucking wall. Pain is a visceral thing, it bypasses everything else in our body and mind to sound every alarm. It is the lightning rod to suicidality's thunderstorm, a quick blast to the system that brings you down from the ledge. It's the relief valve on a pressure cooker; a high no drug could ever hope to match. Self-harm can directly provide the brain with endorphins, so why the fuck would I go for a 30-minute walk when a 5-second cut gets me just as well taken care of. When I'm deep in the mix, the last thing I want to “fix” is something that feels good for even a fleeting fucking moment. Between when I last stopped cutting and when I started up again, I regularly dealt with delusions that the universe was telling me to cut again (that twitter post a friend sent you? that person's alt is a shtwit account. that person who got hacked and sent you a mr. beast crypto scam? the last thing you talked about 7 years ago was your attempts to stop cutting. c'mon, don't you wanna remember what it's like?); hallucinations in my arm of blood building up and getting stuck, begging to be let free; a cloud over my mind, such a persistent feeling of brainfog that I forgot what clarity was like. I'm still mad at those around me that forced me to stop well before I was ready.

So, what does the subtitle have to do with all of this? Simply put, autistic people have a significantly higher rate of self-harm, with some studies putting it as high as three times more prominent than the neurotypical population. Autistic people are often significantly more sensory seeking than neurotypical peers, and pain is a fucking excellent sensation. Autistic people often experience heightened emotional reactions to things, and pain is second to none at bringing those emotions back to something digestible. A significant majority of autistic people I have interacted with in emotional situations have done something that could be classified as self-harm. Often, it's simply slapping or punching part of themselves. Thighs are common, they're soft and fleshy and can take a good beating. Some people slam their head lightly, and while it's not for me, I get why they do it. My go to, and the default to many people I've known, is cutting. It's a sensation we don't get often in daily life, it's easy to do, easy to hide, easy to find the equipment for. Societal perceptions of self-harm, especially on the “less severe” end, are often deeply interwoven with societal ableism. It's an axis by which autistic folks are separated from neurotypical folks, “high functioning” from “low functioning”, acceptable from unacceptable. Treating people this this discourages from talking about their experiences with self-harm and potentially finding either community or “remission” as a result.

Ultimately though, none of this includes me. I come at this from a slightly different position than most people I know. I cut because I just fucking love cutting. It's a grounding mechanism, yes, but it's also a form of enjoyable automasochism. There's a ritual, a process, a philosophy. It is an axis for bodily autonomy at a time where I'm dealing with a family who does not fuck with the idea of me doing HRT (especially not DIY, which I'm doing right now). I could make up some higher-level concept of liberation and bullshit, but at the end of the day I just think it's siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick. I get to watch the wounds as they heal day to day, I get to make my own bandages, I get to feel as they brush against my sleeves, it's just fucking hype. I don't want to stop cutting, at least right now.

So, like, what's the whole point of this nonsense? What actionable beliefs can be taken away from this? In my opinion, I think the societal perspective on self-harm should shift from the outright shock and horror that it is right now, to something closer to modern liberatory perspectives on drug usage and kink. What's so fuckin' different between knifeplay and cutting? The presence of a second person? For my 2¢, I don't think that makes it any better. Is it the idea that kink happens in “healthier headspaces?” I tend to find perspectives like that are inherently unfair towards people with certain mental illnesses. I just want people to chill the fuck out. I get if people don't want the (at times literally) gory details, but I'd like to feel like others don't see me as a lesser human. I'd like to be able to talk about it in at least the same cadence as I talk about my weed usage, something I do that I believe benefits me even if others disagree, and something that (and this is where woke is gonna kill me) I believe others can and should do if they believe it will benefit them. Discussion of processes, risks, and benefits should be heavily destigmatized, both to make those who do self-harm do so safer and so that people who want to quit can feel fuckin' safe to talk about it. Right now, the best resource a lot of people like that have is shtwit, (allegedly) a complete fuckin toxic cesspool even beyond its “enabling of toxic behavior”. My external, unexperienced perception is that it's a place for a very specific type of person, and that people like me, who may be fat, or trans, or a person of color, or just not conventionally attractive, are unlikely to be welcomed. For me, I would love a space where I could talk about this, destigmatized, with other people who self-harm. For what I think others should do? Just be that space for someone. Be mindful of your own boundaries, of course, but try and listen with an open mind as much as you can. Self-harm can feel like the loneliest shit in the universe with how people treat SHers, be the one to break that cycle for folks, you feel me?

Part 1: The Good(-ish)

The case is pretty nice. There's lots of places with pretty bad flashing on the key holes, but other than that it's got a basically perfect amount of heft: light enough to take with you wherever, heavy enough to feel stable on your lap.

Part 2: The Bearable

The controller comes stock with matte, concave keycaps atop Kailh choc red switches. I think the entire choc family is fantastic, but buying red, white, or brown chocs comes with the issue of them shipping with in switch stablizers. These piece of shit wires are extremely rattly and noisy and can lead to a less desirable feel. While it's not a difficult process to remove them, it can be a time consuming one, and in general I think they would've done better to ship with something like the 40g silvers, 35g pro reds, or even the 20g pinks, all of which ship without the in-switch stabilizers. Additionally, I think concave caps are something that can be dealt with, but are objectively worse than convex caps, particularly for any game where you might want to only press a button for fewer than 3 frames (LIKE A GAME WHERE THE MOST POPULAR CHARACTER HAS A 3 FRAME JUMPSQUAT AND IS EXTREMELY DEPENDENT ON SHORT HOPPING). Convex caps allow for easy swiping presses for even reliable single frame inputs, while concaves can cause your finger to get stuck for a fraction of a second more. In a game where the difference between holding a button for 4 frames instead of 3 can be the difference between bairing for the kill and getting up air tech chased into rest, this matters imo.

Part 3: The “This is so bad someone should be fired”

The LBX shipped in May 2022, well into the span of people making their own DIY boxes based on the firmware of people like Crane, Arte, and Haystack (creators of CL-FW, pico-rectangle, and HayBox respectively), and the hardware of things like the openframe1 and the controllers from rana digital. This means that the Raspberry Pi Nano, powered by the RP2040 chip, was a known quantity for quite some time. As such, it is disgustingly inexcusable for this controller to ship with an Arduino Leonardo (technically ATmega32u4) as its brain. The 32u4 caused me to deal with infinite usability issues, randomly breaking on certain setups, requiring a full 5V instead of the 3.3V that the nano can use (thus not working on wiis/gcs with broken 5V rails, only working with official Nintendo or Mayflash GCC adapters, and only if both USB ports are plugged in), not having an in-built adapter mode like can be used with pico-rectangle, and generally being an extremely limited and outdated platform. As I said, the RP2040 was an available chip, and does all of these things plus infinitely more features I've not been able to capitalize on. It is appalling to me that JFA was willing to ship a product with hardware this bad for $40 more than the Frame1 Light.

Part 4: The “I can never in good faith or conscience recommend a JFA product to anyone else”

When the LBX first came out, it was powered by firmware made by JFA for the controller. This would be fine if the firmware was usable in the slightest, but unfortunately it was designed by JFA devs and designers, so it was fucking miserable. Most notably, changing between layouts for games required you to Completely Reflash Your Firmware, meaning you couldn't play both PM and Melee at the same weekly without bouncing back and forth to a laptop to reflash between sets. This is, to put it politely, fucking horseshit, and JFA explicitly knew it. Their actual solution was to tell people to flash HayBox onto it, but then not support anyone having issues with HayBox because no one at JFA can do their fucking job. This left one place to be tech support for LBX users, the Crane's Lab discord server. Not at all associated with JFA, and entirely run by Crane for the purpose of building a resource hub for DIY boxx makers. I had joined right when I had gotten my LBX for some tips on how to reconfig HayBox to work with the layout I prefer, but quickly became JFA's tech support team until LBX support was explicitly banned by Crane because no one was getting paid for doing their labour. This is a fucking abhorrent way to treat the open source community who may otherwise be willing to work with you in good faith. Instead, you looked at them as people who have already done the hard part for you and used them like a third party IT firm instead of hobbyists trying to do a thing for other hobbyists. This happened fresh off the heels of the aforementioned flatbox controversy, in which JFA pressured developer jfedor2 to take down the design files of their controller.

Part 5: Conclusion

I can no longer recommend anything JFA sells in even neutral faith. They have proven themselves as bad actors willing to prioritize their pockets over everything else. They harass open-source developers in the same spaces as them, abuse those who in those spaces before them, and then deliver subpar hardware at premium prices with no intention of making them even remotely usable by standards even a year before their product dropped. Ideally JFA would be left in the dust by a company or maker with actual fucking ethics to their work practices, but until then all I can do is recommend other products. For those looking for a boxx, the superslab by prong studios looks promising, the frame 1 light is probably the best value grab when its available, and many makers like rmz and rana digital are making controllers in limited quantities or even for commission, but expectedly at higher prices. Alternatively, building one's own box isn't too difficult provided one has introductory soldering skills and tools available, but I'm well aware this isn't a universal solution. I'd be keeping eyes on rana for now, who's absolutely killing it between the standard digital controller (which is open source and 3d printable, with a good number of people selling prebuilts), and has the most promising prospect in the market with the Tadpole, a pocket sized controller with mouse switches as the base switches. Definitely keep an eye on that (twitter/@ranadigital).

Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru♪ (Shite Yan yo) feat. Hatsune Miku – ika

There's a lot that can be said about Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru, but let's start with the basics: this was the first vocaloid song to explode. The first one to make it big. It was the earliest published song to make the HoM (published 9-20-2007), and the one that entered the Hall of Myth both first, and the second fastest (entered the on 8-30-2012, 1806 days after publishing). Nowadays, this song is mostly a nostalgia trip for older fans, but for an '07 song, Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru holds up extremely well. It's not a deep and metaphorical song like some of the later entries, but it's good at what it does, and what it does is introduce people to vocaloid. This is honestly probably the first song with good tuning, and what it means for the community will last until its very end.

Melt feat. Hatsune Miku – ryo

I want to talk about Melt, but talking about Melt requires talking about ryo. I do not have enough time in the span of a single article to talk about ryo. I'll leave you with this until I talk about ryo: Melt came out 3 months after Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru. Your favorite producer would not be in vocaloid if not for this song. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Senbonzakura feat. Hatsune Miku – Kurousa-p

Senbonzakura feels almost like an outlier. It entered the HoM faster than Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru at an astonishing 1608 days, and almost entirely on the back of it just being a hard banger. Like this shit just goes y'all. I can wax poetic about some of the later and earlier songs for eons but there's no really deep lyrical or instrumental analysis I can work with here. It takes traditional Japanese instrumentals, modern production techniques, and lyrical themes evoking the Meiji restoration of Japan. It wears its hearts on its sleeves, and sounds phenomenal while doing so. It almost makes me sad that Kurousa-p could never really bottle the lightning of Senbonzakura into songs like Cantarella and ACUTE, but they're so stylistically different from Senbonzakura that it'd almost be shocking to find out they're from the same producer. In all honesty Senbonzakura is a banger with a message that beats you over the head, and it's not trying to hide behind metaphor. It knows what it is, it relishes in that fact, and it worked out real damn well for Kurousa-p.

Matryoshka feat. Hatsune Miku and GUMI – Hachi

Where do we even start with Matryoshka? Probably the fact that this is the first HoM song to feature a vocaloid other than Miku. In the modern day, GUMI is probably the most popular non-CFM vocaloid (Crypton Future Media is the company that owns Miku, the Kagamines, Luka, MEIKO, and KAITO), but I'd be lying if I said it was always easy for her. However, Hachi managed to use her voice phenomenally in his absurdist masterpiece Matryoshka. One thing strange about this song is that it's not really... about anything. It's lyrics are incredibly inconsistent, using nonsense words and incoherent lines as often as it can. It's also the first real rock song on the list. Most of the songs before this have been very Jpop inspired, as expected of someone more marketed as a pop diva. However, later producers like Hachi found incredible strength in using vocaloids like Miku and especially GUMI in more rock and even metal songs. Hachi was already an established name in the scene at this point, with songs like WORLD'S END UMBRELLA and Hold, Release; Rakshasa and Carcasses under his belt, but this song began a streak of four songs that would massively impact the community each time one dropped.

Meltdown feat. Kagamine Rin – iroha(sasaki)

2018 was a strange year for the Hall of Myths. Not only did it feature two songs entering the Hall of Myths, but both of them entered in a span of two months, and, perhaps most significantly, neither of them had Miku in any capacity. The first one to enter this year was Meltdown, and what a fucking tour de force. It's this futuristic-y song that almost reminds me of some of my favorite 3d Sonic the Hedgehog music. It's an absolute banger, and the first song in the HoM to just be overwhelmingly depressing in its lyrics. It also seems to have begun this trend of Rin being a vocalist for more heavy and intense songs. Predating songs like Tengaku and Tokyo Teddy Bear by almost a year. A song about flinging oneself into a nuclear reactor, but, removing the meaning of the lyrics, feels like a song you'd see someone dancing to in the dark, a feeling the Project Diva Arcade PV captures incredibly well

Mozaik Role feat. GUMI – Deco*27

Mozaik Role is another strange song, barring the lack of Miku and it's appearance on the list Christmas day 2018, just under 2 months after Meltdown's 11-1 arrival. In my opinion, Mozaik Role is strange because it's aged the least well of any of these songs, but in a paradoxically good way. Deco*27 is an interesting producer, as he's always either on the cutting edge, or he's making the cutting edge. As such, Deco songs occasionally fall victim to not aging as well as one would hope, but that just means that people have taken his recipe, and altered it. And with a staggering frequency, the person to do that is Deco himself. Mozaik Role is another one of those aforementioned Sad As Shit Songs, this time about a girl killing herself due to her love hating her. I just personally that rock and metal songs about these topics have improved heavily since then. Songs like Tokyo Teddy Bear by neru, Rolling Girl by wowaka, and Ghost Rule by, you guessed it, Deco himself, have all managed this topic in ways that hold up to the test of time much better. I see every single reason as to why Mozaik Rule is as popular as it is, but I feel it's been done better nowadays. However, we have Mozaik Rule to thank for that, so to call it anything other than a myth among the community would be massively understating its influence.

World's End Dancehall feat. Hatsune Miku and Megurine Luka – wowaka

Fuck man. FUck. FUCK. God damn it. Shit. God fucking damn it. Hell. FUcking shit aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Fucking wowaka, man. Holy shit. Wowaka is another producer where their my entire analysis of all their works ties into his Hall of Myth entry, and I'd love to talk about it in further detail, but I just don't have the words to write a short overview about it as I have with the other songs. I can't even give a hyper tl;dr like I did for ryo. Shit man. Fuck.

Conclusion

Since 2015, there's been at least one song to enter the Hall of Myths every year. So far, it looks like the next entry is likely to either be cosmo@busou-p's “The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku” or Kemu's “A Six Trillion Year And One Night Story”. Each of these songs have their own importance to them, and I'd love to talk about them one day, but, for now, I have more pressing topics at hand.

Settings

First, lets talk about the most important thing in any rhythm game: game feel. Moreover, how much you can change for the sake of accessibility and one's personal preferences. Quaver starts off strong with fine detailing on scroll speed changes, a vast quantity of sound effect changes, up/down scroll option, basically everything you would want...except a cmod. I adamantly disagree with any game opting out of having a constant scroll speed modifier. There is almost never anything fun one can do with them, unless you're absolutely abusing them (Take this o!m chart for TWO-TOrial – PHQUASE and DJ TOTTO, charted by MAAAAAAAAAAAAAS). However, most charts play more like Valkyrie Dimension CSP in DDR, constantly regarded as one of the hardest and least fun charts in the game due to its intro and outro streams that whiz past at a monumental 744 and 390 bpm respectively. Since DDR also doesn't have a cmod, this forces players to either a) play at uncomfortably low scroll speed for the rest of the song, a friendly 186 bpm, or b) cry. (Please do not let me get started on o!m SV charts because they're often just genuinely unsightreadable, something that is a massive crime in rhythm games)

Stepmania Imported Charts

They're just broken. Almost all of them. Almost any sm chart with a bpm change or a freeze will fall massively off sync, sometimes including being FULL SECONDS off sync. The DDR convert of Saber Wing (AKIRA ISHIHARA Headshot Mix) is PARTICULARLY awful, but sadly Quaver isn't playing well with my recording software. This is something I hope will be fixed soon, but I expect is low on the priority bracket. This, however is particularly frustrating because

osu! Imported Charts

It's fucking flawless. Not a single god damn problem.

Scoring

Scoring is about as good as you can get for a game that doesn't seem to use millisecond specific timing like etterna does. Timing windows are similar to stepmania judge 5 with a slightly higher perfect window. There's not a combo based scoring system in sight, a massive refresher from osu!mania.

LNs

In rhythm games, there are two standard forms of held notes: there's charge notes (CNs), where the first input is timed and there's no timing to the release at the end of the note, and there's long notes (LNs), where the release is timed. 99% of modern games use CNs, with a good few (such as etterna and bms) allowing to optionally turn on LNs. This is almost definitely the best way to go about things, as a vast portion of players prefer to play with CNs due to the challenge of holds being to hold the note, and making timing the release force an almost piano-esque flourish that can lead to damage over time in certain patterns. With this said, it was much to my disappointment that, like osu!mania, Quaver forces LNs else plays won't be ranked. Again, this shafts almost every stepmania convert, continuing a pattern of pushing against pulling in sm players.

Skinning

Not much can be said about skinning beyond this: it is incredibly robust, allowing both osu!-esque lane coloring and stepmania-esque snap coloring. People are working on importing skins from other games, and using a more osu! inspired general UI is a PERFECT THING. Etterna, and many other stepmania 5 themes, have a problem of looking and feeling somewhat dated, so having a game look good is a nice change of pace.

Actually Playing The Game

In terms of actually playing the game, Quaver is great! In rhythm games, good and bad are separators more of options and choice, rather than objectivity. The core engine of Quaver does feel incredibly wonderful and consistent, framerates were high and consistent, when I actually select a map and hit the keys there's honestly nothing I can say, so long as the map is at a consistent bpm with no LNs.

Conclusion

To wrap things up, Quaver feels like it's a game that doesn't know what it is. It's trying to be a universal competitive vsrg for 4k and 7k, but is so fundamentally different from stepmania, FFR, bms, o2jam, and so much more that, when push comes to shove, it just feels like osu!mania 2. I had high hopes for Quaver, but, even setting the beta bugs aside, I can't see it having any significant shelf life. The only thing it has to differentiate itself from o!m is a better scoring system and better rate mods, but it still holds the massive paradigm shift between o!m and sm, and isn't in any form a bridge between the two. With nothing really pulling people aside from “You can play o!m and stepmania charts with a functioning online play!” Quaver needs a good ace up its sleeve, and I sadly don't expect it to have one. My best wishes goes out to everyone who has and will work on Quaver, but I sadly don't think I'll be keeping it on my machine.

TW: parental abuse, suicide and suicidal ideation

Lanque's existence and arc as a character is heavily dependent on those who live around him. He's a loving brother to Wanshi, and shares similar opinions of the more matriarchal jades to Daraya. These views heavily weigh into the character of Lanque, each to their own degree.

Wanshi

Due to Wanshi's young age, Lanque's relationship with her is quite simple, but incredibly nice. Lanque helps out with Wanshi's love of Soldier Purrbeasts and seems to carry a genuine interest to go along with it. They have a strong, positive brother-sister relationship. He's definitely playing off the “too cool for kids stuff” aspect, but he definitely cares for his sister and gives me vibes, personally, of wanting to be the supportive elder that he never really had the chance to have.

Daraya

Daraya is an interesting case. There's very little in the terms of explicit canon interaction between the two, but the shared opinions on Bronya and Lynera (the aforementioned Mom Jades) leads to a massive paradigm shift and how one could see the character of Lanque. Hiveswap is incredibly interesting due to the lack of any kind of reliable narrator, there's no one to give a pure, unbiased, objective truth to a character, and, even then, the jades are too human to be looked through the “objective lens” of a narrator. So what we know must be supported by other characters and what they say, so when Daraya says she finds Bronya and Lynera to be suppressive, toxic, and borderline abusive in the way that they treat their younger jades, the way that they go out and do the very things they heavily scold the other jades for, it's potent. And all of this climaxes in daraya's second bad ending, wherein she allows herself to be consumed by the fires of the building around her. Stay tuned for my possible first fanfiction release.

Lynera and Bronya

These two are lumped together with reason: their reaction to Lanque's NSFW route. Lanque accuses Lynera of being similar to him, in that she is a promiscuous person who frequently leaves the brooding caverns in search of quadrantship. Meanwhile, Bronya is slightly more explicit in her underhandedness. We know she has relationships outside of the caverns, likely pailing as well. Bronya responds to these accusations, much like Lynera does, by brushing them off and then casting more shade onto Lanque. This brings into question not only their personal lives and actions, but also their views on Lanque. We know, through his NSFW route, that Lanque isn't much for quadrantship, and more looks for a quick pail here and there. However, Bronya says he has matesprites and is quite abusive towards them. Again, this leads to the conundrum of the reliability of those around him. I personally believe that Lanque might be abusive towards the long-term matesprites he has, but that's for reasons that will be explained in part two. More importantly, I think it's a look into Bronya's character, in that she is an abusive guardian who lies about her “children” (other jades but Lynera) in order to guilt them or shame them for things they have not done. However, we see that this abuse doesn't seem to work on the jades, in that they don't seem to listen, but instead lash out in their own unique ways. Wanshi vents lightly to MSPAR, Daraya deals with suicidal ideation and, in her bad end, literally fucking kills herself because of her treatment by Bronya and Lynera. So when Lanque lashes out at Bronya and Lynera, the reader should hopefully be more inclined to agree with him due to the messages from literally every other jade. This is the impetus for all of Lanque's actions: he is fucking pissed and petty, he will not stand for being abused ans suppressed by people who don't act with honesty and integrity like those around him, and he is going to lash out and act impulsive because of it.

LANQUE PART 2: COMING APRIL THIRTEENTH.

Lanque Bombyx. The most controversial character to come out of Hiveswap Friendsim and this includes the artist who paints in the blood of her victims, Zebruh, Zebede, and a clown whose armpits you can sniff and go into a trance from. Lets get the basics down first

Lanque is a trans male jadeblood, he is a prospit dreamer and is lifebound, the only life aspect character in friendsim. Let's talk about one of the most important things in his character. Let's talk about gender and jadebloods

Gender and Jadebloods

Jadebloods are all AFAB, that we know of. For all we know one of them could be trans and just doesn't say it iunno but anyway. Let's assume for now that they're all AFAB, as this makes the most sense and is the easiest to talk about. This makes Lanque the ONLY male jade troll EVER. Next there's something important about jadebloods: they're forced into a life of abstinence, and are disallowed from romantic relationships. This puts Lanque in a Tough spot personally. He's a character based in rebellion, as all the jades are. However, he actually tried his best to listen to what his guardians forced on him due to being the eldest. He was made to set the standards for trolls like Wanshi and Daraya, meanwhile Bronya and Lynera are going out, having relationships, leaving the caverns to which they are bound. He's fucking livid and he lets this out in both of his major routes. Today, we'll be going deep on his first one. His safe for work one.*

(* IF YOU CALL IT THE VALID AND INVALID ROUTES I WILL BREAK INTO YOUR HOUSE AND BREAK YOUR GOD DAMN FINGERS)

THE ROUTE

The route diverges when you can either go to a big crazy party with drugs and sex and all sorts of fun things like that, or a poetry circle.

This is a great time to talk about one of the first major criticisms of Lanque, and why it's bullshit and wrong

CRITICISM OF LANQUE 1: HE'S A BAD REPRESENTATION OF THE SOFT TRANSMASC ARCHETYPE

WHAT? NO. HE'S A POET AND HE WEARS A FLOWER CROWN BUT HE'S NOT FUCKING SOFT? HE FUCKING LAYS INTO LYNERA FOR BEING A PIECE OF SHIT. HE'S NOT SOFT. HE'S PISSED AND AN EMOTIONAL VAMPIRE. HE FITS INTO THE VIBE OF THE ROOM AND TWISTS IT.

Okay now that my explosion is over with. This is one of his “good” endings. This is something I've always hated in games and will get back to later. For now, let's talk about Lanque in this route.

Lanque is a pretty heavy criticism of common transmasc stereotypes in this route. He wears the flower crown but it seems more spiteful than genuine. This is likely due to anonymous writer V being a big fan of fucking with people like this. They also wrote the route for Marvus and you can see this is something they're quite fond of. Lanque in this route is a fun way to look at what he feels about his fellow jades. He feels angry. He's spiteful. He's pissed off at the fact HE CHOOSE to behave and was called out by hypocrites for breaking the rules that his guardians chose not to follow. He's a big personality, he's an emotional vampire, he's impulsive, and he is Fucking Irate. Anyone with restrictive hypocritical parents can relate to this. Anyone who has had to sit in front of their parents chastise them for the things they themselves just did can relate to this. This route shows WHY He feels this way. The NSFW route, the party route, the route where you can have sex with a character over the equivalent of 19 (he's not a minor. He's facing immediate threat of being sent off planet. He's old enough so that he can fuck.) is the fun one. This is the one where he see HOW he lashes out and gets these frustrations out. And maybe, in the meantime, we'll learn a bit about teenagers, angst, suppression, and the message sex can have in a narrative.

No

But I still feel like there's a massive gaping hole where certain hits should have been. This engine has powered multiple FTKs, drove Fairy Tail – Snow to be banned, and played an integral part in the victory of Lunalights at this YCS. That's right, I'm talking about Danger!s. Now before then let's talk about why it's okay that Sky Strikers and Altergeists got off scot-free.

The answer is simple. They're strong, but healthy and not overwhelmingly strong. While sky strikers had their dominance hitting Hornet Drones took them down enough of a peg to bring them into fairness. Altergeists in and of themselves aren't an overwhelming powerhouse and more thrived as anti-meta decks. While multifaker impermanence is still an incredible strong “stop playing” move it's not game breakingly so.

Now, about the Danger!s. Dangers are played in decks as copies of Upstart. People will play ten-twelve danger monsters just to have access to incredible deck thinning, but is this healthy for the game? While it does give lower tier decks more access to their one key engine card, I honestly have to say no. Dangers, while may be mostly docile for now, have already reared their ugly head in DDW FTK and the theorized DTD builds that'd get massive +s off Fairy Tail – Snow, allowing you to Book of Moon your opponents entire board at little cost to you. While they may be okay for now, what they could do in future is a terrifying thought, and as such I feel as though Dangers need to be hit sooner, rather than later. With the Dangers in the game, Konami has to design decks around them being a splashable engine, much like 3 drones skystriker. This heavily inhibits the way Konami can move the game forward as one small oversight can lead to a destructive powerhouse of mixed engines like Trickstar Sky Striker or HAT. All we can hope for is that future sets don't blow the game open due to this one archetype.

Step 1: Be readable

For the love of all that is good and holy in this world please make your fantroll's quirk very easily readable. A quirk shouldn't require a guide in order to read and should be accessible to anyone who is reading your quirk for the first time.

Step 2: Reflect your character

This is probably the easiest and most understandable step but never forget it. Quirks in most troll lore are seen as a way for people to distinguish themselves from one another and this should always hold true. Think of characters like Vriska, who's love of spiders and the number 8 drives her character, or Folkyl, who's voidrot has affected her speech patterns, or Kuprum, who is just a 4chan joke.

Step 3: KISS

Keep It Simple, Stupid

May be patronizing, but it's also a vital rule to follow for something like this that MAJORLY helps in the other areas.

Step 4: Be unique

This goes back to quirks being a feature of differentiation in troll culture. If you keep your troll's quirk unique, you'll be able to fulfill that part of the lore.

Step 5: Break any one of these rules

Any of em. Smash it to pieces. The key to all great things is that it looks at what it SHOULD do and doesn't follow them. Now while you shouldn't go out making an illegible quirk that's an amalgam of other character's quirk, none of whom are similar to yours, it does mean that you shouldn't feel obligated to follow all of these rules to a T. I ordered these steps in order from most to least important. Legibility should always be Point Number One as you need to keep in mind any dyslexic people who might be reading your quirk. Character reflection is also incredibly important but in ways you might think you're breaking this rule, you can follow it. KISS is always a good acronym to have on hand because it's very easy to go overboard, but don't be afraid to dip your toes into the water. And not being “unique” can be unique in and of itself. This isn't some be-all-end-all guide, it's got some play in it and use it as you see fit.