Date: March 31st, 2024
Achievements Earned: 23 of 30
Another one of those that had stagnated on my To-Be-Played list. Really fun little Search Action romp with a great cast of characters and fun gameplay, all wrapped up in a really well told, intriguing story.
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Beaten on: March 20th, 2024
Achievements Earned: 6 of 24
A really fun little Zelda Souls-Like game that I had been wanting to play forever. Managed to knock out the main story in less than ten hours.
Against my better judgment, I put out the funds to build myself yet another garden this year, this time taking things several steps further by not only increasing the width of the bed but also the length. On top of that, I've also gone ahead and bought stone pavers, chicken wire, a few shepherd hooks, and a whole lot of soil.
So in this entry, I want to post several pictures of the process as well as begin a brand new series of Garden Update for 2024.
So, starting out, this is what I had to work with. It's right outside my bedroom, visible from my favorite sitting and reading chair. I always wanted a garden here for the ease of access, but due to my dog, it wasn't reasonably affordable to do so.
But then, I make far more money now, soooo!
32 bags of raised bed soil. 50 pavers. 2 2x12x12 treated boards. 1 2x8x12. 2 rolls of 4ft chicken wire.
All delivered from work.
The day went on, the sun eventually came out, and things got a little more comfortable. The pavers went down first to act as a sort of leveler for where the bed would go.
My dog had to quite literally get in the middle of the garden bed construction.
This is easily the biggest raised bed I've had yet, Coming in at 12 feet long, 4 feet across, and 12 inches deep! Weather-treated lumber was used, so this sucker isn't going anywhere for a good long while.
Also found this really nice set of wind chimes/weather vane. I wanted a pair of bamboo chimes, which I am still definitely going to get, but I loved the look of this one and couldn't pass it up.
Probably going to have to get a bigger hummingbird feeder, but here are the bird feeders propped up on the two shepherd's hooks. Probably need to put something on the pole holding the seed to stop the local squirrel population.
Once we got the fencing up and the spiffy little latch gate installed, I was able to go through and start filling the bed and getting it ready for planting this Sunday.
And speaking of planting,
Because I have trouble keeping track of things when I plant them, I intend to make a blog post for each of these with all of the information that I can refer back to in the coming months.
With little over a week left to the first official month of spring, it was time to recollect everything that happened throughout.
I started the month reading the John Langen horror piece 'The Fisherman'. Despite the slow beginning, I enjoyed it immensely as it quickly ratcheted up the horror elements and never once let them sit idle, always at the forefront of the narrative once they came into the story. Would love to see some sort of adaption as a mini series or film.
On the gaming side, the month started with my first playthrough of Final Fantasy XV since its release in 2016. I knew it had received many quality-of-life and feature updates over the years. However, I was still hesitant initially because my initial experience with the game wasn't that positive. Now, after clocking in 40 hours for the game's new and improved story? Much more positive. I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that I would place it in my top five Final Fantasy games now, though in no particular order.
Film-wise, I started rewatching the Ip Man movies this past week, which are always delightful to watch, both from the amazing choreography in the fight scenes or the emotional storylines that fuel them. Donnie Yen is incredible at what he does.
On the Godzilla/Kaiju side of things, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is just a week away as of the time of this post and I am pumped! It'll be the last Godzilla media for some time, unfortunately, with Monarch and Minus One already having had their time, so I'm going to savor every last second of the film come next Thursday.
Speaking of Godzilla stuff, I finally got my paws on a Bandai Movie Monster Series Titanosaurus after twenty years of searching. Finally pulling the trigger and grabbing one of the Godzilla Store Exclusives from a seller in Japan. In addition to Titano, my father surprised me with a figure of Shimo from the upcoming movie. A monster and design of which I am quickly growing more and more fond. Just something about that white-on-blue that looks amazing.
Work has been very profitable this past month as well, with us not only making our quarterly bonus goal but the CEO also announcing that every employee would be receiving a discretionary bonus as well. This came on top of the first of two annual raises I'd be receiving this year, bringing me up to that $ 15-an-hour goal I had been vying for years.
Creatively, I've been hard at work on LAST TAIL, a new major project that draws inspiration from Final Fantasy VII/XV and Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, along with a myriad of other things. It's sitting at a solid 10k words right now with a bunch of world and character-building done within those first twelve chapters. On top of that, I've also commissioned a good friend of mine for the art of the five main characters, which I am eagerly anticipating.
What am I currently up to right now? Gearing up for a three-day weekend that begins tonight after work. Planning on making some tacos over the weekend and watching the four Monsterverse movies, on top of more writing and playing Dust: An Elysian Tale with the goal of 100% completing it.
The City. A huge, sprawling construct floating ominously several miles off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and filling the night horizon with a dim, eerie yellow glow. President Laxis Muzos perches atop his tower at the center, surveying all that his father had built and left for him. To which means he obtained such knowledge and power to float a city bigger than Rhode Island has been a closely guarded family secret for over a century.
Until that secret decided to reveal itself of its own accord...
Advrik Drahcir runs a shop on Main Street, Sector 2 of The City. Together with his friend, a snarky star-nosed mole, they have cornered the market on completing oddball jobs for the other denizens of the floating city. But when they encounter another unlikely duo during a visit to the local mall, it sets off a chain of events that puts them in the crosshairs of the corporation that founded The City, but also the very thing they had for so long kept a closely guarded family secret.
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LAST TAIL is a modern fantasy full of colorful anthropomorphic characters, action, romance, some cosmic horror, and a little bit of magic here and there. Wrapped up in a slice-of-life styled narrative, told from the first person perspective of the various characters, LAST TAIL gives readers a chance to submerge themselves in a familiar world to their own, but from the eyes of several vastly different characters and species.
When I created LAST TAIL, I envisioned it to be my take on the sort of urban fantasy that Final Fantasy VII and later Final Fantasy XV did so well, but as it evolved over time, it turned more into its own thing. The DNA of FF7/15 is undoubtedly there, but it has turned into something more of my own. Now, taking additional inspiration from video games like Legend of Legaia and movies like Ip Man, as well as novel series like Dresden Files, and even delving into Lovecraftian mythos, LAST TAIL is becoming an amalgamation of its very own.
And it's Furry as all heck, with no humans whatsoever.
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!!! CONTENT WARNING !!!
LAST TAIL is intended for mature audiences and contains scenes of violence, gore, nudity, and light sexual situations. Under certain circumstances, language that may not be palatable for modern audiences may also be present.
Reader discretion is advised.
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Meet the Cast:
Advrik Drahcir | Brigid Ashtear | Callista Reigns | Desmond Saddler | Eligh Brannigon
While spring doesn't officially begin until the 21st, March 1st marks the beginning of the meteorological seasons thus, as of yesterday, spring has begun!
So, with that said, welcome to the Spring 2023 update!
To kick this update off, I'd like to talk about my writing endeavors, beginning with my first legit attempt and writing a novel, which I've titled simply 'The Wulphelk'.
It's going to be a lot smaller in scale and more focused on a tiny group of characters versus the huge casts I have spread across my other two projects. Set in a small, fictional town in North Carolina that draws a lot of inspiration form my own dwelling, The Wulphelk is an 90s-styled creature-feature that will be heavy on the gore and contain a huge kill count.
[Logo Pending]
When I'm not working on Wulphelk, I have another new project that I've billed as the Secret of Memoria companion piece, titled 'Last Tail'. This new ongoing "tail" is heavily inspired by Final Fantasy VII, but will also be drawing inspirations from video games from the 32-bit era and onward, versus the strict 16-bit era and prior that 'Secret of Memoria' steeps in.
Last Tail shares a connection to both Secret of Memoria and The Wulphelk, with the latter being far more obvious than the former.
Last Tail is a first-person story about a group of anthropomorphic animals living in a city that, as they're going to find out, was created in very unnatural ways that the world is only now going to begin feeling the effects of a hundred years after its founding.
And I can't not talk about Secret of Memoria in my Writing Update post. It is of course still actively in development, with the current season dealing with the Thanksgiving equivalent and seeing Remy on a huge string of fetch quests. I am far behind on this one as I had originally intended to have the Harvest Festival season written before Thanksgiving, with a short winter-themed interlude before the next big spring season, which is going to see some serious plot developments.
Finally, I am dipping my toes back into the fanfiction arena, a place I haven't been in since the Friendship is Magic era. 'Godzilla Versus' will be a simple, short series of tales told from Godzilla's perspective from his beginning to his reawakening in the modern day. Taking cues from the Monsterverse, but largely being a Showa-era affair with crazy monster-sized antics and even crazier, impossible matchups with the thinnest of explanations of the whys and hows.
Have you ever wondered what a Showa-styled fight between Godzilla and a giant Rawhead Rex might play out? Well then Godzilla Versus is the series for you. I intend on it being the ultimate "Sit down with your toys on your bedroom floor and pit Godzilla against everyone and everything" short story series.
