Hi everyone sorry for the late monthly update! 

I had a lot going on in my life this past couple of weeks (not to mention the world! AAAHH) and only got a chance to sit down and write this today. 

For today's playlist: 

Okay let's get into it, let's look at last month's To-Do list. 

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October To-Do List:

1. Write 5k (and write what I love :) )

2. Finish the last 3 outdoor scenes! 

3. Start the transportation code to allow Gray to walk from scene to scene.

1. This one is a bit hard to quantify. I've finished a generalized outline of the game with ideas of who everyone is and I'm now fleshing out the different towns. This isn't a game you start at point A and go to point Z. It's really meandering and heavily relies on the gameplay mechanics and the "feel" of walking around with your best friend. So I'm doing something I never do with my other games-- I'm making the actual world first and putting in the story second. We'll see how this works out. I might have to streamline later, but again, just chasing what is fun to make. 

2. Hell yeah I finished them ALL!!! I am now out of environmental building mode which was fun for the first 12ish scenes but definitely got boring by the time I was making my 20th. 

3. I also hooked up all the transport code. This world is now a giant CIRCLE!!!! You can WALK!! Immersive gameplay!!!! 

Phew! So I was able to finish all of my goals this month. That's pretty cool. I was even able to do a fair bit of other things. Like starting more animation sprites for the NPCS!

(This is Rian's mom. :))

Animation is definitely an area of weakness for me but I read a textbook and feel a bit more relaxed with it. Excited to keep working and learning! 

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November To-Do List:

1. Finish walk anims for 5 NPCs! 

 2. Start thinking about Camera code to deal with *gestures to the mess in Unity* that.  

 3. Fix Butterblue's textoverlap issue in the Extras screen. 

Whew, I think I can accomplish that. :) 

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So, what else? A big change this month is now im OFF TWITTER. GOOD RIDDENS!!!! I'm now posting my random inane thoughts over on Bluesky and genuinely I feel like I just got out of an abusive relationship and am shocked! at how much it doesnt hurt to log onto the social medias. There's nothing in particular unique about Bluesky, it's a clone of twitter in it's interface, but I think it's the userbase that's just really doing it for me. People are NICE!!! People are doing silly little art challenges again! Or at least my pocket of the site is. I've been very conscious of my feed this time around and am cultivating what I want to see. Follow me if you wanted to hear me yell about books I'm reading or smth, sometimes I talk about my gamedev updates too: https://bsky.app/profile/heidenroslein.bsky.social

Related to that, but in the two weeks I've been on Bluesky, I've already gained more numbers over there than in the decade I've been on twitter. WAT?! I could sit here an ANALYZE or whatever but it really goes to show that as much as we beat ourselves up over "THE NUMBERS!!!" it's so fickle and honestly stupid. Make ur art and have fun with it!!! (I say to myself.) 

But I do think its good to celebrate, so I'll be doing a little art raffle over on my bluesky to celebrate hitting a milestone number! YAY!

That's about all from me this month. Oh I guess I went to the ER on Halloween and missed my favorite day of the entire year. It's okay. Halloween lives in my heart year round. 

THE WORLD KINDA SUCKS BUT LOVE URSELF AND UR NEIGHBORS!!! We got this!! We can be happy and joy and that's the most radical thing we can do. :) 

See you next month~! 

- Heiden 

Mood: "Bruh" 

Eating: Salmon.    

Drinking: Coffee (still outta my IkeSoren mug) 

Reading: Finnikin of the Rock - Melina Marchetta

This book had me worried. I first discovered Marchetta through On the Jellicoe Road and I was SO impressed with it, even though it's outside of my usual reading prevue (I mostly absorb fantasy and sci-fi, not modern day dramas about high schoolers). But then I realized Marchetta had written a fantasy book and !!!!! YO I was *OFF* to the races. 

It took me a decade to track down this book (yes I could have just bought it off amazon at any point lol, but it's about the search!) and I was almost scared to start reading it. So much work went into tracking it down and it might just not be any good. 

So finally, I started it. I read it on a plane and when I disembarked I was 34% of the way through the book and I--- 

Didn't like it. 

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I thought to myself. AM I NOT ENJOYING THIS BOOK????

Well luckily I had to get on another flight and by the time I got off THAT flight I was now 60% of the way through and ???? I dont know what happened but all of a sudden I was back to enjoying it. 

It's a fantasy novel so like you know they're trying to take back their kingdom blah blah and they manage to do so. And then I realize, wait there's still 100 pages left in this book? And suddenly it goes from a fine fantasy novel to something special. The parts of Marchetta's writing that I adore finally show up. 

See, the biggest issue I was having at the 30% mark was that our protagonist and most of the other characters were just... assholes. Especially to the women characters. Just really mean and misogynistic but in that way you see in a lot of Fantasy books where it's clear the author doesn't even realize how hurtful they're being. (Or maybe they do and that's a terrifying thought...)  We have a named male character attempt to r*pe the main female character and it's just... there. Sure he's 'punished' for it but it just hangs over the plot for the rest of the story. "Well you know, he had a really hard upbringing. He just doesn't *know*, Be Kind to him!" Its the insidious aspect of it where I just... didn't know if i was supposed to take this seriously or not. The characters sure did, the plot kept moving forward.  But it left gross, it felt unsteady. 

And then we hit the last 100 pages of the book and suddenly it becomes abundantly clear that this was the point of the entire novel.  The turning point for me was when our protagonist's father (captain of the guard, very manly, stoic man. He's a legend amongst the populace) runs into his wife in the freed kingdom. He was never able to save her from the evil kingdom and she's been stuck in there for the past decade. He sees her... with a little girl. And he becomes livid and wants to kill the child. Because it's not his, because that meant that someone else touched his wife. Well, his wife stands up to him and says "No this is my daughter, I am choosing her over you." and does not get back with him. Because he cannot see her as a person, as someone who did what she needed to do to survive and find her own love and fulfillment in that time. Yet he is the one who is the 'hero',  right?  

I don't want to spoil the entire book but my goodness did I love the ending. This is a level of thoughtfulness in my fantasy books I nearly never see. This particular trick I've only ever seen in Le Guin's Tehanu (also a favorite of mine) and just CHEF'S KISS. 

MARCHETTA YOU GENUIS YOU DID IT AGAIN!!!