Rejection

21 Jan, 2026

It's insane to think that January is almost over. I wont lie, I wish I could say I was further along in the revamp of my site, but truth be told, I think it's going to be a little while longer. I suppose that's not bad. Better to take my time with it than rush it all at once, I guess. Most of my time online though has been split between moderating a chat & playing FFXIV still, so there is that... Basically, slacking as usual. Oops. I might finalize the design and put up sections as I finish them, before finally cleaning up all my code. Just to kind of have a greater track of what is and isn't done. Meaning that you'll see things like the new layout go up, as well as some of the sub pages, but full on projects are still being converted.

Anyways, I did finish leveling all of my classes to 100, and I think I'll be tackling Blue Mage's lv 80 soon as well, just to finally have that done. Not sure if I'll bother with spells right now. BLU is far from my favorites, and getting it done is on the backburner like so many other things. I also plan to start doing NG+ now that I have my levels done and everything from here on out is crafting gear and working on relics and achievement stuff. So like, no biggie I guess. We're on the dailies grind.

Y'know what I'm not on the dailies grind for? Nor am I giving time when it comes to the upcoming Guild Wars? That's right, Granblue Fantasy. And I guess I kind of wanted to put my thoughts on that because it's definitely been on my mind.

So, I've been struggling to want to hold on to my place with this game, but I just don't think I have it in me anymore. Love the world, love the characters, actually used to like the gameplay, but it's just gotten so hard to want to keep up. The rate at which the game goes is something I find myself struggling to keep up with, and with drop rate in M3 being as bad as it is, I had completely given up on wanting to do dailies.

And then there was a familiar artificial stench that started to surround their artworks. We had parts of outfits that were just nonsensical. Details were inconsistent and didn't match. Errors related to fingers and hands and the way hair would fall, reflections would look, entire body parts missing, expressions looking awkward, and so on. So, people began to suspect it was AI. Someone on twitter even had a really good case for what about Summer Galleon looked really out of place. Aaaaaaaaand it ended up in them getting attacked and being forced into silence by the community with everyone mocking them, claiming that "everyone knows drawing hands are hard." Time passed, and people forgot about it, but it stayed in the back of my mind. It slowly started to fuel my lack of interest in the game, and sure enough, I found myself unwilling to log in and put my all into things like GW or even attempting to catch up, or even doing events for free stuff. I showed up to play things like collabs but that was about all. The final MSQ chapters dropped and I left the final third part unread. Hell, even new MSQ dropped and I haven't wanted to read it.

Sure enough, we got new sets of characters to replace old ones who were pretty much done. Yeah, the eternals and the evokers are still around, and the dragons are definitely still there. And while enneads exist, they kind of only do so through limited seasonal stuff right now. But the new free events to farm for became the Rise of the Beast set. I don't even remember what they're technically called. Probably cardinal saints or something. Either way, normally I'm pretty game for new free characters. I mean, it's free, and the free ones you work for tend to be pretty powerful. But there was something about this set that was off. And it... had a lot to do with their designs more than anything.

My issue with them is that they just feel so divorced from Granblue's usual design choices. Considering one of the big things that was getting hit hard when it came to AI blatantly stealing was Vtubers, and well... These designs felt very much in the realm of Vtuber designs. All of them have distinctly different art styles that don't match with the rest of the game it feels, as well as some errors that make it seem really obvious that they were probably generated. Looking specifically at Shushuku and the horn that looks awkward and inconsistent from every angle which everyone seems to dismiss for whatever reason.

I've seen a lot of posts defending these characters, and I'm not really here to get into an entire rant to tear them down or point out all the things that make me feel like they're AI Generated and based off Vtuber designs. I just get that vibe from them. And it doesn't help that very recently, Cygames put out a ton of requests to hire people when it came to AI Engineering or whatever the fuck they want to call it.

Like, the gap between these things has been some time. It wasn't back to back. Hell, I don't feel like going and looking up when the ROTB characters each released or how the writing felt like it was on the wall when only rough sketches of the characters were shown to us during a stream. But with the new job postings that were listed not that long ago, it just feels like a confirmation of everything I thought was happening with Granblue Fantasy.

I don't really want to support a company that uses Generative AI for it's gacha designs. I had already stopped giving Granblue money a while ago, especially due to the blatant surge of greed they've displayed over the last year, with some of the weird tickets and deals they've decided to put out in regards to weapons. But I don't want to give it my time anymore. If they don't want to put the effort into continuing to build this world that some of us love, then I can't help but not want to be here. My story as Danchou probably ends here. Why give my time to something they can't even bother to handcraft anymore? This was a game I really used to enjoy and now I feel like it's hard to, when GenAI comes and starts invading the studios you used to love. And yeah, I'm sure this is happening with a lot of other companies. There's several other gachas out there that people have pointed out are probably using GenAI. Maybe there's blatant admissions for some, whereas others are up in the air. Dunno, but I just don't really want to support Cygames right now. I already know Square Enix is on thin ice when it comes to this shit, and I won't be surprised when more companies come out when it comes to the blatant use of GenAI.

IDK I'm just diappointed I guess. I didn't think this was how I'd finally end up quitting Granblue.

For now, I'm a bit tired. Maybe it's best to go to bed.

Compression Time

14 Jan, 2026

So, I suppose this is a progress report of sorts. So far, I've been pretty decent on the page progress. I had already drawn up most of the layout before I took the majority of the site down. However, I would like to say that for the most part, around 16 pages are done? I feel like that sounds like quite a bit so far, but when I remember several of them are frames that just have different sub navigations, I feel a bit bad. And speaking of such, I haven't really figured out how I want to handle the implementation of said sub navigation on mobile. I suppose I'll finish that up at the end. However, I did realize, I'm converting 90ish or so pages at the current moment and kind of getting the preliminary framework done for each. I guess after that, my next job is filling in the details, cleaning up all of the HTML errors, fixing all the alt text, and condensing pages. That's a lot of work. And it's even more work because I decided that one of the big things I wanted to do in this update was to also compress all of my images. Yippie.

I've had people tell me that compression of images is kind of not desirable these days because of how fast the internet already is when it comes to downloading large files. But at the same time, I don't know. I don't think I need a giant directory of 1080p png files that's remained unclean and just not compressed. And I've already gone about converting my art in the past. I suppose for now I'll figure out what I want to do with the art later. Mostly because I want a gallery with hover commentary and slightly larger, but I also have to glaze & nightshade it all. And I imagine that's going to take some time as well as space. But for things like minecraft & xiv captures, do I really need them to be that high?

My personal answer is no.

Which also brings us to the topic of page count & categorization.

Quite honestly, with the amount of actual blabbering I have about specific topics and just the general focus of my site, I feel like the best option for me is to legitimately prune some of my content, or combine it into single articles. There's no reason I need around 6 different pages for the same Yume 2kki playthrough, when I can stuff the diary-esque entries all into one place and stick it under a "shrines" category--Which is honestly a category I'm not even sure I'm using right. I suppose it being for incredibly specific stuff makes sense that it's kind of shrine like. However, one of the things that has had me tripping over my own two feet with shrines is just the mere idea that like... I see other people's shrines and how informative and detailed they are and I just feel like that's not me. My stuff is all a mess. I'm highly opinionated. Sure I can give you a summary of something that looks like it's off wikipedia or some other wiki-esque site, but like idk, I feel like that's not me. So I guess my "shrines" could be labeled something else if someone has a better idea.

But in general I want to trim stuff a lot more so uh... I guess all the individual game and anime entries are going to get kinda put into one place. And that anime log is about to get FAR longer.

Part of me wants to do that last, but I think the faster I rip the bandaid off there, the better it'll go.

Before I debut any individual pages though, I might try to go about some of the following updates:

• Might be time to stop using Zonelets. While I'll continue to recommend it for those who want a start up blog, I really have no real part of the new site where I actually use it. So why continuously use the script?
• It's time to condense almost all of our javascript into a file outside of very specific things. Music player & Calendar will stay separate, but there's no reason that the rest need to be.
• Going to make a proper update log that takes a page and isn't just something scrolling on the bottom maybe.
• Going to aim to update some of my FF14 related pages. Those will probably all go under shrine.
• I'm also going to try to have the mabisorter updated soon, as well as stuff like my 2kki playthrough & my TCG pages.
• And we're starting a back log/to-do list on the site. With the goal of clearing out all of my planned, paused, and dropped anime at some point.
• Maybe I'll get some of my usual articles up as well but no promises. I do want to aim for a few reviews though as it's been A While.

I dunno what to say past it's 5:30 am, I want to crawl into bed and watch a video, and be warm. So goodnight even though uh... its not night.

How did 10 days go by already?

12 Jan, 2026

So we're well over a week into the new year and I guess I'm fully eased in. Pretty much all of my responsive layout is done, I've just got to tweak all the content. I dunno if I wanna put it up in stages as I go along or if I want to do it all in one batch so that things aren't an absolute mess in my files. Because I wont lie, it's beginning to look like a huge mess in there. I think the last thing I have to do is fix the sub menu for each individual page when it gets to mobile, because it currently doesn't exactly have one. I'm trying to come up with ideas to implement it that look good, but between keeping up with personal stuff, finally getting the doors on this bookcase (and needing to take out my figures again and organize it all), and then working together with people to moderate a chat & start a casual group because I can't stop thinking about raid despite knowing I have no goddamn time and that's the entire reason I pushed myself to come to terms with quitting... I feel so busy. I get the feeling a lot of my pages will be blank for a while if I put it up now.

Well, at the very least uhhh there will be better and more well organized content? And I tried to make my reviews and how to find them more intuitive because I had someone say my site has next to nothing on it when I'm here like "Was the thumbnail to click on the article not obvious?" and I guess if someone say that, then no, I suppose it wasn't.

It'll be a while before I touch the minijournal though because this entire section is a whole other can of worms. I just figured I'd update everyone though, since I had been pretty silent. Life is basically me messing around and doing things to chill out and keeping myself busy before I can sit around and mope about the fact that my schedule just doesn't fit into raid groups anymore.

Also debating if I want to use a template for this miniblog or I want to do my own thing. There's one floating around that quite a few people use that has tags, but I want to know if it has pages, how the scrolling works, how well I can customize it and what not before I really commit to the idea of using it vs just making my own. It's the one that feels the way tumblr used to.

Well, that's all for now.

Waiting

02 Jan, 2026

So, the hardest part of making a new layout is honestly having it done, and realizing that you can't really start putting things up without massively changing your site's current bones while it's still up. And that implies that my archive on my pc won't match what's currently live. And I don't know why, despite it having an easy enough fix, this still frustrates me. I dunno, maybe that means I should work on the new layout for this blog before anything? Or maybe I should say fuck it and work on one of the pages I feel needs the most reformatting? I dunno. It's such a hard call. I have so many things I want to make minor tweaks to, but here I am fretting over stuff. Like sure, I could put up a work in progress, but there's the current web contest right now, so I'm hesitant to do any big changes. And I'm also hesitant to make any new articles considering the fact that like... I would have to reformat them anyways.

"Life is hard," I say to myself, realizing that I've made it hard for myself out of my own will...

At the very least, I think I've gotten a grasp on how to make things at the very least, slightly more responsive. It's not as tight as some layouts (such as this miniblog one) where it's held together with super precise measurements and a fucking dream, so I suppose that's a good thing. And the navigation doesn't just... cease to exist on normal. The real question from here on out is if I want to do individualized layouts per section and just work from there with an iframe to help with certain parts, or if I want to force it to be uniform. Truth be told, I'm probably doing the former. I might get my anilog & miniblog out of the way first and then kind of work with that...

Honestly formatting the giant walls of text feels like simultaneously the easiest yet hardest part.

Oh, on a lighter note, I'll say that I managed to complete almost all of my Anilist New Years Resolution. 5D's is the only one I didn't finish, but I kind of knew that wasn't going to happen. So I'll fill you all in on this year's Anilist New Years Resolution, at the very least.

• Yugioh 5D's
• Fushigi Yuugi
• Sangatsu no Lion 2nd Season
• Yuru Camp Season 2
• Dungeon Meshi
• Akatsuki no Yona
• Trigun Stampede
• Sailor Moon
• Yugioh Zexal

I'm expecting a lot of detours, considering there's things I may skim over again while I work on fixing up a lot of my anime log. But, at the very least, I think I can complete this one...

Yeah, uh I'm pretty miserable when it comes to actually watching stuff oops. Anyways, with the new layout you'll get a ton of new content, at least.