2025 State of the Vivi Address

2025/03/27 » Where I'm at right now!

Originally, I had wanted to make my first blog post a fairly in-depth write-up on my experience with Dark Souls III, but after seeing a post from my good friend Autumn, I was inspired to write something a little more personal and a little less uh... lengthy. So, please enjoy a little bit of an overview on where I'm at and what I'm up to!

🎨Creative works!

As you can imagine, the big one here is this very site! Working on this has been a great source of creative expression for me, and honestly, it's caused me to feel the most driven and fulfilled I have in years. Of course, I work in a fairly haphazard wayRead: “probably undiagnosed ADHD”., so I can't necessarily promise I'll finish any one thing first. However, here is a brief list of what I hope to add:

• A completed Music Games page, with sections for scores, charts and documentation of our personal Bemani merchandise collection.
• A hub for my for old projects, such as my unfinished Super Monkey Ball 2 HD texture pack from 2021.
• Potential photography projects? My partners and I have wanted to take a bunch of photos of Kebab shop signs around Melbourne, so that's one idea...
• Various updates to existing pages, such as additions to The Gallery, a toggle button for gifs, and an animated version of the Ephemera page background.
• More blog posts and writing!

My primary medium has always been 2D art, both traditional and digital. However, in adulthood, I have often struggled with keeping this up consistently. Accordingly, I would like to keep at it a little more this year and into the future. However, I have in equal part been learning to take it slowly and be kinder to myself. Still, the creation of this site has involved me drawing a good number of assets, so it's not like I truly stopped. :)

Oh yeah, I have also wanted to expand my horizons a little more by delving into other mediums. I'm not in a huge rush to do so right now, but I would like to take a crack at learning 3D modelling sometime soon... My partner Oscar has a breadth of knowledge in this, so I'm sure I will have plenty of valuable guidance!

🎮Video's Game...

Despite being convinced that I quite simply didn't have the time or desire to keep playing single-player games all that much in adulthood, I actually have been playing a lot! For one, I have followed up my DSIII playthrough by giving Elden Ring another crack. Originally, I tried this one out back in 2022 when it was all the rage and fucking hated it. It felt way too hard, and I simply couldn't understand how something so frustrating clicked with anyone. But with a successful playthrough of a Souls game behind me and sufficient game knowledge, I have been absolutely loving it. I'm sure I will have more to say about it when I eventually finish it, but for now just know that I think it's fantastic. Check out this goofy screenshot of my character:

The other big one is In The Groove. Or - for those not twelve layers of niche open-source rhythm game history deep - basically playing Dance Dance Revolution at home. Though, if you do want to learn about that sort of thing, this video is a good watch!Well, at least I remember it being a good video. Forgive me, I haven't rewatched it in a bit, but I do consistently enjoy Losermanwins's work. The arrival of our new home pads (pictured below) definitely helped spur this obsession, however it was also very convenient that this coincided with the start of 2025's International Timing League, an annual three month-long online ITG tournament.

This has been a great opportunity to keep my fitness up as well as really track my progress - I feel like I have come a long way since last year, as well as in the past couple of months alone. If you're interested, feel free check out my scores here! Nonetheless, this has prompted a bit of a DDR hiatus for me. Well, ITG charts tend to be a lot betterSuch is the fate of community- and enthusiast-driven content vs. stuff made for a paycheck, I suppose. anyway lol. Nonetheless, I promise I'll finish that Level 15 folder one day soon enough!

A handful of other games I have been chipping away at are a few "ball rolling" games, like Marble Blast PlatinumQuestTECHNICALLY I have been working on clearing all levels from Marble Blast Platinum, which is PQ's immediate predecessor released in 2007. PQ essentially compiles levels from all official releases as well as these two mods, it's a pretty nice package. (the everlasting current version of a full game mod of 2003's Marble Blast Gold). This is a game I always find myself coming back to, indeed almost for a decade now. As it is essentially vapourware nowadays, you can easily download it over at the fan site marbleblast.com. While I find that the quality of the level design can vary quite a bit, Marble Blast is still one of the best and most satisfying speed games out there, at least in my opinion. I'd highly recommend giving it a crack via PlatinumQuest! I also bought a few others on Steam and made a nice convenient "Balls" folder, seen below. There'll be more writing on this later, I'm sure!

✈️Travel!?

That's right! After spending a good year or so settling into life in Melbourne, I've come to realise that the only places I've travelled to recently have been... well... Adelaide, my hometown. Accordingly, I have been looking into going a few places around the country in the near future, both alone and with my partners. Notably, this includes Tasmania, a place I have only visited once with my parents nearly a decade ago. I am pretty keen to enjoy the much milder weather, the pleasant landscapes and above all, revisit MONA, a really fucking weirdAnyone who knows me should immediately pick this as a very high compliment. art museum.

Likewise, I have also been itching to visit Perth, Western Australia, which is one of only three Australian capital cities I am yet to visit. I have a good number of online friends from here I have still not visited and/or met in person. Some of these relationships genuinely go back over a decade now, so it's been a long time coming!

Primarily, I have been motivated to check out other parts of Australia due to travelling shorter distances causing lesser environmental impact than overseas travel. As an additional plus, it is also notably cheaper and more convenient. That being said, I really do want to visit some Asian countries in the near future, most notably Japan. My partners also feel the same way, I'm sure we will make this a reality soon enough! I suppose I really should go and renew my passport then...

✏️Wrapping up...

I think that about does it! Writing in a longform format like this was genuinely a lot of fun and a good way to reflect upon my life. So, I hope you enjoyed reading it! Feel free to let me know what you think, if you'd like! As you can see, I am trying to implement comments via Bluesky replies, which I think is a pretty cool feature.

Until next time,
Vivienne💜