Mehdia Barfs

For the practical part of the project, as I stated in the previous post I'd take on the challenge of creating my own Vtuber, with an unique look and interests. I took note that quite many of the popular Vtubers were demi-human and had some sort of a theme going on with their look. That certainly makes them more memorable. The English speaking Vtubers I mentioned in my research post, all have a theme. There's a shark-girl, Gawr Gura who's a descendant of the Lost City of Atlantis, the Grim Reaper's first apprentice Mori Calliope, a detective called Watson Amelia, a lovecraftian-themed Ninomae Ina'nis with huge tentacles and a phoenix called Takanashi Kiara who loves fried chicken. After giving it some thought what theme and demi-human aspect I'd go with, I set on making her a pilot and making her part lynx. So, time to look for some inspiration and reference images! Already at the beginning I was very certain that I'd want her to have more of an old school pi...

As for my final task, I chose Vtubers as a topic. Firstly the idea was to put an already existing character to the career path of a Vtuber and as the practical part make clips of "best moments" from their stream that would also fit their personality. But as I delved deeper into the world of vtubers, it started to feel wrong to use an already existing character, so I adjusted my path a bit and decided to produce a Vtuber of my own. I wasn't all that familiar with Vtubers before this autumn, but what drew me in was when I somehow came across these two fan made animations based on voice clips from a Vtuber called Korone Inugami.  With no clue about what it was about, I got interested in what was this based on. So I went on to watch some clips of her streams, and even though never really been that much into watching streamers, there was something that drew me in to watch more. But still to this day, I haven't yet watched any actual streams live, and mostly just kept to wa...

I didn't exactly decide on keeping a whole day off from social media, but I did end up challenging myself to minimize it down as much as possible. Funnily enough, I messed up immediately after waking up. Without thinking, I opened up Instagram while still lying in bed. The same thing happened throughout the day. Waking up an hour before the programming course for the day started, I all of a sudden found myself a bit bored, quite not knowing what to do with myself at first, since I couldn't really start doing anything else with the lesson start looming ahead. I did send some messages through Whatsapp and Messenger, but even those I chose to keep to bare minimum, whatever that is...  As you can see, I still managed to cut down my screen time with quite a chunk. Biggest time consumer is unarguably Whatsapp, although I don't consider it a social media in a same sense as Instagram and Facebook.  Late at night I decided that well, it would also be quite a fitting day to watch The...

I watched this film for the first time two years ago as they were showing it in Finnkino cinemas. Since then, it has been a film that's stayed in the back of my mind. A quick synopsis for those of you who are not familiar with it: A young woman named Mima Kirioge is part of a fairly successful j-pop group which she leaves to pursue a career as an actor. But not everyone is happy with her new career choice, and soon she has a stalker after her. Struggling with her identity and the stalking, lines between her reality and roles begin to blur. Fair word of warning: some spoilers ahead!  So if you've not yet seen the film, I highly suggest you go and watch it. However, the film includes some gruesome scenes and touches a lot psychological subjects, so it's not exactly a family film. Overly obsessed fans As internet has become pretty much integrated to who we are, it's also a lot easier to connect with your idols and share your thoughts about your idols with other fans. Despi...

For some game companies it seems like money is the only force driving them to make games, rather than at least even a little bit of passion. Everything is so heavily monetized, and DLC content is planned and available for pre-purchase before the actual game has even launched. Games being developed are stopped dead in their tracks as smaller studios get bought by the big ones, because the company is worried that they won't be making money off of it for the next decade.  Even the CEO admits they cancel games they can't milk the shit out of  (source) . Why would you buy less when you save buying more at once?  I think micro-transactions are fine to an extent, but when you make them in a way that encourages you to buy more, I don't want it. Especially in a game like Overwatch, where you've already payed for the actual game, and then put your money on " surprise mechanics ", as EA likes to call them. Why can't I just buy the one skin I want, and be done with it...

I know a lot of you classmates watch anime. So why don't we talk about anime openings! And I also wanna babble a bit about these animes which's openings I went with for this post. There would have been so so many more I would've liked to incorporate to this, but I would never finish this post if I did that.  Yuri!!! on Ice  Ok so where to start... Such a sweet story and I'm still just waiting for more. This opening song just somehow fits the series so well, if they end up making more I hope they don't change it. Also the whole visual style with the opening is just so beautiful. What had me amazed from the beginning was that how well they have animated the skating. And I still am very much amazed. Also, as a former synchronized skater I get a certain fuzzy feeling watching people skate animated so smoothly. Pro tip: this song is a lot of fun to play in Beat Saber! Every time I played through it I imagined I myself was skating. Reality was that I was just looking dumb...