While working on that TMUX post I mentioned, I figured I could pump out another prompt post! Here’s week two, as provided in this post:

• Tell us ten random facts about the human behind the blog.
• Tell us about your absolutely favorite entertainment media.
• Tell the story behind the creation and name of your blog.
• What other hobbies do you have besides blogging / the topic of your blog?
• Tell us about the part of the world you live in like you’re trying to attract someone to visit.
• Tell us about your blogging workflow and / or show us your creative space.
• Group Project: If you could have one magical or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?

10 Random Facts About Me

1. I make video games! You can find them on my Itch.io page
2. I play piano, bass, and mandolin. I also have an accordion, tin whistle, trombone, bodhrán, and violin that I can make noises with, but would hesitate to say I can “play” them.
3. My favorite color is purple. I like color schemes that mix purples, greys, and dark-yellows/golds.
4. My preferred beer is Guinness. I think it tastes heavenly.
5. I like shoveling snow.
6. My favorite Blue Öyster Cult album is “Secret Treaties”. It also likely ranks in my Top 10 albums, though I don’t know I can make a consistent list.
7. I once played a table-top RPG in a castle.
8. My favorite BATTLEMECH is the Centurion CN9-AH.
9. I really like LISP programming languages. Possibly my favorite “language” (though, specifically, it’d be either Fennel or Common Lisp), though likely tied with Ruby.
10. My current favorite Studio Ghibli film is Porco Rosso.

Absolutely Favorite Entertainment Media

I’m going to say Twitch/gaming live-streams. I really like watching folks play games. Especially games which are fascinating to me, but I may not want to play, or don’t feel that I can dedicate the time to play. For example, The X-COM Files, or Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead.

I would like to regularly stream gameplay and development work myself, but I haven’t committed to a schedule yet.

How did The Internet Vagabond come about?

I’ve always enjoyed the notion of a vagabond. A wanderer for work, someone not really ever at home in one place for too long. That’s how the Internet has always felt to me: a place you wander, you explore, maybe with a home-base, but often without. It’s what I like about the Internet. And so, “The Internet Vagabond” was born. I do wish, and perhaps I’ll change this eventually, that the blog/URL was instead “An Internet Vagabond.”

After college, I moved back home to look for a job, and my mom bought me 10 years of registration for this domain as a birthday gift. That really solidified it, and I’ve used it on-and-off since then. Checking into it, I believe it was first registered in 2010!

I’ll also throw a little bonus fact in here: my online handle for a while has been “Azulien”, which is the name of a D&D character I came up with when I was younger. I eventually modified it to “Vagabond Azulien”.

Non-blogging Hobbies

The phrasing of this question amuses me, because I don’t consider blogging to be a hobby. My biggest hobby is probably gaming, of all varieties: I regularly play video games; I’ve been playing table-top RPGs for over 25 years now, and specifically have been in the same Pathfinder campaign for 15 years; and I love hosting board-game nights! I also enjoy programming, and technology in general. I enjoy building my own computers, configuring and choosing the software I use, and generally understanding how things work. I try to golf on average once a week during the warmer times. I like cooking, especially baking, and I consider it one of the best life skills one can develop.

About Buffalo

I live in Buffalo, NY, and I consider it one of the best cities to live in. I am a bit biased.

Buffalo has amazing food, punching well above its weight in terms of quality and variety. We have incredible art, music, and theatre scenes. We’re located on the Great Lakes, with easy access to lakes Erie and Ontario, and, of course, Niagara Falls. Despite being known, in part, for our rough winters, our weather tends to be mild. We get all the seasons (False August, August, Pre-Winter, August 2, Maybe Winter, August 3: The Return of August, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Winter, Potholes, Surprise 70-degree Day in January, Winter, Pre-Spring, Still Winter, Spring, Nope! Still Winter, Spring For Realzies, and Summer). Generally speaking, costs in this region are a bit lower than average.

Buffalo is a friendly place, with passionate folks. Blue-collar, mid-Western (U.S.A) in spirit, but by no means posers. We are the City of Good Neighbors, and we try to uphold that naming. Heck, we literally sang the Canadian National Anthem once at a hockey game when the mic cut out. Because that’s what a good neighbor does, they help you out. (Fun fact: Buffalo hockey games always include the Canadian National Anthem, regardless of teams.)

Come to Buffalo, get some surprisingly phenomenal food, enjoy the weather and friendly faces, and do so all on a resonable budget. And if you like to party, then rejoice! Our bars stay open until 4 A.M.!

TIV Workflow

I write all my posts in Vim, as Markdown files. My blog lives in a repository, which leverages a Forgejo runner workflow to build the site using Jekyll and update the pages branch of the repository. Then a webhook pushes that branch to a self-hosted git-pages instance.

While writing, I will often run Jekyll locally to verify things look good.

Spoiler: I’ll have more to write about this workflow in a future Blaugust post.

Magical/Super Powers

As antithetical as it is, I think there are actually a number of mundane skills that are basically magical/super powers. Cooking is one. Programming is another. I think learning some of these skills enable so much enjoyment, opportunity, and reward that it’s crazy everyone doesn’t pursue them.

As for a more typical answer, I think super intelligence is probably the super power I’d choose. Tony Stark and The Engineer (from Stormwatch/The Authority) both exemplify the possibilities of being just gosh-darned smart. You can augment your reality to facilitate your continued growth and success. Super intelligence provides alternatives for almost every other super power. Some of the easy ones: flight, super strength, invisibility, any sort of social manipulation, fabrication, super agility, disease immunity, regeneration.

I like to think I would use my super intelligence for good. Ideally, leveraging it to “play the game” of modern day capitalism, generating wealth and jobs for folks, while helping to reinvest and distribute the wealth I generate for myself to those who need it. I’d create, fund, and deploy solutions for disease, climate change, mental health, food and water, and sustainability. Granted, I would likely do so in whichever way would actually be impactful, which means sometimes underhaded, and sometimes fully known.

This is a post in the 2026 Blaugust Series. You can find more details here. If I get my act together, I’ll include a link to an index, or a list of other posts related to Blaugust 2026 right here. Thanks for reading this ramble. Be good, do good, stay hydrated, go Bills.

Thus far, I have kept to my “Blaugust Goal” of posting at least once a week. In fact, publishing this post will bring my Blaugust-related posts alone up to the total number of posts from the previous 2 years.

I have plenty of things I want to write about or do this August, but, by golly, doesn’t life just have a way.

The beginning of this week was relatively normal. I had picked up an extra shift at work, so I had resigned myself to thinking of this week as a wash. Though my job isn’t exactly demanding, it does take up time during a day, and thus is a block of time I cannot do other things during. It is a responsibility. This scheduling anomoly indicated an unusual week.

Monday and Tuesday each saw posts, one about a Scion campaign I’m working on, and the second answering the Blaugust Week 1 prompts. I also have a few drafts started, for topics I’m looking forward to exploring later in the month.

Wednesday was a bit busy. I see a personal trainer Wednesday mornings, after which I was a bit rushed to clean myself up and get to work. After that, I franticly finished a Pathfinder character for the weekly Pathfinder game I’ve been in for, like, 14 years now. I’m proud to say I have continued the tradition of a magus not living past its first session.

Thursday, I wake up, enjoy a slow morning, wander into my office, and hear a slight scraping coming from my wall, near a window. Looking out the window, I see quite a lot of yellow jackets. Putting 1 and 1 together, I’m delighted to announce I have a yellow jacket nest in my wall. And that, to borrow perhaps an older term at this point, tilted me. I bought some spray, and have been trying to manage it, and I’ve been doing damage! There are, literally, dead yellow jackets laying on my roof near this window. Oh, but how unsettling it is to hear something eating your house! And the nightmarish thought of them bursting into my room, like the blown-open garage door in an action movie! Swarms of tiny little nuisances! Surprisingly, I played a great game of golf Thursday evening. Unsurprisingly, I slept horribly.

Friday, I continue the War of the Wasp. Work is busy but uneventful. Friday evening, some more golf, but this time with a friend who is just starting off. This was his first foray onto a proper course, so we played a scramble (we each hit a ball, and then play from the best positioning; also called best-ball). We did very well (which, yeah! Hopefully!)! After, we grabbed dinner, and I returned to my home. The chomping in the wall continues, but I spent time in the room and relaxed a bit. I slept much better last night.

That brings us to today. My dad is bringing over some dust he has had good results with to try and clear out those wasps for good. I’ve got work, which should be tame. And I’m trying to figure out when things will “return to normal.” Which is a funny thing, the notion of normal.

The past couple days have not been terribly unusual for me. Work, golf, coffee, catching up on vids and feeds. Those wasps, though, planted a seed of consistent worry. Throughout all the usual was a tint of concern. Like a filter suddenly applied to all my pictures; it made everything just a bit off. It’s interesting to note the emotional rollercoaster as I’m riding it, which was a large part of Thursday: Discover the problem, grow very concerned. Buy some spray to mitigate, feel less concerned, start to feel capable. Spray-and-pray, see problem persists, start to feel hopeless, failure is certain, my house is borked, and it’s all my fault. Find other resources, reach out for help, renew feelings of success and accomplishment. Now, there’s the usual mix of feelings around a task which needs doing: focus, a bit of over-analyzing, the flirting thoughts of absolute failure and success, an eagerness to get it done. What irks me most, though, are those feelings of defeat so soon after starting to fix the problem. The notion that the problem wasn’t fixed immediately, combined with this dread that the wasps would destroy everything immediately, brought a significant sense of urgency to a problem which could not be solved immediately. Which only fosters more anxiety. It’s a bad train of thought, and one I will seek to avoid taking in the future. Easier said than done, but at least being mindful will help to break the cycle a bit.

In any case, I’m not being a good home-owner. Luckily, my dad’s the type of guy who has to always be busy. I’m hoping he can help me shore up some of my neglect, patching holes or cracks around the outside of my house. This isn’t the first time pests have been a problem, and it certainly won’t be the last, but having an understanding of how and where these problems arise will help me approach and resolve them better in the future.

Anyway, as far as Blaugust is concerned: I had hoped to dive into TMUX Thursday afternoon. That post will be delayed, but I’m still focused on it next. I’ve got 3-4 other topics I want to cover during Blaugust, which includes some actual project work too. As I move through the proper resolution for these wasps, I hope to keep putting at least a bit of time towards writing and exploring my site!

I’ll just hop into it then, yeah? Here be dragons the prompts, as they are presented (and link to the post):

• What made you decide to do Blaugust this year, and what are your personal goals?
• Did you start preparing for Blaugust before the August 1st start date? If so, what did you do ahead of time to make sure you’d stay on track?
• Do you remember how you heard about Blaugust for the first time?
• If this isn’t your first Blaugust, what keeps you coming back to do this year after year?
• Community Builder Bonus Prompt: Who are the Blaugust bloggers who you keep reading all year round?
• Group Project: Tell us about your first blog!

Why Blog the August?

One of the blogs I read mentioned it. Here’s that post at fyr.io. I also speak a bit about this in my first Blaugust post:

I’ve long wanted to write more, mostly as a means to catalog some ideas and also to keep tabs on my progress. Though, sometimes in the hopes it finds others who share an interest, and perhaps they reach out. Conversations, connections, community - all that jazz.

Did I make any preparations? If so, what?

Nope! Read about it on July 31st, after rambling about DAc0da, and figured I’d give it a go.

How’d I first learn of Blaugust?

I’m certain I’ve heard of it before this year. Can’t recall exactly when or where. Either in my feeds, or in a Discord community I’m in.

Which Blaugusts do I Read Regularly?

Again, not sure about this one. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some blogs I follow which participated in Blaugust. I think I would be surprised if any started because of Blaugust. In week 3, I’ll have a proper compiled list of some of those blogs. When I review that, I think I’ll try to figure this out!

Group Project: Tell Us About Your Very First Blog

Well, the very first post on this blog is a compilation of the travel logs of my visit to Ireland, in the halcyon days of yore (2010). It’s rather fun going back to review them, both for the obvious reason of remembering times in Ireland, but also for the tangential little snippets. Reading it still “reads” like me; I don’t think I’ve changed my… uh… voice? Much since then. My writing voice. I love reading my little updates on Kingdom of Loathing. I played much more consistently back then, but still dip in every now and again (I’m Azulien, #1214857). Also, we ate a lot of Chinese food in Ireland.

That being said, I don’t think this was my first blog post ever. I can’t remember what that could be. I remember trying to figure out a name, and figuring out where I’ll blog, and exploring self-hosted options. Though at the time it wasn’t really “self-hosting” as I understand and participate today. It was more owning my own domain, and then figuring out how to use that. To me, back then, that was self-hosting. I still had bright eyes and hope for the Big Tech companies, thinking they could really bring about such cool and positive changes.

A friend suggested the name “Billettante”, as a port manteau of “Bill” (my name) and “Dilettante” (noun, One who dabbles in an art or a field of knowledge). I still rather like that name; I should figure out how I could use it…

What are your personal goals?

Post at least once a week. No topic focus or anything, just make one post a week. The reason I don’t do this normally is, basically and literally, I forget to. There are many, many things in my life that don’t get done because I forget to do them. They range in importance.

When it comes to writing, because it’s a task which does require some specialized attention (writing the post in a dedicated directory of a dedicated repository, with specific formatting), I perceive a barrier of difficulty, whether it’s the case or not. This little bit of friction is often enough for me to pivot to something else, and then I forget I wanted to write something.

It’s a bad habit, and something I want to lessen, which is a side-effect I’m hoping to realize. A related side-effect is building a good habit of “just doing the thing.” By keeping to a schedule and completing a task, I’m hoping I can translate that effort to other pursuits, such as practicing music, tracking my food, and working on my various programming projects.

While the goal is simply one post a week, I do want to try “hijacking” a post or two to talk about something I’ve wanted to get done, and get it done in the process. The biggest example of this is TMUX. That’s the next post.

This is a post in the 2026 Blaugust Series. You can find more details here. If I get my act together, I’ll include a link to an index, or a list of other posts related to Blaugust 2026 right here. Thanks for reading this ramble. Be good, do good, stay hydrated, go Bills.

I’ll just dump the ideas that inspired this one, to get into it. First off, there’s this note I left myself, as a voice-to-text recording, after my cousin’s wedding, in Maine:

All right the party starts at a wedding. Unbeknownst to the party the wedding is infiltrated by cultists. The cultists worship some elder god one that lives deep beneath the ocean unknown to mankind. At the wedding the adventure begins with the party celebrating. After a few drinks suddenly the music shifts in tone and they start to notice odd glyphs glowing on the walls. As they glance around themselves they noticed that certain members of the wedding guests whom they had not been introduced to perhaps guests whom had previously not even been aware of draw ceremonial daggers. The party has an option they can stay and fight or they can escape into the Mist filled evening of the small town that the event is taking place in. The remainder of the adventure is the party trying to make their way back to their room to get their car keys to escape. The final boss so to speak of the adventure is a corrupted moose that the party encounters on a misty Road in the town.

A quick aside: the wedding took place in a small town called Belfast, and at night it got legit foggy. Like, I understand why you might think spooky shit is about to happen in these little towns along the coast in New England now.

Anyway, that’s part 1. Here’s part two, which is a journal entry of mine from 2023, December 23:

Table starts as a free-form RPG, no character sheets. Story is about a small town that the party is visiting for leisure. Nice town, welcoming, one-street-light type vibe. That evening, party gathers for dinner at the local restaurant (yes, the restaurant. And the bar.), when the town’s doctor runs in, frantic, babbling, white as a sheet. Folks try to calm him down, party hears something about Joan coming back from the dead. The sheriff, sitting at the bar with his deputy, overhears what’s going on, reassures the doctor that doesn’t happen, and offers to go take a look. Him and the deputy leave.

Unless party does something, dinner continues. Doctor is escorted to a table, given a drink, where he just stares at it. Folks start to loosen up a bit, jokes about the doc sniffing too many embalming vapors. Sheriff and deputy don’t return.

After dinner, party leaves the restaurant, and out on to the street. Inevitably they pass by the police station, and see the doors ajar, and lights on. They hear a gunshot, then silence. Perhaps something else to hook them into investigating.

Anyway, some other stuff happens, they find the zombie Joan, and the dead-but-infected sheriff, and the infected-but-not-dead-yet deputy. Deputy recounts what happens, Joan and the sheriff attack.

If the party manages to take them out, the building gets suddenly bathed in light, and a man in a suit approaches them. He tells them that they’ve encountered some strange stuff, and gives them a choice: they can known more, or they can know less. If they choose to know less, that’s the end of that character. If they choose to know more, that’s how the campaign continues. Then it becomes X-COM THE RPG BABEEE!

Here’s what I’m thinking:

• All characters start with baseline stats
• Between each session, characters can take one “training”, which improves some of their stats. Examples:
  • Basic Training: +1 everything
  • Combat Training: +1 combat stuff
  • Special Operations Training: +1 sneaky stuff
  • Officer Training: +1 combat stuff, +1 social stuff, requires Basic Training first.
• Each session is a mission, with a clear objective, that the group must accomplish. Can take inspiration from some of the Open X-COM missions I’ve seen:
  • Crop circles appearing, and need to subdue crazed farmers
  • Cults. Lots of cult stuff
  • Zombies
  • Strange life forms, cryptobiology stuff (big foot, yeti, chupacabra, etc.)
• Each success brings new technology, equipment, and training.
• Some kind of resource management tied to researching new technology, training, equipment, and such. Keep it simple, similar to training perhaps: between each session, group decides what research to pursue.

“Then it becomes X-COM THE RPG BABEEE!” Easy peasy. Thanks for reading.

The little extra bits in that list is part of what’s inspiring my own system, which maybe I’ll detail in a later entry. Also, this entry was most certainly inspired in part by Joan Crawford, by Blue Oyster Cult. What I want to talk about now is modifying these above ideas into the beginning of a Scion campaign.

The gist of it is similar: the PC’s will be initiates in a globe-spanning secret organization that tries to tackle dealing with that “strange stuff” that folks encounter. My current idea is that the PC’s start with a handler, and as the party progresses they get to meet higher-ups. The organization is run by a demi-god of Bast, the Egyptian cat-headed goddess, and employs both scions and mortals that have been gifted knowledge of this secret world.

Now, my campaigns tend to be a bit railroad-y because I really like telling stories. I don’t try to stop player characters from doing much, but I try to finish telling the story I want to tell. In this case, I think I can avoid some of that, due to the nature of the “adventures” being rather episodic. It’s a bit like The X-Files, or like X-COM: each adventure is mostly self-contained, with some themes running throughout. The strange life-forms appearing in a small town, the result of some Titan cultists getting up to no good. Damn kids.

The twist (always a twist; very essential) is that the organization might not be all good guys. Gods have their ambitions, and just because some of them are fighting against “evil” forces doesn’t mean they’re all friends. Heck, this isn’t even the only globe-spanning secret organization that tries to tackle dealing with that “strange stuff” that folks encounter. If the party doesn’t want to join, they might get approached by another organization. Maybe they’re not exactly given an option to join, but forced to. Maybe another organization breaks them out, and now the party has to figure out how to move forward. In any case, I want to tell my story. The story here is that Bast has joined the Titans, and thus this organization actually works for them. While it keeps up the facade of doing “good guy” stuff, that’s only to throw-off the newbies from the real missions.

What about those other organizations? I’m gonna say other organization. Singular. I don’t think we need too many more. There can be the Bast-based one, then a second one, and then an independent network of underground do-gooders that know what’s going on, obviously don’t trust the Bast one, but also don’t like the second one. Like the conspiracy guys from X-Files: they trust Moulder, kind-of, but they sure-as-heck don’t trust The Government.

Summarize

Here’s the gist thus far:

Party experiences some “strange stuff,” after which they are approached by a man in a suit, who invites them to a secret organization of other scions and demi-gods devoted to dealing with other “strange stuff” happenings.

At this point is a junction: the party can accept the invitation, or refuse. Refusal might mean being abducted and imprisioned. This would then prompt a rescue attempt by the other secret organization. This would then present another junction: the party can join with the other organization, or strike it out on their own.

Path 1: The OG Secret Organization

Accepting the invitation brings the PC’s into the Bast-based secret organization. They are quickly initiated into the goings-on, perhaps even given some nice gear, and are given a task.

Path 2: The Other Secret Organization

Joining their rescuers, the PC’s are immediately told the truth about the first organization, and are asked to help bring them down. They are given some nice gear, and are given a task.

Path 3: The Wildcard Option

The party either escapes on their own, avoids entirely the abduction from the OG Secret Organization, or refuses to join the Other Secret Organization. They now have a known antagonistic force (OG Secret Organization), and a shady uncertain second force (Other Secret Organization). They must fend for themselves, potentially against both.

Specifics

Here’s what remains; the details that need doing:

1. The “strange stuff” initial encounter.
   • Why is the party together for this “strange stuff” to happen? Is is happenstance? Scions are drawn to each-other, and to titan-spawn activities, so that’s an easy enough explanation.
2. NPC Deets
   • Man In A Suit probably should have stats
   • Actual names for actual things

Then there’s the meta-game stuff. I need to remember how to play Scion, and also need to feel confident enough to run a game of Scion. I’ll likely stick to the First Edition of the game, since that’s what I know best, but I’ve heard the Second Edition introduces some nifty things.

And, of course, the game needs a party! And scions become scions when they get visited by their divine parent/guardian. That generally includes handing them their divine gifts, and some brief explanations of things, though not always. So either the party already had their visits, or that happens as part of this adventure.

Conclusion

I think it’s a fun start. It leaves things relatively open-ended for me as a storyteller to build some smaller missions, while still building an over-arching narrative to dip into when I wish. It does help with scheduling as well, since each “self-contained” mission won’t necessarily need all members there. That also means it could be a game with many party members, and once a threshold of players is met, we run a session.

This is a post in the 2026 Blaugust Series. You can find more details here. If I get my act together, I’ll include a link to an index, or a list of other posts related to Blaugust 2026 right here. Thanks for reading this ramble. Be good, do good, go Bills.

There’s a “thing” called love Blaugust, which is, as far as I can tell, a community-driven initiative to encourage humans to blog often throughout August. There’s an announcement post for it, here, and also fyr.io mentioned it. I actually read fyr’s post yesterday, shortly after I had rambled my way through my first Skyrim post about DAc0da. It inspired me to give it a go. I’ve long wanted to write more, mostly as a means to catalog some ideas and also to keep tabs on my progress. Though, sometimes in the hopes it finds others who share an interest, and perhaps they reach out. Conversations, connections, community - all that jazz. There are actually some communities setup around Blaugust, such as a Discord and I think a forum, but I’m not interested in all that just yet. I know I just said I’m interested in community and what not, but joining a Discord related to writing blog posts feels like a very convenient way to convince myself I’m “doing the thing”, while not actually doing the thing.

Or maybe I’m just nervous to join, or feel unwelcomed pre-emptively, or don’t quite feel like “the proper type of person” to join. All of those sounds like silly little reasons I’d avoid something. Very silly indeed. For now, let’s put them aside.

Instead, I want to ramble a bit about some writing things that I want to approach during August.

Ramble 1: Scion

There’s an older TTRPG called Scion. Some friends and I played it while I was in college (20 years ago…), and it always brings back great memories. My friend Chris was a big driving force behind the game, both running it and encouraging others to run it. I never ran a game myself, but I definitely enjoyed playing in them.

Scion is a game in which the player characters are divine offspring of gods. Mythological gods, like the Greek gods, or the Hindu “gods” (which, some liberties are taken, and it’s more like the “Greatest Hits” of the Hindu gods; similar with Japanese gods). In any case, each character receives divine gifts, and with them and the divine guidance of NPCs or allies, you pursue a goal. The kinda “meta-goal” being to achieve divinity, which is the super cool word apotheosis. A word I learned from Daggerfall - not playing it, mind you, but watching someone play it (Grimith, specifically!), and only like 2 years ago. I’m sure it’s in the Scion books somewhere, too.

Regardless, you make cool characters, go on cool adventures; good times, great oldies. What I have not done, at least not in any significant capacity, is run a game. I’ve had a friend voice interest in playing Scion, and it wouldn’t be hard to get some other friends together, aside from the perpetual final boss of tabletop. And thus, a thing I want to write down in August: the idea and some explorations of a Scion game I would like to eventually run. I’m all but certain nobody I know reads my posts, so I’m none too worried about spoilers. How lucky.

Ramble 2: Skyrim

I already wrote part 1! There are so many more adventures for Watches-The-World (that’s my character; she’s an argonian!) and I look forward to gushing more about Vicn’s next several mods, and maybe other authors’ as well!

Ramble 3: Game-Dev

Since I was laid-off a few years ago, I’ve spent a decent amount of time pursuing the original reason I went to school: game development. I never did game-dev professionally, and really never programmed any of the ideas I’d come up with over the years, until I had free time. A blessing, and a curse. Burnout is fun.

In any case, I’ve got a few games in the pipeline, so to speak, and I want to at least explore some of my development ideas and approaches, and also do some development!

Ramble On

Maybe other stuff too, who knows! I certainly don’t. Heck, I might write all this today and completely forget about my blog again for 6 months.

Only time will tell!

It’s been probably a decade since I’ve played Skyrim. Possibly longer. I have very fond memories of my first play-through. I played a nord, “sword-and-board” style (though it was mostly axe and board); dabbling in alteration and restoration magic; creating all my own equipment with smithing and enchanting. I didn’t sneak, I used a bow generally only while fighting dragons. I also didn’t do most of the guild quests. I think I only did the mage’s guild.

I remember playing the Dragonborn DLC, which now that I look it up means I had the other two DLC, Dawnguard and Hearthfire. I think I might have bought the Legendary Edition to get them. In any case, I don’t remember playing through the Dawnguard story at all, nor do I remember doing much of anything with Hearthfire, but I do remember the Dragonborn story. Also, it’s funny now having played Morrowind looking back at Solstheim and understanding why it was so significant that they included it.

In any case, as my campaign to revisit and complete the Bethesda open-world games continues, next on my list was Skyrim. I was especially interested to dive-in since I learned about a Linux-native mod manager called Amethyst.

Setup and Modding

I have Skyrim from both Steam and GOG, and I initially assumed using GOG would be easiest for working with Amethyst. This likely isn’t the case, or rather it doesn’t really matter. In any case, I’ve got the offline installers for a reason, and so I installed it through Lutris.

I opted for the AppImage of Amethyst, and started trying it out. I’m generally one who likes to “micro-manage” my setups a bit, and Amethyst tends to frown at this. Instead of me configuring various short-cuts, Amethyst would rather handle everything itself, and so I followed its desires. After some initial small challenges, I got Skyrim running, installed the SKSE, and a bunch of the usual (or so I’ve been told) fixes and patches.

I’m generally fine with the appearance of vanilla Skyrim. I like a shiny stone as much as the next skritt, but for this play-through my focus was clear: try to keep it “vanilla-plus.” That totals 84 mods, according to Amethyst. 20 of those are patches, fixes, and SKSE libraries for functionality. The remaining mods are split primarily between two types: the overhauls, and the quests/content.

Overhaul Mods

Trying to keep this relatively tame, though quite obviously violating the “vanilla” of “vanilla-plus”, I installed basically every overhaul from EnaiSiaion, selecting for a few of the minimalistic options. This list is not only the overhaul mods from them, but also some of the addition mods of theirs. There are a few patches that should be included, and they are mentioned on the appropriate mod pages.

• Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim
• Audugan - Integrated All-Maker Stones of Skyrim
• Freyr - Integrated Standing Stones of Skyrim
• Growl - Werebeasts of Skyrim
• Mannaz - Integrated Races of Skyrim
• Odin - Skyrim Magic Overhaul
• Sacrilege - Minimalistic Vampires of Skyrim
• Summermyst - Enchantments of Skyrim
• Thunderchild - Epic Shouts and Immersion
• Tonal Architect
• Triumvirate - Mage Archetypes
• Valravn - Integrated Combat of Skyrim
• Vokrii - Minimalistic Perks of Skyrim
• Wintersun - Faiths of Skyrim

With this setup, I find things feel mostly as I remember them, except that the perks feel a bit more impactful. I’m not too far into the game yet, so I can’t speak to how impactful the different shouts or vampire and werebeast changes are. The only non-EnaiSiaion overhaul I installed is Complete Alchemy and Cooking Overhaul.

Quest/Content Mods

Legacy of the Dragonborn was essentially the prime motivator for this play-through. I remember seeing Tomato play it, and thinking that seemed super rad, and so I used it as the keystone of the mod-list. I basically followed their full installation guide, then added in my own mods to suppliment what they recommended. Beyond the content mods I’ve already listed above from EnaiSiaion, I included the following:

• Beyond Skyrim - Bruma and the Wares of Tamriel suppliment
• DAc0da, with the English translation
• Immersive College of Winterhold
• Moonpath to Elsweyr
• The Forgotten City
• The Grey Cowl of Nocturne, 10th Anniversary
• The Tools of Kagrenac
• Unslaad, with the English translation and voice-over
• VIGILANT, with the English translation and voice-over

I have yet to, but plan to, add the following:

• Clockwork
• GLEN/MORIL
• The Wheels of Lull, along with the other trainwiz mods in that series
• SIRENROOT - Deluge of Deceit
• Wyrmstooth

Miscellaneous Mentions

I’ve also got an alternate start mod with some additional options for LotD and Bruma. I added Campfire and Frostfall, plus the special edition fix for each, mostly out of habit. I like the immersion it adds, though I did disable Frostfall for DAc0da, and may leave it off. And wrapping it up, some graphics stuff:

• Realistic Lighting Overhaul
• Vivid Weathers
• Wet and Cold

Naturally, I leave the most essential for last: lanterns. Both in the world and worn. Love me some lanterns.

The Start

I opted for the Legacy of the Dragonborn alternate start, as the Relic Hunters Guildmaster. Neat little intro part, that gets me right into the LotD content. I played around with that for a bit, explored around Solitude a bit, and made my way to Winterhold to start that guild and explore the new, immersive college. After finishing the Saarthal exploration, I decided to go to Helgen and start the main quest, getting through the first dragon fight. Thus far, all is good. The various overhaul mods feel good, graphically things look nice, and no crashes or bugs. At this time, I also learn about, and install, a few of the Vicn mods mentioned above: DAc0da and Unslaad. I had heard about VIGILANT, but I was unaware of the others.

DAc0da starts in Solitude, after what I thought was the completion of the whole Greybeards quest, but what is actually just after that first dragon fight quest. Imagine my surprise, as the mod author may have hoped, when I walked out of the Dragonborn museum, down the street, to the lovely Bard’s College vista overlooking the Sea of Ghosts, and see the Brass Tower standing there, menacing reality.

That was all I needed to see, so I began what I can only describe as a masterpiece of a mod. A lot of lore in this mod comes from “C0DA”, a series of stories from Michael Kirkbride. The UESP has an article on it, and there’s also an entire site dedicated to it: c0da.es. At the time of me writing this, and therefore just after the time of me playing the mod, I have not had the pleasure of reading through this source material, and so I’m sure I’m missing references.

I’ll say up-front: the next section will include spoilers. There’s nothing else after this section, and so if you do not want anything spoiled with regards to this mod, then thanks for reading! I’m excited to continue exploring these amazing mods. The Elder Scrolls modding communities are some of the greatest storytellers and world-builders there are, and I’m continually floored with what they create. Most of the time. Sometimes it’s just more tiddies, and, I mean, yeah I guess but not every game needs big anime tiddies - I know, I KNOW I CAN’T BELIEVE IT EITHER I KNOW. Gosh.

DAc0da

If you choose to stay, then please pardon my praise, as I must.

Actually, pardon my complaints first. They are minor: this is a combat mod, with incredible lore and jumping-puzzles (a la Guild Wars 2). The character I made was not very prepared for nor capable at combat, and some of the boss fights were very challenging. I hadn’t considered trying to find a full combat overhaul, with timed blocks and parrying and combo systems and all that, but after playing this mod I am now considering that.

I have seen many a complaint about the jumping and acrobatics required, especially in the Numidium parts, but I rather enjoyed all of that, quite a bit actually. Throughout the mod there are often hidden treasures that require some clever acrobatics or backtracking to get, and getting to them always felt very rewarding. I never felt that I was incapable or frustrated with the jumping parts, despite Skyrim’s best attempts to thwart me.

Those rewards come in two flavors: gear/treasure, and Mnemolichite. The former comes in much variety, and includes great armor for all characters (heavy, light, and unarmored), great weapons for all characters, incredible spells (I would say rather overpowered summoning spells), and a fine assortment of potions, treasures, and trinkets. The Mnemolichite is a collectable world-item. Gathering three rewards the player with a point which can be spent to increase health, stamina, magicka, or carrying capacity by 10, or grant 1 perk point. By the end of my play-through, I had I think 82 Mnemolichite, meaning 27 points to spend accordingly. There are also consumables that work the same way, “Brain-Billies,” of which I probably used to get another 10 or so points.

I walked into this mod with basically crappy gear, and walked out like a god. I earned 8 levels, plus all the Mnemolichite/Brain-Billy points. I got top-tier armor, absolutely overpowered summoning spells, plus some other nice less overpowered spells.

One small snag, which might resolve itself or is otherwise easy enough to get around: when I finished the mod, the “shared chest” I was storing all my loot in became inaccessible. I’m not too attached to the loot, especially considering the direction of my build (trying to focus on Bound weapons, specifically Bound Mace, and Illusion, for a change from Ye Olde Axe), but in anticipation of a Legacy of the Dragonborn patch, I want the collectables. I want my shinies in the shiny-boxen.

The first half of the mod is a lot of combat, with some very neat lore. There are two “side quests”, which contribute to the ending: the first I pursued involves Yngol (UESP). I fought my way through Atmorans and Snow Elves, time and again finding Yngol in trouble. First, he was freezing to death, and abandoned by one of the 500 Companions. I found a sufficient fire source for the incredible cold, and saved him. Next, after much more combat with Snow Elves, I found Yngol confronting the companion which abandoned him, Hgelhelm, and I helped Yngol defeat him.

Oh, quick break here: the big theme (heh) of this entire mod is the Numidium, and the time-warping effects it has. The gist is that all of the space we explore, all of the events, are being pulled into our timeline because of the Numidium and what is dubbed the “Numidium Effect.” Basically, every time the Numidium gets activated, time and space get all bent out of shape, and Bad Stuff (TM) happens. So this entire landmass that we explore in the mod is all world spaces dragged into this reality around the Numidium, warped and out of place.

Right, so back to Yngol: we help him fight dudes, we explore Atmoran cities and frozen landscapes. Yngol is chasing a golden dragon, and another dude we run into, a Dragonguard of Reman named Akashiya-Samon, is hunting the golden dragon. There’s a lot of fighting, and a lot of boss battles, all of which are challenging but also rather fun. I think they’re ruined a bit with the summoning spells I got, which may in part be due to the changes the perk overhaul makes. Not certain, all I know is that without those summoning spells, it would’ve been very hard due to the changes the combat overhaul makes. Bit funny.

Throughout this entire quest there’s the option to abandon Yngol, in which case he dies. I’m not sure what happens in this case, since I opted to support the bro all the way. Bros before Snow(Elve)s, man. And after supporting him so much, I had to side with him at the finale. Then I told him to become a star. Apparently it’s a reference to a Japanese folktale, which makes sense since Vicn is Japanese.

In any case, I rather enjoyed this half. I thought the characters were all very well written, with some great dialog and intriguing stories. A fun, and frustrating, part of this mod is how many of these stories we only ever, and will only ever, get a small part of. As I mentioned before, there’s a lot of hidden treasure and rewards around, with some clever acrobatics required to get to them.

The other half of the first half (other quarter?) is helping Vanus Galerion, of Mage’s Guild fame. Vanus is in turtle form, and he wants to un-turtle. This brings us down a road with Sload and necromantic forces, plus Dreugh. We join up with a Templar of Hahd named Yu’qbar (relevant detail); Hahd is like an underwater empire. They hate the Sload, we hate Sload, all is good, there’s murder aplenty. Again, the set pieces are all really well done, and the environments are impressively laid out. The summons from this side aren’t nearly as overpowered, but the finale of this side far outshines the finale from the first side: a battle with Mannimarco, reincarnated through Sload and necromantic forces. Familiar and significant name-drop aside, just look at this arena.

I didn’t need to do both side, but I did, and turns out that means I get the better ending. Though, the good ending is still incredibly bittersweet, and I guess that’s a theme with Vicn’s mods. A comment on a YouTube video for some of the music at the end-end of the mod said,

“This right here is why I like Vicns approach with how to handle the Dragonborn. The base game and DLCs treat the Dragonborn as this nigh unstoppable Demi god after overcoming the literal Dragon God Alduin, A powerful Vampire, and the First Dragonborn and it’s like this guy can’t be stopped and it seemed like being the Dragonborn is like the best thing ever. Then here comes Vicns mods to wheee you status as Dragonborn is in a way the cause of a lot of shit that happens, why a lot of good people suffer, and even if you win you feel like you lost a part of yourself in the process. Vicns approach shows a different take, that being the hero, the prisoner, the Dragonborn, can be a burden and a curse as much as it’s a blessing.” @barrydalton4743

In any case, from here we return to the feet of the Numidium and meet up with an old friend, the friggin’ Underking, and have a pretty rad fight against him using light sabres, apparently. I think in the lore they’re something else, but no need to mince words here. Another awesome boss arena.

You can see, in the fog, the massive feet of Numidium there. It is intimidatingly large throughout the mod. From the finale arenas on either side you can see it, and it still looks massive. (And caked up. More like Numidi-aaaaamn girl!)

From here, we go inside Numidium for multiple levels of combat, but also a significant amount of jumping puzzles and challenges. A few of the review videos I’ve watched all disliked this, but I really enjoyed this part. The cramped corridors, navigating through ruined machinery and dwemer architecture. Jumping from cog to strut, activating platforms, disabling search lights. It all felt very solid. Overcoming death pits, zero-sum anti-particle beams, and a literal cyborg ninja assassin from another dimension named Ghost Choir 9. Remember the name for later. Anyway, you find a lift, and taking it up you arrive here.

And this music plays.

And suddenly you’re in a completely different state of mind. Until now you’ve fought, struggled, scraped by, and suffered. Then, you emerge into this zone of melancholy.

I’ve neglected to mention until now that there’s an NPC who joins you through this entire mod, not as a companion but as a character you run into along the way. Throughout Numidium they act basically as a guide, providing insight into the next challenge, and allowing you to have this witty/pithy banter with them. Honestly, it feels like you develop a friendship with this member of the Psijic Order named Rolls-On-Roads, like you get to know him. You get to this place, and he is as stunned as you are. Throughout everything else, this guy’s a know-it-all, going just short of flaunting his future-knowledge in your face. Then, it’s somewhere he has never been, could never have been.

Exploring this zone, you find memories of discussions between Dumac, the King of the Dwemer, and presumably Nerevar. The entire place feels serene and sorrowful. The zone is called “Dwemereth”, which is what Morrowind was known as. You navigate this realm by more jumping puzzles, from floating box to floating box to platform. Finally, you reach the central tower, and the Mantella, the gem powering Numidium. It’s a bit surreal seeing this Mantella chamber compared to the Daggerfall Mantella chamber, which is also within a dungeon set inside Numidium. Obviously graphics have changed a lot, and development restrictions are very different for a mod author than for a game development company. There’s an optional fight here with Dumac’s shadow-form, but I stealth’d my way past, and arrived finally at the operation’s chamber. Within, we learn why Numidium is here. And this is bonkers. This Numidium is from the 2nd Era. It seiged Alinor from the 2nd Era until the 5th era, when it fought Akulakhan, which was being piloted by the Nereverine. Let that statement sink in, and consider how absolutely fucking crazy that is: Numidium and Akulakhan take part in a giant mech battle (which basically captures the original struggle of Dwemer versus Chimer…). Also, look at how badass the Nereverine looks in his… mech suit?

In any case, this Numidium appears at the “here and now” of our game presumably to begin repairing itself. Because the fight against Akulakhan destroys Nirn. Small little detail. After learning all this, you get an ending.

I interacted with Rolls-On-Roads throughout Numidium and Dwemereth, I hit most of the weird little particle/display fragments, and did both the side-quests (which are time distortions; this whole thing is about fixing a time distortion that causes more time distortions) which means I got the “”"”good”””” ending. The bad ending is explicitly called out, because it ends the game: you die. You try to interact with the Mantella, you get thrown to the ground, and Rolls-On-Roads gets corrupted by the Hist, kills you, and takes Numidium for his/itself. BTW, a (the?) Hist is here, and it’s real angry. Apparently if you don’t interact with Rolls-On-Roads enough, or you miss too many of the particle/display fragments, and you don’t do both side-quests, (or some combination of the aforementioned) you get the neutral ending. The neutral and good endings both get to a similar place, but the neutral ending sees Rolls-On-Roads completely erased from time. In the “”"”good”””” ending, you keep your bro. The force fixing time are female dragons known as Jills. There’s a small plot throughout the mod of the Hist and the Jills fighting, presumably because the Hist sees Numidium as an opportunity to retake Nirn and remove all these pesky mer and men. With our intervention and success, the Jills can correct time, helping us survive this dragon break, and return to our proper place in space and time.

Remember Ghost Choir 9, that super cool other dimension cyborg? They say something as they die which is very important: The Jills are not on your side.

So yeah, what actually happens is that the Jills are not our friends, and they try to erase everything related to this event, including everyone, that hasn’t already been fixed. The important part about that is that the player-character is part of that everyone, and so is Rolls-On-Roads. And this is where the “”"”good”””” ending happens. In the neutral ending, you pop-up in front of the lighthouse, Numidium is gone, and so is Rolls-On-Roads, replaced by some random Altmer. Presumably, because you’re “The Prisoner” (a fate-bound archetype, like “The Agent” from Daggerfall or “The Nereverine” from Morrowind) you cannot simply be erased. Numidium is gone, the events explained away as training exercises gone wrong, and the world is none-the-wiser of any event. In the “”"”good”””” ending, before popping back up in the proper timeline, you get yoinked into Mozzarella Space and chat with Sheogorath. He intervenes in the Jills’ work (as made evident by the several dead Jills around with Wabbajacks stabbed through their skulls), giving you the opportunity to escape with all your memories in-tact. Rolls-On-Roads is not so lucky, and you see him laying next to Uncle Sheo, partially removed. You speak with him, he echos the warning from Ghost Choir 9: the Jills on not on our side.

You leave, he dissolves, and you find yourself at the lighthouse. As you ascend, you find Rolls-On-Roads, but he doesn’t remember you. Doesn’t recognize you. You tell him that you and he returned Numidium to it’s proper time, and saved the world, and he asks how much skooma you’ve had. Then he asks you, what brings you to the lighthouse? And you have two options, one of which really hit me hard: I thought I’d see an old friend here. Rolls-On-Roice mentions he, too, felt nostalgic about an old friend here, and then mentions an old Altmer he knows. To him, you don’t exist, not even as a whisper of a thought.

And that’s the end. There’s apparently some more interactions, but I haven’t gotten to them yet. Of course, this is only the first of 4 mods by Vicn. But like was said earlier: how bittersweet is that ending? After literally hours of interacting with this NPC, getting to know them a bit, starting to feel buddy-buddy with them. Hell, planning to rest and tell each other stories at the Winking Skeever! All gone. Poof. Eaten by dragons. You remember a past that no one else ever can, because it doesn’t exist anymore.

“Your status as Dragonborn is in a way the cause of a lot of shit that happens, why a lot of good people suffer, and even if you win you feel like you lost a part of yourself in the process.” - Master Poet barrydalton4743

Fuckin’ A, man. 10/10 mod. Game of the Year.

Thanks for reading the ramble. I’m incredibly excited to continue my voyage through Vicn’s mods, and to delve into the others on my list. I had written off Skyrim modding, mostly because every time I’m logged in to the Nexus and look through Skyrim mods it’s all NSFW stuff. This mod has restored my interest, and left me hungry for more.

I had recently read some posts by Anil Dash: “What do coders do after AI?” (Link) and “Endgame for the Open Web” (Link). I would describe Anil as a techno-optimist; he sees hope in a future where we aren’t swallowed by the capitalist typhoon of Big Tech. He has several times voiced that, if we don’t want AI taking over, then we need to take over AI, and use it for our good, as our tool, to build our communities, and keep the web open and supportive to all. To me, this feels hypocritical, and those feelings are because of how the numerous large-language models collectively known as “AI” have been created. They are systems that have taken everything without consent or compensation, churned it all up, and actively regurgitate it based on statistical analysis. They are trained in massive data centers which require absurd resources, threaten established communities, and continually shatter any idea of an equal playing field. Data centers are expensive, they require immense coordination and planning, they are the play-things of the rich and powerful. In order to train LLMs, you need massive amounts of compute, massive amounts of data, and many smart people to understand how to shape the training to get the results desired. These are the purview of corporations, not individuals.

(The First) Aside: Corporations

I have mixed feelings about corporations. I suppose, first and foremost, I don’t trust anyone is a “good person” (ethically) if their primary ambition is “make more money.” I, likewise, don’t trust any corporation is a “good company” (ethically) if they are a for-profit organization. I also don’t trust most non-profit corporations, because I believe many of them are built on hopes and dreams, which are fragile at best, and deceptive at worst. Is this fair? Probably not.

My problem, though, is not (generally) with the corporations themselves, and certainly not with (most of) the people that work for corporations. My problem is with how corporations are abused to benefit some at the detriment of others. That’s the big relevant part.

Anyway, back to the main discussion.

Anil mentions in his “Endgame” article that he read and was inspired by an article by Mike Masnick at Tech Dirt, “AI might be our best bet at taking back the open web” (Link). I got maybe a third through it before I decided to jot down these thoughts, before they evaporate back into the void of my thought-ocean. Mike talks about how he used agentic AI to build himself some apps he’s always wanted. He waxes on about how great they are for him, to finally have something built “by him” for him. He keeps including himself in the process, which I think is a stretch. Telling someone to build something, even if you have to describe it very well, doesn’t really feel like you’re the builder. Saying things like, “But the amazing thing to me is that I keep remembering I can fix anything I come across that doesn’t work the way I want it to.”, where him “fixing” it is telling the AI to fix it. This is a form of learned helplessness. He talks about how in the early days of the Internet he could right-click, copy code, and understand it and build upon it for his own site, but that how now the technical barriers for entry are much higher. One cannot “copy-paste” their way to victory when sites are built on JS frameworks that obscure code, or overly complicate code, or when that code is centralized and inaccessible at all.

Another Aside: Copy + Paste

Back in the day, you literally could just copy another website’s code (and you still can today, often) and deploy it yourself. You would obviously have to change names, and it would run on your domain/service, but you could literally copy another person’s website as your own. AI can do that too, and generally using the same mechanism: copying what exists. What’s the difference? Is it the profit motivation? That certainly bothers me. Is it the scale? Is it the abuse of power, hammering websites and driving up hosting costs while driving down traffic, accessibility, and performance? Yes. Would citing sources help? Would compensation help? I don’t know.

Anyway, that “app development” that Mike “did”

Back to Mike, he mentions using a tool “Lex”, and then, “Over the last few months, though, I decided to see if I could effectively rebuild that tool myself, fully controlled by me, without having to rely on a company that might change or enshittify the app.” This is another area where I get confused. Building an app using AI doesn’t feel to me like making a tool by oneself, fully controlled by oneself, without reliance on a company. In fact, it feels exactly the opposite to me: it is a tool created by forces beyond comprehension, without one’s insight into how the gears work, without any control by oneself because they do not understand it. This describes, to me, a black box. Appropriately, one made by the very companies the article claims we can free ourselves from!

The Amble: Introspection on AI

I’m not a big fan of extreme view-points. After all, only Sith deal in absolutes (noteworthy for being an absolute statement.) I’m not very involved with AI, though I have many friends who are. I’ve tried a few (ChatGPT, Claude), I’ve run local models (via Ollama). I think they are neat. I also think words are important, and that we use certain words because they have meaning.

It bothers me, in situations like Mike’s, when someone says they built something with AI. They may have designed it, they may have imagined it, but they for certain did not build it. There is a bit of Theseus here, sure, and as I said above I’m not big on absolutes. If you say, “I used AI to help me build something”, then no you didn’t. You did use AI, but you didn’t build something; it built the thing. You used AI to make something for you. Words are important. If something else does the work, that thing built the thing. You don’t say, “I built a deck this weekend!” if you hired a company to build you a deck. You say, “I hired a company to build me a deck! It’s super rad!” “But Bill,” I hear you say, “it’s just short-hand. We all know-“ No, wrong, we don’t all know because you are USING THE WRONG WORDS. Do better, because it is misleading, intentionally or otherwise.

Aside: Pedantry

Pedants are generally frowned upon. I get it, and as someone who is often accused of pedantry, I must protest. Mostly because what most folks will call pedantry is, in fact, just caring about details. (HOW VERY PEDANTIC OF ME). There’s this revolt against verbosity and clarity that arises sometimes, and this pervasive argument for ignorance. As if understanding a thing, taking the time to do so, knowing that thing, is some sort of shame. I think this must be challenged at every turn. It’s OK to know things, and it’s OK to want to know things, and it’s OK to give a damn about a thing and demand others give a damn sometimes too!

Don’t be afraid to give a damn, and don’t be afraid to demand that others give a damn. Things improve when we hold each other accountable, and accept responsibilities for our environments.

Aside Aside: You’re Gatekeeping, Bill

Eh, maybe.

Rant over. Still around?

I’m jealous of how quickly some folks can leverage AI to generate apps, either fully-blown, or as proofs-of-concept. I’m one of those “idea guys”, and I have endless projects I’d love to create. Appropriately, the lack of motivation to just work on them is the exact same lack of motivation to figure out how to make an AI build it for me.

I very strongly dislike the fallout around AI. I don’t like that it’s a funnel of resources from the poor to the rich. I don’t like that it’s being used to exploit workers. I don’t like the environmental impact. I don’t like the economic impact. I don’t like how it’s causing certain folks to become completely dependent and lose the ability to think for themselves (“deskilling”). Many others have linked to examples of all these things (here’s a very thorough one, and here’s another one; both are, to sliding degrees, rather anti-AI). I’d say you can search for them, but Google recently destroyed their search with an AI Summary instead, so add that to the list.

I both appreciate and dislike the optimism around the future of AI. This is the one which confuses me. Having a reliable LLM on my phone, that was actually private, and was actually “open-source” (I’ll get back to this), and was actually secure, would be nice. A proper “exo-cortex.” That is a future that can happen. Granted, the way phones are going, this particular LLM would have to be side-loaded or otherwise implanted onto the device without the blessing of Mother Corporation.

Aside: Technologists vs The Normies

Which really brings me to a crux: I’m a technologist. I figure things out, because I both often have to for work, and I like to. Heck, I manually mod Oblivion on Linux. That’s… just a pain, sometimes. I do it because I want to, because I know what the experience of understanding, exploring, and deploying a successful modded game gets me. I do it because I like to and can spend the time and money on it. Not everyone can afford to do such like me, nor does everyone want to. I believe this is something that can be classified as a privilege.

Let’s hypothetically say local models are a thing. Let’s say there’s a model that fits my requirements (private/secure/reliable/open/ethically-trained). That model is not from any of the current AI companies; they already have models which don’t adhere to these requirements, and those models will all-but-certainly be used to help craft the local models. Those existing AI companies are the ones which will exist on consumer devices. Unless you decide to care enough to change it, and even then, that might not be feasible for everyone.

A local model that fits my requirements is, therefore, a privileged model. The vast majority of users will not be able or even care to have a private, secure, reliable, open, and ethically-trained local model. And so, the private corporate local models will dominate.

Maybe I should’ve called it “The Stumble”

There’s the low-hanging fruit which I’ve basically stated earlier: I dislike how modern LLMs have been trained on data which was vacuumed from every available source without consideration, compensation, or permission. I dislike how much they lie, how they fabricate information and results. I dislike how they reinforce bias. I dislike how they can be used as tools of propaganda, misdirection, abuse, extortion, or any number of other Bad Things (TM).

I’m conflicted with the notion of “open-source” LLMs. It’s certainly not some silver bullet. It’s also not entirely relevant. Plenty of code for the popular LLMs is already open-source. The weights for some of them are, too. That doesn’t answer a lot of the questions that arise, though. It doesn’t answer why certain answers are provided to questions. Those are the realms of statistics, which cannot be written in code. It’s like a procedurally-generated game: you can have the code, and understand where it does the generation, but that code doesn’t answer why it put certain walls in certain places, it only answers why it puts walls. In any case, I don’t know enough about the specifics to have a good feeling either way, so this part hangs in purgatory.

I don’t like how generative AI is impacting artists of all varieties. In my weekly Pathfinder game, one of the other players spent the entire session having a model generate a game. It worked (“worked”), and he was so eager to show it off. He quipped that he could make games faster than I could, and said it wasn’t that hard to do. I understood it as a tongue-in-cheek remark, and just chuckled. It still made a point: nothing I do will be valuable to him, because his black-box can generate something faster, exactly how he wants it. I think it hurts more when it’s a cast-off remark. I have used a local model to generate some character art. I’m a horrible artist, just starting to improve with some pixel art for some games I’m making. I spent a good couple days trying to get things working, and eventually got something that worked well enough. That same gaming group will on occasion toss around generated AI images of things that happened during a session, or of comments made. They can be fun. It’s all a bit hollow though.

And to follow-up on that: I don’t like how ephemeral generative AI feels. It’s digital waste-generation at 4000X speed. Those games my friend was generating during our session (which was, also, incredibly annoying and distracting) will likely be completely forgotten and discarded by him by the next time we meet. The art we made in our texts are all just forgotten by now. Though, I actually think that, if using generative AI wasn’t so harmful to the environment, this could be one of the things that I liked. This is one of the things it can be actually useful for: one-off, silly meme-like creations that don’t have ambitions of profits or fame, and just exist for groups of friends to have fun with. Maybe this is another purgatory topic.

Oh, and of course: the slop. I don’t need to explore this. It’s bad.

The Vantage: Looking Ahead

Recently, there’s been a lot of talk and focus on local models. The ability to run a comprehensive and capable model locally, disconnected from any cloud services, on consumer-grade hardware. I mentioned above my requirements: private, secure, reliable, open, and ethically-trained. Private and secure are self-explanatory. Reliable means it doesn’t make shit up. Open means the code, weights, and data are all available, understood, and verified to be of high quality, secure, and free (as can be) of defects. Ethically-trained means the open data was collected with permission, consent, and possibly even compensation. The model(s) are owned, trained, improved, and distributed as a community with clear regulation, expectations, and accountability.

Despite my gripes, I think Mike Masnick basically looks at what exists today and is trying to take steps towards a better tomorrow. Again, words are important, but his conclusions are reasonable. Anil Dash’s techno-optimism threatens my cynical views on, well, basically our entire society, and maybe that’s a good thing.

I think in order for there to be any chance at a better AI future, there must be regulations established. I also think we need to prepare for a massive economic shock, as many of the shenanigans these AI-corpos are pulling come to light. I also think there needs to be information and assistance for “the normies” to use the technology which actually benefits them.

I don’t think there will be some catastrophic collapse of society (at least, not due to AI), nor will it bring about some utopia. I think there will be temporary troubles, as there always are, but I also think that we, as humans, overcome our adversity and learn to thrive. To paraphrase Sagan: if we do not destroy ourselves, we’ll be alright. Artists will still art, musicians will still music, and programmers will still winge on and on program. It will be different, but it will still be.

What’s my next step then? I think there is a future in local models, and I do think that’s the way to move forward. I want to do some more research, and learn how to leverage these models. Then, I want to share my experiences with others.

TL;DR

For me, this is how it breaks down:

• AI is a thing, it will be a thing, and it’s all-but-certainly here to stay.
• There are some obviously bad things about it: the training data was dubiously acquired; the models requires extensive resources to train; the companies in charge are for-profit corporations; the models lie, deceive, and reinforce bias. Generative slop pollutes the digital realms.
• There are some obviously impressive things about it: generative programming can help create applications faster, by users less technically inclined; non-generative uses (summarizing, pattern recognition) are proving incredibly useful for diagnoses, studying, or learning.
• There are people yelling VERY LOUDLY on all sides of the AI argument, and it is probably worth listening to the various sides, at least briefly, in order to understand why they are yelling. I don’t have to take a side.
• Local LLMs are likely the best solution, and I need to do more research, experimentation, and share my findings. I can be a shepherd.
• Local LLMs which meet my criteria will be private, secure, reliable, open, and ethically-trained. They will be provided by thoughtful and responsible communities, with proper regulations, and available to the general public in accessible and simple ways.
• The world likely won’t end, and humanity can thrive, so long as we don’t destroy ourselves first.

The Purgatopics

• “Open-Source” LLMs
• Ephemeral creations and “digital waste”

Be excellent to each other. Party on.

I’m sure there are things I forgot to touch on. Things I’m unaware of, or I got wrong. If you’ve got any feedback, or want to yell at me, find me on Mastodon and let me know: @azulien@mastodon.social; or e-mail me: bill@theinternetvagabond.com. This is likely not the only post on this topic, so I’ll post some more as more thoughts arise.

I’ve updated my now page, reflecting the recent changes.

2025 Retrospective

I’ll start with some of those ambitions I mentioned for the 2025 version:

I have played video games! I finished the main story of Oblivion, and a few of its smaller DLCs, but still haven’t finished the two primary DLCs. I decided to wait for Skyblivion, but it’s been delayed, and so I have also delayed. Instead, I played through Fallout 4!

I made more video games! In May I joined in the Morrowind May Mod Maddness event, and released The House of Tides (source code). It’s incomplete, but I fully plan to continue development. Later, I released my second Morrowind mod, Riddle Twinlander and the Quest for Fruit (source code). It’s a relatively simple quest mod, inspired by the Twitch streamer Dridlicious and his play-through of Two Worlds. Then at the end of the year I released my first project using the DragonRuby engine, L4-N-DER: Evacuation (source code). I had a lot of fun developing it, and working with DragonRuby! So much so that I’ve started a much larger project, inspired by Musou-games like Dynasty Warriors. That project I look forward to developing throughout the year, as well as finishing up Evacuation as part of the 20-Million Second Game Jam.

I was active, but did not make much progress on my weight-loss goals. I went golfing almost (or maybe over) 30 times this year, and got my bike out of my garage for the first time in several years. What an incredible feeling of mobility! Despite owning a car, with my bike I feel like everything reasonably nearby is now much more accessible.

I didn’t follow-through on the music goals at all. I still occasionally pick up my mandolin, or play my piano, but I haven’t established any good practice habits, nor do I feel have I learned anything.

My personal business is moving sluggishly forward, with a few more clients but still not enough to be self-sufficient. To that end, I’ve picked-up a part-time position at a nearby grocer. I appreciate the variety in the work, moving and stocking produce, and it keeps me active. Since it’s part-time, I rarely work longer than 4 hours per shift, giving me plenty of time to still work on my personal business.

And, as you can see from my post history, I have not done really any writing on this blog. I have done quite a bit of writing for the games I’ve made, and I have gotten into a habit of journaling, but I haven’t followed-through in publishing more on the site.

2026 Prospective

That’s bring me to now. I was already in the process of forming some goals for 2026 at the end of 2025, and as a result of that, I have 2 concrete goals this year:

1. Lose Weight

2. Generate Wealth

Lose Weight

My specific goal is to lose 50 pounds by August. A friend of mine is getting married, and I want to look and feel better than ever for it. Losing 50 pounds will put me roughly at 200 pounds, which will be the least I’ve weighed in over 20 years.

Much of weight loss depends on diet, and to that end I have began tracking my food again. I want to eat more whole foods, leafy greens and lean proteins. The remainder is activity, and I’ve started going to the gym again. My focus will be on building muscle, and improving my endurance.

Losing weight is a perpetual challenge for me. I find myself feeling defeated easily in this arena, and so a significant part of this goal will be a constant reminder of progress and possibility. Every little victory counts!

Generate Wealth

While I have some work still to identify the exact value, what I can say for certain is that I’m not looking to become wealthy, but rather to generate enough wealth for me to live as I want to. My ambitions are relatively tame by comparison: I don’t have many, if any, travel goals; I’m very satisfied with where I live, the clothes I wear, the car I drive, and the foods I eat; I generally don’t like having “things” around, and prefer a more minimalistic vibe; and I don’t spend money frivolously. A rough estimate is a net income of $40-50k.

The first parts of this goal will be better understanding my finances. To that end, I’m exploring a few approaches that appeal to me, notably what Siddhant writes about in his recent article on personal finances.

Another big part of this goal will be more seriously pursuing my personal business. The part-time position I have is a nice buffer, but my personal business will push me over the finish line.

Unknown Third Goal and Others

For a while I’ve felt that there’s a third, yet undiscovered goal in the wings. I’m not sure what it is, though I do have many miscellaneous smaller tasks I seek to pursue. I want to continue developing games. I want to establish reliable project planning and management. I want to read more books. I want to write more, both posts on this blog, and also other projects like tabletop campaigns or game development concepts. I also want to continue my development in other software areas, specifically Ruby and Rails. I have several applications that I would benefit from which can be built in Ruby or Rails. And, hopefully soon, I will be transition this site from the existing domain to my new permanent domain, nibz.dev. There are several changes I look forward to, and I will be documenting every step of the way.

I love Oblivion. I’ve written before about setting up Oblivion on Linux using the Steam version, Proton and a handful of aliases: Part 1 covers most of the tooling setup, and Part 2 covers some mods I liked. This setup works, though it is a bit of a hassle to manage. It requires running the tools individually through aliases from a terminal, which can be intimidating and unfriendly. It also requires the Steam version of Oblivion.

When I recently decided to return to Cyrodiil and close some gates, I wanted to review my setup, and also my mod list. I discovered that Wrye Bash now does have a native Linux application (as does LOOT!). However, I opted to stick with using Wine and Windows versions of these applications due to a complication of modding Oblivion in general: the case-sensitive nature of the filesystem. On Linux, the filesystem is case-sensitive; on Windows, the filesystem is not case-sensitive. For modding, this means if you extract an archive with a Data/meshes folder, but your current setup has a Data/Meshes directory, on Linux you’ll end up with two directories: Data/Meshes and Data/meshes. There are solutions to this problem on Linux, namely using an EXT-4 filesystem. I don’t feel like reformatting my disks, and so I’ll let Wine handle it. It may mean a slight performance hit, but it’s Oblivion - there are always performance hits. If there aren’t performance hits, then you haven’t modded the game enough yet.

Setup: Game

I’ll be using Lutris to handle installing and launching the game. No more terminal aliases! I’m also using the GOG version of Oblivion. Lutris allows you to link your GOG account, and easily install games using Wine (or native versions, if available!). In Lutris, I install the game to my preferred destination, using the default GOG Wine install script. After installation, I launch the game once to generate some initial configuration files, and verify things work as expected. Before the next steps, there is a significant change: the Wine version. In order to use the latest version of Wrye Bash through Lutris, I had to change the Wine version from my Lutris default, wine-ge-8-26, to my latest system version, 9.22. There seems to be a Windows API which Wrye Bash relies upon which isn’t handled well in Wine versions previous to 9.

Lutris can also install from downloaded GOG installers, without having to link accounts. Make sure to download all the parts (for Oblivion, there are 3: a small EXE, and two BIN files). When installing, make sure all the downloaded files are in the same directory. In Lutris, click the + button to add a new game, and select “Install a Windows game from an executable.” Name the game as you wish, and add identifier the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion-game-of-the-year-edition-deluxe for the GOG version. It’ll pull down nice looking images. On the next screen, click the Install button next to “Setup file”, choose your desired directory, and then select the EXE downloaded from the three files above. Lutris will create the Wine prefix, and load the GOG Installer. Make note of the directory you chose above for installation (default will be in the Lutris game library directory, Lutris Hamburger Menu -> Preferences -> Storage -> Game Library), and substitute it accordingly below.

Assuming everything is setup and running, the last step here is to note where Lutris installed the game. The path to the directory will differ, but the directory structure should be similar to the below. The Lutris “Directory” (Right-Click -> Configure) value will bring you to the Wine directory (with drive_c), and from there will be the GOG Games directory (or possibly renamed; this can be changed during the GOG install process), and then the Oblivion directory.

Lutris
 |-> gog
  |-> the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion-game-of-the-year-edition-deluxe
   |-> drive_c
    |-> GOG Games
     |-> Oblivion
      |- Data
      |- Oblivion.exe
      |- ...

xOBSE

• Project Link
• Nexus Links

The Oblivion Script Extender is required for many mods, and should be considered essential for anything beyond a strict vanilla playthrough. Download the latest version, and extract it to the Oblivion directory. When you launch Wrye Bash (covered next), in the lower-left corner, on the icon bar, should be a green checkbox. Hovering over it will notify you that OBSE is enabled. Clicking that box will toggle OBSE. Generally, make sure it is enabled (checked).

At this point, before any other tools, when you double-click/Play Oblivion, it will launch the purely vanilla Oblivion that was installed above. To use OBSE, right-click Oblivion in Lutris, choose Configure, and on the “Game Options” tab, change the Executable by clicking the button with three dots (labeled “Select a file”) to obse_loader.exe. Save the changes, and re-launch.

Pre-Setup: Tools

Before setting up the modding tools, it is required to run Oblivion once. This will generate the INI file.

I also recommend adding the Wrye Bash bash.ini file detailed below before running Wrye Bash for the first time. By declaring where the executable for Oblivion is, Wrye Bash won’t try to automatically find it, which can cause some troubles or confusion.

Setup: Tools

I’ll be using the following tools. When possible, download the stand-alone version of the tool. To make things easy, I use the GOG Games directory for all the tools.

drive_c
 |-> GOG Games
  |- BethINI
  |- LOOT
  |- Mods
  |- Mopy
  |- Oblivion
  |- TES4Edit

Wrye Bash

• Project Link
• Homepage
• Nexus Link

Mod manager, and everything else launcher in this setup. One of the most exciting results of this setup is handling almost all modding management through the Wrye Bash UI. From the Project Link, download the stand-alone executable from the releases. I extract it to the GOG Games directory, which will create a Mopy directory. Within that will be the executable, Wrye Bash.exe. Next, in the Mopy directory, copy the bash_default.ini file to bash.ini. Make the following changes (or replace bash.ini with this information):

[General]
; -- Path to mod directory.
;    These are relative to the Oblivion directory.
sOblivionMods=..\Mods
sBashModData=..\Mods\Bash Mod Data
sInstallersData=..\Mods\Bash Installers\Bash

; -- Path to the Oblivion directory.
;    "C:" here is drive_c on our filesystem.
sOblivionPath=C:\GOG Games\Oblivion

; -- User directory stuff.
;    "C:" here is drive_c on our filesystem.
;    Make sure to replace YOUR-USERNAME with your username
sUserPath=C:\users\YOUR-USERNAME
sPersonalPath=C:\users\YOUR-USERNAME\Documents
sLocalAppDataPath=C:\users\YOUR-USERNAME\AppData\Local

[Tool Options]
; -- TES4Edit
;    Path is relative to the Oblivion directory.
sTes4EditPath=..\TES4Edit\TES4Edit.exe

; -- TES4LODGen
;    Path is relative to the Oblivion directory.
sTes4LodGenPath=..\TES4LodGen\Tes4LODGen.exe

; -- LOOT
;    Path is relative to the Oblivion directory.
sLOOT=..\LOOT\LOOT.exe

In this configuration, the relative paths are relative to the Oblivion directory (where the game executable is). For all remaining tool setup, modify the paths in this configuration to match the paths for the tool executable (or, rename the tool directories, which is what I prefer).

This is where the magic happens: within Lutris, right-click Oblivion and choose Configure. On the “Game Options” tab, change the Executable by clicking the button with three dots (labeled “Select a file”), and choose the Wrye Bash.exe executable in the Mopy directory. Save the configuration, and double-click/Play Oblivion. This time, Wrye Bash will start up (Remember: This will not work on versions of Wine older than 9!).

At this point, when you want to play Oblivion, you will open Lutris, and launch “Oblivion.” This will launch Wrye Bash. You can then click the Oblivion icon in the lower-left icon bar to launch the game. As additional tools are configured, they will appear in the lower-left icon bar (everything except BethINI). To use the tool, you’ll run it from Wrye Bash.

LOOT

• Project Link
• Homepage

LOOT handles mod load order. Another application with a native Linux version. I had previous run into some bugs, but everything looks to work as expected now. Despite that, I still download and use the stand-alone Windows version (the archive from the releases, not the EXE). I extract it to my GOG Games directory, and rename the directory (or edit the bash.ini file) so the executable is where my Wrye Bash configuration expects it.

If setup properly, when you run Wrye Bash, in the lower-left corner will be a bar full of icons, one of which will be a little treasure chest. Clicking it will launch LOOT. From there, sort the order, and then close LOOT. Wrye Bash will refresh, and you can continue on. LOOT will also notify you of any “dirty” mods, which can be cleaned using TES4Edit (see below).

TES4Edit

• Project Link
• Homepage
• Nexus Link

I’m still not a mod creator, so my uses of TES4Edit are limited to “quick cleaning.” From the project page or Nexus, download the latest version, and extract the archive to the GOG Games directory. Rename the directory or edit the bash.ini file so Wrye Bash can find it; restart Wrye Bash to verify. Wrye Bash doesn’t include a dedicated short-cut for the “Quick Auto Clean” option, instead you have to right-click on the TES4Edit short-cut (or the TES4LodGen short-cut), and choose “Quick Auto Clean”. Choose the mod to clean from the list, click OK, and let the program do its work.

TES4LODGen

• Project Link
• Homepage
• Nexus Link

This will generate LOD files ahead of time, allowing for more distant objects to be shown as you adventure around Cyrodiil. Download the archive, and extract it to where Wrye Bash expects it, either changing the directory name or updating the bash.ini file accordingly. After mod installation is complete, click the icon from the icon bar to generate the LOD files.

BethINI

• Nexus Link

BethINI helps manage the “oblivion.ini” file, providing sane options and a wizard for configuration. This is the only tool that is not run from Wrye Bash. However, it’s still pretty easy to work with. Download the stand-alone archive, extract it to the GOG Games directory.

To run the tool, in Lutris single-click on Oblivion. A bar should appear with some additional details about Oblivion, including some buttons: one will say “Play”, and one will look like a wine glass; each will have a small button with an up-facing arrow. Click the arrow button next to the wine glass button, and select “Run EXE inside Wine prefix.” Navigate into drive_c, then GOG Games, and into the directory you just set up for BethINI, and select BethINI.exe.

Wrye Bash does allow for custom application short-cuts, but it requires creating a Windows shortcut .lnk file, and I cannot figure out an easier way to do that than to just run it from Lutris.

Post-Setup: Tools

Verify each tool runs as expected. Conveniently, all the Bethesda DLCs are “dirty,” so LOOT will notify you, and then you can clean them. Run BethINI, generate LOD files, and run the game from Wrye Bash. Praise Todd.

Mods

Wrye Bash on Windows can install mods from an archive, but with this setup that functionality is unreliable. Instead, I extract the mod archives manually before installing them with Wrye Bash. For each mod that I want to use, I’ll create a directory in the Mods -> Bash Installers directory, and extract the mod archive into that directory. Then, within Wrye Bash, on the “Installers” tab, I can install mods as expected.

For actually using Wrye Bash, I recommend laulajatar’s guide. Obviously, you can skip the installation steps for both Wrye Bash and OBSE. There is also the Wrye Bash Manual.

Lutris Setup: Problems

The significant problem with this setup is no way to alt-tab away from the game. To make things even more inconvenient, playing in a windowed mode also doesn’t work, and shows only a black screen with audio. I haven’t done an exhaustive trial of options and mods yet to try and fix this, because it isn’t a major problem to me.

The second inconvenience is as I mentioned above, with Wrye Bash not installing mods directly from archives. Again, not a major problem to me.

I suspect that both of the problems can be resolved with some Wine tweaks.

Lutris Setup: Benefits

What this setup gets right is ease of use, and ease of replication. All tools (except BethINI, for now) and the game are run from Wrye Bash. No juggling multiple application entries, aliases, or special setups. Plus, all tools, mods, and the game itself are all within the Lutris directory, making multiple setups a breeze: just copy the directory. In Lutris, you can then duplicate the entry (Right-Click -> Duplicate), and edit the executable (Right-Click -> Configure -> “Game options” tab -> Executable) to point to the new directory.

Lutris Setup: Next-Steps

The most useful next step would be automating this process, by building a Lutris install script. Also, resolving the alt-tab and windowed problems above.

My now page is growing too verbose. Instead, I’ll leave that page as a summary of what this/these page(s) will explore. I’ll start with a retrospective of 2024, up to now, the beginning of 2025. Maybe a bit of ambitions too.

2024 Retrospective

2024 was a significant year. The most notable change being that I was laid off in April. The remaining 8 months were quite nice. Before April, the year doesn’t feel much different or significant. From what I remember, I was stressed, unhappy, and overall dissatisfied with my situation. I was in the process of saving money to leave, when I was laid off and paid a generous (enough) severance. It’s nice when the universe solves problems.

Much of April and May was time spent decompressing. A bit too much drinking, from what I recall. I began receiving unemployment payments, and looking for jobs, though only half-heartedly. I was already decided I would start my own business. I also started my playthrough of Fallout 3.

At the end of May, I entered into a game jam, and made my first video game, L4-N-DER Training Simulator. One thing I do remember from the beginning of the year was speaking with some friends about trying to publish a video game on Itch. I made the game using Fennel and the LÖVE 2D game engine. It was incredibly rewarding, and a great learning experience. This game would be the first of 5 that I published on my Itch page this year.

Much of the summer was spent procrastinating starting my own business, and golfing. At the beginning of summer, in June, my grandmother passed away. She was about 2 weeks from her birthday, and so we round up and say she lived to 98. I spent some time helping to clean and clear up her house too. In the beginning of July I traveled to New York City to see Rezz. I also started properly exploring WordPress, and working to understand better the business I was still going to start. Around August, I began playing Morrowind for the first time.

In the fall is when I “got serious” about my business. I signed up for the New York State Self-Employment Assistance Program (SEAP), and through them signed up with SCORE to speak with a mentor and begin some small business training. I made my first WordPress site, for a relative (and for free). I also entered into 3 more game jams during this period, publishing TICSweeper (a Minesweeper clone mde with the TIC-80); RUNR (another TIC-80 game); and Escape The Crash. Escape was based on some work of mine over the summer to better understand and implement ray-casting in the TIC-80, which I then translated for use in Fennel and LÖVE. At the end of fall, my remaining grandmother severely injured herself, placing her in town through the end of the year. For the second year in a row, much of the holidays would be spent visiting a rehabilitation center (the same one as my first grandmother’s). Since the pandemic, I don’t think I’ve had a “normal” holiday season.

At the end of the year, I formally started my business, Niblock Technology Solutions, and began working on websites for two additional clients. Exploring this new world has been exciting, and there are a lot of new challenges. I love working with others to solve problems, and I’m looking forward to it. I’m also beginning work on a second business idea for a game shop. I want to build a community space for people to play games, enjoy company, and relax. Rounding the year out was my first playthrough of Deus Ex.

Now: January, 2025

Now. Plenty of plans and ambitions.

Easiest: I started a playthrough of Oblivion. Similar to Fallout 3 and Morrowind, my goal is to complete the main story and all DLC’s. This time around, I explored a new modding setup, using Lutris to install and manage the game (from GOG), and all the modding tools. For all three of these games I want to write up a brief retrospective about my experiences and any of the setup required for playing them on Linux. I already have two articles for Oblivion (Part 1, Part 2) detailing using Steam and Proton. I think the Lutris approach is a bit nicer.

Escape The Crash was fun to make, but it’s not done yet. I want to add in a floor, sound effects, a skybox, and objectives. And an actual ending condition.

Game-making in general I want to continue. I’ve started looking into the DragonRuby game engine. I also want to learn (more) Godot. I have no shortage of ideas, only my regular struggles with motivation and focus.

I’ve fallen into a few bad habits, and my health is worse for them. Its absurdly easy for me to put on weight, and equally as difficult to lose it again. At my heaviest I was over 320 pounds, and I’m now at a much better 240. I want to bring that number down to 200, but I also want to remove as much significance from that number as I can. It should be a metric, not a grade.

I’ve also set for myself several music goals. I want to get better at sight-reading, and so I have a goal to read a new piece of music each week. I also want to explore music production, and try making my own 45-60 minute mix.

There are the business goals. I need to have an income that supports my lifestyle, which means more clients and (hopefully) more businesses!

Finally, I want to write more. I think about writing, but rarely follow-through. As all my other ambitions develop, sharing them with the world will help me formally catalog my successes. Plus, if I have something useful and helpful to share, then I want to!