how december went

Happy very late new years to all who celebrated! I did not but I'm also not too bothered about it. Anyways- December was nice!! I had a decent time, everything felt weirdly quiet, but that might just be a side effect of the war and the ceasefire :P Oh well, I'll be fine, it's not the end of the world.

The wild life finale happened- Joel won!! Super happy for him. I wasn't rooting for him but I did have a feeling that he had a high chance to win. Hoping for an Impulse win in the next series- He deserves it!! Wild life fueled ALL my lore needs. Since I do have my own AU separate from Martyn's Eyes and Ears AU- The commonly accepted fanon. To sum up how I feel: The concept is super creative, and the execution was good. I LOVED it. Fav wildcard is def superpowers even though my fav's power, Etho's, was buggy and didn't work as intended (as in didn't work at all). And Cleo's was SUPER sick, and a creative way to bring back the members who died early. And the ending?!?! FIRE. I'd say this season is in my top 3 but I also can't really sort them by favorites. Mostly because every season excels in different aspects, and accumulated together as "general" liking of a season they're all equal for me if I really think about it. E.g: Double Life's lore potential is as good as Last Life's social interactions, 3rd Life's drama and lore is as good as Wild Life's concept and execution- You get the point. If you give me more specific categories to rank them on I'd probably manage to sort them though. Either way, can't wait to see what else Grian and the behind the scenes team have cooking up next!! Wild life was great so I'm sure whatever is next is just as awesome, if not tops it.

On the 14th I went on the start of the year scouts trip! It was a simple one day hike in the Alexander river nature reserve, with a ceremony at the end to welcome the start of the new activity year. I had a great time- also saw a lot of African softshell turtles. So ugly... I love them. I can also very much see why they were viewed as an evil animal in Ancient Egyptian religion.

I had an amazing Hanukkah too!! on the 25th I went to the Orphaned Land hanukkah show! It was SO SICKKKK, what an awesome show. Played banger after banger. I loved it sm. The opening band, Off Grid, was crazy good too- I got a shirt of their upcoming album SpiRituals!! The design is mad awesome too. And from the 30th to the 1st of January, I got to go to the hanukkah south (called hanukkad- short for hannukah darom) scouts trip!! No one from my grade (12th graders) went however, so I needed to go with the 10th graders. And honestly? I'm kinda glad I went with them. The 12th graders were evacuated and needed to leave due to a flash flood risk. For context: the 12th graders usually do a different route from the 11th and 10th graders- Which is way more south (near Eilot usually), more difficult and the trip itself is typically longer (4 days instead of 3). Not this time however, some stuff didn't line up time-wise I assume.

Anyways, vocal synth releases!! I fucking love vocal synthesis if it's not obvious. There's always a ridiculous amount of synths released and updated in December.

On the 1st, released the VoiSona Lunon! First off- adorable design. I love the color palette. If you know me you'd know this is a very obvious pattern of me liking mostly white synths with accent colors or just monochrome ones. And her voice is lovely! I love her cool mode voice and lower range in sweet. Like I can't even exactly explain why I like her voice- I just like her.

On the 18th, released 4 vocaloid default voices! First off- would like to point out their appearances are a lot more obvious in contrary to the previous released vocals. Love Jessica for serving Ariana Grande impersonator realness. The voice itself is pretty nice, no complaints, just doesn't stand out much for me. Matthew is not slaying that fuckass shag cut-mullet, add some volume to it dawg... Do you want me to buy you a Dyson Airwrap sweetie?? I do like how soft his voice is, def expected it to sound a bit deeper and older however. Brian is giving old rockstar who refuses to retire- IDK, kinda eating this up. The vibrant red is nice too. Def expected his voice to be a bit more raspy, but the androgynous quality to it is honestly really nice!! Similar complaint to Matthew- expected him to sound older as well since in the illustration he looks like he has salt & pepper hair and more defined wrinkles on face. Sandra looks like a more amateurish voice contrary to pop star diva Jessica- Or dare I say just a country vibe? She goes well with latin pop contrary to my expectations. Again she's okay, just doesn't stand out to me. Would love to see someone make a latin pop cover or song in Spanish with her, I think that'll really solidify my opinion on her.

On the 26th, released Chuubu Tsurugi. She's another vocal from Zunko's company, SSS. I frankly don't care much about this company since they started doing NFTs. The design is pretty meh too.

And that concludes the Vsynths for December!! Way less than expected. Would like to put this disclaimer, since I never said it: I only report commercial synths released on commercial engines. Mostly because if I reported on every single UTAU, VoiceVox, and deepvocal I'd spend 3 more hours writing this blog than I'd want, and for some would have to judge them based purely on design due to demos not existing. Also, amount of UTAUs released in a month is hard to determine and I don't want anyone to feel excluded because their UTAU didn't make it- I use VocaDB to see new releases so I def suggest checking it out if you want to hear and check out new indie synths yourself.

Anyways, great month, hoping 2025 will be even greater <3 Bye for now!! I'm off to watch as many wild life POVs as I can