Forgotten Friday #223 - 玄都 / Kuroto

 doctor I don't know if I'm not me.

Forgotten Friday #223 - 玄都 / Kuroto

There seems to be a lot of information about this utau, but the website is an actual nightmare to navigate on my tablet. The hosting service places ads when a user has not updated the site within a specific timeframe, and those ads are placed on the navigation elements. (With adblock, the ads themselves do not load, however, the elements to hold the ads do load.) I'm not able to easily scroll some of the frames, even with the onsceen trackpad. (Though, mashing the scroll wheel on a conventional mouse may do the trick.) I believe that the creator's 'headcanon' is considered unofficial. He is mean to be twenty-seven, but can be a different age. He is a sociable aristocrat who likes buying souvenirs while traveling.

Who is Kuroto?

official art from site

.

Hi there! So, uh...

I have written a lot more of the story about our plucky group of misfits, but... It got really dark and had too many adult themes. Nothing horribly offensive, just a very depressing vibe.

I want to continue the story, because it's a really cool one. I got tired of the fantasy setting, so I was going to change the setting after they all overcome their differences to complete their campaign. In that new setting, everyone would have existed and grown up in a different version of Vanessa's home universe... But she never lost her voice in that world because her grandparents accepted her mother and everything was happy!

So each person would have an alpha form and a beta form and the story would explore how different the alpha and beta forms were and how it shaped all of them. While that was happening, it would be interspersed with their current situation in a LOST / Lost in Blue homage.

Well, for me to pull that off, I'd need an editor and a few sensitivity readers. I can't afford that at this moment... And this is a blog about UTAUs that you should try out. Things should be fluffy and non-controversial! Besides, I'm pretty proud of all of the characters. Their stories are very interesting, and packaging it up as 600 word blocks to be released once a week would make it much harder to enjoy how interesting they are. If I were to write it, it would be best to release it in one, novel length form.

I had been really struggling to write because of all of the moving pieces. I have plenty of ideas like that, that are much too sad and dark for this blog. However! I had an idea and I've been racing through it because it's happy and enjoyable to write!

It's going to sound even more problematic, but the idea is 'what if the HP universe followed my logic of how a wizarding world would work... But in America?!' I really enjoy getting to play around with all of those characters. They're not complex people with sad backstories - they're happy little witches who work together to solve their problems. Everyone is nice to each other (with some exceptions) and it's good, clean, fluffy fun that won't distract from the UTAUs being covered by being sad and depressing.

Life changes every day, so I do hope in the future, I'll be able to show off some writing I'm really proud of! But, if you're wondering how dark it gets, here's a line from the part that would have originally been posted with this article:

"Oh?" Essie laughed again. "You're the reason his father is gone. Not the aristocracy - YOU. Then in your quest to avenge my love, you beat my son?" She lowered her voice. "I have stepped on insects more human than you."

And from the next week:

Staying protected in the monastery had been his only hope of survival. But then he woke up in a world where he didn't need his Goddess to save him. Being devout and showing his full face served him no purpose here. Though, perhaps it made him fit in.

So yeah! Maybe someday I'll be able to afford an editor and sensitivity reader. Until then, tune in next week for happy and inoffensive witches!

How are Kuroto's banks?

Kuroto had several banks, but I was only able to download two. I probably didn't search as long as I should have, but I was happy with the amount of searching that I did, as I did end up with a CV and a VCV to show off.

The voice is meant to focus on bass. The CV bank has an average pitch of F#3. OTOs are fine. It sounds pretty typical for this voice type.

Next, he has a multipitch VCV with three pitches and one extra folder with only some samples. The OTOs are nice. The VCV bank more nicely fits the idea of it being a bass based UTAU, though the low pitch seems to have a little rendering shaking at the default resampler. It is breathier. It still sounds nice.

Where can I download Kuroto?

WARNING: This is a Japanese site that has ads on it. I haven't looked without adblock, but Japanese ads on blogs / personal websites are freaking depraved and make the American popups from 2005 look tame. They are the kind that make even the most liberated human feel a little sick. Do not visit sites like these without adblock. Even if this one is fine, this is a really important thing to remember.

Allow me to state that it is against internet etiquette to just link directly to subpages. I should give you the main page and tell you to go to the download page, but this website is a nightmare to navigate. So. here's the link to the page with the downloads.