#Animal spirits are a lot of fun to write because animals in general are fun to write so it's like the best of both worlds honestly

[ranticore]

Helloo I have questions for you re: the author ask you reblogged recently!! If you'd like for Félix and Islin: 2, 3, 4, 12, 14, 19 (and 20 if you'd like!)

let's fucking GOOOOOOO!!!

2: How long was the process before the character reached its final version? (or a version that would be clearly recognizable as the character?)

F: day fucking one babey i knew his entire life story from the first second i drew him. the only things that changed are some minor appearance details. the FINAL final version has not arrived yet because i haven't finished writing the third book ;)

I: sure he looked different but in terms of personality and behaviour, the early him was very similar to what ended up in the books. what has changed is my understanding of him (<- that is to say, he always behaved the same, but i had to keep teasing out WHY he did that to reach what felt like a 'true' conclusion)

3: What was the first thing you decided on, the character's name, appearance, personality or their role in the story?

F: "oh I have to make a guy to be Jean's Twin Brother" so role in the story I guess

I: Absolutely the religiosity, there had to be a tension between his morals and what he did for a living (among the magpies). Personality I guess

4: And reverse, which one of the four things did you struggle with the most?

F: Name. I am TERRIBLE at naming

I: .... Name

12: Do you have a playlist for the character? What songs do you associate with them and why?

Both of them had separate playlists, but I hated how it crowded my spotify playlist window thingy to have so many, and there was a lot of overlap, so I consolidated their playlists into 1 big MVF draft one playlist with no rhyme or reason and no consistent anything

For songs, I can pick some random ones now just by hitting shuffle. It's a playlist I actually don't listen to much anymore (I made a new one for the rewrite) so this is a fun time capsule

Ok first Islin one i got was Devil Devil by MILCK, Point of Creation by Markéta Irglová, Wouldn't It Be Nice by The Beach Boys OF COURSE, Judas by Lady Gaga... of course..., Los Ageless by St. Vincent, No Light No Light by Florence + The Machine, Without a Map by Markéta Irglová, and Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) by Florence + The Machine naturally

for Félix i got Heat Waves by Glass Animals, What's a Devil to Do by Harley Poe, A Mask of My Own Face by Lemon Demon hehe, Like a Prayer by Madonna, The Stolen Child - 2006 Remaster by the Waterboys (this is just. The Poem. yknow the one), Stalker's Tango by Autoheart, and finally Bad Believer by St. Vincent

14: Do you have any quotes tied to the character, either from the story itself or from another source that fit them?

Oh hmmm I don't think so? It would be hard to pick one line out of thousands except who am I kidding it's this line from the first draft of the book i'm writing right now

it's so dumb

19: What is your general favourite thing about the character? What is your least favourite?

F: who's to say

I: i like how mean-spirited he can be at times despite all illusions to the contrary. huge fan personally

20: Bonus question: share any additional thoughts, art, favourite scenes, anything you've been waiting for a chance to ramble about

i got nothing lol i tried going to random spots in the document but i'm not feeling any excerpts rn

[carionto]

Human sciens is simply fuck around and find out

So when the humans give a tour of the labs so alliance members see what the crazed apes are up to, suddenly BOOM the halls shake and lights flicker but the tour group is fine while the one giving the tour says something like "Ah thats the sound of progress" all while there's people rushing by with guns and extinguishers yelling about a code Red and subject escape

[22/09/23] Nice, that is a fun trope to work with. I think I'll leave the dinosaur crew be, and have some other questionable research station make a debut with an "accident". [23/09/23] Idea pops in my head after several rejections - Human-alien hybrids (because you can't cross-breed because that's not how biology works, but Humans are still curious, because of course we are) [24/09/23] Actually, no, I don't like that: 1st - fairly common as is; 2nd - doesn't feel right with the Humanity I'm writing out. No, I think a better avenue is, since Earth in this verse is gonna collapse in on itself in under a century, experiments towards terraforming methods, since that's a requirement and thus a literal blank check for any- and everything. Yes. (mad scientist voice) Yeessss, I can see it taking shape! [25/09/23] It took some kind of shape indeed.

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Biology is the most diverse and complicated field of research with literally no end in sight. We will eventually discover every law of physics, and, yes, chemistry also has the potential for limitless combinations, only in biology can you find and create circumstances where trillions of different organisms co-exist and co-operate, compete, and can create a stable and self sustaining system. Not to mention mutation and evolution across generations, as well as the myriad of changes and adaptations a single organism can undergo in its singular lifespan. The potential is truly beyond the bounds of imagination.

Since biology is an omnipresent field in every civilization, it is only natural that it didn't take long before a Human led joint Coalition Flora research station was established - the Efflorescent Sneezewort Yarrow.

It is also natural that not long after that the non-Human staff sent this panicked message:

The Humans are insane! First, there is no regulation for anything beyond decontamination, which would be fine, if - IF - they didn't sometimes just bring the test materials out with them anyway for, and I quote: "Let it experience the outside world" or "Introduce it to my other plant buddies." The head researcher, instead of reprimanding this clearly dangerous behavior, just lets it happen. As a matter of fact, he almost exclusively and constantly ingests a plant-based gaseous substance through a device he calls a "bong" and locks himself for days on end within a random lab and, as he put it while looking at the ceiling: "Feel out the connections. We're all part of one whole, and only by becoming one with the roots of the soul can you truly attain the understanding of the spirit, and unlock the true calling of each sapling." As I draft this emergency message, there is a shuttle going through decontamination with two squads, one is an extreme disaster containment unit, the other a full on military special forces unit. With heavy duty weaponry. The worst is what they had to say: "Yeah, sometimes one of these nutcases gets the idea to combine plants with animal genes, and, to be fair, with access to the whole Coalition database and samples, I get it. There's a lot of really weird and cool creatures out there on each planet, makes most people at least think about playing scientist. Anyway, it's gonna be fine, the code said it was just a Mini HoH, so we'll be done in under an hour and you can all go back to doing your thing. I just hope we don't have to burn the thing this time, the prof said it's something like a dandelion and a small rainforest actual almost-lion from one of the real far out planets, but it's got bunny ears and the nose of a German shepherd, sorta. I think that's kinda neat." By the way, HoH stands for, and I am not making this up and the translator did get it right - House of Horrors. They claim it is just an homage to a piece of old Human culture. I don't believe them. I refuse to be a part of this madhouse for any longer than I must. Send a vessel and return me to a normal laboratory setting. I will now incubate myself in a cryo-pod to prevent any more exposure to these "scientists". Thaw me out in clean garbs and with two interns already doing real work on new medicines.

[tlbodine]

Fae Horrors: Huldra

This week's double-header features a Scandinavian folklore creature, huldra (or hulder, for a collective of them, I think?) -- generally described as a seductive forest spirit or guardian, a beautiful woman with an animal tail and/or a spine like a hollow tree stump. I've read that they can be friend or foe to people who venture into the woods, and a common thread seems to be that they can seduce and manipulate men into doing all kinds of things.

I'm not personally familiar with the myths, so I'm not sure which things I've read on the internet are historically accurate. Maybe one of you lovely followers can fill me in?

Anyway, the films this week were Thale (2012) and Huldra: Lady of the Forest (2016). They are, to my knowledge, the only two movies about hulder. They also could not be more different from each other, beginning with the fact that one of them is quite good and the other is a steaming pile of hot garbage that had me screaming at the television.

First, the good one. Thale is a Norwegian film written and directed by Aleksander L. Nordaas. It's about two guys, Elvis and Leo, who work as crime scene clean-up guys. While cleaning up the very messy remains of an old man ("wild animals" got at him, tearing him to pieces and scattering him around the property) they find his hidden basement, where he had seemingly imprisoned a young woman.

The girl, naked and mute and somewhat inhuman, turns out to actually be very inhuman in the sense that she's not a person at all but a hulder who had been taken into captivity and experimented on. The old man in the cottage had worked at the laboratory, smuggled her out, and raised her here as a father figure, but continued to experiment on her. We figure out some backstory courtesy of some convenient fae-creature telepathy, and the story builds from there because the girl (the eponymous Thale) has family still in the forest, and also the military is looking for her.

I won't spoil anything further. It's a very simple story, one that leaves a lot of questions unanswered. But I don't mind that ambiguity. In form, it reminds me quite a bit of an episode of Trevor Henderson's podcast, The Mayfair Watcher's Society: Two normal blokes stumble into an uncanny situation, see some crazy shit, and get on with their lives without explanation or context. If you like that type of storytelling (and I do), this is worth the watch.

The entire movie was filmed on a budget of $10,000, with Nordaas acting as writer, director, editor, set designer, and so forth. Most of the film was shot in his dad's basement.

And honestly? Mad props. I have nothing but respect for a micro-budget film that understands its limitations and leans into them. The creature effects are excellent. Like, the CGI is a little rough, but the design itself is A+ and it delivered a proper scare at one point.

The greatest strength of the film imo is the on-screen chemistry between the two leads. We don't really know what the relationship between Elvis and Leo is, whether they're friends or brothers or what, but they manage to communicate a great deal without saying a word, and it's easy to believe they've known each other a very long time. They're drift compatible, in other words, and they have very different personalities (Leo is utterly unflappable, Elvis can't get through a job without puking several times) that make it fun to watch them grapple with being in over their heads. Props to Erlend Nervold and Jon Sigve Skard. And props too to Silje Reinåmo, who has to spend most of the movie naked and do most of her acting with her eyes. Good stuff all around.

Which leads us....sigh....

Huldra: Lady of the Forest is a Swedish film directed by Ove Valeskog, with writing credit to Valeskog, Eddie Boschek, and Björn Boström. I believe it is Valeskog's first feature film, and I don't know what the budget on it was for sure but IMDB estimates it at $75,000. It certainly looks and feels much cheaper than Thale, probably because of the terrible script.

Okay. Ugh. Basically: A lady boxer is invited out on a camping trip with a bunch of guys she went to school with, and they all go party in the woods and engage in various...activities?...at some kind of former hippie commune turned hunting resort attraction camp....thing? The hippie who runs the place has a "daughter" who they spy bathing naked in a lake and who (spoiler?) is a huldra.

I guess (???) the main point is that the hippie guy lures people out to his commune to sacrifice them (???) to the huldra, who also apparently has the ability to make people go crazy and turn on each other, which is seemingly how the hippie guy got here in the first place. The story keeps cutting between the present-day group and the original hippie group, and we see both of them becoming paranoid and turning on each other until only one dude is left standing to take care of the huldra?

It's convoluted. And, frustratingly, there are the bones of a really good story in it. I actually really like the idea of a forest creature who uses her faerie wiles to psychologically fuck with a group of tourists and make them turn on each other. It's like Evil Dead with a faerie and I'm here for it!

Unfortunately, the movie is two hours long and agonizingly boring to get through. It's paced like a slow-burn psychological thriller, except none of the characters are actually fleshed out or given any depth at all. You're forced to watch scene after agonizing scene of rambling, pointless naturalistic dialogue as a bunch of annoying frat guys get drunk, argue, act misogynistic, and make small talk, without any clear idea of why anyone is doing anything. Also most of the film's dialogue is in English (owing I guess to their multinational friend group) but it seems like English is not the primary language of any of the actors so all of the line delivery is also kind of weird? Like inflections are in odd places, stiff tone, just....everything is weird, man. And most of the violence is off-screen and there are no cool creature effects so we don't even get the pleasure of seeing these people eviscerated for our trouble :(

I could have put up with all of this, maybe. I could have dealt with the frankly nonsensical storytelling (which was SO CLOSE to being good but then shit the bed), the bad acting, the wobbly erratic camera that bounces around for no reason, the poor editing....all of it. I could have shrugged it off as a "meh." Until the end of the movie.

At the outset, we see our heroine playing with her baby niece, and her sister telling her that having babies is great, actually, and that she needs to get laid, and maybe if she acted more feminine people would stop assuming she was a lesbian. and we think, ok, fine, sister is kind of annoying but whatever.

So then the heroine goes into the woods with all these dudes and tries to rekindle with a childhood crush. They have sex, then he pushes her away because he's married, and then gets all up in his feelings about it and it's stupid but ANYWAY....he dies, and then later she nearly drowns, but she has a vision of his stupid dead face telling her she HAS TO LIVE because there is a BABY INSIDE HER and this gives her the strength!!! to survive!!!! and then there's a flash forward a couple years later and we see her baby running around on the beach with his cousin and her boxing coach tells her, "You finally have achieved real balance! but why did you quit boxing?" and she's like "I don't need it anymore because MY LIFE IS COMPLETE with the power of LOVE! I love being a mommy soooooo much" I'm not even exaggerating this is almost exactly how the scene plays out and oh my god it is so stupid and cheesy and terrible.

You are allowed to be a shitty movie, and you are allowed to be surprise twist birther propaganda, but you don't get to be both.

Ew, ew, ew.

Anyway. Ugh. I don't know where or how this film ended up on my list -- it doesn't have much footprint online, there's only one review on the IMDB page and no Wikipedia, there's no Rotten Tomatoes score, only two reviews on Amazon. So maybe it's mean to hate this much on a tiny obscure random movie. But dear god. If you have two spare hours and a Tubi account, spend that precious time on something else because this movie is a big stinker.

Onward and (hopefully) upward next week.

[ericsprinzessin99]

Intro post, pt 2

(I shouldve made one of these a long time ago, but fuck it we ball) (will be edited, unfinished)

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“I know we're gonna have followers, because were so fuckin’ godlike” - dyl

First introductory part:

꩜⠀ Hai!1!1 Im ericsprinzessin, i usually go by “ab” or “alfa” online (inside joke from discord), im fairly new to tccblr and tumblr in general. Heres a little abt me:

꩜⠀fifteen

꩜⠀blk

꩜⠀cis female, bi

꩜⠀AuADHD

꩜⠀♏️

꩜⠀she/her/hers

꩜ this is a tcc/girl blog with edblr, liftblr, drvgblr and shblr shit in it so tw and antis dni, im pro recovery and help is out there so dont kys n shit :))

Favorites:

(my) Likes: diet coke, iced coffee, 90s, 80s, 50s, 70s, & early 2000s, writing, reading, Marlboros, vaping, pink, nihilism, researching, history (specifically tudor & asian history) , old films/vintage things, dogs, winter, summer baby tees, shopping, cvtting, smoke, fire, purging, shoplifting, my moots <33

Fav cases/perps: columbine (obvi), dahmer, ramirez, ricky kasso, the menendez brothers, apalachee high, sandy hook, v-tech, the hello kitty murder, brenda spencer, alyssa bustamante, billy ray prevatte, okc bombing, killdozer, pekka, aileen wuornos, ect.

Fav/most memorable victims: daniel mauser, cassie bernall, rachel scott, steven curnow, konerak & his brother, fan man-yee (they did her so dirty), tony hughes, ect.

Music taste(tw for bad nu-metal): lana del rey, KMFDM, nirvana, system of a down, hole, MSI, korn, flyleaf, ICP, MCR, tate mcrae, ayesha erotica, arctic monkeys, rage against the machine, NIN, deftones, charli xcx, billie, lady gaga, kesha, PTV, Alex g, mitski, mother mother, chappell, marina, doja, rihanna, the runaways, heart, rob zombie, falling in reverse, warren zevon, lil kim, notorious b.i.g, outkast

games: sims 4, class of 09, cult of the lamb, stardew valley, animal crossing nh, bayonetta

movies: thirteen, girl interrupted, spirited away, howl's moving castle, zero day, duck! the carbine high massacre, freeway (1996), the crush, death in venice, memoir of a geisha, sakuran (2007), freeway ll, lolita (the 90s one), ect.

Xtra:

Dnis:

Not a lot of dnis,

obviously, weird neo-n@zi snow roaches please dni b/c im a lgbtq poc, pls let me live 😭 dont pmo, i block for fun, but jus kno yall are all annoying asf/ mostly wrong & u need to leave that stankin ass room instead of becoming more radicalized, just sayin’ !,

adults free to interact, i wouldnt interact if youre 18+ and uncomfortable with minors saying nasty shit (not a nsfw blog, just a hyper sexuality problem)

Asks: yes, always

Dms: yep, feel free to talk to me :))

Pls interact: columbtards, ppl who sympathize w/ the victims

“Can't stay at home, can't stay in school, old folks say, "You poor little fool", down the streets I'm the girl next door, I'm the fox you've been waiting for!!” - The Runaways

Blinkies!1!!1!:

(Heavy on the last one)

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Thats all!

-ericsprinzessin

[various-spirit-animals-brackets]

How I'm thinking it's going to work (for now, subject to change):

General:

THIS BRACKET IS NOT ABOUT WHICH CHARACTER IS THE MOST MORALLY GOOD! MORALLY SHITTY CHARACTERS CAN STILL BE WELL-WRITTEN AND INTERESTING, WHICH IS WHAT MAKES A CHARACTER A GOOD CHARACTER. I just want everyone to understand that going in.

I am doing my best to collect every single canon character in this entire series. I will release the full list soon. Having said that, I am only human. It's possible I'll miss someone. If you have an attachment to a very minor character that I happen to miss, send me an ask, either to here, or to my main @dark-night-star-light. Anon asks are always on!

You can only submit canon characters. No OCs allowed, sorry. But you can submit a canon character regardless of how irrelevant or minor they are.

Voter fraud* and bribery** are not allowed. I know, I know, other fandoms allow them. I'm not, because the small-scale size of this fandom means that could actually make a dent in our results. I won't actually know if you do it, but if I find out you did, your vote will be eliminated.

This is meant to be fun! Try not to get too butthurt if your fav gets eliminated in the first round. I know a few of mine will, since they're such minor characters.

The unique tag is #best spirit animals character 2024. So if you want to participate, but don’t follow this blog, you need to be checking that a lot. Everything will be also tagged #spirit animals, #spirit animals books, and #spirit animals series. If you want to campaign, I recommend using the unique tag.

If you have any questions, or disagree with a rule and want to take it up with me, both my asks and DMs are open, both here and on my main.

Propaganda:

I am allowing propaganda. I am going to put it to a vote whether to allow anti-propaganda or not. Stay tuned for that.

I have still not created the full list of characters yet. That may take a while. In the mean time, you may start to submit propaganda to me. Ask box is open!

I will accept your propaganda if you make it about a ship (ex: Vote Shane, he’s so in love with Abeke!!!), but I don’t recommend it. In fact, I discourage it. But it’s allowed.

You can submit headcanons about a character as propaganda. Propaganda doesn't have to have any basis in canon (giving the more minor characters a fighting chance).

You are not allowed to submit links to analysis posts (or any kind of post) as propaganda, even if it's yours. Everything submitted needs to be something you wrote specifically for the bracket. If you send me a link to a post, it's an automatic delete.

Other than the above, there are no restrictions on what can be submitted as propaganda. It can be as short or as long as you want and as serious or ridiculous as you want (you could literally submit, like, "Vote for Rollan, he's so funny and he needs a hug" as propaganda and I would accept it, or you can go deep and start talking about his parallels and arc and motifs and backstory and personality and hardcore analysis stuff, and that would also be fine).

If you're unsure what to write, I'm going to release a piece of Shane propaganda I'm writing soon. Hopefully it inspires you. But again, there are no restrictions! Your propaganda doesn't have to resemble mine.

If I allow anti-propaganda, there will definitely be restrictions. More on that later.

If multiple people submit propaganda for the same character, I'm keeping them all. My goal is to have most characters have at least one piece of propaganda, so in the interest of that, as we approach the beginning of the tournament, I'll make a list of every character with how many pieces of propaganda each currently has. This is so that if a character has no propaganda, it would be a warning to everyone that it's your last chance to submit for them.

Propaganda is submitted through asks or DMs! You can submit for as many characters as you want. You will be allowed to be anonymous or not. If you choose not to be anonymous, you're signing up to be tagged in the poll that features the character you submitted for. So be aware of that. I may decide to open up a Google Form if I'm not getting any submissions. But we'll take it as it comes.

You will be allowed to submit propaganda throughout the tournament! If you decide to submit propaganda during the tournament, it will be added in the next round. Unless the character gets eliminated, in which case it won't be added at all.

This isn't really a propaganda thing, but it's propaganda-adjacent: campaigning. Campaigning is 100% allowed. There are no restrictions on campaigning except "Don't be rude". You will be allowed to campaign, and light-heartedly bash your vote's opponent (just make sure it doesn't get out of hand). You're allowed to spam the main tag or the poll with "Vote for [character]!" posts and reblogs. You're allowed to send people asks begging them to vote for [character]. In the end, it's their choice, but you can campaign as hard as you want. In fact, if you go into a poll and don't immediately know who to choose, because you like or dislike both characters equally, I recommend not voting for a while. The campaigners may be able to sway you to one side or the other.

I will submit propaganda for multiple characters. I may or may not choose to credit myself, it all depends! I will definitely be campaigning for some characters. Hopefully, this will encourage other people to campaign, too. That's half the fun of best character brackets.

Format stuff:

There may or may not be comeback rounds. It all just depends on where we're at and if I need characters to come back to create an even number. Don't count on them, but don't count them out, either.

It seems some people here haven't read the entire series, but I would still like them to be allowed to participate fully. So, I'm going to put an official description for every character, maybe a sentence or so long. This is meant to be objective, canon, and not propaganda (ex: Rollan is the Amayan Hero of Erdas that summoned Essix the Falcon).

Every poll will last one day, then we'll move onto the next for the next day and so on.

There will be preliminaries, because or else we are just going to have too many polls. The preliminaries will cut out the majority of the characters, probably including mostly minor characters.

I'm going to do my best to save the polls I feel will divide the fandom for last. So we won't see any Rollan vs. Meilin polls right off the bat. This might make the first few polls boring, but it'll get more interesting later on. Trust.

*Voter fraud is enlisting non-fandom mutuals or friends to vote for your fav, or voting from two different accounts. (Like I accidentally did in the interest poll. Whoopsie. I promise it won't happen in the real polls!) If you happen to do this by accident like I did, tell me and I will remove the extra vote(s) and you will not be penalized.

**Bribery is where you go to someone, either within the fandom or not, and offer to draw or write something for them (or do some other favor) if they vote for the character you want.

[bcbdrums]

For the fic writer ask?

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From this ask game.

🥭 Rank from most enjoyable/fun to write to least: Fluff, Smut, Angst, Crack.

Angst, fluff, smut, crack. Crack is hard because I don't know how to do humor. And the humor I do occasionally write doesn't fit the crack-vibe. Smut... Becomes kind of one-note after awhile, for me. Fluff is a delight. They DESERVE to be happy and I will write all those warm fuzzy feels that may not be entirely in character but gosh darn it, the blorbos deserve them!!! And angst... Ah, angst, my wheelhouse. They're already suffering in canon. I will make it worse, I will drag it out for thousands of words... And I'm good at it. Definitely the easiest, and the most fun.

🍐 Is there anything in canon that you absolutely hate and love to fix in fics? A wrong choice made, a bad characterization, a misunderstanding never cleared up, a conversation never shown onscreen, etc…

I wouldn't say hate. If I hate something I tend to dissociate from it. Like, I won't watch Star Trek Generations at all. Never seen it. Trekkies know why, probably. If I didn't see it happen, it never happened! (I still don't hate it - can't hate something I haven't seen.) Or Soul Eater NOT, again don't hate, but hate certain choices so I just...dissociate and disavow. Especially when it heavily contradicts established canon, it's easy to disavow. But if I'm just mildly annoyed by something, or frustrated, I'll write like...missing scenes. Things that answer the unanswered questions or clear up confusion. Or when a thing ends too soon, I may write a missing scene thing that fleshes out more of the details and emotions. But as a canon purist I never change things. Now, if we wanna be specific about a specific canon... Honestly, nothing is leaping out? Just that missing scene/fleshing out details, thing.............. WAIT. I've got one. In the Soul Eater manga. Maka should have hugged Spirit. Like. I get that the author needed to wrap things up fast, and comedy is a good way to do it. But.... That...... What the author did there. That was wrong. Which makes me think of the Soul Eater anime. A specific thing I would have changed is, all of Crona's lines in the final scene in the Death Room should have been spoken by Spirit (and changed to make more sense). Honestly, that part makes me cringe. It ruins the final episode for me. I won't keep going about it because it'll make me upset, but yeah.

🍇 Is there a particular scene/episode/book/etc that you want to just write a million fics about, over and over? Which one?

Well............... I've technically written over 200 fanfics about Drakken/Shego in Kim Possible. Just....those two. Aaaaaaahhhhh yesssssss making a villain romance work. That hits the spot. Like. How many love confession fics can I write? A lot, apparently. In Soul Eater, basically any moment Stein and Spirit are together onscreen I want to write about. 😅 Same in the manga. I'm not obsessed, I swear-- Other fandoms... I do have those moments but they aren't leapint out at me right now. If I think of them I'll edit this post to include them. Was trying to think of Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes (book and TV) canons. Hmm...

Thanks for the ask!!

[seventeenlovesthree]

You know, one thing about getting older, at least for me, is the realization that keeping up that whimsical spirit is hard. Very hard.

I have spent the past four years trying to maintain routines in regards to self-care and, while it worked out well for a period of time, the "noise" out there is very persistent to break your habits. By "noise", I don't just mean the world out there, the constant stream of social media providing you with news and tragedies, a ruthless algorithm that is very hard to avoid if you're seeking that little serotonin streak out there. Yes, I agree that our attention spans have been pretty much messed up and that it's VERY difficult to get back to some... Quiet.

That's why the noise basically refers to everything - your social life, family, friends, partners, acquaintances, colleagues, all the people out there, but also the things you surround yourself with. Habits, food choices and sleeping rhythms, once again, the media you consume while trying not get consumed by it...

I keep going on about how I had re-started drawing back in 2021 after a rough 10-year-break in which I simply didn't feel like drawing at all. I was occupied with other things during time - and if you're familiar with my tumblr, you know that that's been heavily related to football. I loved my clubs, I loved by NT and for the longest time, I could get by despite the set-backs and bad developments surrounding it. Right now I am staring at my PC and am slowly but steadily realizing that basically all the players that led me towards football have retired. Either just from the NT or completely. There are players, relatable figures, people I (used to) look up to, that inspired me, that brought be through the day, week, month, year. It was a fun time. But then the "noise" took over. The people I rambled with ended up just as frustrated and left. Only a few of them are left, but the majority - me included - has moved on to other things. Why? Because it had become too draining, too negative. The bubble had popped, several figures in the business had turned out to be unbelievably "bad people" (I'll keep this PG), things were so commercialized, unfamiliar and just... Opportunistic. The "whimsical spirit" was so hard to maintain and even if this Summer provided a little spark, it still feels alienating. There is still a glimpse of hope, but, again, you REALLY have to hold onto that.

The same goes for my other "fandoms" to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I still have fun sitting in my little corner and draw, write and create little things - even if it's mostly for myself, sometimes I do wonder why interactions have become so scarce. The atmosphere on social media is incredibly... Empty sometimes. I'm not just saying that because a lot of people have not grasped the reblogging system on this site. You may have heard the concept of people being overexposed by the neverending stream of art, "content" being thrown at them from all sides... It's become more of a product to consume than a thing to look at and enjoy and savour. And I feel that myself. I used to save fanart to my phone and computer and find myself looking at it countless times. I still do that with several art pieces, but... I assume it's because the brain has become somewhat tired that we cannot appreciate it like we used to.

Everything is just... Happening too fast and I feel like I need to have a detox every now and then. My brain still craves the serotonin of seeing new, beautiful art. But to get there, I have to get through a sea of things that get me anxious. Even with filters, even with blocking things I don't wanna see... It's not the same.

The same also applies to media in general - I'm currently in a fandom of a series that's kinda "walking on air". There is the possibility of a new animation being planned out there somewhere, somewhen, maybe... But a part of me isn't even sure if I want something "new". Consider myself "old" when I say this, but a lot of things that come out these days, sequels, reboots, remakes of things I used to enjoy as a kid... Simply don't hit the same way anymore. There's a reason why I find myself rewatching the old stuff over and over again and often have quite a mixed relationship with more recent things. EVA is one of the few franchises that, in my opinion, managed to get to a satisfying ending after ALL these years, but I am TERRIFIED for the new Madoka movie. I haven't even dared to look at Sailor Moon Cosmos, simply because I know my brain is tainted by how much enjoyed the 90s anime and how much of a clusterf*ck Crystal/Eternal/Cosmos has been for the past ten years... On the same note, do we really need a One Piece remake? And Digimon? I would loathe the idea of an Adventure remake... Because it would not only contradict the messages of the previous entries of the series; move on but keep the things you love close to you... It would simply not... Satisfy me. A part of me wants to see how the OG timeline goes on, but what if there'll be things to contradict it all even more? Do I want things to go on for the sake of keeping the nostalgia alive, even though the fear of mischaracterizations is very real? Do I really want the milking of the cash-cow to continue? To hunt for breadcrumbs? The commercialisation and... Opportunism? And why does it feel like I've heard that before...?

I don't want to end this post on a negative note. I'm gonna turn 34 in a few weeks, I've been into TV shows and had my hyperfocus topics basically since I was like 7 or so. I might always find things that keep the whimsical spirit alive to some degree. But I need to remind myself to not let the "noise" get too loud every once in a while.

[prima-materia-ttrpg]

How do Players interact with the world, anyway?

In my last post I said I'd either talk about this or combat. Well, combat's not here yet so. Attributes, Skills, and Characters it is. All-in-all, the fundamentals of how players actually interact with the game (and why they are the way they are).

Lots of ttrpgs have different ways of having players interact with the world. I already talked about dice mechanics, and how they interact with the Attributes and Skills in a previous post, which is the basis of how every system in the game works. I won't rehash that post here, so I'm mostly going to talk about the specific Attributes and Skills that exist in the game, and how Character Creation works.

The Attributes in the game are meant to symbolize general things about a character's body or mind. Some Attributes, like Strength and Dexterity, are probably in most ttrpgs that exist. Others I hope are more unique, like Alchemy. Skills exist underneath an associated Attribute. Brawl is associated with Strength, Metaphysics is associated with Knowledge, and so on. Anyway here's Wonderwall a list of the Attributes and Skills that are currently in the game.

Strength

Athletics

Brace

Brawl

Labor

Dexterity

Acrobatics

Dodge

Sleight of Hand

Stealth

Cunning

Animal Handling

Cooking

Glibness

Insight

Intimidation

Vitality

Endurance

Perception

Resistance

Survival

Knowledge

History

Religion

Machinery

Medicine

Metaphysics

Alchemy

Chemistry

Magical Constructs

Potioncraft

Spellcraft

Toxicology

The main reason it's set up like this is because I personally like the Attribute / Skill way of representing characters in adventure type ttrpgs, and it's also what I'm used to for the most part. The reasoning for tying Skills to Attributes in an explicit way like this is largely due to the kind of dice system that I'm using, which means Attributes and Skills need each other to work and you can't actually roll any Attribute on its own.

There are some skills in interesting spots, as well as some more enigmatic skills that I'd like to point out here. Cooking being a Cunning skill rather than a Knowledge skill was quickly pointed out by one of my friends when I came up with this list, and while I do see a world in which that makes sense, the way I personally cook is by "feel" more than following specific recipes. I like to make up new dishes and work with weird stuff when I can, and so Cooking makes more sense under Cunning to me.

One of the more enigmatic skills is Metaphysics, which is one of the fun "your GM will let you use this skill but only if they're cool" skills, like Religion and History. Here's the explanation of Metaphysics straight out of the PDF.

Metaphysics is your ability to identify and understand metaphysical phenomena, and your general knowledge thereof. This includes understanding and identifying bridges to other universes, what happens to spirits when they are rent from the body as well as what they are made of, and wrapping your head around phenomena and forms of magic that can bend the local laws of physics.

I will say nothing of Alchemy except that it is the magical skill and most of the skills under Alchemy are used in various Alchemical disciplines to craft very interesting magical things. I will cover this in excruciating detail in a future post, as it's one of the parts of the system that I personally am the most excited about.

Characters? In my Fantasy TTRPG? It's more likely than you think.

Characters in Prima Materia are a collection of statistics, narrative writing, and skills. - The PDF

We've already talked about some of the statistics that make up a character, being the Attributes and Skills, but this is one of the last things that goes into making a character. The first thing that you do when making a character is choosing a species. Each character also has an age, size, speed, and fine manipulators (Hands or hand-like appendages). They have unique traits based on what species they are as well, for example, Narud have an exoskeleton and thus natural armor. Ternaki are more resistant to diseases and poisons. Sepia can trick people into thinking they're objects. I think a fun way to talk about this would be to talk about how I made Dr Hugh Mann, the character that I'm currently using in playtesting. Dr Hugh Mann is, of course, a human. He gets all the goodies that humans get from being human. Actually, here's one of the unique traits that humans get because I think it's neat.

Social Creature: You may choose a creature with which you believe you have bonded. When taking a course of action to help or defend this creature, you gain a +2 modifier to rolls pertaining to that goal. During a short rest, you may socialize with this creature and gain an extra die to any one roll until your next short rest. You may change the creature with which you are bonded during a short rest.

Humans will pack bond with anything.

You then choose a profession, which is a suite of skills you can unlock over the course of the game. The current professions in the game are Alchemist, Magi, Martial Artist, Physician, Prophet, and Vessel. I'll talk about these in more detail in a future post; but a character's profession says a great deal about how they interact with the world. Dr Hugh Mann is, of course, a Physician.

After this, a background is chosen which gives you some more things to put on your character sheet. Dr Hugh Mann has the Carnie background, and this is where my imagination went off the deep end into backstory for him as a character.

Hugh, a he/him nonbinary human, traveled with a carnival for a while offering his Physician services both to the other performers and at a cheap rate for anyone who would come on stage with him during his performance. His act consists of dressing as his drag persona, Mel Praxis, and using his assistant (whom he may have just treated an hour ago) to engage in magic acts in which he pretends to cut them open with a scalpel and pull out, say, 100 feet of multicolored handkerchiefs that have been tied together end to end.

Mechanically, this means he has very good Medicine and Sleight of Hand skills, and while he's good at a few other things, he's fairly specialized into these skills at level 1, and there are several skills he is worse than bad at and will likely not improve much.

A few of my friends have also made characters that they really enjoy, including a Ternaki Alchemist who's in a self-imposed exile, and a Human Fusilier who worked mostly as a cook for their company.

Although the math and things are still being worked on to make the system work mechanically as intended, this is to me a very good sign. The system so far seems to make people excited about the character's they're making, and that was the foremost design goal.

As always, thanks for reading all this. Next week I'll will either be about combat or Ternaki lore (and mechanics). Contingent on whether I can playtest combat by next week.

I'm also working on a website where I can host the PDFs and some forms for playtesting, so that could be a thing soon! I was hoping to have it up today so I could release the Character Creation playtest with the Character Creation blog post but alas, technical issues ensued and things don't always work out the way I want them to.

[hapuriainen]

Hapuriainen's animation, comics & Games from 2024

Anime: Delicious in Dungeon, One Piece Fan Letter

The magical girl stuff: Wonderful Precure!, Heartcatch Precure!, Precure movies, Märchen Mädchen, Sasaki & Peeps, MahoAko, MahoAku, MahoNare, Acro Trip, Magilumiere, Samurai Flamenco

Manga: Shangri-la Frontier, Pokemon Adventures, How Do We Relationship, Vinland Saga, A Sign of Affection, A Sinner of the Deep Sea, Go with the Clouds North-by-Northwest, Enidewi, Is Reiroukan still alive?, A Kingdom of Quartz

Continuing: One Piece, Undead Unluck, My Hero Academia (end), Spy x Family, Frieren, Witch Hat Atelier.

The magical girl stuff: Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card, Shugo Chara Dream Joker, Magical Girl Dandelion, Mermaid Melody Aqua, Champignon Witch, Pretty Guardian Stress, Who Said Blues had to be Cool

Games: Zelda games (Adventure of Link, Majora's Mask, Four Swords, Four Swords Adventures, Minish Cap, Spirit Tracks, A Link between Worlds, Echoes of Wisdom), Pokemon Scarlet DLC, Animal Crossing New Horizons DLC, Ghost Trick. Unfinished: Some Pokemon BW2, Overcooked, Super Mario Wonder.

Movies: Elemental, Spy x Family Code White

Overall I think I watched very little animation that wasn't magical girls, and those have been extensively documented on the other blog. Dunmeshi and the second half of Frieren the only non-mahou anime I can remember, and I meant to watch many of the newer Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks movies but keep missing the chance and haven't even seen Wish yet. Hopefully next year will be better on this front, I do like magical girls but it's nice to branch out too.

The manga side had a bit more variation. I finished/caught up with several titles that were in the Humble Bundle set of award winning manga, but there's still plenty left. Vinland Saga is really good and I'm sad to see it go now that it's clearly about to end, Shangri-la is shallow as a puddle but good fun, and Sign of Affection is ok I guess but a bit bland. I also read a bunch of Harta/adjacent manga this year for the art and vibes.

Then I surprisingly started reading Pokemon Adventures, because I simply need to meet the manga version of Scarlet. I started from the beginning though and haven't even made it out of the Ruby/Sapphire arc yet so it's still a long way. So far I've been really happy with the writing of the female characters, but I hear the quality drops on that front after Platinum which makes me worried.

This year I've been quite the gamer because I played something other than one of the big Nintendo franchises I've been playing for years. Which is Ghost Trick and Overcooked, both of which were great. Mario Wonder is still in progress, it's a fun game but doesn't exactly have a gripping narrative, but I'll finish it for Daisy. Next year looks promising for game variety too since I bought a bunch of games from the Switch e-shop sale (and already finished Gris but that was in 2025).

For Pokemon I unexpectedly became a total hardcore player and voluntarily gave Protect to more than one mon. Ultimately getting into the competitive aspect is way too much upfront work with team building, but I feel I gained a lot of appreciation of the franchise in how there's some really complex mechanics under that kid friendly gameplay. And then I even got into the gotta catch 'em all aspect when I finally downloaded Pokemon Home and started filling my Dex, but that project is on pause right now since there's just no way I'll be able to get some of the rare/version exclusive mons. Also I found 3 shinies in like a week which still baffles me.

Best work: Echoes of Wisdom

Best music: Eow final boss final phase

Best visuals: One Piece Fan Letter, EniDewi

Best character design: Delicious in Dungeon in general

Best OP: Magilumiere (for the song)

Best ED: Samurai Flamenco ed1 is the one I most often didn't skip so I guess it wins, no real standouts this year

Biggest WTF: All those shinies in Pokemon. Also Mikau's death (in Majora's Mask) was really funny. The reveal of the painting in Ghost Trick was a great twist.

Best Girl: EoW Zelda, PokeSpe Sapphire for runner up

Best Boy: Thorfinn (Vinland Saga), Sissel (Ghost Trick) for second place

Best Side Girl: Hilda (a Link between Worlds)

Best Side Boy: Kieran, and also my Skeledirge! (Pokemon Scarlet)

Worst Girl: Lukia from Mermaid Melody Aqua

Worst Boy: This goes to Mermaid Melody Aqua too, forget his name but he sucks

Worst Side Girl: the other magical girl from MahoAku had a cute design but character wise was pretty worthless

Worst Side Boy: the one note big corporation boss from Magilumiere, those blue armoured freaks from Zelda 2 (assuming they're male)

Best romance: Elemental was ok, or alternatively SatoIro from Wonderful Precure

Best non-romantic relationship: I like what they did with EoW Link and Zelda but I'm not sure if I ship them

Worst romance: Lukia's drama from Mermaid Melody Aqua

Worst non-romantic relationship:

Plans for 2025:

Maybe it'll finally be the year of NGE? I should start keeping track of how many years I've been saying I'll watch Eva at some point…

Some anime that is not magical girls

Finish the backlog Precure seasons

Finish the backlog Zelda games

Wish, Inside Out 2, Wild Robot, Moana 2

The stuff from the Switch e shop sale

[devout-khajiit]

From the pop culture paganism section:

Does the fandom influence how you perceive or interact with your entity or PCP in any way?

What entity do you work with where you had to fill in the most blanks due to lack of canon information? (Excluding your discovered/unrecorded Princes, of course.)

From the pop culture witchcraft section:

What series is the hardest to write spells for?

What series/character/concept do you want to write a spell based on but you just can't quite figure out how to?

From the general/both section:

Is there a series you know very little about but still adore for PCP/PCW?

Are there some fandoms you'll touch PCP for but not PCW, or vice versa?

~Jasper

Aw man that's a lotta questions! Thank you! I love rambling [ munching on breakfast while answering ]

Does the fandom influence how you perceive or interact with your entity or PCP in any way?

A little bit - For a bit of context my only PCP series are Elder Scrolls (main, both Gods and Lesser Daedra), Touhou Project (which essentially is more hero worship than anything else though there are some Gods in series), and Pokémon (where the Legendaries/Mythicals are worshiped as gods and I invoke other Pokémon as helper spirits).

Elder Scrolls... not so much. Especially for the Daedric Princes. Some aspects of the fandom I do enjoy, but a lot of it is too shitposty to actually incorporate, or is so bad I wouldn't want to (ex. Dagoth Ur is racist to Argonians and Khajiit joke headcanon. I get that it's a joke but I would NOT want to consider Dagoth Ur being racist, you get me?)

Touhou is basically nothing but fandom inspired. Y'see, part of the pain of Touhou is most characters shows up like. once. PC-98 is even worse because they had barely any info given even back then, and now PC-98 is the "old canon" and is no longer canon to the rest of the series, so despite all the endless "Mima is coming back!" jokes, She's not coming back. So relying on the fandom and picking and choosing is a necessary - though I still heavily pick and choose because I don't like some headcanons (ex. s-word Sanae, masochist Tenshi, etc). But other headcanons very much do get ingrained, though with my belief system of "The entities came first" it's actually more appropriate to say I ask them if it's accurate or not then move forward lol. So headcanons can be likened to UPG in this case.

Pokémon is somewhere inbetween - We obviously have some lore through the Pokédex entries and for the Legendaries/Mythicals, their movies (plus one for Lucario lol), but I still need to rely on some fandom ideas for Pokémon to really succeed.

Long answer, but it's a bit much to explain!

What entity do you work with where you had to fill in the most blanks due to lack of canon information? (Excluding your discovered/unrecorded Princes, of course.)

Currently, Ithelia and a vast majority of Touhous. Ithelia was just introduced into the canon, so there's barely any lore for Her beyond some basics. Unlike the rest of the Princes, who had a few games to build some lore and some outside info like books and stories, Ithelia was just introduced in ESO. She may play a part in TESVI, but who knows when THAT'S gonna come out, and if She'll even be there.

As well, pretty much a vast majority of Touhous, especially the PC-98s that didn't migrate (Yuuka Kazami, Alice Margatroid, and of course the two main protags, Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame are the only ones who did).

Speaking of, I really do debate making devout-of-the-elder-scrolls sister blogs for Touhou and Pokémon respectively, but I don't think I will for now. Especially because the blog that does exist exists because TES is my main focus, not just because I do it. It seems fun though. Hence why I debate on it. It'd be a bit weird to be a Khajiit in a Touhou world though, there's no anthros, only anime girls (and Rinnosuke and Unzan). For now, I think it'll be delegated to this blog unless I begin making quick starts for Touhous and Pokémon... which does sound EXTREMELY appetizing, hold on.

What series is the hardest to write spells for?

Interestingly, it's probably TES. Pokémon you can base it off the moves, Touhou I have like 15 different ideas sitting in my "spells to make" part of my spelltome, but TES? I got nothing.

I think part of what makes it so difficult for me personally is I wanna focus so much on the in-universe magic schools, but translating them into our world spells just does not come to me easily.

What series/character/concept do you want to write a spell based on but you just can't quite figure out how to?

I really wanna turn the Destruction School of TES into baneful magic because I think it'd be fun. But like I said above, translating TES into this world spells just isn't working out.

There's also a few PC-98s I dunno what to do for because in Windows Era (current era), they each are assigned a skill/ability, that I can base spells off of - Such as Chimata Tenkyuu's ability being that she can magically relinquish ownership of an object to another owner because Her whole thing is She runs a trading market and was the Stage 6 (Final Stage) Boss for Unconnected Marketeers. Super easy to base a spell off that for me!

Is there a series you know very little about but still adore for PCP/PCW?

Not particularly - Most of my PCP/PCW focuses on sources I know very well, of which the three I do also happen to be special interests of mine that consume my every day life lmao. I don't think I'd be able to perform PCP especially for a series that didn't invoke a lot of emotion within me. I think it'd just end up getting casted to the wayside and while I know the entities don't really care that much, I feel a bit bad when that happens! Even though my work style focuses and hinges on switching through people as I feel I need them or them approaching me being like "I can help with that!"

Though, I support all PCP/PCW... so I guess that counts, just not for me personally lol

Are there some fandoms you'll touch PCP for but not PCW, or vice versa?

Again, a not particularly, for basically the same reason above. I touch these series for PCP/PCW because I love them very, very deeply. And even if TES gives me a hard time in the PCW sector, I'm still learning Daedric magic from Lady Mephala and Liege Hermorah, so I'd say that still counts enough to be "I am touching TES PCW".

I do touch TES PCP a lot more than I touch Touhou PCP and Pokémon PCP, but that's just by happenstance and because TES resonates the most with me for the case of a religion, probably because in source it IS a religion. I want to get more into each of these PCPs, as well. I generally need to grasp hero worship better for Touhou. (Maybe I should make a sideblog for it to encourage me more. I've been doing Touhou PCP and Pokémon PCP since the same time as TES, it's just not my focus so it gets casted to the side lol.)

Thanks as always for the questions, and thanks for the chance to ramble, Jasper! Have a great day!

[andymakesgames]

Andy's 2024 Year in Review

I tend to work on a lot of small projects with a smattering of larger ones mixed in. Often I end the year thinking I didn't do all that much, but then I start going through my posts and realize that I did more than I thought! Hard to believe that stuff I did last January was this year!

I've fallen out of the habit of doing these year-in-review posts, which is a shame, but I'm turning that around right now! Here's a quick look at all the things I made last year.

EMMA

Probably the biggest thing for me is another successful year of the coop I'm a part of, EMMA Technology Cooperative. After a somewhat tough 2023, we bounced back this year. Seeing us survive a lean time and watching the coffers refill in the past year really drove home the value of organizing around cooperation as opposed to infinite growth. And if you're reading this and in need of a creative technologist, please drop us a line!

Taper - January

A the start of this year I was on the editorial board of Taper, online literary journal for computational poetry. I only assisted with one issue (which I also contributed to!) but it was a very new experience for me and I'm happy I could be a part of it!

A few years ago I kind of stumbled into the occasional piece of digital poetry without ever realizing. I was doing a literal poetry reading when I realized that I write poems from time to time. It's very fun that my practice occasionally pulls me in unexpected directions.

MAGFest - January

Every year, we bring all of the games in the Arcade Commons collection to the Music and Games Festival just outside of Washington DC. It is our biggest show of the year by a mile and I love it every time. There is a DIY spirit to MAGFest that really sets it apart from any other con I've been to. We're well underway for 2025 as I write this. As I frequently do, I emceed a bunch of our tournaments.

The Algorithm - February

What a fun project this was! Alia ElKattan and Lujain Ibrahim contacted me about their Mozilla Foundation-funded project to explain how algorithmic feeds work. I created modular P5JS animations to serve as the "content" for their app.

They found me via the P5 tweetcarts I had been posting during the pandemic. I got to explore some of those same ideas without the super tight character restrictions.

Check it out here.

EMMA Skillshare - March

I did a small workshop on getting PICO-8 to communicate with Javascript. This was the basis for my project Pico Pond which I wrote about on the EMMA Blog.

This skillshare took those ideas and presented them in a livestream, which you can watch here.

Our Generation - May

I was contacted by Nick Montfort to submit a piece of computer generated poetry for a small-run book called Our Generation: Programs + Computer-Generated Texts. I channeled my inner Jenny Holzer for this and really enjoyed it. The full src appears at the top of the page and it was interesting to factor that in to make sure the output exactly filled the page. I keep thinking it would be fun to do a series using this size restriction but I haven't done it yet.

You can see my full page here.

Tastebud Tapdancer - May

You've been swallowed by a giant serpent but you're trying to make the best of it.

A little video game with a source code of just 500 characters! Made for TweetTweetJam 9 You can play it here.

The Indomitable Rocket Dog - June

Around this point in the year is where I started working on my current project, The Indomitable Rocket Dog. I'm enjoying this game so much. I haven't made a real twitchy arcade game since PARTICLE MACE, which just celebrated its 10th birthday. It is still very early but I feel really good about this one!

After MAGFest 2024 I was percolating on physics-y arcade games mostly because I am so deeply in love with Hoverburger by Nick Santaniello. Before I knew it my love of N++ was mixed in there as well.

I'm writing all of my own physics in C++ because I had a vague sense of how I want it to feel and it's a hobby project so I can do what I want.

I've been documenting my development on it in a mastodon thread.

Isabelle Poppy And Bling - August

OK, this one isn't new at all! This is a flash game I made in 2009 for musician Justin Braun. But this year I got it playable on the web again!

Like so many game developers my age, I got my start with Macromedia Flash. This game felt like the culmination of my style at the time, which was heavily influenced by Animutation. I was starting to be more deliberate with my collage style as opposed to aiming for totally random elements. I think I got paid $600 for it, which felt huge at the time.

1K Pac-Man - September

Another size coded game. This time it's as faithful a recreation of Pac-Man as I could muster in 1024 bytes of source code. All of the ghost logic is accurate to the original!

You can play it here. I'm very pleased with the mouth animation.

I made it for PICK-1K Jam 2024. I do wish I had read the page a little more carefully though. The jam required compressed source to be 1024 bytes and I did raw source. The game is only 723 compressed bytes so I had a lot of room to expand, but by the time I realized that I had painstakingly trimmed and optimized my code and I couldn't imagine untangling it. Oops.

Cloud Gobblers - November

Arcade Commons received a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council to create an arcade machine showing a collection of games that incorporate weather data into the gameplay. EMMA was commissioned to make one of the games. Cloud Gobblers is a snake-style game where the playfield is a video satellite field of global cloud coverage over a period of 48 hours.

This was the first time all of the members of EMMA worked together on one project!

Three Tapestries - October

I didn't make many pen plotter drawings this year, but I really liked this one. You can see the full thing here.

It's currently still available in my shop! Until somebody buys it it will be hanging on the wall in my office.

Lever Up Jam - December

Back in 2021, I worked with Matt Lepage on an alt-control game jam called Jam Jam Revolution. We prepped a parts list so all participants could build the same controller and make games for it. This year we decided to dust off that idea with the Lever Up Jam. This time there will be a full-sized cabinet at MAGFest that the games can be played on!

My favorite TweetCarts / Postcarts This Year

I no longer use Twitter, but I have been making the occasional tweetcart (a PICO-8 sketch with source code 280 bytes or less) and posting them on tumblr and mastodon. But there was an exciting development towards the end of the year! Lexaloffle, the creator of Pico-8 created a section on the BBS for 300 char or less "Postcarts", so we now have a centralized home for these little byte-sized demos.

Here are three of my favorite postcarts that I made this year:

Spinning Cube v3 - April

p=pset::_::cls()for i=0,99do u=0s=i/4+t()/5x=64+sin(s)*39a=64+sin(s+.25)*39y=39+cos(s)*9b=39+cos(s+.25)*9line(x,y,a,b,6)for k=0,99do if x>a and i<4and k<50then line(x,y+k,a,b+k,k>48and 7or 9+i)p(x,y+k,7)p(a,b+k)end v=pget(i,k)u+=v if(v>6)break if(u>0)p(i,k,8)end end flip()goto _

Big year for making things spin. You can check out my tumblr post to see all my attempts at perfecting this spinning cube. The outlines were the real cherry on top for me.

Balatro Spinning Card - May

a=abs::_::cls()e=t()for r=0,46do for p=0,1,.025do j=sin(e)*20k=cos(e)*5f=1-p h=a(17-p*34)v=a(23-r)c=1+min(23-v,17-h)%5/3\1*6u=(r-1)/80z=a(p-.2)if(e%1<.5)c=a(r-5)<5and z<u+.03and(r==5or z>u)and 8or 8-sgn(h+v-9)/2 g=r+39pset((64+j)*p+(64-j)*f,(g+k)*p+(g-k)*f,c)end end flip()goto _

This was so hard to make! I can't believe I did it. I wrote a giant writeup breaking down the 279 byte source code on the EMMA blog.

Fuji - October

pal({7,12,140,13,129,1,5,8,8,14,142,143,7},1)r=rnd::_::x=r(128)y=r(128)c=9+y/26-2+r(1.5) if(y<((x+40)/6)^1.6and y<((178-x)/6)^1.6and y<79+r(2))c=2.5-sgn(y-45-sin(x/21)*r(4))*1.5+r(2.5-sgn(x-69-r(8)-y/3+25)*.7) pset(x,128-y,c)a=r(1)d=r(25)pset(28+sin(a)*d,30+cos(a)*d,9)goto _

I made this during some downtime on a vacation to Japan. I was hoping to see Fuji the next day and the clouds wound up being kind to us, giving an amazing view.

I almost never make representational art and I was really happy with how this turned out.

That's it! I hope you all have a great 2025!

[local-idiotic-texan]

epic intro 2012 ✔️🎁

LAST UPDATED: 3 DECEMBER, 2024

HI. My name is Wise!!

You can also call me Local. Either one works because this is Tumblr. :) I WAS BORN ON JANUARY 19, 2009!!! BARACK OBAMA GOT INAUGURATED LITERALLY THE DAY AFTER I WAS BORN!! :D

Pronouns are he/him, xe/xim, and they/them!! Though I am CISMale so.. yeaaahhhh!! :D I'm gay and autistic!! With some depression thrown in for spice, ooh!

I'M FROM AMERICA AND USE CST!! AKA CHICAGO TIME!! HI!! I'M ALSO IN-FACT, FROM TEXAS!! ^^

—

These accounts are ones I own!! YEAAA!! :D

@ask-site-61 [ACTIVE!]

AND THESE ARE SOME PROJECTS I'M MAKING!! -

Site-61 - SCP AU circa. 2018 about a Site up in a Mountain in Iceland where people commit atrocities to one another.

Suicide Hotel - 1950s American Psychological Horror? Based off an animation I saw in Winter 2022. Currently being planned for "RENOVATED"!!

—

I have multiple disorders and probably a LOT more but here's all of my issues:

DIAGNOSED:

- Autism (Asperger's Diagnosis)

- ADHD

- Depression

- Chronic Insomnia? (Medicated on melatonin for something like that, but I don't take it because I'm sure it's fine tbh!!)

- Shortsighted Vision

UNDIAGNOSED BECAUSE I WOULD BE THROWN INTO A MENTAL HOSPITAL FOR THIS:

- Intrusive Thoughts

- Suicidal Thoughts

- Peripheral Visionary Hallucinations

NOT DIAGNOSED BUT SUSPECTED:

- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (phlegm specifically)

- General Memory and/or Cognitive Issues (some days I forget how to write, others I can't remember anything anyone is telling me even DURING conversations.)

- Medicated Eating Disorder (Adderall sucks dude why the fuck am I full I'M STILL HUNGRY STOP MAKING ME WANNA THROW UP UGHRHRNJDJ)

FAMILY HISTORY (likely to receive more of or inherit in life):

- Vital Organ Complications (specifically heart and lungs)

- Mental Illness (Schizophrenia, Bipolar, Learning Disorders, etc.)

- Diabetes (T2)

- Blindness (already have!!)

BUT I'M NOT A DOWNER I SWEAR I'M REALLY FUN TO BE AROUND AND TALK TO AND BE FRIENDS WITH PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BE MY FRIEND!! HERE'S MORE REASONS WHYY :(

I!!! HAVE!! FANDOMS!! I HAVE FANDOMS!! YAH.

HERE'S THE ONES I'M MOST ACTIVE IN. AS OF RN. :3

- SCP Foundation (2017)

UHH THAT'S IT. yeahhh December and November sucked for everyone but me so I just retreated to my characters...

I ALSO!! HAVE A GOOD MUSIC TASTE.

- Mitski (Carry Me Out)

- Heathers (Shine A Light!)

- Mean Girls (Revenge Party!)

- Penelope Scott (SPIRIT)

- Lemon Demon (Spring-Heeled Jack)

- MARINA (Venus Flytrap)

- Mother Mother (Aspiring Fires)

- Tally Hall (You & Me)

- Miracle Musical (Intro the The Snow)

- Madame Macabre (Toby)

- Jack Stauber (Leopard)

- Franz Ferdinand (Come On Home)

- SODIKKEN (REDMAGEDDON)

- JerryTerry (Kiss Me (Kill Me))

- Tikkle Me (Glockenspiel)

- Portal (Cara Mia, Addio! / On Your Own)

- They Might Be Giants! (Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love!)

- A Fever You Can't Sweat Out! (These Tables are Numbered for a Good Reason, Honey. You Just Haven't Figured It Out Yet!)

- Dazey & The Scouts (Sweet CIS Teen)

- Louie Zong (Miku Quartet)

- Sushi Soucy (L.O.V.E.)

- Heavenly (Escort Crash on Marston Street)

- TV Girl (Valarie)

- Pomplamoose (Who Cares?)

- TLT (Die in a Fire)

- TWRP (HTMLOVE)

OKAY THAT'S WHERE USEFUL INFO ENDS!!

I do voice acting, art, and writing on the side!! LET'S BE FRIENDS PLEASE I WANNA BE SO SILLY I WANNA RUN AROUND YOU LIKE A LITTLE RAT AND THEN TELL YOU THAT YOUR ART LOOKS LIKE A PASTA DE LA CREME!!

Feel free to message me on Discord!! (With context of course!! I will be blocking anyone who crosses my boundaries or is just unpleasant though.): TheWiseGuest !! :D

The rest of this post is trivia. =]

Fandoms I was in but am no longer active in:

- Angry Birds (2010 to 2018)

- Minecraft (2012 to 2016 / 2019 to 2024)

- ROBLOX (TheWiseGuest76) (2016 to 2024)

- Criminal Case (2012 to 2023)

- Coraline (Reoccurring)

- Five Nights at Freddy's!! (2014 to 2023)

- A Blue's Clues Christmas! (I SWEAR IT EXISTS.)

- The Nightmare Before Christmas (Reoccurring)

- Corpse Bride (Reoccurring)

- Plants vs. Zombies (2013 to 2018, reoccuring.)

- Creepypasta? (2015? I guess? Idk I watch them though.)

- The Amazing Digital Circus (2023)

- Undertale & Deltarune (2018 & 2021)

- L4D (c. 2011)

- Miis (c. 2018)

- The Walten Files (c. 2020)

- HTF (c. 2011)

- ASOUE (c. 2017)

- DHMIS (c. 2020)

- BugBo (c. 2023)

- The Good Place (c. 2016)

- Grey's Anatomy (c. 2022)

- ENA (c. 2020)

- ARGS (c. 2020)

- Eddsworld (c. 2018)

- Total Drama (c. 2022)

- Happy Meat Farms (c. 2022)

- I SURVIVED (c. 2018)

- Object Show Community (c. 2017)

[chaikachi]

Hi, Chai! I've been following you for a bit, mostly for the RG content, and I've recently seen you talk about your other non-RWBY interests when I realized that I'm really curious on what other media do you like? (Be it shows, movies, music, games, books, etc.)

Oughh this is a very good question. I'll put them under a read more cause I have a feeling I took this question too literally and it might get just a little bit long because of that. 💦

I'm generally very passive with the media I consume and only draw as much RWBY as I do because RG has had me in a vice grip since V8E1 and isn't letting go anytime soon. 💀 But I do engage with lots of other stuff too! This isn't an exhaustive list, just ones I like lots or re-watch often enough.

Anime

I probably watch this stuff more than anything else. My favourite of all time is probably The Eccentric Family, both seasons. The art direction and the messages of the story just hit very hard for me and I re-watch it pretty much every year. My second favourite is Kekkai Sensen (i prefer the first over second season as they switch directors).

As for others enjoy:

Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood

Silver Spoon

Yona of the Dawn

Snow White with the Red Hair

Kyousogiga (recommend if you liked Kekkai Sensen)

A Lull in the Sea

Chaika the Coffin Princess [Now why does that name sound so familiar 🤔]

Anohana

Been really enjoying this season's shows and am looking forward to the Winter 2024 lineup (Dungeon Meshi and Yubisaki to Renren at the same time!!)

Shows

Dragon Prince

The Owl House

Good Omens

Games

Nier (2010),

Transistor

Pyre

Zelda Series (Ocarina of Time & Spirit Tracks are my favourites)

Nier: Automata

Honorary mentions to Grand Chase (an old MMO i used to be obsessed with), Avalon Code (a niche DS game that I really liked), Fire Emblem Awakening (a classic) and Animal Crossing (that I played like it was my day job in 2020).

Movies

Can only think of two live actions and the rest are animated/anime 😭

Stardust

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Howl's Moving Castle

HTTYD (1 & 2)

Kubo and the Two Strings

The Wind Rises

From Up on Poppy Hill

Penguin Highway

Books

I don't read as much as I did when I was a kid, but my top three are probably Runemarks, Howl's Moving Castle, and Stardust (I like the last two a lot because I liked their movies).

Webcomics

Used to be really into these and wanted to write my own before Webtoon kinda... gentrified the entire industry. But hey, I can still talk about some of my favourites!

Shaderunners (queer heist in a roaring 20sish setting)

Witchy (queer south East Asian inspired fantasy adventure)

Kochab (sapphic story between a skier that gets lost and meets a fire spirit I think? It's final updates are going up this month!)

Lady of the Shard (all time favourite. queer polyam lovestory between a goddess and her acolyte. Complete. I reread it every year, I love it so much. The rest of the authors work is also great, you might know them from Cucumber Quest).

Then lastly...

Music

I mostly listen to indie/folk more than anything else, with a bit of jazz/R&B thrown in for flavour. Favourite artists are probably:

San Fermin

Flock of Dimes/Wye Oak

Of Monsters & Men

Maggie Rogers

Florence & the Machine

Paper Kites

Matthew and the Atlas

Halsey

This list obviously isn't exhaustive because I have the memory of a goldfish but those are the highlights that came to mind at least.

Sorry for the long list, but thank you for the question!! It was fun to put all these in one place.

[blackberry-command-cap]

intro (as of October 2024) :||

Pertinent information about me:

Call me Blackberry <3

She/her and a LEGAL ADULT as of this month 🧀🧀

Improving from what is probably burnout and also mild depression

I doodle a lot. Sometimes I draw comics. I don't do fancy art or writing bc it takes too much patience. I take a lot of screenshots of my SWTOR babies :D besides that I'm just around

That one screechy death ginger who got 4 minutes of screen time in The Force Awakens? I deeply relate to him (tag)

I have a few OCs which are more memes than actual characters but oh well (character page)

I'm Christian and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Posts related to that are tagged #spiritual stuff or #church stuff

I like to talk about my interests but don't want to bore ppl so if you want to hear more about something interactions and asks are always welcome! (plz talk to me)

Less pertinent information about me:

I like to play D&D and Mario Kart

I read a ridiculous amount when I was younger and have a complicated relationship with a number of YA series, including Divergent and (sigh) Twilight which I am happy to yap about if prompted

Mumbo Jumbo is my spirit animal (though I haven't watched him in years)

I am an ambiverted ENTP-T with the Rebel tendency (from the Four Tendencies framework, highly recommend but BOY does it stink to be a Rebel)

My brain does math really well but it sucks at writing (also social stuff. not really a good deal tbh I want my money back)

I like suits and I hate wearing skirts

my ideal sleep schedule is roughly 8 pm to 4 am - we're trying to get there but it's hard

Tagging is pretty disorganized but I try :/

Me talking: #bb thoughts, #bb thinkings, #bb complains etc.

#i need a hux tag - the man himself 🤭🤭 I can't asd;fkjasldfj\

#oc: worst sith ever (+anxiety) - my current favorite SWTOR blorbo <3

other Character tags are on my character page

Self explanatory: #my doodles, #real life stuff, #unprompted sw thoughts, #unprompted swtor thoughts, #fun stuff

#church stuff - posts related to my church's (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) culture or doctrine, or generally organized religion

#spiritual stuff - posts not specifically about organized religion but still religious in nature, referencing God etc.

Reblog tags

#cool art 👍🏼 - art that strikes me or has a particularly good vibe (because it's pretty)

#lore and analysis - any post where someone has typed out their thoughts, headcanons, explanations, whatever in a big block of text

#crack/memes (don't worry abt it) - memes, text posts, s***posts, etc.

[agentangeles]

hello everyone please enjoy the first post i've made in my writing blog in easily 6 months and it's just to yell about the fucking center venn diagram point for two big fixations

now you might be wondering "angeles when you start moving towards other fandoms will you still be nootboots" and the answer is yes, its my brand, but also ace attorney has a fucking vice grip on my neurodivergent mentally ill ass

as a side note i am too much of an idiot to remember to read the manga but i know Points Of Interest and when I can sit for a good bit and consume it I will, so bear with my anime main knowledge

Anyways consider the concept of family clans in JJK and the Sahdmadhis and their shit in SOJ. Obviously, we see how shit happened with maki her sister and how that works, and clearly the clans are structured differently depending on the family (what the fuck is going on with gojo. love that funky little manic twink but. What.)

And yes, AA and JJK get to hold hands because of Higuruma, which means I now get to think of both of them and daydream about crossovers, and y'know what? In the JJK verse, you can reasonably explain so much shit, especially w/ Khurai'inism and bloodlines, because Khura'in's designated holy figure being a super cool badass hundreds of years ago with an equally badass sister? Sorcerers who kicked ass. Hella sorcerers who kicked ass. would be special grades without a doubt if they were alive today.

and like cursed techniques having genetic tie ins ALSO FUCKING SLAPS because that's a huge factor! you can also explain why the feys and the sahdmadhis have spirit channeling because *it's the same fucking bloodline* and it's not a stretch to say someone was kicked out of the clan, fucked off, and then those traits started popping up again in later generations

that aside, clan hierarchy also gives a nice port over from an actual extra country that capcom decided now exists, because instead of a ruling kingdom family it's a Big Fucking Clan With A Lot Of Weight To It

(And also makes sense then why when the revolution starts up, nobody steps in to do shit. interfering with another clan's family drama? no fucking thank you. not my paygrade.)

also i just think nahyuta would be really fun as a sorcerer and their rosary beads would DEFINITELY be a weapon for cursed spirits and their title as "last rites prosecutor" would doubly fuck

Unrelated to SOJ but still on the AA train, this also means that Simon Blackquill is just. Always busting out cursed techniques. And since nobody can see it they think he just slices shit with his fingers. And that's fucking hilarious to think about, the idea that someone probably got after him for it and he went "Consider this though: who is going to ask questions with the everything else i have going on", because Simon "Definitely Uses The >:3c Emoji When He Is Texting" Blackquill refuses to fucking listen to people.

"You're going to expose sorcerer society to the masses" Wrong. Everyone is going to think he can cut shit with his fingers because he's a scary samurai man who went to prison for murder and clearly this is something that tracks for that persona.

[yurisorcerer]

I don't have a lot to say about this, especially not anything tons of other people haven't said already. I like it and think it's pretty fun, except for the one obvious thing that isn't.

Which, to be honest, I don't want to dwell on in this post because I am not in the state of mind to write a delicate and well-considered thesis on the issue of using sexual assault as the stock Bad Thing That Happens To Girl, even accounting for the extent to which this show is clearly occupied with sex and gender as a theme.

To be honest, I think a lot of the appeal here actually just lies in how gonzo and generally out-there the subject matter is, having spirits in battle shonen is nothing new but the urban legends + aliens in a blender approach is fairly novel for this genre. It's very bizarre in a clearly very deliberate way, and as someone who used to read books called things like "Monsters, Giants, and Little Green Men From Mars" as a kid I don't want to discount how interesting it can be applied to something like this. But I do think that once you cut through that, what you're left with here is a pretty good and stylish action anime. Of the two of those I'm watching this season, I think Mecha-Ude might just edge this out for me (at least for now) but they're close. I like the main characters and they've got some great banter just in these two episodes. Also the soundtrack is killer, especially the ending theme, provided by my favorite band, ZUTOMAYO.

Somewhat snarky sidebar: I do wonder how all the people who kept making annoying comments about how "THIS is how the Chainsaw Man anime should have looked!!!" because of the lack of any CGI in the trailer are feeling after episode 2. I didn't really mind, but those people tend to be fickle.