#and it’s documented on my blog! so i know its not something i just made up

[minerwarfare-suzuya]

Ask box response

This post is a follow up to the previous reblog post to update what's going between me and Cagney alongside other associates in the group that I have departed from a while back.

During the afternoon I just received a response from one of the group members yesterday which I will respectfully keep anonymous but I think only a handful of people will know who it is regardless of the edited screenshot when reading further on this post.

We'll be taking this interaction step by step to construct some criticisms, make statements and opinions of the overall message.

Here's the first half of the message sent to my inbox:

One thing to clarify is that I'm not being dense when I know that the group and you included, tend to nitpick at a lot of things. I was aware prior to what were the few reasons for being cut off before the announcement of my departure given the tension between the group conversations in the private community.

Now that's not to say that there wasn't a good point made for kicking me out!

Especially given the number 1 point made on your list.

1. I won't lie that giving away crucial details and conversations within screenshots was something I did totally out of left field. I knew that it was against the community's group protocol which I did get chewed out for showing the screenshots to Zombify.

But-

If I had not gone back and forth between two groups then I wouldn't have been given crucial details from Blurry's end about him doing a Cease and Desist order onto the Moboxcritique/TheGoldFiles Blog along with Kevonica being the primary suspect of quote on quote "Harassment" or "Defamation". Meaning that if Blurry had sent you a Cease and Desist letter, you'd be given a warning and restricted from posting on the blog that mentions him which would've led to possibly going to court/legal actions if you had gone any further with the drama to criticize him more. Then there's a possibility that the blog as a whole would've been taken down prior to its deactivation if Blurry did go to court with Kevonica and the blog given how much he'd get the judge and the jury to side with him regardless of what was put against him on the Moboxcritique blog's documents, posts or archives to justify your actions from calling him out.

So, yes I fucked up in leaking the group's conversation but at a cost of knowing about the Cease and Desist order ahead of time until a mutual agreement was made to keep the Blurry drama under the rug.

Then of course, I shared this post revealing a recorded conversation between Anonymous123maybe/Tammy Tuna and Miles to show that Miles never changed. This was another thing I got chewed out for publicly sharing but it was from Kevonica this time.

But did Anonymous123maybe/Tammy Tuna mind?

No

Plus, Miles only proved our suspicions correct.

2. I don't know why you need to rub it in that you and the group you're associated with have been victims of abuse when I've been through a mentally abusive relationship prior. It's not a competition or comparison to be made and I can understand that we can all take a stand in getting ourselves out of abuse and have it be known or unknown. Either way, if this is a complaint for being in defense for Piaojun's artwork of William x Renata in our chats together or on my "Parting Ways" post then I don't wanna hear it but even if it's not. Then it's likely about my other post discussing the themes of Mobox87's art work.

So, let me put it out there as simple as I can get. On my draft script post "Understanding", we talked about domestic abuse being an often taboo theme projected in Mobox87's stories and visual illustrations. The key important details mentioned are what likely inspired her and how it's become a progressive cycle that it feels romanticized but most importantly that it's a sensitive topic that can still work with storytelling.

We can all agree that Mobox87 always makes the abuser superior in a majority of her stories and I get that in this harsh reality that it is true the victims tend to lose or not survive from domestic abuse but when it's a constant visual being shown with each different story variation told. It gets bothersome to the viewer and you question the morality of the person behind the story. So, it's completely understandable to be critical about it. Now for the theme of that to work in a story, you wanna project it in a way where it can appeal to the audience. Such as the victim surviving or getting out of the situation. Other cases would be showing the victim getting some moral support through the trauma of abuse.

I know that I mentioned the episode "Mad Love" from the 1997 "The New Batman Adventures" series, a follow show to "Batman The Animated Series" from 1992. I go over how Harley Quinn's relationship with The Joker and how it projects the abusive relationship very well to the audience as a way to educate the consequences of what happens between the abuser and the victim or a toxic relationship. Heck we even see in the Harley Quinn show that she practically leaves Joker after realizing she was only being used. Another good example would be in the show Steven Universe on the episode "Alone at Sea". Where Lapis tells Jasper that she doesn't want to be a part of their unhealthy relationship anymore which if you're aware of them being fused together under the ocean for a long time from watching previous episodes you'll get why she doesn't wanna go back and that projected the importance of asserting boundaries and leaving when someone is abusive towards you.

Anyways, let me rewind things back to "Romanticized abuse with your strange takes upon things". I wanna make this clear I DON'T romanticize abuse and you know DAMN well that I don't when I've made it clear on a few occasions when you shit talk about Piaojun behind their back that they have no intentions of wanting to project the characters William and Renata the way Mobox87 has done. Even if they did have, it was illustrations projected to tell it's story purposes between the characters crucial fate of relationships departing. Like I get the idea you don't like the ship and the same can be said with a bunch of other people in or outside your group but don't ever drag your battles upon someone else who doesn't wanna associate with the drama. Let alone DON'T BITCH about what someone is doing between two characters who they clearly want to change from their original story for the better. You don't dictate what others can or cannot do in art especially if that person is doing their own thing. If you can't agree with that then FUCK OFF. I have my own morals and mutual understanding that are common sense. I'm not going to judge someone and make publicity about it unless necessary. You should know better. YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE ARTIST'S VISIONS AND DECISIONS THEY MAKE! Yes you can be critical but there's a limit and you are pushing it to your own judgements that are opinionative. So, get over it. No one does that to your own work and if people have then your just projecting that negativity onto others.

3. So, I wanna mention that YES I did force Cagney to reblog my post because I simply wanted a favor and if you or anyone had read the post "Parting Ways" you'd understand how frustrating it was to get them to post it. Like honestly you of all people should know that I've been supporting Cagney and Patty when I got involved in this drama when you reached out.

I literally reblogged posts when it came to talking about Mobox87, Nicole, Mobox87's brother SonicCrash, The FON game's process of dealing with its supposed virus issues, Mobox87's sales prices, Mobox87's harassment and especially topics about Miles! I shared heavy amounts of criticisms and gave out my opinion on things that Cagney would publicly post about while they gained more attention for it! So when I asked for the favor to help me with the situation about Arion the Kid/Blue's Journey that I was gonna go over with Red Radiant and others who were victims. I expected some help but instead I got the short end of the stick because-

Cagney didn't want to reblog my post or take part in it when it's about someone who is known in this Mobox87 community on the app "Amino" for sexually harassment minors who has continue to do so to this day on Discord!

Cagney and likely you along with the other associates would rather talk about petty SHIT involving Mobox87's comic series development or about Blurry's artwork than take on something far bigger and serious to discuss! I practically needed to force Cagney to reblog my post because I literally begged for it which resulted in Red Radiant and Andikai needing to back me up for wanting the Arion situation to be known!

Why should I have to be in a position where I'm like Oliver Twist begging for more food when it comes to a favor after I stick my FUCKEN neck out for you guys on drama topics!

Like-

How the fuck does Mobox87. A person we know who is controversial for a lot of things went out of her way to share a post about Arion?

https://www.tumblr.com/red-the-radiant-official/708998004953202688/hey-remember-that-guy-who-sent-you-those?source=share

Take note! She knew about this person long ago because I told her about them after she had a run in with them disturbing her Amino community back in 2019 when I used to moderate on her community!

Like yeah I get that it's one post she made in regards to the situation but you'd think that someone in Cagney's position. They would drag onto talk about this topic of Arion's manipulation and harassment like they do with other topics but-

No!

Instead they would rather talk about something petty and nitpick at the smallest issues because they were scared of being impersonated then went on hiatus after people misinterpreted their blog post about Piaojun. Just to only see that the rebranded blog "TheGoldFiles" now deactivated after months passing by.

Honestly, a lot would've benefited if they helped out more and kept pushing on talking about Arion as much as I did. Things would've been easier but instead I had to go out of my way to spread awareness of him following people on Tumblr in the Mobox87's fanbase when doing my document timeline.

https://www.tumblr.com/minerwarfare-suzuya/755834695937327104/just-confirm-with-you-all-that-i-have-police?source=share

Plus, I told Kevonica directly so that she would know.

You'd think at that point, Cagney would really need to touch up on the Arion topic by now but NO! Nothing said when brought to Kev's attention despite Cagney going on a hiatus.

I guess fuck awareness on a pedophile following people under our noses. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

4. Okay... Now you're just poking the bear at this point and I wouldn't be surprised if you or someone in the group was the one who sent this anonymous message onto the second blog awhile back.

This topic about aging up a character is known to be a mixed opinion or controversial to some people. So, I'm just going to say this.

Like if an artist (like myself) made fanart of a character aged up preferably for a new narrative or head canon story and it's deemed not okay.

Then this isn't okay.

Now you're probably going to say this-

"Oh but it's not the same because the creator made them underage, you can't age them up cause it's not canon!"

My brother in Christ! You are delusional cause the creators themselves might as well catch a heat over aging their own characters. Quit complaining about fanon artists or illustrators for making their own ideas on a character as adults in their fanfiction for their changes in character development.

This is an exact argument I had with Miles about the Vinsnake drawing last year!

https://www.tumblr.com/minerwarfare-suzuya/732636849810669568/miles-ownership-drama-timeline-part-5?source=share

But oh wait!-

That's not the issue!

Yeah, apparently you and the group were "uncomfy" with the Affinity remake's rewrite since the characters were "sexualized".

Yeah cause it's MY remake and I draw attractive Men and Women. Deal with it! I've been developing and pre-establishing the story for a long time with it's characters who are still undergoing redesigns as my surviving casts and designing characters with mature designs suitable for what I pictured best in FNAF Affinity that Mobox87 made a mess out of when it came to ages and over all looks.

Plus!

It's been pinned on my second blog that my remake is going to be meant for older teens and adults with WARNINGS before reading! So, I am taking precaution!

So, if you consider it strange without realizing I've planned things two steps ahead then maybe YOU'RE THE PROBLEM.

The second half of the inbox message:

5. ...

Okay! How FUCKEN dare you stoop that low! That is full on low blow! This part in particular is what has me really up my ego!

How dare you compare Red to Arion! Red is a victim of his harassment over the years that has gone by! Which had been ongoing still during this year in 2024 so far!

Comparing the person who I'm representing online and to police for not just himself but for others online that have been harassed, groomed, blackmailed, impersonated, manipulated, traumatized and mentally abused to a FUCKEN Pedophile! A pedophile that Cagney doesn't have the balls to callout or constantly post about throughout everything that has happened to Red, me and the likes of others online!

You wanna compare Red to Arion? Just because of a character Red has developed and been in talks with me about being added into my Affinity remake with his story restructured to fit in with my own interpretation when I'm directing and producing FNAF Affinity the way I want it? Fuck You!

Like legit Fuck You! You don't even know what we have been dealing with and what we have been documenting about Arion. Just for you to make that comparison.

Go kill yourself! I'm dead ass serious just take your blade off choice and cut your wrist vertically. Go tie a noose and hang yourself. Get run-over by a truck.

HOW DARE YOU COME TO MY INBOX AND MAKE THAT COMPARISON TO A VICTIM OF A PEDOPHILE OVER A CREATIVE DECISION THAT I AGREED TO ADD IN MY OWN WORK THAT YOU LISTED AS AN ISSUE ON YOUR TOP 5 SHIT LIST!

It's like what I've said to you years ago. You don't think before you speak and this really does show.

Anyways, Cagney is still active online even if you claim she's barely online since she went out of her way to respond to my last post and you still archived one of Mobox87's latest videos even if you also claim to be taking a break from archiving. So, there is activity going on behind the scenes.

Top it off, don't go off saying "Stop acting holier than thou" as if I'm being superior to you or anybody for that matter when you're clearly the one in that position.

Besides that I'm not taking down any posts. So Fuck off.

You may claim that now you see my true colors but really it's you who has shown your true colors that afternoon. Be glad that I've kept your username covered because I don't want anyone harassing you or anybody coming after you. If anyone is going to say anything to you during this feud, it's me only or Red.

I may have gone off too extreme with what I said but I DO NOT CARE and I Won't Forgive Myself For it but FUCK it. You put this on upon yourself. Woe is you if I name drop Cagney on a post, get over it. I'm not going to give y'all the satisfaction of going back and forth.

[maria-is-stupid]

Yo so, i got something i wanna say rq.

Quick CW for the discussion of grooming, false allegations and a long ass post. If you don't already know about this situation, scroll down, I've provided links to the necessary posts at the bottom! I’m not the one for drama, never have been and never will be. But being a mutual of @ikamigami and literally getting tagged in it, it was inevitable that I would see @alexandraisyes' grooming allegation post on both her and Mothy. And after having reached out myself to get Ikami’s side on things along with reading the documents provided by both parties, I've come to my own conclusion. I don’t see either party as really being in the right. Not Alex nor Mothy. Mothy for their poor behaviour which has been given evidence of in Alex’s document. And Alex for Ikamigami’s completely unnecessary involvement and the horrible accusation made against them with lackluster evidence. Lackluster evidence which I have a few things to say about. Now Alex or any of her friends who may end up reading this, I'm not a new enemy of any sort or looking to be one, nor do I have any particularly ill feelings against any of you, I'm just giving criticism and stating my opinions here. 1) Evidence against Ikami No.1 - The nsfw fic Ikamigami wrote a nsfw fic and tagged GarbageChocolate, who she at the time, didn’t know was a minor. But once she found out, it was publicly apologized for. And now the fic has been completely deleted from Ikami’s blog, the only reason you’re still able to see it via the link in Alex’s document is because of it being a reblog. This was resolved and closed in 2023. Information which Alex has left out both in their doc and when replying to comments, either intentionally or because of lack of proper research.

Why is it being brought up to be used as some sort of “evidence” of Ikami being a groomer? When you think about it, it doesn’t even make any sense. A groomer wouldn’t post stuff like that publically, as they would want to keep their behaviour hidden. 2) Evidence against Ikami No.2 - Ikami siding with Mothy I don’t know if people know this, but choosing to side with a friend in drama or accusations is normal.

Especially considering the friendship between Mothy and Ikami, that they’ve been there for one another and therefore will put a good amount of trust in each other. And I think that if you’re quickly able to turn on your friend at the smallest accusation, you weren’t even a real friend to begin with. That or you’re just a patsy.

Ikami herself in her own document acknowledges Mothy’s actions and says that she is not going to defend them. Though along with that Ikami provides rather important context behind Mothy’s behaviour. Context being that Mothy is someone who has immature and childish behavioural tendencies (being a 19 year old, also counting that age does not equal to maturity), and due to less than unfortunate events in her childhood expresses hypersexuality.

Something to quickly mention as well, Ikami has only really known Mothy’s side on the things which has happened inside the servers, possibly not having been told the entire truth on some things. That along with the behaviour of Mothy is not something I want to excuse and is something that i'm certain Ikami isn't exactly pleased about either. Also, this shouldn't just come to me, but do you realise how broken the logic behind this, that Ikami choosing to side with Mothy makes her a groomer too, is?  Let me lay out a hypothetical example;

What if I was friends with someone who later gets accused to be a pedophile, would that make me a pedo too simply by association?

3) - Critisism on Alex's document Now, I know this whole segment is going to sound nit-picky, but there are some things that I want to point out with Alex’s document and its content. As I can't help but feel that the document looks incredibly rushed and sloppily made. Alex's document only bears screenshots, with pretty much no context given whatsoever behind them or this situation. Like say, as an example, what the ages of both Mothy and the minors were specifically during the time it all went down, as that is very important information and simply just stating that the victims were minors doesn’t really make things clear. As anyone between 1 to 18 would be considered a minor. Along with lacking context, there are things added which don't serve anything, being rather trivial. Like the comparison made between the behaviour of Mothy, Alex herself and Alex's friend Peachpopfizz/Peachfnaf. I can understand the potential reason for this being added, but in execution it just looks like you’re trying to make yourself look better or superior and is rather useless to know.

And something which I think is plenty worthy of being pointed out as well is that we don't seem to get any screenshots of one-to-one private conversations. Or at least not ones where it's clear, as most of the screenshots are also cropped. The victims in Alex’s document state that Mothy has used manipulation tactics, used her ties to the ‘big blogs’ as leverage and not taken it too kindly when others did not want to talk to them about something or got uncomfortable, so why don't we see examples of such?

 If all of Mothy's messages come from open channels for anyone to see, it makes me wonder, as one of the main tactics of groomers is to isolate a victim and hold their own poor behaviour behind closed doors. Especially considering there were apparently other adults in the proship server who, assuming they're either not stupid or ignorant, would’ve seen and called it out immediately as Mothy was openly 19 and NSFW was not allowed as far as i'm aware. And the last point i want to make, seeing that this would become way too long if i was to add every single tiny one. Again about rather trivial info. Alex in their document, in the section about confronting Mothy, mentions of Ikami apparently talking about killing herself in the TSBS discord server, along with the harassment and slandering which has been happening between Ikami, Dana and Ceph/Twinanimatronics (in which direction it fully was in I'm not aware).

Number one, in regard to the claim of Ikami speaking of killing herself. I've gone the lengths to look through her messages in the TSBS server myself, especially around the time in which the Miku episode and Ikami’s psychotic episode happened, and have not found anything remotely close. So if Dana and Ceph, the ones who allegedly reported this to the mods, have evidence of this actually happening. I would love to see it.

And number two, the personal drama between Alex, Ikami, Mothy and Alex’s friends, i’m sorry to say this, is such a nothing burger and is frankly inappropriate to add in an allegation document of grooming. It would’ve been way better to have just stuck to the main matter of all of this from the very start, that Mothy was talking inappropriately in the proship server, anything else is not something that I will care about.

Overall, the document is a case in which the more you try to make sense of it, the more it falls apart. Whenever it’s because of lacking context, trivial information which distracts from the main point, an unrelated party which was dragged in and framed without any actual proof, ect. Or that is at least how i feel. 4) - final thoughts. Now, with everything i've said above, i'd like to emphasize, I do not want anyone in this situation to get harassed as that will amount to nothing.

All that I personally wish is for Mothy to seek help with the issues that they have, work to get better and for something like this never to happen again (which, considering their apology post. It sounds like they're not afraid to admit fault, which is a first step). For the minors to take care. And for everyone here to perhaps consider and be mindful how they spend their time online and in what spaces, as from what I've seen in my time on the internet, the proship space and those similar has many times been the breeding ground for predatory weirdos to take advantage of those younger and vulnerable.

If you have questions or anything you want to say, you are more than free to reach out to me privately, as I'm not going to clutter up my blog with replies to reblogs. Of course with that being said, keep in mind, i will not tolerate insults, slurs or threats of any kind.

Here's the links to the document posts of both Alex and Ikami so you can read and come to your own informed opinion on all of this.

Have a good day folks.

(And please, for the love of god. When it comes to allegations online, always take it with a grain of salt until both sides have spoken. I’ve seen countless times where false allegations have ruined people’s reputations and lives. And I would rather wait than look like an idiot.)

[1800pain]

PRIVATE SYSTEM SERVER.

Hello. As a show of my ability, I have created a private system server template for you to use. While "private" is in the name, I have included two access roles (Friend and Trusted Friend)—however I have not done any permissions for them. There is a Bot role that has permissions for them, like access to the System Setup category.

And, like the last template, only traumagenic systems can interact with this blog and use my templates. Endogenic systems and their supporters get blocked.

Note that not every single channel is in this gif, just the ones I deemed the most important to show.

Use the template here, however do note that the announcement channel and all of the forums channels will not copy over, and you will have to add them yourself: Private System Server Template

I am okay with you editing my template for your own use. Do not redistribute as your own.

If you need any help, you can leave an ask in my inbox.

Explanations for channels under the cut. LONG, BUT PRETTY DAMN IMPORTANT TO READ.

All forum channels are marked with a speech bubble emoji 💬 in front of them; those are channels that you will miss. The single announcement channel that also will be missing is marked with a mega emoji 📢.

#welcome - When someone joins the server, they will not see any channels, and you must give them a role so they can access this the server. You can see their welcome message here so you know someone's joined.

📢 update-status-fronting - If a switch happens, you put up a DNI, or want to otherwise warn people about your current state, you can update it here.

🔇 layout by 1 800 pain on tumblr - Feel free to delete this.

Text channels:

#bot - This is the only channel that has "Use application commands" permissions on it. If you would like to set it on other channels, you'd have to do it manually—or you can add it to the @​everyone tag.

💬 dms - In the title, I put "[DM/GC] Channel name" under the post, then write the participants. I have a tag system for this channel (see below).

💬 thoughts - Headmates' thinking time. I also have a tag system for this channel (see below).

💬 mailbox - Essentially, I create a channel with a headmate's name and there are two tags: Read and Unread. Read means they've read the messages people leave for them, and Unread means they have yet to read them. It's a simple way to communicate with headmates who are not fronting.

System Setup:

All servers here are unable to be chatted in; only any member with the Bot role can do that. I enjoy setting up my PluralKit work into a few separate categories:

#resources - Easy access to Simply Plural, Notion, Evernote, or various places I get PNGs to set up PluralKit profiles—things of that nature and related to it.

#pk-setup - For descriptions and things.

#pk-pfps (not in gif) - To add profile pictures and banners. I put it in its own space because it's a different type of spam, image-based spam, than pk-setup, which is mostly text-based spam.

#new-arrivals - For showing people who made their PluralKit account, mainly for documentation.

#pk-spam - Just general things that don't quite relate to the ones above; typically things like pk;r.

💬 image-resources - If you change your icons or banners a lot, this can help. I put icons/banners here with credits to the original artist, the original art, and the edited version we use in our profiles. It's tagged by Icon, Faceclaim, Banners, etc.

#pk-log (hidden, not in gif) - To store PluralKit messages. If you also would like, you can add a more general moderation bot (such as Carl-bot) to also store non-PK messages.

System-centric:

#to-do: Self-explanatory; got any plans? Put them here.

#sys-chat: More general system chatter.

#sys-work: Talk about... system work.

#headmate-observations: If you notice something about your headmate—such as a positive/negative trigger, a various quirk they have, or any idea how their role works—share it here.

💬 headspace: A headspace forum to talk about headspace. More information in the image below.

The collection of the channels that you will miss, check the images above for extended information:

📢 update-status-fronting (uncategorized)

💬 dms (in general category)

💬 thoughts (in general category)

💬 mailbox (in general category)

💬 image-resources (in System Setup category)

💬 headspace (in System-centric category)

[katatty]

Shifting Priorities

Thank you for all the nice comments yesterday! Some really helpful perspectives that gave me a lot of ideas on how I can tackle my simmer's block :)

Mostly, I think I need to trim down the number of neighbourhoods I consider "active" and the amount of projects I am doing in general. I have a hard time letting go of neighbourhoods, especially if I am still somewhat invested in them! But I also need to face the fact that I only have so much free time, and do not want playing the sims to be the sole thing I do with that free time XD

For some neighbourhoods I will also be trying out a more stripped-down approach to blogging, similar to what I've been doing with Driftwood. It makes me a little sad because I like my sims to feel fleshed out as characters and giving them voices is a big part of that! But maybe I can save the prose/dialogue for times when it is particularly needed, rather than including it as a default.

Finally, I am going to prioritise based on what I actually have the most fun with, rather than letting popularity drive my decisions!! Some neighbourhoods I feel sad about potentially retiring because I know people enjoy them, or I feel bad admitting I am never going to finish projects people were excited for, but I have to remember simming is something I do for myself, not for popularity or for other people.

So, plans for my neighbourhoods:

Pleasantview Plus - will continue in its current form for the most part, but holdholds I found less inspiring will just get short summaries rather than extensive documentation. This hood is waaaaaaay too big and I think not that many people follow it all that closely, but it's also my one true love and I would like to start prioritising it again rather than it always being on the backburner

Uberhood Challenge (YouTube Series) - This is a short-term series, and will continue as planned until I finish the challenge, which I'm over halfway through :)

Hollyhead - I hate to say it because I know a lot of people love it, but I feel like I have sorta outgrown this neighbourhood? Some simmers like their settings to be an escape from the real world, and when I made Hollyhead I think it was what I needed too, but these days I find how upbeat & wholesome it is a bit, idk, constraining?? I crave drama and conflict in my stories!! I also have kinda lost interest in the BACC rules and have started to find it more book-keeping and hassle for what I get out of it... Whenever I do open the neighbourhood I still really enjoy actually playing it, and I love the characters so much, but I just haven't found the events interesting enough to want to write about. I think this neighbourhood will not be retired completely (yet), but I will move towards writing much shorter updates in the form of newspaper articles and see if that helps. If by the end of this season I still feel ehhh about it, I might formally end it <3

Driftwood - no complaints about this hood, I'll probably continue with the current style of documenting major events & new builds only

Spruceburg (YouTube series) - I would like to do another season of this next year, after I finish the uberhood challenge! But I will probably go for a schedule of like, one season of series per year, rather than posting consistantly. I enjoy YouTube a lot, but its a lot of work too and I think has majorly taken away from my blogging time this year, which I am mourning now lol!!

The Fiero Legacy - it is probably time to throw in the towel with this and admit I just don't enjoy playing legacy style or with story progression that much! I always enjoy the period where the heir is dating but once they settle down and have kids it becomes a chore and a grind, plus with story progression's time system I always feel rushed and like I can't take a sim out of the house for an outing without potentially missing important milestones - the urban setting feels so wasted when its all family gameplay, haha. Hallie should be at the club!! It was an interesting experiment and a nice change of pace, but idk if I really see myself returning to it. I love the sims themselves and the setting, but whenever I actually load up the neighbourhood I just feel kinda stressed and overwhelmed :(

As for my building projects like Belladonna Cove, perhaps at some point I will get really inspired and return to them but for now they are on indefinite break. I remember saying a few time in the past that I didn't really feel much need to make over Pleasantview and Strangetown because if I wanted nice makoevers I would use frottanas, and tbh I feel the same way about Belladonna Cove - if I was playing it I would just use plumbtales makeovers XD With my past neighbourhood makeovers I was really inspired to make them because there wasn't anything out there that was exactly what I wanted but, well, there's loooooads of nice Belladonna cove makeovers these days so I just don't feel much drive to make my own version I guess?? I think I also have lost interest in building a little becasue I am no longer into super heavily decorated lots - I prefer lighter lots that won't cause lag lol! So yeah, I am probably not retiring from building forever but its no longer a priority for me :)

[scummy-writes]

Life chatting and updates

I keep beating myself up for not writing as frequently anymore. It's a tossup between this being seasonal depression, a really bad prolonged depression episode, or very bluntly burnout.

There isn't a price to pay for fandom. I don't have to actively 'give' in order to participate and enjoy my time here, however I still have a gut instinct that I 'need' to. If I don't manage at least a fic once a month, then I feel awful. I feel dried up and like I'm losing the grasp on a hobby I love. It's usually the main way I can get some emotions of some sort out.

I've talked about this an unbearable amount of times. It's repeating because I haven't found a good way to work through it yet. Cutting off anons randomly (usually opened for request periods) helps significantly. I no longer get belittled for not talking to others often, or for supposedly being well known (i am not, jesus fuck.) I don't have people upset I made their fave take it up the ass, or experience an emotion that was not 100% confirmed in canon.

This next part is difficult for me to word properly, I'm sorry with how poorly this may come off.

I've tried to detach how I view my blog, but its very off and on. To be frank, there are 5.4k people following me. While I am very thankful to everyone who sticks around this blog, I stopped talking about the follower count often (with a number count) with it because I used to get people very, very mad that I was not reblogging their stuff because they thought the follower count meant a lot more than it does. They would be mad I wasn't doing xyz thing that I was 'supposed' to do with that follower count. Suddenly, my writing was supposed to be more inclusive for everyone (body types, kink/fetish interests, similar), rather than something I was sharing with others. Suddenly I was supposed to have Good Opinions on characters I didn't care about. I was supposed to be 100% canon compliant and get characters 100% right or else how dare I write them!!

Over time its fucked with me a lot. I miss posting and not being scrutinized for these stupid reasons. I miss having anon on. I miss not having ti worry about how something may sound ooc to people. I miss having fun. Every time I go without posting for a long time, its the assholes in the back of my head mocking me for it. I've been struggling on trying to rewrite that, and it's a constant failure. I'm anxious over things I should never be anxious about - not in this way. And it's frustrating and stupid.

It's frustrating repeating the same issues, and people trying their best to help, and nothing sticking in my brain. It feels awful to disappoint people in *that* regard. Another post made every other month about how depressed I am and thinking I can't write again, people trying their best to offer encouragement, and then I kinda piddle it away. I'm sorry that I am like this.

It's been bothering me more lately due to streaming. I am having a lot of fun! It's a lot of work also. I'm also going to be writing reviews on games and other projects, and how fun is that? How cool is that?

But now my blog that people know me for, and that provided me a good space to feel a little better about myself in terms of what I am capable of, is slowly dying. I dont have time to write when I desperately want to. Its taking me longer to get fanfics out because I am so anxious over writing again. Its hard to open up a word document and Just Do It because i get scared of how disappointing it will be.

Outside of that, I feel guilty writing other posts on a writing blog. I'm wondering if I need to revamp this blog to be very bluntly an otome game blog that happens to have writing on it occasionally, rather than a 'writing blog' that rarely writes. I think maybe I need to make writing less of my personality, when I've never planned to do more with it past writing fanfics.

Sigh. Thanks for reading whatever this is.

Updates:

- I've stopped modding the letters-from-ikemen server and blog. I'm still on as a writer, but I'm taking a long break. From comms to requests, most of my writing has been for other people and clearly, I am struggling with that.

- I hit affiliate on twitch 🎉 I am cautiously excited. I want to play more otomes.

- My dog gets a spinal tap tomorrow. I am very nervous of where it'll lead (this is another step in a long path of trying to figure out exactly what is wrong with him)

- I'm probably going to try revamping this blog sometime soon. Im so frustrated feeling guilty over it, I need to try something.

- people on youtube are being nice to me! Its weird exploring a new way of having fun.

- i really, really, really miss gilbert and writing about him.

[notquitejiraiya]

9 Years

Well, here we are again. Back to spew some nonsense you could’ve done without about fic writing and otherwise. As a small introduction to myself, if you miraculously come across this before anything else I’ve done online: hiya, I’m Becks. When I was fifteen years old I decided that I was going to create a Naruto specific blog to post fanfiction on and 9 years later, I’m still here.

This is only my third reflection of those 9 years, the first and second of which you can find linked respectively, but it’s the 24th of September, and so here I am, ready to continue a tradition set by the wonderful @unioncolours of documenting her years in fandom. Sink your teeth in below the cut off if you so wish. If not, have a wonderful day ♥️

Before I talk about myself, a little thank you to her, to Bex. Two days ago, she posted what I consider to be her most powerful reflection yet, and I command the lot of you to read it, feel it, and walk away demanding you treat yourself and others kindly for this year and all those to come. Her heartfeltness and honesty is something all of us should learn from, and it is an honour to share my forename, space, fandom, world with her. Thank you, Bex, for all you do, here and away.

Now, the first thing I must address about this Rebecca here is “job no1”, as I called it in last year’s recap. “Job no1” was to become more concise.

It is safe to say that I did not get hired for “job no1.” Not yet, anyway. Perhaps on the future. Maybe. We’re still in the interview stages, and you know how many rounds these things take.

To set the tone of this past year, I will admit that it is the 24th of September, not just when I post this reflection, but as I write it. As mentioned, I have only written two recaps of this sort in my fandom career, both of which were written ahead of time and posted on the day with little stress. This one is being bashed out when the sun is already setting, and time is running out.

Time is something that has fascinated me for years; it’s something I’ve written scientifically on, written fiction about in short spells, and something I’ve come to respect a bit more over the last year, too. It’s something I’ve especially enjoyed playing with and writing about in the one fic that I’ve published/added to this year. In Grandmaster, one of my favourite passages from the fic and one of the bits I’m most proud of involves time. But I won’t dwell on that. Grandmaster — or GM, as I affectionately call it — will get its moment later on. For now, let us focus still on time.

I’ve had a strange amount of it this past year. I wouldn’t say I’ve had too much, nor particularly little, on average, but I certainly feel as though I have. Even if not, it’s slipped away from me, and this year that feels rather damning. You see, as you might know, I live in Finland at the moment. I say ‘at the moment’ because this time next year, when I’m writing my next recap, that will no longer be true. I already no longer live 40 minutes from the front door of my best friend — moving in the summer upped it to almost an hour — and by next year I won’t be able to jump up, hop on a train and see her when the mood (and life) suits. Many rather saddening things have hammered home time to me since last September, but even considering that one thought makes time seem rather fleeting. I need to treasure it until the summer, and so forgive me if my time at my laptop is a little less than it once was.

More relevant to you reading this, perhaps, is the amount of this year that I have been able to spend writing. Without examining the statistics, I feel like I’ve barely written this year. I know that that is ultimately not true; I have made good progress with GM, and have written snippets of works to come. But I still feel as though I haven’t had the time in year 9 that I would’ve liked, and even less than the small amount I dared to expect.

In the time I did spend writing, though, I largely spent it on GM, so it only feels right that I dedicate a sizable portion of this recap to that fic.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that GM has consumed me. I view the world through a different lens having conceptualised, written, and frankly breathed the world in that story. I see situations in the real-life chess, and I imagine where that might happen in the GM-timeline, were it there. I see the people I envision when the scene play out like theatre performances in my head, and I think about GM, even when it’s totally irrelevant. Even just a face. I hear songs, and I think about GM. I watch movies, and I think about GM. I sit on the bus or god forbid the train, it rains or it shines, and I think about GM.

I have never, in my life, felt a story in my bones like this. When it ends, which this year it certainly must, I will cry. Don’t get me wrong, I won’t cry because it’s over — I will cry because I will remember all the countless hours that have gone into not just writing but thinking about this fic. It is a part of my daily life and has been for such a long time now. I don’t go an hour, let alone a day, without thinking about it. It has been in progress for over 2 years — during every every wrapup I have written, it has been in progress — and 2 nights ago, I finally posted a chapter, the heart of which I first sent to my friends almost as long ago.

I won’t spoil the contents, as I’m sure many of you may not have read it, but I’ll admit now that I cried as I went to sleep after posting it. It took me three months to be happy with that chapter. Three months. That long to accept a chapter that I knew I had the core, important part of set and the was happy with since almost two years ago. It felt and still feels ridiculous to me. Even three days ago I felt like, surely, I had forgotten how to write. Or maybe I just had never known how to write in the first place. I had lost my touch, at the very least, the very spark that made anyone read more than the first paragraph. How in the world could it be that I manage to write these core lines two years ago, when GMverse was Strangers and only Strangers, yet having honed the voice of this story for so long, I now couldn’t write a single good word?

I felt like such a failure. I felt like there was no way I was ever going to finish it, and if I did, I was sure I wouldn’t be happy with it. But I told myself that I was going to post the fic on Majsasaurus day and so I said, “Fuck it,” to my assignments and I finished it.

I was late hour, but I almost did it. When I read it back before posting, I cursed myself for all the clunky sentences and obnoxious descriptions — which may not even exist, I don’t know — but I still pressed post at the end, and I immediately felt proud of it.

It’s incredible when you realise you can do that. I think perhaps it’s a skill that doesn’t make sense to people when they first start writing. Not giving a fuck, that is. I know I was guilty of it for a very long time, but there’s no point in being a perfectionist, especially if you’re trying to write about realistic people. Real people are so far from perfect that you’re fucking kidding yourself if you waste your time on such things. Year 9 has been a lot about that: settling. Settling for grades in uni I once would’ve beaten myself up over. Settling for a sentence that I know could be worded better, in theory, but I’m not yet the writer who can word it that way. I’ll meet her one day, maybe. But before I get to, I have to mould her. I won’t do that without writing more and more.

In any case, in the words of Shikamaru in my own fic: “They’re just words. They don’t mean anything unless you let them.”

In line with that thought, I want to thank you all for your theories and thoughts and engagement with GM. The fact so many of you have managed to find some meaning or emotion in it that matters to you specifically, even if that differs between people, amazes me daily. It makes me emotional and humbles me and all manner of things I could write an entire reflection on.

It is on that note that, I would like to extend a particuar mention to @twnj who has brought to life so many scenes in GM with her beautiful artwork as well as created so many fun headcanons for outside of it. I am so lucky to have met and to know you, and it is a pleasure being rambly with you, my dear.

I also would like to shout out @backgroundcharacterno5 for creating one of most incredible things I have ever seen by way of this comic. You brought that scene to life more beautifully than I ever could’ve imagined even in my own head, and I cannot thank you enough for thinking of GM at all. Thank you.

And finally, the book club. Learning of your existence blew my fucking mind, and it continues to. I refer to you this way because I do not know exactly how many of you there are, but I bloody love you all, even those of you I have never spoken to. The comments I received from you and from every reader, even if I am shit at replying to them, move me and inspire me endlessly. Your analysis and theories and reactionary comments thrill me and make my heart sing. So thank you. So much.

With GM this past year, I feel I have reached a point as a writer that I never expected to, and am endlessly proud of. I never expected people to be so engaged with something I wrote — I thought I was a one- or maybe two-trick pony with song inspired banter-filled one shots and depressing britishisms. But this year showed me that that isn’t true. Do I have the widest range? No, and I’ve made peace with that. But does that devalue what I make? No. I love it. I have fun making it. And as an incredible, frankly unexpected cherry on top, so do some of you. So thank you for that. You’ve ticked so many of my author bucket list dreams in a single year.

As I have certainly mentioned in past ‘blog’-type posts, there are elements of GM which are personal to me, but in the coming year, I will introduce to you what I consider my most personal fic yet. While I may lend things I have overheard or observed, I rarely let myself into my own work too heavily. I value the power of looking over a shoulder, and do try my best to do that. But I rarely force my shoes on a character.

Piano Man (affectionately referred to by myself and those closest as GMJ) will not be like that either. Not on purpose. It will not be a 1-to-1 retelling of my life, the opinions and feelings and experiences within it will by no means be my own, but it will be an expression of things I love and know more directly than before.

GMJ will be set some 20+ years after Strangers, so I am still not escaping this universe I’ve built for myself (not that I want to escape it). It will follow one of my most beloved characters in Shikadai, and how he meets someone he really ought to have known his whole life, but by chance, has not: Inojin.

Any writing I have done that is not GM this year has been ShikaJIn. I know that many of you who follow me, do so for ShikaTema. I wonder if there are even so many of you now that joined for GM that ‘CHESS’ and ‘Cloud Nine’ are now irrelvant in my list of past fics. But regardless of what you’re here for, and whether you ship them now or not, I hope that you’ll stick around for GMJ. It is not a ship fic anymore than GM is, and I like to think that perhaps you trust me by now to tell you a story you might enjoy.

Besides GMJ I have dabbled in a couple of other potential AUs, the most promising of which is a wartime au, which came about after my dear friend Bex suggested that @clumsydragon28 and I read a book she was reading: In Memoriam. IM was one of the most fun reading experiences I have ever had, and I cannot reccomend reading with your friends enough. The joy is something I can’t quantify, and I will treasure that experience forever.

I myself have read more books this year than I have in years. I haven’t read so many fics, which saddens me, but I am so pleased that there is space in my life for fiction and stories again besides thsoe in my own head.

One of the books of this year will no doubt come when I return home to England for Christmas, because last year, darling Barb sent me (and Bex) a goodie box from across the Atlantic. In it, she placed the US edition of my favourite book: The Beach. It will get loved and cherished this year with its first physical read. I promise.

There are so many other things that I could say here, but ultimately, I don’t know that I have the time. All I can say is that I am so grateful for the people of this fandom space, old friends and new, and even those that have not shown me kindness this past year — you have hardened me to realise I am worth more than I thought.

The next recap I write will mark a decade of notquitejiraiya. That, in itself, seems absurd. But I am certain that I go into it lucky, and grateful, and really really fucking inspired.

Thank you, all, for another notquitejiraiya year. May the next be sweet and full of more frequent updates than the last! ♥️

(PS - I’ll try to be more consice next year, but I’m not making any promises)

[jakowskis]

torchwood fanfic resources

so i'm a chronic livejournal archaeologist, and fixating on 2000s media is particularly fun for me because it means i get to go digging on lj / dw / old fanfic forums. below you'll find some of the excavations from my torchwood fixation (give it up for month 6!) it's pretty much got every comm i've ever stumbled upon and found useful, or thought others would find useful. it's largely fanfic-oriented, though there's some more generalized comms, too. i hope you guys enjoy!

i was originally going to include a link to my reclist on this post as well, but it's still a wip, so i'll just post that separately in the future.

general disclaimer: most of the content here is from 2006-2013 or so. period-typical attitudes may pop up in places. i'm not sure if most modern tw fans have witnessed the original fandom at all, but i felt a need to say this anyway, because i've seen some icky stuff. i've warned for anything notable. gwen bashing in particular may unfortunately pop up in some of these comms, especially in the comments, so tread carefully.

if you're new to probing through old lj comms, remember to always have the wayback machine on hand, because you're going to run into a lot of purged accounts and seemingly lost fics, but sometimes you get lucky and something's been archived :)

as of the date i'm posting this, all of these comms are still accessible, but if you're from the future and some have been deleted, again, go ahead and give the wayback machine a try. additionally, livejournal has a system that includes 'cross-posting' in which, if authors choose to (and the majority of them do, to get their fics more visibility), fics get posted to multiple comms at once. so chances are, even if one comm gets deleted, the contents will survive through other comms. kind of like how reblogs continue to exist even when the original blog is deleted.

finally, ctrl + f is your best friend if you have a specific ship/character/trope you're invested in, especially in comms with less than ideal tagging systems. if a comm does have a substantial tagging system, you can find all of its tags by adding '/tags' the end of the urls i've provided.

ok... let's begin :-)

assorted livejournal communities

✎ torch-wood: this is essentially a torchwood subreddit. it started before the show even aired, and one of the highlights of it is episode reaction posts (easily accessible on the right side of the lj) that document how everyone immediately reacted to the eps, which is pretty damn cool, fandom-history wise. only thing i should mention is there's quite a lot of gwen and owen bashing in the comments of some of those reaction posts, so just be wary of that if you love those two like i do, 'cuz it's a bit of a bummer.

✎ torchwood-three: this comm is an extremely cool then-daily newsletter (that still updates sometimes?!) that compiled as much fan-content as it could find into cleanly organized lists. the posts made immediately after new episodes aired contain reactions, discussions, meta, theories, new fic, fanmixes, just about everything. very very cool to go back and see the way the fandom was thinking as the show was airing and as they were getting to know the characters. here's a direct link to all posts made in late 2006, during the airing of s1.

✎ torchwood-fic: exactly what it says on the tin. desktop layout is easy to navigate, tags are all there!

✎ torchwood-fic's profile page also features a list of affiliated accounts that's pretty handy. it's worth taking a peek at, in case i've excluded anything in this post that you might be interested in.

✎ twgenrefinders: handy dandy comm where people would ask for fics of a certain variety & be treated with reclists, or hyper-specific fics... pretty cool stuff, ive got several threads bookmarked to sort through the links later. ofc, please note that some of the things people asked for might be stinky. particularly i've seen a lot of ppl requesting gwen bashing fics :/

✎ twstoryfinder: cousin to the above comm; here, people would ask for a very specific fic they'd lost. it's kind of fun to find fics through because you get someone describing memorable scenes + hyping it up, so it's different than just a standard summary. this one still gets posted on, too, which is crazyyy.

✎ tw-unpaired: for gen fics! no romance allowed! there's some good character studies + friendship fics in there. stuff's tagged by character + authors are even tagged, in case you find one whose writing you particularly enjoy. this is v useful for when someone's main journal has been deleted.

✎ torchwood-decaf: a comm where janto is BANNED. nah i'm kidding, it's not anti-janto, it was just made because janto is so huge that it overshadows everything else. pretty smart, tbh; wading through the sheer mass of janto content can be tiresome.

✎ jack-in-cuffs: for dark tw fic, or uber smutty tw fic. as a fan of dark!fic, there's some goodies in here, but of course it's not everyone's cup of tea. most of the writers included warnings, but if you go a little further back, some people weren't as courteous; navigate with caution.

✎ jack-owen: for fic featuring our captain and his (second favorite) doctor. i know this pairing's kinda divisive nowadays, but i enjoy it a lot. the comm's got a dismal tagging system and, ngl, i don't truly like any of the fics there (i'm very intrigued by jack and owen's relationship but i've never found fic that really does them justice, and i still haven't figured out how to write them myself) - but i'll include it anyway.

✎ odetojoi: for fic featuring owen in the middle of a janto sandwich, for those of us who are allergic to women (/sarcasm). there's an oddly impressive supply of fics of the three of them, and a good chunk of them can be found in this comm. (everytime i see this comm i think of a certain abbreviation found in p/rnogr/phy... but i digress)

✎ halfwee-and-tea: for ianto x owen fic. haven't gone through this one much, truthfully. i hate when comms have no tagging systems agh.

✎ owenharper-fans: a comm for the saddest undeadest bisexualest doctor around. also features a few burn appreciation posts, which is nice to see pre-pac rim era. mostly just features a shit ton of owen fic, particularly owen x ianto fic. mostly sufficiently tagged. if you need me once i post this, btw, i will be balls deep in this comm.

✎ the pro-owen alliance: another owen-focused comm - i think this one was made directly in response to owen bashing. haven't combed through this one much but it's got a fair amount of fics.

✎ house-of-cooper: a gwen comm! made in response to gwen bashing. haven't gone through it, but i'm glad it exists.

✎ torchwoodcoffee: ianto comm! this one's hugeee. the majority of it's janto, but the pairings aren't tagged, which is really frustrating. about 6k fics on there, though! just untagged. fff.

✎ tw-femficfest: a comm for fic about any and all of the torchwood ladies. tagging's cleanly done & there's some handy fic round ups, too.

✎ tw-femslash: yuri!!! wahoo!!! a comm for f/f tw ships. there's quite a lot of fic on here, but unfortunately there's no tagging whatsoever. sigh.

✎ tw-classic: a comm for 'all things series one and two of torchwood'. was made after s3 and was popular around s4 out of nostalgia for the golden age <3 good amount of fic, discussions, etc.

✎ torchwood-house: this comm is, like, letterboxd, but for torchwood fanfic. basically a group of individuals who thought of themselves as having Good Taste would read Good Fic and then go in this comm and write a post about why they recommend it. it's well-made, easy to scroll through, and sells the fics v well, and it kinda gets you more excited to read them when you get to see someone hype them up with Fancy Words. it's like a little torchwood yaoi bookclub. we're eating quiche

✎ tw100: a drabble challenge; this thing's full of 100 word drabbles. ngl i hate drabbles but i'm throwing it in here anyway

✎ touchyerwood: i love kink memes... i love kink memes less when my favorite character/pairing is unpopular. the pac rim kink meme's been a blessing bc i'm a basic ass newmann - the torchwood kink meme? not so much. it's got a fair amount of shit, though, so maybe someone else will appreciate it. this one isn't the original, that one's been wiped off the internet, to my chagrin. keep in mind before digging that people in kink memes are horny & gross. that's your warning.

✎ reel-torchwood: for any and all movie aus... ok i have a bone to pick with this comm. i'm a big movie nerd, i love film, i've seen dozens of films i've thought would make good aus - i combed through this and there is not a SINGLE fic in there that piqued my interest. NOTHING. needless to say my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. i'm sure my experiences aren't universal though.

✎ torchwoodslash: ah, remember when we called it slash? gee whiz. i'm not big on this comm, it's not very user friendly + there's like no tags whatsoever so it's extremely hard to navigate. enter at your own risk & good luck, lol.

✎ rounds-of-kink: this isn't a torchwood-exclusive comm, but it's got a sizeable torchwood tag, which can be found here. pretty organized tagging system; makes me happy.

✎ tw-declassified: this comm was mainly used for running a 'torchwood bingo', which, i've been in other fandoms that do episode bingos and it's usually cute... this one confused me a little so i didn't bother peeking around too much, but still a cool little bit of fandom history.

✎ writerinadrawer: this was an annual torchwood writer's challenge that ran for four years... it's kinda hard to navigate but it does have some fic in it so i'm putting it here.

✎ dmarley-recs: a recs journal someone ran for compiling torchwood fic; it's got a l o t of recs on there, largely jack/ianto.

ok and straying from lj briefly for two other places to find fic...

✎ kink_bingo: this is a dreamwidth comm, and it's not torchwood-exclusive, so i've linked straight to the torchwood tag. this comm has a livejournal equivalent, but for some reason the tw tag is pretty barren on that one? not sure why. but on dw it's got a fair amount. the tagging system is rough, it tags fandom and kink but not pairing, which is irritating, and every post is hidden under a cut AND makes you go through a discretion barrier every single time (but probably only if you don't have an account? i'm not logged in) which makes navigation a pain. but i dunno, more smut, if you want it.

✎ whofic.com: this site is for doctor who fic, but it's got a very substantial amount of torchwood fic. i do not, however, like the formatting at all. i'm being overly nice; i HATE the formatting. it's very reminiscent of fanfic dot net but, like, worse. it reminds me of adultfanfiction dot org which was a NIGHTMARE to use. but! there is torchwood fic there so it's going in here.

aaaand there we go! that's all i have. i hope these prove handy! enjoy :D

[minyard-05]

Where do you get motivation to write?

can i say spite

honestly though, i've been doing it too long by now not to. i'm ALWAYS writing or working on something, i'm always thinking about something, so i guess my motivation comes a lot from the fact that i kind of always need a creative outlet or i'll lose my shit. i don't write on a regular basis, but i'll scribble things down and plan things out just as i'm living and that'll turn into me writing paragraphs, then chapters. when i post a chapter of golden that's because i hit some streak where i managed to finish the thing in a day, edit for 20 minutes and post. that's just how i work

if you want advice to motivate yourself through writing, take it back down to its bare essentials. planning out a heist scene that's getting too complex? go back to the 3 original points: what's the aim, who's doing it, how much time do they have. build everything else around that

second point is you just HAVE to let it get a little weird and confusing at times. it's not going to be clean and polished for a while but if you get the vibes down, the right words can happen later. one of my scenes for a current wip was entirely planned around 1 line of dialogue and then me typing [OTHER STUFF] [KABOOM] [HE SAYS SOMETHING COOL] etc etc. if it's weird, maybe you'll end up liking the weird. if it's not, maybe you'll find the perfect way to change it later. who knows. just write whatever and see what happens

point three: FUCK THEM RULES. seriously, 90% of what you've seen on writing help blogs and internet sites is maybe useless and probably bullshit. if you write best in the form of notes in your pocket that you don't discover for weeks and forget what they're about but find a way to plug them into something else? then that's how you work. believe me, i tried nanowrimo, i tried writing routines and exercises and all kinds of shit that i thought would make me better and what made me better was constantly reopening my notes app and typing any old shit into it. i have a 66 page document entitled "bullshit" and it's literally where i keep all my bullshit

TLDR: writing should be fun before it's anything else. if it's not fun, stop doing it, back up, take a walk, and come back. write for yourself and the 1 friend who loves hearing about your wip, make as many playlists as you want for whatever you want, and don't be afraid to write shitty stuff.

[coopzine]

hi! I’ve been following this blog for a while and tbh I think it’d be really fun to organize my own version of a free printable zine, but I’m not sure where I’d start lol. Any advice from what yall have learned?

Honestly, just start! Put together a little website or homebase, and make sure you have the essentials like submission guidelines, a bit about you as the editor, and explanation for what the zine is and why it exists, what you're hoping it will become. Figure out how you will take submissions (email? google form?) and put that in an easy to find location on your home base, and then see if you can get enough submissions to make your first zine! I find it's useful to be transparent about how/when you plan to communicate with any submitters.

It took us several months for our first edition that was open to the public to reach enough submissions to publish, and even then it was pretty slim. But we made our presence known both on social media and on Chill Subs which is where the majority of our literature submissions come from. In order to build a base of folks that submit, we connected with people who are involved in the chicken community. We talk about it in our personal lives to whoever will listen (I've gotten about half a dozen of my irl acquaintances to either submit or promise to submit in the future). I put COOP in my bio when I submit my stuff to other publications.

And then when we have enough submissions, I put them all in a little publication, using a template that I made once and didn't really have to make again (although I may have to when Microsoft Publisher dies in like 2 years or something 😭) I already felt confident in my document design and formatting abilities so that part was pretty easy.

Then we publish it to the site and let everyone know they should read it!

Each part felt like its own project:

- coming up with central idea

- building website and submission form (and maintaining them)

- establishing social media

- continuing to be active on it, or at least on tumblr. this is probably what takes up the most of my time

- going through submissions

-sending acceptance and rejection letters

- formatting and editing the document

- publishing and announcing the edition

- building a newsletter and using it to make announcements

-each special edition or special feature is its own little (or big) project

and we're always thinking of new things to try in each of these categories. we'll never be perfect which means there's always room for improvement (like when we transferred from a free site to our own domain, for example)!

I hope this helps!! Let me know if you have more specific questions! I'm always happy to talk about this stuff.

-Rook

[terraliensvent]

https://www.tumblr.com/terraliensvent/762628974139637760/httpsdocsgooglecomdocumentd1hedsgxllpfwh2z

You know, as much as I very much dislike Gin/Shark and think that they seriously need to get the hell off of the internet, this whole document really just feels like you’re exposing a heavy conversation that was told to you in confidence. It also has absolutely nothing to do with Terraliens other than the screenshots at the start of the document (which have no relation to the main points being made in the body of the doc).

Yes, it’s a lot to unload onto a 16-year-old, but OP reached out to Gin/Shark first to ask them if they were okay. And then continued the conversation / showed no signs of asking Gin/Shark to stop or let them know they were uncomfortable with the topics at hand. Which would give Gin/Shark the impression that it was fine to vent to you. If you truly didn’t want them dumping all of those things onto you, you should’ve told them that! Or nicely let them know that they should be telling this to a professional and not you: a 16-year-old stranger on the internet.

Also, Gin/Shark is only 19 iirc. As someone who’s in their late 20s, you don’t just automatically mature and become a grown ass adult once you turn 18. Y’all are pretty close in age, so trying to pull the “uuuuuh uh I’m a minor they shouldn’t be talking to me about this” card doesn’t quite work here. You just look like an asshole “friend” for betraying their trust and publicly airing out all the dirty laundry of their relationship with Coy that they vented to you privately. I sincerely hope Gin/Shark doesn’t find out that you posted this online because this is the last thing they need if they really are going to get better mentally.

If you’re gonna make a Google doc exposing them for something, this isn’t it. This just looks shitty on both OP and the mod of this blog’s part for not thinking that through.

post related

in MY opinion, 16 and 19 is a weird gap to be dropping all your incredibly heavy baggage on, at worst this is like a high school sophomore talking to someone who graduated 2 years ago.

also i find it weird you say "OP reached out first," especially since the ORIGINAL screenshots in the doc (and assumedly the first of these "vent" convos) is them reaching out and saying "are you ok? do you wanna talk about it?" and civ immediately jumping to "i stopped taking my meds and im coping with alcohol." thats an insane leap to make. i also find it weird that veal had to manage the emotions of civ, checking their college schedule and making sure they do their morning routine and whatnot, and the spam in dms when they were in class and away for an hour. these are weird behaviors between two people of any age.

im also gonna add this reply i grabbed from the snugzi blog (who also posted the doc):

its weird youre putting responsibility on the younger person to manage the emotions of the older person while also saying "if they didnt want to talk they should have said so," instead of saying it was incredibly irresponsible of civ to traumadump onto them, and its THEIR responsibility as the older person to check themself.

and as an additional note, from this screen you can infer that civ would primarily talk to veal to vent. you can see a prior conversation form a week before where veal is reassuring them again. im not saying this is rock solid proof, but from this you can ASSUME that civ might have just been using veal as a vent dump. again, assume, so take it with a grain of salt.

my conclusion is that its not the responsibility of the younger person who is being traumadumped on to say "you should see a professional about this instead of a 16 year old on the internet!!" that should be the responsibility of the 19 year old who is dropping incredibly sensitive info on them and spamming them every 10 minutes when they dont respond for an hour. and thats not even mentioning the power dynamic possibility.

when a friendship causes one of the members to reach out to a completely anonymous blog saying "I don't know how to get out of this relationship now just realizing what the extent of their actions is, I don't know what to do and it's scaring the fuck out of me," maybe that's not really a good friendship

[lexosaurus]

Hello! Very random and no worries if that's not your intention for the blog, but I love reading about your teacher experience and insights! Take this ask more so as encouragement to write more about it if you feel like it, because I'm going to start teaching soon (and yes, many people I've met have warned me about both its miracles and horrors lol) and it's really helpful to hear others' experiences :)

Thanks for the ask! Honestly I'm just a first year, so I don't have a tonnnn of advice to give. But here's a few general first year tips from one to a future another:

1 — No matter what, having a good department team is ESSENTIAL. You're going to be relying on them a lot your first year for help, advice, curriculum stuff, behavioral management stuff, etc. Talk to them, get to know them, have lunch with them, share issues/seek advice from them. You're going to encounter situations that your degree did not prepare you for (likely, in the first week lol. For me, it was Day 1) and having people around to help you judgement free is going to be crucial. I was super lucky that my department team and all the teachers from other departments that I work closely with are really amazing, easy to work with, etc.

2 — You're also going to want a good relationship with the "other" departments. The library staff, tech staff, sped department, guidance, janitors, etc. They're all lovely people, so don't be afraid to pop in to introduce yourself on the first week!

3 — Crazy things are going to happen. Like....all the time. Don't bring them home with you. As soon as you exit the doors, shake it off. All your students made it on the bus to their parents alive, so it's fine. Your job is done for the day. I've been going to the gym a lot right from school, and it's been really helpful to prevent myself from taking anything home with me so to speak.

4 — Document, document, document. Did something happen? Document it, email a copy to whoever's applicable: admin, guidance, sped, BCBA, etc. "Hello, just emailing a summary of what happened today" is not an uncommon email for me to send out. If an IEP isn't working, well at the next IEP meeting it shows they have 10 emails in the last month from you about little Timmy's hourly verbal threats and attempted physical violence to his classmates, so maybe the BCBA needs to do some data collection to adjust his BIP, or they need to give him a 1-1, or give him more resource intervention, etc.

5 — This isn't so much of advice, more like reassurance. The small moments when it clicks for a student and they get something, and then the confidence and excitement shows, it's really the best. That's probably why I've fallen so in love with working where I did. The other day, after weeks of struggling to help this student with Downs with his math, I tried a totally different approach based off a few example problems I saw in a math intervention workbook and hOLY HELL IT WORKED. It totally clicked for him, and the kid was so excited to do a problem out on the board for the class. It was amazing. Another student with an LD who I've been helping heavily school aced a quiz in one of her classes and legit ran into the room to show me. Cue me literally jumping out of my chair to high-five her, and her calling her parents to deliver the good news. Like, little things like that are really really special, and they're going to mean so much to you. And I hope you get to experience LOTS of them too!

[aquabuggy]

“Imagination, life is your creation”

Say, what band was it that wrote that song again? Escapes me… Oh well, anyways,

Happy Barbie Movie Release Day!

It’s nice to feel excited about something again.

It’s not every day you see a toy product centered movie gaining this much positive attention, much less one that deals in the existential horror of being alive. Which is, actually, exactly what I expected out of it and am very happy to see.

Barbie’s probably one of if not the most recognizable and successful product Mattel has, and it’s been that way for decades. But why am I talking about that here? This is a things-full-of-liquid-with-heavy-emphasis-on-water-games blog!

Well, you’re not gonna believe it, but Mattel being a toy company that’s been around for this long, has actually dabbled a bit in our territory! And they actually made a good couple of water games themed around a certain blonde blue eyed doll and her best friends!

So! Without further ado, may I present to you……..

Polly Pocket Tiny Games!

What? Was that not where you thought that was going?

Believe it or not, there really aren’t many Barbie water games at all, just cheaply reskinned ring toss games with a Barbie backdrop…which is both baffling and disappointing considering Barbie has had COUNTLESS beach, pool, sea, and just general water themes. Polly Pocket though? Got 6. You may recognize these if you’re a veteran of this blog.

Being one of Mattel’s latest ventures in water games, my sources tell me that these were actually received incredibly poorly, averaging at a 2-3 star rating. While definitely cute and unique, reviews often mention that the games seem to be designed more for aesthetics than actual play, and that it’s very hard to get some of the play pieces to actually move. Not too surprising looking at those cramped tanks. Wasted potential for sure!

Ohhh but I can’t just end the post there can I? That’s such a bummer! Well, what if I told you this wasn’t the first time Mattel tried their hand at making water games? What if I told you that in 1989 Mattel was one of the few big toy companies that actually dared to challenge the reign of Tomy’s Waterfuls during the peak of its popularity? Oh it’s very true, and considering you’ve probably never heard of it, you can safely assume how that endeavor went. But it’s intriguing nonetheless!

Introducing….

[ photo credit- rww121212, lb-squared, whats-in, and gilbe-niema on eBay ]

Trouble Bubbles/Fun Bubbles

Documentation of these online is mostly limited to listings on buy-and-sell sites (As always. I can’t stress how vital these sites are to conserving lost/obscure media.) so there’s not a lot known about these, and not many pictures of them either. What I can gather is that Mattel made at least 6 of these as well, 3 Trouble Bubbles games and 3 Super Trouble Bubbles games. The main difference between the 2 being Super Trouble Bubbles having a small switch that allows you to redirect the jets of water, which is pretty cool and admittedly not something I’ve seen in other water games! Both also have a wind up timer to challenge yourself to complete the game in a short period.

I’ve yet to collect one of these myself, but they look pretty decent in terms of quality and stand out nicely. They never fully took off in terms of popularity but I think they’re pretty cool, especially as a piece of toy history! Not too shabby at all for Waterfuls competition, my hat’s off to them! Not bad Mattel, sad they haven’t recaptured the same inventiveness for their Polly games. But hey, honestly? Nowadays would be a GREAT time to bring back Trouble Bubbles if you ask me. Water games are coming back in style and Waterfuls has been slow in new major products for quite a while. Who knows? It may just be able to snag that crown sometime in the future…

Unlikely.

But hey, anything’s possible in this crazy age!

[spearxwind]

Hiya, I’d like to put some thoughts out there on my blog (my house) bc I need to yarf some intense feelings or I fear I will explode on a nuclear scale. This is about hollowridge (not in a negative light!! just explaining + reminiscing of old stuff and talking about new stuff. Pouring my heart out more than a little bit.)

I will put them under a readmore of course, this is PRETTY long winded, so you can read or ignore at your leisure -w- 

I was in my adri tag a while ago looking for some images and ended up going through the whole thing and seeing the evolution of him as a character and HR as a story. Additionally, I recently organized my external memory where all my art files are stored and also saw my old stuff, old concepts, old documents with info and ideas, etc etc and like other times where I have looked through my old stuff I have been WRACKED with so many emotions about it. It’s always a dangerous game to go back into my folders/tags to look because I always end up feeling this whooole spiel all at once and very intensely.

Seeing my content shifts is jarring. Very much so. It always is. I don’t think I can pinpoint causes, some of my better creative highs were at really low points in my life, and then other times my creativity and worlds were subsequently really hardly hit during similar lows. I like to think that I am on the up now though, both mentally and creatively. I’m getting back into a lot of things I love, and I am surrounded by people who I love dearly and who love me back, and things in general are really good! I feel less… I wouldn't say wrathful, but way less frustrated when looking back at my old stuff and more inspired to go back to these concepts with a healthier more open mind + knowing that I have improved nonetheless. 

Specifically for hollowridge. Hollowridge feels like a home to me, simple as that. It's something immensely dear to me and I think this is clear by how much effort I have put into it over time, not all of it well placed or with good results, but effort to make it the best that it could be (at best) and effort to keep it afloat (at worst). HR is a strange thing to look back on because it has gone through so many iterations that its hard to pinpoint just one when looking back, but there's a specific time slot (2017-2018 roughly… I’m not gonna check) that I believe is where it was at its best, and that is specifically the vibe that I am trying really hard to go back to with the newest iteration.

I’ve always struggled with it a lot, I've often voiced this publicly, or to friends who would hear my woes out (god bless them for hearing me go on and on about this like a bass boosted and emotional broken record), often because there was so many possibilities that I could run with and I had a lot of really, really conflicting ideas that I wanted to explore. I also had a lot of trouble with lore in general because for many years I was haunted by the absurd need to “make things make sense”, whatever that means. Having things grounded so that people wouldn't be able to poke holes into the watertight plot.. which I never achieved of course. It was less watertight and more of a welded together pringle shaped monstrosity (This was not only true for hollowridge, but was true for everything I have ever made. like in general. It’s been a consistent creative problem for me). 

Eventually what happened iteration after iteration was that I throttled myself too much with rules, random limitations, all in favor of making something cohesive and deleting all the fun bits off the project in the process.

For this reason I also can’t just up and go “yeah i'm gonna turboscrap everything and go back to what worked in 2017” because it also DIDN’T work then. But that vibe specifically is what I am aiming for. The “classic” vibe, if you will (if that means anything to you as it does to me.)

What didn't work for me back in the day was giving everything a reason for existing, which is something I no longer wish to do (it’s better that way) and also something that failed back then both in HR, and in extinction (earlier drafts) and just about any version of a story I ever tried to make was THE SCOPE. It always spiraled out of my hands. God entities always escape me. Magic systems always escape me. How cities and such would be regulated in these scenarios escape me. Its just things I’m not comfortable writing about in general

So that’s why I have made changes to it currently (the whole lens of technology over it) because it makes it easier to think about, and easier to handle. Post apocalypses are fun to handle, and also easy to handle (for me, in this context). Technology going awry feels like its easier to think about than just vague “magic”, even if in the end the aesthetic looks literally exactly the same. Does that make sense? I hope it makes sense.

To give an example: Magic spells and circles → programs and code lines. That can be shot into machinery or meat (recodes your fucking genome in real time and gives you super brain hemorrhage idk). I guess it just gives my brain something to latch onto that isnt just vague rules of a magic system that could potentially be anything and everything? It essentially works the exact same way… its just the lens of looking at it is changed.

Mimics are their own thing now (nanotechnology, instead of vague.. shadow things). Adri is his own thing while still connected to mimics (an angel array made of the same stuff, instead of.. whatever else). Connected to the world. AND all the conflicting but dearly beloved concepts I had for him actually fit (snake, scarf, smoke, usurper of a body that is not his. Hey remember when he was made out of ashes/smoke and eventually out of goop. Well all of that is true at once now! It’s ALL canon! Bitch! The concepts have been reconciled!!)

There are also more “normal” creatures besides these, animals that have either evolved aboveground due to fit into new world niches (so I can design Whatever without being too limited) and there’s also machine/biomachine chimeras, and purposed grown organisms, and just Weird Shit made by machines in the belly of the earth (meat is just complex machinery. you know this. your heart is a piston and your blood gasoline. but I digress.) So I have the space to Get Weird if I so choose, on my own terms this time. And it will have a proper place in the world.

There used to be a lot of concepts that were cool that I missed a lot when I had to shift away from them. Like mimics infecting people and pretending to be them, and then being able to break the hosts bodies apart to make bodies for the mimic itself. That did not fly in pretty much 80% of the later versions of HR but I was able to bring it back for this one. I’ve tied mimics to the epidemic and to Adri in a way that MAKES SENSE but lets me go wild anyways

I guess… the short way of explaining is that. Instead of it being very vague supernatural stuff of dubious origin, now it's a ‘manmade horrors beyond your comprehension’ type deal (still of dubious origin). Which obviously neither the characters nor I would be able to explain to you the details of its origins but the distinction MATTERS to me (to my brain).

Something else about HR is that it’s made up of me having rounded up a bunch of ocs who’s stories were empty or were left to the void so that they could have a fitting home where they could shine. At the end of the day I just wanna do my characters justice. I don’t want to just relegate them to nice set pieces (even though they ARE cool set pieces), but each of them has years of backstory stuff that I would like to keep to not lose the essence of said character and its where I put the bulk of my writing effort into.

I want their connections to the story to be solid, but I also want their base vibes and the vibes I am familiar with for those characters to BE THERE too. So if I’m slow with revealing info, or writing in general, its literally because all the processing power in my skull is being used to think of how to best approach that and not just throw low quality spaghetti at a wall. (Sometimes the spaghetti method works very well, but often. It does not. And only makes things more complex in the long run, so I have learned to be more careful with it)

Dianne and Nirven are over 12 years old now as characters. That 's insane. And she still has the same core concept of how her magic works as I created it ages ago.

Same for Bei. He still has his same vibe back when I made him 10 years ago.

And Adam when I made him 9 years ago. Though I’m working out stuff for him still in this new edition, but I’ll get there. I promise. 

Sooo……….. What I’m really trying to say is that I’m learning to have fun again. And at the same time (re)realizing I used to have some super swag ideas that I have never fully let go of that I am VERY adamant on keeping. And my aim is to go back to that unhinged unbridled joy of creating for a world that is just So Fucked Up but it Works somehow. And yeah, if you’ve ever been frustrated at my changes don’t worry: me fuckin’ too buddy. A thousandfold. And if you’ve ever been curious as to the why of everything, then I hope this rant serves as some sort of explanation?

So yeah, if you’re an old fan and missed old stuff, I hope I am able to do it justice once more and from now on. I promise I am trying my best, I always have been. It just works better sometimes. And if you are someone new and dont know what the fuck I’m talking about, 1. thank you for reading this far and 2. I hope you enjoy the ride regardless

And who knows…. knowing me in a few years I might see this all changed again. Or maybe this will be the one, finally, that sticks. We’ll see. At the moment like I said, I am focusing on loving my characters, their world, their and my original intentions, and just having as much fun as I can with it. If I create confusion in the process then that’s something I will have to accept. I’m not a big media corporation with a team or writers, or even just one (1) accomplished author with a huge brain. I’m not tolkien. I’m just some guy having fun with made up guys in my brain

Thank you for reading this far, if you did, if there’s anything you’d like to comment or discuss (if anything, I don’t expect it) please feel free to reply or DM me, I try to respond in a timely manner when possible <3 

Thanks for sticking around too. It means the world to me that you have. Have a really good week, cheers

[irlmaeda]

Hiya! I found your blog through your neocities website! I was wondering if there’s any tips or things you read/watched that help you make your site. (Im heavily considering making one of my own neocities site it just seems fun)

hihi welcome !! i have quite a few pieces of advice, but the tldr is you should come up with an idea for what you want to make beforehand, and look up how to do each piece! your knowledge will start to fill in along the way :]

(this is probably gonna be long as hell so under the cut is all of the fun stuff /silly)

the way i personally started off was by sketching out what i wanted my site to look like! if you know what you want before you begin, you'll know where to look to figure out what you need to do. html+ css are extremely easy languages to read/write once you know what to look for!

^ this was the original sketch for my site, where i planned out everything i wanted to include. it's a bit different from what actually ended up on the site, but that's alright! it's just about having an outline to work from. i think of it like outlining before you write, it feels like such a pain in the ass because u just wanna start working NOW but u will thank yourself later for taking the time to plan.

once you know what you want to make, start looking for tutorials and resources to make it easier! the grid for my homepage and some of my other subpages was made using a css grid generator, since its one of the more confusing bits of css. you can make grids without it, but its a very easy way to make a more asymmetrical design if ur using the generator!

thats linked here, it gives you some css to put in your head or css sheet, and then the html for the different boxes to slap in your main document. it can be easier to understand what itll look like if you give each one a border while you work, even if its just temporary!

when looking for information about css and html, w3schools is your best friend. its a pretty comprehensive database of every little piece of html + css you could ever need, with examples you can play with yourself to understand what each variable does! it's been a lifesaver for me, ive watched basically zero video tutorials because everything on there is explained so well and you can find basically Anything.

they even have code snippets for things that take more than one or two lines of code, which you can use and adapt yourself! (the tooltips on the official art + my art sections on the hinata shrine were adapted from a tutorial on there!)

in general, having a plan and working from there will make ur life so much easier. the pages that ive sketched out beforehand or ive had a very clear vision for have been WAYY easier to code than the ones i tried to come up with on the fly, and ive been much happier with how they've turned out as well. though i do also have some smaller, rapidfire tips as well that ill go thru now!!

— inline css (the style="" tag) seems so so useful but really should only be used when you're resizing images like buttons. when u keep all of your css in the head or in a seperate document, its way easier to debug and read later. i cleaned up my homepage recently by removing all of the inline css and looking at the code stresses me out WAY less because i can actually read it LOLOL ... plus cutting the css out and putting it in its own document made me realize that id accidentally wrote some really weird code in some places

— this is very much 'do as i say, not as i do,' but use an external editor (like visual studio code) instead of editing live on neocities! you can set up a live preview, and generally wont be pushing out 100 updates every single time you change or add something. i tend to code directly on neocities but its a bad habit and i want to break it eventually v_v

— if you really like an effect someone else has on their site, you can peek using inspect element i promise the coding police won't get you !! dont steal code line for line, but you can figure out what theyre doing and put your own spin on it. things like border images can be really cool, and i only figured out about them because i looked at what someone else was doing and figured out how to adapt it for my own site! check linkbooks and credit sections as well, a lot of people will include links to any effect they didnt make themself or got help with. (including me! the credits section of the linkbook has a ton of little things i got from other places, including a really neat little music player, the rss feed for my status cafe, and the wobbly text on the homepage!)

— most stuff in html and css basically just... says what it does in the tag. so looking stuff up for it is extremely easy! if you've used carrd before you honestly probably already know more abt html than u'd think just intuitively. when ur adjusting the margins or padding in carrd, you're adjusting the margin: and padding: properties in the css of the website it's outputting!

this is getting way too long but!! my best advice is to just get started. you'll never be able to learn without trying, and it genuinely is so fun to have something that's truly your own!

(if u have any specific questions im happy to answer anytime as well! i love talking abt neocities, its a super fun hobby and way easier to pick up than u would think!)

[talenlee]

Dev Pile 2025-06 — Starter Kit

Making dev piles is a new experience for the blog in that they are explicitly deliberately timely. Where most of the work on this blog is thrown weeks, sometimes months in advance if it doesn’t fit neatly in a single spot, I am trying to make sure I write any given Dev Pile article covering the ‘week before’ the article goes up. This is a new kind of work for me, and it’s necessitated working ahead.

The week this article is being ‘written in’ is the week after Cancon. I had a plan for this week: I was going to spend the week writing an article developing the game dev I did, at cancon, in the dull periods at the table between the sales. Thing is, this year, that did not happen – Cancon was pretty much completely constant, so much so that the first day I didn’t even notice I never pulled out my notebook and what notes did get taken during the whole event were surface, or sketching out some minor ideas.

Therefore instead of a single intense focus here, this is going to be something of a hello and hey, here’s how to get started article about game making, tools, and prototyping.

Who Can Make Games?

You can make games. I can make games. Anyone who wants to can make games. The access you have to industrial scale production equipment to make the game you’re designing into something that looks like conventional product is a little more attainable than you may think, thanks to modern tools.

The core of you making games is this: Can you explain a set of rules to another player that let them understand how to play the game?

Great, then you’ve made a game. The next step is working out how to make that game the kind of game you want it to be. And to paraphrase what Adam Savage once said, the difference between doing game development and screwing around is just writing things down.

Tools

First things first, if you have a tool you like for any of the stated purposes, then you should use the tool you like. The tools I describe here should all be free, but that can make them less convenient in ways you may not like.

To write rulebooks, I use LibreOffice. This is a text editor in the same vein as Pages and Word, and much like Google Docs. We’ve pretty much solved ‘writing in a document for a computer user to read’ as a format, and that format has been kinda the same for thirty years. Notably, a formal editor like this lets you do tables and give texts formatting entries like heading styles, which means you don’t have to work to translate that stuff to a website like a wordpress content management system. Under the hood, these two things know how to talk to one another.

Notepad is a valuable tool as well for when you need ‘scrap’ text – no formatting, just some numbers or the like, but literally anything will do here.

Almost inevitably any given game design I have will need a spreadsheet. Sometimes a spreadsheet lets me present a skeleton of a game, with say, a sheet of 52 entries that just indicate the information on a card’s face. That means I use LibreCalc, but I only started using that seven months ago, when I learned about the IFS function. The version of Excel I was using from 2007 didn’t have this ‘new’ functionality, and I found that very useful. You may ask: How often do you need ‘IFS’ in game development and the answer is never. There are definitely thihngs I can use spreadsheets for, but these functions are not super necessary.

To do visual editing I use GIMP, pronounced ‘noo-imp,’ because gimp is a silly word to use in everyday conversation and it has worn its welcome out in my tongue. GIMP is a program that takes some getting used to, but the heart of what it is is a powerful photoshop-level program that puts almost everything it has directly under your control, including warp tools, healing tools, stamp tools and other simple filters. I will usually use GIMP to generate a template file or example for how a card should look, and then, when I want to put those cards into a file to make a pdf for printing, I turn to…

Scribus! Scribus is my layout and DTP program that I avoid using in every situation I can. I dislike Scribus interface a lot, and as a result, I route around it – I try to make sure that if I’m doing something in a design that Scribus ‘could’ do, I will ensure that Scribus is the only thing that can do it, and if something else can do it, I’ll do it that way. This is a combination of familiarity and convenience: Scribus is by no means a bad program, I’m sure, but I don’t like using it and it feels very easy to break things, which means when I do use it, I’m probably using it ‘wrong,’ and a Scribus expert would want to correct my technique.

For making simple slideshow videos, where I just show a thing, talk about it, and move on, I use the program OBS, which you can use for rules tutorials or explainers. OBS has its own ability to do slides – which you can make in a slideshow program like Google Slides or powerpoint or Prezi if you like – and then you talk over it, advancing the slides in OBS. It’s a very powerful, very flexible tool, but I can understand if it’s a bit overwhelming to start with.

If you want to record audio for your game, which is a cool thing to do, I use Audacity. It’s a simple audio program if you’re just using it for its basic functions, but it can be great if (for example) you want to record audio diaries of your creation process.

Also, mixed in with this is, cardboard, paper, scissors and glue. Playing cards need a standardised form so you can make a ‘blank’ deck of cards by taking an ordinary deck of cards and putting large, white, laundry stickers on each face, ‘wiping’ it so you can write what you want on the face.

Art Though?

I use free art where I can. There’s a lot of art assets, paid and free over on itch.io, which you can definitely use to make your game work look more interesting than base. And of course…

Bandaid tearing off time,

There are free image generators that you can use if you are comfortable with that. My advice is that you should only ever use generators for ‘zero value’ forms of media; that is, nothing you intend to sell and nothing you intend to use as identifying for yourself; don’t use a generator for a logo for your identity or brand, for example, because that’s uncopyrightable and then someone can just copy it. Even if they don’t, the fact they can undermines the copyright value of designing your own logo and title.

But yeah, image generators are available online. When I need an image for an example, the one I recommend using is dezgo, because it doesn’t require a login, doesn’t require you to pay money, and all it asks of you is time to let it finish working. You’re not going to get timely bulk media out of it, but that means, in my mind, that any artwork it generates is going to be worth scrutinising and editing to make it more appropriate to your needs. This is part of a greater conversation, but for now, the important thing is that if you’re going to use generative tools you need to make sure you recognise what they’re bad at and what they’re bad for.

Getting Started?

Alright, you have some tools to make what you have in mind more possible. What I recommend you do, and I will delve more into this later in the week, is make a prototype, and then, once you have the prototype, look at it seriously.

You’re going to have to get your head around the question what do I like without asking the followup question why at first. What is it about your prototype that satisfies you? What would you change if you could? Why isn’t it satisfying to you, what about it makes you concerned. Are there things you haven’t thought about because of biases you have? Is it a game you can’t play with one hand?

The point is the prototype marks the point you start finding out. You don’t need a perfect game to prototype – indeed, I have a lot of very ugly games as prototypes and I think those ugly prototypes work really well as a place to start working out what to do next.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[fallenclan]

How do you keep track of all the cats? I’ve been looking at clan gen blogs but it seems overwhelming to keep track of so many characters.

How do you know which interactions are important enough to note. I know romance, death, kits and new clan cats are notable but beyond that it seems hard?

Is your play session one moon at a time? Or are you able to do multiple moons?

Hopefully this is not too much at once I’m just hoping to get a bit of advice ig

no problem! not too much at once at all lol

for keeping track of all the cats, i don't find it too difficult just because i spend so much time with them--drawing them, writing little bits, thinking about relationship dynamics and family trees and such. for people who aren't as autistic about them as i am, i imagine its very difficult to keep track lmao. best suggestion i'd have if you're having trouble with your own cats is just to have a document with their name, maybe a brief description, and a few bits of lore. for instance: "Goldenstar (long furred golden tabby tom) - mate [Morningbloom] died in childbirth, was made deputy at a young age, was leader for most of his life" stuff like that!

for interactions, its mostly a personal preference thing. obviously i show favoritism to my cats and so i'll draw more interactions involving them. or if i see an interaction between two cats that aren't my favorites, but the interaction is interesting, i'll draw it! or if it's something like, say, otterslip and stormsight not getting along, i'll hop back a couple moons (i usually have a few posts queued up) and sneak in a few negative interactions, just so that the crux of the relationship (in this case, murder) doesn't come out of left field. i also draw patrols that are interesting to me, and (as i've mentioned before) usually avoid drawing every time a cat gets a sprain or a runny nose. if i did that, i would be so burnt out lmao, i usually only draw serious injuries like a broken back or clawed eyes

my play sessions! personally, i have a little rule that i need to have (at least) 3 drawings per post. they don't have to be extensive drawings, but i like to have them, so i just do as many moons as is necessary. sometimes i'll just have one moon per post, other times 3, or even more if one or two of the moons doesn't have any interesting events! i try not to skip ahead any further than one full post, because personally, if i see All That Stuff i have to draw with no gameplay in between, it'll intimidate me into not drawing at all. i encourage you to try out what works for You, though, bc what works for me won't work for everyone :)

have fun! lmk if i can help with anything else