#and it's considering that it's my first digital art since june

[lil-artist-blog-fandoms-ocs]

HEYHEYHEY LOOK A COLLAB

IT'S SO SOFT AND WARM AND COZY PLEASE ADMIRE IT AS MUCH AS I DO

Sketch and lineart by @wernickeee

Coloring and lighting\shading by me

It was a pleasure to work on this piece and wernickeee was just a great person to work with! 10/10, would do it again

[amadeusgame]

A Small Developer's Next Fest Retrospective

This write-up is mostly intended for people working on their first indie game who have no idea what to expect from an event like Steam Next Fest going in with a relatively small following and wishlist count. Almost all of the advice and available information I have seen is geared for games that have wishlists in the 4-5 digits, which is decidedly not me. So I am publishing my numbers for reference.

For full transparency and disclosure, Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz went in to Next Fest with 137 outstanding wishlists. This number was huge and hard-earned for my standards, even if it's a number that most studios consider "nothing." If there is one takeaway from this writeup, I hope it's that "nothing" is highly contextual, and any number you worked hard for is substantial.

As the Fest wraps up, the current outstanding count for Amadeus is....

259.

That is almost double what I started with. THAT'S HUGE!

It is incredibly important to keep perspective in mind when analyzing numbers like this. If you go in to Next Fest with 40k wishlists, getting ~120 more will feel like absolutely nothing. But if you go in with under 150, 120 is remarkable and significant. So whatever amount you have in anticipation of Next Fest, set your expectations based on that. Don't compare yourself to a super polished game made by a team of 30 people and a budget.

What follows is a lot of numbers and strategies and analysis of what I tried and how I think it went.

This write-up is going to be split into three sections.

The first is "Strikes Against Amadeus," in which I will outline all of the things I did that were not-optimal. You can decide whether to learn from that and avoid the same issues, or understand that doing them anyway means your numbers will suffer (as was my approach). This first part is very writing-heavy and has a lot of speculation and subjective commentary from a small solo dev POV.

The second section is "What Apparently Went Well," discussing the things that I think contributed to the game almost doubling its wishlists. Clearly, I did something right!

The final section is just numbers and data. Numbers on wishlists, wishlist deletions, correlations between stream viewership and wishlists/stream viewership and timeslots, etc. Feel free to skip directly to this part if you just want data.

I. Strikes Against Amadeus

Things that certainly contributed to it not doing as well as it might have.

Unpolished demo

Capsule art doesn't really show what the game looks like

Inconsistent gameplay

Streaming mistakes

1. Unpolished Demo

First things first—I ignored a very key piece of advice about getting the most out of Next Fest. Ignoring it was the correct choice for me, but I am aware it almost certainly had a negative impact on the numbers.

The advice: do not enter Next Fest until your demo is basically release-ready, as polished as it will ever be.

Next Fest is showing your game to a massive audience who are checking out hundreds of games. If you want your game to have a chance of standing out it should be the best it's going to be. And you only get one Next Fest for your game.

Why did I ignore it? Because I am a solo developer with limited time making a game that will never feel polished, and I wanted to focus on the big picture of my game's eventual release.

I am aiming to release the full game in October. If I waited until the following Next Fest, that festival would also be in October. I already know from releasing the demo that a release is MASSIVELY time-consuming and stressful. Do I want to deal with the stress of participating in a week-long festival while I am also dealing with the stress of a release? Absolutely not. I decided it was better to enter the June festival so when October comes my attention is not divided.

Given that I'd decided on the June festival, I was faced with another decision: I had already made many mechanical and writing improvements in my test build since the released demo. Should I update the demo build with those improvements before the Next Fest, so the demo feels better?

For similar reasons, I decided no.

Pushing an updated demo build would probably require a dedicated week just to test & troubleshoot all platforms in case something broke, and I am deep in the middle of development to finish the full game. Taking a week off of development to release a slightly more polished build for Next Fest felt like bad prioritizing.

I already know my game is a bit scrappy, and unlikely to do Big Numbers no matter what. More importantly, it doesn't matter HOW many wishlists I get if I don't actually finish the full game for release. So I focused on just continuing to work on my game.

If you choose to enter the Fest with an unpolished demo, as I did, you do need to accept that this means a lot of people will pass on it who may have given it a chance if it was more finished.

If you are anything like me, you might also need to prepare yourself for getting stressed out when you find yourself with 200+ people watching your unpolished game in real time, in silent judgement, causing you to become hyper-aware of every flaw and imperfection.

2. Capsule Art Doesn't Showcase Game

I knew that my game's store visual assets are not, shall we say... optimized. You can barely read the game's subtitle in it. It's also one of the only capsules in the whole Visual Novel category of the fest that doesn't clearly show what any of the characters actually look like.

I DO think that it looks unique, which is a large point in its favor, but I should probably consider making the protagonist or other discernible-at-a-glance art visible so people can see what the game actually looks like. There are so many hundreds upon hundreds of games in the Fest to scroll through, and a lot of people might scroll right past mine even if it's a game they would like because the thumbnail shows them nothing about how the game itself looks.

I'm not a graphic designer and my budget for this game is $0 + all my spare time, but it might have been pertinent to learn a little about graphic design principles in much the same way I have learned a little about animation principles to create Amadeus's walking animation, etc.

...That said, I am kind of attached to the non-optimal thumbnail just because it really does look different from all the others. Sometimes standing out isn't a good thing, but hey. This game exists because of unmarketably niche self-indulgence. I still feel that it suits it in a way.

3. Inconsistent Gameplay

This is something inherent to my game that I will absolutely not be fixing, but it is worth addressing.

Amadeus has scenes that are pure visual novel with minimal, if any, player input. These largely just feature text, character sprites and/or CGs, music/sound, and... that's really it. There are barely any choices or interactions to speak of.

It also has scenes where you control Amadeus and interact with the environment via point-and-click (or WASD) gameplay. These portions were inspired by my love of games like Zelda and Paper Mario, and for better or worse, I basically refused to compromise on the vision of actually walking around and controlling a little guy in my game.

These two gameplay experiences, in all honesty, have very little in common with each other.

Important note: I scripted every mechanic in the game myself, which means that neither of these very distinct scenarios feel polished (the visual novel scenes don't have pauses after punctuation in the shipped demo - I only figured out how to do this very recently; and the point-and-click scenes have janky pathing where Amadeus walks against walls not-infrequently). This means both gameplay types introduce potential friction/frustration because they're unpolished. This also makes the player experience very inconsistent between scenes.

The reason I draw attention to the inconsistency is that I noticed, during my livestreams throughout the week, a particular pattern in viewership.

It seemed at first that I would accumulate viewers during the point-and-click segments and they would drop off dramatically during VN segments. I attributed this to an elitist "VNs don't have GAMEPLAY" attitude and shrugged it off, until I noticed on a later stream that the exact opposite pattern was happening.

On that later stream, I accumulated viewers during long VN segments with no "gameplay," and they dropped off dramatically when it transitioned to a point-and-click gameplay segment.

That's when I realized that it's not a matter of one part of the game being Better To Market than the other; it's a matter of people generally valuing consistency. This bodes very well for people making pure visual novels, or otherwise hybrids that are more cohesive than mine is. The fact that my game feels like two different games awkwardly shoved together is, understandably, off-putting.

This is also not an aspect of my game I have any intention whatsoever to fix. The jarringly different gameplay experiences in it are a core part of its identity as a visual novel inspired by Sonic Adventure. However, it is probably worth noting that this doesn't make it very marketable.

(Maybe I should put Solea in a mech in Episode 2?)

4. Streaming Mistakes

This is probably the #1 thing to fix for next time I participate in a Next Fest, and the easiest adjustment to make now that I know better.

Before Next Fest, you are encouraged to sign up for 2 hour-long slots during which your game will receive a spotlight on the streaming schedule. This grants it a significant boost because the stream schedule is right there on the main page of Next Fest.

I've seen a lot of debates about when to schedule these and I do not have enough data points to draw any strong conclusions other than "definitely take advantage of this and schedule two, on two separate days." I've published my own numbers in the data section.

If you take no other advice from this write-up, take the following:

Test streaming to Steam before the Fest.

Publish your scheduled stream events before the Fest, so they appear on the schedule in advance.

Start streaming at least an hour before your spotlight time begins.

Continue streaming until you are back down to what an average, no-spotlight stream viewership for your game looks like.

My biggest "mistake" was really that I had no idea what average, no-spotlight stream viewership looked like because I scheduled my first stream at the start of the fest. I did start about an hour before the spotlight, and was steadily climbing in the double digits of viewers. I assumed this was with no boost (as my spotlight hour hadn't started). During the spotlight I averaged around 200 viewers, which felt insane. After the spotlight, I kept going for another half hour and it went back down to a little over 100, and since I was kind of exhausted and stressed I cut stream.

The next time I did a stream with no spotlight.... I averaged, um, maybe 8 viewers.

This was a very important lesson.

I still tried to do streams just about daily, mostly at night when I had time (and since there were fewer streams total, these seemed to do very marginally better anyway; maybe averaging closer to 10 viewers); but not very long ones. I didn't want to stress myself out trying to maximize exposure when I knew my game would never be a smash hit on release anyway, especially since the story won't be finished until all 5 episodes are out.

These smaller streams were really key in helping me figure out what viewers were looking for, though. I kept a close eye on viewer count while playing to look for patterns. More on that in the "What Went Well" section.

My second spotlight stream was on Saturday, and this time I started streaming about an hour and a half before it started. The beginning was pretty average, maybe slightly above average, but right on the hour-before mark I saw a pretty sizeable boost to an average of 30ish viewers (compared to 10ish, that's significant!), and then the hour itself saw a peak of around 400 viewers and an average of around 350, which is almost twice as good as the first stream, and just totally nuts. After the spotlight hour ended, I stayed live for another 2 hours because it was still in the triple digits and I knew that I would never get those numbers again. I eventually cut stream with still over 70 viewers because I was exhausted and needed food, but boy, was that a learning experience!

If I had kept going for another hour or so on Monday's stream (not that I knew better at the time), I really think the numbers from that day could have been even stronger.

II. What Went Well

This section covers the 4 major things that I think are working in my game's favor and helping it gain some interest.

Unique aesthetic identity

Additional marketing efforts

Good tagging

Adapting Livestream Approach

1. Unique Aesthetics

It's impossible to put a number on this, but I believe the fact I am a musician and an artist well before I am a programmer means the game has an aesthetic vision that stands out. It looks and sounds very unlike almost anything else I can immediately think of, including its clear influences. And because I have coded the mechanics myself instead of using an engine built for that purpose, I have made my life harder for no reason, and also made a game that feels unique.

If you can't be marketable, be memorable! Not a lot of people proportionately are going to find or be interested in Amadeus, but I like to think some of the people who saw it were captivated by the heart I've put into it and the clear vision I have for it.

2. Additional Marketing

This will be further outlined in the numbers section below, but on most days of the Fest I did some shilling elsewhere (mostly on Twitter) to try and get the most out of it. I have no way of knowing whether this was successful, but I will note which days I did which external shilling in case it is insightful.

I sincerely apologize to all of my Twitter followers for all that spam, by the way. You only get one Next Fest...

3. Good Tagging

This was almost certainly invaluable. There are SO MANY games participating in the Fest that anyone just scrolling through upcoming games will never see mine, as it's almost at the bottom in terms of wishlists. But the whole point of the Fest is to connect gamers with games they want to see, including really specific ones.

Steam has an awesome tagging wizard to tag your game on their store to identify really specific factors that people might look for. People browsing the Fest can use tags to filter for games that sound appealing to them in particular. So even if there are thousands of games, someone looking for a very specific type of VN/point-and-click that Amadeus fits the bill for should be able to find it.

(Even before the Fest, I am certain a nonzero number of wishlists came from my game being tagged "werewolf.")

4. Adapting Livestream Approach

Related to a point above, on what didn't go so well... in my second spotlight stream, I was able to get a lot more eyes on my game from knowing full well how much the spotlight hour mattered, by starting earlier and continuing later.

I had also learned from paying close attention to viewership patterns during the smaller streams over the week that certain behaviors on stream tended to drop viewers like flies. Opening menus too much instead of just letting VN scenes play out turned out to be a big no-no! I thought they'd want to see GAMEPLAY AND INTERACTION(TM), but it turns out viewers do not want to see adjustment of text speed sliders or opening of a backlog on someone else's pace; viewers want to see the game so they can decide if it's one they want to play or not.

I learned from this, so by the time my second major spotlight hour came around, I knew that the optimal way to play for viewers was just to toggle on the auto button and watch the Sonic Adventure 2: Battle 180 emblem speedrun world record VOD on another tab until a point-and-click segment came up.

III. The Numbers

Data from streams, wishlists, demo plays, etc.

I showed the overall total wishlist numbers from "demo launch on Steam store" to "right now" at the top to show just how much Next Fest has helped, but here is another view of that: wishlist adds and removals per day, since demo launch through Next Fest:

The big peak you see on the right, from Day 1 of Next Fest, is the single biggest day ever for wishlists the game has ever had. INCLUDING LAUNCH DAY.

I saw so many people say "Next Fest isn't going to help you if you're a tiny game with 50 wishlists," but, I mean.... I'm a tiny game with ~130 wishlists, and it has helped massively.

Zooming in on the Next Fest week:

I'll transcribe the exact numbers, for both wishlist adds and deletions, because the deletion number is interesting too:

Sun Jun 09 - 3 adds, 0 deletes Mon Jun 10 - 38 adds, 1 delete - Scheduled Stream 1 Tue Jun 11 - 19 adds, 4 deletes - Unscheduled Evening Stream Wed Jun 12 - 16 adds, 0 deletes - Unscheduled Evening Stream Thur Jun 13 - 9 adds, 1 delete - Unscheduled Daytime Stream Fri Jun 14 - 10 adds, 0 deletes - Unscheduled Evening Stream Sat Jun 15 - 24 adds, 4 deletes - Scheduled Stream 2 Sun Jun 16 - 16 adds, 0 deletes - No Stream

Adjusting for Additional Marketing:

It is probably worth noting that on the following days I made a lot of annoying Twitter posts shilling my game trailer on blue check accounts asking people to post their #indiegame. I have no idea if this influenced the numbers, but here is the amount of shilling per day:

Mon Jun 10 - 1 original post advertising the stream Tue Jun 11 - 2 original posts advertising Next Fest, 11 replies to "show me your indie game in Next Fest" blue check engagement bait posts (I am sorry) Wed Jun 12 - 1 reply to "show me your indie game in Next Fest" blue check engagement bait post Thu Jun 13 - 1 reply to "show me your indie game in Next Fest" blue check engagement bait post Fri Jun 14 - 1 original post advertising the stream Saturday. Lots of unrelated posting about Sonic the Hedgehog Sat Jun 15 - no posts Sun Jun 16 - 1 original post saying "it's my birthday play my game" that got more engagement than usual (5 RTs)

Important data points:

The two biggest days for wishlist deletions - ever - were Tuesday and Saturday. Presumably Tuesday is because it is the day following the most adds ever, and people got around to playing and decided "nah." Presumably Saturday is because it was the first weekend day where people got around to trying the demo and decided "nah."

The two biggest days for wishlist adds were Monday and Saturday. These correspond exactly with the days of my 2 scheduled streams. While I have heard that generally wishlists start high and taper off as the week goes on, the Saturday stream clearly had a massive impact on wishlists. That said, although it had almost twice as many viewers, it did not have nearly as many wishlists, implying the stream was far from the only factor.

Sunday performed above average and I did not stream at all that day.

Thursday performed the lowest throughout the week, and I streamed around midday (other days I streamed at night).

My extrapolations from these data points:

Small non-promoted daily streams... may not really matter; considering how well Sunday performed on a day I didn't stream at all, it seems that the boost I got from doing those small streams could be negligible.

That said, I recommend streaming late at night and not at midday if you are a smaller game for unscheduled streams.

It is difficult to tell if Thursday's low performance was due to the lower-than-average stream attendance from streaming at a more competitive time, or if that is just expected on a Thursday. Also, with numbers this small, some fluctuations may simply be statistically insignificant.

The "worst" day of the fest was still WAY above average for the game, and 4 days of the fest did better in wishlist adds than any other day except Day 1 of demo launch.

I obviously cannot say how well this scales to games that go in with 400-1000 wishlists, or games that go in with 50-100. But hopefully this helps!

I also want to show some metrics from the streams, including the times and whether they were spotlight streams or just extra streams. BEHOLD. DATA:

Mon Jun 10 - 278 max viewers | 7,213 total viewers | 2h16m Tue Jun 11 - 19 max viewers | 454 total viewers | 1h30m Wed Jun 12 - 10 max viewers | 161 total viewers | 1h00m Thur Jun 13 - 12 max viewers | 247 total viewers | 1h58m Fri Jun 14 - 18 max viewers | 481 total viewers | 2h30m Sat Jun 15 - 428 max viewers | 10,440 total viewers | 5h11m

That comes out to the following "average viewers" (total/length):

(All times in Pacific.)

Mon: 53.0 viewers/min - 1:15PM-3:33PM - spotlight 2PM-3PM Tue: 5.04 viewers/min - 9:00PM-10:31PM Wed: 2.68 viewers/min - 9:40PM-10:41PM Thu: 2.09 viewers/min - 10:54AM-12:53PM Fri: 3.21 viewers/min - 9:14PM - 11:45PM Sat: 33.6 viewers/min* - 9:34AM - 2:46PM - spotlight 11AM-12PM * this is much lower than monday only because the stream started well before spotlight and continued for another 2-3 hours after the spotlight ended, whereas Monday the stream only lasted a little longer than the spotlight hour.

Here's how the spotlight hour affected the Saturday stream, so you can see the boost in the hour before as well as how even with the drop-off after, it's a significant boost:

The boost at that first vertical boundary is it going from ~10 viewers to about ~30 viewers on average, then it is probably obvious where the spotlight hour itself starts. Notice that even with the sharp decline after it ends, it still tapers off to well above the average before the hour.

This is why I think it's essential to stream an hour before your stream starts, and continue well after the hour ends until viewers have truly tapered off to nothing significant. You'll get way more eyes on your game than you would any other time of the Fest!

I honestly have a lot more data points, but this post is getting long enough as it is. If you have any particular questions please feel free to send them my way. My primary goal is to put numbers out there for a game with a very small following, because I want small creators to have some data points on which they can base expectations for their own experience.

I hope you find this helpful or insightful! And if you're interested in a visual novel/point-and-click hybrid about a shithead teenager werewolf getting trolled by Witches in a super metanarrative-y game about memories and trauma, you know where to find it.

Good luck out there!

[diabolical-on-ao3]

Event Rules and FAQ!

I probably should've made this sooner, but here we go!

Important links:

Sign-up

Lyric Spreadsheet

Collection

The deadline is June 10 at 6pm CST

~*~

First off some general rules! I've included them in some other posts but it doesn't hurt to repeat/elaborate on them :D

To start, no NSFW works allowed! This includes explicit content, excessive violence/gore. Archive Warnings including 'Graphic Depictions of Violence', 'Rape/Non-Con', and 'Underage' are not allowed either. Shipping is allowed if tagged, and please properly tag any content warnings as well.

Other hermits/character are allowed, but please focus on Welsknight and/or Helsknight since this is an event for them!

Change of capitalization, only using part of the lyric, etc. are allowed as long as the lyric is recognizable

Works can be any length - as short or long as you want. I think the only exception would be for anyone posting art

Speaking of art, art (digital, traditional, etc.) is allowed for this event! Just please make sure to post it to AO3 so it can be added to the collection :D

Lyrics are not first come first serve and if there are multiple signups for the same lyric, it'll be allocated randomly once sign-ups end. I'll probably spin a wheel or something

You'll also have the option to (randomly) get lyrics other people don't want after signups close, on top of the lyric already assigned to you, if that's something you'd be interested in. You can opt-in for this in the sign-up sheet!

Sign ups may also open again at a later date if there are a bunch of lyrics left over and you want to take on another work! This is also an opportunity for anyone who hadn't joined yet to take part if they want to :D

And last but not least, have fun!! The deadline isn't fully decided yet but will probably be sometime in late May or early June

~*~

Moving on to the FAQ!

What kind of event is this?

This is a collaborative event where the goal is to make a collection of works corresponding to lyrics from Diabolical, with a focus on Welsknight and/or Helsknight

Also please tag event works with #diabolicalonao3

What is Diabolical?

Diabolical is a rap battle Welsknight has against his evil clone, Helsknight, in early season 7 Hermitcraft! It's also arguably the start of the hels dimension/helsmit stuff but don't quote me on that. If you want to take a listen, I have it linked below :)

Original

Elybeatmaker Remix

When does the collection open?

The collection will open as soon as sign-ups end and the work period starts.

Are there requirements/restrictions for art?

Nope! Just make sure that what you add to the collection is something you consider 'posting quality'.

Who runs this account?

Currently it's just me (@stressed-sock)! I also run @weekly-welsknight so there are my credentials /silly

~*~

If you have any other questions I haven't answered, feel free to send an ask!

[artsartblog]

In honor of the new year I’ll be posting the last art pieces I did of last year plus an art summary for the year.

First the art summary of 2023 because I felt like just giving an overview of what all I’ve made plus what I will be adding to this post. The first two are of my persona, her main art and her as a Fairy Pokémon Gym Leader (which was made for a discord server I’m in). March is of my Welcome Home oc that I haven’t made much art of, but I do have a piece I’m still working on since I’m not as hyperfixated on WH but still enjoy seeing art of it. April is of an AU version of my Marvel oc Molly (I know what I said in the og post with that art, but I’m considering it an AU version of Molly to just add to the different version I have of her). May is art of my TWEWY oc Kotone after she becomes a reaper. June is art of my FNaF oc Kelly in her new daycare uniform. July is art I made for my SU art blog, which is art of an AU I’m occasionally working on because I have too many ideas to ever commit to one thing lol. August is a redesign of my RC9GN oc Clarissa. September is art I made for a friend. October is art of my TADC oc Odette, who I’ve never posted on tumblr because I keep forget to lol. November is actually the outlier of everything on here because I technically started it years ago, but only finished it November 2023, so we’re just going to accept it into the bunch. December is art of an old oc that used to belong to a friend of mine, but she’s given him up to me since she doesn’t do art anymore and I couldn’t just separate him from his girlfriend (my oc Lucy). Plus he’s apart of the first ever oc universe I ever created (with my friend).

Now onto my latest unposted art!

First we have is Annalei! She is a character I made based on my friend. Originally it was a trio thing, but now it’s just a duo (because of drama I won’t get into on here since it’s the new year and we don’t need that drama again). Anyways, she is an angel who acts as the guardian angel of my character (who I haven’t drawn yet) Nikki. The two actually live together as roommates with Annalei trying to help guide Nikki down a path of good. I made this piece for my friend for Christmas because I thought she’d like it (she loved it). I don’t have a lot developed for this universe because of reasons, but I’ll eventually get around to developing it more.

Next we have Odette. She is my The Amazing Digital Circus oc I made after falling in love with the pilot of tadc. She is based off a ballerina music box I have that belonged to my mom, plus my childhood love of ballet, and ball jointed dolls (since tadc gives off a whole toy-box vibe). She named herself Odette because it was the one thing she could remember from the real world. Ironically, she is living her worst fear because she feared being forgotten by loved ones and everyone she ever cared about. She hates that she can’t remember anything about herself and tries her best to find a way out, but doesn’t think too hard on escaping since she doesn’t want to abstract. She actually tends to stay hidden from the others, Caine doesn’t actually know she’s there, but is aware of her room. The others know of her room, but Jax was the only one to ever meet her until Pomni arrived. The other few things she does remember is how to dance, draw and sing (mostly through muscle memory). Odette has a weird friendship with Jax, but she doesn’t mind. Especially since she has social anxiety and making new friends is really difficult for her (even more so now that she has no idea who she is). This helps her with becoming friends with Pomni since they’re both filled with anxiety and the desire to leave. Though Odette does her best to help Pomni out whenever she can, hoping that one of them could leave at the least. When she does first meet Pomni it was by accident on Pomni’s part. Odette had been dancing around in a place far enough away from the others, but close enough to still be able to see whatever adventure Caine has them all doing. The music playing drowned out any sound of someone approaching that Odette didn’t notice Pomni until the song ended and Pomni clapped at the performance, which caused Odette to freeze up and panic. Especially when she saw that it wasn’t Jax that found her. Luckily for the two of them this led to a friendship (one where Odette would do her best to protect Pomni from Jax’s pranks).

Next is of my Miraculous oc Dani. Maskerade (a play on mask and masquerade) is of akumatized Dani. The only reason for her getting akumatized is stress from her mother and everyone expecting her to be someone she’s not. Despite being a miraculous holder she would struggle with being akumatized because she knows that she’s just stressed out and there are ways to fix what she’s dealing with, but as a teenager trying to get her mother to just listen and understand her is difficult. Sometimes turning into a villain helps with getting the point across. Vespbee is Dani if she was the holder of the bee miraculous. I honestly went a little overboard with her hair, but I love it so much. Not much to say on it because it’s just a literal what if situation. Dark Swan is if Swanette got akumatized. It’s less likely to happen compared to Maskerade, but still possible because even as Swanette Dani has her doubts as a hero. Especially when she hears all the comments on how she’ll never be better than Ladybug and Cat Noir, not that she really cares but it hurts to be compared to other heroes. She’d be pretty dangerous because she’d be able to break away from Hawkmoth’s control and be an independent villain of her own control, which wouldn’t seem that bad but with her unlimited use of her abilities is not good. Especially because her miraculous ability is using her feathers to normally just brings out the best of person (like a trait or ability/talent), but an akumatized version of that brings out the worst in people and can bring out an animalistic/monstrous version of the person (practically turning them into a monstrous creature). Since she doesn’t have any goal other than proving that “yeah I’ll never be like Ladybug and Cat Noir”, which makes it even more difficult for Ladybug and Cat Noir to stop her. (She’s basically an eviler version of Hawkmoth)

Next we have is an AU idea I had for my DC oc Grace Kyle/Wayne (aka Catgirl).

This AU idea started out as “What if Catgirl died trying to become a vigilante like Batman to get closer to him in hopes of being able to tell him that they’re related?”, then turned into Grace swapping places with Jason and being the one to die instead. I plan of drawing what she looks like after being brought back to life as Crimson Cat (a name she gave herself) that has been trained under Talia al Ghul since Grace didn’t have any proper training to be a vigilante in the first place. Now alive she works on tracking down who killed her and getting revenge. It’s still a wip of an idea, but I think it’d be fun because of messing around with the personalities of characters. Plus angst for both Bruce and Selina.

Next we have the designs for my TMNT universe turtles. It’s a mix of 2012!turtles and rise!turtles, but with different turtles. Idk what else to say about them since I’m still working on that whole universe.

I’m adding this purely because I really love this design. This is Ozul Nightingale, otherwise known as the Boogeyman or Shadow Man, in his shadow/monster form. He’s the villain of my universe called Different Paths. He has the abilities to cause people to experience nightmares, slowly corrupting people into beings called shadow monsters, and brining out the true darkness in people. He was sealed away by The Council to save others from his powers. When he was sealed away he was put into an eternal sleep that could be broken by the blood of a pure-blooded shadow witch (a witch who is descended from Ozul that can perform shadow magic). To keep watch over him and prevent anyone from waking him a powerful witch, his wife, was placed as his guard, but over time she slowly became corrupted and became known as the Shadow Witch (who is the baddie for the most part of Different Paths). I haven’t drawn his human form yet, but I plan on doing it eventually. (Along with redesigning the main characters)

Next we have Barry and Aria. They’re just fun characters I made that are children of tumblr sexymen/women (Dr. Drakken and Shego). No, they are not related, but they do act like cousins to each other and we’re raised together by Drakken and Shego.

Lastly is my love Digger. He is being reworked because I’m basing him off of memory, but making him more my own. He is a ghoul demon creature that works in a graveyard. He’s a pretty chill guy and dating my oc Lucy (who is the long lost vampire princess). His family is a royal demon family that has constantly been at war with the royal vampire family because of things that happened in the past. However, Digger honestly doesn’t care about all of that and enjoys spending time working in the graveyard. He especially doesn’t react negatively like other demons (that aren’t in his immediate family) would expect him to react when finding out that his girlfriend is the long lost vampire princess (especially since it’s a big change for Lucy, who group up believing she was a weird witch girl that just was better with certain dark magic compared than other witches). He loves his girlfriend so much that her being from the “rival” family (it’s more the vampires that hate the demons) just means that they’ll be together forever. (Also he lets her paint his nails because it’s the only reminder of her that he’s willing to get dirty while he’s working). I do eventually plan of the two getting married, but that’s a future me thing to deal with.

That concludes all the art from 2023!!!! I hopefully will get around to posting more art on here than I normally do. I hope you look forward to it! Anyways, I hope you all have a wonderful year! Remember stay creative!

[limalosershq]

NAME: Brett Bukowski FACECLAIM: Caleb Landry Jones AGE/BIRTHDAY: 21, June 27 GLEE CLUB/SCHOOL: None/WMU SONG CHOICE: Busters Get Popped, a Brett Bukowski original MAJOR/MINOR/GRADE: Art/Ceramics, Senior LOCATION: Lima, OH. OCCUPATION: Drug Dealer Front man for High Road CLUBS/EXTRACURRICULARS/SPORTS: Art club, Astronomy club, ceramics, cooking club, drama club, environment club, painting club, international/foreign language club, photography club, digital media club, the muckraker, gay/straight alliance, improv club.

Brett’s father was a drug dealer who eventually stole money/drugs from his supplier and took off one night with them, leaving his wife and kid behind. Brett started immediately selling once the supplier, a man named Theo came knocking and looking to collect. While he’s close to paying off his father’s debt finally, he’s also racked up his own debt since he started using in high school after his first break up with his girlfriend, near the end of his junior year. 

Ever since then, Brett’s been an avid drug user, mostly to forget thanks to his perfect memory. Also so he knows everything about what he’s selling, he’s tried everything at least once. Through numerous connections, Brett can get anyone whatever drug they’re looking for. He makes a killing on the frat party circuit and surprisingly, on the show choir circuit as well.  

He’s OD’d a few times, the last being his sophomore year in college at a party. Mostly now, Brett only sticks to weed and the occasional bump of coke. He wants to be able to quit the latter soon, knowing if he does make a career out of his band it’ll be a problem later on.

While he’s done auditioning for every glee club he can, he’s not completely out of the trenches when it comes to show choir and while Brett’s made his peace with not getting into any of the show choir clubs, he knows music is a part of his life. This last spring, Brett formed a band he’s dubbed High Road. They’ve done a few gigs here and there, Brittany promoting them on her webshow and Sam hyping them up on his own social media accounts. While he knows it’s mostly for fun on his band members side, he wants to make something real out of this. For now, he pushes them to practice and prepare for Battle of the Bands.

IS THIS WHERE YOU PICTURED YOURSELF RIGHT NOW IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS?

Not really? I mean, to be honest I was pretty sure I was going to end up in the ground at least by eighteen... Twenty-one, maybe. Since I stopped partying so hard uh, after the last incident. It’s still kind of crazy though, not to mention, me in college? Living in a pretty dope house and not on the streets? I'd say in the grand scheme of things I'm doing way better than anything a younger me could've pictured.

HOW’RE YOU FEELING ABOUT ALL THE SHOW CHOIR RIVALRY?

I do not care even a little bit. But my best friend? He's obsessed so… Plus, Dottie is into it too. Maybe I care some, I guess. Totally think they could've used me though. Literally any of them. Well, maybe not Vocal Adderall or whatever, at least not like in the group. They definitely need me for something though, even if that St. James guy has me banned from the premises. 

WOULD YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A LIMA LOSER? WHERE EXACTLY IS YOUR LIFE HEADED, OR REALLY, WHERE SHOULD IT BE HEADING?

Nope. Not even when I was lying on the floor of a bathroom at a party getting narcan blasted into me sophomore year. ‘Cause people cared about me enough to look for me, you know? I don't think a loser would have people looking out for him and love him like that. I know where I want it to be headed, a record deal and a tour and a wedding somewhere, hopefully. With… uh, someone.

[annaminijayan3dblog]

Reader

Alloway, T. P., Carpenter, R. (2021). ‘Gotta catch ‘em all: Exploring the use of Pokémon Go to enhance cognition and affect’. in Psychology of Popular Media. [Online] 10(2). pp. 178–186. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000283.  [Accessed: 3 December 2023].

In this article, the author studies whether the AR game Pokémon Go can improve working memory, affect, and empathy. This is researched by comparing participants' data after playing Pokémon Go and after a walk in nature. The study revealed that playing Pokémon Go enhanced verbal working memory and decreased negative affect on the players. However, the game did not enhance the empathy of players. The authors also acknowledge that the study did not consider the effects of long-term play. Although the study has its limitations, I found it interesting that Pokémon Go has not only improved players' moods but also improved aspects of working memory. The article notes that it improves aspects of working memory because the game mimics a working memory task, where an individual is required to manipulate or make a decision based on the information available. Another fascinating point in the article is that the effect of this game on an individual's mood can be used as a therapeutic tool.

Aroni, G. (2022). A Semiotic Framework for the Analysis of Virtual Architecture in Digital Games. in Cross-Cultural Design. Applications in Learning, Arts, Cultural Heritage, Creative Industries, and Virtual Reality. HCII 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13312. Virtual Event, Sunday 26th June to Friday 1st July 2022 Springer, Cham. pp. 459–467

This conference paper observes architecture in digital games from a semiotic perspective. The author highlights the three primary motivations for playing games, one of which is the aesthetics of games. Architecture in the virtual world contributes to the aesthetic aspect of games and influences how players approach the gameplay. The paper analyses architecture from various games by combining Umberto Eco's semiotic theory of denotation and connotation and the concept of anticipatory play by Brian Upton. I found this paper useful since it revealed how architectural design can help improve player experience and how I can implement meaningful design elements in my work as a games artist. For example, the paper talks about how the placement of an air vent in two different games, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016) and Alien: Isolation (2014), has different meanings to the player. The air vent signifies safety for the first game while it signifies danger for the second one. The signs of virtual architecture aid the player in understanding the narrative and immersing themselves in the digital world.

Bozdog, M., Galloway, D. (2020). 'Worlds at Our Fingertips: Reading (in) What Remains of Edith Finch. Games and Culture'.in Games and Culture. 15(7). pp.789-808. Available at: https://doi-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/10.1177/1555412019844631. [Accessed: 8 December 2023]

This article analyses how the game What Remains of Edith Finch (2017) innovatively combines literary structures and gameplay. The authors also analyse walking simulators and how they can benefit from adopting a similar approach to their gameplay as a literary game. Games that use literary texts also help the player use different skills during gameplay as opposed to just one. I find it interesting that in the game, developers represent each character using a narrative style from different genres that match their personalities. For example, the character Molly's story involves magical realism and playful texts that fly, swim, and climb to reflect her playful nature. The article is also useful for me since it discusses how the game masterfully combines the two mediums and draws out their strengths. For instance, in Lewis's story, the player has to mechanically decapitate fish while going on an exploration of an imaginary world on the left side of the screen. This is a truly innovative way to depict how Lewis spends time in his imaginary world to escape daily monotony.

Fast, K., & Örnebring, H. (2017). ‘Transmedia world-building: The Shadow (1931–present) and Transformers (1984–present)’. in International Journal of Cultural Studies. [Online] 20(6). pp. 636-652. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877915605887 [Accessed: 6 December 2023]

The author of the article studies transmedia storytelling in the context of world-building and history as well as the the inconsistency and disconnect brought about by its transmedial nature. The production of two transmedia franchises is studied by the author to analyze how it shapes the narrative and the world that has been created through the 'transmediatization' of the franchises. The character in The Shadow went through minimal changes but the world-building had contradictions in its comic and radio versions. This could be due to the differences in the media it is presented in and the desire to reach a wider audience. In contrast, the Transformers franchise has an intricate world-building. The author points out that even though it is a planned-out franchise, it also has inconsistencies across media due to reasons such as brand placement or catering to a specific audience. The article discussed how a transmedia world can become disconnected, which I found useful. It is valuable for me to keep these points in mind when a game is being made as part of a transmedia franchise.

Oxspring, S., Kirman, B., Szymanezyk, O. (2013). Attack on the Clones: Managing Player Perceptions of Visual Variety and Believability in Video Game Crowds. in Advances in Computer Entertainment. ACE 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8253. Boekelo, The Netherlands, Tuesday 12th to Friday 15th November 2013  Springer, Cham. pp. 356–367

This conference paper talks about the realism and believability of crowds in video games and how the visual diversity of crowds can be improved in the procedural generation of non-player characters. The paper includes a case study on how commercial games approach diversity in crowd generation using games such as Left 4 dead (2008)and Left 4 dead 2 (2009). The authors confirm what factors contribute to the loss of visual diversity through a pilot study. Despite technological advancements since the publication of this paper, I found the author's solution to this problem by using a model mesh that can be deformed to represent different body types with random scaling, weight, and accessories valuable since I can implement these points in my practice as a character artist for games. Another interesting point is that while the authors place importance on crowd diversity, they have also evaluated the computational cost to achieve it. The perception of diversity by players was also given more importance than the absolute measure of diversity when arriving at a solution.

Petikam, L., Anjyo, K., Rhee, T. (2021). ‘Shading rig: dynamic art-directable stylised shading for 3D characters’. in ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG). [Onine] 40(5). Pp.1–14. Available from: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3461696 [Accessed: 5 December 2023]

This article talks about the development of a "shading rig" that will allow artists to animate toon shading using edits on a 3D model. The author analyses previous work on cel shading for 3D and identifies limitations within them. The shading rig overcomes these limitations through the use of edit parameters to create a shading mechanism that requires minimal post-production work to make it appear hand-drawn. The shading rig mainly uses intensity edits, masking edits, and softness as parameters. Intensity edits blend with existing shading boundaries while masking edits create sharp angles with the shading boundaries. The softness parameter is used to soften the shadow boundary. I found the article interesting since the shading rig also works well in real-time making it useful for games. The shading rig also has deformation-tracking which helps keep the edits in place during real-time deformation which I found to be a useful application for my work. The authors also recognise the limitations of the rig since it will be time-consuming to store edits for each lighting scenario in keyframes.

Şengün, S., Mawhorter, P., Bowie-Wilson, P., Audeh, Y., Kwak, H., Harrell, D. F. (2022). ‘Contours of virtual enfreakment in fighting game characters’. in Technological Forecasting and Social Change. [Onine] 180 (July), 121707. pp. 1-18. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121707 [Accessed: 4 December 2023]

In the article, the author introduces the concept of 'enfreakment' which means ostracizing and objectifying physical differences for entertainment purposes. The authors examine characters from the fighting games Street Fighter V (2016) and Tekken 7 (2015) to reveal the enfreakment of their characters. Through their examination, they discovered that female characters are sexualised more than their male counterparts, and minimal representation of minority characters perpetuates stereotypes. While Japanese characters are represented in a better way due to the game having originated from Japan in contrast darker-skinned characters are often portrayed as less appealing and praiseworthy. I found it interesting that the article also revealed that characters that were designed by people with similar nationalities as the characters were an example of positive representation of that nationality. This implies that people from diverse backgrounds can create better representations of characters that are usually underrepresented and stereotyped. Another thing I found valuable to keep in mind is that the authors revealed that even characters from majority groups also fall victim to being stereotyped if the designers are not careful.

Stang, S. M. (2019) ‘(Re-)balancing the triforce: Gender representation and androgynous masculinity in the Legend of Zelda series’. in Human Technology.[Online] 15(3). pp. 367–389. Available at: https://ht.csr-pub.eu/index.php/ht/article/view/276. [Accessed: 2 December 2023].

This article analyses gender representation in the popular video game series, The Legend of Zelda. This article focuses on the game's protagonist, Link, and the discourse between players and developers on the topic of his gender representation. According to the developers, Link has been represented as a childlike androgynous character to make it easier for the players to identify with him. This is a positive representation of a male character, compared to the overly masculine portrayal of protagonists that is often seen in games. However, the author takes into account how Link has always been referred to with male pronouns and how Nintendo could have offered a female Link as the protagonist in one of the main installments in the series. I found this article especially interesting since it points out that Nintendo could have been more inclusive by presenting Link as gender neutral as he is already androgynous by design. It also examines the fans' desire for diverse gender representations in the game and how responses from the developers reflect their reluctance to be more inclusive.

Sundaram, D., Gottlieb, O. (2022). '“It's so normal, and … meaningful.” Playing with Narrative, Artifacts, and Cultural Difference in Florence'. in gamevironments. [Online]. 16(July). pp.68-99. Available at: https://doi.org/10.48783/gameviron.v16i16.185.  [Accessed: 7 December 2023].

This article discusses how the game Florence  (2020) uses narrative and game mechanics to normalise cultural and religious otherness while creating a heartfelt experience for the players. The authors discuss how the developers consciously created characters from different cultural backgrounds while giving them individual personalities and flaws to make them relatable to everyone. By experiencing the daily lives of Florence and Kris through the game, the player begins to normalise intercultural experiences. I found the article useful since it revealed the innovative ways in which the implemented game mechanics enhance the narrative. For example, the game does not use dialogues but speech bubbles that move and join together like puzzle pieces to convey the tone of the conversation. When their relationship falls apart, the speech bubbles don't fit together anymore in the mini-game, conveying the situation to the player. I also found it useful how the article discusses the way in which narrative objects in the game act as cultural and religious markers and by making them manipulatable, the game also normalises cultural and religious otherness.

Weedy, K. (2018) ‘Chihiro Boards a Train: Perceptual Modulation in the Films of Studio Ghibli’. in FORUM: University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture & The Arts. [Online] 27 (December). Pp. 1-11 Available from: https://doi.org/10.2218/forum.27.2906. [Accessed: 1 December 2023].

This paper studies the perceptual modulation in train scenes in Studio Ghibli animations. The author talks about how the perspective and placement of the camera in train scenes are combined with animetism, which Thomas Lamarre defines as movement past the landscape creating a sliding sensation of speed. When this occurs, the viewer is induced into a state of mind called panoramic perception which generates a cognitive gap leading to a focus on something other than the landscape. In Studio Ghibli's case, the viewer is presented with a character they can focus on. This effect is merged with McCloud's theory that a simplified face will produce an amplified personal response from viewers. I found it interesting how the paper discusses how shots are lined up in a way that catches the attention of the viewer first, followed by a shot of the character with a simplified expression so the viewer can contemplate and identify with the character to create an emotional response. I believe it would be effective to incorporate a similar effect of 'Ma scenes' in games, especially in-game cutscenes since games are often fast-paced thereby making the gamer feel more emotions during gameplay.

[devakey]

Forefront 7: Black Noir’s Animated Psyche in The Boys - Season 3 (2022)

Season 3 of The Boys (2019-present) finally unveils more of the shrouded mystery that is Black Noir. One of the ‘‘Seven’’, he never utters a word and communicates only in writing in important situations. Not much is previously known about him other than his proficiency in the martial arts and of his super strength and heightened senses.

Background

We first get a glimpse of his background in season 3, with the mention of Soldier Boy and his entourage. Soldier Boy ends up violently beating Noir’s head and sticking it on top of a burning car. This incident leaves Noir brutally disfigured, causing his brain to regress and get stuck at the mental age of a child. It also causes him to experience hallucinations and delusions of cartoon characters which he imagines as his friends.

Image: The Boys Season 3 (2022) ‘ Here Comes a Candle to Light You to Bed’ | Prime Video 

Style

The Boy’s showrunner, Eric Kripke, detailed that they wanted to show Noir’s inner thoughts during his contemplation and brooding because he has no one he can speak with. The show had already done flashbacks to introduce Soldier Boy’s connection to him and this time, they wanted to refrain from repeating the same style of storytelling. They intended on having the animations look like classic Disney, as ‘‘if Martin Scorsese made Snow White’’. These sweet-looking, fluid characters were to present the flashback in the most brutal fashion (Kripke, 2022).

Image: The Boys Season 3 (2022) ‘ Here Comes a Candle to Light You to Bed’ | Prime Video

This strange animated ‘‘dialogue’’ and the flahback made more sense considering Noir’s stunted mental state and finally revealed a glimpse of what the inside of the mystery super’s head looked like.

Psyche

We see him interact with his imaginary cartoon friends, including pizza mascot Buster Beaver, who apparently previously helped him deal with a mass murder, and a boner in school (Anderton, 2022).

Although it is implied that they are ever present, his imaginary friends seem to try and protect him. It seems like he has conjured them up as a form of protection for his mental state, to help him deal with his doings and with traumatic incidents.

When he briefly escapes from Vought’s clutches after learning of Soldier Boy’s return, he sits at an abandoned, dusty Buster Beaver restaurant to seemingly gather his thoughts. This is when Buster Beaver reassures him. We see the flashback in the same, adorably animated style, showcasing the most violent battle (Zalben, 2022).

Image: The Boys Season 3 (2022) ‘ Here Comes a Candle to Light You to Bed’ | Prime Video

Influence

Animation can achieve an idiosyncratic style of storytelling that live-action could struggle with, since it is devoid of the same limitations. This blended style has not been used much in live-action for such a profound execution, before. For this blend of 2D animation and live-action, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Mary Poppins, and even comics like Spider-Ham, which features a pig version of Spider-Man and a cat version of Captain America were referenced by the Animators at Six Point Harness (Davis, 2022). The team behind The Boys successfully uses animation to not only stylise this episode but to also appropriately address Black Noir’s stunted, child-like brain while also adding character.

My work often features inward and outward perspective of the characters - of themselves and of the world. This is a great way to execute an episode like this one, much like the imaginary companion that I manifested in my film for Optical Sound, which follows a lonely protagonist conjuring up a shadow to keep them company and mute their feeling of desolation and loneliness.

References

1. Anderton, J. (2022) The boys boss explains Black Noir’s cartoon flashbacks, Digital Spy. Available at: https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a40498485/the-boys-cartoon-flashbacks-explained/ (Accessed: 13 June 2023).

2. Zalben, A. (2022) ‘the boys’: Eric Kripke on Black Noir’s “Classic disney” animated origin story, Decider. Available at: https://decider.com/2022/07/03/the-boys-black-noir-animated-origin-eric-kripke-interview/ (Accessed: 13 June 2023). 

3. Smith, A. (2022) Black Noir has the most compelling arc of ‘The boys’ season 3, Collider. Available at: https://collider.com/the-boys-season-3-black-noir-most-compelling-arc/ (Accessed: 13 June 2023). 

4. Davis, V. (2022) How six point harness used 2D to tackle Black Noir’s trauma in ‘the boys’, Animation World Network. Available at: https://www.awn.com/animationworld/how-six-point-harness-used-2d-tackle-black-noirs-trauma-boys (Accessed: 13 June 2023). 

[seeksstaronmewni]

4 years have passed since Samurai Jack Season 5 ended...

and over a dozen eggs of news came during the 4th year.

Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time, a video game exploring select moments from past episodes of the series, was released... and even Cartoon Network had to eventually promote that. A marathon aired on [adult swim] to celebrate the release of the game.

Genndy Tartakovsky’s Unicorn: Warriors Eternal was announced for Cartoon Network and HBO Max.

Some cartoons featuring many of Genndy’s artistic creatives are revived: Bruce Timm’s vision of Batman is BACK man... with the announcement of Batman: Caped Crusader for CN & HBO Max! Tiny Toon Adventures is also returning with Tiny Toons Looniversity; Genndy worked on both Warner Bros. cartoons (Batman & Tiny Toons) in the early 1990s. Then, of course, is The Ren & Stimpy Show coming for its 7th season to Comedy Central, a controversial but ground-breaking cartoon featuring many storyboard/layout artists who went on to work on most of Genndy’s cartoons... and much of Burbank & Canadian animation.

Season 1 of Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal concluded (the last 5 were not Season 2 but the delayed part of Season 1). Soon afterward a digital soundtrack for that season was released by Watertower Music, and the in-home release of the first season was announced for June 1st, 2021.

Paul Rudish’s vision of Disney’s Mickey Mouse was retitled as The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse, now formatted specifically at 8+ minutes and exclusive to Disney+.

Craig McCracken’s Kid Cosmic finally debuted on Netflix; Stephen DeStefano, who turned 55 this year (2021), contributed additional art to the 2nd episode.

I became known to Joel Valentine, sound designer of Samurai Jack and most of the Cartoon Cartoons that were a nostalgic part of my childhood.

Speaking of “Cartoon Cartoons”, Cartoon Network had the name, block and shorts program Cartoon Cartoons revived on April 15th, 2021! Pete Browngardt and Katie Rice are among the heads of the shorts program aforementioned.

Star Wars: Clone Wars, the 2003-2005 Cartoon Network Studios micro-series, being owned by Lucasfilm, was added to Disney+ under the Star Wars Vintage collection, labeled not episodically but as the 2 volumes (akin to the DVD releases) that contain all 3 seasons... and a decade passed since I bought those DVDs at a closing, local Movie Gallery. Luckily for nostalgic CN fans, Disney preserved the Cartoon Network Studios logo.

The Powerpuff Girls Season 7, ran by Haley Mancini, Nick Jennings and Bob Boyle, began to be 5 years old. Though nostalgically incorrect on many levels, the new PPG episodes, considered more like a slice-of-life style comedy, reeled me further back into my love of Cartoon Network (partly by Ms. Keane) and, being nostalgically incorrect, made me more hyped for Samurai Jack Season 5.

Syfy did a nice article about the creative influences of Dexter’s Laboratory, which, as a show format, became 25 years old.

Hotel Transylvania’s franchise continued with a new short, “Monster Pets”, and the announcement of Hotel Transylvania: Transformania.

Sym-Bionic Titan became a decade old, including the passing of a decade since the Season 1 finale, and was removed off of Netflix on December 15th, 2020.

Wander Over Yonder, a show featuring some of Genndy’s creatives and even a reference to Samurai Jack, also joined Disney+.

Bill Wray, a background painter and comic book artist for Samurai Jack, joined Twitter.

I look forward to seeing what exciting news comes about in the 5th year to pass.

1 bad Jack egg broken still leaves over a dozen...

Tweet version here.

1st year passing events here.

2nd year passing events here.

3rd year passing events here.

[blueiscoool]

Rich B. Caliente Teamed up with Rick Ross to Create a Kaleidoscopic 911 Porsche

One auto designer-turned-artist found a way to sate both of his life’s passions—and the colorful results could be yours. Rich B. Caliente has a hand-painted Porsche 911 and an NFT to match, and the first-of-its-kind duo is heading to auction.

Caliente, a proud Miami local who worked in the auto industry for 15 years before becoming a full-time artist, says offering the NFT in conjunction with his colorful 911 was a way of immortalizing his creation in both the physical and digital world.

“To me, it’s very important to have something tangible,” Caliente said “So it’s kind of like my twist on an NFT, where you have something that’s a digital capsule, but you also have something that can be enjoyed in real life.”

The artist, who has wrapped exotic rides for an array of high-profile collectors, enlisted some impressive help to make the project happen:  The bespoke 2021 Porsche 911 that’s gifted with the NFT was made in collaboration with rapper Rick Ross. The Grammy Award winner also signed the car to give it a dose of celebrity fairy dust.

According to the Caliente, this is the first time that a minted NFT artwork will come with a car title digitally included. It’s also one of the only Porsche art cars of this century, following Janis Joplin’s psychedelic 356 of the late ‘60s that Caliente describes as “amazing.”

The project, which is at the intersection of art, technology and automotive design, represents the culmination of Caliente’s career and also pays tribute to his Miami roots.

“The whole point of this project was to inspire, but also to formulate and represent where you’re from and who you are,” Caliente added. “So this is our little piece of the world that we live in.”

The artist says he briefly considered a Lamborghini Urus but opted for a 911 on account of its “iconic shape,” which he says enhances the artwork rather than compete with it. Caliente spent two days within arm’s reach of the Porsche to conceptualize the design before embarking on the two-week paint job.

The painstaking process involved taking everything off the car and applying his signature splatters and drips, which harken back to the work of Jackson Pollock. Think Tiffany-blue hues juxtaposed with splashes of bright yellow. Parts of the paint, like the orange above the taillights, also glow in the dark to emulate “oozing magma,” according to Caliente. The artist says that the whole design is symmetrical—so even though it’s thrown paint, everything looks purposeful.

The luxe interior, meanwhile, remains largely unchanged save for some custom leather mats, which are also emblazoned with both men’s signatures and Ross’s 2021 album title Richer Than I’ve Ever Been. Under the hood, the car retains its 3.0-liter 6-cylinder engine that delivers up to 379 hp.

The idea to digitally embed the Porsche’s title inside of the NFT may well point to a future of smart contracts that become a standard part of high-end digital purchases. And, since the transaction is processed through the blockchain, it’s completely transparent and traceable. All parties can see exactly where the funds go.

The auction, which is running June 4 through 14, will be hosted by an NFT management consultancy co-founded by Caliente known as Slashdot. Bids will be accepted online in the cryptocurrency Ethereum, and a portion of proceeds from the sale will benefit the Irie Foundation. This organization is dedicated to empowering the lives of at-risk youth in South Florida through mentorship programs, cultural experiences, and scholarship opportunities.

Naturally, the multi-pronged artwork doesn’t come cheap. Bids will start at $305,911, with the first three numbers a reference to Miami’s area code and the last to Porsche’s beloved sports car. For those who want to see the multicolored creation IRL, the 911 will debut at the 2021 Bitcoin Conference in Miami from June 4 to 5.

Caliente is already planning follow-up artworks, too. The artist exclusively shared with Robb Report that he has another NFT and one-off luxury ride in the pipeline, along with a bespoke aircraft and matching digital art.

Best get your digital wallets ready, folks.

By Rachel Cormack.

[bryan360]

My reactions through my Nintendo E3 2021’s highlight picks

Hey guys! You know me from what been checking on E3 announcement last week. I even did my other posts to mention it of 🐰Mario + Rabbits sequel game and 🏁🏎Forza Horizon 5 as my interests picks.

June. 13th, 2021 - Link Here

June. 14th, 2021 - Link Here #2

Now it's finally time that I can talk through Nintendo E3 2021's announcement of games and content; after reveals back in June 15th that I should've bring this sooner, but due to working on my other tasks that I'm gonna save it til today. Hoping that I had time for free time to explain of what I feel for Nintendo E3 2021 Direct reveal for this month of June; especially which one that I finding most interested so I could added through my wishlist on eShop app. So today, here's my interesting picks for Nintendo E3 reveal this year; whether you agreed or disagree of how it goes when you suggest other was. I know if everyone so close to look forward the Switch Pro reveal, but it seems that it didn't happen anytime soon. Anyways, now get into my picks that I screenshot and edited through last week's Nintendo Direct I've managed.

First top left - ✊😈Kazuya Mishima joining Super Smash Bros Ultimate

First off, I knew that there will be at least one Super Smash Bros DLC Fighter reveal; before saving the last one for coming months this year soon. What's really unexpected to see though is a second Bandai Namco fighter after 👻PAC-MAN, but sadly its not Lloyd that if everyone hoping he would've upgraded from a Mii Costume to a true fighter yet. (Like we ever getting another sword fighter once again. 😒) No, it was actually ✊😈Kazuya Mishima from the Tekken series. My reaction was caught my attention since it started when he carrying Ganondorf to the lava pit and so does other fighters that is really dark. Except for Kirby that thankfully knows how to get away, but still. If I remember his origin through reading wiki site though, at time he used to be good until his father Heihachi sees him as his weakness. Later when Heihachi kills one of the family members that Kazuya been fond of and being thrown by his father in the cliff until he eventually climbs back up when his devil gene activates. Ever since then, Kazuya is now antagonist for the recent Tekken games so far and seeing him to match fight against Smash was an unexpected sight. I remember the time after hearing Masahiro Sakurai's interview where he consider Heihachi to be playable for Smash 4, but pass over due to implement his moveset to be difficult. But here we are seeing for Kazuya instead that it really sure takes time to deliver. After his moveset through his reveal could be challenging to work it out on command. Let's just wait to figure out once Sakurai will finally bring us his next presentation next week, but for now knowing this Tekken fighter joining Smash was a unique idea that Sakurai managed to work it out.

Second top right - 🌟Mario Party Super Stars

How about that when where seeing the next Mario Party game brings us? Despite the recent 2018 Super Mario Party, this will be the twelfth installment to be heading Nintendo Switch this year's 🎃October 2021; this time having 100 remastered minigames like I've seen them before on previous Mario Party games. My reaction was good to see how it continues on, but sure miss that time I remember from my childhood for the original first Mario Party game on the N64 console. So what's get me attention is the recognized boards such as 👑🎂Peach's Birthday Cake makes a comeback! It looks the way that I remember from playing the N64 game when the layouts off frosting goodness and the song to match as well. It was really something when it comes from Nintendo and their past N64 games I have memories fond of. 🙂👍🏼

I give this Nintendo a good move when trying to bring back Mario Party again as a E3 reveal, but maybe just maybe if it will be this good from previous Mario Party games in terms of selling copies. Who knows? *Shrug*

Third middle left - Metroid Dread

However, if you really looking forward a new Nintendo game coming to October 2021 early is a most recognized franchise making a return....meanwhile Metroid Prime 4 is still in development. At least knowing this game can take us time before the fourth prime game can be finished, but man that everyone went crazy after the reveal of Metroid Dread! It the return of 2D Metroid game in action after the success of Samus Return for 3DS back in September 2017. My reaction was surprised and impressive for the looks and feels about this game's tone; especially the haunting part where the robot named "EMMI" (but don't be confused with the word Emmy as an Emmy Award like if would funny. 😅) trying to catch up with Samus and it's game over....😵 I think I could add this into my wishlist and it would be the first time I'll be owning this Metroid game for my Switch system. Fact: Metroid Dread was originally plan as a Nintendo DS title way back in mid 2000s, but sadly being cancelled due to technical limitations.

Fourth middle right - 💣WarioWare Get It Together

I was hoping if Warioware could come back for the lastest Switch system and they finally called. However, this game will take a different approach than doing minigames of yourself, but with your characters do it for you. For this latest Warioware game of picking noses, it'll be having one of the characters such as Wario, Mona, Jimmy T, 9-Volt, and others to do on all minigames with their strengths and skills they can managed. My reaction was pretty good knowing that Nintendo is making this a unique idea than doing a same microgame gameplay style from previous ones, but in a fun way. Cross my fingers if I'll be saving this as a digital download version. Like that time I actually got "Warioware Touched!" for my 2DS/3DS handheld system back in April 2016, but sadly lost it of deletion unfortunately....😧 Link Here #3

Fifth middle bottom - Game & Watch The Legend of Zelda

And finally is something that we're hoping to expect during almost halftime of their E3 direct reveal. Knowing this year is The Legend of Zelda 35th Anniversary, you probably hoping they can bring something to celebrate one of the most recognized series run. While it was shocking to know they won't be having plans to do; even for me that I finding baffling for Nintendo would do this. At least they wanted to make up for it by having to released the HD remastered version of Skyward Sword coming next month and giving us a second look for the upcoming Breath of the Wild sequel until it'll be released next year....eventually. What's my pick though is the Game & Watch version for The Legend of Zelda; the same thing of what it made for Super Mario and during its 35th Anniversary run last year. For this next one will have 3 related Zelda games: 1987 original, Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, and a special Game and Watch version of Vermin, but playing as Link as he trying to clobbered the octoroks instead of moles. Looks like it'll be a different take from what the Super Mario version have, but hoping it won't be the limited edition once maybe I could get one of those a try. So for my reaction was pretty alright. 🙂👍🏼

Overall:

Man that is the list for my interests picks I gotten, but after watching Nintendo E3 Direct for this year sure worth it at the end. It was very impressive direct despite of absent games not being showed like Bayonette 3 or Metroid Prime 4, but with other announcements such as Metroid Dread and Mario Party Super Stars does give us something for the win.

What did you think about this list of my interesting picks for Nintendo E3, though? Give yourself some likes and reblogs for this post I bring. Anyways, I'm just gonna check on my P-Pal's secret art trade part for me that I should've done it early. Sorry about making this post that I took hours to finished, @murumokirby360

[newbornwhumperfly]

it started out as a feeling...

CW: stress position, wrist trauma, blood, cigarette burns, modern slavery, slave-soldiers, discussion of war, references to abuse 

tagging: @haro-whumps, @whumping-every-day, @whumpthisway, @lave-e, @stoic-whumpee, @swordkallya, @whumpster-draganies @liliability

so. i Finally wrapped up my first installment of a whump series i’ve planned for ages after enormous support from fellow whomp-bloggers, many brainstorm sessions, amazing people drawing amazing art, & kind questions from people asking about original content <3<3<3

this wouldn’t happen w/to @haro-whumps cause they’ve been utterly invaluable <3<3<3 not only have i gained an enthusiastic cheerleader and beta but a good friend. thank you from the bottom of my heart :)))) 

title from “the call” by regina spektor

it’s Quite Long & exposition heavy but i promise - it gets angstier :)))

~       

July. 13.

Author: Captain Abraxas Hutchins.

Confidential Situation Report: cc; TATT Commander’s Guild

In this ninth official year in the conflict between New Athens and Upper Tyrus, I agree with general assessments that the cold war has heated significantly. In the past three years in particular, we have seen a sharp increase in subterfuge and sabotage towards essential operations.

Though skirmishes at both borders have become more frequent, our greatest concern regarding national security appears to be increasing levels of assination and data theft from New Athenian agents against the state of Tyrus (in both Upper and Lower Regions).

I understand that several commanding officers at TATT (Tyrus Anti-Terrorism Taskforce) are concerned about several bombings in the past three years as they are believed to be the efforts of New Athenian covert agents (unverified but probable). Despite the violent nature of these bombings, it is my opinion that the theft of data (as well as targeted assassinations) be considered PRIORITY. I consider it New Athenian strategy to cripple our operations.

(NOTED OBJECTION: My team sniper and fellow threat-analyst Cdr. Jorah Cuthbert’s assessment considers these bombings PRIORITY due to initial attacks causing military casualties, and some civilian, casualties.)

Though we have strengthened forces along our borders, even maintaining several “watchtower” outposts in the “Wasteland” region between Tyrus and New Athens, such security measures have failed to prevent the aforementioned acts of aggression.

Despite intense vigilance and dogged pursuit, no New Athenian covert agents have ever been successfully interrogated for high-value information and those few we have managed to apprehend committed suicide (or were assassinated) in custody and, since, before capture. 

OPINION: A renewed focus on the apprehension, detainment, and interrogation (NOT “ENHANCED INTERROGATION”) of a New Athenian covert agent would reap invaluable rewards in data-gathering, threat-analysis, and contributing to a stalemate in this crisis.

Though neither government has declared an official state of war, the political tensions of the past two decades have culminated in acts of aggression that might soon bring negotiation and diplomacy to their breaking points. The Tyrus Parliament’s recent statement is that they intend to “aggressively protect” mineral mining expansions into the borders of South “Wasteland” territory “with Legion support if necessary  (Senator Gilroy, Parliamentary Address, June 22). Such mineral expansions will certainly extend to Raetean coastal territory, which would inevitably result in clashes with Athenian security forces protecting land development projects conducted by New Athenian government). 

In my assessment, this will exacerbate tensions further between our nations. The Islands of Raetea off the coast of New Athens continue to suffer, with recent blockades and Tyrus sanctions increasing Raetea’s economic crisis, which has only worsened over the past four years. It is very likely that there will be a new wave of refugees into the state of New Athens as a result of tensions between Tyrus and Athenian operations, similar to what we observed at the unofficial start of this conflict over a decade ago. Consequent economic burdens and the optics of this influx of refugees will contribute to pro-war sentiment in New Athens.

It is my view that if the Legion must communicate with Parliament that if state negotiators do not increase their efforts--

Brax paused in their writing as another pang shot through their wrist.

Blinking against the blue dots which hovered in their periphery, they set down their stylus to stretch the kinks out of their aching fingers. They really needed to finish their sit-rep before noon tomorrow but there was no harm in pausing for some tea. Oh, and they still needed to get Jorah’s electronic signature before they sent off the document…

Allowing a groan to break through the stifling silence, Brax glared balefully at the slow-spinning ceiling fan.

It is an inanimate object.

It cannot feel your recrimination and will not go faster.

Rational, reasonable facts which didn’t stop them from glaring harder at the offending blades, languidly batting the warm air from corner to corner. Sweat began to dampen Brax’s robe a mere minute after they slipped it on, clinging to their back as they rose from the bed and strode to pour themself another cup of Darjeeling. It was a sign of how oppressive summer had become that the heat bothered them enough to glare at a goddamn ceiling fan.

Or maybe it was just this report.

Brax’s eyes throbbed to match their hands as their gaze tracked the bubbles rolling in the coffee-maker and thinking, suddenly, how they would rather do this than spend another minute on this report.

A report they had written before, in fewer, less urgent words. Perhaps they would come to write it so often that they could pen it with their eyes closed.

Brax was not born for...this.

Analyzing data for larger patterns, working with people to coalesce them into workable teams, untangling the knots of complex problems - it was all Brax’s bread and butter.

They just never thought they’d be doing it in service of a war.

Especially not such a war as this, which stretched on, cold and quiet as perpetual winter, for years upon years with no official frontline, no certain death toll, and no end in sight. It crept like frost through even the most iron structures of their society, the bite of corruption and desperation corroding from within, unrelenting attacks from without. A conflict that Brax had seen steal the best of their generation, silently and suddenly, into the night.

Alright, that decided it. Melatonin with their tea it was. Brax reminded themself not to make this a habit as they tapped two pills into their palm before they carried a steaming mug back to their bedside.

A fair and direct fight was more their speed.

Well, technically their speed was to avoid fights if at all possible but the past few years with the Legion had taught Brax that the thin line between caution and cowardice was easily crossed - regardless of intent.

They were not so foolish to hope to keep their innocence but they intended to keep their worldview intact, despite how determined the world seemed to shatter their views. They would not allow their intelligence to be broken into shards of cynicism and brutal practicality.

But in such a war as this, intelligence was never undervalued and Brax’s reputation for swift, sure judgement had left their opinion heavily in demand. They had heard the call and gone from analyzing political conflict behind a desk to the field with surprising ease, mirrored in their meteoric ascent through the ranks. 

Though they often wished for their cramped desk and stale coffee, they knew they were needed here and could not now resent being so pressed for their help.

Which is why they didn’t have much of a right to be surprised when a knock, heavy and booming, rapped against the door of their quarters.

Brax allowed themself a regretful blink at their unswallowed pills and undrunk tea before setting them down delicately, not at all with a disgruntled thud, before striding to the door.

Cobi had the decency to look a little rueful when faced with his commanding officer, haggard and bleary, clad in only a robe.

“This had better be damn important, Lt. Pfeffer,” Brax attempts to be wry but the strain in their voice rather diminishes the humor. “My Darjeeling has melatonin in it.”

“Yeah, uh, yes, Captain. Ok, uh…”

Cobi hesitated, chewed his lip as his mighty hands flexed, clenched white-knuckled, and suddenly Brax knew that shit was about to go down.

“Captain, someone...an Athens agent crossed the border. Like, just fuckin’ walked right into an outpost and, uh, gave themself up. This morning. So, uh. Yeah. Guessing that’s important, Captain.”

Well.

It seemed that report was going to have to wait.

~

The government car felt too small and too hot as it rocketed through the thick, buggy dark and Brax once again resisted the urge to adjust their shirt collar.

Putting the heat, and the thought that they really should have changed their undershirt, to the side, they glanced at the car’s digital clock.

02:45

They didn’t think the driver would notice if they fixed their appearance but Brax preferred not to bring undue attention to the sloppy adjustment of their hastily donned uniform. Repressing a sigh, Brax scrolled through their data-pad, sweaty fingers slipping on the screen as they skimmed through the electronic sit-rep.

\

At approx. 22:10, a New Athens covert agent approached a Wasteland outpost.

The agent was bound and searched. The agent was unarmed and scans revealed no explosive devices or any other weapons. The uniform was confiscated to search for bugs. Upon interrogation, the agent would only state name, serial number, and desire to speak to someone in the command structure. The agent has been restrained securely to prevent possible suicide.

Stated name: Morja (Serial #:13308)

Approx. 5’, 5-6”

Approx. late 20’s to early 30’s

Brown skin (possible Raetean descent - known to be typical for covert agents)

Health Status: no diseases, no medical conditions known

No current, major injuries noted. 

/

Once again, Brax’s eyes drifted inexorably towards the clock’s bright glare.

02:47

Shit.

Time crept like the dark fields beyond the tinted window, too slow and yet too quick, as Brax struggled to grasp their prided equilibrium. Yet they felt like it was slipping from their grip like the datapad through sweaty hands.

The security bureau likely felt they were already lagging too far behind this development. This interview ought to have happened hours ago. Brax needed more time, more information, to interrogate this agent. They needed to know if this agent had previous contact with Tyrus forces.

They need more time.

The truth was that, despite the considerable efforts of Tyrus' intelligence agents, they had very little notion of how covert assassins were trained on the other side. Even the recruitment process was shrouded in mystery and misinformation, but many analysts suspected that service was..less than voluntary. They knew that impressment targeted Raetean refugees, third-class citizens, and often poor prisoners, all conscripted with grand offers of security - or, as Brax recalled with a gag from a propaganda newsclip, “the service of the lesser so the great will prosper”.

These agents started young and desperate, understandably - easy to break into desirable moulds. New Athenian agents fought with fervent loyalty on par with religious devotion, with most Tyrus citizens considering these agents devout to their nation like cultists to their faith.

Brax did not entirely buy that.

Being trained (likely brutally) and indoctrinated with nationalist gratitude since youth, plucked from a miserable existence. Especially where the third-tier citizens and refugees often died of untreated illness, ration shortage, and climate poisoning.

Choice was all well and good to praise when one has never had...no choice.

There was also the fact that treason, dissension, any sort of breaking ranks - all punished with a proud severity typical to an authoritarian state. Add these all together and a nation gets a loyal stock of “servants”, bound for life to die for a state which did not seem to care how many they lost as long as they achieved their goals: the prosperity of the great.

They need to focus on the details at hand.

They need beads of sweat to stop rolling off the dome of their head, trickling to the wire-rimmed lens and clinging to the glasses, refusing to fall.

Ignore it.

One thing was quite certain - Brax had no idea what to expect.

~

The atmosphere in the outpost bunker buzzed with anticipation, goosebumps rising along Brax’s arms even in the sweltering air, as they stepped down into the building. Two fresh-faced lieutenants stood at restless attention and once Brax stepped into the room the fidgeting figures snapped out their salutes, hand to forehead, with a nervous, jerky speed.

A reedy blonde, the sergeant in charge, seemed to barely keep herself from crossing her arms across her body, hands making abortive gestures towards her torso as she briefed Brax on the situation. She was sweating dark stains through her uniform and her mouth ticked sporadically, twisting into a small, hard shape.

Brax knew all the information given but they allowed her the extra minute to grit the story through her teeth. She clearly needed this.

Nodding sharply at her conclusion, Brax inquired and was led to where the agent was being held, a small soundproof room with a heavy steel door.

“Under no circumstances am I to be interrupted - is that clear?”

Satisfied by the brisk nods of their wide-eyed subordinates, Brax gripped the cell’s door handle harder than necessary as they input the code with slow, steady presses of a slippery finger. Taking a moment to cycle through all known factors in their head, they allowed their shoulders to drop and slipped on the politely inquisitive neutrality of their game-face.

As they stepped, resolutely, over the threshold of the cell, their eyes adjusted to the dark room and they finally laid eyes on the agent in question.

A stocky figure, likely short in stature, thickly muscled limbs, dressed in a Tyrus Legion issue slacks and teeshirt. Even in the low light, Brax could see the agent was dark in complexion, with the brown skin and black hair typical of Raetean citizens.

“Likely” short, Brax noted, since no real gauge could be made of the figure’s height since said figure was on their knees, shackled.

Their ankles and shins had been tightly bound together, leaving the figure to balance in an uneven kneel, straining the broad shoulders where their arms had been drawn back and up to the wall, where their clenched hands were bound in thick, steel cuffs.

Shit. That was just wonderful, wasn’t it? They knew the agent would surely be cuffed - they had been handed keys after all - but nobody had mentioned...stress positions.

Just as well. Brax’s opinion on the outpost’s flirtation with torture was well-known amongst superiors and subordinates alike. They didn’t need their blood up. Ir would have been nice if these soldiers hadn’t played fast and loose with protocol. But the reprimand can wait, Brax sternly reminded themself. Focus on the task at hand.

As the door swung heavily shut behind Brax, the figure raised their head slowly.

A dim glow from the one dangling bulb threw shifting shadows onto a rugged face - thinly bearded, a wide brow, chin and nose, the broad bridge crooked from an old break. Their mouth was pressed into a thin, hard line. Their thick, jet-black hair gleamed with perspiration, the sweat-drenched locks watermarking the pale green of their shirt-shoulders. 

The low light accented thick scars ridging the bronze flesh: a wide mark swooping over his nose, slashing through a thick right brow, curving below the left cheekbone, and a jagged mark splitting the tender skin below one of their dark, deep-set eyes.

Those eyes glinted for a moment, alighting on Brax’s face before flicking away, settling blankly somewhere around the fourth button of Brax’s uniform.

No further movement, not even a change in breathing, from the agent. No flicker of expression disturbed the blankness of their face. Only steady blinking and a cadenced swell of the broad chest indicated that they were even alive.

Well, they were a stoic one, that was certain.

If they were as smart as they must be, they were either suppressing terror at their predicament (likely) or smug certainty in some nefarious ploy (plausible but less certain).

Brax let the air simmer for a few more moments before striding with purpose towards the figure, ready to undo their bonds. At their first certain step, every line in the agent’s body tautened, rigid as a sail in the wind, as their rhythmic breaths quickened - shallowly, shortly out, deeply, swiftly in.

So - the former.

Reassured by a confirmation of their assessment, though less pleased to be a source of distress, Brax made quick work of the restraints.

They stepped back, giving the agent a moment to straighten up and rub their wrists. The figure’s gaze flicked to Brax’s face, brow nearly creasing into a furrow before smoothing once more. They allowed their arms to fall and settle stiffly on their lap, settling on their knees and settling their gaze once more upon Brax’s waist.

Alright then - no aggression, no combative expression, nothing but complete submission so far.

Good cop it is then - good.

Sinking to one knee, Brax tried to seek out the agent’s eyes but that dark gaze remained lowered, so Brax focused on keeping their voice low and soft.

“Hello, Morja, my name is Captain Abraxas Hutchins. I was told you wanted to talk to someone higher in the ranks, so, you got me. Can you tell me what it is you want?”

An intake of breath, sharp and sudden.

Brax would almost call it a gasp and their close observance caught the figure’s eyes flickering with something like shock. If the agent was bewildered or shocked, however, they recovered swiftly, their soft burr revealing no more emotion than their stony face.

“Anóteros, I came to...offer my service to Tyrus.”

....Well. Alright. Well.

Brax allowed themself a blink. Taking a moment to process this statement.

“Are you...are you telling me that you’re surrendering?”

“...Yes, anóteros.”

The agent opened their mouth, paused, spoke once their gaze flickered over Brax’s nod of encouragement.

“I am… deserting New Athens. I… offer my service to this nation. I will offer information. I will fight. I will….do whatever you want.”

The way that the agent spoke, measuring each word as some fragile and heavy thing, sat uneasily with Brax. So did being called “master” or “superior” or whatever that word meant.

As the agent’s palms stiffened, flexing upon their thighs, their close proximity allowing Brax to note the copious scars and burns (some little and disturbingly round) littered upon those wide hands. Brax kept noting that too, the broadness of the figure before them and how often they forgot the size in light of the demeanor. Their shoulders did not hunch, their head did not hang low, but they projected absolute submission.

I am not a threat. I am small and harmless. You do not need to hurt me.

Brax did not need psych-profile terminology at the moment. They could almost hear Sarai’s murmurous meandering on abuse survivors and body language, atypical trauma symptoms, and all the things Brax knew too much about for a lifetime. This agent’s possible history with abuse was an issue for the aforementioned team medic and therapist to ponder if she wished.

Brax was here to assess potential threats.

They were not at all influenced by how the shift of movement drew their eyes to the cruel grooves in the agent’s wrists, deep and ugly crimson, the clear marks of viciously fastened zip-ties.

Not in the least.

Skin on the left wrist had broken and blood sluggishly trickled from the cruel, red circle.

“Do your wrists hurt?”

The agent’s eyes snapped up, fixing Brax with another brief flicker of astonishment. It lasted a mere moment before the agent lowered their gaze. They shifted, their lips parted, shut, parted again.

“Don’t lie - are you in any pain?”

The agent visibly twitched this time, nodding quickly.

Brax would not be accused of being soft by most people. Secretive, observant, strict - usual adjectives whispered regarding the taciturn leader. But for all Brax had purposefully cultivated their reputation of principled sternness, they hoped to be accused of compassion just as often.

What was the use of incisive insight, being able to read people fairly, assess their intentions accurately, and deal with them rightfully if they could not extend it to someone right in front of them?

Well, they would rather be damned for humanity anyhow.

Rising from their haunches, Brax strode to the door and rapped sharply, demanding a first-aid kit from the blinking officer. After some fumbling in cabinets beneath the open stares from frozen compatriots, the officer handed over the item.

Brax traded their crouch for a kneel, mirroring the pose of the rigid agent while they fished some analgesic ointment out of the kit.

“Hold out your hands for me?”

The figure obeyed without a moment of hesitation, palms spread and forearms balanced in tandem.

Brax hummed in approval, cleaning their own hands with alcohol before hovering a fresh wipe over the maimed flesh.

“This is going to sting but the ointment will help with that in a minute.”

The agent did not so much as wince, palms perfectly still as Brax swiped at the gashes as swiftly as they could. Despite the lack of reaction, the agent’s wrists likely felt aflame at the disinfectant.

“So, stop me if I’m wrong. As I understand it, you’re…”

Brax balanced two words on their tongue. Defecting? The alcohol swab snagged a pucker of scar. Round. Diverted. Still pink, a few years old.

“...fleeing. And you want to cooperate, work with us willingly, yes?”

A nod.

“Have any of your anótero ordered you to surrender yourself?”

The agent twitched but their mouth pulled down in another flash of bewilderment.

“No, sir,...New Athens does not infiltrate. I am...committing treason by being here. Even...even by speaking to you, anoóteros, I would be...executed.”

Dry tracks of crimson had eked down the agent’s forearms from their downward angle.

“Then why are you here? What do you want?”

Peeling the wrapper off another wipe, Brax began cleaning those trails, smothering a frown as the stale air thickened with the sharp, metal scent of blood and alcohol.

“I...believe that there is a better way. For my people. A better way that those at the head will not see, will never see. It is not…their way. The only way to save...to have this better way is to end the conflict. To dismantle central operations in New Athens until there is no choice but to change things.”

“So you want to use y-their own tactics against them?”

“They are effective, anóteros.”

A fair point.

“And…”

Brax hummed in question and after a strained beat of silence, the agent continued.

“In e-exchange...for an active policy of recruitment of Athenian agents, taken in alive.”

Well.

“You, you think other agents will defect.”

“...I do.”

Well.

“I see.”

Brax focuses their attention on a crusted clump of blood at the agent’s pulse point, dabbing wetly and turning the information over, the blunt shock of the agent’s words tumbling through their mind. The heat pressed against Brax’s skin, thickened like a cap against their skull, they needed to think.

They need to let their instincts guide them.

“So those are your, uh, conditions for cooperating with us?”

“And I will not execute civilian targets - on either side.”

For the first time, steel edged the tone, the words all weight and no hesitation.

Brax had no counter to this so they merely hummed.

Crumpling bloodied wipes into the kit, Brax dolloped ointment onto their fingertips and began rubbing it into the cuts, grateful for the waft of peppermint which broke up the morbid odor and finally fully gazing up at their patient.

The agent regarded Brax openly, eyes glinting with a bright mixture of caution, bewilderment, and something very much like awe. That look pinned Brax. It seemed that those eyes were shocked into aching vulnerability from an act of simple kindness and it made Brax...unsettled.

“Better?”

“...Y-yes, anóteros.”

“Ah. You don’t need to call me that.”

That little furrow deepened between the agent’s brows.

“Anoóteros. If it makes you more comfortable, I don’t object to it. But I’m not requiring you to call me ‘superior’, ok?”

Now the corners of the agent’s mouth creased downwards as their lips parted, pressed together, and their sharp nod followed suit.

“Yes, sir.”

“Call me Captain. Sir’s a bit, ah, inaccurate anyway.”

Brax quirked their lips softly, trying to assuage any potential tension at the correction. They did this with any new subordinate, awkwardly hovering between honorifics in the face of Brax’s...ambiguity. It usually worked well - usually. The agent, however, had ceased to breathe and their fingers stiffened within Brax’s hold.

“I...apologize, s--, Captain.”

“No need.”

Brax dabbed ointment generously into a welt, a rare unbroken patch of wrist-skin rubbed to blister, as they elaborated in the same low, steady tone.

“I have to inform almost everyone that I am genderfluid, since I present as pretty masculine. I go by ‘they’. Being referred to as ‘he’ is fine, it only bothers me if those are the only pronouns someone calls me.”

Satisfied that infection had been successfully belayed, Brax wiped the ointment off their hands and began

tilting their head as they scrutinized the agent’s flat demeanor for cracks, shadows, flickers - searching for any hint of what was going on in their head.

“What about you?”

There was the bewilderment again, the agent pausing, likely weighing their response, stiffening as they finally spoke, somehow quieter and more measured than before.

“...I apologize, Captain. I...I...don’t understand.”

“I’m asking what pronouns you prefer for yourself.”

The agent’s chest rose, fell, rose and fell quicker as their proffered arms quivered, the creases flattened and deepening across their face in a waning struggle for neutrality. The body warred with itself before Brax’s eyes, some invisible cord of tension winding tighter as the agent seemed to scramble for an answer. 

Brax quickly thought of the agent’s name as they tried to belay any possible swell of panic by offering up solid bases - affirmation, instruction, guidance.

“Hey, Morja? It’s alright. There is no wrong answer here - just tell me your gender identity, alright.”

“...Yes, Captain. I...am a man.”

“Alright. So you prefer ‘he/him’?”

A quick nod.

“Alright.”

Plucking a bundle of gauze from the kit, Brax ignored the weight of the agent’s gaze on them as they unwound strips of material.

They had watched Morja. Now it was his turn to watch them.

“I understand that agents on your side are trained to be perfect. Perfectly obedient. Perfect killers. I’m sure you understand why I can’t be certain of what you say.”

Only once they began binding Morja’s wrists did they glance up from the softly trembling hands and catch those dark eyes head-on. They were sharp, affixed to Brax’s throat like lodestones, as his brow crinkled in thought. As Brax began tucking the edges of the bandages into the bindings, Morja spoke.

“Tyrus has been searching for a hidden data farm in New Athenian territory. It shows grids of border weaknesses here and to the West and it’s a high-value storage. It is low-security to disguise its importance. I can offer its location and optimal invasion strategy, Captain. I can offer this as proof.”

As Brax stood, gazing down at the agent, their senses were attuned to the utter submission of Morja’s posture, how his eyes were bright with caution, and though his hands still bore the faintest tremor, there was not a hint of deception.

Either he was telling the truth or Brax had never met a better liar.

“Alright. You can lower your arms, Morja.”

The man obeyed and the faint light showed his flat mask slip a fraction.

Brax barely had time to blink before Morja folded at the waist. Spreading his open palms flat, shuffling forward to press his head upon the ground. With his broad back bowed, his dark head brushing Brax’s boots, gauze-swathed hands unfurled as though in prayer, Morja was the perfect picture of supplication.

“Thank you...for your mercy, a-- Captain. Thank you.”

Well...alright.

Brax can process this: rituals of deference, kneeling, no eye contact.

Superior.

Still, a groveling enemy was not their idea of a good Saturday morning.

A wounded, terrified person at Brax’s feet, throwing away all he’d ever known for a change in heart.

A man who Brax had bandaged, thanking them for the mercy.  

“That’s, uh, alright. You’re alright. You can get up.”

Without looking to see how he responded, Brax strode to the door of the cell, rapping to be let out. When the blonde sergeant swung the door wide, her gaze slid balefully to the shadows behind Brax, eyes like icy chips in her clammy face. Her mouth was a small knot of fury. 

And just like that, Brax made their decision.

“I need a pair of cuffs and the car. He’s coming back to Base Forthill with me.”

Brax swung back to Morja, catching his dark head snap up suddenly, the neon light glinting at the whites of his widened eyes and limning his parted lips in the most blatant show of emotion Brax had yet seen.

Shadows of shock, relief, fear all flitted, swift and pale as moths across Morja’s face before fading away, leaving only the level mask settled staunchly in place.

Brax really hoped they wouldn’t regret this.

And yet, somehow, they didn’t think they would.

~       

i crave validation so tell me what you thought!!!

[zo2paintedlady]

LGBTQ+ Novels/Memoirs

Here is the book list from my LIS 618 class. The links will bring you to their Goodreads pages.

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater (2017) *based on a true story* "One teenager in a skirt. One teenager with a lighter. One moment that changes both of their lives forever. If it weren't for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a black teen, lived in the crime-plagued flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The case garnered international attention, thrusting both teenagers into the spotlight."

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Saenz (2012) "Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship--the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be."

The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson (2016) "Two boys. Two secrets. David Piper has always been an outsider. His parents think he’s gay. The school bully thinks he’s a freak. Only his two best friends know the real truth – David wants to be a girl. On the first day at his new school Leo Denton has one goal – to be invisible. Attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in year eleven is definitely not part of that plan. When Leo stands up for David in a fight, an unlikely friendship forms. But things are about to get messy. Because at Eden Park School secrets have a funny habit of not staying secret for long…"

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender (2020) "Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after. When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle...."

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe (2019) "In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere."

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver (2019) "When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they're thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas, whom Ben has never even met. Struggling with an anxiety disorder compounded by their parents' rejection, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their therapist and try to keep a low profile in a new school. But Ben's attempts to survive the last half of senior year unnoticed are thwarted when Nathan Allan, a funny and charismatic student, decides to take Ben under his wing. As Ben and Nathan's friendship grows, their feelings for each other begin to change, and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier new life."

Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert (2017) "When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she isn't sure if she'll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support. But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new...the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel's disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself--or worse."

The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg (2019) "IMax: Chill. Sports. Video games. Gay and not a big deal, not to him, not to his mom, not to his buddies. And a secret: An encounter with an older kid that makes it hard to breathe, one that he doesn't want to think about, ever. Jordan: The opposite of chill. Poetry. His "wives" and the Chandler Mall. Never been kissed and searching for Mr. Right, who probably won't like him anyway. And a secret: A spiraling out of control mother, and the knowledge that he's the only one who can keep the family from falling apart. Throw in a rickety, 1980s-era food truck called Coq Au Vinny. Add in prickly pears, cloud eggs, and a murky idea of what's considered locally sourced and organic. Place it all in Mesa, Arizona, in June, where the temp regularly hits 114. And top it off with a touch of undeniable chemistry between utter opposites."

Odd One Out by Nic Stone (2018) "Courtney "Coop" Cooper Dumped. Again. And normally I wouldn't mind. But right now, my best friend and source of solace, Jupiter Sanchez, is ignoring me to text some girl.  Rae Evelyn Chin I assumed "new girl" would be synonymous with "pariah," but Jupiter and Courtney make me feel like I'm right where I belong. I also want to kiss him. And her. Which is . . . perplexing.  Jupiter Charity-Sanchez The only thing worse than losing the girl you love to a boy is losing her to your boy. That means losing him, too. I have to make a move. . . . One story. Three sides. No easy answers."

Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy (2017) "'Ramona was only five years old when Hurricane Katrina changed her life forever. Since then, it’s been Ramona and her family against the world. Standing over six feet tall with unmistakable blue hair, Ramona is sure of three things: she likes girls, she’s fiercely devoted to her family, and she knows she’s destined for something bigger than the trailer she calls home in Eulogy, Mississippi. But juggling multiple jobs, her flaky mom, and her well-meaning but ineffectual dad forces her to be the adult of the family. Now, with her sister, Hattie, pregnant, responsibility weighs more heavily than ever."

Rethinking Normal by Katie Rain Hill (2014) "Have you ever worried that you'd never be able to live up to your parents' expectations? Have you ever imagined that life would be better if you were just invisible? Have you ever thought you would do anything--anything--to make the teasing stop? Katie Hill had and it nearly tore her apart. Katie never felt comfortable in her own skin. She realized very young that a serious mistake had been made; she was a girl who had been born in the body of a boy. Suffocating under her peers' bullying and the mounting pressure to be "normal," Katie tried to take her life at the age of eight years old. After several other failed attempts, she finally understood that "Katie"--the girl trapped within her--was determined to live."

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (2017) "On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They’re going to die today. Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day."

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan (2013) "New York Times bestselling author David Levithan tells the based-on-true-events story of Harry and Craig, two 17-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record—all of which is narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS. While the two increasingly dehydrated and sleep-deprived boys are locking lips, they become a focal point in the lives of other teen boys dealing with languishing long-term relationships, coming out, navigating gender identity, and falling deeper into the digital rabbit hole of gay hookup sites—all while the kissing former couple tries to figure out their own feelings for each other."

We are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson (2016) "Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button. Only he isn’t sure he wants to. After all, life hasn’t been great for Henry. His mom is a struggling waitress held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke. His brother is a jobless dropout who just knocked someone up. His grandmother is slowly losing herself to Alzheimer’s. And Henry is still dealing with the grief of his boyfriend’s suicide last year. Wiping the slate clean sounds like a pretty good choice to him. But Henry is a scientist first, and facing the question thoroughly and logically, he begins to look for pros and cons: in the bully who is his perpetual one-night stand, in the best friend who betrayed him, in the brilliant and mysterious boy who walked into the wrong class. Weighing the pain and the joy that surrounds him, Henry is left with the ultimate choice: push the button and save the planet and everyone on it…or let the world—and his pain—be destroyed forever."

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson (2020) "Liz Lighty has always believed she's too black, too poor, too awkward to shine in her small, rich, prom-obsessed midwestern town. But it's okay -- Liz has a plan that will get her out of Campbell, Indiana, forever: attend the uber-elite Pennington College, play in their world-famous orchestra, and become a doctor. But when the financial aid she was counting on unexpectedly falls through, Liz's plans come crashing down . . . until she's reminded of her school's scholarship for prom king and queen. There's nothing Liz wants to do less than endure a gauntlet of social media trolls, catty competitors, and humiliating public events, but despite her devastating fear of the spotlight she's willing to do whatever it takes to get to Pennington. The only thing that makes it halfway bearable is the new girl in school, Mack. She's smart, funny, and just as much of an outsider as Liz. But Mack is also in the running for queen. Will falling for the competition keep Liz from her dreams . . . or make them come true?"

[bltngames]

The Mind Behind a Hoax Creator

Recently, some of my work was featured on a "Did You Know Gaming" segment about Sonic game hoaxes. It was, frankly, sort of surprising. I did not (and still do not) consider myself to have been very prolific in that field back in the day, and yet here I was, the focus of practically half of an entire video. Since it’s generated a lot of discussion and the subject is fresh in my mind, I figured I could shine a little bit of light on the subject.

For the most part, I was making my hoaxes just to show friends, many who were involved in something that could be considered a "hoaxing community". Most of their work was just for fun -- not necessarily to trick anyone, but effectively just harmless, pixel-based fan art of different "what if?" scenarios. This was right around the time that pixel art comics like Bob & George and 8-Bit Theater started to hit big, and hoaxes were closely adjacent to that kind of material. It was mostly an excuse to learn pixel art.

Then there was me. I was making what would be more traditionally considered real hoaxes. Which is to say I was making fake game screenshots in the hopes of legitimately fooling people. Not a lot of people, mind you. Again, it was mainly something I did with my friends, and mainly in this one particular community, named "The Moogle Cavern." I'd joined The Moogle Cavern early in high school, and it became a place I went to for all kinds of discussion, including rumors about upcoming video games. The Moogle Cavern also became a hotbed of people trying to break the original Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast, hoping to find secret, unused content buried deep within the game's code. We weren't hacking into the game data itself, because the tools for that didn't exist yet. Instead, we relied on glitches to break out of map boundaries in the hopes of uncovering new, unseen mysteries (some of which actually worked). It was a very different time, a time where anything seemed possible, because it wasn't easy to get confirmation on what was real or fake yet. Anyone could say anything, and as long as it seemed plausible, people would believe it. This was the twilight of the "schoolyard rumor" era, both for me personally, and for the wider internet as a whole.

This led me to creating hoaxes -- fake video game screenshots -- not so much as a joke, or for artistic merit like most of my friends were doing, but just to see who would believe me. To see if I could pull it off. I was trying to make them look like real, actual games, a challenge that was a lot harder than you'd think. Obviously, that urge has long since come to an end (long, long, long come to an end), but in that time, whenever the subject of my old hoaxes come up, it always boils down to one singular question: Why on earth did I do any of this?

Because it seems stupid, right? I spent hours, sometimes even days concocting these elaborate schemes. I studied old magazines, trying to understand their layouts, just so I could accurately create realistic-looking pages. I even studied the artifacts generated by scanning pages digitally, like how the contrast became washed out, or the way that Moiré patterns were generated by ink dithering during the printing process. The earliest hoax I’d ever made, we'll say 2000 or 2001, was for Sonic the Hedgehog 2, featuring a screenshot of the long lost "Genocide City Zone" level, made to look like it was scanned from a magazine. The game screenshot itself was assembled by piecing together bits from Sonic 2's Metropolis Zone and Sonic 3's Launch Base Zone, combined with another Sega Genesis game called Vectorman 2.

The screenshot proudly declared the game was being shown at E3 in June of 1992. There was only one problem: the first E3 wasn't until 1995. If Sonic 2 was shown anywhere in 1992, it would have been at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. All that work shot down by one surface level mistake that any casual historian with half a brain could debunk. Whoops.

With a false start like that, I eventually got to work on my next attempt, hoping to ensure fewer mistakes the second time around. Sonic Advance had just come out, and Sonic Advance 2 seemed inevitable. My new setup was more elaborate -- by now, I was getting my feet wet with early game development using an early version of Clickteam Fusion (then called "Click & Create"). Rather than create a single screenshot, I went a step further, building a simplistic game meant to look like the real thing. The plan was to capture video of the game in motion, and then use a digital camera to take candid photos of the footage, simulating the look of an undercover operation. I built a level using a mixture of original graphics I’d made myself, along with tiles ripped from Wario Land 4 and Mega Man X2. I constructed the level to pay tribute to “Underground Zone” from Sonic 2 on the Sega Game Gear, with minecarts, lava, and mountains. I registered an Angelfire account and uploaded the screenshots there, sharing the link with my friends in the hopes they might believe.

This time, there were fewer dead-obvious mistakes to be called out on. Some friends were skeptical about the simplistic graphics (this was some of the first original sprite work I'd ever made), but what really tipped them off was the fact that... well, I'd shared the link. It came from me. I wasn’t really known for sharing this kind of stuff out of context, and in the ensuing debates around the veracity of these screenshots, I was also the dominating voice defending them as being "real" images. That obviously smelled extremely fishy, and it didn't take long for fingers to be pointed in my direction. But this just solidified the cadence for how these things would go.

I would make an image, something would eventually give my identity away, and armed with improved knowledge, I'd try again. And again. And again. Each time, my skills would improve a little bit. I'd get a little bit better at deception. The quality of my artwork would get a little closer to the "real thing." And the truth is, I was having fun! It was a lot like making a real game, except here, the game was seeing how long it would take before people figured out the ruse. It was kind of like I was both solving my own puzzle while designing a completely different puzzle for other people to solve. Every time they'd unravel the current solution, it would inspire me to make something even more devious and complicated the next time around.

That's not as weird as it sounds. Recently I’ve found comfort in not just one, but two different documentaries about the “Haunt” community. Haunts in this context are low budget, indie, do-it-yourself versions of something like Disneyland’s The Haunted Mansion attraction, but one where regular people turn their yards, or garages, or even their homes into neighborhood walk-through haunted houses for Halloween. The two documentaries I’ve watched -- "Haunters: The Art of the Scare" and "The American Scream" -- go into the lives of what drives people to focus months of effort and thousands of dollars into building something so frivolous that only gets used one night out of the year. Often, the operators of these home-haunts aren't even allowed to charge admission fees. They're doing it just to do it.

For them, it’s all about the symbiotic relationship they share with their audience; seeing people let their guard down and getting tricked into being scared. Neither the person running the Haunt or the people walking through it are in any real danger, nobody actually believes any of the ghouls or ghosts are actually real, but it’s about the mutual understanding of building up to this “gotcha!” moment. The creators of these attractions clearly get a thrill from this that they can’t get anywhere else, and it's important enough that they keep doing it even when laws prevent them from charging money. This kind of Haunting is a big enough industry that there’s even conventions dedicated to it, where people attend panels on how to better scare guests, and browse new gear from Haunt-specific vendors. I think a lot of that can apply to what I felt creating hoaxes, because it’s kind of the same idea -- building up to that “gotcha” moment, and the feeling that creates (albiet, in this case, a somewhat unhealthy, one-sided feeling for me).

Point is, I never intended to fool anyone for very long with my hoaxes. Lying about fake video games wasn't an attack, more just an unfortunate side effect of my puzzle's delivery mechanism. This was especially obvious with my first genuinely successful hoax: Halo for the Gameboy Advance, created around 2005. This was a culmination of everything I'd learned up to this point: much like with my Sonic Advance 2 hoax, I created a fake game using Clickteam Fusion. I found some appropriately-sized Halo sprites on the internet and married them with recolored Mega Man X3 backgrounds, specifically going out of my way to pick graphics from obscure areas so they wouldn't be immediately identifiable. I even ran MIDIs of Halo music through low-fi soundfonts to replicate the audio output of a Gameboy Advance.

Just like with Sonic Advance 2, I recorded a video of this game being played, but this time I built an interface to mimic a popular Gameboy Advance emulator called "Visual Boy Advance". In the video I’d start the emulator and then open a “Halo” ROM file before playing through a sequence. I went through the trouble of creating all of the emulator’s menus so that every part looked totally authentic. Rather than show anyone directly and raise suspicion, I uploaded the video to an anonymous Google Videos account and effectively let the hoax hide in plain sight. We were entering a new era of social media, and eventually, somebody would find it, setting their mind ablaze. It was the perfect setup.

That "somebody" ended up being Kotaku, who picked the video up a little over one year later in response to a news story about a version of Halo possibly existing for the Nintendo DS. Microsoft had been okay with their franchises appearing up on Nintendo portables, so a DS version of Halo wasn't entirely out of the question. This lead Kotaku to present my Halo video as possibly being a real, actual early prototype for a game that never saw the light of day. For me, it was mission success. The bait had been taken. My work (which wasn't even entirely my own work!) was thrust on to the center stage.

Upon seeing the article, the very first thing I did was leave a comment, essentially telling them "Hey, I made this." I explained how I did it, where the video originally came from, everything. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t have been able to keep something like this to myself. Again, this wasn't about doing anything hurtful, it was merely to have fun watching someone solve a puzzle I'd created. And here, one of my puzzles had finally stumped someone. So, like a gracious host, I came out from behind the curtain and revealed the solution. Ta-dah!

In short order, I was permanently banned from leaving comments across the entire Gawker Network. No matter how innocent my intentions may or may not have been, I probably didn't look very friendly. And who could blame them?

Across my entire “career”, I made roughly 9 or 10 hoaxes throughout the early-to-mid 2000's. Multiple elements conspired to bring an end to my antics, however. I was getting older, and the people I knew were moving on. Modern social media was becoming more prevalent, and with it, more people were producing more hoaxes of their own. The audience became increasingly cynical. The advent of polygons was also a major sticking point for me -- there have always been tons of free resources on how anyone can make pixel art, but it took a completely different skill set to make something using 3D graphics. One of the last serious hoaxes I ever made was for "Shadow the Hedgehog: Redemption", a sequel to the 2005 Sonic-spinoff starring his alter ego. If I had to pick a time frame, it was probably only a few months after the Kotaku incident.

I did up a page to look like a scan from a 2006-era issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly. I'd created the screenshot by merging several different elements -- a friend had ripped the Shadow the Hedgehog model from Sonic Adventure 2, which I rigged and posed using a pirated copy of software called MilkShape 3D. I combined it with weapon and soldier models from Counter-Strike 1.6 (which were compatible with MilkShape). Then I superimposed them over an environment from another game, and did a whole fake two paragraph write-up about Shadow 2, even knowing I'd deliberately crop out most of the text. Once I was done, I posted it to 4chan's /v/ board, the perfect place to anonymously drop something like this.

One of the first replies immediately figured it out: “That’s just San Fiero from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” it read. Even though I went out of my way to find a location with zero identifiable landmarks, this guy instantly picked out where it was from on the first try. From the highest high of successfully hooking Kotaku, to the lowest low of being immediately exposed within seconds. Other replies snidely congratulated the image on being a “technically impressive hoax” regardless of how obviously fake it was. My ambitions were destroyed.

This strengthened the feeling I had that, by 2006, I'd been fiddling around with my game development hobby for more than seven years, and I was becoming fairly proficient at using Clickteam Fusion. Why was I wasting my time making fake game screenshots when I could just be making real games? These “puzzles” weren't giving me the same spark anymore, not when it was so easy to be undone by a single mistake. Plus, with real game development, I did not have to hide how proud I was of my creations. Making hoaxes just stopped being fulfilling when there were other, better options to scratch many of those same creative itches.

I briefly came out of "hoaxing retirement" in 2011, five years later, to make an April Fools joke for TSSZNews.com: an image of a Sonic the Hedgehog point-and-click adventure, presented in the style of old LucasArts games like Sam & Max Hit the Road. Via a tongue-in-cheek article included with the image, I claimed Sega had partnered with Telltale Games for an episodic season of Sonic adventure games based on the Archie Comics. Though why it was using pixel art graphics was never explained. Obviously, it was never intended to be taken seriously. It was closer in tone to the type “what if?” joke images my friends made all the way back when this whole endeavor first started a decade earlier.

Looking back, my "career" in creating video game hoaxes was kind of a strange time, though I suppose that’s putting it lightly. It took me many years of soul searching to even come to grips with why I even did any of this to begin with. Sometimes, you find yourself in odd situations where something unknown feeds a weird, creative spark deep within your soul. And it fueled me to look at and think about how games (and games media) were put together in a way I never had before. That's not nothing, even if it was ultimately in service of something that was basically a collection of fun little lies.

It also gave me experience to better spot hoaxes from others. Working for TSSZNews.com, I was occasionally (not always, but occasionally) brought in to help with their "Hoaxbuster" articles -- my knowledge of creating fakes being put to the test to help analyze and debunk how other people might have done it. I became like a bizarre, niche version of a crime scene investigator, dissecting every asset and even the thought processes behind what would possibly give something away as being a hoax. Though TSSZNews.com gained something of a reputation within the community for how our staff sometimes reported on rumors, I was never wrong when it came to the Hoaxbuster articles that I was involved with. You can't kid a kidder.

Do I have regrets about any of it? I mean... not really. I wouldn't say I'm necessarily proud of doing that kind of stuff, especially given the mental gymnastics required for me to even figure out why I got fulfillment from doing any of it in the first place. As you may surmise from the length of this article, it's not exactly the easiest thing to explain to another person. Just the same, it's an inescapable part of me, and in roundabout ways, it has been a beneficial force in my life. I wouldn't be the artist I am today without hunkering down and dissecting what the "professional look" even meant. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as they say. Even when it means you're a wolf in sheep's clothing.

(If you’d like to see any of the images in this article full size, I have put every hoax I’ve ever made in to this Imgur album.)

[wits-writing]

Ultraman Z Ep. 1: “Chant My Name!” (TV Review)

(Original Air Date: June 19, 2020, Director: Kiyotaka Taguchi, Writer: Kota Fukihara)

Tsuburaya Productions (TsuPro for short), have recently been making greater strides to increase their Ultraman franchise’s availability internationally. Most recently that’s been taking the form of blu-ray releases from Mill Creek Entertainment of classic and modern series. As a fan of Japanese tokusatsu (“special effects” features) in general, official releases like that have me excited for the potential of what’s to come for the international availability of the genre in general. This week has started a new step on that path. For the next two weeks, on the official Ultraman Youtube channel, TsuPro has made the first episode of the latest installment in their iconic franchise, Ultraman Z (pronounced “Zett”), available with English captions.

This first episode marks an action-packed introduction to the titular intergalactic hero in-training, Zett (voiced by Tasuku Hanaka), and rookie giant robot pilot for the organization STORAGE, Haruki Natsukawa (Kohshu Hirano). We see them going through reactions to how they’re treated by their respective superiors, deal with the threat of a giant monster and when a near-death experience for both of them requires them to merge their life energy in this efficiently paced introduction to a new story in the Ultraman legacy.

[Full Review Under the Cut]

Keeping the action going through most of the episode’s runtime establishes how the setting for this series will work going forward without slowing down for exposition. The monster attack in the cold open presents this as a world that needed an organization like STORAGE using giant robots to deal with these attacks before the titular Ultraman shows up. Details from that sequence come back later to parallel and re-establish some classic rules of the Ultra franchise, like the shared 3-minute time limit for fighting between STORAGE’s robot Sevenger and Zett himself, signaled by his Z-shaped color timer. Full explanations of how everything in this series is supposed to work will likely come later but keeping the first episode action focused helps draw the audience in and make them want to see more.

In between the action in this episode we get glimpses into the supporting cast that make up the members of STORAGE in how they react during and after monster attacks. As an organization, we get an idea of how they operate to manage the dangers of monster attacks. It’s a professional process of clearing the center of the attack of any bystanders before releasing one of their robots into the area to deal with the threat and mitigate collateral damage. There are brief looks into the interpersonal dynamics of the team, like when we see Haruki getting chewed out by his superiors after him distracting Yoko (Rima Matsuda) during the opening caused greater collateral damage and during the fights where Yuka (Hikari Kiroki) gets excited over how cool the attacking monsters are. They’re set up well as character I look forward to seeing more of, especially since the presence of STORAGE’s robots means they’ll occasionally be entering the fray against monsters alongside Haruki and Zett.

With the series being named after him, it makes sense that this first episode’s focus is in getting to know Ultraman Z and Haruki as individuals before they merge at the end. The monster attack in the opening gives Haruki a literal Save the Cat Dog moment, demonstrating where his priorities lie while doing his job. He’s clearly still new to all of this when we see him processing how his superiors tell him that while his commitment to saving lives no matter what is admirable, it’s not an excuse for reckless behavior.

With the other half of the partnership, we’re introduced to Zett as another rookie desperate to prove himself to the person he’s declared his mentor, Ultraman Zero (voiced by Mamoru Miyano). Though the elder Ultra denies it and declares Zett to be “barely one-third hero”, that doesn’t stop Zett’s determination, especially once Zero’s trapped in another dimension and leaves Zett to deal with the monster on his own. The hero being a massive fanboy seeking to inherit the legacy of his heroes and the way he mixes overly dramatic speech, like saying “I beseech you!” in the subtitles, while also saying he’s “Ultra-shocked” at Zero’s dismissal of him adds a level of comedy to the show that makes Zett amusing from the start. The sequence that officially merges Haruki and Zett, a visual callback to the first episode of the original Ultraman, shows hints at where this dynamic between Ultra and host could go in the future. Their banter, especially during Haruki’s first use of the Ultra Z-Riser, already suggests how their qualities can help them develop together.

One of the best places the two characters come together in this first episode is in the action. I keep coming back to the cold open for this episode not only for how it efficiently sets up the world and character, but for how impressive it is as a technical feat. The mix of digital compositing and suit acting to make Gomess, the first monster we see, and Sevenger appear to be on different scales, while showing them behind the running Haruki is some of the best work I’ve seen in televised tokusatsu in a while. Suit acting between Sevenger and Zett adds a sense of character to the action. Sevenger’s design, a charming look from the Showa-era of the franchise, requires a tackle and grapple style of combat and there’s the bonus of how Sevenger’s eyes switch to an angry expression when it’s time to fight. Haruki using Sevenger to fight alongside Zett lets them quickly develop a trust as Haruki can see that Zett is working to defend the city from the monster Genegar. A notable difference occurs between regular Zett, before merging with Haruki, and afterwards when he’s in Alpha Edge form, calling on the powers of past Ultras. Once Zett and Haruki are accessing those powers the pace of the fight against Genegar speeds up and Zett’s fighting style becomes more martial arts focused and more powers, like energy blasts, coming into play.

“Chant My Name!” kicks off Ultraman Z with a bang, from the characters to the action and effects work, this is the best foot forward I’ve seen an Ultraman series open on since my personal favorite series, Ultraman Geed. It’s also a stellar start for the beginning of greater accessibility to Ultraman as a franchise from TsuPro. Much of what makes this episode so effective, like the music and the cliffhanger introducing the series antagonist, I’ve barely had space to mention. If you’re in the mood for an extra bit of action in your week, checking this episode out while it’s on Youtube is the perfect chance for that.

If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”

[putschki1969]

Hikaru//’s Free Writing Vol.#2

Note: This is my English translation of Hikaru//’s Free Writing Vol.#2. Please enjoy!

『teamLab Borderless Forgetting Time Within “Art without Borders”』〜 Hikaru//’s Free Writing Vol.#2〜

Hello, this is Hikaru//. In this second column I will be doing another "report" just like I did in Vol.#1. I was super thrilled on the day of the shoot because I have always been interested in this place! This time we went to... 『MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: EPSON teamLab Borderless』 !

The nearest stations are Aomi Station on the Yurikamome Line or Tokyo Teleport Station on the Rinkai Line. In the stations you will see lots of posters guiding you to the venue. When you look at all the ads you will get even more excited!

At the venue itself visitors are asked to wear a mask as a measure against COVID-19. You also need to disinfect you hands at the entrance. If you wish you can also get disposable vinyl gloves. On the left side of the entrance there are also lots of coin lockers where you can store your luggage. You should definitely make use of that...I recommend going inside carrying as little as possible! When entering the first room your temperature is measured with a thermo camera.

After the temperature measurement there is this huge message plastered to the wall. What do they mean by "wandering"? That’s what I asked myself when I saw these words. But once you have experienced it all, the words will make sense *laughs*  Well then, let’s go inside! You have three options at the beginning. Many museums have a certain route that you need to follow in order to enjoy everything properly but with "TeamLab Borderless" it’s up to you where you want to go, you can go wherever you feel like going. Being led by your feelings is the best way to enjoy art!

I really like butterflies so I am going to the "Butterfly House" first. Butterflies are flying all over the room! If you try touching the butterflies because you think they are so beautiful and cute they will crumble and fall to the floor...The butterflies born here jump out of the room and move on to join the other art in the museum. So you don’t have to feel sad about saying goodbye to the butterflies since you will meet them again soon, you only have to take a few steps to see them flying around in various places.

After chasing butterflies I went to the "Forest of Flowers and People, Lost and Reborn". There are flowers all around the ground and across the walls! Flowers will appear where people are standing and after a while they scatter again, when you stay at a single place for a longer time the flowers will bloom. It’s a very photogenic space. It's large as it is but since there are so many mirrors the space feels even wider! ♪ You can easily take a ton of selfies here *laughs*. Enjoy the various flowers! There are some smaller rooms with several little spaces where the work is displayed on monitors. Also, you can see some animals decorated with flowers moving along the walls. Please try to touch those animals and see what happens ♪

After encountering the animals I entered a space with a big waterfall. The flow of water changes when people stand or sit on it and when you stay there for a while flowers will start to bloom. On the walls where the water doesn’t flow you can see all kinds of art. What might happen when you touch the flowing kanji? Please experience how the art changes when you manage to touch it!

"Team Lab Borderless" is a permanent exhibition but depending on the season you can see lots of different art! Right now you can experience a special "seasonal exhibition", I got to see it. iI’s amazing art that feels reminiscent of Japanese paintings! Apparently this is the first time the exhibition, “Proliferating Immense Life” is open to the public in Japan. Even though it’s a seasonally limited exhibition I would like to talk a little about the art. In the “Flowers - Layered Ultrasubjective Space” you can drown within countless semi-transparent images of hydrangea from June to July. The space “Memory of Topography“ depicts a rural mountain landscape of varying elevations. The scenery instills in the viewer a feeling of eternal permanence. From June to August you can enjoy lush rice fields and crepe myrtles. With the flow of real time the scenery is continuously changing so when I was there, thunder struck and it rained down heavily onto the rice fields (※ Please note that there is no actual water in this exhibition).

In the “Forest of Resonating Lamps” you can experience the sensation of being surrounded by the soft light of lamps whose colour scheme changes as people stand nearby. This production is very much reminiscent of the hydrangea you can see from June to July. The lamps are specially arranged and they are hand-made from Murano glass (Venetian glass). If you take a close look at each individual lamp you will notice that they all look different. The seasonal art is constantly changing. Even the staff members do not know when something new will be installed. So I consider myself very lucky to have been able to experience all these seasonal exhibitions.

Now, let's return to the permanent art. When you continue onwards you will be joined by crows as you enter the “Cave Universe”. This work is to be viewed from a position close to the entrance. The work begins when crows of “Crows are Chased and the Chasing Crows are Destined to be Chased as well” enter into the Cave Universe in the middle of the aisle.  If you stand at position close to the entrance the boundary between the wall and the floor disappears, the real space dissolves and the lines drawn by the trails of the crows appear to be drawn in three dimensions in the space. Eventually the body becomes immersed in the artwork world, and the border between the artwork and the viewer dissolves. I really want everyone to experience this!

The next space you will reach is "Wander through the Crystal World". This interactive installation artwork uses an accumulation of light points to create a sculptural body. The Crystal World is created when people use their phones to send elements of the natural world into it. It's beautiful and fun ♪

Then we continue towards the “Athletics Forest“ area. In the “Weightless Forest of Resonating Life” you can be three dimensionally immersed by various objects of light that move as though they’re defying gravity, they will also be changing colours... I tried putting an object above my head *laughs*. The “Aerial Climbing through a Flock of Colored Birds“ space features connected boards hanging in mid-air on ropes, creating a floating three dimensional space. You can train your body by trying to navigate the space in mid-air *laughs*.

In “Graffiti Nature - High Mountains and Deep Valleys, Red List” various creatures drawn by visitors live in a large, three-dimensional space consisting of slopes with different elevations. Challenge yourself and draw one of the endangered animals! I did it, I completed my drawing! Once you hand your drawing to a staff member it will appear within the space..It almost feels like you are a parent watching over your child *laughs* You start getting attached!

Last but not least I would like to introduce the "EN TEA HOUSE Genka-Tei". This is the only food and drink art space in the museum. The first thing you will notice when you enter the room is the strong aroma of tea. There are four types of tea, tea leaves from the mountains of Hizen in Kyushu are used. There is also a set menu with rich green tea ice cream filled with umami flavor and accompanied with shirotama. You have to order first at the reception. Then you will be guided to your seat. Tatami mats are used for the tables and chairs, making it a relaxing space. Tea and ice cream are brought in, the art starts once the set is placed in front of you. Make tea and a flower blooms inside the teacup. Flowers bloom infinitely as long as there is tea. Smell, taste, sight... It was a space where all senses were stimulated, a truly healing experience.

There are so many great artworks in "Team Lab Borderless", I cannot possibly write about all of them. I hope you will visit and experience it all for yourself! These are the words written at the exit.

This time, I was wanderiing around the museum for about two and a half hours without a map. Even though I spent so much time there I still couldn’t go everywhere, I only saw parts of it. There is still so much left to discover. I wanna come here again! And here’s a bonus pic for you! I was so absorbed in the art that I didn’t really take too many pictures of myself... *laughs*.

I had a great and exciting time, this experience gave me the opportunity to reflect on many things! Well then, until next time! Text = Hikaru// Photography = Yuki Ohashi, Hikaru//

[indig0tea]

Final 2020 Update: 2021 Goals!!

Cross posting from my devART

Also links to all my alts and shit will be at the end of the post if you need them!

So some of these may be unrealistic due to my struggles with ADHD/Depression Combo but. I wanted to get these down somewhere so you guys can see them and be aware..

Please note, my executive functioning abilities are absolutely Butchered on the regular by my ADHD alone, and the various stressors of 2020 have absolutely taken anything else I might have had in that department and tossed it out the window.

Something something something, financial stressors outside of my control sends me into shut down mode and I can't do anything productive or even fun until it's handled, but because I'm not doing anything productive, I'm not making any money, and the stressors gets worse and worse and it just ends up in a horrible cycle where I constantly want to die because I'm not able to create anything to relieve the stress! Which is why you've all seen... pretty much a standstill on my productivity save one or two pieces a month if I'm lucky

That said, I'm going to start trying (hopefully with some outside help/accountability to keep me on track while I'm unmedicated) to put a system in place that doesn't make me constantly want to die while like. maybe actually getting stuff done! So I'm making some optimistic goals for 2021 regarding both my art and ability to make money, so here goes!

I'm breaking this down into 3 parts:

Changes to expect regarding my social media, commissions in general, posting, etc;

Overall Goals for 2021;

and Goals for January specifically.

Changes to expect going forward from here:

I'm going to be making some changes regarding my social media accounts, including this one, mostly concerning when, where, and how I'm posting.

I am also going to be making some changes to my commission policies, prices, and payments in the coming year, namely:

Lastly, I will be making some changes to my art discord server!

Moving forward, I am going to be MOST active on my twitter and tumblr accounts. They're just easier for me to maintain in general, and although I hate twitter's formatting, it's just easier and faster, and frankly after deviantART and Instagram fucked with their websites/algorithms, it just makes the most sense for me as an artist.

I'm also going to be making an effort to make scheduled cross-posts on all my accounts. In the past, I've been really irregular about when and where I post things (most things got posted to my old tumblr account but never here, i rarely remember to post to instagram, etc).

This is going to include commission slots, finished piece dumps, etc.

I will also be making an effort to semi-regularly post sketch dumps, both digitial and traditional. I am also considering at this time offering a monthly digital download of my sketch collections, though I am undecided as I'm not really sure how many people would be interested.

Increasing commissions prices to reflect time spent working on specific commission types, as well as my personal cost of living.

Planning and announcing commission slots in advance.

Taking and finishing regular commissions to cover living expenses on a monthly basis

Payments will be exclusively through paypal invoice, and will be broken up in halves: first half will be taken up front after I have started and given proof of start (base sketch), the second half will be paid after completion, with WIPS given between first and second payment. Fully completed art will be given after receipt of second half. This is both for my personal protection as an artist, as well as for the comfort of the commissioner as my completion time can sometimes be long due to my ADHD/executive dysfunction.

Moving forward into 2020, my discord will be SFW, but 18+ only. This is a personal comfort thing. I'm 25 years old now, and just really don't want to spend time hanging out with teenagers.

I'm also going to start trying to schedule art streams again! Since this is the only place I can live stream due to my art computer's limitations, it just makes sense to like. Schedule them so more people are able to attend. I haven't decided exactly how that's going to look, but once I have I'm going to make an announcement and formatting guide somewhere for people to see so they can make an informed decision about joining the server.

I will also be regularly posting in the server again. This may or may not be cross posts from twitter and such, we'll see, but I DO plan on being more active there since it's been kind of dead.

I may also reformat the whole server again. We'll see!

Goals for 2021

Regular Adopt Sets -- 2-3 per month. Size, price, and number in set will be decided on case by case basis.

I'll be doing a monthly prompt for myself as well. This is just to get me back in the habit of creating things I like for myself to just feel... less bad about my art in general, and about making art. Also it'll be good for my artistic development i think?

Keeping a monthly sketchbook for warm-ups and in-between pieces. May be offered as a paid download at the end of the month, we'll see.

Might start a patreon? This is EXTREMELY dependent on what my userbase looks like. Tiers and rewards to be decided at a later date

Regular traditional sketches + scan and upload of said sketches. May also be offered in the monthly sketchbook.

Draw more self portraits & self-expression pieces! I don't know if any of yall realize how repressed I've been in the last year without therapy, and I did't either until I forced myself to pursue a vent piece earlier this month, and then felt immensely better afterward so. Going to start doing that! Maybe I'll feel better weee

Regular posting to social media! (see changes above)

Drawing less fantrolls bc I'm just bleh about them lately, drawing more original content!

Drawing fancontent that ISN'T homestuck? We'll see but I'd like to. I don't usually draw fan art bc like. Idk in my mind I don't feel like my interpretation of things is important or cool and I think thats a confidence thing and I'd like to change that so! I'm gonna start making more fan content.

Draw more full illustrations & backgrounds in general because I actually enjoy doing them it turns out?

Practice painting more !! Both traditionally and digitally....

Goals for January 2021

Finish at LEAST 1/4 of my art queue. I'm shooting for half, really, because fully completing it might actually kill me but! We'll see! Maybe I'll surprise myself. But I'm setting the goal low to keep my mental health problems in mind.

Finish and release the base set i've been working on, on and off. It's an homage to  the old pixel doll days of 2009-2012, and the full sheet will be free to use (with stipulations, as I have some people blocked that I don't want using it). BUT! There will also be a mix and match .psd that will be pay to use (it'll be pay to use a, bc it'll be huge, and b, bc the edits to make it mix and match results in like 6 seperate bases in general so.... yeah. pay to use)

Finish the pay-to-use base pack i started in june (i may scrap and restart though, we'll see)

Possibly release all old p2u bases of mine in one pack on gumroad? price tbd but it will include old iterations as well as unreleased remakes.

Making some dainty-specific bases! One will be f2u, one will be p2u.

I have a whole dainty YCH set for january! I just have to finish the example... (:

Perhaps I'll be announcing a collaborative project later in the month! It depends on where each of us are at, at the time! We'll see! (: You should be excited though! It'll be a ton of fun!

EXTERNAL LINKS

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