#because well. indie project

[cleverpaws]

ive always admired how amazing a satire of corporate genloss is ngl. they were onto something with squiggles and i wish more people talked about it

[pinkeoni]

i think that the take that horror is meant to be "bad, cheaply made b movies" is as reductive to the genre as the take that the only good horror is recent "elevated" horror

[digifag]

sacha…

[concoctionboy]

Okay, there are a ton of things I've been meaning to do on this blog that I've been too busy for lately. A not necessarily complete list:

Update @towerquest

More Wizard Tumblr Magic the Gathering cards

More "Language Learning with Concoction Boy" posts (I said in the first such post that I'd wanted it to be an ongoing series, but so far there's only been one post)

Making a neocities page as a permanent receptacle for some of these things

Following up on some previous posts that I'd intended to follow up on but hadn't yet (like the fact that I was supposed to be waiting a week for the copy of me to replenish in size so I could turn it into a cauldron and it's been months now)

I think there are some posts I've marked to reply to later when I have time? I should find some of those posts and reply to them.

Making a Concoction Boy video game (okay, this is something I seriously do want to do eventually, but it's very much a long-term goal. I have the general idea for the game mechanics, but haven't actually started working on it yet, and almost certainly won't for some time)

I am going to start on one of these things right now, and make a post on it later today.

Hopefully I'll make some progress on another item on the list tomorrow.

[toonfinatic]

Talking to neurotypicals is so embarrassing because when at some point they will ask what I do in my free time and the vast majority of my free time is spent making a one-person animated series about dogs fighting a giant bird

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

My next book is The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation: it’s a Big Tech disassembly manual that explains how to disenshittify the web and bring back the old good internet. The hardcover comes from Verso on Sept 5, but the audiobook comes from me — because Amazon refuses to sell my audio:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation

Amazon owns Audible, the monopoly audiobook platform that controls >90% of the audio market. They require mandatory DRM for every book sold, locking those books forever to Amazon’s monopoly platform. If you break up with Amazon, you have to throw away your entire audiobook library.

That’s a hell of a lot of leverage to hand to any company, let alone a rapacious monopoly that ran a program targeting small publishers called “Project Gazelle,” where execs were ordered to attack indie publishers “the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle”:

https://www.businessinsider.com/sadistic-amazon-treated-book-sellers-the-way-a-cheetah-would-pursue-a-sickly-gazelle-2013-10

[Image ID: Journalist and novelist Doctorow (Red Team Blues) details a plan for how to break up Big Tech in this impassioned and perceptive manifesto….Doctorow’s sense of urgency is contagious -Publishers Weekly]

I won’t sell my work with DRM, because DRM is key to the enshittification of the internet. Enshittification is why the old, good internet died and became “five giant websites filled with screenshots of the other four” (h/t Tom Eastman). When a tech company can lock in its users and suppliers, it can drain value from both sides, using DRM and other lock-in gimmicks to keep their business even as they grow ever more miserable on the platform.

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

[Image ID: A brilliant barn burner of a book. Cory is one of the sharpest tech critics, and he shows with fierce clarity how our computational future could be otherwise -Kate Crawford, author of The Atlas of AI”]

The Internet Con isn’t just an analysis of where enshittification comes from: it’s a detailed, shovel-ready policy prescription for halting enshittification, throwing it into reverse and bringing back the old, good internet.

How do we do that? With interoperability: the ability to plug new technology into those crapulent, decaying platform. Interop lets you choose which parts of the service you want and block the parts you don’t (think of how an adblocker lets you take the take-it-or-leave “offer” from a website and reply with “How about nah?”):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

But interop isn’t just about making platforms less terrible — it’s an explosive charge that demolishes walled gardens. With interop, you can leave a social media service, but keep talking to the people who stay. With interop, you can leave your mobile platform, but bring your apps and media with you to a rival’s service. With interop, you can break up with Amazon, and still keep your audiobooks.

So, if interop is so great, why isn’t it everywhere?

Well, it used to be. Interop is how Microsoft became the dominant operating system:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

[Image ID: Nobody gets the internet-both the nuts and bolts that make it hum and the laws that shaped it into the mess it is-quite like Cory, and no one’s better qualified to deliver us a user manual for fixing it. That’s The Internet Con: a rousing, imaginative, and accessible treatise for correcting our curdled online world. If you care about the internet, get ready to dedicate yourself to making interoperability a reality. -Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine]

It’s how Apple saved itself from Microsoft’s vicious campaign to destroy it:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

Every tech giant used interop to grow, and then every tech giant promptly turned around and attacked interoperators. Every pirate wants to be an admiral. When Big Tech did it, that was progress; when you do it back to Big Tech, that’s piracy. The tech giants used their monopoly power to make interop without permission illegal, creating a kind of “felony contempt of business model” (h/t Jay Freeman).

The Internet Con describes how this came to pass, but, more importantly, it tells us how to fix it. It lays out how we can combine different kinds of interop requirements (like the EU’s Digital Markets Act and Massachusetts’s Right to Repair law) with protections for reverse-engineering and other guerrilla tactics to create a system that is strong without being brittle, hard to cheat on and easy to enforce.

What’s more, this book explains how to get these policies: what existing legislative, regulatory and judicial powers can be invoked to make them a reality. Because we are living through the Great Enshittification, and crises erupt every ten seconds, and when those crises occur, the “good ideas lying around” can move from the fringes to the center in an eyeblink:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/12/only-a-crisis/#lets-gooooo

[Image ID: Thoughtfully written and patiently presented, The Internet Con explains how the promise of a free and open internet was lost to predatory business practices and the rush to commodify every aspect of our lives. An essential read for anyone that wants to understand how we lost control of our digital spaces and infrastructure to Silicon Valley’s tech giants, and how we can start fighting to get it back. -Tim Maughan, author of INFINITE DETAIL]

After all, we’ve known Big Tech was rotten for years, but we had no idea what to do about it. Every time a Big Tech colossus did something ghastly to millions or billions of people, we tried to fix the tech company. There’s no fixing the tech companies. They need to burn. The way to make users safe from Big Tech predators isn’t to make those predators behave better — it’s to evacuate those users:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/18/urban-wildlife-interface/#combustible-walled-gardens

I’ve been campaigning for human rights in the digital world for more than 20 years; I’ve been EFF’s European Director, representing the public interest at the EU, the UN, Westminster, Ottawa and DC. This is the subject I’ve devoted my life to, and I live my principles. I won’t let my books be sold with DRM, which means that Audible won’t carry my audiobooks. My agent tells me that this decision has cost me enough money to pay off my mortgage and put my kid through college. That’s a price I’m willing to pay if it means that my books aren’t enshittification bait.

But not selling on Audible has another cost, one that’s more important to me: a lot of readers prefer audiobooks and 9 out of 10 of those readers start and end their searches on Audible. When they don’t find an author there, they assume no audiobook exists, period. It got so bad I put up an audiobook on Amazon — me, reading an essay, explaining how Audible rips off writers and readers. It’s called “Why None of My Audiobooks Are For Sale on Audible”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

[Image ID: Doctorow has been thinking longer and smarter than anyone else I know about how we create and exchange value in a digital age. -Douglas Rushkoff, author of Present Shock]

To get my audiobooks into readers’ ears, I pre-sell them on Kickstarter. This has been wildly successful, both financially and as a means of getting other prominent authors to break up with Amazon and use crowdfunding to fill the gap. Writers like Brandon Sanderson are doing heroic work, smashing Amazon’s monopoly:

https://www.brandonsanderson.com/guest-editorial-cory-doctorow-is-a-bestselling-author-but-audible-wont-carry-his-audiobooks/

And to be frank, I love audiobooks, too. I swim every day as physio for a chronic pain condition, and I listen to 2–3 books/month on my underwater MP3 player, disappearing into an imaginary world as I scull back and forth in my public pool. I’m able to get those audiobooks on my MP3 player thanks to Libro.fm, a DRM-free store that supports indie booksellers all over the world:

https://blog.libro.fm/a-qa-with-mark-pearson-libro-fm-ceo-and-co-founder/

Producing my own audiobooks has been a dream. Working with Skyboat Media, I’ve gotten narrators like @wilwheaton​, Amber Benson, @neil-gaiman​ and Stefan Rudnicki for my work:

https://craphound.com/shop/

[Image ID: “This book is the instruction manual Big Tech doesn’t want you to read. It deconstructs their crummy products, undemocratic business models, rigged legal regimes, and lies. Crack this book and help build something better. -Astra Taylor, author of Democracy May Not Exist, but We’ll Miss It When Its Gone”]

But for this title, I decided that I would read it myself. After all, I’ve been podcasting since 2006, reading my own work aloud every week or so, even as I traveled the world and gave thousands of speeches about the subject of this book. I was excited (and a little trepedatious) at the prospect, but how could I pass up a chance to work with director Gabrielle de Cuir, who has directed everyone from Anne Hathaway to LeVar Burton to Eric Idle?

Reader, I fucking nailed it. I went back to those daily recordings fully prepared to hate them, but they were good — even great (especially after my engineer John Taylor Williams mastered them). Listen for yourself!

https://archive.org/details/cory_doctorow_internet_con_chapter_01

I hope you’ll consider backing this Kickstarter. If you’ve ever read my free, open access, CC-licensed blog posts and novels, or listened to my podcasts, or come to one of my talks and wished there was a way to say thank you, this is it. These crowdfunders make my DRM-free publishing program viable, even as audiobooks grow more central to a writer’s income and even as a single company takes over nearly the entire audiobook market.

Backers can choose from the DRM-free audiobook, DRM-free ebook (EPUB and MOBI) and a hardcover — including a signed, personalized option, fulfilled through the great LA indie bookstore Book Soup:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation

What’s more, these ebooks and audiobooks are unlike any you’ll get anywhere else because they are sold without any terms of service or license agreements. As has been the case since time immemorial, when you buy these books, they’re yours, and you are allowed to do anything with them that copyright law permits — give them away, lend them to friends, or simply read them with any technology you choose.

As with my previous Kickstarters, backers can get their audiobooks delivered with an app (from libro.fm) or as a folder of MP3s. That helps people who struggle with “sideloading,” a process that Apple and Google have made progressively harder, even as they force audiobook and ebook sellers to hand over a 30% app tax on every dollar they make:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/red-team-blues-another-audiobook-that-amazon-wont-sell/posts/3788112

Enshittification is rotting every layer of the tech stack: mobile, payments, hosting, social, delivery, playback. Every tech company is pulling the rug out from under us, using the chokepoints they built between audiences and speakers, artists and fans, to pick all of our pockets.

The Internet Con isn’t just a lament for the internet we lost — it’s a plan to get it back. I hope you’ll get a copy and share it with the people you love, even as the tech platforms choke off your communities to pad their quarterly numbers.

Next weekend (Aug 4-6), I'll be in Austin for Armadillocon, a science fiction convention, where I'm the Guest of Honor:

https://armadillocon.org/d45/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/31/seize-the-means-of-computation/#the-internet-con

[Image ID: My forthcoming book 'The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation' in various editions: Verso hardcover, audiobook displayed on a phone, and ebook displayed on an e-ink reader.]

[shuttershocky]

Extremely bold move of Unity to be known as THE engine to learn gamedev with as well as the bedrock of incredibly successful mobile games only to shoot itself in the head

This doesn't just kill Unity as the engine for indie projects (imagine if you were like flappy bird guy and your personal project goes viral in downloads, you suddenly owe Unity hundreds of thousands of dollars), but a big chunk of the most successful mobile games are made in Unity.

I genuinely wonder how this will affect F2P mobile games using a model with a massive userbase that relies on most users not paying while whale users overpay to sustain itself (not even necessarily gacha monetization, this is how all F2P mobile games work).

Unity games will now be charged PER user when already the cost of acquisition per user is so high because they're F2P.

[prokopetz]

The whole Deltarune situation is fascinating because usually what happens with indie game developers is they try to do the Big Passion Project that's been brewing in the back of their brain for the last twenty years as their very first major undertaking – and if they're extremely lucky, they don't burn themselves out in the process! – but Toby Fox didn't do that.

Instead, he deliberately started with a much more modest game that was essentially a scaled down AU version of the Big Passion Project, mostly as a way of teaching himself the ins and outs of game development, with no real expectation of broad appeal, but then that practice project proved to be immensely popular.

So basically what we're seeing now is what happens when an indie dev is able to approach their Big Passion Project – the one that most indie devs burn their brains out trying to tackle solo – with access to a team and a budget, and, um, well

I have to confess that the results are thus far a little concerning!

[klausinamarink]

based on this hilarious video with Gianmarco Soresi whom I’ve been watching his comedy work for a few months now

read on ao3

“What do you do?” The standup of the hour - the guy had introduced himself as Eddie - points at Steve.

Flustered at the attention directing every eye in the club to his table, Steve tries not to stammer as he answers, “Well, uh, I make movies.”

“Oh!” Eddie genuinely looks interested. “So you’re a director?”

“Yeah, pretty much. At least I started out as an indie, but I have a big project that’s out and a couple more on the way.” One table nearby claps and Steve tries to wave them off to stop.

“So what was that big project? Was it something we would’ve seen?” Eddie repositions himself so he has one leg up on the stool. Steve stares at how lean they seem with the tight black jeans. He’s got them daddy long legs. His brain suddenly burps out and it nearly makes Steve lose his composure.

“Uh, ha, I did The Final Bat. It’s on Shudder.” Steve shrugs nonchalantly, perfectly hiding his internal cringe. The horror genre is way out of his league and Steve’s already seen The Final Bat being on a few critical lists damning the title as another cliche-filled mess. He only did it because he had finally caved to Dustin’s pleading to make at least one horror movie.

Eddie, on the other hand, seems ecstatic by this revelation. “No way! That’s sick, dude! So the next time you make a horror flick, you’re gonna watch Blumhouse and A24 coming in at each other with steel chairs for distribution rights.”

Everyone laughs, including Robin. She smacks on Steve’s bicep with a wide grin. He smacks her back before he turns back to Eddie and clarifies, “I don’t like horror! I’m not doing it again!”

Aghast, Eddie throws an invisible hat to the ground and stamps on his feet. “Come on! Then what’s the point of watching the studios bite each other’s dicks off when you’re slipping out to watch - I don’t know - the Barbie movie! Now they’re just fighting for the next shitty horror movie to exist!”

Steve covers his mouth but fails to hold back in the laughter. Eddie’s infectious energy is starting to get to him. It makes his chest clench with something other than the usual pains.

Eddie patiently waits for the patrons to quiet down before continuing, still attentive to Steve, “I’m just wondering actually if you ever done theater class.”

“Sure did! Two years in high school,” Steve confirms.

“Let me guess, they did Hamlet?” Eddie raises an eyebrow like it’s meant to be accusatory.

“Yep, soon after I joined.” Steve nods, the memory of that production flashing before his eyes. It had its ups and downs but it was one of the most fun things Steve had ever experienced.

“No wonder they started as soon as your handsome ass walked in the club.” Eddie says low and flirtatiously into the microphone, staring directly into Steve’s eyes. It echoes across the room and back, bringing the howling laughter with it.

Heat crawls behind his face. Steve keeps his hands on the table, forcing down the urge to hide behind them. “I-” He stops to cough, “I wasn’t supposed to play Hamlet.”

Eddie’s eyes go wide, “What do you mean?!”

Robin answers loud enough for everyone to hear, “He was the grave robber, but the other guy who did Hamlet got into a coma a week before the show and Steve knew all the lines.”

“W-Woah, woah, woah!” Eddie holds his hands out, looking scandalous. He throws looks around the club. “Everyone, shut the fuck up right now! This is more important than caring about the rest of you!” Eddie drags the stool over and perches on it like a very much invested gargoyle, almost oblivious to the audience’s reaction.

“Okay, let me go through this.” He points at Steve, still holding eye contact as if Steve’s soul would provide the answer. “You weren’t Hamlet. You were meant to be the guy who gives him the skull to monologue. The OG Hamlet got into a coma for some reason-“

“Car accident.” Robin interjects.

“Yeah, no need to elaborate, ma’am. You, Steve-” Eddie breaks off for a second, holding back a laugh of his own. “You somehow knew all the Hamlet lines because you were waiting to skin OG Hamlet’s head and make his skull yours to do the monologue.”

There’s a scandalous outcry from all tables. Even when they mostly calm down, Steve uses the growing anticipation to ‘think’ about what Eddie just said before he casually shrugs and says, “Sounds about right.”

Eddie drops his face into his arm, letting everyone laugh at him. Steve lets himself break, his laughter bubbling out of him in a way that doesn’t sound so self-deprecating or hollow. If he was in a cynical mood, he would’ve thought it was pathetic that the only person who made him laugh so lightly again was some random standup.

After a moment, Eddie finally looks up, his face broken in disbelieving grin. He chuckles into the mic and looks back at Steve, “Sorry, it’s just I hear some wild stories in the crowd some nights and I think yours takes the cake.”

Steve smiles, “Thanks, man.”

Eddie stands up back, half-leaning onto the stool. “Do you still remember those lines? To be or not to be?”

The whole damn thing. “Uh… some of it?”

Eddie’s grin shifts into something more mischievous. “Let’s see who knows more.”

A collective oooh goes around the room, including Robin. She already has her phone out for recording. Steve rolls his eyes at her and takes a quick sip of his water. He clears his throat and starts, “‘To be or not to be, that is the question.’”

“‘Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune..’” Eddie says without missing a beat.

Oh, he thinks he knows it all. The sense of competition that Steve thought had died out with his future of a sports career reignites in his chest. He sits up even straighter. “‘Or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.’”

“‘To die-to sleep, no more.’” Eddie slowly walks over to the edge of the stage, “‘And by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.’”

“'tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd.’” Steve almost shivers as he recites the line, uncertain if it’s from the club’s cooling temperatures or the intense gaze from Eddie’s eyes. “‘To die, to sleep.’”

“‘To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub,’” Eddie suggestively rubs a hand on his chest as he squats down. Steve’s eyes flicker to the hand, almost hypnotized by the motion. Nay, he shakes himself out of it. No distractions!

“‘For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil.’” It’s getting harder to remember the following lines. That hasn’t happened before. Steve has never forgotten the damn soliloquy in years, even when other people try to challenge him.

Eddie continues, “‘Must give us pause—there's the respect that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely.’”

“‘The pangs-’” Steve feels his breath catching in his throat when he realizes, for the first time, what beautiful eyes Eddie has.

Oh. 

Eddie suddenly perks up in excitement. For a second, Steve thinks that Eddie has come to the exact same thoughts for him. But then he remembers that he hasn’t completed his line, so Steve feigns defeat.

“I win!” Eddie stands up with a triumphant cry. He spreads his arms out to embrace the cheering whoops and applause. “And I’ve only got to play Hamlet in-” He spins around and crouches down so he can look Steve in the eye again as Eddie’s voice booms into the mic, “-FOURTH GRADE, MOTHERFUCKER!” 

Steve’s not even mad. He just throws his head back, laughing and clapping along. 

Almost too soon, Eddie moves on to heckle on another table. But he keeps glancing over at Steve, his smile widening every time. And Steve smiles back, feeling a laugh slip out of his slips at every joke. He watches Eddie more closely, feeling his heart pound faster in his chest the more Eddie stays onstage. 

By the time Eddie has to depart and thank everyone for being here, Robin announces her need to go home and snuggle with her girlfriend. 

“Man, that was the most I’ve ever laughed in this place.” Steve stretches his back, groaning at the little pops. God, being in his early thirties can be a bitch sometimes.

Robin only hums, moving her eyebrows up and down suggestively. Steve pointedly makes no further comment as he pays the tab.

Outside, the crisp night air welcomes him. Steve takes in a whiff, staring up at the light-polluted sky as he bids Robin a goodbye. Then he hears his name being called. He turns around and sees Eddie hurrying out the doors.

Steve feels a smile already on his face, “Hey, Hamlet.” 

Eddie grins at him, teeth and all, “Hey, yourself.” 

They stare at each other but it lacks the competitive intensity earlier. Steve likes this. But he already has a feeling that this won’t be the first time either one of them would challenge the other.

“Sooo…” Steve says when the silence stretches a little too long. He gestures between himself and Eddie, “Wanna restart our introductions?”

Eddie’s eyes brighten, “Yeah! Right, sorry.” He clears his throat and thrusts a hand out. “My name is Eddie Munson. Self-proclaimed comedian and musician. You may recognize me as the guy who beat you in Hamlet’s famous speech.”

Steve takes his hand. Eddie feels bony and thin, but large enough to fit perfectly into Steve’s palm. He tries not to sound so eager as he says, “Steve Harrington. Film director who doesn’t like horror. Believe it or not, I actually know the whole stupid thing.”

Eddie tilts his head, narrowing his eyes, “Really? Like, no offense, but even if you remember that much-”

“‘And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.’” Steve winks with the Harrington Charm, smile and all. 

Eddie stares at him for so long that Steve feels his heart racing for a different reason. And then, Eddie turns around and muffles a loud scream into his free hand. When the man turns back to face him, he’s sporting the widest smile Steve has never seen.

“You knew the whole thing!?” Eddie’s eyes sparkle with utter adoration.

“Yep.” Steve pops the ‘p’, grinning like a little shit.

“But why did you forget that line?”

“Let’s just say,” Steve squeezes Eddie’s hand, intertwining their fingers together, “I got distracted by the pangs of love.”

Eddie bites on his lower lip as he swoons his body over so they are pressing against each other. With half-lidded eyes, Eddie whispers, “You know that part is Hamlet referring to missing his dead dad, right?”

Of course Steve couldn’t help but kiss him.

[paper-mario-wiki]

Ok I usually agree with you on things but even as someone who didn't like tadc, I don't see the issue with selling merch?? Lackadaisy, hazbin/helluva boss, monkeywrench, literally almost every indie project does that, it's how they get a good amount of their funding, why is that itself an issue?

alright this'll be the last question i answer on it because we're officially at the point where people are saying "oh yeah, well what about this?" in reference to stuff i already spoke about, so i'll use this as a summary:

I was asked what I think about The Amazing Digital Circus a few weeks ago, and as a show, I think it's pretty inoffensive. I think the premise and character design is pretty generic, and I think the plot is definitely trend-riding, but ultimately the pilot had some funny jokes and pretty good visuals.

I added an addendum later on to follow up in saying that my perspective has shifted to one of disdain, because I'm sick of seeing it everywhere, and I'm tired of people saying it's already a masterpiece despite the minimal legwork it has put in so far as a story. This is compounded by the fact that the studio company behind it, Glitch Productions, is being unrelentingly commercial with it, to the extent that there was merch designed and available the same day the video itself went live, especially since the pilot itself was never even set to get a sequel, let alone a "series", despite the fact that it is being advertised and sold as a series. This left a bad taste in my mouth, as in my eyes it's become a pretty hollow flavor of the week fandom with a hype culture that people are conflating with actual quality.

Someone asked about the nature of the "no confirmed episode 2", which I later provided some context for in the form of a screenshot from an article where staff of Glitch Productions came forward and said pretty unambiguously that there wouldn't be more episodes unless people bought enough merch. This isn't a horrible sin by itself (Toby Fox famously sold merch for a demo of Deltarune), but the fact that merch sales are being treated like a crowdfunding campaign, with the threat of cancellation very unambiguously behind the "encouragement to buy merch in order to help greenlight the show", is a tactic that feels gross to me. Crowdfunding itself is okay, but the fact that there is no set goal in place, no "if we sell x amount of shirts the show will be get an entire season!" or anything like that, sounds a lot like "if you do not buy enough acrylic charms and tshirts then this show you like will not continue. how many have to be sold? we'll let you know when we reach the goal".

That is, in its entirety, the discourse, AKA my opinion that people kept asking for clarification and justification for. I personally really don't like The Amazing Digital Circus for its lack of depth combined with its ruthless commercialism. I find it repulsive in that way. That's it.

[kallypsowrites]

I feel like I've seen so many TV cancellation announcements for stuff that I might've watched but now might not. And it really just emphasizes how much the current system is eating itself.

Binge culture means that people are expected to consume a show right as it drops. Because so many shows are binged now, even weekly shows are held to the same standard. If they don't perform well during the initial release, they are written off because binge numbers are the numbers that matter.

So you get more and more people who are afraid to get invested in shows because it might get canceled on a cliffhanger. Because of that, they don't tune in to watch something until they're sure its going to continue. So the next bingeable show gets less viewers. It gets canceled. More people join the 'I'm not going to watch yet because I'm afraid to get invested' crowd. Less people watch TV.

And it sucks because people like this are often the most ardent fans of a work--the ones who will write fanfiction and make fanart and write long analytical posts convincing people to watch a show. The people who will make a new show their whole personality because that's how hyperfixation works. I am amongst that crowd. I can't let myself get invested in something anymore unless I know that I'm going to get emotional payoff.

TV execs have been continuously breaking trust with fandom spaces for the past several years. They don't give shows a chance to find their legs, to grow an audience, to gain a cult following. They kill something in it's cradle in service to the numbers.

And it's not just the fans who suffer because of this. It's writer's rooms. I'm going to school right now for screenwriting and its BAD out there. So many writers who pour their heart and soul into a concept only to never get to bring it to fruition. There's no room for slow burns. For thoughtful storytelling. For trusting the audience. There's no room for real creativity. So the shows that do get renewed are often competent but uninspired or sequel/franchise content. Cause that's what gets views.

I cannot imagine how disheartening it is as a writer to start so many projects and never get to finish them. Think about your own writing. If you were working on a fanfiction but knew at any moment someone could stop you updating because you aren't getting enough hits/kudos, would you find joy in that anymore? I sure wouldn't.

I believe that a lot of the best storytelling is going to come out of indie spaces in the next few years--writers and artists moving outside of Hollywood and making their own low budget stories. Because it's almost impossible to thrive within the current system.

It's not the writer's fault. It's not the fan's fault. It's the way TV has become. And its going to crash and burn and I'm sure execs will find a way to blame anything but the system they created.

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Trans made TTRPGs

Due to… recent events that I would rather not talk about, today's post is a highlight of different tabletop games made by trans peeps! These games are fantastic in their own right, of course, but you can also know that they were made by incredibly cool and attractive people

(Also, these are flyover descs of the game, they'll get more in-depth singular posts later, this is because I am lazy)

Perfect Draw is a phenomenal card game TTRPG that was funded in less than a day on backerkit, it's incredibly fun and has simple to learn hard to master rules for creating custom cards, go check it out!

Songs for the dusk is fucking good, pardon my language, but it's a damn good post apocalyptic game about building community in a post-capitalist-post-apocalypse-post-whatever world. do yourself a favor and if you only check out one game in this list, check this one out, its a beautiful game.

Flying Circus is set in a WW1 inspired fantasy setting full of witches, weird eldritch fish people (who are chill as hell), cults, dead nobility, and other such things. It's inspired by Porco Rosso primarily but it has other touchstones.

Wanderhome is a game about being cute little guys going on a silly adventure and growing as the seasons change, its GMless and very fun

https://weregazelle.itch.io/armour-astir Armour Astir has been featured in here before but its so damn good I had to post it twice. AA demonstrates a fundamental knowledge of the themes of mech shows in a way that very few other games show, its awesome

Kitchen Knightmares is… more of a LARP but its still really dang cool, its about being a knight serving people in a restaurant, its played using discord so its incredibly accessible

https://grimogre.itch.io/michtim Michtim is a game about being small critters protecting their forest from nasty people who wish to harm it, not via brutal violence (sadly) but via friendship and understanding (which is a good substitute to violence)

ok this technically doesn't count but I'm putting it here anyways cuz its like one of my favorite ttrpgs of all time TSL is a game about baring your heart and dueling away with people who you'll probably kiss 10 minutes later, its very very fanfic-ey and inspired by queer narratives. I put it here because its made by a team, and the expansion has a setting specifically meant to be a trans "allegory", so I'll say it counts, honestly just go check it out its good shit

https://willuhl.itch.io/mystic-lilies

Mystic Lillies is a game inspired by ZUN's Touhou Project about witches dueling powerful foes, each other, and themselves. Mystic Lillies features rapid character creation and a unique diceless form of rolling which instead uses a standard playing card deck.

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/141424/nobilis-the-game-of-sovereign-powers-2002-edition I… want to do a more general overview on Jenna K as an important figure in indie RPG design, but for now just know that Nobilis is good

https://temporalhiccup.itch.io/apocalypse-keys Apocalypse Keys is a game inspired by Doom Patrol, Hellboy, X-men, and other comics about monstrousness being an allegory for disenfranchisement. Apocalypse Keys is also here because its published by Evilhat so its very cleaned up and fancy but I love how the second you check out the dev's other stuff you can tell they are a lot more experimental with their stuff, this is not a critique, it is in fact a compliment

Fellowship! I've posted about this game before, but it is again here. Fellowship has a fun concept that it uses very well mostly, its a game about defining your character's culture, and I think that's really really cool

Voidheart Symphony is a really cool game about psychic rebellion in a city that really does not like you, the more you discover for yourself the better

Panic at the Dojo is a phenomenal ttrpg based on what the Brazilian would call "Pancadaria", which basically means, fucking other's people shit up. Character Creation is incredibly open and free, meaning that many character concepts are available

Legacy 2e is a game about controlling an entire faction's choices across time, its very fun

remember to be kind to a trans person today! oh also don't even try to be transphobic in the reblogs or replies, you will be blocked so fast your head will spin

[selfloathingextraordinaire]

People do not realize how expensive animation is. There is a lot of people needed to make shows/movies and everyone needs to be paid. You make more working a job that pays $7.25/hour than in indie (side note oh my god they never did raise that holy shit no one can live off that). It's incredibly rare to get an indie job that pays well because the small studio making it or the person funding it need a lot of money upfront. I know some people who run indie studios, and it's been getting harder and harder to find jobs that allows them to pay their crew properly. Some fund projects by working overtime at their day job and using what money they have to pay people instead of spending it on themselves. It's not good.

[wildwestlyshow]

Wild Westly - An upcoming indie animated show!

Hey there! I'm Winston (he/him), the creator of Wild Westly and also the one running this blog. I have never used Tumblr before but I am excited to be here!

Why am I here? To introduce you to Wild Westly, an indie animated pilot that (with successful funding) should be coming out by the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025!

Wild Westly explores an alternate history timeline for the Old West with a diverse and colourful cast of insects. We have already put together a wonderful crew and team of voice actors, including the Gianni Matragrano, who will be voicing Mayor Colt Papillo. With only two VAs left to record, concept art being polished and 3d modelled, and a fight sequence in the works, production for the 25-30 minute pilot is well underway!

The reason we decided to make a Tumblr to promote the show is because of the ask feature, as we believed it would be nice to see what kinds of questions and input people have on the upcoming pilot. We also know that Tumblr has a wonderful community of artists who are interested in seeing indie projects and we wanted to be able to share our progress on the project in places where people were most likely to see it!

If you are interested in helping fund the show, our Kickstarter has 15 days left to reach our 2k goal! We have promises such as giving people the chance to design background characters for the pilot and a Kickstarter-only print that will be available for just this campaign and the campaign we intend to launch closer to the project's completion!

The Wild Westly team would really appreciate your support! Whether it be reblogs, comments, or questions, we look forward to seeing how Tumblr reacts to our show!

Thanks for reading, and we hope you like Wild Westly!! You can additionally follow us on TikTok and Twitter for additional updates!

Sincerely,

Winston, Topaz Animation

[dduane]

Salutations and good wishes to you. I am an Indie Author seeking to go Pro. Some good advice and guidance might help minimise the mountain of my anxiety about doing this. I know you got your start with fanfiction, but did you find a publisher/agent through that door? [lots sneer at these days. Still] How many rejections did you suffer before you found your place in the literary world? Thanks for your time and sorry for bothering you <3

Hi there! And don't sweat it: this is no bother.

I have to apologize in advance, because my own career arc isn't likely to serve as much of a good example. In terms of how I got into this business, I'm a serious outlier.

Quickest and easiest to discuss: my agent and I got together after my first book was already bought and published. (Which back in the day was seen as a good enough way to go forward, and then still entirely possible.) He was recommended to me by one of my editors, as—like me—he was just getting started in the business: a likely-looking newcomer then scouting new talent. We met up and chatted, and it seemed to both of us that we'd be a good fit for each other. After forty-odd years of working together, we still are.

About the fanfic: (Adding a cut here so as not to carpet people's dashes with wall-to-wall text...)

What writing all that fic did for me—from about age sixteen onwards—was give me a whole lot of practice in getting the initial garbage associated with a story written and out of the way. Best to admit it here: we all have plenty of crap writing in us. And yeah, even long-term professional writers do. Whether you're at the beginning of your career or right in the middle of it, this is what "zero drafts" are for. You tell yourself the story, first time out... and routinely at this stage a lot of what proves to be unusable stuff emerges, and can be discarded in rewrite. (Of course crap writing can also emerge without warning in the later stages of a project, but there are many reasons for that, all beyond the scope of this discussion.) And you learn even more from reworking the material after you've gotten rid of the dross.

During the period when I was executing what might have been, oh, half a million words of fanfic—Trek originally, and then LoTR—and while reading a whole lot of everything, as I'd been doing since I was first allowed to go raid the town library by myself at age eight—I learned a fair amount about writing without realizing it. Some of it was simply about writing inside a set of rules. (Which I hadn't been doing previously: between eight and sixteen I was writing original fiction, mostly fairy tales.) Naturally in fanfic you have to obey the laws of whatever universe you're working in... or even if you wind up flouting them consciously, you do have to be conscious of them. But this work also led me to something that I hadn't really spent a lot of time thinking about: the concept that fiction writing as a whole had rules. I realized I'd better find out what those were.

The best stuff I found out during this period was what I picked up by direct example from other writers, whom I'd immediately start imitating and then sort of leave by the wayside when I found others I liked better; at which point I'd start imitating them. (This being a great way to learn and hone new skills, and to start getting a sense of what a writer's "voice" is and can come to mean. I think every writer does this, to some extent: because it's really, really tough to learn how to write without reading. And the more extensively the better.)

I have to emphasize here, BTW, that the fanfic that came out of me as I started slogging up this learning curve was all almost uniformly terrible. All of it, mercifully, along with my earliest original fiction, is gone now: long since burnt, shredded, composted under many layers of time. Trust me, it's just as well. Gah was it awful! Nobody else ever saw the stuff, for which I thank great Thoth every time I think about it. ...What's interesting, too, in its way, was that I didn't even know that what I was doing was fan fiction. I had as yet no contact with any kind of organized fandom, and it would be a long time yet before "online" was invented. I was working in utter isolation, unaware that anybody else might have been doing the same thing. (And it's difficult to describe the sense of astonishment and joy that hit me the first time I went to an SF convention, saw fanzines for the first time, and found out that I was not alone. All unsuspecting, I'd stumbled onto one of my tribes.)

But somewhere along the line, as the years went by—as I finished high school and went to college, and then from there to nursing school, and graduated and started working as a psychiatric nurse, and kept on writing—at some point, as I started writing original fiction again, as well as fanfic, the quality of the output began to improve. The combination of constant practice and voracious reading of better writers outside my chosen genre was slowly having an effect. Trusted friends who saw this later material started saying, "This isn't bad, you should try to get it published!" But since none of these folks were writers, I didn't pay too much attention to their opinions.

I did pay attention, though, when my good friend and mentor David Gerrold said something similar on reading my first novel in 1976. And when that was bought by the first publisher who read it, I had to admit he might have had something there.

This too, though, is unfortunately also a way I'm an outlier: I haven't had a lot of rejection. (Even in my TV work, where rejection is pretty much the rule rather than the exception.) Speaking very generally, just about anyone I've pitched something to in the prose market has bought it—or if they didn't like the idea I came in with, they've immediately said "But would you like to do this instead?" And often enough, what they've offered or suggested has been something that sounded like fun. That's how I wound up doing the Star Trek: Rihannsu books, for example: they were "instead of" a Romulan dictionary. Paramount essentially ringfenced an entire AU-area of Trek and gave it to me to play in, which struck me at the time as amazing. And continues to do so.

Now all this may make me sound almost unfairly lucky. But things do tend, slowly or quickly, to balance out. Over time the universe has made up for its relative kindness at the rejection end of things by making sure I knew plenty about the non-rejection forms of writer-career pain: projects from which I was not rejected but which went terribly wrong (wheels come off a huge deal just before signing, promised actors or directors fail to materialize...), projects where I did the work but didn’t get paid, or where I was brought on board and then got fired/ghosted unreasonably or for no reason at all, or sometimes (mortifyingly) for quite good reason. And let's not forget how, as what could seem a very pointed shot across my bow when my career-vessel was just pulling out of port, half the print run of that very-much-buzzed-about debut novel wound up being pulped in the warehouse because another, far better-established writer's new book needed the pallet space that mine had been taking up. (insert rueful smile here) Believe me, entropy is running, and will catch up with you one way or another. So make yourself as ready for it as you can.

I don't mean to increase your anxiety. Yet that said: you're preparing to enter a business in which, for a freelancer, at least some level of anxiety is more or less part of the basic ground of being. You are going to have to develop ways of dealing with the everyday forms of that to keep it from routinely derailing your work.

I find it helps a little if you can come to consider this as a modern form of Going On An Adventure. Good things will happen; bad things will happen; and all of these will be in service of building your career. Think of yourself as being on a quest.

Your job now becomes the business of suiting up with the best equipment and advice you can find (ideally not from outliers like me). The web is full of useful pages on subjects such as how to query and how to find an agent.

Here are links to some.

Compare these resources one against another to see how their different kinds of advice seem to stack up, and which ones are the most congenial for you.

Then use this data to start drawing your personal roadmap across the terrain. Get as clear as you can in your own mind about what you're trying to get out of being in this business: what kind of writing you want to do and what results you want to produce. Then set out, redrawing your road map as necessary as you keep moving forward through the new terrain.

And I wish you good fortune on the journey! (Because luck, as you can see from the above, can definitely be part of this... but fortune favors the prepared.)

Meanwhile, get out there and have a blast. :)

[jediwizard]

It's crazy how Alice creates the most diverse but also relatable characters. There are characters of different sexual orientations, different races, genders, mental illnesses, family life and eating disorders. They're all so different??? but there's something that binds them all together. For example, I relate to Tao and his love for films but I also relate to Georgia with her loyalty to her friends, and I relate to Tori but I relate to Frances and her obsession to do well in school and not be a disappointment, but I relate to Lister but I... They're all different, but there's something so familiar about them and you can see similar traits in each of them in yourself. you're never just one character, but a perfect mix of a bunch of them. I feel like a collage or mosaic of my favourite characters. Not just the four of them, but all the characters, like Aled Last, Micheal Holden and Elle Argent.

Alice Oseman's characters radiate comfort and warmth. Her books give the same vibes as curling up in you're cozy messy bed after an exhausting day at school or work, buried under a mountain of blankets when it rains or snows outside. The months between September and February when the sun sets early and you get to wear extra layers of clothes like that oversized black hoodie to cover your face from the unfamiliar or jean jacket covered in fandom pins. Returning to your room filled with artifacts from your childhood, old middle-grade fantasy books you haven't touched in like four years but wouldn't sell or donate because they mean too much, book reports and DIY science projects from 3rd grade and that movie poster filled haven where you could leave the stresses of the real world behind.

All the lights are off, except for those fairy string lights above your bed. You're sipping a hot cup of tea or hot chocolate, rereading your old favourite books you loved as a teenager and watching that old favourite film that you've seen so many times that you can remember all the dialogue to, but you watch it anyway. Listening to that carefully curated 90s indie rock playlist from 2019 to drown out and forget the world outside. listening to artists like cavetown, girl in red, the 1975, Arctic monkeys, phoebe bridgers and the smiths. staying up wayyyy too late, the only light being the screen of your laptop or phone, reading fan fiction on AO3 while your whole family's asleep. That warmth and authenticity that you don't find much in modern media. The nostalgia. How she accurately portrays what actual teenagers are like, both the good and the bad. and every other feeling in between. confusion and the odd feelings of growing up, especially how characters like georgia and Nick never realized their sexualities until later (it can be nerve-wracking to figure something out), but also people who have known who they are since forever like frances and charlie. knowing yourself but also feeling like a complete stranger in your body. i don't know how, but even if you're reading it for the first time, @chronicintrovert books have the feeling of returning home.