#but i'll get a good chunk of the way there anyway

[octo-blobs]

hi i cant remember what notes are but here we go.

for many a reason i very deeply resonate with the found family aspect of 8path and have spent a lot of time daydreaming about it - so a Hefty Chunk of what i've taken from it includes projection and indulgent headcanoning. i loved english literature at school so i like to think my analysis skills have aided me in keeping the characters i ship in a recognisably canon-compliant state, but because i'm just stubbornly gay i stop caring whether it makes sense to then add copious amounts of romance on top. ~anyway~.

alfion. i originally didn't like alfyn! my first experience of him was the english dub and i found his sonic-like mannerisms annoying. after experiencing the game in full, however, and becoming very attached to therion, i figured that he was a great asset to those who needed a soft-hearted-strongman. i love what the narrative offers regarding how it shapes these characters and would make a seriously long post about analysing every character i talk about here If People Cared -- for now, though, i'll try to keep it short. (NARRATOR VOICE: he did not keep it short.)

i just love the foils between alfyn and therion. therion, whose heart stutters and bleeds the truth of his loneliness; a man who lives in the shadows only to yearn for the love that light holds. alfyn, who from his trauma took the lesson of embracing life with open arms; a man who would rather unintentionally shepherd in evil than to deny a second chance. they embody such a deep sense of hurt/comfort whilst also curating a casual, warm and boyish sense of true friendship together.

therion benefits so deeply from all 7 of his playable companions, and in alfyn's case, i think it's deeply tied to his free-falling honesty. not only does alfyn portray his values strongly - he also does utterly risk-intensive and sometimes borderline stupid things because he believes in his chosen role as a force for change. his story arc seems to show him doubling down on these decisions, and there are several points at which therion's existence as a societal menace and ~bad person~ can be seen as relevant to them. whether or not you should help a no-good thief; whether or not a person is evil because of their past and circumstances that changed the trajectory of their life; where you should draw the line and what you should punish; whether you should give up on a person who nobody else can seem to help. to me, alfyn seems to decide that he'll be somewhat of an objective and benevolent (as much as a human with a strong protective complex can be) shepherd to the weak and forsaken, taking consequences of his actions as a workplace risk instead of a curse to his worth. therion, however ... this man is mired in shame and has no sense of self-worth that doesn't come down to spiteful pride in the abilities that darius praised & his self-preserving spite. he gave his heart to someone and he thinks, for the most part, that he need not ever get past the pain it caused him, lest it make him weak all over again. because being weak hurt - being powerless hurt. and being chucked off a cliff by someone you would've burned the world with... *really* hurt.

from therion's standpoint he is seen by others as undeserving and, for the longest time, i don't think it matters to him whether or not that assessment is true. his way of compartmentalising the way society treats him is to do what he needs for survival regardless, because there are a hundred more evil things than he himself is capable of - as, iirc, an orphan, and a pauper - but i don't think this leads to an appreciation for his worth. it's so tarnished by darius, the fallout of which probably confirmed pre-conceived notions such as 'don't trust anyone', 'always account for yourself and forsake others before they forsake you', 'the whole world is more likely to turn you in than to hold your hand'. honestly, i see in therion such overflowing yearning that he doesn't *fully* live by these notions - he can't cut himself off from the love he longs for because he's not the kind of no-good scoundrel he thinks he belongs with. whereas darius and plenty of other criminals ingame sow cruelty and are cutthroat with their relationships, therion seems to be capable of empathising with a broader spectrum of people (as seen, to me, by his ability to sympathise with cordelia & thus the untouchable bourgeoise he so loathes). alfyn's open-minded worldview allows therion to be present in the life of a thoroughly kind person without either feeling threatened or like he's in disguise. from there, he's able to observe the light he's yearned for and, in time, this could blossom into a love that finally grants him security.

god i could talk about them forever, but i also have a headcanon that i've held close to me for a few years now. based on the map and where therion's attempted murder takes place, i've ruminated on the idea that therion could have ended up getting medical treatment in clearbrook. after tumbling down the jagged, steep lines of bolderfall's mountainside, he could have broken his fall as the terrain blushed green with grass and trees and underbrush. dry from the desert sun and on the brink of death, a near sightless therion dragged himself towards the sounds of rushing water. the current dragged his limbs - some broken, others just weak and covered in wounds - further down the river. as therion and alfyn were both younger, i wonder if zeph would have lead the treatment that therion received once he was pulled from the bubbling waters and rushed onto the medieval equivalent of an operating table. the immediate question is, "wouldn't they recognise each other once they met in the future?" - and i don't think therion would want himself to be known, treated or kept in such a generous home. most apothecaries are paid in-universe - a service therion was beyond sure he couldn't pay for. to me, therion is apprehensive about returning to clearbrook on his travels but *needs*, for whatever narrative reason, to pass through and receive apothecary aid. alfyn recognises the white hair and skittish tendencies, recalling little other than a patient who picked from zeph's coinpurse and ran. for the longest time, he never brings up that he belives - knows - that person was therion. he wrestles with it, deciding that he indeed wants to see just what kind of person therion is, which eventually leads him to discover that he was right to trust & nurture him.

the therion i depict always has a snarled lip from a lasting scar, cleft from the incident, and i headcanon him suffering from lasting conditions, both physically and mentally, that actually alfyn would be able to treat or provide relief from - continuing the proof that he can and will be taken care of here; that there's no reason to be afraid; that he can scratch and protest all he likes, but he's in the hands of a man whose whole purpose (and joyfully so) is to make sure he has a space to heal.

god lmao i love them so much. i also see them both as trans but i also see a good portion of the casts of both 8path 1&2 as trans so it barely feels relevant. i just think its neat.

h'aanirose. primh'aan. it's a very similar story, though their personalities, goals and lives are led in very different manners to alfyn and therion. i certainly think there's a lot to add about lesbianism here, such as comparing primrose's relationships with women to those she has with men, as well as h'aanit's portrayal as a warrior woman and a blushing knight in the face of her alluring lady, but i probably wom't go into all of it.

primrose and yusufa was an extremely formative relationship. it, unfortunately, mirrored the one with her father and left her losing another deeply important person to murder. the kind of rage that rumbles in primrose's heart and thunders out into bursts of arcane shadow is not to be underestimated, in part because it left her so vulnerable to the puppeteering of simeon. in her eyes, she lost everyone she loved - and then, suddenly, in a way that made her once again feel like a child, she un-lost one of those people. forming a deep and lasting connection must be tough for her after the events of the game and thus i think the a certain travel banter line from the end of her story is representative of even more yearning than it seems on the surface. to h'aanit she suggests they could travel together in future, even commenting that she could protect h'aanit herself. to which, of course, the incredibly muscular pseudo-viking with axe-wielding biceps and a giant snow leopard says, 'dost thou not mean *i* coulde protecten *thee*?' i find this so incredibly cute. of course there's a huge aspect of prim's banter where she alludes to her physique & intimately informed commentary on men, which leads her to praise h'aanit for choosing neither of the 'two kinds of men' in chapter 2. however, the power of yuri in my heart takes this subtext and runs with it - when i talk about the deeper yearning of this interaction, what i'm referring to is the fact that the game gives us an insight into her thoughts and has her, like a stumbling shy lovebird, question why she didn't just outright admit she likes h'aanit's company. it's one of my favourite little things in the entire game because primrose has lived so much of her life as someone that she didn't want to be, but *had* to be in order to approach the truth and get closure for her grief. i think she knows that there's an aimless and unknowable path before her, and her old skills kick in. before she can simply ask for h'aanit to join her on this daunting endeavour, she finds herself trying to sweeten her words & make herself seem appealing as a companion. (seeing as prim can allure any gender, it highlights that alluring isn't just used in a sexual manner - though frequently that's how she's received by men & has more success playing into that across the board). i think this scene is emblematic of the effect h'aanit has on her, and i love gobbling it up.

primrose feels comfortable in letting h'aanit know that she feels safe with her very automatically, even when she's shy about asking for her company. h'aanit, to me, would make a lovely candidate for a person that primrose can deeply love & is less likely to lose to a cruel deception or death; i think the way in which h'aanit fends for herself is appealing in this manner. in turn, the sweet way in which they can exchange life lessons creates a foundation of support, which is both fantastic in a world where the men* in their lives are falling short of the roles they might otherwise occupy and a foundation for love that appreciates their strengths without regretting their weaknesses. (*z'aanta as a drunken & lighthearted mentor often scolded by his apprentice; primrose's lack of a present father figure or protector; the way h'aanit's story champions the presence of strong and/or skilled women; primrose chapter 1 villain who icr the name of cause he sucked; simeon as an older man in young primrose's life who preyed on her innocence and love for him). etc etc.

h'aanit is a learner. she may not start out with experience, and further on she finds herself flustered at several points when it comes to the mannerisms of cityfolk, but she's capable of understanding the wider picture. i think this is aided by the way in which she sees herself in the cycle of life, protecting the forest by stepping into it only where it can undo the superfluous presence of man. she doesn't get too involved in the habits of others unless they threaten the forest - an example is with therion and the way she just flat-out judges his nimble fingers, only to do nothing about it other than sass him out in ye olde. she is patient to see how things pan out, and can respect others enough to see where their actions will take them before stepping in. then, when she steps in, she is both graceful and noble, making her an incredibly romantic figure imo. i have, many a time, also thought about the way h'aanit is predominantly a melee (aside from summoning) fighter, with an emphasis on strategic timing for her skills, and prim is almost entirely a support. throughout the trauma and troubles that primrose faced prior to meeting any of the cast, she was unable to access enough power or knowledge to push forward and instead played a waiting game. i think it delights her to know that she can stand beside her battering ram of a girlfriend and fuel her, achieving her goals not through manipulation or abuse but through their shared vision.

my hands feel a bit numb from typing all of this out on my phone, which i didn't need to do but did anyways because it's very easy to fixate on these characters. i feel like i have a thousand things to say, all of them obsessive and excited because of an adoration for the character writing in these games. i love squeezing it for all of the gay stuff and i will never stop.

honourable ship mentions that i will go into detail about if anyone asks, *particularly* those for 8path2 - olberus, olberus but with erhardt too for yaoi reasons, throné x temenos t4t, throné x agnea (postgame +several years), knightlight, a polyamorous amalgamation of the above 8path2 characters (with the exception of temenos not being into women in my hc)... god. help. theres always more but im tired and now i want to replay the games. thank you op for my life

if you read this you get a gold star

I miss octopath yapping with people so uh yknow what! We’re gonna play a game!!

Explain in the notes what y’all’s favorite ships are and why you like them!!!

Only rules are

1) do not explain why everyone should think your ship is canon, as that is not the point of this post 2) do not put any other ships down bc that is also not the point of this post 3) ALL games are included (yes including cotc) 4) ANY SHIPS ARE ALLOWED!!! GO NUTS!!!!

[pioneer-over-c]

(good timeline version of the thing I posted before, apparently)

[spamtoon]

i would take their poison

Sketch + Line Art for those Clicking Under the Cut(tm) (archival purposes honestly)

[pnsge]

"unrequited_love.png"

[unityrain24]

you don't have to read this i just have so much pent-up in my head.

(if you do tho the tags are just as important as the post.)

i wish i could make people unfollow me without blocking them? bc like. every single palestine ask i get (whether spam or real) they follow me. even though it's not set up so only followers can send asks. i think they do it because like, then they think i will be more willing to help? bc follower counts are so important on other platforms and to most people, it's probably like an exchange? They do the nicety of adding to my follower count and so i will be more willing to donate money to their cause? but like. i don't want followers just for followers. it makes me uncomfortable. i've got a little over 150 followers right now but probably a third are palestine fundraiser blogs (and a few bots i can't tell are bots or not and promotional spam). it makes me uncomfortable? it makes me feel like the numbers a lie? i want the people following me to be there because they actually care about my blog/me?

obviously i don't want to block these people! they are in a genocide trying to do whatever they can to survive! they are on here trying to ask anyone and everyone so that out of the hundred of people they ask maybe one or two can donate a few dollars! they are trying every tactic they can to make people listen to them! following! posting photos! using eye-catching colours and fonts! writing out their stories! all things that are emotionally and or/physicaly exhausting and draining all in an attempt to just get someone to listen! and honestly it's sort of unfair that they have to follow random people and clog up their dash with random stuff just so people are more willing to help (obviously most of these people didn't have tumblr before and aren't here for the dash, but i imagine a dash full of palestine help would be less overwhelming than a huge mass of random fandoms while you go find people to ask).

[anhonestdaysworkcomic]

just finished fully reading one of my reference books. Just bought three more

[ayakashibackstreet]

You know what, joining that Discord show club was a great idea, like half of my favourite PKC folks are there. And is there anything more wholesome than someone going '1!! hey, I remember that dog!! she's adorable, I'm glad she's doing well!' about a little pixel friend they made for you years ago?

[ridiculously-over-obsessed]

Sick of being tired sad and overwhelmed all the time 😔

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

okay, so: i’ve been grumpy about How Slowly Revision Have Been Going (coming up on.....almost a Year......), because it’s felt like i’ve been trapped in The Beginning This Entire Time.

however: i’ve input most of what i’ve done so far, and it’s uh. 78 pages?? which. isn’t an insignificant chunk. and i’ve finally cracked what my major hangup was re: the slowness (in text, not in life although life hasn’t been a mystery for a while lol) and i’m slowly unfucking that, so. i think i’m feeling pretty good, all things considered??

[skrunksthatwunk]

damnnn that manga about making manga got me acting funny (making 5 year plans)

[midnightwind]

trying to get my Rook origin story in a state to share like shaking a bag of dog treats in front of friends going "you want to beta read my silly fanfic, you want to beta read it so bad, you can't resist looking at it"

[keeps-ache]

my computer wants to update so bad. which is a real shame,

[cornfieldsrambles]

YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO INFODUMP PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT WIGGLY'S SIBLINGS???? THAT HE APPARENTLY HAS????

omg ok SO

Meet the Lords in Black. Charming, aren't they?

Yes, Wiggly does indeed have four brothers who all do different things, so I'll cover them one by one, in order of introduction (since we've already met each of them in Nightmare Time at least once). BTW Nightmare Time has a fuckton of lore in it that I won't go into here, so even though I am about to spoil significant parts of it for you, I do recommend watching it, it's really good and if there's enough interest they might make a third one!

(Also you might notice they're all in doll form in this picture. This is how we knew them up until NPMD introduced us to what I call their Tumblr sexyman forms. Which are rad as hell by the way.)

So you already know Wiggly. That little green fucker, Wiggog Y'Wrath, the Capitalist Cthulu who does uwu-speak and starts a cult by invading people's minds. This will become a bit of a reoccurring theme with these guys. He's also the only one to successfully start an apocalypse, and the only one to have attempted to birth himself into our reality. (Or is he? We'll get to that...) He does seem to have some kind of dominion over the other LiB, as whenever all five of them show up there's always emphasis placed on him, like in NPMD where he does most of the talking while his siblings occasionally butt in.

Now for Bliklotep. Blinky seems to have slightly lower-scale ambitions than Wiggly, but don't let that fool you. Eyeball Boi is still incredibly dangerous. He runs an amusement park, WatcherWorld, deep within the Hatchetfield Witchwood. But it's not for the amusement of the patrons. Oh no. It's for Blinky's own amusement. Once you step inside, every insecurity, every shred of potential conflict will be ripped to the forefront, turning people against each other to the point of trying to kill each other until he's fully infected their minds. It's implied that, if not all, but a significant chunk of the workers at WatcherWorld were once patrons before having their minds taken over by Blinky. He's also implied to be the thing in Trail To Oregon that Jack Bauer sees during his venom-induced hallucination, as Blinky is referred to as "The Watcher With 1,000 Eyes", which is exactly what JB says he sees? Making Blinky the only LiB to induce a Starkid crossover. My headcanon is that the Dikrats founded Hatchetfield. But regardless.

Next up on the roster is Tinky. T'noy Karaxis, the Time Bastard. You may be wondering about that one line in NPMD where he recognised Pete as a Spankoffski, and said he "could have the whole set in his toybox". Has Tinky gone after Pete's relatives?

Well. Um. You know Ted, right? Yeah, his name is Spankoffski. He's Pete's big brother. We actually got the surname reveal before the brother reveal, lol. And that's not the only reveal we got about Ted. Our boy Teddy Bear has this whole entire tragic backstory and it turns out he gets fucked over in literally every timeline! Isn't that fun?

So, to summarise an entire episode: Tinky makes travel fuckery happen, Ted wants to go back in time to fix his life, accidentally goes back to before the time machine was created and gets stuck in the past, literally. Tinky is watching and laughing at the whole thing, then shows up to blow Ted's brain to smithereens with his weird little magic box, the Bastard's Box, where he stores all the people he toys with. Anyway Ted eventually catches up with the present by aging, except now no one knows who he is, he's... actually I won't spoil that. But once he dies he ends up eternally trapped and tortured in the Bastard's Box. Yaaay.

Fast forward to Nightmare Time 2 and we get introduced to Nibbly, in possibly the most unexpected way imaginable. He's revealed to have been behind a whole episode literally right at the end of said episode, and even though it was kind of foreshadowed, it hits you like a freight train in the best way. Remember when I said Wiggly was the only one who tried to birth himself into reality? That was kind of a lie. Nibblenephim can sort of do that anyway. Every year, he can possess a bunch of carcasses and create a living form to walk the earth for one night. He also has a cult of followers who provide him with the carcasses, as well as a sacrifice to feed on. There's a little more to it, specifically with how the sacrifice is chosen, but again, I'm trying to spoil as little as possible. Go watch Nightmare Time. Nibbly also seems to have a "pig" motif, and his theme song, The Nibbly Ditty, is a banger, easily my favourite of the three LiB theme songs we've heard so far.

And finally, we are introduced to Pokotho, in the very last episode of NMT2.

Except no. We were formally introduced to Pokey there, yes, but we've seen his apocalypse already. Long before NPMD, before Nightmare Time, even before Black Friday.

Yeah, remember me saying that Wiggly was the only one to successfully start an apocalypse? That was also a lie! Pokey already did that, and he did it without ever showing his masked face. Remember The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals? The blue spores that came down in a meteor and turned everyone into singing zombies? That was Pokey's doing! That's his blue spores! That's his apocalypse!

This also provides an explanation for why blowing up the meteor didn't work. Emma and Hidgens were right about the hivemind thing, but wrong about the location of the central brain. It wasn't the meteor - the meteor was just the vessel which carried the spores to Earth. The central brain was sitting safely up in the Black and White, laughing as Paul blew himself to smithereens. The central brain was Pokey, the Singular Voice, the most uncompromising of his brothers. The one who hates every voice that is not his own, hence the hivemind and making all of his zombies speak in HIS voice.

Anyway in NMT2 he's happily collecting musical zombies by taking on a human form and infiltrating a fighting ring of superpowered children until he has enough to kickstart another apocalypse. (Don't question it, we're almost done). He also calls himself Otho, not Pokey, making him the only LiB to have two different abbreviations of his name. Hannah is also there (remember her? Lex's little sister?) and she is like incredibly important to this whole thing, she has a super powerful mind, but that's a whole other thing.

But I did mention Hannah for a reason. Because you said "Wiggly's SIBLINGS". And while the Lords in Black are always referred to as brothers, they do have one more sibling. A sister. A Queen in White. And her name is Webby.

Yep, Hannah's imaginary friend isn't imaginary, who could have guessed? She's benevolent, always trying her best to combat her brothers' antics, but given that there's one of her and five of them, this is a bit of an uphill battle. Webby doesn't have a full name that we know of, nor does she have a doll. We don't know much about her. And she may not be all-powerful - but then again, neither are her brothers.

Infodump concluded. Hope this helps, it was very fun to write.

[ddejavvu]

Ok but I feel like Spencer gets paid a good amount for being in the fbi, probably a couple of side gigs in life, and probably doesn’t spend a whole bunch. But Spencer accidentally finding your wish list on a clothing website. Like the ones we all make over the months, in a ‘if only’ kinda way. And he just... buys it. Your whole list. He checks you’ve put sizes and stuff first, but it’s not a massive chunk from his wallet, and it’ll be a nice surprise for you. His skinny fingers are pressing next day delivery and he’s genuinely just quite happy to do that for you.

Aka him and that would be a wish come true together lmfao. I’d love if you wanted to write smth abt this if you’d like! You+Spencer=everyone’s wishes coming true 😘

'his skinny fingers are pressing next day delivery' LMFAO.

--

It takes you enough time to find Spencer's gift after you get home that he's starting to overthink it, and he's on the brink of what you'd call 'worrying himself to death', and what he'd call 'a Tuesday afternoon'.

He's in the middle of gnawing through his own lip when a strangled noise comes from the closet, and his years of FBI training escape him. He is fairly certain there is a monster of some sort that has invaded your home.

Before he can locate and draw his weapon, however, you reveal yourself, a sweater clutched in your hand that he'd just unwrapped hours earlier.

"Spencer!" You gush, holding the sweater out like he's seeing it for the first time, "Where did this come from?"

"I bought it," He admits, "And- uh, all the other new stuff in there. I saw your list online, so I-!"

Whatever feeble explanation he's about to use to bashfully undersell himself is cut off when you let out a giddy squeal, severed and sectioned into giggles as you fling yourself at him. He's glad that his chair holds up beneath the torpedo of weight you bury him beneath, and his mind is cleared of its concerned fog when you throw your arms around his neck.

"Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou! Spencer," You lean back to grab his face, slightly rougher than usual but out of excitement, not anger, so he lets it slide.

"Thank you." You repeat, leaning in to smash a kiss to his lips. It's more passion than romance, more force than tenderness, but your gratitude seeps through it clear as day, and Spencer curls his arms around your waist where you're settled in his lap.

"Of course, angel. I had Garcia help me organize the closet. I tried to hang-" He furrows his brows, reminiscing, "-a sweater next to a dress? Or- no, I tried putting the dress by some jeans. Anyways, she said to fold the jeans and to keep the dress on the end of the rack- whatever. But she has requested a fashion show."

You bury your face into Spencer's neck to let out a girlish squeal, and he's appreciative that you don't do it into his ear this time. He loves the sound, but he wants it to not hurt, thank you very much.

"Okay- okay! Okay," You're giddy with laughter once more, eyes sparkling in excitement, "Wait here, Spence! Face time Garcia, I'll go get changed."

You're bounding up the stairs and back to your closet before Spencer can remind you that his flip phone isn't capable of Face Time.

[emmyrosee]

bf!sukuna who's a big softy will get mad at you for not eating dinner but cook for you anyway.

"You ain't ate yet?!"

"Tch. Whatever. I guess i'll make you something."

Whenever you fall asleep from working too long/being online too long he'll always tuck you into bed and give you a kiss on the forehead.

He has all your favorite snacks memorized and has them stocked up for you.

When he thinks you're asleep he will tell you stories about him from his past and you will admit sometimes you could NEVER see him doing those things.

"Yuji and I lived at the beach for like, 2 years I think. I used to surf. I was REALLY good at it, maybe I'll show you one day."

HERE ARE SOME IDEAS LOVE YOU EMMY 💖

IM GONNA COMBUST HES MY BOYFRIEND FR-

He gets so mad when you don’t eat, even if it’s only been for a few hours bc you’re not taking care of yourself dummy, and now he’s tasked with the laborious task of feeding you and taking care of you (his words, not mine)

He also can’t stand when you overwork yourself, or fall asleep at your desk because when your back screams at you later, he’s the one that’s going to have to massage it. But he’ll deny the way his heart skips when he scoops you in his arms and carries you to bed, and your cheek nuzzles into the warmth of his torso until you’re laid down on his side of the bed so you can keep his familiar smell in your mind :( all before he goes back to turn off your lights and save your work for you bc what of it got deleted huh? He’s gonna have to hear about that too? Tf?

He, and I cannot stress this enough, knows ALL of your favorite snacks, because for a good chunk of them, they’re his favorite too, and he has to chose between being a good boyfriend and saving the last few bites for you… or, eating them himself and kissing the pout from your lips while you whine and cross your arms petulantly. He’s always sure to be especially affectionate after he eats them, bc he knows he’ll find his shit left in the backyard for him to sleep on the porch swing.

AND HE LOVES TO TALK TO YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP 🥺 bc 9 times out of 10, you are in fact dead asleep, left with your lips smooshed against his chest and arm draped over him, and he can tell you anything. Deep secrets, deep desires, how he used to love yuuji as a kid, the whole nine.

But that 1 out of 10, you blink awake and give him a smile, and he nearly screams in fear of you coming to life, and you giggle softly. “You can surf, but you don’t know how to ride a scooter?”

“SHUT UP-“

[feverdreamjohnny]

"Why There Will Never Be a Peeb Adventures" otherwise known as "The Peeb Adventures Pre-Mortem"

Since 2020, I've made a good chunk of games. Hell, even though I've been doing this for 10 years to date, the majority of my progress as a creative began over the course of this 4 year period.

Out of all the games I've made - or otherwise had a hand in - there is only one that's apparently struck a chord so deeply with people that to this day I still get messages and comments asking when it will come out.

The title of this post already explains the whole deal so I'm not gonna be dramatic about it right here. As per usual, I will instead get heart-clutchingly dramatic about the subject by the end of this story.

I felt the idea of a "Pre-Mortem" might be a fun way to talk about games that will never be finished. Maybe I'll make more of these down the line for other old games, who knows.

"The Incredibly True Origins of Peeb Adventures" or "Wow! I Hate It!"

Peeb Adventures began as a gift game for my long-time friend Aaron. It was simple, mostly functioning as a fun little gag that stemmed from a 3D model I made of a character he doodled during a drawpile session. I gave Peeb a grapple hook just because I wanted to experiment with swinging mechanics and felt the gag gift was a great space to toy around in without having to actually ask myself how on earth I'd want to structure a game around a grappling hook. Foreshadowing!

Eventually, the gag gift did that classic thing all developers have experienced before where your game spirals out of control and grows into a hideous monster, and what started as a fairly abstract grappling toy convergently evolved into that dreaded state we call a "3D Mascot Platformer."

I made a very short demo in the summer of 2020. It went absolutely nowhere, and after an idol of mine caught wind and asked to play it (before sending about 3 paragraphs of feedback suggesting how to improve what was, in my view, a trainwreck of baby blocks stacked on top of eachother), I shelved the project.

"The Absolutely Tremendulous HPS1 Adventure of Peeb" or "My Friend Jam Suggested I Revive the Project and So I Did"

Shortly after Peeb was shelved for the first time, I joined a community of game developers called Haunted PS1. For those not in the know, HPS1 was essentially the nexus point for "retro horror games" in the indie sphere, and a lot of the resulting deluge (non-perjorative) on itch.io can find its roots in this community.

HPS1 was a good place. Lots of nice, talented people willing to tolerate the kind of mindless riffing I often do in voice calls, anyway. I made a decent chunk of friends there, some of which I'm still quite close to, even today.

HPS1 has this tradition called the HPS1 Demo Disc that began in 2020, and with the year coming to its end, there was talk of a new one set to arrive in spring 2021.

Unlike the first demodisc, however, 2021's disc required you to submit a game in-progress to a panel of judges. They'd then give their yay-or-nay, and you were either in or out.

One day, I was musing over the fact that I didn't really have anything to submit so I would likely have to sit out of 2021's disc. My friend, Jam, who you might know as the developer of the Heilwald Loophole (or Beton Brutal) suggested I consider reviving Peeb Adventures as my submission to the demo disc.

Why did I follow through on this? I don't know. It's funny to think a scenario this simple was the launch point for my career.

Over the next 6 months, I worked on turning the absolutely horrendous gag game into... Something still kinda trite but at least playable. I had some help from my longtime teammate drurylain, my longtime friend Aaron (the creator of Peeb's original design), and my longtime spiritual uncle Tim, and with our powers combined... A new kind of demo experience where you don't do anything of particular note besides swinging around was born.

Also quite important: the very same drawpile session that spawned Peeb also spawned Orbo, who would also make his own appearance in Peeb Adventures as a recurring side character (since I felt like Peeb needed a friend).

"Go! Incredible Friendship Unites in the Gameosphere! Peeb and Orbo are Born!" or "Peeb Adventures: Coming Never"

So the demo for Peeb Adventures was finished early March 2021, and the demo disc went live on itch.io on the 25th of the month.

The demo disc then proceeded to do a backflip and pick up a LOT of traction online. Which then meant Peeb itself was catching little bits of the traction in its mouth and smacking its lips.

I went from "guy who makes games for nobody" to "guy who makes games for that one very specific brand of teen on twitter who loves the object head show", and I was riding high.

Fanart poured in. People showed a lot of love. I was dazzled by it all, really.

Despite the love for the game and the potential on hand, progress was stagnant. My group of friends and I all got together in a google doc and wrote an entire planning bible for the game. Game mechanics, story beats, twists and turns, the whole thing. Despite having the structure lined up, I had other ambitions and began working on a multiplayer deathmatch game that quickly overtook my work schedule.

Peeb sat on the backburner, but at the time I still wanted to finish it one day. My main excuse was "well, I just need more money! If I'm going to work on this game it's gonna need more than one fulltime person and I can't just ask people to work for free!" That excuse worked on me for a while.

"I Don't Think I Want to Play With You Anymore Peeb!" or "There's Such a Thing as Too Much Love"

A while had passed at this point. My ambitions hadn't just grown, they'd completely shifted. Before long, I found myself working on yet another demo for the 2022 HPS1 Demo Disc, "The Spectral Mall."

Nowhere, MI wasn't just some random toy for me, but the culmination of all my love into one game. Despite its silly demeanor, the game was a product of a lot of pain, and even now I still desperately want to finish it. Except I have to make money to live, so... Oops!

Anyhow, there was a shift in demeanor for me during 2022. You have Peeb, a game that I made on a whim as kind of a joke with friends, and you have Nowhere, MI, a game that meant the world to me during really dark times.

And you know what? There were a lot of people that wanted Peeb. People that never stopped asking me about it.

I realized while working on Nowhere that I didn't really know what I would even do if I ever had the chance to work on the full Peeb Adventures. Not only did I find the nagging kind of annoying, Peeb was also something I couldn't really... Wrap my head around?

It occurred to me that Peeb wasn't really "my" game anymore, it was "his" game. The old Johnny.

I'd changed a lot since the game had come out in early 2021. In a year and a half my world got flipped upside down, and... I don't know, Nowhere was way more reflective of who I was now. Sure the humor was still pretty asinine, but there was a shift. It was hard to picture the "Peeb Adventures" people were actually looking forward to when my own sensibilities had drifted so far.

When the Nowhere demo came out along with Spectral Mall, it did... Alright? People liked it, but it wasn't the same as Peeb's release. Hell, even in Nowhere's release there were people pushing it aside to ask the same question they'd been asking every week leading up to it. "When is Peeb Adventures coming out?"

"Goodbye Peeb!"

It was increasingly harder and harder to not look back at Peeb and kind of hate it. It was rough in every respect, and yet it whenever I met people who'd heard of me online, they always cited Peeb Adventures.

Strangers continue to ask me when it's coming out. On rare occasion I'll get someone asking about Nowhere and I'll feel a bit excited anyone else cares about that game besides me and maybe my friends, but most of the time people just ask about Peeb.

To finally answer this question I've been asked for nearly 4 years: There will probably never be a Peeb Adventures.

"Goodbye Johnny."

I like to believe one of the reasons people are attracted to my body of work is because I make games to reach out to other people. That's probably not the real reason, but it's nice to play pretend and imagine your work has more significance than just "ha ha boner."

I put a lot of myself in my games and I rarely hold back, even if an idea is insanely stupid or strange. The result usually becomes something more like a scrapbook than a game.

It's hard to try and expand on a game like Peeb when the Johnny who made it isn't really with us anymore. If I worked on Peeb now, you'd get some kind of irregular frankenstein that'd never be as exciting as the original vision was.

By the time I get around to Nowhere again, am I still going to be this Johnny? Or will the next Johnny look back at Nowhere the same way I look at Peeb now? Who knows.

Anyway, look forward to more games from me and my friends. Even if it's not Peeb Adventures, it'll still be us.