#but if someone reading this is a creator in any form this game is great

[hmmwellok]

god the narrator's last speech in tspud hits so different when you're an artist and have gotten used to letting fiction run your life

[if-whats-new]

What's New In IF? Issue 29 (2024)

By Aj, Dion, Briar, Jen and Peter

Now Available!

Itch.io - Keep Reading below

If you read the zine, consider liking the post: it helps us see how many people see it! And sharing is caring! <3

~ EDITORIAL ~

Small Talk... is back!

As you might have read in our last Issue, the Small Talk... section is back due to our amazing interviewers! Continue reading and check out their short debut interview with Leia Talon!

If there’s someone else you’d like to see them interview, don’t hesitate to let us know!

We want some feedback!

As we’re starting to get a hand of things, we would love some feedback from you guys! What you enjoy, want more or less off, how we could improve... Anything goes! We even have a nifty form.

We hope you enjoy this new issue!

AJ, DION, BRIAR, JEN AND PETER

~ BE A PART OF THE ZINE ~

THIS ZINE ONLY HAPPENS WITH YOU!

Want to write 1-2 pages about a neat topic, or deep-dive into a game and review it in details? Share personal experiences or get all academic?

WRITE FOR THE COLUMN!

Prefer to be more low-key but still have something to share? Send us a Zine Letter or share a game title for Highlight on…!

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Came across something interesting? Know a release or an update announced? Saw an event happening? Whether it's a game, an article, a podcast… Add any IF-related content to our mini-database!

EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS!

Contact us through Tumblr asks, Forum DMs, or even by email! And thank you for your help!!

~ ENDED ~

The 7th edition of inkJam is over and you can check out the result here.

You can now check out all 58 entries for the Monstrous Desires 2024 Visual Novel Jam.

The October Bitsy Jam has also ended. There were only two entries, so be sure to show them some love.

~ ONGOING (VOTING) ~

The voting for ECTOCOMP 2024 has officially started! To vote and participate as a jury, you must do so by giving between 1 to 5 stars on each entry page of the jam. The voting period ends on November 30.

~ ONGOING (SUBMITTING) ~

Disabled Rep VN Jam has a very simple premise but a very important message.

Once upon a time, a game jam was held to create stories around the theme of fairy tales… and that game jam is the Once Upon A Time VN Jam. It’s running from October 1st to January 31st.

Concours de Fiction Interactive Francophone 2025 is for all French-speaking enthusiasts. Submissions are accepted March 3rd 2025.

Are you perhaps a fan of more somber, melancholic themes? Then check out the Dying Year - Visual Novel Jam! You have until the end of the year to participate.

The Black Visual Novel Jam is all about working with creative professional developers who work in visual novels to bring more Black stories to life. The goal is to create a space where Black creators can show their unique storytelling through visual novels.

~ OTHER ~

Jams are a great way to find new games! Don’t be afraid to check out submissions from previous years as well. There might be some gems hiding between them!

~ SMALL TALK… ~

> WITH LEIA TALON @leiatalon

Joining us today is a fantasy romance writer Leia Talon! ~ Author of the newly released “Ink and Intrigue”, “Their majesties’ Pleasure” and and The World Tree Chronicles book series.

⟶ Hello, Leia! Welcome to Small Talk. We are absolutely thrilled to have you here with us!

Thanks for giving me a chance to chat with you!

⟶ Before we begin, would you mind sharing with us a bit about yourself and how you got into IF writing?

A few years ago I was looking for writing opportunities that were outside the box, so to speak. I’ve gone the self-publishing route and tried my hand at getting a traditional publishing deal as a novelist, and was hoping there were other avenues to earn a bit of money doing what I love, which is writing fantasy romance.

At that time I’d written a dozen novel manuscripts and dabbled in screenwriting, then stumbled upon Choice of Games and Heart’s Choice, which piqued my interest in a big way! I thought I’d try my hand at interactive fiction. Many of my manuscripts aren’t published, so I thought I’d be able to pull source material from stories I’d already created. What actually happened is I made up a completely new world for Their Majesties’ Pleasure, my first game with Heart’s Choice, then built on that and pulled from one of my unpublished stories for Ink and Intrigue.

⟶ Now, onto the questions! Would you ever try different mediums when it comes to IF? (i.e Ren'Py, Twine)

I’m not opposed to it, but I’m a storyteller more than a gamer, so it would really depend on how well I could use each medium to tell a story.

⟶ What are the similarities and differences between writing a “simple” novel and an interactive fiction one?

So many! How about some bullet points?

Similarities:

Both need strong characters,

A strong plot,

Vivid worldbuilding,

And plenty of motivation and conflict for characters.

Differences:

Outlining is a must! You can write a novel on vibes and figure out the plot as you go. You can’t do that with IF, at least I don’t think it can be done well, or at least it would prove extremely difficult for the author to pull off. Having a plan helps figure out pacing, scope-creep, and gives you a definite outcome (or outcomes, as the case may be) to work towards. Planning is helpful for novels, too, but essential for IF.

With novel writing there’s the phrase “K!ll your darlings,” meaning you cut any scenes, sentences, or words that don’t advance the plot or add something vital to the story. In IF, all your darlings can come out to play! If someone isn’t interested, they can skip that choice, or if they are interested, they can enjoy the side-quest or conversation or glimmer of information that would otherwise be omitted in a novel.

Writing IF adds coding, obviously, and a lot more details and complications to a story, keeping all the variables in play and making sure to wrap up all threads at the end. You have to do a certain extent of wrapping up plotlines with novels, but nowhere near the extent required by an IF.

A novel is typically 90,000 words or so, whereas an IF can be far longer (or shorter, if the author prefers). I’m honestly still blown away that Ink and Intrigue ended up being over 300,000 words! A playthrough obviously isn’t that long, but that’s like writing three novels.

I’m sure I could keep going with other similarities and differences, but these are some big ones.

⟶ What made you come up with this idea for an IF?

Ink and Intrigue is based on one of my unpublished manuscripts, though it’s vastly different in myriad ways. I took some of the worldbuilding from that story and meshed it with the world in Their Majesties’ Pleasure, and then made up an entirely new cast of characters.

⟶ What is your biggest source of inspiration? A lot of people say music, but we are interested to know what yours is.

Fantasy books, nature, and the characters who come to life in my head.

⟶ It's normal for creators of all kinds to encounter writer's block. What do you do when this formidable foe appears between you and your will to write?

I stick to my outline and keep writing, or take a break if that’s what I need. Going for a walk works wonders.

⟶ Tattoos have power in this IF; could you describe what that feeling is like? Is it like a burning sensation across your skin or more akin to releasing a breath you didn’t know you held?

The actual tattooing process is painful in this story as the dragon ink is painted on, but after the tattoos heal there’s no pain involved. It’s more like a rush of power or a tingling of awareness, depending on the strength needed. I think different mages would feel it in different ways, depending on how long they’ve been using dragon runes. The sensations might be strange to an initiate, but second nature to a master.

⟶ Tell us about your favorite ROs and why you feel drawn to them. When you were writing this character were you including traits you find ideal in partners?

I love all the ROs, but Kai is special. Partially because he’s the only character I brought over from my manuscript, and also because he’s this delicious blend of stoic, funny, driven, kind, and constantly working to better himself. I think those are ideal traits in partners. He also has other traits I enjoy in fictional characters, like a dark past and a dash of vengeance.

⟶ What’s the most important thing you consider when designing ROs?

I aim to write distinct characters who are genuinely good people, even if some are also morally gray. Otherwise, the characters basically form in my head and tell me who they are as I’m writing. I do a basic sketch when I outline, just a short description of each character, then see how they develop as the story progresses.

The characters are in charge. I’m just along for the ride.

⟶ Which RO do you think is the hardest to write and which one is the easiest?

I don’t think any were harder or easier. I had previous material for Kai, so that helped, but each character was fun and offered up plenty of dialogue and personality as I got into the story. Rae is feisty, Thea is quiet but playful, Teo is a compassionate artist, and Kai is humble and at the same time he’s one the most powerful mages on the island.

⟶ Which characters from your previous IF would get along with the cast of Ink and Intrigue?

All the main characters would get along, though there would definitely be some sparring on the training field to see who was the best fighter and blow off steam. It would be a wild party if you brought the cast from Their Majesties Pleasure together with the characters in Ink and Intrigue. That would be fun!

⟶ Could you give us an idea of the future your choices hold for Kitherin?

I don’t know how to answer this without spoilers. lol! Suffice it to say you can help the Kitherin in many different ways, including protecting from otherworldly threats and traitors within.

⟶ How do you manage the branching in your story?

The outline helps, but it still gets out of control. I write notes in future chapters as I go about how I’m going to pull each thread through to be sure I don’t drop any branching plots along the way. Editing and getting feedback is key. Beta testers to the rescue!

⟶ Was a scene exceptionally challenging to write?

It’s not like a single scene jumps out at me, but there are always places in the story where I just don’t want to write what needs to be written because I want to go on to something else that I’m excited about. There’s definitely a degree of discipline required.

⟶ Some people find it difficult to write spicy scenes. Do you have a certain mindset when writing these?

Honestly, spicy scenes are some of the hardest to write. My mindset is I’m trying to write something that has heart to it, as well as physical tension—where you can get to know the characters in a more intimate way. It can be hard to balance the art I want to bring into it with the choices and variables, as coding all those can complicate a scene that I really want to flow well. I also work hard to ensure there’s a range of spice, sweetness, and options that don’t involve physical intimacy at all, but that still feel fulfilling and special.

⟶ Would you like to give some advice to people who want to get into IF writing?

OUTLINE! Seriously. Know where you’re going and what endings you’re aiming for. Things will change, but at least you’ll have a road map. Otherwise, keep at it. Consistent practice really does pay off. Just keep going and have fun with it!

⟶ Thank you for sitting with us here today! It was lovely to have you, Leia.

My pleasure! If any of your readers are into magic tattoos and legendary love, you can play the demo of Ink and Intrigue for free!

> ONCE AGAIN HUGE THANKS TO LEIA TALON FOR SITTING WITH US AND ANSWERING OUR QUESTIONS!

~ NEW RELEASE ~

Sacred Veins is an 18+ game collective with a classic art aesthetic, creating games with focuses on narrative. They just released their first game collection: Righteous. Check out Apistis Sophia, Disiecta Membra, Heaven For A Heathen and Svipul. @sacredveinscollective

Werewolves 3: Evolution’s End (CScript) is the third installment of Jeffrey Dean’s acclaimed “Claw, Shadow, and Sage” series. After years of conspiracies, secrets, and escalation, the fight has finally come out into the open.

A (self-proclaimed) heartwarming visual novel about spending the days with your dog. Mugi-chan was abandoned at the shrine; now it's time to take him home! You can now play the un-official English release of I Can't Be Human (TyranoScript).

Légumes de saison (Decker) is a compilation of two games - 1 Duck, 2 Ducks and 33 // Apocalypse : Le Banquet.

You wake up in an unknown room with no memories of your past. With nothing, you must research, find and choose to find the way out from here in Silent Perception (Ren’Py).

Protect Mina from haters and find the recipe for the most delicious secret dish in Mina’s Cooking.

As always, don't forget to check out the submitted entries to the events mentioned in the previous pages. They deserve some love too!

~ NEW RELEASE (WIP) ~

Kassja is ill, and being too weak her village throws her into the forest. Yet, as she is dying under the scorching sun that trespasses the greenery, the spirit patron hears her hateful prayer of death for those who used to be her folk. Check out The Rerooting of an Asphodel (Ren’Py)! @thebreezyslothstudios

In The Chronicles of Salt and Iron (CScript) you’re trapped on an Iron prisoner ship after incurring the Triad’s wrath. Your future seems bleak, until a freak disaster grants you a new chance at freedom…and a glimpse of a deadly secret that could topple the entire regime.

In Fortune Forsaken (CScript) ancient shackles bind you to the mortal realm, a soul severed from a home lost to the sands of time. A curse on you, a blessing for those who take command; Who wouldn't like to own a God? @fortuneforsaken-if

The Lost Bride (CScript) is a reimagining of Bram Stoker’s iconic novel, Dracula. Play as Mina and shape her fate as she visits her childhood friend Lucy, who’s seeking her company and counsel with an urgent matter concerning her very own future.

King Arthur: Living Again (CScript) - After being badly injured by Mordred, King Arthur finds himself as his 15-year-old, inexperienced self.

As you learn the ways of the criminal underground you reconnect with people you never met. Reforge bonds that you've never made. And recall memories you've never had. You were a god once upon a time, can you become one again in God Syndicate (CScript)? @god-syndicate-if

~ UPDATES ~

Blackwood Manor (CScript) released Chapter 2 Part 1. @ang3lwithapen

The Sunhold Coven (CScript) released Chapter 3. @the-sunhold-coven

Vanguard (Twine) updated Chapter 1. @vanguard-if

A Shriek of Ash and Fire (CScript) released update no. 5. @krogpile

Haunted (Twine) updated a final part of a rewrite.

Honor Amongst Thieves (CScript) added extra content to their Patreon demo. @leoneliterary

Hubris (Twine) updated Chapter Two- Luminary Fever. @hubris-the-if-game

Reincarnation Of The Archdemon (CScript) released Chapter 2.

Sanguine Sky (CScript) added new content to their Patreon demo. @sanguinesky-if

The In-Between (CScript) released Chapter 11 for early access. @dalekowrites

Thicker Than (CScript) released their monthly update. @barbwritesstuff

Viatica (Twine) released Chapter 11. @fir-fireweed

Universal Constants (Twine) released Episode 3.

Keeper of Life and Death (CScript) updated their demo. @keeperofthesunandmoon

Fallen Hero: Revelations (CScript) updated their demo.

Weeping Gods (CScript) added new content to Chapter 2. @jcollinswrites

Tri City Monsters (Ren’Py) released Amir Chapter 3. @tricitymonsters

~ OTHER ~

A collection of high resolution artworks from the game Chronicles of Taldun: The Remainder is here.

The VNture podcast is back with episode #124.

~

As always, we apologize in advance for missing any update or release from the past week. We are only volunteers using their limited free time to find as much as we can - but sometimes things pass through the cracks.

If you think something should have been included in this week's zine but did not appear, please shoot us a message! We'll do our best to add it next week! And if you know oncoming news, add it here!

~ MAYBE YOU NEXT? ~

We did not get a submission this week. But if you have an idea for a short essay, or would like a special space to share your thoughts about IF and the community...

Shoot us an email!

~ HIGHLIGHT ON ~

A couple of games that we thought were cool.

Dominion of Darkness by Adeptus7 (Twine)

"Dominion of Darkness” is a strategy text game in which the player takes on the role of a Sauron-style Lord of Darkness with the goal of conquering the world.

Vendetta by @vendetta-if (CScript)

*drum rolls* for the game highlight!!!!! Vendetta by @ vendetta-if !!! THIS IF IS FANTASTIC! DESERVES SO MUCH MORE LOVE 💖👏

//submitted by anon//

Apistis Sophia by @sacredveinscollective (???)

Whew, this one is an experience and I loved everything about it!

A big thank you to the anon who brought our attention to Sacred Veins and their work!

//recommended by Dion [Team]//

Your favourite game here?

Do you have a favourite game that deserves some highlighting?

An old or recent game that wowed you so much you spam it to everyone?

Tell us about it! And it might appear here!

WE LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU ALL! WHETHER IT'S GOOD OR BAD, OR EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN...

Have something to say? Send us a message titled: Zine Letter!

As we end this issue, we would like to thank:

our awesome anon!

For sending us their game Highlight!

As always, huge thanks to all you readers who liked, shared, and commented on the last issue!

What might be tiny actions are huge support and motivators to us!

Thank you for cheering us on this journey

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Would you like to know more about the Team? Check out our new Meet the Team post!

And see you again next week!

AJ, DION, BRIAR, JEN AND PETER

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? 2024-ISSUE 29

[weaselandfriends]

Are ARGs the new avant garde?

There's this unfiction ARG on YouTube about a fake video game called Valle Verde. Here's episode 1, there are three episodes:

Watch this and the other two episodes. This is the most technically impressive thing I've seen on YouTube that was made by a single person, and if you watch this video for 54 seconds you'll start to see why.

Once you've watched Valle Verde, you can read this post.

ARGs, or alternate reality games, were a natural outgrowth of creepypasta (as the great Jenny Nicholson once put it, "campfire stories on a global scale"). With creepypasta, people, usually young people, would hop onto the internet and tell a spooky story about a haunted Sonic cartridge with realistic blood or a super evil serial killer who was never caught or Slenderman or something.

Due to the memetic nature of these stories, though, there became an arms race to make them on increasingly elaborate scales. Soon, people were ROMhacking their favorite old games to actually show the spooky haunted realistic blood. A famous example, Ben Drowned, showed modded/corrupted Majora's Mask footage that was generally effective because Majora's Mask is already sort of a creepy game.

Ben Drowned was also notable for being a story that was continually updated. Originally, most creepypasta would be a single story, usually short, posted once. This is an effective medium for horror, which loses effectiveness the more things get explained, but at the same time, when people like something, they want more.

Okay, so how do you make an ongoing horror series that doesn't outright explain everything, and thus retains its horror aspect? The answer, seemingly independently reached by a wide variety of indie horror creators at the same time (Ben Drowned, Marble Hornets, and the godfather Five Nights at Freddy's) was arcane hidden lore.

That's basically what separates an ARG from creepypasta: the "game" in "alternate reality game" is that sprinkled throughout a series of videos are scraps of hints toward a broader narrative, and the viewer is expected to locate those hints, piece them together, and figure out what's actually happening.

The logic is similar to the appeal of a mystery novel, so it's no wonder this took off. Channels like Game Theory posting lore breakdowns of FNAF or other popular series raked in beaucoup views. Indie horror devs would start putting dumbass lore hints in their goofball games to piggyback off FNAF's memetic success. Pathetic things like this happened:

But ARGs are fundamentally different from a mystery novel. In a mystery novel, the terms of the mystery are overtly made known. Someone has been murdered and a world famous detective has arrived to find out who did it/how they did it. By contrast, ARGs are often abstracted to the point that it is difficult to know whether there actually is a mystery. And besides, the mystery in an ARG isn't "who is the killer," it's "what is even the plot?"

Heavily abstracted, often fragmented storylines, with no clear plot, disjointed organization, and only scattered ambiguously meaningful moments that could be arranged in any number of ways to attempt coherence. What does this remind me of?

They reinvented postmodernism!

This realization came home when Skinamarink received a theatrical release in 2022. Skinamarink was an analog horror (another offshoot branch of creepypasta/ARGs) video blown up to cinema length, created by an analog horror YouTuber based on an original 20 minute video they made. Mainstream critics who saw this film, being completely unaware of what analog horror was, extolled the film for its Lynchian, Kubrickian influences. They were unaware its actual greatest influence was Mandela Catalogue. They were unaware that a thrillingly unique, abstract form of storytelling had organically been created by a group of outsider artists on the internet.

Kubrick would be proud.

I find this especially exciting in a mainstream pop cultural milieu that is trending toward, at least in my appraisal, increasing obviousness and simplicity in how it communicates ideas, which is not only boring but also annihilates the capacity for nuance, interpretation, and even meaning itself.

This also comes alongside ARG creators often pushing themselves to new technical extremes, extremes that are absurdly impressive for individuals. Kane Pixels has created amazing found footage videos using Blender-made labyrinths. The Mandela Catalogue guy was doing some crazy shit with puppets(?) last I checked. And, of course, the act of modding old games has evolved into the act of creating whole video games entirely as a vehicle for an ARG. The first example of this I know of is Petscop, and there have been others like Catastrophe Crow (which splices in an extremely accurate pastiche of a retro gaming video essayist, plus period-accurate game magazine articles), but Valle Verde takes it to a new level.

Since you've all seen Valle Verde by now, I won't waste time explaining the seriously impressive stuff it pulls off.

Instead, I'll let the other shoe drop.

I have a fundamental problem with all these ARGs, one that pains me all the more because I am so thrilled by so many aspects of them. The problem is that once you dig into them, once you piece together the underlying narrative from all the tiny clues, interpret the ambiguities, and see the broader picture -

The picture sort of sucks.

Ben Drowned, FNAF, Petscop, Catastrophe Crow boil down to the same residual dew: Children died. (Either murdered or just tragically.) Their spirits haunt the game cartridge/animatronics. All the scant hints point to the cause. (Ben Drowned spoils it in the title.) It's not only sort of banal but also the story that you could probably guess at without reading into the deep lore, just from the story's general vibe.

It's a fundamentally boring answer to a fascinating puzzle, and worse, it reveals that there was no true value in the puzzle being presented as it was. The abstraction and postmodern technique of the narrative contribute nothing to its overall meaning. They exist with the sole aim to obfuscate, because horror only works when unexplained. Rather than leave the horror unexplained, though, the way Kubrick would in The Shining (which deliberately strips out overt explanations that exist in the book it adapts), or Lynch would in anything, these works are attempting to have their cake and eat it: there's stupid lore that explains everything, but it's just a little hard to find. In that sense, rather than being a rejection of the current cultural milieu toward works that make simple sense, this trend seems more like an attempt to reinject that milieu into one of the few genres of storytelling that had effectively rejected it. (It reads similarly to all the Babadook-inspired indie horror films of the past decade where the monster is some transparent allegory for grief or trauma or something.)

So what's the story of Valle Verde?

I won't go into a Game Theory breakdown of every symbol and detail. As far as I can tell, this is what's going on:

Valle Verde, the fiction within the fiction, is a Japanese video game developed with experimental technology called THBrain that gives it a sophisticated and advanced artificial intelligence capable of making on-the-fly alterations to the game's script. Valle Verde, the series of videos, depicts an investigation into certain malfunctioning elements of the game prior to its release. The player character, self-identified as TEST05, is actually played by two "agents" (of what agency is unclear) named Pablo and Robert testing the game and chronicling anomalous behavior.

The series of glitches and other bizarre things they record seems to depict a theological battle between Valle Verde's freemasonic villagers, led by Foxxo (remember that the next elections), and the Catholic Church, led by Pietro (possibly an avatar for St. Peter, the first pope and guardian of the gates of heaven).

Joseph of Cupertino is the patron saint of aviation. It's a "time flies" pun.

It's unclear how much autonomy either of these factions have, even knowing that there is apparently a super-sophisticated AI capable of injecting novel information. Pietro at times breaks the fourth wall and addresses Pablo directly by name; the villagers don't break the fourth wall, but do all sorts of stuff that is described by the tapes as anomalous. The AI seems like the obvious culprit, but in Valle Verde 2, Pablo actually meets the AI, who claims to have sequestered themselves from the rest of the game because they didn't want to partake in the villagers' rituals, and who has even disabled all their language libraries except Spanish to avoid comprehending the screams of the children trapped inside the game.

Oh yeah. Children are dying.

The THBrain seems to not only enable incredible AI, but is a way to upload humans into the video game (maybe this is unrelated to THBrain? I'm fuzzy on that point). Several children have already been uploaded and are presumed dead; currently, an Argentinian child named Matias is trapped in the game. Matias is the only other character besides Pietro capable of breaking the fourth wall, due to being a real person; he is aware of Pablo as an "agent" and suggests at some sort of conspiracy outside the game, which has not been explicated in much detail in the available videos.

The reason the children are dying is eventually revealed: the freemasonic villagers are sacrificing them to their false god, Moloch.

I'm not kidding about the freemasonry. Note the Argentinian flag.

There are other plot elements that are a bit murkier; Valle Verde seems to be a nexus of several unrelated video games, which can be accessed through an in-game library, and it is within this nexus that Moloch lives, and perhaps where the underlying purpose behind the villagers' actions lurk. There is also a recurring motif of a coming Christian apocalypse, likened to Noah's flood. After the freemasonic sacrifice, a doomsday clock ticks closer to midnight. Are the masons unwittingly provoking God's wrath? The series is framed as footage from 1997 that was unearthed in the modern day, so was this apocalypse averted, or did the apocalypse simply exist within the game, with no bearing on reality? The series remains ongoing; future installments may clarify.

But the underlying issue remains that, for me at least, the basic conflict in its simplicity and lack of ambiguity seems inadequately matched to the unique, impressive, and open-ended presentation. It retroactively makes me wonder what the point is of telling the story the way Valle Verde is told, if its story is in essence the Church versus Satan-worshippers, with clear moral and ideological lines drawn. Doesn't a more conventional narrative make sense for this sort of story?

There's a scene early on when the player character traverses a series of rooms corresponding to the Seven Deadly Sins. The sin of greed is depicted, not simply with stacks of gold, but with works of modern art:

As the player proceeds through the room, they discover a dumpster where Renaissance artwork by Titian and Michelangelo is trashed:

The message here is almost fatuous. It's also deeply ironic. Valle Verde is a work that has far more in common, in terms of its formalistic technique, with Picasso than Titian. Is it a lack of self-awareness that puts this here? Or perhaps something else?

The novel Infinite Jest ends abruptly, with none of its plot points resolved. In this way it's similar to the titan of American postmodern literature, Gravity's Rainbow, which peters out without explaining the conspiracy that has driven its narrative. Infinite Jest plays a trick, though, as devious as it is facile. The final 200 pages of the book have been cut off and moved to the front. The story's beginning is a flash forward that, in its lack of context and confusing abstractions, is difficult to make sense of on first read. Upon rereading after finishing the book, though, it clearly contains the answers to all the unresolved plot threads.

If postmodernism could be described as an artistic period of uncertainty and obscured truth that was a response to the similarly uncertain Cold War era, where the inner machinations of governments may at any time cause the annihilation of the entire world, then what Infinite Jest did, published just a few years after the Cold War's end, could be seen as a reclamation of truth.

Truth itself is a concept deeply interwoven with Christianity. In Valle Verde, Pietro even calls it out with a green highlight to indicate its importance:

La Verdad sounds suspiciously similar to Valle Verde. Coincidence?

The context of this quote comes after the villagers destroy the church; Pietro reassures the player that La Verdad remains unchanging, and that this tribulation shall pass.

Might Valle Verde itself then be an Infinite Jest style reclamation, using the formalistic techniques of postmodernism that are so useful for obscuring truth to obscure what is, at its core, a simple and morally black-and-white tale of Christianity versus wicked idolatry?

There is a real-world allegorical undercurrent to Valle Verde that makes this reading even more appealing. Valle Verde's creator, Alluvium, is Argentinian, and the game is steeped in references to Argentinian history and politics.

That's a map of the Falkland Islands and a picture of former Argentine dictator Juan Peron.

At one point, when the villagers destroy the church (with the unwitting? help of the player character, who seems to have no moral interest in anything happening, and who only does whatever anyone asks him, whether it's Pietro or Foxxo), a highly overt reference is made to the death of Pope John Paul I, who reigned for only 33 days in the late 1970s before he died, officially, of a heart attack. The abruptness of his death, and the failure of the corrupt, Mafia- and freemason-connected Vatican Bank in the years that followed, have led to conspiracy theories that John Paul was actually murdered by freemasons within the Vatican so that they may continue to corrupt the Catholic Church.

Specifically, the conspiracy posits the assassination was done by the freemasonic branch P2, or Propaganda Due, an illegal fascistic secret society that contained many high-ranking members of Italian politics (including Silvio Berlusconi), whose goal was to act as a shadow government that could prevent the rise of communism within Italy. (P2 definitely existed; how much it actually influenced Italian politics is a matter of debate.)

Though primarily an Italian organization, P2 had several influential members from other countries, notably Argentina, where several politicians and military leaders at the highest levels were involved. As a nation, Argentina is something of a tragedy; at one point considered a rising economic powerhouse, its excellent geographic and demographic advantages were squandered by a long succession of corrupt leaders, including those involved in P2. It makes sense, then, why an Argentinian creator like Alluvium might be so interested in critiquing the evils of freemasonic corruption.

Valle Verde satirizes Argentina's leadership via Foxxo, not only through his freemasonic devil rituals, but also in more down-to-earth ways. In his introduction, Foxxo provides the player character 100 coins, telling him to "remember that the next elections" (Foxxo's catchphrase, despite him clearly stating he has been given absolute authority over the area by The Smiling One); moments later, when the player turns to leave, Foxxo mugs him from behind and puts him 99,999 coins in debt.

Through the use of masonic slogans like liberté, égalité, fraternité (which is written over what appears to be a portal to Hell) and masonic symbols such as the Statue of Liberty and Washington Monument, there's an undercurrent that expands this freemasonic secular/Satanic conspiracy beyond Argentinian politics and into the post-Enlightenment secular governments that have come to rule the so-called free world. "Progress is God," the freemasons state during their child sacrifice ritual. (Foxxo is joined in this scene by the village's museum curator, representing knowledge, and its scientist, representing progress.)

It's this kind of framing that makes me wonder about the previous scene depicting Picasso paintings as emblematic of the sin of Greed, compared to Renaissance paintings in the dumpster; is there a general theme here raging against modernity in all its forms, compared to a fundamentally good and absolute Christian religious truth? If so, it makes sense why Valle Verde is presented as it is, so abstractly; it shows a world rendered incomprehensible by modernity, but one that can be sifted and parsed to find incontrovertible religious salvation still shining underneath.

It is a rejection of "progress," using the formal techniques of "progress." In a milieu where the promises of the Enlightenment seem to have hit a dead end, where the freedom secularism once promised has given rise to corruption and abuses akin to those the Catholic Church of the Renaissance once inflicted, perhaps the sense of going back appeals.

The English literary world post-Infinite Jest itself also seems to have returned to the past; the works published today are realistic in style and scope, eschewing most formal techniques pioneered across the preceding century. Though I doubt that was David Foster Wallace's goal, it's what he created. Valle Verde, which is so explicit in its fundamental belief in Christianity, is probably far more deliberate in its rejection of the world as it currently exists.

Though there have always been voices calling for a return to the past, perhaps this is a mindset particularly enticing in the information age, when meaning seems so fragmented as to be ungraspable. Though Valle Verde is conscious of what it is doing formally in a way that, say, Ben Drowned is not, the inner simplicity of these ARG narratives obfuscated by abstraction strikes me as a collective yearning for clearly explicated, graspable truths in a world where such a thing seems increasingly impossible. Almost a fantasy: If only this incomprehensible eldritch horror could be explained by a 10-minute Game Theory video!

(The eldritch itself is a horror rooted in incomprehensibility. Making it explicable banishes it entirely, the way the protagonist of Valle Verde banishes a demon by holding aloft a crucifix. La Verdad triumphs. Couldn't our lives be so simple?)

Not every ARG is like this. Kane Pixels, another creator I would highlight for their exceptional technical talent and avant garde storytelling, has created far more nuanced and ambiguous narratives with works like The Oldest View, which deals with themes of nostalgia and memory without being resolvable into a simple pat sentence synopsis. Overall, I consider this entire collection of web original horror creators to be blessed with both the talent and mindset to create truly innovative works of fiction, even if many of them are outsider artists fumbling around just trying to scare someone; as outsiders, these confused anti-confusions of theme and meaning might be par for the course.

Valle Verde is an impressive work of art, even if it is an avant garde work that paradoxically rejects itself. Perhaps in that paradox more could be said than had it remained fully self-consistent. Either way, I eagerly await what comes next.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/751445319499317248/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost75113540651

She did not "basically write fanfic about Unit 731", and that's exactly the weird sort of game of telephone that led to her being relentlessly harassed by people who had not even read the book (there were claims that it was set in WWII, because the 'Unit 731 fanfic' lie was spread so far that people only heard that and decided to jump on the bandwagon) and decided she deserved to be publicly eviscerated for it.

From what the author has actually said about her inspirations for the book, she started writing it years before she found out that the ghost stories she was told as a child by her grandfather (who lived through the occupation) were about a real, specific atrocity, rather than just broadly about colonization--which makes sense considering the only part that seems directly inspired by Unit 731 is revealed near the end of the book and is the major twist that ultimately carves the scales from the MCs eyes with respect to the enemy prince in question.

Also, she didn't 'whitewash' the Japanese, and that kind of claim is really galling because would it actually have been better if she'd based the Evil Empire on Japan instead? Would that really have gotten people off her back? (And in fact I can very easily understand why someone whose family lived through such a brutal occupation would want to get some distance in a story that is partially processing those feelings and experiences by not modeling the Evil Empire directly after the country that brutalized her own; especially since a significant portion of the story involves the main character having very complicated feelings for the prince of the Evil Empire.)

If you want to talk about the writing not being great or your belief that the author didn't achieve what she set out to, that's fine, although I gather from this ask that you haven't actually read the book, which is at minimum a prerequisite to talk with authority about how any given topic or plot point is or isn't handled. I, personally, think it's incredibly tone-deaf to police how someone else writes about their own cultural heritage and family history with oppression and colonization, and that is very much how so much of this criticism comes across, especially considering how much of it is from people who fully admit to not at the least reading the book to form their own opinions about it. And for some reason, this form of criticism seems to be aimed disproportionately at authors of color, who are given much less grace and freedom to be just kinda mid or handle things poorly than white authors.

(Just as an example, I've never seen anyone call Avatar: the Last Airbender 'basically CCP fanfic' even though the fantasy prison where political dissidents/troublemakers are tossed to be tortured/brainwashed into compliance in Ba Sing Se is literally named Lake Laogai, after the Chinese political prisons/labor camps.)

--

Yeah, that last part is the crux of it, isn't it? People need a little room to work on their craft. More marginalized creators, indie creators, and people working on media with smaller audiences are afforded less. White dudes making TV shows are afforded a whole lot. Seems like it would be fairer the other way around!

[swordfright]

Tell me about how the structure of the medium impacts the story 🔫

My brother in Christ, prepare yourself for the most boring essay you could possibly imagine. I'm going to over-simplify a few things here for the sake of Getting To The Point, so bear with me.

I think a good starting place is that DSMP is an example of New Media. The go-to definition most folks use is this one: that New Media are stories told via "communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content." In other words, NM is basically this category of stories made up of convergent elements, which satisfy a multimedia requirement, and are heavily reliant on both participatory fan culture and recent advances in technology that allow creators/audiences to communicate with one another instantly.

There's a couple ways you can understand DSMP as a New Media, but as far as I'm concerned, one of the most interesting is prosumption. The term "prosumption" describes a creative situation where a piece of art is being produced (at least in part) by the same people that consume it; they're both audience and creator. DSMP is a really great example of this phenomenon, because A) it's serial and therefore the CCs had ample opportunity to respond to and engage with the audience's reception of their story; and B) because the chat feature allows CCs to interact directly with their audience during roleplay rather than after the fact. These features, among others, kinda set the stage for DSMP to function as a highly prosumptive piece of media.

In particular, the stuff that interests me is the stuff to do with storytelling convention (genre, perspective, etc) and how prosumption turns all that on its head. There are a number of altercations in DSMP canon where the course of the story is altered because of real-time interactions between the CCs and their chat - particularly times when a CC's chat warns them about events happening at the same time elsewhere in the server. In this kind of scenario, the CCs are static, they can't really leave their own stream. Their viewers, on the other hand, are able to jump between streams and talk to each other to figure out what's happening in the overarching story. When this happens, viewers have choices to make: are they going to tell a CC what's going down on the other side of the server? If so, how are viewers going to communicate those events? Viewers are biased, they directly inform CCs, and the information they divulge (as well as how they divulge that info) goes on to influence CCs' actions and thus the events of the story, to some degree. In my opinion, this is a pretty new and exciting way to prosumptively construct a narrative! Media has always been interactive to some extent (especially serial works), but the interaction being live and in real-time is pretty significant in my view because it can exert unique pressures on a narrative.

Speaking of audience choice, that brings me to the next thing I want to yap about: ergodic storytelling, a term that refers to stories “negotiated by processes of choice, discernment, and decision-making.” For reference, a good non-MCYT example of this would be hypertext fiction, because it's generally characterized by the ability of the interactant (that's the reader, in this hypothetical example) to explore material provided by someone else, either as a kind of conceptual landscape (think setting in a video game), or as puzzle pieces that must be put together in order to give the interaction the "big picture" of the story. Basically, with hypertext fiction, there is a core text (the main document that forms the skeleton of the story) and there are multiple hypertexts branching off of the core text - and whether the reader ends up reading those branches, and in what order, inevitably shapes that reader's perception of the whole story.

So here's where it gets tricky. In the case of DSMP, where is the core text located? Is there any one identifiable core text at all? Or is it more appropriate to consider each individual stream or VOD as its own singular core text, with the related Twitch channels and Youtube recommended in the sidebar being "branches"? Alternatively, if the streams and recordings distributed on the server members’ official channels are the central text in the grand hypertext fiction that is DSMP, then can adjacent spaces where audiences do the work of creating and archiving lore be considered their own story branches? I don't have answers to these questions. No one does. That's part of what makes DSMP exciting.

To translate the above quote out of Academia Hellspeak: in an ergodic story, the audience has agency, but the agency enabled and allowed by the text varies in its intensity and mode. Yes, stories told ergodically necessitate choice — and therefore enable agency, turning the reader or viewer into interactant — but that element of choice doesn't always look the same. Some hypertexts are more choice-reliant than others, or are choice-reliant in different ways. So, rather than being a choose-your-own-adventure story, DSMP is more closely analogous to a story where the audience chooses the perspective through which they view plot developments, in addition to having some influence over how plot developments unfold.

(☝️From a 2021 Polygon article, if you think I sound crazy☝️)

The web of choices DSMP presents to viewers is very complex, even compared to other forms of choose-your-own-adventure game. Because each CC approaches the task of story-creation from their own angle (bringing their own narrative baggage to the writers’ room, so to speak), those shifts in perspective this Polygon article describes often also constitute shifts in genre. For instance, cc!Wilbur brought his music production experience and interest in musical theater to the server, cited operas and stage musicals as some of his main inspirations; and accordingly, much of c!Wilbur's most crucial arcs observably draw from those sources. When you watch a c!Wilbur stream, you’re watching a story about statecraft, about revolution, about the triumphs and tragedies of ego that play out during the process of nation-building. On the other hand, cc!Quackity has repeatedly identified Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul as his primary influences; accordingly, his RP character’s story is closer to a piece of gritty prestige television in some places (especially LN series). Unlike with c!Wilbur, a lot of c!Quackity's tension does not revolve around a romanticized fantasy of revolution but around more personal conflicts: securing your place in a new regime, navigating exploitation as both exploited and exploiter, etc. In terms of both plot beats and character arcs, Wilbur and Quackity’s respective storylines embody many of the genre conventions the content creators are working within.

Moreover, a shift in genre often entails a shift in style or mode. Because cc!Wilbur was heavily inspired by musical theater, the presentation style of his character’s storyline is correspondingly both theatrical (i.e. only loosely scripted, nearly always televised live, and improv-heavy) and musical (featuring multiple instances of Wilbur singing in-character ballads and anthems.) On the flipside, Quackity’s streams (especially the later ones, since I'm mostly focusing on Las Nevadas era here) demonstrably mimic the prestige TV shows the CC draws his inspiration from, with lore sessions being pre-recorded rather than televised live, featuring distinctive sonic and visual aesthetics popularized by neo-Western thriller dramas. So, where a piece of media like DSMP is concerned, shifts in perspective entail shifts in genre, which in turn entail pronounced shifts in style. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it's an entirely new story depending on which character the viewer decides to follow. In that regard, what initially appears to be a single choice (whose perspective to watch a plot event through) has the power to determine a wide array of other elements, as viewers’ responses to the options presented to them will decide the overall tone of the section of the story they're about to watch.

While I think the genre-switching is genuinely super cool, lately I'm a lot more interested in perspective-switching and how it's related to viewer empathy. One side-effect of DSMP being televised live is that yes, you can watch a plot event from 30+ different POVs, but you can't watch every POV live. Typically, you either have to switch between multiple streams, or you need to pick one streamer to watch live and maybe later you'll watch other characters' POVs as you see fit. This has an impact on your perception of how that plot point went down because watching something live feels very different from watching something after-the-fact. I haven't done study on this, so what I'm about to say is mostly conjecture, but I wouldn't be surprised if viewers felt greater empathy for (and greater degrees of kinship with) characters whose POVs they watched live.

The choice of which character to follow also has observable impacts on other kinds of narrative conventions (who is the main character of DSMP? the boring answer is c!Dream because the server's named after him, but the real answer is the protagonist is whoever's POV you watched most of the major plot events through) but to be honest, those questions don't interest me as much.

So, going back to perspective and empathy. I think viewers' reactions to Exile are a really solid way of exemplifying the thing I'm trying to say, so this is the part of the yapping where we gotta bring up the dreaded Exile discourse.

Even though the Exile VODs are available and new viewers can go back and watch them, those viewers experience the Exile arc in a way that is fundamentally different from the experience had by viewers who had to wait in between updates as the videos were being streamed serially in real-time. I would argue that viewers who were “present” during the whole arc noticeably felt the brutality of c!Tommy’s treatment to a greater degree, because the audience was effectively forced to sit in exile alongside Tommy’s character - stewing in anxiety, looking forward to the possibility of appearances from other characters, and living in fear of Dream’s next visit, etc etc. Obviously you could also make this point using c!Dream's time in Pandora as an example, but I'm using Exile here because I've actually seen a lot of fans bring this up when discussing the arc: "people who didn't watch live Don't Get It," "the reason newer fans don't see Exile as scary is because they didn't have to watch it live," that sort of thing. And while I have certain qualms with some of the implications here, I do think these are really fascinating responses! These sorts of responses show that viewers consciously perceive their viewing experience as having been fundamentally different from others' based on a temporal element that's unique to serial fiction!

This instance of a divergence in collective fan experience is an example of choice being rendered unavailable to viewers by virtue of the story’s structure and means of distribution; audience members who happen to accidentally miss streams or who begin following the story after major events have occurred will never be able to engage with and witness those events as LIVE viewers, merely as retrospective ones. They don’t get to make that choice, but they do get to make choices about which perspective (and therefore genre) they get to experience the story through. So it follows that each aspect of DSMP, a semi-ergodic story, can be categorized as either ergodic or non-ergodic, and whether a particular storytelling element is ergodic can change depending on WHEN the viewer began tuning in to the story.

I have a lot more shit to say (shocker) but I'm gonna cap it here for now. Though I do want to add that this is kinda why I have a lot of patience for the crazy diversity of interpretation you tend to get in DSMP fandom. If you took a random sample of fans and asked them what they think of various arcs, characters, and plot events, chances are they would all have fairly different things to say. To me, that's a feature, not a bug. Obviously I have my own opinions, and obviously I do think it's possible for a given interpretation to be "bad," i.e. not grounded in the text - but I have a lot more patience for it here, in a fandom where agreeing on what "the text" EVEN IS presents a challenge. We can't all agree on who the main character is, so I don't ever expect us to agree on more nuanced questions of theme and conflict resolution in the narrative. Again, that's a feature, not a bug. I don't think it was ever possible to reach a consensus with a piece of media like DSMP because of how inextricable the audience is from the story.

[aquagirl1978]

I wanted to do something different for my follower celebration, and with the encouragement from some friends (you know who you are), I landed on this. I know Gift Exchanges are not a new or unique thing - they've had them for every game and even ones just for OCs - but there hasn't been one just for Villains. Yet.

What is a Gift Exchange? Those participating in this event agree to create a piece of fanwork (their choice of either fanfiction or fanart) and in exchange, they will receive fanwork (their choice of either fanfiction or fanart).

If you are interested in participating, please read this entire post and then fill out the Google form at the bottom. If you have any questions about this event or this form, please send me a DM or ask.

General Overview and Important Dates

Sign-ups for the event will take place until June 15. If you are interested in participating, please complete the Google form at the bottom of this post.

You will be notified via Tumblr or Discord by July 1 about the details of your assignment.

You will have from July 1 to August 15 to create your gift.

I will be conducting progress check-ins with each participant sometime around the mid-point of the event as well as closer towards the end. If you are unreachable by the mid-point check-in, you risk being removed from the event.

All gifts MUST be posted on August 15. If you have an issue meeting this deadline, please contact me immediately.

A masterlist of all gifts will be compiled and posted sometime after the event has closed.

Please note that because of the nature of this game, this event is open only to creators 18 years or older.

Rules for Posting Your Gift

Gifts MUST be posted on August 15- posting can begin at 12 Midnight GMT (I will make a post when you may start posting as we have creators all over the world). If you will be away that day, Tumblr has a schedule setting so you can create your post and schedule it for that day.

Fanfiction must be a minimum of 750 words. Fanart must be colored.

Tag your giftee and @aquagirl1978 in your post and include "#ikevil gift exchange" in the tags.

There are no requirements regarding banners - you may use one you made, the one posted in this post or don't use one at all.

Can I request my gift be with my OC? Yes! I encourage you to request your gifts to include your OCs, if you have one. There is space on the form for you to describe your OC and even include a link to any posts you wish to share about them to help better assist your creator in making your gift.

What if I'm not comfortable writing for someone's OC? That's understandable - it's not always easy to write for another's OC. There is a section on the form that you can check off that says you'd prefer not to write for OCs and I will try my best to honor everyone's requests.

I want to participate, but I am worried about being paired with certain people. From my experience hosting and participating in exchanges, the best way to avoid any conflicts such as this is to be open about this on the initial form. I don't want to pair anyone with someone they are uncomfortable with for any reason. Maybe someone has you blocked or you have someone blocked. Maybe you don't like someone's writing or artwork and would not wish to receive a gift from them. It doesn't matter the reason. There is a question on the form - anyone's names you enter in there, you will not be paired with. The only one seeing these forms is me. If anything happens once the event has started and you received your giftee information, simply DM me and we can work something out.

Everything sounds great, how can I participate? Simply complete this Google form by June 15 and you will be added to the event.

As always, my ask box and DMs are open to any and all questions.

Happy creating!

[absentia-if]

I'm looking for more interactive fiction games to play and I was wondering if you have any particular favourites?

I’m a hermit when it comes to the community as a whole— mainly staying in my own little corner, but I have been able to meet some amazing Author’s during my stay.

Citadel by @bouncyballcitadel is an absolutely amazing medical drama IF. An amazing cast of characters, both romance and non-romance, and real life experiences, and knowledge, fueling the writing in such a way that makes you feel extremely connected to the plot and the MC. I highly recommend it.

An Affair of the Heart by @doriana-gray-games is another amazing IF that I strongly recommend. Not only because I absolutely adore Dori, the sweetest of sweethearts, but she makes the world of Sherlock Holmes come to life in such a way that I can’t even truly describe— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would be proud of her, I can tell you that much.

Novaturient by @kalorphic is an amazing spy IF that has a lovely cast of characters. It’s not as serious, or it’s not supposed to be as serious, as some of the other titles that I’ve mentioned, but it’s such a fun time all the same— it doesn’t have too much in the form of a demo, as of yet, but I think you’ll enjoy getting to know the cast on Ella’s blog all the same. (She also has another blog @ellawrites-if that I think you should check out too.)

Next in Line by @nextinline-if has been a fun read since I’ve started it. Not to mention Vi is an absolute delight to speak with. You have a little bit of everything when it comes to the romances, and who doesn’t love being royalty too? I think you’ll have a grand time with the story, and getting to know everything you’d wish to know about it, as I can’t recommend it enough.

Abyssal by @theabyssal is a great game with an amazing premise— playing Death itself ticking a lot of boxes for a variety of people. It’s quite angsty, as I feel like I should warn you, but the writing is immaculate and you’ll be pulled into the inner workings of a world that you have to find a place in once more. Plus, the ROs are absolutely amazing too.

A World Without You by @jaunefleurwrites has been an amazing read. It deals with the realities of death while still being alive, an ever growing entity that always looms over us all, but it’s still an enjoyable read even if it does have a sadder undertone. I highly recommend it (plus Damin is a sweetheart).

The King’s Hound by @the-kingshound is an Arthurian IF that I think you’ll find yourself drawn to. It has found family written all over it, with tinges of angst and drama strewn within, that I think you’ll enjoy. It’s an amazing story, with an amazing cast, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Past Imperfect by @past-imperfect-if is an IF with only a singular RO, that’s semi-customizable, and only has prologue released so far, but I strongly implore you to check it out as I think you’ll enjoy the premise of it. (Plus, my friend is the main creator for it and I know she’ll absolutely love to have someone as wonderful as you check out her story.)

Kingdoms and Empires by @kingdoms-and-empires is an amazing high fantasy game that I think you’ll enjoy. It has a wonderful world, that seems dynamic around the MC, with an amazing cast of characters that I think you’ll find yourself growing attached to. If you enjoy fantasy, being a royal, and wish to be along for a long ride? This story is definitely for you.

The Scars I Live With by @thescarsilivewith-if is also an amazing premise that I absolutely adore. It doesn’t have a demo yet, but I think the cast of characters that have been introduced as well as the world building will be able to be just enough until one is released.

If you want more of my stories? I have three other main stories that I’m working on— even if they’re on a semi-hiatus as of now.

Heart of Flames is a dragon rider story where you take on the role of one of the newest dragon riders within Haven, and it expands across the world of Gallinia as a whole. @unforeseenflame

Scandal is based off the show of the very same name— Scandal (by Shonda Rhimes). It’s genderlocked female though, just want to warn you. @nightingale-interactive

Path of Fire is a dragon-shifter IF wherein the MC is the last of the Dracaryean and their journey in discovering what that truly means— not only for them but for Ioria as a whole. @eleanawrites

[rhysdarbinizedarby]

“I Love Taking Risks”

Returning for the second season of his hit comedy series Our Flag Means Death this month, Rhys Darby chats to us about becoming ‘The Gentleman Pirate’.

It was the surprise hit of 2022 no-one had on their bingo card. Loosely based on the real-life exploits of Stede ‘The Gentleman Pirate’ Bonnet (Rhys Darby), Our Flag Means Death tells the hilarious and heartfelt story of the wealthy Barbadian landowner who gave it all up for life as a pirate in the 1700s.

After encountering the actually not-so-terrifying Blackbeard (Taika Waititi) of legend, who teaches him how to be a fearsome pirate – to little effect – in exchange for wisdom about the finer things in life, the two formed an unexpected romantic connection.

Of course, with the first season ending with the pair sadly going their separate ways, creator and writer David Jenkins previews things will be challenging for our star-crossed lovers in season two: “I think [we’ll be] watching… both reorient themselves. This is their first love… You’re rocked when that happens. You go into a crisis.” With the second season premiering this month, picking up a short time after the first, Darby sat down with FOXTEL magazine to give us the lowdown.

What’s your take on ‘The Gentleman Pirate’?

It’s an interesting role because this is a guy who has a midlife crisis, leaves his wife and kids, just runs out in the middle of the night and creates a pirate crew, heads off into the sunset. And in order to sort of get to grips with who would do that, you need to have someone play the role that you’ve got to root for but, at the same time, you go, ‘Is he crazy? Why has he done this? Does he not love his wife and kids?’ So, you know, I did a bit of reading about him and tried to get into that mindset as to why he would do such a thing. And I think what I got to was just midlife crisis and boredom, and he had the wealth to change his life.

Are you a risk-taker yourself?

I love taking risks; I could drop everything and suddenly fly to Mars, but I’d be sitting in the spaceship before launch and thinking about my kids and I would have opened the door and run back to them.

So there was something there, some deep-seated darkness in his soul that led him to that point. He’s a complicated guy. I’m glad I had to rise to the challenge and try to pull that off.

Will Stede ever be respected by his crew, do you think?

Yes. I think he will be. People did respect him eventually because he did become a decent pirate. If you look in the annals of the pirates and all the booty they took, there’s lists of who did the best and all that kind of stuff, and Stede’s up there.

Do you think he had any regrets about choosing that life in the end?

That’s a good question. If I was to guess I would say no, because he wanted the adventure. He regretted, in the end, not taking the pardon when he could have – the King put out a pardon and he said, ‘If any of you pirates come in and drop your swords now, you’ll be spared.’ A lot of them did sign that they would do it and then just went back to pirating.

Even in the end, Stede tried to get out of it – he really begged and pleaded and wrote letters to the King saying, ‘Please, I’ll do anything.’ But they wanted to make an example of him: it doesn’t matter how wealthy you are, you do what you did, you’re gonna hang. So they got him in the end. But they won’t get me!

You seem to have a knack for picking great roles. What does your process entail?

Yeah, it depends what you’re doing. You know, I’m not at a point where offers are rolling in left, right and centre. So you still do things because you need the money. But I’ve been lucky that my uniqueness has only really gifted me roles that suit me, for the most part. Usually they’re smaller roles and I do a lot of guest starring on comedy shows. Also, I have been lucky enough to do a lot of voicework through various animation channels and video games and things.

A few years ago, people started to realise that, and it’s through working with Taika and a few others in the comedy industry, that if you’re going to hire me, he’s going to give you a bit more than what’s on the paper. And he’s going to do it in his manner and his way, and that’s what you’re sort of paying for.

And so that meant that I wouldn’t get a lot of roles, but the ones that I did do, I would always shine in. So thank you, universe, for giving me anything.

Source: Foxtel Magazine Australia (October issue)

[vieraslaji]

Hello fellow Finnish learners!

I've been meaning to put this post together for weeks and I kept thinking it wasn't ready, but now I've decided to just keep updating it after I post so here it is, in its unfinished form:

While I do enjoy Käärijä's music and I think it's a great way to learn vocabulary, I have difficulty with auditory processing and sometimes I can't understand rap even in my native language. Also, as someone living very far away from Finland, listening and speaking are the hardest things for me to practice.

So! Here's some random assorted Finnish media that I think are nice listening practice and also (most importantly) not Peppa Pig. I cannot professionally vouch for any of these as a learning tool; all I can say is that I've watched/listened to/read them and I feel like maybe I learned something.

MUSIC

Katri Ylander (check out Pandat, Älä kysy miks, Sano mulle jotain kaunista, Kyselen) - she has a pretty low vocal range, which is great for understanding, and she has a lot of repetitive choruses

Ollie (check out Ainakin mä rakastin, Aavikolla, Älä riko mua enää) - we've got kind of a downtempo sadboy thing going on here, which is excellent for our learning purposes

Mikko Harju (check out Meidän puolella, Oon nähnyt unta, Mä olen tässä, Sinä riittää) - there tend to be clear breaks between words in his songs and he uses less puhekieli than a lot of artists

Younghearted (check out Kuljetaan, Tässä ja nyt, Sun numero) - literally I just like them idk

Antti Tuisku - Koti - I wouldn't put Antti Tuisku as an artist in general on this list, but Koti basically feels like an Ollie song

YOUTUBE

KatChats - great educational content for all learner levels, speaks very slowly and uses very little puhekieli. I also think she has a facebook and/or discord community?

Nedde - mostly a Sims and Sims-esque gaming channel, which is great for vocab building and comprehension because she narrates what she's doing onscreen

T I N K E - lots of life vlogs and sims videos; I think she speaks really clearly and understandably

Herbalisti - he speaks a lot faster and more colloquially, but his minecraft and random-pelit videos are good for the same reasons as Sims videos. also he has a really cute cat

Aleksi Rantamaa - specifically his TLDR LIVE videos are easiest to understand because he's talking to chat so he repeats himself a lot and takes a lot of pauses between his sentences

PODCASTS

Opi Suomea! - hasn't been updated in a long time but it's great listening and vocab practice about everyday topics

Soturikissat Kastepilven kanssa - I am about to make another post about this whole phenomenon but just trust me on this one

Miksei kukaan kertonut? - the host speaks very understandably and, way more importantly, her guests always have decent microphones

NETFLIX (it's what I have sorry)

Julie and the Phantoms - it's honestly very well done for a teen drama and the music is stupidly catchy

Zero Chill - another netflix teen drama; I liked it less than julie and the phantoms but it's fine

Heartstopper - don't lie to me, you're on tumblr. you've heard of heartstopper.

Carmen Sandiego - genuinely super engaging as far as kid's shows go; it reminds me of the educational cartoons I watched as a kid

The Dragon Prince - literally by the creators of ATLA, you don't need my elevator pitch for it

[warningsine]

Despite numerous advances in the medium, video games largely remain something of a (usually solitary) frivolity, at least when it comes to on-screen depictions. Even when a show is ostensibly about games — your Players, your Mythic Quests — it’s really all about the interactions that occur outside the games, or the process of their creation.

Halt and Catch Fire would appear to fit into this. The much-beloved AMC show made no secret of the fact that it was never really about the technology covered in a season; in the words of Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace), the computer was always “the thing that gets us to the thing,” a vector for connection, expression, or some other deeper human need. In that way, Halt and Catch Fire understands the draw of video games better than any show that’s come before it.

It would first demonstrate this in its second season when — in the aftermath of a scandal and a company liquidation — Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis) left computer company Cardiff Electric to form Mutiny, a primitive attempt at online gaming. The seed for the rest of the season comes when Donna Clark (Kerry Bishé) notices two players still connected after finishing a game, spurring the creation of a chat board. Even with the limitations of dial-up and 1-bit graphics, people still found ways to communicate.

Many shows set in the ’80s would feature Super Mario Bros. on the NES. But not many would follow two adults over the course of several days trying to beat it, giving tips on how to get past a tricky area, and trading off when one gets tired so they don’t have to restart the long ordeal again, all ending with them having grown closer to each other as well as with a deeper understanding of the people in their orbits. It’s less about nostalgia and more proving how technology — no matter how rudimentary — can lead to moments of insight and catharsis.

Season 4 takes this idea and furthers the distance: Cam has released a new Myst-like game called Pilgrim that no one seems to understand. No one, that is, except for Donna, who solves it all on her own. By this point in the show, Cam and Donna have had a falling out, whatever bond they had shared that made them such great co-owners destroyed by hubris and backstabbing. It’s a beautiful scene, one that taps into Cam’s desire to make a sort of higher art form through her games, and Donna remembering when she used to actually do something, problem solving rather than funding projects. It spurs on their hasty reconnection, and one of Halt and Catch Fire’s many strengths is the willingness to let each part of the ensemble be the villain for a season or so. Donna’s betrayal still stings; she’s pushing people to make a competitor to her friends’ new company. But there’s always an understanding of where someone’s coming from, and in this case, it’s a desire — subconscious or otherwise — to apologize and fix a relationship that might be broken beyond repair. Pilgrim is a perfect symbol for their relationship, and the idea that there can be 100 people who play your game, but you just need one person who understands it.

Halt and Catch Fire excels at these small moments of beauty, sometimes as simple as the way a certain line is read. Video games aren’t always the main plotline, but it understands the inherent draw of them, both in their communal aspects and artistic prospects. After all, what is a game like Animal Well or Outer Wilds but an attempt to draw you into the minds of the creators while simultaneously leaning on others for support? The characters may have failed and failed again over the course of the show, but they’ll never stop searching for that burst of connection no matter where it might be found.

[the-mercurial-star-o-vesper]

IN REGARDS TO BATDR...

I’mma get into Bendy and the Dark Revival.

So a few in-general things.

- The Ink Machine cannot create someone from nothing. It’s said this as far back as the first game. Audrey is said to be the “exception”, but how certain are we of that? Who’s telling us that she’s the exception exactly?

- People, alive and dead, were thrown into the Ink Machine. Both games show this, both in audio logs, environmental story telling, and even shows us an example of how it happens. As of the rule above, all people in the machine, were the real original people at one point. Joey Drew attempts to tell us otherwise, but bear in mind who’s fault this all is, and who’s he’s telling that he did this.

He’s a charmer, remember? He’s duped a lot of people with that charm of his. Take nothing he says at face-value.

- The Ink Machine and its Ink are corruptive. From the Camera Man of the First game, to the main “characters” we meet, to the people in the machine--if your ink form wasn’t made, or if you didn’t fit the form made for you--you lose your fecking gourd.

- Do not Trust Joey Drew (The Creator Lied to Us). Joey is, ultimately and foremost, a selfish lying man. The Entirety of BATIM shows us this first and foremost.

And as many of us with hard family lives know, the introduction of children do not change the minds of selfish, lying parents.

So,,, let’s begin  Bendy and the Dark Revival.

Bendy and the Dark Revival is an interesting Journey of a young woman name Audrey, who’s been thrown into the Ink Machine and into the world known as “The Cycle”. Here’s things I’ve considered when going through the game, and regoing through it.

- The Audio Logs. If there is anything that we can say for certain, is that the audio logs are real. One can claim that all the people are merely characters, but thanks to the logs, we know that’s not true. If the logs aren’t real, then what exactly are we playing? Do we have any other ideas? No? Then the logs are real.

Which means everyone here is a real person who was thrown in here. not some character cooked up by Joey. Someone brought more logs in than those who are here, but its all real.

( In addition, remember the caskets in BATIM. They aren’t memorials made by Joey, it was Henry who put those names on them. )

- Nobody tells Audrey anything. Its not just Wilson, its everybody. Everyone feeds Audrey a false story.

What’s even more suspicious is the Joey construct who tells Audrey “You’re meant to be here”, when she was thrown here against her will. Kidnapped by Wilson. If Joey is such a great fucking guy now, wouldn’t he comfort his own daughter regarding her kidnapping?

( The in-game subtitles have a typo... )

It suspect that he’s the one telling her this, when most the game tells us that it should be Wilson...

... But this is Joey Drew. The Charmer, remember? There’s something else going on here.

- The Memories. Its easy to think that these memories are Audrey’s, after all, she’s collecting them, and her childhood is very significant to the greater story here.

But some things don’t add up the further we go, with that theory.

There’s the Chipped Cup, for example.

And low and behold if we bother to read it...

There’s a book, in the mansion, associated with the cup.

And of course...

The Hotdog, one of the last memories.

With associated audio log by Nathan Arch himself. Found specifically in Wilson’s workshop--Wilson being Arch’s son after all.

By these last two... We find our proof.

They aren’t Audrey’s memories...

... They’re Wilson’s.

- Wilson Arch.

The guy is a dick, don’t get me wrong. But we are all victims of the Ink Machine. Every person who goes in gets corrupted, and only a few don’t.

Wilson is not a charmer. We meet him at his creepiest, and frankly, he utterly gives bad vibes. In fact, there’s visible and ego-esque discrepancy between him in the real world and him in the ink-machine, suggesting again, that something else is going on here.

He’s no charmer...

... But He just might not be the villain of the whole show, see?

( Don’t get me wrong, he is villain to Us specifically, as Audrey. Its gonna take a little more than “oopsie sorry” to fix that mess. But what I’m saying, is that he’s not entirely at fault here as a whole. )

[ He’s got one peculiar aesthetic with Eyes. From painted eyes, to the fact that one eye works in the Cycle and the other eye works in the Real world, to the lack of eyes on his poster... Something with him deals in Eyes ]

He seems to get his reasons messy. Specifically about why he’s doing all this. Yes, the obvious ones are anywhere from “trying to outdo his father” to “having a sense of control and power”, but how sure are we that’s true? There’s a lot of conflicting stuff about Wilson. He’s lied to us, a lot, (but in consideration, he gives off such a manner that to follow him would be an idiot’s move anyway so, I don’t know, maybe Audrey is just stupid?)

 He’s hostile to us... but so is everyone else. So what are we to believe here. He lies, after all. So...

We know that he’s the Son of Nathan Arch... What do we know about that, beyond what he says?

Nathan Arch is highly successful, seemingly a jolly friendly man (for a rich guy) who built up many businesses in all sorts of avenues. Was on good terms with Joey Drew, even knowing that Joey tend to exaggerate and outright lie about things.

Nathan Arch does mention his son in regards to starting a movie studio instead of a cartoonish shop, and Nathan does talk about his wife. He doesn’t seem to have a bad thing to say about anyone, really.

Key point: There’s nothing that suggests that Nathan and Wilson had a bad relationship. To the Memory Items theory shows, there was a lot of love there. A very good childhood spent. Family trips, coloring and cartoons, baseball games...

Now, for Wilson’s side in unfairness

He’s not necessarily a nice guy, definitely got them villian sinister vibes. ( Well, fuckin, Duh ). But uh, y’know, he’s not wrong to not like his father’s admiration for Joey Drew.

Joey Drew wasn’t a good person, remember? Joey Drew was petty, manipulative, power-mad, who slave drove his workers, caused an incredible stressful work environment--and y’know, bottomline here, he did use the Ink Machine to create the Ink Demon, threw countless people in it over the course of fucking Years (Effectively damning anyone who came into contact with the Ink machine)--and then did nothing to help anyone out of it... dying “content”. (the prick).

So I’m with Wilson on this one--Charlatan all the fucking way, and going “What the hell, Dad”.

[ Its interesting that Wilson is fascinated by machines ]

But the Ink Machine corrupts all.

- The Timeline.

in 1973, BATDR occurs.

1971, Joey Drew passes away.

( Nothing out of the ordinary yet...)

1963, BATIM occurs.

... Hold a damn minute.

Audrey is a young lady, yeah. Early 20s, yeah? Born as a wee lil kid from the Ink Machine, yeah?

So, why is she a young lady in her early 20s... when she was made sometime after BATIM? She’s younger than 12.

Nathan Arch makes mention that his last call with Joey was something good. Joey was up and about and better than ever. We can make the suggestion, thanks to in game stuffs, that Joey was raising Audrey.

Is it possible that with Joey’s death, Audrey was “aged” up to survive without him? Was she aged up by Joey?

Did something get set in motion?

... What is Audrey?

- WHAT IS AUDREY?

She’s a creation of the Ink Machine who has a Soul. This is unique, because in all other cases, a soul had to be added in order for a character / entity to be brought to life. This was a rule from day one.

Without a soul, entities are mere automatons with set behaviors. Little like a robot.

This is shown with the creation of Ink Bendy, who didn’t do much but stand around.

But somewhere along the line, that changed. Ink Bendy got hostile. How does one get hostile if they have no soul? Things in BATIM/BATDR that have no soul, are mere automatons, they don’t do anything unless specifically “programmed” to.

Which means... Ink Bendy / Ink Demon, has a soul now. And has had one all this time.

If you go through BATIM, you notice some odd things about the Ink Demon. It goes after you, but it also sometimes saves you. It doesn’t like it when you destroy its pictures, but it also doesn’t like it when people mess with you. It doesn’t go after Boris. It also doesn’t talk, it sorta just wanders around at times unless it notices you.

Up until you try to End the Cycle, you can avoid it.

At some point, between the real studio and the cycle, the Ink Demon was reintroduced into it.

At some point, Joey Drew reactivated the machine, to try and create Audrey.

In BATIM, it ends with an “Uncle Joey”.

( Now BATIM in story is a mess. Comes with having to update itself over time, rather than all at once, but let’s work with what we have, yeah? )

I think the reason Joey restarted the cycle, restarted the Machine, was to create the child. Every child called him “Uncle”, not really thinking that he was their father (after all, how many souls are in the ink machine? How many would really call Joey a “father”?).

But one would. The first creation of Joey’s through the Ink Machine. The one who didn’t have a soul at first, but gained one at some point over time before the Studio closed.

Audrey was the Original Ink Demon. And between learned hostility and childish playfulness and tantrums, she was our villain in BATIM.

The only soul the ink machine could “make”.

- THE NEW INK DEMON

... So where did the new one come from?

Well. Windows are the eyes to the Soul.

Wilson is not all seeing, He doesn’t see everything. We know this, otherwise, he would’ve gotten Audrey the moment she awoke in the Cycle. Send a Keeper, and all is done.

But the Ink Demon does. It’s presence will appear in the ether (THE INK DEMON IS COMING), and if you don’t hide quick, it’ll get you automatically. It does know the area you are in, and will come after you. Its why those machines have to be on, or it’ll just fucking appear.

So what does this have to do with Wilson?

Well. Let’s say that eyes can show a soul (not everything has eyes, and sometimes those eyes are covered). No matter what world he lies in, one of Wilson’s eyes is either bad or missing.

... And how would one rule the cycle, after all, when the Ink Demon does? What happens when the Ink Demon is just automaton, with its old soul now loose in another world?

By giving up a soul. Perhaps... Giving up half a soul? (One eye missing / half a soul missing ), and to an Ink Demon.

Who’s form suddenly changes dramatically. Who can talk now. Who can Hunt.

So unlike the deformed demon of BATIM, who couldn’t speak, and couldn’t run, and mostly just stumbled.

... and who would you suppose would’ve told Wilson to do that? Who would’ve known?

- This also explains where Tiny Bendy came from. This childish friendly Bendy who seemingly simply appeared out of the Ink Demon through unknown means. Just as the Memory items are of Wilson’s childhood--perhaps the Tiny Bendy is the inner child?

- WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?

Here’s what I think went down.

Joey Drew sends letters to various old “friends” to gain their attention, those who left the studio just in time anyway, and lure them back into the Ink Machine for the cycle.

He does this as he restarts the cycle, again and again, to create his perfect child. Failed ones refuse to call him father (Going instead to “uncle”--because no soul in that machine is going to call this madman father, save one).

During one of Henry’s runs, perhaps the very last one, Joey succeeds in creating Audrey, using the only soul the machine ever created--the Old Ink Demon.

There is no Ink Demon, so the cycle seemingly stops.

But the Ink Machine takes a toll on Health, so Joey is dying. He sets up a construct that possibly houses his soul upon his death, in order for have Audrey inherit the Ink Machine and the Cycle. He uses this to age Audrey up to survive without him.

She doesn’t remember things--the Joey construct will claim that she made herself forget--but of course she’s not going to remember. Artificially aged up to survive without Joey, and she’s less than 12 years old, possibly even younger (at the very least, 2 years ).

Nathan Arch sets up Archgate Studios, possibly under the influence of the Ink Machine, and against what his son suggests. Wilson Arch isn’t very happy about glorifying Joey Drew’s work.

But then Wilson runs into the Ink Machine.

The construct of Joey Drew meets Wilson Arch, very possibly through the “whispers” of the Ink Machine. And why wouldn’t Joey affect Wilson? Wilson, who was Nathan Arch’s son, with the full successful childhood, son to a very successful man.

Such a man would be useful, to help complete  a more perfect child. Especially one who “needs” her Inheritance.

So the Construct of Joey instructs Wilson on how to control the cycle, by reawakening the ink demon (in exchange for a part of a soul). With that soul, Memories form the new Keys to the Ink Realm to “appease the gods”, just as the items of the studio once did--only this time, its for one “god” specifically (Audrey, the inheritor).

Overtime, The New Ink Demon becomes a problem in the new Cycle. Overtime, Wilson doesn’t do too well--health problems from dealing with the Machine, personality, social, emotional and history problems from missing half a soul.

The Construct of Joey finds this an opportunity to “invite” Audrey again. Perhaps convinced Wilson that the Ink Demon could be combated and usurped. It was technically done before.

But to do so, we need the perfect soul--Audrey.

So Wilson kidnaps Audrey into the Cycle, and that’s when BATDR.

In the End, Wilson gets defeated and “Banished” to gods knows where (probably the Ink), Joey gets what he wants--and we get a suspiciously child-like Bendy out of the deal.

And in the End, the Creator Lied to Us.

--THE ADDENDUM

- Time for the HC Fanon Funstuffs.

 The year is 1973. Wilson’s Age, his off-handed fascination with engineering and machines, and his inclinations towards sailors; and the fact that his janitor uniform looks suspiciously like Naval Coveralls--all suggest to me, that Wilson was probably a Veteran of WW2 from the US Navy, if not self-enlisted, then definitely a draftee. Which means he went through the Pacific Front, given the US naval battles of the time.

Not gonna say for certain if he was in before or after Pearl Harbor, nothing suggests that... maybe.

But this does help explain his fascination with Engineering (if he was on a ship, lots of Engineering going on), the fascination with Martime environments or Sailors; the semi-militant way he runs the cycle, including wartime propaganda and lots of ship-like announcements over comms.

And the fact that he’s seemingly still in his “janitor” uniform--its more than likely, he was in Naval Coveralls in his Ink Form.

... It also doesn’t hurt that Wilson himself as a design reference Popeye the Sailor Man.

[cake-bread]

The Epilogue.

(one last DISCLAIMER: this is askblog for TBG Davey, not the actual Davey Wreden.)

I assume you have many questions - and after my response, you'll come up with even more. But I never planned to answer any of them.

I'm only telling a story.

Once TSPUD got announced, people have asked me if I'd remaster The Beginner's Guide. That question kept showing up, and I kept saying - 'Whats the point? The story is already finished.'

And then, I was asked again. And then, again.

And then - again.

At some point, I stopped responding. It was not due to being tired of repeating myself, but because I wasn't sure if the answer was still true. I felt there was nothing more to add, and enhancing the graphics would only take away from the experience. And yet, I knew there was so much more to the story.

I looked at all the game reviews, emails, and messages I could, realizing that this was it.

Feedback or The Cookie9 Phenomenon, if you want to call it that.

In a way, I suppose, I've always been my audience's Coda. The only thing that was different was no direct contact. After the enormous, very overwhelming response from the original TSP, I've been sparingly responding to any private feedback I've been receiving.

But the emails kept not changing. I do find the mails where I'm getting 'destroyed' or 'owned' very funny but that wasn't the case from the start.

So, I've wondered - how would these people react if they could see an effect of their own words? That it's not just something they spout into the ether but there's an actual person on the other side?

I wondered how could I bring this up without making a Skip Button Ultra Deluxe Edition. While games are interactive, you still have a barrier between you and the creator of the games.

Inspiration came randomly, during one panel I was listening to. Typically, a person would have a big speech followed by questions but that one particular instance was like 70% QnA. And at the end - I felt great! Maybe I couldn't give my own feedback in the sea of hands but there was something so charming about this being such a collaborative work. At the start, the performer said "you shape how the show will go" and even if it was obvious in that circumstance, to this day I remember it.

So, I've decided to make this askblog. But as I stated in it, in hidden clues - I'm fine at the moment! I'm happy where I stand as a creator and I had moved on from the past. That, however, wasn't always the case.

I'm lucky that I was mad enough to have many diaries throughout my life. I've written down so many of my reactions, thought processes and feelings, reading through My Files wasn't that much of an issue. And since I've already played as my past self once - I could do it again.

I will leave this askblog open but I won't respond to every message left for it as I've used to. I'll spare your time and write down some of the questions that you'll probably not get answers to:

"Was Coda ever real?", "Where the Twitter screenshot real and if so, what were Coda's thoughts and reaction to all of this?" "Were Coda's answer actually his?" or any other Coda-related questions like that,

"What are you working on now?", "Are you really fine?",

"What exactly inspired you in your life to do this now?", "Had a similar situation happened before?", "How did you deal with other Fake Codas?", "Will you one day answer our questions again?"

or anything TSP/TSPUD related,

because you're not entitled to someone's work or life.

And I won't light up your lampposts anymore.

Davey, out!

===

(Hi, it's me, @shinakazami1, the creator of this story. I'd like to thank everybody who spent their time to support this. I adore interacting with my own audience so this way of storytelling felt great thanks to you! My plan was to have something in the spirit of the original The Beginner's Guide in a form of an ask blog - small questions connected with themselves, telling a bigger yet short story that had already 'happened'. As Davey had said - you shape the way this could have gone. While the ending was predetermined from the start, Act 2 aka 'Coda's Askblog' was entirely up to you! For every post that you've asked Coda about something, I've already prepared a draft for the other blog. There were different versions of Coda and Davey planned. You've chosen Anxious Yet Assertive Davey and Angry but Weirdly Supportive Coda. I might talk about these more either in an edit of this post or on my Tumblr Blog, as I'd like to show a bit of a cut content :] While askblog Davey said he might not answer the questions mentioned - I might, so feel free to come and say your thoughts on this, your feedback, anything! I've myself been once again feeling stuck with creating, especially with drawing. But this project made me feel great, and it's all thanks to you. So thank you, Player. May we see each other another time. Toodle-pip!)

[northwest-cryptid]

You know what a lot of people don't "get" about the internet?

We're all equal here. Like, literally numbers don't matter. You're a human being, you're a person.

I'm stoned as shit and this goes on for a while so I'm saving you all some dashboard space with this one:

The problem is that there's this assumed and well known social ladder. If you see me as someone popular or if I see you as someone popular then there's this unbalance to it all. If I approach you and say,

"Hi [user], it's great to finally get to talk to you."

Now there's essentially a few ways this conversation goes, the problem is simple. We're viewing this from different angles. Say you're some content creator, artist, streamer, musician, whatever; you have maybe hundreds of thousands of people who engage with you and people constantly want your attention.

You're likely unwilling to speak to any ol' random person because if I happen to be one of those hundreds of thousands of people, and I go on the internet saying how cool it was to talk to you. Well now EVERYONE wants to talk to you. If you don't respond to them all they're going to form opinions about you. Some might extrapolate based on who you did or did not talk to, they'll accuse you; your reputation will be in danger. It's all a lot of stress you don't want, so you look for something specific in my writing to you.

What you're looking for is some kind of signal that I am an equal to you, so if the next words in my message are say...

"I consider myself a big fan of your work."

You likely drop me like a sack of very heavy bricks, because that line of dialogue is frightening without any further context. It shouldn't be, in an ideal situation everyone is equal and people are understanding that you're just one person.

However we should probably look at those posts like the individual who wrote a very heartfelt email to Toby Fox and basically got "lol thanks for getting your ass kicked by Sans" in response. Only to feel very cheated and let down because they expected more from Toby Fox. The issue here is that they expected something from someone who didn't owe them anything. You don't know Toby, you have nothing to do with that guy; he's just a human. If you send him this lengthy email about how much you like his game and he sends you back a bit of his humor your takeaway needs to be that you're happy to even get a response. Because at the end of the day he owes you nothing, no one does. You don't owe ME the time it's taking you to read this.

That's the thing about all this, I'm choosing to write this right now, you're choosing to read this right now. We're both choosing to explicitly engage in this activity together. Neither of us are obligated to do so, and I wouldn't hold it against you for not reading it or responding to it, nor do I think it's expected that you even like the post or whatever. Because in a true understanding situation there's no expectations on either party. You don't expect anything specific from me, nor I from you; and as a result we can appreciate whatever it is we are receiving from the other. If you leave me a comment that's something I'm going to appreciate, I'll read it and provided I have anything of value to add I'll likely reply. That's how I tend to show my appreciation for engagement, I try my best to return the energy.

So now if you think I'm a fan, you're likely concerned because even if I'm understanding you know the entirety of your fanbase likely isn't such. They might turn on you and that's not worth risking over the potential emotions of a singular fan, right?

However if I instead open with;

"I'm a fellow creator who has been enjoying your work for some time now."

You're likely a lot more at ease, why? Because you know your audience wouldn't care if you responded to a fellow popular creator. If you see me as something of an equal, your audience will also assume I'm just off limits to common folks like them. Where as you and I can talk and be friends because we're equals, we're higher on the social ladder, we're on the same rung and it's not the one they're on. So you can rest easy knowing they don't expect you to be giving them the same time and energy and opportunity for friendship you offer me.

Now if you ask me, this is completely and utterly trash. It's all really stupid because at the end of the day none of that popularity bullshit even matters. So then why do we see this sort of thing happening so much?

Well I want you to think of it like this, there's essentially different pockets/bubbles/groups out there, right? Now in my opinion I'd rather not have such bubbles, I don't care for boarders and limitations like that. However these things are unfortunately natural. Let's just use something I'm familiar with as an example. Lets say I'm a streamer, we'll go so far as to say a Vtuber for further categorization. Let's say I actively stream Mabinogi, if you approach me as someone who isn't a streamer, nor a vtuber, and not someone who engages with Mabinogi. What common ground do we actually have? I'm fine to give you my time and such, but we're likely not going to become friends if we don't have common ground. Now obviously this example is very narrow minded and specific. Real people are more than just one or two things. My point with this is that if you DO approach me as a fellow Vtuber, who actively streams Mabinogi; now we have two things in common; so I give you some time and we can easily connect over this.

These two things in combination are why we see so much division in online spaces. The popular can only engage with the popular, and when they don't they're judged or told there's a power imbalance or they're told they need to "bring enough for the whole class" so to speak. It becomes a whole ordeal, and how do they get around that? Well they make a point to only engage with those of similar status. It's the idea of "you're not cool enough to sit with us" except it's cranked up to 11. This creates a group for fans of an individual, and a group for the individual in question.

In reality popularity doesn't make someone more or less interesting. It's true that naturally interesting people are going to be more popular; but it's also true that some of the most interesting people just never get put in front of a big enough audience. Your art, music, streams, whatever; could all be amazing top notch stuff. If I put you on full display via a popular company you're likely to hit it big because now there's eyes on your work. If I however don't do that and you remain obscure and niche you're never going to hit it big unless you find a way to go corporate or change how you market yourself.

I know a lot of genuinely skilled individuals making truly impressive works, and yet they're not ever being seen; not from a lack of trying either.

Plus I think a lot of people view content creation of any sort as a sort of competition. Why would they want to build you up and help you grow if it means losing their audience? That's the sort of mentality I've seen, it's absolutely misguided and needs a lot of fixing but it's the social norm unfortunately.

Anyways, I've got nothing more to say.

[iatrophilosophos]

This is an extremely lopsided way of looking at things tbh

If you read psychiatric writing about things like biomarkers or medicalization, especially long career retrospectives, you'll have the very fun time of watching someone who poured their entire life into something fundamentally stupid wrestle with the three or four different layers of cognitive dissonance they've built up to obscure what's written plainly on nearly every page of the DSM:

Reproducing normative culture is "good for you". Mental illness is failing to reproduce normative culture. If you don't even WANT to try to reproduce normative culture, you're extra sick (antisocial) and need extra force.

Most of the people who implement that force think themselves kind.

I think it follows pretty naturally from a lot of what you're saying that it's impossible to write out a definitive diagnosis of any mental illness that is universally self-affirming: like you've said, there's matters of perspective here; and thus, the entire psychiatric complex is reliant on authority and force. Almost all psychiatrists have completely bought their own hype and continue to search for mythical biomarkers to unite classes of patients when what actually unites us is usually a lot closer to the surface (society sucks).

Narratives are not inherent to reality-- there is no god or great creator telling the story, and all we've got are fallible meat sponges throwing connections together. Medicine is, fundementally, a narrativizing process, even though western doctors like to kick and scream about how they alone have the divine right of kings about it. We can call it a predictive model, if narrative is too woo. We know, from contemporary and historical sources, that lots of medical modalities are & have been functional while using decidedly un-scientific predictive models--which occasionally even stand up to scientific vigor when done in good faith & including legitimate experts in non western modalities (see: integrative TCM). A diagnosis is when you pick some data points and tell a story about it; and if it's good medicine, that story will do what the person who is telling the story wants it to. It's all definition games and social contracts: if a doctor can tell a story where it would be better for a loud, difficult, resistive patient to be lobotomized to become quiet, agreeable, and not do much of anything...unfortunately they usually get to be "right".

Which is all to say... yes, this is the "internal" problem of psychiatry as it has defined its own truths and objectives (asterisk being that, as a field made up of People, we can always find psychiatrists who personally disagree with this assessment): but that the problem in greater context is less about the efficacy of the predictive models and more about who is telling the stories, what their goals are, and what that means for those of us with conflicting interests.

Now, I do not believe that the sum total of experiences labeled under mental illness are fake, or that if psychiatry disappeared tomorrow we'd all just be kicking it. I also don't object to concepts like "symptom" clusters or some form of physical/neurochemical basis for the different ways people tend to struggle--mind body dualism is a scam after all and adding similar experiences to one's predictive model can be incredibly useful. But who is telling the story matters a lot. The consequences don't neccesarily come from ineffective interventions--taking a drug that doesn't do what you want it to is usually pretty low-stakes and there's a lot of options and preexisting information out there for people to titrate the risks they'd like to personally take on. It's individuals' lack of personal control/decision making authority in the process.

You have correctly identified that it can be relatively easy for systems of power to decide what story they want to impose about who is sick and who is well, but extremely difficult to actually impose that story onto people by force. Learning more about the brain in ways that could make that easier is good for power; but because my goals and desires in the world are fundementally opposed to power, I don't really think it would be good for me.

The problem with psychiatry isn't that in principle there can be no such thing as a disease of the mind or a treatment for such a disease, it's that psychiatrists don't actually know how the mind works at any kind of fine mechanical level, the way a medical doctor roughly does with the body; where we know what a heart attack is no one knows what schizophrenia or bipolar disorder is. And no one has a good and consistent answer for where the line between mere idiosyncrasy or difference of viewpoint, preference, or behavior and mental pathology should be drawn. The problem with psychiatry in other words is that psychiatrists don't actually know very much, they are trying to treat you by letting blood to balance your humors and hoping it improves something. And it may, or it may not, or it may yield illusory improvements (as bloodletting sometimes did) while doing more damage than it is healing, or whatever else. Because psychiatrists are treating an organ (the brain) whose workings neither they nor anyone else actually understands.

[tippenfunkaport]

Quickstart Guide to getting into the She-Ra and the Princesses of Power fandom on Tumblr

(Maybe someone has made one of these already but i am behind because of NaNoWriMo so I am making my own because I do what I want.)

Welcome to Tumblr, new or returning user! It's lovely here and the SPOP fandom is still quite active. Here's a quickie guide on how to become a part of it!

Finding content

Confusingly, this fandom uses three main tags: SPOP, She Ra, SheRa (Tumblr ignores case as well as the - in She-Ra so using She-Ra is effectively exactly the same as using just She Ra or she ra). Then there are tags for individual ships (some of the most popular ones are Catradora, Entrapdak, Glimbow, Seamista, Scorfuma etc).

To find content, search for either one of the main fandom tags (spop, shera, she ra) or the tag for your favorite character or ship. They'll be a big blue follow button under the tag you can press so that Tumblr will automatically pepper new posts from your followed tags into your dash.

Then, while you're looking at the search results, take note of who's posting stuff you like and start to follow the people whose posts you dig so they'll appear on your dash. (Understand that some blogs are side blogs so the blog that you followed and the one that follows you back or likes your stuff may have completely different names because one is the side blog and one is the main.)

Looking for something niche? Try a combo of terms! (Tumblr recently changed things so you can search within post content AND tags. So if you're getting, say, Hunger Games and My Little Pony results while trying to search for Glimmer, try searching for Glimmer SPOP instead to narrow the results down.)

Just remember that search results and tag results are different things! Search results show all posts with those terms anywhere in the post while tag results are literally only posts tagged with that exact phrase.

Sharing your content

When posting, make sure you tag your content in the tag field at the bottom of the posting form, each tag separately. As you start to type, the site will helpfully suggest popular tags to get your started. Unlike on other sites, you CAN have spaces in your tags (so it's Best Friend Squad not BestFriendSquad). No need to add the hashtag, Tumblr will do that for you after you hit submit.

At the least, you'll want to include the base fandom tags (spop, shera, she ra) and then any ships or characters in your post (Catra, Adora, Entrapta, etc). Other tags it might be helpful to add are any triggers, descriptors like fanart, fanfic, meta, incorrect quotes, etc or something for your own blog organization (like "my art" or "fics by me"). In yee olden days of Tumblr, you had to do things like make "Catradora fanart" or "shera catra" a tag (and some people still do this out of habit) but the way Tumblr has changed search, if you just make Catradora and fanart separate tags, it will show for anyone who searches for both.

Making Friends and Followers: Reblog and interact!

Tumblr lets you be as social (or not!) as you want. The reason the site is called Tumblr is posts get tossed around and around with other users adding tags and notes that (in theory anyway) make it better and get you more engagement: like a rock tumbler making dirty rocks all shiny. There are a million posts already on here that say this but I'm going to say it again: Likes do nothing. They are basically bookmarks. The way to connect with people on here and to keep the fandom alive is to reblog content and, if you want, add comments or tags.

See a cool headcanon? Reblog and add your thoughts! Someone posts a fanfic idea? Reblog and let them know how excited you'd be to read that! Every post on Tumblr is a collaboration and reblogs are how you pass posts around and support the content creators.

If people don't want you to interact with their posts, they will turn reblogging off so you never have to worry that your commentary isn't welcome. Reblogging your own stuff with commentary is a great way to get more engagement on it (say reblogging your fanart a few days after you posted it with some behind the scenes trivia about what gave you the idea for it or what brushes you used or reblogging to add some of your favorite reader comments from your fanfic).

Reblog the stuff you like and if you really like it? Reblog it now and queue it up to post again later. Reblog your own stuff multiple times. Don't worry about being annoying, that is 100% the culture on here so you'll fit right in. There's no algorithm so your blog is less like a book people will read in order and more like a TV channel: not everyone is watching at the same time so reruns let people catch the stuff they missed.

The more often you post about something, the more likely you are to find others who are into the same thing you are and that will help you find your happy little corner of Tumblr where you can thrive.

Discourse and drama

There is, blissfully, far less discourse and drama on here than other platforms but blocking on Tumblr is secret so feel free to block with wild abandon and no one will ever know. Want to be a little hater yourself? Know that it's a major faux pas to put ship or character hate in the tags. So if you really hate Melog, and you tag your anti-space kitty screed "anti Melog"... just know that everyone who searches for Melog will see that post unless they have specifically blocked the tag "anti melog" because Tumblr search includes tags. If you want to drink your haterade in peace, don't use the main fandom tags on anti posts and tag it as "discourse" or "drama," two commonly blocked tags. If you are a messy bitch who loves drama and WANT the people who love the character or ship to see your Big Angry Fandom Feels... just don't be surprised when the people who do love the characters or ship you are hating on interact with your posts or block you. And, on the other side, blocking the haters is as easy as blocking the users themselves or the hater tags (examples: "anti spinnerella" or "anti swift wind").

Which is all to say, be a little hater if you want but Tumblr is very much an f around and find out kind of platform so choose your experience wisely. And don't be surprised if people choose to block.

Which brings up a very important thing we're already seeing play out with new users: if you are used to a site with an algorithm such as TikTok or Twitter, you probably didn't realize how much it was coddling your fandom experience by specifically showing you posts it knows you'll agree with. Now that you're on a site with no algorithm, you're free from the insular feedback loop that you were in before and many of you are realizing that what you took to be popular takes are actually fringe opinions. It's jarring to realize you've been duped but you should be directing your anger at the platform that manipulated you, not your fellow fans who haven't been brainwashed into believing whatever you swallowed.

Other cool stuff

Download the xkit desktop browser extension for some extra features that make Tumblr even easier to use

Your blog has a queue which lets you stock up posts that Tumblr will release for you on a schedule of your choosing. VERY useful for when you go on a spree and want to reblog a billion things in a row but don't want to completely take over your followers dash. Throw all those posts in your queue and your blog will look active for days to months without you having to do anything. (This is actually the only way I blog, almost everything you see on my blog was queue up in advance)

Open up asks for art or fic prompts, questions or other conversation starters (You can block any annoying askers, even if they are anonymous!)

Schedule posts in advance such as for your favorite character's birthday or holiday / date specific stuff

tags are for visibility... but they are also for chatting and commentary? it's weird but you'll get used to it

there's no visible follower count so we're all pretty much on equal footing no matter how many followers you have

dates are hard to find on posts by design! posts never expire and old post make the rounds again all the time. It's NEVER "creepy" to go through someone's blog and like or reblog a billion old posts but every much encouraged. In fact, going through old posts to fill your queue is a great way to not only give yourself content but also give a blog you love new life!

Welcome to the SPOP fandom on Tumblr, we're happy to have you!

And that's all I can think of at the moment! Questions? Feel free to ask em and I'll do my best!

[kyofsonder]

It can be, of course, very hard to read a lot and/or play a lot. Fiction books, nonfiction books, TTRPG rulebooks, and the materials to access them can be hard to get and hard to engage with for many people. I'm personally struggling to read the way I used to, and to play TTRPGs in the capacity I want to play them.

That said, there are almost always workarounds:

> Where books can't be bought, they can be borrowed. Where libraries can't be reached in-person, there's the Libby and Overdrive apps.

> When it's hard to read, audiobooks are a good option -- Libby and Overdrive have these as well, and there are several places like Audible where they can be bought. There are narrative fiction podcasts that are structured similarly to novels, too, like Wolf 359 and The Penumbra Podcast and The Bright Sessions -- as well as podcasts that review books, suggest books, and talk about reading and writing as skills and craft.

> When reading or listening to audiobooks/narrative podcasts by yourself isn't motivating enough for you to finish the stories you start, when you need someone to listen to your observations and theories and feelings about what you read, the traditional book club is just one of several good options to make reading fun for you. You can try to find an existing one at a library or rec center near you, or find communities online. There are Tumblr circles and communities, subreddits, Twitter circles (if you're willing to brave the rest of what that site has and is in order to get to them), Discord groups, pen pal programs, and apps that are specifically focused on the social side of reading -- Goodreads lends well to that, and I found one recently called Fable that has an entire social tab just for book clubs. If you can't find any, online or in person, that suit you then starting your own is also (admittedly, too daunting for me as I am now) a path some people could take to getting satisfaction from their reading.

> If getting a group together for a TTRPG -- especially one that isn't the easily identifiable D&D 5e -- isn't coming together, try solo TTRPGs. They come in many forms; some have you telling a story in a journal and focus heavily on roleplay, others have you build a dungeon room by room and focus almost entirely on combat. I've seen tabletop Stardew Valley simulators and grimdark 80's-style fantasy dungeon crawls, games that use playing cards and games that use tarot decks and games that have you roll 5 types of dice to get through a campaign. I've seen a lot that just give you the bare bones of a game structure, and invite you to hack it and change it to fit how you want to play. It misses the social aspect of the game in many ways, but it's fun to talk with people about what you did in your last game session and it's great for finding out what you like best in your narratives and your game mechanics.

> When getting either group or solo TTRPGs is difficult due to cost, there are plenty of resources that let you play until you have money to support small creators. Pirate from the big companies that don't pay their creators, but for indie games you can usually find free or very cheap versions of their games on itch.io and download them without hurting your own finances. There are also free options for PDF readers if you don't want to or can't buy one, such as LibreOffice and OpenOffice and (though it's not as good as it used to be) Kingsoft. Printing game books out at a library should be fairly inexpensive if you want it in physical form and don't have a printer of your own, too.

> If it's material costs that are the issue, because you have nothing left after deciding you'd rather back a small creator's Kickstarter or go to a chain bookstore or whatever you picked, that can be a little harder to source. But Tabletop Simulator has a one-time fee if your computer can handle it, and there are free playing card and tarot emulating websites and dice emulating apps all over the internet. When none of that is available and no friends or family can help you out, DIY also works -- provided you have the time and energy, which you may need to gather first before you start.

Put in as much or as little effort as you want, especially if writing and/or TTRPG gaming are more casual for you, but remember there are resources and ways to do things so you get the most of your writing and/or your games. You can build a foundation off the stories you read and the games you play, and there are always people looking to make building that foundation a more accessible process. Find your way in, the one that best suits how you read and what you write, how you play and what you design. Taking breaks is fair, and moving on if these aren't that important to you is fair, but if you love what you do and want to have a better foundation for doing it then the way to do that is by surrounding yourself by it as much as possible and making it a part of your life. A part of you, as much as possible. So try not to get discouraged by lack of access or by the things that slow you down. There's usually a way forward, just not necessarily through the first door you try.

Read to be a better writer. Find any path to reading you can, and follow it to where you want/need to be.

Play TTRPGs to be a better TTRPG designer (amd a better GM/DM/player, too). Find any path to playing you can, and follow it to where you want/need to be.

This is how you build skills, and reinforce passion. And it's fun, too, if you let it be.

If you are going to be an author you have GOT to read books.

If you are going to be a TTRPG designer you have GOT to play or at least read the rulebooks for TTRPGs.