#i did not expect to be so interested in the media im hosting a tournament for

[tentacletournament]

What’s with all the Transformers stuff?? Let’s do some Rot propaganda to fix that. Or just facts about the rot. Who cares.

-There are V A R I A N T S. The main one is called the Daddy Long Legs and is blue, has a lot of tentacles, and CAN HEAR. Terrifying. There’s the Brother Long Legs that is brown, has less tentacles, and can’t hear. Found mostly in the Garbage Wastes. The DLC, Downpour, added another variant: the Mother Long Legs. It’s purple, can hear, and can only be killed by a SINGULARITY (black hole) BOMB. Just run. Throw a rock to distract it and just run away. You can damage it, but how does that matter when it heals 100 per second (slugcats deal 1 damage with normal spears)??

-There are also proto-daddy long legs (I think that they’re called that??) they just stick to walls and kill you if you touch them. Some of them have tentacles going between them, making it a little easier to navigate in Five Pebbles’ finicky zero-gravity areas.

Want to kill one? Stab it’s core with an explosive spear- it kills all mobile king legs except for MLLs instantly. Normal bombs don’t kill it immediately- it has to be an explosive SPEAR. Normal spears can disable the tentacles and do damage if you hit the core, but there isn’t really much of a reward for killing them.

-Apparently vulnerable to cold temps due to… (looks at a certain slugcat) spoilers.

-On the topic of spoilers, here’s one for Hunter and Gourmand. So the Hunter is a slugcat that can carry 3 spears at a time, does more damage, eats meat only, etc. for the price of a time limit. If you don’t make it into the Void Sea in time, and die on your last cycle, you can see hunter again in Gourmand… or rather, it’s corpse hijacked by the rot. Yeah. It can hear, has 50 health (?) and looks like this- SPOILERS!

(GIF yoinked from the RW Wiki)

-not a fun fact, but is currently in the process of infecting and consuming Cthulhu. It’s already taking down one god, why not another?

wait what. theres. a FAMILY OF ROTS??? there are MULTIPLE ROTS???? also the gif is going 👉👈 at me idk if thats on purpose or if anyone else can see that anyway sorry for my sudden random interest in transformers i still love you rain world (i know only information given to me about either of them)

[strangeocquestions]

Hi, I hope you dont mind me asking this. How popular is your webcomic? I want to start one myself but Im worried it wont gain any traction and I'll lose motivation :(

I currently have a few hundred active/mostly active readers, 200-ish of which actively follow the webcomic’s blogs and an estimated 100 or so more who read it without following. I only know of these readers’ existence because I know there are several dozens of people who I, friends of mine or followers of mine shared the comic with and who read it actively though they don’t have Tumblr accounts.

I don’t get much fanart or fanworks yet and new creators shouldn’t expect much of that either, fanbases are a difficult thing to build. Then again, my comic is only in Chapter 1 so there’s not much for fans to work with anyway. 

I’ve been hosting my webcomic for about a year, though only around 6 or so months ago did I actually start regularly posting new pages. I haven’t advertised it outside of Tumblr, a little bit on Discord and at school because I’m waiting to move the webcomic to its own website rather than just keep it on Tumblr.

You should keep in mind that I had several big advantages right off the bat, those being having big groups of friends who got invested in my webcomic and shared it with other people, running several blogs with large followings that helped me boost the comic and running a very active Discord server where sometimes I’ll find people interested in webcomics. Without these things it would have been significantly harder for my project to get any traction.

—

Your comic isn’t going to get any traction on its own unless you advertise it to hell and back. Create popular content that will help your accounts grow so that you will have a larger viewer base seeing your promos, get into groupchats, talk about it on several different social medias, etc. It’s frankly the only way to go about it. 

More detailed tips to follow:

-Create memes for big fandoms. From my experience, memes get you more followers than fanart ever will. My most popular fanart  only has 2k notes, meanwhile my most popular fandom meme has 100k notes (decapitated Dumbledore, anyone remember that? haha…………… 😔👊). It’s pretty sad but it’s a reality we artists face.

-Create art memes! That way you can share your art WHILE being funny. I must say though… These are always a hit or miss. One post you may get 10 notes and another you may get thousands. My biggest hit of this genre was this (at 40k notes):

-TAG THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR POSTS PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IT’S THE ONLY WAY PEOPLE WILL SEE YOUR STUFF PLEASE SPAM THOSE TAGS PLEASE PLEASE PLEA 

-Find forums, groupchats, communities, etc where it would be relevant to share your projects at. Reddit, Deviantart and Discord are quite useful.

-Promote your content by doing exchanges. For example, draw something for every new follower you get or something along those lines.

-Join other artists’ contests and competitions. Maybe even an organization’s contest. The prize doesn’t really matter for the discussion here, but winning will help you get exposure. I am currently participating in a videogame development tournament in my country. If I win, not only will I get a full scholarship, I’ll give my skills and projects exposure.

-You can also just create your own contests and competitions, though you’ll be the one giving away prizes then. Running a contest will definitely get you several followers though, so there’s that.

-If any of your friends shows interest in your project, ask them if they could share it with other people. Don’t put too much pressure on them, like, that’s a shitty thing to do, but asking doesn’t harm anyone.

-Additionally, get out there, meet new people. You never know when you’ll come cross someone who may be interested in helping you spread your project around.

-Don’t stress out. No matter how much time you spend promoting your creation, it’s still going to take ages to build a viewer base. 

—

BY THE WAY (this is in this blog’s FAQ but I doubt anyone reads that anyway) this blog is open to promote other creators’content. Just DM me, send me a link, I’ll check it out and see if it’s appropriate and if everything’s fine I’ll post about it here. It will probably be a small boost but it’s a boost nevertheless. I am more than happy to help any creator in need. 

[junker-town]

A guide to the West Coast swing, the best stretch on the PGA Tour schedule

We’re going back to Cali for a fantastic 5-week run on the PGA Tour schedule. Here’s a guide for Tiger’s return, Spieth’s slump, and some of the best venues on the pro circuit.

The PGA Tour season never really ends. There may be a few weeks it goes into hibernation around the holidays, but that’s it. The “season” now wraps around two different years and just goes on and on with playing opportunities available for its members almost year-round.

There are a few categorical sections we can discern in the constant march. There are different “swings” such as the Florida swing or Hawaii swing and then there is, of course, the all-important “Playoffs” at the end, which will now come before Labor Day and avoid being swallowed whole by football. We are now entering the West Coast swing, the annual five-week stretch in California and Arizona that may just be the best cluster on the entire schedule (it is definitely the best).

There’s no major championship snapping the sports world’s attention to golf and most of the country is frozen thinking about football and basketball, but this stretch includes the Tour’s best run of venues, fields, and tradition. The West Coast swing has it all, even if you’re not fully paying attention to golf yet. It also marks the return of Tiger Woods, who annually comes back to the Tour at Torrey Pines and will do so again in 2019.

Here’s your schedule for this year.

With such a nice, delineated portion of the schedule to examine, we decided to kick around a few topics and potential discussion points for the next five weeks. It’s a great stretch for the PGA Tour, even if you’re not exactly ready to jump headfirst into the golf season.

Event you’re most excited about is ...

Brendan: Riviera. This is the best stretch on the schedule, in my opinion, and there are multiple great events. But the answer to this will always be Riviera. It is one of the rare venues on the PGA Tour rota that is worth a pilgrimage, in the same way you might go visit a famous venue in another sport, such as Wrigley Field or Lambeau Field. It’s that good. You’re dropped in a canyon in the middle of Los Angeles that boasts one of the great classic courses in the country. Also, the field continues to be absolutely loaded. Every top player from across the world wants to come to the only stop in LA and now that Tiger’s foundation is hosting it, they get the Tiger bounce too. This is the PGA Tour’s best event, even including The Players.

Kyle: Scottsdale, baby. You can have your traditionalism at Riv. That’s fine, it’s a good event. The People’s Open is and will always be exactly what I want a modern golf tournament to look like. It is loud and stupid and boorish and gauche and there’s a music festival on-site. It’s an event, not a golf tournament — and the pomp and circumstance (?) of lots of 32-year-old mutual fund wholesalers named Chad getting drunk in a desert is something I can’t pass up. I’m making my first pilgrimage this year.

Oh, and yeah, the finishes are usually great even if 15 holes of the course are rather forgettable.

Tiger returns, again, at Torrey and Riv and he will ...

Brendan: I think Tiger makes the cut at Torrey, finishes around 30th, and then misses the cut at Riviera. It’s been awhile since we saw him in competition and he didn’t exactly light it up after his Tour Championship win. I think he begins the year easing his way into it and Torrey is not exactly a perfect fit for his game anymore. Despite his saying it fits his eye, he’s never done well at Riviera, where bombers have a distinct advantage. Tiger will try to whale away and get caught up in the sycamores and eucalyptus. I so, so bad want him to show out at Riviera and light it up in LA but I don’t think it happens this year. He’s going to get some reps with an eye on Augusta.

Kyle: My expectations are honestly through-the-floor low. I’m expecting a bit of a regression from that Tour Championship mania to start this year. Surely we flew too close to the sun in 2018 with the near misses at Birkdale and Bellerive, and the win at East Lake, right? Cat’s had a long layoff, looked somewhat shaky in both The Match and Hero World Challenge. You hit on all of his struggles at Riv, and I’ll agree that aging Tiger isn’t built for Torrey’s milquetoast length anymore. I’ll go CUT-CUT to start the year, though I don’t think it’ll be anything worth extrapolating too much from. It’s golf, form fluctuates, he’ll be fine.

One player who absolutely needs to play well ...

Brendan: I don’t think anyone absolutely has to play well. It’s the first quarter of the season and what happens in February can mean little for April through July. But Jordan Spieth sure could use some positive rounds. I think he is the one player most in the crosshairs at the start of the year and his comments at the Sony Open did little to instill confidence that he’s close to figuring it out. He sounded lost and even resigned at times. He has added Torrey Pines to the schedule for the first time in a few years, and has won at Pebble Beach, where he always shows up to shake hands as the title sponsor’s golden boy. If he misses every cut until March, I still think he can show up to Augusta and win with his game in shambles and complete trash of a statistical profile. But every round and meeting with the press he has until then won’t be particularly carefree if he bombs on the West Coast swing.

Kyle: Thought exercise: I’m going to ask you to rattle off a list of 30-something PGA Tour pros that have won exactly one time on Tour in the last three seasons. Seem difficult? Impossible? Of course it is! That list contains a bunch of just, uh, guys — and also Rickie Fowler.

That’s right! One of America’s biggest golf “stars” has the same number of Tour wins as Aaron Baddeley and Ted Potter, Jr. over the last three seasons. He’s now 30. He has four career PGA Tour wins. Yes, he contends. Yes, he’s an elite-level talent. But, how long are we going to keep this up? At what point do you just become Chris Kirk with a motocross bike?

Winning at Riv or in Scottsdale won’t get the burden off Rick’s back, but what it might do is warm up a bit of confidence upstairs if he finds himself in contention at a major in 2019. Is this the year he finally breaks through at the WMPO after near misses each of the last three years?

Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Rickie during another close call at the Phoenix Open.

An underrated player or story you most want to see pop ...

Brendan: Can I interest you in a Steve Marino comeback arc!? No? OK, well I am interested in this. I did a double take when I saw him in the field at the Sony and it appears Marino is in relatively good enough health and shape to play a full PGA Tour schedule here at the top of the year. He’s on the field list for the Desert Classic, Torrey Pines, Phoenix Open, and Pebble Pro-Am. That’s a damn full run for Marino, who is a bit of an off-course legend and everyman that I would love to see pop again on the PGA Tour. We need more characters!

The rookie (or sophomore) you most want to watch ...

Brendan: The obvious and correct answer here is Jose de Jesus Rodriguez, the 37-year-old Mexican with the most triumphant story of getting to the PGA Tour in the league’s history. It’s a damn inspiration and everyone should be rooting for the rookie to get a win on this West Coast swing to lock up a spot in the Masters. But outside of that obvious choice, I’ll go with Chris Thompson, the 42-year-old rookie that goes completely against the trend of the modern game. Thompson may not bubble with personality and he’s exactly the kind of rookie the Tour does NOT want to promote. They want the 22-year-old that hits it 350 yards. There are dozens of those robots coming to plug in to the latest Live Under Par ad, so for now, I’ll watch and root for Thompson to make some noise on the most competitive tour in the world.

Kyle: Sorry, yell at me, fine. I know the cool and hot thing to do is lament the effect of Drivebots on today’s game, but I will mainline all the Cam Champ you can possibly supply me. I’m all in on a freakish athlete who flies the ball miles past other long hitters on tour, especially one with a backstory as interesting as Champ’s. He’s already won once this year, and I’ll be more surprised if it doesn’t happen again this year.

Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Brendan: I am very into that, too! I was just looking for some non-Champ answer. He will be awesome to watch, especially at these venues.

One thing or person that will get plenty of attention that you just do not care about ...

Brendan: I am verrrry worried that the suffocating mainstream golf media is going to choke the joy out of following Hosung Choi, if they haven’t already done so. Choi will be a treat to watch at Pebble Beach. The one story I am already sick of is putting with the pin still in the cup. That’s going to continue to get lots of love as CBS joins the broadcast fray and more and more fans tune in for the first time this year. I’m over it. It’s fine and cool and let’s move on from talking about the new rules.

Kyle: Bryson. I’m tired of Bryson. The bit is old. I’m tired of the putting with the pin in, I’m tired of the carefully-crafted pseudoscience used to develop brand power for Cobra/Puma, I’m tired of the driving-range mental breakdowns that are sure to come, I’m tired of the “Well, Christ Had Haters Too” attitude toward anyone who dare doubt his transparent grift in the name of physics. I beg you to get this man off my television, until someone finally asks his thoughts on global warming during a press conference.

Will Johnny Miller cry at the Phoenix Open?

Brendan: Yes. Despite his spicy commentary and gruff exterior, I think Johnny is an emotional softie and this is the end of a legendary run. Also, remember when he oddly got choked up talking about Keegan Bradley at the end of last year’s BMW Championship? That was one of the weirder and more unexpected turns of the 2018 season.

Kyle: No. Absolutely not. I present you this quote on why he made Phoenix his last stop, via Golf Digest:

“I was always known as the ‘Desert Fox.’ My best golf, besides that final round at Oakmont, came in the desert, especially in 1975 when I won by 14 shots in Phoenix and by nine shots in Tucson. I was playing at a level of golf those two weeks as good or better than I’ve ever seen anyone hit the ball.”

Emotion and reflection requires self-awareness, of which John has none. We’d have him no other way.

One crazy prediction or spicy take ...

Brendan: Jordan Spieth does not make a cut on the West Coast swing and someone proclaims he is completely washed. Phil Mickelson wins in Phoenix, and in keeping with tradition, does so in a playoff against Hideki Matsuyama that runs into the halftime show of the Super Bowl.

Kyle: Cam Champ wins again before we head to Florida, and a whole bunch of people throw way, way too much money on him at the Superbook before we get to Augusta.