#i haven't made a proper blog since 2018

[reireimur]

你好 !

Hello, my name is Rei (pronounced like you would the 'ree' in reef) and/or Mur (like the mur in murmur), and I'm a full-time nursing student in Sydney, Australia. I go by 'he/him', I am 18, I write, and occasionally draw :) I'm Chinese, English is in fact my second language, and have a very inconsistent posting schedule.

I don't plan on being active on this blog very much, or to do... much of anything on here at all? A lot of the fandom (the very, very small fandom that's left of AC) is active mostly on Tumblr, I think, and so I figured I'd make a more AC-centred account just so I can consume more content.

Ask me anything! About fics, about characters--whichever, whatever, I'd love to know :)

I have a few fics backlogged/in the process of writing, and I plan to keep updating 'and you say you're alone' (aysya) until it either kills me or it is finished.

Thanks for checking this blog out (?) and/or reading through this (?)! It's good to make your acquaintance :)

[corruptionasart]

I followed for video game corruptions. Don't think I've seen much of those of late.

damn sorry i'll make sure you get a refund

Anyway i'm also gonna go ahead and lump this in here since it's related:

So I'll forgive people for either coming in late to the party or just not paying attention to how this blog has changed over the years but I've spoken several times in the past about how rom corruption over time has become really boring to me. That's why over the past few years I've posted less and less of it.

Back when I started doing this stuff and really committed to it back in like 2016-2018 it was great, I started this blog as an excuse to do more of it, playing retro games and breaking them was, and honestly still is a lot of fun. Unfortunately I made the mistake of running a queue which meant I needed things to fill that queue which meant I was essentially turning art into content, and over time that took its toll and I burnt out hard on it. There was a point where basically all my free time was spent on some aspect of running this blog, whether it was playing the games or going through recordings to make gifs or tagging posts etc.

Over the past couple weeks actually I've been going through all my old ShareX screenshot folders (btw i wholeheartedly endorse sharex it rules and i donate to its patreon) I've been collecting all the screenshots I've made of rom corruptions (somehow I hadn't done this before) and what I've noticed is exactly what I noticed all those years ago, it's kinda all the same.

You might disagree with that but again I've been seeing this stuff for like 8 years now and there's only so many times I feel like I could post something like that before it gets stale, the same goes with the gifs and videos. Again, I do enjoy making that stuff but I just feel like I personally feel like I need to make a change.

I'll get into the AI part of what I said this morning in a following post but I should be a bit more clear that the collage stuff I've been doing and anything else that I plan to do in the future isn't meant to be entirely about showcasing ai art or glorifying it, it's just another piece of the puzzle. I mostly made the post about ai stuff mostly because I wanted to see what the reaction would be in this community to that specifically. I wasn't expecting the "anything that isn't rom corruption is off-topic and shouldn't be posted on this blog" contingent. I may very well make another blog just about the ai stuff because I think there are things I could talk about with it with regard to pushing against the tide of garbage and making something new with it, idk yet.

THe last thing I want to say regarding rom corruptions specifically, though, is that it's interesting to me that despite the fact that I've posted the link to the corruption wiki multiple times now and people clearly do have an interest in this stuff that hardly anybody is out there posting this stuff either here or anywhere else online (at least outside of the Vinesauce community, which I feel goes for a very different vibe in what they do.)

The tools are out there, they haven't really changed all that much for years apart from being supported for more modern systems, and yet nobody's posting anything.

Maybe I should make another proper tutorial on my whole process, try to push harder to get people to make stuff.

Sorry if this response is kind of incoherent, I've been called away a lot in making this, I'll try to make the next few posts shorter

[worldofavania]

6th Anniversary Status Update

6 years since Avania first launched back on July 8th 2018. It's been quite a trip, and though we're still crawling through Issue 8 right now, I'm happy to have progressed this far. I will admit that this last year has been the most difficult time I have experienced...

As I mentioned in the 5th Anniversary update last year, the demands of being a new father are manifold and unrelenting. Every day is an adventure, and watching my son grow so quickly is a wonder like nothing else. He is two years old now and more lively and curious than ever!

But most sadly, my own father is no longer here to see his grandson grow, and I weep for the experience that the three of us will not be able to share together. This saga of a parent's passing is not yet over, as it is a long and arduous process, and is undoubtedly made more challenging by having such preeminent daily demands already.

Following my somber announcement in February, I decided to focus on my family and my own wellbeing for a time, and while that is still the case and will continue to be for a while I'm sure, I do wish to try and finish the current comic chapter and Avania No.8 as a whole before the end of the year.

My production is slower than ever right at the moment, but it IS still happening! For practicality and my own enjoyment, I am often drawing smaller, faster pieces (such as Avania Mail episodes) that I can actually complete in a reasonable timeframe. It does bother me to see Avania proper stalled out at the moment, but in this unprecedented time in my life, I have to accept that drawing as much as I did when I had far greater time and energy is just not feasible right now.

I thank everyone for their patience, and I hope you'll be around to see the conclusion of chapter 17 and beyond!

---

A bit of site admin too: Due to the extended time between new pages and the accumulation of news updates under the latest page, I will probably clear all but the last few items out and write something new for the second half of the year.

I'm also queuing up a run through the entire comic thus far with added author's commentary below each page, as I haven't done that before here, and it should be a nice refresher to lead up to new pages returning (ideally) at the start of the new year... Follow along on the @worldofavania blog if you're interested!

[rubberbandballqueen]

About your tags: is there more that you can share about the OW fandom and fics? This was a phenomenon I wonder about too. It was one of the most popular fandoms around 2017-2018, but the way the fandom stopped on its tracks around 2019 was hard not to notice. Especially from people who didn't play the game but were aware of it's fandom.

oh! overwatch is one of about 50-ish fandoms i track for this one spreadsheet project i do as a hobby (which i Technically blog about @fandom-data-scientist, but i've been too lazy to do a proper writeup to explain what the hell it is i do), wherein i try to answer the age-old question: when did the weebs move to ao3?

(the answer is late 2015/early 2016. most likely this was in large part a result of undertale and sports anime, but that's currently just my own conjecture)

According To My Research(tm), the overwatch fandom peaked in late 2016/early 2017 when it comes to the number of new fics posted per month. after this, it declined quite rapidly, as it didn't even get to enjoy a plateau period.

(there's a reason why the plots are really wonky towards the end of this graph-- it's bc i found the past dates for number of fics archived to a particular site via the wayback machine. since those snapshots are typically bot crawls, the number of fics shown on the fandoms listings will not include fics that have been archive-locked. although i technically started this project in august 2022, i did not add overwatch to my tracking list until this june/july or so. my current guess for the small uptick in the rate of ow fics published to ao3 in october 2022 is that the sequel came out? and then the rate plunged for january 2023 bc of the ai scraping scare that happened at around that time-- nearly every single fandom i track had a significant drop right then bc everyone was archive-locking their fics. the rate shooting up in like july 2023 on this chart is bc like i said, that's when i added ow to my list of tracked fandoms; because i'm logged into my own ao3 acct when checking these numbers live, i get access to the archive-locked fics and so the display number goes up.)

in my experience, fandoms will generally kind of plateau in their fic production after their peak, which will ofc normally gradually taper off. games that receive regular lore or story updates probably have fairly long or stable plateaus, although i haven't made scatterplots or made any comparing analyses to prove this rigorously. this plateau period generally represents a time of fandom stability as the fair-weather, casual, or migratory slash fans run off to the next big thing.

if we ignore the fact the plague and quarantine happened, we can see a nice, steady, and very consistent plateau period for the danganronpa fandom from about 2018-2020!

let's look at an older fandom, like my archnemesis final fantasy:

granted, the ao3 numbers are kind of all over the place these days, but you kind of get my point by now, right? that healthy fandoms tend to plateau as the wind carries away the faintly-interested and leaves the long-haulers behind to form their communities.

overwatch struck me as unusual when i was on one of my long wayback machine trips because of the way there was a net increase of only two fics published from 1 july 2021 to 1 october 2021, when before then it had usually been in the hundreds or so. i then went on a work tangent n googled around n more or less concluded it had Something to do with some kind of scandal with the development company, but otherwise i don't really have any more comments on it hahaha.

[timextoxhajima]

happy 13/09

no this is not a fic

dear jaehyun,

thought long and hard if i should even write this because it's been a long while since i have. the last person i wrote a proper letter to was seonghwa - not even juyeon - so i guess, thanks for ruining where my loyalties stand.

i wrote the most number of letters for nct's jaehyun back in 2017 and 2018 because that was when i struggled the most. must be cute to have that name repeated again and again in my head and in my dms and asks, even after i stopped stanning jung jaehyun.

the way you made yourself so prominent on my blog and in my works was so subtle, so quiet, so gradual. i'm not really sure how it happened, because it wasn't like i didn't write fics for you. i wrote best friend's brother before hostis and nobody said anything about that UNTIL hostis came out.

hostis was tth's game changer. it blasted this blog onto deobiblr and because of that, readers naturally assumed you were my bias, which i just vehemently denied because - you weren't! (you still kinda aren't but like who's gonna believe me, right?)

but i got used to people teasing me with you. though it's cliche and it's not real in the sense that you're never gonna know i exist, you're never gonna read something i wrote for you and you're never gonna know how much you've actually helped me through all my shitty nights and all the times i doubted myself. as a writer, as a dancer, as a person who wishes nothing but love life as the way it was given to me.

(my god i am tearing up LOL WTF I HAVEN'T CRIED IN AWHILE?? IDDONT' CRY??)

i hadn't really noticed how similar our characters were until people started bombarding my asks and my dms with information about you. how you seemed like a tsundere, how you don't cry often, how you're one of the reliable hyungs of the group and how you're kind of an all-rounder too.

took me awhile to buy that list of similarities - because that's pretty much me in real life - or if you can tell just through online interactions, i think i'm pretty similar to that.

mbti's kind of a lame gig these days but i still buy it, and provided your personality hasn't changed, it's just 1 letter different from mine. and if you functioned similarly to me, then i hope you know it's okay to tell someone your worries and your fears. i hope you know it's okay to cry or tell someone you're stressed and that you need a break.

i hope you know it's okay that you don't have to be the one people rely on all the time. i know how that feels.

(WELL IM CRYING NOW THANKS LEE HYUNJAE)

i read a couple of sources here and there about you in detail. how you'd take care of your members in private, how you'd try to make things lighter by making jokes but otherwise you're on the quiet side, how you'd comfort them when they're crying, how your love language is acts of service (LMAO)

ok it's starting to sound dumb and stupid so i'm gonna cut it short now.

because of you, people found my blog and my writing and see me as an inspiration, and for the longest fucking time, i've always seen people like you as my inspiration. i still do.

hardwork is everything. resilience and persistence is what gets you through the day.

you've been the one that people send me pics of in my shitty nights the last 2-3 months, so i've been wired to associate you with comfort, happiness and strength. not by personal preference but like, thanks i guess /insert roll eye emoji/

thank you for teaching me what it means to love someone i might not necessarily have a great impression of, or had no slither of emotion for. thank you for being my heart and my strength and the reason people find comfort, pain, laughter and happiness in my writings.

i hope you're married with kids 5 years from now (cause in 10 years, maybe you'd be too cool and just remain the cool uncle or something) and i hope you stay healthy and happy - because happiness looks pretty on you, lee hyunjae.

happy 25th.

[venusstarpower94]

A Freaky Coincidence? Or is There Something More...?

Put on your tinfoil hats, queens... This is about to get weird.

If you haven't caught up on the latest AG news, a NASA astronomer is suing American Girl for allegedly stealing their name, likeness, and pretty much their entire personality to create Luciana Vega, Girl of the Year 2018.

Before we get into this weird tea, here's some info from TED's official website on the apparent real-life Luciana who is now in the process of suing AG for stealing their image:

"Lucianne Walkowicz is an Astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. They study stellar magnetic activity and how stars influence a planet's suitability as a host for alien life. They are also an artist and work in a variety of media, from oil paint to sound. They got their taste for astronomy as an undergrad at Johns Hopkins, testing detectors for the Hubble Space Telescope’s new camera (installed in 2002). They also learned to love the dark stellar denizens of our galaxy, the red dwarfs, which became the topic of their PhD dissertation at University of Washington. Nowadays, they work on NASA’s Kepler mission, studying starspots and the tempestuous tantrums of stellar flares to understand stellar magnetic fields."

Now, I know that some people's reactions have included, "it's just a coincidence" or "this is a reach", but hear me out queens; if you dig deeper into the articles surrounding Walkowicz, there are some pretty freaky coincidences between them and the Luciana doll. It kinda makes you question if there really is some truth into what Walkowicz is alleging...

The name: "Luciana" is what AG decided to name the doll. "Lucianne" is the human who allegedly inspired the doll.

The hair: Luciana the doll has dark brown, shoulder-length hair with purple streaks. Lucianne the human is known for their dark brown, shoulder-length hair with purple streaks, although they have been seen with other funky colors as well.

The outfits: If you remember Luciana the doll's collection, her outfits were futuristic, holographic, funky outer-spacey patterns and whatnot. Lucianne the human is known for this same exact style.

The last name: Vega is Luciana the doll's last name. Lucianne the human is known for their extensive studies on planet Mars and the constellation of Lyra. Some of their most famous studies (and TED Talks) include the ones they have done on Vega, the brightest star in the constellation of Lyra.

The ties with NASA: As they do with all their dolls, AG does a boatload of research before and during the process of creating a character to make sure the doll is as accurate as possible in terms of her time period, historical significance, and occupation. So in 2016 (2 years before Luciana's release), AG signed a deal with NASA to bring a group of consultants during the development of the Luciana doll. Rebecca DeKuiper, one of the lead designers for the GOTY line, attended a NASA-related event where Lucianne the human made a presentation at. One of the consultants for the doll attended the event that day as well.

Make of this information what you will, but I theorize that both AG and the NASA consultants created Luciana based on Lucianne, and here's why; Lucianne seems to be a cool, modern young person who is a very prominent figure in the STEM world, which is the perfect combination to attract AG's target audience. I believe they used parts of their likeness in order to gain more appeal from AG's target audience (young girls), and that would help encourage them to pursue a career in the STEM world.

But if AG wanted to do that, why couldn't they do what they did with Tina Hart in Joss' stories and incorporate Lucianne into the doll's story as a role model? Could that have been their original idea, but Lucianne rejected their offer of being in a cameo? I think there's more to what's going on than just a real-life person suing a toy company because a doll resembles them. I think AG was in on this but didn't expect this kind of legal action against them for it.

Another question I have to ask is, what took Lucianne so long to finally call AG out on this? Luciana came out in 2018, TWO YEARS AGO. Usually, Girl of the Year dolls are retired by the time their year is over, but since 2017 AG has continued selling whatever's left of the old GOTY's collection. But most of Luciana's collection is already gone according to AG's website, and I think the physical AG stores stopped selling the doll altogether.

What do you guys think about all this? Is there any validity to Lucianne's claims, or do you think they're just looking for clout? I'm curious to see how this lawsuit will unfold.

ETA 5/6/2021: This blog post has been modified to give Lucianne their proper pronouns. Also, the lawsuit has since then been settled, but it is not revealed what became of it.

[magical-sim-girl]

SSFF Challenge 8 - Introducing Myself!

Hello! I just wanted to introduce myself since I’m still a bit of a newbie in the Simblr community, and @simblrsimplyforfun challenge 8 was the perfect excuse! So here we go =D

This is me! ^^ 🦄💕 (in a quick selfie without filters xD I hope I haven't scared you 😂)

Introduce yourself, your name, age, where you live etc. What words would you use to describe yourself and why? What words would others use? Tell us some childhood stories that you think show who you are.

My name in real life is Ailén, but my pen name since the age 13 is Piper, nowadays most of my friends call me that name and I’m really more comfortable with it, so please just call me Pip or Piper! ^^ I’m 19 years old and I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina 🇦🇷

I can describe myself as a kind person, I love meeting new people, to debate about random things with them and listening to them speaking about what they like or their plans, I’m very creative but sometimes I just run out of inspiration 😂 I’m also very affectionate! I love hugging people I appreciate and telling them I like them. Other people... I don’t know, I can’t speak for everyone 8′D but I guess they also see me as affectionate, sometimes even clingy, I act goofy at times (you can see it mostly when I talk, I tend to finish my sentences with ‘ahre’ a lot, which is an Argentinian expression to state you’re just joking), so I guess they think I have a good sense of humor as well, I love making people laugh 😄 I’ve also been called ‘cute’ or ‘adorable’ more than once and I’m proud of it! 😄💕

About my childhood... I dunno it was pretty normal, although I got bullied from 5th grade to second year of high school :( it was tough, I even developed depression at the age of 14 due to the lack of friends and the constant name-calling and pranks, but I don’t know if it would be okay to talk about it since that was on my teen years... Overall, my childhood was okay, I used to be a curious little girl, I loved to wear pink dresses or skirts xD pink was always my favourite colour c: 💟 At the age of 8 I was forced to attend English lessons as an extracurricular activity, and I ended up loving it! I’m currently teaching this language to my bff’s aunt and I’m planning on studying English at university to be a teacher ^.^ I also had a fascination for women as a child, I always created female characters for my stories, or played girl barbies with my friend, nowadays I’m a feminist and always try to defend my fellow women c: (as long as it’s an unfair situation for them, ofc) ♀️💕

Write a little about your simming time. How do you like to play your game? Which style of blogs do you like? Who are your main characters and how did you come up with them? Do you tell people in RL you are a simmer?

I learnt about sims when I was in 6th grade I think, but didn’t take interest on it until sims 4 was announced, so I started palying when I was 15 ^^ I love playing legacy style, and also use the game to take nice pictures (I’m still learning how to edit, it’s quite fun but also time-consuming ;; ).

I follow all the simblrs who follow me tbh ^^ but I love simatography blogs! Maybe one day I’ll learn how to do proper edits and poses, and then I’ll become a simatography simblr 😂

Main characters... I don’t really have, my favourite ones though are Anine and Kyung-soo. Anine was the result of a frustration night *shot* I didn’t use to have much confidence on my sims, so I put all of my effort on her, I really like the facial features of Nordic women, so I decided she’d have Nordic origins, and ended up loving her so much that I posted about her ^^ as for her personality, I didn’t have a slight idea of how her behaviour or characteristics could be, but by that time I was kind of obsessed with Overwatch, and all of a sudden imagined her in a D.Va cosplay thanks to zauma’s CC, so I thought the best was giving her a gamer/otaku likes, and her personality in general is really based off mine, she’s a happy-go-lucky girl in her late teens, always friendly and willing to help people. I had the idea of making an Asian OC the night I went to Monsta X concert, and that way I created Kyung, he’s kind of a frustrated idol lol, he’s got a really tragic story involving being rejected by his parents, friends and entertainment gorups, but is always smiling and tries his best to make people happy, kind of resembling the life of a kpop idol, who only wants to see their fans happy despite of having a tough life uwu

And yes, I usually talk about my strange obsession with sims with people, they don’t see it as something productive, but luckily I’ve never been judged badly because of it. Maybe my mum thinks it gets extreme at times, but I try to balance simming with real life activities :3

Write about your time on tumblr. Maybe some nice stories of the people you met. How you got started. How long have you been on here? What has been good and bad? What kind of things have your learnt? What kind of things do you think you can help other simmers with? Any nice stories from here? Do you still have your first sims?

(I didn’t know if I should have talked about Tumblr in general or the Simblr community... So I made a summary of both just in case)

I started using Tumblr when I was 14, my best internet friend had a blog by those times and encouraged me to make one as well. I was starting to get depressive by those years, so most of my posts or reblogs were about “dark” things (I deleted that blog long ago, lol), so Tumblr was like a safe place, where I could speak my mind out without getting judged, I even met some people who suffered the same illness as me, and they always supported me and gave me strength to keep going on (unfortunately I’ve lost contact with them :c)

Regarding Simblr, I joined in at the beginning of 2018 I think, I wanted to share my ideas with people, but I was too shy then... It was thanks to the SSFF challenges that I started getting out of my cocoon and talking to simmers, and I’m so glad I did! The people I met are lovely and I’m really happy to have them now ^^

Things I learnt are lots of... From meshing or modding, to social values. I mean, it’s always good to have basic knowledge of informatics (it helps a lot, especially where I live), and I’m very grateful for all of those tutorials who taught me so many things. But I learnt one thing or two about people in general, I always used to put words into others’ mouth, I always thought they didn’t like me because of my looks or my behaviour, that they thought I was weird; now, I understand that they might be like me, they’re simply too shy to talk, and I won’t know what they they actually think about me if I never go and say ‘hi’; and now thanks to that ‘hi’ I met wonderful people, people who are creative and won’t judge me... That’s the most precious thing I learnt 😊

I don’t think I could help other simmers from a technician point of view, but I’m always here to talk and share my little knowledge, I love hearing other simmers’ ideas (one of my best friends irl isn’t a simmer, but loves to create OCs and stories, and I’m always there to listen about them c: ), suggesting some other things for their stories, etc. I think I could offer more of a friendship than technical help, but it’s something as well! 😂

And yes, I keep my first sims! In a folder so full of various saves that I must erradicate someday *shot* I had them for three generations, if I remember correctly, the legacy began with a pink-haired sim named Jenna, she married a vampire townie from Bridgeport, they had a daughter, Emilie, Emilie married a townie from University, who was a Plantsim, so they had a plantsim daughter, Wynn, Wynn had an imaginary friend named Percy (who’s also a fairy) and they’re now in University, they’re a couple. I made such a chaos when I was 15 xD

Write about the people you have met here. Do you take part in discord chats? Met anyone in RL? Which simmers influenced you? Do you do RPs?

I don’t take part in discord chats, I made a discord user a few days ago but tbh I don’t use it a lot ;; I’d love to be in a server tho, it’s just that I don’t talk much when I’m in a group ^_^’

I haven’t met any simmer irl, I’d love to, tho! It seems to be a little hard to find simmers where I live 😂

The simmers that influence me the most are marshmallowsims, gruesim, theseprettylittlepixels and lehma! I want to develop my own style though, they’re my biggest references and hope to inspire people as much as they do someday ^^

And I’ve never done RPs, but I’d love to do some! Actually, I’m working on an AU with a sim of nonsimsical ‘s, it’s really fun to plan, and I hope I can do more of them in the future ^^

I think that's all. I want to add that you can always come and say hi! 🖐🏻💕 we can chat about sims or whatever you like, and also, if you got any other question for me or for my OCs (although their character sheets are still pending ;; ) don't hesitate to ask 😊

PS Excuse my horrible English ;;

[kirobsi]

Underwhelming, belated return

Hello! To preface this post, I want to state that it is dreadfully written, in that it's a stream of consciousness that I'm not revising. I'm just thinkin' of things to discuss on the spot, and writing them down. With that said,

It's been a long time since I've properly put one of these together. I'd argue that the one on Gamers back in September is the most recent, although "Catch-22 in Admiration" could certainly qualify. For me it comes down to a difference in effort and passion - for the former, I was making a proper blog post. The latter was intended to be similar, but was half-baked. And hey, since I have no concrete plan for this post, I'll go into that:

Catch-22 in Admiration's downfall was the supplemental SMBX showcase video. It overshadowed the blog post itself, and ultimately I was just more interested in it. I was going to write a lot more about fans and fanbases and my opinions on them, all revolving around STILL HERE, but... why bother? It was a lot of work that just did not appeal to me, and frankly, the majority of the reason I wanted to write anything was to have an excuse to share the song, since I think it's pretty great. I said as such in the post itself.

But my opinion on fans is something I'd like to express anyway. It may not be particularly groundbreaking or deep, but it's not like I went into proper detail before, so... why not?

Personally, I quite like having fans! Or, maybe more accurately, two people who've commented on my stuff and said it was good, whom I had never had contact with prior. What I'm saying is shoutouts to you two, you know who you are. (although I believe only the most recent of you will end up reading this lol [thank you a lot for that Twitter DM by the way!], or neither.) I've been uploading videos to Youtube for over ten years now, my first channel being created in 2011, and before September I hadn't had a single person I didn't know find and comment on the things I'd actually put effort into. Granted, with like two exceptions I only actually made anything of substance starting in 2018, but that's still about three years with no audience outside my friends. I'm firmly okay with making art solely for myself and those I know, I think a timeframe like this would filter out anyone who isn't, but it feels really nice to have someone positively acknowledge what I've done after all this time.

But I've gotten a little lucky, haven't I? The two people who've complimented my work (outside of those in the Spelunky community who watched "Carlibraun") didn't end up being awful people. Or so it seems, I mean, I guess anything is possible, but I haven't gotten that impression. Just as easily, I think transphobic people could've stumbled across my work, or those who are a little less kind to scripted videos made in a few hours each. There are various forms of harassment I'm sure I could have gotten, and will inevitably get, that I've luckily avoided thus far. Even an 'angry gamer type' who strongly disagrees with my assessment on YIIK, for example, could've chimed in with a well-reasoned "you fucking idiot! yiik is objectively one of the worst games ever made, why are you giving it the benefit of the doubt? are you just a contrarian?"

I'll touch on the notion of being a contrarian later, but for now I want to actually take this point somewhere - that being that, as I mentioned in Catch-22, I kinda strongly despise fanbases. I think part of that is unreasonable intolerance, maybe a bit of ableism if you wanna read into it further, but I can't stand certain types of fans I see of others' work. I want people who see and engage with my stuff to be reasonable people, by my standards, ones who don't mindlessly parrot the contents of my or somebody else's video... Are my standards too high? Probably. Am I unnecessarily negative about such people? Absolutely. They're just showing their appreciation! There's nothing wrong with that, and I sincerely can't even poke a hole in it. But if I am to build some sort of community, which is a thought I honestly can't even fathom at the moment (what I picture is basically a friend group but that's highly infeasible lol), then I'd like it to consist of people who have their own opinions, who are what I'd deem "intelligent."

I'm clearly elitist, and I think that could be a detriment at some point if gone unchecked. It's something I'll surely work on if I end up garnering such an audience. At the moment, though? This is all speculation. I have no actual reason to believe I'll gain any more fans beyond this point. I think it's likely, but it's not guaranteed. I could go another 6 years without so much as a new subscriber if I'm particularly unlucky. Part of that is that I don't and won't advertise my stuff outside of posting a link on Twitter (which I don't link to from anywhere lol so calling that advertising is generous) or posting it in one of the current three servers I'm in where sharing creative work is encouraged. Will the Spelunky community Discord server be invested in my thematic reading of Not Another Needle Game? I doubt it - I'm a nobody in the community nowadays and NANG is an irrelevant 8 year old game. Would the Transparency server be interested in my mechanical analysis and comparison of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania and the games it's a remake of? Maybe, but they're certainly bigger on the literary analysis or grander essay type of content.

Anyway, my point is that this elitist attitude is something I'd like to work on going forward, assuming I even get an audience. However, that doesn't mean I'll tolerate certain things that I deem unacceptable. Bigoted shit is obvious, and... well, I can't actually think of other examples lol but I'm sure there's other stuff I'd try to distance myself from. On top of that, I'll probably never make a Discord server for any of the stuff I do - at some point I'd have to close it off to the public and that'd unfairly exclude people. At the same time, it honestly does feel kind of tempting though lol, which is an unexpected development. I guess historically I was a lot more against the idea.

But yes! Fans are cool, but some aren't, and I should lower the standards I have for them. I went on about that for far longer than I needed do, but hey, I said this was an unedited stream of consciousness and it very much is.

Anyway, I was gonna write more here but I'm getting tired. I'll try to do that tomorrow! I have notes for it and everything, even a paragraph written up, but I just wasn't gonna finish it tonight without putting it off like this. Thanks for reading!

~Kiri