#i mean it's a good one but i unfortunately do not have a mind catalogue of tv kisses sorry

[lurkingshan]

Japanese QL Corner

We are up to seven live airing QLs from Japan! Five of these are on Gaga and two are being generously provided via fansubs.

A brief interlude for me to climb on my soapbox: if you are a fan of Japanese queer media who is not based in Japan, you really should be supporting GagaOOLala. They are the sole international distributor of most of these shows and the only reason international fans can watch them as they release. They’re a queer-owned Taiwanese company specifically focused on providing international access to global queer media, and their monthly subscription is much cheaper than other streaming services. They’re not perfect but they are quite responsive to feedback about their catalogue and approach; please consider subscribing if you love these shows!

I’m really loving most of these shows and I highly recommend jumping in to the weekly watch!

Takara's Treasure

I fall more in love with these two every week. We finally got some answers on Takara's backstory, and as expected, it is the mother who abandoned him that has been harassing him. Taishin blazed in to give that lady a piece of his mind before even realizing who she was, and it only made Takara love him more. The revelation that Takara is holding back with Taishin because he doesn't want to be covetous like his mother sent me into a bit of a tailspin. I loved Taishin getting his moment to reciprocate Takara's care, as well as Takara's amusement that Taishin still hasn't pieced together what they are to each other. I'm excited for it to finally click for him soon.

Sugar Dog Life

I'll be honest, this first episode did not hit right for me. I always struggle with copaganda heavy romances, especially when the show is intentionally framing cops as benevolent and explicitly linking that to the romantic arc. But I liked the cooking parts of it a lot! We'll see how it proceeds. This one is being fan subbed, so if anyone is having trouble finding it feel free to hit me up in DMs and I'll point you.

Cosmetic Playlover

This one is coming in hot with two episodes a week, because Japan is trying to kill me. I like the concept and vibe but the execution is a bit all over the place; it feels like they want this to be a dark story but aren’t willing to fully commit to that, so dark things happen but then get treated too lightly. The pacing also feels a little wacky and we’re rushing through plot and relationship development in a way that leaves it all feeling a bit ungrounded. Sahashi went from harassing and threatening to out Natsume to kissing and claiming to be serious about him in the space of 15 minutes, and then suddenly in the next ep there’s a new villain and suspense plot. This one is just not clicking; I’m tilting my head with a furrowed brow.

I Hear the Sunspot

Sigh. I really didn’t need another arc about a third party interloper coming between the boys, but here we are. Maya is a throwback to the bad old femme fatale archetype steeped in misogyny and I don’t love it. She’s arrogant, manipulative, and mean for no good reason, and she doesn’t feel like she fits in this story about decent people trying their best. There was a way to do this plot with a more sympathetic portrayal of her, but unfortunately they didn't take that route. I’m disappointed that she’s with us for multiple episodes, and it’s hard to believe this rude little girl can really come between them. I said last week that it felt like they regressed Kohei and Taichi’s relationship in the time skip and I’m feeling that even more now. Aside from this mess, I really liked all of Taichi’s scenes with his friends this week as he continues trying to work out his feelings for Kohei. I hope we get back to Taichi and Kohei spending time together again soon; that’s the real heart of this show and I already miss it.

Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko

Sigh. Last week I was mad at the characters around Hiroko, but this week I am forced to be mad at the show for how it's dealing with this entire plot involving Hiroko's decisions about her privacy at work, Risa's inappropriate interference, and Ayaka's bizarre conclusion that she should announce her love for Hiroko to the whole office. This whole love triangle and forced outing plot was ill-considered and it's dragging the show down; we should not have had Risa being so wrong and manipulative or ventured into queer workplace politics at all if the show wasn't prepared to take it seriously. On the plus side, we finally got the backstory for Hiroko, and it was surprising in a good way. I hope this show can get back to the zany comedy it was doing so well before it got bogged down in all this mess.

Mr. Mitsuya's Planned Feeding

Episode 3 just went up on @isaksbestpillow's blog, and it's a fantastic one. I was howling watching Mitsuya wailing on his ex and poor Ishida trying to process this new rival on the scene. Shige continues to be the MVP and I loved the way he encouraged Ishida with a mix of sage advice and sexy sass (also loved that Mitsyua immediately knew that gossip ratted him out). And I screamed again when Ishida got worked up and confessed; I didn't expect that to happen so fast and it was excellent! This show feels so mature in the best way; I really feel like I'm watching adults who have lived.

Tagging @bengiyo to add the anime update!

[kates-dump]

My experience with Analog Horror/ARGs and why you should check them out

Marble Hornets: the classic, and a big favorite of mine for obvious reasons. I cannot stress enough how good and spooky that series is, and the ToTheArk videos gave me nightmares, love it! <3

If you're into Slenderman stories, you should definitely check it out. The acting is very well done and the story is awesome overall :)

The Sun Vanished: the ARG that started my interest for ARGs, and especially enigmas/internet puzzles. Unfortunately I was not smart enough to figure the stuff out by myself, so I just watched explanations on it. Highly recommended if you like post-apocalyptic settings and subtle horror.

The Mandela Catalogue: possibly the series that brought back my interest for these things. I have only watched the first two seasons of it, as I sadly lost interest after a while, but from what I have watched, I would recommend it to those of you who like horror with religious themes (which is a big thing for me) and most importantly, trust issues. Do keep in mind this series deals with more serious and dark topics, though you have probably heard it already.

Local58: the analog horror of all analog horrors, Local58 barged in before TMC took the spotlight. There is so much going on and all of it is very interesting and scary. America's pride leads to its doom, the moon can control electronic devices, and weird creatures spread through the world. If you like stories that leave you not understanding what the hell just happened but loving it anyway, you will love Local58.

Rocket Archives: A single-video series that has unfortunately been taken down for reasons I am not certain of. But if you're curious what it was about, the video presented a reality where us humans were forced to leave Earth with how hot it was getting, and moved to contained bubbles in space. Suddenly, uh oh! The sun's getting closer! Outer Wilds moment! Everything is melting! Humans are gone and the sun is... alive???

Analog Archives: made by the creator of Rocket Archives, has also been taken down but can still be found re-uploaded. The series is slightly similar to Local58, as in it also focuses on broadcast hijacking used for ending off humans. The series also includes a few religious topics that can get very dark. I love it. "Nature Show" makes me tear up with fear every time.

Gemini Home Entertainment: ALL-TIME FAVORITE MOMENT!!! I don't think I need to explain why I love this one so much. GHE leaves a lot to your imagination/speculation, while also twisting your head directly into the direction of the threat and forcing you to look at it while you squirm in fear. GHE is subtle in the most obvious way, obvious in the most subtle way, and most importantly, IT'S COSMIC HORROR, BABY!!! THERE IS A PLANET IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM THAT GOT HERE UNINVITED AND NOW IT WANTS TO EAT US!!! UGHHHH I can't put in words why I think it's so good, it just is. Watch it. The Gardeners are cute, I swear. There's even a plush of them.

Monument Mythos: something something alternate realities, something something time loops. I have not watched all of it, barely even half, but I deemed it a little bit too confusing for my brain. BUT! If you're into things that boogle your mind, you might really like this series! I mean, world monuments are alive, what could be scarier?

Vita Carnis: EW. (affectionate)

But, seriously, if you like gross, you are certainly going to like this series. It's meat, and it's alive. Although, I did stop watching it because it got a tad too graphic and violent for my taste, but if that doesn't bother you, then I recommend it a lot! The editing is soooo good, and some of the creatures are very likable and cute ^v^ (the others are gross and I do not want them near me I do not WANT FUCK OFF)

Don't Look at the Moon: Minecraft spooky. Do I need to say more?

[wewerebornsextuplets]

idk how but you draw in the Oso-san style so good i need to know your secret please

HAHA thank you very much!! im glad you think so :D unfortunately im not very good at explaining how i work, but ill try my best to show what i mean!!

once again this is long as hell. you know the drill at this point

to be honest, half the battle i fight with drawing in the osmt style is just. Looking at it. the ososan art style actually fluctuates pretty wildly depending on what you're looking for, whether that be the mobile games (for instance, tabimatsu and hesowars look nothing alike in terms of style despite both being the same source material), official art and merch, or even the seasons of the show itself!

using ichi as my example here since i draw him the most, but its pretty easy to play spot the difference with the varying styles. even within a specific season you can do this across episodes, especially with season 1!

when i draw, i tend to be a bit sacrilege and use references across different media; usually ill use the show [especially season 2, if only because its a bit more "uniform"] as reference for the actual features and colors/poses/etc, but i like to use hesowars to reference proportions, since they seem to be most consistent there.

SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO NOTE: theres a WEALTH of fanartists that have styles that are INCREDIBLY similar to the show, so be careful to check your sources! these artists deserve credit for their hard work, which they often don't get since their work is reposted under the guise of being official art.

once you've pinned down the exact style you'd like to emulate, and the character you're looking to draw, its really just a matter of finding references, which is pretty easy! you can scrub through different episodes for good angles/shots, or if you're going for one of the game styles the AU wiki has most of the games catalogued to my knowledge. if you're looking to draw an oc, use characters you think they would look similar to in the show. if you really wanna waste your time, though, you can always scrub through crowd scenes in the show to see if any background characters might look like what you're going for; the season 3 episode Mt. Takao comes to mind, there were a lot of cute mob characters there.

using keiko as my example here, you can see that i pulled her features from multiple different characters to get her to look right in the style. with ocs, its important to reference a number of different characters, since the likelihood of a background character being a 1:1 for your little guy is unfortunately pretty low. there WILL, however, be a lot of characters that look KIND of like them. the key is to figure out what parts go where!

to this point, most prominent ososan women have very similar stock anime girl faces with very minor differences, so if youre looking to make a cute girl oc, most of the womens' faces can be used somewhat interchangeably. if you want your cute girl oc to have a more unique face, though, the movie gave us some women with more unique faces in the form of the NEETs' old classmates! theres also no harm in referencing male characters faces in this regard. #butchswag #kiruminikuya

BUT. going back to the assumption that you're drawing a canon character, today I'll be drawing oso for my example

when you're first getting a feel for the style, tracing some of your references can actually be a really great way to acclimate yourself to the characters proportions and features. think of like when you were a kid, and would trace over pictures of pokemon or cartoon characters so you could draw them better. its basically the same principle! this was especially helpful for me when it came to eyes; they vary the most wildly of any other trait that characters have in ososan, so going over the different shapes to get a feel for each of them was very important.

when you trace, though, I recommend doing so a bit more loosely, sort of like if you're doing a photo study for anatomy; block out the basic shapes and do small markers for different features (i.e small lines to denote where the eyes start and and, distance from nose to mouth, things like that), and from there draw the rest on your own.

after long enough you'll get a feel for the basic placement of where everything should go! the eyes and nose are undoubtedly the hardest when it comes to the sextuplets, since they shift around a LOT between games/seasons/etc. so don't feel bad if you have a hard time with that, since there isnt really a "right" answer with how frequently it changes. i still fuck it up all the time myself!

as for some basic tips, heres some stuff i try to keep in mind when drawing them that just helps the finished product look a bit nicer!

when drawing the hair + fringe line, its important to swoop it downwards a little bit; the flat across look Can work, but if you're not careful you risk showing the tops of their eyes, which is um. ew! ick! nast!

when a matsu is facing forward, their hair will usually tend towards one direction to keep the silhouette. in most screenshots i saw, the bowl cut points left! that said, dont be afraid to point rightwards if its better for your specific drawing!

and lastly: USE THE LIQUIFY TOOL. LIBERALLY. i am not joking when i say this has saved my ass so many times, its hard to get the placement right on the facial features and even harder to get everything to LOOK good, so if its available to you i HIGHLY suggest just squishing everything around with a liquify tool until it looks right. you can always go back and correct the blurry lines. its really a life saver

BUT YEAH! i dont know if this was very helpful but i hope you're at least able to gain something from it :-))

[victoriadallonfan]

Defining Amy as a "rapist" for mentally altering Victoria non-consensually and then altering her body non-consensually seems extreme. That would mean Rachel "rapes" her dogs. That Victoria herself is a "rapist" when she uses her aura. I think what Amy did is extremely wrong and unforgivable, but calling her a "rapist" is incorrect. And the reading of her as being othered by her nuclear family is a pretty valid reading of her character. It also doesn't excuse what she did, but it does explain it and make her a more sympathetic character. Which is basically what Worm is all about - making "villains" sympathetic. Sure, you can decide that still doesn't make you feel sympathy for her but it doesn't make a person "immoral" if they do. Also, pointing out how she feels like a bad lesbian stereotype doesn't actually place any judgement on her actions or the actions of her victim - just on the writer and text itself.

There's a lot wrong with this Ask, but I choose to believe you are simply forgetting key details and misremembering others, so I will explain why this post is unfortunately incorrect.

Firstly, best to not start off with, "I think what X character did was bad but-" and then follow up with downplaying what the character did, because it sets the tone that you don't actually think what character did was bad. It's a common phrasing used by a lot of rape apologists, nazi dog-whistling, anti-lgtbq+ posts etc etc. Not just in fiction, but RL discussion.

(Spoilers below for Ward and Late-Worm)

Secondly, you quite literally admitted that Amy non-consensually violated Victoria's body, multiple times. She not only made Victoria fall in love with her, not only paralyzed Victoria to operate on her without consent, not only mind-controlled Victoria to use as a puppet, not only kidnapped her (twice), not only kept her as a play toy for 3-4 days...

But she admits to Carol, outright, that she saw Victoria "just lying there" and decided to "use her" for "closure" (aka pleasure), on and off for days, and then fucked with Victoria's memories so Victoria would not remember the details of what Amy did to her (raping her). Which we see of in more detail in Ward, as another mental power unlocked those memories in Victoria's mind.

Note that this was after Amy had already healed Victoria via the fucked-up sarcophagus (that Amy modeled after Victoria's body). Amy just couldn't resist Victoria's unconscious (and probably nude from the acid destroying the costume) body.

Amy raped Victoria several times in Worm, not just in power, but in every way possible. And then she molests Victoria again in Ward by making her love Amy and by kissing her while she's unconscious (and basically psychologically abuses her in arc 14). She also preys on a 14 year old child because she happens to somewhat look like Victoria, both in the hopes of manipulating Victoria to visit said girl (and be forced to thank Amy for "helping" her) and possibly even planning on grooming her into a surrogate Victoria figure.

Amy is rapist. End of discussion.

Thirdly, your use of Bitch's power as a comparison is flawed but still interesting to discuss. For one thing, we know from Brutus interlude that this transformation is not sexual in nature nor does it mentally assault the dog's mind; Brutus compares it to the good feeling of stretching in his limbs, like dogs do all the time. There is nothing said about this power altering their minds.

That being said, what Bitch does with her dogs can indeed be argued to be catalogued as abuse; there has been many a discussion where readers have pointed out that Bitch putting her dogs into these dangerous situations, attacking and crippling people, means that it is more likely for these dogs to be hurt or killed in them defending themselves. Armsmaster outright calls Bitch out on this, funny enough, telling her he doesn't want to keep hurting dogs for their owner's mistakes. One can even argue it's meant to be a dark irony that Bitch spends so much time busting up dog-fighting rings, yet she also constantly puts her dogs in danger.

Fourthly, Victoria's aura: A.) can be resisted just by being stubborn as we see with several characters like Lisa, B.) the idea that she is constantly blasting people with aura is pure fanon, with what we see in Worm and Ward being that she uses it for fights 99% of the time, and C.) the story actively points out that she has to be careful with aura use, and characters in story openly discuss when and when not to use it, or discuss with her how they feel she misused it. To which she often acknowledges them to be correct, tries to adjust herself to do better (with or without success depending on the situation).

It is in fact quite notable that Taylor - when comparing character powers to Heartbreaker (possibly the most well-known rapist in the world) - she compares Regent, Amy, and Gallant. Despite the fact that Taylor never met Gallant and has actively fought Glory Girl, Victoria never once enters her mind as a comparison. Because GG's power is not mind-control or even seen as mind-alteration in the setting; it's treated by those who feel it and fight it as a small obstacle to deal with, rather than anything that feels invasive or sexually exploitative.

That is not to say that they treat her aura use lightly, of course. The two most notable moments are the BBQ and Hard Boil aura use, where the aura is treated as a quite literal symbol of Victoria's PTSD: both times the person (Carol and Hanzo) are actively engaging in behavior that triggers Victoria's trauma (Carol lied to Victoria about Amy being around and make's Victoria paranoid about her being compromised by Amy; Hamza actively victim blames Victoria for not only the death of her boyfriend but also graphically detailing what Amy's molestations of Victoria did to her on live television).

(I also just remembered that Snag forcing Victoria to relive being in the Asylum as the Wretch caused Victoria to go into a screaming PTSD episode that had her blaring the aura as a defense mechanism)

In both these cases, the aura use is treated not as an attempt from Victoria as a means of violating a person's consent for her own pleasure, domination, or objectification of said individual, but rather as a defense mechanism she uses to try and regain mental/emotional footing as her PTSD episode briefly takes control of her actions (we also see this occur with the forcefield re: Valefor, but it occurs far less often). Even then, Carol is actively shocked that Victoria would use her aura like that (implying that Victoria doing so was a surprising faux pau AND also showcasing just how badly Carol fucked up), and Hamza and company are equally upset that Victoria would use her power on them (though Capricorn was quick to point out that this only happened because they triggered her PTSD and the crowd seemed split on blame). Sveta also point blank tells Victoria to not use the aura around her unless it's for emergencies, as it hurts her own power use/body autonomy (which Victoria does respect). In any case, comparing Victoria's aura to Amy is flawed in multiple ways: Victoria never used her power as a means of sexual exploitation, objectifying an individual for her own pleasure, nor as a means to mutilate/molest/aid in the rape of another human being.

Amy actively views and uses her power as a means of violating body autonomy as a means of gaining sexual pleasure, objectifying an individual for her own pleasure, and as a means to mutilate/molest/aid in the rape of another human being, and has done so multiple times throughout the franchise. Even when characters actively tell her that they do not consent to being touch or Amy invading their biology to discuss their sexual/mental health (see; Yamada), Amy instead views it as a means of gaining power over an individual for her own use.

Obviously, enjoying a character who is Evil does not make the reader evil by proxy. I doubt most Darth Vader fans really want to murder elementary school children or strangle pregnant women (though some people do get upset when you point out the Empire is a Fascist Regime, but that's a separate discussion).

Likewise, Amy being one's favorite character does not mean a reader must be a rapist themselves. I myself quite enjoy Amy as a character and have recommended one of the best Amy centric fanfics before (Wound by SprialHelix) on this site.

But there is a difference between liking a character and white-washing them to the point that it becomes victim blaming.

Finally: I have never once voiced an opinion on the "nuclear family" discussion.

The closest I ever came to that discussion was mocking some user for trying to defend Incest as being cool and claiming that Incest Supporters are being targeted unfairly and compared them to the LGTBQ+ defenders.

Which, I must say, is fucking insulting to compare the struggles of the LGTBQ+ to those who want to fuck their children/siblings/parents/cousins etc etc

I hope this clarification helps you understand the point I stand in regard to reminding people that Amy Dallon is a rapist, and how dangerous it can be to fall for those who wish to white-wash her actions in favor of demonizing her rape victim, rather than accept her characters as the actual character she is.

[thursdaygirlmp3]

big day for media business girlies now that watcher is trying to go the dropout route - some thoughts below the cut

>big L on the fact that they don't have first mover advantage as a lot of their audience already has crossover with other paid subscriptions for independent productions (eg. Dropout, Nebula etc) and they still have a fairly young audience who don't have enough purchase power to subscribe to multiple services past a certain point. my sense is that the average viewer will put watcher on the chopping block - their output unfortunately simply isn't high enough to justify it as a good deal for most folks

>I do understand why they would make this move given how high their production quality is. one only has to assume that their 11k patreon supporters were not enough to meet their P&L. i'm assuming an 80% conversion of patreon subscribers to watcher subscribers will probably happen

>they've had 2 rounds of funding from what I remember, I'm sure there was some push from the investors also to meet their profit line so they could see returns. if they drop a few business focused interviews (hoping for a colin and samir episode, they're one of the best in the YouTube business news space) I'll have a little more to work with in terms of understanding why they did the damn thing

>bigger L on putting their back catalogue behind a 50$ paywall - a bad move both in a business and viewer satisfaction sense

>the value for subscription looks? okay? it's not tooo bad. but if I had to make a choice, i probably wouldn't want to dish out the money for this singular service. superfans probably won't mind but as someone who has become a moderate-to-casual fan, it's just not worth it for me, even to access a few comfort episodes of their back catalogue. it's YouTube, someone will have it backed up on a drive link somewhere.

>i'm hoping for the best for them because more independent creators being able to properly fund the work they'd like to do is ultimately a good thing, but media and entertainment is very much an economies of scale business - you need be certain you have a very high and dedicated viewership to undertake large projects which cost a lot of money. if they don't have enough supporters immediately they'll be unable to launch at the scale at which they want to, which also means it'll take longer and harder for new viewers to pour in. it's not company-ending stuff, but it's a tough journey and i wish them the best

will probably reblog this with more thoughts as more details come out

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

i'm considering subscribing to nextup, but i wanted to know how long stuff stays up for and what's available, and i thought you might be a good person to ask, if you dont mind. if i signed up now, would i only be able to see shows from this year's edinburgh? and for how long? what gets left up as on-demand and what is live streaming only? thanks!

Hello, what a good question. So, NextUp is a streaming platform that airs UK stand-up comedy, they do livestreams and have an on-demand catalogue. If you can't watch their livestreams as they air, they'll sometimes (but sometimes not) put them in a "catch-up" section where they'll be on demand for a week or so, to be watched any time during that week. And sometimes they'll eventually get added to the long-term on demand catalogue. But sometimes, annoyingly, they don't so you have to catch the stream live or miss it.

You can actually see everything in their on-demand catalogue without buying a membership, by browsing here: https://nextupcomedy.com/catalog. That lets you look at everything that's available, you just have to buy a membership to be allowed to watch the stuff. On-demand works the same as Netflix or any similar site - one membership lets you watch all of them, any time.

To be honest I've not been with them long enough to a lot about how often stuff gets taken down (from their on-demand catalogue, that is). I haven't seen it happening a lot - there are lots of titles that have been there for a few years. Titles do occasionally disappear, but I don't think it's a huge issue the way it is with some sites. I haven't heard comedians talk about how putting a special on NextUp means it'll only be there for a little while.

It's the only streaming service subscription of any kind that I have, and I think it's worth it. It's obviously a much, much smaller company than something like Netflix, so I'm fairly confident that my money is actually going to support live comedy, rather than paying corporate overlords. It's a pretty good price, letting you pay annually for a year's worth of access to all their streams and on-demand stuff. They did recently raise their prices by a fair bit, but even the new price is pretty fair for what you're getting, compared to a lot of streaming sites.

Unfortunately the shows from this year's Edinburgh are not on on-demand at the moment, though there's a good chance they'll all get put on catch-up soon, so if you signed up now you'd be able to see them when that happens. We'll see what, if anything, gets added to the long-term catalogue.

My advice, if you're interested but unsure, is to click the link I posted above and browse the platform, see if you think the stuff they have is worth the money. You can also click on their livestream schedule to get an idea of how often they stream stuff. They've had a lot on this month because they did a bunch from Edinburgh. It's not usually as often as that, but they do regular streams of mixed-bill nights from comedy clubs in various bits of England and Scotland, and on a somewhat regular basis will livestream full hours from comedians. They also have other times in the year when they do a bunch of streams at once, ie. in January when they do Access Festival with Mark Watson.

Overall, I think a membership is worth it, if you're into UK stand-up comedy, especially since most of what you find on there won't be stuff you can find elsewhere. I would know much, much less about stand-up comedy if NextUp didn't exist.

Feel free to let me know what you decide, as I've realized while writing this post that I'm quite interested in what other people think of it.

[opalfairy]

A crossover was revealed to me in a fever dream: Scum Villain but there are Alternates à la Mandela Catalogue.

(Quick note: I have only watched the first volume of The Mandela Catalogue, and I'm not up to date with the lore [I'm using the Mandela Catalogue wiki to check information] but that's ok, I can simply put Airplane in the same boat as me and problem solved)

Ok so, from what I can remember of this dream, Airplane had added Alternates in his notes, maybe even thinking of an Alternate wife, but decided to delete them because let's be honest... most readers of them fantasy harems catered to hetero men are cowards that only like their monster girls when they look A. Conventionally pretty and B. Are not too monstrous.

Deleting the notes, unfortunately, did nothing to actually deleting Alternates from the PIDW world and so, when a certain Cucumber transmigrated, he did so into the role of Shen Qingqiu. It is important to note, however, that role and body do not necessarily mean the same thing and, unfortunately, Shen Jiu had already been supplanted once.

(Now, when was he supplanted, that's for you to decide, it can range from a week ago to when he was a little child and therefore the Shen Jiu we know has always been an Alternate)

Anyways, back to the present: So, Peerless Cucumber, now Shen Qingqiu, goes through the plot as normal without even realizing that he is most definitely not human... at least at first. But then the evidence starts to pile up and the direction it points to is not "classic cultivator/Airplane bullshit"

Because floating without a sword sounds improbable but plausible; but then one day, in the privacy of his room, he mockingly repeats something the system just said and it sounds exactly the same as that nightmare google translate voice. And what about the time when he was practicing cultivation in the bamboo forest and after hearing a sudden noise and, scared of being caught, he simply appeared inside the bamboo house? He's pretty sure teleportation is a power reserved only for Luo Binghe and Mobei Jun???? Since when can the scum villain teleport???????? System????????? Explain??????????????

And what about the demon invasion? Sure, at the time he thought he had gotten lucky and that the poisoned thorns of Elder Sky Hammer's armor had missed him, but now that he thinks about it he did feel a light pressure on impact, and his poor sleeve had been pierced, so why did nothing happen to him?

But the weirdest thing so far was that he could now see a person and, if he concentrated enough, he would know exactly what to say, what strings to pull and buttons to push for them to fall into despair, and the worst part was that he wanted to do it! Some part of his being wanted to cause this suffering and the only two things stopping him were his morals and his self preservation! At first he had thought that this was some weird fucked-up residual part of the original goods, but now he wasn't so sure...

All of this culminates in Shen Qingqiu looking at his reflection on a bronze mirror while getting ready for bed after a very bad day (maybe, through his fucked up ability, he had looked at his zhangmen-shixiong and knew that it would be so easy to push this strong, kind, man into a never-ending abyss inhabited exclusively by his heart demons and himself. He had turned around and all but bolted to his bamboo house, least he do something that he would regret for the rest of his life) when all of the pressure and fear of being trapped in this situation came crashing down on him, and, looking closely at his cold, immutable reflection, he wished that his calm outside could reflect the storm raging inside...

...not a second passed after such thought had sprouted in his mind when his exterior started to change. His eyes, his mouth, his limbs, all of them started to elongate and contort impossibly. And Shen Qingqiu's mind, at first filled with horror, soon realized that there was something familiar in the grotesque display he was witnessing through his mirror. You see, before he died, Shen Yuan, Pearless Cucumber, used to be a chronically online consumer of internet media. And what he was looking at felt indeed very, very, familiar.

After a few minutes of freaking out (and telling Binghe that "Everything is fine, this master doesn't need any help, yes Binghe I'm sure, do not open the door") Shen Qingqiu managed to return to the form of the original goods (can it even be called that? Since the body was most definitely not Shen Qingqiu's. This was not part of the original novel!) while processing that yes, this was actually happening wtf? wtf?? wtf???????

A few extra notes that my brain decided to just ad while I was redacting this:

• In moments of extreme distress, Shen Qingqiu's face distorts if he isn't careful. After he discovers he is an Alternate, it happens less, but it may still happen

• Following that, during the demon invasion, when Shen Qingqiu saved Binghe from big spiky demon man, his face did distort, but it was too little and most people were not that close so only someone who was paying attention to Shizun's face (cough cough Binghe cough) rather than all that had just happened would notice

• Another moment of face distortion happens during the abyss yeeting scene.

• SQQ finds out SQH is Airplane because during the conference, the Alternate Instincts (as I've decided to dub the compulsion to cause M.A.D. in people) tell him that a good way to start the spiraling on the other is to tell him how worthless he is, that even in a world of his own cration nobody has, nor will appreciate him as anything more than a tool. This, of course, leads to SQQ realizing that Airplane is right there! And he has severe self-esteem issues!

• Because of this, after Cucumber confronts Airplane he makes sure to never treat him as worthless or useless. He does insult him (that's how their friendship works) but never devaluating his worth as a human being.

• After confronting SQH, the first thing Cucumber asks is how long the original goods has been an Alternate. Airplane is very confused, up until SQQ does the face distortion party trick, then he is just unconscious.

• Talking about cumplane friendship, because Alternates can mimic not just voices but also music, these two abuse the hell out of said power by listening to modern music together.

• Binghe, knowing that his Shizun is not what he sais he is (an immortal master cultivator) since at least the demon invasion (SQQ probably slipped a few times over the years and Binghe absolutely noticed).

• Does he know that he is specifically an Alternate, though? I mean... probably? He did have access to the entire Qing Jing Peak library, plus Meng Mo, plus all the during/after abyss treasures and tomes of the demon realm

• That said, following Binghe's Shizun kink, and taking in account that he, unlike the average monster girl harem male reader, is not a coward... he would totally be into unhinged Alternate non human form if his Shizun would just let him! Please! He is ready to act as pathetic as necessary if it will get him the privilege of looking at his Shizun in all his analogue horror glory!

[humming-pokemon-helpers]

“So, Vanilla, what have you been up to? You’ve been awfully quiet lately.”

Excellent question, person I made up in my head. I’ve been watching each and every one of the Pawmark Dash to Delibird Day movies released in The Year Of The Twin Dragons 2023. There are 42 of them, which deeply unsettles me.

But unfortunately I dedicated myself to the art of cataloguing Pawmark movies when I was a much sadder and lonelier Zorperson, and I’m too stubborn to quit now. (That, and they’re a guilty pleasure; sue me.)

So, below the cut is my ratings of some of them. About 10. Not all 42, I still have some semblance of a life. I did watch all of them though, so I guess if there's any Pawmark enthusiasts who really need to know my thoughts, you can send me an ask? Or you can ask me in-person. At my New Year's party. Which is still happening tomorrow. (Psst. Here's a link if you're interested: https://discord.gg/PkmkQEVF)

1. Celebi With You: Young career businesswoman comes back to her old hometown devoted to Delibird Day and nothing else. Grandpa asks her to take over the shop. She refuses because she has a career. Local childhood-friend-man in flannel gets sad. A Celebi takes her back in time to watch her grandparents’ romance as they open the shop. She changes her mind, gets with the male lead in a very rushed side plot, everyone’s happy.

This one’s a shaky 5/10. Points for not focusing the modern romance first and foremost, but it’s so sloppily done. There's no lead-up to the kiss. And I mean, it's Pawmark. There usually isn't. But give us some level of flirtation! Grandma and gramps are cute, though. Shame grandma’s dead for no reason other than “there must be at least one dead relative in a Pawmark movie”. Also, the CGI Celebi looks TERRIBLE. Like, eye-bleedingly so. That is an onion and a few pipe cleaner legs. I know they can’t get a real Celebi, but at least get a Ditto instead!

2. A Little Holiday Maschiff: The obligatory “turn your brain off and watch cute puppies” movie. Female lead recently lost her Stoutland. Somebody leaves a box of Maschiff puppies on her step in the winter cold. She takes them to the “hunk” at the Pokémon shelter, because she’s not ready to open her heart again, but the shelter’s on the brink of being shut down. They co-pup-parent and create a Delibird Day Pokémon Pageant to fundraise and save the shelter. Get in a fight because the male lead thinks she’s actually trying to get the shelter sold. They make up. They kiss. They adopt like 3 Maschiff puppies. The end.

8/10, but not because of the plot. The “fight” they have is absolutely idiotic. No, the reason I say 8/10 is because I can understand everything those little Maschiff have to say and their commentary is worth their weight in gold. Even if 90% of it is “Am I a good boy? Can I go for a walk after this? Why am I in a box again?”. So good. 4/10 for anybody who doesn’t understand Pokémon. At least the puppies are still cute to look at.

3. Snow Warning: Short summary here because it’s so generic. F!Lead gets caught in once-in-a-lifetime blizzard on her way home. Flight cancelled. Has to share a hotel room with smarmy male lead who looks down on her job as a novelist (and is also a wildly successful businessman). The two roadtrip their way down to F!Lead’s hometown so she can go see her sick dad. Grow a begrudging respect. Eventually they kiss for some reason. Also there’s a side-plot about how the guy actually pissed off an Abomasnow and caused the whole thing, but that wasn’t really interesting. ...Somehow. How do you mess that up?

2/10. The chemistry’s off. I get going for “you hate me so bad you want to kiss me” tension, but it really just comes off like the female lead ought to sock her "date" in the face already. Instead we get a weak “Sorry I called your books stupid. I read one page of your debut novel and it’s not. Can we kiss now?”. Yawn. Also, he never apologizes for the whole Abomasnow thing, which seems like a pretty massive oversight? If we're being realistic here, that's getting held over that man's head for at least a good five years.

4. Sawsbuck’s Greetings: A movie focused around the female lead, who runs a Sawsbuck farm that’s been passed down for generations, and the male lead, who kicks puppies for a living and wants to put a golf course there. But don’t worry, he learns after she makes a deal with him that if he stays on the farm for 30 days and doesn’t see the value of it, he can buy it. Because that’s how buying real estate works. The guy actually has some traumatic history with Pokémon that the saintly female lead helps him overcome. He cuts ties with his company, moves into the Sawsbuck farm, and they have the Pawmark Kiss.

3.5/10 for me. Not even the bored Sawsbuck save this (they are so, so bored). There’s no interesting side characters anywhere! No life! Also, I will say it once again: love does not heal trauma. They try to make it seem like this man goes from erring 50 feet away from “those horrid beasts” to snuggling up with a Deerling in the early AM all thanks to a woman's love. That is not how that works. Get therapy. (I say this knowing full well I would not be as critical if it were gay. Know your biases, folks.)

5. The Chingling Ring: This is one of their “Deli-Day Wedding” movies. A sequel to last year’s “The Chingling Sing”. Female lead gets cold feet about marrying male lead. They nearly break up to all of their friends’ constant dismay. But the woman's Chimecho works with her fiance to gather 25 Chingling to show her 25 places all key to her relationship with her soon-to-be husband. Of course he’s waiting at the 25th, they kiss, make up, happy wedding, baby at the end of it.

Surprisingly, a 6.5/10. The concept is a decent one, if only they didn’t have to stick to 25 arcdamn places instead of… five? Even 12, if you’re looking for something holiday-like but smaller. Each place gets no focus at all, because of course they don’t. It’s an 80-minute movie! The gesture is really romantic though. Chingling are so so adorable. And the male lead is genuinely sympathetic throughout. Just… agh, the rush. Also, do we always need a baby at the end of the wedding ones?

6. Special Delivery: Sort of a mystery movie, on the first female lead's side. (Yes, 1/2!) She, a detective, starts receiving mysterious gifts via Delibird from a ‘secret admirer’. Determined to figure out more, she goes on a hunt through the specifics of the gifts, the places they’re ordered from, and even tracks a Delibird itself. Along the way, she keeps confiding in her best friend, the second lead, about the situation. First lead thinks it's from her coworker, but no, it's a red herring. Lo and behold, it turns out the gifts are secretly coming from... the second lead! There’s a decent coming out/confession scene, which is a compliment for a film studio where movies are produced in 5 weeks. Pawmark Kiss. End film. (Too soon.)

I promise this is not just my lesbian bias (it is), but 7/10. The two leads truly understand the power of pining. Of yearning! …The gift situation is so blatantly obvious that it very much feels like the movie spins its wheels for a while, though. I feel like they were trying to have a twist, because the male lead's pretty heavily marketed, but he also falls flat as a character other than "hey, he's there, and he probably likes you". As a result, though, I thought I was going insane for thinking the leads had chemistry for the first 50 minutes until this film fully vindicated me, something that is incredibly rare with a Pawmark movie. They’d better make a sequel. That’s up-front about its being gay, and at least halfway decent.

7. Deck The Royal Halls: What would Pawmark be without its annual foreign prince movie. This time from the made-up kingdom of “Britain”. Where are they even pulling these names from now? Bog-standard, except the two leads also have to work together to handle the King getting possessed by the legendary Calyrex along the way. Because apparently the “old family heirloom” Hometown Female Lead brings as a gift to His Highness is actually its crown. Anyways, Calyrex demands the two of them get married in the name of the kingdom. They waver on this in some royal courtship, get into a fight, and eventually agree. Happily ever after.

4.5/10: This movie is so cluttered. There’s no good justification for why the female lead is there, why her family has this ancient treasure, and why it is so absolutely crucial she marry The Prince. Calyrex’s VA is very funny during the possession scenes though. So the movie gets an extra point. Calyrex trying to give Mr. Prince Guy a confession pep talk is genuinely one of the better written comedy bits I’ve seen on the channel in a while. Shame the CGI for Calyrex is... not very good. There's no way its head is that big.

8. A Champion Chrismas: So this is what they've had Champion Leon up to since he lost his title. The Battle Tower and paying him to take part in mass-produced rom-coms. Anyways, unfortunately for the female lead, who is absolutely trying her best, this movie is entirely about Leon--or Levi, and how the self-insert (AKA, female lead) saves him from his battling slump when he comes home for the holiday season to his totally-not-Postwick small town with his totally-not-Hop little brother. (who is, actually, played by Hop Laventon. How did they get all of these people???) Anyways, the female lead shows Le-whoever the "joy of Delibird Day" again, they kiss, Le-guy wins a big championship match with his Charizard for her and shouts her out on live TV.

6/10, purely because it's fun to see how non-acting celebrities deal with acting. Also, this is 100% somebody's Leon x Reader fanfiction that got brought to Pawmark's writing room and approved without a second thought. I love that for whoever that was. (Though pretending that definitely isn't Leon and he totally isn't dating Raihan is a bit ingenuous.) Anyways, the writing sucks. The poor heroine is the epitome of a self-insert, for very obvious reasons. But I will admit, I can see why Leon has so many fangirls. He's great at playing that sort of "charming, down to earth" guy. His little brother's pretty good at acting too! Even if he really got shoved to the side for the sake of the love plot. Always seems to be the case for that poor kid...

9. Operation: Present: A movie about... Santa from the future? I think somebody saw Iron Bundle and ran away with it a bit too much. (Also, they have a real Iron Bundle there. This scares me.) Anyways, in this movie, Santa's son appears in front of a social media "influencer" with an Iron Bundle and tells her that if she doesn't convince the world Santa is real, they'll fall into a dark timeline...? I'm so lost as to who wrote this. Is this still Pawmark? I guess it's tangentially Delibird Day-related. Anyways, these two go on a... social media campaign... to spark belief in Santa. Livestreams, Chatters, anything a 60-year-old exec believes is part of social media usage, it's there. But actually, Ms. Influencer doesn't even believe in Santa herself, so they get in this big fight, until Santa's Son gets this notification that Christmas is saved or whatever. They make up. They kiss. I am so lost.

2/10, I am relatively sure this movie was made by drawing ideas out of a hat? And shoving them together? So it's a time-travel, social-media, robot-Delibird, Santa's son, romance movie? Why did they not pick an angle. Any one of those could have worked as an angle. As it is, I feel like I'm going insane even trying to describe the plot. ...And yet I feel as though I know several people this could happen to. Such is the reality of our multiverse.

10. Don't Have A Bird: Okay, they clearly used all of their ideas on the last movie. Because this one is about a woman who works at an Unfezant tip line. As in, a tip line on how to cook Unfezant at the holidays. (Which feels more like a Thanksgiving movie, but I digress!) And a man. Who is trying to cook an Unfezant. That's... the entire plot. The whole thing. Though the woman is also secretly romancing the man in real life! ...And on... the Unfezant tip line. That feels like a blatant violation of phone line policy, but what do I know! The Unfezant Guy feels betrayed by this until The Unfezant Girl brings by a perfect Unfezant, and the day is saved. Hooray.

1.5/10. Who wrote this. Who approved this. Why is it about an arcdamn Unfezant Tip Line. How far down do you have to dig for this idea. Who in the writing room called in to figure out how to unfuck their completely dry, flavorless Unfezant, and thought "You know what would be romantic?" On the bright side, absolutely none of the actors take this movie seriously, thus warranting an extra .5 points. They earned it. Nothing else did. (//Mod note. Based on a real fucking Hallmark movie.)

[stedes-incredible-library]

Hi! Same anon asking for fave lists, I’d love to hear from all the mods!

Hello! Here are some of our favourites in no particular order (mind the tags and also check the pairings!)

stuck in second gear by tediousdelusion [E], 69k nice

“I want a divorce.” Izzy’s said the words more times than once in the past eighteen years of marriage, but he means them this time. More than he ever has before, anyway. At the prow of the very expensive and very unnecessary boat parked in the driveway, Edward - Izzy’s idiot (soon-to-be-ex) husband - sighs and rolls his eyes. “Come on, Iz!” Ed shouts. He’s wearing a stupid fucking captain’s hat and has one foot propped against the rail. “The boat is an investment! And it’ll be fun.” Or, how Izzy Hands saves his marriage (and gains a boyfriend) by getting a divorce.

would you worship gravity by bitethehands [E], 60k

At precisely the seven-and-a-half hour mark, Izzy prepares the cabin for landing. Ed’s crackly voice buzzes over the loudspeaker with the announcement. He’s not thinking specifically of Finance Consultant Guy, nor of anything bar the inevitable banality of deboarding, so it genuinely catches him off-guard when a hand closes over his wrist. “Apologies for being forward, but what are you doing after this?” - Izzy is a flight attendant. Edward is a pilot. Stede is the first-class passenger who won’t stop chasing after them both.

piña coladas by faeeebaeee [E], WIP

The 80s are in full swing, and the golden decade of Nintendo Gameboys’ and Sony Walkmans’ has never looked better. In the neon jungle, Stede Bonnet, a young salaryman, meets enigmatic mechanic apprentice Edward Teach, and the pair strike up an unlikely friendship via fax machine, page beepers and gifts in the mail.

~Mod N

What Kind of Pirate Has a Friend? by @thetardigrape [E], 31k pre-canon

A story of Edward Teach and Jack Rackham, the two youngest pirates in Captain Hornigold's crew. Friendship, fucking, and fighting. Maybe some fuckery.

The Body Knows by @veeagainsttheday [M], 21k canon adjacent, magical realism, spooky vibes

Stede Bonnet thought he was finally free by faking his own death with a fuckery and leaving everything to his widow and children. He was wrong.

The World Beyond by @veeagainsttheday [E], 43k Alternate Universe

The Colorado River runs dry and sparks thirty years of Water Wars. Blackbeard is the most legendary water pirate in the desert; the Gentleman Pirate broke his heart. Now Stede is searching for the love of his life and Ed is planning his retirement. Unfortunately the remaining Cinco Gallos are still looking for Jim and the cults might be right about the biggest conspiracy theory of the last three decades...

~Mod A (I have a wildly hard time picking favorites of anything. What I've done here is pare down a selection of favorite authors, then shuffled through those for fics that truly haven't left me alone since I read them, then spun that down until I had the three that had the fewest hits. All three are by authors whose entire fandom catalogue I would recommend.)

tastes so sweet it hurts a little by florence_after_midnight [E], 8.3k

“Suits you,” Izzy says, hoping Ed hears the reverence in his voice. “You think?” Ed says, in a playful tone that makes it clear she’s not looking for reassurance but shamelessly fishing for compliments. Fair, Izzy thinks, she deserves all the praise in the world. He’s never been good with words, so he tries to put it all into the simple act of touching her. You’re the most beautiful woman in the fucking world, says the finger tracing the floral pattern of the lace. I’ve never loved anyone like I love you, says his thumb running up her sternum. I’d gladly worship at your feet all day, says his left hand finding hers, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tight. or: The one where Ed buys lingerie and Izzy loses his mind about it.

take the pain, take the pleasure by @shatteredhourglass [E], 10k

“If I didn’t know better,” Ed says, hand tracing down Jack’s arm slowly, deceptively gentle, “I’d think you were fucking around with my things, Jack.” In which Ed and Izzy collectively menace the men who choose to get involved with them. Or, five times someone wasn't allowed to fuck Izzy Hands' pussy, and one time they were

everybody's got their limits (nobody's found mine) by @oopshidaisyy [E], 16k

After 153 days, killing Stede Bonnet had begun to lose its appeal. (Or: Izzy gets stuck in a time loop.)

~Mod 🐁

[doctorbrown]

Alright I'm doing it.

Obligatory ramble about Doc's 'character' songs in the musical because I just saw it again and I'm so deep in my feels post.

I don't know how to be clear and concise so you're just forced to take what I come up with in the thrown-together, haphazard way I know how to get the words out.

'It Works' is absolutely one of my favourite songs on the album, but I'm not diving super deep into it because while it is one of the few songs Doc 'solo' sings, it's not exactly a character song; it serves to introduce the DeLorean time machine to Marty at Twin Pines Mall and highlight how over the moon he is to have invented one of the most impressive things of all time, something that finally works.

Though I need to say I feel so validated for the line It's a car for the stars like Captain Kirk's because I imagine Doc is a huge Star Trek fan and he and Marty definitely watched it together.

Also, his I never really thought I'd get to see how well it works! also gets me because while in the film he doesn't really get to see that until after the events of the film have played out and the Lone Pine timeline is created, in the musical it is he who is the world's first time-traveller, taking the car five minutes into the past and then appearing in the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall shortly after Marty shows up, his experiment complete.

'21st Century' is such a big, flashy number and it's the very first song of Act II, right after intermission. The set looks 24th century futuristic (which I imagine the 21st century would look like to someone in 1955 at the time) and mimics the bridge of a starship; even the backup chorus/dancers are fashioned after robots/androids.

This entire song and sequence is, ultimately, revealed to be a dream that Doc has during the week of Marty's stay in 1955 and the reason this song means so much to me is because it really nails one of Doc's core traits; it's his hope and optimism he has towards the future and everything that it could hold. He wants to believe in humanity as a whole despite all the things he's been through, he believes in their success as a species and knows they could go on to create amazing things.

Imagine what we'll see in the 21st Century!

Just think of what we're gonna find! A world that's gonna blow your mind!

Everything in that song that Doc sings about is positive and hopeful; one might also say childishly naïve. A future post-capitalism, where money and greed which are two large factors responsible for so much hardship and ruin are things of the past. Flying cars, vaporising trash (hello Mr Fusion), eradicating hunger and war and suffering—

It's the kind of future Doc has always hoped to see. What he wanted to help build with his inventions. While recognition and fame is nice in theory, in practice, I think Doc would hate being constantly in the spotlight, because we've learned he's very comfortable doing his own thing and being avoided. To be thrust in the public eye would be very suffocating and invasive and uncomfortable.

But if he were ever able to properly patent and sell any of his inventions, he would've been contributing something good to society.

Doc isn't the cynical type, but he is acutely aware of all the terrible things that go on in the world around him. He wants the good to outweigh the bad, wants to see positive things in humanity's future.

Doc's entire purpose for building the time machine, beyond his deep obsession with time and the chance to say I did it, it works! and make arguably the largest scientific breakthrough of the century, is to see and catalogue the fate of humanity after he's gone. Where we've been, where we're going, the pitfalls and the promise. Maybe even an answer to that universal question: why?

'21st Century' just perfectly captures Doc's creativity, imagination, and optimism. Unfortunately, the real future doesn't quite turn out the way he'd hoped it would.

And then there's 'For the Dreamers' which, truly, is a beautiful and fitting song for Doc. In the musical, this isn't a big, flashy number. It's slow, sombre, yet hopeful all the same, and it takes place in the garage in 1955 after Doc's revealed his plan to run a cable across Courthouse Square to harness the lightning and the small model 'DeLorean' goes up in flames. Marty's less than optimistic about his prospects. There's a single spotlight on Doc as he sings to Marty and it's very obvious that he's singing about himself here.

Sometimes, failure and setbacks are an unfortunate and inevitable part of the process, no matter how hard you try. You can put your all into something and never see a return on it. Doc knows this better than anyone. Even now in 1955, he's well acquainted with the bitter taste of ridicule and failure because he's a man with big dreams who is unafraid to pursue those dreams to their end, whatever they may be.

And this plan of his to get Marty back to 1985 is an extreme long shot. Everything needs to happen precisely on-schedule, for nature waits for no man and even the slightest delay will rob the kid of his future and leave him stranded here indefinitely. Doc needs to balance learning enough about this invention he hasn't created yet in order for the lightning rod plan to work with not learning too much about the DeLorean's construction, as he still needs to allow his personal timeline to unfold as largely unaltered as possible for risk of creating a major paradox that could potentially unravel the space-time continuum.

So this one's for the dreamers who live on inspiration, go as far as they can take it even if they don't quite make it...

And I know what it's like to be misunderstood. And I know how it feels to be told you're no good. But I couldn't give up. No, I never would.

But people just took advantage of me. My distractions just consumed me.

Doc's always been a man of big dreams, ever since he was young. He was never the type to fit in, found himself on the outside, much more interested in the sciences than people. He embodies the very spirit of inventor. He's a dreamer, an idealist, a risk-taker, driven and full of ambition.

So this one's for the dreamers who have the guts to risk it. To take a chance on what they think. Can't stare them down 'cause they don't blink.

Ridicule or call them out, no one sees what they're about.

Doc's reputation is firmly established in Hill Valley; he's willing to take the risk for the things he believes in, and this has branded him a lunatic, a dangerous crackpot, a mad scientist, earned him the scorn of his neighbours—people will see what they want to in him and others like him and there's no changing their minds.

But you can't give up. It's difficult trying to make a change and if you dream about making that big breakthrough, you have to stick it out until the very end. Put your mind to it and do it for all those who have tried and couldn't.

With so many failures up until this point and with his only real success, if you'd choose to call it that, being the work he did on the Manhattan Project, it's looking grim. The brainwave analyser, something he put months' work of research and development into, turned out to be a disappointment.

Now, though, he's got proof that all his dreams aren't just nothing; that he really is something and if nothing else, he has to do it for this kid.

This one's for the dreamers like me.

At the heart of it all, this song is very much the start of Doc's you can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it. Failure, success, does it really matter if you give up in the end? And that's something Doc just can never really do.

[go-to-the-mirror]

Dearest @a-mag-a-day,

Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to do my MAG 81 post (personal issues), but I'll probably do that on the day of MAG 197, because. yk.

However, I can do my little reaction to MAG 85. Enjoy!

This episode was really, really cool to me on my first listen. Spooky!

At night, I sometimes find myself reciting Antigonish to myself, which spooks me out quite a bit, and by spooks me out I mean I convince myself that if I finish it, I will become like the man in this episode and not exist but somehow still be (not) there. Similarly, I sometimes believe that opening the door at night (see A Sturdy Lock)  and opening my eyes without licking the air first (see The Mandela Catalogue) will kill me. When I'm left alone to my own devices I can get quite paranoid, and my newfound love for horror is absolutely not helping :D

The introduction of The Man Who Wasn't There is so cool. Describing all the things that weren't, so you get an idea of what is would be. It's so confusing and I don't know how to imagine it in my head. Should I imagine him as how he is described as not being? It's an empty staircase with someone not on it. No one is on the staircase. Someone is not on the staircase. AA it's really cool! And confusing! I love the spiral sososo much.

In the poem, I had always imagined a translucent figure, absent in life and body, but visible. But I couldn't see this man. Obviously I couldn't. I couldn't see him or hear him or speak to him. Because... there was nobody there. The staircase was empty, as he stretched his arm to gesture me closer.

Firstly, this is a really cool bit of the statement, describing while being unable to describe. Sort of like that post about gothic horror and eldritch/cosmic horror, describing the manor in great detail while being incapable of describing what lurks behind (”the stairs were real. he wasn’t there but the stairs were”), but not because it is incomprehensible in this case, but because it does not exist to be described. Secondly, while I was typing I realized that a lot of The Spiral statements are quite dreamlike in tone, and similarly follow dreamlike logic, as do a lot of episodes, but it feels far more... odd in the spiral ones, far more like a dream, at least to me. Then, in the Eyepocolypse, the whole world follows that logic, and far more of the statements are in that dreamlike tone, which of course could just be because the world has been twisted by The Fear(s) and nothing has any meaning besides what they want to have meaning, but -- or even in addition -- it could also be because Jon is quote “marked very deeply by The Spiral”, and the world was transformed because of his fears and his marks, so that could be why season 5 is more dreamlike and nonsensical but in a spiral-y way. Ah, the true joys of a mag a day, coming up with little theories like this :3

Why does this imply that the statement giver has his bedroom on the ground floor? Because he went down the corkscrew, not up. Unless the spiral was also messing with the up and down part, and he had to walk down the stairs to get to his bedroom upstairs. That seems about right.

Anyway, I love how the statement giver made a choice, he chose to shout at the man and beg him to go away, and that was when he started to stop existing. He became an avatar -- as much as something that is not there can become anything -- because of his own explicit choices. Did he know what these choices would lead to? No. Does that matter? No. The choice matters, not the intentions behind it. The road to becoming an avatar is not paved with good or bad intention, it is made of choices. Poorly understood, hastily made, unfair choices. 

As he wasn’t there, I have no way of telling how many teeth were on show when he smiled at me.

I just really like the above line.

I find it interesting how the statement giver’s words when he tells of how people forgot him seem nonchalant, but his tone -- keep in mind I’m not extremally good at tone of voice -- sounds bitter and upset. Was he upset when people started forgetting him, but lost that pain when he stopped being? Was he upset as he gave the statement? Was he never upset at all? These are interesting questions I’m having.

My mother’s eyes were bloodshot, and I could see them unfocus when they tried to look at me. She dabbed a napkin at her mouth and asked me where her son was. I asked her what his name had been. She didn’t know. She dabbed her mouth again and the napkin came away bloody.

I may just be being transgender on main -- and so what if I am, I can and have accidentally made everything in this bloody podcast a queer allegory /hyp -- but I really like this line. I have so many thoughts on names and identity in The Magnus Archives, from this statement, to Jon slowly beginning to call himself “The Archivist”, to Michael and Helen’s differences when it comes to names and identity as The Distortion, and more. Something about names tying you to humanity and personhood.

The whole parents section is really spooky. In addition to the name part, I loved the part with the statement giver taking his father up the stairs, and how his father’s corpse got up and left with his mother. Don’t really have much to say about it other than it’s really spooky and I loved it.

I watched the realization on his face that, in reality, whoever he was, he had died decades before. And he was now in reality. He tried to scream, but his throat decomposed around the noise, cutting it short with a slough of rotten flesh and collapsing, brittle bone. And as I stared from the empty spiral staircase, I wanted to laugh right back at him.

I really love the description of the man decomposing right as he stands, it’s just so cool. Puts me in mind of Mother Gothel at the end of Tangled, but with more rotting. I love the rotting. I also like how confusing it is, were there two of him? Did he die in reality as he stopped existing? I also had a thought about how there was no escape, once he made his choice to become an avatar -- however unwanted and unknown the consequences were -- he couldn’t go back without dying. This theme continues in later episodes, as you very well know.

I- I don’t want to take you up the spiral staircase, so you should try to leave. I don’t want to, but it’s my nature now, and you can’t fight what you are.

I Have So Very Many Thoughts About This and I’m really trying to keep the incoherent ramblings to a minimum, because when I can word things I’m actually quite good at explaining myself, at least I think so, but I don’t exactly know how to explain it, but I can try. Immediately, his puts me in mind of Jon and Martin’s conversation in episode 188, about Helen.

MARTIN Huh. She couldn’t help what she was, I guess.

ARCHIVIST She didn’t even try.

But more than that, it’s a lot of the themes in the later seasons -- quite honestly even back in season 1 with Jane Prentiss. How much of you is left after you become an Avatar? How much are you responsible for your actions? How much can you control? I will most likely have similar things to say when we get to Another Twist.

I saw a post once, tumblr user annabelle--cane either reblogged it or posted it, saying -- to paraphrase -- that a statement should be able to end with a mic drop, and let me say, this statement definitely fits the bill. I love the reprise of the poem, slightly altered for the circumstances, as an ending, it’s a really great ending, it gives me chills!

Now, onto the post statement stuff. I believe that Elias sent this statement to Jon to mayhaps make him think about what he is becoming and cause him to seek out more avatars for advice -- if the statement luring him towards Jude Perry didn’t work just because of the prospect of more information into the Unknowing, the Lightless Flame, and the burning of Gwydir forest. I’m not entirely sure on this, but it makes sense to me.

I have very many feelings -- as stated above -- about monsterhood, personhood, choice, and becoming a fear entity avatar, but unfortunately it’s getting late, and I’d like to get this post out today.

I forgot this episode was the one where Georgie was on a date with her Hungarian mountain man, I love Jon and Georgie’s dynamic, I’m smiling ear to ear. What a lovely ending, for a moment we can pretend that The Magnus Archives isn’t a horror tragedy! 

In conclusion, MAG 85 - Upon The Stair is one of my favourite episodes of The Magnus Archives because of the dreamlike tone, the very odd story it’s telling, the themes of monsterhood and choice, and because Georgie Barker and Jonathan Sims interact and are happy in it. That last part is half a joke. I have very many thoughts about it, and I hope you enjoyed reading about them.

Yours truly,

landscaping-your-mind.

[businesstiramisu]

Hi! How are you? Your ask box is open again! Would you like to see cats? What is the difference between Ayin and Tsaddik? How did you make the Dreamwidth captcha thing? It looks very professional! I got the book "Witch King" by Martha Wells! Unfortunately, it seems that the Murderbot Diaries are colluding against me to prevent me from reading it. Also your tagging system is very great! I love it!

Hello! I don't remember why I closed it, but usually if it's been a while and it's not open it's b/c I forgot indeed *that* I closed it, and you can ask me to open it again (that's what happened here lol).

Ayin vs. Tsaddik (Romanization/spelling varies) -- re: this post

As you can see, they are slightly similar looking letters. I expect no one actually literate in Hebrew would make this mistake (any more than you would mix-up lower-case 'a' and lower-case 'c') but lots of us are not literate in Hebrew. Hence the humor of the mis-spelled mug. My tags were b/c I tend to make a game out of trying to read all foreign-language text I come across, if I've got the time. I'm actually pretty good at sounding out Russian, now, and sometimes also Japanese (I blame all the weebs on here). But I'm absolutely terrible with Hebrew, and part of me feels I ought to be better b/c I have relatives who speak it. (I don't talk to those relatives nearly as much as I read weeb things online, though, so it only make sense). I don't remember for sure but I think with that post I also mixed up Bet with something stupid like Nun or even Resh.

2. Dreamwidth captcha -- re: this post -- INSPECT ELEMENT BAYBEEEE Seriously, it looks professional because it literally just the dreamwidth website with one word added by me. Two clicks and a bit of time poking around CSS you, too, can use this knowledge for evil

3. The Witch King by Martha Wells-- Oh, nice!! I actually read quite a bit of Wells' fantasy catalogue this month, and i've been meaning to write up a post reviewing and comparing them. Wells definitely has some favorite motifs that she keeps returning to (e.g. prominent ruins of past societies) and it would be fun to compare them. I really enjoyed The Witch King, but I will say as one fan of Unsounded to another, I actually really recommend The Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy! I think it has some overlapping setitng and characterization stuff that I think might especially appeal to an Unsounded fan. (TREMAINE. LOVE TREMAINE)

Though you should really keep trying to get Murderbot b/c those are by far her best work IMO (not to say any of her fantasy is bad, just Murderbot is 11/10 for me on so many axes). (How is reality colluding against you, if you don't mind sharing? sounds like a story lol)

4. Tagging -- thank you!! i do it for myself b/c I like to find my old things but glad it's working for you too <3

[ezamevolni]

Cryptic: Lyrics Game

This post is a bit more in-depth and longer than what I would call a 'trace' of their past so I'm cataloguing it as another series.

*Revised on 4.5.23 with more details. Won't be doing this for other posts but this was written very early on and there's new information found that was able to clarify certain bits better.

Their conversation laden with double meaning.

Presented by JanJanKook✨

BE album review (2020)

The members split into 2 groups to film an album opening for fans (Suga was in rehabilitation for his shoulder surgery during this time).

Segment 3: dedicate lyrics from the album to someone

Jin started off by dedicating lyrics to Army. He choose an uplifting quote "Oh well, I'll change his place to my world then" from Fly to My Room.

Cleanly, like a pro-idol:

So at least we got one quote from the guys 🥲 because after Jin's explanation was done, it turned very quickly into an internal strife.

It all begins when Jk dedicated his lyrics to Jin.

Double conversation, let's go.

Romantic vibes...trying my best here.

"It doesn't matter where you are" - From Jk to Jin

Anyway. 💕👀 If it didn't sound like JJK's chance to profess his love on camera again.

And Jk's simple reasoning deserves a closer look: "we're a team anyway". Which was what he said after, "it has another meaning" when Jin made him giggle with his response. I highly doubt the 'team' he's talking about here is the 'team' we normally take it to mean.

Peg Hobi's expression = 😄😒

Then, Jhope dedicated lyrics to Jk.

Disco overload I'm into that, I'm good to go I'm diamond, you know I glow up - Dynamite

Interestingly, when Jhope was reciting the lyrics he emphasized on "Disco, overload" by pausing between the two words.

On a related note, here's an exerpt from Jin's 2021 GQ interview describing himself as a musical genre:

This came out long after BE and Dynamite (2020), but it does make me grin when I think about how perfectly it fits together with everything else.

Disco overload? Too much Jk, too much.

Right after Hobi said the two words, Jin had burst into loud laughter and Jk was smiling but with his eyes down..

Now Hobi's quote sounded like a compliment right? But as described, Jk didn't seem too overjoyed at hearing this and Jin was laughing way too hard.

Zooming in on Jinkook's reactions after Hobi finished speaking:

Jk looked down before saying, "Of course, of course." I know, I know.

Jin paused, then asked cheekily, "What does that mean?" He knew already too.

Jin had been asking Hobi but Jk cut in, answering instead, "I know that J-hope's a diamond." Never mind what he means, let's move on. Hm, Jk seemed to already have an idea of what Jhope meant if he was that uninterested in hearing his explanation.

Of course, Jhope went on to explain his reasoning to them.

Hope will not be silenced✨

It's basically a kind bro warning: you're a star and everyone's watching. Control Your Actions On Camera Please.

Which prompted Jk to give Hobi a thumbs up and mutter "agree" while he was still talking. Sure, sure, got it..

This whole thing reminded me of a teenager being nagged by their parent and not wanting to get into it.

Perhaps it was due to Jk's begrudging response or that he simply saw the chance to pour more out on camera once and for all, because Jhope wasn't satisfied with reprimanding Jk and dedicated lyrics to Jin next. He couldn't help himself 🤷🏻

I am so frustrated -Fly to My Room

🤣

To the younger one, he gave out a veiled warning. The kid won't listen. So to the maturer one, he was straight up expressing his feelings. Jhope quickly backtracked saying he's kidding but unfortunately, his impulsive words started the showdown.

Because Jin joined the rumble by replying:

Delivery food is ding ding ding - Fly to My Room

Meaning of the lyrics: change your perspective so you could feel more positive about the situation. That's a direct reply to Jhope's complaint.

The meaning of the line is practically the same as the one he said to Army but much more cryptic i.e. not clear without an explanation. I had to do a bit of research for this. And Jin elaborated in a very coded manner too because he isn't telling Jhope to order takeout out of the blue...

Jin's reply was gentle and not that hostile but next up Jk's retaliation wasn't as mild. (Jk had been searching the lyrics poster diligently since Hobi explained the Dynamite lyrics)

Please warm me who is cold - Blue and Grey

Jk explained his quote as if he was complimenting Jhope but the line itself sounds more like a retort. Open your heart... don't be so stiff (?).

Revision: So the lyrics in the official yt video was surprisingly very different from the ones @doolset provided, who has become my goto for BTS lyrics translations.

Initially with just the yt subs, I thought that Jk was telling Jhope to 'melt his cold self', to loosen up or something along those lines. But with a subject 'me' in the line, I think it's much clearer and straightforward as to what Jk was really saying. In addition, his explanation also made sense. Please support me bro.

However, Hobi's reaction seemed lukewarm,

+++++++++++++++++

A quick intermission here to jump back to the beginning of 2020, their new year Vlive in New York.

What an interesting live that was, with Jhope constantly poking Kookie with a stick as if warning Jinkook to behave on camera:

To this day I'm not sure what Jhope was holding and why he was in charge of poking Jinkook. Within the short half hour, he got ready to strike at least thrice when Jinkook were talking. Our sunshine, always alert.

So it does seem like there's a history of Jinkook getting lost in their own world and Jhope charging in to intervene while on camera.

+++++++++++++++++

Back to the lyrics game. At this point, they're just using lyrics to say whatever they actually want to say to each other without alerting the fans to the real meaning.

After Jk's lyrics to Jhope, Jin stepped in as the mediator. Not his first time having to take on this role in such situations.

Please don't leave yourself alone It hurts so much - Blue and Grey

From Jin's line of vision, their topic at hand and team dynamics, it seems like Jin was speaking to both Hobi and Jk here. I need you all by my side, my boo and my bros. It's a sweet way to pacify Hobi without being too direct.

A lot has been said already but the cryptic messages didn't end here. If Jin is the type to diffuse the situation quietly, Jk is the type who lights it up for the night sky.

Because he wasn't satisfied with replying to Hobi, it was for all the members this time. And what's more, he was using the lyrics from Jhope's song Dis-ease.

Throw away the fear Fe-fe-fe-fe-fe-fe-fe-fe-fe-fear - Dis-ease

"What are you so afraid of?" No need to be so cautious all the time, let us live!

Jk's confident yet cheeky grin as he threw down his pen.

His words send Jin and Jhope into fits of laughter 😂 It's bold yet witty because only they know what he's talking about.

However, in seriousness Jk really meant what he said.

They'll get through it together. If there's ever a true crisis, they'll deal with it then. If they get exposed someday, it'll be ok as long as they have each other.

By this point, they've gone off the rails. I don't think they recall the initial prompt anymore, or care.

Jk using the lyrics to joke about Suga (was in rehabilitation for shoulder surgery).

Life is pain - Life Goes On

🤣🤣🤣

At the very end, after coming down from their high with disagreements and laughter, Hobi decided to dedicate lyrics to Jin again.

Hey, let's leave for the blue ocean - Telepathy

Jin sang back and the scene ended on a harmonious note.

Regarding this last quote, I'm not sure of what Jhope meant exactly as the sea or ocean seems to have a special secret meaning to BTS. They've mentioned the sea many times in their songs in various contexts and different members have said to each other 'let's go to the sea together'. I'm guessing that the sea/ocean here means hopes and dreams for them, and going together means they'll keep moving forward together as a team, making music and achieving career goals no matter what happens. A very broad guess I know. All I know is Jhope's words reassured Jin.

So that's it. My interpretation of their cryptical conversation sparked during the BE album unboxing.

[dirt-nerd]

The game uses a particularly annoying and difficult to crack DRM protection so pirating it is not very easy esp for a casual user. And, considering how antisemetic the central story is and many of the elements are, it just feels gross to play. The whole game is pretty tainted, money or not.

Yeah I get modern games are harder to crack, although I also think that piracy has lost the arms race and is just less well known/common so people lack the tools to do it. A good copy of a pirated game used to come with instructions and sometimes extra tools in the download. You played around with things until you got them working- and if it didn't work not the end of the world.

As for the content; well have you actually played the game? Keep in mind that the internet is not reliable and has a tendancy to blow things out of proportion sometimes.

The story could be truly disgusting and anti semetic or there could just be some unfortunate implications from people who didn't think things through/lacked the knowledge to even know it was anti semetic to begin with. I mean I certainly didnt know the whole goblins = jewish people thing for a long time, and I'm pretty sure most people who use goblins in a fantasy setting don't. Either way you can't actually be certain relying solely off internet discourse to inform you.

Also to be frank; I don't know about you but I didn't join a bloody cult so have no interest in self censorship. There is a big difference between actually giving financial support/publicity to a potentially toxic piece of media, and just checking it out and deciding for yourself.

Not that I'm actually recommending the game lol. Honestly there is an infinite back catalogue of fantastic indie games out there deserving of support so one probably mediocre AAA is not really worth the effort to pirate. But if someone did want to look at the game for whatever reason, its more productive to say "just don't give them money" rather than "this game I have never actually played is bad and you are bad for looking at it".

[gachaparadise]

okaaay day 2 in the wu/wa trenches 🫡

got very verbose with this one... woops.

unfortunately i was under a time constraint once again today so i STILL haven't gotten to play as much as I'd like. everything here is initial impressions off 4ish hours of gameplay.

the movement is growing on me. there's no way to say this without sounding insane but. i just need to look at it more from a "this is a video game" perspective. like to compare, genshin is going for that immersive feel. sure it takes 5 minutes to get up this mountain but it feels RIGHT you know? whereas in wuwa it takes 3 seconds. why should it take longer this is a video game. we both know you have places to be get up there Rover :)

that sounds demented written out but I know what I mean so i'll leave it in i guess. i appreciate the expediency with which you can get around is the point i'm trying to make. it makes the animation a little clunkier and the world a little less immersive but from a moment to moment gameplay perspective it works.

the combat goes hard. its so flashy and feels good but... i need to test it against anything other then random mobs i found in the trash to see how deep it actually goes. i want to try parrying and stuff but everything keeps dying orz.

some of the button mapping on controller continues to be... eugh. the combo to get to the grapple especially i have trouble with. it's literally the same combo as the one for genshin but it just doesn't activate with the same certainty. sometimes it just keeps whipping out the sensor instead of the hook and i'm like. do you want me dead?

Scar gets his own paragraph. he came. he saw. he served cunt. he left. gamechangingly cute and charming. literally takes the game up a full point from a (preliminary)6 to a 7 he's so fucking good. his design ATE. his va SERVED. his message CRYPTIC. his little wink as he leaves CUTE AS FUCK. the way he called his little tête-à-tête with the Rover a date GAY. he's great. no notes that's a perfect man.

the va (with the exception of Scar) is just... okay. I really do not care for yangyang's voice (not her vas fault i just don't like it) and she's the person we've spent the most time with so far so that kinda sucks. i'm literally thinking about switching to jp instead orz. but some of the text boxes are still broken and there's no log function so i'm worried i'm gonna miss stuff, especially with how fast i'm whipping through some of this story.

on that note the story is just OK. it's not good, i can't say its really hooked me yet. its a little... generic. post magical disaster world wherein humans cling to life and have special powers. nothing wrong with that but so far it's just been a lot of throwing words at me. the characters themselves are also pretty bland (minus Scar). i really hope i will get to know them better in the future because chars are MAKE or BREAK for gacha games. the designs are also a little hit or miss. they're fine i guess but they don't really compel me.

also. they did just ape genshin whole cloth for like. basically everything. like the world puzzles where you follow little wispy things (seelies) and the glowing floaty things you collect (anemoculus) and the over world puzzles that are "get to the chest in time" or "shoot the targets" are just... from genshin. hoyo doesn't own those ideas! for sure! but. they're in THIS game because of genshin don't kid yourself. and thats not to mention the battelpass and banner and event and guide structures that are just. the same.

ARGH! all this makes it sound like i dislike the game. I don't!! i'm having fun!! it's just easier to catalogue things i disliked in detail. i don't have as much to say about the parts i liked. combat good. echoes cool. Rover cute. I'm having a pretty good time. thats about it orz.

i don't think I'll have anything new to report tomorrow? i can't see myself changing my mind on anything i've written so far. i might update in a week or two and see if the game grew on me or lost me completely. i could see it going either way. it's fun but i'm not sure i can see myself committing to it long term you know? but who knows. maybe it's just launch day growing pains and thing will look up soon.

[shackhal]

Bye 2022. Here are my plans for 2023.

Hello everyone.

First and foremost: Happy New Year!! I hope all the plans you planned were successful.

For me, 2022 was not a groundbreaking year, but not a bad one. And believe it or not, I didn't make any plans. Or at least I didn't write it. I only was thinking in one thing: To make a game.

And did I fulfill it? No. I failed. But some stuff happened and some decisions were made during that year.

First, on January I entered in the online version of Lima Game Jam, the event in Lima around Global Game Jam, as a mentor and a participant. As a participant, the game we tried to do with my team was called Humazoide, about a man with the ability to become a zombie at will and viceversa. Unfortunately, some members weren't as active and disappeared at the last day. Also, the game design was not well understood on the team, so unfortunately the programmers couldn't make it the way it should have been. At the end, the game ended up super incomplete. At least, the characters animations were made (by me, of course) and the mentor part was ok.

After that, on February I take the decision to retake my freelance work. And for that, I needed to revive my portfolio website. But that old portfolio was ugly and outdated, so I decided to make a new one from scratch. With that in mind, I bought my domain and hosting because i didn't have one before.

First I thought to make a simple portfolio, but I contemplated the possibility to add more about my work, including my assets and games, like a place for me. So I put my focus there. Well... it turns out my motivation is trash, as I finished it 6 months later, on August. I like it how it looks now though. Here is my website.

Then, during the making of the website, I was thinking to create a new blog, like the one I used before. But... after some thoughts, I decided to recycle that old one. It's easier that way and it works fine to me. So I reused it, with a new look of course. You are there right now xD

And also, still on August, I decided to update my asset package Multi Platformer Tileset after 4 years of abandonment... I don't know why, to be honest. But I feel that it was needed as I saw some contrast errors in the backgrounds. So, going with the flow, I made 2 updates at the end: fixing backgrounds and tiles and adding a new environment. So it was something good.

Then, on September happened something I didn't expect. I was invited to be a core member of the IGDA Perú organization. In case you don't know, IGDA Perú is the peruvian chapter from the IGDA HQ, an organization focused on the wellbeing of game developers around the world. Its name means "International Game Developers Asociation" after all.

After some thoughts, I decided to accept the invitation. Now I help as an event co-organizer. I don't receive payment, as it's a non-profit organization, but I get networking and work experience. I already helped in one event, with Raw Fury as a guest ;D

On October, some of you already know what happened: Devtober. I did take part of it as, during mid-September, I wanted to update my old games to be more appealing in the graphics department. At the end, I decided to remake Hoperay from the ground. The game ends up playable, but it still doesn't have the graphics and UI made. Unfortunately, after the event, I didn't keep working on it, as I was focused on other stuff... and for being lazy too... But that doesn't mean I abandoned it.

The rest is daily life. Nothing worth of typing. Fortunately, bad stuff didn't happen to me last year, so I'm grateful for it. Even if I didn't get freelance work, at least my stable job got me enough to cover my expenses.

Now, what's next? What are my plans for this year? Well, I thought about it. This year I will test that approach, with goals to meet.

Finish all the remakes, including Hoperay. As they are part of my catalogue in my Itch.io webpage, they need to look good at least :D

Get one more update to Multi Platformer Tileset and end it. It's been 6 years since I made it and since the last update I feel that it's time to let it rest.

Improve my monthly income. Getting some freelance work, selling more assets and games, making content in some places, marketing, etc. There are some ways to do it, but I must improve my income as it's directly related to my future self. I can't live forever in my parents' house, right?

Improve my health. I'm fat for many years. And that gave me problems to my spine and organs. So I must exercise to improve my health... and maybe something else xD

Create a Game Jam. For some years I have been thinking on making a game jam. Be online or in person, to give a space where people can express their creativity or to experience the work done around it. For whatever reason, I want to make one and this year I think I can.

I don't mind if I fail one of them... But some of those must be done. The income increase is needed as it's related to my future as a independant person and investment as a professional. Also, I have to reduce my weight. Less means lighter and healthier, in many ways.

That's all I want to say for now. I don't know what will happen, but we must try at least. That's the only way we can make changes.

See you later.