#if i do sell any art it's gonna be original art

[icannotgetoverbirds]

announcement time!

i have decided that i am going to begin to develop my art skills by tracing over reference photos. im using the art program krita - if anyone has any advice or photos to trace (all kinds are welcome! i may favor birds but i need to learn EVERYTHING) i'd be more than happy to receive!

i'd love to stream it once i've got my twitch account set up for that - I think I'd still need to attach some kind of payment method in order to stream? I'm not sure. The soonest I'll be able to start would be this Thursday, but truthfully it'll probably be a while before I get the channel up and going.

Disclaimer: I am tracing photographs! By submitting a photo you agree that I am allowed to trace it for (human!) training purposes, and that I am allowed to stream said tracing process, and that you are not entitled to anything that may come from said stream! End disclaimer.

Y'all can send in asks with images and/or submit them here. I ask that you send in photos that you've taken and/or photos that are commercially available, just to ensure that I'm not infringing on any copyright. If you've got your own art (original content) you'd like to submit, I'll take that, too - again with the caveat that I am allowed to trace them.

I will not be selling anything that I make due to the nature of the process - this is all just me learning how to make art and use my art program. Once the art streams are up and running, I might have some other stream ideas up my sleeve that are worth looking out for!

[darqx]

If you didnt come to party [get the hell out of this club]

In which there's some links to old art - I've been getting a number of asks that are already technically answered so that's just what I'm gonna be doing if i can even remember what RAD they originally came from lol.

❗️For commonly asked qs please see my BTD FAQ

UNFORGIVEN.

Yes he can speak at least two demon languages (commons and a more specialised one).

Not really cos the ichor will eventually disappear if it's not in contact with Rire for a while lol. You ever wonder how someone could mysteriously drown whilst not being around anything they could have drowned in? Yeah.

I have drawn several such instances a long time ago. But it's not really Rire flirting with Ren it's more him being like...subtly condescending to Ren since Ren's submissive level is not very interesting to him |D

I...think you may have possibly mistaken me saying Rire might cry if he was in severe pain to mean that's the only time he could cry XD; To answer your q, yes Rire can cry from emotions - the point is he would choose not to (esp in public) as that would be a weakness.

🤔 You could probably get away with the same dress design but in black, tbh (if it was Lady Rire). Since the outfit design is 1930s/1940s based Rire's equivalent would be like...a 3 piece suit with a long overcoat/trench coat.

Got you covered bro [from a suit meme I did before]

Rire has a very long life span, but he's not immortal XD;

Tbh I don't really have thoughts about any of other peoples headcanons. Like I'm generally quite neutral towards headcanons because I primarily deal with the canon; the extent of my thoughts would be like "hm i wonder how they came up with that" lol.

This is actually in my FAQ :d but good of you to check for permission! If it's your own artwork then yes it is ok to make fanmerch of Rire. Similarly Gato allows fanmerch of her BTD and TPOF characs as long as it's your own art you are selling (and not like, our art/someone else's fanart that they didn't give permission to turn into merch).

It would be in Cain's best interest not to.

Cain is literally saying Olé Olé because i happened to be listening to this song at the time.

I can barely keep up with my ask box as myself let alone do it while pretending to be a charac lol, so no 😅 You can find a bunch of the most common qs in the FAQ pages though.

No and not really - though he is a bit more sensitive to light compared to a human as he has much better night vision than a human. He may also be able to see more colours than humans 🤔

There is technically no "stereotypical" demon in my 'verse, there's a bunch of different species each with their own looks/powers, so if he was another species then he'd have their physical characteristics. Rire's species is considered "plain" because outwardly they can pass more easily as a human than say; Izm's species (who have a really noticeable Glasgow smile-esque mouth as one of their physical features).

Yes he was born a demon...to his demon parents...|D;

He's the king of his sector and his sector is pretty well-to-do, I think you can draw your own conclusions from that lol.

Maybe, depends on what the human in question does with that.

Your second q has two answers depending on what context I answer them in, so I'll reply in the BTD context keeping in mind a charac like EP's Cain :d Basically yes Rire would be able to sense them like he does other demons. It's not a specific sense of "THIS CHARAC IS AN ANGEL" but more like "this charac is not human" and depending on what else he gets from it a "in your best interests to not engage".

Something big with long black fur and yellow eyes, maybe like a Norwegian Forest Cat or a Maine Coon.

[kirkscarr]

ok so i just finished my book cover for First, Best Destiny - Part 1 by the amazing @ophelia-j !!

admittedly i was going to wait until i actually attached the text block to the cover before i posted this haha, but i was SO excited after making this cover that i decided to just post it and then update with the finished product later!!

this book is absolutely embedded in my soul, and words cannot even describe how gorgeously it’s written. it’s a book that made me realize - hey, the adventure doesn’t end as you grow old.

you can read it here. i promise you won’t regret it!!!

anyways!!! here’s all of my other bookbinding steps for anyone interested.

cam’s somewhat incomplete bookbinding guide

please note that i am an AMATEUR hobbyist. please do not actually use this as a tutorial.

oh also!! bookbinding terminology will have a * by it which will be explained at the end in order to make this flow better. i’ll also link the tutorials i used at the end of this for anyone interested.

1) Formatting the document! I downloaded the original text as a PDF, and then designed a cover page, grabbed some art from the internet (i know, frowned upon, but this is just a personal copy so it is what it is), and then designed a table of contents and chapter icons!!

*side note! i added which episodes each chapter follows to the table of contents (pictured below) as this book was written as an accompaniment to TOS and the movies.

2) Next, I printed out all NINE HUNDRED PAGES??? admittedly i could have done it in less if I’d used a bigger page size, but sending things out to be printed is expensive so we made do. after printing, i folded them into signatures*.

*there’s an additional note about the paper i used at the end

3) punching out holes in all the signatures! although not technically necessary, I honestly don’t think i would’ve been able to sew this behemoth without doing it.

4) sewing the pages into a real!! actual!! book!! this was the part i was most nervous about. i’ve NEVER attempted to sew anywhere near this large of a book before, so i tried out a new method of sewing in hopes of making it a bit more sturdy. we won’t know if it worked until this book endures some wear and tear, but i’m pretty optimistic!

5) next up is glueing the spine! this is where it really hit me that a lot of bookbinding is just…glueing shit together. later i also added cardstock to the spine in hopes of helping it adhere to the cover better, and a book headband* for decoration.

5) now we’re onto the book cover!! they only sell bookboard in minor bulk around here, so we’re not even gonna discuss how much bookboard i now own… anyways! i glued the faux leather onto the bookboard and then let that dry.

6) last up! off to the cricket! a huge thank you to my friend for letting me borrow her cricket AND supplies! anywho, this is where i designed my cover art. i then adhered the design to the cover. after this step, i realized i…definitely need some kind of sealant - so, if any more seasoned bookbinders have suggestions for this i am all ears!!

all in all, this was a super fun project, and a great way to kill some time while i recover from surgery! i absolutely plan to bind the sequel at some point, but that may be a…ways away. i’m a STEM major and school starts back up soon so…time will be in short supply lol!

To be continued...

Terminology

*signature: group of sheets folded in half, to be worked into the binding as a unit.

*book headband: just look up a picture if you’re curious because tumblr says i can't add any more pictures lol.

*about the paper!! i actually got it from a local specialty paper store, but if you want something similar i've heard amazon has some good bookbinding alternatives!

Tutorials

please PLEASE go check out Jess Less on youtube. she's phenomenal. here are her vids and what i used them for.

don't laugh!! i actually stole MOST of my techniques straight from this video.

i used this one to help me format the book correctly! although i still ended up with some goofs haha (see: any pages on the left side have the page number in the margin LMAO).

[centrally-unplanned]

I blogged before about this company, Orange, that is an AI-powered manga translation company. Essentially, their pitch is that most manga is still (officially) untranslated, a ton of manga gets made after all but few become mainstream enough to get ported overseas. They posit the barrier to that is the cost of translation; if they could automate that process, then they can make viable for release what previously was not. That concept rests on two questions - does the tech pan out, and does the economics add up?

Recently they went live, under the name Emaqi, so we can better explore those questions. What I notice on first glance is the pitch seems to have shifted a little bit in post:

You are not the translators of Vinland Saga, Witch Hat Atelier, or Magic Knight Rayearth, very obviously so. They have Sailor Moon in here lol. These are just the official translations being cross-listed into their "manga platform", where you buy it there and it lives, DRM-locked, in their app. Which is fair enough as a model, that is just Kindle, it works. Though Kindle and a dozen others already exist, so their value-add has to be the AI translation stuff right? That is why I would choose this over another app.

Which they do have, though it is kind of buried:

"Only on emaqi" - there is no mention of the translation approach, poor guys! Can't fault the branding decision I guess given the state of the discourse. When it comes to the products themselves, I went through ~6 or so of the sample chapters of different manga, did a few spot checks with the original Japanese, and read the reviews of some others who looked into it. They seem fine! I am cautiously impressed, I think there proofers did a good job smoothing out some edges, it has a "manga tone", and while small issues like the hyphenation the reviewer above mentioned do exist and are legit noticeable, they aren't common and not a huge deal. It has flow issues? Some dialogue should link together in how it is written, but doesn't. But it isn't crazy off or anything. You will not be wowed by these, but certainly if you are someone who reads bootleg scanlations you are gonna have no problems. A lot of manga uses pretty simple vocab and isn't breaking new ground on plot, I can see how a purpose-built tool could handle it well enough.

The economics though...here is where I don't think this case was ever going to pencil out and isn't now. Because I am pretty sure no one here has heard of any of the manga listed above as exclusives. (I saw 90's manga Geobreeders in there, but that was already partially translated in the 2000's, not sure if they did a new one? Setting it aside) Which, of course you haven't, if you had it probably would have been translated! Books are a 90:10 market, most books never get read and some books get read a ton. Anything big enough can justify a professional translation, and the other can't really sell to begin with.

On top of that, their model is mass translation; which means these obscure manga are presented to you with no context, no hype, no build-up. Wtf is The Blood Blooms In the Barrens?? See, if you were like a boutique publisher, selecting "the best of the best" in untranslated manga, you would promote your specific product. Interviews, social media, the value of the brand-itself as a quality seal. Publishing less is more, actually, your value as a publisher is as a quality selector. Or you could be say the porn market, where you max quantity so people can search "foot fetish breeding kink oshi no ko" and get results; they know what they want. But they aren't doing either! And to be blunt a lot of these are not gonna sell on their art alone:

I'm not mocking The Delayed Highschool Life of a Laborer here, that is better than I could do; but if you want to me spend money on a whim the bar is high and these don't reach it. Which of course they don't, they would be professionally translated if they did.

And finally, the price - $5 dollars, for volume 1's, like a 100-200 pages. The cross-listed manga typically sells for ~$10? That isn't much cheaper! If "translation" was this big cost barrier, and all you got is cutting the price of ebooks in half, I don't know if the analysis was so solid. This is a new product, I doubt they are overcharging to make a quick buck right now - this is the "sell at cost to scale" era.

In all of their lead up press they would say things like this:

Orange's process uses AI to read the manga through image analysis and character recognition, then to translate the words into English, Chinese and other languages. The technology is specialized for manga, meaning it is able to handle wordplay and other difficult-to-translate phrases. A human translator then makes corrections and adjustments. The process can deliver a manga translation in as little as two days. Orange will work with multiple Japanese publishers. The company looks initially to complete 500 translations monthly.

But this is missing a lot of context. For one, these manga are simple high school or battle manga that are ~200 pages long, many of those pages have only a few lines of dialogue, etc. Imagine you are a professional translator, and you are given that manga to translate, all the set-up done for you, all you gotta do is write. How long do you think that would take? Not that long! It could probably take like a week if it's actually all you did (calc'd from a 10k word count manga volume, 2k is a typical "good translator" per day count - many manga are shorter than that). And note how they said "as little as two days" - not median two days! Just, you know, aspirationally.

Translation is just not a big bottleneck. You gotta do layouts, lettering, proofs, etc, these can all take just as much time - and are being done by people, they still need wage workers doing all this. But that is small fry in comparison to publishing contracts, author approvals, distribution, all of that. And most importantly, product acquisition - you have to get authors to sign with you! That can be months of work. I am sure they are trying to get bulk agreements with publishers and such, but authors will push back on that, this is not an easy endeavor.

Which is why, in above, they say they hope to have "500 translations monthly". And after a year+ of work, on launch, they have...

...18. As best I can tell at least, their site deliberately obfuscates what they actually translated versus are just hosting for resale after all.

So yeah, as mentioned I don't think the economics pencil out. These aren't worth $5 dollars, they can't actually generate volume that makes "massive economies of scale" actually valuable, and their approach is currently antithetical to the idea of generating traction for any of their individual works. Niche publishing just doesn't work this way.

But it is early days, and hey I respect the experiment! I do think the tech is pretty good, and it is nice to see a company showcase it. It isn't quite good enough yet for prime time, but it could get there. I do want more manga to get exposure and audience; I will give a fair shake to any who try.

[iknowthegammer]

THE GOLDEN ERA OF THE INTERNET

today we’re gonna talk about the Golden Era Of The Internet more specifically the earlier days

The internet has become the best and most important places around..

you can communicate, create awesome Fanart and projects, join other communities or fandoms in sorts of media format and do whatever you wanted too!

the point is that most popular media back in the day were Memes, Roblox, Minecraft, FNaF and so much more were awesome and made for fun!

this art is more special to us because it reminds us of the old past and how it was like! So I figured it could be used to show us how it all started all the way back..

Here’s the original base and tag

Also hi there and welcome to my tumblr page! This safety environment and fun can be! Here are the list of set rules!

1. No stealing, copying or selling art! (Without any permission do not post and publish my art! The only way to get permission by chatting with me!)

2. Don’t bully and harass others on to my page! (This will included insulting, hateful and horrible messages! This will mostly be directed as a Permanent Ban!) 3. No dramas allowed (This is the most important rule because I wouldn’t allow any dramas that are Offensive, Annoying or even worse!)

4. Everyone should have fun and stay safe (and if you’re not having fun just leave if you wanted or not and if you don’t wanted to stay safe I will gladly remind you when you’re okay!)

5. I will not allowed anyone who is offensive, disrespectful, horrible and even worse! (Those can be said about others from different platforms who have been exposed)

6. If a person who has previously broken a rule and has an alt or use on this very page! I will banned the alt!

7. No commissions or requests.. but I do art in my free will!

8. If you broke one of my friends rules on their account you will be permanently suspended or in other case! Ban!

9. No Gore or Ungodly Stuff in this page.. this will make your account be IP banned or permanently banned

And if you broke one of those set rules or 3 of them you will be permanently banned off my page (there is also warnings too)

And if you like this page! Check out my friends pages @blo0st4r and @razzjazzazz

[mttcafe]

I’m back!!!!!! do you have any UT or DR merch you wanna show off? :3

YES!!! sooo much. i'll attach everything and then yap under the cut about them. long post incoming! sorry!!!

okay so starting out! i have my plushie collection. i have sans, papyrus, flowey, lancer, and two chapter two ralseis that my bf got me the second he released. one of them is wearing the butler outfit. i got one for free because my first one had stains on arrival. so now i have a second to wear the costume! i also have bootleg sans and papyrus and bootleg asriel.

i have all of the nendoroids sans spamton. the undertale cast is displayed on one shelf and ralsei on another. undyne broke into toriel's house and took the pie that's why she's not on her mountain.

i have the fangamer undertale vinyl boxset! i have the first run boxart with gaster on it [picture included]. he is not in any prints you can get now. i own the fangamer deltarune chapter one and two vinyls as well.

for one of my holy grail pieces of merch, i own the iam8bit undertale vinyls! they stopped making them a long time ago. you can find them average between the 100-200+ range. but the real holy grail is the 7" vinyl. it's in the first picture and then there's a picture of the vinyl attached. it has dogsong on it. it was a preorder bonus for the original vinyl and there were NOT many made because the vinyl went up for preorder in 2015 or 16 iirc. i have only seen like four listings for the dogsong vinyl ever and most sit in the several hundred dollar range. i bought a bundle of the original soundtrack AND the dogsong vinyl for one hundred and fourty dollars. AN INSANE COP. i won. I WON!!!! i had been looking for a good listing for YEARS.

i have quite a few pins although i would like more. i have the flowey fanclub pin, the lancer bike pin. the fanmade ones i own are both mettaton + a ralsei button that i made. on this backpack i also have the mewmew keychain. they stopped selling her a while ago so i had to find her second hand. it was also EXTREMELY difficult to find a listing for her!! but i found one for 15. only two over retail. yay!

i have the cyber city desk mat. i love it very much. i have the nubert beanie that my friend bought me. thanks casper. i have the undertale collectors edition for the switch, and the undertale art book. i have an eshop card that was never active i'm not gonna lie to y'all i just swiped that thing one day. no harm done it's just a piece of cardboard. i own the game on pc, switch, and my xbox. if i owned a ps4 you best believe i'd own it there too. i plan on getting one someday and 60% of the reason is for the ps4 dynamic theme and so i can play all versions of undertale. also i have a lot of undertale stickers and tags, mostly the bonuses from fangamer and such. plus a few art cards from there. oh! and my bf made me that cup + coaster. i love it. when the cup is set down it squishes ralsei.

now for the clothes that i have! i own two sans jackets from fangamer [not pictured i forgor]. i got one in a size too big so had to get a second. i have the shirt showtime, disruption, your best nightmare [it has a little flowey on the back!], the fifth anniversary shirt [it has a bunch of quotes from the game on the back. i love it.], the deltarune hoodie, and the flowey scarf.

as for unofficial clothing, i have two hoodies from etsy. one of them is a chara hoodie, and the other one is a lancer inspired hoodie with a spade that comes down over your face! it's so cool despite the fact i can't see out of it.

i also have a few kandi bracelets that i made and a golden flower headband i made for a cosplay. and with that.. i think that may be it..! i have a few pieces of merch that i really want but that could go into a seperate post. thank you so much for asking! i could talk about this forever haha. if i forgot anything i'll mention it. i'm very forgetful.

shoutout to all the people that have helped me cultivate this collection. a lot of these are gifts or things i've made myself broke buying.

[blanchebees]

About the removal of your art from print shops: It's something record labels enforce, as they also make money from merch sales of the bands signed to them. The reason smaller labels do not enforce it might be that it costs time and/or money to monitor platforms (e.g. because it needs to involve a lawyer). These big print shops also have no interest in hosting copyrighted art, as they might be fined (they get a bit of money for printing/hosting the shop and therefore would be making money off of art that belongs to someone else who did not consent to their designs being used).

Contacting the band will extremely likely have zero effect, as they have a contract with the label defining how much money the label gets from merch sales, and the label will enforce getting that money (e.g. by preventing unauthorised merch being sold). There are also contracts in place between the label/band and the merch companies designing and making the official merch. Those employ or pay artists for their art, and for these artists it's their job and they need to get paid. Merch sales are really the main money maker for bands these days and the days where a moderately successful band (compared to pop music) would get rich just from selling music are over. For touring, Sleep Token also has quite a few people involved in addition to the band members (fairly large crew, Espera etc.), who all need to get paid.

A similar art form to fan art is fanfiction and it is widely accepted that it cannot be published for money without changing details of the story referring to the original fandom (especially if the fanfiction is based on a book, film or TV series).

What you could do is have people donate money to you for making fan art (e.g. Kofi). There might also be other ways around it without using big commercial print shops.

In summary, while I understand that you don't mean to make a lot of money from your art, you're simply infringing on someone's copyright. That smaller labels don't enforce it is more of a lucky circumstance for fans selling art rather than necessarily how it should be. People deserve to get paid for their intellectual property and in the best case copyright serves to protect it.

Another problem is that they are also removing normal posts, this one artist got their reels and posts and posts taken down on insta, so it looks like we won't be able to post any fanart at all, which is even worse.

Some had their whole account disabled.

Cosplayers also didn't get affected, when they wear their symbol and some may gain money as well but maybe they will eventually, which would be extremely shitty. Not letting anybody express themselves.

It's just baffling that they're shutting down artists when they bring in the most fans thanks for the effective arts.

I can't force people to donate, buying prints was alright because they get something back but not everyone is gonna donate.

Just don't want to do anything and be affected like this.

[xoxitgirl]

⊹ ࣪ ˖ seasons challenge ⊹₊ ⋆

I saw this on YT community while scrolling so lmk if y’all know who posted it originally���for context they said it was from sammy’s group or something! but basically it’s creating a season for your manifestations and I thought this was so genius!!! the post was a little different like using your “season” as an umbrella affirmation. like I got everything I wanted in season one. or i have all my desires from season one.

the way I’m using seasons, I’m breaking them down into eight episodes (maybe more) but if you could direct your life, how would it go? if your life is a production, what would you change? how will your whole season transform you?

for those who don’t know, I am a designer. my season will revolve around expanding my business, having photoshoots, being able to travel more, fashion-related opportunities, selling my clothes to hella celebrities, etc.

since this is a challenge I feel like rules are mando—

no stopping!

no looking to the 3D for change—you are the director of your life!!! everything in your season happens because of you, fuck the 3D. your goal is to maintain the storyline of your season. allow your mind to lead and your body to follow—because it ALWAYS WILL.

live each day as if you’re living out your season—for example; in yours you become a successful artist. everyday you’re drafting new art pieces, networking with other artists, posting your pieces, or just vibing because not everyday as a successful artist looks the same! that gives you an opportunity to create your dream work dynamic. when you think, “I’m being stupid I’m never gonna be a successful artist.” take a step back and ask yourself, how would you think if you were living through your season? you would immediately go, “actually I already am a successful artist. any thoughts that don’t align don’t mean shit. I was meant to be a successful artist and I am.”

put into action

now heres where the fun part comes, this is optional but i feel like it would be hella fun to prepare yourself in the 3D. I strongly believe that the mind leads and the body will always follow so for the season premiere, get ready for your life to change! clean/redo your room, change your hair up so it matches this new season, start focusing on your lifestyle changes. you could even start journaling/drafting season two. if you’re a no effort person then this step can be ignored but doing things in the meantime allow me to take my desires off the pedestal/acknowledge that my desires always come through self.

I hope y’all like this idea, I actually started this challenge last nightt so I will come back with an update within the next month!!!

it girl ⊹ ࣪ ˖

[artbyifer]

Gonna edit this cause I got some booing in the comments.

Yes, this is AI. Artbreeder, in particular. Everything that I have done that contains AI is under the tag #artbreeder. If it does not have that tag, it is not AI.

My rebuttal to the booing is as follows:

A) I made & queued LONG before AI was controversial on here or we knew the disastrous effects on the environment

B) I'm not selling it and would not have hired an artist anyway, since my original intent was simply to help increase my facial diversity by making these mockups before doing my actual art. Because

C) I'm a pretty good artist who can draw just fine on my own but

D) I'm faceblind and have aphantasia. I used AI here to get a mockup of a character that looks right to me when I can't do that very well usually

E) This even helped me identify faces a bit better since

F) I put actual work into these and they take 5h+ of staring at every so slightly different faces. I know that a lot of AI stuff, and artbreeder in particular is samey and has no effort. It’s really easy to do that! You just put in a prompt or a set of faces and go! But if you’ve got actual artistic vision and are trying to guide it in a certain direction, it’s more like using an unpredictable or limited medium. Like collage or paint marbling or cracking glaze. Which matters because

G) Other than the environmental impact, the obvious misuses that corporations like Disney could put it to to cut out artists, and the poor sourcing and payment on the dataset, AI is just a tool like any other. And if we could deal with those three problems (artists need credit and money [ubi?], corporations need fewer ways to be jerks, environmental impact needs to go WAY down) it would be just another tool in any artist's toolset like photography, colouring books, knitting, or photoshop.

[fenimores-book-nook]

Books (again) and other things

10.22.24 ~ Tuesday

Welcome back to the Book Nook! First things first: HAPPY ASEXUAL AWARENESS WEEK! I want to do something special for every day of Ace week (I have yet to decide what) and today it's going to be a drawing of a frog with an Ace flag that I found on Pinterest. Maybe that's what will happen every day, I guess you'll have to tune to find out this week. ;) I'm also aware that Asexuality Awareness week started two days ago, on the twentieth and it is in fact, October 22nd. Tuesdays usually feel like the "actual" start of the week to me since it's the first day of work for me. So...it makes sense to me.

I will also be going on a trip to Arizona on Thursday, so you best believe Imma be rocking some Ace and Aro pride while I'm there. ;) I wanted to try to wear something Ace or AroAce every day but I might've forgotten today. BUT I have made AroAce bracelets to sell in the shop I work at, so we got one of those on. Plus, I got my nails done recently and they've got purple ombre, so I think that counts as well.

Something I did for Aromantic Awareness week is make a bunch of Aro colored bracelets and had them out for free, so I want to do that again for Ace week! But I am low on those bracelets, so I'm gonna be a bracelet making machine when I get home today. Besides, better late than never. ;)

One of the main things I wanted today's blog post to be about is a book series that I really love. The Baby-Sitters Club (the graphic novels) books based on the original BSC books by Ann M. Martin. The illustrators/authors have changed as more books have come out but I love looking at all the different art and writing styles.

This is probably the main book series that I will always get new releases for, no matter how old I get, no matter what age the books are for. (Quick side note on that topic: it literally does not matter how old the books you read are intended for and it does not matter how old you are. Heck, I'm twenty and I regularly read middle grade books. Because I like them. And that's all that matters. I'm someone who has had a bit of trouble with not feeling embarrassed with reading some of the books I read but I shouldn't feel embarrassed! No one should. READ WHAT YOU WANT TO READ, WHO CARES WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK.) Okay. Side note over.

I never really got into the original Baby-Sitters Club books, though I've read a few of them. I love the graphic novels a lot, I feel like the art adds so much more to the story. So far, there's 16 of the graphic novel adaptations out. (And yes, I have all of them, hehe.) I know they've skipped some of the original books, probably because they felt they didn't add enough to the Baby-Sitters Club universe. (Or not, I don't know.) But the ones they have made, I love. And of course, we're going to talk about my favorites.

These are three of my favorites out of the BSC! I'm sure if I re-read all of them, I'd include a few others, but we'll talk about these for now.

Good-bye Stacey, Good-bye is book number 11 in the series. Lemme just preface by saying, Stacey is probably my favorite BSC character's point of view to read from. She and Claudia are probably my favorite BSC members, honestly.

I love this one because it's Stacey moving back to New York City and while her leaving Stoneybrook is sad, the way she looks at moving back, I really like. Also, I've always wanted to go to New York City and explore, so I'm gonna love any of the books that have to do with it. As well with Stacey and Claudia's friendship, I love it so much. In this one it's shown quite a bit, their dedication and care for each other. The art style in this is one of my favorites. It was a bit of a change to get used to when Raina Telgemeier stopped illustrating them (I love her own books as well), but I think I kind of prefer this style more. I love them all, but this one just scratches my brain right.

Jessi's Secret Language, book 12. As a CODA (Child Of Deaf Adults), I really, really love when authors include deaf representation. There needs to be more representation, but over the last few years I've really noticed deaf characters being more included in books. As well as deaf representation, I'd love to see more normalized LGBTQIA+ representation. Seriously! But we're getting on a tangent now.

I love book 12 because of the things I've already stated, but also it's such a sweet book too. Jessi's love for dancing and how the kids and other BSC members show their support; I love it all.

And the last Baby-Sitters Club book we'll talk about today: Stacey's Mistake, book 14. Like I said about Good-bye Stacey, Good-bye, I love all the New York City vibes in this one too. But I'm also drawn to it because of the friend issues that happen. I haven't read this one in a bit, but I remember something in my brain going, "oh wow, I feel seen." I love books that make you feel like that. The way everything ends up okay-like every BSC book but that's partly why I love them so much-makes my heart smile.

I love all of the Baby-Sitters Club books and I will probably revisit talking about them in the future. They just give me this comfort and peak my interest every time I read them. And I'll also add: this is probably the only series that I've felt a real interest in writing fanfic and/or creating fanart for. But fanfic in the sense that I cast some of the characters as AroAce in my head. Honestly, it's kinda a lot of fun; I can see why people like creating an alternate story line to original stories in this way. :)

That is all for now, have the best day ever, and never stop reading what makes you happy.

All my love,

Thalia <3

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Meet the Hylian Knights who protect Zora's Domain!

I'm here to shove OCs down y'all's throats >:D

So in canon Link goes to Zora's Domain for the first time at the ripe old age of four freaking years old, just why Nintendo becuase now I have to write a four-year-old's POV and it's hard. Anyway, point is, there's no way he's a knight, obviously, even if the game's like "ooooo he beats adults at the raw age of four he's so amazing" SURE NINTENDO. SURE. Prodigies are a thing, I ain't denying it, but it's far more likely that Link, being a prodigy, is competent with a sword at age four and therefore is woefully underestimated by the adults around him rather than just outright beating them at their best, and--

Oops I'm getting off track. Point is, Link ain't a knight on this mission. So who are the knights in Chronicles of the Domain?

Well I'm so glad you asked! :D Because I wrote bios about them and am gonna share whether people care or not XD

Of course, we have the wonderful Abel, who I love to torture. He brought his son Link along on the mission due to extenuating circumstances - Tilieth, his wife, is currently a little preoccupied dying of illness that's ravaging Hateno. To both protect his son and give his in-laws a chance to just focus on helping Tilieth heal, and to ensure he still fulfilles his duty and provides for his family, Abel brought Link along on his mission. Abel is totally not stressed about any of this! :D Link is very much the spitting image of his father when he's older, so Abel has dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, a young, clean-shaven face, and a bit of a tan with sun spots from being outside so much. He's also a little shorter than the average Hylian man.

Next, we have Min. Originally a sell sword, Min joined the military for more stable work. He's really freaking good at fighting, which won him a position on the team, but there’s some friction between him and his teammates due to his past work. Duty isn’t really that big of a deal to him so much as his own personal life and sanity. Sometimes this makes him laxer than he should be, and sometimes it makes him the reasonable one of the group. Redhead, freckles, light skin, average build, part of his left ear is missing from a fight prior to his military days.

Then there's Ekan, who, like Abel, both comes from Castle Town and from a lineage of knights. While Abel became a knight because it was just the thing to do and he believed in doing his duty, Ekan became a knight because it was expected and forced, but he is fairly resigned to it at this point. Loves art and music and much prefers it to fighting, and is also very diplomatic – this was the main reason he was chosen for the job. But to Abel, he is a weak link, undisciplined in the sword and a liability as a result. He’s kind natured, though a bit dramatic, but knows how to navigate any conversation. Dark brown skin, cornrows hairstyle kept short, and the brightest smile.

The youngest knight on the team is Norri, who is also Abel and Link's roommate. Norri, like Abel, is very duty oriented, but is younger and more interested in climbing the ranks, which can make him a little competitive. He can be very opinionated, but will very much keep his thoughts to himself due to all the politics involved in trying to become an officer. Is originally from Tabantha Village and wants to make a name for himself, since he feels like he comes from the middle of nowhere and therefore has no clout to help him. Chocolate colored skin, short buzz cut black hair.

Finally, there's the captain of the team, Tomall. A seasoned knight from Mabe Village, Tomall has seen his fair share of diplomatic missions and finds them a bit tedious. But he's also had to fight Zora in skirmishes, and so he knows their tactics. He isn't necessarily biased against them, but he's certainly wary. Runs a tight operation, but still tries to look out for his men. Does not tolerate disobedience. Tan skin, small eyes, muscular build, short straight black hair that always ends up looking spiky when he takes his helmet off. Has a speckling of grey in his hair too.

[switch]

look i'm definitely one of the people who's been saying that new TNT has been missing the forest for the trees with feeling the need to fuck with pre-existing old pet art before selling it when people very much just want the exact old pet art they remember, speaking as a mouthless shoyru enjoyer here who's mad they probably fucked that up forever, but the new halloween art is a big step up.

like this is just actually really good art and makes me feel significantly less skeptical about their recent "we hired more artists, we swear" statement. specific ones like the nimmo, xweetok, and maybe grarrl i really could actually see existing pre-conversion if they had gotten unique poses originally. the cybunny's cape only being visible on one side isn't ideal but is otherwise fine, and the ixi is unfortunately a little blobbish looking and probably needed another pass to get a better shape/silhouette, but it’s decently cute and i'm fully in favor of them addressing the "literally every ixi except like four or five of them are miserably ugly because those are the only ones that didn't follow their extremely unfortunate base model" problem. everything else is fantastic, i think.

except the aisha! again! they literally just cannot stop fucking up the aisha. they love fucking up the aisha. fucking up the aisha is new TNT's favorite hobby in the world. seriously, what is the fucking deal, aisha is one of their main mascot pets and they're the pet with the most devotedly insane fanbase by far. who is this for?! this is not for aisha diehards! are they capable of producing one singular good looking aisha?! blobbish, the miserable dinosaur tail is here again, directionless pose, not smiling for some reason, and why is the mouth open again, what is this art even trying to convey with this pose and expression? all the other new halloween art is conveying plenty of readable personality with its poses and expressions! the proportions are severely wrong regardless of if they were referencing the pre or post conversion art, the legs are too big, the antennae ears should get thicker at the top instead of being that bad looking twig thickness the whole way through, the ears are pointing the wrong way, why is that one ear snapped at such an awkward angle, bad silhouette, neck too short, head way too wide, eyes too big.... the literal singular only good thing they did here was toning down the eye masks to look more like the old art.

look, seriously, i genuinely think that the aisha and the shoyru being their primary mascots right now is subjecting them to way more specific and strict art directions than any of the other pets which is why they keep getting fucked up the worst by far. i think this is just what they want the aisha to look like now. something something marketing, branding consistency, something.

anyway, it's been noted that these are branded as "spooky hallowen [pet]" and not "nostalgic halloween [pet]," so there's speculation they may best-of-both-worlds the 'use old art no matter what even if it's stock and hideous' VS 'make new retro-looking art in unique poses' problem. the idea sounds nice on paper, but they've already gone, what, six waves mixing the two? would they only start doing it with future lines, meaning already released pets are permanently fucked either way? or are they gonna go back and retroactively add back in untouched art and change the designation on altered art? also, just the sheer amount of shit they'd be selling in the style department would be getting kind of ridiculous at that point. do we really want both 'mouthless blue shoyru' and 'blue shoyru b/w mouth' diluting the gacha odds even worse? man, i don't know.

[shuploc]

I would like to know how you feel sometimes when people don’t know put your name on your artwork I see people repost your artwork on TikTok or on here and they take your name off or block it out, and the art is amazing like seriously and you deserve every amount recognition.

Oh dude, all the reposting is literally so soul-destroying, lmao. It's disheartening, it's awful, it's completely discouraging. The worst kind is when someone is selling a product with my art on it, (and I obviously don't wanna sound like I'm bragging or anything) but that unfortunately happens way too often.

I don't mind people using my art as a profile picture or even for a fic, or for inspiration for their own art. I really, really appreciate when people reach out and ask before using my art for anything, even if it is just for something as small as a profile picture. In any instance that has to do with reposting though, in general, I think the least you can do is link back to -or at the very least make people aware who the original creator is.

I think it's wonderful to get more eyes on my stuff regardless of where it is, I'd love to be able to inspire or otherwise make a positive impact on someone's life (that's the whole reason I do what I do), but I use the fan art I post as advertisement for my freelance work and to sell prints. If I wasn't posting, and if I wasn't doing it as frequently, I wouldn't get clients. So if the drawings are just floating around aimlessly and no one has any idea where they came from, then obviously no one is gonna reach out for commissions, and no prints are gonna get sold.

But yeah... There's nothing to be done about it, unfortunately, at least not anything that wouldn't otherwise hurt me back, like making my watermark much larger, or end up seeming like an awful person by having to RP as cyber-police and yell at people to "PLEASE, ADD CREDIT!!!" and such 😓

Another thing too is, whenever I do come across one of my drawings reposted somewhere and it doesn't have even a shadow of credit anywhere, reading what people are saying in the comments gives me the same feeling as if someone had made me aware that people were talking about me behind my back, y'know. Like it's something I'm not supposed to see. I know that's just my brain being weird, but it always makes me feel so oddly empty, even if the vast majority of the comments are positive.

Sorry for the long answer lmao, but TL:DR; I really, truly, dislike it, even if it's nice to know more people get to see my work.

[boomstab-papa]

Tae's guide to Pillowfort

So you fucking hate what tumblr is doing, you're fed up, but you don't know where else to go / what to do when you get there

Here's a guide what I've been up to over on Pillowfort:

For starters, new users need to either get an invite code (message me if you want one, because I literally always have some!) or donate to Pillowfort's operating costs to get started. I recommend getting a code first, and then donating later if you decide you like Pillowfort.

Recognize that Pillowfort has no ads and does not sell user data, so you are not the product. You are the customer. Pillowfort lives because users give their money to the webisite directly, just like how ArchiveOfOurOwn.org operates. If you give Pillowfort a try... and you want to see it keep growing... and you have a couple bucks to throw their way... please consider donating!

On your new account, you'll set up your blog. User icon, description, settings, etc. You get one blog per account. Consider making this your "everything" blog, where you make your original posts AND reblog things.

Consider making a Community that will serve the same purpose as a tumblr sideblog. For example, I made my main blog ceylon-tae and then made the Community "ceylon-tae-art". Just make the Community for now.

Did you set your NSFW and blacklist preferences? You should. Filters & Blacklist have their own link in the sidebar, so you don't have to go into your Settings every time you want to blacklist something. Easy!

Join some more Communities! Think of joining a [Fandom] Community like following the [Fandom] tag on tumblr. Posts from that Community will show up on your feed now! Here is a list of the currently-most-active communities.

Follow some people! You might have seen some of your comrades on tumblr posting their Pillowfort accounts, or maybe you really liked someone's post in a Community and you decide you'd like to follow them! Go follow them! Their posts will show up on your feed now!

Make a post! Remember to add any relevant tags to the post, especially if your post is NSFW, and don't cen/s0r your tags. Your post will now show up on your blog, and you can control who can see it, reblog it, or comment to it. You can make text, image, video, or link posts.

Now you can reblog that post you made to your Community that you made! Or to another Community someone else made! Some Communities review submitted reblogs before posting them, others do not. Remember to add the relevant tags to your reblog here as well.

Reblog posts you enjoyed, so you can show it to your followers!

If you have something to say about the post, Pillowfort has a nested comments section! Livejournal / Dreamwidth / Reddit users will find this familiar. Newbies will hopefully find it easy to learn: make your own comment, reply to the comments other people have made, talk to people in a space that's made for talking and replying.

You can make your own hush-hush commentary in your tags when you reblog a post to your blog, but these tags are not visible anywhere else. So Pillowfort is not gonna rat you out to OP when you make weird tags on your reblog. But also there is no bulit-in way to read everyone's tags in one long list.

You cannot make addendums to posts when you reblog them. If you want to add something, make a comment! Or make your own post and include link to the original post.

Seriously. Comments section. Good stuff. If you enjoy a post, check out its comment section. For comparison, tumblr discussions lived in reblogs, but comments on AO3 fics are what makes an author's world go 'round. Comments are where discussion lives on Pillowfort. So comment on the post if you have something to say! You can have real discussions again! GO. BE FREE. You can also do a Kung Pow Penis in nested comments if you want to. Nested comments are good.

Likes just tell OP you liked the post. That's it. It's just like how kudos works on AO3.

Remember, there's no algorithm, so Likes don't boost any post's visibility, and if you want other people to see a post, you reblog it. If you want to see posts, you follow people and communities, or you dive into the tags for yourself.

There's more details and things to know, but I think these are some good basics for "how the fuck do I even get started"

More how-to-pillowfort guides: https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/3459763 by DoktorHobo https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/4099124 by rah https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/4404622 by killerandhealerqueen

In summary:

Make a blog. Make posts. Make a niche-interest Community or three. Follow people and Communities. Reblog other people's posts to your blog. Reblog posts to your niche-interest Communities. Make comments. Reply to comments. Love the comments. The comments are a fertile land and we will thrive. And we will call it... Pillowfort!

[podfeels]

Podfeels Adapt8ion Notes: Episode 6

hello, dare again! just as a reminder for how these posts work, stagelights will be covering the notes as a whole, and if i ever have to pitch in it will be with purple text like this! with that said, lets get back into it!

and here we have it, the final one of season/act 1. i dont know if we ever settled on which its called. seasons internally, acts externally :) we never really cleared up that inconsistency but its not a huge deal so shrug emoji. this episode is some of our best work so far, and i think a lot of the changes help sell that even more.

a bit of a call forward to the next chapter where dirk says the same thing. we also used this in the trailer for the sahcon new years showcase.

this change was done to match the art drawn for the background more closely.

that first bit literally makes no sense in audio and there is no way to adapt it so we changed it. then some narration changes. then im pretty sure that last bit was a typo, so that was fixed lmao. yeah. half-hazard is a sarah-ism we nixed to make the actual word (as much as its a charming sarah-ism, i dont think it was intentionally included by choice by her, just put in by virtue of her writing it) and grub-naking was definitely a typo i think. as for the b's or 8's thing. yeah. that was hell to figure out and we eventually gave up on it after multiple attempts to find ANY way to make it work.

this line wasn’t actually changed, but there was a small addition of the characters in question screaming slash begging for their life or what have you as their name is said. spooky. :)

fairly big change, and i think the change from a photo to a video helps sell more in audio form the impact of junes violence here. its some good shit, and also fucking terrifying holy shit i shuddered while listening back to this for writing these notes. shout outs to the writing team for putting this here. abso-fuckin-lutely, the writing goes so hard. also a big shoutout to my friends who put up with my annoying and loose process to come in as cameo voices for the recording!

you know the drill by now.

there are a BUNCH of changes here. first of all we added a lot of new lines here for the ads, because i think that fits better in audio. all of these lines are voiced by guest actors, including sarah herself, which is pretty neat. then theres a new bit of dialogue here from jane. it being a pre-recorded message helps to sort of keep it ambiguous as to whether she’s alive or not, and helps to sell that this is a crisis the world is taking seriously. it also helps bring things in line with future bits of godfeels, as crockercorp has its hands in many pieces of this version of earth c. then janes voice starts to glitch out and we cut to the terezi call, which had a bunch of changes to reflect the whole “phone calls and not text” thing. 

some changes to help bring the fight scene into place more naturally

This entire fight scene does not show the script in the video version, so i had to manually create the screenshot for this for the sake of the comparison, but this screencap does not do this scene justice. this entire bit of narration was cut and replaced with some INCREDIBLE sound design, which i can’t really get into the sound design part because im not a sound designer. but its really fucking good. shout outs to dare for that.

so, a bit of background on this scene. originally our plan was to have an instrumental sludge metal cover of Sweet by Phemiec, the trickster!Jane song. it was gonna be a tense chase sequence like the original text, but dragged out into a cat and mouse between june and dirk with dirk playing with his food a bit and june having to face the reality of what she did while fearing for her life.

however, when it came time for this to be done, the musician i'd planned this with had something else in mind, intending on a Deftones style altmetal sound instead of the sludge metal previously discussed, and then also life events made her incapable of delivering within any reasonable timeframe anyway before we could settle on which route to go down. so that got scrapped, which is tragic because that plan, sludge or alt, would have been absolutely stunning, but also scrapping it allowed us to make it SO. MUCH. BETTER.

we had already settled on "Game over." as a title, a callback to the last time everyone Fucking Died, also formatted like Dirk's text instead of June's, to show his control over this episode. but following from that name, I realized... we could use the song. from [S] Game Over, CARNE VALE. which also adds more flavor to this ult-dirk depiction, i feel. using a Caliborn song over a Dirk scene reminds the listener that Ult-Dirk is, in fact, Caliborn. He's every instance of Dirk, which includes Lil Hal, which includes Arquisprite, which includes Lord English. So using a Caliborn song here actually resonates REALLY HARD, i think.

as for the sound design, thank you for the praise! im very proud of my work here, the vrillyhoo sounds, syncing the swings to the beat of the song, and using the uprising whistle in the song at one point as a sound effect for the vrillyhoo flying through the air after june gets disarmed. the scene and song gave me a lot of material to work with :3

there were actually a ton of suggestions for flourite octet effects from all of our writers (and a few friends of mine who weren't on the team lol), and i cant find them all, but these were the final ones we narrowed down to before chosing

last bit of the original episode had a bunch of cuts for pacing. pacing, yes, but also to keep us tied to our current june. the original writing had it cut to the scene before june showed up, and had her appear. but in order to maintain the inertia from the last scene and to keep our camera focused on our protagonist, we had us just land in the scene at the same time as her. the audio here is literally ripped verbatim from episode 5, and in the scriptlog for this episode it says “episode 5” during this part, which i think is very fun.

there is also a post credits scene involving dirk, with a bit of completely original writing.

i don’t know if theres much to say about this that the text itself doesn’t already make clear. “this is where i get off” is apparently a half life reference though, but i haven’t played half life so idfk. dirk would be the type of nerd to do a reference like this in these circumstances though.

i had a lot of plans for this scene, and felt VERY strongly about it. originally this scene was vetoed by some performers until i recorded it myself as a proof of concept and we discussed was to get them on board. my original draft had gore sfx after he swung his blade (because i love gore sfx), but i think its far stronger to cut off before impact. as for why we're having A Dirkicide, when thats often seen as a bit insensitive these days, is actually to humanize dirk. dirk, in later godfeels updates, comes back as far less of a villain. in early godfeels, he's all intimidating villain all the time, all the way until his death. i wanted to let him share his piece. the text here is some original, some taken from his death in the Meat timeline, and some taken from his death in the Game Over timeline. These callbacks are also included intentionally to make him a bit more sympathetic. While his plan is to spark the epilogues, and he is a monster for his actions there, he IS ultimately motivated by an urge to keep his friends alive. this timeline isn't just a dud for his plans, isn't just a failure of his foresight, but also a repeat of dirk's lowest moment in the comic, when he lets the glitchtide take him after learning all his friends are dead. a moment he remembers and likely still grieves. and now he's having to grieve it all again. this wasn't included to be insensitive to dirk, it was included to make you remember 'wait, shit. yeah. oof. he IS kinda right on all counts about june as of this moment'.

and for a bit of behind the scenes? i've designed two sounds for deaths, Heroic and Just. and this one? it was Heroic. he died in the process of opposing someone who just killed all her friends. i may not agree with that distinction overall, but i think its a fair choice for skaia to make and i included that little meta aspect to once again humanize him a bit more.

also yes i had him quote gman, not just because he's a dweeb, but also to show his position as a Controller Who's Lost Control.

_____

thank you for coming around to see the adaptational notes for podfeels act 1! thank you again to stagelights for putting all of this together (i never would have found the time to do the bit by bit markdowns like they did), and also thank you to everyone on the team for contributing to this passion project i think we're all very very proud of.

i apologize for the long delay in getting act 2 started, but rest assured that we're still hard at work! i hope youve enjoyed seeing our process a bit, and maybe even learned from it a little!

[thewakingcloak]

The State of Things Yet to Come

The Ghost of Spacefarer Things Yet to Come is a hard guy to get ahold of, but I have at last wrangled him and tied him down until he wrote the blog post he promised:

The blog post he promised

I have looked into the future… where I am from… and ok yeah let's start off with the big news first! In the future… ProtoDungeon: Episode III will be on Steam!

That means you can wishlist ProtoDungeon: Episode III on Steam!!!!

And here's a little mini announcement trailer for just this occasion :) (and turn up the sound! I made a lil tune for this!)

So please go give it a wishlist!

Steam's inner machinations are something of a secret to everybody, but wishlists absolutely help the folks who make games. It's one of the most important ways you can help me, even if you're not sure you'll ever buy it. Wishlists get games seen, so please wishlist!

I'm really excited about this. This one actually my original plan for ProtoDungeon, to put each individual episode up on Steam and use the experience to improve… but I was talked out of it by a guy who was mad that Episode I wasn't a full-length game, and by his predictions of my failure. I switched to only publishing for free on Itch and decided The Waking Cloak and ProtoDungeon DX would be the only games I put on Steam.

I wish I'd never listened to that guy. He clearly didn't care about me, and I let his words and attitude control me.

The future is ever-shifting

There's a lot of things I've been doing because I felt like (and have been told) I should be doing. So for the future, I had been intending to really hit the ground running on all fronts, posting to social medias everywhere, launching tiktok and insta reels and youtube shorts, and generally pouring my efforts into "marketing."

I don't think there's anything wrong with this, but it's also… not me? It's not really what I want for my future. I've thought long and hard about this hobby, and I want to enjoy the parts I enjoy, and not let pride prevent me from letting other people take over the parts that I'm not really good at and don't have the time for anyway. Let's face it: my plate is full with my job, my kids, my house, taking care of my wife, chronic illness/pain, etc.

On top of that, I've been off social media for a long time now, and it's been so restorative. I don't fault anyone for being on any of them, and I'll poke my head up every now and then, but… I'm letting go of "making it" on socials. I can't keep up with the sacrificial requirements of the Algorithms. I can't keep up with the comparison game with everyone else making stuff on there. I had spent a lot of time curating my feed(s) so that I saw only wonderful people making wonderful art, and I still felt like I was always "coming up short."

The new plan: just post here on the devlog… just things I want to post. Focus on making my games and having fun doing it. I'm not gonna spend time finding the opportune moment to generate traffic or to say just the right things to sell people on playing my games or learn all the metrics and stuff. I won't post in every conceivable space hoping I'll get enough momentum to go viral or even just noticed.

Will that mean fewer wishlists, fewer followers, fewer people playing my games? Yes. And I'm content with that. I just want to enjoy the act of making games. I don't need to "make it big" anymore. I look up to folks like ConcernedApe (solo dev of Stardew Valley) and Team Cherry (small team behind Hollow Knight) and their lovely games and experiences, but I don't need to BE them anymore. I'm me, and I like being me.

Okay but what am I actually doing…?

Practically speaking, the plan is now as follows:

Publish ProtoDungeon 3 on Steam/Itch for $8.99, with a two-week launch discount of 15% (so, $7.64). I'd like this to be in Q1 of 2025, but I'm keeping things loosey goosey here

Publish PD1 and PD2 on Steam for $4.99 each, with the same builds as on Itch now (so they won't have Steam achievements). These might come before 3 is released, we'll see!

Continue with episodes 4 and 5, also on Steam/Itch--these will be significantly quicker to develop than 3, as they will be smaller and also will not require fundamental changes as 3 did. Pricing will probably be lower than for episode 3 and likely higher than episodes 1 and 2.

All of the above will be self-published!

Once those are complete, I will be working on The Waking Cloak, and it's here that I'm seriously considering looking into a publisher. I do want my games to be played by more people, and having professionals handle all the marketing and socials and console porting and other fine details would be such a burden off my shoulders. I've got my eye on a few in particular, but I'm putting more thought into this before I say anything else.

What about…?

Why are you working on ProtoDungeon and not The Waking Cloak? Trick question! (You didn't know you were asking a trick question, did you?) I say this a lot but it bears repeating: ProtoDungeon is helping me build up the mechanics and assets for The Waking Cloak, and is helping me get lots of practice with game design, as well as with art and publishing and so forth.

Will ProtoDungeon have spoilers for The Waking Cloak? Nope! The only spoilers will be purely mechanical, but I'm holding back a lot of puzzle concepts and a few mechanics for TWC itself. ProtoDungeon is a separate prequel story and has unique dungeons that will not show up in TWC.

What is ProtoDungeon DX? This will be the combination of all the ProtoDungeon episodes, with the early episodes rebuilt, and with additional content (like an overworld). I'm planning on working on this after The Waking Cloak. There will be some kind of discount based on your collection of individual ProtoDungeon episodes. I don't know how that works yet, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Whatever happens, I want to make sure it benefits y'all.

Why isn't ProtoDungeon free anymore? Simply put, because I think they're worth it. I've put a lot of time and effort and love into them. Also, I have a family to support, and this hobby is not free either! The episodes are short, yes, and that's why they'll cost less than a movie ticket.

Patreon? Development will be open and free as always, but patrons will get a first look (like with this post!) There are other goodies at higher tiers, too. And I should mention: funds go towards stuff like key art, publishing fees, and other minor operating costs. I was able to commission some wonderful art for ProtoDungeon: Episode III with y'all's support, but I've also bought some music tools (such as Chipsynth SFC), and I have a Studio Spacefarer P.O. box as an official address for legal reasons when publishing newsletters. I also am able to keep the main site, https://studiospacefarer.com, up with these funds. So, thank you!

To the future!

ProtoDungeon: Episode III has been a difficult beast to tame, partly because of fundamental changes to all the systems, but also because of where it fell in my life, amidst the pandemic and grief and changes and moving. It's become more important to me because of that, because it's a way to process everything. I had always known ProtoDungeon was about grief, but now it's much more personal.

I'm excited to work on things again. I look forward to sitting down and working out the details and adding the new ideas. I can't wait for y'all to experience it. Thank you for following along, and here's to future days!

Oh and did I mention…? please wishlist ProtoDungeon: Episode III on Steam :)