#they donated a LOT so they got some bonuses lol

[tj-crochets]

A shark baby blanket to go with Jeff the Land Shark for one of my MTH 2022 auction winners!

[southern-belle-365]

Honestly….if people are tired of seeing her, that's okay! But can we please be real? It's the NFL and TV broadcasters who decide WHAT we see and when we see it. Taylor is simply just just out there, living her life. She’s not doing anything wrong.

It's kind of fascinating how much Taylor Swift's mere existence seems to irk some people. It says a lot about where we are as a society when a woman can't even support her boyfriend at his job without criticism. Good on HER for being supportive of HIM. And let's remember, SHE isn't the one putting the camera on herself. It's hard to fathom why anyone would hate on someone, famous or not, just for simply LIVING THEIR LIFE. Maybe we all need to take a deep breath, look around, and focus our passion on the real issues.

How anyone can hate her is beyond me. She generously and consistently donates to causes she believes in, pays her tour crew HUGE bonuses, oh and she’s brought in substantial revenue (331.5 M) to the NFL. Her contributions are making a significant positive impact on the world. Not to mention how much she’s also boosted the US economy with her tour.

Oh AND she’s getting little girls hyped up about football. And they’re bonding with their dads. And that’s so wholesome to me.

If you've got any love for me (even a smidge lol), here's a gentle reminder for you: Taylor Swift quite literally saved my life. She was there for me during my hardest, darkest times when everything was falling apart. While you are totally free to express yourself on your own page, and you're absolutely entitled to your own opinions, there’s no need for harsh words or hate towards her at all. She’s done NOTHING wrong.

[mayorofcattown]

and here is that actual visual novel dev update I promised! It’s gonna be a long one so I’m putting it under a read more

this update mostly goes into progress on outlining and some art and asset making, plus some other fun details too

also worth mentioning up top, is I made a twitter specifically for game dev stuff, as twitter seems to be the kind of place to put stuff like this. it doesn’t have any posts yet, and I’ll go a bit more in detail abt my plans for it in this post, but I’m posting the link here where it’s more visable lol: https://twitter.com/cattowngames

The most obvious update is well. the art. as you can see I’ve started on making the sprites for the characters, starting with Skyler. I’m only sharing her default sprite here, tho if you are interested in the other sprites I made for her you can see the rest of those on my patreon ;)

(Going forward that’s probably going to be how I handle ‘behind the scenes’ content on there, I’ll post one piece of ‘main’ asset work from a set that is necessary to show progress/gain interest, and keep the rest as bonus content for ppl who want to see more. That way ppl who don’t want to donate can still get a feel for the project, while ppl who do still get some nice bonuses)

I’ve also updated the general visuals of the UI a bit here too, with some more textures and glitch effects to just make it a bit more snazzy, the old one was looking a little bland. I might still change some things, but I’m liking the look of it a lot better

here’s the old one for comparison (both of these taken in game):

You can see I’ve shifted it a bit more to the right (which was WAY harder to code than it should’ve been lmao..........) to make space for skyler’s sprite sitting in front of the window, which was the best way I could find to position her to make her recognisable as the player character without totally overshadowing the other character sprites (which will be on the left behind the textbox)

Also finally added the forward button, I never did find out a way to make that from actual text so I just caved and made a png of a > sign with some glitch effects behind it lol

I still need to update the rest of the UI assets to this style, but that’ll probably take a bit longer so I figured I’d just post this now either way

Most of the progress over the last few months tho has been in story stuff, which I can’t Super show, but I do at least have a solid enough outline of the main story for the parts I’m going to include in the demo. I’m planning for the demo to include the first two chapters plus a short prologue introducing the setting and things, as that seemed to be a good enough place to end things on as far as introducing the main setup and story without going to far in yet. While I can’t show any of the actual outline, I will share this little tidbit of the chapter names cause I think they’re fun (15 year old me’s One good decision was giving the chapters error code names that did in fact Pop Off)

While I haven’t outlined everything so far, I have pretty solid idea of the overarching story at this point and the general structure. It’ll have around 5ish ‘arcs’ basically, one intro arc, three ‘main arcs’ and then the ending arc. I’ve got solid outlines for the intro arc (aka the demo) and the second arc, like half of the third arc and a vague idea of the ending and first arc (which still eludes me for some reason lol)

And here’s the total wordcount for the outline so far, since I feel like that’s the only other thing abt this I can think of to show off lol

The good news is that overall the story isn’t TOO long, I mean it’s not short by any means but it’s still a relatively self contained story, not a convoluted magnum opus, so it probably wont take like. a decade to make the game or anything. hopefully...

The even better news is that the demo chapters Specifically don’t actually have a tonne of art needed for them. A lot of the major recurring characters don’t get introduced until later arcs, so I don’t actually have to draw most of them for the demo, and of the ones that DO show up, half only show up virtually through chats and things instead of in person. So basically the only characters who need Full sprite art are Skyler and Ethan and a few minor characters, cause Trinity doesn’t even get a body until the first main arc lol

Backgrounds and CGs are another story, there’s gonna be a Lot of bgs in particular, tho I’m still figuring out what parts will need CGs. The prologue at least will likely have a few, since it’s Very Short and takes place in the past, it probably works out easier to just draw like. 2 cgs rather than a full set of sprites of younger versions of the characters just for like. a 5-10 minute intro

I do still obviously have a Lot of writing to do still, and even as short as it is the demo alone will probably end up being as long if not longer than Out of the Bag, there’s just a lot more Stuff going on and setup that needs to be done compared to that

Tho speaking of backgrounds, here is the fun little detail I mentioned, I recently had the galaxy brain idea of rendering some of the indoor environments in the new animal crossing DLC, because it is Very Good for interiors

I’m probably going to make a seperate post abt this too, featuring a proper video recording of it cause the screenshots are a lil awkward (I made this in the sketch app and it doesn’t really allow for as nice of photos compared to the actual houses, but I haven’t gotten around to putting it in a villager home yet) but this is a build I made of Skyler’s apartment! This isn’t final, I just made it as a fun experiment, but I’m quite happy with how it turned out

And the last thing to talk abt (as I mentioned above) is the new twitter account! Twitter seems to be popular for game dev type stuff, and I wanted to make a dedicated account for this Somewhere, so I figured I may as well make one. It’s not specifically for OS:TRI alone Technically, in that I will post other games I make there too, but I will probably focus on OS:TRI stuff predominantly right Now since it’s the one I’m actively developing, and trying to balance multiple games on one acct would just get confusing for everyone lol

I’m still going to post updates like this here, my plan is just to use the twitter for shorted updates and promo stuff, (like lil character intros and things) and post long posts like this on tumblr later. I don’t really see much point making a seperate tumblr blog for it as well since tumblr already has filter and tags so if ppl want to read all my posts abt my vns they can just look thru my tags, twitter needs more dedicated side blogs tho. and it’s just where all the game dev ppl seem to be

Anyway, next up I’m planning on fixing up the rest of the UI and drawing the other sprites, and from there I’ll start putting the outline into the game and actually like. writing it lol

[miekezulu]

&&. announcing her royal highness, ( mieke zulu, née van vuuren ), the ( 34 ) year old ( princess ) of ( south africa ). she is often confused with ( candice swanepoel ). some say that she is ( unwelcoming & haughty ), but she is actually ( steadfast & clever ).

yes i am THIS bitch

moving on

the van vuuren family was one of the first families to move to south africa when the area was colonized. as a family of merchants, they were a bit on the wealthier side but nothing too excessive. they didn’t hold much power but had a few connections to the more influential people.

until the mid-19th century that is. 

the van vuurens bought a mine --- they had hoped to find vanadium and chrome, and perhaps even a little bit of gold. what they di not expect was a proper diamond mine. the family got rich and fast, and when the iron is hot you have to smith: they expanded as much as they just could and it took roughly a decade for them to be one of the most prominent suppliers of diamonds. 

with wealth came power. the van vuurens got better at influencing politicians and swaying to vote that it served their agenda. they had a lot to lose when the conversation about an independent south africa began. the van vuurens were more than glad to stay under the rule of the english --- hell, they’d take the dutch too.

despite their best efforts, in 1910 the monarchy was established in south africa. 

the van vuurens managed to hold onto most of their land, they paid a steep price for it in the form of bribes and donations but the dynasty stayed. 

they had never been really politicians, they just made sure that they had a dozen in their pockets because they always found something to disagree with the royals. the van vuurens knew how much power they could lose if they gave in even an inch so no matter what the ruler of the kingdom did, the van vuurens always found something to criticize. it really depended on the issue whether they were just annoying mosquitoes or actual roadblocks. 

after the 60s they toned down a bit --- the less socially acceptable straight up racism got, the less they could open their mouths. it still didn’t mean that they were nowhere close to playing fair or being kind. they had their own agenda and they would serve it until the very end, ruthlessly.

of course once they had established their place in the south african society, they also had less of a need to be very vocal. as time passed, they mainly focused on influencing taxing and exportation laws. the more money they could earn, the better, fuck the society lol.

mieke’s father and the king of south africa don’t see eye to eye. not only is mieke’s father a bit young to show such blatant disrespect towards the monarch, he has practically made it his mission to slow down any improvements the king has tried to make. partly because it helped with the family business, partly to make sure everyone knew how strong a position the van vuurens still held, and partly because of the feud the families had kept feeding since the beginning of the nation. 

okay now about mieke herself

so mieke grew up as a rich kid. she had it all from chopard necklaces ( gifted to her by the brand ofc ) to chanel tweed jackets. not to mention a “pet” leopard in a cage on their backyard. everything about the van vuurens was about showing off their wealth and mieke knew no better. her hair always had to look like she was fresh from the salon and if she forgot to put on diamond earrings, it was the end of the world.

mieke has only associated herself with specific kind of people: the rich and the beautiful. it’s not something she does intentionally but because she has always been able to pick the people around herself, she has clearly gone for the people who seem the most interesting and most like herself.

she doesn’t necessarily look at “normal” people down her nose but she somewhat ignores them unless there’s an actual conversation to be had. she remembers to thank her staff and send them their christmas bonuses but she rarely asks how their families are or if they enjoyed their holiday: if she really doesn’t care about the person, why would she waste her time? she has better things to do than to make someone she doesn’t truly know, feel noticed.

but if anything, mieke has always been obedient. she has always respected her parents and appreciated the privileged life she’s been given. she very much shamelessly repeated her father’s words when people asked her about politics and whatnot --- even if she never really know what she was saying. 

mieke was also the only child so she received a lot of attention from her father, which just made her more fond of the man. she has a handful of cousins who are all working at the family business, mieke’s branch of the family owns 42% percent of the company, her two uncles’ families the rest.

but then. enter ayo.

it was usual for the van vuurens to be invited to basically every event the royals were invited to as well so the two families interacted quite a lot even if every conversation was just both sides tensing their jaws.

according to all logic, kgosi and mieke should have been nothing different --- they were the ones who were supposed to uphold the tradition. mieke’s oldest cousin seemed to be doing a good job at it though.

kgosi and mieke did get into spats occasionally but mainly just to uphold the tradition. it was all in good humour. 

it was all in good humour until they both realized that somewhere along the way they had more or less fallen for each other. 

it was a twist hardly anyone saw coming, definitely not the king nor her father. when it was brought up, the couple somewhat assumed that both of the men would be outraged. that was not the case. because both could see exactly what they had to gain from it:

mieke’s father believed that finally the family would get someone truly special in their pocket. not just the season’s hottest politician, a crown prince. 

and the king would finally get rid of the van vuurens, the pests. if the van vuurens’ own angel was to become queen, they’d feel less inclined to shake up the monarchy’s position. if mieke became part of the family, she’d most certainly earn the royal family points from the white but rich minority.

so eventually the two got married, in 2010, and it really did improve the relationship between the families --- it didn’t remove all of the problems but now it was kgosi’s and mieke’s job to find the compromise. 

the two of them had trouble conceiving,  it took them three years until mieke got pregnant. their son, ajani yahya zulu, is now five years old, and even though they’ve been trying to have another child, no such luck. mieke has more or less given up by now.

mieke is fiercely loyal to her husband and takes his side without having to think --- unless it’s her own family causing the issue. she does her best to make sure to have her husband’s back. her talents lie in scheming to be honest. it’s something she learned from her family. there isn’t many things she considers unorthodox and doesn’t mind taking the responsibility off kgosi’s shoulders if something controversial has to be done.

so this zulu family feud has definitely brought out a more uglier side of her and she has no love lost for her husband’s brothers or their children. 

uhmm hmu