#trying a new format for sharing previews of my patreon stories

[secret-engima]

Preview of Scales Day (Patreon Story)

     Clay knew the moment he woke up before his alarm clock that it was going to be a Scales Day. He pressed his face into his pillow and didn’t bother groaning, because it would help nothing and would only waste valuable energy. And here he’d been hoping to go hiking after work with friends too. He dragged himself through his morning routine, holding onto the bedpost when his legs threatened to forget how human joints and walking worked, cracking some of the stiffness out of his hands and wrists with practiced motions that his doctor kept telling him to stop (but he never did because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to move them well enough to get dressed).

     Getting dressed was a chore too. He had to wrestle on his socks first, pulling them over feet tipped with sharp claws that would shred the fabric if he wasn’t careful, but putting on socks meant bending over and even while sitting that pulled at his spine and hips and threatened to make his tail spill into existence and tear a hole in his pants (yet again, he had so many slacks he’d bought for work that now he used for slouching around the house on his days off because of the patched holes in their backs that it wasn’t funny anymore). He shrugged on a button-up shirt and stubbornly ignored the catching and ripping sensation of threads tangling with the scales peppering his shoulders and spine only to be pulled free or cut through by the sharp edges of said scales. It didn’t feel bad enough to have made any noticeable holes, and he’d be wearing a vest over it anyway, so no one would see if there was a new hole.

(if you want to see the rest of this short story and others in various other fantasy worlds and premises, come check out my patreon!)

[meduzagames]

Devlog 01.09

Hello, my dear friends! 🤠

I wanted to share with you an update about the game. I think you noticed that I haven't been SO active these last weeks - that's because I successfully finished university and moved to a separate flat. SO now you can call me Master Lu!

But let me be serious about the development of The Mars Notes 😎:

1) I decided what kind of working format I will have. For now, I am writing the text for the demo version. Consider it an Early Access to the game or trial version of the application. During the demo version, a player can see the mechanics of the game and try the story. After the demo version release, I will create whole texts, arts, and other materials for the game. BUT I will release the chapters episodically every month.

2) I started to work on the text. For now, I have 3k words. The work goes smoothly, and I am happy about it. The text should be ready this week.

3) I still don't have the date for the release, but I plan it for October. The date highly depends on the realization of the plan in Ren'Py. If, during the TND work, our main objective was to tell the story, I want to add more interaction in TMN.

💻

🪐 Please, follow us on Twitter. I post there more often than here.

🪐 Also, if you want to be a part of The Mars Notes' creation, you can become my patron. For now, I post there "devlogs" and small previews, but I plan to add new tiers and benefits (like a postcard from your favorite character, your NPC in the game - since October, early access for the demo version - since October, and so on.) ___________

Originally posted on Patreon

[bi-dazai]

Hey! You! Yes, you!

Do you like fantasy stories? Of course you do. 

Do you enjoy stories of teenagers trying to deal with the typical emotional hardships of being a teenager while also handling a revolution that involves swords, magic, occasional gods chiming in to help, and the power of friendship and learning to be confident in yourself? 

And do you like the promise of not one but several endgame gay pairings? Fantasy gay pairings?! Of course you do!

Then my new online serial is for you!

Priyana is the story of three teenagers - Nik, Rada, and Kane - who find their “fate on fast forward” when the most annoying yet strangely likable character I’ve ever written cruel Prince Leander arrives in their small town. After the prince captures Amarandos (the man who raised the trio), burns their home down, and vows to destroy the escaped three kids, our trio find themselves thrust abruptly into the destiny which they thought they would be following much later on. Vowing to rescue Amarandos and reclaim the throne from Prince Leander and the evil King Olbert, they venture across the land of Priyana, learning about the true, hidden history of their country and their family, and making friends, enemies, and mending a scarred populace on the way. 

The first book, Soul, follows the trio as they attempt to recapture Amarandos and struggle with the strange new existence they have been thrown headfirst into. With nothing but each other, they must learn to work as a team and not just as three moody teenagers raised by the same man. They journey to the mountain-enshrouded city of Nahvsenn, where they encounter a passionate, well-established underground rebellion simply awaiting the moment to finally take their city back from the evil King Olbert’s reign. Could our trio be the herald of that moment?

Priyana takes strong inspiration from Avatar: The Last Airbender in terms of the exploration of themes, worldbuilding style, our main characters’ relationships with the history of the land, and character development. It is written by a bisexual non-binary with an adoration for fantasy, the written word, and using fiction to criticise the ills of the society we live in.

A recommended minimum reader age would be approximately 10-12 years old, as the work contains some death, minor violence, and minor strong language.

Priyana will be published as an online serial, with the first 4 chapters published on the 12th January, 2019, the 5th chapter published on the 19th January, and the rest of the 19 total chapters of Book One: Soul being published fortnightly (every two weeks) from the 2nd February. It will be available as a PDF with occasional sketches for the series on a Google Drive (I will post the link to the folder on my Twitter and on this blog each time it is updated) and as a text-only version in the Original Work tag on Archive Of Our Own.

Chapters range between 2000-10,000 words, so it will only take 10-20 minutes out of your day to read a chapter. Sweet! And even better - it’s totally free. That’s right. A cool fantasy story, easy to read, not to long and overbearing, for free! *Keanu Reeves voice* Whoa.

And good news! If you are just so hyped for this series that you find yourself at the edge of your seat in anticipation for mid-January, well guess what! The first chapter is currently available as a sneak-peek preview! Nice! 

Check out the first chapter here! It will only take you about 10-15 minutes to read, and even less time to reblog and share the news! Because this is the only form of advertising this thing has! 

Even more information available under the cut:

I’ve been working on this almost exclusively over the last two years. Everything is so insanely thought-out and I’m sure I must have gone over everything over a million times now. So to say this means a lot to me is an understatement.

Certain tropes in this story are criticisms and deconstructions of common fantasy tropes, particularly tropes rooted in misogyny, racism, and xenophobia. Certain character beats are familiar to character beats in other stories that I wasn’t entirely happy with - for example, in Book 2A, there’s a character beat in Rada’s arc which is remarkably similar to a character beat in Sakura’s (from Naruto) early episodes. However, I never liked how Sakura’s character change from that beat (hint: when her hair gets chopped off) was so minimal, and often she would be acting like she would when she was first introduced. Rada is probably the best example of me using different character beats and subtly implementing them in hers to, at least in my opinion, show would could be instead done with said character beats.

So yeah, this story is in essence, a lot to me. If you’ve read and shared the news, it means the world to me. Each person that reads it I am eternally thankful for. Each person that shares it and recommends it even more so. 

This isn’t my first major writing project - I’ve been writing long-form chapter books all throughout my teens, with my first chapter book having been written when I was 10 years old (sidenote - that one is a preteen mess in which I introduce vampires out of absolutely nowhere and include a wizard called Carrot-Eye). However, this is the first project I’ve written with the intent of being seen by eyes other than those in my close community of friends and family, and instead being published for those all over the world.

I struggled for a while with whether or not I would charge for this work. I’ve spent so much time and effort on it, and every day has been spent buried in Priyana, that it almost feels unfair to myself to release it for free. But as my first work, and as a poor person with few industry contacts and no industry contacts that could help me in this format, I realised it would be unwise for me to charge for it, and would make it accessible to other poor people like me. Free stories, yall!

That being said, if this project reaches a certain level of success, I’ll happily open up a Patreon, Ko-Fi and maybe a few other routes of donation. It’s my dream to be a full-time writer, and I’ve poured so much of my heart into this project already that I’m fully sure this is what I want to spend the rest of my life doing. I want to make people think with my stories, but I also want them to enjoy them and escape from real life. I want people to fall in love with my characters, to experience their emotions and to connect with my work. I hope I can do that for as many people as possible.

I’m going to now set some promises, as this series is going to be published for many years to come and my promised gay pairings are, as I mentioned, endgame, so they will be happening later on. So the following things, I promise here and now, to uphold in this series:

- there will be both a WLW and a MLM pairing with major characters

- there will be time spent exploring the dynamic and romance of said pairings

- there will be a trans girl  (hint, hint: sister girl) major character with a major character as her love interest

- there is a nonbinary character from the first chapter, who although starts as a villain, undergoes a long arc in which they eventually decide to redeem themselves on their own terms

- i promise not to demonise the gender, ethnicity, race, or customs of any minority or minority-coded characters

- at least two major characters are mixed race, with issues of race, immigration, generalisation, and xenophobia explored from the perspective of racial minorities

- issues such as the above are explored with a mindset of long, long hours and days of research into real life scholars of race, gender, sociology, etc, and especially their perspectives on fantasy and allegory

Thank you for reading this, and if you did, thank you for reading that chapter and sharing!

-Natalya

[loadinto586]

Pokemon Uranium Ending

Pokemon Uranium Ending Battle

Pokemon Uranium Wiki

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Pokemon Uranium Ending Battle

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Pokemon Uranium Wiki

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[krisroley]

February 8th 2021

It might just be the time of year, but I find myself getting discouraged easily. It’s compounded by the fact that we’re coming up on a year since my job sent me home and everything that’s happened since then. The simple fact of the matter is I’m not where I want to be at almost any category of life you care to name. I’m currently making about half of what I was pre-May 2020, I’m struggling with staying in a creative mindset, I’m not necessarily hopeful that I will be able to realize a key hope of mine to regain the position I was previously in, and I’m not finding anything equivalent out there that I can do despite the experience. It leaves me in a pretty depressing place, and I’m not sure what my next move is. So when this happens, I try to move out of the mindset of what I can’t do to figure out what I can accomplish. I believe it starts with talking about the things I am passionate about. Demonstrating some knowledge. Possibly not being so unassuming about it?

A lot of the past year had to do with how my friends stayed creative and productive during the pandemic, and now I may be best served by turning this camera inward. Let’s see what happens.

After I wrote the above, I fired up my Feedly reader, and Seth Godin’s post today is very timely indeed.

So, let’s consult the imp in the back of my head that wants to know what the bleep I’m going to do to turn YET into DONE. I think first we have to define what DONE is, and I’m finding that a little hard to do at the moment. It’s a Jackson Pollack splatter of thought about what I don’t want to be doing anymore, and very little thought about what it is I would rather be doing, and whether I can do it for a living. Nothing new here, this has pretty much been the case for a few years now. I need to put these thoughts together. I don’t want to take phone calls anymore. I do want a job in a creative field. I want what I create to be able to help people. I want to be able to live comfortably on the fruits of that effort, which means not only the bills are paid, but that the wife and I are not worried about health insurance, and that the kids are taken care of.

So, maybe that’s what done is. If that’s true, then the next question—my favorite—is ‘What’s Next?”. What I’m about to write is the first time I’ve ever written this answer: I don’t know. I don’t know what the first step is, and if I don’t know what the first step is, I can’t figure the next one. Marie Forleo likes to say “Everything is Figureoutable”. I sure hope so, because being stuck in this place is a goddamn exhausting place to be.

Of course, as I said at the beginning, it could just be that it’s January and it’s cold, and that I hate everything right now. It feels like more than that, but maybe it always does and I’m not remembering it.

Oh, You Didn’t Know?

Joe Budden, who up until a few months ago had an exclusive deal with Spotify, is moving his podcast to Patreon. The Verge has some comments from Budden:

He says he proved the model, along with the potential of his audience, but didn’t want Spotify to use his fans and reach to prove the platform’s own worth and make money. 

“For many years, the record labels and the system that I come from tricked us into thinking they were doing us a favor by capitalizing off our talent and basically loaning us money, and that’s been the standard the entire time,” Budden says, adding that he already knows how that system worked out for creators. 

When Budden announced his split from the tech company, he said Spotify was “pillaging” his audience and only cared about how his show contributed to Spotify overall, not about his actual podcast.

Budden was a recording artist before he was a podcaster. If he’s aware that the record labels played games, I can’t believe he didn’t see the obvious. Streaming Services aren’t exactly known for treating artists differently, for a start, but let’s address what I think is the elephant in the room, which is the question of whether or not what you had was actually a podcast, because I think that question is fundamental to the problem Budden experienced. A podcast is not exclusive to a platform, and I’ll argue that point until I’m blue in the face. If I can’t subscribe to your show on a different platform than Spotify, then you don’t have a podcast, you have a show on Spotify. Spotify might have a big user base, but that user base is all you have. Spotify’s Q4 2020 earnings state that they have 345 million active monthly users, and that only 25 percent of those users listen to podcasts on the platform. That’s around 86.5 Million, and trust me, they’re not all listening to Joe Budden. Yes, he’s got a lot of downloads, but what he’s got on Spotify is all he’s going to get by staying there. Patreon is a huge and smart play, I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes 3x on listeners and money at the very least.

(Note to self, get back on Patreon, it’s about to blow up.)

The Clothes Suck Anyway

Ah, exposure. SO great for paying bills, only the complete opposite of paying bills.

One of my favorite Twitter accounts is @forexposure_txt, and they receive posts every day from creatives who receive requests, demands, and straight-up meltdowns from people who believe it’s ok not to pay a creative for their work. However, in some cases, there’s the odd post about a company that lifts a picture, alters it, and uses it on their social media without attribution. Take, for example, Meg of Margate, a photographer who discovered a fashion brand called Ted Baker (no link, I’m not enabling this behavior) lifted a photo, photoshopped it, and post it on their Instagram “for engagement”. When called on it, they offered Meg a 200 dollar gift card from their store, which she declined. They then stated they didn’t have the budget to pay photographers, so they deleted the image.

Fine, but let’s be clear about what really happened here. A fashion brand that declared revenue of 617 million pounds in 2019 used a picture that didn’t own to drive traffic to their brand. They got likes and engagement for hours on that post. Then they told the photographer, sorry we can’t afford it, and just deleted the post. Ted Baker made money off that stolen picture, and they probably will have no liability for screwing a creative because it costs money to take people to court.

If this doesn’t make you angry, it should.

This seems like a good place to link to one of my favorite talks by Mike Montiero, “Fuck You, Pay Me.”

More Instagram Stuff

Instagram is now conducting a test to remove the ability to share feed posts within Stories:

You would assume that a lot of Stories updates are re-shared feed posts. The fact that Instagram is willing to reduce this seems like a positive sign for its development focus - but it might also indicate that people are viewing Stories less as a result of such shares, which has prompted Instagram to take action.

I can tell you that many of my stories are photos from other accounts that I think are amazing, and I do that to encourage my followers to follow them. If you remove the ability for me to do that, then I have to resort to a third party program—Repost—to post them to my feed, and I don’t want to do that. My feed should be for my pictures. I hope what they’re driving at is removing the ability to share one’s own feed posts as Stories, and I would completely understand why they feel it’s redundant. That’s not how I read this story.

In other Instagram news, it looks like IG and Twitter might be burying the hatchet soon and allowing integrations again:

That's an even bigger integration. As noted by Jane Manchun Wong, Instagram hasn't provided direct Twitter integration since it disabled Twitter card preview support back in 2012, which makes it annoyingly difficult to share content between the two apps. Now, it seems they're mending bridges, which could facilitate not just tweets in Stories stickers, but wholly new integration options which would enable direct sharing of Instagram posts to Twitter as well, fully integrated and formatted in-line.

That's not part of this proposal, and it may not ever be. But it would definitely be handy - and with Twitter seemingly now more open to such, it could pave the way for improved connection.

If true, this would look a lot cleaner than the screenshots we’re all doing right now anyway. Honestly, this horse has been out of the barn so long it’s dying of exposure.

Shot of The Day

[morganhazelwood]

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Bonus  | Part 6

Part 6: Videos – YouTube+

Note: I know I’m talking about YouTube, just days after the San Bruno attacks. My heart goes out to those affected by the attacks.

I’ve talked about a LOT of social media forms. You might have wondered what could POSSIBLY be next?

Google+ or LinkedIn (Nah, although, I do cross-post my blog over there, for people who prefer those social media forms, they don’t seem active enough)

Goodreads? No, although, I’m there and in a few book clubs.I mostly use it to keep a presence, and stay accountable for my book-reading goals.

I’m pretty sure you’re all thinking “Um, Morgan, I think you’ve gone seriously overboard on this social media thing…” and you’re COMPLETELY right.

Today, though? Today, I’m going to be talking about VIDEOS. Both at Youtube, and in other social media forms.

  YouTube

YouTube is second only to Netflicks in using up bandwidth on the internet. It’s huge.

What’s more? Videos go viral all the time. New ones, old ones, quirky ones, it’s hard to know what’s going to be popular.

So, how do you get that to work for you as a writer?

I have a YouTube channel [Subscribe Here!] and, as I say in my episodes, it’s “my online blog, in video format.” So, if you’d rather listen to me ramble while doing other things, you totally can.

How To Start A YouTube Channel

A video channel should be approached like a website.

Pick a theme and stick with it

Pick an update schedule and stick with it

Pick a format and stick with it

(noticing a trend here?)

Step One – Check out the other Writer Vloggers

See what else is out there, see what other writers are doing, see if there’s a niche you can fill or a format you prefer for getting the information.

It’s hard to establish quality content if you don’t know what sort of options there are and what formats appeal to you.

Here’s a list of the top 15 from The Write Life.

Step Two – Set-up To Film A Vlog

Necessary equipment:

camera

microphone

a youtube account

preferably some WiFi to upload this thing, cause videos are large

Beyond that, all I use is a Logitech HD 1080p USB camera and 2 umbrella lights – all birthday presents from family – pictured above. Oh, and MS Paint.

Equipment to up your game:

umbrella lights

a webcam that isn’t built into your computer

a quiet space

video editing software

a microphone (maybe with pop filters!)

interesting-yet-not-distracting background (clean up trash, dirty clothes)

makeup – maybe even some if you’re not femme presenting. Minimalist suggestions are:

foundation to even out skin tone and get rid of shine

mascara to make the eyes pop

a touch of lip color, to define lips

Step Three – Filming

If you’re using a phone, TURN IT SIDEWAYS. No, really. Please.

I made that mistake my first time and now, for eternity, (or until I rerecord it) I’ll have those stupid black bars to my left and right–or worse, that double-image, zoomed in blur beside me.

5-12 minutes is a standard video length. People have short attention spans.

If you have more, cut it into 2 parts! (Or more!)

Keep to the same format

Look the camera in the eye when you can try not to look like you’re reading your blog post. *looks around innocently*

I like to do 2-5 takes and just roll with the last take. I’m planning on experimenting with video editing software after I move at the end of the month.

A lot of the quality vloggers you see will have done several takes and will clip them together. BUT. They’ll change the camera angle between takes, so you get the feel of ‘time passing’ or something. It’s a format that seems to be popular, plus, it allows you the ability to cut out any dead-air time.

Step Four – Post-Processing

The easiest bit of post-processing I do is take a couple trial photos before I start my video.

Trial pictures let me

checks the lighting

check the umbrellas aren’t in the camera

check I don’t have food on my shirt

And? Allows me a couple photos to add my Vlog title to.

I literally open them in MSPaint, Impact size 48 or whatever the title on one side of me, and roll.

Yes, YouTube will give you freeze frames as the preview image, but usually, they’re the most awkward poses I’ve ever seen. Luckily, there’s a handy-dandy “upload preview” button so you can toss your new image in there.

This is when you’d cut together all those different takes from step 3. Maybe add some background music if you like that feel. Maybe just an intro bar or two of notes.

Step 5 – Uploading To YouTube

When I upload my videos, I make sure to click the drop-down and select ‘Schedule’. Once you start uploading, you can’t switch and the default goes live as soon as you hit publish.

I don’t want my videos to upload the second I’m done prepping them, I want them to post in the mornings, not somewhere between 10:30pm and 1am the night before the blog post goes live.

This is where you can add that title-added preview image.

Things I like to do with my videos:

Schedule them

Add preview image with my title on it

Add Tags

Add the video to my playlist, so people can subscribe to that [like here!]

You can have different playlists on the same channel

book reviews

writer tips

guitar playing

life updates

etc

Type up a short twitter-worthy shout-out to draw people in (with hashtags)

Give links to my other social media and the original blog post in the ‘about’ field

Things I’ve been testing recently.

I found the ‘default settings’ for uploads last week, where you can pre-load all your tags, all your repeated ‘about’ information, etc, so you don’t have to remember what tags you used last week.

How do you find out what tags you should use?

check out a popular vlogger who shares a lot of the same subject matter

in your browser settings, have ‘developer options’ turned on

hit F12 to view the page’s source code

hit ‘ctrl-F’ to open up search

type “tags”

copy-paste the list after the word [ make sure it seems to be a list of usable tags, the word may be in the source code more than once. If it’s not what you’re looking for, hit enter to move to the next entry.]

SnapChat and Instagram and Facebook

I’ve already talked about Instagram, but why is SnapChat even on this list?

For those who don’t know, SnapChat lets people message each other and the message immediately is deleted after they view it. It warns you if the other person screen-shots the message.

So, how does this grow your social media presence?

I personally don’t do it, and it may be more useful for artists, but you can upload STORIES. These are images, text, or VIDEOS that are shown to anyone OR everyone on your list–and they stay visible for a day.

If you have a following, uploading a ‘story’ or two a day can be a good way to interact and form a more personal feeling connection.

Instagram also allows stories to be shared and these are promoted posts.

And Facebook? Facebook LOVES videos. Unlike blog links, or worse PATREON links, Facebook doesn’t try to hide these as much.

YouTube and Facebook Live Video

These intimidate me, but they are growing in popularity and are given priority viewing on Facebook. If you find a time that’s good for a lot of your followers (plus, it can be viewed after the fact), it’s a great way to re-engage with your followers and be given priority viewing on both social media sites.

If you’re brave enough.

Putting yourself out there, creating content, and recording your image, voice, and thoughts for all of posterity is intimidating.

Every week, I strive to do a little better (or at least not worse) than the week before.

And that’s it.

The introduction to social media types. ALL OF THEM. (Or at least a good, wide-spectrum of them.)

If there’s any I skipped that you’d like me to talk about, feel free to ask in the comments.

If there are any tips you’d like to share, feel free to reach out!

Thinking about starting a vlog? My tips are aimed at writers trying to establish a social media presence, but can be helpful for anyone! #amwriting #socialMedia #youtube #vlog #vlogger #vlogging #writersLife #advice #writing #video Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Bonus…

[killfaeh]

Tipeee and Patreon pages updated

Hi everybody! Today I'm here to announce that I've finally been able to update my Tipeee and Patreon home pages. :D For those who are discovering, these are patronage platforms where one can support the activity of an artist/author by giving a small obole monthly or punctually. On Tipeee you can even help for free by watching promotional videos.

The mini comic presentation of the Patreon page. I'm happy with this cute style like comic Artist for Rent. :D

These two pages have been existed for 2 years now and I thank all the patrons who have helped. It doesn't allow me to live from my creations but it give me a boost of self-confidence knowing that there are people who believe in me and my skills. So, thank you all! :) Like many artists, I got a bit fooled by proposing content that required extra work (illustrations, tutorials, graphic resources...) that glanced at my usual activities (i.e. my comics and software development) to try to make these pages attractive. I couldn't do everything when I was unemployed, so now that I've found a full-time job to fill the fridge, it's going to be even more complicated. Plus, this bonus content didn't seem to really inspire much enthusiasm. So I've concocted something simpler for you. Today I'm here to present you the changes I've made to these pages:

What will remain

What will disappear

What will be new?

Rewards

What will remain

Comics

Obviously, the comics will remain since they are the main content and the reason why I opened these pages. ^^ I'm going to stay on the free web comic formula (because you have to publish content on the Internet regularly to attract new readers) with one month advance access and no watermark for patrons for serial projects. I also add Dragon Cat's Galaxia 1/2. Although this comic book features licenced characters, this one remains in the register of parody and humor. I also have non parodic fan comics ideas. Those will obviously not be financed via these platforms. On the other hand, for one-shot projects I'll do the same as for Tarkhan: the first pages published for free to give a preview, but the rest accessible exclusively to patrons and purchasers of the comicbook (because publishing content regularly on the Internet is useless if it's limited in time).

G-rated illustrations

The HD illustrations will remain as well. I have some in stock and I create new ones regularly, so I shouldn't find myself on a tight stream anytime soon.

What will disappear

NSFW illustrations

Exit the NSFW illustrations. I like to draw nudes of beautiful males from time to time, but unlike the other illustrations, I don't have a stock in advance, so I'm on a tight stream. It annoys me to have to force myself to do this kind of illustrations when I don't feel like it and especially when I don't have an interesting idea in mind instead of working on the main content. Moreover, the audience that supports me on Tipeee and Patreon is not the most interested in this kind of content (as far as I know), so if I ever propose this again, it might be elsewhere, on a different account or on another platform. For the moment I put it aside.

Tutorials

No more tutos. It's long to write and format, it's never read, and since there are lots of free tutos on YouTube, nobody wants to pay for it. I'd rather share and answer questions about my tips and tricks in person during meetings or on my live Twitch.

Graphic resources

Exit the graphic resource pack (brushes, patterns, color catalog...). As for NSFW illustrations, I don't necessarily have one every month to offer. It is important to know that I produce these graphic resources according to my needs when I work on my comics, so I don't get them out on a regular basis. Moreover, the resources in question don't necessarily correspond to your needs every month. People interested in my brush and screentone packs to use in their own comics made it clear to me that they preferred to buy them occasionally according to their needs on my own online store even if it meant paying the price and that going through Tipeee and Patreon for that bothered them. They see these platforms as a patronage system but not as buying platforms. So I'm simply going to remove that and I'll modify my online store to add the possibility to buy dematerialized goods.

What will be new?

Well, I'm going to incorporate into the main content my other activity that I had ignored in the rewards even though it occupies a huge part of my work: software development. Obviously all this is related. This activity includes, in addition to the evolution and maintenance of suiseipark.com, the development of the Péguy project, my games projects, as well as a comic platform project.

TGCM Comics (Website - in dev)

TGCM Comics is a web platform project dedicated to web comics and webtoons where budding or experienced authors will be able to publish their stories and exchange directly with their audience without technical knowledge on the web. Here's a mock-up that gives an idea of what it will look like.

As soon as the main functionalities are ready the site will be made available in beta test for patrons. Why this project? Many other such platforms have emerged in recent years. So I hesitated for a while before launching this project, but seeing that all of them impose trending algorithms that give headaches to many authors of the web, I recently decided to propose a project where this type of algorithm will simply be inexistent. The default display on the home page will be based on the principle of the random playlist guaranteeing an equal rate of visibility for all comics and a real freedom of choice for the readers, allowing authors to create at their own pace without mess up thair health to go up any rankings. This is this fall's priority project. So I will post news regularly and soon to keep you informed of its progress and present you little by little the proposed features. I've opened a development blog (French) for this purpose that I will feed about once a week. It has a suggestion box (French) if you want to ask questions or suggest features.

Péguy (Web application - in dev)

Péguy is a web application that since 2018 allows me to automatically generate certain graphic effects, patterns and scenery elements for my comics. It has brought me a huge gain in productivity.

As it is beginning to take a form that can be used by laymen in programming and mathematics, I will soon put it online. Initially, this will be an early access reserved for patrons. Then, I will propose a small subscription system for non-patrons with a trial period. Naturally, the patrons will keep their access during this second phase. :D

Wizeknight Brotherhood (Online game - in dev)

Wizeknight Brotherhood is an online RPG project with a slightly unusual format. Basically, take World of Warcraft and put a visual novel interface on it, and you'll get an idea of the final result. In this game you will explore the world of Tellura, a Tolkian fantasy world, and conduct quests that will make you conclude 'we are not alone in the universe'. :p In the spring of 2020 I developed a small prototype called A l’Aventure Compagnons which gives a vague idea of the principle.

I am tempted to keep this pencil rendering for Wizeknight Brotherhood.

A l’Aventure Compagnons is playable, just download the client from this page. Don't hesitate to come and pull my ears on Discord if you see that I forgot to switch on the server. :p For the moment the engine of Wizeknight Brotherhood is under development and the first test phases will take place in pure text mode.

This good old scary UNIX console. The MUDs, the ancestors of MMORPGs, looked like this and they still exist with active communities. :D You can find them here.

Rewards

As for the rewards, here again I decided to simplify things so that I could concentrate on the projects I have just listed. The basic reward will give you access to the content I just mentioned. I'm not going to make different levels of access, otherwise I think that some content will have no audience or too little. The higher counterpart levels will give access to HD scans of my artwork. I'm way behind on the old formula's rewards. I'll try to deliver all the promised content in the coming weeks, except for the NSFW illustrations, I might get stuck doing only that. x) That's all for today! Have a nice week and see you soon! :D Suisei

P.S. If you want miss no news and if you haven't already done so, you can subscribe to the newsletter here : https://www.suiseipark.com/User/SubscribeNewsletter/language/english/

Source : https://www.suiseipark.com/News/Entry/id/294/

[aurimeanswind]

Get Acquainted—Sunday Chats—3/4/18

So I will be talking about this a lot over the next few days, but I have a brand new podcast that I want you all to check out.

Get Acquainted, with Alex O’Neill

My new show is called Get Acquainted, and it’s a one on one interview show. And I know. I get it. Everyone has one nowadays, but I’ve been working on this for a while, and I’m really excited about the conversations I’m going to have on it.

First and foremost, you can go subscribe to this show right now. It’s on iTunes and everyone, with just a little preview episode available to get you subscribed and ready for my first episode, next week.

You also get to hear the amazing music made just for this show by my friend Micah E. Wood, who you can go listen to more of his music on iTunes and Spotify as well! 

iTunes Link

If you can rate or review this while it’s just launching, that would be immensely helpful. My first guest is Andrea Rene and her episode will be releasing next week. This is going to be a monthly show with different guests on each podcast, and the format will evolve and change over time. 

I’m really excited to finally launch this show, and I hope you all like it!

Honestly that’s the big news I wanted to get out, so let’s go right to questions.

You can send your questions @ me when you see my tweet on Sunday afternoons with the hashtag #SundayChats in it!

I mean the big one is Grand Theft Auto. I’ve played 2, 4, and 5, and I think all of them are like, fine. This infatuation with GTA V is so beyond me. I hate to sound so stuck up, but it’s a series I’ve just never had much patience for. There is supreme quality and technical design there, but none of the entries have stuck with me. That being said, all of the more seminal ones (Vice City, San Andreas, and GTA 3) I haven’t played, so I could be missing a lot of the core of that series. 

I’ve also, and this is me just really thinking about it for a moment, but I’ve never really loved the Battlefield series? By which I mostly mean the “modern” Battlefield games. I loved the original, 1942 was the first FPS I ever played, and it is super special to me. I enjoyed 1943, but most of all I adored Bad Company 2. I like the original, but BC2 is where it’s at. But Battlefield 3/4 and most recently 1, all haven’t really done much for me .I’ve bounced off of all of them, but the idea of another WW2 Battlefield game, which is rumored to be this year’s, actually has me excited. If they can get 1942 vibes again.

I mean Max Scoville once gave me pogs out of his pockets. But I dunno, they’re just bits of cardboard really, right?

So porgs. I liked the porgs. As someone who didn’t love everything about The Last Jedi, I liked porgs a whole lot.

Absolutely. There are multiple pieces that I’ve gone back to and completely rewritten. In fact most of them still aren’t published because I’d probably rewrite most of them again if given the chance. Hell I’ve written something on Persona 4 Golden about six times.

Which I think is similar to the situation you’re in, right? As Night in the Woods is your favorite game Steven, I feel you when I channel that to write about mine, Persona 4. 

But a project that’s special to you should take time. Sometimes the ideas come and go and you feel good about them, but you don’t want to rush something you feel you only have one crack at. Get Acquainted is a show I have had rummaging around for two full years, and I’m finally in a place where I feel I can do it. So take your time.

This is tricky. It’s different for different things. I mean if it was numbers and clicks and views, i’d have quit this gig a long time ago haha. I think projects where I can see my own personal growth in them, like the run of five episodes for the latest Alex Talks. I can see the change from the first to the last as far as editing ability and my hosting capability. So I take that as a success. 

Plus a lot of people had very kind things to say about that series, and that makes me feel really good. 

I think it’s a combination of all of the above. Ultimately if you’re really proud of a thing and think it’s genuinely cool, even if no one sees or hears it, it’s a quality thing you made. Then, when you’re applying for jobs and trying to show the work you’ve made, you can send them a link to whatever that thing is, and you know exactly the right people have seen and appreciated it. If it’s worth sharing it’ll get its use in its own ways, in my experience.

I mean, I think in a perfect world that is what Patreon was for. But then it blew up, and why wouldn’t it, since it’s such a strong idea and works so well for creators. But I feel like also those huge creators make it harder for those smaller ones to thrive on that service. Like the notion that has been going around a lot: is Patreon just a small pool of contributors or is it still brining new people to its service? I don’t know, but it seems like there isn’t enough love to go around.

I want smaller creators to be able to thrive on Patreon, and hopefully they find their audiences grow on that service.

Pretty stoked. New show launching, PAX East is going to be huge for us, and I’m reviewing Yakuza 6.

Get ready.

I’ve been seeing them! Folks can check them out here:

I’d probably take Anna Kendrick, because she seems like she’d be down, and I’m in love with her.

Oh god yes. Feed me your Kingdom Hearts questions.

My favorite world is tricky, but it may be something like The Land of Dragons from KH2. But honestly so many playthroughs later of KH2 I don’t love any of it’s worlds really, save for The World That Never Was. KH1 had really good, big worlds with tons of exploration, but the platforming was so all over the place in that game that getting around them was a bit nightmarish.

Haha I guess I am just jaded on KH worlds after playing through them so much. Space Paranoids.

I don’t love many of the Disney key blades, but I love the Ultima Weapon in KH2, it looks excellent, and I’ve always been a huge fan of Oathkeeper. I love it’s look and what i represents. Of course if you were to ask any of my KH brethren, it’d be Oblivion, hands down, and I like that one quite a bit.

Honestly, Chain of Memories has one of the absolute best stories in that entire franchise. I wish you didn’t have to get through a really poor card game to get to it.

But I love the story of KH2 the most. Especially the ending. Birth by Sleep is a close third of those two though. 

World Specific I love the Peter Pan one from KH1, and I really like Hunchback of Notre Dame in KH3D.

I like order of release over chronological order. Honestly I don’t know why it’s such a big argument. I think feeling those games evolve is just such a treat, all the way from the first to 0.2, it’s such a great feeling of how those games changed.

Plus, some things are supposed to be told out of order? Stories have prequels come out in the middle to freshen things for a later context. I always think of Metal Gear Solid 3. Enriches that story so much, but you should play that game first. 

Anyway. Yes I need yours. See tweets for details.

I’m really excited about this new show, and I know this may seem like a bit of an unceremonious announcement, but I’ve been stressing about this for so long I just need to get it out there.

Go subscribe to Get Acquainted, and tune in next week for the first official episode!

Cheers! Keep it real!

[sassafraslowrey]

Weekly Writing Update:

 1. Wrote a response to my advisor planning for our mid-semester call 2. Sent a pitch to a really mainstream magazine based on contact info a friend shared with me 3. Followup from an editor about a story I submitted 4. Finalized the press release for Healing/Heeling 5. Touched base with an editor about a possible assignment 6. Followed up on a pitch 7. Did an interview about being a little and creating little art 8. More editor followup 9. Followed up on a ptich/conversation I had last week with an editor 10. email 11. Previewing the kindle file for the ebook of William To The Rescue picture book 12. Followed up with an editor on a possible feature story we discussed in the winter but tabled until spring 13. Patreon mail 14. Ebook picture book upload issues trying to troubleshoot with designer and illustrator 15. Help desk ticket generated re: above mentioned upload issues 16. Finished reading a book for school 17. I screwed up and ordered black and white proofs not color for the picture book 18. Updated my weekly to-do list that I was behind with 19. Pitched a story to an editor based on an industry PR email I got this morning w/ some tweaks 20. So much email about the picture book collaboration 21. Got invited to more AWP pannels and stuck to my decision to NOT go to AWP20 22. Got a pitch accepted with a new to me mainstream publication- waiting on contract 23. Youtube 24. Reviewed the print proofs for William to the Rescue 25. Got an iffy response to a pitch 26. Sent an updated adjustment to the pitch 27. Prepped and printed the button files for the Healing/Heeling pre-orders 28. Drafted my first annotation (short critical paper for my MFA program) for my 3rd packet of the semester 29. Got a super condescending rejection from a magazine editor 30. Went through print proofs for picture book with copyeditor 31. Sent text edits to the designer for the picture book 32. Followed up around when a story is going to run 33. Wrote a guest blog about Healing/Heeling and created a playlist for the collection 34. Followed up on reviews of Healing/Heeling 35. Lots of back/forth with the printer for the picture book about formatting issues for the ebook 36. Followed up with editors 37. Tons of promo for Healing/Heeling 38. Got digital proofs for a story I have coming out in a big anthology 39. Nicely told off a prospective editor that had been super rude 40. Followed up with an editor who has owed me edits on a big project for months and missed another deadline 41. Lots of emailing to publications hoping to secure coverage of Healing/Heeling 42. Healing/Heeling currently #1 new release in the pet essay section on Amazon!!! 43. Healing/Heeling #20 in overall books in pet essay section on Amazon!!! 44. Gave some advice to writers looking to start freelancing 45. Followed up on pitches 46. Got confirmation about coverage of Healing/Heeling coming in a national magazine 47. Reviewed all the feedback from the last packet I got back from my advisor (½ way through my 3rd semester!) 48. Pitched a story 49. Worked with a magazine editor on a few edits 50. Made all the buttons for pre-orders 51. Addressed all the pre-order envelopes 52.signed all the pre-ordered copies 53. Got color print proofs of William To The Rescue 54. Made content for my patrons 55. Reviewed final proofs for a big anthology I’m in 56. Got a piece to a major mainstream publication accepted 57. Contract back/forth for an upcoming article 58. Reviewed digital proofs for a multi-page feature story I wrote for a print magazine 59. Learned a new freelancing software platform that a new outlet i’m writing for is using and used it to sign contracts 60. Followed up about bookstores ordering Healing/Heeling 61. Corrected proofs for William To The Rescue 62. Mailed out all the pre-order copies of Healing/Heeling 63. Contract negotiations with a freelance gig 64. Got final ::fingers crossed:: files for William to the Rescue! 65. Got to reveal sneak peek looks at the new picture book 66. Got the second to last chapter back edited from the publisher of my forthcoming nonfiction/policy book - close to being able to start the full rewrite 67. Ran out of shipping supplies and had to order more 68. Ran into issues ordering more copies - had to connect to help desk again 69. More chapters back from my publisher with edits for me to incorporate into the rewrite 70. Did my residency housing form for my MFA residency 71. Patreon stuff 72. Read two books (not for school) 73. Was approached about a possibility of doing some (remote thanks internet!) literary stuff with LGBTQ youth in New Zealand 74. Kept updated on my daily doodle challenge