#we're a queer studio making queer games

[wizzard890]

Warner Brothers would absolutely not be remaking Harry Potter as a prestige television series if it wasn't for the persistent popularity of the Marauders fandom.

Sure, companies dip back into IP all the time, but Harry Potter has had mixed success over the past ten years: popular video game, disastrous Fantastic Beasts movies, pandemic-successful stage show -- this isn't a sure bet, particularly if you're hoping to capture new fans, not just feed aging millennials.

Luckily for the bottom line, there is a thriving Harry Potter adjacent fandom, one that's only ballooned in popularity as the books proper have receded from popular culture. Studios often do algorithmic calculations to estimate popularity/risk/audience and oh boy, do young people fucking love Marauder shit. It's bled into BookTok, back into the related dark academia subculture (which Harry Potter arguably helped create in the first place); it pulls in fans who aren't familiar with the books, who instead consider specific fanworks canonical. They love the setting; anything to enrich the locale where Remus and James and Snape and Lily and Peter and Sirius have adventures. What better way to monetize that interest than stretching each book into a ten episode season of prestige television? If J.K. Rowling's creative control didn't expressly forbid anything beyond straight adaptation of the book, I'm sure WB would be developing a prequel as we speak.

J.K. Rowling is, of course, an executive producer, and WB's creative team has signaled that they will be working with her closely.

I truly think this is the most significant negative impact of a single fandom on the real world since The Last Jedi wars radicalized a generation of young men. We're looking at a potential total revitalization of Rowling in popular culture, unfathomable amounts of money in her pocket, complete creative control and publicity, associated bumps for the Harry Potter theme park, all of it.

Many people in the fandom understand that they're walking a line by engaging with Harry Potter at all, to such an extent that it's good form to make a point of not buying Harry Potter merch. That drives me a little bit crazy. Okay, you've repudiated the desire to own a Hufflepuff Scarf. In this age of studios watching fandoms, of total breakdown of the creator/audience divide, does that really matter? You've withheld your purchasing power, but kept the IP thriving.

And the thing that gets me is that Marauders fandom is so barely Harry Potter, so tangentially related, that they could have taken their flanderized headcanons and written their own books, or applied them to literally any other boarding school setting! There are maybe four chapters that cover the young lives of Harry Potter's Dad's Friends, and in all of them the characters are lightly sketched at best. No one would even accuse you of plagiarism for taking these characters and doing something else with them, they're essentially walk-on roles. Instead we have an active and growing fandom, where Sirus/Remus moved from being the eighth most popular ship on Ao3 to the SECOND, in the space of a single year. That's with no new books, new movies, no external bump of any kind from the IP.

And okay, sure, did this fandom sign a check to J.K. Rowling? No, that would be Casey Bloys and the rest of the clowns at HBO. But at this point, aren't we splitting hairs?

Like sorry, if I have to hear about the revolutionary queer power of pure, old-school fandom as something that exists without financial incentive, a community that can cause real and tangible changes in the media that gets produced, then you have to allow that those real and tangible changes can be for the worse.

[observancesys]

Despair Dilemma launches in a week!

Just a week away! Woohoo!

Hi! Me and my girlfriend are Double Summon Games, a queer indie TTRPG studio. After the success of our last project Perfect Draw!, we've been spending the last year-and-a-half or so working on a new project:

Despair Dilemma! It's a TTRPG where you and your friends control the narrative forces of a death game while all your blorboes run around trying (to kill each other / to not die / to uncover the truth / etc). Fans of Danganronpa, Squid Game, Kaiji, and the When They Cry series should find a lot to love in it, and we've been testing it a lot to make sure it'll be a fun play experience!

We're launching on March 13th; if death games and TTRPGs are up your alley, it'd mean a ton to us if you checked our work out (and maybe signed up for the wait list?) Thank you so much!

[portsandstars]

Revisiting Red Spring Studio's Interview with Blerdy Otome - Select Quotes

It's been almost a year since RSS had this interview, but I think that many people have not listened to it, or recently revisited it. I thought I'd highlight some quotes from it, though the entire interview is worth watching! Some of these quotes I have lightly modified for clarity or succinctness but the majority are direct transcripts.

23:30: "Touchstarved is a horror romance visual novel where the entire cast is made up of characters where you're like, "I can fix them!" but you actually can't. I think that Touchstarved is a very complex and mature story with really really complex themes and interwoven routes and obviously it's very sexy at the same it's a romance - and I think it's one of those games that I've always wanted to see exist and I think that a lot of the team has always wanted to see this game exist as far as being this kind of like dark, broody, moody, but also very deep, right, and authentic and honest exploration - Monsters, and the feeling of being a monster - feeling of being an "other", right, whether you're queer or POC or anything like that… we've created a game that's not only really fun and action-packed and bloody and all that kind of stuff… but very heartfelt in a way that I hope readers can pick up on.

Imo, this line of reasoning ("you can't fix them", and the cast's monstrous nature and how it intrinsically ties to/is an analogy for being queer, or POC) - makes me think that even in the good endings for the game, your character won't be minimizing the character's monstrousness. For example, even if your character has the Power of True Love, it's not going to make Vere nonviolent or absolve Kuras's guilt.

25:35: "These themes are pretty complicated in a way that's messy and honestly bloody and I think for that reason is why we're looking at a mature rating - that said, when we set out to make the game our goal wasn't really to be explicit, it was much more to focus on sexiness . . ."

Just clarifying that there won't be explicit sex scenes in the game.

28:55: "What are some aspects of the story that you are most excited to showcase?" "I'm so excited that people get to die terribly, that just gets me so pumped up. Like in previous jobs I have not been allowed to brutally murder . . . main characters permanently and it's very important to me that I now have the power to write really just messed up awful endings…Don't worry, there's also good endings there too, they just get as much passion and all that stuff as the bad endings… but the bad endings, oh my gosh, those are some of my favorites."

This line makes me curious about whether the main characters are just MC, or if the other characters will brutally die as well!

30:50 "A little while ago we posted Kuras's character reveal and people really like the fact that he can't cook so for me it's really cute and innocent seeing people obsess over that fact and I really just want them to see the contrast between that version of Kuras in their head and what he's actually like in his route. Like I just really want to see them react to like the terrible things he's going to do. . . They're all awful in different ways that I'm really excited for people to see it - it's very funny to see everyone be like _Literally name any of the characters of the cast and be like "they're my little meow meow" and it's like, oh. good. I hope this continues once they learn more about the characters. Obviously they're all wonderful - right, the characters are all awful but they're also all wonderful".

32:26 : "the theme of monstrousness and how each character kind of approaches it differently . . . because they're all monsters, even if they're not literally monsters . . .it also plays into each character's brand of horror in their own way as well that ties into their monstrous nature."

This line especially (to me) hints at how Leander is likely not SPECIFICALLY a monster, but a human with a monstrous nature.

34:30: - Ais was the first character they made and each of the other characters build upon him, so they spent a lot of time getting him right. Vere was the easiest to create and they made him in a weekend. Kuras was the hardest to create (especially visually).

38:00 "This is a romance game and a big draw of the game is making a love connection with these characters - do you all plan on including platonic friendship routes in addition to romance routes, or is it strictly romance?" The way that we planned out this game is that we wanted to focus on the intimacy of these individual relationships between the main character and the love interest and the route that they're on, right, so this is the way we had planned the game from the beginning. We really like poly romances, for example, and friendships, but we think that it wouldn't have made much sense for the characters in the story that we had written for them because this entire story - with who the main character is and why they're having to turn to these mysterious monstrous strangers - there's a level of intimacy involved in the themes and stories that we really focused on for how we're writing…

It's almost like a narrative design intentionality we did early on because each route that you'll be able to play from the main five cast is very driven and each character is like a ticking time bomb in their own way. So if you choose to romance Vere, Kuras's route still continues and you can see the effects of what not choosing Kuras is in Vere's route when you're playing Vere's route. So the world is meant to be very interwoven and interconnected where you can see the ripples of everyone's choices even when you're not romancing them and in that way we've designed this cast that's woven together. So if we did want to do a poly route, we would probably have to do entirely new characters . ."

43:30: "One of the fundamental goals of this game was to have, as you've been saying, a living world - a world that's evolving, and one of the ways that we wanted to communicate that was with the idea that these characters are not doing great… um, they're all in very very bad situations, uh, they're all essentially doomed if you do not go with them and it's seeing that carried out in each route that I hope will be really interesting for people.. it will be very sad, in a good way".

ARGHHH this is the WORST. This means that if you choose a character, you're essentially dooming the others. Though this will undoubtedly manufacture delicious angst, I'm soooo sad at imagining each of the other characters faltering and ultimately failing on their paths because you didn't chose them. Though, I wonder if there are some routes where multiple characters turn out ok, or if the entire cast is doomed as soon as you don't select them (in different ways depending on the route)?

54:30: "I also want to clarify too that even though we've been talking about blood a lot and all that kind of stuff and death and we love those parts of the story, um, if you get those endings there's a reason why, you know what I'm saying - you have to actively try to get those endings - poke the bear with a stick."

Definitely referencing Vere's bad ending in the demo. Personally I am too curious to avoid them, but it's encouraging that some of the MC deaths appear to be because you deliberately make dangerous choices, rather than simply "tricking" the player and surprising them.

Let me know what you think of these quotes, and the whole interview is definitely worth a watch if you haven't seen it!

[vnstudioelan]

list of our released lgbt+ yuri games 💕

happy pride month!! we're a yuri visual novel studio and love making games with queer women front and center. here's a list of all of our fully released games you can play right now!

please be happy

Please Be Happy is a slice-of-life yuri story about a foxgirl searching for a traveler she met many years ago and finding out what it means to be human.

🦊 Play it on Steam & itch.io

heart of the woods

Heart of the Woods is a modern fairy tale set in an isolated town where a pair of paranormal investigators search for the supernatural—but find themselves wrapped in an ancient mystery.

❄️ Play it on Steam, itch.io, Nintendo Switch & PlayStation 4/5

highway blossoms

Highway Blossoms is a roadtrip yuri set in the American Southwest during a modern age goldrush where a pair of young women get swept up in the treasure hunt.

🚙 Play it on Steam & itch.io

national park girls

National Park Girls is an episodic modern yuri visual novel about a park ranger tired of the disrespect for the parks and considers quitting it all when she stumbles upon a group of girls claiming to be the national parks themselves!

🌲 Play it on Steam & itch.io

without a voice

Without a Voice is a dark yuri visual novel about an exiled princess who happens upon a mysterious beauty in the forest where she lives, ensnaring both of them within the claws of fate…

🥀Play it on Steam & itch.io

first snow

First Snow is a slice-of-life yuri visual novel about a student moving away from home to attend college and experiencing the growing pains of making new friends. It's a free prequel to Twofold!

❄️Play it on Steam

twofold

Twofold is a slice-of-life romance visual novel about a nonbinary college student struggling to get through their classes when they're given 1 last chance—join a club on campus.

(while the playable character is not a woman, their love interests are)

📗Play it on Steam & itch.io

who is the red queen?

Who is the Red Queen is a dark yuri visual novel where Alice falls into a strange Wonderland mourning & rejoicing the end of their Red Queen.

🌹Play it on Steam & itch.io

[popculturebuffet]

Pride Month 2025 Finale: Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles: The Fights that Need Fighting

Hello all you happy people and welcome to my grand finale for pride month this year. I haven't covered as much as I wanted to but i'm proud of what i've covered: DC's First Trans superhero Coagula, the excellent and revlatory I Saw the TV Glow and as my final act, we're looking at a concept that's insane, creative and should not have worked, let alone easily been the best comic of it's line.

Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles was part of DC Comics Hanna Barbera Beyond line, a late 2010's line using the fabled animtion studio's characters in new exciting radical ways. Scooby and the rest of mystery inc became adults dealing with the end of the world.. an end Velma had a hand in without realizing what her brothers were planning, the Jetsons became a climate change parable, and the Fred.. well i'll let him tell it

These comics easily could've fell into

Territory, the kind of edgy bullshit that takes an innocent property and tries to make it dark and bloody for the sake of money. This did happen in the line with Wacky Raceland, which somehow wasted the dope surefire concept of "Wacky Races but it's mad max" by taking itself way too fucking seriously. The recent attempt by dynamite is also not great. Just let it be nonsense guys, come on. You can add mythology and depth but remember what your working with.

Instead these themes were handled well: Scooby Apocalypse didn't forget the camp, while still focusing on powerful men making decisions for the little people without their consent and having intresting takes on the cast. Future Quest was an okay attempt to create a shared superhero universe. Jetsons had some really wild swings that paid off.

The best of these by far were the works by Mark Russel, who wrote today's comic and the Flintstones, easily the biggest breakout of the bunch and the one that still holds up the most. Out of context and in lazier hands, Fred and Barney participating in the genocide would be edgelord nonsense. Instead it takes the idea of society itself, the empowering of the rich and everything and uses it for clever satire, as the society in this version of the flintstones is still forming. We see some ideas sink in, how our heroes are adapting from hunting gathering to the horrifying captalist hellscape we live in. It's changes are purposeful: the genocide makes a point about how some wars, ESPECAILLY a lot of the US's military intervention, are done for money or to make a quick enemy for the more powerful, the stress vetrans go through, and gives bam bam a powerful and heartrending origin. They also took the Great Gazoo from weird punchline of a character to a space game warden who looks out for us. They also took the "animals as objects" thing and made it a heartbreaking subplot. Russel took a huge gamble, something that could easily have been a punchline and ot many out of context was.. and made it a masterpiece.

So it's weird and wonderful he pulled it off TWICE. For his encore, and sadly last gasp with the Hannah Barbera characters as HB Beyond would end soon after. (Though DC was smart enough to keep him around), he went with an evern bigger ask. Flintstones but as a dramedy.. was a reach, but one that was bold and within the specs of the adult tone of the earlier franchise. What he had in mind next... was truly bonkers in the conkers and I love it.

So Exit Stage Left is an exploration of the red scare, timely in 2018 mid trump and even more timely once again mid trump as he actively hunts queer people for sport and plans a war for the reasons you'd expect

It does so.. using Snagglepuss as a thinly closeted playwright , Huckleberry hound as his miserable closeted novelist best friend, Peter Potumus as his director, and many more we'll get to in supporting roles, as he deals with HUAC's attempts to destroy him. And while there are some jokes here and there, it's primarily a tragedy. With a hopeful ending, but still a very sad, soulful work. And.. it works. Similar to bojack horseman it uses the animals alongside humans and as actors trope masterfully. IT dosen't have as much time for worldbuilding, but it still manages to be engaging, flesh out it's cast and be moving, relevant and heartbreaking all in 6 issues. It's a work that's high concept in a way I hope gets done more and I hope Dynamite considers. While I do love their comics for Space Ghost and Captain Planet, both taking the idea and modernizing it without going too edgelord, I wouldn't mind more weird, wonderful experiments like this and i'll show you why under the cut. Featuring Sasquatch Detective:

I Wasn't Kidding About Sasquatch Detective

So before we adresss the main feature when the comic ran it had a delightful backup feature, you can guess the name. Sasquatch Detective is a fun breezy backup about Tonya, the titular detective, her surly but supportive partner, and her hyjinks. It got a reprint as a 64 page special complete with a feature story I won't cover for now but seems to have just vanished into the either after. Creator Brandee Stillwell advertises it on her socials, as she should, having written and drawn it all but it seems DC just didn't want more than this. It seemed like they were gearing up for a full mini with the special and leaving the backups out of the snagglepuss trade, but it just didn't happen. There's a lot of reasons why this might be: Stillwell might of just left the company, COVID might of meant DC simply didn't have the budget for it, or the George Floyd protests made the idea of a polcie procedural with a light breezy tone impossible. It's shame as the work was just before the big quirky detective boom we've had with Poker Face, Elsbeth and High Potetial, all bangers and all telling me James Gunn should seriously consider adding Tanya to the DCU as soon as possible. The man loves weird obscure characters, let him know she exists.

The backups have Tonya, perky as ever and her more dour very tired partner Berzek solve arious mysteries, with Tonya opening the series getting added to the force then a year later disgusing herself in her best pretty woman. Tonya is a wide eyed kind sasquatch who works hard, is an ace at what she does and is simply at worst awkward in a world of human stuff that isn't sized for a sasquatch. Brotoman's faviorite installment, and mine has a lady they came to interview calling animal control.. forcing Tanya to deal with Gary

And you may be thinking my asking for the DCU is weird. I mean this is the kind of goofy premise that would've been perfect for an actual Hannah Barbera cartoon..and still would be. Well ate the end of the gary debacle, after he's tased and arrested for shooting Tanya with a tranq for his incel racisim.. this happens

So while this work could easily be standalone if James Gunn dosen't want it to be, it could at the very least be a fun cartoon and a nice side piece to canon dealing with the weirder corners of the DCU. I also want to see her in the main dc universe again. I mean the justice league just took on an EVERYONE IS HERE mentality, give Tanya a card. Let her team up with the creeper in a buddy comedy. WE need more creeper two dammit. Though props to dan slott for possibly giving us more.

I highly recommend checking these out if you can find the special online or want to snag a copy or something. Or your a singles person. Either way check these out. It was a fun concept that REALLY needs a comeback.

So onto our main event. I COULD have covered each backup as they came up. While I adore Sasquatch Cop.. it just dosen't fit tonaly. It's good stuff... but why they put it in the back of a mildly serious reboot I don't know.

And now our feature presentation, entering stage left

We begin our story not in the mini series itself but in a teaser that's part of the trade, a little prelude published in Suicide Squad/Banana Splits

It follows Snagglepuss as he goes in front of Huac, the kind of sentence that makes me thrilled that this is something I got paid to write. He runs circles around them, responding to their every attempt to paint his plays as garbage or him as subversive with sarcasm and a witty one liner. They look. .bad and this will be important for the mini series.

For now Snag talks with a young writer who idolizes him and wants to change the world like he does, Auggie Doggie, I assume senior given what we'll see at the end.

So filling in these characters as we go along, Snagglepuss was one of Hanna Barbera's first breakouts, having a succesful small role on the Quick Draw McGraw show before getting his own shorts as part of Yogi Bear's show> He was known for his camp nature, snappy patter, many catchphrases and when hannah barbera became a collection of characters doing stuff with yogi bear rather than their own things in the 70's and 80's, he became a part of the gang. He later made it to Jellystone played by Dana Snyder> He's not used a ton but is still a valuable part of things and like a huge chunk of the cast is very gay.

Auggie Doggie was part of a double act with his proud father Doggie Daddy..

I haven't seen much of them but they were added to the touring company all the same. He'd become a large part of Jellystone and one of it's best alongside a gender flipped Auggie, apparently having lived out every disney movie to get a daughter and being hilaroiusly clingy.

So Snag relates a story: he was doing summer stock directed by Peter Potomus, who had his own show where he drove around in an arc with a chimp sidekick making movies makin songs and fightin round the world. Here he's a director and was doing some light follies when the theater caught fire. When Snag told peter this.. he didn't exactly take it well.

So Snag tried to warn the audience, dressed as a clown.. only for them to laugh, taking it as all part of the shows and leading to one of the worst disaster in Kentucky Theater History till the Ghostly Rampage of Col Sanders in 83.

Snag uses this to illustrate an important, all too resonant message

It .. it hit like a truck. Because it's the truth: We may not win, it's a long game and being a queer person in a country that hates and fears you has been historically a long hard road to getting a shrug of acceptance at best. But you fight anyway because every inch you gain, every ground you get or get back, is worth it.

Proving Snag's point... while I liked the work at the time.. I didn't see the deeper meanings or let them sink in. I saw it as thought provoking.. then let the thoughts it provoked scatter. I didn't see that just because you win one fight and get rid of one tyrant dosne't mean he can't come back.

So we open the series possible with two people late to see the show... and you can just tell it's not the show we're about to see. More on them later. For now we see the arrival of the man of the hour, the vip who gets the first slice of the p-i-e. Snagglepuss in this unvierse is an award winning playwright, married to actress Lila Lion, Snag's love intrest from the cartoons now his beard as he attends the last performance of one of his plays, Heart is a Kennel of Theives. Snag admits his inspriations are the Algonquin Round Table, a group of actors, writers and others whose jokes, japes and witty banter were world wide legend and to a small boy in misssipi with not much else, it was everything.

We see the play best summed up as

Though a nice touch I like is that the actors all wear dog ears, both the humans and the pink puma playing the lead role.

The finale's a smash and Snagglepuss bids his wife adew.. and goes to see his boyfriend at the Stonewall. The Stonewall is a historic gay bar, a safe haven for queer folk. Sadly it would not last forever, being destroyed thanks to a three day riot after Police did a homophobic raid and many queer people rejected owned by the mob, but is thankfully back, having reopened in the 90's and being rightfully declared a historic landmark.

At the Stonewall, Snagglepuss and his boyfriend Pablo watch a hearing from Huac on the tv for novelist and playwright Lillian Hellman, who refuses to sell out anyone she knew while in the Communist party to huac. SHe's a friend of Snag's but he dosen't take HUAC seriously assuming SURELY it couldn't happen here. Pablo.. is quick to correct his dumbassery, pointing out he once dealt with a politican who was a buffon too: Batista, the dictator of cuba and the reason why he's here. They assumed he was a clown, a has been who had no real power.. and his crackdown on meetings of queer people and killing one of his friends who stood up to them proved otherwise. Pablo fled.. but feels horrified by it. And when snag tries to brush it off

This line is not only brilliant.. but gutting as .. it's what we're dealing with now. We thought Trump couldn't come back. Even I, utterly nerverwracked about the apocalypse that would happen if he won again thought surely the nation couldn't do this. Surely we wouldn't surrender to this monster again.

I was wrong. Many were. From people like me who simply wanted to reassure themselves he can't win to the dumbasses who helped him: the throngs of people who could care less about the trans people or immigrnats trump would harm as long as he helped them, something he's completely and utterly failed to do and was never gonna do but he sure has harmed immigrants, trans people and anyone who dares speak against him. The democratic party who treated this like a normal transition of power and not a fight for the future till the other shoe dropped and who could care less about the people getting hurt due to their waffling. The lefter than thous who refused to vote for anybody, refused to compromise, and now STILL blame Biden as much as trump does for their own shortcomings when we have bigger problems to deal with. And of course the rabid assholes who always existed but we assumed were the minority. All of this lead to the shit sandwitch we're all stuck in now. We all have a tendency to belivie the worst can't happen and then it does. And while things have held.. we can't be complacent. I wish I knew what to do but I badly want to find it, a way to fight back against this. But for now I was warned the house was on fire... and didn't grab a bucket till it was already nearly gone.

Snagg has lunch with legendary writer and his hero dorthy parker, who warns him both that his idols have faded.. and that it'll happen to you.

That night an old friend of Snag's stops by, Hanna Barbera star, cartoon legend and thanks to the simpsons, this work and Jellystone gay icon Huckleberry hound. They party.. but it's clear Lillian isn't in a great place after everything.

We finally see where that couple was going.. an execution

It works as unsubtle as it is, the simple idea that america loves a spectacle.. that their just as entertained with thought provoking life changing material.. as they are watching death and treating it like a late show.

We end the issue on our main antagonist, Gigi Allen, whose joind the hearings and plans to target Snagglepuss, claming a nation becomes what it enjoys.. which isn't wrong but in her mind means SNagg must go. The comitte is hesitant given he beat their asses last time.. but she has an ace in the hole.. a picture of him going into the Stonewall.

We open issue two with Gigi saying a whole not of nothing loudly. before Snagglepuss gets through his day: dealing with an actor criss as the actor, Marion aka John Wayne himself, can't find his motivation, visits a man in hospice whose son also went into theater and has a noose next to his bed because he used to be a judge.

He ends the evening introducing the future king of assholes to Huck, who delightfully is enjoying a tv dinner. Snagglepuss has been a good friend not asking questions till now but to be a true friend you have to ask your buddy sometims why they suddenly showed up out of the blue after not talking to you for months.

The short and less heartrending version?

The long soul punching version, Huck was a closeted novelist. His wife was suspscious and sent detectives after him.. who caught him with a man and for some reason rather than just you know.. blackmail him or.. maybe don't, they agreed not to get him arrested if he left town and never came back, forced to abandon his son. It's a contrast to snagglepuss who does the same things.. but tells his wife about it. Still it's hard not to feel for Huck: He couldn't exactly be out, he had few choices and unlike Snagglepuss didn't leave home where it's easier to find someone willing to be your beard. He didn't want to leave his son like his father left him. Still Huck is shown to have some poor choices, trying to hit up a guy.. and getting punched in the face by what turns out to be a bigot with it easily going much worse for many other queer people. It's why for so long I repressed by attraction to men more.... part of me told me I could take my time which I could.. but i've realized this month that part of it was just being afraid of being myself, that I know my family will accept me.. but I can't say the world will. I haven't hid it.. but I also haven't explored it for fear of being beaten up or catfished.

Snag offers to take Huck to the Stonewall some night. For now he fist runs into his friend from earlier.. whose leaving the US. She received 5 rejection letters... all in the same print so she's going to Paris.. and warns Snagglepuss that the first comittee meeting is simply to see if they'll bend the knee. The second is to destroy them for their insolence.

It's proven too as Gigi invites Snaagglepuss to dinner.. and to try and get him to play ball. It goes as well as you'd expect

It's brutal as it is honest and it's really what any culture war is about: It's not about OH WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN, it's not about real moral honesty.. you just want to control what people think. Trump didn't bomb iran because it was the right thing to do he did it because right now he's the enemy and he wants to give the people who voted for him who aren't drinking the kool aid anymore something to boo and hiss about while he dismantles the country from the inside out. It was the same then it's the same now: they go after people they other because their easy targets and "hollywood" because it's creators are often fucking honest and do everything they can to get past censors. Even now we get shit like Disney censoring queer content, firing a queer creator and trying to say nothing while brave men , women and everything inbetween and beyond fight to actually say their stories.

So we end the issue with war being delcared: HUAC sends a letter calling Snag back

We begin issue 3 with a jumpscare

So we open with Snagglepuss being interviewed on a tv show, bringing Huck with him to try and help revitalize Huck's career. When asked about his low opinons of tv, Snagglepuss gives us the diffrence between an actor and a star, a stage actor and a tv actor. A star is who we want to be, an actor is who we are.

Snagglepuss wakes up from his afternoon nap by the pool to deal with two problems: The first is that one of the actors in his current play is bad and should feel bad. Snag decides to deal with it.. but has to deal with something else: Playwright arthur miller, the man who made the crucible among many other thought provoking plays.. and also had a longstanding relationship with screen idol Marilyn MOnroe... and her current boyfriend and soon to be first husband Joe Dimaggio is coming to murder the second before it gets that far. Snag is brought in because well.. yeah. It's really that obvious so being seen with him is a smokescreen. He reluctantly agreres and we get WHY Joe adores her so much: as a son of immigrants who had their livelyhood taken away just for being immigrants, she's his american dream, the kind of acceptance he craves... yet he can't see he's objectifying, her a means to deal with his pain instead of actually dealing with it himself. Snag defuses things.. but tellingly for the first time all comic we see him PISSED when he calls arthur afterword

Artist Mike Feehan who does the full mini series does a fantastic job making the characters look realistic. The humans can sometimes look a bit dead eyed, but it helps the animals pop more. And this might be my faviorite panel, showing Snag feral and pissed.. and for good reason. Arthur abused their friendship to use Snag's sexuality as a prop to get him out of a problem he got himself into.

He lets it slide off though shifting back into his charming usual self efortlessly and introducing Huck to the stonewall... his reaction is beautiful.

As unrest grows in Cuba snag is glad Pablo is here.. but Pablo isn't, pissed and lashing out that Snag would rather he be a kept man than fighting for somethign he belivies in. It's telling Snag just.. can't understand that Pablo wants to fight and wants to be there with his people trying to make something better instead of hoping to ignore the rising tides till they wash him over.

Next day, Snagglepuss visits his friend in the hosptial, bringing LIla along this time, with said friend resenting his son for leaving his mother.. and seemingly killing her with grief. More importantly Snag's going to another party and until sitting down to write the review I never realized that there's one in every issue. Huck takes Quickdraw Mcgraw as his date, having been el kaboining him. Quickdraw has been seen a few times at the stonewall, a closeted police officer who collects the bribes. Huck is.. happy for the first time since he got here, not wallowing having found someone and thanking snagglepuss for it.. and knowing what's coming... it fucking hurts. You'll see why shortly but if you've read this comic you know and you can see why it took me this long to go back.

Snag runs into Marilyn who apologizes for the whole mess. She explains what she sees in Joe.. that he's a person, not some dumb brute but someone with complexity and pain we saw earlier. The problem is .. Joe dosen't see hers: like most men he sees Marlin as either a sexual prize to be won.. or a dumb bimbo to be torn down instead of a person... which is what Arthur sees. Snag not only makes it clear he's not going to tell joe but thanks Marilyn for being this vunerable for him, for showing the part of her that few get to see. It's a tender moment and one of the best in the comic.

This whole subplot could be cut... but it makes a point about people , especailly in snag and huck's case as queer people in the 1950's, have to cut part of ourselves off, segment ourselves, and how being seen.. is seeing all of a person. Unlike some of the celebrity cameos like John Wayne or as we find out Clint Eastwood as the actor Snag realized wasn't good for stage (but does hook him up with a western as he sees his talent as a star and for talking to empty chairs), it feels necessary, not only hooking snag to the world but into things. There's a LOT of cameos here and i'm not skilled enough at the 50's to spot them all and i'm only googling the ones that impact the plot. As the interview ends we get a truly magificent line i'll let speak for itself

We end issue 3 with everything going pretty well even with the hearing. Now's the part where it all goes to shit.

We open issue 4 with Gigi again and another scene that's more tone setting than actually plot relevant. She's in Nevada after assuring the comittee she'll have leverage on snagglepuss. For now after another jingoistic classroom lecture she talks with a tecncian at a test sight who makes it clear why their buliding so many fallout shelters: it's not because the goverment ever thought they'd work.. but it gives the ILLUSION of victory, that america really would be stupid enough to start nuclear war and MIGHT survive it. It's letting your oponent THINK you'll pull the trigger when neither of you can, and letting people think their safe when really... no. Their dead and their fate isn't in their hands.

So let's stop a second and talk about Mark Russel's writing style: Mark likes to take breaks like this to set the tone and to say stuff about society to really go off about a topic. Sometimes it works, sometimes it dosen't, but he's good at intercutting it with panels and showing the insane underpinnings of our society. It mostly works here, with everything tying in thematically: the cold war their using to do this prosecution bullshit.. is just smoke and mirrors. Theirs no war just two countries darring each other to "end the world pussy!"

At the play we find out it's about Snag and Huckleberry, complete with masks.. and it makes Snag reflect on his past. he and Huck knew each other as kids. Were best friends.. but Snag had to go. As he poignantly puts it

So Snag left.. and deals with it.. and into present day as while he's mostly cast the mask off privately... he still wears one. Lila had zero idea till this play he and huck were lifelong friends, with Snagglepuss barely letting her in. She was completely aware she was his beard going into the marriage, she's fine with that. .but she wants to at least be let in emotionally... which is a fair ask and Snag knows it as he dodges the questions. He knows he's not being fair but it's very clear across the story Snagglepuss.. has trouble opening up. His viacious personality is part who he is.. but part another mask. A way to put a wall up so he never has to deal with his emotions or issues. He geniuinely if platonically loves lila.. but he can't be vunerable with her or Pablo, he can barely be vunerable with himself. He talked about parts of yourself you hdie from everyone.. but he hides his pain in his work and in himself.

And this extends to Pablo whose tired of hiding, tired of the masks and wants to be himself... or at least something more than meeting one place every day. And Snagg..s naps for the second time this series, and in a way that's heartbreaking as it is telling

It's a line I honestly didn't notice on my initial read for this review, a line that proves what i've been saying: that Snag WANTS to be free but is constraind by a society that would destroy him for being queer. He's a caged lion unable to be who he deserves to be.. but he's boxing in others to do it.

Snag.. does end up doing the right thing in a truly heartwarming moment that in other works may be a turning point for his life: Instead of the stonewall.. he realizes Pablo was right and that he's hurting the people he loves.. so he introduces Lila and Pablo. He may be closeted.. but he can live and have the loves of his life, his best friend and his boyfriend, his family.. be family.

Sadly... this is intercut with a tragedy. While Snagglepuss embraces who he is as much as he can... Huck alraedy has. His relatoinship with Quickdraw is going great, everything seems fine... then Gigi lowers the hammer. See she intended to go after snagglepuss with the stonewall, pressuring the cops into a raid knowoing their taking bribes, but his change of heart saved him.. but dosen't save Huck.. who has his heart broken

McGraw chooses his career over Huck and instead of warning him and moving on with his life.. destroys him. Huck is arrested and humiliated , forcibly outed by a horrifying world.. and by Gigi who ruined his life just to get at his friend.. and is closeted herself. It's a damming statment.. that it's one thing to struggle with not being out, the world can be hard and as seen with Snag sometims you do the best you can and find a way around till the world will let you be who you are. But as McGraw and Gigi show... sometimes.. you sell out your own just to get ahead. McGraw is broken by what he's done while Gigi..s leeps peacefully entirley okay with having destroyed a man and preparing to destroy him further for her own goals.

Huck is understandably not doing great, the cop discharging him to Snag, who leaves practice at once to go bail his friend out, making homophobic remarks. But he at least admits.. he's out. That a man can't hide forever.. but he also admits that you can change the world or be destroyed by it.. and god help him Huck can't decide which.

Kruchev has a general arrested for daring ot speak up against him.. the moral is important to this: dance to the beat the goverment once.. or else.. and how the us despite claming ot fight communisim.. is using the exact same tactics.

Back to the main event. The Comittee is a bit pissed as Gigi misssed her target. They want to call the hearing off.. but it's too late and Gigi makes a valid point: The goal was leverage and while they dont' have our hero directly.. they have one of the few people he'd die for in the crosshairs.

So the two enemies meet again. And while she TRIES the "we're sorry we didn't mean to" card... Snag shuts that shit down on sight

Gigi offers to make it all go away for huck if he bends the knee.. and it becomes clear her right wing bullshit about "the culture war determining if we win the cold war".. isn't bullshit for her. Some part of her GENUINELY seems to belivie this is a battle for america's soul and if they all dont' bend the knee and obey, we loose. The sad truth is the real powers controlling the right like hers, then and now don't want any moral victory. These crusades are so they can other people to create enemies. They go after queer people because we do not fit into the mold that's easy to control. We do not bend the knee as easily. As this work and real life has proven some do. But it's a lot harder to control and control is the whole game. A war, culture or real isn't the goal.. its blind obidence. It always has been. She's deluding herself thinking this is about anything else.

The worst part though.. is it's actually working. Snagglepuss is considering bending because she has his best friend held to the fire. Lila is concerned he might while Pablo is just furious at the notion. Yet whlie he's right that the monsters will never stop begging for a pound of flesh and want more and more.. Snag has a point. It's easy to call someone a monster when they sell out for their own comfort like Quickdraw or because they've deluded themselves into thinking it's the right thing like Gigi. But Snagglepuss wonders if his work is at all worth the life of his best friend. It'd be very easy to condem him but the story and the world has backed him into a corner he cannot get out of.

Huck is likewise stuck. It's been clear all story Huck has depression: his stories are all about how miserable he is, he can't stop about it, but there's just not a lot of language to help him. He was almost doing better.. but loosing his lover, his ablility to write, it's destroyed him. He points out he's a goldfish in a glass bowl.. even with Snag's offer for him to move in.. it's just moving the bowl. And while Snag admits he could make it go away, Huck has doubts. Huck.. is a complex character: he's naive, depressed.. but always had a current of hope. A tv dinner is a modern marvel, love is something he needs and yearns for and embraces when he gets it. That hope is gone.

The final breaking point is that HUAC reveals to snag their suppoening Huck. He calls LIla , planning to fully sell out.. but as she tries to tell him before having to shout it

It's the reason this review has been so damn hard to write, not helped by being a person with depression whose had suicidal ideation. Huck hung himself, not able to deal with this anymore.. and HUAC might as well have handed him the noose. They knew he was vunerable and they pushed simply to win a political fight. A man died... because they broke him all to get at someone else.

Snag is devistated, the art doing a perfect job capturing his shock.. before he decides to go down fighting. They nearly had him and they pushed too hard.. and now he's going to break them back. But he also makes it clear he's going to push LIla away, something she's devistated by and worried about.. but he has no choice. Anyone attached to him will be destroyed and it's a truly devistating sacrifice, giving up his friend.. for her saftey.

He also has to give up opening night, with Peter talking him up: after the fire incident his rep was understandably done, justifably so.. but Snag gave him another chance. So while he'll have to pretend like they never knew each other.. for tonight... this is for Snag.

Snag's demeanour is diffrent. It's a change I hadn't noticed before but hits like a truck once you do: he's colder, angry. He does make a joke or two, i'd be impossible for him not to.. but the jokes are less pithy and light. He's thrown away the mask, the playwright, the jokester, the man with the iron wit.. and is speaking plainly, bluntly and nobly. The him before wasn't bad and is a good way to deal with facists.. but it's not the snagglepuss their getting. They thought that snagglepuss would be their downfall... instead their getting him with his teeth bared ready to tear them apart and when asked about his arts subersivness..

It's a beautiful statement. It's the truth. All these idiots saying ART SHOULDN'T BE POLITICAL are really just saying "I don't like this art's politics". The best they can muster is stuff like Mr Berchum which isn't art but someone screaming their opinon at you. The whole point of art is to crack open your world view, to help you see beyond it. The reason the widening perspectives we're getting is so great.. is that we see beyond ourselves. To use a recent example i'll be covering for next year's Juneteenth, Sinners tells an entertaining action story and has wonderful memorable characters... by framing it through the black experince, through the south and through the commodification of black art and people. The rich history embeded in the film makes the work what it is. I"m sure some jaggoffs are claming "OH WELL IT'S WOKE OR DO THEY HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THIS". which.. yes they do. When we stop thinking just in what we know and open our world, the world is better for it. There's so much queer content and queer coded content these days.. because our stories matter. They deserve to be told. And the harsh truth of what the powers in this coutnry, the very white powers that run it have done NEEDS to be laid bare so we can fucking change it.

Gigi is pissed , trying to frame the thing as "obdeicne or oblivion..a nd snagglepuss obleterates her. He explains WHY entertainment is so important and I wish I could use more panels here but the final scene o fthe issue is several pages of back and forth I simply can't properly put on screen. It's well worth reading. But he points out pop culture puts people's fanaticism somewhere somewhat healthy. And otherwise.. it turns to goverment, the state, to tolataranisim.. and that isn't healthy. he can't say there isn't an exestital threat, the cold war was and the threat of nuclear Armageddon still is.

So Gigi brings up huck.. and it HORRIBLY backfires as she had no idea he committed suicide and then says "If he just kept it private". Snag explodes... pointing out that keeping it private destroys people. having to hide who we are is a cage, a mask we can never take off that eventually becomes part of us and consumes us

As snag ends his speech Pablo leaves, his divorce papers are sent.. and he decides to live with himself rather than hide in shame. Issue 5 is an explosive climax to the story, the big final confrontation between two powers.. and while Snagglepuss wins the moral victory and easily smokes his opponents.. he ultimately dosen't win. It was good to have this, full of iconic lines and fantastic moments.. but it also shows how easy it is to win.. and still loose.

We begin the next chapter years later. Nixon is talking with kruschev and Kruschev makes a valid point: while america props up our culture.. we also abuse it, comodifying stars of color or who are queer than treating them as lesser

This is of course hypocritical given the soviets werne't exactly friendly to quee rpeople.. but it dosen't make it not true.

Issue 6 is more of an epilogue: it's valuable and important to the story and good it didn't end here, but it ends sometime later and deals with the aftermath, the rubble left and the good and bad of Snag's brave stand.

The bad is evident early on: a bunch of gawking idiots rescognize him as "from being on the communism show". They missed the point entirely and Snag is understandably bitter. He meets with Augie Doggie, now a succesful novelist having written a book about snag and disgusted he got blacklisted, and giving him a copy. He may be lightly comodifying his friend.. but it's clear he did so for the art.

Snag once again says something profound: when Auggie reflects that maybe writers strive for happy endings because the unvierse is cruel and uncaring and we don't want to admit that. he offers something diffrent

Snagglepuss returns to his lonely apartment, consigned to the same frozen dinner Huck once had, and suprised to find Lila has remarried... happy for her too. She finally got the ending she deserved.

Someone who dosen't get what they deserve in that moment is McGraw who shows up at the door and is VERY lucky he dosen't get a punch to the face. He's here to make amends.. though Snag isn't in the mood. While McGraw feels guilty... Snag points out the why: Quickdraw was caught a few years later so what he did to huck amounted to nothing, and he feels bad in part because of that.. rather than because he choose the badge over his boyfriend.

Still he at least offers what he has: a cartoon show. He's gotten a role somehow, and offers snag one. I'ts a brilliant twist I didn't see coming reading this first run: that the hanna barbera cartoons snag would star in.. are canon to this universe. As in universe productions, sure, but given how cheap they were I can buy they were shot in live action with genuine furries. Snagglepuss objects this as nonsense.. but it's only if he wants it to be. For now he reads Huck's suicide note: that we should forgive ourselves.. and find forgiveness.

He then gets a call: his friend that he's been visting all story, the cranky old mah has passed.. and turns out.. it was his father. It's heavily hinted and I can't belivie I missed it on my read throughs but it's another thing lost in a painful life... the two having reached SOME kind of peace but never having the courage to tell his dad who he was. Maybe he knew.. maybe he didn't.

Snag in his depression goes back ot the stonewall, where a bear witha n eyepatch serves cocktails. Snagg feels his fight.. was for nothing. He proved nothing, the world is still cold.. what did he exactly win. And the stonewall bartender reveals exactly what; More bars. It used to be the only place.. but more and more sprung up while the stonewall istself persisted. The bust didn't kill it.. it showed these places exist and mroe people found and created them. You can't kill an idea.

And he figures they'll win> Why, because w'ere not going anywhere. Snagg spots pablo on tv, having participated in the revolution against batista and won. Also there's a farmer telling nixon to stay out of his corn. I refuse to give you any context.

So Snagglepuss realizes he can't just.. lay over and die and that maybe just getting back out their, existing in spite of the blacklist is enough.. and he takes the job.

So we end on Quickdraw bringing SNag in. Since they need all the stars they can get to crank out stories they don't care but just as a precaution we get a fantastic mythology gag: they paint him gold and call him snaggletooth, what snagglepuss was called in his first apperance and how he looked. It's a stupid trick.. but one that should work, it gives them deniablity and if no one cares, then he can perform under his name and color again.

Snag has one non negotiable... another star he wants brought on. Huck's son Huckleberry Hound Junior... who takes huck's name as a stage name in his honor. So we end as the duo visit huck's grave

It's a beautiful ending an da postscript tells us the show was a success, both would get their own cartoons.. and they'd have a long happy career. It's as close to a happy ending as I need.

Exit Stage Left is a masterpiece. A beautiful work that takes a batshit concept that should not work... an dmakes it work swimingly. It feels like it'd make an excellent companion piece to bojack horseman, the same use of animals who are a bit jarringly real in places as actors to deal with our own fucked up world and an ending tha'ts not exactly happy.. but still better than we thought following a flawed, if not as fucked up character. It's a fantastic piece of art that proves wild swings do work you just have to know where your aiming. It's well worth a read if you can find it, and should be held up as one of THE comics of the 2010s and reprinted as soon as possible. I doubt warner will but hey, stranger things have happened. If nothing else they could do a dc by mark russel omnibus and include this, prez, and his other works like flintstones. It's painfully timely, beautiful, and biting and i'm honored to have covered it. Thanks for reading

[visitsugartop]

Envisioning a better world, one game at a time.

WHO

Hello there! We're Oxtail Studios, a fledgling creative studio for a small group of writer friends whose dream is to create the dating sim RPG they've always wanted to see out in the world. The thing all of us at Oxtail have in common is a love of story-rich games, and we're currently working on Sugartop, a pixel RPG with vestiges of the farm life sim genre - a small town of wonderful NPCs (16 romances), adventure, and a lush, green backdrop full of mysteries and intrigue.

THE GAME

In Sugartop, you play as a financially struggling person in Los Angeles who one day gets what looks like a spam email with the headline, "MOVE TO SUGARTOP FOR FREE!!! (FREE RENT)" - too good to be true, right? But the circumstances are dire, your savings have shriveled to near nothing, and desperate, you experience a lapse in judgment, deciding that the antivirus on your laptop will have to do some heavy lifting as you open up the video attachment.

It's a scrappy ad trying to convince you to go live in this small town called Sugartop located on an island off of the coast of Southern California. Do you continue to live your life as is, in dire straits, or do you take the risk of investigating further?

WHY

Unfortunately, as many creatives tend to be today, we are struggling to make ends meet as underemployed and unemployed creatives who have to worry about bills month to month and have little to no savings to fall back on. We're dealing with the aftermaths of layoffs in our individual careers in an increasingly brutal job market, and we urgently need your help to keep the lights on at the studio.

If you want to play a hand in helping a group of queer Black and Brown creators give life to their creative visions and love narratively compelling video games with a lot of heart, please consider supporting us today.

WHAT

Although we would be overjoyed with making even $50 total, our goal is to be able to fund our overhead costs (studio rent, accounting fees, attorney fees, fair compensation for visual artists) for five years of operation to lessen the financial burden on us as we struggle to find jobs. Without jobs, we can't self-fund the project.

THANK YOU!

If you choose to support us today, thank you so much. We're incredibly grateful for your kindness!

Studio links: click here

The pixel art used for the campaign is "Sugartop" by Kathy Chow.

DISCLAIMER Note: We at Oxtail Studios are not providing any goods or services to donors on GoFundMe in exchange for donations. This means we will not be providing you any copies of Sugartop for your donation.

[parksprout]

Sprout Journal 11/6/24-11/7/24

Wow. This has taken a lot to work up the energy to type, which is unfortunate. I was really enjoying getting into the nightly habit of coming here and unwinding with a bit of self-reflection, oversharing and cracking the occasional poorly worded joke. Yesterday was really a disruptive day, probably the most upsetting day of my life since 2020 and really an absolute low point. I'm feeling winded, exhausted, tired and diminished. Every negative adjective of self description could be applied to me in some regard, but I won't linger for too long on that. Just know that I am a lot worse off than I want to be at this moment, but I'm still trying my hardest to do better <3

My eyes are feeling heavy right now, so I'll type this as fast as my silly, sleepy fingers will let me. Yesterday was a blur. The last thing I did on election night was text my [REDACTED], Aaron, that I was going to bed. It was a bit of a lie, I stayed up for another 15 minutes refreshing the election results and being disappointed by what I saw, then I turned on a soundcloud recording of a YouTube documentary about the andromeda galaxy. I think that Aaron slept to Game Grumps that night, but I can't remember precisely. I woke up only 5 hours later and... I'll admit it, I cried at what I saw online. At the pain I saw entering queer spaces, at the fear that immigrants - citizen or otherwise - were feeling online, the economic and social uncertainty that was entering the collective consciousness. I felt afraid, too. I called off school, sent out some hastily written emails to my professors apologizing but not quite feeling bad about my decision to skip yesterday. I feel like given the breakup, the election and every other tiny thing going wrong in life rn I deserve to skip college if even for a day. So I did that.

I was gonna have to skip a couple of my classes anyway, I had a house tour at noon that I was actually super excited for! And by house tour I mean shitty apartment tour because I am still a college kid and like who tf is out here renting/buying a home in 2024. So I got to the apartment complex and immediately there are some red flags. Firstly it was on a giant ass hill, genuinely a mile long hill ironically named Straight Street when that homie was angular as hell. The actual parking lot of the property was ALSO a hill, a poorly paved one that I almost scraped the bottom of my car driving through. The property itself looked fine from the outside, but there were more red flags as I entered. The shared hallway was reeking of reggie and cigs, there was trash on the floor and the shared laundry facility had mold on one wall. Inside the actual studio unit I started by looking in the bathroom, where I immediately found a dead roach. I asked the property manager "have y'all had any bug issues here" and he lied, then got all flustered when I pointed out the roach. Then I lift the toilet lid... why was there another dead roach in the goddamn toilet water.

I left after that.

From there I decided to go on a long drive. I drove for 45 minutes around the city, parking every once in a while to answer texts and calm myself down. The city was pretty at least, with a gentle breeze and cool weather coming in as the day aged. I ended up in my childhood neighborhood and... I decided it was time to visit my family. I haven't seen anyone I'm related to other than my grandma for about six months until yesterday. I wanted to see my little brother more than anything else, but he didn't get off work until three so I decided to text the Aaron Bnuuy for a bit and start walking the neighborhood. I passed a park that me and my former best friend Sarah used to talk at for hours, and decided right in that moment to text her for the first time in two years. She answered and we're making plans already! We'll meet up sometime later this month for dinner and catching up. But I just wandered the streets, taking in sights and breathing the air.

Calming down. I went to the thrift store and bought nothing, then to Walmart to get myself an instant camera. The bnuuy doesn't know this yet but when I send them their christmas present I'll probably include a couple of polaroids of my cats, stuff I think is pretty around town and maybe a selfie too. I haven't taken the pictures yet, but it'll be nice to give them photos. After walmart I drove to my friend Dylans job and said hi, I also hadn't seen him for six months and... I sorta invited him to hang out that night. The way it worked out, I picked up Dylan, my little brother Cj, and his girlfriend too. We all ended up at my dads house where my older sister lives, and we drank apple cider and listened to Sleep Token, Ghost, Dido, Rufus Wainwrights Hallelujah cover and so much more until I had to leave. It was probably the best way I could've spent a very bad day otherwise.

Today has been a little worse than yesterday honestly. It's got all of the same hopelessness about politics, hopefulness but pain about my relationship, but none of the productivity. Work went well actually, all of my coworkers have actually been treating me a lot better these days ... but one coworker made a joke that really upset me. Luckily it's not someone I work with every day, but they joked about immigrants getting deported. The loml was literally born elsewhere, I do NOT play about that shit so I yelled at them and got myself in trouble by doing it.

There's surely a lot more thats gone on today, without a doubt there is but ... this is so much and I doubt anyone will take the time to read it all. I'm gonna get back in the habit of daily journaling after my workout sessions tomorrow.

I have an archaeology presentation tomorrow at school, wish me luck! I love you Tumblr, goodbye everyone! <3

[vertebrae-entertainment]

04.11.2024 - Status update!

Hey!! You're being too quiet!! Whats going on over there!! Well, good question- lets get into that:

Things are going slow! There are multiple reasons for that. First, we took on a load of side work this year to keep the lights on. Second, we're moving apartments right now, with very sudden and short notice!! Third, we have two projects and half the team is absent because of sickness! Bad news for project productivity, indeed.

Other Projects

Theres some cool stuff going on here! People who keep up with our Facebook page may have seen that we're currently collaborating with Likestillingssenteret (The Centre for Equality), Ungdom og Fritid (Youth Work Norway) and streamer MarinaaD on the multi-year educational project Trygg Gaming (Safe Gaming) on how to build safe and equality-minded gaming spaces for youths and discourage hateful conduct! This is our second time collaborating with Likestillingssenteret and MarinaaD, and we are supplying the project with some gaming and game design expertise, as well as our knowledge on the queer subset of game and gaming culture. Additionally, we have had the honor of supplying the campaign with its visual design, much helped by the center's in-house media team!

Other than that, we have some updates on the game development scene in our hometown of Hamar! I was invited to participate in a small project group to map out the potential for establishing a new hub for game development studios in the region, alongside the capable hands and minds behind Sarepta Studio, Encircle Games, Raidho Games and Snowleaf Studios. Last week we presented our proposition to the other businesses in town. Big things are happening, and i advice any game developer in town to keep their ears open!

As well, Global Game Jam Hamar 2025 is right around the corner! Like '23 and '24, buying a ticket to the event ensures you an event t-shirt designed by yours truly. Operations here are now in the hands of the freshly established Hamar Game Events... which is to say, its the same group as before but under a new name! Its gonna be loads of fun, and i hope to see some of y'all there :D

Life and stuff

Earlier this year Åge got very sick, and has been unable to regularly join me in the office. This has affected development greatly, as i am unable to work on Fangst by myself- and i can only do so much graphical work before the pile becomes too much to implement for a two person team.

Then a month ago we got an email that our apartments are getting torn down in favor of a new block project!! Poor luck!! So in short, now we're moving. We should be relocated by December, hopefully before the snow starts setting in.

Teknokrat > Fangst

The main point of this blog post, really. So, given that half the team is sick for the unforeseeable future, what are my options? I have little chance of finishing Fangst in any defendable state by myself, and we do not have the means to hire or outsource.

I decided i should focus on giving Fangst a fighting chance by releasing an self-driven project before it, which ended up being Teknokrat.

So here i am, making an unfiltered gay romance sci-fi visual novel. I write, code, make the art and the music. The rawer and raunchier the better. This should help us gain experience with a commercial release, and help us find our audience. Its lack of workforce and budget will be both its strength and weakness. And when its out, we will be readier for Fangst than we ever were earlier!

I'm very excited for this one- its currently resting at a comfortable 15k script length, soon in a demo-worthy state which will get an early playtest run in our Discord before being dropped on Itch and Steam.

If you havent heard about it before, its about class warfare, cyborgs and techno! I hope you'll look forward to it :3

In the meantime, consider Fangst on hiatus until Åge is able to rejoin full time. This doesnt mean their unmistakable creative flair will not be found in Teknokrat, however! Åge is helping me with design, marketing and planning- as well as lending me their video editing expertise. Get well soon, your presence is missed!

Twitter is dead!!

We moved that branch of our social media operations to Bluesky. Hit us up here! We're also here on personal accounts, and are really enjoying our time here so far. Live updates can as usual be found through our Discord.

_______________________________

OK! I think thats most of whats been happening lately. As always, i hope you're all well, and that you know we appreciate your patience and enthusiasm for our projects! Talk soon, when Teknokrat is looking more ready for sneak peeks!

-Hauk

[nothingunrealistic]

Elena Oxman makes her feature debut with a queer coming-of-age story, Outerlands, that begins well into adulthood, as confronting past traumas and addiction become milestones in the journey of coming to your own. Asia Kate Dillon (Orange Is the New Black) takes the lead in this production as Cass (they/them), a reserved San Francisco resident who juggles multiple streams of income, including babysitting children, serving at restaurants, and dealing party drugs. After a steamy encounter with Kalli (Louisa Krause), Cass agrees to babysit her 11-year-old daughter Ari (Ridley Asha Bateman), only for Kalli to mysteriously disappear. As the film progresses, Cass comes head-to-head with the demons they have been running from, leading to a heartfelt exploration of self-acceptance, queer family, and childhood healing. Outerlands screened at South by Southwest (SXSW) 2025, where Oxman, Dillon, Krause, and Bateman talked to Steve Weintraub in Collider's Media Studio at the Cinema Center in Austin. Oxman discusses her goals of trying to honor real life and respecting her audience by scaling back the script, as well as how video games became integral to the story. The cast members also reveal their anxieties about filming, from shooting 17 scenes a day, learning to drive a scooter, or sprinting into the ocean. Hear about how Dillon managed to secure a song from one of their favorite bands and more in the video above, or you can read along via the transcript below.

'Outerlands' Is a "Queer Coming-of-Age" Drama "We all, even as adults, are still coming of age." COLLIDER: What's interesting is, there was just a film here that took place in San Francisco, and your film takes place in San Francisco and I really enjoyed both films. It must be something in the San Francisco water. ELENA OXMAN: Definitely. It's a magical city. Very photogenic, very inspiring to film there. I have a lot of things I want to talk to you about, but I have to start with the generic up front, which is most people watching this will not have seen the movie yet, so how have you been describing it to people? OXMAN: We've been describing it to people as a queer coming-of-age movie that is about a person who works as a nanny in San Francisco who gets left with an 11-year-old girl, and her mother disappears. That's the setup of the film, but really, it's a drama. It's about coming home to ourselves and acknowledging wounds that we might not have acknowledged in the past. Ultimately, when I say coming-of-age, we all, even as adults, are still coming of age, so it's like, how do we come into adulthood? One of the things that I commend you on is that the characters and the situations felt very authentic and real like this could really be happening. Can you talk about trying to capture that and put it on screen and not make it feel like Hollywood? OXMAN: I think that's staying true to what life feels like to me as a writer. I feel like when we make movies, we're aspiring to honor how rich and deep life is, and I don't think [we] ever get there. It's a very hard thing to do, but as a writer, I always try and just stay close to it and avoid the clichés of the ready-made ideas but stick to my experience or the experience of people I know and be loyal to that, and then I think it flows from there.

'Outlanders' Honors Real Life Through a Pared-Back Script "Trusting and respecting the audience." For all three of you, what was it about this script and this story that said, "I really want to do this?" ASIA KATE DILLON: The writing, first and foremost. The story was so clear. The first time I read through the draft, I immediately understood not only my character, Cass Marks, but also all the characters. It felt very, like you said, real. I hadn't ever read a script like this before. I hadn't read this particular story before. I hadn't played this particular type of character before. It felt very new, very relevant, but also there were elements of the story that were personally nostalgic for me, and/or synchronistic for me. I read the script on an airplane, and I immediately texted my manager and I just said, "I have to make this film. Please set up a meeting with the director as soon as possible." The writing was the answer. RIDLEY ASHA BATEMAN: Just the fact that it was so real, and it could actually happen in real life. It just spoke to me in a way. You bring up something that I wanted to talk about, and another thing that I really commend you on is the lack of unnecessary dialogue and exposition that's not needed. People speak when they would really speak, and it's honest conversations. Can you sort of talk about that aspect? OXMAN: For me, a lot of that is trusting and respecting the audience. I wish more people did. OXMAN: [Laughs] We participate when we watch things, and I love it when films leave spaces and gaps for us to actually use our hearts and minds to fill those in rather than telling us everything. I make films because I'm in love with the visual medium, so it can say so much. This film happened to be about a character who's a person of few words—that's part of their character; they're kind of stoic. That was one of the reasons for casting Asia and really choosing Asia as, "This is Cass," is I just knew that they were an actor who's going to be able to convey so much with so little because so much of the performance is really unspoken.

Video Games Are a Major Aspect of 'Outerlands' "There's a lot of solace in that activity." I don't want to get too specific—I don't want to do any spoilers or ruin any aspect of the movie—but there is a video game component. I'm a big video game fan, I grew up with games, but you have the Super NES, and the game "Outerlands" plays a big role in the movie. The game is not real, as far as I know. OXMAN: Well, I can say something about that. The game is actually real. It's a game called "Redder" by a video game designer named Anna Anthropy. But it wasn't called "Outerlands." OXMAN: It was not. "Outerlands" is not real, that's correct. The end sequence was written into the script, and she designed that very end sequence that comes at the end of the film. We did use a Super NES. People who know that system will recognize it, but it was meant to be generic, of a certain era, but not something in particular. [Asia], your character goes to the arcade, plays video games and pinball, and I think that a lot of video game players—not all, but a lot—use video games as a form of escapism. It's entertainment, but for some people, it's just an escape from the reality of life. Is that something you thought about, or am I digging too deep? OXMAN: Oh no, definitely. This isn't giving anything away; the movie begins with Cass playing a little game on their phone, and, in the context of that scene, it's soothing. It's a self-soothing kind of mechanism. At the same time, when we say "escape," there can be a negative connotation to escaping into phones or video games or whatever. It's more complex than that because there can actually be a lot of solace. A lot of people, for video games, there's a lot of solace in that activity, and I think the same goes for Cass. So, it's both. I'm not trying to make it so it's all negative, but I've seen both sides of it. OXMAN: Totally. No, you're totally onto something because I think a big theme of the movie is how we avoid pain. Absolutely.

'Outerlands' Filming Schedule Had Multiple Little Challenges "The scene that gave me the most anxiety was running into the ocean." For the three of you, you know the shooting schedule, and you see what's coming up. What day do you have circled in terms of, “I can't wait to film this,” and what do you have circled in terms of, “How the F am I going to film this?” Sorry for my language. DILLON: Please don't swear around me. [Laughs] Okay, I had the entire film circled as I can't wait to show up every day. Truly, every single day was a joy and also a creative challenge, which I love. I pretty quickly realized that I had to approach each filming day very differently than I had on previous projects. For example, on a given day, there would be 17 scenes on the call sheet because those scenes were just moments, like, "Cass wakes up and looks at their alarm clock. Cass wakes up on the couch and looks at the beer bottles. Cass is running down the stairs." It's all these little moments, but all of them obviously probably require a costume change, certainly a different emotional state. Because Elena and I did so much prep for the film, and I knew the film inside and out, backwards and forwards, all the other metaphors, I just actually said, “I need to show up on the day, and you just tell me actually what we're going to do next," because if I look at it and I say, "Oh, I have these 17," I'm going lose my mind, actually. So, it was a different way of working for me that, ultimately, I found really benefited me and, therefore, I hope, the film. But also, it sounds like you had done so much work prior to stepping on set thinking about everything. DILLON: Definitely. They were like, “We're going to do this now,” and I was like, “Great, I know what that is.” BATEMAN: There weren't days that I didn't want to do. There were days that were more challenging than others. It was always fun to be on set, and it was just more challenging than others on certain days. Good answer. DILLON: Yeah, I had to learn to drive a scooter, but Ridley also had to learn to be a passenger on a scooter with me. I feel like those days might have been just a little more challenging, certainly because of the physical aspect. KRAUSE: Same. It was just fun to show up. We knew what we were signing up for, so we're all game. It's so funny. The intimacy scene was so easy to do because it was just well guided and that was a piece of cake. I think the scene that gave me the most anxiety was running into the ocean potentially. People were standing by with blankets, and we were so well taken care of, and it was actually exhilarating to be able to do that. It was very cold. I think we were right next to the Cliff House in San Francisco on the beach, but it was a thrill, actually. So, yeah, lucky.

'Outerlands' Features a Mystery Band Allied With the Queer Community "It was a very easy and genuine letter to write." This is not a spoiler, but over the end credits, you have a song by a band that I love. I don't know if I can say it or not. DILLON: My instinct is don't, because I have a good story about it, but we don't need to spoil it. I want to know how you managed to get this band to give you a song. DILLON: I can answer without telling you what the band is. I wrote them a letter at the advice of our producers and our PR team. Everyone was like, “Just write them a letter.” They are one of my top five favorite bands of all time—one of the best live shows I've ever seen. Their records have been on repeat for me for, like, 20 years at least. It was a very easy and genuine letter to write, and it was just about whether or not we could get that letter to them. Magic and hard work and diligence made it happen. It's just cool to know that they read my letter, and they were like, “Yeah, we want to give you this song for this film.” Part of it was acknowledging that dance music is so integral in the LGBTQIA+ community, how they've been allies for so long, and how it would really mean so much to have their song in the film. So, yay! [Laughs] I am a huge fan of the band, and without giving anything away, they have a soundtrack out for something, and I have listened to that soundtrack probably 1,000 times. It is one of my favorites of all time. I'm almost out of time, but I like talking about editing. So, you're editing, you have a cut, you're showing it to friends and family. Did you jump out the window, or were you like, “It's coming together. This is good. Just some small tweaks?" OXMAN: [Laughs] Yeah, a little bit of both, I'd say. It's very nerve-wracking the first time you show what you've been working on to an audience. What was reassuring is that [for] my amazing editor Chris Brown and I, who'd been kind of holed up in his apartment/our editing suite, working on this, the same things that our gut told us needed work were what got reflected back to us by our audience, and that's always just such a great thing when that happens. It was just reassuring that we're on the right track. We had one small little test screening when we were about, I'd say, three-quarters of the way there, 80%, and then from there, finished the cut. Did you end up making any sort of big changes to the film that you were not expecting, or was it more little like surgical cuts? OXMAN: There were both. There were definitely surgical cuts, but there was a substantial change towards the ending of the film. It was nothing that wasn't in the script, but it was cutting and pruning to streamline things. I think something that can happen, this happened with my script, is there can sometimes be multiple endings, or multiple low points, and we sort of had that going on. That, unfortunately, meant we lost some great performance moments and whatever, but you have to always sacrifice for the flow of the story.

[screensavorstudios]

Happy International Asexual Awareness Day from Screen Savor Studios! Since both our writer and the protagonist of our latest game are Ace, this is an important day for us. Speaking of Vivian, we have 7 Days left for the Jill O' Lantern Kickstarter, and only a little over $1,000 USD to go! We're entering the final push, so please make sure to share and back the game if you haven't already. Every dollar goes to queer artists and developers who are working hard to make this game!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jillolantern/jill-o-latnern-final-cut

[linuxgamenews]

Pivot of Hearts is here: Dive Into Emotional Romance

Pivot of Hearts launches the non-monogamous romance visual novel game on Linux, Mac, and Windows PC. Thanks to the creative minds at Dragonroll Studio, gameplay comes with an unforgettable storytelling. Which you can find on both Steam and itch. Pivot of Hearts launches, and if you’ve ever fallen for a title that made you feel seen, this one’s going to live rent-free in your heart for a while. Made by the small but mighty Dragonroll Studio in São Paulo, Brazil, this non-monogamous romance visual novel is all about love. But not just the fluffy, rom-com kind. We're talking honest, messy, emotional love that grows through friendship, queerness, and chosen family. While offering the beautiful chaos of non-monogamy. You play as Wén Xiàn, a Taiwanese-Brazilian dev staring down a brutal deadline. Along with unresolved feelings, and the tangled web of reconnection and self-discovery. Set against the vibrant backdrop of São Paulo, Pivot of Hearts launches deep into what it means to love. So let go, and open your heart again — whether to new people, old wounds, or a future that looks nothing like you imagined. It’s the kind of title where every choice matters, not because it leads to some arbitrary “good ending,” but because it reflects who you are and what you value. And with over 100,000 words of branching story and five different endings, it’s got the emotional depth to match its runtime. While offering nearly ten hours of gameplay if you’re soaking it all in. The cast? Unforgettable. You’ve got characters like Etsuko, Cauã, Bárbara, and Sigurd — each with their own emotional arcs and genuine personalities. They’re written with so much care and charm that it starts to feel like you’re not playing a game. So you’re making real connections.

Pivot of Hearts - Opening (Stay with Me) - Launches Now

And there’s more than just launching into a story here: Pivot of Hearts brings in an interactive Tarot system that influences conversations based on your emotional instincts. Want to play it safe or dive deep into the unknown? The cards will help you decide. Think of it as your heart’s deck builder. Also, for us Linux players — good news! The em>Pivot of Hearts devs are indie through and through, and native support launches already baked in. So no jumping through hoops. You can dive into this one straight from your distro of choice. The cherry on top? An original theme song by Livia Maki Yoshikawa, hand-drawn art that oozes love. Also in-game translation notes to help everyone enjoy the local slang, street food references, and anime vibes peppered throughout the story. There’s even voice interjections from the dev team and their friends, adding that scrappy, heartfelt charm you just don’t get in big-budget titles. Whether you're in it for the romance, the friendships, or just to feel something real, Pivot of Hearts non-monogamous visual novel launches. Ad it’s exactly the kind of title people like. So clear your schedule, grab a warm drink, and get ready to fall — hard. Play it now on Steam and itch for $13.99 USD / £11.79 / 13,79€. While offering native support for Linux, with Mac and Windows PC.

[alexissara]

Alexis Sara's Top 10 Most Anticipated Games Of 2024

We're about to enter 2024 and with that we have all the lists, lists I am not immune to making because I slowly build them up all year. Last year I played a fuck load of games and so this year I wanted to talk about 10 games I think look really fucking cool that are coming out in the next year or two. Some of these games are likely to release in 2025 instead but it'll be fun to see if they remain on the list next year then. I mostly just wanted to spotlight some art that looks cool to me outside of the context of a Sapphic Games Guide or a Review and maybe get others on the hype train with me. This list is not in order and just 10 games I think look like they could have an impact on me, I may not even buy every game on this list but there the 10 that look like I am most likely to check out.

Gales Of Nayeli

So this is one of two games on the list I've already purchased. I backed the kickstarter of the game a while back and I thought "it looks alright and when I asked if there was gonna be any sapphic content the creator told me in depth what content he had already made so sure I'll back it. What was more if a thank you for being so kind and responsive so fast has turned into my most hype game of the year. Blindcoco and me have become friends over time so I am biased but I was actually sold on the game before me and him became buddy buddy when I played the demo and saw the amazing work that went into it. Then the extremally positive response from him and the community towards my desire to focus in on women and sapphic women only added to my excitement for the game.

The game genuinely seems to be raising the bar for SRPGs and really feels like it is a step above Fire Emblem and not an emulation of Fire Emblem. I loved the demo and the concepts in the game so much it inspired me to start working on my own SRPG studios game knowing what is possible at the high end of investment in the system can really be something special and really cool. I love that there is a focus on trying to cast voice actors who match ethnicity to the diverse cast, I love that there is a wide range of diversity in the revealed cast, I love the amount of queer women I am aware of in the game, I love the animations and sprite work, I love the gameplay, I am really really excited about this game and I think this game has a high shot at being one of my favorite games.

Fields Of Mistria 

I make fun of farming sims a little on my lists and stuff but only because I actually love farming sims especially in concept. This game probably has my favorite art style of the whole lot of games today. It's lovely 90s anime style sprite work is just AHHHHHHHHHH so good. I do in fact want to kiss the women in this game very badly and I would enjoy playing the game for the sake of dating them alone.

Rune Factory: Dragon

Let's bang out the second farming sim while we're at it. We don't know a bunch about this game but it really just has to do two things for me to be into it. One, let you be gay like the newest RF and Story of Season games already let you do and Two, keep up the art direction and bam, I'm in. My biggest problem with the last Rune Factory game was that the art style made every woman look like a 12 year old and not in the like chibi story of seasons way like they just looked like they were kids. This however, has a much better set of art direction and it makes me think there might actually be women I'd want to gay marry.

Mahou Senshi Cosplay Club

I really love Behold's previous game Chroma Squad but when I got this demo I had no idea they were the Chroma Squad people. The mix of dress up and RPG gameplay is a dream come true kind of game and the outfit customization is leagues beyond a game like Fashion Dreamer despite likely being made on a much smaller budget. The PSX style graphics actually work here with them evoking nostalgic graphics while also not actually being restrained by a Playstation One's issues. I just really loved the process of making the outfit and character in this game and honestly that alone is a potential game seller. The gameplay element was solid and I really want to play more of this.

Beastieball 

BeastieBall seems to be a really fun take on the Monster Taming genre. Having the monster friends play a sport and naturally be inclined to play the sport makes for a very cute and wholesome premise to which you become more a coach than an owner to these little cuties. It's a pretty simple concept in the demo but it's promising and cute and I do like that the monsters you collect build relationships with each other, I think that is something really special and neat and something I'd like to see more monster tamers do.

Love In A Bottle

 There is a lot of nice looking visual novels coming out but Love In A Bottle is dating sim that is really capturing my eye. You play as a demon girl, bam okay I am sold. You date other monster girls okay I'm sold. And it's got more then the basic one outfit you expect from a standard visual novel dating sim type deal for characters that is yet another sold factor. It seems really cute, seems fun and I hope I can smooch all the women at once.

Fantasy Life I

While I said we were done with farming sims, I didn't say we were done with sims as we have Level-5's Life Sim, Fantasy Life. I won't be buying the game if I can't be gay in it but I really loved the first Fantasy Life on the 3DS and I think if it can keep up the charm and fun of the original game and add a homosexual seasoning on top it'll be a perfect cute and fun time. I love the wide array of jobs and how these all build into each other, it's a very one of a kind experience and really fun.

Princess Peach Showtime 

This is the true triple A game of the list and the only one that has captivated me in all the shows of all the consoles and developers I've seen of late. Peach is barbie now and I am here for it, let her have a million jobs and have a game based around her doing these different roles and being an icon in each of them, sounds good, I'm in, it's a really cute and fun concept. It looks really fun and the art style looks great.

Our Life Now and Forever 

There is no other games like the Our Life games and getting to be sapphic in this one means I finally get to go ahead and experience the series I have been curious about for a while now. This game will let you be polyamarous which is the only game on this list I can say for sure will allow you to do that and that alone is something that would keep me engaged. However, getting to grow up with characters, change your pronouns, your name, anything about yourself as you do and having the characters change with you is amazing. I love the concept of this game and the wild reactivity the games demo has always provided just to a simple thing like me choosing to be trans in the childhood phase is amazing, it is truly such a considered and thoughtful game with such masterful crafting that the act one demo alone is probably worth money. So I did back this one on kickstarter as well so this is my other pick up.

Unlike other games on this list I am fairly confident this is a 2025 game and not a 2024 game but I want to talk about it now because people on the Patreon will be getting to play updated versions of the game over the course of the year akin to early access. I think the game is for sure worth a look.

Izrand Allure

After playing the previous game in the series I am totally sold on wanting to experience Izrand Allure. Luxaren Allure was a really special experience I had this year finally checking out the game after I think years of putting it off and beating it I really want to play this follow up. This game seems far more in depth and far more artistically masterful then Luxaren as well so I really want to see everything this game has to offer. I love a good job system and this game boasts one. I really want to see this lesbian RPG and I hope I get a chance to play it very soon but obviously Unity the dev should take her time to make it. Regardless, I am just gushing every time I see the game and I think this has potential to be a massive game of the year type hit for me.

If you enjoyed this post, I got a lot more end of the year lists coming up when it's actually next year so I can tell people what I enjoyed in December. You can also support me in making cool queer art by checking out my Patreon and Ko-fi.

[thumpypuppy]

Okay apparently we're now tentatively offering video editing services? It's a thing we're feeling out at present and we'll put out a bit of a portfolio in the future, but yeah… in addition to VGM we also do indie band production, we're making a small jump into film scoring, and yeah…

The Light Novel about our studio is going to be called, "Oh No I Created a Small Queer Indie Video Game Music Studio and Now We're Starting to Expand into Other Creative Fields!" and it will be available for purchase whenever we inevitably fold a writer and illustration team into our studio.

[solarianvulpine]

Did you know that, in the late 70's, there was a violent rally held by angry rock fans in which they blew up disco records to "kill the disco movement" in response to it's place in both gay liberation and afro/latino empowerment plus their belief that it was destroying rock and roll?

Discotheque originated in french nightclubs in the twenties, thirties, and fourties. However, it was the mid seventies that brought about a strong American take on the genre. Disco was growing in the underground club, bar, and punk scene. Featuring rhythmic drums and african influenced beats, it was rapidly gaining popularity in the dance scene and massively outselling rock and roll. Rockers felt that switching up musically to sell better was synonymous with selling out. Plus why would they bother? They said that disco was a mindless fad compared to their superior lyrical work and sound.

For a few years the conflict of genre built tensions. Producers wanted more and more disco funk. Bringing about an age of gay liberation and putting black and brown artists in the spotlight, featuring openly queer black artists like Sylvester and Martha wash. Rock was being called on much less. It all came to a head in July of 1979.

"Disco Demolition Night" took place at Chicago's Comiskey Park between baseball games on July 12, 1979. It was organized by radio host and dj Steve Dahl. Calling for the death of disco, the end of the "musical disease." Dahl claims it was nothing but a harmless stunt; continuously denying its racist and homophobic nature.

The day after the event Dahl hosted his usual morning broadcast. He began by reading the headlines reporting the previous night's events, mocking the coverage, saying, "I think for the most part everything was wonderful. Some maniac cohos got wild, went down on the field. which you shouldn't have done. Bad little cohos"*

To my understanding Steve Dahl never renounced his feelings towards disco nor has he shown any remorse for his actions. Seeing as he still sells merchandise featuring the event on his website. Including hats and tshirts commemorating the night of 7-12-79.

Rolling Stone Critic Dave Marsh attended the event and wrote at the time, "Your most paranoid fantasy about where the ethnic cleansing of the rock radio could ultimately lead... white males 18 to 34 are the most likely to see disco as the product of homosexuals, black and latins, and therefore they're the most likely to respond to appeals to wipe out such threats to their security."

Fans rushed the field brandishing tshirts and banners stating "Disco Sucks." A notable phrase used in connection to the movement to kill disco. Still heard in passing to this day. The phrase may seem harmless today noting that we use "sucks" so casually. It is worth noting that at the time it was new slang; directly and intentionally homophobic. It is often forgotten exactly what we're accusing the subject of sucking.

The effects of Demolition Night swiftly radiated out into the media production circuit. Sending Disco back underground to the safe havens of queer clubs and bars, like the loft and stonewall, as well as the subterranean punk spaces of their origin.

Today it's commonly believed that disco's popularity did die in 1979. Producers, studios, and clubs started rebranding the genre as "dance" music. Even pioneers of disco became disillusioned with the genre noting that media producers had oversaturated disco sound, wringing out any cultural significance it had at the start. Making way for hip-hop, pop, and punk.

However, dancing to the selections of DJs had integrated into culture in major urban centers. As an activity it wasn't going anywhere. With the inability to capitalize on it the culture discovered a new lease of life, free of the labeling and profiteering. Disco may have been dead, but its influence was alive and well.

To learn more:

A more extensive account of the culture and history can be found in this book "Love Saves the Day" by Tim Lawrence.

I also recommend this playlist curated by the Woody Guthrie memorial museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma during their exhibit of the same name earlier this summer. Exploring the history and sound of disco.

TL;DR - Disco was major to gay and poc empowerment. Then a bunch of people rioted and blew up disco records at a baseball game leading to the decline of Disco's popularity in mainstream media.

*Coho - noun; a person or thing that shows the existence or direction of a trend - (another definition is a kind of salmon but i have the feeling that would be inaccurate as funny as it may be)

[blueysoda]

A Night Out

Cherri Bomb and Angel Dust

By BlueySoda

Cherri Bomb was excited. She and Angel Dust, her closest friend, had plans to be chaotic and fuck off around town for hours― definitely with alcohol and substances involved. She'd been planning this out with Angel for a week. What clubs they'd hit up, what weapons they'd use, things they'd demolish, games they'd play, everything. She even planned on bringing two, brand new, hot pink Tommy Guns along. One for her, one for Angel, since everyone knows how much he loves pink. 

Pink being a favorite color was one of many things these two buddies had in common; they were both queer, had chaotic energy, loved tearing shit up, destroying things for fun, incredible marksmanship, hating Valentino, caring for each other, being bitchy, having no filter, etc. All the way down to the freckles, it was like these two were twins. That's not to say they're exactly alike, though. They had their differences, as did everyone. But they were truly the best of friends. Angel was family to Cherri, he meant the world to her. They were always there for each other. When they could be, anyway. Sometimes, things come up. 

But not tonight. 

Cherri was in her apartment, putting on the finishing touches of her outfit. Her hair was tied up, as usual, and her face and makeup looked the same. She wore a spiked choker on her neck, accompanied by chained necklaces hanging from it and laying on her chest. She wore a bright red leather jacket with the sleeves cut off on the elbows, a few loose rips visible toward the end of the sleeve. Her tattoo on her left arm showed from the sleeve to her wrist, where a red fingerless glove was worn on her hand. On the other, she wore a long, black-and-red striped fingerless glove that ended further up her arm, but the sleeve covered the end of it. She wore a black cropped tube top with a yellow bomb silhouette centered in the front, black shorts that hugged her thighs that had a loose, studded belt that hung crooked on her hips. Impractical, but stylish. In addition to that, she had on black ripped stockings that ended mid-thigh on her right leg and just above the knee on her left. Her boots were the same as usual, with the usual pink changed to red.

She looked at herself in the mirror, trying a few different poses to make sure she looked good from all angles, then grabbed her phone to snap a mirror selfie. When a few were taken, she chose one and posted it to her Sinstagram.

Getting ready for a fuckin' BOMB night with @angie_fluffy_bootz!! time to shoot the shit! 💣💥✨✨😎

The Australian went to her side table to grab her hairbrush when it had posted, running it through her hair one more time before it was time to go. A moment later, her phone pinged. 

Angie 💖: hey bitch!! i'm outside waitin'! 

Cherri grinned excitedly. 

Cher-Cher 💥: brt babe! 

A moment later, the two met up just outside of the apartment and started walking to their first club. 

"Hey, Angie!! Fuck, that outfit's rad!" Cherri complimented the spider, which earned a playful pose in return. 

"Aw, this ol' thing? Nah, it ain't nuttin'. I just found it in my closet, no big deal."

"Oh, that include the two 3-carat rings on your fingers, too? Are those 'ain't nothin'?" Cherri pointed at his hands and raised her brow. Angel just laughed and sighed. 

"Just some little tchotchkes I had layin' around, yanno? Figured they'd complete the look!"

"Bullshit, I know you've been dyin' to find some excuse to show them off out in public! You haven't shut up about them since ya bought 'em!" 

"Well, I'd never wear 'em at the studio, an' I've been real busy lately so I haven't had the time." He rolled his eyes with his lighthearted tone, though his smile faltered ever so slightly. The cyclops saw this, and felt empathy for him, but quickly returned to her big grin with a gentle nudge to his side. 

"And that's why we're goin' out tonight and forgetting about all that shit for a night! Flash those rings and show 'em off to every damned soul we see! We're gonna have a good fuckin' time tonight, alright, Ange?" She looked up at him with her determined, toothy smile, the one that always came with her pep talks. That made Angel smile again, even wider than before, matching her expression.

"Hell fuckin' yeah!"

"WOO!" Cherri cheered happily with a laugh, then took him impatiently by the hand toward the nightclub just down the street. 

These two were inseparable. They were family. They could always trust each other and confide in one another, no matter what. 

A/N:

This is the outfit she was wearing!

[studioincomplete]

Let's get this started!

Hello and welcome!! We are studio inc.omplete, a group of indie game devs out of Troy, NY. We're currently working on our game Night of the Delivering Dead, a game about a necromancer who graduates with no practical experience in horde management turns to food delivery to practice fine mortem skills and chip into their student loans. After accepting an order from Death’s Delights, the player will have to use their hand of spells, summons, and other necromantricks to successfully locate and deliver multiple orders to their destinations before the food grows cold, avoiding obstacles and weird looks in the process. We’ll be sharing devlogs and bits of progress here as we move through development. The first of those will come soon, but this post is more going to be an introduction to all of us, the dev team behind the game! In order of who sent Ivy their bio for this first:

Ivy!

Ivy (they/she) is our writer who consistently manages to write stories that are better than she thinks she thinks they are. When she’s not being forced to do marketing she works on both analog and digital games to tell the queer stories that she wants to see in the world.

Ghost!

Ghost (it/he) is our neighborhood cryptic and gets extremely invested in its interests, one of which is illustrating!! It also did all of our fantastic character portraits! You can find more of its work on DeviantArt and Bluesky.

Brendan!

Brendan (he/him) is a programmer and designer who has only ideas that make the rest of the team go ‘oh no’. He works in analog and digital games to chase down whatever absurd idea he’s found that week and they’re all cool actually, and very serious and not silly.

Emmet!

Emmet (he/him) is the Studio Inc.omplete vibe curator. When he's not busy doing that, he is a programmer and designer who loves getting under the hood of a system and making sure nothing Brendan designed is tremendously broken.

Mira!

Mira (any pronouns) is our lead programmer, and as such has to wrangle Brendan and Emmet together and make sure things work. He’s currently playing FFXIV and is a big fan of narrative games, especially ones that have diegetic narrative mechanics. 

Ari!

Ari (she/her) is the team’s resident 3D artist and Blender enthusiast. She is very passionate about environmental art and the stories it can convey. In her free time you can find her playing various FPS games or the Sims :) 

We’re a group of recent graduates from RPI with a passion for making neat, story driven games that use whatever cool system Emmet or Brendan come up with that week. Mira helps keep them focused on the programming work while Ivy brainstorms worlds to put their systems in. Ari then fills those worlds with 3d models and Ghost makes the character portraits and other 2d art to let you interact with it. Our biggest goal is to make games that make you say “hey, that’s neat!” Whether that be an interesting little story, a weird mechanic, or a silly premise, we want our games to be filled with moments that make you want to see more. 

That’s about all we have for now! Like I said, we’ll be posting our first dev log soon, so follow and keep an eye out! Thank you for checking us out!