#this will probably be included in a zine later

[porcelain-rob0t]

on identity, healing the inner child, fursonas, and cringe culture

#art #digital art #my art #fursona #personal comic #furry #wolf #i had a werewolf phase when i was 8. i would howl at the moon and i would grow my nails out and chew them into claws #comic #webcomic #web comic #comics #comic artist #indie comic #this will probably be included in a zine later #cringe culture is dead #i am cringe but i am free

[olderthannetfic]

You've encountered site changes over time as a fan elder, what do you make of Tumblr potentially being put out to pasture? Tumblr was my coming of age fan site, and im looking for advice to transition to the next thing with grace and less bitterness than I feel now.

--

Ahaha. God, you should have heard the howling about LJ. "Fandom is over!" "Never again shall we dwell in fandom's True Home!" etc.

Hell, this endless "only LJ was good" crap turns up in replies here on posts where I as OP have very clearly laid out why that's rose colored glasses nonsense and you can so make friends on tumblr, have a conversation on tumblr, etc.

I had my crabby phase about this during the transition from Yahoo Groups to LJ. A lot of the real olds had it over paper zines and the transition to the internet.

I don't know if reading these hilariously samey old posts would help. It does give perspective, I think.

--

As for what you should do, do what I did with Tumblr:

1.

Look around to identify the Next Thing fandom is going to camp out on.

It may take a few guesses and some time to figure this out. You will likely not be an early adopter. Fandom was well established here by the time I joined at the end of 2010. Of course, by now, all those 2009 and before accounts are long gone, but at the time, I was a n00b joining other people's space despite having been in fandom for ages.

2.

Don't expect to enjoy it

I didn't join tumblr because I liked it. In fact, I despised it. I kept right on despising it until a brief stint in Sherlock fandom, a fandom that was so active here at the time that I was able to finally see the good aspects of the site's structure and features.

This is the mistake a lot of people make. They give things a cursory try, don't enjoy them, and go "not for me", forgetting that the last site also had a steep learning curve that was either difficult or that they didn't notice because they were in a different phase of their life.

Bitterness and grief are, frankly, an inherent part of the process. You can try not to be a debbie downer in your public comments, but you can't just not feel those things during the awkward part of the transition. Sometimes, acting positive and cutting off excessively negative thoughts can make you feel less negative overall, but it doesn't happen immediately.

3.

Accept that feeling cranky and old is both a you problem and a state of mind, not a property of the new site

Relatedly, the way we remember fandom platform X feeling usually has more to do with us being in college with fandom friends down the hall or having discovered Our People for the first time or some other time when we had a lot of energy and positive emotions. Often, we were in the throes of a first or new fandom love too, probably for some megafandom that other people also cared about at the same time.

When fandom is leaving some site, there's a grieving process anyway, but we're also often in a worse part of our lives for starting new things. We're busy. We're tired. We're between fandoms. We feel like we already paid our dues to build up our community. Why should we have to start again?

But let me tell you, you always need to start again eventually. I go to a weekly vidders' zoom chat, and a lot of the people in there are old as balls, including Kandy, the person who invented vidding back in the 70s. She's a lot of decades and a few cancers in, and she had to relearn how to vid on a computer after transitioning from slideshows to VCR vidding back in the day. If bad health, platform changes, and dead friends were going to stop her, she'd be long gone.

It's like sharks: you stop swimming, you die.

This isn't just about fandom, obviously. It's about avoiding a midlife crisis and, later, about avoiding feeling emotionally geriatric even when your body is falling apart.

Change gets us all, but being mentally old is a choice. The real reason I gave tumblr such a try was that I had been so resistant to getting on LJ. I was 20. Even a year later, it was fucking embarrassing to have been a crotchety old hag as a college student. I promised myself I'd soldier through the next change instead of dragging my feet about it. And it totally worked in the end! But boy did it not make the transition any less unpleasant emotionally!

4.

Find your joy

As is obvious from the above, the vast majority of the problem is just emotions. Fandom has been on a million broken sites with shitty features. We go where the people are, regardless of whether it has the technological aspects we liked at the last place. The actual shape of that platform is largely irrelevant.

What does matter is whether we as an individual fan are still excited and happy about something. I was between fandoms recently and went looking around for BL series I hadn't watched yet. People kept suggesting things set in the present day with too-cheesy production values and too many banal schoolboys in modern day settings without even anything spicy going on. I realized that the BL/danmei scene wasn't really cutting it for me and I should go for production values and genre and non-canon ships. You probably scrolled annoyedly past the picspams that resulted.

(Of course, hilariously, someone has now shown me the trailer of Red Peafowl, so someone may be making BL that feels like it's for me after all. Look at all that badwrong and very dark color grading.)

When you're in a good place emotionally, it's a hell of a lot easier to weather any change, and when you have a new fandom, it's a lot easier to connect with other fans.

A lot of people wait around for lightning to strike twice. They found their first fandom by accident, and they expect it to happen seamlessly again. For me, it's far more productive to brute force it: collect up a big list of what's popular or what's new and go through it till you find things you might like, then try them all.

And part of this, obviously, is not waiting for other fans to make the party happen. The more you need to join something other people are already doing, the less choice you'll have in fandoms or in platforms. If you aren't picky and just go where the tropey longfic is, that can work, but even then, favorite authors disappear or go to fandoms you hate and former megafandoms dry up. If you're the one bringing the party, it's a lot easier to find a new fandom or platform or community to have fun in.

[trashsketch]

Alright! I wanna talk about my thought process behind this crazy detailed piece I made for the hxh adventures zine in 2018! Get ready for plenty of closeups and references.

So the @hxhadventures zine was the very first fandom zine I've ever been accepted in, which was huge for me back then, considering hxh is the first ever fandom I've been deeply involved in! So I was like 'damn...i gotta bust my balls to make a super good piece cause there's so many amazing artists working on this thing.' I will never make a piece this detailed again, probably LOL this took me...so many weeks.

I knew I wanted to make something regarding Yorknew City, and thought back to the marketplace that Leorio and Killua and Gon visited while waiting for Kurapika to get back to them. It reminded me a lot of Mongkok's markets when I visited Hong Kong a few years prior, so I worked with some references from there.

As for what goods would be sold in the stall...well. I was really figuring it out all as I went. After a while of thinking, I decided on drawing a bunch of little references from anything I could remember from hxh. References to characters, places, important props...nevermind that it didn't make sense that the characters were stepping into a shop that was basically meta, it just felt cool as hell to include anything I could remember from the nights when I binged the manga and anime.

Let's start from the top right:

These chinese animal lanterns are references to the 12 zodiacs! And I had to include the blimps that the main cast moved around in from the anime.

As we move lower:

Top row, left to right: Knuckle's nen, Shoot's nen, Knov's glasses, Palm's necklace of knives, Togashi and Naoko dog and rabbit bags (the first of 3 instances I would place them in this drawing)

Bottom row, left to right: Bisky's nen, Netero's nen, Morel's pipe, Kite's nen.

And on the rest of the rows on the wall:

From top to bottom, left to right:

Row 1: Pitou, Pouf, Youfi, Komugi, Meruem, various Gungi tiles

Row 2: Kurapika's nen (the rest of his finger chains from the manga), Leorio's nen (the fist that he used to punch Ging with), Gon's nen (since it's based off jankenpon), Killua's nen (just a lightning bolt lmao), Palm's crystal ball, Hisoka's cards

Row 3: Togashi dog, Naoko rabbit, a (very tiny) representation of the W and E books from dark continent expedition arc, the starting tower of Greed Island, the Hunter symbol.

Row 4: Black whale ship, Heaven's arena tower, I...forgot what this tree was meant to be LOL, the World tree that Gon climbs to see Ging, 1999 anime hunter license, 2011 anime hunter license.

Moving on lower! We have:

Top row: Togashi and Naoko again as plushies, the Greed Island book, a postcard of Whale Island, the Greed Island end prize card case.

Bottom row: Various characters as dolls, a reference to Hisoka viewing everyone as dolls.

And now on the bottom right:

Some of these are various plushies from Alluka's room (it was mostly filler)

And last, but not least:

On the left we have a hookah pipe, because Kurapika was smoking it in the 1999 anime:

And the ring that Gon is pointing at is the ring that they later used as a prize for Leorio's plan!

#my art #hxh #yorknew #leorio #killua #gon #killugon #a very long ramble about the props i included as references to the hxh series itself #hope everyone understands now that i'm insane! #me: i wanna make a love letter for hxh. me 3 weeks into this piece: ughdhgjjkgkjdf

[vintagerpg]

This is one of the oldest of the relatively small niche of books about RPGs: Fantasy Role Playing Games (1981), by J. Eric Holmes, the same Holmes who shepherded the original Basic Set Dungeons & Dragons into existence.

In the early 80s, a bunch of these types of books came out; they were sort of introductions to the idea of RPGs, mixed with brief how-tos and overviews of the market. This is probably my favorite of the ones I have read. The first third or so of the book is an overview of the key concepts of how to play, complete with transcripts of game sessions and a sort of read-along dungeon. Holmes shines, though, when he gets to the history of Dungeons & Dragons, in which he was a firsthand eye witness for a time. The immediacy of his account is engrossing, even if he is an unabashed Gygax cheerleader.

He follows this with a look at other games on the market (including big ones like RuneQuest and Traveller, as well as odd ones like Bunnies & Burrows and Superhero 44), miniatures and the magazines (both the semi-pro stuff like Dragon and the zines like Alarums & Excursions). The brief chapter on computer games is a hoot and rightly spends a chunk of time on Zork. I quite like the photographs that use miniatures and simple FX to great effect.

I also particularly like the penultimate chapter, which discusses the supposed perils of roleplaying. It makes a spirited defense of the hobby and also muses on the sorts of people who are attracted to it. It is one of the earliest acknowledgments I’ve seen of the hobby’s gender disparity and Holmes has some thoughtful ideas on why that is. It is his hope, back in 1981, that parity will be attained when RPGs are more popular and socially accepted. Nearly 40 years later, I like to think it is moving in that direction.

(Repost from April 27, 2020; lightly revised)

#rpg #d&d #dungeons & dragons #tabletop rpg #roleplaying game #ttrpg #Fantasy Role Playing Games #John Eric Holmes

[danggirlronpa]

I REMEMBERED. I ALMOST FORGOT FOR THE THIRD WEEK RUNNING BUT I REMEMBERED. MERCH MONDAY BABEY

All fan merch this week! There's another sticker that I know came in, but it's not in my stack of unposted merch and it's not in my sticker book, so I must have misplaced it or, worst-case, thrown it anyway. It's only a few bucks to get another one, but I'm still pretty bummed about it. It's a very nice sticker! If I find it, I'll make a post right away instead of waiting until Monday.

Stick around until the end, because there's a couple announcement-style things on this post!

FIRST THE MERCH THO

This is a Tokomaru print from @gyozart! I've included my hand for size comparison. This print has a super neat little glittery finish that I didn't expect that adds a lot of charm, even though you can't see it here. For some reason, keychains are the most common Tokomaru merch, so I was really glad to find and scoop this up!! They're on their last 10 stock, so go grab it from their Etsy.

This is a neat lil sticker set by @pikachuurin! You can buy these four, four SDR2 stickers, or all 8 - or you can mix in and match with their other (all very cute!) stickers in their mix-and-match pack. These are vinyl stickers, and they're VERY nice; I had no trouble peeling them, sticking them, or unpeeling/re-sticking them. Which is not always true for these stickers!

And this is a Kaemaki keychain by XKawaiiChaosX! (I truly could not get my phone camera to focus in on this one - I'll get a better image of this later, when I'm in better lighting conditions.) Considering this is only a dollar, it's very high quality! The make is about what I'd expect from other higher-priced keychains, and they sent along several more as freebies. There are a few other ships in this collection, as well!

On to announcements:

Because my new place is (FINALLY) ready, I am very low in funds, which means that other than zines I supported months back, there probably won't be any more merch for quite a while! I'm hoping to scrounge up funds for the big upcoming zines like the Kaede zine, but it's not looking too positive. I'll still be at least getting a digital copy to add to my collection on my desktop & Google Drive, but if you're the type of person who watches for physical merch before coming in during leftover sales, you're going to want to look elsewhere!

On a slightly cheerier note, at a few people's requests, I've started dividing up my Etsy favorites into different ships! Right now I've got a collection of Sakuraoi merch and a collection of Tokomaru merch. I'm hoping to have this set up on other sites as well, but I probably won't get to that until the start of next year, when I'm doing all my other big blog upkeep things. So for now, here's the most popular F/F ships on the most popular merch website.

#merch monday #mod merch #tokomaru #sakuraoi #kaemaki #merch #naegiri #thh #udg #v3 #toko fukawa #komaru naegi #sakura ogami #aoi asahina #junko enoshima #maki harukawa #kaede akamatsu #art

[20001541]

so I'm going to answer this with the long answer I had typed for this since some wanted to hear it, putting it under read more

oh haha um well it's complicated to say the least

there was a point in time (2021-early 2023) where I was a super hardcore believer, I wrote and read tons of fanfic about it, bought a zine about it, made meta about it, argued with anti dfo who got angry at me in the replies and even joined discord servers about dfo because I was really in love with this theory

but as of late I find myself just not want wanting it at all and actually dislike the thought of it being canon. for numerous reasons I'll get into

first off I feel at this point it'll just be super rushed. maybe if it was done earlier I would've been more warmer towards it as there would actually be time to digest this info. it would be a huge deal with a hero being the son of the number one villain, if it were to be canon I would want a full self reflection from Izuku, more about his mom and her thoughts and feelings about this, flashbacks to inko and afo's first encounter and marriage in its early days, maybe afo trying to isolate Izuku further by releasing this information publicly and turning civilians and some heroes against him. having him and his mom shunned by a lot of people (people calling izuku devils spawn), getting to see his classmates reactions, all mights reaction (!!!). maybe a talk with the vestiges about it and just stuff like that.

but there's no hope of ever getting any of that if it's revealed now. it's the middle of battle and at most I could see Izuku probably being shocked, afo taking advantage of his shock for a brief moment then we move on. which is very :/, feels like it would just be cheap shock value at that point so why even include it when it feels more detrimental than something interesting. maybe he could make it canon and have it not be rushed, but considering how he's treated the other plot points like the ua traitor plot and machia's kind of out of nowhere betrayal in this arc, I'm inclined to believe it would be rushed and messy as well.

I think I'm far more interested in seeing how afo and tomura's struggle plays out and afo's final encounter with yoichi and an exploration of his past and the person that afo is, rather than some last minute revelation that ends up not adding much to the story.

also the fact that izuku never thinks about hisashi once also plays into me being very "what's the point of having this" here. I know him having his memories tampered with is a popular theory but to me sounds like an awkward way to bypass the fact your main character didn't reflect once on something that ended up being extremely important later. I don't see any evidence of that either, at least with tomura he had some hazy recall about his past before everything came back to him with izuku we get nothing at all about hisashi. at least do where he vaguely remembers a tall man with an eerie presence and gentle smile that didn't reach his eyes whose face is obscured in shadow saying he's going on a short business trip and then he never came back after.

the next reason is I don't really like the more popular fanon characterizations of afo in dfo's settings (and the way people try integrating it with canon) not getting into this as I don't want to step on any toes, but this thing particularly has really turned me off from the theory as a whole.

also I hate the way some dfo fans treat afo, I remember it being common at one point for people to be like "lol afo is only interesting if dfo is true without it he's just some dumb one dimensional villain". when that's not the case, he has a lot of interesting things going on for him. I just hate how some only see his worth in whether he is izuku's dad or not. not all dfo fans think like this though, I'm not generalizing all of them it's just some do this and it irks me so bad. (and to be honest I used to be like this too, but I've changed)

and I also feel like a lot get too caught up in dfo stuff that they end up neglecting afo's character as a whole and it leads to some poor interpretations of his character and certain scenes because I feel some are trying too hard to find evidence/justification that they miss out on some of the more interesting dimensions of his character. not saying all of them do this, but I've seen enough of this along with other stuff I've said that's made me more :/ towards the theory as of late

another thing is that I guess I've also just grew tired of waiting? some people can only wait for so long before they change their minds on things they've used to love. and as I've said before in my first point too I just don't see the point anymore. I don't think even if it does happen we'll get some super in depth look at it and how it affects izuku and other characters. I was more passionate about it during the time where it seemed like we could get a good look into it, but not I'm more meh as it seems like we won't.

that said I do not have anything against dfo theorists. some of my favorite writers are big dfo proponents, one of my favorite fanfics of all time happens to be a dfo fanfic. I have some au's of my own about it and I enjoy reading others au's and I do enjoy the occasional dfo art piece. a lot of dfo theorists in my experience are really nice too.

I think it's so stupid how angry people get at dfo theorists, how you can't mention it outside your circle without risk of being insulted or jumped on. which I have experienced before in my dfo days (not on here though). at the end of the day it's just a little theory people have come up with, if it comes true then whatever if it doesn't then whatever right? just leave people alone and even if you disagree with them at least be respectful. it would be neat if fans with differing opinions on stuff in the story could come together and have an actual conversation once in a while so both sides could better understand each other, but sadly this is the Internet and disagreements like that usually result in a angry back and forth exchanges filled with insults.

as a whole I'm not interested in the dfo theory anymore to me it's something I would prefer to just remain a fanon thing rather than something that becomes canon. but yeah these days it's just very rare for me to read it, it's not something I seek out and I usually only read it from authors I already trust. but if someone wanted me to read their dfo fic and they were nice about it well I wouldn't be opposed to reading it. I don't mind if someone wants to talk about it with me either. I like talking about afo as a whole even if it's in the realms of a theory I'm not crazy about.

I guess I am grateful to dfo in a way as its what made me really take notice of afo in the first place. It made me look more into scenes that he was in and over time I ended up liking him more than the theory itself and ended up just abandoning the theory as a whole. I don't think I would be as in love with him as I am now if it weren't for dfo making me a take closer look at him. also believe it when they say the dfo theorist to afo simping pipeline is real because it happened to me. if you're keeping this man constantly in your thoughts theres a chance it could happen to you.

overall I don't feel like it's going to be canon anymore? I don't really care for it being canon either. there's too much stuff going on that still needs to be wrapped up and I think dfo wouldn't be able to fit in all of it. the only things I would say make me hesitate about it being true is the fact he said hisashi will be revealed back in 2018 and some of the meanings behind hisashi's name. but generally feeling like there's a 20% chance of it happening seeing where we are as of now. I think past me would've been horrified to hear me say this now because I used to be extremely confident it would happen but things change

anyways you wanted my opinion and there it is, this is just how I feel and you're free to disagree with me as long as you're not rude about it.

#yeah I've been kind of skirting around saying my opinion on it because I know a lot of y'all enjoy it and I don't want to be a jerk #but this is how I feel 😓

[evercelle]

I’m curious, do you think you’ll ever do a zine for yourself and your works? And maybe include your illustrations paired with the fics you have partnered with in it? I know some production has a lot of costs and things, but I would love to have your work and some of the fics you partnered with as a physical copy!!

you know, i never thought i'd draw enough stuff to be able to produce my own book (lol. big lmao nowadays)... tho there's something still vaguely excruciating about seeing my draws in print. i don't know how to describe it........ i think the closest we're gonna get is the saiou doujin i'm trying very hard to complete right now haha

i actually haven't done many collabs before, so i don't know if it'd be enough to collect for a physical book? i mean, if you like xiaoven you can probably get a copy later of the XVX antho, which has a story the lovely yanrans wrote/i illustrated! the only other 3 partner fics are all saiou... maybe if my v3 pilled friends are up for more collabs we can put together a mini zine one day. i'll call it the brainworm portfolio

#ASK EVER #lol two years ago i ran the Duet artbook bc finishing even six pages for the comic in that was a struggle for me #and now i have. 67 pages of saiou im slowly inking #do u ever think about how fast the night changes HAHAHA #so like: i dont think i will work up the courage for my own artbook but i am trying SO hard on doujin #and a solid MAYBE on a collab zine that's a cute idea. maybe

[chenziee]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love❤

Ahh omg this is so sweet, thank you so much, Irene!! ❤❤

Until We Drown - second part of my ace!lulaw omegaverse where Luffy goes into a rut and everyone suffers (the begging needs editing but I still love it xD)

Ash - third part of my Ashes of Life series (AKA the vivre card series) about Law having Luffy's vivre card--during chapter 1044/episode 1071 and the aftermath of that <3

Corazon - I wrote this one for the @/opwarlordzine and it's basicly "Doffy starts turning up to shichibukai meetings because of Law and Tsuru is Not Getting Paid Enough For That™". Writing Doffy was such a challenge but I'm really proud of how it came out :D

Own it, change it, break it - this is an Orochi-centric piece that I wrote for the Justice Anthology (you can still download the zine for free here, btw!) It's a little bit different from what I usually write but I like the atmosphere of it :)

Bringing Dawn - would it really be me if there wasn't a single outsider POV? No. No it wouldn't. In Pedro's POV, it's mostly about Luffy but I also made Law come to WCI just because I could so you know there's some cute lawlu too <3

Honorable mention to this little unhinged Nika drabble (mind the warnings please!) <3

If this was a few weeks later, i'd probably include two of my @/truffyfest fics but I can't out mine yet xD

#ask #cosmicatta #one piece #lawlu #orochi #pedro #how is it always the least popular fics that are the author's faves 😂 #not complaining tho i'm really happy i got to the point where i can say i genuinely love some of my stories <3 #i also like the markless and for better or worse #but they didn't make the cut ahaha #katie pretends to fic #tagged #op 1044 #ep 1071 #doffy #domingo flamingo

[manonamora-if]

February Check-In

From here on out, we should be back on track - IRL be damned (crossing fingers with that). Unless someone throws another wrench...

Anyway, let's not think about the bummer stuff...

Here's to a hopefully "normal" month with stuff actually being checked off a list!

Onto the usual index:

Recap of last month’s progress

IF Events in the Next Month

Plan for the next month

Still long post under the break. If you want a mini version, head over to itch.io!

January Progress

Welp... there wasn't much of a list in the January Check-in, since it was the retrospective, which included the yearly plan. Still, I did make a mini one on itch. Put together we'd get:

Still play more IF and maybe review. ✅

Finish the edits of Harcourt Ch5 ✅ and coding ❌

Fix one of the semi-completed games: ❌either the Egg parser or TRNT (and make it a proper parser)

Complete the Seed/Shuffle-Comp entry✅

Honestly, not bad... The first one, obviously is done and dusted. IFDB says I posted 60+ reviews in January - covering the Short Game Showcase, the ShuffleComp, and the Recipe Jam helped quite a bit. And that also meant... I'm 3rd in the Reviewer ranking! Only 100 more to second place...

MelS and I finally stopped playing ping-pong with the editing of Harcourt (later than we wanted...), and I'm currently sitting down to edit the whole maze. I had hoped to be done by the end of this month, but it wasn't feasible... It was close - I only have half a dozen passages to code, to check it works, and do the formatting. I used to laugh at his complaining of working all the rooms for this maze (because he chose to do that many), but now I'm the one suffering... Don't do mazes... Or don't do 30+-room mazes... (I'm not joking here) Also: If all goes well, March/April should be editing of Chapter 6, June/July coding of Chapter 6 (+ re-edits of previous chapters), August/September beta/edits, October? completed game.

As for the ShuffleComp, I made it realllll close to the deadline. But (not so) strangers in the night was completed just in time! Aaaannnddd, got 1st place in the Use of Songs category! Yay me :D Also submitted to the SeedComp! and the Zach Jam.

As for fixing the parsers.... whomp whomp, didn't manage that.

Buuuutt:

I made another parser! Not Another Sad Meal is a slice-of-life cooking sim of easy difficulty (and clickable elements for help!)

Also made a Zine! CTRL+SHIFT+ZUT+ALORS Lost content meets weird technology. I probably will never make this game, but you can use it as inspiration if you want!

And spent a few days working on a collaborative virtual card for a friend. While that will never be made public (for obvious reasons), You can find the basic interface [here].

Also won kuddos of best puzzle for An Eggcellent Preparation (even though it kinda broken)!

So yeah... not huge updates for projects, but some good progress and a few mini-new games. I'm not expecting people to check those out... But it would be neat if you did!

What’s happening in February?

There's always something happening in the IF world. I don't think I ever find all that happens anyway... but. Here's the ones I know!

The Queer Vampire Game Jam ends in about three weeks. Got a vampire/human story with a LGBT+ cast? Then this is the event for you! (unranked) Also they are doing a fundraising/matching donation with submissions!

Obviously @neointeractives got you covered for Valentine’s with the Smoochie Jam: it’s all about kisses, love and romance (unranked) - Be also on the look out for the next Neo-Interactives mini-jam which is happening mid-March.

The SeedComp! (Sprouting) ends at the end of February. Come transform someone’s idea or asset into a new IF game! See @seedcomp-if for more info ;) (ranked)

Concours de Fiction Interactive Francophone 2024 se termine dans un mois! Viendez faire des histoires en français!! <3 (ranked, duh)

The Spring Thing is waiting for your intent to participate until March 1st! After that, the submissions are due in April (also ranked)

Got a cool talk idea regarding Interactive Fiction, narration, or gameplay? Consider submitting a proposal for this year’s Narrascope! They are still looking for people!!!!

Note: @neointeractives will have jams all year long. One a month/or so. And the next Planting Round of @seedcomp-if will start as soon as the results are dropped.

The PLANtm for February

Shortest month, and one busy months in events (I'm at the head of two... what am I DOING WITH MY LIFE....)... So much to do, so little time. But also, ONE EXTRA DAY THIS MONTH! :D

What are we hoping to do this month?

Play more games! Because there are a bunch of jams happening and a backlog of games I'm trying to clear. Also I want to get to that second IFDB spot! (1st won't ever be attainable...)

Finish the Code Ch5 of Harcourt. This is attainable. This is doable. I will finish... because I am already 80% done. MelS is working on Chapter 6 for this month - hoping to have a rough draft for me to check too by the end of the month...

Finish fixing The Roads Not Taken. This is your month. I swear I am manifesting it hard. This is happening. I will finish you. I'm sorry I've been avoiding you....

Jam Entry number 685470w8698... probably. Maybe do a Queer Vampire/Smoochie Combo. Maybe even a French Comp game?

ALSO: I will probably do an another AMA mid-Feb.

~

The 2024 To-Do List:

New year, new list. A more feasible one, according to January-Me.

The hopefully maybe easy to handle To-Do:

fix the bugs in EDOC + overall the French version to match

fix the bugs of TRNT + find a way to add the missing pieces (giving up on the translation)

fixing the interface of LPM and the popups + check animal interactions

figure out the One-Button JavaScrip/jQuery issue...

edit the loading screens of the completed tiny games to include the program/format logo at least.

The 'Need a Bunch of Content to update but it's planned!' To-Do:

Update my website (bunch new title - also I don't think the logo clicky thing work...) + redo my itch page

Finish TTATEH (MelS dependent - this year should be it - for real)

Finish Exquisite Cadaver (half-way mark by this summer - manif)

Finish P-Rix - Space Trucker (main path at least)

Update CRWL (it's been almost two years... I'm getting ashamed)

The Unlikely But it Would be Dope To-Do

Finish The Dinner as it was planned (and translate)

Finish In the Blink of an Eye as it was planned (and retranslate)

Finish The Rye in the Dark City

Fixing TTTT (at least fixing, maybe try adding some storylets)

And finally The 'It's impossible, but one can wish' TO-DO:

Remaster SPS IH (if I managed to start this after completing the rest... I'm going to eat a whole sheet cake).

Start the IFComp project (2025? Might end up being a ST?)

#dev log #progress #update #check-in #february planning #AMA incoming yall

[thatrickmcginnis]

RICHARD KERN, TORONTO, 1988

Richard Kern's career has been remarkable to watch from the perspective of someone who met him briefly for a portrait session, after a screening of his films in the backroom club where I usually saw and photographed bands. Kern emerged from New York's East Village with a zine and later a series of films that were aggressively provocative, back when this was still acceptable subject matter for artists. I'd already seen an evening of his films - a program that included Fingered and The Right Side of My Brain - and it was pretty indelible. But we were all edgelords back in those pre-grunge days, and this sort of overtly offensive stuff was celebrated, especially if it offended the right people.

Richard Kern and his colleagues in what got called the Cinema of Transgression - which included filmmakers like Nick Zedd, Jon Moritsugu, Beth B, Kembra Pfahler, David Wojnarowicz and others - were an obvious tributary to the underground and indie rock scene, especially when musicians like Henry Rollins and Lydia Lunch would appear in Kern's films. Their whole "fuck you if you don't like it" aesthetic was a natural fit with bands like the Butthole Surfers, Jesus Lizard, Big Black, Poison Idea, Pussy Galore and so many others. So it was natural that we'd do a feature on Kern for the alternative music monthly I worked for when he showed up to ask questions after an evening of his films, with my friend Tim assigned to write the piece while I got to do the pictures. I showed up with my Mamiya C330 and my flash, umbrella and light stand and photographed Kern simply, sitting on a chair in front of the movie screen on the stage at the Rivoli where I usually saw bands.

What I didn't know at the time was that my Richard Kern portraits would be my last ever job for Nerve magazine, where I'd been developing as a photographer (no pun intended) for over two years. The story Tim and I handed in would be laid out on flats but never saw publication, as money troubles (and some personal ones) unceremoniously ended Nerve magazine after five years. This was effectively the end of my apprenticeship as a photographer; if I wanted to make a living at this, I had to seriously start looking for work at "real" magazines. I'm not sure if anyone ever saw these portraits of Richard Kern; they probably didn't get published anywhere until I posted a few on my old blog several years ago.

With all that in mind I'm still rather pleased with my portraits of Kern: they have a starkness and simplicity I was striving for (what my friend Chris Buck recently referred to as a "clunky honesty"). You didn't have to know that Richard Kern would end up with a career as a celebrated, arty pornographer, but it wouldn't surprise you. He has, in the decades since I took these photos, published over two dozen books with titles like XXModels, Digital Kern, Shot by Kern, New York Girls and Extra High, sometimes for quality imprints like Abrams and Taschen. Even more improbably he has survived the scythe of cancel culture, perhaps by hiding in plain sight.

#portrait #portrait photography #photography #black and white #film photography #photographer #some old pictures i took #richard kern #director #filmmaker #cinema of transgression #mamiya c330 #early work

[offbrand-deltatraveler]

You ever wonder why fan content of Deltarune’s future Chapters never really hits the same way as the real thing?

Like, no matter how accurate it can get to how things could go down in the original game, it always feels like something that you just can’t put your finger on is missing?

Or is that just me

If you are like me and do wonder why you feel that way, you’re in luck. Because what you’ve stumbled upon today an analysis post about it

Spoiler Alert: It’s not because of the ideas present in the Chapter 3+ take in question, nor is it because none of us are Toby Fox (Not directly, anyway)

It’s because we don’t add anything

—————————————————————————————————————

Not in the sense that we add nothing to the game’s story, considering we literally hand-craft the entire hypothetical story by ourselves. I’m talking about the… Revealed stuff, I guess

You know how in Chapter 1, when you check Asriel’s bed, the game console under it has two controllers? One official and one knockoff?

Originally, people thought the knockoff controller was used by Kris, and that this interaction was meant to further symbolize how the game frames them as a bit of a loser compared to Asriel. But it was actually revealed in Chapter 2 that this wasn’t the case. The knockoff controller was instead used by Asriel so Kris could have the real one

And you know how prior to Chapter 2, we didn’t have as much of an idea that Dark World food didn’t actually count as real food? We had that one Susie line to work with about nothing she eats there mattering, but it was more solidified once we saw that Kris ripped their Soul out to eat a pie because they were starving from how little they had eaten that day (And didn’t want us going outside to harass people in the middle of the night)

Or how, again, prior to Chapter 2, we had no clue that Berdly could’ve ever been into gaming? All we knew is that he was an asshole smart kid that likes to put Kris down about how much of a loser they are. He could never BALLIN’. Or so we thought

And or so we no longer think, now that 2 years later we’ve discovered not only that he and Kris are actually speedrunning rivals and that was just lighthearted banter, but also that he really was BALLIN’ after all, and that he and Noelle are a lot more than just one-time project partners

Something about Sans

You probably get the point by now, but in case you didn’t:

We don’t just add things

It’s because while we do do a lot of building in terms of Dark World stuff, that’s because it’s an unexplored Dark World. It’s new inherently, you can put literally anything you want in it as long as it follows the theme of that Dark World’s room. Unlike adding new Dark World characters, going wild as we explore the completely uncharted territory in front of us, everything we do with the characters we already have, Darkner or not, is ultimately based solely on that which we already know

Takes on future Chapters don’t have things like Catti & Kris’s occult studies, or Jockington’s zine. Or Noelle’s fear of mice or love for scary things. Or Queen sipping battery acid to the beat of the music after every text box (As well as Rouxls being her lamp). Third Dark World example (Hold On It Will Come To Me)

For whatever the reason may be, we don’t just make stuff up the way Toby does. We always either recycle old stuff or add references that are way too modern to be included in the real thing. And that’s why we don’t have that same “Literally anything could happen at any time” flair. Because anything can’t happen at any time, anything only happens in the times we know they’re supposed to happen

Not that you can really blame the makers of this fan content though, to be fair. It’s not something we really think about immediately and I’d imagine there are some concerns about how poorly some things might age, especially after what happened with Mike

Though I think the biggest contributor to that is how in the scene of future content, there’s just generally a lot of “This person is barely a character. Get outta here with that shit” instead of “Is there a reason this character would have a Dark World or fill this role?”. When talking about the future of a game who’s creator is famous for pulling complete 180’s, we can’t be shooting down ideas left and right because “Lmao this dumbass thinks Jockington will have a serious story”. We can’t be telling each other certain ideas are unlikely based on stupid things like “This character can’t be important! They don’t even have a unique text sound!!” or “This is a single door. Dark Worlds don’t appear behind single doors”. This kind of limiting logic just isn’t something the creator of the real thing would adhere to

Unless the person in question thinks that like. A character or version of a character that originates from UT’s universe affects DR in any way, or Rouxls is secretly Gaster and will betray you, assassinating Seam (who actually turned out to be the real Queen of Spades) as he transforms into The Angel in the secret 8th Chapter. Or anything else that either goes back on something Toby said previously or is just bad storytelling

But yeah, that’s why. With limited information comes limited results. Who’d’ve guessed /lh

And nobody’s to blame for that, it just is. That being said though, I’d hope reading this post has inspired at least one person to go crazy. Go out and like. Find this really insignificant detail and just add the shit out of that

Like be that one guy who made that theory that the kitchen could end up being an Undertale throwback in the Dark World. Unironically have Rouxls make Mac & Cheese in such a manner that nobody can stop him. Make the Yoshi Kris sacrificed for an extra jump a Secret Boss. Give Napstablook a tragic backstory. Include your wildest headcanon. The possibilities are almost endless

“I am cringe but I am free” and so forth

—————————————————————————————————————

I actually forgot I was terrible at ending posts for a sec

#utdr analysis post #deltarune #utdr #deltarune chapter 3 #useful

[smoluglies]

Hello! I first wanna lyk your art is beautiful!

I wanna ask for some advice. I got into art recently in my life, but am hesitating posting online like on a public account or on tumblr. A lot of my art i plan on using for a comic series and, hopefully later in my life, for a show. I am also a dummy who doesnt have my signature on my art. Im afraid of the possibilities of people or companies stealing my art, is there any way i can avoid this from happening?

My art is extremely personal, with the love of my life being my muse and our relationship always being my inspiration. It would probably break me if my art was stolen.

I notice that you sell your art. Does this make it easier to make sure it isnt stolen? Have people or companies ever used your prints/art?

I am debating if i should do the same. But is it normal to sell prints of art i would eventually use for a comic and show, especially if it'd happen years from now?

Hi! I’m not sure if I’m the right person to give advice on this subject as I don’t have that much experience in selling art but I’ll try to give my perspective on this. However, please take my advice with a grain of salt and be sure to do some additional research on this matter :)

I think that there is nothing that can truly protect your art from being stolen, especially if you’re a popular artist. That being said, I don’t think this should stop you from posting your art and sharing it with the world, as I think the positives outweigh the negative aspects of sharing your art and being part of the art community. Some things I would do to help prevent your art from being stolen and sold by others is:

use a watermark on your image, or at least a signature - that way if people stumble upon your art they will know what to search for to find the artist (but this is something I keep forgetting to do as well so I don’t blame you for not doing it 😭)

post low res images or scans of your art - I think most social media platforms already downgrade the quality of your images, but it’s better to be safe than sorry - so instead of posting a high-resolution image on your blog/site add a lower-quality version - this doesn’t stop anyone from stealing your art but perhaps it lowers the risks because nobody would want to purchase pixelated prints, right?

Selling your art as prints or merch won’t guarantee that someone might steal it and also sell it, but I guess if someone likes your art and wants to purchase it your shop would be the first place they would go to.. if that makes sense 😅 especially if you add your name / username on your art piece cause then it would be easier for them to find your shop. And I think it’s okay to include your art in comics, zines or artbooks etc in the future, even if it’s in a few years from now. And, no, I have never come across anyone making a profit from my art without my permission.

Sharing your art online does come with risk but I think at the end of the day it’s a wonderful thing to do because you can connect with others through it - your art can resonate with someone or evoke certain emotions in them and I think that that’s fascinating and beautiful 🥰 but if sharing something deeply personal would make you anxious or vulnerable then you can treasure that piece of art and keep it private. Like you can do both, you know? You can post some art pieces and leave the rest hidden from the world and have them available only for you and your significant other <3 If you decide to post your art here on tumblr be sure to let me know so I can check it out! 💖

[teaandinanity]

"#what planet are 35% of you FROM" 😂 that's so funny and! if you wish for a serious, completely honest answer re: 'zine' pronounced as 'z-ee-n', i've only learned that it's supposed to be the last part of 'magazine' like years into having seen this word pop up in my fandom circles. As an English as a Second Language speaker, who has never heard the word spoken and only have ever read it, I took the pronunciation pattern from words I have heard spoken with the -ine ending (fine, vine, line, dine, etc.) and decided it sounded Logical and Accurate 😂 And after I learned, years later, 'z-ee-n' sounded so incorrect and fake to my ears I just kept on using the incorrect pronunciation, just for the heck of it

I admit that after I reblogged going 'HOW THO' I read the replies and tags for a bit and a friend told me her reasons and on consideration I am forced to concede that there are in fact several reasons why people might not pronounce it 'z-ee-n', most of which I am too old to have considered, including the cultural relevance of Vine, the fact that modern fandom has begun divorcing the idea of zines from the idea of a Physical Object and therefore 'magazine' is not an intuitive jump, and the curse that is Phonics Education (my parents taught me to read mostly on accident and therefore the American education system failed to get a damage multiplier on me, but even if that weren't true, elementary was just. So long ago).

My First Thoughts are usually bitchy and judgmental and end up in the tags even though I know intellectually that people read them, because I still think of my blog as a place where I am at home and therefore I'm allowed to mutter rude things under my breath but I probably ought to start treating it at least a LITTLE like a Third Space where I should aim for Not Being Awful XD

But thank you for this! ESL is another reason I hadn't really considered, so I will add it to my list and endeavor to be less of a judgmental aunty in future 😂

#babble tea (blacklist this for less chatter) #asks

[everygame]

Sega Golden Gun (Arcade)

Developed/Published by: Sega (Shanghai) Software, Sega AM1 / Sega Released: 2010 Completed: 12/03/2023 Completion: Finished it! Trophies / Achievements: n/a

Surprise entry here of a surprising game. Not surprisingly good or anything, simply surprising because here we have a Sega arcade game that I’d never even heard of before I saw it in a overpriced and tiny (but free-play once you’re in) retro arcade I was just in. It came out in 2010!

Anyway, this is an early(-ish) release of the largely unheralded Sega Shanghai, who look like they debuted with the PS2 version of Altered Beast (which I’ve never played, but it was never released in North America making me willing to assume that it’s pretty bad). Mobygames has them listed on things like Sonic Adventure in 1998, but I’d be willing to gamble that’s related to later ports as the company seems to have largely transitioned to being a “port and support” developer for Sega. However, when not doing that, Sega Shanghai has a weird history of overlooked Sega arcade titles that seem to mostly exist as a way for Sega to get a bit more out of another engine they’d made. With Sega Golden Gun, it’s an extremely transparent recycling of House of the Dead 4, but in 2007 they put out “Asian Dynamite” which is a reskin of Dynamite Cop (aka Dynamite Deka 2) that includes a character called “Jennifer Genuine”???

Sega Golden Gun is… not good. Here’s what I’ll say for it: I think it’s neat that Sega Shanghai got to use Chinese history and mythology for the setting, and Shanghai as the location–the game even ends at the “Sega Building”–but unfortunately this is about as braindead as a shooting game gets. Your pistols are fully automatic (including reloading) meaning that you pretty much just hold down the fire button and wait for your arms to get tired (which they will) while attempting to headshot the swarming enemies for the bonus. There’s no branching (while you can select which level to play next, you have to play them all) and while there’s a Resident Evil 4-style shop… guy… the stuff he sells costs you score (?) and isn’t that useful (anything with limited bullets you’ll use up immediately because you can’t save it for later, so you’re better off just going with restoring lives; I’m not even sure if raising your attack power or magazine size helps that much.)

The game is, unfortunately, like an amalgam of the things I didn’t like about House of the Dead 3 and 4: the linear boredom of 3 and the impact-free shooting from 4. You just never really feel like you’re doing anything. I know this is real grandpa material, even when discussing a game from thirteen years ago, but man, remember when arcade shooters you had to like… do stuff? Reload your gun? Aim? Pull the trigger more than once? Even use a cool foot pedal to dodge in things like Time Crisis?

Will I ever play it again? No, and I was bored by the second level and I only finished it the first time out of sheer “I should get value out of my paid entry” bloody mindedness.

Final Thought: Probably the most baffling thing about this game is there’s a huge glowing logo in the middle of the arcade machine that feels like it should do something–like it’s a giant touchpad, maybe–but it doesn’t do anything at all. It figures, actually.

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up a digital copy of exp. 2600, a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

#video games #games #gaming #sega #arcade #sega golden gun #sega (shanghai) software #sega am1 #text #txt #review

[raisinchallah]

ok so i think to try and at least keep up the interest and variety of the poll i wanna like group stuff into sub groups so we can hopefully keep up variety until later tho this is subject to change so like older classic stuff section: xena/gabrielle, janeway/seven of nine, kiradax, homura/michiru, misato/ritsuko, talia/susan from babylon 5, faith/buffy (maybe willow and tara but i do feel like i wanna make the distinction of femslash rather than just popular couple tho i know that line is very fuzzy), uhura/chapel for bravely pioneering femslash zines for the rest of us perhaps anthy and utena in this category but im a tad afraid of their power and ability to sweep polls to make them boring.. so this is the classic 90s giants and then weirdo sci fi stuff i like :) then like tumblr era classiques: so brittana, korrasami, swan queen, madoka/homura, bubbline, rosemary, vrisrezi, gwen/morgana, root/shaw, maybe ill run another sub poll to determine which of the various mediocre but popular femslash ships that were big at various points ur supercorps ur bering and wells whatever that i didnt watch or didnt get into cuz atm swan queens the one im letting thru cuz i was in the trenches there..oh in that vein probably villaneve deserves a mention then was like gonna put a bunch of the cartoon characters together so we can kinda hash it out there so like ruby/sapphire, catradora, um arent there those little gay kids from the owl house.. luz and amity i see, starfire/raven... actually im not sure any of these will be final categories but now im simply grouping for mental clarification video game girlies.. i was told to include merribel, harley/ivy, glados/chell, alphys/undyne ok now just a million ones i have heard of an considering.... then like stuff im considering including karma and amy from faking it because i run this poll and can make the choices, glinda/elpheba, all versions of carmilla/laura cuz i dont wanna make it just about the webseries, maybe bobbie/avaserala i know this is niche and theres a lot of sci fi shit here but i make the rules!! also on that note maybe georgiou/michael cuz again i was a believer before that show even started, i see that farcille the dungeon meshi girls get lots of reblogs, maxanne for the black sails fans and my bestie <3, avalance cuz my mutuals talk about it, amina/saira cuz i wanna :3, oh probably some of the locked tomb girlies, ok these are all my ideas thank u for suggestions mouse would love comments critiques suggestions..... wrow incredible im already at 32 plus 3 more potential inclusions so i have enough for a big bracket but again tell me the ones u think i should take out tell me who u think i should include thank you for your time :3

[rhube]

Hey, who wants to see a fanzine?

Us oldies talk about them from time to time, but it occurs to me that many of you have probably never even see one.

I have a few saved. I even built a wooden box to store them in in CDT:

No, the camera does not lie. I got the dimensions quite wrong for storing an A4 magazine.

I think I should have at least 6. But for some reason, there were only 2 in the box. Possibly selected to take to university with me? I really hope the others are in my mum's attic or something.

But anyway, these are the two I have:

Covers and artwork throughout provided by fanartists, some of it pretty impressive. I found a penpal who was a professional artist (Darrel Bevan) through Mostly Harmless.

Mostly Harmless was the fanzine of ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha - the official fanclub for the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I signed up to it using a form in the back of the fifth novel, also called Mostly Harmless.

Here's some of the typical contents:

A Presitorial from the club's president and an editorial from the zine's editor. News about stuff like AGMs. Fanfiction. Interviews. A diary of meet-ups etc.

Before the Internet, stuff like this was often the only way to find other SFF geeks. SFF was regarded as a bit of a niche interest, and if you were a teenage girl in the UK in the 90s it was virtually impossible to find anyone who shared your interests (maybe some of you were luckier than me, but this was my experience - not one male friends of a similar age relate to, but the boys who liked SF in school would NEVER have talked to me about it).

So this was how you heard about meet-ups and conventions. I cannot stress this enough: there was no Internet. And people didn't put this stuff in your local newspaper.

Of course, I was too young to go to the meet-ups, but I did get my dad to take me to the convention, Lazlar Lyricon II. And through Pseud's Corner (at the back) I answered an ad for penpals and got myself 2.

Everyone had pseudonyms, like we have usernames now. I initially chose the name Spacehippy. But even though the club kept a record about pseudonyms AND HAD BOASTED ABOUT BEING ABLE TO IDENTIFY PEOPLE FROM THEM IN THE PREVIOUS ISSUE, I was mercilessly mocked for only including that when I submitted my first piece of fanfiction. This:

Here they are, being mean about it in the intro:

As a teenager, I was so embarrassed by this that I changed my pseud to Rubarb (note spelling) which they corrected :-/// to Rhubarb. One of my penpals shorten this to Rhube and I decided I liked it. The rest is history...

There was also this, Towel Corner, which is literally just people spotting the number 42 out and about and being nerdy about it:

Or this fun quiz on the back, which was actually an advert for a convention, but you can see I filled it out anyway. With a calligraphy pen, no less!

(I had not seen Father Ted at this point? Why did I circle A??)

Here's some more fanart:

I really wish I had the others! One of them had a poetry competition, which included one of my favourite poems ever:

Leaves in the Autumn Breeze

Leaves in the autumn breeze

Blow around.

Amazing. 25 years later I still have it memorised...

This was just... it was a lifeline of silliness and geekery to a lonely teenager. I would take these to school with me and excitedly read them on the bus and at break.

They were a connection to a wider world where loving SF - or just loving anything intensely - wasn't mocked, but embraced.

Imagine if you had to push ALL your Tumblr and AO3 fannishness into one quarterly magazine that arrived through the post.

That's what fanzines were.

#fanzines #mostly harmless #the hitch hiker's guide to the galaxy #douglas adams #zz9 plural z alpha #fan history #me