#It's brought up in discord servers in my youtube recommended

[imminent-danger-came]

Prev anon is so funny too since also...not all discussion of media is tagged? Maybe it's just me but when things are big and popular I hear about them constantly in discord servers and from irl friends, too. Your single critical post was tagged so it can easily be blocked, but a popular piece of media can be difficult to drown out!! It's ok to be a harmless hater with all that!!!

EXACTLY.

It's also just like...I understand curating your online experience is important and healthy. But the way the ask was phrased it sounded like they thought I should avoid seeing/doing ANYTHING that would foster a single negative emotion (like hate) in me. Which is kinda weird, and it's sooooo drenched in purity culture. It reminds me of the whole "don't do anything that would even tempt you to commit or think of sin" mentality from the Mormons in my youth, when tbh it's just not that serious.

And sometimes, you really do just gotta be a harmless little hater!!

[ellestra]

Farming content James Somerton style

Edited: I cleaned up sentences, removed typos and added some links

You've probably seen the latest hbomberguy video that highlights plagiarism problem on youtube. He gives several examples many I never heard about but I've been recommended iilluminaughtii before and watched some of her stuff before getting tired of seemingly endless volume (now I know why). But then he gets to the real subject of the video and I did watch a lot of James Somerton videos. And I liked many of them. I liked them a lot.

I didn't give him any money and, as much as it came as relief, I kept thinking how this must feel so much worse for people who did. I thought about supporting him for a moment when he posted (in April this year!) how his videos are getting less views because youtube algorithm and demonetisation of gay creators (it's a real thing so it was easy to believe) and he will be forced to stop creating if people don't sign up to his patreon. But I was casual viewer and he seemed big enough so I didn't. It must feel like such a betrayal to those who created a real community around him. Just like his film production company it's clear now it was another of his scams. It's infuriating how well it worked.

Somerton deleted his patreon now (along with his twitter and discord server) so there is probably no recourse for those affected. The only good thing is that someone big enough highlighted what he did (and brought receipts) so he had to stop. When smaller creators called him out it either went unnoticed or he managed to make himself a victim (and send his fans after them). He actually did what Anita Sarkeesian was accused of and gaslighted his followers about it. His misogyny just adds an extra bitter taste to this.

At the end hbomberguy talks about how if Somerton was open about what he was doing this could've been his niche. He said it just as I was thinking basically the same thing. I'm sure there is a market for field review type of videos. Not review like movie or book review but in academic sense when you take other people articles on the subject and compare to show the state of research on the subject on at the moment.

This kind of reviews doesn't need any original research. The value is in giving people overview of where the field is at and pointing them to the actual research so they can read more in depth about the results. If you already did the search for all the sources this is a perfect format to use them. Most people don't have time or resources to comb through all the resources themselves but they like to learn about it and this is why videos like that are popular. That's why iilluminaughtii, Somerton and al. were able to cash in on it.

But of course this kind of things have to properly cited. And they cannot be just all quotes. You have to make coherent points not just make stuff up for the transitions (lies that actually made Todd in the Shadows make a video not about music). I suppose that's too much work. Too much effort when you need to crank out content to satisfy all the sponsors.

I was glad to find out I already watch most of the queer creators recommended in the hbomberguy's video (and put on this watch list) as an alternative (I would add Caelan Conrad to it - funnily enough I found them through their video about antivax movement). I trained my youtube recommendations well in which way it skews but it's easier to kick out all the obviously awful when you know what talking points to avoid. It's much harder to spot grift when it pretends to care about the same things you care about. Somerton was saying all the right things. It just wasn't his words.

Did he even believe any of it? I bet he'll insist on yes but the laziness says otherwise. It seems like it was all just for the money and fans this angle gave him. That he enjoyed being cool to the audience he built and the stuff it bought him. Be gay do crime for real. Only he didn't write that one either.

[charms-of-earth]

ok ill bite tell me abt ur autism

omg anon. would you believe you are the first person to ask me about this? ok, here goes. wow, i feel like i'm about to give a speech. ok. so, when i was a kid i had a lot of trouble making eye contact. i even remember one exercise we did in class where we had to practice eye contact with our peers and i (foolishly) proclaimed to the whole class "eye contact is easy! see!" (then i proceeded to look at the teachers chest.) she called me out on it of course, and my bullies in class laughed at me. anyway, when i brought this up to adults, it was always "oh, yeah eye contact is hard" or "you'll get better at it, just keep trying." well anon, i didn't really get better at it. i just got better at *pretending* which i now know is called masking, but i'm getting ahead of myself.

fast forward to my teens because much of my formative years are blocked out bc of trauma (but thats another post) and i've learned little tricks to avoid eye contact. looking at the bridge of someone's nose, their forehead, even just below their eyes or above them. i knew nothing about autism except that there was a nonverbal autistic guy in highschool and i was kinda friends with his sister who took care of him. that was my only exposure to autism so of course that wasn't me, right?

i dont remember if i ever had meltdowns as a child, or even as a teenager, but i know i had chronic migraines and was very sensitive to smells, bright lights, crowds, anything super simulating sensory-wise. maybe i had them, but i just blocked them out like i did so many other things? i don't know, the biggest thing for me was always the eye contact thing and the sensory thing.

i always just felt that *something* was different about me, but could never put my finger on what that was. i experimented with alt culture a bit, but i was already the black sheep of the family so if i became goth or scene that would add fuel to the fire. but i did listen to alt music quite a bit (this seems unrelated but from my research people on the spectrum gravitate towards alt culture and lgbtqa+)

then, in college i finally found out what it was that was different about me! (spoiler alert: it wasn't autism. at least not yet.) i came out as trans and started taking testosterone! well, that didn't last long (only about a year) because i realized i didn't want to be hairy and smelly all the time, and i could no longer sing the way i used to, but it's ok. i'm not a musician or anything. so, i wasn't a girl and i wasn't a guy, so i must be neither! and that's when i came out as nonbinary.

FINALLY, on a whim, my partner and i watched a youtube video by yo samedy sam, who also found out she was autistic later in life (and when i say that i mean like early to mid 30s) and it all fell into place. i've since done a little research and joined a discord server for people on the spectrum, and i understand and respect my autistic friends so much more.

i brought it up with my therapist and she recommended i take a few online tests. ( i think it was on embrace autism, the the tests were the CAT-Q, which is about how well you mask and the AQ and the RAADS-R? really legit tests, easy to understand and well worded.) no surprise i guess, i scored really high on all three tests, especially the masking test.

so, there you have it. if you are questioning whether you might be autistic, i really recommend you samedy sam's videos. autism is her special interest so shes really knowledgeable about it and structures her videos in a way that my brain doesnt wander away to other thoughts or what have you (i have adhd as well, which is a really common comorbidity with autism)

anyway, thats about it! thanks for the ask, and i hope you have a wonderful day/night!

[thefanficmonster]

You Never Notice

Sykkuno x Reader (Female)

Warnings: None

Genre: Fluff

Summary: The center of someone’s world is never aware of their importance even when everyone else is in the know. People are hard to understand, no denying, but if we all spilled our truth like how Y/N admitted her feelings to Sykkuno, mutual understanding would be achieved a lot more easily. JK, she needed an eternity and maybe a thousand pushes. What’s important is the result though, right?

Requested by Anon. You are my first Sykkuno request and I wish I could thank you with a tag. Instead, I’m gonna thank you with a fic in which I put my all. Thank you for the request, hope the final product doesn’t let you down. 🥰

Here we go again. Sykkuno’s love life is brought up. This time it’s more frustrating cause I can’t shout how wrong he is about himself and the effect he has on the people around him. He has no room to speak, he hasn’t experienced what I have - one of your best friends living in your head rent-free because you’re just that whipped by them. That’s right kids, some of us never grow past the middle school crushes - they are a constant for some. That can be a good or a bad thing, it completely depends on how you view it.

Currently, him and Rae are addressing some dating rumors that started spreading about them earlier this week while Felix, Sean and I are kicking each other’s butts in Party Animals. We’re not all playing together, actually, we were all playing different games when we hopped into the call and just grouped together after playing solo got boring. Rae and Sykkuno are playing Among Us on a random server, her being the only person who’s streaming right now. She said she just wanted to clear up the dating rumors cause they were annoying to see popping up on her feed on every social media platform she’s active on.

“It’s ridiculous, really. People just look for online personalities to put in imaginary relationships. Are they that bored? I know quarantine is getting to everyone, but damn“ Rae says, laughing a bit to take the edge off her words but I know she’s bothered by this ordeal more than she’s letting on. I know how much it bothers her when people ship random youtubers and streamers together, even when she’s not involved. 

And I agree. Ever since I started streaming I’ve been shipped with my friends left and right. First Corpse, then Dave, Joel...you name them. It gets kinda gross cause these people are legit like siblings to me. Unlike Rae, though, I don’t waste my breath trying to clear those ‘talks of the net’ up. I don’t know if it’s for better of for worse that I remain silent on the issue when I’m involved but am willing to stand up for my friends when they find themselves in a similar situation. Some people think the reason I don’t share my thoughts is because the rumors are true, but the hint is most often taken, resulting in the ship ending. Well, that ship ending, there’s always a new one popping up. As Rae said, it’s ridiculous.

“Why does everyone think I am ever dating anyone? I’ve already commented on this: no one would date me.“ Sykkuno says through a sigh-like laugh.

“Why are you so sure?“ I blurt out without as much as a second thought

My eyes widen just a bit, just a bit. I’m not too surprised with myself. I am slowly losing control of my raging emotions and I’m afraid of what I’ll turn into when all my restraints snap. A mess, that’s the most likely answer.

“Well....“ Sykkuno trails off, clearly more than a little nervous, “I don’t have a girlfriend right now, and I haven’t had one in a while...Nor has a girl shown any interest to be more than friends with me in what feels like forever.“

“I’m sure you just don’t notice the hints girls drop. We can be pretty subtle.“ I try to sound as nonchalant as possible while I’m still in my panicked animal mode. And by animal I mean a cub. A scared cub that is now showing confidence but will run and hide right afterwards. I silently thank the universe that I’m not streaming right now. I can feel the heat on my neck and cheeks which is pure embarrassment and would have been more than evident on-camera.

“Yeah Y/N’s right, Sykkuno. Girls can be very subtle, but they will always let you know if they like you, even through the smallest of gestures. You gotta keep your eyes open.“ Rae backs me up reassuringly.

“Guys never notice anything.“ I say, rolling my eyes. I feel the pressure lessen thanks to Rae’s involvement in the conversation.

“That’s not true.“ Sean protests, “We pay close attention, especially to girls we are attracted to.“

“Yeah!“ Sykkuno pipes in again, “I’m pretty sure I would notice if a girl was dropping signals that she likes me.“

Now that stings. That legit makes me wince and cringe as though his voice delivered an actual physical hit to my chest and stomach. It’s really unpleasant, painful even.

“You never notice.“ There’s something about this triple opportunity - proving him wrong that he’d catch onto a girl’s signals; proving him wrong that girls aren’t attracted to him; coming clean about the biggest emotional struggle I’ve experienced in recent years; - that snaps my last emotional restraints. I will totally regret this later, but after the regret comes the relief which is 100% worth it. 

“What?“ He sounds very puzzled. I can just about imagine him frowning as he tries to wrap his brain around something even I can’t wrap mine around.

“You say you’d notice a girl’s hints of attraction. OK.“ I nonchalantly throw Felix off the submarine in Party Animals while I keep talking, “Would you notice if a girl purposely doesn’t kill you in Among Us when she’s impostor? Or would you notice that a girl always sends you links to videos she finds funny? Or that she always shares music and movie recommendations with you and you only?“ 

Dead silence ensues. I feel like they have all glitched, considering Sean didn’t even try to put up a fight when I lifted him and threw him in the ocean as I previously did with Felix’s avatar.

Maybe I was a tad too specific and made the whole situation hit a little too close to home for me. 

Sykkuno and I have become really close friends and we chat and play games regularly. As I mentioned, I give him movie and music recommendations and I only recently started acknowledging the fact that I’ve never killed him in Among Us. Natural instinct I guess. In fact, I feel the need for vengeance when he’s killed. I refuse to even vote for him unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Now that I think about it, it’s not his fault he has no clue. I just don’t know how to properly drop hints.  

“Um...I mean, I guess I would notice but I’d never think they are that type of hints.“ He finally replies.

On point there, dear. On damn point.

“What does it take for you to be convinced that a girl is into you?“ Who cares that a bunch of people are about to witness this outpour? It’ll make it more real, yes, but it will also help me believe that it happened so I don’t try to crawl back to the point where return is an option. No return now. You’ve already passed two thirds of the way. The last one will set you and your mind free. 

“The only way I can be sure is if she tells me, really.“ He sounds so nervous and shy, like he’s trying to draw as little attention as possible.

He doesn’t have to worry. I’m about to pull all the attention on me.

“Well in that case....you leave me no other choice.“ My screen displays me as the winner of this round of Party Animals - an easy one considering my friends are glitched in real life. “I like you, Sykkuno. I like you a lot. And I know you will see it from every context except the one its meant to be in so I’ll be even more head-on - I’ve liked you, as more than a friend for quite some time now, but buddy, you can be sooo oblivious sometimes. Anyway...“ Here’s that regret I was talking about, it’s already creeping in. “Don’t feel the need to say it back. I don’t wanna hear it if you don’t mean it. And Rae,“ I can’t help but laugh at the thought, “Sorry for making your chat go crazy. Peace!“

And I disconnect from the Discord call.

“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?“ I say out loud, staring at my desktop. “The cat’s out of the bag and you can move on now.“

I push myself to get some work done in order to get my mind off the mess I’ve created. I’m afraid of thinking about it, I know I’ll get too upset to do anything with the rest of my day if I do.

Suddenly, just as I’m about to open my email, my phone chimes. My brain doesn’t bother to stop my arm from automatically reaching out and checking the notification. A message.

From Sykkuno.

~ I knew you didn’t suggest me ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ for no reason

Me ~ So...?

~ So, I’m not the only oblivious one here, Y/N

Me ~ Wait WHAT?

~ ‘Nick And Norah’s Infinite Playlist’?

Me ~ Oooohhhh...I see

It takes him a few seconds to reply, the bubble with the three bouncing dots popping up and disappearing a few times now. I just now feel my heart banging against the inside of my ribcage, my pulse echoing in my ears.

He did seem a little too eager for me to watch that movie...

~ So, movie date?

I laugh, wholeheartedly and honestly. Genuine joy running through my veins.

Me ~ So it is.

The grin that is now decorating my features promises to stay there for the rest of the day. I bite my bottom lip at the thought that pops into my head.

Me ~ Phew, I can stop sparing you in Among Us from now on

He sends me three cry-laughing emojis in return, but I don’t need those. I can just imagine him laughing as he usually does with one hand covering his mouth. And here I thought my grin couldn’t grow wider.

 Imagining him happy makes me smile. His happiness makes me happy. He makes me happy.

Even better...

I think the feeling’s mutual.

[anatthema-art]

well, okay, at least finding your channel meant I found some cool animations. still, I barely understood any of them.

i. HAHDJIAHSJS god i am. i did not expect a post of me talking about tumblr men taxonomy to inspire anyone to look at my youtube channel but i’m glad you enjoyed the incomprehensible monstrosity that it is regardless. genuinely thank you! it means a loy

for uhhh…??? context because APPARENTLY i have some sort of observer audience now, i will leave that under the cut for anyone curious about fandom history of a stupidly insular community

i was/am a fan of a niche webseries/podcast thing called discord murder party (DMP), which has now ended after 4 years. most of what’s on my channel spawns from the incomprehensibility of a single discord server size fandom making memes and in jokes which cannibalized itself, and as you can probably see if you look at my upload list, most of them revolve around dreamland, which is the animatic to the song by the swingrowers, i made last year around 3/4 of the length into DMP.

now, dreamland became a huge meme within this extremely niche webseries community to the point where the joke (mainly being based around my personal hell of the animatic being something i tried to make one years prior then failed and it continually coming back to haunt me) kept finding new ways to invent itself and multiple people in the community covered it and made meme versions of it

this culminated in that hour long cinematic shitpost with the salt and pepper diner playlist but with various versions of this song and it has far too many layers of what’s essentially a large friend group’s 3 year history of memes. catatonic is the same: it’s a meme animatic i made for the anniversary of dreamland which i didnt intend to put as much effort as i DID but it just kept going

now for the last small piece of context to tie this nightmare together you may have noticed if you go into my animations playlist the single video that’s not on my channel with a very long title. that’s the animatic i worked on OFFICIALLY for this show. i got brought on as essentially an ascended fan for the last 6 months of the show’s run as an artist and this spawned a whole OTHER wave of in jokes and memes which are borderline incomprehensible without me walking through every step of the way. also it… kinda ended up getting me into art school so thats neat??

ALL THIS IS TO SAY is that i don’t actually super recommend watching dmp to get these jokes. almost all of them are fandom memes that ARE connected if you have it EXPLAINED WHY but DMP is a very very long show that has a ROUGH first 2 seasons and if you know nothing about it you will probably not have a good time because the quality and style shifts rapidly in the second half

HOWEVER COMMA this is where i go to plug and say the director of DMP will eventually be working on a new show called chaos van, and a little behind the curtains peak is that the two main characters of that show are what INSPIRED me to write the tumblr men taxonomy post, because if charlie was a man i argued she would be a TSM with the disney channel eldritch horror body type and Oz would be a DCHE with the tumblr sexyman body type.

the show is only in early production but it’s planned to be a lot more accessible and easy to jump in on (you dont need to have watched dmp even though it’s technically a continuation) and is a real fun pitch: it’s a multiversal road trip where a god of stories and a god of chaos are on the run as they meet absurdist set pieces and characters while learning to fight gods!

so. yeah. lmao

[snazzyjazzyazzy]

The Problems of Social Media, a Kinder View

This was originally written on another service, so there may be some issues with the paragraphing. Apologies in advance!

It was around 11 AM, when I usually wake up (I know, folks. I know.) I craved morning stimulation in order to properly feel awake, and trust me, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, Twitter or checking my DMs on Discord wasn't gonna do the trick for me. I needed something intellectual, a topic for this newsletter even.

And then I read this fascinating article on Pocket that was rather long and detailed a lot of things about social media and society. I didn't agree with all the things stated, but I'd recommend reading it all the same, quite a fascinating read. It touched, albeit somewhat briefly, on the topic I actually wanted to dicuss this issue! Such luck! I have linked it here for you all to read if you wish. Right then, onto our topics!

Censorship- Is It Important?

Censorship has been a word that gets bounced around in various areas of our lives. Online and in the real world, it seems to pose a significant threat to freedom of speech. Or does it truly? The issue seems to get far more complicated when you factor in several things, especially online.

What the article I linked proposes is that social media as a whole has undone the fabric of society- that it enforces almost too much of an individuality rather than a sum of a whole. I would argue this to rather be a good thing, especially regarding politics, as things such as siding with political parties on every aspect is becoming a rather senseless idea. But then it brought me to a question. What about censorship? Certain social medias, if not all, have all practiced a degree of it. In some cases it was politics- i.e. Facebook and Twitter with political individuals. Tik Tok, Youtube, Instagram and most other socials often remove media that might be seen as racist, promoting violence or homophobic might be removed entirely from the platform.

Triggers and The Safety of Minors

THIS NEXT PART CAPTURES MOSTLY MY OPINION AND TOUCHES ON PTSD, ANXIETY AND THE RISKS OF BEING A MINOR ONLINE. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO READ PLEASE SKIP TO THE PARAGRAPH AFTER A MESSAGE THAT STATES IT HAS BEEN CONCLUDED.

Respecting triggers but choosing whether it's individual responsibility or responsibility of a community is a touchy subject. I will admit I have PTSD and anxiety triggers myself, and at times triggers are unavoidable, to which one has to learn to manage their triggers themselves and heal over the trauma. But I will argue in certain respects triggers should be respected by the other individual. An example would be a private conversation. It would be considerate to respect the trigger of the individuals involved in that direct conversation. An example where it is not applicable however, would be a per se a server on Discord, unless the server itself is a mental health space. Of course, this is all my opinion, as many people have their own ways of handling their triggers and discussing the boundaries surrounding them.

For the cases of minors, things get even messier. I myself am not a minor, but being fair I've only been a consenting adult for three years. I remember being a minor on Discord, and the amount of risks involved with certain servers, spaces and even DMs. I even was groomed by an adult who was 10 years older than me, but that is a topic that is rather difficult to discuss. However it happens more often than many would like to admit, and the presence of social media, and it's anonymity has only worsened this factor.

It is important to remember, if you are a minor, that you have to either have a parent or guardian you can trust to communicate potential issues to. I didn't when I joined Discord and it's one of the biggest regrets of my life as it guided me toward a lot of pain, abuse and darkness. Though the freedom in a sense was healthy for me, too. But I do not ever personally recommend being online alone if you're 15 or younger.

You may resume reading if you skipped the previous paragaph.

Don't Forget the Trolls!

Ah yes, the trolls... Oh those "fun" folk who love poking your nerves in just the right places. We've all likely met a few in our lifetimes online, and in a sense in person as well. That one kid in the neighbourhood who just clowns on everyone and deliberately annoys the ever loving fuck out of you for no reason? Yea, you know I'm talking about you, Zach.

There's a lot of reasons one can become a troll, and it would take more than this issue to cover them all. So, I will instead link this article that does way better than I would and carry forward. Plus, trolls get way too much attention already. Best to shorten this, yea?

The Conclusion?

So then, as the article I linked earlier mentions, what of the fabric of society? Does social media really damn society as it suggests? Are these negatives too overwhelming for social media to be a good place at all? I would personally argue, yes and no. It's a fairly complicated issue, one I didn't even begin to really capture in this article at all. Instant messaging, long distance communication, practically unlimited access to information and more has made the internet a free ground, and that in itself provides both freedom, individuality and unleashed creativity, but it also provides ground for much more harmful and horrible things that one can't even begin to fathom.

However, in the words of one of my friends on Discord,

"I would say one benefit is you can make cool friends."

He's not wrong, he's one of my coolest friends ever.

This article might've been a bit of scrambled a mess, but I hope it more inspires you all to research into the issues yourselves! Next issue will be far cleaner, I promise! If you want to give an opinion on the future of this newsletter (yes, another poll, groan, I'm sorry sob) I will link the tweet below where you can give your opinion!

[loreweaver-universe]

And that’s...the show.

What a clever way to get Lake off the train.  On multiple levels!  Not only was it clever in-character, but her escape came from her accepting her nature at long last--which was what would have brought her own number down to zero.  That’s such an excellent way to end her journey--truly, she was the same as a passenger the whole time.

That was a good finale.  Not the action-packed ending that season 1 got, but it didn’t need to be, really.  It was different from Tulip’s journey in ways where a bigger action sequence than what we got wouldn’t have been appropriate.  In fact, the fight with Sieve feels kind of like an afterthought--it wasn’t obviously, it tied off an important loose end and gave Alan Dracula something to do in the final two episodes, but it didn’t really feel like a proper focus of the episode.

Showing off One-One’s weird blue-and-orange morality system was really cool.  Watching him actually get trapped in logic loops was fascinating, and I think he was used VERY well here.

Alan Dracula was a fun sideshow character, but often felt like he was just there for the animators and writers to play around with, rather than an essential part of the team like Atticus and One-One were in season 1.

Jesse was a good deuteragonist!  Shut up, Tumblr spellcheck, that’s a word.  Jesse’s journey was simple--come to terms with the fact that he and his friends were bullies, and it was very deftly done.  The fact that the train reorders its cars and constructs them for individual passengers’ journeys makes it interesting that his final obstacle was confronting the Apex--the train even works other passengers into its plans.  Which, ironically, makes the Apex more denizen than passenger.  Anyways, Jesse’s journey was simple and well-handled, which is good because he wasn’t actually who the story was about.

That would be Lake.  Mirror Tulip.  Horseradish, as I’ve been tagging her since season 1.  The Chrome Car was my second-favorite episode of season 1, due to excellent character drama, excellent horror, and excellent writing all around.  I remember wishing very much that Lake had joined Tulip on her journey--clearly, the people writing the show wanted to keep telling her story, too, because we got a whole season of it.  Lake’s journey of self-discovery and self-actualization was a really fascinating one.  Watching her slowly come out of her prickly shell until she was finally ready to accept herself for who she was was an excellent journey.  I really do think it’s SUCH good writing that she basically got her own number down to zero right when she got One-One to let her off the train.

Mace and Sieve turned out to be excellent villains, as well--Mace more than Sieve, really, but Mace got more focus and had more presence, and rightfully so.  My favorite episode of the season focuses on him and Tulip, after all.  What an excellent bastard.

All in all, a good season, but not quite as strong as the first one.  That’s not a low bar to fail, though.  Excellent work all around, and I’m delighted with the ending.

The final episode just wasn’t as strong an ending as season one’s though, and wasn’t the best episode in season 2 by a couple places.  The Tape Car was creepier and focused on horror, which I liked a lot, and The Wasteland was just fantastic.  It also has to compete with some VERY strong episodes in season 1--which, again, is not a low bar to fail.  All in all, I’d place The Number Car at my new #3 for season 2, between The Lucky Cat Car (which was very funny, but didn’t have the emotional or dramatic stuff The Number Car did) and The Tape Car (which I’ve already covered), as well as my new #7 overall, between The Lucky Cat Car and The Cat’s Car, which did drama and horror VERY well.

That’s it for Infinity Train, at least until we maybe get a third season!  In a couple days, I’m going to make a post on my Patreon asking for show suggestions for what to replace Infinity Train with in the main slots, and then we’ll have the poll to replace it a few days after that.  I’ll keep you posted as to what the results of that are!  In the meantime, up next is going to be this month’s Patron Picks--as usual, I’ll be doing Paranoia Agent, Baccano, and then A Place Further Than the Universe.  After that, we’ll be getting back to She-Ra for a solid while--I’ll be starting Season 2, so stay tuned for that!

Streamwise, I streamed the first part of my blind playthrough of Transistor yesterday (which you can view here) and will be starting what I think will be the rest of the game shortly.  If you want to tune into that live, head on over to my Twitch channel and give me a follow!  That should be happening within the hour.

As always, thank you all for tuning in, and thank you very much to the 62 patrons who make it possible for me to do this for a living!  I’ll see you next time!

IN OTHER NEWS:

I recently completed my blind playthrough of Transistor!  You can see the full playlist of those streams by clicking here!

I recently completed my playthrough of Final Fantasy VII Remake!  You can see the full playlist of those streams by clicking here!

I recently completed my playthrough of the second story campaign in Fire Emblem: Three Houses!   You can view all the streams of the Golden Deer and Black Eagles routes I have done by clicking here!

If you’d like to help me pay my rent, buy me some food, or help with my bills and medicine, please use my direct donation link!  If you’d like to support me per liveblog completed every month, please pledge to my Patreon! Becoming a patron not only allows you to vote on what shows I do whenever I choose a new one, but also grants access to the community Minecraft server to $5 patrons or higher!

You should also go pledge to Gio’s Patreon–our Discord server maintenance tech, creator of Rubybot, and community Minecraft server overlord deserves far more than I can afford to pledge to him by myself.

If you’d like more of me and my content:

My Episode Lists master page, where you can find every show and liveblog I’ve done!

My Discord server, where you can come hang out with me and other fans, check out member liveblogs, and join community gaming guilds!

My Twitch channel, where I stream variety games every so often!

My Youtube channel, where you can check out past streams!

My ask blog, where you can send me questions and comments!

My Twitter, where I make announcements about liveblogs and streams!

It’s your kindness and support that lets me do this stuff, and I wouldn’t be where I am without all of you to do it for.  Thank you all so much for your support, and for tuning in every episode!

OTHER PEOPLE YOU MAY ENJOY:

I may have been one of the earlier Steven Universe liveblogs, but a whole community of livebloggers has sprung up over the last five years!   I linked to a bunch individually for a few wrap-ups, but honestly, this end-slate is already eight billion miles long, so I’m just gonna link to my links page.  Click here if you want recommendations of other livebloggers, or other neat people, or webcomics and podcasts that I recommend.

[usagiwusagi]

Week 10: Social Gaming  ●﹏●

Social gaming, many people seem to think that it’s a new trendy thing that gives a source of entertainment to the viewers or audience, but it’s not new, gaming has been around since my childhood. I’m a 90s kid by the way. At least back in my days of gaming years ago, during 2009 ish and a girl, gaming was considered tom-boy and nerdy, “anti-social” and so much that you only can interact with people who play games, majority boys, always had to go house to house to use WLAN to play multiplayer and have great times. That’s how I got called tomboy at least by the other female classmates, and sometimes the boys were ashamed that there was a girl and mocked by other guys. Kids mindset back in those days :P 

It wasn’t pleasant to be name-called/labeled but I learned to be myself at least because gaming is a part of me and shaped me into who I am and what I am doing today. You see, it’s not only gaming but also cartoons, elder generation think cartoons or games are for children but think again who actually made these, are they, children? It’s adults who made them possible for children/teens/adults who seek entertainment and visualization and in the present now games/cartoons are better quality such as concepts, stories, visuals, and ideas. So in this blog, I am going to talk about how gaming social has changed over the times and made possible and accessible for everyone.

Firmly, I believe the internet and social media have brought gaming to gain more popularity. This is because the internet is the source for sharing information and thus communication and entertainment are more enabled in this new age.

Here are some videos within this link to show how gaming socially has evolved

https://wearesocial.com/uk/blog/2016/07/the-future-of-social-gaming

Today, youngsters are very connected to the gaming world and they share their experience on social media as a way to let people know what activities or fun they had. The same goes for streamers who use streaming platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, and Discord servers. How they connect together with their fans is through using social media such as Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook where they usually tell viewers to follow them or look for updates during their end card of the video or stream.

So, these streamers or Youtubers who enjoy the games they have chosen to play during their recordings, it’s a way that they are playing with fun and at the same time recommending their viewers that this game is fun. Gamers within that community would try it out and share their experience or how to beat the level in the comments section and this is where social media comes to connects this community, a bit like fandom but different.

As a person who grew up with games, I may have been addicted at some point, I wasn’t aware of it but that is how my family perceived it when they tell me, but it’s also a getaway from stress and sadness that I had when I was still schooling from being bullied and shunned by others. I have dreams I would fly and run like crazy with powers, and meeting these online friends one day (I still have contact with them to this very day from 7 years ago). It didn’t shape me into a violent person or anti-social person, I was quite lucky to have met truly nice people and help me gone through those tough times where I couldn’t voice out to anyone, I knew but strangers despite the time difference. If it’s not for them, I wouldn’t have been or what I am today and I really appreciate gaming socially in my heart. Of course, you must be careful who you meet, I have met not very nice ones before and I just treat them like NPCs/Bots.

 It true, gaming was not like how it was before, started out with communities that were cool and fun, however slowly, with more and more audience joining and all so different from every perspective, people don’t tend to get along even if you thought this person is interactable. Identities are hidden, words may wrongly be interpreted, one wrong move and you are stalked by media or backlashed for the smallest reasons. Not everything in unicorns and rainbows, same as real life, if something is public, you got to know that millions of eyes are watching because the internet, stalkers, and everyone can access your information.  I know this is truly bias to social gaming goodness, this is what I have seen, what I experienced, and what I truly believe, some may have not this type of experience but I feel grateful I did and able to share.

Feel free to comment on this post, let me know your experience in gaming socially good or bad, there are still things we can learn every day and share together :D

[quinnmorgendorffer]

What’s... what the gay Jason Bateman show

OH. FUCKING. BOY.

Let me tell you about this show. This show. This fucking beautiful, awful, terrible, amazing, gay sHOW.

So, Jason Bateman did a Vanity Fair interview on YT talking about his biggest roles. Not all of them were really big or iconic, unlike the GQ one, which I highly recommend. So, anyways, he does the VF interview and he brings up this short-lived show in 2001, because his career has been like almost exclusively short lived TV shows since he first popped up in like one season of Little House on the Prairie. And this show was called Some of My Best Friends. And the conceit of the show is that a gay man and a straight man live together. Oh the hilarity!

Trust me, he was very much making the same sarcastic jokes about that, about how “apparently that was progressive back then”. And he already said it in the interview, but one look at this picture tells you who exactly the gay man is supposed to be:

That’s right, it’s Jason Bateman playing a gay man. But, like, a Will Truman gay man with a Jack best friend sort of thing. It lasted nine episodes. It’s a dumbass concept based off a film written by a straight man that based it off his own experiences I guess and he was really trying his best to be a good ally. But like…it’s not good lol.

So, the full set-up is that Jason Bateman’s character—whom we call gay Michael since it’s gay Michael Bluth—was living with his bf, got home one day and found the bf left him. He puts out an ad for a roommate and calls himself a “GWM” - gay white male. This Italian—they emphasize him being Italian so much, so I just call him Italian dude—wants to be an actor and needs to get out of his controlling mother’s house. So, he sees “GWM” and thinks it’s “guy with money”. Eventually he realizes what it really means and after at first freaking out, the pilot ends with them deciding to stay roommates. And the remaining episodes are just wacky hijinks and misunderstandings.

Now, I love sitcoms of all kinds. And I love truly awful shows, too. And so when I found out all the episodes are on YouTube, I fucking rejoiced. As did @theonewherelaurynhasablog. She gets me that way lol.

So back in February, after I got home from work one day, we sat down to rabbit them (RIP, man). We invited others btw and got no interest. Whatever, it was their loss.

And yes, it was awful. But also not awful. There were jokes that landed. Stories that I found highkey hilarious—as did Lauryn, btw. 

There was a very weirdly delightful episode where gay Michael hangs out with his very gay friend and the Italian dude’s mother and ends up, after some persuading, giving her sex tips. There’s an episode where he helps Italian dude throw his parents a big anniversary party and shit goes down. There’s an episode where Italian dude think gay Michael is into him and then vice versa. It’s all so dumb.

But weirdly funny.

And so fucking shippable. 

The last episode we ended up watching—I think we have one more left but like I had work the next day and she had uni—they find a stray dog and, after some convincing, gay Michael allows them to take it in. They become a fucking family. But Italian dude has gay panic because a girl in their building assumed he was in a relationship with gay Michael. Eventually, since it’s a sitcom, the owners find the missing ad and take the dog back and gay Michael is so sad because they were a family and he liked that!!! 

Keep in mind btw that his fucking sister is his LANDLORD! He has a family!!!

So, what does Italian dude do to make it up to him for his gay panic and all?

HE BUYS THEM A FUCKING FISH!

SO THEY CAN BE A FAMILY TOGETHER!!!!!

WHAT STRAIGHT GUY DOES THAT??????

So, yeah, we ended up loving it despite how  horrible it was. We were planning an AD fanfic around it—Blunder style, obviously, with gay Michael being Tony and Gob as the Italian dude, Lindsay as his best friend, Sally as the landlord, and Michael and Tracey were going to be the over-involved “parental” roles. IF we ever have the time, maybe we’ll make it happen. We had an over-arching plot starting anyways like it’s so easy to make this straight story into a straightbait story.

But, again, the show’s not good. It’s not horrible, but it ain’t good. And, yes, I’m glad it got cancelled or else we probably wouldn’t have gotten AD. Still, it’s really fun. And, as an added bonus, YT has both the pilot AND the unaired pilot.

Best part of the unaired pilot, you ask? Well, it’s almost exactly the same, except a different woman playing the Italian dude’s mother, bUT! BUT!!!! For whatever reason, all the transition music is “Blue (Da Ba Dee)”. For LITERALLY! NO! REASON!!!

Yes, we watched both.

Anyways, I’m sorry this got so long, but I am so fucking passionate about this show. I love dumb, awful, multi-cam sitcoms like this. I love trash TV in sitcom form. And this is as trashy yet as good as it gets. So bad it’s good to the max.

And today Lauryn brought it up in a discord server we’re in and then made that moodboard and I told her to publish it so I could have it somewhere and that’s why it’s up months after we watched it.

[chibigissy]

This was Too Annoying for a Video so here’s a Tumblr Post that’s a Ted Talk. (PLEASE READ THO)

Okay, let's start out by saying, I had originally had a recording for this type of subject, which is a bit of a response to Evan's podcast "Animation Hour", or at least part of it. It's was mainly about works that in a style of a motion comic and works that in a style of a Visual Novel. It was before I talked with a good friend of mine about this and he coined a term that is more broad terms for the type of content we do, which started out as a semi-joke before I'm actually starting to legit like the term. So recording and video I originally had is useless no longer relevant in my eyes. But hey, it's better to start over from the ground up when doing these types of discussions. If you have not seen Animation Hour and have read the comments, I recommend you do so. Cuz, I'm sure this shit is gonna get confusing.

With all that said, let's get started.

So I know that Evan's First Animation Hour, where he talks about fanime, and already, there has been plenty feedback. Alot them are fairly good. Some positive and some fairly critical with reasoning behind it. There is a bit of a discussion. Yeah, 25 comments is not a whole lot compared to other types of YouTube videos that got like a million comments per day but compared to some videos those in our community get, I'd say that is a fairly decent amount, if I do say so myself. One thing that has been brought up in some comments of the video, is the term the Evan coined, which is OAS. OAS stands for Original Animated Series. And it's good term. It's a abbreviated like AMV, PMV, MAP, and MEP. It's short, sweet and to the point. AND It's more board so anyone can join and we can refer to our fanimes as such when promoting them to those outside of the fanime community. However, I do feel there is a bit of a miscalculation Evan might have.... well, unless he'll explain what he means in the next animation hour. I do feel OAS might exclude those that don't animate much for there series, such as doing things in a style of a motion comic or a visual novel (The latter being more of my concern, since initially, what the fuck can you call that besides fanime.) See, I said my original discussion video, you can easily refer to your motion comic style series as motion comic, as it is an established genre. With a visual novel style series, I did tried to coin the term "VNS" which stands for "Visual Novel Series" but it has it's ups and downs. The downside is that it's a little to vague of a term and it could apply to a series of visual novel games, say like Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, and Higurashi. The upside is that acronyms can have more that one meaning. There are two meanings for PMV. My friend, TenshiHanka, told me it could mean either "Picture Music Video" or "Pony Music Video". Speaking of which, I had a conversation with Tenshi and UniversalFiction about OAS. Universal was asking if we're going to change the name of the Fanime World Server to something like OAS, which I was not sure if the mods would agree to that idea. And least not yet. Might be too soon at this point in time. As for Tenshi, he is basically, like "Yo. I got it! OWS. Which stands for "Original Web Series". And OWE , which stands for "Original Web Episode!" Now, like I said at the beginning of the video, this was a bit of a semi-joke. It was a semi-joke in a sense that we both pronounced them as "ow's" and "ow" and saying shit like "Cuz making art is an ow", which in all fairness, it is. Art can be a pain sometimes. And so, he posted his comment about on his TenshiHankaTR account, which compared to his Otaku Krap account, it's is smol! Like, with the other comments (especially mine), you would need 15 semi-trucks to carry them! With the smol comment, it's straight into the point! Then Universal's comment came a long and she brought up legit good point about how OWS is more inclusive than OAS and I'm like "Oh..... what's feeling in my heart. I think I'm starting to legit like term OWS and OWE" And that's what I feel actually, OWS is good for a series that episodes on YouTube or just the internet in general and OWE is good for one-shot story that is in a video format. It's open for animators and those who don't animate but still like to portray their stories through art and a video format! I'd say it's down right genius Now, I have a bit of hot take, You can have your series under the OWS and OAS labels. After all, as Evan said, you can use as many tags as possible to promote yourself out there. And another hot take, you can also have the fanime label for your OWS in the tags. I feel you can have a community within a community. Now I know what ya'll thinking "Gissy, what the angling fuck are you going on about? And what are you smoking and can I have some of it?". Well, I've seen communities outside of the art community that have their own little sub communities. An example I can bring up is with Twitch. Twitch, while it's a big ass community, has like a shit tone of communities that surrounds a Twitch streamer. There are two I'm in are related to Doodletones and KisakaToriama. And sure, there are times when it's just a chill streams, sometimes it can have a shit ton of overs of... 20 something views. (In the case with Kisa, might be around 30 or more, if she is like playing a popular game) Now I can got into other community types but if I do, we'd be here all day. So yeah, with that example in mind, I'd say, you can have the fanime community with an OAS and OWS/OWE community community! Checkmate, Atheists!! Now, there is one more thing I wanna bring up and that is that what would be a good main hub to post our work, besides YouTube and other Social Medias. Because face it, YouTube is dun mcfucked right now and if you don't have a big following and/or not using your tags properly, your work is gonna get buried by other tweets about some fuckward doing something stupid or illegal for like the millionth time. I know some of you are gonna be like, “Why not a Discord Server as the Main Hub.” And I'd say that is a fairly decent idea. Just don't let me be the moderator for it. Cuz I have the Fanime World Discord to deal with and trying to moderate that server alone is freakin difficult at points. I don't even WANT to imagine how moderating a OWS server would be like, if it has more people than with Fanime World. But there are other options as well. There's creating an amimo for OWS's. There is a problem however, Amino is kinda hard to keep up with. Trying to look at your mobile is tedious at points and the desktop version of Amino kinda sucks, if I'm honest. But here, something like an OWS Amino can work for mobile users that like said app. There's also a creating a forum for OWS's. It's just.... Forums are kinda going extincted, sadly. Like, unless it’s for something popular, it's hard to make forum of something not to popular. "But wait, what about Creative Studio Forum?" you may ask. I know that was popular back in the day but it's currently in the dead zone and none of the moderators of that forum probably don't care about anymore to a point that unless you already have an account on CSF, you get the freakin' #Hashbrown theme since that's currently the default theme. Tho who knows, maybe there will be a "Creative Studio Forum 2: Electric Boogaloo" one of these day. After all, there are other types of projects the tell a story and don't involve video editing exists. I mean hell, Penalty All About was originally a web novel, my duudes! There would just be an OWS sub-section in the of the Visual Project Section of that forum There were other options, such as mastodon or even creating a website from the ground up. The latter might get too confusing, if you don't know any coding. Not to mentioned, both of them cost money. (Even tho, the former claimed to be open source. Don't think I'm not salty that false advertisement, Mastodon....) Anyways, this has gotten a little all over the place but to summarize: 1. OAS is a good public name but it might exclude those that 2. OWS/OWE is a more inclusive those that animate and those that don't but still wanna make episodes. 3. The Fanime Comminity can be within the OAS community and OWS/OWE Communities, change my mind. 4. WE NEED A MAIN HUB CUZ YOUTUBE SUCKS, DAMNIT 5. ????? 6. Profit Okay the last two points are a joke but I hope you get my drift. That is all I gotta say, hope you have a good day, and thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[anthonyfontana-blog]

The Best Star Wars Stories Ever Told

The best Star Wars stories that have ever been told aren’t showing on the big screen or any streaming platform, they’re happening in roleplaying games (RPG). Whether it’s by zoom, Discord, or in-person - in places where the pandemic has been handled properly - at a Game Master’s table, the Star Wars RPG seems to have never been more popular. 

What are RPGs? If you haven’t noticed by now, there’s been a huge resurgence over the last few years in the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons (DnD). In a nutshell, I like to describe RPGs as collaborative storytelling with a few rules. Often, but not always, these rules function with the use of dice, and therefore offer various odds of probability for achieving the goals you or your character want to see in the story. 

I’ve been part of this DnD resurgence, playing or leading a game with a group of close friends at my local Buddhist Temple. (Yes... Real Zen practitioners who play make believe. It’s not as ironic as you’d think.) I started playing a bit after the group started, and then took over as the Dungeon Master (or DM), running the games for several years. We played almost entirely out of one campaign - Hoard of the Dragon Queen which leads into The Rise of Tiamat. This campaign was straight out of a book module you could buy at any game store or online. I highly recommend it! 

The flavor that I brought to those games, and the reason it took three years to complete, was that we played once a month with a group of 15 people! (DnD was built for 3-5) My creative juices were spent developing techniques for reading the room, setting the pacing, and managing interactions and combat with triple the amount of players the game was built for. Not only that, as much as I loved Lord of the Rings and other fantasy fiction, I really knew very little about DnD lore. And other than the books we were working on, I didn’t feel compelled to learn more. 

So back in December, when we wrapped up our three year campaign, we broke up the group. Half of them continued to play DnD with a new DM and the other half came over to a new game we were all interested in: the Star Wars RPG by Fantasy Flight Games. The game has been around since 2013 and has three major editions: One that focuses on the scum and villainy of scoundrels on the outer Edge of the Empire (think Mandalorian!). Another more specific to the military operations and conflict in the Age of Rebellion (think Rogue One). And the final one, all about Force users, Jedi lore, and their battle with the evil Sith. 

There are many more companion sourcebooks, adventure modules, and beginner’s sets that have been published (too many for me to count). And my crew began by trying out some of that beginner material. I’d actually had the Edge Beginner set and played it with my kids several years prior. It was easy for our group to decide which to play... they all wanted to use the Force and carry lightsabers!

For the first few sessions I used the adventure modules found in the books. But after a while, my creativity kicked in and I started to homebrew (the term used to make your own stories) or develop hybrid adventures, mixing modules with my own ideas. These early gaming sessions were great! But I can't say it was perfect from the start. There's a bit of a learning curve with the system's “narrative dice”. A system I have now grown to love so much, I doubt I'll ever going back to the numbered dice system used by DnD. 

To help myself learn the rules and discover the system, I turned to some really great podcasts. There are two types I’d recommend: “Actual Play” podcasts where a group of players sit around a microphone and play the game together and more radio talk show-style “how to play” or “how to GM” podcasts. Usually the first are edited enough that there isn’t much downtime included; when parts of the story and game run slower. My two favorites are Highly Suspect (foul language, not kid friendly) and Heroes of the Hydian Way (very kid friendly). Order 66 and Tales of the Hydian Way focus on making your games and stories better. They also review the various books that have been published. As does Steve Is Board on YouTube, who has an extensive backlog of reviews. 

I was also delighted to find some very active Reddit and Facebook groups where the constant Q&A, idea generation, and story and rules sharing give plenty of information to help you learn and expand on the game. For more real-time interaction and questions, there’s also a Discord channel (Discord is group chat for gamers). 

And through that Discord I discovered play-by-post (PBP) games. These are online, persistent games that play through one or many posts per day. So they tend to be much much slower than a real-life game that might complete an adventure in a few hours. In fact it might take a week, or multiple weeks to complete a similar sized PBP game. However, depending on the server, you might have multiple adventures going at one time. 

Which finally leads me to the point of this article... If you are hungry for Star Wars content, and you can don’t want to wait until the next season of Mandalorian, the new series of High Republic books and stories, or even the next movie (who knows when that will be?!), then get online or to your local game shop and find a group. 

The stories that are being told, collaboratively, one adventure at a time by GM’s all over the world, are some of the most thrilling and provocative stories you could ever imagine in the Star Wars Universe. Our weekly Jedi adventures have taken us to new planets and introduced an amazing set of characters that have deep backgrounds and complex histories. In my PBP server, my character’s story is unfolding week by week, exploring a planet on the Outer Rim of the galaxy plagued by pirate invasions and corrupt politicians. 

If you’ve never tried RPGs, or are new to DnD but would rather be playing in a galaxy far far away, I highly recommend diving into the Star Wars RPG. Even after years, its community is fresh, new, and vibrant. Come and be part of the best Star Wars stories ever told! 

[jurassicparkpodcast]

Our Jurassic Journey - A Documentary on Jurassic Explorer | INTERVIEW with Michael Pearce!

Fans of Jurassic World and its video game incarnations may remember our look at Jurassic Explorer, a fantastic three-dimensional game which lets fans get explore the world of a functioning Jurassic World park from a first-person perspective. Before you read today’s piece, we recommend you check out our other feature on the game, where we chatted to the Game’s lead developer, Michael Pearce.

Today we are breaking down an upcoming project tied into Jurassic Explorer, known as ���Our Jurassic Journey’ – a behind the scenes documentary which will explore the creation of Jurassic Explorer. Ahead of the documentary’s debut in December, we wanted to catch up with Michael again to discuss more about what goes into creating a project of truly ‘Jurassic’ proportions. Check out the interview below:

Hi Michael – thanks for sitting down with us again! It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were chatting about Jurassic Explorer. I heard you and your team have been making a Documentary. So, what is 'Our Jurassic Journey'?

It's good to be back here, Tom! Last time we talked was just before we released Season 2 of our fan game, "Jurassic Explorer", which was more than a year ago now. Since that time our team has been hard at work making a Documentary which will explore the three-year journey our development team took to make Jurassic Explorer. We call this Documentary “Our Jurassic Journey: A Documentary on Jurassic Explorer".

What inspired you to make a documentary about the journey behind Jurassic Explorer?

There were a lot of little things, but I’d say there's two main reasons. Since we released Season 1, the project really blew up and got noticed by many members of the community. Having all those ideas and having the opportunity to expand on the game with Season 2 was a dream come true. By that time, we had learned so much about game development, art, music and our own abilities, and we wanted to share that process with everyone. I think people don't understand what really goes into fan projects behind-the-scenes, and how valuable those skills can be as game developers.

Our Documentary isn’t exclusively about Jurassic Explorer however, and this is the other reason I wanted to make a documentary. My brother and I have been making games since we were young (5 & 7 years old), and as we've grown up it's been a consistent thing we've both pursued. With both of us now entering the industry, I wanted to highlight our journey into employment within our dream sector too, and how we've progressed and gotten to where we are by working together.

How long can we expect the Documentary to be? Is it a short film? Something more?

Our Jurassic Journey will be roughly an hour and twenty minutes long. It’s feature-film length, purely because we had a lot to say and many things to cover.

This Documentary explores much more than just our fan project. It looks at game development all around the world, and follows us on that journey together. We always aimed to make it feel enjoyable to both those who have and haven't heard about Jurassic explorer before.

What was the biggest thing the process of working on Jurassic Explorer taught you?

So, as a game developer, it’s a unique industry. It's something that can be taught in schools, but it’s not as straight forward as getting taught other jobs. I think something a ton of upcoming developers are missing these days are the practical skills you learn when not only being in a development team, but by making a game together whilst directing and guiding the team yourself. Those three major skills become incredibly important when you make a game yourself.

There's a lot of programmers, artists and designers out there who have the theory down but can't find a team to work with, or can't quite complete a full game. It happens all the time, as it’s not easy to find a team or find the opportunity to complete a game.

So, I’d say my biggest takeaway from working on Jurassic Explorer is working on a game, completing it, and directing all of it as a lead dev. Learning all the intricacies of that process along the way was also beneficial. Those practical skills are incredibly valuable and I wouldn't have been able to gain them without the amazing team we've formed together.

Where do you hope to go in the future, now Jurassic Explorer is under your belt?

We dive into what’s next for me and the team in the Documentary, so I don't want to give too much away. I will say that there's a ton of opportunities out there that we're working towards.

We have many ideas and lots of experience that I think will hopefully continue to impress people, and put smiles on people’s faces. With JE we really identified both our skills and our own unique style as a team. I hope that all our future games can capture the same mood and feelings that JE prompted in the audiences who experienced the project

More than anything, I hope people will continue to follow us through our next journey.

Let’s talk about the team – how did you assemble a group of people who wanted to work on this project?

It began in 2015 when I made a (looking back at it, terrible!) 3D Model of the Innovation Centre from JW. It was never supposed to be anything more than that, and I simply did it as a fun learning experience. But, as I shared it online, it gained traction, and people wanted more. So, I made more.

I expanded from the Innovation Centre, eventually forming the whole park, and over time I found our first team member, Andreas Strom.

For about a year we worked on that early project (Back then, simply called "Jurassic World 3D Project") and released three versions to the public which got coverage across YouTube and social media.

After that, we restarted the project from the ground up to build it in new and better software, and alongside three other new team members (Bernard, Zack and River), we began work on Jurassic Explorer.

From day one we knew it was a project we could learn from, and we knew it was an opportunity to grow and develop our talents as a team.

The rest is history!

What did everyone who got involved contribute to the project?

We have a team of 6 members.  The core team consisting of Bernard, River and I.

I am the lead developer and 3D Environment Artist. My job is to not only lead the project and decide what is happening and how, but to also make all the art for the games. I also have been involved in directing and editing the accompanying films, too!

Bernard is our Music Composer, and is incredibly talented. All our melodies, musical pieces and anything you hear in both the games and the film will have been composed by him. I've worked very closely with Bernard on each piece produced, and have even been lucky enough to write out some melodies for the game too.

River is our General Programmer and will play a very important role in the next journey we undertake.

Andreas is our Character Artist which means he makes all the Dinosaurs and other organic visuals in our games.

Zack handled all the AI Programming in Jurassic Explorer and brought the dinosaurs who appeared in the game to life.

Lastly, we also had some help from my brother Brandon with programming.  You may know Brandon from the famous Minecraft Mod - 'The Aether'.

One member of the team found a very cool job after JE – can you tell us a little more about that?

I can't mention anything specific until after the Documentary is released. But, I will say it really puts into perspective how valuable projects like this can be. It's not just making something that gets you to where you want to go, but it’s keeping at it and persisting throughout the trials and tribulations that projects can face. You must make it your everything. You can’t just give up.

This whole journey for all of us has been amazing and the opportunities we're finding because of what we've learned along the way are both special, and extremely exciting!

I hope you're excited to find out more when the documentary releases.

Lastly, what is next for the Dimensional Digital Team?

 A lot! We're not going anywhere, and this is just the start of another journey we're taking.

Creating this Documentary has been incredible for us, and has taught us so much. I've never done something like this before, so making a feature length film which allowed us to express ourselves this way has been amazing.

I hope that you all continue to follow our journey in the future.

Where can everyone follow up if they want to learn more?

Our Jurassic Journey : A Documentary On Jurassic Explorer will release in December this year, An official date will be coming very soon. Look forward to the first trailer on the film coming November 28th too! We currently have a info page on our Fluminus website (Which Fluminus btw ties directly into the film so be sure to watch to find out!) and will be posted to all of our social media and YouTube channels.

For the time being, and for discussion after, people are free to join our Fluminus Discord server to talk everything Our Jurassic Journey and more.

Big thanks to Michael for taking the time to talk about ‘Our Jurassic Journey: A Documentary on Jurassic Explorer’.

You can watch an EXCLUSIVE sneak peek of the documentary here:

The Documentary will release worldwide in December, and will be available on the Fluminus Social Media and YouTube channels, which can be found by visiting the Fluminus Website.

Fluminus welcome people to also join their Discord to discuss the project in the build-up to its release: https://discord.gg/7F3mKrz

Written by: Tom Fishenden

[atermori]

Where do you draw inspiration from when it comes to art? Your style is very neat and I love it. Are there any artists you look up to? Styles of art that you’d like to learn?

For inspiration, I tend to listen to music! I have a playlist with a variety of songs on soundcloud, so I'd anyone wants me to post the link I'll go ahead and do so. There's also sometimes games for small things like patterns, ideals, motives, etc. Such as Tales of the Rays which uh *c ou g hs* if you haven't played any of the Tales of series games I highly recommend it it's great. Like there's so many lovable characters and I'm not even sponsored but god I'd be honored if Bandai Namco wanted to sponsor me like their Tales of series is good as hellAs for artists I look up to, my art style is heavily inspired by skull_general on Twitter. If you haven't seen her art please do she has good ass art. Her main style looks cartoony, yet there's a bit of realism in it. Her shading looks absolutely beautiful as well. If you've never seen her more detailed pieces, please do, they're beautiful. She has her own comic too called Pilot. She mostly draws her characters from Pilot but trust me they're amazing. They all have some charm to them, goals, inspirations, etc. Every single one feels real in some aspect, like some day that character could be a person. She occasionally draws Splatoon as well and has her own au which is brilliant. If you scroll down in her media you'll eventually find it. Please read her Splatoon au and her comic. Her comic is barely kicking off story wise but she does post doodles, arcs, shorts, etc so it's worth the wait for every page. The link to her Twitter can be found here: https://twitter.com/skull_general?s=09I also absolutely love @ulreki 's art like holy shit you need to see his art it's bomb as fuck. I love the way he does eyes and his lineart is so clean I could slip on it and not mind as I'm being brought to a hospital for a broken spine. His coloring is also really really nice but that might just be personal bias loving every color except dark yellow. Still his art is really good. He has a comic called SwitchOut with great characters so far. You'll love Math, trust me he's great. Please read it, like Pilot, it's still just getting a toe in the water, but its still pretty great so far. He doesn't post much but he streams on Twitch and has a Discord server. He also has a Twitter by the same name. Please check him out he's great. There's also @xxliferabbitxx 's art and lemme tell you her art is adorable as hell. If you're not into vore/repulsed by it I don't recommend searching through her blog for her art because, well, it's filled with it. Despite the content though, she draws non vore too. So it's all good in funky town. Her art style is just very very squishy looking. Everything looks soft to the touch and the way she does hair?? Godlike. I love her art with a burning passion. She's a good friend of mine too and oh my god her ocs are amazing. Ask about Oliver, Alex, anyone. They're all lovable and you'll end up discovering one that you love with all your heart. She doesn't have a comic but her art is A+I'd recommend more but I've already written an essay's worth on only three of my favorites so y eah. Although an honorable mention would be Neytrix on Youtube. I don't use deviantart, but their speedpaints are great for reference on how to make things such as hair and landscapes. They link their deviantart in their videos so if you want to check out their deviantart the link can be found there!With styles of art to learn, I'd kill for an actually good art style for Shade. Because of certain features on her, I have to draw her in a slightly different art style. Problem is, it's hard because 1. She's a cat and those are already hard for me to draw. And 2. She has this little eyeliner thing that makes drawing her eyes a literal hell. Deadass she's one of the reasons I've been postponing A Little Stronger for this long.This one would probably get me killed but I would love to learn how to do certain aspects from Your Lie in April's art style. I love how they do lips and lighting. As well as how to draw instruments easier. Maybe certain properties of their hair but those three are the main things I'd love to learn. It would help make a couple of things easier for me.That's all I can really think up for now, another one would be an easier way to draw African American hair and traditional Native American clothing patterns but that could probably be done through tons of reference so I think I'm kinda covered in that area.Have a nice day, and I'm glad you like my art style! It's nice to know that it's reached a point where it looks good 8D

[loreweaver-universe]

And that’s the episode.

HOLY FUCK YOU GUYS

THAT WAS...HOLY SHIT

HOLY SHIT

YOU WEREN’T KIDDING THAT THIS ONE WAS A “HOLY SHIT” EPISODE

That was intense.  Oh my god.  Oh my god!

That’s an all-timer.  That really had me going.  The suspense!  The execution!  I was really strung along!  And watching Steven really get into the fight was horrifying all on its own!

That was intense.  Holy shit.

So!  Steven just killed somebody.  He brought her back to life after, but she was dead, and by his hand.  That’s some heavy shit.  It’s also, like...not to downplay what he did, because he did that and he needs to face up to that as a consequence, but this is definitely not what our boy can deal with right now.  And on top of everything else, Jasper is treating him like her Diamond now!  That’s going to screw with his self-image even more, since he associates diamondhood with nothing but bad stuff.

I don’t want to make this all about his issues.  He killed someone, and I don’t know how to process that yet.  This is such a complicated thing.  He’s done something horrible.  Accidentally, yes, but...still.  It’s going to take me some time to really process that this went down.    How are the other Gems going to react?  This is crazy.  What a turn this has taken.  And it occurs to me as I write this that the last four episodes will probably deal with closing Jasper’s arc, too!  It’s about damn time, I think.  Time to break her of her notions about her place in the world.

What’s not complicated is how good this episode was.  Fragments comes in at my new #2 for Season 6 (between Bismuth Casual and Snow Day) and my new #7 overall (between Last One Out of Beach City and Reunited).  That marks the third episode of Future to crack my top ten.  This season has had some low lows, but holy hell, when it’s on its game it’s on its goddamn game.  I’m looking forward to seeing if the last four episodes can do the same.

The last four episodes.  We’re almost done with Steven Universe.  For real, this time.  Last time I thought it was over...well, those were real tears I cried.  I don’t know how I’m going to react this time.  But...I’m sure it’ll be a hell of a ride.

The last four episodes air tonight, but we’re taking a short break from Steven Universe for a few days.  I’m going to do an episode of She-Ra next.  I need the break, and some time to process this.  Episode 11 of She-Ra will begin on Monday.

As for streams, we’re a few streams into Nier so far, and I’m enjoying it, mostly!  I don’t know if I have a stream in me tonight, but you’ll get a notification on here and the community Discord server if I do.  If I don’t stream tonight, I will probably stream tomorrow, but the new Borderlands 3 DLC came out this week and my buddy Eddie and I may be playing through it over the weekend.  You can click here for my Twitch channel, or click here for the playlist of Nier streams I’ve done so far.

I’ll see you wherever you plan to tune in, and thank you for continuing to support me!  The amount of support you guys have shown after I asked for more patrons has been wonderful.  Thank you guys so, SO much.  That’s going to give me some room to start saving up money, I think.

Anyways, until next time!  See you there!

IN OTHER NEWS:

I recently completed my playthrough of the second story campaign in Fire Emblem: Three Houses!   You can view all the streams of the Golden Deer and Black Eagles routes I have done by clicking here!

I recently completed a blind playthrough of Hollow Knight on Twitch!  You can watch all the Hollow Knight streams I’ve uploaded to Youtube by clicking here!

If you’d like to help me pay my rent, buy me some food, or help with my bills and medicine, please use my direct donation link!  If you’d like to support me per liveblog completed every month, please pledge to my Patreon! Becoming a patron not only allows you to vote on what shows I do whenever I choose a new one, but also grants access to the community Minecraft server to $5 patrons or higher!

You should also go pledge to Gio’s Patreon–our Discord server maintenance tech, creator of Rubybot, and community Minecraft server overlord deserves far more than I can afford to pledge to him by myself.

If you’d like more of me and my content:

My Episode Lists master page, where you can find every show and liveblog I’ve done!

My Discord server, where you can come hang out with me and other fans, check out member liveblogs, and join community gaming guilds!

My Twitch channel, where I stream variety games every so often!

My Youtube channel, where you can check out past streams!

My ask blog, where you can send me questions and comments!

My Twitter, where I make announcements about liveblogs and streams!

It’s your kindness and support that lets me do this stuff, and I wouldn’t be where I am without all of you to do it for.  Thank you all so much for your support, and for tuning in every episode!

OTHER PEOPLE YOU MAY ENJOY:

I may have been one of the earlier Steven Universe liveblogs, but a whole community of livebloggers has sprung up over the last five years!   I linked to a bunch individually for a few wrap-ups, but honestly, this end-slate is already eight billion miles long, so I’m just gonna link to my links page.  Click here if you want recommendations of other livebloggers, or other neat people, or webcomics and podcasts that I recommend.

[loreweaver-universe]

And...then.

That was pretty cool.  Watching Mrs. Ikari grapple with her own mental illness and urge to die was very interesting.  Seeing her hit that moment of peace and clarity was very satisfying!  I liked that part of it a lot.  It’s so tragic that outside of her head she was destroying her house while struggling with her mental illness.

As for Keiichi...He’s a lot more human than his wife gives him credit for, and humans get tired.  He’s worn out.  He’s exhausted, and he doesn’t have much of anything that gives him hope for the future--he’s lost the career of his dreams, and he’s taking care of his frail, increasingly mentally ill wife by working three jobs with almost no breaks.

I have no idea what the hell is going on at the end there, though.  Inokai tells him he doesn’t think there’s no place for him anymore, they walk outside...to a cartoon world?  Which Keiichi acknowledges with a “What is this...?”  I’m going to need to watch the next episode before I have any clue what that’s about.

All in all, a good episode.  And apparently the start of a linked series of episodes!  Which is good, because after this there are only two left, and I’d love for the storyline to be brought home.  I look forward to seeing what Maniwa’s doing, too.

That’s all for tonight--I plan to do more liveblogging TOMORROW, though, since I have a dentist’s appointment on Wednesday and I’m gonna want to just relax all day after getting a couple teeth out.  Tomorrow we’re doing the second half of Baccano episode 11!  We’re finally going to get to see Maiza and Szilard’s confrontation.  That is, if they don’t immediately cut away from the party to the train.

As always, thank you all for tuning in, and thank you to my 64 patrons who make it possible for me to do this for a living!  And thank you again to the people who responded to my call for help last time, you filled in the hole in my emergency savings quite nicely.  I’ll see you all next time!

IN OTHER NEWS:

I recently completed my mostly-blind playthrough of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild!  You can see the full playlist of those streams by clicking here!

I recently completed my blind playthrough of Transistor!  You can see the full playlist of those streams by clicking here!

I recently completed my playthrough of Final Fantasy VII Remake!  You can see the full playlist of those streams by clicking here!

If you’d like to help me pay my rent, buy me some food, or help with my bills and medicine, please use my direct donation link!  If you’d like to support me per liveblog completed every month, please pledge to my Patreon! Becoming a patron not only allows you to vote on what shows I do whenever I choose a new one, but also grants access to the community Minecraft server to $5 patrons or higher!

You should also go pledge to Gio’s Patreon, or his Sponsus–our Discord server maintenance tech, creator of Rubybot, and community Minecraft server overlord deserves far more than I can afford to pledge to him by myself.

If you’d like more of me and my content:

My Episode Lists master page, where you can find every show and liveblog I’ve done!

My Discord server, where you can come hang out with me and other fans, check out member liveblogs, and join community gaming guilds!

My Twitch channel, where I stream variety games every so often!

My Youtube channel, where you can check out past streams!

My ask blog, where you can send me questions and comments!

My Twitter, where I make announcements about liveblogs and streams!

It’s your kindness and support that lets me do this stuff, and I wouldn’t be where I am without all of you to do it for.  Thank you all so much for your support, and for tuning in every episode!

OTHER PEOPLE YOU MAY ENJOY:

I may have been one of the earlier Steven Universe liveblogs, but a whole community of livebloggers has sprung up over the last five years!   I linked to a bunch individually for a few wrap-ups, but honestly, this end-slate is already eight billion miles long, so I’m just gonna link to my links page.  Click here if you want recommendations of other livebloggers, or other neat people, or webcomics and podcasts that I recommend.

[loreweaver-universe]

And that’s the episode.

And that’s Steven Universe Future, as far as it’s aired.

I think we’re finally, finally, finally going to dig into all the repressed trauma and self-sacrificing impulses Steven’s had to deal with for all of this time.  No more jumping from one crisis to the next without time to breathe.  No more running from it.  It’s time for Steven’s pain to air out, for his issues to air out, and for him to start learning to need himself instead of needing other people to need him.

I hope that’s where this has been going, at least.

Thus far, Steven Universe Future has been about change--about moving forward, about moving into the future.  About becoming a new person, finding that next step in your life.  The people around Steven have all been finding their way, and that leaves Steven feeling left behind, because he doesn’t know how to do the same.

Where does he go from here?  What makes Steven happy in himself?  What is the healthiest thing for Steven to become?  I honestly don’t know.  I think adventuring may end up genuinely being what Steven is happiest with, but if so, he can only reach that point once he’s dealt with all of the trauma it’s brought him in the past.  My prediction?  We’re going to spend a few episodes having Important Therapy Times, and then, once Steven’s begun to find himself again, then we’re going to meet the big scary space dinosaur from the antagonist shot in the opening.

That’s the Big Question, though.  What would make Steven happy via internal validation?  He’s clearly not going to just walk away from the troubles happening to those in need; not only would it not work with the show’s story structure, it’s not in his nature, even at his healthiest, to ignore those who need help.  It’s just not the meddlesome I-know-best kind of help that he finds himself giving--what he’s best at giving in the stand-against-injustice kind of help you get from a Real HeroTM.  If he’s going to take saving the world onto his shoulders again...that’s the question.  For all I know, Scary Dinosaur Friend is a one-off antagonist and not an overarching one, but I wouldn’t count on it.  How can he get to a place where he’s able to healthily take that responsibility onto his shoulders?  Where he does it because it’s the right thing to do, and not just because it’s all he knows how to do?  Where he’s freed by it instead of trapped?

I’m talking in circles.

Suffice it to say that I like that Future is addressing Steven’s problems.  I hope that it continues head-on, instead of dancing around it much more.  It needs to happen.  It’s been so long, both narratively and in real time, that we really need some kind of resolution for his issues.

As for Prickly Pair, I like the tone, it didn’t belabor the awkwardness and instead pushed the point that Steven needs to let things out.  It comes in at my new #5 for Season 6, between Guidance and Rose Buds, and my new #61 overall, between Letters to Lars and What’s Your Problem.

Up next--well!  We’re finally caught up on Steven Universe again!  So now we’re going to get back to something I’ve neglected for far too long--we’re going to be starting episode 7 of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power on Wednesday!  More immediately, I’m going to take a few minutes to eat some dinner, and then stream--now that I’ve completed my playthrough of Resident Evil 2 Remake, I’m going to be playing Hollow Knight (mostly) blind!  If you want to tune in, check out my Twitch channel.  (I’ll also be streaming Hollow Knight tomorrow, unless something interrupts my plans.)  If you don’t, then I’ll see you guys here for She-Ra on Wednesday!

IN OTHER NEWS:

I recently completed a blind playthrough of Steven Universe: Save the Light on Twitch!  You can watch all the Steven Universe streams that I’ve uploaded to Youtube by clicking here, or watch me live at my Twitch channel!

I also recently completed a blind playthrough of my first-ever Fire Emblem game, Three Houses, after a group of fans got together to get me a Switch so I could stream it!  You can watch all the Three Houses streams that I’ve uploaded to Youtube by clicking here!

If you’d like to help me pay my rent, buy me some food, or help with my bills and medicine, please use my direct donation link!  If you’d like to support me per liveblog completed every month, please pledge to my Patreon! Becoming a patron not only allows you to vote on what shows I do whenever I choose a new one, but also grants access to the community Minecraft server to $5 patrons or higher!

You should also go pledge to Gio’s Patreon–our Discord server maintenance tech, creator of Rubybot, and community Minecraft server overlord deserves far more than I can afford to pledge to him by myself.

If you’d like more of me and my content:

My Episode Lists master page, where you can find every show and liveblog I’ve done!

My Discord server, where you can come hang out with me and other fans, check out member liveblogs, and join community gaming guilds!

My Twitch channel, where I stream variety games every so often!

My Youtube channel, where you can check out past streams!

My ask blog, where you can send me questions and comments!

My Twitter, where I make announcements about liveblogs and streams!

It’s your kindness and support that lets me do this stuff, and I wouldn’t be where I am without all of you to do it for.  Thank you all so much for your support, and for tuning in every episode!

OTHER PEOPLE YOU MAY ENJOY:

I may have been one of the earlier Steven Universe liveblogs, but a whole community of livebloggers has sprung up over the last three years!   I linked to a bunch individually for a few wrap-ups, but honestly, this end-slate is already eight billion miles long, so I’m just gonna link to my links page.  Click here if you want recommendations of other livebloggers, or other neat people, or webcomics and podcasts that I recommend.