#Oh...The 2022 art...It wasn't great

[forgettable-au]

[BACK TO THE MASTERPOST]

Section meant to organize all the forgettable-au-related art/concept art/etc!

They're gonna be organized as pre-comic and post-comic because some of these were created before the main comic started, this is to clear some confusion if you see some inconsistencies with the main comic, -especially- in the ones from 2022!

Post-comic era

Babybones doodle

The man himself

Friends...

Oops

Wingdings but he's in underevent

Merry christmas

Wingdings keychain

DTIYS

Babybones

Pre-comic era

Alphys!

Papyrus concept art

Sleeping science people

Science people

Sprites!

Emptiness

Coolest scientist ever

Hands

The royal scientist

The motivation returns

That one time I remembered this AU existed

-2022 art- (These are the FIRST EVER things I did about this AU, my art style is very different now + these are not accurate to current lore)

That one scene's concept art

Concept art

[dr-spectre]

So.... This game is 2 years old now huh?

Honestly... I don't think i have a TON to say about this game. It's just a great ass fucking video game that has given me a lot of fun and great memories!

This game came out during my final year of school, which is kinda funny considering that Splatoon 3 acts like a "finale" to a trilogy. It's interesting how those kinds of things work out eh? Splatoon 2 came out at the start of my secondary education, and Splatoon 3 came out at the tail end of my final year.

I remember thinking before the game came out, "why do we need a Splatoon 3? This is pointless, it's just more Splatoon 2." And then my mind was quickly changed once i got to play the Splatfest test fire and the actual game itself.....

I completed ROTM in such a short amount of time and i documented my reactions to my friends. Although i was spoiled in that Deep Cut had boss fights and Mr. Grizz was the final boss, ROTM still gave me a giant smile to my face all the way through. It was so fun, so charming and just a really good single player experience.

One of the things that i LOVE about Splatoon 3 is the vibe. I just love the location of Splatsville, i love the aesthetics, the lighting, the model improvements from Splatoon 2, the music, it's my favourite art style/aesthetic out of any of the Splatoon games by far. It just feels so polished, i don't know how to exactly describe it.

Also the fact that this game won best multiplayer game of 2022 over CALL OF DUTY! OVERWATCH 2 AND MULTIVERSUS MAKES ME SO GIDDY AND HAPPY!

PEOPLE GOT MAD ABOUT THIS AND THAT MAKES ME WANNA EVIL LAUGH! All of those fucking depressed and sad Call of Duty players who whine and complain about how "wahh modern gaming sucks!! There's no good games anymore wahhh!! It's all microtransactions wahhh!!" BITCH! SPLATOON 3 IS LITERALLY THE GAME YOU'VE BEEN ASKING FOR!! Yet you won't play it because it's on Nintendo huh? Yeah... You're a fucking PUSSY!! YOU'RE WEAK!! You're SCARED to be seen as less of a manly man!! You only wanna play games with oily dirty buff men.... Yet you call others who play games like Splatoon gay? Hmm..... Sounds like you're a wittle insecureeeeee!!!!

Have fun rotting in microtransaction hell you LOSERS!! GAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyways.... uh.... sorry....

I also fucking love Deep Cut too. I thought i wasn't gonna like these guys and i remember thinking when i first saw them "oh... okayyyy..."

But now? I love these bastards.

I love their dynamic and how they are bandits but they actually wanna help the people back in Splatsville. That is such a cool and unique take to have for Idol characters. The Squid Sisters are very cutesy and so are Off the Hook, but Deep Cut aren't. They are loud, messy, chaotic, in your face, rude, etc. They are about contrast and the character designers did a phenomenal job at conveying that theme via their backgrounds and looks.

Another thing that i love about Splatoon 3 is that it also acts as a celebration of things that have come before, Inkopolis Plaza and Square return as hubs, old colour combos from previous games act as loading screens, most of the music returns in the jukebox, it rewards long time fans for sticking around and for a long running franchise IT'S SUPER IMPORTANT to have that stuff!!!

Seeing the improvements in the model quality from Splatoon 1 to 3 genuinely makes me kinda emotional, it shows how far we've come in just a little under 10 years...

It really homes in on the point that... These characters, have grown up with us.... The Squid Sisters are about to reach their mid 20s, Pearl is nearly 30 fucking years old!!!

And the last thing i wanna bring up before i talk about the Grand Fest...

...Is Side Order.

This fucking DLC... My god... Being able to experience it by myself and just enjoy the stuff i was seeing, being able to SCREAM AND CRY AS MUCH I WANT WAS SO IMPORTANT TO ME DUDE!

When i got to the 10th floor in the tutorial and i saw Marina Agitando staring me down.... I did the loudest gasp a human could possibly do and my jaw was hung to the floor for a solid MINUTE!

Marina's first fucking dev diary made me cry and scream, THAT IS NOT A JOKE!!!! THESE CHARACTERS ARE THAT IMPORTANT TO ME!

And the final boss.... Made me cry, it broke me down, i was singing along to Ebb and Flow as best as i could, it felt like i was brought back to 2018, being in my room, listening to that song on repeat... I feel like a kid again....

I love this song... i love it so much... Like it's not the most hype finale song ever, but, the emotion behind it, the build up from Splatoon 2... The power this song has in it's meaning... It's some good shit man...

So yeah! I love Splatoon 3!!! It's my favourite game out of the series and anyone who is gonna jump into this game now is gonna have a LOT to chew on.

And... It's both sweet and sad that we're at the end. This is it... The moment we've been waiting for. The final Splatfest to end them all. The event 9 years in the making.

The Grand Festival...

I am extremely excited and so FUCKING NERVOUS for this Splatfest!!!! I know i am going to cry and be so overwhelmed with joy. Seeing the Squid Sisters and Off the Hook perform their old songs again after all of these years is gonna make me sob so loudly it's not even funny.

These characters genuinely mean the world to me and it's gonna be so fucking hard for me to watch their final major appearance and say goodbye. Cause after this, we don't know what's gonna happen. I know they will come back, they have to but... In what capacity? That's what I'm scared about...

So yeah, let's savior this moment when it eventually arrives, take all the time you need to be engulfed in the Grand Fest.

Thank you Splatoon 3, you have given me so much.... It's not time to say goodbye just yet but, i wanna watch you as you walk into the sunset with your head held high....

[herefortarlos]

Favorite 911 Lone Star Fandom Memories 🚒

Thank you @thisbuildinghasfeelings for coming up with this lovely idea and thank you @strandnreyes @nancys-braids @welcometololaland @rmd-writes @reyesstrand @she-walked-away @carlossreaders @nisbanisba @tellmegoodbye @heartstringsduet @freneticfloetry @firstprince-history-huh @carlos-in-glasses @bonheur-cafe @heartstringsduet and @goldenskykaysani for all the tags! I read every single one of you favorite moments/memories and they made me emotional and so happy and grateful to know you all and be a part of this fandom! 💖

Anyone who considers themselves a fan of the show, regardless of how engaged with fandom you are, should participate and share if you want!

rules here

Oh, where to begin?!? I am still in denial that it's coming to an end this Monday 🥲I haven't been thinking about it too much which is also why it took me a bit to write this and think of which fandom memories for me I wanted to highlight. I hope we'll all be there for each other if someone needs a little extra comfort in the days, weeks, months that follow! 💜

All the fanfiction, fanart, gifs, edits, etc. and the friends and good acquaintances made through them!

I will always be grateful to Tarlos and Lone Star because they got me to start regularly reading fics again! I used to have a 2 hour commute into NYC and I would read fanfic while sitting on the trains but doing that for 2 years unfortunately burned me out on fanfic and my previous obsession. From 2020 to late 2022, I didn't read much fic. It wasn't until I found Lone Star through FB clips and TK's iconic, "Sure ma'am but just so you know I am a homosexual", that I had found something new to obsess over and love to this degree! Tarlos and LS also brought me back to Tumblr and into fandom in the first place! After I binge watched the show up to season 3, I needed more Tarlos and so I looked through ao3 and started with tarlos fics by @rmd-writes! I saw Rae was on Tumblr and remembered that was where I used to always find fic writers to follow! So I made a new account specifically for the fandom, hello here for Tarlos 😂, and truly engaged in a fandom for the first time! I got to watch all of Season 4 live which was great, and loved seeing people's live reactions to everything on here and loved the codas, art and gif sets people made so quickly after the episode had aired!

And then of course I made fandom and lifelong friends! I started engaging in fandom by leaving unhinged and excitable tags on people's fics and works 😅, as I tend to do, and slowly started becoming mutuals with people! And then @heartstringsduet really opened me up by dming and thanking me for my tags on a fic of hers, and the rest is history 🥹. Michelle really helped me to feel open and comfortable on here and I decided to share my name with people and now I have friends that I know I'll keep in contact with despite the show ending! Some of the most kind, creative, talented, accepting and welcoming people are in this fandom and I am beyond grateful to Lone Star for introducing us! ❤️

The lead up to the Tarlos wedding!

Gahhhh, all the bts we got, and the press tour Ronen and Rafael went on and that Hello! photo shoot, pretty sure my heart stopped when we got those pictures, not to mention the 2 episode Season 4 finale! Now that was a time to be alive! It was treated like such a real wedding and there was so much amazing promotion and was definitely wedding of the year for me!

Discovering I was pansexual and being more open with my sexuality IRL!

I always knew I was queer back in college, although parts of high school definitely make more sense when I stopped to think about them 😂. But because I was in a straight presenting relationship, I never thought to be more open with my queerness? Sure I had those few friends that knew and that I could feel comfortable with, and I had 1 good fellow queer friend at the time to confide in, but I guess I was still learning things about myself and how much of me I wanted people to know? Anyways, Brian Michael Smith and Ronen's coming out story helped me to identify myself and encouraged me to be my authentic self with people! I got my first pride flag because of Lone Star, that I will continue to display outside my house to show that this is a safe place for people that need that, and have met so many diverse and other LGBTQ+ individuals because of it! And also because of that, a good irl friend of mine came out as trans to me first because she felt safe with me! So yeah, a lot of good things to thank a show like 911 Lone Star for 💗.

Finally, becoming a beta reader!

I have been so lucky and have the most fun having been a beta reader for many talented writers in this fandom! Getting to see and help people with their works before they're published, seeing lines and dialogue that I suggested go into the final fic! Without a doubt one of the best things this fandom has given me, along with the many friendships that started because of it! 💖

An OPEN and zero pressure tag for a few people that I don't think have done this yet. @reasonandfaithinharmony @ladytessa74 @carlos-tk @eclectic-sassycoweyes @paperstorm @dear-viv @whatsintheboxmh @alrightbuckaroo @lonestardust @bubblesandroses8 @emsprovisions @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut @goodways @theghostofashton @henrygrass @lemonlyman-dotcom @guardian-angle22

[dotthings]

"Open to interpretation" does not mean you get to tell Destiel shippers how to see the canon, Karen

After the spntwit drama this week I think it matters to emphasize again how hard the antidestiel hatedom was going against how Jensen rolls when it comes to interpretation.

antidestiels continue to behave as if they believe "open to interpretation" means they themselves can dictate to other fans how to see the canon, and they call Destiel shippers and Misha "disgusting" just for speaking our viewpoints of the canon.

Destiel shippers give our take on the text and antis go "well you can't because JENSEN SAID--"

They very obviously do not listen to what Jensen says. Here is Jensen at Dencon 2021, where he pretty much clears the runway for fans to interpret however we please and his praise and appreciation for those readings: “This is the great thing about the show and I think the relationships and some of these characters is that they’re open for interpretation. If you find identity in a character because of whatever reason, fantastic! Great! If that encourages you to be a better person, or to love someone a little harder, to forgive someone for something, fantastic. That’s—that’s I think that’s one of the beautiful things about what we do is that we get to encourage people on a variety of levels.” -Jensen Ackles, DenCon October 2021

(Antis: But you CAN'T, because JENSEN SAID--)

Antis are stuck in a loop of their own making.

This is not the first time Jensen has conveyed his support for fan interpretation.

Jibcon 2015:

We also know from reports from a virtual m&g a short while after SPN ended that Jensen said he and Misha talked about the confession scene beforehand, and they "didn't want to over-define it" and "the artist isn't going to stand next to that piece of art and tell you what to see. You should be able to see, and it should be able to mean what it means to you and that's--that's the beautiful thing about art." (There is no video, this is pulled from fan reports, but as far as we know this is accurate reporting).

Antis: but you can't because Jensen SAID--

blah blah blah

Yes we can and it's not that we need Jensen's--or anyone's permission--however it's just so heinous how severely antidestiels stomp all over Jensen's respectfulness and protection of fan readings and his appreciation of that, and their lying about how he rolls. They are making very negative insinuations of him, yet somehow everyone else in fandom is the problem but them.

It doesn't add up.

"But you can't say Destiel is real and there was queer coding because JENSEN SAID--"

But Jensen said he's completely cool with how we see it.

He said so.

I have a permit. Jensen signed it. See?

Get over it. Find a new hobby. Move along.

A further thing--note my highlighting on excerpts from an interview with Jensen Ackles about Big Sky concerning the Beau/Jenny relationship. (TV Insider, 1.18.2023)

The phrasing should sound familiar.

Yes, that's right, he's used similar language to speak about Dean and Cas. And this is for a het ship.

"leave the audience wanting more" "we gave just a little bit" "but do we need to play it out in a graphic sex scene?" "a kiss wasn't necessarily needed" "let's tiptoe for now" "fired it up in a way that made it not so sexual...two humans really, truly connecting. It wasn't just like, oh, let's rip each other's clothes off."

Put that next to "I don’t think lust is involved with the romanticism" "there's some people that might try to sexualize that" "it was two sentient beings essentially" (Dencon 2021, Vancon 2022)

Isn't that interesting. (Also isn't it interesting he called it "romanticism"?)

Jensen also said something somewhere about how he would like to do a romantic comedy so long as it involves killing zombies. He doesn't hate romance. It's just that he likes genre and action stuff. He's not against, whether it's queer or straight romances.

He's also said he'd like to do a rom-com slash western playing opposite Misha Collins.

Not telling Destiel shippers what to do, but along with antidestiel misinformation spread, the Destiel lane is justly notorious for flinging accusations at him and I think it's relevant that he speaks about a het ship using similar language, and it's relevant how supportive he is of queer readings.

one last thing, this is old, from Jensen's time on Days of our Lives, but he wasn't against playing a queer character.

[nightwonder7]

Hi ^^

I just want to say thank you for all your hard work for all your comics and art I have been following you with another blog since you were posting your ocs 2022 or 2021 I don't remember exactly, but I was a strange anon after all 😅

I wasn't an artist at that time but I came out after all of this time to give you this gift, not an art tread or fight.... etc it's just a thankful gift💖

Have a nice day too :3💖

god, I love doodling other's oc 🫠

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh OH MY GOSH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

AAAAAaaahhh this is such a pleasant surprise what!!?? >///////////< I've been trying to find the right words to express my surprise and joy from seeing this but none are fitting hhhhh >0<

Oh my gosh I had no idea you've been following me for so long! ;0; Thank you so much for your support! o//////o I just love to make silly little comics, and I'm so happy to hear you enjoy them! ;U;

And thank you so so much for this absolutely gorgeous and lovely gift!! That's really nice of you! ;;;A;;; I love it to bits!! I'm actually squealing from this! Emmett and Melanie look so beautiful in your style! ;<; They make me cry they are so cute! ;W; Your artstyle is really stunning! I'm in utter awe at this!

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH!! I really can't say it enough ;u; You made my evening! Hope you have a great day as well! <3 <3 <3

[daresplaining]

Mattea Murdock, the Daredevil Drummer of Philly

In celebration of the forthcoming new Spider-Punk: Arms Race series (not to mention Hobie stealing scenes in "Across the Spider-Verse" last year), I wanted to finally write up my long-overdue overview post on Mattea Murdock! If you haven't read her introductory run yet, check it out here.

Mattea truly stands on her own in the wide canon of alternate universe DDs. She is a female Daredevil, she is Latina, and she somehow managed to escape Marvel's NYC gravity and base herself in Philadelphia, where she defends its citizens from violence and exploitation. Hobie and his self-styled Spider-Band encounter her in Spider-Punk (2022) #3, when they make a detour to fix the busted Spider-Van. They are all immediately-- and correctly-- impressed.

Mattea: "Yo, Kam!" Hobie: "Wait, you know each other?!" Kamala: "Duh! You think I wouldn't know the Daredevil Drummer of Philly?" Hobie: "You're a drummer too?" Mattea: "Best in town." Hobie: "Oh man, my friend Gwen is a pretty dope drummer too. I think y'all would definitely get along." Mattea: "Hope they're ready to get outplayed by a pretty, blind girl." Spider-Punk vol. 1 #3 by Cody Ziglar, Justin Mason, Jim Charalampidis, and Travis Lanham

I talked a little about her killer character/costume design when she was first introduced (I was a fool; of course she's blind), and my love for her look has only grown. It's badass, distinctive, and it slots her beautifully into Hobie's punk rock world while still evoking that trademark Daredevil image (red, sticks, pointy bits...). Her irises are red, which is a visual choice I enjoy in more heightened, fantastical DD stories/art styles, and I think it works for Mattea. Heck, I could even imagine them being colored contact lenses she's chosen to wear for the aesthetic. Also, one detail that wasn't in the previews is the fun little laughing devil face on the back of her jacket (I'm not punk rock enough to get the reference if it is one, but it reminds me of Darkdevil):

Of course, always a big priority for me is Daredevil's power-set, and Mattea provides a quick primer on her unique perspective, mostly focused on hearing and the radar sense:

Mattea: "What? You think just 'cause I'm a blind girl, I can't see? Echolocation, my abuelas used to call it. But it's more intimate. Instinctual. Can hear a kick drum from ten blocks away. Can see it too. If I think hard enough, I can even see what the garage it's being played in looks like." Hobie: "Yo, are you doing it right now?" Riri: "She's definitely doing it right now."

This is not my favorite description of Daredevil's powers, nor-- to be honest-- a particularly informative one. She can gather spatial information through walls...from ten blocks away? I also never love an overuse of visual language in any explanation of these powers, especially as it's implied that Mattea, like Matt, is completely blind. Surprisingly, no direct mention is made here of the hypersenses as a whole, beyond the reference to hearing a kick drum from ten blocks away. Even her hearing doesn't receive that much attention in the story overall, which feels like a missed opportunity for such a musical character. Her blindness, too, is pretty much irrelevant to the story, and never comes up again. But I do LOVE that she uses the term "echolocation", though is still very clearly the radar sense, in all its vague, undefined, semi-magic glory.

And visually? This is great. I'm always a fan of the cross-hatching visual, especially against a black background, and artist Justin Mason doesn't go too overboard on the detail, which is another preference of mine. And thematically, I love the ways in which Mattea's drummer identity is tied into her superheroics-- not just for laying a beatdown on bad guys, but also for channelling and enhancing her echolocation/radar sense. One of my favorite scenes in the comic is when she plays a drum solo on a roof edge to scope out the Kingpin's lair. I'm willing, in that moment, to ignore any gripes about radar sense irregularities out of respect for the coolness and thematic heft of the concept. I mean, this rocks:

Mattea: "Come on, show me the good stuff."

At the end of the day, though, this is not a Daredevil comic and Mattea is not the main character. Plus, it's only five issues long, and introduces a bunch of other new characters as well. There was only ever going to be room for the creative team to offer a cursory introduction, hopefully generating enough interest to prompt these characters to appear again in other comics. In that, I think they fully succeeded with Mattea; we get a cursory sense of her powers (or at least, enough to show that they're the normal DD set), her personality (delightfully cocky, playful, tough, fearless), a few hints of her backstory, and some truly kickass fight scenes. There's a bit of suspension of disbelief required to believe she can use drumsticks as a stand-in for billy clubs (unless her drumsticks are made of something really hefty-- and hey, maybe they are), but this is Spider-Punk. Hobie killed Norman Osborn with a guitar--twice. It's not about realism, it's about style.

Mattea: "Been waiting for this for a long time, Fisk. Real long time." Fisk: "I'm going to break you, li'l girl--AWGGH!" Mattea: "Big, strong man who sends out his band of wackos to push over people too weak to fight back." Fisk: "Wouldn't get too cocky, girlie...you're not the only one who's fast! I'm gonna hurt ya. A lot. Then I'm gonna kill ya. And I'm gonna love every second of it. You know, this is the same look you had when I had your old band clapped a few years back. I like it. Brings out your eyes--GAAAH!" Mattea: "There's something you need to understand about me, papi. I'm not the kinda girl who goes down without a fight."

I can't wait to see more of Mattea and learn more about her, her world, her friends, and her enemies. In particular, she seems to have a history (possibly romantic?) with this world's Kamala Khan, and I would love to see more of that relationship. While Mattea Murdock clearly has a lot in common with Matt Murdock, she also seems happy to be a team player, unlike Matt, and I really enjoy that. Though I guess it's not that surprising a distinction. After all, every drummer needs a band.

[tategaminu]

12 Days of TDP #1

What TDP means to me

I just noticed I never did this one so now that S7 is out it's a good time! I'm gonna talk about TDP and the fandom here since they are so important to me. Ignore this if you don't care at all about my little venting lmao:

A bit of story, I found out about TDP back when it was announced with the cool first poster, I didn't get into the series because I was busy with studies but when the show launched the second season my friend told me "hey this series is super good and there's a great ship" I knew right away the ship was rayllum lmao. I had to wait four or five months for S3 and I spoiled myself about the finale because it stressed me haha. When TTM came out I spoiled myself on instagram and had the worst week ever, no therapy will ever make that book okay.

I checked weekly about the date announcement while I got hyperfixated in another series from 2020 to 2022 just when S4 was going to air! I didn't check social media much so I wasn't updated about new info or content like BMH until the announcement of the launching date, the trailer, new designs, etc. I really enjoyed S4 and was excited for more! I missed the characters so much and I was so excited about the next seasons, I found out that there was actual good content on tumblr some weeks after S4, YouTube was the only place I was looking for stuff and that wasn't doing very well for me, I was a bit scared of tumblr over past experiences in fandom but oh wow the TDP fandom was actually cool!?

I found out about all the antics from the hiatus and the ideas and headcanons were so interesting! I got interested in reading or writing fics for the first time of my life so I got entertained while waiting for new content. I stalked posts but I only posted some art and didn't start really posting until a bit before S5 was out and oh well I and couldn't stop.

I have to say that this has been the most enjoyable fandom and fandom time I have ever been in. I have made online friends and have had so much fun, on top of that my art has improved a lot drawing TDP, the support it gets fills me with joy.

TDP is such a good series and it makes me so happy (I say this as I actually get emo over every season), rayllum is my absolutely fav romance ever and just writing or drawing or just talking about them makes my day. I love these characters and it has been so cool seeing them grow, I can't wait to see more about them.

Now with the sad part, I'm... scared? of things changing. Maybe my hyperfixation going away, to think about not liking rayllum or tdp as much in the future or the concept of them not bringing me joy. I highly doubt it because I have loved this series for 5 years now, my hyperfixation peaked with S4 and it hasn't waned ever since, not even with the one year hiatus from S4 to S5 I'm also very excited to see what the people come up in the big hiatus between S7 and S8, it will be so fun, I wasn't in the hiatus the first time and I regret it.

But at the same time, it makes me sad people leaving. Scared of me standing here alone with other one or two people, maybe even the mutuals or people I'm following disappearing or moving on. I know this is something that happens to fandoms all the time, and even if a series ends you are the one choosing to keep it alive or not but it's still concerning. I know it sound silly to get so emotional over this but as someone with high probabilities of autism, I have a hard time with social relationships or overall just living. But TDP and the fandom content makes me happy, the feeling of not fitting in is not as strong here with you all and having all of that taken away makes me sad. I haven't found another series that has caught my interest as much and I doubt I will anytime soon since TDP and Rayllum have everything I love, fandoms are also not as cool out there. I'm happy that I'm confident I will be here for a long time but at the same time is... scary. Change is scary and I have been feeling uneasy and irritated for a while now, even before S7 aired.

I'm gonna be here for a while, I'm gonna be here when Arc 3 and I can't wait to share with all of you. I'm sorry if this got too personal but I needed to vent.

Let's fight for Arc 3 and keep keeping amazing content together!

Finishing with shocked Rayla for the soul!

[feverdreamjohnny]

Orbo's Odyssey - Post Mortem

My Feelings About The Game

It's an odd thing to try and pull together your thoughts about something so chaotic.

I guess it'd be easier to just catalogue how my emotions evolved as the project went on, and then wrap it up by trying to pull apart how I feel now, as arcane as that is.

I've been a part of a private developer community for a bit now, and during a majority of my time there I felt sort of like a fish out of water. I guess it was just weird seeing people at the top of their craft while my work sort of paled in comparison. A majority of them had a background in developing character action games or platformers with intricate movement systems, and that was absolutely outside the range of what I understood.

Late 2022 I decided to try and make a movement system with a really strong focus on momentum so I could feel "at home" with the other devs. So I made a small tech demo where most of Orbo's moveset was formed.

In the end it didn't really make me feel more confident in my work, but at least I proved to myself that I could tackle unfamiliar waters and make headway. Regardless, I left the tech demo where it was and continued to work on Nowhere, MI for the next few months.

I made a lot of progress on Nowhere, and around late November a publisher reached out to me to offer help. I was desperate, after all. I didn't have a lot of money to my name and this was the kind of lifeline I needed to secure so I could finish the game.

To cut a long story short, they kept delaying talks about the game over and over and it became increasingly clear to me that my dream of being funded wasn't going to happen.

I was sort of in a bad spot now. It was early 2023 at this point, and I was going to have to make a tough decision: delay Nowhere and get a retail job to make money (potentially losing sight of the project in the process), or find some other solution to secure funding. No other publishers were going to pick me up (and I really didn't trust a majority of them so I only had my sights set on a handful I felt I could trust), so I came to a new conclusion:

What if I just made something short, say in the span of a month or two, and sell it? Surely that would be easy.

Surely.

The Game

In March of 2023, I began working on the game. I wasn't sure what sort of format I wanted for the game at first, and I had initially considered a rogue-like arena combat game where you'd use the game's momentum mechanics to fight enemies, collect upgrades to improve your abilities, rinse and repeat.

The idea ended up feeling sort of strange when I began pre-production, so I ended up scrapping it.

I thought about the movement system some more and realized that it had a strange kinship to a game I had played just a month earlier: Super Kiwi 64.

Then I thought about Siactro's other games, how they were similarly small-scope platformers that seemed to perform well on Steam and Switch, and I realized that if there was something that would suit my own development style (focused around exploration and secrets), it was a 3D platformer.

The first month was fairly strong. I moved at lightning-speed, hammering systems into the game piece by piece. Collectables were done. Time trials (and their records) were done. Movement had been refined further and felt better than in the initial tech demo. There was also a lot of underlying structuring that I won't get into because it's boring (but important).

About a week in I even started working with my friend Tim (who's a professional environment artist), and we began working together on the hub environment (we brainstormed the layout, I designed the greybox, and he wrapped it up with the environment art).

It was going great, but as March was nearing its end I began to realize what I was dealing with.

"Oh, well yeah I mean I knew it wasn't going to be possible in a month! I'm sure if I grit my teeth it'll be done by the end of April!"

So April came along. Tim and I finished the hub area, I got the world portals set up, and eventually we moved to the first level of the game, Shlarp City.

Tim managed to get a decent chunk of the decorative props done, but circumstances were changing and he had a fulltime job in the industry to attend to, so he had to leave the project.

I reasoned "well, I sort of know how to do environment art and I guess I can just go on without help."

Shlarp's greybox was done, and I was sort of happy about the layout. Some friends playtested the game and liked the movement, so I felt a bit more optimistic about the project.

Despite the boost in optimism, I was starting to feel some kind of dread leaking in. My nights were becoming more frantic and troubled, more than they already had been.

I moved onto the next level, reasoning that it'd be best to get the greyboxes for all of the levels finished first, then return for an art pass afterwards. It was the sensible thing to do, after all.

So I began work on Dunbarrow Mines, and this time I was alone. I finished the greybox, and while I wasn't a huge fan of the level, at least it was done. I moved onto Sleepytime Manor and similarly got the greybox finished. Even since the beginning of the month, something was starting to grow inside of me. April was coming to a close, and I still had another level to greybox, a boss fight, secret areas to add, and an art pass on the entire thing. I hadn't really developed much of a game at that point, just 3 barren levels.

And so May came along.

And this was where it all went to hell.

I had been suffering from a lot of issues in my personal life for a while. The year prior had been particularly traumatic and the waves coming from it weren't done passing over yet. If anything the terror was that the major event from the last year hadn't even finished coming to fruition. The stress from everything had caused me to develop a disorder that made my blood acidic, melting away at my nerves. I fought hard and managed to improve my health, but the damage was done and the occasional return of the neuropathy was just a reminder that my life was spiraling downward.

I entered a period of intense stress and depression as waves of terrible memories came over me. I became neurotic. Started having trouble designing levels. It was already an issue for me, but as my mental state deteriorated I was hitting brick walls over and over.

I had my back against the wall. Game development was my only purpose in life, after all. I had been built for it, sacrificed so many hours to it, put everything else aside for it. The only thought going through my head was that I was dying, and that this stupid game was going to be my graveyard.

So roughly two months came by, with sparing work on the game. I finished Monolith station, but it had to be redesigned 3 times to reach the version you currently see in the game today.

The neurosis made me insane. Constantly seeing my peers succeeding while I flailed desperately in a pit was definitely not helping matters.

But something changed in June.

The Garden

I always had an on-and-off again relationship with plants. I had a sort of preternatural skill with growing things, but my interest waxed and waned a lot. The main thing that stuck through this on-and-off relationship were herbs, since they were easy to cultivate and they needed very little maintenance during the periods where I was losing interest.

As I began to take game development more seriously around halfway into 2021, I stopped gardening entirely.

But something very strange happened in the June of 2023. I was frantically compelled to return to it. I raked, toiled and weeded until I had a plot. Then I started buying seeds and began cultivating vegetables again for the first time in 2 years.

And for the first time in this nightmare I was finally happy about something. I don't know what compelled me to start cultivating plants again, but whatever it was, it rescued me from a very long, dark road.

After 2 weeks, I finally finished the final boss of Orbo's Odyssey.

The game needed a lot more work, but I was finally getting a foothold after months of misery.

Eventually my friend Ben was able to help me with the project, and we made a lot of headway. We brainstormed new ideas for how the player could get gear parts. He modeled a load of props. I scripted a load of systems. Finally, the game actually began to look like a game.

Ben was really important. He was optimistic about the project and wasn't suffering from burnout the way I did, and he helped me get out of my fugue. I can't thank him enough for his help.

After around half a year of hammering, we finished the game.

3 weeks after that, we released it to steam.

And about 2 weeks after the release, we're here now.

The Takeaway

Typically in post-mortems you talk about what you would've done differently, but I think this ending might be a bit different.

I'm not really proud of the level design. I think I also could've done better with my share of the environment art in some levels. I think there could've been more details. I think there could've been more content.

But there's no use kicking myself for what could've been. Of course the next game will be better. The mental state I was in during the development of this game was dire and it had a major impact on the quality of my work. I had to break out of a really bad mindset and try to find a better way of engaging with my life. That wasn't easy.

I think some gamers like to imagine that something that's fun to play was fun to make. It's true that sometimes there are moments where you get excited during game development, but at the end of the day the majority of it is just pure work and toil.

In the end, the reviews on Orbo were very kind. Even the negative reviews were at bare minimum sorta funny.

Hilariously the reviews that bothered me the most were actually positive. The perspective of these reviews was that the game was really the story of some little kid taking his thumb out of his mouth and naively making something he thought was fun. It mainly felt like a way for the reviewers to excuse the weaker elements of the game.

These are the reviews I hate the most. I don't care that they were positive. They're infantilizing. It makes it come across as though the shoddier elements of the game weren't a product of a person having a mental breakdown, but of a child smacking blocks together and making mistakes because he didn't know better.

If you really view art like that, I want you to lean in very closely and listen: Most of the time, people suffered to make something you could enjoy. You're welcome to praise or shun the art by itself, but don't patronize the creator for their effort. I didn't have fun making Orbo. I hated it. And even though I hated it I still tried to put passion into it, because I care about my work.

Anyway I'm glad it's over with. If I attempted to develop the game now it would probably be significantly better, but that's mostly because I've found better methods of managing my mental health.

I have to get back to work on Nowhere, and eventually I have to work on Peeb Adventures. For now, though, I'm taking a break. I'm tired.

Before I go I just want to thank some people.

Thank you Ben for being supportive and helping me make this game happen. I couldn't have done it without you, and I mean it.

Thank you Socpens and Grayfruit for streaming the game and for your kind words. It really means a lot to me, and it gave me a lot more confidence about Orbo's Odyssey post-release.

Thank you Tim for helping early on. I know it was a brief period between us, but I do appreciate the work you did.

Thank you (in no particular order) Bryce, Simone, Jett, Aaron, Quinn, Drew, Ian, and Cosme for being supportive of my work.

Thank you for the folks in the private dev server who were particularly supportive as well.

Thanks for reading.

[iantimony]

2024 year in review - roundup style, plus bonus graphs!

we're so back! doing things in a slightly different order than last year: first, reviewing the 2024 resolutions.

--> get back on a regular workout schedule: swimming 1x a week, weights once or twice a week. would like to try and work towards my One Pullup goal again. would also be cool to try and work towards a hand/headstand. Ha Ha. yeah. no. did not do great with this one. definitely did a non-zero amount of exercise but I probably averaged about 1 gym visit a week, if that. I think I am going to add a "working out" section to next year's weekly roundup, right now I've been posting that on dreamwidth under my 'gains' tag but I think slapping it in the weekly roundup will help a lot. I've been doing a lot more yoga than normal in December so I would like to keep that going in the new year - I paid for down dog last summer and have actually used it which is good, and I'm doing their 'every day January' challenge thingy so that should be a good place to start. realistically after January I will not do yoga Every Day but I bet I can make it happen 2x a week. more on that in the 2025 resolutions section.

--> try and be more mindful. i'm going to continue the grief therapy but also think about meditating more, doing more yoga, and so on. I got ghosted by my grief therapist at the end of January lol <3 and was quite bad about meditating and journaling especially this year - in 2023 I was really good about regularly journaling and I think it was really good for me but that fell off almost entirely this year.

--> there's a gallery on main street that solicits work from local artists for bimonthy themed exhibitions and i really want to submit at least one thing to it this year! the one due by end of january is themed 'florals', and the one two months after that is 'layers', so i'd really like to submit something to one of those. weeps cries throws up. I didn't even submit to the artists' choice show for December. I should have though - I peeked in the gallery and based on the caliber of work. I absolutely would have made it in. Oh well.

--> more weird art! use that big canvas i bought in literally 2022! paint!!! did essentially Zero painting this year besides some watercolor in a travel journal, Ha Ha. did not do anything particularly weird or fun.

--> finally put together that travel journal from korea & japan (and also scrapbook-ify the papers i have leftover in a pile from that) also did not do this :'D I DID work on my travel journal for England somewhat though.

--> also, maybe do current scrapbook a little different? might need a new binder at the very least. kind of! I did portion off the current binder into just 2021-2022, I have separate 2023 and 24 events in chronological binder sleeves but now that those years are done I think it would be cool to do them in a more traditional book format.

--> hang up that expensive quilt i bought in august IT IS STILL IN A PLASTIC BAG IN MY CLOSET …. however, I DID move into my own place this summer, and my boyfriend is going to help me hang it up in January when he's visiting after the holidays, so. it wasn't done but it's imminent.

--> speaking of quilt: do some hand quilting, english paper piercing! i have so much fucking fabric! did do some of this! have not finished that exact project but I did do some of it! I also have done a lot of Thinking about fabric projects which I know doesn't count but it has been marinating is all I'm saying.

--> find a new apartment to move into that hopefully won't suck! completed! only sucked a little bit to do, and the actual apartment itself is good, if a little dire in terms of insulation!

--> try to secure some sort of summer internship or project that will let me develop some new skillsets that i might not be getting with my current research this failed for last summer but I learned a lot from the process and am very optimistic about this coming summer.

--> finish the masters degree did do this!

--> write…a paper? for the work i just presented??? did not do this! it's complicated! big pain in the ass!

--> keep tweaking neocities and make some more pages basically didn't touch neocities at all this year.

--> keep track of recipes this year as well in my making section this was a success!

i might start a little spreadsheet this year to keep better track of all my stuff because i really did Not want to go through all my separate listening and reading sections and extract what i liked the most, etc. this post required me to first back up a few extra early tuesdayposts from this year to dreamwidth, and then skim all of them to accumulate the above, and that was kinda a pain. and i love an excuse to start a new spreadsheet. I did not actually MAKE the spreadsheet til December but fucking whatever I did do it. and it was great.

of those roughly 15 notes, if I am very generous in what I count as a success, I accomplished about 7 of them! about a 50% success rate implies to me that I was a little too ambitious. this was a 2023 not 2024 resolution but I did partake in bandcamp Friday this year also so that's fun!

now. THE DATA. there is a part of me that really, really wants to whip out some old bokeh macros to sexy-ify this data. that could be fun to host on neocities and/or my real-name website as an example of my data viz prowess. but for now, google sheets plots will suffice. they are not very accessible (color blindness, etc) unfortunately.

behold! a bar chart! this data isn't necessarily 100% correct or perfect, some of these numbers are deffo estimates.

listening: saw more live music this year for sure - saw Haken, St. Vincent, ELO, and Sammy Rae live and they all slapped. lots of podcasts, even more music. April doing some heavy lifting there due to the spotify algorithm playlists, especially the release radar but also other miscellaneous generated playlists.

my bigass 2024 playlist!

reading: I THINK I read significantly less AO3 this year but I read a lot of other articles and a few books! notables were Bunny (bad) and The Left Hand Of Darkness (good) (which I think mirrors last year, which was also [modern lit book] bad [ursula le guin] good if I recall right)

watching: more youtube in the second half of the year than the first. something about background noise maybe.

playing: largely dnd with a smattering of video games and magic the gathering.

making: mostly pottery with some fiber art in there.

eating: yay recipes :-) adding this section was a roaring success. considering compiling a 'favs of 2024' pdf to distribute. should be pretty easy to do so stay tuned for that.

misc: finished masters degree! saw the eclipse in April! became a member of my local temple this year! england/scotland trip!

the 2025 goals!

once again: workout routine! setting this at 1 day of cardio, 1 day of yoga/adjacent, and 1 day of weights per week. this feels sustainable. would like to make it through the yoga every day down dog challenge for January.

reintegrate journaling into my day-to-day.

clean up some digital clutter; organize photos and files, empty..my tumblr likes …… [80k posts]

generally move away from perfectionist tendencies (in writing/journaling (feeling compelled to record Everything), painting, etc)

submit to the gallery on main street for real this time

finish the travel journals

learn some quilting

get back into neocities! maybe start crossposting these on there?

read like...10 books this year

pass my prelim exams ;_;

onwards and upwards. good night and good luck. here's to 2025 :-)

[t00nyah]

If you could make your own video game (think of an idea l and it just snaps into existence somehow) what would it be about and what mechanics would it consist of? What platforms would it be available for? Who's the target demographic? Or anything else you want to ramble about... I like to think of creating my own games sometimes.

haha they dont know i have a joke rpg game i made in a day to test my abilities.

in all seriousness though, i actually did have bigger projects that i never finished... so, just gonna drop that i'm a big fan of RPG maker games, horror ones, PSYCHOLOGICAL horror ones for even better score. and i am kind of a liiiittle experienced with rpg maker.

warning!!

this answer ended up containing a lot of sensitive topics(in my opinion??) and i tried my best to make sure to include them in tags AND before each idea's explanation, please check the tags and not proceed if those topics are sensitive to you personally!!

i had a project that i started making as a vent. that's the closest i had to actually making something. it was called zepphire's lair. zepphire is my sona from 2015 that had very bright neon colours that were probably UNBEARABLE to look at, then i tried redesigning her years later into something pastel. and then, umm... in 2022 i had issues with my style because i used to be VERY caught in 'oh,,,this one line is weird,,,how do people even like my art there's a stray pixel there...god.' and decided to do something about it. this 'something about it' was changing my art style to PURPOSEFULLY unpleasant to look at, messy and annoying. it was bright, i didnt care, and honestly i think it helped with being that critical to myself. anyways. sorry im rambling but it is important

so in 2022, when i had a giant relief of drawing in the most unbearable(and stunning at the same time) art style, i reused zepphire. FUCK PASTEL said me. NEONS ARE GOOD. it was a great decision.

so zepphire's lair was meant to be an rpg game where you play as zepphire. who in her head is still her young self that doesn't have to think about what happened. but in reality, her magical world she was meant to become a god of was destroyed and ruined because she wasn't responsible enough with powers granted to her. she is now the only resident of the Forbidden Location, an alternative world that people could get into by just clipping randomly. like you know when you find a spot in a videogame that doesn't have an invisible wall and you go OH. that. i wasn't sure how to continue working on it because it lacked story to tell as present. it had a past story to unfold, but i had no idea what would happen now. i had a thought of someone getting into FL somehow after long time and zepphire trying to solve this because they're clearly not meant to be there while in her head she's still stuck struggling with herself.

i want to put a little bit of assets i made for zepphire's lair, but since it's all very bright toxic neon i think i'm gonna place them at the veeeery end so you don't have to look at them if you can't stand it.

CW: cartoon blood!! a little bit of it!!

next up is my cool idea of a fangame! so, purrfect apawcalypse is one of my favourite game series. and i've been following it since first one and i have a LARGE fanmade setting set in the same universe! (in fact, two! i also made a reference for kitsune high which is set to be in an agricultural town inhabitated by foxes! it was a cool project)

the game idea was to make an rpg (because, again, that's all i know, lmao) that follows the Chatting club - a school interest club literally dedicated to rumors and just having a good time - as they unveil the secrets their school holds. cats and dogs disappearance cases? rumors of ghost around? who the heck lives in the garden and what're they up to? what is up with the Detective club's president Seraphima? there are many mysteries. it would have an overall vibe of the original novellas' series - a cutesy game about very cute furries and weird magic stuff happening, while also having a little bit...darker tone. like i was actually going to explore a very dark topic with this one but honestly? right now i really don't like the way i wrote it back then. if i were to pick up the idea again i deffo would try to rewrite it and make more sense into it. i like the detective vibe it had going though!

here are some references of the characters that are important to the plot! a lot of twists were planned for this story and i'm not going to tell them all because it's a secret tee-hee.

also as i searched for the refs i found that the working title of the game was 'purrfect meowting'

another concept for a game i had...which is a lot.

CW: contains themes of child neglect, probably abuse, general cat mistreatment, probably a bit of ableism(im unsure about this one) and maybe a bit of weird racism because one of mc's character's parent is weird and very stupid and we are allowed to hate her for that...i hope i mentioned it all.

i have a little ocs setting with three main characters that i refer as 'kitty girls' this story is tragic and is based on idea i had about making a story...about girls...but put them into life situations that would reflect what cats sometimes have to go through bc some humans are trash, but put it through a human lens, although not exactly. it also ended up a story that portrays children who've lost their childhoods for various reasons. idk how to explain.

these are Snowwhite, Rouge and Patches. their names were meant to be reflecting what another one's kitty sona is, but i fucked up, lol.

Showwhite is a picture perfect girl for her parents who's mostly been treated as a prize all her life, making her feel sick of herself. Rouge was neglected by her mom because 'she wasn't born red'(as in orange...like a cat...i used cat allegories every time i explained it but i think the implications are clear enough - her mother wanted her to look different.) and she lived a happy life with her grandparents. and Patches...is a deaf girl whose parents just couldn't take care of her properly so she ended up in an orphanage. she has awful attachment issues.

i won't explain the whole plot but their stories were meant to be kind of a portrayal of how some people treat animals as just objects, things they can just get rid of. a cat of specific breed, bred for specific traits which may be hurtful to it, a cat whose owner just threw it away after it not meeting the expectations, and a general theme of people not wanting to take in cats with injuries that make them 'not pretty' for them. i don't know why im tearing up right now but these make me so upset and i smh wanted to portray these issues though human characters, and while adapting them i realized that those awful stories ended up overlapping with how neglectful parents end up treating their children.

in the end they end up in cat heaven, where they all meet and get to be happy and be themselves. snowwhite learns to love herself for who she is and find out hobbies there, rouge just finally gets friends she lacked. also patches doesn't magically start hearing in cat heaven, she was given an option to but she felt overwhelmed a lot and ended up sticking to being deaf but not treating it as a bad thing, just a different thing.

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BONUS SECTION

i also have this unused character and concept art that i just made bc i finally felt like i could do something back in the day

her working name was 'vogel'

so. returning to zepphire's lair. one thing i forgot to mention earlier is that i also even made OST for it (didn't feel like it would fit the text above). this one is just the theme that plays in the first playable area

main menu theme...is too heavy for tumblr apparently. huh. it's a very simple tune it just goes on for very long (bc there's an easter egg if you listen to it for too long!!!)

next section contains bright images that im gonna put even deeper below!!

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title screen!

intro cutscene! small baby zepphire, and then zepphire acquiring her godmode key, and then ending up becoming a photoshooter!! the camera is important .

here she is!!! the cat herself!!!

a photo that she has in her inventory!! it's mewtona, her sister!

gameplay-wise i was gonna make it so you can collect random photos zepphire made and have to learn the implications of that and what it has to do with 'the photoshooting incident'. it would be somewhat close to omori - part of story is in reality and parts of it in headspace that explains the story.

I THINK that's all. sorry this took so long that was a lot of yapping!!!

[luckiestblock]

OKAY SO LONG YAP INCOMINNG OH MY GOD. wanna start with sorry! I'm kinda new to actually using Tumblr so Idrk where to put this OR if there was a better option but I really liked your post about cdream (and to and extent cwilbur) I really really liked how you point out that everyone made his character bc IT SO TRUE his character would be so BLAND (so fucking bland) without them bc GUESS WHAT? his ass is BLAND personality wise. I was a fan since the big 2020 bc my friend group were hot into DNF, tbh I did like dream at the time bc the Jackbox streams but I was a disappointed at his dsmp character bc I thought it would be...idk so much more? for the longest time I thought I liked him but I guess that was just part of the territory at the time, it was the DREAM smp after all, but instead throughout the years I ended up relating his character more to a malignant shadow for the server members, like he just haunts people, follows, stalks them, and is evil!!! It's an interesting prospect sure but its a disservice to him BECAUSE he needs someone to shape his villainy. I like how you put that he works as a villain because there are heros to fight against, he is fr the perfect foil!!! (tho I think that was accidental greatness) and the very little we saw of his perspective and the little of what we knew abt him really added to that spookiness and darkness of the story bc he felt like a real threat sometimes. During my time in the fandom from then (2020) into this day (possibly more??) I find it interesting how there was so little content to actually work off from his character that most artists and authors ended up painting his character like he was a blank canvas. (or shaping him like he was clay HAHA pun haha so funny) they got away with it bc there was no real and solid character traits to truly combat that things--I also think this is why his character was so beloved by those who liked him at the time ( bc he could be what you wanted) there were many times I believed that the fanfic authors were just better at writing him than the og ccs but what was there to compare to? (sidebr: The illusion really ended in 2022 when he was nothing like the collective imagination, ESPECIALLY IN PERSONALITY ESPECIALLY NOW, but I think that's a thing lots of the long time fans relate to and I guess I kinda deserved that as I was believing a dream hahaha pun haha so funny) Anyways, I really want (wanted?) to make this analysis work of him especially because the way the cc actually acts falls so much into what cdream solidly was (same with cwilbur but minus the "no-character, no shape" argument) It would cover my theories of him being the shadow for the other dsmp characters, the canvas for the fans, what is there in him really and what that meant for cdream overall minus all the rosy lens while being kinda metaaaa idk. I also wanted to do the same insane deepdive for wilbur's character and his overlap bc ITS SO INTRESTING. but now I feel doing this would be in very poor taste and kinda oddball of me (and when is it not in poor taste bc theres always drama??? its never my time fr) and that sucks because I'm still so down bad for this fandom its not fucking funny like I still want to make art for it, theorize, talk and trade ideas with ppl and do all these studies still and I don't know what's really wrong with me for still loving all the characters OH SO MUCH still while HATING majority of the ccs for these 5 years. I wasn't in it for the people after the big 2021 (as I kinda lost interest or didn't support) but the compelling lore and the AMAZING fan content. I don't know how ppl would take it and overlapping drama with the creators doesn't seem so "c! only" of me (but I think its fire so whateva) anyways sorry for the long yap just wanted to put this out there.

re: this post

firstly, welcome to tumblr! i think most people are fine with people adding discussion in inbox or when reblogging a post. i'm glad u liked my post :)

I was never a Dream fan, but i really expected more from his character as well. I WANTED more of his character. By himself, c!Dream is a walking plot device meant to Cause Conflict, which is a shame because the little that was set up was so interesting. Puffy at one point had a one-off line about being his mom (or maternal figure) if i remember correctly, which you could do SO MUCH with on that alone (though, I don't remember if that was just a joke or de-canoned. either way, it would be a VERY interesting dynamic)

The implications of him being trapped in the prison on purpose is very interesting, but that never got payed off. We know that he worked with c!Punz and c!Ranboo on some things, and with c!Dream being an Isolated Villain who is a Control Freak, that has SOOO much great potential. "Does he genuinely trust them? Does he want to trust them? Why do they agree to work with him?" are all interesting questions that... also got unanswered. but with these things (and the connections to Dream XD + Techno), you get the really great fan-interpretations of c!Dream that are really interesting and fun! that make him more of his own character with more nuanced motivations!

(this is coming from someone who wanted to put endersmile duo under a microscope. so i might a bit biased. but god. GODDDDD WHAT WAS THEIR RELATIONSHIPP)

"I really want (wanted?) to make this analysis work of him especially because the way the cc actually acts falls so much into what cdream solidly was" if you make this please send that to me 🙏

"I also wanted to do the same insane deepdive for wilbur's character and his overlap bc ITS SO INTRESTING. but now I feel doing this would be in very poor taste and kinda oddball of me" it might be because i also think there's overlap between wilbur and his character (like, besides how a person's creations reflect them in some way), but i think it WOULD be interesting, and only in bad taste if you dont think about the words you're saying. Which goes into your next point:

With what we know was going behind the scenes, i dont think you can (or Should) try to "death of the author" the dsmp. but that doesn't mean you should feel wrong for still enjoying the characters. there are still a lot of people who love the dsmp while not supporting the creators in anyway, shape or form. There's still lovely fanart (and i assume fanfic) being made of it.

honestly, i think about the lore and world very often. it's a really good example of something that can only exist in minecraft. it's a good showcase of everyone's ability to improvise and collaborate (or the opposite, in some cases). it's one of those things that make me think "gosh, if I could change this one thing..." over and over. i am eternally haunted by the potential of Limbo and how it was SO close to being the coolest thing ever.

anyways. i never get nonnys in my askbox (because i dont talk often) so i am very happy for this excuse to yap. i want to chew on the dsmp and i hope people release the lore docs and what they were planning

[forgettable-au]

how long did it take for you to plan out Forgettable?

Uhhh let's see

This might be a long post! But do stick around if you're interested!

Please know that at the beginning I wasn't actually serious about making this a comic, I was just exploring the concept of Papyrus being Gaster and it changed A LOT during development

So I FIRST OF ALL, I started working on this AU back in... october 2021...

I didn't post anything about it because I didn't have social media at the time :0 and this AU was mostly brainstorming!

So, I spent like an entire 2 months researching the papyrus is gaster theory... It was insane... and I grew more and more obsessed with the concept the more I researched about it and made connections I never saw before

I talked about it with my friends and drew art and imagined plot lines

IT TOOK ME MONTHS TO EVEN MAKE WINGDINGS' DESIGN

The first time I posted something about this AU to social media was in February from 2022....

It was great

It got like a hundred notes and that made me insanely happy lol

Uh, then I just kept working on the story! Because the ideas were there but there wasn't actually a solid story....

But, one day...LIKE, SOMETHING FINALLY CLICKED

AND I STARTED TO CHANGE EVRYTHING AND IT WAS FINALLY STARTING TO MAKE SENSE!!!!!!!!!!...........And then I lost my utdr obsession and moved on to another fandom lmao😭😭 that was so bad

Then on October from 2023 I suddenly remembered this AU again and started posting about it again! And it was great! Now I was older and my english was better and my mind was clearer !

But it wasn't until July of 2024 that I FINALLY posted the prologue! :D

Yayyy

So...If I do some maths...

8 months... + 9 months...

A year and 5 months before I posted the prologue

OH MY GOD I NEVER REALIZED IT TOOK ME SO LONG WHAT THE HELL

PLEASE KNOW THAT IT DOESN'T NEED TO TAKE YOU THIS LONG

I'M JUST A PEFECTIONIST

And also I was in high school and I didn't have time to actually work on making pages... the only reason why I had the time to work on the comic is because I took half a sabbatical year and used that time to make the prologue!

Also, I had the story ready MONTHS before the prologue but I didn't know how to actually start it??? The prologue was the HARDEST part

There's like 8 different versions of how the story begins lol....

It was SO hard deciding a starting point for the story...

But after that, it's been was easier doing everything else! And luckily the end is already planned so I won't struggle with that :D

I hope this answers your question anon! It was so fun to remember everything! Makes me appreciate this comic so much more...

If you have a story you want to tell, try not to be a perfectionist like me, or it might take you more than a year and 5 months to even start....

And, believe me, finally starting it makes everything else MUCH easier

[mr-chatterboxs-column]

I was looking for an old post and realized that I never did a five-star film retrospective last year, and I did find that a fun list to compile, so here's the movies I rated five-stars on letterboxd for 2023 and 2024 under the cut:

new to me, 2024:

Strange Days

Memories of Murder

Werckmeister Harmonies

The Zone of Interest

Poor Things

A Matter of Life and Death

The Train*

Return to Reason (the sequence of four short films by Man Ray that was recently re-restored, not the individual short film of the same name)

(and, well, Band of Brothers, but miniseries, not movie)

*I'm sure I've seen it before, or most of it, in passing when I was a kid and watched TCM all the time? but definitely not recently enough or with enough adult understanding of the historical context that it didn't feel completely new to me.

new to me, 2023:

Jaws (I know, I know. Yes I had really never seen it, as far as I know not even part of it. I wasn't intentionally not watching it, it just never came up?)

In the Mood for Love (this was maybe more intentional, I did know it would be incredible and really appreciated seeing it for the first time in a theater)

Lost Highway

Locke

Killers of the Flower Moon*

Junk Head

Tampopo

*the only five-star rating I don't remember clearly enough to feel confident I'd stand by the rating; on a rewatch I suspect it might be more a very respectful 4.5

Obviously slower movie years for me than the outlier of 2022, especially 2024. I always feel like I'm rating things overenthusiastically in the moment, but I do still rate fewer things five stars than 4.5, and fewer 4.5 stars than 4. I just tend to watch movies I expect to like, I think. Once again I nearly never reviewed a five-star movie (and didn't review that many movies, period, in these years) but the exception was Lost Highway with which I had. uh. a very strange viewing journey. Tampopo is probably the highlight first viewing, went to it on a whim after I'd thought the trailer looked fun and it absolutely blew my mind, bought the Criterion release and everything.

Five-star rewatches:

The Hobbit (Rankin-Bass Hobbit my beloved 💝 twice, see below)

All of LOTR (this was one of my closest friends first viewing of the extended edition trilogy, so I had to watch The Hobbit beforehand as a prequel for myself, and then afterwards as an emotional palate cleanser with her and my other best friend)

The Thin Man

Penelope (ALWAYS the extended edition with more swearing)

Inside Llewyn Davis (I only logged it once but based on the review I'm pretty sure this was at least three times)

Some Like It Hot

Blood & Donuts

Face/Off

The Wicker Man 1973 for May Day of course

Lawrence of Arabia

The Crow

Arsenic and Old Lace

Moonstruck

Penelope again

The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Philadelphia Story

Moonstruck again (pretty sure this was at a full moon party?)

Bright Young Things (oh god. this was a palate cleanser for me after watching Saltburn made me think, oh, maybe it's time for me to try watching the modern Brideshead Revisited movie, which was A MISTAKE. but BYT is still a perfect Waugh adaptation)

Brazil

Blade Runner (my first time in theater I think?)

Some Like It Hot again

Notorious (first time in theater, seeing *that kiss* on the big screen...)

The Wicker Man 1973 for May Day again

Diva

Pride

The Crow again (with a group, I suggested it and nobody else there had seen it, which was a great experience)

Arsenic and Old Lace again

Good Will Hunting

I have still not compiled the Official Cageospective but I think at this point all the groundwork has been completed, at great cost to my personal reputation, if by personal reputation you mean "likelihood that every friend I have will send me memes and news related to Nicolas Cage and also in one case point out a stranger at an art fair to me because they were wearing a jokey Cage shirt". I inadvertently revealed to my best friend that the document I keep, listing all the movies that fall under the metrics I was using to choose which to watch, is called (like, literally the file is saved as) my "Cageography" and he thought that was unspeakably funny. I think Renfield and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent were the only new-to-me Cage movies in the past two years, actually (I know. Not even Dream Scenario or Longlegs, somehow, really), so now I'm back to having some catching up to do re: actually well-reviewed movies that deserve to be included. Some nepo babies just can't take a break!

[journalsouppe]

ORACLE OF AGES MY BELOVED!!! Mwah mwah I love you so much OoA you were so silly and fun and charming. If only there was a third game about Farore since she's my favorite golden goddess!!! Oh well, at least we have two fun Oracle games and at least Farore is in both.

The images are printed screenshots from the game I found online!

Writing typed below:

Rating: 8.5 Played: Fa 2022 Port: 3DS (GBC Version)

Comments

Feels older than ALTTP

Great reach with sword, better than ALTTP

the screen scrolling caught me off guard

why is the tree in love with Link T-T

let me see Farore!!!!!

loved L-1 boss!

omg riding on the animals <3 love you Moosh

the puzzles are unique but very Zelda like

some similarities to the minish cap

you really need to unlearn everything you know about Zelda to play each game -> potions and fairies are switched in this game

the man's ceremony is gonna make me lose my mind

love the return of the gorons

the gorons all dance, just like smth I believe each Zelda race does

the Ghini are back ahhhhh

mermaid link!! so cute

baby Jabu Jabu!!

very experimental with play styles, I love it!

LYNELS?????

koji kondo killed it as usual

pixel art is 10/10

I like collecting the relics for L-8

omg both types of zora exist I absolutely adore that

omg a little statue of LInk <3

love the skeleton pirates

LINK TEACHING RALPH SO CUTE!!

final boss wasn't too bad, I liked dark link and her final forms (veran)

My holodrum code

Summary:

What a unique game. The whole concept was super cute and I am surprised the oracle games aren't that popular. There are many aspects inspired by OOT and MM such as the Hand in the toiled and some of the enemies but it definitely takes even more inspo from the 2d games. There's a lot of similarities between this game and the Minish cap! It was super cute and it really felt like they let the developers explore silly ideas. For one, they included both river and ocean Zora which I believe is one of the only games to do so. It also has bonus content if you play its sister game, seasons. The dungeons had a good difficulty to them and the bosses and mini had really cool designs - honestly designs you probably wouldn't see in any other game. There was also a good amount of down time content for when you aren't in the dungeons with really fun scenery and characters. Speaking of, the character designs were super cute and unique since they a different pixel art style! (Before I knew this was inspired by Link's Awakening). I highly recommend this game to anyone with a 3DS (rip you can't get it anymore). It is absolutely worth it. A Zelda fan must!!

[trappedtowers]

Trapped Towers Dev History ~ How We Got Here (Final Part)

(Middle art piece done by @/evilredyoshis)

CORRECTION FOR PART 2: THE TRAPPED TOWERS REBOOT ANNIVERSARY IS IN MAY. I THOUGHT IT WAS JUNE. NO IT IS MAY 15TH. I GASLIT MYSELF FOR OVER A YEAR WHAT.

Hey again everybody !!

So we reached the beginning of the current stage of Trapped Towers last time, the official beginning to the reboot in May 2021. This final part will cover a bit less I do think, mainly because a lot of the old/scrapped content I think I'd like to go a bit more in-depth with in seperate posts. However, there's still stuff to go through. It's gonna be a lot less story of Trapped Towers and a bit more sappy emotional though, hope you all don't mind.

So, for the final time in this mini series - lets hope into it shall we?

May 2021 - Present ~ The New Trapped Towers:

I will always remember those first few months of the new TeamT VERY VERY fondly. It wasn't perfect, we weren't all fully motivated, but we sure were making progress slowly. TeamT was always very chaotic - and sure some of it hasn't aged great and isn't the best to look at, I should have cut some stuff instantly and cut ties with others quick - but nights like staying in voice call with some of the best team members I could have asked for just screwing about, playing video games and screensharing it in about the worst way, and coming up with some amazing ideas for the project. I'll remember those fondly.

Stuff like this is what makes projects like this worth it. The memories and friends - as corny as that is.

But hey, you're here for the story, not for the sappy "the real trapped towers was the friends we made along the way" schpiel. So, what happened in the months from the Trapped Towers reboot beginning? Well, we worked. We made songs. We made new concepts, new art, and more. The story I'd written made - and I won't say who and if they out themselves AGAIN it's their own fault - made somebody CRY. Have you ever made somebody cry from a story you've written. The initial thoughts is "oh no they're crying, that's sad I didn't wanna make them sad" but very quickly the giddyness hits.

Emotional aspects of storytelling are one of the things I've been wanting to hit for ages. To have somebody connect to a character and their story to a point where it brings genuine emotion - it's the best. Not only for the reader's attatchment and immersion, but to you. To know you managed to create a story that compelling that it caused that. I won't drag this out much longer, but it's really something I'm aiming for with Trapped Towers and I do hope to get you all with some of these plot points.

Back to the timeline though, things began to slow further around November, with most things basically halting in December - though shoutout to the artists and musicians who carried us that whole time. January was a break month, February we hoped to be back in action but things didn't quite resume for a while. April picked it up a little more, with new art and concepts and writing happening, but not much else.

It's not a satisfying end to this story is it. We just kind of... died off.

But it's not the end, is it?

This was something I said in the team general channel in February 2022 and I still hold by it to this day. Trapped Towers has been a major part of my life since the day it was first made, and it always will be. I'm forever grateful for how things have turned out, even if it feels like the project never gets anywhere.

So until the day comes where I can release this, I'll keep posting, writing etc. I will keep working until it happens no matter how long it'll take. That's the end of the timeline and sappy stuff for now though. Lets go through some content.

Content Highlights:

(TO NOTE A LOT OF OLD CONTENT IS MADE BY VARIOUS OLD TEAM MEMBERS AS WELL AS MYSELF. @/evilredyoshis like usual, JackInASack who I believe does not have tumblr, Mojo, StellarDee, and many many more names I wish I could list. A full Trapped Towers credits list will happen one day, every name who was involved will be respected and honoured <3)

Y'know instead of "old content" this time, we've got highlights instead. Some of it will be old yes, but there's too much overlap with yesterday for me to just show old content because then there'd be barely anything.

MOST RECENT TRAPPED TOWERS SOUNDTRACK

ALSO TWO WHOLE DEVLOGS YOU CAN LOOK AT !!

AND THE SECOND ONE !!

Y'know I put that a lot of this was made by old team members, and yeah especially in the soundtrack more people appear but a lot of this art is done by Madeline PFFTT. Shoutout to her once again @/evilredyoshis she was actually the goat of TeamT. Did so so much.

There's SO SO much content I could share here and I would love to share it ALL. Unfortunately I don't want to ram this post with too much. If we do get a game out of this, I'll be sure to include a gallery with EVERYTHING.

There's also a lot of great animatics done. You can guess who by at this point. I have already got permission from her to use her old work for all these posts, so I'll likely do a post dedicated to the relevant/appropriate ones and explaining a bit behind them.

But seriously to end this off, I just want to say again how grateful I am for everyone and everything that has happened to Trapped Towers in these past 6 years. To anyone who sees this if you were a part of TeamT, still (technically) are a part of it despite how nobody is really doing anything besides me lol, or if you've just been following the project. Thank you. Thank you so much.

That's all from me. I'll speak to you all again soon.

- JustDaniel

[cuephrase]

Thank you so much for the comic recs!! I'm just getting started on my Batfam reading journey so this is super helpful, and I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on your current reads once you're further along. On a related (but opposite) note, anything you'd say to steer well clear of, like run for the hills, hazard sign attached, avoid if at all possible? (for example, I know All-Star Batman & Robin is something I shouldn't read outside of morbid fascination)

yeah ofc! getting into comics, in my experience, was super fun and sort of overwhelming because there's so much content lol, so i hope you're enjoying it and i'm happy to help however i can :)

OMG all-star batman and robin, i still need to read that to satisfy my own curiosity, but perfect example.

so okay, i have three runs + one arcs, but i'm going to preface this by saying, read whatever you want. all three runs and one arc, i read going into it knowing they were absolute messes, but i wanted to experience it for myself. i would say to not read these first, if possible, if you choose to read them because they're just not great intros to the characters and they're not great stories, imo. lose-lose

Red Hood and the Outlaws 2011 (New 52). if you like kory and/or roy, this will be torture. if you don't know who they are, please god do not meet this iteration of them first. but if you're interested in jason, maybe you want to read it because he's there! i get that. but. there's very little, if anything, in rhato 2011 that you'll learn about jason that isn't reiterated in rhato 2016/doesn't get flat out retconned in rebirth. for example, in rhato 2011, his origin story is him stealing from leslie's clinic. that wasn't his preboot origin, and his origin gets retconned back to his preboot origin of stealing the tires off the batmobile. most of rhato 2011 just had me like ???? so bad. just so bad.

Teen Titans 2011 (New 52). full transparency- i did not even finish this run. at some point, i will probably drag myself back to it and force myself through it, but oh god. no one felt like themself. everything was wrong. i like tim's n52 red robin costume, and that's about it. i'm also not sure how much if any of this run is currently relevant in canon so like, even less reason to put yourself through it.

Tim Drake: Robin 2022. i have nothing nice to say. wait. no i do. it got some really cool variant covers. i don't want to bash the art, because i have enjoyed this artist's style in other comics, so i'm just going to be diplomatic and say it was a horrible match/fit. . as far as the writing...no, just no. this is one of 2 pieces of fitzmartin's writing that i've read and so i don't want to speak too harshly, but i really didn't like it. this whole run makes me so sad ngl. dc canonized tim's bisexuality and then supported it with this? bro. c'mon. there's already so many homophobic comic readers, they didn't need to give them "it's bad writing" ammo. genuinely would love to know the though process behind the production of this comic

the infamous Ric Grayson era, Nightwing 2016 #50-74. i just read this. i've legit been putting it off since august. it is so mind-numbingly boring for 85% of the run, first off. this is literally how most of the issues go: "i was shot in the head. i don't remember anything after the night my parents died. they told me i used to a hero. nightwing. i don't remember that. or them. they act like they love me, but it feels fake. i don't want to remember them. i'm happier this way." and then he starts running around, superheroing with a slash of black greasepaint across his face because that is just a+ identity protection and regular clothes because superhero costumes totally only serve visual purposes. and it does all get resolved in the STUPIDEST WAY, but not before the joker takes control of him and has him referring to/responding to “dickie-boy”- reading this i was either bored out of my mind or dying from the cringe. all that’s relevant is a) he lost his memories, b) he gets them back, and c) he had a girlfriend, bea. i knew all of this before i subjected myself to this run. but now i can say i’ve read every nightwing run woooooo. my LCS (local comic store) guy has been trying to get me to read it as a “rite of passage” and he was so entertained when i came in and was like “i read ric” 😐🧍suffice it to say, i do not envy the nightwing fans who had to go through that in real time. i love travis moore’s art but it was not enough to save this arc

as for my thoughts on my current readings, i post those under the tag #cue first read reactions! they’re usually not all that in-depth tbh, just me freaking out haha. if you’re comfortable, my dms are open!

tysm for your ask + i hope you have as much fun reading batfam comics as i do!!