#but you have GOT to understand the limits of the medium

[lamplightjuniper]

hmm not really sure how calling out 84 tumblrinas who are specifically Not Voting is more useful than idk contacting 85 apathetic real-world people and trying to get them to vote instead.

it’s SIGNIFICANTLY easier to convince people to move from the middle or neutrality towards your opinion compared to people who already have strong opinions.

it looks like this:

neutral -> mild conviction -> your opinion

versus

strongly held conviction -> weakly held conviction -> neutral -> mild conviction -> your opinion

and it requires a LOT of energy to get from every single step to the next. Swaying someone once they’ve made up their mind is difficult under ideal circumstances.

there are so many apathetic and non-voters who can be reached with much less effort than people who are adamantly not voting.

If you are in the US and really care about the presidential or any elections, take a quick pause from posting on tumblr and google:

<county name> phone bank democratic party

(or <state name> if you are in a rural or very red area)

and link up with people who are actually trying to mobilize potential voters. posting can be useful but it isn’t boots on the ground.

And phone banking can be done from home in a lot of cases, you don’t physically need to knock on doors (although if you can that also has an impact) but you need to put your energy where it actually matters if you want people to vote.

[userpeggycarter]

hi! someone requested me to do a tutorial based on this gifset!

this tutorial requires an intermediate knowledge of gifmaking. i won’t teach you how to do gifs from scratch, there are other tutorials for that out there.

[tutorial under the cut]

THE BASICS

AN INTRODUCTION

first off, the gifset in question is based on this gifset by @/eddiediaaz and i got permission from them to explain the process. i won’t be sharing the template because it’s a near replica of theirs (that isn’t shared to the public) and i don’t feel comfortable doing so, but you can recreate it by yourself just like i did!

also, ESL, so please pardon any mistakes.

THE FONT

Circular ST (Medium & Black). download it here & here.

CLIPPING MASKS

clipping masks are the way i put images and gifs inside of shapes. i used that method in the first and second gif of the Spotify gifset as you can see here. what does a clipping mask do? basically, it links two or more layers together in a way it follows the “shape” of your base layer. ie, everything that is shown follows the “shape” of your main layer and nothing more. your base layer can be anything: a shape, an image, a gif, a text, an adjustment layer, really everything. let’s see an example:

CLIPPING MASKS & SHAPES

the original image (Gun 'n' Roses logo) is intact, as in, it’s not cut like a circle, something that cannot be undone. instead, everything outside the limits of the blue circle is just hidden. if i delete the base layer (the circle layer), the original image will appear as it originally is, as an rectangle. talking about layers, let’s see my layers panel (some things are in Portuguese, but i think you can understand):

notice the little arrow pointing downwards to the “circle” layer. that is the clipping mask symbol. the base layer always needs to be below what is being clipped. if the base layer is deleted, the chain is broken and every layer clipped will now act independently and have its original shape. you can have as many clipped layers as you want. you can also have multiple chains going on in a .psd, each one with its own base layer. to clip a layer, you just need to press ctrl+alt+G or cmd+option+G while having the layer you want to clip selected (NOT your base layer). or, you can go to LAYER > CREATE CLIPPING MASK.

CLIPPING MASKS & TEXT

let’s see the same example, but with text instead:

A TIP

because adjustment layers are clippable, you can completely gif by using clipping masks. this is very useful when you have more than one gif inside a canvas and don’t want an adjustment layer to affect everything besides a certain layer/element.

let’s take my first gif of the Spotify gifset as an example.

the circle is the base layer. the “Carol smiling” layer is my gif converted to a smart filter. above that “Carol smiling” layer, there is a black and white gradient map and two color fills of white so i can achieve the coloring you see. all those layers are clipping onto the circle layer, making my now b&w gif have the shape of a small circle as well. those layers are in a folder in the .psd of my first gif, so i don’t have multiple files sitting on my PC to assemble just one gif. i could have giffed that small gif separately and pasted it onto my canvas as well, but i like to do this way so i can adjust everything i want in real time instead of redoing a gif over and over every time i want to change something.

HOW TO MAKE EACH GIF

all gifs are 540x540px.

THE FIRST GIF

the first gif has 6 elements. the elements are: a big gif serving as a background (a close-up of Carol), a smaller gif inside a circle (a b&w gif of Carol smiling) as a profile picture and four static images for the featured artists. i giffed as i normally do (loaded screencaps, resized the gif, sharpened the gif, etc) for my background gif. to achieve the coloring, i’ve added a gradient map (layer > new adjustment layer > gradient map) purple to pink. to the profile picture, i made a 160x160px circle in the top left corner. the color of it doesn’t matter. the next step is a matter of taste: i giffed the smaller gif in the same .psd thanks to clipping masks that i explained earlier, but you can do it in a separate canvas too. for the featured artists, i made four circles with 98x98px each. for the images, i had to check Spotify for their selected PFPs. after that, i googled “[band/artist] spotify” to find the images. the PFP of bands and artists in the Spotify app are displayed in black and white, so you might have to make them b&w if you happen to find them only in color. to make the artists PFPs pop a bit more, i transformed them into smart filters and added a bit of sharpening to them (intensity 10 x radius 10). you can adjust the colors and the brightness if you want, too. the sizes of the texts in the gif are: 58px (username), 20px (top artists of the month), 15px (name of the artists), 12px (only visible to you + show all + profile) and 11px (following and follower numbers).

SECOND GIF

for the chart, i created a black rectangle (490x308px) that i set its blending mode to lighten (thus making it transparent) and i added an internal white stroke. i added the text and the little squares next to the top 6 numbers. the font sizes are: 17px (top tracks this month), 11px (only visible to you), 14px (song title, show all, top 6 numbers), 13px (artist/band, album title, length of the song). i added the album covers — that i made b&w — by clipping images onto 32x32px squares. for the coloring, i added a gradient map (dark purple > light purple).

THIRD GIF

there are three types of playlists in this gif: a Spotify original playlist, a playlist made by a user and a Mix. you don’t have to follow this formula if you don’t want to, but in the case you do, here’s how i did it: browse Spotify for an original playlist of theirs. chances are, if you google the playlist’s name, you can find its cover on Google Images. at least, i found the “All Out 80s” cover that i used in my gifset. you can also create your own. for the user playlist, just pick four songs and find their (album) covers, also on Google. create a square canvas on Photoshop and make four squares, each in one quadrant of the canvas. paste your images onto your canvas and clip the images to each square. then, add a gradient map (black + whatever color you want) to all those images and title your playlist (font size: ). save that collage as a PNG and load to your gif canvas or merge all the layers+transform into a smart filter and drag the smart filter layer onto your gif canvas. now, the trickiest one. while you can invent your own Mix, i wanted to use a real one, but i had no idea on how to find them. thanks to reddit, i discovered that, if you search “made for you” on Spotify, you will find their Mixes! some of them are very whacky and specific! i just picked the Mix that made the most sense for Carol from that (gigantic) list. before doing the next step, i would advise you to google the name of the Mix you picked to see if you are able to find the cover of it with good quality. i wasn’t able to find mine (Karaoke  Mix), so i just screenshotted my Spotify app, pasted that screenshot into Photoshop and cut the Mix cover and pasted that onto my canvas. the quality wasn’t great, so i transformed the cover into a smart filter, added a bit of gaussian blur and then sharpened it (intensity 10 x radius 10). the color wasn’t what i wanted either, so i used Hue/Saturation to change the hue. because the original image for the Mix was smaller than i wanted and i stretched it to make it bigger, the quality of the text and the Spotify logo was botched. i painted over the Mix cover and created a text with the font i linked earlier to replace its now pixelated title. i also painted over the little Spotify logo, found a logo in the internet and pasted over the Mix cover about the same size of the original logo. to achieve the “3D effect” of the gif, i made my b&w gif, the base. then, i duplicated all layers and added a gradient map (black > pink) and merged all the layers of that duplicate. i made a second replica of my gif, now with a different gradient map (black > blue). i set both replicas to the ligthen blending mode. you will notice that the replicas will "disappear" and only the original b&w gif will remain. if you move the replicas a bit, that colored border will appear. this doesn't work much in very bright gifs without a lot of dark areas, btw.

FOURTH GIF

this gif used an altered (by me) version of this template. (i changed the fonts to match the rest of the gifset, too.) for the color text effect, you will have to gif with the timeline bar. take your gif’s length and do the math to find how many frames are ⅓ of it. take your lyrics’ layer and cut it into three equal parts or close to it by using the scissors icon in the timeline panel. in each third, change the color of just one line, line by line. when you play your gif, the colors of the lyrics will change like in Karaoke. you can do the same thing with frames iirc, though. i explained the timeline method because that’s the one i used in this gifset and use in general gif making. for the coloring, i added a gradient map. to make the colors pop a bit more, i add two gradient maps: the first one is in black and white, the other is in color. that adds depth to the blacks and darker colors of the gif.

FIFTH GIF

like in the Top Playlists gif, i wanted for my Daylist to be real as well. to achieve that, i listened to my Carol Danvers companion playlist (that you can listen here) for a long time until my Daylist refreshed itself. (Daylists refresh in certain times of the day — don't worry, Spotify will tell you when.) then, i just copied what it told me — the title and the genres i listened to generate such a Daylist, plus the genres i should check it out. you can invent your own Daylist if you want, but because it is generated by AI, i find very difficult to mimic its crazy titles, but you can try! you can also search in the web for other people’s Daylists if you want, but usually people don’t tell you what they listened to to get those playlists and nor what was recommended for them to listen to and i, at least, find that information important for the gifset. be aware that Daylists aren't available for every country yet (like in mine), but i found a way to work around that. the browser Opera GX offers a free "VPN" — not exactly a VPN, but it works close enough — so you can set your location to the US and listen to in-browser Spotify. i recommend not log into Tumblr while using Opera's VPN as there is a myth (that could easily be true!) that Tumblr terminates people's accounts that use a VPN. font sizes: 43px (daylist title), 13px (text), 12px ("daylist" & "made for"). for the flare effect, i searched for flare overlays on YouTube and downloaded one of those videos with 4K Video Downloader, a free software. i loaded the overlay into Photoshop and added a gradient map (purple > pink) over it, thus changing its color. i pasted the overlay onto my b&w gif and set its blending mode to screen. voila!

that's it! i hope you liked it and that i was able to express myself well. if you have any questions, feel free to contact me, i love helping people about their gifmaking questions! 💖

[centrally-unplanned]

Japanese website Forest Page is shutting down ~today, a tragic loss of "Heisei otaku memories", as so many are calling it. Launched in 2003, Forest Page was a "Geocities for mobile", a site that hosted user-created websites and gave them tools to allow non-coders to make them. In practice, it became one of the premiere places for fanfiction in Japan, with the stories hosted on author-created sites.

It wasn't quite the Fanfic.net of Japan, as for one the Japanese fandom just never centralized quite the way the 2000's western one did, instead being spread out over a half dozen or so sites. But additionally, it wasn't initially popular for fanfic so much as cell phone fanfiction, because in 2000's Japan the "cell phone novel" was a specific thing. These websites were being made for flip phones, not smartphones, and not only would people read them on those phones, they would often write them. None of that was very conducive to the creation and consumption of a "traditional" novel; so starting in the 2000's Japanese writers started making stories fit for the medium, namely:

Very short

A huge focus on dialogue and inner thoughts, with no/minimal description or scene detail

Using a limited POV of a specific character

Often employing the medium-as-message, like using emojis, structuring the story as IM's or emails, etc.

Also they all had huge gaps between lines, I'm not really sure what that is about:

Probably for readability on the phone given the small screen size? But it was absolutely part of the genre. A few of these novels actually made it big, got movie adaptations, people wrote articles about the "cultural phenomenon", it was the 2000's so Hiroki Azuma had a take on it of course, and so on. It slotted neatly into the vibe of the time of technology changing culture, paralleling discourse around otaku in the same era.

In fanfic those trends met up, and anyone familiar with fanfiction probably read that list of traits of the cellphone novel and thought "oh, this is perfect for fanfiction". Skipping out on description? I don't need it, I know what they look like already. Focus on conversation and POV? Perfect for shipping fics. Short lengths? Yeah, we are shortcutting to the good stuff, that is the point. Mirroring trends in the west, Forest Page's userbase was ~95% female, and the most common content on the site was romantic or edgy-dramatic stories in the franchises you'd expect. The closure page linked above actually summarizes the site's history by year, and lists the biggest fandoms:

Which is exactly what I would expect from a female otaku fanfiction website. Congrats to Pirates of the Caribbean for making it though, freeaboo's represent.

I do think the fact that the site was a website hoster as opposed to a fic hoster did align with the way the Japanese fandom was more "creator focused" and embraced the media mix more. There were "fic circles" a la doujin circles who made their own pages, people would make fanart, fan video games, and so own to host alongside it, and all of it was centralized to the creator; it made following them-as-a-person just a little bit easier. Most websites were simple text, but others did have the full Geocities experience:

Something that was somewhat common were basic visual novel concepts where the reader could make choices, or even insert their own name so they would be the "MC" of the story:

(Dream novels are in fact their own thing in Japan) My understanding is the site was quite popular through the 2000's and into the 2010's, though over time the "cellphone novel" as a concept fizzled out. People got smartphones, more people got PCs, and the constraints didn't make sense anymore - you can read ebooks and normal websites on your phone now after all. You can probably draw a line between these kind of stories and the webfiction/light novel boom of the late 2000's/2010's, something that was equally born on the internet, that streamlines the novel to "shortcut to the good stuff" but without the need to fit on a flip phone's screen. Though I will admit my own understanding of their histories shows them more as two sides of the same "youth demand for new literature" coin.

In 2017 Forest Page launched Forest Page Plus, a new service fully optimized for the smartphone era; but it did not transfer over all the old content, starting the clock ticking on the original Forest Page. My understanding is that in June they announced Forest Page was officially closing down; and from what I have gathered from reminiscing writers on twitter, they did not provide any easy, one-touch way to save any of the content, so people are archiving Wayback Machine links or sharing tips on how screenshot-save stories (I think the rub is they gave people a way to transfer content to FP+, but most don't want to do that, as places like Twitter & Pixiv are the content kings of this era).

As of tomorrow I would bet the large majority of the content will be gone; quite sad given both the quantity of stories there and how many got sometimes millions of readers. I am sure most of the biggest stories are archived at least, but particularly the early stuff was a very ephemeral genre, one that doesn't make sense to revisit once you aren't a 16 year old teen writing and reading fics on a flip phone in between classes. Which means another legion of the ghosts of the Wired is being born today. May we pour one out for a fellow online community that lived and died!

[if-whats-new]

What's New In IF? Issue 16 (2024)

By Erika, Marjorie, Axelle, and Noi

Now Available!

Itch.io. - Keep Reading below

Want to learn a neat fun fact? Check out the itch.io version ;)

Note: Due to the links limit per post (100), some links included in the zine won't appear in this version. It is, however, on both the PDF and .txt versions on itch.

~ EDITORIAL ~

Extra, you say?

We had a blast this week talking to Catsket, an incredibly talented VN creator who “sat down” with us to answer every little questions we had! We got to see a little bit of their surreal world, learn more about how they work, and more! Heartfelt thanks to Catsket, for taking the time! So check out our Small Talk… with Catsket!

Of course, this issue can't be Extra without, well… something extra! Since we announce the changes with the zine, opening it up to your suggestions, and your input, someone actually took us up on our offer and submitted a short essay. So this week, we didn't just get a really neat interview, we also get to officially open… The Column! ~

And this week again, a bunch of releases and updates to check out!

We hope you enjoy this extra long issue!

ERIKA, MARJORIE, AXELLE, AND NOI

~ BE PART OF THE ZINE ~

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? HAS EXPANDED!

Since the release of issue #14, we've enacted some changes with the zine. It is now expanded with interviews of creators from all around the IF world, as well as direct contributions from you, our readers!

THIS ZINE ONLY HAPPENS WITH YOU!

Want to write 1-2 pages about a neat topic, or deep-dive into a game and review it in details? Share personal experiences or get all academic?

WRITE FOR THE COLUMN!

Prefer to be more low-key but still have something to share? Send us a Zine Letter or share a game title for Highlight on…!

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Excited as we are about next week's interview and have questions for our guest? Or want to see a certain author answer questions next? Message us!

SMALL TALK... IS WAITING!

Came across something interesting? Know a release or an update announced? Saw an event happening? Whether it's a game, an article, a podcast… Add any IF-related content to our mini-database!

EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS!

Contact us through Tumblr asks, Forum DMs, or even by email! And thank you for your help!!

~ EVENT SPOTLIGHT : Single Choice Jam ~

Only One Choice, and that's it!

The Single Choice Jam is a month-long unranked yearly jam with a gameplay restriction: entries can only give ONE single choice to the player through the whole playthrough.

Whether it is at the start, in the middle, or in the end - if it's even there at all! - the point of the jam is to find a fun way to restrict the player's agency to its utmost limit!

Open to all forms of Interactive Fiction, the Single Choice Jam makes allowance for those different formats: for parsers, it's all about actionable verbs in coded rooms; while for hyperlinks/choice, the count to keep track is in the selectable options!

If you are looking to try out the Interactive medium, this is the perfect avenue to start with the kinetic format or limited branching (only one choice)!

And if you are still unsure about what to do, there are plenty of inspiration to be found in the previous edition of the jam.

~ ENDED ~

The results of the ParserComp were released this week! Congratulations to the winners!

Also ended this week was the Decker Fantasy Camp where a bunch of creators made some really cool things with Decker!

And the chill unranked jam of the Interactive Fiction Club ended last weekend. There are nine short entries to try out!

~ ONGOING (VOTING) ~

You can now check out the entries submitted to the IntroComp and vote for your favorite demo!

~ ONGOING (SUBMITTING) ~

Do you understand or write Ukrainian? Until the end of the year, the Ukrainian IF Festival is happening on itch.io! But there are only just this weekend left for the VN version of this jam!

For those who created an intent to participate at the IFComp, you have until the end of the month to submit a full game… or wait for next year! (Or you can look our for beta-openings, create an account to vote when the games are released, or offer prizes!) @ifcomp

Happening and ending this weekend is a short horror jam about the “murderboys”. If you have male OCs that want to kill… maybe go submit!

For the francophones, the French IF community is organizing a summer-long camp to create parsers. Join the Confiture de Parser if you're interested!

Ending in about a month, is the summer-long unranked SuNoFes Jam (Summer Novel Festival), where you can only submit one IF/VN game!

Until mid-August, you can participate in the 82th edition of the Bitsy Jam. The theme this month is: INTENTIONALLY BAD~!

Looking for motivation to try your hands at Visual Novels? The Phantasia Jam just started, and will run until Halloween! Three months to create a fantasy VN, with the theme of “Hidden Magic”.

On the CoG Forum, Halloween has already started! From now until Oct 31st, submit to the Halloween Jam - it has funky themes!

~ OTHER ~

Over on the IntFiction Forum, the Review-a-thon is continuing its initiative to get more reviews for games. Check out this post by Tabitha if you want to participate! This is also a sponsored event, aiming to raise funds for one of the Forum members.

The Interactive Fiction Showcase is still running! If you have completed an IF piece this year, consider submitting it! It is happening only on itch!

SMALL TALK…

WITH CATSKET (@catskets / @artwithoutblood - Itch.io)

Joining us today is Alien catgirl, prolific author, and community leader: Catsket Author of the “Art Without Blood” multi-media series.

Links included in this interview were not included due to the Tumblr links limits. Please download the itch.io version!

⟶ Hello Catsket, and thank you for sitting down with us!

Thank you so much for giving me a chair. I usually have to sit on a pile of bones or even my own tail, which starts to hurt after a while.

⟶ Shall we start by telling us a bit more about yourself and how you found the IF medium?

I'm Catsket, a self-proclaimed alien vampire catgirl. I started making amateur visual novels when I was in high school. I played a horror one when I was 15 that I thought was so bad that I felt compelled by some unknown force to try to make one that was better. I'm not sure if I've succeeded yet, but it ended up sending me on a path to get a bachelor's degree in game design that I proudly earned last year!

I took a narrative design class in college and my professor was very into interactive fiction. We had to play Plundered Hearts for a game history class. That's what did it, really. I had to do a podcast episode about Zork, write an IF adaptation of The King in Yellow, and make presentations on text adventure romance, among other things.

I do visual novels primarily because I started out as an artist and through writing them, I learned that I loved to write. But I delve into shorter text-based pieces as well from time to time. I just can't stop putting silly, dithered doodles into everything I make. Sorry, mom.

⟶ Do you think having this game/narrative design background shaped the way you create? Would you recommend this path to aspiring IF authors?

I feel that going through the process of getting a game design degree helped me solidify myself. What I wanted to create, what genres I wanted to hit, and even how to market myself. The most important part of it was teaching me how to manage my time and how to allow myself to enter the process of imperfect iteration and fast prototyping just to say I finished something. When you're first learning to make games or even IF, you need to make smaller projects so you can find yourself and your own ability around your schedule.

I found my formal education to be useful for historical purposes and for finding connections. I learned a lot about games and development that I was not able to thanks to access to a games and games magazine library. But I think that unless you're truly game-ifying your creations that a formal education in game design is not necessary. Learning about puzzle design obviously will help with writing puzzles. What will really teach you, though, is through thinking across the disciplines. Play some IF, read some books, play a few video games, watch a few movies. Allow yourself to become a light that touches all cornerstones of media.

⟶ On itch, you have released over 30 narrative games. Can you tell us a bit more about your body of work?

30 already? I'm not even keeping count.

My body of work is primarily surreal and melancholy. I wouldn't really call a large body of my work horror games, but they're in-between of awake and asleep that makes the whole thing very dreamy and like a big dissociation when playing. It's a sort of “oh, this is weird, but everyone else thinks it's normal, so I should…try to pretend that it is?” You're kind of like an outsider to all of these people and worlds, even if you're playing as someone deeply set into them. There's text-based stuff, there's visual novel, there's narrative RPG Maker game, whatever I'm able to do. I'm not a good programmer, but I sure as hell can bullshit, which is the primary reason why my work has settled into IF or VN.

⟶ You’ve even described your work as “melancholy, surreal, dialogue-driven”. What influenced you to have such dark vibes in your games?

Of course! My inspirations are hard to pin down, even for myself. I was mostly inspired by my experiences as a teenager when I played games or watched online content that I was way too young to be watching. I'm really into weird ambient and industrial music (Svarte Greiner, Broadcast, Gazelle Twin) and have been, in the past two years, immersed myself in the musical and visual world of Kristin Hayter (Lingua Ignota and Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter). My dad used to read to me old C.S. Lewis books. My favorite video games ever made are Bloodborne and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Event Horizon is my favorite movie. I was never a Christian, but I witnessed what the thorns of religion did to my friends and my family.

I write in a stream of consciousness (whoops!) and that's part of why it's so dreamy. I barely edit, and I write down whatever comes from my dreams. I just find it easier to write about the dark rather than happy things. Plus, romance is boring if there is no blood. To me, at least. What's a girl to do?

⟶ Are your first drafts often your final drafts, then? Can you tell us a bit more about how a lambda Catsket project happens?

More times than not, the first draft is the final one with minimal edits or huge revisions. It's how I've adapted as an artist in the capitalist machine. This necessity to make quick projects for relevancy or otherwise to make a living. Or it's game jams and competitions that have me making stuff quickly. It's unfortunate, but it's how we have to adapt sometimes. These are the desolate wastes, after all.

I get inspired a lot by jams and competitions! But what inspires those entries is usually previous inspirations mentioned above, spite, or my love for characters from other media. Everything we make is an iteration upon something we already love or hate. We are an accumulated mass made up of every experience we have ever had, from something as fast as a scroll or a deeply traumatic memory. It's hard to parse particular events.

I usually start out by writing a majority of the script in a single fever dream or drawing all of the art without realizing it. I'm not the biggest planner, it's very much a straight shot from start to finish. If I leave something alone for even a day, I never return to it. I get caught up in another project. It's the focus that gets it from a concept onto any platform. Anything that I took a break on I have not returned to.

⟶ Every one of your characters feels so unique, both in design and how they speak. How do you make them all so distinct, and write such natural, flowy dialogue?

I really wish I had good advice for writing characters or writing dialogue. Part of it is just building who they are as a person. I like to parade off of interactions with people I've had in real time. Always reread your work, not just in your head but out loud. You normally get the kinks out, and you might be able to rewrite it to sound more like something a person would actually say. I have certain words I use for certain characters or other cadences. That's really how I go about it. Remember everything your character has ever experienced and package it into how they present now. That's my best way to say it. It might not be helpful, but I feel it just comes with practice! <3

⟶ That is very sound advice. Do you think using voice acting in your projects helps you with the flow and cadence?

It does help, definitely! But, to be honest, I hate having voice acting in my work. Now, hold on!

I love the voice actors I've been using for my projects. But I have this crazy anxiety when I hear people reading my work out loud or reading written work as my characters. It squicks me out, and I almost start panicking! I usually need the help of a friend or the voice actor themselves to parse through the voice lines they did and implement them into games. They're all very skilled and amazing voice actors! It's just a struggle. I'm trying to get over the stage fright, but even if you're confident in your work, it doesn't mean that you're free.

⟶ Returning to character design, how do you make them and, since many appear in multiple games, ensure they fit in any story?

Can I answer with “have a bitchin' Pinterest board”?

Designing characters, whether through visuals or just through text, is something I feel I'm not really strong with, so I fake it by tying them to limited color schemes. Every character of mine, if you look closely, is just black and white with a single color splash. I'm really inspired by obscure styles and high fashion, but I try not to bring the pretentiousness that fashion can harbor.

Just scrape together a mood board. Think of whether or not you'd see these characters you're making in a long line somewhere in NYC. Imagine going up to them and asking them what they're in line for?

This is a signing for an ambient noise artist's third studio album release, they're charging me $30 to sign a cassette and ask him what his favorite color is. This is a clothing pop up for a thrift store that specializes in band tour shirts from the 80s that have coffee stains in the pits. This is a line for a popular Chinese mobile game to earn plastic by participating in a hide and seek game.

It's genuinely a question I ask! Pick the colors, combine outfits you find online (and in your own closet), and imagine where you'd see them. It ties together their personality too.

⟶ Is there a particular fashion trend or period that inspires you the most? Or are your characters wearing an amalgam of everything?

Like in style of literature, I also love all sorts of gothic fashion (trad, vampire, romantic, etc). Also ouji and lolita fashion. Sometimes whatever characters in horror games and movies wear, because damn, it's stylish! I'm inspired by a lot of fashion from the 60s and 70s and wished I liked colors enough to wear it as well. I need my characters to look like they just slipped on a banana peel and fell into the bins of a thrift store. I lived in New York City for college. People wear amazing things. I used to write down what people would wear or try to sketch them in hopes of using the experiences of real people to create characters. Reality is reflected in fiction.

⟶ Returning to your games, a majority of your output is part of the Art without Blood series. What is the reason behind this series of narrative bites?

Art Without Blood is my main universe, meant to be a dream world of magical realism and whatever horrors come to me at 4 in the morning. My tagline for it is “demons, decay, and everything in-between”. It has vampires, it has demons, it has mermaids, and, more importantly, it has humanoids, born from the ancient centipedes, that live in caverns in Northern Canada who wear religious masks made of chitin to conceal their inhuman facial features.

The main game in the “series”, which I just realized a day 0 demo of, is about trying to cure yourself of an eldritch disease that will lead to your body becoming a breeding ground for sentient eyeballs. They'll line your innards and spill onto your skin and infect anyone who even gazes upon them. You can cure it, or the beings that gave it to you can give you their solutions, each of which may be far worse than death.

I found it was just easy to tie them all together. Similar themes, similar aesthetics (reds, pinks, and black slapped together with a pattern dither under 32 colors), similar engines, and similar music. I find a way to fit it into the universe to create a unified body of work. It's easier to host a bunch of games on one Tumblr/Twitter/etc than make a new one for every game.

Plus, it's fun to connect everything together! There's a piece of a game in each one that connects it to the other until it's that picture of Charlie Day in the mail room, cigarette in his hand, eyes wide and red, with his hand against a conspiracy board he made until his body forced him to sleep.

⟶ Your program of predilection seems to be Ren'Py. What about this system that attracted you the most over other IF programs? Would you recommend it?

I've never been very good at programming. I wish I was. I don't know what a for-loop is. Ren'py always advertised itself as a very easy-to-use visual novel engine, and I agree. It's minimal code until you get into UI, minigames, or five million variables. It's definitely a great programmer for beginner VN developers, and the NVL [novel] mode can be really helpful for writing more traditional text-based IF, as it allows longer paragraphs and presents itself, well, like a novel. You can put pretty pictures in the background, adjust your CPS [character per second], easily put in music…all to further immerse yourself. It's easy, and there are hundreds of tutorials and resources on the Lemma Soft forums, on itch.io, and in other places.

I've also done a few Decker and Twine IF projects (ex: A Description of the Newest Sculpture in the Gallery and Photographs from the Summer of 1987), but Decker's replication of Hypercard rarely fits my visions, and Twine's CSS makes me want to eat a rock or two. Maybe ten. Maybe one hundred. Plus, I end up adding art to everything! I'm sorry, there's a monster in my blood that moves my hand to do so! It's just easy to do in Ren'py.

⟶ You've done a couple of games with other creators (like La Terreur sur Roue). How does making games with a team compared with solo work compare? Do you prefer one over the other?

I think there's this thought process that lots of indie devs have that if they do not do everything by themselves that they are not worthy of the title of indie dev, solo dev, whatever you want to call it. But even a lot of the “solo” developers that people look up to had to get a little help from their friends. That's okay. So, I prefer to work “alone”, but I'm not really working alone. I need the help of my audio peeps, even if my projects are universally recognized as just Catsket. I have the input of my friends and my community. I don't feel like I'm really alone.

A lot of people fear group work. They don't want to lose the creative control that they think they have, feel like their work will get recognized but the face behind the work will not. I think that's what the grace of IF is to a lot of writers. Most of it is done solo. I understand that sentiment, but you can't do it all on your own. It's okay to ask for help.

Also, I did university doing group game projects. It sucked.

⟶ Are there creators you absolutely adore working with?

A majority of my work is just Zack Valence and I, but I really think the folks working over at Snacktime Games are great. I've worked with them on My Burning Passion, which was our joke Global Game Jam entry, as well as a few unreleased prototypes. We do regular group coworking calls, and the work they're doing is amazing. Their newest game, Signal Creek, follows three individuals facing the past in an abandoned mall. It's a narrative adventure game being made in Godot, and it's awesome so far!

⟶ Which game you've published so far do you like the most and why?

10:16 is easily my favorite. It's rough around the edges, but it was the project that helped solidify Zack Valence as a contributor to all of my projects. He's a fantastic musician and voice actor, and initially he just wanted to do music. But then he realized that Dorian, the main “antagonist” was a couple eons-old freak, so he came into my DMs and said something along the lines of “y'know how all really old characters in fantasy series are British? Yeah, and I'm a British voice actor. Let me in” or something like that. Since then, he's been helping me with music, voice acting, and other audio needs. He's fantastic if you ever need some voices or tunes for your work!

It also just I think perfectly encapsulates my work. Random goth man that people mistake for a woman. A dark, desolate space in-between the living and the dead. There is nothing chasing you, but there's something underlying that will gnaw at the chain around your neck. A feeling of dread in a strange world that acts so normal. I still love the art I did for it, and it's one of my most well-known! It was an absolute joy to write and put together. I think it's a great starting off point.

⟶ Speaking of Zack Valence, he is not just prominent in your work, but his work was a requirement for audio-inclusive entries for the Zack Jam. How did that jam come to be? And why this requirement?

The Discord community for Art Without Blood realized that we had multiple original characters with Zack-adjacent names. Zack, Zechariahs, Z, and Zachary were just a few. We thought: “why not just…I don't know, make a jam where your main character must be a Zack?” The jam was a blast to host, because Zack Valence made a few original tracks to be used only for the Zack jam. It was super fun, and I hope to host it again every January!

⟶ This is not the only jam you've organized over the past year. Can you tell us how you got into organizing game jams?

Yes! I love hosting game jams. It's my way of giving people an incentive to start working on something. Give them a theme, give them a deadline, and give them some hope. Some great stuff is made when you just give people a limit. If they don't have that, they'll be forever in the clouds. I grew increasingly frustrated with a subset of the visual novel community roleplaying being a developer without pushing something completed out. Even if it's small, it's still a game, and that's what matters. You need to start by making small games. Make sure they're polished, but do not lament if they are shitty.

Earlier this year was the Bluebeard Jam, which was inspired by a conversation I had with Sophia de Augustine about recurring Bluebeard themes in interactive fiction. The entries were mostly text IF, but we also received some really creative games, including a VR game, a journaling game, and a notebook format.

Hosted alongside Omegabutton and KnickKnack PJ were the Worst Visual Novel Ever Challenge and Fix The Worst Visual Novels! Jam events. The idea came from a Twitter post. You make a really, really bad VN, and then you iterate on either your own project or another's in a second part to make it better. We got some absolute gems. It's unfortunate that the fix-it jam didn't receive as many participants, but I understand why. It's more fun to make bad things than to go back and repair your mistakes. There's more shock factory and more wow if you make something purposefully bad. It'll sometimes get you more clicks. Plus, it's easier.

By the time this edition releases, the Murderboy Mayhem 2024 jam will be near its end. It's a simple premise: write a murderous boy as your focal point. The first time we ran this, most of the entries were done by people who had never made a game before.

Upcoming, we have the Tales to Thrill jam that I'm hosting alongside Epykslion, Espoir du Vide, and HelloYinny. It's a three-week visual novel jam where writers can choose one of three themes to incorporate into a story. Very simple yet very effective.

The themes usually come out of thin air. Pull them out of a hat and toss the bunny out.

⟶ Many of these jams include a link to the Sacred Veins community. Can you tell us a bit more about it? How did this server come to be and why did you create it?

I had been in servers previously that were for IF and visual novels that said they were developer-centric, but the ratio was more like 30 fans to every 1 developer. It was sort of stuffy. People tried being parasocial or attaching themselves to have “big friends” in an insanely niche genre.

Sacred Veins is a play on one of my favorite maps in Identity V, the Sacred Heart Hospital. It has all of this pretty Catholic imagery, but what we do is nothing of the sort. It's an 18+ space for upcoming and new developers of narrative games. Many are writing VNs, but there's also lots of IF creators, physical game writers, and other creatives. The ethos is that we want to make stories no matter what pen or pencil we wield. It's great, because we can all be fans of each other's work while also respecting the boundaries. We help each other out, share resources, and playtest for one another. Sacred Veins is where I try to hold monthly game jams. Sometimes it has to be every other month to make way for some of the bigger comps (IFcomp, Spooktober, etc).

There's lots of spaces for developers, but there aren't a lot for the weirdos wanting to make something grimy. Or maybe something very self-indulgent. Sacred Veins is for that.

⟶ Are you part of other creative communities that are similar to Sacred Veins that you enjoy?

Besides professional spaces for career development, I really love hanging around Neo-Interactives. Everyone is super nice, and I think joining their community and getting to know everyone there is an absolute treat.

⟶ Many of your own games were created through game jams, with a few submitted to competitions. Have there been differences in the way you experience ranked and unranked events?

Not at all! I don't enter ranked events for the desire to place. I treat it the same as an unranked competition. I ended up winning Velox Formido without realizing it was a ranked competition!

I might put in a bit more polish and effort, but I fear if I try entering from a competitive standpoint that I'll be anxious and constantly comparing myself to other individuals. What matters most to me is that I made something, and I enjoyed making it.

⟶ We talked about your inspirations when it came to writing and art, but are there any IF/VN games you would recommend to our readers?

Helpmeet Beneath the Skylight is a game that I am genuinely surprised no one has played. There's only 7 reviews on itch.io, but it might single handedly be the most important to my work. It's part IF and part 3D exploration but nonetheless a narrative story about “parlours, pretences, and parasites”.

I also love a lot of stuff coming out of the DOMINO CLUB collective, but Dust Breeding might be my favorite.

Shoutout to a bunch of Bitsy games here, including houserot, UNDER A STAR CALLED SUN, and Mr. Rainer's Solve-it Service, which combines Twine with embedded Bitsy games.

⟶ How'd you come up with “catsket” as your username?

The username was given to me by an old friend after brainstorming something macabre and feline-related. I already knew that my whole aesthetic was going for something dark with splashes of vampires and Victorian waifs who haunt old homes in New England. Catsket was the pun we came up with. It's kind of awful, though, because my phone now autocorrects “casket” to “catsket” and it's embarrassing.

⟶ What are you working on currently? What can we expect next from you? And where can we follow this progress?

I'm currently working on Day 1 of Art Without Blood, whose progress you can follow on Tumblr (@artwithoutblood). This will be the last free update. Days 2-7 will be paid. I have a few side projects that are manifesting when I'm not being obsessed with Pressure by Urbanshade: Hadal Division. Hopefully, I can get to my 3D game about dreams and the IF alternate universe to 10:16.

[ Catsket is and will be hosting a few game jams. ]

⟶ Finally, if you could give one single advice to future creators, what would it be?

Just make shit. It's blunt, it's a bit crude, but just make things. They don't have to be good. Just make stuff! And have fun! Don't do things you don't want to do.

HUGE THANKS TO CATSKET FOR LETTING US SPAM THEM WITH MESSAGES THIS WEEK!

~ NEW RELEASE ~

and don't forget to floss (Twine) is a short game about the pressure we put on ourselves.

Clothes Commissar (Twine) lets you play as a woman who aims to raise the American clothing standards in 1934.

MetaMori (Ren’Py) is a game about death and helping ghosts find peace.

My Name is (not) Alice (Twine) is a horror game where you are forced to play games to escape your captor.

Try Losing One (Unity) is an emotional visual novel about breakups.

Three Days (Twine) is a creepy short game where your path crosses a Banshee.

PLEASE THE EMPLOYERS (GDEVELOP) is a short strategy game where you play a new boss trying to keep it all together.

You're at a party (Ink) is an interactive exploration of queer relationships. Website:

Catherine Pendant la Saint Barthelemy (Twine) is an historical retelling of the massacre through Catherine de Médicis's POV.

Halls of Sorcery (CScript) is the last Hosted Games release, set in medieval fantasy.

Saint Ceri (Unity) is a romance VN where you are a saintess for the Deity of love with a non-existent love life. @maneki-mushi

Un dernier coup de fil (Ink) is the game version of an interactive play, which was performed at the CNAM ENJMIN Angoulême in 2023.

Tempus Libertatis (CScript) is a fantasy game where you control a common person experiencing grueling periods of conflict.

Lull of the Sea (Twine) is a fantasy adventure game where you play a champion tasked to hunt and defeat the Seaborn.

A Story in Letters (Twine) is a slice-of-life puzzle prototype, dealing with death, grief and how we talk about the ones we lost.

Butterfly//Circuit (Ren’Py) is a cybergothic dystopian psychological thriller where nothing is truly as it seems. @wiregrrrl

As always, don't forget to check out the submitted entries to the events mentioned in the previous pages. They deserve some love too!

~ NEW RELEASE (WIP) ~

The Kill Petition (Twine) is a dark comedy intrigue project, where you play a prosecutor in a very unusual law system. @thekillpetition-if

Peninsula Campain (CScript) is the sequel to First Bull Run, set during the eponymous American Civil War campaign of 1826.

The Bakshi Family (CScript) is a comedic slice-of-life inspired by the sitcom Full House.

Vestiges of the Hallowing (Twine) is a fantasy mystery project where you investigate strange murders, with your unique condition. @buttercupfiction

Excellent Cadavers (Twine) is a crime focused project set in the 70s. @darkfictionjude

A Crown of Ash (Twine) is the expansion of the Neo-Twiny entry of the same name, involving a gay arranged marriage trope. @a-crown-of-ash-if

Only Flesh and Blood (Ren’Py) is a Call of Duty inspired visual novel with dark themes. @gauloiseblue Website:

O, Your Heavenly Stars! (Twine) lets you play an actor during Hollywood's Golden Age. @darkfictionjude

Starways Saga (CScript) is a sci-fi project where your goal is to become a space pilot.

~ GAMES UPDATES ~

Reaper's Bay (Twine) has updated the Patreon demo. @reapersbayif

Wake to weep (CScript) added extra content to the demo.

Birds of a Rose (CScript)'s demo includes extra routes. @reinekes-fox

The Second Sight (CScript) updated the Patreon demo with Chapter 5. @spoiledblogif

The Brightest Star (CScript) added Chapter 2 to the demo. @brightest-stars-if

Ordinor Ultor (Twine) added a lot of new content with the new update. @ordinorultor-if

The Good People (Na Doine Maithe) (Ren’Py) uploaded the new demo. @moiraimyths

Fellow Traveler (Twine) completed Episode 2 of the demo. @robotvampire

HYDRANGEA (Ren’Py) updated the game to include voice acting. @meidenzone

As the Ocean lures (Twine) added Chapter 2 to the demo. @aurelim Website:

Saturnine (CScript) updated the demo with Chapter 11. @satur9-if

Remember, You will Die (CScript) added a fourth chapter to the demo.

Trouble Brewing (Twine) added Chapter 5 to the demo. @troublebrewing-if

Shepherd of Haven (CScript) updated the Patreon demo with new routes. @shepherds-of-haven

The Ascendent (CScript) added extra content to the demo. Website:

Era of the Archdemon (CScript) has completed Chapter 3.

Katewing's Adventure (CScript) is looking for beta-testers for feedback on the rewrites.

Prismatic (CScript) added a second chapter to the demo. @prismaticif

The Game of War (CScript) updated the demo with extra content. Website:

Eschaton: The Rebirth (CScript) has completed Shiva's route in Chapter 2.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (CScript) made Chapter 5.2 public. @doriana-gray-games

The One Chosen (CScript) added Chapter 31 to the demo. @parrotwatcher

Obsolete Stars (CScript) added extra content to the demo. @obsolete-stars-if

~ OTHER ~

The new issue of the Amare Fortnightly Bulletin is out! If you're looking for Amare games, check out issue 21! @amaregames

If you are interested in reading academic writing about narration and interactive fictions, but find 300+ pages dissertations overwhelming, Josh Grams wrote down some notes on Stacey Mason's Responsiveness in Narrative Systems.

BURN THE MIDNIGHT OIL (Ren’Py) is looking for a programmer (paid work). Find more about it here. @foxglovegames

Honor Bound (CScript) has moved to its revision period, and is looking for as much feedback on the pre-released chapters as possible ahead of the official beta. @hpowellsmith

~

As always, we apologize in advance for missing any update or release from the past week. We are only volunteers using their limited free time to find as much as we can - but sometimes things pass through the cracks.

If you think something should have been included in this week's zine but did not appear, please shoot us a message! We'll do our best to add it next week! And if you know oncoming news, add it here!

~ I created games for myself but… ~

It’s been three years. Three years since I deleted my dev account and removed everything I posted about my games. To the best of my ability, I deleted my presence from the internet, one day, without notice.

And not one day passes by without feeling relief. A strange thing to admit, maybe, but nonetheless true.

It's been long enough that people have stopped trying to contact me. I'm now only passing mentions and a mystery - which is more than I deserve…

Seeing cries from readers wanting closure from incomplete projects kind of prompted me to write this. I hope understanding is what people take from this column.

~

I used to create narrative games, mainly short ones, mostly text only. I found this community by chance, really, while trying to find writing groups for more traditional formats. The interactivity aspect seemed fun, and my creativity grew to a whole new level. People were supportive and there was this cool sense of comradery - all of us n the trenches, trying to figure out this medium (and ourselves).

Over the years, the community expanded and changed - as every group does. And I saw less and less of myself within it. By the end, I almost despised it. Or more that I despised what I had become.

So I deleted everything.

~

When it came to this point, I had been frustrated for a long while, and realized the toll it had had on myself and my relationships with both other members of the community and my own projects. I was frustrated with my writing style, my capabilities to tell the stories I wanted to share, but most of all… I couldn't handle the (lack of) responses anymore.

I honestly never thought any of this would ever affect me. I had learnt early on about traditional publishing that getting any kind of return about your work is pretty abysmal. And it was with this care-free attitude that I started making games: I didn't need anything but my words and my scrapped-together code.

For a long time, I didn't understand other creators talking at length about their struggles, how they had troubles staying motivated or cared so deeply about what others said about their projects.

I'd roll my eyes at them when they would complain specifically about not getting comments or messages about their games, thinking they were just not as passionate about making things as I was, or making excuses for their lack of progress.

In retrospect, I didn't understand because I was still finding joy, then, in what I was doing. I could write what I wanted without problems, I liked what I was working on, and found any problem fun to solve! The simple act of creating was enough for me.

So I'd just do my own thing, write what I wanted, tell the stories fighting in my mind, throw them out into the web wilderness, and essentially forget about them. And that worked for me for the longest time.

Only… that attitude was starting to become a problem. Though I would keep all these feelings bottled up, since I felt too superior about myself to start this kind of drama, I still started to resent others. In their vulnerable state, they bravely and openly admitted what I was afraid of even admitting to myself.

Instead, I blindly prided myself with the adages: “I create for myself”, “I don't care for numbers” and “It's all just for the vibes”. I wore my disdain for those who chased any kernel of appreciation like a badge of honor on my cocky chest, often delighting internally in seeing others struggling. I made it all part of my identity as a creator.

The carefree attitude I displayed, the lack of compassion I privately had towards other, this… “superior” sense of self I had… all of this only simply hid my insecurities, all the troubles I had with my own work that I kept ignoring. Lies I told myself to cover any glimmers of hardship.

A cowardly and destructive way to deal with my emotions. Though, less cowardly than other insecure authors who would send each other hate with sockpuppets. At least, I kept all this to myself.

As much as I touted that I didn't care about it all… I would often catch myself staring at analytics, checking them more and more regularly, refreshing the page for notifications, comparing my abysmal responses to the newer and more popular authors.

So I struggled for a long while with this dissonance within myself, pushing forward this nonchalant and carefree image of myself, while suppressing this deep desire of being vocally perceived by others - not like I accepted this as a need of mine at the time.

And that reflected in my creative process. I would swear at myself for making even the smallest of mistakes in my first drafts. I started deleting sound projects, ones I used to be excited about, because of minor details that would bug me, believing those to be the reason why my games weren't good enough to warrant a reaction. That I wasn't good enough to warrant a glance.

~

The moment where it all shifted for me was during a competition, in which I had not only done poorly but someone who had looked up to me until then, whom I supported in their creative endeavors, took a top spot in the ranking. While I was getting eviscerated in the comments, they were showered with praise. What should have been a celebration, seeing my pupil shining so brightly, so deservingly, became utterly sour to me.

I sat in front of the screen for many hours in complete disbelief - not just about my failures, but my reaction to the whole thing. It was the cold shower, the hard look into the mirror, the rude awakening I needed. And I broke down, disgusted in myself.

~

It shouldn't be a surprise to read that I had burnt out by then. I was pushing myself to the absolute of my limits, hanging on by a thread, while I stupidly forced myself to keep up with this charade.

I wasn't happy anymore. In truth, I hadn't been in a long time. The lies I told myself to keep the ball rolling no matter what had come back running, and were taking a big toll on me. And I was unwilling to see…

Even if I kept saying I was “creating for myself”, this was actually just the half of it. Let's be honest here, no one putting their work out there just “create for themselves” - if they truly did, they wouldn't feel the need to share it with the world. No, instead, they'd just create, put it in a drawer or on a shelf, and that would be the end of it.

We might create for ourselves, but really, we share our work with others. For the simple and small reason of trying to create some sort of connection with them. No matter the medium, we share our crafts to invoke a reaction, to make people stop for a second and feel something (good or bad, it doesn't matter).

Of course, we all share our work for different reasons, whether it is to be seen and perceived, to make people think, to educate them, to reassure them, to make them feel nostalgic or maybe hopeful. But it still results in creating that connection, between the creator and the user. That intangible and ephemeral link between two strangers, unknowingly tied for just a moment with that piece, never knowing of the other's feelings.

Of course, quite a few users will take a moment and share their feelings about the work, through numerical ratings, short or lengthy comments, full-on reviews, or even sending the work to others. Making in turn that connection more real and less ephemeral.

We rejoice when this happen, full of glee when someone points out a detail or connects the dots, molt from the warmth of happiness when others rave about our craft, beaming with pride when its value is recognized. We feel seen, perceived, and maybe even a bit understood.

It is this connection that keep us, whether we like it or not, to work on our craft, to strive to do better, to grow as creators. The hope that maybe one person will experience our work and be like: “I get it, and I see you.”

It is incredibly rewarding to have even strangers acknowledge your existence as a creator, praise the efforts put into the craft, see the value in what you are doing and making sure you know it is being noticed. Even if you don't expect any engagement.

Though, oftentimes, it is with utter and complete silence that our craft is met. Even when posting in the right channels and using the correct tips and tricks, many creators end up screaming into the void.

Of course, we should probably not expect engagement, as rewards for our efforts, expect people to enjoy something because we are passionate about it (though it does show), expect some stroke of luck that the algorithm will pick up our project and not another, that a reblog chain will go through that one influencing party and blow up. Popularity is as fickle as it is unpredictable.

But managing your expectations, and even more your own dicey emotions and feelings is not an painless task either. You can't really stop yourself from feelings things (not like you should try…)

And it's quite easy to be swept up by the shining promises of one-off successes when it is all you can see - failure is ever so present but hides in the shadow, waiting for your eventual arrival. Sensible expectations are hard to make when you can't see the “normal”.

It can be very lonely creating things, even if you don't expect people to interact with your work. Even when part of a community that you engage with regularly, it's not really fun to have conversation (via your craft) when you are the only contributor. Monologues are, after a while, really boring.

~

I didn't throw away everything just after that ranked event. As bitter as I was about it all, I didn't want to be seen as some sort of bad loser who can't handle it. Even though I was and couldn't. I was tempted for a while, to burn all the bridges and drop out, but chickened out at the last moment.

Instead, I took a long break first, to reflect on all the years spent in the community, my contribution to it, and my work. It was bittersweet to go down memory lane, see my first interaction with the community. It was also so striking how everything had changed…

It was actually during that time that I played my own work, for the first time for most of them.

Through it, I saw myself. The good. The less-than-good. And the increasingly ugly. It was becoming all the more obvious that what had transpired within me, the change that happened, was right there, in my words. The excitement turned bitter, the love to hate. I could not believe who I had become: at best, a shell of myself… but that would be too kind still.

Thus, I decided to quit. I had tainted enough of myself and my enjoyment of the craft to stay and repair what I had broken - I felt too far gone to have any chance of salvation. But I just didn't want to just leave it all behind me, I needed everything to be gone. I think I was afraid, somehow, that my “legacy” would be this string of game about growing underlying resentment. It didn't feel right to the space I deserting - they were not the cause of it and didn't deserve the image I painted of them.

And so, three years ago, I deleted my accounts everywhere I had landed, cleared out the games I made, removed all my posts. And just… disappeared.

~

I stayed away from the community, to sort my feelings out. Taking a long break to find myself again. I still don't really enjoy creating anymore - I burnt myself out too strongly. I don't expect I will for a long while still. But I've learnt to deal with my emotions a bit better. It's easier not to resent others when you are not making anything.

While I am still not as present as I used to be (and I don't think I'll ever be as involved again), I have been trying to learn from my experiences and sort of do my part as an enjoyer of narrative games.

In the past, I felt incredibly lonely, even when surrounded by amazing people. I was there, and people knew I was there, but I never really felt seen from the interactions I had with them. So I am trying, in my own ways, to rectify this a bit for others.

It's often not a lot, and I'm sure I don't do it correctly most of the time, but if I can make the day of at least one person with a few words, if I can make them feel seen like I wished I was, then any effort is worth it.

I might have created games for myself, but I shared them with others to form connections. What's the point of craft otherwise?

A FORMER CREATOR

~ HIGHLIGHT ON ~

A couple of games that we thought were cool.

Arcadie: Second Born by Sofia d’Asb @sofia-d-asb (Twine - itch.io - IFDB)

“The game is complex in a way that choices and differences in views with the cast of characters have an impact with your relations to them and the overall ending of the game. It had been nerve-wracking honestly with the varied reactions to choices. Dynamics in the game brought the story's world to life.”

//submitted by WitheredSnow//

VESSELS by CatTrigger @cattrigger (Unity - itch.io - VNDB)

An atmospheric horror micro VN made for the O2A2 jam, where you are tasked with investigating a disappearance in the deep and creepy tunnels of the company. Will you find the truth and make it out alive? A great example of pacing and thrilling build-up with few words.

//recommended by anonymous//

Superluminal Vagrant Twin by C.E.J. Pacian (Inform 7 - itch.io - VNDB)

“Stuck between the limited actions and the seemingly endless travel possibilities, SVT is an incredible journey through the universe. It might be minimalist in gameplay and prose, but it has so much charm and heart. It's an excellent introduction to IF, even with its more experimental aspects. With little… SVT gives you the world.” Transcript: https://www.allthingsjacq.com/intfic_clubfloyd_20190616.html

//submitted by Ergot//

Your favourite game here?

Do you have a favourite game that deserve some highlighting? A old or recent game that wowed you so much you spam it to everyone? Tell us about it! And it might appear here!

WE LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU ALL! WETHER IT'S GOOD OR BAD, OR EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN...

Joey Tanden's interview in the last issue was so interesting! I'd never been interested in all the coding aspect of games, but it was so detailed, yet easy to understand. I didn't know there were so many flavours of text-adventures! - MaudIFStorm

has someone done some sort of drama recap of IF comps? because looking into that withdrawn VN from #14, such juicy tea! and I WANT MOAR! also eyeing the comp now o-o - Dramaramaram

For Rich, Aaron Reed has some game deep dives on his blog. Mathbrush has covered competitions, and Emily Short wrote a general brief history up to 2016. You might also find this article interesting. - ThereIsMoreButICantFindIt

Ey'll think it's so cringe, but it's payback for what ey did when ey celebrated mine hehehe :P I know you're reading this Bôo every SAT, so happy birthday to my little boo <333333 - Lola

this shoutout section is so freaking lovely, yall are so nice and i hope i get to be on there next!!! i'd like to send lots of love to the first author i've followed here and made me love IF: nell of Body Count (@bodycountgame). i hope you're doing well!!! - ApoBody

Reading the zine makes me both happy and sad. I get to check out new stuff, and then remember there's essentially no proper community here… - anonymous

Have something to say? Send us a message entitled: Zine Letter!

Before we end this issue, we would like to thank:

A Former Creator, ApoBody, Dramaramaram, Ergot, Lola, MaudIFStorm, ThereIsMoreButICantFindIt, WitheredSnow, and a bunch of you anonymous users!

For sending news, helpful tips, cool links, filled form, written Sheet line, even emails… all these help us so much to make this Zine possible!

To the wonderful users who sent us cool recommendations, thank you! We will do our best to include them in the next issues!

And as always, huge thanks to all you readers to liked, shared, and commented on last week's issue! What might be tiny actions are huge support and motivators to us! Thank you for cheering us on this journey!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As final parting words, we would like to hint at a major addition a future issue:

Writer, game developer, werewolf enthusiast we'll be talking to Barbara Truelove (@barbwritesstuff) on Small Talk…!

Want to know more about her work? How she came into IF? Or her game dev experiences? Send us all your burning questions!

And see you again next week!

ERIKA, MARJORIE, AXELLE, AND NOI

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? 2024-ISSUE 16

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

savanaclaw light novel: the importance of introspection

I’ve previously discussed how TWST benefits from telling us the same story across different mediums. Different mediums provide different benefits over others, and some can “patch up” rougher bits of story or add more detail to them. The game is interactive and serves as a baseline for most new content. The manga is able to have far more freedom of movement and expression due to being visual-heavy. And last, but not least, a light novel, which is mostly text, has the boon of letting us see more of each character’s thoughts and feelings. We can elaborate on what the game already established and understand the characters on a deeper level.

I would say that the light novel’s format will most benefit the OB boys, as they are the ones who will go through the biggest character arcs in the main story. Because the game’s story is told via mostly dialogue and some sound effects, we rarely, if ever, get a clear understanding of what the OB boys are truly thinking and feeling outside of their brief post-OB flashbacks. The same goes for the manga, which has limited pages to tell its story, so it has to keep a certain pace. But a light novel? Well, you can go ham there with an omniscient narrator.

Today, I want to talk about Leona’s expanded post-OB introspection in the second volume of the light novel as an example of this. Then I will combine it with the information we have from the game and see how the light novel complements what already we know of his character thanks to hindsight. (I’ll be referencing this fan translation if you want to read and follow along!)

First thing’s first! From the game, we know that Leona enrolled in Night Raven College one year late (and then got held back a year, which makes sense considering he is 20 in the main story present). He didn't find a use in attending school since he, by royal birth, was able to afford all the best tutors in the world and didn't think NRC had anything left to teach him. In Leona's Birthday Boy vignettes, he further specifies that he decided to enroll at NRC after Cheka was born. As Leona says in his post-OB flashback in-game, Cheka's birth means "the despised second son loses what little claim he had to the throne forever", essentially putting an end to his hopes. This would imply that this specific change in circumstance was the push that made Leona want to physically distance himself from home. Furthermore, it's supported by Leona's other behaviors: he does not take calls or read letters from home if he can help it (implied by Cheka asking why Leona doesn't answer his letters and Cheka calling on Halloween night to catch up with him; Leona lies and quickly hangs up), he makes excuses to avoid going home (as Kifaji states), etc. If we want to extrapolate even more, how is it that Leona, second born prince, initially crossed paths with Ruggie, who was born and raised in the slums (which, I imagine, must be quite some distance away from the royal palace)? This makes me think that even before Leona enrolled at NRC he would leave his housing and roam around, finding alternative places to stay because home just felt too uncomfortable and suffocating for him. There's also the implication that Leona often brooded over his circumstances, as he confesses to thinking about it and going to NRC to get his mind away from the tired cycle--although he also acknowledges that he's running away from "the pain" of having lost the throne.

The distancing would prove itself to be beneficial to his mental health, as Leona cites that his heart started feeling lighter, his restlessness dulled, and his pain numbed. With the throne out of sight, so, too, was it out of mind, and his longing softened. But that same haunting despair returns when another group starts to place expectations on him. This time, it's no longer the palace servants, but his own dorm members. Instead of fear and derision, his new pack looks at him, their "king", with desperateness--and, more importantly, hope. Speaking about the future with sparkling eyes. That, in turn, made Leona hopeful too. He can't let these people who look up to him and rely on him down, so he must do anything to win. That's all he ever wanted: to win, just this once. No matter what, he wants to win.

But when Leona's plans crumble, that crushing sense of despair rears its ugly head. He fails. And he suddenly understands that all his efforts will always amount to nothing, that they will always be meaningless, that there is no future for him. Leona's hopes have been dashed. He has been struck down by the world once again, just as he had started to climb up, fighting tooth and nail, to prove himself. Yet when defeat came, he also claims it doesn't bother him as much as he thought he would--perhaps because he's so accustomed to not winning, because maybe this is the outcome he had expected all along in the deepest recesses of his heart. That familiar disappointment begins to hurt him once more, and Leona wants to forget it all, to retreat to the shadows and to lick his wounds, to be far away from that pain.

One interesting new detail we glean from the light novel is that Leona is terrified by his dorm mates staring at him with hopeful eyes. It's not their expectations he's inherently scared of, but what those expectations can do to him. Leona is scared of himself, of being motivated by others to act, to never give up hope, when he still anticipates being beat down again and again by a world that rejects him and denies him. He even goes so far as to say he would be pathetic if he let his dorm mates' words inspire him and keep his waning hope alive. Ruggie, who had wanted to turn the world upside down together. Jack, who was inspired by his play three years back. All the mobs putting faith in their futures on him, their one and only leader. With so many people looking to him, how can he not be swayed by that positivity that had once been so elusive to him? How could that not ignite what little spark of hope is left in him? And that's exactly what Leona finds so dangerous about it. He's lived almost his entire life being put in his place, hurt every time he tried to demonstrate what he could do, how he could contribute--yet time and time again, here comes life, tempting him to try again, just to inevitably be compared to his brother and kicked down, delivering another blow to his pride and his self-image. Leona truly seems to hate himself for not being able to let go of that small fragment of hope he has left. He wants so badly to give up and not have to worry anymore about something he can never obtain. He's so tired of struggling and suffering for nothing. If he just caved, then he would never be hurt again. He can't be hurt if he doesn't care about anything. Yet no matter how much he wishes or tries, he can't run far enough away to detach himself from those expectations of grandeur, of being something more.

There's been many fan theories about Leona's mental health in circulation well before the release of this light novel, many of which mention self-loathing in spite of how proud and confident he typically presents as. You'd have to read in-between the lines of dialogue from the game to draw these clues out, whereas the light novel lays it more bare to you. It hits very differently reading hateful statements made by the character to himself. Leona calls himself all sorts of things: a fool, pathetic, insignificant, boring. That he isn't strong, that he isn't wise, that he's not loved. (In the in-game flashback, Leona also talks in a self-deprecating way, but to a far lesser extent than in the light novel; we also see that Falena does his best to discourage Leona from this kind of behavior.) That this is who he is, that it's the one thing he's afraid to admit and accept--but he also says he lacks the "strength" to give up. That's why Leona would rather run away than confront that potential truth. The option to embrace complete nihilism just isn't possible for him, because he can't just quash that pesky little thing called hope. This is much more complex than what's explained in the games and demonstrates a maturity and degree of self-reflection from Leona that we've never seen before. What's more, this gives us brand new context with which to view many of his other seemingly mundane actions mentioned in the game. At face value, Leona often acts very callously and doesn't care to help others unless he gets some kind of benefit from it (like agreeing to poof the contracts in book 3 just because he has his own deal he wants to get rid of). We see this time and time again when he instructs others reliant on him or less knowledgeable than he is in various matters where he is well-read and experienced with. For example, he takes note of his club members' strengths and weaknesses and offers tailored advice to help them improve their play. He tells others how to mine magestones of an adequate size in Vargas Camp. Maybe he's just doing these things to make the circumstances easier for himself (so he can put forth less effort to leading them in a game, or so he can nap heartily). But from what we've just learned from the light novel, now I'm suspecting a different secondary motive.

What if... Leona is, in part, encouraging and helping others to hone their own skills to subconsciously compensate for what he doesn't believe he himself is capable of? Because there's still so much hope for his dorm mates, for his underclassmen... (and, let's not forget, it was those in Savanaclaw that first motivated Leona to "try" again for the first time in forever) but he doesn't have that same amount of hope for himself. I get these vibes as late as book 6, when Leona and Jamil have a talk. In their conversation, Leona directs many pointed, blunt words at Jamil--words that could very easily also be thrown back at Leona's face and be applicable to his book 2 self. He accuses Jamil of making excuses so he won't have to actually act, just as Leona has continuously run away from uncomfortable situations to put himself at ease. At one point, I believe Leona event states that Jamil “*isn’t like [me]”, Here, again, it can be argued that we're seeing Leona's self-awareness on display, as well as a willingness to warn others to not follow down the same path he once treaded, to lose all hope in the future. Again, it's done with a double purpose: the other one being to get Jamil out of his way while they're exploring. And (of course) Leona's way of expressing his message is gruff and not very warm, not to Jamil and certainly not to himself. He's become prickly and defensive himself after all of his experiences--but that just adds to the complexity of his character when we synthesize what we know of him from TWST multimedia.

I really wish a lot of what was in the light novel post-Leona OB was also in the game. It would have helped to flesh out Leona's motivations and fears, which book 2 was sorely needing. As he is presented now, he appears shallow and selfish in his goals, and we don't fully understand the emotions spurring him on, a lot of which is genuine self-loathing and the sinking despair that comes with thinking you're not enough and you'll never be enough. That would have been so much more relatable than the in-game Leona having himself a pity party with a great amount of emphasis on the throne--a throne which, in actuality, just symbolizes a desire for recognition, love, and acceptance. It was never about explicitly being king. It was about being seen as his own person and appreciated for it instead of being admonished and compared to his exalted older brother.

Now, as an adult, Leona has become someone who pushes away those who try to give him that which he craves. He sees a lot of people--his own family and his dorm mates, the closest thing he has to friends--as dangers to his own mental wellbeing. He's scared to let them in, so he's built up these emotional, arrogant walls around himself. Think at how often he rejects advice from Falena and refuses Cheka's affection for him. Look at how this behavior extends beyond those who are keeping him from a literal throne and to his classmates. They instill hope in him, hope which scares Leona. The things he has wanted all his life are now poison that chips away at him. Considering all of that together, it makes Leona's story far more tragic than how it was initially shown to us in the game alone. But guess what? That can also become his strength, fuel for his character arc. Leona isn't running anymore. He's actually returning home for winter break in book 4. He's determined to not get held back again. He's committing to an internship in a field (an energy lab) which will immensely help his country (which is rich in natural resources). All of this, coming from a young man who once acted bitter when his older brother suggested that there were many things Leona could do with his intelligence to benefit their homeland. Leona is making slow strides and steady progress toward a future he used to think was unattainable for him. From that darkness, he's rising anew--like the sun upon the savanna.

[asexual-juliet]

saw the outsiders musical last night (7/20/24) and thought i would make a little post about some of my favorite parts!! brody, sky & daryl were out so i saw trevor wayne as pony, josh strobl as johnny & henry julián gendron as two-bit!

there’s a bit after pony gets jumped by the socs where darry and soda are cleaning the blood off his face and when they’re done and have gotten up johnny comes and sits next to him and takes out a rag and starts also cleaning pony’s face <3 it’s so so sweet

henry does a couple little opt-ups as two-bit in both grease got a hold and hoods turned heroes where i was like “ooh!” i adore daryl tofa so i was a little disappointed when i found out i wouldn’t be able to see him but henry was SO fantastic!! such a talented dancer and you could tell he was having so much fun with the character! such a standout for me.

was deeply impressed by how many items were successfully thrown and caught in grease got a hold like holy shit dude

the LIGHTING in great expectations has pony pointing his flashlight at darrel on “darrel was on his way up in the world” & johnny on “johnny has no kind of chance in this world” and then as the verse goes on he points it at all of the greasers standing all over the stage and the light lingers on them for the rest of the song it’s so fucking cool-looking! and during the chorus the stage starts to look like a starry sky which is a choice they bring back for the little great expectations reprise at the end of far away from tulsa. 

the moment where pony & johnny do their little cool guy walks over to cherry and marcia at the drive-in with their popped collars was so precious to me

i ADORE cherry valance and i ADORE emma’s take on her!! her little convo with pony at the drive-in was really sweet and i loved that they chose not to make the dynamic feel like a crush on ponyboy’s part it was such a nice moment of two people finding and genuinely understanding each other so deeply <3

lighting sound & everything was so next-level during the fountain scene-bob’s death like i don’t even think i can describe it it was so much and so crisp and so visceral in the absolute best way

staging for run run brother was SO cool — there’s a part at the end where they use the tires and boards from the set to make two platforms that the other actors can roll them back and forth while johnny is on one and pony on the other and they roll them away from each other and they are both reaching out so desperately towards each other its so fantastic

i also really liked the part in run run brother where dally gives pony his jacket like he just wordlessly put it on for him it’s so nice

lighting & subsequent blackout at the end of run run brother as pb&j are in the air after jumping off the “train” was ELITE

pony is holding johnny’s switchblade during death’s at my door and at the end of the song johnny reaches out to take it from him but he doesn’t pull away so he’s just holding pony’s hand and then he puts his other hand over pony’s too and they sit there like that until the lights go down <3

LOVED what they’ve done with darry’s character here!! i know people have some nitpicky things with it but he is such a fascinating character and i’m so glad that the musical theater medium was able to do so much with him that the limited pov of the novel couldn’t — brent comer plays darry so so well and my heart aches for him like fuck dude he cares about his brothers so fucking much and he’s doing his best and he’s so so tired :((( give him a break!!

jason schmidt’s voice is SO fantastic holy fuck throwing in the towel was GORGEOUS!! and the little bit at the end where soda hugs darry and it looks like he maybe kisses him on the head a little is so darling <3

the entire “do i look like julie andrews?” scene is so fucking good… genuinely made me laugh out loud. “fine, paul newman, then!” “…no shit?” is so fantastic and johnny’s little “she is pretty as hell :)” about cherry is adorable. and ofc the “goldilocks and her ugly sister” line is fucking great

the way that johnny perks up when he hears “say hey to johnny for us :)” in soda’s letter is so cute

the church fire scene is perhaps the coolest shit i have ever seen onstage

ponyboy is crying so hard after johnny dies that has to sit down on the floor of the hospital room and soda sits behind him and just holds him <3

ponyboy is like actively crying as he narrates dally’s death its so fucking heartbreaking. i liked that they drew the parallels between the train crashes in order to make dally’s death meaningful despite its departure from the book. and the detail about the train derailing when it hit him was wonderfully written. 

there is a scene where ponyboy is like inconsolable sitting on the living room floor with his head in his arms after johnny and dally die and cherry comes by the house because she has been volunteering at the hospital and no one came to pick up johnny’s clothes after he died and she thought ponyboy should have them and she tells him there’s a letter in the pocket addressed to him and after she leaves he just sits there for a while and when he finally moves he picks up johnny’s jean jacket and fucking like hugs it and buries his face in it and it’s so so so heartbreaking and soda has to come over and start reading the letter to him before johnny appears and starts singing stay gold <3

johnny starts SR at the beginning of stay gold while pony is sitting on the car at SL but he is slowly moving closer to pony as the song goes on and right before they start singing in harmony johnny sits down next to him <3 <3 <3

josh’s stay gold made me CRY!! especially him and trevor singing “i have known a love that many never know / and that love lives on no matter where i go” holy shit. their voices blend together so beautifully

overall i fucking ADORED trevor’s ponyboy!! he embodies the role so so well and has such a fourteen-year-old boy vibe when he’s onstage that i definitely did not expect from an actor in his twenties! i’ve heard that his pony is a little more emotional than brody’s & josh’s and that was a choice i really really vibed with!! and his voice was like jaw-dropping, what a talent!!

stagedoor afterwards was so so wonderful! i made drawings for the entire cast and everyone was so so nice and seemed to really like them! the ensemble & understudies especially seemed really thrilled that i had made something for them

henry in particular was so so sweet and seemed like he couldn’t believe that i had drawn him! he was like “is this me for real?” and someone (i think it was trevor) told him to look at the back where i had written his name and a little note and he was really excited about it!! he actually was like “this is awesome i have to go inside and give this to my mom right now so i don’t lose it” and his family was right inside the stagedoor and he pointed me out to them and they were so excited! he gave me a hug too it was really nice :)

trevor was also really excited and was like “this is a drawing of me for real? not brody?” and he was so happy when he turned it around and saw his name <3

i gave melody and sarahgrace copies of the same drawing of both of them and as soon as i gave it to melody she immediately looked around to find sarahgrace and show it to her (she was still inside but it was very cute) and then she told me they were going to put it on the wall in their dressing room!!

sarahgrace was like “omg you even drew my bracelet!” and was excited when i pointed out the detail i put in for the pattern on her dress!

trevor yelled across the sidewalk to tell josh to stop talking to his (trevor’s) mom as a joke lmfao

everyone except jason & kevin c came out to stagedoor and they were all so so sweet!! got photos with most of them and they all signed my copy of the book!! overall such a fucking fantastic experience! the drawings were a lot of work but it was so nice to see the looks on the cast’s faces when they saw them!!

[hosseinis]

hello!! I really hope this isn't a rude question, bc I'm genuinely curious. I've been wondering for a while now why people who make gifs from a movie or a show or whatever get upset when somebody else uses the gif in something or want credit for it. Is the process difficult? I'm not 100% how to make a gif but I can't imagine it being that arduous. Anyway like I said not trying to be rude have a good day :D

hey there! it's not a rude question if only because you're asking in the first place instead of just discrediting it.

the thing a lot of people don't understand is how much work actually goes into making a gif, because we don't just plug the video into a gifmaking program and call it a day. a lot of us start JUST with the process of pirating the highest quality video we can find, which can be anywhere from an hour or two of downloading to days at a time (my record is five days for all five seasons of the a-team, but that's a story for another day)

so there's already at least a few hours potentially, just from downloading. granted, we do other things obviously but that's still time that's going into the process.

so you have to download those videos, find the clip you want, and then there are several different methods of getting the clip into whatever program you use (i use photoshop). most of the time i have to reformat the video from .mkv to .mp4, because PS doesn't take .mkv but the highest quality videos are typically in that format. so i put that into a reformatting program, which can take at least another hour depending on how long the file is.

so i've finally got the file ready to go in photoshop, and then i can actually start working on the gif itself. i've now spent at MINIMUM two or three hours just getting this video ready. then i personally clip it down to the exact scene i want it and go from there. if you're just doing a random assortment of scenes, you can choose whatever you want. but if you're doing a scene itself, you have to clip that scene in bursts so you can add the subtitles based off the mouth-movement.

so say you're doing a gifset of your favorite character from a tv show. well, you don't want to just have all of the gifs come from the same episode. so you do the reformatting process all over again. more hours. you do that eight or nine or ten times until you have all the scenes you want. and THEN you can start the actual editing process.

what size should it be depending on what kind of gifset you want to do? 540x540? 540x405? do you just crop it first or should you resize it? the resolution might go down depending on how you resize it. do you know what smart sharpen is, and which levels you should have it on in order to make the scene look the best? what's a smart object? what percentage should your frame rate be so it doesn't look too fast? it's completely different between live action and animation, after all. do you know which colors you should use in the adjustment layers, like selective color? does levels or curves work better for what you're trying to do? how do i get rid of the yellow in this scene so it matches the other gifs? what's the difference between linear contrast and medium contrast? should you use exposure or vibrance to get the shadows you want?

you've done all that, it looks good! you go to export it as a proper gif so you can post it to tumblr. but don't forget your settings on that either! transparency dither, web snap, the amount of colors and what size it should be. you do all that and the gif ends up being over the 10mb limit. so now you have to go back and carefully chip away at the frames until it's under the limit, which means you ultimately have to choose what to sacrifice from that scene so you can properly export it.

so you try again. okay, it's on 9.7MB. that's going to read as 10MB on tumblr. back in you go to chip at it again until it's going to read as 9MB instead. finally. you export the gif, add it to tumblr, and then tumblr doesn't like how it looks when you import it and destroys the quality, so you have to go back and try different export settings until it looks the way you want it.

so you do that nine more times. The Entire Process. downloading and reformatting the .mkv, getting the scene you want, clipping it, resizing and cropping it, coloring it, exporting it, and if you're adding subtitles then it's an entirely new process to add on! and don't forget that if you're doing a mix of scenes, you have to color them all depending on their own lighting, so you're basically doing the process again from scratch.

then you try to think of a fun caption. maybe you want to choose a line you feel best summarizes the character or scene. you put that caption through an HTML formatting program so it can be a gradient (the easiest part!), make the caption look pretty, and then tag it and press send.

you've spent HOURS on this process. literal fucking hours. you've been learning how to carefully manipulate the colors to look good, you know what frame rate looks the best, you have all of your settings saved as .psds.

and then someone right clicks, saves the gif (or just copies it) and posts it to twitter with their own funny little caption.

they get 26k likes, who knows how many retweets, a bunch of new follows. they get all the attention for that gif when they put zero work into it. all they did was write a caption and press send.

you got 400 likes and 165 reblogs on your gifset over on tumblr. maybe you get some tags on it if you're really lucky.

so tell me. wouldn't you be a little frustrated, too?

and just in case anyone wants to try and tell me this doesn't happen, you're welcome to compare the stats on this gifset of godzilla versus the repost on twitter.

[genericpuff]

ok as someone disabled with severe motor skill issues i really hate the argument that "anyone can learn art" and that it's completely accessible to everyone. it's not. there are lots of disabled folks who are getting left out of this discussion with the ableist argument that anyone can do art and if you can't you're just not trying hard enough (which is an argument a lot of abled people tend to use against disabled folks in general). i'm against ai art and will never use it but we have got to stop acting like art is an accessible hobby to everyone because there is unfortunately a lot of people who would love to become artists but will never be able to because of our disabilities.

nah you right! I try to be mindful of that sort of thing but it does admittedly fly under my radar at times because I'm not someone living with a physical disability (and thus it's not as front-of-mind as someone who is) so thanks for catching me on that, many apologies. My argument was regarding the people I've seen who have exclusively used "well I've tried to learn how to draw and it's hard / took too much time / etc." as their driving argument (of which there are just. so many) when like. these are realities for many artists who have been doing this for years, too, including those who are disabled. yeah, making art takes time and practice and a lot of hard work! welcome to the party LOL

but I also understand how keeping that argument so simplified can be exclusionary to those who do genuinely face barriers when pursuing art due to living with disabilities. I've met and observed the work of many disabled artists - webcomic artists, game designers, musicians, etc. - who are out there making their stuff and it comes with all its own unique struggles that shouldn't be forgotten about or overlooked in the discussion regarding AI art, struggles that bar many people from even getting into making art from the starting gun.

I do genuinely believe that art can come from anywhere, that anyone is capable of expressing themselves through whatever medium that compels them... but you're right that many artistic mediums in and of themselves are not wholly accessible to everyone. And I hope to god that more tools are developed to help those who are both working artists as well as aspiring ones.

But AI, in its current state, just isn't one of them. And I'm seeing this sentiment being yelled from the rooftops by many disabled artists who firmly believe that the ends do not justify the means - that they don't want the medium to become more accessible if it comes at the cost of other artists (many who are disabled themselves!) whose work and livelihoods are being replaced with cheap carbon copies. AI art doesn't allow anyone to actually participate in the joy of creating straight from the heart, it just takes from others' joy and spits it back out with an impression of what it thinks the joy of creation is supposed to look like through lifeless pixels. That's not even getting into just how much damage it's already actively causing to our environment, and how quickly AI has started to replace other surrounding industries as well.

Separately from that, you're right, paying for art is a luxury for many, but that's all the more reason why we shouldn't be supporting the current climate surrounding AI IMO which is the crux of what my argument was in that previous Simpsons meme post. Many people do face severe limitations in trying to create their art; the people I'm referring to who are heavily pro-AI are often not those same people and only face the limitations of their own entitlement, which is destroying the livelihoods of many human artists. Is it worth participating in AI art to save money if that same participation perpetuates a growing system that's costing people their livelihoods?

Maybe some day we'll get AI tools that are less predatory and destructive and help those who want to create art do so. Maybe we'll finally get some stricter regulations around what companies are allowed to get away with in their respective industries. I'd like to think also that the rise of AI art will, by extension, make human-made art all the more valuable. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish for tools that made making webcomics just a teeeeny bit more efficient without being completely unethical LOL But until any of those scenarios prove to be true, we're dealing with a monster of our own design that will never stop eating even after we've all been consumed. The toothpaste is out of the tube.

[what-even-is-thiss]

hi! i just saw your post about your struggle with addiction, and it really resonated with me i guess, and i hope youre doing better now. ive been struggling a lot with being,,, lets call it ‘reasonable’ about my weed consumption and im feeling so overwhelmed trying to slow down with it and so ashamed that im even struggling with this in the first place, do you have any advice from when you first realized you had an addiction and like how you went about dealing with it?

im just really scared to ask my friends and family (outside of tumblr) for help because i worry that itll change how they think of me, or that theyll start treating me differently or something, especially because my parents are the ones who keep enabling this.

if youre not up to giving advice about this sort of thing i completely understand, and obviously our experiences and vices are very different, anyway sorry this is so rambly, and i hope you have a lovely week :)

An addiction counselor or a therapist might be better than me but I’ll try.

What has worked for me in the past with some things is removing the thing from my life completely and then later when I’m better seeing if there’s a healthy smaller way I can bring it back into my life.

Sometimes there isn’t. When it comes to opioids for example I can’t have those even once or my addiction immediately reactivates. Like with me it’s so fast. I become dependent on them immediately. Same with self harm. Hurting myself leads to my brain immediately wanting more of it to get rid of my emotions and it’s bad for my health so i just need to not do that.

When it comes to gambling and mobile games however I’ve been able to find a happy medium with that. I have maybe two mobile games I play that I don’t spend money on and I play more one time purchase games now without micro transactions. With gambling I put a hard limit on myself at 20 bucks a month and for the most part I’ve been able to stick to that.

Also I know that if I drink alcohol more than twice a week I’ll become addicted to it because I can feel it happening. So I just don’t drink more than once or twice a week.

You don’t have to go cold turkey. That doesn’t work for everyone. You might carefully measure out a ration for yourself for the month or week. You might not even have to give it up entirely. Or maybe you might.

I’ve found that talking it out with people in your life you trust can be helpful. The hardest additions to beat for me have been the ones I’ve never told anyone about. And part of the reason I’ve never become alcoholic is because I’ve told my friends and family about my problem and if I have more than three drinks at a party they know to tell me to cut it out.

I’ve found in general that people are more understanding than you think they’ll be. And if they aren’t then find someone who is. Even if they have to be a therapist or something.

I think the worst thing you can do when trying to beat an addiction or if you know you have an addictive personality is to isolate yourself. If you’re alone then it’s just you and your thoughts and your thoughts are what got you into this in the first place.

There’s nothing to be ashamed of if you find quitting hard. Addiction is hard. It messes with the pathways in your brain. It’s okay if it takes a while. Just keep trying.

[khywae]

No more fanfiction

Hey loves,

I just wanted to chat with you about a new direction I'm taking in my career.

My recent trip made me rethink a lot of things. It made me realize how short life is and how much time I've “lost” due to mental health struggles. My mind was my number #1 enemy, but not anymore. Now I'm determined to pursue my dreams unapologetically.

My biggest dream is to create a lasting legacy. I want to leave behind tons of content with the female gaze, portraying men as objects of desire rather than just women. It might seem like a silly dream compared to other, more grandiose ones, but I never had access to a lot of content like that. I always felt starved, scavenging the internet for scraps, especially when it came to submissive men. While I've found solace in the writing world, which flourishes with the female gaze, it’s still not enough. Men are just too gorgeous not to be appreciated in other forms of art. I want to live in a world where women have access to quality female gaze content and don’t have to resort to the male gaze if they don’t wish to. That means no faceless dudes, no showing only the woman’s body, and no men so ugly that could make a freight train take a dirt road. Enough.

To turn this dream into reality, I started to think. I could continue with writing, but as you guys can see from the number of words in The Muse and the time it took me to write it (6 fucking years), it would take too long. As the old saying goes, ars longa, vita brevis. Art takes a long time, and life is short. And I, my darlings, have a mission.

Because I love writing too much, I need something that limits the amount I can write. I thought about making videos, but it took out a large portion of the writing part, and it left me unsatisfied. After a lot of thought, I realized that video games can be the solution. They have visual elements, so I don’t need/can’t rely so heavily on my writing; I love games, I play them every day; and I can count on my fingers the number of adult games for women, meaning we need more. A lot more.

Like our himbo icon Kronk says, oh yeah, it’s all coming together.

So I'm excited to announce that I'll be creating games – fangames at first – that mix the interactive side of games and the smut from fanfiction. The SFW version of the games will be free, and the NSFW version and other perks can be accessed through my (freshly launched!) Patreon. There you'll have the power to vote for the next character featured in the games, access work-in-progress pictures and animations, see my writing process, and more. I’m still figuring things out, but I’m super hyped for this!

Currently, I’m working on the very first game of this legacy, called My Assassin Bodyguard. Yes, I transformed the Toji video/fanfic idea that I posted before into a game. You can play the demo now on itch.io!! You don't even have to download woooo!! The game may seem really basic as I get a hang of things and learn new software, but with time we’ll make improvements, such as adding different player characters, a smut gallery, and voice acting (!!!). Anything to make the experience the best it can be.

For those of you who are mostly here for my writing, don’t despair. My writing will still be alive, just in a different medium that needs me right now. I hope you understand. Thank you for your support all these years, for being here through it all. I'd be thrilled for you to join me on this new journey and help me bring this dream to life, together.

So here's the link to Patreon! (⸝⸝ᵕᴗᵕ⸝⸝) I hope to see you there! But if you can’t, I’ll still post updates here and you can always play the games on itch for free. After this dream is accomplished, my next mission will be to write books. Maybe I’ll do it along the way. We’ll see. Life’s full of surprises after all, and that’s the beauty of it. Let's enjoy it the best we can ♡

With love,

Khywae

TL;DR: Life's too short, I write too much and too slow, and I've got a ton of content to create to make my dream happen. So I'm switching to game development for now. I'd love for you to join me on this journey to make this dream a reality. Thank you for everything, love you.

P.S.:

About the Lore

I was so excited about this that I created a little world. Based on the two iconic fanfiction terms —ship and canon—, and my love for Pirate AUs, I came up with a world where we sail across the ocean, collecting ingredients to craft Tapes that connect us with different Alternate Universes. It’s basically a Witch-Pirates-‘90s nostalgia mix. I've got plans to flesh it out even more over time, like adding some decorations, some hot pirates... Important stuff, you know?

Here's the boat in its simplest form, to symbolize that our journey is just starting:

[crowdsourced-webcomic-reviews]

Ggdg is a famous face in webcomics, and a few other mediums too. The artist and brain behind works such as Lady of the Shard, Idle Divination, Undyne’s banging outfit on her date in Undertale and countless other contributions to UTDR, and their most recent hit Soul of Sovereignity (soulsov real 2023!)—but they got their start with original storytelling through the much beloved Cucumber Quest:

Narrative wise, Cucumber Quest is as the requester for this review put it about “bunny kids going on a quest to save the world”. Like a lot of ggdg’s work, CuQu is steeped in their love of JRPGs, and there’s an undeniable touch of JRPG flavour in the plot.

The comic opens with our antagonist having acquired the seventh of their eight macguffins required to summon the big bad, and later our heroes must re-collect these macguffins and fight all the disaster masters they’re associated with, and defeat the evil Nightmare Knight!!!

Cucumber Quest is a comedy and a parody of fantasy video games, but it does all this from a place of sincere love and joy. I’m confident if you asked ggdg if they they thought all the incredibly clunky, tonally dissonant kingdom hearts cutscenes with michael rat talking about the heart of the darkness to cloud final fantasy or whatever were “cringe”, they’d say “are you kidding me they fucking rule”.

Cucumber Quest is filled with jokes, but it’s never meanspirited. It pokes fun at the trappings of fantasy video games, and as it does, it goes “but that’s why we love them so much!”

It’s not all jokes though, there’s a sincere heart at the core of CuQu. Ggdg loves their characters through and through, and the story loves them too. While the setup of the story might suggest a simplistic angle of good-vs-evil like a lot of video games, it is very quickly revealed that this story is anything but. The biggest heart of the story is the Nightmare Knight himself:

The truth of his motives and why any of this is even happening, whether or not our heroes will find out the truth and break the cycle, or if everything will continue as it always has are the crux of the plot. But to hear more about that, you need to read it for yourself!! If you like sad dads though, this is The comic for you.

You’ve probably noticed by now also, the use of colour in CuQu is absolutely stunning. Everything from their big set piece atmospheric pages with deep, powerful emotions seeping from every panel as they use limited colours to create a specific mood, to the individual panels of their lighthearted pages—ggdg has a masterful control over colour and mood. The entire comic is just a visual delight, and you can pick any random page in the archive and be provided with a treat for the eyes.

Cucumber Quest it should be noted is an incomplete story. Though not wholly abandoned, it last updated in 2019. Since then, ggdg has been busy focusing on other projects—the newly released soulsov is one such project. One day, perhaps after soulsov’s conclusion, perhaps earlier, perhaps later, ggdg intends to return and wrap up the remainder of CuQu via a series of scripts and illustrations.

It was a story a bit too big for its breeches if you will: after almost a decade of work it was nowhere near reaching its conclusion, and understandably ggdg needed a break.

Nonetheless, what exists is a wonderful heartfelt story and visual delight that deserves a read and the patient wait for its conclusion some day ❤

[thatgirlwbraids]

you are not the problem

hear me out , you are not the reason you’re not entering the void , manifesting your dream life , getting any desire etc .

We should not focus why we are not receiving but instead becoming Aware of Being of the Version of Yourself that has received.

read that again .

now tell me if you understood be often blame ourselves for not manifesting your dream life’s because ofc , our lifes our on the line , time exists & we want it now ! don’t we ? but we are not the problem we are NEVER the problem . it’s not this human, limited ever changing human 3D self .

it’s the SELF where everything starts and ends . you may ask “ well sophie what is SELF ? “ for that I would like to explain a few concepts .

you see awarness / imagination / consciousness is the only reality this 3D is a mirror always reflecting this & to change your reflection ( in a mirror ) would you try to manipulate the mirror or change your clothes or whatever you need to change or go to the mirror and try to do something to put on the clothes you want ? so how do you change the reflection ? SELF . this SELF can be changed through the medium of feeling ( no NOT EMOTIONS ) . to get a better understanding of feeling I would like you to a little meditation

here’s the meditation . please do it and come back to truly understand this law .

you might of felt this power within yourself and feeling what you truly want to feel for once . it must’ve gave you relief , acceptance or even a clearer mind it could be anything it’s different for everyone .

what you did right here feeling what you truly want to feel ( your desire ) you gave it to your inner man .

who is the inner man you ask ? the inner man is YOU the man in the limitless imagination . what the inner man is the outer man IS . as within, so without

you see most of the time we are fooling our inner man into being this outer man of senses we tell him we are this which is all on you this inner man is the one who embodies SELF .

so anytime we find ourselves desiring IT IS NEVER our outer man who desires it is always the inner man . and it is our duty to make our inner man live in fulfillment after we find this law .

when I said time doesn’t exist that’s because only NOW exists in imagination . NOW . what are you presently identifying being in your imagination ?

“ When Neville says "Leave the world just as it is and change self. No one to change but self," he means the self that is within, the only self there is. Why leave the world alone? Because it is only an expression of "SELF!" Why does he say to change that and that alone? Because "SELF MUST BE EXPRESSED," that is the Law. You don't have to doubt "is my imaginal act going to come to pass?" Who is doubting? "SELF!" Who is worrying? "SELF!" What gets expressed? "SELF!" YOU CAN ALWAYS TRUST THAT SELF WILL BE EXPRESSED! “ edward art series , part 4 : inner self must be exalted .

I would love for you guys to read edward art series which can give you the most clear explanation of the law I SWEAR you will not need anything else . it’s barely a half hour read .

understanding SELF is very important when it comes to the law .

like said the outer world only expresses SELF & it is very important to truly understand the law before you try anything or you will be stuck in an endless cycle of trying .

ik ik ik its very hard to not skim through posts & actually read a book that will help you manifest literally all of your desires I UNDERSTAND YOUR LAZINESS . but seriously ? think of your dream YOUR DREAM . it will NOT be a dream anymore if you read a damn book that’s literally so short .

keep reminding yourself of your dream , that’s what got me our of this cycle . I really wanted this thing so bad but I WAS SO LAZY but was it this or not having the success that I deserved ?

for some of my void girlies on tumblr who have been trying so hard to enter the void for maybe even years I wanna tell you tumblr will never help you yk why ? until I actually read neville’s books I saw what the I AM state was about it was connecting with your true SELF , consciousness . it’s in almost all of his books . that info THAT INFO is a million dollars not these impulsive tumblr posts . I swear TO GOD ( TT ) that you need this more than anyone . you deserve this life that you want AND I SWEAR you gonna be the one to get it . this LAW will not fail you . but you need to understand the LAW before you apply it ? because what LAW are you exactly following that u put ur trust in ? it’s not the law of void there is so much behind it & i’m not asking you to read all of nevilles lectures and books just a few books or even 1 or just even edward arts series because even a little will free you .

I wanna end on a good note by just saying every blogger here doesn’t have it all figured out so don’t idolize anyone but take what resonates with you . this human life is a gift from yourself and you have to treasure it . it doesn’t matter how bad your circumstances are this LAW is here for you but this life is also a gift please do what you have to do to get by . get your life together PLEASE work on your SELFS ( 3D ) do you see yourself rn ? you need everything this body this life is what’s gonna get you up from rockbottom start with what you have now improve yourself without the law but also you can follow the LAW it’s a two way path . maybe this life is completely different from the life you desire , that’s okay still spread love and take care of yourself and your life , still be responsible for yourself and your life ( all when it comes to the 3D ) the LAW is A LAW it’s always gonna be here . i’m sorry if this was harsh I just want you to manage this life as well as well as manifest your dream life <3 don’t neglect your 3D it’s a GIFT FROM GOD ( imagination )

you deserve the world honey and we will get it < 3

© prettymindset111

[markantonys]

Was talking with a moot and they were saying how they don't feel like the show is doing a good job of explaining the lore. How right now we don't know what being the Dragon actually means, what ta'veren are, what the Dark One even is, what does he want, why does the Dragon fight him, how all of these mythologies are built into the worldbuilding in the books but aren't as clear in the show/feels disconnected. Idk I feel like the show is just introducing these things at a slower pace than the books did and that's not necessarily a bad thing

i just don't get these arguments because most of these lore points literally have been explained in the show???? do these book fans just miss it when lore is incorporated via natural dialogue or via Showing Not Telling instead of via somebody sitting us down to do an infodumping monologue for 5 minutes? i swear to god so many readers just don't pay attention to the show and then whine that it's missing stuff it did in fact include.

dragon stuff: this has been abundantly explained in both seasons, meanwhile in the books the concept of TDR wasn't even introduced until book 2. we will get more specifics at the same time rand does in upcoming seasons, just like in the books. at this early stage we don't need to know any more than "the dragon is a chosen one figure whose purpose is to fight the dark one and lead the last battle."

what the dark one is: a bad guy (duh) but otherwise left intentionally vague to build up mystery, just like the books did. we don't have the slightest conception of what TDO actually is until his first onscreen "appearance" in book SIX.

what does he want: to break the wheel and end existence. ishy's literal entire season 2 storyline was about this, and it went into way more detail than books 1-3 did. i'm not sure we got much of this stuff in the books until moridin came on the scene.

ta'veren is the only one i'd agree the show hasn't gone into much (though it DID explain the concept in 1x08), but, again, do we need to know that much about it right now? we know that our EF5 are Special, and that's enough if you ask me.

(i also wonder if the show might go a bit lighter on ta'veren than the books. idk, some of the stronger Main Character Energy stuff like plot armor and convenient coincidences and people blurting out secrets around them might come off a bit silly, and as for the stuff relating to the pattern controlling ta'veren's paths, it's interesting but it's pretty deep lore and the story doesn't really change whether or not we're explicitly aware that the events that happen to our gang are predestined. like, we'll obviously get plenty of predestination stuff with rand's dragon prophecies and min's viewings and likely the finn, so how necessary is it to also go into great detail on ta'veren predestination?)

having watched both seasons with my show-only non-fantasy-literate mom, i can attest that there is SO MUCH information for newcomers to wrap their heads around and i think her brain would have exploded if these seasons had tried to squeeze in any more than they did. she made me take down notes she could review between episodes! you should've seen her poor eyes glazing over at all the lore & worldbuilding stuff getting thrown at her in 2x05! this also goes for stuff like the whining about the show not yet using the words saidar & saidin - if they'd been throwing those around constantly since day 1, my mom would've had no fucking clue what they were talking about because she really struggles with remembering fantasy jargon, whereas consistently referring to it as "the male/female half of the source" in these early seasons is way more intuitive and way more effective at teaching her how this magic system works.

at the end of the day, the show simply is not ever going to flesh out the lore and mythology as deeply as the books do due to limitations of this different medium, and people need to accept that. it will explain as much lore as is necessary to understand the story and not much more than that, and that's absolutely fine. show-onlys are understanding the story just fine with the information the show is choosing to include, and lore nerds can knock themselves out rereading the books anytime they want.

[monstersdownthepath]

Herald of Nethys: The Arcanotheign

CR 15

Neutral Medium Outsider

Inner Sea Gods, pg. 298

As we get closer and closer to the end of Misfits and Monitors Month, here we have the penultimate Neutral Herald, and possibly the most powerful of the Heralds... when she first came out. Like many of the Heralds of the main gods, the Arcanotheign first appeared in an Adventure Path, specifically Serpent's Skull: The Thousand Fangs Below, pg. 82-83, but her case is a special one. You see, whereas most of the Heralds became more consistent or stronger with the clarified vision of their powersets and the consolidation of their abilities into keywords or magic items on their person, the initial release version of the Arcanotheign was incomparably powerful, to the point she could have easily hovered around CR 18 or even CR 20.

She had not one but four at-will abilities tied to her ranged attack that would remove their initial target from the fight instantly (including one that was outright full death by disintegration on a failed save), the ability to ignore any spell or ability that relied on alignment, the ability to heal from both positive or negative energy damage, and an aura which dealt constant damage to everything around her (while healing her as it did so). Capping it all off? Alter Objects, an ability I'm a little sad she didn't get to keep in her reprint; Alter Objects allowed her to freely reshape anything she got ahold of, changing either its shape or the material it was made out of, OR animate it via Animate Object, with basically no limitations as to how dramatically she could reshape it or what material she could turn it into besides A) she can't do both transformations at once; no turning a teddy bear into a sword and no turning a stick into adamantine and then animating it, and B) the transformation always reverted 1 minute later unless she actively concentrated to maintain the effect. It was still a bonkers ability that gave her almost godlike control over her surroundings, especially since she only had to be within 100ft of whatever she was altering. Not even touching it!

Her final iteration in Inner Sea Gods is toned down considerably, to put it mildly. I wish she kept Alter Objects in some fashion, but with the severely compressed space in ISG, I can understand why it was trimmed. She's also lost more than a few of her bells and whistles, including a handful of her spell-likes, which must be especially painful for the servant of the God of Magic! But despite all of these nerfs, ALL of them, she remains one of the most powerful Heralds in the setting. Her might is all the more startling for any fiend or foul element which catches her in her mortal form as a gray-skinned beauty that seems to have a Disney Princess-esque magnetic effect on small animals and children (she's even got +35 to Perform (Sing) checks!) and thinks she'll be easy prey, her energy form exploding from its shell and raining terrible, eldritch energy upon the attacker until they're dead or gone. And then she folds back into her human(ish) form and goes back to playing with the kids, transforming their toys into new shapes to amuse them.

Most of the children visited by the Arcanotheign are blessed with magical genius or even magical power, blooming into casters (especially sorcerers) as they age, but whether the Arcanotheign unlocks these talents or is drawn to people destined to have them is left ambiguous. Planting the seeds for future generations of casters is but one of her duties in service to Nethys, though, the others being "encourage people to use magic" and "destroy anything that tries to stop people from using magic." While most parties would thus not have a reason to get on her bad side (even the most grumbling barbarian can appreciate a magic axe and a healing potion), she unfortunately DOES serve a guy who has the unenviable title of "Mad God," and as such she may be the party's ally--or at least a neutral force--for one session, only to turn on them the next for reasons only her god understands.

She's noted to ask "personal, direct questions" to anyone she's sent to interact with, whether it's to share a vision, heal them, destroy them, or teach them, and though her target will likely never know the reason for her barrage of questions, in truth it's because she wants to know why she was sent there. Why does this particular mortal deserve this blessing or punishment? She wants to know just as much as they likely do! Despite being directly formed from Nethys' will, not even she appears to fully understand it, and most of her free time is spent contemplating the purpose of her existence and her place in creation.

But we're not here for existentialism, are we? I mentioned she may be an ally one day and an enemy the next, so let's see what happens when that happens...

Let's begin with the biggest part of her kit: You're not hurting her with magic. She serves the God of Magic, so casters have to be very clever about how they use their spells against her, because most straightforward tricks simply will not work.

Blindsight out to 60ft and Arcane Sight out to 120ft besides, illusions, invisibility, and other such trickery won't work against her unless they're solidified from shadow magic. She has 31 Spell Resistance, the highest of any Herald besides the Grand Defender (who cheats by having "SR: Infinity"), which typically means a lvl 11~13 caster needs to roll an 18 or higher to affect her with most spells... which then have to contend with her saving throws, which are also higher than most Heralds at +18/+13/+17, which is increased by an additional +2 if the source is any alignment except true Neutral, because she's got ALL FOUR Protection From [alignment] spells on herself constantly. In addition to that, she has 30 Resistance to every element except Force, including a heretofore unseen 30 Resistance against typeless divine damage from effects such as Flame Strike and Hellfire Ray, and other, more esoteric spells and abilities, all but assuring those otherwise fairly reliable damage sources cannot harm her even if she fails her saving throw.

Able to resist every element, the Arcanotheign can also throw out consistent elemental damage in return. She's surrounded on all sides by a 30ft Energy Channel Aura, which... which in ISG is a little ambiguous in its function; in the original Adventure Path printing, the aura was always active unless the Herald shut it off and dealt automatic damage constantly to any target she desired like a proper aura, but in ISG the aura's wording has been changed considerably and seems to require the magical avatar's standard action to use, like a proper Channel Energy from a Cleric. This is supported by the fact she has the Command Undead feat but no normal ability to channel energy, but in my mind, a meager 2d6 damage (of Fire, Cold, Acid, OR Electricity, mind) is too pathetic to justify the use of her standard action, so I personally choose to believe the aura is constantly pinging every enemy inside (Will DC 26 halves) and she can switch which element is flaring out at will. If you want to add some extra spice, you can give her back her ability to also deal positive or negative energy damage with her aura.

It depends on how you want to run it, I suppose. I know I like automatic damage!

There IS an important bit here: this damage is tacked on to her two incorporeal touch attacks without offering a save to resist them. These attacks deal 4d6 untyped damage and 2d6 extra energy damage depending on what her aura is tuned to, but unlike many Heralds, she really, really doesn't want to get into melee to do that. Despite her considerable defenses against magic of any sort, she's actually got the least AC of any Herald at 27, and lacks ANY form of DR or protection from weapon attacks besides the fact she's incorporeal. Side note: This also means spells which deal physical damage affect her, provided they can pierce or ignore her monstrous SR.

Her full suite of Protection From [alignment] spells means she can't be touched by any summoned creature with an alignment and her 60ft of perfect flight gives her some evasion, but that does little to dissuade the Rogue and Fighter getting Fly and speeding up to her. She doesn't even have Dispel Magic to end such effects, which is a little weird and surprising to me. What she DOES have, however, is her Eldritch Blast, a pair of ranged touch attacks she can unleash at will which deal 1d10+her Chari-- whoops hold on, wrong game, 4d6 untyped damage as ranged touch attacks, and her blasts have one of three additional effects she can tack on which can be resisted with a DC 26 save (what kind of save depends on the effect). These effects are already bad, but a character who fails two saves against the Eldritch Blast effects in the same round suffers a debilitating status ailment instead.

The effects are:

Fortitude: Every round for 10 rounds, the affected creature teleports 5ft in a random direction at the end of their turn, potentially ruining any positioning they were trying to get going. If a creature is struck by this blast twice and fails both saves, they're shunted into a Maze automatically.

Reflex: The blast deals an extra 2d6 Fire damage. Failing two saves instead causes the victim to catch fire, taking 1d6 Fire damage a round every round from there on out until they use a full-round action to put it out.

Will: The blast confuses the creature for 1 minute. Failing two saves causes permanent insanity.

Functionally, targeting Will is typically her best bet and Reflex is barely worth considering; confusion has a 75% chance to neuter or entirely remove someone's turn, though one shouldn't sleep on what she does to people with low Fortitude saves. She's got Cloudkill at 3/day and is immune to poison, allowing her to cast it directly on her own position to gradually wear away at the party's Constitution and thus lowering their ability to resist being booped around or shunted into Mazes, removing them from the battle and leaving the rest of the party open to her shenanigans.

This is actually one of the most heavily nerfed parts of her kit, because her original incarnation in The Thousand Fangs Below, where her Eldritch Blasts could also choose to tack on 10 bleed damage (failing two saves instantly killed the target), paralyze the victim for a round (failing two saves inflicts a minutes-long Slow effect), and the Fire damage was doubled in every respect. She's also lost both Cone of Cold and Fireball, but she's managed to hold onto the reliable Lightning Bolt and Telekinesis (both 3/day) at least!

And you know what else she has? Both Heal and Harm at 1/day... and Limited Wish 1/day, with all the toolbox potential that comes with it. Though neither lore blocks presented offer it as a possibility, Limited Wish can mimic any Wizard spell of 6th level or lower, and Contingency falls into that bracket. Imagine finally catching the Arcanotheign off-guard, grounding her and beating her down to 10 HP... only to have a Contingency she prepared a week ago go off, instantly casting Cure Critical Wounds on her and restoring enough of her health bar to let her get a Heal off next turn (or, if the DM wants to be generous and round up, letting her just prepare a contingent Heal). The other options aren't much better, as she has both Greater Teleport/Teleport and Plane Shift available as emergency escape buttons, and those are just what she's got on her own sheet! With access to the minds of some of the greatest mages in the universe in Nethys' home realm in the Maelstrom, she can get a scroll of a wand of almost any spell in existence (which her +28 to UMD means she can easily use) to either prepare ahead of time with Contingency, or simply use as required.

It's almost a relief that she serves one of the more unstable gods, and is thus just as likely to be sent on some meaningless nothing task as she is an important and destructive one. Most of the time, she doesn't really need her magic because of how debilitating her Eldritch Blasts can be; knowing that she has a blank check in the form of Limited Wish almost feels like unnecessary overkill... which makes the actual Theme Finale of this month all the funnier.

You can read more about her here.

[aesethewitch]

Shufflemancy 101: A Brief History & Analysis

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The difficulty with researching something like shufflemancy is that it's a relatively modern phenomenon. I haven't yet found anyone (online or in a book) specifically talking about the origins of shufflemancy as a term or where it might've come from.

So, we start from square one.

What is Shufflemancy?

According to Wikipedia, shufflemancy is divination "by the use of an electronic media player such as an electronic playlist, iPod, or other medium wherein one skips a certain number of songs and the lyrics and/or tune of the song is the answer to the divinatory question."

Simple enough. Use an electronic collection of music that's been shuffled to divine.

This did lead me to the question: What counts as shufflemancy? Does tuning into a radio station count?

It's my opinion that radio divination does not count. There's no shuffle function. Yes, it has an element of chance, and that's what makes it divination. It certainly falls under the wider umbrella of divination via music, too. But it isn't shufflemancy if it doesn't make use of a shuffle function.

So, to make things simple, for something to be shufflemancy, it must:

Use an electronic medium

Involve a randomized shuffle function

Be something the shufflemancer can interpret to answer a question (pretty much anything)

Early Shufflemancy

The earliest form of shufflemancy as we understand it today, using the above requirements, would probably be tape players capable of shuffling music. With the nature of tape, it would take a while for the thing to wind and rewind to find the cue on the tape which signaled the start or end of a song, but it'd work.

With that said, shuffling as we understand and recognize it today would've started with CDs in the 1980s. There were CD players that could hold three to five disks at a time. They could shuffle songs between all disks held in the player, creating a random mix of tunes for listeners to enjoy.

Using either of these methods for divination would work, technically. The results would be somewhat limited, but that doesn't mean it's a bad method to use. Especially if your CD player could hold 5 disks, you could easily put in 5 albums from different artists with all different vibes for a wider variety of outputs.

I certainly remember using my little blue radio that held two CDs at once like this. I'd put in two albums and hit shuffle, and the first song that played would be my vibe and advice for the day. It was divination -- some of the earliest I'd ever done consciously, at the young age of nine. And when I got the bigger one that held three CDs? Game changer.

So this puts shufflemancy's origins somewhere around the mid-to-late 1980s, when Sony put out the first CD player with shuffle. As we moved into the 1990s, CDs became more popular and cassettes faced obsolescence.

The Shuffle Revolution & Early Modern Shufflemancy

In 2005, Apple changed the game again. It had already debuted the iPod in 2001, providing an easy, pocket-sized music experience as a direct challenge to the CD's cultural domination. On January 11, 2005, nearly 20 years ago, Apple announced the iPod Shuffle.

And oh, boy, did it change everything.

I could talk forever about the iPod's impact on the music industry, the death of the in-order album, and the eventual rise of music streaming services. But others have done that to death, so I'll focus in on our topic of shufflemancy.

This is where we start seeing shuffling music as it is now, in the modern day. In my digging, I found mentions of the term "shufflemancy" as early as 2007 -- just two years after the iPod Shuffle was announced. Someone proposed the concept and terminology of "shufflemancy" as we understand it today on a Halfbakery Forum "Idea" post on October 3, 2007.

It's difficult to say whether this is the first instance of the term. In reality, shufflemancy seems to have emerged as a natural by-product of the evolution of music technology. Where there is innovation, witches and diviners will mold it to their purposes. We're a resourceful bunch like that. It grew organically as we moved from buying albums to buying singles to streaming music without buying at all.

People were offering public shufflemancy readings as early as 2009 in places like TarotForum.net. It's spoken about during this era as a "silly" and "new" form of divination that people were trying out. There aren't any dates in that link, but according to the website's data, the first post in the thread was published on June 16, 2009.

From there, shufflemancy saw a gradual rise in popularity. It evolved from using iPods to iTunes, Napster, and eventually Spotify as these new applications emerged.

Shufflemancy Now

If you look up "shufflemancy" using Spotify's search function, you'll receive dozens of results. Many of the top playlists are public ones curated by shufflemancers for themselves and others to use. Options range from general playlists to "mega mixes" containing upwards of 200 hours of music from all different genres, artists, and eras. There are some with a paltry five hours of music, while one that I've seen goes up over the 600 hour mark. (If I can find that one again, I'll reblog it, because... damn.)

Select a "messages from your guides" option from the search or curate your own -- the choice is yours. For one-time shufflemancers, using a pre-made option may be the best, most economical choice. But dedicated shufflemancers sometimes boast multiple hundred-hour playlists for different purposes, all personally curated.

Clearly, it's popular. There are shufflemancers on Tumblr and Etsy offering free and paid services using their specially curated playlists. A quick search is all you need to find someone receiving a divinatory reading via song lyrics, meanings, and vibes. And it seems to work -- sellers on Etsy boast hundreds of positive reviews. Some even offer playlist curation services for personal shufflemancy or messages from deities and/or spirits.

It all begs the question, how does shufflemancy work?

Shufflemancy Methodology

Finding this is significantly easier than pinning down the history of shufflemancy. This post from Tumblr user orriculum, sums it up fairly well. So does this one by the-daily-diviner.

To do shufflemancy, the basic steps are:

Create or find a playlist of songs. A large collection seems to be the most favorable option for a wide spread of possibilities.

Ask a question. Divination 101 -- figure out what you want to know and ask it. Simple enough.

Pick a number. Choose any number and shuffle that many times or skip that many songs.

Listen to the song. Write down lyrics that stick out, messages that come through, and anything else that seems relevant (genre, tempo, vibe, etc.)

Interpret. Take the information gathered during the song and use it to draw conclusions, just like any other form of divination.

Simple enough. Shufflemancy is the sort of method that requires a high level of intuitive thinking. It's very mutable and suits a good amount of personalization.

This is both good and bad, I think. It would be incredibly easy to create a bias in your shufflemancy playlists by selecting songs with primarily one genre, artist, album, emotion, or through-line. The ideal playlist really does have a wide variety of music, and this means selecting songs that the shufflemancer doesn't necessarily like. We all have a genre or artist we hate; excluding an entire genre skews results. Impartial selections of music are critical to the success of good divination. Otherwise, we risk interfering with the outcome.

And speaking of interfering...

The Algorithm Problem

(Note: I'm focusing in on Spotify since it's very commonly used and because it's accessible to me. Shufflemancy can be (and is!) done with plenty of other apps like Apple Music.)

When Spotify was originally launched, it used a version of the Fisher-Yates Shuffle to perform its shuffling of music. In essence, this algorithm takes a finite sequence of data, picks an option from that selection of data, and removes it from the pool. Then, it picks another and another until no more options remain.

At first glance, this seems great! It creates a fairly random output. But as is the nature of randomness, there were clusters. The same artist would play four or five times in a row from a large playlist, and Spotify users complained. It was random, but it didn't feel that way.

The human brain is wired to find connections and patterns. When the same artist plays over and over again despite a playlist being on shuffle mode, it creates a pattern that the brain recognizes. Therefore, the "true" randomness of clustering outputs was unsatisfactory.

So, in 2014, Spotify updated it. Their new algorithm would detect and remember the song it just played and, in shuffling, account for the artist and album to provide a more random-feeling result. The new algorithm detects what's already played and selects accordingly to prevent the same artist from playing twice in a row, just as it prevents the same song from playing twice. It spreads artists out evenly (though not perfectly, to maintain the illusion of randomness) to provide an enhanced listening experience.

What does this mean for shufflemancy, then? If Spotify's algorithm is interfering in the output provided from a playlist, does that mean it's not a reliable form of divination?

At first, I wasn't so sure. I adjusted my thinking -- if a tarot app was preventing certain cards from being drawn (or from being drawn in a particular order) because I'd already drawn them that day or week, would that render the app unreliable? And the answer was yes. It would! It removes the random element from the method, therefore making it not true divination by my definition.

So shufflemancy with Spotify isn't (good) divination, then. Right?

My Opinion & Theory

In thinking about this further, I think it comes down to personal opinion. People certainly have success with shufflemancy via Spotify, or else they wouldn't do it. They definitely wouldn't offer their services (free or otherwise) if they weren't confident in the results it provides.

Thinking that way, I believe there's a way to off-set the algorithm's interference. With enough songs in a playlist, the random element is enhanced despite the algorithm. Not by having the same song multiple times (Spotify would surely detect this and prevent it from playing), but perhaps the same song covered by different artists. Songs with the same vibe, the same meaning, similar lyrics... AND songs from a wide variety of artists and genres, regardless of whether the shufflemancer likes the songs or not.

The person with that 600+ hour playlist for shufflemancy has it right, I think. That's the key. Variety and volume to make up for Spotify's algorithmic shuffler.

Additionally, in listening to my many, many Spotify playlists, I noticed something. If I'm listening to a playlist on shuffle and decide I want a specific song, I can choose to play it immediately. Afterwards, songs I've already heard might play. It seems as though doing this resets the shuffling algorithm in some way. Doing this in combination with a large and varied playlist might be the key to making shufflemancy in Spotify truly, fully reliable.

My Next Steps

Obviously, scholarly research only goes so far in situations like this. In order to properly gauge the accuracy of shufflemancy, I'll have to do it myself.

First, I'll need a playlist. I have a handful of playlists that sit in the hundred-hour range, but they're curated with friends for specific vibes. They're not really suitable for shufflemancy. So making one for myself is step one. I'll use premade playlists as a springboard for ideas, but the end result will be my own. For transparency, I'll make the playlist public and share it as part of the next edition in this series of posts.

The next step is to just... do it. Do the divinations, and do them regularly. Instead of a daily tarot card, I'll do a daily shuffle. I'll form "spreads" and put together a more in-depth methodology that fits my style as it develops.

Then, finally, maybe public ones? For reviews and feedback, obviously. It's one thing to do divination for myself -- confirmation bias and all -- but to do it for others and to be open for immediate feedback is entirely different.

Last, it's a matter of compiling my findings into a coherent document. Easier said than done, but done it must be.

Resources

I pulled from a lot of places for this one. Massive thanks to the Crossroads Discord for listening to me yell about divination for the last several weeks. It will continue.

In any case, here are all the resources I referenced for this leg of research:

Wikipedia - The Fisher-Yates Shuffle

Wikipedia - Methods of Divination

Wikipedia - The iPod Shuffle

PopSci - History of Shuffling Music

Engineering at Spotify - How to Shuffle?

The Verge - The Mixed-Up History of the Shuffle Button

Auntie PanPan (YouTube) - Shufflemancy - What IS It?!?

Halfbakery - Shufflemancy Idea Post

Fox and Faith Wordpress - Radio Divination and Intentional Living in Your Day to Day

Scientific American - How Randomness Rules Our World and Why We Cannot See It

PC World - The CD Player Turns 30

Make Use Of - How Spotify's Shuffle Feature Really Works

Orriculum on Tumblr - Post on shufflemancy technique

The-Daily-Divinre on Tumblr - Post on shufflemancy technique

Empirical Zeal - What Does Randomness Look Like?

[britcision]

Thinking about how people keep pushing AI as a “well not everyone can [creative skill]” and I just… I don’t understand how they don’t see the problem with that

Because no one’s born good at drawing, or writing, or building 3D models

The whole point of having creative skills is that you need to learn how to do them. By doing them badly, often for quite a while, until you’ve tried enough things to work out what you like

And being able to word a prompt to an AI to actually get what you want is certainly a skill, and it’s certainly creative, but you’re never going to learn to draw, or write, or whatever else you’re bemoaning if you just want to push a button and get a result

And sure, it’s not like we’re going to completely run out of creatives; people with moral fibre are still going to avoid using the blatant theft that is generative AI, and will still be actually creating their own things and building skills

But if you advertise your AI and intentionally sell it to people as “hey don’t learn to draw you can just poke this button and say it’s close enough”… you’re actively discouraging people from actually trying anything

Your first attempts at any art aren’t going to look like a master’s. You’re going to be unsatisfied with your own skills over and over again, usually right before you make a drastic improvement

That’s just how creation works

And giving up and trying to make an AI do it for you instead of keeping trying and actually learning and building new skills is going to kill a lot of peoples’ creativity

It’s okay if you can’t draw as well as you’d like to. It’s okay if you can’t write a beautiful novel on the first try, or even the little oneshot you really want.

You’re going to make a lot of things that are bad, and a lot of things that are meh, and a lot of things you’ll be embarrassed you made in another ten years. Because you need to make all of those things before you can make something great, and because you need to understand that everything you think was bad and meh was pretty damn good for a beginner, and some of it will be great, and in another fifteen years you’ll see that too.

You will not become a better artist by switching to AI because it’s “easier”. You will not become a better writer by writing prompts instead of stories.

Every time you’re tempted because “the AI’s will look better than anything I make”, you are the only reason that statement is true. You might redraw your old pieces every year just to see how far you’ve come, or bury them never to be seen again, but you’re the only person limiting your creativity.

People make art with typewriters, and by throwing things at a canvas, and write single scenes and cracky one shots and snippets and round robins

Trust me, every artist you’ve ever admired knows exactly how hard, and frustrating, and time consuming it is to try and get an image from your brain into the outside world. And how many times you want to give up, or feel like you failed.

Your favourite artist has trashed a thousand pieces you would love to have seen because they weren’t good enough, or didn’t work out the way they wanted

(Yes, artists, the WIP folder gathering dust counts unless you go work on it right now)

A lot of creative efforts don’t see the light of day, and every single one goes into every single piece that does get shared

I’d love to be better at drawing! To be faster, have a better grasp at proportions and perspective and honestly to have more patience for shading and such instead of just grabbing the blur tool because it’s close enough

But those skills are underdeveloped, and are going to stay that way because the time it’d take to get good at drawing would be time I could spend writing, and that is where the demons in my soul got their hooks in first

So now, after twenty years of near-continuous work, I can write very quickly, very fluidly, and damn well… and don’t have the patience or time to try and push the same inspirations into a medium I’m less good at

(I do occasionally become possessed by an image strongly enough that I draw it anyway. I do this knowing going in that it’s going to be far from perfect, but it’ll be the best I’ve got right now)

(Also reading art tutorials and tips from great artists for 20 years does also help even if you don’t practice and I have the doodles to prove it)

And if I want a visual reference for a character… I use HeroForge to make one myself, because there are a billion creative tools that offer so much more control than just “prompt an AI until it works”

They’re not perfect, but they’re the best I can do

And if I keep doing it, and keep building those skills, that best is gonna get better and better

I’m getting better at drawing the more I give in to moments of inspiration

It’s going to take much longer, since I’m not doing it every single day (every year is still questionable), but it’ll still happen as I keep doing it

The only thing stopping everyone else from doing exactly the same is the refusal to try… and giving up on themselves and just using AI instead of trying something different