#organ colossal

[3garcons]

Kaleidescape at Troy Music Hall

various artists Oct 2023

[thingsorganizedneatly]

Flower Mandalas by Kathy Klein

via Colossal

[im-smart-i-swear]

webby would have LOVED mystery flesh pit national park

[bigwishes]

Dibs on Mike!

Sure thing King!

You blink and suddenly find yourself in a gym locker room drying off after a quick shower, the new heavy weight of your body is strange to get used to but eventually you find yourself. Smiling as you stomp down feeling the power of your body surge into the floor under you as your leg flexes with rippling muscles.

You cant help but flex, flex and flex some more, this incredible body, this absolute tank of a man.

You feel yourself getting hard as you are staring directly at your new body in the mirror, fantasising about what you'll do when you get home, thinking about how you are going to change your personality to that of a show boating muscle beast.

Your dick twitches and you feel a surge inwards pulsing from your pelvis. You see in the mirror as the veins leading to your dick start to pulse on your hip bones, but instead of blood traveling to your favourite organ it looks like its pumping out from it.

You pull back you waist band to reveal a magnificent 9 inches that is twitching uncontrollably. You watch as your rock hard member bounces but instead of getting bigger at all it instead gets slightly smaller, a suddenly feeling like something is condensing your package hits you as you moan in pain.

You look in the mirror gritting your teeth as you watch the veins on your pelvis work up your abs pumping outwards to the rest of your body, and as it does you grow, rapidly getting bigger. Your perfectly fitting gym shorts get tighter and tighter until they start to split, you watch as the bulge in the front of your pants get smaller and smaller until it is nothing but a small nub.

You feel light headed and watch as the veins on your neck rise to the surface and behind to pump blood downwards causing you to grow even more, you try and think of what could be happening but your mind draws a blank, soon you don't even recognise what is happening to you as you mouth falls slack and drool starts to drop drip from your lips down to your chest.

You flex and let out a stupid bro laugh

all you see is size and it brings you nothing but joy, you need to work out, you need to grow, you need to be so big you out grow the word colossal, you are desperately hungry to keep getting bigger and to keep growing.

Mike's wish was a simple one a man dedicated to bodybuilding simply wished for it to be all he was, he wished to trade everything for more size and to grow for everything he gave and to never stop growing.

And now this is your purpose, grow, grow, grow, never stop

too stupid to do anything else but pick heavy circles off the ground and force yourself to grow, and flex in the mirror of course.

[bogleech]

Thoughts on the idea that Lystrosaurus caused the Permian extinction by being so dang numerous and dominant, making them one of three organisms that were so overly well-adapted that they broke the ecosystem and led to a colossal mass extinction (the other two being early photosynthesizers and humans)?

I pay so much more attention to invertebrates, I actually knew nothing about this idiot fool here?!?!

I did not know that this big mole rat walrus sloth looking ass survived the permian so fucking well that at one point it constituted possibly 95% of the terrestrial vertebrates on Earth. What the fuck. What happened. And we have a fucking MUMMIFIED SKIN fossil of one?!?! A little baby one!?!?

augg they flattenated him I can't believe it :( I can't believe they'd pancaker a little guy like that

[dinodorks]

[ Argentinosaurus, a giant sauropod, illustrated by Chase Stone. ]

"Of all the animals ever to have roamed the planet, the iconic long-necked, long-tailed dinosaurs known as sauropods stand unrivaled. No other terrestrial creatures have come close to attaining their colossal sizes. They overshadowed all other dinosaurs, from the duck-billed hadrosaurs and the horned ceratopsians to the armored ankylosaurs and predatory tyrannosaurs. Even the mightiest land mammals—mammoths and rhinoceroslike beasts that were up to twice as heavy as the largest elephants alive today—were featherweights compared with the biggest sauropods. From an evolutionary perspective, this singularity makes sauropods an intriguing anomaly. Evolution is rampant with examples of convergence, in which the same feature evolves more than once independently in different groups of organisms. A classic example of convergence is powered flight—flapping wings evolved in birds, bats, pterosaurs and insects, but the particular bones or other structures making up the wings differ among the groups, attesting to their independent evolutionary origins. Convergence in evolution is very common even when it comes to complicated features: warm-bloodedness, eyes that can move and focus, bipedal locomotion, the loss of limbs, the use of tools, and live birth all evolved multiple times in different animal groups. Convergence is widespread in the plant kingdom as well: carnivorous plants evolved at least a dozen times, roots evolved more than once, and even arborescence—plants taking the form of trees—evolved more than once. With convergence so common in nature, sauropods' uniqueness in size is special in itself. No other land animal has approached even a third of the largest sauropods' weight. What makes sauropods stand out from the crowd, both literally and figuratively?"

Read more: "How Sauropod Dinosaurs Became the Biggest Land Animals Again and Again" by Michael D. D'Emic.

[hwaightme]

I will wait

(masterlist)

🍵pairing: seonghwa x gn!reader 🍵genre: comfort, healing, fluff, confession, friends to lovers, implied slowburn 🍵summary: you would have never expected to be facing your biggest fear over a cooling cup of tea, but here you are, gazing into seonghwa's loving eyes. 🍵wordcount: 2.8k total 🍵warnings/tags: semi-edited, slightly dark humour, mention of relationship trauma, learning to love again, emotional exhaustion, present tense, seonghwa is a loving understanding boy, inner monologues, y/n pov, mutual friend joong 🍵 taglist: at the bottom of the fic 🍵 a/n: hello <3 slowly trying to make a return, feeling very rusty... sorry <3 i hope this brings comfort to you <3 reblogs, thoughts and feelings always appreciated.

Wrapped up in routine and basic survival, it is easy to forget your own heart. Similarly, when your heart bears more metaphorical scar tissue than ground for new beginnings, it is easy to abandon frivolous affections in favour of basic human function - so long as the worn out organ beats, everything is good enough. Long gone are the days when you boldly dive into a journey without evaluating the potential consequences, hoping for smooth, never ending roads. Cold, calculated, you consider. And almost one hundred percent of the time, nothing is ever worth it. What could another person bring to you that you cannot bring yourself? Down to heartbreak, you have no trouble being your own worst critic, and happiness? Well, you know what you like best. There simply is no room for anything else, anything more. You float, trying to keep your head above water. 

You have heard far too many things about yourself to continue caring about relationships. Everyone seems to have their own idea and theory about why you are perpetually single, from you being too threatening, to you behaving in some type of way. Well, if your behaviour does not suit someone, you are not about to go out of your way to change yourself to fit another’s standards - you have tried to do that before, everything collapsing and ending catastrophically, leaving you in shambles. If someone is threatened, it is their problem, first and foremost, not yours. Again, you are not going to diminish yourself, admonish yourself when you are trying your damn hardest to stay standing in a world and society that is challenging enough to exist in.

Many have told you to try to flirt ‘for sport’, ‘for fun’, but in your eyes it is a colossal waste of time, energy and your ability to lie. You do enough of that when masking your exhaustion. Some talk of their own successes; relationships that stand the test of time, crushes that turn into partners and long distance turning into close proximity. So what? You are happy for them, in fact, you are elated. Just because you yourself are not in a relationship does not mean you are void of happiness - something that a lot of people appear to either not understand or forget. Much like you get irritated at others not minding their own business, you stick to such rules yourself: your discomfort with people, past disappointments and the occasional pang of solitude are nobody else’s truth but your own. You are the keeper of your life, fatigued, but at least you are honest. To someone. You are not sure who this someone is, but you feel honest.

Jasmine tea in a tall cup in front of you, a dessert, the name of which you already forgot - some kind of special, stand in front of you proudly, aromatic and flavourful. A newly released album by a singer who you discovered a little while ago is playing on the speakers, ever so gently muted by the occasional burst of steam or rumble of the barista machine. It is not the first time you are hearing these songs - on loop, again and again, you are starting to memorise some of the lyrics. Lulling chatter of the workers at the cafe in a language you cannot understand - so melodic, so comforting, so familiar. And here you are, imagining yourself to be another decoration, a chair, a table, plant or light, sitting here, unmoving, soaking in the atmosphere of what you have grown to adore with your whole heart.

There is a reason why you love this little place, tucked away inside the side streets of a busy city. So many people, so many events, so many ups and downs, and through it all, this place stays standing. You met ‘what ifs’ here, spent hours chatting away with someone who you used to know, indulged in maybes, passions, friendships, and through it all, your heart was still so happy. You consider yourself to be harmlessly simple when it comes to things like this - very little is needed to bring a smile to your face and reassure you. Yes, there is never a problem in ‘what’ brings you joy. The issue is in who it is ‘who’ brings, or is meant to bring, this happiness to you. For this reason, you are perfectly content with how you are, having ordered the drink and dessert for yourself, sitting alone at one of the tables, and, with a view unobstructed by some individual who would probably turn into a stranger, taking in the interior and the world visible through the windows. You feel just a smidgen stronger when you step inside this place. A regular, you can chat with the baristas happily and relish in the mutual recognition and warm wishes. This is a tiny little home for you. A home for your heart.

Until right this moment, that is. Until you look up and see an awfully familiar figure slinking past the entrance and giving a light bow to one of the baristas who had spotted him. Until you lock eyes with this personified elegance, and, bewildered, follow his increasing proximity to your table. He is dressed comfortably, but even the most casual garment is made priceless when worn by him - that much you have learned to not be surprised by. Straightened black hair that reaches his shoulders in the back is, again, very befitting the weather and the aesthetic. You cannot hate him nor his looks even if you tried. But would you reveal anything except indifference? Only time can tell. For now, even before he can utter your name - his parted lips suggesting an impending greeting, you merely point at the register, motioning for him to make an order first. It has been only a couple of seconds, but you already want to hide. Looking at your phone you check the time, wondering if you can make up some other travel plan or appointment. Alas, nothing is coming to mind that qualifies as an unwavering obligation. Here’s to being caught off-guard. Particularly embarrassing considering that it is not the first time. Seonghwa - an endearing but dangerously handsome nerd who crashed into your life, as most of your friends had done, is just that little bit too dedicated, that little bit too curious, that little bit too committed to ‘being there for you’. As a friend, surely. 

You sneak the occasional glance at him while he is waiting for his drink of choice - probably a strawberry tea or whatever else that is the antithesis to bitterness. It takes a bit of strength to convince yourself that this is all pure coincidence. Just two friends who happened to see each other in the same cafe that they have both been to before. You do not want your nerves to take over and persuade you to think that there is anything more. It is all too tiring. And so you hide away your unresolved debates in a box deep in your chest, somewhere far enough from that bloodied fist that is making you lightheaded, so far that you find it harder to breathe. But it is nothing; nothing you aren’t used to. It is simple enough - giving Seonghwa a quick smile when he approaches you again with that silly little red drink in his hands, gesturing at the seat opposite you, waiting for him to settle and look up at you with a sparkle in his endless rich chocolate eyes.

“Must be fate, huh?” he jokes, while your grin falters. There he goes again.

“Are you following me, Park?” Your question is delivered without much emotion aside from a raised brow. But you know well enough that this is about as good as using cotton in place of a bullet; Seonghwa keeps on grinning, and takes a quick sip of his tea. 

“No need when you’re always on my mind,” you pretend to feel nauseous from his corny flirting, and roll your eyes. It is despicable how his presence really is entertaining.

“Oh dear. Must be a nightmare. Need a therapist?” 

“This would be the best diagnosis one could ever receive, I fear,” he is spectacularly bold today, that much you can deduce. Contrary to popular descriptions from your other mutual friends, Seonghwa has never been ‘shy’ towards you, and his affection knows no bounds. Be it a random trinket, song link or a sweet word, he truly does seem to have an infinite supply of it - something both perplexing, and enviable. He is a person who is so full of love that it overflows. In short, your opposite.

“Right…” you trail off, not quite sure how to respond. His eyes remain on your face, softening from a bright eagerness to tranquil admiration, “well… what brings you here?”

“Cutting straight to the chase?”

“Tired of running,” your deadpanned response clearly has some kind of impression, as Seonghwa momentarily pauses and purses his lips. 

“Fair enough.”

Tap, tap, another tap on the side of his cup. Finger restlessly tracing his nervousness into the curves and edges of the ceramic. Newfound fascination in counting the crumbs that are like stars on your plate. You count seconds, but each one drags on until it has no meaning. What could be so challenging to put into words? You know, but hope with all your being that you are completely and utterly wrong. In your books, once a person has given up, there is no point in ever reigniting that naive fighting spirit that suffered defeat, only for the risk to have the fall repeat. You wait patiently, suppressing the urge to stand up and walk out.

“Okay, so, I did ask Hongjoong where you were-” he begins with a light simpering smile to mask what you can only read as worry.

“Figured.”

“Mm, alright. Uhm, well. How can I even- so…”

All the signs are evident. You should have known from the moment he entered the cafe. And if not then, then at least from the way he was acting right before this. But you do not have the courage to stop him anymore, choosing to let anguish settle in your bones. He clears his throat, barely audible, perhaps to ground himself yet again. You feel sorry - the trepidation of the heart, the wishes and dreams blending with the present vision, adrenaline and foolishness forcing action. Thankfully, this twisted bouquet of emotional torment is not terminal, if treated correctly. You wait.

“Goodness, I wanted this to be a casual setting and here I am making a big deal out- well, it is a big deal… or, well, it could be if you wanted to- what am I saying-” he stumbles over his own words, which is most certainly something uncharacteristic to him. Seonghwa, normally the one who can encapsulate any situation and sensation in the most wondrous collections of phrases, is at a loss. Might this be terminal?

“Perhaps it is best that I start from the end, then,” you prepare yourself for the worst, “I… I really like you. Really, really like you.”

At least you are prepared.

“Oh…” the single syllable betrays your irrevocably increasing agitation. You don’t ‘love’. You don’t ‘like’. You can’t. You shouldn’t. Does Seonghwa not know what he is walking into?

“I- before you say it, let me… I know that this is terrifying, and hell, I’m so sorry for crashing into your day like this. It was selfish of me. But I just want you to know that no matter what, you will always be an important person to me, a very very important person who makes my life brighter than any star,” you swallow whatever retort lodged in your throat, remaining silent. You cool like the tea in your cup, curious who will leave this cafe shattered. A lukewarm kind of sadness.

Shame on you, for being so closed off. Surely, you should be blaming yourself. Objectively, Seonghwa is beyond lovely. To some, he might be everything. Maybe even to you, he might be something of a balancing force. His fire to your ice, if you were to let yourself indulge in being a tiny bit cheesy. Subjectively, the ice would melt, and put out the fire, or instead turn to wispy steam, blending into promises, equally as airy. It is easy enough to figure out that you are stuck in the latter maze of conclusions.

You could cry. Seonghwa, having noticed a droplet by your cup- be it condensation or a careless descent from a sip turned sour, immediately reaches for a napkin and wipes it away, as if everything that is happening is only natural. As if confessing is nothing out of the ordinary to him. Perhaps this is indeed the case, and you are the only one who has gone to great lengths to disassociate yourself from all things ‘love’. Ballads turn to taunts, poems turn to curses, bouquets turn to rotting litter. How dare Seonghwa show up in your life like this, and threaten to never leave? Your gaze crawls slowly upwards, a frail candlelight extinguished with the roar of his glimmering orbs, already having trailed back to studying you. Your skin crawls at the possibility of him reading your distress - he can, you know he can, he probably is. A shiver travels up your spine. Thankfully, Seonghwa does not mention it, despite the furrowing of his brows being obvious even from the briefest glimpse.

“Well…” your thought ends where it has begun. Words fail you. You clench your fist, instinctively looking for the sleeve of your top to offer some kind of distraction. 

“Hm?” He could be a painting. Every movement effortlessly graceful, he puts models to shame, and gold loses its meaning when faced with his heart. You cannot utter the question plaguing you out loud, but you know that it is the only thing you could possibly manage, and even then, you’d rather forever hold your silence than to see your friend, or not quite friend, be crestfallen. He would lie, he would pretend, all in the efforts to not turn into your mirror. 

“...Why? Why did I say it, right?” Clearly, he knows you too well. You bite your lower lip, and give him a tiny nod while cradling the cup in your hands. His chuckle awakens unwanted butterflies that you attempt to kill with a sword of memories. To no avail. He is not mad nor disappointed, is not lashing out at you and does not seem in any way discouraged. Instead, his hands hover beside yours as he whispers for permission, which you mutely give. He grins, and soon enough, the palms of his hands are caressing your knuckles - reassuring, gentle. 

“I think we are quite similar in some ways. Guided by our morals and beliefs, we act and shape our futures. It just so happens that I believe in love,” a turbulent pause, “...and you. I believe in you. And so I dive headfirst. Into you. And I don’t mind what happens to me, because I still would consider myself lucky to feel what I feel for you.”

“Then you must be aware that… hm, that I am perplexed by this progression?”

“I can explain as many times as you’d like and need.”

“Do my views not bother you? Seonghwa, you are familiar with a lot more than the average person, isn’t that repulsive?” you make an attempt to ruin whatever image he had built up of you in his head, but he would not budge.

“Why would they? I did, I do and I will strive to understand.”

Time fades, and all that remains is an invitation. Hands outstretched, calling for you to take the leap. You are scared out of your mind, unable to see what the future holds. Stone cracks and echoes in your ribcage, sending a ripple through what you had buried. You really shouldn’t, for Seonghwa’s sake, but that little voice in your head is singing, and daring you to try. Would you hate yourself if you would be proven true? Or would parting with Seonghwa be just as sweet as the beginning?

“And what if I- what if I want to… but I need time… to like you…”

“Then I will wait. For as long as you want,” he takes your hands by the fingers, gingerly grasping them and running soothing lines with his thumb, for as long as you need.”

It may be easy to forget your own heart, it may be the case that you are happy alone. But at the same time there is someone who remembers your heart, hoping you would remember theirs. Someone who will wait for you on the other side of solitude, unfreezing and turning the clocks from past to present. Someone who, with every passing day, finds more and more of you to love.

🍵 perma-taglist: @shakalakaboomboo @charreddonuts @miriamxsworld @innsomniacshinestar @preciouswoozi @wooyoungjpg @wowie-hockey @hongjoongs-patience @jaehunnyy @maddkitt @ren-junwrld @marsstarxhwa @yeooclock @yeonjunnie @asjkdk @northerngalxy @my-loves-my-life @http-gyu

enjoyed? please do consider reblogging, thank you <3

[3garcons]

Kaleidescape at Troy Music Hall Oct 2023

various artists

first and 12 edition

[bestanimal]

Round 1 - Phylum Mollusca

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

The second largest phylum, Mollusca contains over 76,000 living species and somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 extinct species, including the ammonites and helcionelloids. Living groups include the chitons, solenogasters, caudofoveates, cephalopods (octopuses, squids, cuttlefish, nautiloids, etc.), scaphopods, gastropods (slugs and snails), and bivalves.

Molluscs are highly diverse, living on land, in freshwater, and in saltwater, where they comprise over 23% of all named marine organisms. The most diverse molluscs are the gastropods which comprise over 80% of known molluscs. Due to their high diversity, the only things most molluscs have in common are a soft body composed almost entirely of muscle, a mantle with a significant cavity used for breathing and excretion, the presence of a radula (bivalves excluded), and the structure of their nervous system.

Many molluscs are endangered due to collecting and killing individuals for their meat and/or decorative shells.

Propaganda under the cut:

Cephalopods are one of the (if not the) most neurologically advanced of all invertebrates and are capable of using tools, solving puzzles, and play.

Masters of camouflage, many cephalopods can change color, shape, and texture to hide from predators, sneak up on prey, and communicate with each other

The largest molluscs are the Giant Squid (Architeuthis dux), with 12–13 m (39–43 ft) long females and 10 m (33 ft) long males, and the Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) which is estimated between 10 m (33 ft) and 14 m (46 ft) long. The Giant Squid has much longer tentacles, but the Colossal Squid is heavier, reaching a mass of at least 495 kilograms (1,091 lb). The largest specimens of Colossal Squid, known only from beaks found in sperm whale stomachs, may perhaps weigh as much as 600–700 kg (1,300–1,500 lb).

Mollusc shells make up most of the “seashells” washed ashore, and are created by the animal via secretions of chitin and conchiolin from its mantle edge. Not all molluscs have shells (ex: nudibranchs) and for some, the shell is internal (ex: cuttlefish). Mollusc shells come in many beautiful colors, shapes, and sizes.

Most molluscs have eyes, and all have sensors to detect chemicals, vibrations, and touch. Of the phyla we have covered so far, their senses are the most developed.

Conchs can look at you like this:

(Source)

All cone snails are venomous, and some of the larger species are some of the most venomous animals in the world. Even though some species’ stings are fatal to humans, their sophisticated venom has saved lives through its use in neurological research.

Humans don’t just use mollusk meat and shells, but also luxuries like pearls, mother of pearl, Tyrian purple dye, and sea silk. As stated above, many species are now endangered due to human use, but some are farmed for their meat, pearls, and shells. The farming of bivalves is more ecologically-friendly than the farming of chordates as, rather than create waste, bivalves like mussels and oysters actually clean the water.

As filter-feeders, bivalves are natural water filters. A single 5.08 cm (2 inch) clam can filter up to 10-12 gallons of seawater a day. They can even filter microplastics out of polluted water.

The largest bivalve is the Giant Clam (Tridacna gigas) which can weigh over 200 kilograms (440 lb), measure as much as 120 cm (3.11 ft) across, and have an average lifespan in the wild of more than 100 years.

Cover your ears, kids. Terrestrial slugs, which are hermaphroditic, have some of the most intimate sex on the planet. A pair of slugs will suspend from a chord of mucus, heads down, and intertwine their bodies in a tight spiral. They will then evert their penuses and entwine them as well, exchanging sperm while hanging in midair. Slug porn, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, for your viewing pleasure.

[vestaignis]

Замок Миранда (Château Miranda)— замок 19-го века построенный в нео-готическом стиле в городе Сель, провинция Намюр, Бельгия. Строительство замка началось в 1866 году по проекту английского архитектора Эдварда Милнера. Замок был задуман как летняя резиденция семьи Liedekerke De Beaufort. Однако архитектор скончался до окончания постройки и замок достраивался уже без него. Окончание строительства произошло в 1907 году.Потомки старинного рода проживали там до Второй Мировой войны. Во время войны замок был оккупирован немецкими войсками.После войны владельцы решили перебраться во Францию, а их роскошный замок превратился сначала в детский дом, а с 1958 года - в дом отдыха для детей железнодорожников. Видимо, тогда он и получил свое второе название Chateau de Noisy (Шумный замок).

С 1991 года Миранда был заброшен, расходы на его содержание оказались непомерно высоки. Местный муниципалитет предложил взять их на себя, но семья отказалась, надеясь найти покупателя.Параллельно с поисками покупателя владельцем была подана просьба о сносе здания, в июле 2015 оно было получено. Средства на восстановление заброшенного замка требовались колоссальные, было организовано товарищество по спасению Миранды, но речь шла о сумме в 15-25 миллионов евро.Два года спустя покупатель так и не был найден, а отдать свой замок в дар государству не каждый способен...

"Замок превратился в руины и представляет собой реальную опасность для всех тех, кто незаконно вторгается в мою частную собственность" - так владелец объяснил уничтожение Miranda Castle.

Château Miranda is a 19th-century castle built in the neo-Gothic style in the town of Sel, Namur, Belgium. Construction of the castle began in 1866 according to the design of the English architect Edward Milner. The castle was conceived as the summer residence of the Liedekerke De Beaufort family. However, the architect died before the construction was completed and the castle was completed without him. The construction was completed in 1907. Descendants of the old family lived there until the Second World War. During the war, the castle was occupied by German troops. After the war, the owners decided to move to France, and their luxurious castle turned first into an orphanage, and since 1958 into a holiday home for children of railway workers. Apparently, it was then that it received its second name, Chateau de Noisy (Noisy Castle).

Since 1991, Miranda has been abandoned, the costs of its maintenance being prohibitive. The local municipality offered to take them over, but the family refused, hoping to find a buyer. In parallel with the search for a buyer, the owner submitted a request to demolish the building, which was received in July 2015. Colossal funds were required to restore the abandoned castle; a partnership was organized to save Miranda, but the amount in question was 15-25 million euros. Two years later, a buyer was never found, and not everyone is able to donate their castle to the state…

“The castle has turned into ruins and poses a real danger to all those who illegally invade my private property,” this is how the owner explained the destruction of Miranda Castle.

Источник:/poshyk.info/zabroshennye-zamki-mira/,/fishki.net/50746-zabroshennyj-zamok-chateau-miranda-52-foto.html,//dzen.ru/ a/ YWAhiQydDxQdRome,/steport.com/article/23/zabroshennyi-zamok-chateau-miranda,/pikabu.ru/story /zabroshennyiy_zamok _chateau _ miranda_gorod_sel_provintsiya_namyur_belgiya_5540122,/vk.com/album-43797049_205839158.

[my-naughty-writings-and-musings]

Oh my god those Bee and Elita-1 hcs were perfection! *Kisses fingertips* may I request some saucy hcs of Earthspark Megatron? What do you think he enjoys most?

Ahhhh thank you!! I was already working on some for him, so you read my mind!! Enjoy some saucy Reader x Megatron!

(Note: I've got a headcanon bots can knock up aliens, including organics.)

1. His horniness exists on a a broad spectrum that stretches from "happy to be here" all the way to "feral rutting to save the species", and a wide array of behaviours can be enjoyed between. When more relaxed, he'll take his time to undress you, and his flirting will lean towards being almost poetic. The more desperate he is, however, the more you can expect to lose an article of clothing to his overly eager servos. Privacy matters very little once he's truly desperate, and it's also quite difficult to get all of his mass out of sight, so he's become a master of stealth. A small back hallway at GHOST is more than sufficient for him.

2. He's too ashamed to admit it to most anyone, but he has a colossal breeding kink, and the fact he can impregnate you fills him with so many conflicting feelings. There's some part of him that wants it more than anything; to spark you up, watch you swell with his sparkling, and bring new life to his incredibly endangered species. At the same time, he feels terribly guilty just for having these thoughts, and he's certain the guilt is warranted for too many reasons to count. One in particular is how selfish he feels to ask such a thing of you. Still, the desire is there, and should you discover it and convince him you want to try... Clear your schedule for the next week or so.

3. He thinks it's silly, but one of his favorite places to make love is the forest. Cybertron had some, but he was rarely able to explore them, and those on earth have given him a second chance to enjoy the tranquility. When he's (reasonably) certain the two of you are alone, he'll always be down for a quickie in the woods.

[deathmoth-blog]

The family Cranchiidae comprises the approximately 60 species of glass squid, also known as cockatoo squid, cranchiid, cranch squid, or bathyscaphoid squid. Cranchiid squid occur in surface and midwater depths of open oceans around the world. They range in mantle length from 10 cm (3.9 in) to over 3 m (9.8 ft), in the case of the colossal squid. The common name, glass squid, derives from the transparent nature of most species. Cranchiid squid spend much of their lives in partially sunlit shallow waters, where their transparency provides camouflage. They are characterised by a swollen body and short arms, which bear two rows of suckers or hooks. The third arm pair is often enlarged. Many species are bioluminescent organisms and possess light organs on the undersides of their eyes, used to cancel their shadows. Eye morphology varies widely, ranging from large and circular to telescopic and stalked. A large, fluid-filled chamber containing ammonia solution is used to aid buoyancy. This buoyancy system is unique to the family and is the source of their common name "bathyscaphoid squid", after their resemblance to a bathyscaphe. Often the only organ that is visible through the transparent tissues is a cigar-shaped digestive gland, which is the cephalopod equivalent of a mammalian liver. This is usually held in a vertical position to reduce its silhouette and a light organ is sometimes present on the lower tip to further minimise its appearance in the water.

[if-whats-new]

What's New In IF? Issue 20 (2024)

By Marjorie, Axelle, Noi. Brij, Dion and Bex

Now Available!

Itch.io. - Keep Reading below

If you read the zine, consider liking the post: it helps us see how many people sees it! And sharing is caring! <3

~ EDITORIAL ~

(Re-)Growing Team!

A couple of courageous souls contacted us, looking to make a difference in the IF community by helping us with the zine!

So, we would like to introduce our new members of the team and officially welcome:

Bex, Brij, and Dion!

If you too would like to help us out in a more official capacity, we still have some slots available in our roster. So shoot us a message!

~

This week, we had a very special guest on Small Talk... Author of many IF games, XYZZY winner, ClubFloyd founder and IFComp organizer... Jacqueline A. Lott!

We got to learn about her trajectory in the IF Community since her debut in 2002, from author to event organizer, to community leader!

Check out our interview with Jacqueline A. Lott on Small Talk...

We hope you enjoy this extra long issue!

MARJORIE, AXELLE, NOI, BRIJ, DION, BEX

~ 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 : IFCOMP ~

The Superbowl of Interactive Fiction

The Interactive Fiction Competition (or IFComp) is one of the major yearly IF events, since 1995. It may be even the longest still-recurring yearly game making event!

Started by Kevin Wilson in the IF Usenet Forum rec.arts.int-fiction, submitted games were limited to 2h playtime before being judged and ranked by players.

Throughout the years, the IFComp evolved, seeing a couple dozens of parser entries to a wide and diverse range of IF forms. Still, after ballooning during Covid, with recurring 70+ entries, the event continues to be a key avenue for IF creation

As the submission period ended just this week, the IFComp is now moving to its Voting Period, which will last for 1-1/2 month (until October 15). Starting this Sunday, judges will be able to play and rate entries (minimum of 5 to count).

At the end of the event, if participants rank high enough, they are eligible for prizes and part of the Colossal Fund pie! @ifcomp They are still looking for donations!

Looking for great games to play? Want your voice make a difference? Go create an account and vote!

~ ENDED ~

Nothing of note this week.

~ ONGOING (VOTING) ~

Only a couple of days to submit your feedback to the single entry of this year's IntroComp. You just need to “vote” to send it!

~ ONGOING (SUBMITTING) ~

Today is the last day to submit a campfire-inspired visual novel around a thrilling tale. Tales to Thrill awaits!

There is also about as much time to create a parser, in French(ish), for the Confiture de Parser!

And for the SuNoFes Jam, you will have about three days left to submit a narrative games!

Do you have WIPs on indefinite hiatus? Projects you've started forced to be set aside? Bring Out Your Ghost is a jam to show off your ghosts (and maybe even spruce them up and finish them)! @neointeractives

On the CoG Forum, Halloween is already there! Until Oct 31st, submit to the Halloween Jam - it has funky themes!

Running until Halloween, the Phantasia Jam is a three months game jam to create a fantasy narrative game, with the theme of “Hidden Magic”. It accepts both VN and IF.

Do you understand or write Ukrainian? Until the end of the year, the Ukrainian IF Festival is happening on itch.io!

~ OTHER ~

The end of the Review-a-thon on the IntFiction Forum, whose initiative is to get more reviews for games, is almost there. But you can still participate!Check out this post by Tabitha! 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 JACQUELINE A. LOTT (website)

~ Joining us this week is IF author, ClubFloyd founder and IFComp organizer: Jacqueline A. Lott ~ Author of “The Fire Tower” and many, many more!

Due to Tumblr's link limit, this transcription does not include any links. Download the zine on itch for the complete list.

⟶ Hi Jacqueline! Welcome to Small Talk..!

Thank you for having me!

⟶ Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into Interactive Fiction?

I grew up in a family that loved to play games of all sorts, and I was a kid during the original era of Choose Your Own Adventure and Infocom. Zork was on our C-64 at home, and also on the IBM PCs in the computer lab at my elementary school. I wanted to make my own games, but I didn't know any programmers and there weren't as many resources for kids like me to learn to code back then; I tried to teach myself with books and by typing code out of magazines, but without any adults who could help it became pretty demoralizing, and I drifted away from the idea of making my own games for ten or fifteen years. In 2002, I stumbled across rec.arts.int-fiction, which at the time was where most of the interactive fiction conversation was happening, and joined the ifMUD. Inform 6 was the hot language at that time, and it came with wonderful documentation. I used that to make my first game, which was an entry in the first IntroComp.

⟶ The Waterhouse Women was this first game. How did you come up with the premise? and why submit it to IntroComp?

I was staying with family for several weeks during that period, helping to take care of my papaw, who was very ill, and I had quite a bit of downtime while he was sleeping. In the bathroom of the house were these eclectic accent tiles, each with a scene on them, that looked like illustrations from a children's book of fairytales. There was a lighthouse, a frog on a rock surrounded by cat tails, a double-masted sailing ship, and a striped koi fish with bubbles. I got to wondering if these scenes were meant to be connected in some sort of narrative, or what else I would see if I were to somehow step into each of these illustrations. The concept of moving in and out of images intrigued me, but I wanted a richer tapestry to work with, so I decided instead to use John William Waterhouse paintings.

I entered The Waterhouse Women into IntroComp because it seemed the perfect way for a new author to share an idea and get a lot of feedback before committing fully to an idea that people might not find interesting (or actively dislike!). I still think IntroComp is wonderful for that and I wish more new authors took advantage of it. Ultimately, I got great feedback, figured out what I was doing well, where I needed to focus more, and that the game needed a lot more plot. I have the plot mostly figured out now (with lots of research, correspondence with the art community, seeing many of Waterhouse's paintings in person, and even visiting his grave). One of these days I hope to revisit this story and share it with others.

⟶ The Fire Tower is your highest rated solo project, and one that you recommend yourself on your website. Can you tell us a bit more about this one?

The Fire Tower was written for a curated competition called the IF Art Show, in the Landscape category (other categories included Still Life, Portrait, and Event). The landscape I chose was my favorite hike in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the work is grounded very firmly in that actual, real-world landscape. The rules of the IF Art Show let me do what I love to do most in IF, which is to exhaustively craft and implement a natural environment. I didn't realize it at the time, but Aaron Reed wrote a lovely essay about The Fire Tower as part of his Fifty Years of Text Games and pointed out that the game was basically an IF walking simulator, before walking simulators were really even a thing. I absolutely love walking sims, so him writing that really made me smile.

⟶ The Fire Tower led you to receive one of the coveted XYZZY prizes, for Best Setting. How do you feel about this achievement?

I was surprised and delighted and touched. And I was surprised and delighted and touched again when Aaron Reed included it in his recent book. I'm glad that that game, which is about a place I hold so dear, impacted other people in ways I'd hoped for, and in other ways that I hadn't anticipated.

⟶ About a 1/3rd of your publication was created with other authors. How was the experience working in a group compared to your solo work?

Well, I'm an only child and an introvert, so writing, composing, sculpting, drawing, photography… any sort of solo creation work is the sort of thing I generally love to do to unwind and recharge. That said, I'm fond of the games I wrote with my husband because it's fun and memorable to create things with someone you love. For example, we wrote Within a Wreath of Dewdrops while staying with his parents, who live in rural England, and a lot of that game was conceived during conversations we had while walking across the fields and through the woods. For Disenchantment Bay, even though that was more or less a solo project, where I built on an example that lots of people are familiar with from the Inform 7 documentation (specifically from The Inform Recipe Book), it felt a bit like a collaboration because Emily Short based that Inform example on an experience she had when she was visiting me in Alaska, the boat captain is an actual friend of mine, the setting is another real-world place that I know intimately and love dearly... so I showed Emily the place, she wrote an example, and then (with her permission) I used that example to make a game. I smile just thinking about that. And the four interactive fiction exquisite corpse projects I've contributed to are possibly more fun for the authors than they are for non-authors who play the games later, because being a part of those kinds of projects is a bit of a game in and of itself.

⟶ Is there a game that you made you are particularly fond of? and why?

Well, we've talked about a few of them, but one we haven't touched on yet is I Hear the Wind Blow. It's a one-turn game, meaning that you get one turn, the game ends, you start over, and you use what you learned in previous playthroughs to figure out what move you'll take this time. One reviewer said that it was the first one-turn game they'd played which actually had an emotional impact on them, and that they hadn't thought a one-turn game could do that. I'm pleased I was able to pull that off with such a simple story.

⟶ You were also part of the making of Cragne Manor, a cadavre-exquis-like project which hasn't been replicated since. How did it come to be and what was your involvement in the project?

Well, Cragne Manor was a project conceived by Jenni Polodna and Ryan Veeder to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Michael Gentry's Anchorhead. I'm very fond of Anchorhead... my husband and I played it during a road trip across the United States on our honeymoon (I drove, he read the text aloud and entered commands on a PalmPilot!). I think both Jenni and Ryan are amazing, hilarious, technically proficient, and ever-so-slightly unhinged (in the best sort of way). So, when I read what they wanted to do, and I realized the scope they were willing to take on, and the fact that they really did want as many people as possible to contribute (ultimately they stitched together work from 84 different people), I decided to pitch in. It was just too unique and special a thing to pass up. It was great how it was a bit exquisite corpse but also Jenni and Ryan had thought of special assignments to give many of the participants in order to ensure some degree of cohesiveness and a playable end result. It was amazing, honestly.

⟶ With so many rooms in the game, how can we recognize the Jacqueline room of the manor?

Ah! Well, all of the rooms include the name of their author, and my room was “The Dim Recesses of the Forest”.

⟶ Have you yourself played the game? Any room you found interesting to solve?

Yes. I played Cragne Manor from start to finish with ClubFloyd, the interactive fiction group that gets together on Sundays to play games together. We played it a couple of hours or so at a time, so it took us 19 sessions that spanned six months. It's the longest transcript we've ever produced. I loved so much about it, so many of the rooms, so much of the writing, so many of the moments… I'd be hard pressed to pick just one thing.

⟶ If not just one room, what do you still remember clearly about Cragne Manor? something that touched you maybe?

Well, I adored the half-full styrofoam cup of cold and unpleasant coffee in the game. Which sounds terrible out of context, but there we are.

⟶ Is there a game you regret having made or don't look kindly on in retrospect?

I have a Thanksgiving-related speed-IF that I coded in under an hour called You Are a Turkey! that ... well, I don't regret it, per se, but it's just very silly. It takes less than five minutes to play, and contains a joke that is only funny if you were watching the news in the USA in 2012.

⟶ Aside from your two last publications, your games were made through competitions or jams. Were independent releases not as prevalent during the 00s-10s as it is now?

Honestly, now that you ask this, I'm not sure I've ever just released a game independently without some driving event (a contest, jam, group project, or because I wanted an example to share for a presentation). This is also likely part of why almost everything I've released is fairly short. I suppose that I've looked to events to provide me with a deadline and a writing prompt, or I've done a jam because I found the constraints particularly interesting. I think that's just more about me, and not about any overall trend, though I do think a lot of folks out there only produce for competitions because they think it's a way to get more eyes on their work. I've always just written for myself, or my friends, and have never been about trying to win something big. That's why I have never really considered entering the IFComp or SpringThing. The fact that I received a Xyzzy for The Fire Tower was just serendipity. When the time comes (possibly in retirement!) when I do produce the one or two large stories in my head, I don't think I'll release them as part of anything. If they're any good, word will get out, and people will play them.

⟶ For the next decade, you released a bunch of games, almost all of them made with Inform. What made Inform your program of predilection when creating IF? Do you see yourself trying other systems in the future?

I feel like I've somehow done quite a few games, yet also simultaneously not done very much at all. I've made eleven games on my own (all of them rather short), co-written two with my husband, written that game that builds on an example from the Inform Recipe Book, and contributed to four exquisite corpse games that have tons of authors (most notably the epic Cragne Manor, as we discussed).

I started coding with Inform 6, and was an early adopter of Inform 7... I think that's just because the documentation for those languages was/is so well done, accessible, and fun to read. I've explored a couple of other languages as well. I released In Memory in ADRIFT, as part of the Indigo New Language Speed-IF, where the requirement was that you had to write a game in a language you'd never touched before, and I have one short game, Cloud Dreaming, that I wrote in both Inform and Twine, as examples for a talk called If You Can Write, You Can Make Games. I recently dusted off Inform to explore a couple of percolating ideas, and found that my memory of how it works is still pretty solid, so I suspect I'll stick with Inform rather than picking up something new.

⟶ You've praised the Inform documentation for being so extensive, but are there things you wished you knew about the program before starting?

I think it's less about what I would have liked to have known about Inform specifically, and more about ways of achieving efficiency and organizing my ideas. In terms of efficiency, I know my code is not as streamlined as it could be, and that sometimes I go about things in a way that's harder than it needs to be. That leads me to wonder if I could have done more (and better) work if I hadn't spent so much time fumbling around. And not having worked very much in the games industry, I don't have a grasp of all the tools that are out there, best practices, etc, so that's another place where I've sunk a lot of time trying to figure things out for myself, which leaves less energy for writing stuff that people actually see.

⟶ Based on your own experiences of making games, if you could give any tips to future IF creators, what would it be?

Hm... I think this advice is general enough so as to be applicable to anyone thinking about writing IF, regardless of platform/genre/style:

- Don't use your favorite idea for your first piece of IF; you likely won't do it justice until you've had some practice, so save the favorite idea until at least your third or fourth project.

- If you're going to make something for a competition or a jam or some other event that comes with a deadline, start earlier than you think you need to, and build in time for at least two or three rounds of beta testing (i.e. people test it, you correct the bugs, more people test it, you correct the new bugs that crept in when you were fixing the previous bugs, etc).

- If you're making your game for a competition and it's not quite ready by the deadline, there is nothing wrong with withdrawing from that competition and entering your work somewhere else or waiting until the following year.

- If you're not sure what kind of story or game to write, just write the story or game that you yourself would want to experience.

⟶ Was there ever a project you found particularly challenging to create?

Only the projects that I have not yet released, and in all four cases, it's just challenging due to my bandwidth / energy / available time. Two of the four are somewhat grand in scope. I'm envious of people I know who are also incredibly busy but who somehow manage to continue turning out epic creative work… but I also try to place a lot of focus on self care and proper rest for myself.

⟶ Any chance we could get just a hint of your current works-in-progress?

I'm always hesitant to talk about WIPs, because there is this case of imposter syndrome within me that hears people saying, “She's never released anything substantial, so it's all just talk!”. Setting that dismissive internal voice aside for a moment, I have four ideas that have been living rent free in my head for a while, and that I do poke at often enough to keep them from going entirely stale. One is inspired by a favorite book from my childhood, one is inspired by a favorite film, one is a non-sci-fi sci-fi set on a distant planet, and one is a fantasy filled with beauty and unhealthy love and dark magic.

⟶ Aside from creating games, you are also a pretty prolific reviewer, releasing even a rating method advised to be used by judges at the IFComp. How did you come up with this metric?

Hm. I wouldn't say I wrote it for other judges, or that I'd necessarily recommend it for anyone else. I wrote it mostly for myself, and perhaps for authors who were curious what my ratings mean because they often seemed to differ from ratings other people gave on the same game. I like having this descriptive scale for consistency, so that I know what a 7 I gave 10 years ago meant. Oddly enough, I've found the descriptions for each number useful enough that I've adapted the scale for ranking other things, like, um, comparing the various skills of job candidates.

⟶ How did you get to writing reviews? Any advice for players looking to start reviewing?

Just start writing reviews. Try to write them from the perspective of what you'd accept as valid critique if it were your own work and you were on the receiving end of the review. You don't have to be glowing where it's not warranted, you should be honest, but you don't need to be cruel, either.

Some of my earlier reviews were also written to be somewhat humorous, and I blurred the line into cruelty from time to time; I regret that, and think I've matured since then. I've opted not to update old reviews; what's online is online. But I've shifted to an approach that I hope is still honest, perhaps still a bit harsh when that's warranted, but mostly I try to write reviews that are helpful to the author.

I think it's important to focus on the game, its writing, its implementation, its content, and never on the author. Never make it personal. If you can't avoid that, then you probably shouldn't review that particular game. Consider, where possible, offering ideas for how the work could be improved, particularly if you're hoping to see future work from that author. Help them learn how players experienced their work. The best part is, writing reviews leads you to think about what makes a good game, and in turn improves your own work.

⟶ Is there a review of yours that you are particularly fond of?

Not particularly. There are games I'm particularly fond of, which leads me to go back sometimes and reread my reviews, because that evokes some of the memory and emotion that I had during my experience with that piece of IF, but not from a fondness of the reviews themselves. Also, if there is a particularly memorable turn of text in a game that I think I'll want to remember later, I'll often quote it in a review so that I can find that text again easily.

⟶ Following the release of your first game, you took over the IntroComp for its second edition, which you would run for 14 editions. How did you become the organizer of IntroComp? What was your experience with the event?

IntroComp had been so helpful to me, and there was nothing else out there quite like it, so when Neil deMause indicated that it had been a one-off event, I asked him if I could pick it up and make it an annual thing. Some years it gets a healthy crop of entries, sometimes only a few, and while I did start offering cash to people who finished their games within a year, the real prize of that competition has always been thoughtful, honest, and generally empathetic feedback that helps new authors grow.

In 2018, when I was asked to become the new IFComp organizer, I approached Xalavier Nelson and asked him to become the new steward, which he graciously did for five more years. I was so pleased that, when Xalavier's career really took off and he finally needed to step away, he came back to me and we worked together to make sure IntroComp kept going. Eric Brown has the helm now, he's got support from the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, and I'm a member of his advisory committee. We got a normal number of intents to enter this year, but ultimately most of the authors didn't complete their intros, so for the first time ever there's only one entry -- but people should still go to IntroComp.org and play Good Bones and 'vote' (which provides an opportunity to share anonymous feedback with the authors) before Sept 3rd! It's an intro, so it's not a huge time commitment, and I know the authors would really appreciate it.

⟶ As an advisor on the IFTF board, what does this position entail?

It principally entails attending a few meetings a year where the IFTF board brings us together to share general updates and discuss topics that may impact multiple committees, such as IFComp.

⟶ You moved from organizing the IntroComp to handling the IFComp. Aside from the amount of entries per edition, are there differences between the two events?

Yeah, there are ... a *lot* of differences. IntroComp was a thing I thought about perhaps three months a year, at best. It was a light lift. I mostly did it solo, though I had invaluable help from Dan Shiovitz who wrote the website's backend to automate aspects of collecting feedback, reviewing votes, and determining the results.

IFComp, by contrast, is more of an eight(+) month per year endeavor. There are multiple teams of volunteers (and occasionally paid help) to coordinate. There's a team for the maintenance and continuous development of the website and its custom software. There are a couple of folks who collect, track, and help distribute prizes. There's a curation team that reviews entries as they're uploaded to ensure consistency with competition rules so that we can hopefully prevent any disqualifications. There's a social media team that is way more online than I like to be. We work with folks over at the IntFiction forum, who facilitate a private space for authors. Each year there's a different artist who is commissioned to create the competition logo. This year there are some folks offering to help me improve the awards ceremony. And I have an advisory committee, which includes multiple past IFComp organizers, who help me think through tons of things far better than I could do alone.

⟶ During your tenure as the IFComp organizer, have you seen any changes with the event? How has it evolved?

Well, participation has varied annually over IFComp's full thirty-year lifespan. On my watch, we notably had a year with over 100 games [2020], but that had less to do with me as organizer and more to do with a global pandemic. I can't speak for what the atmosphere was like prior to my watch, but one of the reasons that I've stuck with organizing IFComp for as long as I have now, despite having other irons in the fire, and the fact that organizing the Comp keeps me from creating more work of my own, is that the majority of folks who take our annual post-competition survey remark on what a great experience they've had, and that's really important to me. I enjoy being a part of making that happen. I obviously do not (and cannot) please everyone, but that's just how things are anytime you're doing something that impacts this many people.

I brought one thing with me from IntroComp: allowing judges to leave anonymous feedback when casting their vote, feedback that is only shared privately with the author (after we review it to ensure it meets our Code of Conduct). I guess the other major changes that have happened during my tenure are the introduction of a new logo each year, the addition of an awards ceremony live stream, allowing authors to judge in the competition (but only on games they didn't write or beta test), and shifting the competition up one month to let EctoComp have full control of the spooky season. Mark Musante and the Dev Team have also made a ton of great improvements to the website based on feedback from the annual post-comp survey.

⟶ Stephen Grande was the longest organizer for the IFComp. You’re about halfway through. Do you think you’ll break his record?

Oh wow. What a question! Stephen did this for fifteen years, and he's still helping as a member of the advisory committee, for which I'm very grateful. I'm not sure how much gas there is left in my tank, and my day job is pretty demanding, and I've definitely hit the point where if I bowed out I could do so knowing that I'd had a decent run and made the Comp a little bit better for having been involved with it... but I also do still really enjoy doing it, it was a hard thing to learn to do, but now that I've got the boat up on plane it's not that hard to steer. So I guess the answer is that I'm not out to intentionally break any records, but I ran IntroComp for 14 years and have been (sporadically) organizing ClubFloyd for 17 years as of this coming month... so, who knows?

⟶ So many positive changes brought during your tenure! Have there been ideas for change that were discarded or processes that didn't quite work out?

Thanks for saying that, you’re very kind. As to the question, I don't think we've made any changes during my tenure that we've ended up rolling back. There've been a small number of experimental changes that I thought we might end up rolling back, but then based on input from the post-comp survey decided to let stand, such as allowing authors to also be judges. I really do benefit by being the fifth organizer, inheriting a thing that has been running for decades, where a lot of the kinks have already been worked out, and where I personally know all of the prior organizers and can reach out to them to discuss anything.

⟶ Any advice for aspiring gamedev event organizers?

I recommend volunteering to help with an existing event for a year or two, learn from that, and then spin things off using what you've learned if you still see an unfilled niche that needs an event. It's also fine to reach out to other event organizers and ask for advice... for a while I was on a private group chat with a few other IF event leads, and we should probably resurrect that, as it was pretty helpful to everyone involved.

⟶ Is there something you'd like to see happen or implement in the future for IFComp?

I would like to see more mainstream coverage, at least in gaming media; we've done press releases in the past but have been mostly unsuccessful in getting those picked up for news stories; I think we may take another run at that next year, because our parent non-profit, the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, is working to rebuild its communications team. There are folks every year in the post-comp survey who lament that we don't get featured more in the press, or that we don't have folks like Wil Wheaton do a cameo at our awards ceremony, or that we don't have more judges than we do, and I agree with a lot of that (well, all of it, really -- Wil (@wilwheaton), if you're reading this and want to do a cameo, please reach out!).

⟶ Is there anything the community would like to see happen for IFComp that you don't support?

I think there are a fair number of people who look to the IFComp to help make interactive fiction itself more 'mainstream' or more profitable, but I don't see that as our role. A lot of past IFComp participants have gone on to have amazing careers in gaming or academia or publishing... so in that sense, we are having an impact on the industry, but mostly IFComp is about providing a venue for people to share good, well-tested works of interactive fiction and to put a spotlight on the very best of the best among parser and choice (and other IF that may not neatly fit either of those categories). We've got some folks who feel we shouldn't rank all of the games, that no one should come in last (or at least know that they came in last), but there are other venues for that. It’s not a jam, it’s a contest, and we are asking people to bring their best game to the competition.

We've also had repeated requests to reduce the number of entries through entrance fees, or having curated pre-judging, or having multiple rounds of judging with brackets, or splitting the comp by genre or platform, or hosting multiple iterations of the IFComp per year... and for a variety of reasons related to equity or workload, we're not considering those changes. Some folks have consequently created different competitions that do do those things, and that is absolutely of benefit to the community as a whole. It's great for there to be more ways for authors to get their games seen.

⟶ In the past couple of years, the IF event calendar has sort of exploded - you can't spend a month without one happening. Have there been recent competitions or game jams that you thought seemed fun?

It really has exploded, which is pretty great. I'm grateful that there are so many people out there organizing different things to give authors lots of options, and some of the jam constraints are novel and interesting. I'm exploring the Single Choice Jam games right now, for example. It's interesting how people approached the idea of games with only one choice. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I'm starting to see how, if there's only one choice in a game, you build up to it and make it count.

⟶ You don't just run competitions, you are also the founder of ClubFloyd, a weekly IF-play session. Can you tell us a bit more about it?

Sure. ClubFloyd is a group that meets mostly weekly on the ifMUD. I mentioned the ifMUD earlier; it's an old yet fancy chat room principally frequented by people who are interested in interactive fiction that's been around since 1997. In 2007, a group of us there decided to start playing games together using the MUD's resident bot, whose name is Floyd, inspired by the robot in the Infocom game Planetfall by Steve Meretzky (hence the group's name, ClubFloyd). I post the transcripts of the games we've played on my website. I unfortunately update the site pretty sporadically, in file dumps that happen every six to twelve-ish months. I'm a little over a year behind right now, but there are over 800 transcripts that have been posted, so there's plenty to look at until the next big update.

⟶ Dang! 800+ games played! That’s impressive.

Yeah. There are 811 game transcripts up on the site right now, despite me being a year behind on uploads. Some of the transcripts are of games we've played more than once, either with different players present, or because we just wanted to revisit something after a long time. I have not been present at every session, and I don't play IFComp games with the group until after voting closes (so that I can remain more neutral and unbiased as the competition organizer). But still, yes, it's a lot of games.

I'm grateful to ClubFloyd, because without it I wouldn't have experienced nearly so many works of IF. It has forced me (in a good way) to experience genres I usually don't do on my own, and the group can solve puzzles in a way that individuals sometimes cannot. Definitely in ways I don't usually have the patience for. Having a diverse group means you experience things in a way you wouldn't otherwise.

⟶ Can anyone join ClubFloyd or is it an invite-only type of group?

Yes, anyone can join us at ClubFloyd, and anyone can reach out to us for a playtest. Sometimes, though, we get into the middle of playing a long game (like when we were playing Cragne Manor for six months), and when that happens we're not available for playtesting.

⟶ How does a lambda session of ClubFloyd happen? How are games picked and running?

For years I was very organized and planned in advance and even invited authors to show up when we played their game! These days we only occasionally do that, and it's usually reserved for when we are beta testing someone's work, which we do for folks from time to time. These days we usually just all show up at the appointed time, chat a bit about what's happening, what's new, what jams have happened, or look at the list of things we haven't yet played, and pick something together. It's far more informal.

⟶ Are there restrictions on what type of games played during ClubFloyd?

No, no real restrictions in terms of content, but the bot itself has constraints. It's text only, for example, so we miss out on games (or don't fully experience games) that contain graphics or sound or effects. If a game turns out to be particularly adult in some way, such as violence or sexual content or something along those lines, then we (try to remember to) flag the transcript but we still post it to the website. Some games, like ChoiceScript, require us asking for a special file that will make it work on Floyd. Other games, such as Twine, do not work. We've occasionally laboriously done Twine games using Copy/Paste, but it's pretty intensive. Worth it, though, for the right game.

⟶ Your own games were playtested by ClubFloyd. How does that experience compare to being a player?

Oh, I often find it maddening to watch people play my games in real time. But it's also interesting to watch how people approach your work, what they try, how they react, etc. I think that's why a lot of authors appreciate our transcripts - it's not just the game, you can also see the side conversation that's happening about the game as it's being played, which gives you more information about player motivation than you get from transcripts alone.

⟶ Is there a ClubFloyd session (or tested game) you remember the most?

Hm. There are a few. I think the games that make the most memorable ClubFloyd sessions are games that build tension over a long time, put the whole group on edge, and then suddenly release the tension or surprise the whole group at once and leave us a little (or very) stunned. Those are fun moments. The game Once upon a winter night, the ragman came singing under your window did that, despite being a SpeedIF.

⟶ You've participated in many editions of the Speed-IF, which ran also on ifMUD (none since 2016). How was your experience with them?

They're fun. Just writing a Speed IF is a sort of game (for the author, I mean). Speed IFs don't expect quality, they're meant to be done in a short period of time, and they give you interesting writing constraints. It's fun to see others work within those same parameters and what approach your friends took.

⟶ How did a Speed-IF event go? How did you know there was one happening? Was there really a 2-hour limit?

Well, back in the day there'd be a bulletin board post on the ifMUD and/or a post on rec.arts.int-fiction. The 2-hour limit was always a suggestion, never seriously enforced, though a couple of my games were made in less than two hours. And you can definitely tell that they were made in under 2 hours! But that was part of the fun.

⟶ If you were not currently organizing the IFComp, would there be an IF event you would want to be part of?

I've long wanted to make something for EctoComp, and have two ideas for that. Maybe one of these years. I've also always wanted to enter le Concours de Fiction Interactive Francophone (i.e. the annual French IF Comp).

⟶ Speaking of the French IF Comp, which you've also previously reviewed, is it as cut-throat as its original counterpart?

Hm. By that, do you mean is it as cutthroat as IFComp? Gosh, I don't know that I think of IFComp as cutthroat... Serious, yes. Competitive, yes. I guess for some, serious and competitive is how you might define cutthroat.

⟶ Yes, the IFComp seems like very scary and serious event -- kind of like authors wearing armor and battling for the prizes!

Ha. I think both competitions have a high degree of comradery among authors and judges. I mean, there are prizes. But the authors are pretty great to one another. There are wonderful private forums [on IntFiction and on Discord] where authors come together and share their jitters and hopes and talk about their experiences being part of the competitions. It's lovely, really. No armor, no swords.

The main differences I see between the two are that the French comp has an annual theme (though admittedly it's within their rules to completely ignore the theme), and there are aspects to their awards that, in the English speaking community, have generally been addressed by other events outside of IFComp, such as specific qualitative awards for literary excellence, technical achievement, etc… [similar to the Xyzzies].

⟶ A fun thing we found out during our research: you appear as an NPC in Yay Games by David Welbourn. How does it feel to see yourself in someone else's game?

Ha. I did not realize this (or had forgotten). I just went and played the game. It is indeed a little weird to see yourself as an NPC that you did not write. (I'm pretty much the PC in The Fire Tower, for what it's worth, but that's a very different thing.)

⟶ You gave a talk called If You Can Write, You Can Computer Make Games. Can you tell us a bit more about it?

Yes. I gave that talk a few times, back when I was living in Seattle and a part of various coding meetups and actively going to conventions. It was a talk targeted at general, non-IF audiences, to introduce them to the concept of text based games, and to show what the learning curve was like in a couple of different development environments (specifically Inform and Twine, though I mentioned other authoring systems like Ink, ChoiceScript, Undum, and Texture). I also provided some resources to get people started.

⟶ What Interactive Fiction games would you recommend to our readers?

Hm. I've played so much over the years. I like a lot of the games that lots of other people like, but let me recommend a lesser-known game that I loved experiencing that apparently is not universally loved but which I don't think has enough reviews. (How's that for a strong sell??) Anyway, if you're up for something a bit dark... wear headphones, turn off the lights, and play Ms. Lojka or: In Despair to Will to Be Oneself by Jordan Magnuson. Love that game.

⟶ Thank you, Jacqueline for sitting down with us!

Thank you for the fun interview! Before I go, I just want to put in a plug for this year's IFComp (@ifcomp). I hope anyone reading this who hasn't been a judge before swings by our site to play a few games. We really want more new judges -- and you only have to play 5 games between Sept 1 and Oct 15 to be part of the fun. If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us at ifcomp@ifcomp.org and ask!

Huge thanks to Jacqueline A. Lott for letting us take some of her time during the very hectic period that is the week before the opening of voting of the IFComp!

~ NEW RELEASE ~

Terminal City (Unity) is a text-based adventure inspired by the 80s games like Space Quest. In this retro setting, you play as a street kid trying to right some wrongs and rescue his friends.

Anastasis (Twine) is a short-ish game based on The Talos Principle, where you explore the history of civilization and decide on its future.

hiraeth and hwyl (Twine) is a fantasy fan-inspired text adventure set in the world of “Howl's Moving Castle”, in which you explore a mysterious house

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 Gladiator's Oath: Blood and Sacrifice (CScript) is a Rome-inspired project where you play as a gladiator.

Lament (Twine) is a horror project in which you explore a mysterious town in hopes for a cure from your tormenting nightmares. @lament-if

Bastard (Twine) is a fantasy project where you play as a bastard heir to a tense kingdom on the brink of war. @plotplay

For King and Country (CScript) is low-fantasy project inspired by many world (like LOTR), where you must work through the intrigue of the capital. @forkingandcountry-if

War of the Divines (CScript) is a modern-fantasy project with a hero reborn trope, where you must to everything in your power to save your world.

One Hærfest Day (Ren’Py) is a prequel to Myrk Mire (in re-writes) where you follow multiple characters over the span of one day. @catt-nuevenor

Final Sunset (CScript) is a slice-of-life project, following an aspiring e-Sport professional hoping to find success in Battle Royale/FPS games.

Ballad of the Cosplayer (Ren’Py) is a yaoi isekai project, where you enter a cosplay contest, only to get more than you hoped for in return.

~ UPDATES ~

Boyband Hell (Ren’Py) has now been released on Google Play.

FFS, Another Northern Duke?! (Ren’Py) released the complete version on Steam. @chthonicchromestudio

Grey Swan - Birds of a Rose (CScript) added extra content to the demo. @reinekes-fox

Vestiges of the Hallowing (Twine) updated the demo with a second chapter. @buttercupfiction

The In-Between (CScript) made the previous update available to all. @dalekowrites

Creation: Book 1 (CScript) added Chapter 6 to the demo. @creation-if

The Night Market (Twine) 's latest release is now available to all. @night-market-if

Starways Saga (CScript) added the Navy path to the demo.

Dance of the Night (CScript) added a second chapter to the demo.

The Cordillarian Revolution (CScript) added the Police path to the demo.

Shepherds of Haven (CScript) updated the Patreon demo with extra content. @shepherds-of-haven

Peninsula Campaign (CScript) updated the Patreon demo with extra content.

Defiled Hearts: The Barbarian (CScript) updated the Patreon demo with new scenes. @defiledheartsblog

Velocity: The Race Begins (CScript) added 2 new chapters to the demo.

Blood Legacies (CScript) added extra content to the demo. @bloodlegacies

The Thousand Of Us (CScript) completed a major re-write of the demo and routes. @ivanwm-05

Press Play (CScript) added the second part of Chapter 1 to the demo. @pressplay-if

It Takes Three To Tango (CScript) has been released to the public. @when-life-gives-you-lemons-if

Thicker Than (CScript) added extra content to the Patreon demo. @barbwritesstuff

Saturnine (CScript) updated with Chapter 20. @satur9-if

Dear Diary, We Created a Plot Hole (CScript) returned with a whole lot of new content. @ddwcaph-game

Aquarii (Twine) added chapter 3 to the demo. @aquarii-if

~ OTHER ~

The Humble Detectives Bundle includes a handful of IF games, including Inkle's Overboard!, with its profit going to the Direct Relief charity.

To celebrate its anniversary, Wayfarer (Twine) is doing a Giveaway where you can win an Alpha Build key if you submit fanwork. Check the rules! @idrellegames

Not Your Mother's Shire (CScript) is looking for beta-testers ahead of submission.

The Rosebush Magazine published the first article on a ZIL series: Studies of ZIL - History of Infocom and the Z-Machine. @the-rosebush-mag

Lost in Limbo (Ren'Py) has just launched its Kickstarter. @ravenstargames

Gold Machine published a new article for its series on Infocom's Trinity. @golmac

The IF program PunyInform has updated with major bug fixes (Log).

~

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!

~ MAYBE YOU NEXT? ~

We did not get a submission this week. But if you have an idea for a short essay, or would like a special space to share your thoughts about IF and the community...

Shoot us an email!

~ HIGHLIGHT ON ~

A couple of games that we thought were cool.

Leechcraft by Ainsley Sunday @addersmire (Ink - itch.io - IFDB)

This relatively horror short game is steeped in dark fantasy with medieval inspiration, mixing dark urges of vampirism and duty for care during a plague spread. Though it is not in its fully completed form, the current release creates a very intriguing build-up.

//recommended by Marjorie [Team]//

In the Flesh by Raziel Razmattaz (Narrat - itch.io)

Ranked first in the second NarratJam, In the Flesh asks you to investigate strange reports from an old house. Though pretty ordinary, the house arbors many dark secrets. Will you solve the mystery before it is too late?

//recommended by anonymous//

Spider and Web by Andrew Plotkin (Inform 6 - itch.io - IFDB)

One of the most revered parser game from the late 90s, winner of many xyzzy, and showcasing the best of IF. Though it might be more on the challenging side, it is still an interesting experience with pretty intricate implementation. Walkthrough

//recommended by Axelle [Team]//

Your favourite game here?

Do you have a favourite game that deserves some highlighting?

An 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! WHETHER IT'S GOOD OR BAD, OR EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN...

HOW?!?! DO YOU?!?! MANAGE?!? TO GET?!?! ALL THESE SCOOPS?!?! WHAT ARE YOU?!?! THE IF SCRET WHISPERER?!? A new E. Jade Lomax (@ink-splotch) game?!? coming soon?!?! I AM SO FREAKING SOCKED!!! - raving anon

That last Column was really conflicting, because I get how demotivating it can be to get very negative messages about your writing, but on the other hand, do we really want to coddle people who purposefully and publicly put their work out there? - a reader

i hope it's ok! cause i'd like to use my shoutout for a non-author friend~ Jessica, you devilled egg, thank you so freaking much for introducing me to IF! - Patate

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

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

Our new awesome team members (Bex, Brij, and Dion), @franzinyte-writes, Patate, raving anon, a reader, and a couple of very helpful anonymous users!

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

And as always, huge thanks to all you readers who 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!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We also hope you join us again next week, for we have a very special guest on the zine:

Surrealist Twine author, multimedia creator, Tumblr sensation: We'll be talking to Kit Riemer (@adz) next week!

Want to know more about their work? How they found IF? And everything in between?

Send us all your burning questions!

And see you again next week!

MARJORIE, AXELLE, NOI, BRIJ, DION, BEX

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? 2024-ISSUE 20

[cosmicjoke]

So I wanted to just take a moment to elaborate a little more on Levi's leadership during the Battle of Heave and Earth, because I think it's so important to understand just how vital Levi was to that final battle and, ultimately, toward the alliances' victory. Everyone was vital, of course. Everyone contributed in ways indispensable. But I think Levi's role was particularly crucial, and I want to explain why.

They wouldn't have won without Levi.

Full stop. They wouldn't have won.

I spoke before about how so often we've heard criticisms of Levi and his choice to let Erwin die, accusations hurled at him of having "robbed" humanity of the only leader that could save it, and I spoke about how those accusations, in the aftermath of Levi's contribution to that final battle, fall so utterly flat, because Levi became the leader that humanity needed in the moment when it counted most.

Armin was out of commission for most of the final battle. Of course he was doing his own, important work toward ensuring victory by convincing Zeke to stop wallowing in self-pity and actually do something (Zeke gets no credit from me, he let 80% of the population die because he felt sorry for himself). But my point is, Armin, despite being the Commander, wasn't able to lead during most of the battle because he was trapped in the Paths.

Levi took the reigns, then, without even needing to be asked or told. He simply took command, and it was his decision making that lead to their victory.

But before that, he fought alongside all of them as simply another soldier, putting his body and life on the line to take down as many titans as he could in the attempt to clear a path back to Armin. Levi was literally half-dead during this battle. His body was beyond compromised. He was suffering internal bleeding, likely major trauma to his organs, half blind, his dominant hand half-mangled, and later, his leg likely broken and torn apart and open. His ability to fight, and to fight so well and with so much strength, was nothing, then, but pure will on his part. Pure determination and refusal to quit. He never gave up, not once, despite his body needing him to.

When he sees the tied of the battle not going their way, then, a path back to Armin seemingly impossible, he takes charge and calms everyone down, tells everyone to stop and think. When it becomes clear that they won't be able to simply retrieve Armin and win this thing, when it becomes clear that killing Eren is the only way to actual victory, Levi is the first to organize everyone into accepting that bleak and awful reality, and to lay out a plan of attack toward accomplishing it. He breaks their team into two units and instructs them on what to do, one to go after Armin, the other, Eren's neck. This was Levi's plan, Levi's decision, and it's largely why they were able to succeed in their goals.

And then later, when he heartbreakingly thinks of himself as a burden, as someone who will just get in the way, he disproves his own self-criticism by stepping up and once again taking command in what truly was the most critical moment of the battle.

He takes out Zeke, of course, which stops the Rumbling. But then Armin's initial plan, of using the blast from his Colossal Titan transformation to kill Eren, fails, and the worm responsible for Eren's power threatens to reach him and start the Rumbling back up. It begins to release the same gas which Zeke had used on Ragako Village to turn the Eldian's into pure titans, and in that moment, with hundreds of Eldian's on the ground, it would have proven the end of the battle for all of them if Levi hadn't acted as quickly and with as much clarity of thought as he had. They all would have died, and the entire population of the world would have been wiped out.

Nobody else realized what was about to happen to them, too dazed and complacent and stricken with hopelessness, even after Connie posited what the gas could be. Only Levi understood what was about to happen, and only Levi took action in that moment to prevent total disaster. And then, while everyone else is standing around, paralyzed by their horror at the realization of what's happening, overcome with grief and fear, in that moment, Levi didn't hesitate. Like he once told the 104th, if disaster struck right now, he would act faster than any of them, and that's exactly what he did.

He understood the situation within seconds, and understood within seconds what needed to be done to avoid total catastrophe. He understood that he and Mikasa and the titan shifters were the only ones who would be immune to the gas, and so it was up to them to take action and end Eren's life, or all would be lost. He understood in that moment that they would be forced to abandon their family and comrades on the ground, abandon them to their fate of being turned into pure titans, in order to save what remained of the rest of the people trapped down there, and he didn't hesitate. He didn't falter. He pushed aside his own grief and horror, his own driving need to save everyone, in order to save who he could, just like he's always done. He armed himself with their only remaining thunder spear and ordered with commanding force for Mikasa and Pieck to get onto Falco's back, for them to take to the air, because he understood on the ground, they would all die, and if they were to have any chance of victory, they needed to be up high. He was able to ignore their stunned and frozen grief and initial refusal to move and act, and overcome it with his own refusal to give in. He made them act in the moment when it mattered most. And when Mikasa was overcome with grief at what was happening and the prospect of killing Eren, Levi refused to let her lose herself, screaming in her face to get it together, reminding her again and again that only they could stop Eren now, only they could save what was left of humanity.

And finally, with his failing body and waning strength, he fought side by side with Mikasa, battling through what seemed literal hell on earth to give her the opening she needed in order to deliver the killing blow to Eren and end it once and for all.

Mikasa wouldn't have been able to do what she did if not for Levi. If not for Levi's quick thinking, if not for Levi's orders, if not for his command, if not for his battling side by side with her, clearing a path for her. If not for his own sacrifice, giving up everything, having to leave behind the people he loved for people he didn't even know. Levi made that final push toward victory possible.

Levi essentially took over for Erwin when no one else could. He took over for Hange when no one else could. He became the Commander of the Survey Corps in that final battle. He became the one who lead them to victory.

I think understanding that is so important. For anyone who ever tries to accuse Levi of not caring about humanity, or accuse Levi of dooming humanity because he let Erwin die, you're wrong, you're so wrong. Because Levi became every bit the commander Erwin ever was in the moment when it mattered most. He refused to let humanity fall. He lead humanity to victory.