#though right now it's just finishing the big project and a bit of gaming

[kedicatt-cotl]

“ I always thought Narinder was the God of Death, but actually it might be you ”

An old cranky man taking in a cute kid that is better than him at every aspect of his own job. Then they may or may not get up to some shenanigans. The kid is the one having to do most of the job, though.

[flanaganfilm]

Hello and Howdy Mr. Mike Flanagan! I'm excited to see you here on our humble hellsite. I have so much to say and ask about your netflix shows but for the moment, I want to ask about Doctor Sleep because I enjoyed that movie immensely - it filled me with a pleasant sense of dread, which possibly makes no sense, or a lot of sense.

What was that creative process like? Reconciling book and movie canons, following Kubrick's legacy, working with Ewan and Rebecca and Zahn and everyone else. I'm obsessed with King adaptations and I'm just fascinated with Doctor Sleep.

Alright! Buckle up for yet another long read.

Thank you for your question, and for this opportunity to go back and talk about DOCTOR SLEEP. It's a very special film to me, and a very special time in my life as well.

It all started with a general meeting with Jon Berg at Warner Bros.

The meeting itself started pretty wild - Adrien Brody walked out of the office as I was waiting to go in. Jon introduced us and we chatted for a few minutes, and I was a little out of whack for the rest of the meeting because I had a very potent "wow that was Adrien Brody" buzz going.

We were meant to talk about DC Comics and see if there was anything to do there. I was really hoping to chat about a horror-slanted Clayface movie, and about my favorite superhero: Superman.

Neither conversation went very far. I had just finished GERALD'S GAME, and Jon was a King fan, so he asked about the production. And then he asked if I'd ever read Warners' script for DOCTOR SLEEP.

I had. In fact, I had tried very hard to get a meeting at the studio when the book was first published. Warners owned the rights to DOCTOR SLEEP outright - it was part of their deal going all the way back to THE SHINING - so they immediately began looking into movie options when the book was published. Akiva Goldsman had written a script, and it was one of the first projects I asked about when I signed with WME as a client years before. "That isn't going anywhere," they told me. "I don't think that movie gets made."

They had tried to get me the meeting anyway, but no one at Warners responded. I never got in the room.

But now, here I was. What did I have to lose at this point?

"I did read it," I said. "I'd take a different approach." Jon sat back and smiled. "I love the book, Rose is one of the great villains of all time," he said. I agreed. He probed. "What's wrong with the script?"

"I don't think it follows the book closely enough."

"What would you do?"

"I'd do the book. Streamline it, combine some characters, and you'd have to rethink the True Knot a bit. But otherwise, just do the book. As long as it's a three-hander between Danny, Abra and Rose it'll work. With one big asterisk."

"What's that?"

"I think you have to bring back the hotel. Kubrick's hotel, I mean."

Jon smiled wider. "Yeah, it's a bummer the hotel burned down. King goes out of his way at the start of the book to emphasize that - no Overlook, look no further."

This was my biggest gripe with the book.

I said "When I read the book, all I could see was Kubrick's hotel. I think you do the book as close as you possibly can, until the big fight at the end. Instead of it taking place in an empty field, let it be in the hotel."

Jon: "Do you think King will be upset if you change his ending? You know how feels about THE SHINING, right?"

Me: "What if we gave him THAT ending? What if we let Danny have Jack's ending? Jack sacrificed himself to save his family and destroy the Overlook - why not let Danny do that? Change the ending, sure, but give him the ending Kubrick denied him."

We shook hands, and I called my producing partner Trevor Macy to tell him it was a good general, but nothing was coming out of my DC meeting. By the time I'd made it back to my car, though, Jon had reached out to Stephen King and asked if he'd be interested in me taking a swing at it. Steve, who had enjoyed GERALD'S GAME, said yes.

I was immediately petrified when the call came in that they might want to engage me on a rewrite of DOCTOR SLEEP, with a directorial attachment. I'd have to rewrite the script from scratch, and I kind of felt like they were calling my bluff. But the deal was made and quite suddenly I was adapting DOCTOR SLEEP.

First order of business was to make King aware of what I intended to do. I had just established a tentative relationship with my hero over GERALD'S GAME, and the last thing - the very last thing in the world I ever wanted - was to upset him. We weren't in direct communication, we spoke through agents and emails at this point - but I had to make him aware of the Overlook thing.

I put together a proposal that outlined what I wanted to do - use Kubrick's visual language, and keep the Overlook standing as a setting for the final battle. The initial feedback we got was "no." King really, really didn't like Kubrick's film, and his priority was to adapt DOCTOR SLEEP - not to revisit THE SHINING.

I told him that if he didn't want me to do it, I wouldn't - I'd walk away from the movie before I made something he hated. But as a last ditch effort, I said "imagine the Overlook, decrepit and rotten. And imagine Dan Torrance having walk in to 'wake it up,' the lights coming on above his head as he walks the halls. He finds his way to the Gold Room. To the familiar bar, where an empty glass is waiting for him. And we see a familiar bartender ready to pour for him, saying 'good evening Mister Torrance.' What if that bartender is his father?"

After a bit of a delay, King got back to us. "Do it," he said.

Writing the script was tough. I immediately felt like I had stepped into a very unsafe space. "This is going to piss everybody off," I figured. Kubrick fans would be livid that the movie was being made. King fans might be angry that Kubrick's imagery was being homaged. There was no way to please everyone, so I set about writing the movie I wanted to see most.

It was a slightly nauseous feeling that would stay with me until the movie came out.

I sat down to write with a hardcover copy of DOCTOR SLEEP to my right, and a hardcover copy of THE SHINING to my left. I read both cover to cover, sticking post-its throughout the pages with ideas, or flagging lines of dialogue (or even prose) that I wanted to protect. I managed to put together a basic outline for the movie, which was intimidating and sprawling.

I finally finished the draft and sent it off to Warner Bros. and King at the same time. I was shooting THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE at the time, and thought it would take a long while and a few more iterations before SLEEP would go anywhere, if it ever did.

Warner Bros. shocked us all by coming back with a green light. I've been told that it was one of the fastest green lights in the recent history of the studio, and I believe it.

It happened so fast, in fact, that Steve hadn't read the script yet. I got an email from him on a Friday saying "I read the first half, and I absolutely love it - my son's getting married, so I'll pick it up in a week or so and finish it, but great so far!" I was nauseous... because I knew everything that King was likely to hate was in the second half.

When he finally did finish reading it, about a week later, he reached out and said:

"I think it's really good. In my experience, this is the kind of script studios don't make, because it's TOO good. Hopefully I'm wrong. But no matter how it turns out, thanks for treating me so well. - Steve"

I had the distinct pleasure of being able to write him back and tell him that Warner Bros. had just greenlit the movie. And we were off to the races.

The pressure was enormous. They were spending a lot of money on this movie, and because of the insane box office success of IT: CHAPTER ONE, expectations were very high.

We were given access to Kubrick's blueprints for the Overlook hotel set, which were still held at Warner Bros. While we set about rebuilding the sets, our attention turned to casting.

For Dan, we met with a handful of actors: Dan Stevens, Chris Evans, Matt Smith, and Jeremy Renner all came in to chat about the movie. But Ewan McGregor, who himself was eight years sober (just like Dan), was the obvious choice. "Let's not talk about the Shining yet," he said. "I want to talk about recovery." He was the guy.

For Rose the Hat, we talked with several actresses, including Anne Hathaway, Nicole Kidman, and my dear friend Karen Gillan - but Rebecca Ferguson knocked our socks off on a 90-minute zoom meeting, and the part was hers.

Finding Abra Stone was more difficult - we auditioned more than 900 girls for the part. We'd narrowed it down to a half-dozen very promising and successful young actresses, including Lulu Wilson (who I'd worked with several times before and adore), but Kyliegh Curran's self-tape audition rose to the very top of the pile. Ewan flew to Atlanta to read with our final picks, and when Kyliegh - who lived 15 minutes from our office, was local casting, and had never booked a job before - finished reading, he turned to us and said "I mean it's her, right?" It absolutely was.

When we cast her, we invited her back to the office after school one day to get oriented. The crew was so excited for her that they decorated the production office in her honor.

As the rest of the cast fell in, we started doing our camera tests and getting excited about what we were putting together. My feeling over overwhelming nausea only got stronger.

We started shooting in September of 2018. The shoot was long, but never exhausting. The cast and crew were uniformly pleasant and happy to be there, and after the soul-crushing slog that had been THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, it was a relief to enjoy working again.

Kate was pregnant with our daughter Theo at the time. She visited as much as she could, but finally couldn't travel any more. Being away from Kate and our son Cody was hard, but I'm so grateful that we got to share some time on set together.

All things considered, this was a smooth shoot. But something happened for me while we were making it that would change the course of my life forever.

See, THE SHINING is about alcoholism. King wrote it while in the throes of his own addiction, and it is a novel about the anxiety he felt about what he could potentially do to his family if left unchecked. It's one of the reasons he was so upset with Kubrick's adaptation - all of that was taken away. This is a profoundly personal story for King.

When he wrote DOCTOR SLEEP, he was decades sober. The story of DOCTOR SLEEP is the story of recovery. This was something that Ewan knew very well, and why he was perfect for the part. He knew what the journey felt like. He wasn't alone - there were a number of cast and crew members on this shoot that were sober. In fact, just about all of the actors who played main characters were sober. I was still drinking at the time, though it had already become obviously problematic in my life, I hadn't taken any meaningful steps to change it.

This photograph was taken on 10/12/2018. This was taken on the day I got sober. I quit cold turkey, in the middle of production. I was clinging to vices at the time. Note not only the cigarette in my hand (I was smoking almost 2 packs a day), but the ash tray that had been rigged to the top of my viewfinder by the camera department. (I don't smoke anymore either, just about four years without cigs as well... and I still miss them.)

I had been writing about addiction for a decade. It was all over my work, going all the way back to ABSENTIA. I didn't realize just how much I was writing about myself, and I still can't believe it took me this long.

I vividly recall writing the scene between Dan and Jack at the bar. My wife pointed out to me after the fact that she could see it then, that something was changing in me when it came to drinking. Something was waking up, and I was processing a desperate need to sober up. That scene represents an internal conversation that is profoundly personal to me. It's still my favorite scene of the movie.

I've been sober now for over 4 years. DOCTOR SLEEP helped me finally make that decision. I finished the shoot sober, and came home to my life with a lot of uncertainty and insecurity. But with the unflinching support of my incredible wife, and some amazing friends, my life started to really blossom. It was pretty immediately evident that this was one of the best decisions I'll ever make.

Meanwhile, though, I had to finish DOCTOR SLEEP.

I LOVED the movie we'd made, but I was still terrified of what King would think of it - not to mention Kubrick's estate.

When we finished the cut, I flew to Bangor to screen the finished film for Steve. It was the first I'd meet him in person, and one of the most insanely exciting and humbling days of my life.

We watched the movie together, and I was acutely aware of each and every little reaction he had throughout.

(With Trevor Macy, my producing partner at Intrepid)

When the show as over, Steve turned to me and said "You did a beautiful job." And ultimately, he added that this film had made him warm up to the Kubrick movie as well.

A week later, we heard from Kubrick's estate that they had also loved the movie.

With King's blessing, and Kubrick's family, I felt that nausea finally subside. I said to Kate, "that's it. That's all that matters. Doesn't matter if the movie crashes and burns - we already won the important battle."

And then, the movie crashed and burned.

A group of us went to see it opening night at Arclight Hollywood (my favorite theater). We were just about the only people there. And I knew immediately that we were going to have a bad weekend.

The movie didn't perform very well. Warner Bros. was disappointed, and ended up scrapping the Dick Hallorann movie we were planning, as well as the Overlook Hotel prequel.

I was pretty crest-fallen. I'd spent years tossing and turning over whether audiences would be divided between the King and Kubrick camps. I'd been petrified that they'd be furious, venomous, run me out on a rail... I'd never considered that they'd be utterly disinterested. Apathy wasn't even on my radar.

Steve called me the Monday after opening weekend with some words of encouragement. "I remember when THE SHINING bombed," he said. "And SHAWSHANK. Give it some time. It'll find its audience. It's a really good movie."

That has turned out to be true. While it didn't set the world on fire theatrically, the movie has over-performed on VOD and streaming. And when Warner Bros. released the Directors Cut (I'm still so grateful that they did that), it popped even more.

So yes, to answer your question - the pressures were enormous. I hope this paints a little picture of what it was like. The biggest gift I got out of it, though, was sobriety.

I reached out to King a year later, on my first sober birthday. I hadn't told him I was sober, but it felt like time to do it. I got to thank him. "I never told you this, but I sobered up while we were shooting DOCTOR SLEEP, and I don't think I would have done it without your words. Living in that story, and marinading in the concepts of recovery and redemption made it possible. I just want to thank you."

He wrote back his congratulations, and then mentioned "as it happens, I'm off to celebrate 30 years myself. It only gets better and better."

And he is absolutely right.

DOCTOR SLEEP was the perfect project for me after the nightmare that was HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. I fell in love with making movies again. And I found a new and wonderful gear for my life. It has only made everything better - my marriage, my work, my experience walking around on planet earth. I'm so grateful for it.

When I think of DOCTOR SLEEP, I think of Ewan sitting at the bar and looking at the glass in his hand. "Man takes a drink, drink takes a drink... and then the drink takes the man. Ain't it so, dad."

Ewan understood those words better than I did when I typed them into the script. I understand them much better now.

There isn't a day that goes by that I'm not profoundly grateful for my time at the Overlook. And for myriad of ways my life has been changed because of it.

[lucy90712]

can u pls pls pls write a fluff about reader congratulating pedri for being one of the team captain it would be so cute

A/n: this is short I'm sorry I just couldn't think of what else to write 

"We get to vote for the captains of the team tomorrow and I don't know who to vote for" Pedri said flopping down on the bed beside me

"You just have to vote for whoever you think will be the best for the team like who will encourage everyone on the pitch during a tough match and who will calm things down when things get heated those are the people you want the be captains" I said 

"This is why I always come to you for things like this you always know the best answer to give" he said kissing my cheek 

"This one wasn't too difficult I just thought about what you would be like as the captain as I think you have the qualities to be a great captain" I said completely honestly 

"Thank you amor I don't think I'll be one of the captains though the other guys have a lot more experience than I do" he said 

"I know but one day you'll make a great captain and I'll be your biggest supporter" I said 

~~~~~~~~~~

After the team all voted for their captains I asked Pedri who he voted for which was no surprise then I asked when they find out and he said he didn't know and he hasn't told me since. I thought they would try and get it done before the start of the season but since the first game has already happened I guess not. 

The first home game is coming up this weekend which is the first game I'm going to this year which I'm really excited about. Pedri finally gave me one of his shirts so I have something to wear to the game now all that's missing is just knowing if Pedri is one of the captains. I know there are more experienced players on the team who would probably be voted in over Pedri but I really do think he has the right qualities to be a great captain even if he's young and less experienced now over the next few years he's going to make an excellent captain. 

I finished work early today as my boss let us leave after we finished a big project we've been working on for the last few months so I made it home before Pedri. Most of the time he's home before me and he'll start prepping things for dinner then we'll cook together but today the prep is my job as I'm home first. I actually don't mind prepping things I find it quite therapeutic as I can put music on and just be in my own world. Today I was so in my own world that I didn't hear Pedri's car pull into the driveway nor did I hear him enter the house. He then scared the shit out of me when he put his arms around my waist in fact he's lucky I didn't have a knife in my hand or else things could've gone badly. 

Once I my soul re-entered my body I turned around to face Pedri who was trying not to laugh at how much he'd scared me instead of asking if I was ok. For some reason he was wearing the new home kit so I assumed the team had a photoshoot or something. Then I noticed that he had something on his arm like a yellow and red band which confused me as I don't remember the shirt having that on it. That's when my brain started working properly and realised he had a captains armband and he's actually going to be a captain this year. Seeing that just filled me me excitement and pride, Pedri has been a barca fan since he was a kid so getting to be one of their captains is a huge achievement and that just makes me so proud of him. 

I must've been staring at his arm for a bit too long as Pedri laughing brought me back to reality and I threw my arms around him. He picked me up which allowed me to hug him tighter and I could kiss him all over his face as that's my way of showing him my excitement. The smile on his face told me everything I needed to know about how much this meant to him to even be considered worthy enough of the title. He put me down on the counter and I just admired the sight of him with his captains armband which looks so good on him.

"I can't believe you're a captain now I knew you had the right qualities and your teammates clearly agree" I said 

"It really feels great that the guys think I'm worthy of the armband although I probably won't play with it much it still means a lot" he said 

"Whether you play with the armband or not you are still a captain and you can motivate the team anytime you are on the pitch" I said 

"When did you find out?" I asked 

"Like last week the day we all voted we found out then" he said 

"And you hid it from me" I exclaimed 

"I'm sorry I thought it would be more fun to tell you when I had the armband as you believed in me being worth if this position more than I did" he said 

"I suppose I can forgive you mi capitán" I said 

"I could get used to that nickname" he smirked 

"Good because that's all I'm going to call you now" I smiled 

He leaned in and kissed my lips belfry he moved and let me off the counter so we could actually make dinner. I wanted to celebrate Pedri's captaincy so as we cooked we planned a special date night for his day off training as we like to do that to celebrate big achievements in our life and this is definitely one of them. 

[0oolookitsme]

"Knight in the shining armour"

This is short, and kinda bad. But I've finished a fic I began writing for the first time in the whole month of March (we're lowkey in April now sooo) so I hope that you don't mind this shit-cliche too much <3

Verse - Footballer!Harry x Art Director!Y/n

Word Count - 1.2k

Warnings - Cuss words, a slur, one little hit to the jaw (literally the whole fic in three little warnings helpp-)

Harry and Y/n are at a party and everyone's enjoying their time until comes in a dude who can neither take no for an answer, nor register the fact that he's just been warned.

Please rb to share! | Masterlist

Everyone had somehow fit on the three sofas in the living room of some dude's, whom Y/n didn't know, party. She'd come here with Harry, just to get away from all of her projects and assignments, and loosen up a bit -- spend some time with Harry and play some games.

Though she wasn’t actually playing any games, she was still enjoying. Cheering with everyone each time Harry scored. She didn't exactly plan on drinking alcohol, considering she had classes early in the morning the next day and had to give a presentation. And still, she stole a couple sips from Harry's red plastic cup every time he handed it to her to play his turn.

A blue drink sloshed around in her cup as everyone roared loudly when Harry scored another point in the ping-pong. She had taken one sip of it, and she just knew that it was close to going stale, somehow. With a big smile on her mouth, she leaned into Harry's side to press a kiss to his cheek, which landed on his ear lobe instead, making the two of them laugh.

When someone bumped into her and apologised right after, her eyes strayed from Harry for a second. She passed the chick a smile and let her go on. And then her eyes landed on a guy standing in the crowd, looking at her with a look she couldn't quite read.

Feeling like she knew him somehow, she settled her gaze back on the game that was still in Harry's favour. She was still a little tense when the realisation sunk in her -- it was Izac. The guy she'd turned down when he'd drunkenly asked her out for sex. He seemed to have taken the rejection well enough and Y/n had moved back to her friend group.

But right now, as he looked at her intently, Y/n had a feeling that maybe he had something to say. Her eyes wandered over to him for the second time and they came in contact with him again, this time his smile making them shrink a little.

Just out of politeness, Y/n smiled back and before she could turn away, he began moving towards her.

Dread settled in her because she didn't have the desire to talk to anyone right now. She just wanted to keep it shut and peacefully watch the game as jazzy blues played in the background. Still, she put on a welcoming face.

"Hi," he greeted and cheered his cup with both of the cups in her hands, causing her to crack an embarrassed smile.

"It's Harry's," she explained shortly, almost fully turned towards Izac now, and by some miracle, Harry turned to see why she'd mentioned his name, almost knocking down his drink in her hand when his arm bumped with the back of her elbow.

"Why don't we go somewhere quieter? It's a little too crowded here," Izac suggested, pulling her attention back onto him.

"Ah, I think it's good enough." She disagreed and before he could persist, she continued. "How's Leah?" She dared to ask about his girlfriend that Y/n solely knew the name of.

"She's good, yeah," he shrugged a little tensely, almost as if he hadn't expected Y/n to have known about her. Maybe she was just reading into it a little too much. 

"I came here to apologise actually, about the last time we met," he said while actively pretending to get a little awkward, clearly lying about his purpose behind approaching her.

"Oh no, that's fine -- I'd mostly forgotten about it," she laughed lightly, faking it still.

"I should've asked you properly, y' know? Sober and all," he quickly uttered out, catching Y/n off guard.

What? She looked at him to see if she'd said that outloud and it seemed like she hadn't. "Oh," was all she said, as she took a sip out of her cup and flinched in distaste. She’d drunk from her own cup.

"I -- yeah. I genuinely think we'd be extremely compatible in bed," he smirked, rubbing the back of his neck on seeing the blank look on Y/n's face.

She swallowed dryly, still quite in shock. "You don't even know me," she mentioned flatly, having quit the politeness because he clearly wasn't reciprocating it. "Plus, you're in a relationship -- not that I would've agreed to this even if you weren't."

"She doesn't have to know about this, you know, Leah," he tried again. "It'll just be for a night. Like, give it a shot, c'mon," he urged her, moving a step closer.

"Izac, back off,” She said firmly. “And no, I won't have sex with you," taking a step back, she added. And now, she could feel Harry's arm against her back.

She felt his breath nearing the back of her neck just in time for Izac to let out a hollow chuckle and begin walking away.

"Fuckin’ slut," he called her, and Y/n was about to snap when she felt Harry's arm snake around her waist.

"Watch your mouth," she heard him spit behind her, now moving to stand beside her.

Izac turned around, a lazy smile on his face, like he was a friend. "Don't bother man. Sluts like her --"

Harry's fist collided with his jaw, cutting him off. He inhaled sharply as Izac groaned in pain, holding his jaw while crouching – he might have broken it.

"Dare you call any girl, let alone her,” he pointed his thumb towards Y/n, “that thing again and I won't mind breaking a couple other bones," he warned,  his voice having gone so low throughout the scene that probably only the five people standing closest to him heard him clearly.

And as Izac was ushered off to a bathroom, Y/n intertwined her hand through Harry's and took them outside. She could feel something wet and sticky on his knuckles as she grazed her thumb over it, his arm a little stiff. It surely hurt.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she began. “I was going to bite right back.”

Harry sighed beside her, knowing that she was right, he didn’t have to do it. “But I wanted to,” he confessed. 

“I just couldn’t believe that that dog said it again after being fucking warned. Like the fact that he said it even once had made my anger boiling,” he said with an angry frown in between his eyebrows, getting agitated again. 

Looking up from the concrete road, Y/n turned to look him in the eyes, waiting for him to do the same. “It’s okay. And, thank you,” she smiled, pressing a kiss on his cheek that had dug out its dimples again. 

“Of course,” he murmured, pressing his mouth somewhere near her hairline and hissed in pain when she accidentally squeezed his bruising hand.

“What?” Coming to a halt with his hand still in hers, Y/n briskly squeezed it again as she continued – “Is this knight in shining armour’s hand beginning to hurt?” She mocked him, cackling when he shrieked again and holding onto his torso for support as her body went limp because of laughing so hardly. 

Shaking his hand out of her grip, Harry pushed his hair away from his forehead. “I’m done being your boyfriend,” he mumbled, a laugh escaping his lips when his girlfriend only threw her head back to laugh harder. 

[cassiesdevblog]

~Shmovement~ in Grey Area

Hello goober goblins! Grey Area comes out ~September 15th~ and I wanna make some posts going over my involvement with the project 👁️👁️

I joined the project back in March because, while playing early builds, there were a million things, big and small, that I wanted to be able to polish up to really make the game shine, and my top priority was Hailey's movement

Grey Area is a game where beginners will mostly play inside a small range of velocities, but, thanks to @bisthefairy, there are ways to build and maintain greater speeds, so Hailey's movement has to be tuned for both small-scale, precision platforming and large-scale, broader movements. Plus, as most of the level design was already finished when I joined, all my changes had to work with, rather than against, the established design

General momentum adjustments

When I first joined, there were a few ways that slow and fast play would clash with one another. For instance, Hailey had low air friction. This was nice at higher speeds, because you should be able to briefly release the d-pad to shave off a little speed without getting rid of all of it, but it didn't mesh with tighter sections where you'd be asked to land precisely on small platforms

Luckily, since the smaller range of speeds Hailey usually stays within is well defined, I was able to just dramatically increase her air friction while not pressing a direction, only while inside that range.

Unfortunately, this led to a small problem: There are lots of spots in the game where you're meant to bonk off a wall and land on a platform. Where you could previously do this without having to hold a direction, you now had to hold back a little or Hailey wouldn't make it. To fix this, I just made her use the old friction during a bonk. That may seem unintuitive, but the bonk is all about Hailey bouncing back off a wall, so it feels natural for her to travel further. In practice, the discrepancy doesn't feel like a discrepancy.

Dive momentum changes

Hailey's main mechanic is her dive: a burst movement option that lets you speed straight forward. You can cancel out of the move at any point, cutting off all your momentum. However, when I first joined, Hailey would keep a small amount of the dive's momentum after a cancel. The intent was to let you keep the flow going even after a cancel, but it led to lots of overshooting in a game with low margins for error. I preserved the original way if the player is holding in the direction of the dive, so you can still keep your flow going, but if you're not pressing a direction, Hailey will instead cancel all the momentum and drop straight down

Release cancel (aka, half the reason I joined the project)

These subtle changes have made Hailey much more reliable to control. It feels much easier to translate your intent onto the screen regardless of how fast you're going (September 15th btw)

Speaking of intent, I've had a big impact on this game's controls! The first time I ever played, the dive could only be canceled by releasing B and then pressing it again. I felt this was really cumbersome and I barely felt in control, so I wanted to cancel by just releasing B

This was controversial though, as everyone else preferred the original way, so I instead suggested being able to cancel by pressing back on the d-pad, as it felt instinctual to hold against the direction of momentum to cancel it. I also suggested being able to press down to cancel, since a player might think of it as dropping Hailey down. Fortunately, both were implemented and the game became a bit more comfortable for me, but I couldn't get the idea of releasing B to cancel out of my head

Later, when I finally got my hands on the project, release cancel was the first thing I added, and it felt just as right and perfect and natural as I imagined it would. I figured, if I just made the other devs play with it, they might see the merits of it and change their minds. Tragically it didn't change any minds, but I was ultimately able to persuade Alayna to make it an option in the options menu. When you play the game, especially if you don't like how cancelling is controlled, please please please try changing "Press to dive" to "Hold to dive" in the options menu and join the church of release cancel. We have plenty of room :')

Other controls

I've made a bunch of other small changes to the controls too! Generally, I like every button on the controller to do something, so I mirrored a lot of functions to previously unused buttons. Hopefully this makes the game feel more responsive and playful, as well as a little more accessible! I also made it so Hailey sits down when you press down :) It's one of only a few graphics I drew for the game! (did I mention September 15th btw)

The Bounce 👁️👁️

I've saved my biggest (and most iterated upon) change for last >:3

When Hailey dives at smaller enemies, she'll bounce off as if she goomba stomped them, which cancels her dive and allows her to dive again. I added this because I thought the sick tricks and possibility for advanced play were too sweet to pass up. Not to mention it just seemed like fun. Plus, it would add exciting counterplay to some previously unexciting enemies. It's a simple mechanic, but it underwent a lot of changes!

Firstly, it used to work on almost every enemy, but it didn't feel right against bigger monsters. We ended up deciding that Hailey should only be able to do this against enemies around her size, so in practice, this mainly comes up with the Golch enemy. When I first played, I found the Golch really annoying, as the best and safest strategy to deal with it was to just stand and wait for it to fly toward you so you could jump on it. Now, you can dive right at it and pull off sweet tricks instead! This has ended up making room for tons of cool skips and it feels great >:3

I even redesigned the Golch's flight path so that it will usually be flying at your exact elevation (it moves faster vertically than it does horizontally to accomplish this) so you can more consistently dive straight into it

I also made it so that bouncing off an enemy clamps your speed within a relatively small range, as otherwise you would carry the momentum of the dive and easily fly off into a pit

Now, in my mind, this all worked perfectly, but then disaster struck

@zombielesbean, who uses press cancel, would try to press B to cancel right before running into an enemy in order to avoid it, but would press a few frames too late and instead the input would happen after Hailey had bounced off the enemy, so she'd dive again and accidentally fly off into a pit. We tried a million different avenues to resolve this, but all of them were significant downgrades to the mechanic

Fortunately, Alayna found that the issue was only happening because of the enemy placements in one or two spots, and after adjusting them, it was no longer an issue, so fortunately the best version of the mechanic got in >:3

So yeah!!

Those are a few of the ways I've cleaned up and improved Hailey's movement since I joined! I've gotten my grubby paws all over every bit of this game in a similar way. Cleaning things up, tuning numbers, adding effects, making things more clear, overhauling things, enhancing the flavor

A huge takeaway from this project for me has been that polish is a full time job!! Every little bit of polish seems small on its own, but when you add them all up they can make the difference between a decent game and a total banger. It just takes a huge amount of time to accrue all those tiny things. I think that's why they say you should triple all your time estimates on gamedev...!!

Fortunately, I have a good eye and a strong passion for all those little things, so I feel like an extremely valuable asset on this project, even though my hand is largely invisible and it takes long-winded posts like this to even explain what I've done

As Bis puts it, "Cass did for Grey Area before release what Sonic modders do for Sonic games after release"

~September 15th you vibrant fools~

[desperate-daydream]

can I request Seth Clearwater x male reader

where male reader is Bella younger brother Seth age but he phases and becomes a shifter and nobody knows how or why Seth and male reader imprint on each other and just being cute and wholesome with each other but Jacob is giving male reader a hard time saying thing like Bella should have been to phase and if did she imprint on me and ECT but Seth put stop to that put Jacob in his place after he make male reader cry

🍎 Twilight

❀ Seth Clearwater x male (shifter) reader ⚣︎

A/N: thanks for the request and sorry for the long wait, I had a terrible writers block until today and then I just wrote the whole thing in one go XD, and I know ugh, self promo but I have a twilight story on Ao3 with the main being Bella’s twin and Jake imprinting on him (maybe some of you will like that too even if it’s not that similar to this story) (that’s also why it felt so weird to write Jake so mean XD I basically just finished a chapter from that story before writing this one, but I hope you like it)

tags/warnings: set in eclipse (aka the movie where Jake is kinda toxic), Jake is mean and has some issues, reader is Bella’s younger brother, also I wanted Bella to be a good sister, reader is a shifter and imprints on Seth

here‘s the link to the story on my Ao3:

so that’s what imprinting feels like

“What happened?!”, Bella came jumping out of her car. Jacob had called her as soon as possible when Paul and Embry had found you in the middle of the forest. You had been scared - not just because there had been two giant wolves in front of you but also because you had just shifted into one too. They had managed to calm you down enough until Sam arrived. He had brought spare clothes from one of their “emergency supplies” that you put on after shifting back. Then they guided you to Jacob’s place. They had thought it would be the best idea since you had technically also grown up together with Bella although now you didn’t really have anything to do with each other anymore. And he was able to call Bella who had rushed over as fast as possible when she had processed what Jake told her. While waiting the other four wolves had already told you the essentialities of being a shifter and basically destroyed your whole world-perception. 

As nice and caring as he had always been, Billy stayed by your side. You had gained a better relationship to Jacob’s dad than to Jacob himself. Especially since you still spent a little bit more time with your dad and therefore also Billy - even if it was just watching a game in your living room. 

Bella came straight to you, only sparring Jake a sideways glance as she was too focused on you. 

“Hey”, her voice was quiet and soft, “oh god, you’re shivering.” She placed her arms around you and pulled you closer. You hadn’t even noticed it until she said it. 

“Just a bit much right now.”

“I know. Let’s go home so you can rest a little, mh?” You nodded. 

“Wait, we still have so much to do now”, Jake said persistently, “You have to tell Charlie too. And what if he shifts again and hurts you?”

Bella now turned completely to him. “You can still do all of this tomorrow. He needs to sleep right now.” 

Jake wanted to start again: “But what if-”

“Jake, let it be for now.” 

That’s all she said before getting up with you and walking to her truck together. 

“How did this happen?”, she asked on the drive home.

“I don’t know.” You put up your legs and put your arms around them even though you felt way too warm. 

“I wasn’t feeling good and wanted to take a walk because it usually helps but then.. I don’t know.”

You big sister sighed and looked at you shortly before focusing back on the road. “Let’s worry about it tomorrow. It’s getting late and you seem tired.”

You only nodded while your eyelids already dropped. 

When you arrived you walked straight to your room and the moment your head touched your pillow you were gone. 

— 

“We’ll do it step for step”, you stood next to Sam who would teach you today how to control your shifting so you would hopefully not hurt anybody around you or yourself - not to mention keeping the secret of the pack. 

What he didn’t tell you then was that they’ve had a discussion just yesterday after Bella had picked you up whether or not they should officially include you in the pack since you were a new and special case. In the end they came to the conclusion that you would need and deserve the help and guide the others could give you. He also didn’t tell you that Jacob seemed a bit too disapproving of this new situation and that he guessed it had something to do with the thoughts he had heard from him that were once again centered on none other than your own sister. 

“Okay”, you nodded; also to convince yourself that everything would be okay. 

“Also, you’re not the only young member, don’t worry. Seth Clearwater, he is your age and has also shifted. You will meet him later at the fire.” 

You had already agreed to come when he and Billy had invited you and Bella to come. Bella had added another dimension to this whole situation when she had told you about the Cullens and the vampire that was going after her. She had calmed you a bit when she reassured that she was as good as always protected by either the vampire family of her boyfriend or the wolves. 

For the rest of the day you tried to shift on command and Sam and his fiancée Emily gave you a few tips on how to control your anger. 

Then you went to the fire where you saw your sister again who immediately asked you how it worked. You still stood a bit away from the others as you told her about your training when you heard a voice. It was directed at Jake so didn’t turn around until the person came to a halt at Jacob’s side.

“Hey man, I saved you some burgers but if you don’t hurry Paul will-” 

The boy stopped in the middle of his sentence when you turned around and your eyes met. Your first thought was: “Holy shit, he’s cute”. Your second one was: “So that’s what imprinting feels like”. And your third was once again: “Holy shit.”

Butterflies started fluttering in your stomach and the heat rose to your cheeks as you looked at the boy in front of you with wide eyes who still hadn’t closed his mouth. 

To your luck Sam and Emily were still next to you and immediately understood what was happening. Sam suppressed a chuckle and introduced you to each other.

“(Y/N), this is Seth, the boy I told you about today. Seth, this is our newest pack-member, (Y/N).”  

You saw his mouth form your name before he stuttered out a “hi”. 

You willed your body to move again and said “hi” back just as stuttery. 

“Uh-uhm..”, Seth started and was once again saved by Emily. “Why don’t we go to the others already.” 

You nodded and then followed the other boy your age closely. What you didn’t notice was the pissed expression that had appeared on Jacob’s face. All of you was focused on Seth.

You sat next to each other and soon the gossip made it’s round so soon after Billy was finished with telling the first legend everyone knew what just happened. 

Leah, who Seth had introduced as his older sister, looked at you with narrowed eyes but didn’t do anything else. 

Throughout the evening your hands had brushed together a few times which had sparked the fluttering in your stomach everytime. And you had probably inched even closer together after some time too. 

It was a bit awkward at first but it didn’t change the fact that you felt comfortable sitting next to him while listening and laughing with the others. 

You were sad when saying goodbye but then Seth gave you his number and asked you to meet up tomorrow which you had agreed to almost too enthusiastically to not be embarrassed. It didn’t help that Bella giggled the entire ride home about her baby-brother having a crush. 

“Naw, you grow up so fast.”

“Ughhhhhh, please stop.”

Bella laughed while pulling into their driveway: “Never, that’s my job as your sister.”

“You’re horrible”, you said drily while she just continued giggling. 

But then she changed the mood quickly. “You decided to tell dad tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah.. Billy and Sam are gonna be there too to answer questions. I’m still not the best at wolf-knowledge.”

“Mhm, it’ll be okay, don’t worry too much. If you want I can be there too.”

You nodded and earned yourself a short side-hug from Bella before you went to your rooms. 

—

You were close to emotional exhaustion after the conversation with your dad but it had a good outcome. Afterwards Edward picked up Bella and you went to meet up with Seth. Sam and Billy were so nice to take you with them to the Black’s home from where you would go to Seth. 

Billy went inside while you waved at him and went to go. 

But shortly before you arrived someone came to stand in your way. It was Jacob. And he didn’t seem to want to talk to you in a friendly way. 

You still tried to be nice; he was like Bella’s best friend so you really didn’t want to make him dislike you more than he apparently already did. 

“Why?!” 

You were perplexed when he almost spat it at you. You also didn’t have a chance to respond; he just continued talking.

“Why was it YOU?! Why did YOU shift?! It should’ve been Bella if anyone else were to shift at all! But no! It was YOU! If it had been Bella then she could imprint on me! But it was you! It doesn’t even make sense! Why would nature want YOU to be one of us?! You’re unable to do anything! You’re weak! And now you’re just supposed to protect others?! To protect Bella?! Hah!”

His accusations that in the end didn’t even really make sense but still hurt carried on. You didn’t actually hear anymore what he said. You were about to cry and just wanted to coil into yourself but at the same time you had to suppress the anger rising in you. Your whole body shook from the exhausting try to hold yourself together. A few tears escaped your eyes and Jacob was still not done, probably just repeating himself by now but that didn’t change the fact that he was more than angry. 

“Jacob! Stop!”, before you could register anything else a person appeared between you and the other. You felt relief wash over you immediately when you saw that it was Seth. 

“How dare you scream at him like that! Accusing him of being the source of your stupid self-centered problems! How dare you make him cry! Don’t you ever even come too close to him again!” 

Jake seemed to want to say something more but Seth turned to you, took your hand into his and gently pulled you with him. You only noticed that you were still shaking when Seth stopped after arriving at a clearing and pulled you into his arms. You couldn’t stop the tears from flowing and Seth pulled you closer while you clutched his shirt in your hands. 

After you calmed down you whispered a “thank you” against his neck where you had hid your face. 

“Of course”, he whispered back, “nobody is allowed to talk to or about you like that. Nobody." His arms tightened around you again and you felt his face hide in your neck this time. You smiled when you noticed him taking a deep whiff of your scent and then place a kiss there.

[intoapuddle]

Tell us your dnp opinions 🎤

Am I boring if I say I don't feel like I've seen enough of them to have a fully formed opinion? The honest truth would be something like that, but I do have stray ideas and concepts. Don't take this as me not watching though. I watch everything they post, every video, every tweet, every ig story, the works (even if I'm not as active on here as I've been in the past). They just aren't giving us a lot recently. And in the small things they have given us, they haven't really told us their plans.

BUT if there's one thing about phannies it's that we are LOOKING, we are analysing, and we are relentless LMAO. So despite not having a lot to go on, after thinking for a bit I've come up with a theory:

Ever since covid hit, Dan and Phil have been *waiting*. Waiting to be able to perform again, waiting to move house, and now waiting for the house to be fully finished. Not that they haven't done things, but I honestly think this is one of the reasons for why they've delayed some youtube things? This could be just a shot in the dark but I feel like I can see this pretty clearly as being "a thing". Having things need to get done at home and being around workers a lot I think honestly affects their youtube stuff, and as we already know about them they love to wait until "the time is right". Which, obviously, is for better or for worse sometimes.

I think they want to do a joint project together again when they feel they can, and I think it's gonna be sooo much fun (like everything they do together is!!). I don't know if it's going to be a podcast, or a video series, or gaming channel/talky youtube videos or anything, but I do have this inkling that Phil is giving us tiny hints. And we know they love to give us tiny hints.

I think Dan's projects, the book and the tour, were because he's been so tired of waiting. He's told us as much, just maybe not in exactly those words. And Phil has done what he always does: going along for the ride and trying to keep his youtube channel alive through the means he has under the circumstances he's in (illness, anxiety, big move).

So in conclusion, my opinion is I think things are on the horizon for the lads and we aren't all just here for nothing. Something will happen! And that's gonna be great!! \o/ xoxo dapg delulu lifer since 2018

[landinrris]

lando to red bull........say more.......

So this one is based on a prompt I came across on ao3 in a collection (that I now can no longer find based on the screenshot I took at the time). It was originally supposed to be my second big project of last summer when McLaren was in the trenches and had me feeling a bit hopeless... and then McLaren stepped up their game. But I don't think it's completely dead potentially. The original prompt was:

"Red Bull!Lando and Ferrari!Carlos; they aren't together yet and are still pining. Lando thinks Carlos hates him now that they're battling much more directly across teams, but Carlos is just pulling away because he's struggling to hide his feelings- Lando's just so radiant, he can't help it anymore."

This scene would've likely been in the front half of the fic itself even though it takes place in Silverstone. I was... in a place (worse than I am now) when I wrote it regarding Carlos' apparent treatment at Ferrari around the beginning summer races last year. (it's also all I have connected to this prompt right now, so sorry for the slight angst but not sorry for the 1.2k this scene is. I couldn't split it up.)

ask me about a wip!

---

They always end up here, laying in one of their rooms just because they can and unloading on each other in a way that’s never quite the same with someone else. Sometimes they get dinner beforehand, but they always end up here: Carlos on his back staring at the ceiling, Lando propped up on his elbow on his side watching on amused as Carlos collects his thoughts.

Carlos has gone silent now while Lando continues to watch him. He’s changed out of his Ferrari shirt, something old and soft in its place that he only ever wears at home and decidedly not in a motorhome in the English countryside. He reminds Lando of when he was at McLaren like this, and it makes his heart ache.

After the fifth consecutive minute spent in silence and Lando watching Carlos’ eyes flutter shut a few times, he starts to think maybe Carlos is just using him to get out of his motorhome. But Carlos speaks eventually, a heavy sigh on his lips. “They’ve switched the dynamic without telling me, I know they have.”

Lando is so startled by the noise, even though he’s been watching Carlos, that he startles himself. “Who did?”

“Ferrari. Vasseur. Charles went on the warpath a few weeks ago after he got penalized post-quali, and things haven’t been the same since.”

“Woah, hang on.” Lando pushes himself higher up on his elbow. Carlos has never mentioned a supposed hissy fit or what’s come out of it. “What happened?”

Carlos rolls onto his side as well, but he keeps his head on the pillow, effectively staring at Lando’s chest. “He impeded two people and got a six-place drop. Daniel and Esteban, I think. He was speaking French with Vasseur, so I don’t know what he was saying exactly, but it was loud.”

“Out of all the languages you know…”

Carlos rolls his eyes. “I know, I know. Since then though, we have not been allowed to fight. Charles has been more angry on the radio. I think the team is promising him preferential treatment to make him happy. To show him how he is their driver they want.”

“Didn’t you guys never have defined number 1 and number 2 drivers?”

“And that’s why I signed and renewed with them. You know how I feel about team orders.”

Lando knows all too well. He remembers the few times they happened at McLaren and the way Carlos looked like the human manifestation of a thundercloud getting out of the car following them. That reaction always made sense to Lando— they’re racing drivers, why are they there if they’re not allowed to race?

Carlos isn’t fuming now though, he’s lying in Lando’s bed in a motorhome in a field in Silverstone. He looks like he’s halfway deflated— the opposite of how Carlos Sainz should ever look.

“These last few races, they have kept me behind, and when I was not behind, they tried their best to get me there. Like they have told Charles he will finish in front of me if the team can help it.”

“What’s Charles said about it?” Lando’s almost afraid to hear the answer. He hasn’t spoken to Charles much lately, especially in the time now since he’s been at Red Bull, since he’s been a direct competitor. Since Charles is officially no longer lamenting to the press that Lando should just move over for him.

“About the change in treatment on track? I have not asked him about what he discussed with Vasseur. Plus I am not sure I care to hear how he thinks he deserves to be in front. I think there will be no contract negotiations then.”

Lando hangs his head and collapses into the pillow beneath him. “You haven’t even talked to him? Carlos Sainz Vasquez de Castro—”

“Ay,” Carlos kicks Lando’s leg as best he can from this angle, the blow landing at the top of his thighs. “He has not exactly come to me and said anything either. Nothing about being sorry for my race or strategy or anything. We used to commiserate about the bad days, and now every weekend is a bad weekend, and nothing.”

Carlos is still watching him when Lando turns his face to look. “So because he hasn’t said anything and you haven’t talked, he’s on board with getting preferential treatment?” Lando wonders if Carlos thinks it sounds as funny as it does coming out of his mouth.

Carlos’ face doesn’t falter though, a bad sign that he’s deeper in his head about this than Lando thought. “I’m not trying to discount your feelings, you muppet,” Lando says, a bit softer. The last thing he needs is Carlos leaving him like this. “Just trying to understand. You two seemed to really get along up until now.”

“It’s been gradually getting worse, and I don’t know what to do, Lando.”

Lando doesn’t know what to do either, if he’s being honest. He never had issues with Carlos at McLaren, with Daniel he was as non-confrontational as he could get, Oscar was much like Carlos, and now he knows his place with Max for the next six months as Max finishes his glory run. 

Carlos has found himself in the middle of one of the most undesirable situations, and Lando’s lost for words.

The man lying across from him is a shell of who he used to be, closed off, light dimmed. The team doesn’t want driver feedback for development. His teammate takes team handouts because they help him. How is Lando not meant to have a poor view of everyone associated with that team when this is what they’ve done to one of Lando’s best friends? One of the people who kept him sane during 2020 even when they were hundreds of kilometers apart.

“The only thing I know is to talk to Fred.”

Unsurprisingly, Carlos doesn’t seem to like that idea. He groans and shifts to lie on his back like before. “I’m going to lose my seat.”

The fear of that coming to fruition is ten times scarier than any thought of Carlos being relegated to second driver mid-season. Lando inches closer to Carlos and debates reaching out to touch him but doesn’t let himself. “Don’t you dare let yourself lose your seat or so help me God, Carlos.” There’s probably too much emotion behind his words, but Lando doesn’t care. Not right now and not about this.

For the first time since laying here, Carlos cracks a smile. It’s small, but Lando couldn’t miss it if he tried. “Why, you would miss me too much?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know the answer.” Because Carlos does, Lando knows he does. Even on their most competitive days, Lando doesn’t wish for anything to be different. Could never. Not when Carlos beats him to pole by one one-hundredth of a second or when he makes his car the size of the entire track. Lando has Max, but he also has Carlos in a way that’s so unlike his other friendships in the paddock. He has Carlos in a way that screams what if we were more, what if we were brave enough?

Carlos looks at him like maybe he’s thinking that in this moment, but nothing comes of it— never does.Lando tells himself he’s okay with that, he is, especially during times like these. Besides, Lando would rather have Carlos as a friend than not at all, so he watches Carlos back and tries to keep his heart rate from spiking when Carlos says, “I do,” barely audible.

[sothasil]

Have you ever made or been involved on a large scale, art-related project other than beyond skyrim? Asking because the quality of your art is really honed; it reminds me of professional published material.

Hello and thank you! I have not. I do have years of art school under my belt though, and before that I have been drawing since forever. My studies had me work on projects with professional intent and I've interned in a game studio once. While currently still looking for work, the state of the industries I could work in and my inexperience are such that I have little to no chance of finding work right now. Just keeping on making my fanarts and own stories with as much bravado as I could being paid for the time being

Though I must say, that's a really touching compliment for me. Years ago, someone told me they recognized me as "the sketchy elder scrolls artist" (as in I posted sketches, not shady lol) and while it was a compliment it made me a bit self conscious and since then I've tried only sharing finished, polished pieces on there. And you are confirming that got noticed haha!

I hope one day I'll be working on more big art projects, I really love participating in teamwork and how it lets you achieve crazy goals! If it's online fan projects you'll absolutely see it here, like the zine pieces I sometimes post and my Beyond Skyrim stuff :)

And if you do want to see my sketches...guess I might post that again some day if people like it? Already been considering sharing time lapses because I love seeing them myself. Cheers anon, have a lovely day!

[allegroart]

Now that it's been a while since I posted the last Bugtober comic, here are the statistics for the most liked comics on both here and the other site! More of my thoughts and insights in the replies, read along if you're interested!

The earlier Bugtober comics performed the best overall, while the comics I worked on last performed the worst. However, this does not factor in the time in between putting out my first comic and my last comic - the first comic, Aphid, has had the most time to gather up likes.

Either way, this makes sense, considering Bugtober happens in freakin’ October and here I was finishing everything up in July of the next year.

It’s pretty funny how the Coffee Shop AU explanation images I did performed almost double as well as my two top comics on Twitter, though! I’m not disappointed or anything, I just think it’s funny. You guys want more Coffee Shop AU?? I can give you more Coffee Shop AU! It’s been a while since I’ve last really focused on any AU!

Other than that, it seems like Twitter enjoyed the comics that leaned on being more funny, while Tumblr enjoyed the comics that leaned on being more heartwarming. Interesting! 

Okay, so what did I learn from this whole process? Well, for Bugtober 2022, I was able to push out 31 comics in around 31 days, which was awesome and I thought I could do it again! My daughter was 7 months old then. In Bugtober 2023, she was already a year and a half and things were very different. I found that I didn’t have enough time nor the energy to do all of that again, as hard as I tried! 

Overall, I’m very glad that I was able to finish this project, as long as it took. Will I make 31 comics for this year’s Bugtober? Probably not, solely because I now know how much time I have to actually sit down and make a bunch of comics. Plus, I feel like I wasn’t able to give each comic the attention it needed, if that makes sense.

By that, I mean, I feel like I could have done better with making the characters look a bit more on model, and I’d love to work on backgrounds more. Things like that.

This doesn’t mean I’m never going to make another comic again, far from it! The opposite of it, even! Those are the two things that I want to work on the most for my next Bug Fables comic!

Speaking of…when will I post the next big Bug Fables comic of mine?

Well…the game turns 5 years old this year…I’d like to make something special for that. I have an idea for the next big comic. Right now I’m working on the first draft of the script, but I hope to have it come out on the day of the anniversary.

As always, if you want to see the comic as I’m making it, instead of waiting until November, consider becoming a patron on my Patreon! No pressure, only if you want to. I may be a mom, but I’m not your mom, you do what you need to do, kiddo.

Here, my Patreon. Again, only if you want to.

[convexicalcrow]

Hermit Horror Week 2023 Day 1: s8/game mechanics

what if the one hermit who consistently gets his ass possessed also got his ass possessed by moon big. what if that happened.

-

The moon was big. Cub was very certain of that fact. Whether that was due to it coming closer, or growing bigger, that he was less sure about, to be honest. He was also floating into the air, and he'd constructed a Very Scientific instrument to measure it's progress. It was definitely getting worse. Perhaps anyone else might have gone mad from not sleeping, but not Cub! He thrived on insomnia! Even the phantoms made him laugh, the silly creatures. They were just weird flying dogs, right? Yeah! Nipping at his heels, just being a nuisance, nothing to worry about!

He'd needed no real convincing to join the Mooners. Mumbo's explanation made as much sense as any as to why the moon had decided to crash into their world. And it was definitely crashing, right? Sure! Why not? Made about as much sense as anything else. Of course the moon would be lonely and sad about all the Hermits sleeping the night away! So if sleeping was what the moon detested, then he wouldn't sleep! Easy! He could do that without even thinking. And he'd have more time to work on his projects. The enchanted desert still wasn't finished yet.

-

The shadows dancing in the corner of his vision didn't seem weird. Why would they? The moon being so huge in the sky had messed with the shadows and everything looked weird. Simultaneously too bright and not bright enough. Everything looked like the colour had been drained from it, like the world was now in monochrome.

It definitely couldn't be the not sleeping, though. Sure, it had been weeks now, but he was fine! He didn't even feel tired anymore! Just a bit of Vex magic and some regen potions here and there and he was fine. Never felt better!

-

…his name is cubfan135…

-

The Octagon seemed…

Cub blinked. Thought he'd seen something- but there's no way it moved, right? No, of course not. That was silly. It had legs, sure, but it couldn't walk. Nah, nah, he was just seeing things, that's all. Just the weird-

The Octagon screamed-

Cub shook his head. No. He was seeing things. That wasn't right. There was no swirling mass of deep blackness there. There was no vortex threatening to swallow the world. The amethyst wasn't singing because there was no amethyst. It wasn't a black hole, it was just the deepslate not reflecting enough light to-

-

"Cub? You okay, my dude?"

Ren's voice shimmered through the air. Cub closed his eyes. Perhaps he was falling-

-

No. He was floating. The moon had come to reclaim her child and Cub reached for her eagerly. The moonlight was all he could see; faint whispers filled his mind, but he was so used to that it didn't even bother him. Probably just the Vex again, they did that a lot. Nothing to worry about.

He was lying on a cloud, dripping moonlight from his fingers. They fell to earth, making the ground shake. He smiled serenely as the moon whispered all kinds of things to him. This was just a dream. He was fine. Nothing to worry about.

-

Cub was placing sand in the hot sun. He was digging up sand in the hot sun. He'd grown used to the strange visions he was seeing now. If he looked at the sun, it turned into a falcon. His mind was running a million miles an hour with the most absurd thoughts he could come up with. Was he going mad? Probably. Didn't matter, though. He just thought of one of the ancient Pharaohs putting minigolf in their pyramid and burst into a fit of hysterical laughter, sand slipping through his fingers as he wandered elsewhere into his mind.

-

…his name is cubfan135…

…his name is cubfan135…

-

Cub was gazing up at the moon. Ren was beside him. He had joined some other moon cult, or so he'd said. Cub didn't really understand his ramblings about moon rocks or potatoes, to be honest.

"She's demanding heads, Cub. She wants- heads. I can feel it, bro. It's what she tells me to do," Ren murmured.

"Then I guess that's what you gotta do, Ren," Cub said.

"It feels like she's…" Ren paused. "I don't want to say possessed? But maybe- maybe she's possessed me. I don't know. You know what that's like, right?"

"Possession? Maybe, maybe," Cub said.

-

Red eyes stared at him across the enchanted desert. Every night they were there, like a predator stalking prey. But not stalking, just watching. Red eyes and a dark shadow. Perhaps a wolf. Perhaps a Rendog, Cub thought and laughed.

Was it a portent of bad things to come? Well, maybe. But the moon was still insanely huge in the sky, so like, maybe there were other more direct warnings, you know? Anyway, the red eyes didn't move. Didn't approach. Made no sound. Just watching. Weird. But as long as it left him alone, Cub decided he really didn't care.

-

Thunder. Lighting didn't really seem all that impressive with all the moonlight drowning it out. Cub was standing on top of Pearl's base, watching Boatem. It was quiet. He didn't know how long he'd been up here. He just knew the moon was filling almost the whole sky, and the levitation effects had left him with sore legs from falling back to earth so often. He felt… paralysed. Been a while since he felt this scared. The moon was whispering; his stomach growled. It had been a while since he'd fed the moon the Vex. She They hungered for blood.

-

…his name is cubfan135…

…his name is cubfan135…

…his name is cubfan135…

-

There was one cavern carved into the canyon that Cub didn't remember building. It was tucked away behind a lot of dripstone; you couldn't even see it from the outside. But he'd fallen into it, and found himself looking at some kind of shrine. Something - a conduit? - floated above it, giving off a powerful energy that drew him in. Images flashed into his mind: the moon crashing, rabid dogs hunting, the ocean turning red, his sword covered with blood. Then, whispers, whispers, the moon was whispering to him. Feed me. Bring me their heads. Feed me. I am. Moonatrix Octa.

-

There was a section of wall in his main base where he'd carved a notch in the stone for every day he hadn't slept. There were so many now that his initial neat tallies of fives had devolved rapidly into marks that had no organisation whatsoever. He'd tried counting them once, but he'd got lost around 54, and started again, where he'd got lost at 81, and then again at 43. Honestly, he wasn't even sure they were actually the right tally marks, even though he remembered coming in here every night to carve another one. Fuck, he was tired.

-

He heard chanting as he flew over Boatem. Saw Ren and Doc circling Mumbo chanting his name. You know, just normal Hermit things. They were wearing some weird robes, but that's all Cub really took in before he crashed into Scar's mountain and had to pretend like he hadn't actually done that as he brushed the snow off and steadied himself on the wall of Grian's observatory. He watched the scene before him, seeing Ren and Doc throwing potions and wielding axes. Man, those moon cults must be getting worse if they're dancing around Mumbo and dropping spiderwebs at his-

-

Cub respawned, having no memory of how he'd died. He lay in bed, and he didn't notice anything weird until he turned his head to see Doc sitting by his bed, clearly holding Ren back as he growled and bared his teeth at him.

Cub pulled back. "Hey, no, you-"

"We left your stuff in a chest. Sorry about the murder, but we needed your head," Doc said.

"What- wait, what happened? Why's he-?" Cub said. "Do I even want to know?"

"Moon's big." Doc shrugged, as if that was that.

Ren snarled. "Moonatrix Octa thanks you for your sacrifice."

-

Cub stared at his hands in the moonlight. He was sure they'd turned purple. That's definitely a thing that could happen, right? He laughed, and it was the kind of laugh that masked deep fear. He closed his eyes as the ground shook, steadying himself against a tree. When he looked again, his hands were covered in blood. He looked up. Red eyes watching. Sharp fingers clawed his shoulders. Harsh whispers. Feed me. Bring me their heads. I am nearly here. Not long now. I must have them. You can save them all. Behold my wrath, I am Moonatrix Octa.

-

Cub held a Vex head in his hands. Didn't know why. Didn't know how he'd even got one. He didn't remember raiding a mansion. He wouldn't kill Vexes for one. He was better than that. But clearly it meant only one thing: the Vex were calling.

"So your moon rock possessed you, hey, Ren? Well. You know nothing of possession," Cub said as he put the mask on, his body transforming into his Vex form.

The moon whispered eagerly, egging him on. He took his sword, stomach hungry for blood, and flew straight to the Octagon. This would be easy.

-

…his name is Renthedog…

…his name is Renthedog…

…his name is Renthedog…

[withlovefromsimtown]

Lifa's Life Update (+Sims Progress)

Well it's been a minute, but We're still here & I don't mind.

Things roughly in order:

I fully remapped onto a custom SC4 terrain & rebuilt an entire Sims 2 BG neighborhood to update it to UC (any guesses?), started working on clothing defaults for the aforementioned neighborhood.

Started 2 huge TS2 projects that I may someday finish, completely unrelated to all of that, because I was in Milkshape & I can't control myself.

Had my partner's friends over A LOT, like it seemed like every couple weeks for awhile someone would be crashing in the guest room. (They're my friends too they just... started off as partner's friends lol.)

Barbecued & grilled a lot, because friends & food.

Went to a VNV Nation show with my friend (things that are on the Elder Goth Bucket List lol), made a whole Yeet Weekend outta it & also went to Ikea, Fivebelow, Spirit Halloween, a local outdoor market, & a snowcone stand.

The fucking holidays.

Got sick, part 1.

Surprise, my cat has diabetes & needs 2x daily insulin shots!

More of the fucking holidays.

Got sick, part 2.

2x/month cat checkups to check blood sugar & adjust the dose, for like 3 months.

TX freezes, local friend doesn't have sufficient insulation or central heating in their home to deal with the temps, because TX, & comes to stay with me (with their cat) for a week because I have central heating.

During that week that my friend was here, Mr Diabetes Cat decided to a) eat all the dry kibble out of every bowl, b) refuse wet food at shots time because he was full of dry kibble, & then c) throw up kibble & turn around & pee all over my carpet right after throwing up, which resulted in him not getting his shots that night--they have to be given with food---& getting scheduled an urgent vet visit in the morning. (He's fine, just expensive.)

On the day it actually warmed up outside before it went back to 20 degrees, friend & I did a mini-hike together. We also had food from the Generic Asian Cuisine place (yeah I know, it's Texas though) where we got Pho, Lumpia, & a tofu stir-fry.

I regret having to work during the freezy times, unfortunately.

Partner obtained me a uhh... knockoff Steamdeck handheld? Rog Ally? so I can keep Win7 on my monster computer & also play my dumb ancient murder-aliens 4x RTS game on Steam that I like, but I haven't fixed my mods for it to play it, because I...

Got sick, part 3.

While sick, took Mr Diabetes Cat to his very last 2-week checkup; we're on 3-month checkup schedules now! Because he's stable! Yay!

The entire house is a disaster & I'm still not 100% but I'm back to cooking/cleaning a bit between work at least.

Working on more of the necessary clothing defaults for the TS2 neighborhood I redid.

Planning for March when the entire zoo needs to be vetted again for vaxxing, just gonna wrap the diabetes checkup into that & do everyone's bloodwork at that time also unless something drastic happens. (We do like 2-3 cats at a time over the course of 2 weeks, & then the dog on her own, we're not like... hauling a van of animals to the vet all at once...)

Need to get some of the soft mesh transportation prisons for the cats before then, because the big crate with the lid is about to disintegrate.

[genopaint]

Now... since I've finished posting everything up. I got something to announce: I'm going on a hiatus!! I've been planning this for a bit now but just couldn't get the timing right but I've finished all my commissions and all my work. And now I'm ready to go.

I won't go into all the details why. It's not really anyone's business. But basically I've just not been doing well. And I want to take some time to myself for a little while. Come online less, focus on fixing up stuff in the real world. You know how it is.

Now I'll still be coming online occasionally, I want to keep doing the Daily Dragon Challenge. But I kind of want that to be the extent of what I do online. If you need to get in touch with me, you can still message me and I'll get to it whenever I see it.

Personal commissions for the time being, are closed. I'll probably soft open them a little later. But that will be after I figure out some price increases. I'll talk more about that whenever I get to it. If you want me to help with some projects like games and stuff I'm a little more open to hearing what you're looking for though. But do keep in mind that I probably won't be able to reply right away since. Again, I want to be online less right now.

I've just been so busy and stuff lately. I haven't had any time or energy to deal with stuff and I really particularly miss making my own games. I haven't gotten to update Once Upon An Adventure in a long time, and I want to spend some time working on it again. I want to potentially update some of my old games, like finally giving DaRoach it's big tune up. And I really just want to make some new silly little RPG Maker games. So I'll be trying to spend some time working on those hopefully! As well as other real life stuff and personal project junk.

TLDR, I'm going on hiatus but will still post stuff when I feel like it. But I'll be ignoring everything for a while. Please understand, and thank you all so much for your continued support and understanding :)

[torrentialstardust]

UMINEKO X DRAWTECTIVES: OGALVY AND MARIA, YORK AND BATTLER

I have much to say, so sorry in advance for the length!

I was rewatching some of Drawtectives before attending one of the NezumiVA Umineko streams and I thought it would be fun to cross the two over! They're both mystery "games" but with vastly different tones and settings.

The first drawings I sketched aren't even the ones finished here but I'm sure I'll get to them soon enough. The one I started lining first was Ogalvy and Maria, or specifically Piss Boy and Sakutaro! They're cuddlie~ I even had my own Piss Boy plush next to me while drawing fo reference! I think Maria just deserves good things and she'd be such good friends with Ogalvy, I had them doing drawings together. The outfit swap was also fun, though a little tricky with how cartoony Ogalvy is. Maria's clothes were a bit tricky to put on him, but I like the way it turned out! Also proud of the facial expressions, hope I got the right kind of "enthusiastic to the point where you don't even smile, you're just totally focused and excited".

York and Battler got compared to each other a while back so I thought they'd be good to draw together, and I love the idea of Battler being a goofy bi disaster. Not only that but given how him being tall is mentioned repeatedly, I wanted to bring in the energy I feel whenever I see someone taller than me. I basically just hardcore projected onto Battler is what I'm saying.

The outfit swap part was a lil tricky but still fun, since York has two key design traits: he keeps on his armband with his outfits and he can't wear sleeves. "The technology just doesn't exist". I took off the sleeves of Battler's outfit, but I still decided to swap the armband around, mainly because the part of York's arm it would go on was geometrically confusing and I didn't want to draw attention to that. The hair was also fun to swap. Battler looks like that one rando from Overwatch and I'm not sorry, but I'm not proud either. It does still look nice to me.

OK! That's the process explained! And now: a call to action.

Hey, peeps on the YouTube stream and on the Umineko tag: you should watch Drawtectives! It's a fun and silly mystery series! There is murder in it but it's still lighthearted for the most part, it's got charming characters, and season 3 is on the horizon! You could catch up pretty easily in time for it to start and have a gay ol time!

Hey, peeps on the Drawtectives tag waiting for season 3: you should read Umineko! It's an incredibly engaging and emotional mystery series! It's got a massive cast with lots of character depth and many puzzles to solve! It's on Steam (but please don't use the new sprites they made they're so much worse than the OG sprites, switch to them), a few other places too, and I'm pretty sure there's even a Kindle Port, but I've been enjoying the readthrough by the delightful NezumiVA!

We've got a really nice community of people who've read it before and people like us who don't know what's going on there. It is a bit longer than Drawtectives I'm afraid but it may not take too long to get caught up on the playlist. Nezumi's also pretty good at warning for the more sensitive content in the Novel which is always a big help. Only thing I'd watch out for is some gorey stuff toward the end of episode 2, which isn't even visually depicted.

OK! I think that's everything I needed to say! Comms open as per usual and have a lovely day!

[imagineitdearies]

Hi dear, I hope you're doing great x

I don't think I'll ever find the right words to express how i feel about PS. I left a comment on the last chapter trying to explain but it'd need 100 pages so I'll leave it like that for now. I just wanted to say that Tyrus x Astarion is my favorite Astarion x OC/Tav/Durge in the whole fandom. I tried to get into many different variations of Astarion x Tav by other artists and authors but none of them felt "right" like yours. Tyrus truly is Astarion's soulmate, be it personality - wise, phisically, spiritually, emotionally. I'm so in love with him it hurts. You really had the fundamentals of Astarion's psychology and needs up your sleeve. And I'm just like Astarion, I have a weakness for sweet turned cruel because love and circumstances and smart characters and my addiction to Tyrus is currently dire. I can't stop re - reading PS and devour any extra content you put out.

Also I especiallly wanted to thank you for portraying SA trauma with such immense respect and maturity since many people have no idea how to do it correctly or worse, they treat it like their personal kink fodder.

I know you're dedicating your time to other projects now and you're already writing Astarion's POV and the drabbles but I was wondering if we'll ever get glimpses of their post - Cazador life? I'd love to know how they'd deal with their past and what they'd do with their regained autonomy and freedom to be individuals again.

Ps: not sure whether this should get asked on ko - fi or tumblr so I did both ahahah. Part of me wishes you could write a sequel, I'm not going to lie

Either way thank you for everything, I'm hugging you

Hi anon 🥰

Thanks so much for this message and for leaving a comment! Thanks to everyone who commented on ch40 btw, I’ve struggled to start responding to them in part because I wanted to have a general edit of PS done first (alas, with moving a decent distance, my job getting busy, and a bit of burnout, I’ve only finished part I), but also because I don’t want it to end really either, even if I know trying to write a sequel wouldn’t be a successful venture for me. Which is why I plan to continue writing “a flawed eternity” one-shots for quite some time to come! My goal of my own accord is to post a drabble at least once a month, though we’ve surpassed that thanks to a couple wonderful ko-fi supporters 🩵 So yes, plenty of post-PS glimpses to come! If you haven’t read them yet check out my pinned post, two of them do feature post-PS times 🥰

I’m so glad my portrayal of trauma and SA resonated and felt respectful for you. As for everything you said about Tyrus…well, it probably comes as no surprise to you all that I love him to death too, and had created him with the express intent to give Astarion a perfect pairing counterpart I didn’t find in the game, personally. It’s so heartwarming that many of you love him just as much too, now—this precious drow lad lives on in our hearts (and the occasional drabble, haha) 🩵🩵

Seriously, I can’t believe it’s been less than two months since PS concluded, I’m definitely not over it still and love chatting with you all about it 🥰 so thanks again for this ask anon, a big hug to you back!!

[skishie]

omga i love your airphone gijinkas

anyways i uave no idea if youve already said this somewhere ,my memory sucks ,but how do you reckon airy and mephone met. what is ur perosnal headcanon. grabby hands i must know (i love airphon

UUWAAAA THANK YOU !!! im really glad you do... looks up at you so politely and with a big smile.. i want to draw them again but better and more like a ref so hopefully soon! :D aaaatehee heeee i have not spoken about it publicly so im more than open to go into it now... cracks my knuckles(its actually not that intense but i jsut have a lot of thoughts)

OKAY, so personally i like to think about it starting after airy dies the second time(the end of ONE). its nice for him to still have gone through everything hes done and experienced because its what makes him him. he needs to be the airy we know and love. this also allows for bonding and growth and other such things. anyways, he uses the radio and ends up in the world of inanimate insanity! this would also take place after season 3 has wrapped up, either before or after the library is built. this means he can meet mephone and they can start bonding over being hosts of game shows but as airy talks mephone starts to understand "wow he just like me, but i got better, and now i want to help him" so mephone feels this need to help airy out with the same growth that mephone jsut went through. but also anyone whos been through the isolation that airy has been through along with dying who knows how many times. mephone just wants to help him and help his mental state and get him resocialized and to a point where he understands why he should be a bit more thoughtful or so on and whatever. airy would still be his old self but a bit more caring/understanding to a degree. i think hes just got some mental problems going on and hes just kind of an odd guy. mephone lets him hang around and either they could MAYBE? co host together, but at first hes just watching mephone do a show first before anything like that. which he watches from afar. hes not so used to being upclose or even being around people anymore so he likes to watch from a distance. as time goes on yada yada mephone would develop feelings first, and airy would much later. mephone would develop feelings while helping airy and such, airy takes a lot longer because he is readjusting and just, getting some basic social skills back. i like them in part because i just see mephone having gone through the growth he went through because he was similar to airy, and then meeting airy after this and realizing "wow i should help him too because this is just how i was and id hate to see someone else suffer the way i did" kind of thing and blah blah idk sorry i yapped and i hope any of this makes sense/is readable period. i ramble a lot and my thoughts kind of get lost oops. im not great with words or wording things well. not everything is thought out but those are my thoughts :] ps: airy still has the cracked head because thats just how i personally like to see him and draw him. i also think that if he died and came back that after all hes done, thats more akin to who he is now. hes a broken individual who needs help/fixing. if that makes sense(also a bit of self projecting) pps: my boyfriend wanted to add his two cents for what he knows of mephone as well(hes not finished season 3 yet) and yknow,,, hes right i think its a mix of what i said and mix of what he said... which is: "wow he just like me for real, not anymore though, also this guy's committed some major fucked up stuff and that's just not right, if i fix this guy maybe it'll look really good for me"