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caw4brandon · 6 months

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Zutomayo: Mystery of Cool

Foreign Music has always been a strange thing both for the world and for myself personally. While everyone can appreciate a good Taylor Swift or some English indie. The world has a strange obsession with exotic musicians of a different language.

In retrospect, the K-pop boom: Super Junior, Girls Generation and Blackpink showed that music, doesn't matter in terms of the language. (not really)

It values the cool factor and the massive influence it causes to the internet. Just look at how [K-Pop artist; PSY] managed to unite the world. For me. My "Blackpink" is this faceless group?

- 「私もそうだよ」 -

Translation: [Everything is fine with me]

Debuted in 2018, Zutomayo (full name: Zutto Mayonaka De Iinoni) is a Japanese rock group. Translates as: I wish it was midnight all the time.

On June 4, 2018. Zutomayo released their first song on YouTube, [Byōshin o Kamu/ 秒針を噛む] becoming an immediate hit. Having 200,000 views within the first week. Assisted with an animated music video with a cast of peculiar characters.

Over the last seven years, the group has progressed from using just traditional instruments to adding non-traditional instruments.

Based on their live concerts. The group is seen using something called; [Electronicos Fantasticos/ Nicos] which is a collection of used electronic equipment turned into a pseudo instrument.

ZTMY's group members is uncertain since a lot of their talents alternate song by song. Their only consistent member is vocalist and songwriter; ACA-Ne/ ACAね an unidentified singer whose range is described as; energetic, expressive, and delicate.

- 今日どうしよ？-

Translation: [What should I do today?]

If we were to describe Zutomayo's type of music. It would be difficult to narrow down as to what ZTMY's genre fall under. The general belief is that they are rock based but is riddled with techno on the side.

Whatever the case, the group's music has its own unique identity. Upon listening to their songs (for multiple times) the group prioritizes on the bass guitar, the chaotic slams of the keyboard and the Nicos. Lyric wise, its rather difficult to paint a discernable picture since its of a different language. According to some Japanese listeners, ZTMY's songs to have a lot of wordplay and double meaning in its phrasing.

In the song, [お勉強しといてよ/ STUDY ME] the song spews a jumble of nonsense. However, the music video tells a unique story. STUDY ME follows a girl who is stuck in a perpetual cycle where she is somewhat complacent with her being a background character. Until she realizes that she can make a difference in defiance of her program.

Another song, [勘ぐれい/ Hunch Gray] its lyrics share the sentiment of chasing one's dreams but is uncertain about the venture. Trapped in a distorting world where the answers are unclear.

Still, the author wants to continue. Confronting problems one at a time. The video however, is about two childhood friends who got separated by dark entities of authority and is in the midst of a rescue mission.

- 3,2,1...Mirror Tune! -

Its worth mentioning the iconography found in ZTMY's music videos. For the most part, the main characters are mostly human. Nira-chan is the girl seen in both [STUDY ME] and in another song; [暗く黒く/Darken] although she is more cyborg than human in the latter.

The videos are animated by several independent artists such as; [tvchany] for their stylish and sharp style on [ミラーチューン/Mirror Tune] and [残機/Time Left] Another artist, [sakiyama] uses a rather messy and incredibly expressive style seen in [勘冴えて悔しいわ/ Kansaete Kuyashiiwa] which played this meta joke of its main character attempting to save the characters from the other videos.

I could honestly go on about the various art styles found in Zutomayo's MVs. There is also an official [Card Game] for them all. On the topic of consistency, The one creature seen in all of its videos is the adorable Hedgehog; Uniguri-kun.

With that said, Zutomayo is a mysterious group of talents shrouded in shadow. Both the musicians to ACA-Ne herself. It adds excitement to the identity of the alluring talent but it also enhances the variety of genres found in their music. Allowing its audience to explore and experience a type of music they rarely listen to.

ZTMY takes away the popularity because, unlike other bands. They don't exactly have a "face" to refer to. Rather, they let their songs and the MVs speak to the fans both in Japan and overseas.

Zutomayo is not just music but also an exploration of style. As seen with their clothing line. It's an inbred of Easter eggs with its upbeat songs filled with messages of melancholy. That is what makes ZTMY mysteriously cool~

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skinzchoerim · 3 months

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OnlyOneOf's dOpamine concert in Warsaw - my experience (+sentimental musings about the lore and its messages)

The first thing I need to get out of the way is that their crowd interaction game is 1000/10. They went on stage already knowing at least two greetings in Polish, and then Kyubin and Nine did a whole pantomime to explain their understanding of them. They presented "elo" as being very casual, best done with a bro chest bump, and they were correct about that. The funniest thing was when Nine showed "siema" (a greeting that's basically just as casual as "elo") as being very polite and official with a bow of the head. And hey, if he thinks that's the most official greeting in Polish, who are we to argue?

The translator wasn't very good so a lot of the context got lost, but they said that while sightseeing they met an elderly lady who was a lyOn. Then they met an elderly man from Busan who they hoped to turn into a lyOn, but he wasn't interested, and Nine said that's just how people from Busan are lol. Junji talked about how much he loved the view and that it made him feel really sentimental, which somehow turned into JunRie doing a couple dance with a spin. I really wish I had a video of it, I also can't find any taken by other people 😔

When the time for seOul drift came they asked about a Polish car brand, and of course everyone yelled "MALUCH!!!", so it was hilarious when they asked us to do a Warsaw drift in a maluch with them.

At some point the audience started chanting "zajebiście" which basically means "fucking awesome", and they were very keen to learn how to pronounce it. I really hope they remember it cause that would be iconic.

Now let's do a time leap and go back to what happened before the concert.

I watched the fanchat from afar and had the best view of Yoojung who looked really invested in everyone he talked to. I was surprised to see how wide and baby-like Rie's face is, it's really cute. Everyone says they look even better in real life, and personally I don't find that to be true. I think they're exactly as beautiful as they appear on screen. I'll explain it in more detail later.

Now for the fansign, which... my god. My worst fear when I saw how little time was reserved for it came true, because it really went by at the speed of light. I'm really glad I brought the prints to give them, because there was no way they would have noticed the shirt. For reference, here is what I gave them (Yoojung got two):

Junji was first, he smiled and said a cheerful "Hi!", I handed him the album and then quickly gave him the print before having to move on to Rie who was already making eye contact. I don't remember his exact reaction to the print, but he seemed positively surprised. Yoojung was the one who had the biggest reaction, his mouth did the '0' he often does and he either gasped or said "wow", it was all genuinely too fast for me to process and file away every detail. I don't remember Nine's reaction well because I was still reeling from Yoojung's (also I was distracted by his scar makeup, cause damn, it looked realistic). I think he said "thank you", although I'm not sure if he even looked down at the print. Mill also seemed positively surprised. Kyubin was last, and thanks to that I got to watch his reaction for the longest, although it was still barely a second. He looked at the print and then made eye contact with me while he was handing me the signed album. There was something about the look on his face that made me wish I had a moment longer to ask what was going through his head, but unfortunately all I could do was smile, give him an awkward nod goodbye and walk off. Did he recognize that he's seen the drawing before? Was he just surprised? Did he like it? I have no idea.

The hi-touch went by even faster since the staff told us to run. The pictures were taken with about 10-13 lyOns each. After the whole thing was done, I knew that for the next concert (fingers crossed 🤞) I'll have to buy the VVIP+ benefits. To be fair to myself, there was already a lot going on in the days leading up to the concert and preparing for the fanchat would've only added unimaginable levels of stress, but I think that the second time around, I'd be able to approach it with more ease. More on that later as well.

While waiting for the concert to start, some of their songs were playing in the background. The volume was fairly low and the amount of noise in the hall made it impossible to hear anything beyond the bassline and percussion, but that just made me wish that they'd release their entire discography with only those two elements cause let me tell you, it sounded SICK.

I started to really regret not getting the VVIP+ benefit once the concert began and the people in front of me covered the view with not just their heads, but also phones and lightsticks. I was only in the third/fourth row, but everyone in front of me was taller so I couldn't see everything that was going on, and seeing the videos others shared on Twitter it does seem like I missed a lot. Still, it was the perfect spot to get sprayed with water which happened more times than I could count (mostly Kyubin's deed, thanks bro I needed it).

The performances were absolutely top tier, but did anyone expect otherwise? I need them to release the dOpamine remix, I'd listen to it way more than the original. I couldn't see Yoojung during begin at all because he performed a little further back, so I'm really glad that once the medley was done they all sang the choruses of the solos again with the audience. Did I cry? No, but very fucking nearly, especially when we all sang begin together. Another moment that nearly brought me to tears was when Nine finished performing beyOnd and the music cut one line into the second verse. Obviously part of the reason why it sounded so heartbreaking was how unexpected the ending was and how much I wanted it to go on for longer, but it also sounded like someone suddenly took away his voice, so it fit the theme of Things I Can't Say LOve perfectly.

Speaking of having his voice taken away, I'm happy to report mine wasn't. The concert experiences I ruined for myself by freezing up and not joining everyone else in having fun outnumber the ones I approached with ease and made great memories during. I was especially worried since the previous concert I've been to, Odd Eye Circle's, unfortunately fell into the former category. The English version of Loonatic was my skinz before skinz existed, and when they performed it, anxiety got the better of me. I couldn't even open my mouth to attempt to sing along, and I still have regrets about it, because I know it would have been a liberating experience.

But none of that happened this time. I sang every song along with them (was I feeling smug that I knew almost all of the lyrics when the people around me only knew the English bits? yes, sue me). I put my whole fucking soul into my favorite songs, especially mirage, seOul drift and skinz. I can't even begin to describe how special it felt. Yelling the lyrics to skinz with lyOns all around me and OnlyOneOf a few meters away felt like a full circle moment. skinz was the beginning of so many things for me, and it's such a therapeutic song that's been helping me express myself unapologetically slowly, bit by bit over the past two and a half years. It doesn't matter that I don't have as many vivid memories of the concert as I wish I had, because I know that those two hours on June 12th 2024 have been euphoric and liberating, and I will carry that feeling with me every day, getting a little taste of it each time I listen to these songs again.

While after the fact I do wish the concert had gone on for longer, at the time it felt like the perfect length. The amount of songs in the encore was a genuinely nice gesture, because they were slowly getting people prepared for the end while constantly whipping out another performance, which is a really smart way to leave the audience in high spirits. I think they ended up performing four songs for the encore - OOO yOu, angel, lOve me and dOpamine (without choreo this time), and then the first verse and chorus of time leap right before they left the stage.

The acoustics in Progresja aren't the best, but it was an amazing experience to hear them sing live. I feel like in a lot of recordings it's kind of hard to tell if they're singing live or if it's playback because the vocal and music layers sort of merge into one. I might share the videos that my mom took with her phone, because hers actually captured that live quality of their singing.

I know me writing this here won't change anything, but I have to put I out there - these kinds of stages weren't made for K-pop acts. I can't imagine anyone aside from the people in the first row or someone very tall was able to see the elements of choreography that took part on the floor or the subtitles on videos (which come on, they at least could have had the foresight to place them on the upper part of the screen, not the bottom). K-pop groups - or anyone who doesn't just stand there holding a mic but has a visual side to their performance - should perform in buildings that are constructed like theaters, with the floor gradually rising so everyone can see the stage comfortably. It seems that the Madrid venue was exactly like that, so if anyone reading this was there or at a different concert in a similar venue I'd love to hear about your experience!

Now something that might cheer up anyone who hasn't seen them perform live - this concert made me very grateful that cameras exist and allow us to watch their performances filmed professionally. It's obvious that they're amazing performers from a distance, but only when a camera gets up close and captures the way they express every song and choreography with their faces does it actually hit. I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, Yoojung is such an impressive and expressive performer, both in his body and face, and having close ups of his facial expressions is a gift from heaven.

As I laid down in bed and my emotions were cooling off, it dawned on me how many good things in my life I owe to them and how special it is to have this one artist I can point to and say "the time I spent with them changed me for the better". I think seeing them live isn't even the pinnacle of my experience as a fan, but everything I carry with me every day that I have thanks to them. That being said, I really want to see them again. Most of what I've written down here was right after the concert, but now I don't feel like I remember as much as I want to. Nonetheless, this was my favorite concert among the ones I've attended and the most special experience of my life so far. Next time I'm getting VVIP+ and getting closer to that stage so I can finally enjoy the view in peace. I'm not even taking the option that they won't return here into account. They will last forever and they will have an infinite number of world tours.

This is where this post stops being a concert review and becomes sentimental musings of an unhinged person, so strap in. I did my best to structure this section in a way that would clearly communicate my thoughts to someone who isn't the owner of my brain and therefore doesn't have the exact mind map of interpretations of the various elements of OnlyOneOf's lore. The things I say here might be something most of us have thought or felt at some point, so what I hope to achieve here is simply it put into words, because I don't think anyone else has done that in the context of OOO.

I have to start by defining what exactly I mean whenever I say “the lore” (please don't make a drinking game out of every time I say "lore" in this post, you will die). Just like with any other K-pop group who has a deeply thought out concept, “the lore” encapsulates everything related to their conceptual work - songs, music videos, lyrics, teasers, MV descriptions, symbolism, references etc. What makes my definition of OOO’s lore deviate from how I'd define other K-pop groups' lore is the elements that make OOO's lore itself different from any other. K-pop storylines are known to be complex, but the ones I’m familiar with can all be described in the form of a story with specific characters played by the members, various events, superpowers and plot twists. OOO’s lore is more focused on emotions - loneliness, desire, love, fear. Because of that, the facts of what happens in the work itself can take second place to the emotional value of it. Their story can't be analyzed like a book with a beginning, middle and end, because it's too ambiguous and multifaceted for that. We can instead discuss the themes and observe the emotional progression happening within the lore. I like to compare analyzing their lore to untangling the chord of your earphones, because when you start getting frustrated at yet another impossible knot, you can just give it a rest, put the earphones in and enjoy how their art makes you feel.

I think it was the youtuber LOU who first viewed something OOO had made through the lens of cubism in her video about dOra maar, but I'd take it a step further and say that OOO's art makes the most sense if you look at everything from a cubist perspective, i.e. there isn't a single perspective on anything, but multiple viewpoints that all work together to create what we could call "the lore". It becomes easier to take a look at the whole picture the lore paints if you keep that in mind.

We observe an internal journey across various songs that connect to each other in smaller or bigger ways. We can, but we don't have to view all of them as being one person's story. The lore contains a collection of themes that create an ambiguous, unnamed protagonist whom we see represented by the bOy wearing cOmme des garçOns or the characters in the be series. None of them are THE protagonist, but they all make up the protagonist, because they all offer different perspectives on the themes that drive OOO's art and have been building up the group's identity over the past five years.

All of what I've mentioned thus far is just creative fiction. There is another perspective on their art that has real life implications, because there are real people whose job it is to express the inner world of the protagonist through songs and performances. OOO's music videos acknowledge their status as idols in the same way other K-pop groups with a fictional narrative do - they break the fourth wall by showing snippets of choreo and lipsyncing in between storytelling. OOO could be written off as nothing more than actors in entirely fictional roles if it wasn't for how intertwined they are with the themes in their art, in no small part thanks to how active they are in the creative process, but even beyond that. Their job as idols is acknowledged within the narrative (skinz MV, beyOnd description, the name of undergrOund idOl). So, their life as idols with a fandom is yet another perspective through which we can view their themes.

Here is where our role as spectators becomes important, because this aspect of the lore couldn't exist without our input. The way we respond to it and the conversation we create around it is what gives it meaning.

One side of the lore is the human side - the intimate and natural imagery of the libidO MV, the cozy warmth of cOy, the fun of blOssOm's choreography. On the other side, there are parts of the lore that feel emotionless and cold - MVs like sage, time leap, asOiaf, dOpamine, or graphics for Off angel and dOra maar. This dichotomy is something that can be used to discuss a lot of themes, like emotional distance in romantic relationships or a feeling of being ostracized by society. For the benefit of this post, I'll focus only on parasocial relationships between artists and fans.

Being a fan is both an experience of intense connection and distance that goes way beyond just oceans and borders. The one-sided nature of a parasocial relationship can be difficult to navigate for some people, but it seems to be something a lot of us need. It's comforting to know that you can develop a strong emotional bond with someone you're completely detached from and don't have to do any of the work a real interpersonal relationship needs; you just get to enjoy yourself as you receive art and entertainment. But that comfortable distance distorts the way we perceive the artist's personhood. We know and understand that they're a fellow human being, but we can't help that we never have an opportunity to experience them as such. They’re not people to us in the sense that they have no physical presence in our lives, they're just a series of recorded images projected onto a screen, filtered and airbrushed. We can watch them act like regular people on and off the stage, but whether we want to or not, we perceive them as more glamorous than anyone we meet on a daily basis. How could we not when part of their job is to tower over us while looking like a perfectly crafted illustration every time they get on stage?

This is where another theme present in OnlyOneOf’s art comes in, which is putting someone on a pedestal. In their songs, it's discussed in the context of romantic, artist/muse or God/follower relationships, but the part of the lore I'm talking about here is something that exists in the way we as spectators perceive them and their work.

Idols are human - I'm aware I'm not making an interesting point by acknowledging that. The reason I've been inspired to write about this in the first place is that I realized how being in physical proximity to someone you have a parasocial relationship with can shift your perception of their humanity.

I didn't buy the VVIP+ benefit because I knew I would be way too nervous about those six minutes and I'd probably spend most of that time awkwardly pretending I can hear what they're saying through the noise all around. Never meet your heroes, because you might make an idiot out of yourself, or however the saying goes. I thought I was in the vast minority who felt this way due to my anxiety while other lyOns would be ecstatic to get to meet them face to face. However, while I was standing in the queue I overheard a lot of people talking about how nervous they were, which is funny, because why the hell would any of us be nervous? They're the ones who are about to have a crowd of strangers observing their every move and recording every little mistake, they should be feeling the most nervous of us all! This got me thinking about why anyone would be nervous to meet their favorite artist, and the conclusion I came to is that it's intimidation. We're not wrong to feel intimidated; I think it's perfectly normal and natural in this scenario. I'd say it’s also quite healthy, because you’re not able to get too familiar with someone who intimidates you, which ensures the emotional distance required within a parasocial relationship is kept. As with everything, it's about balance. The problem appears when the emotional distance between a regular audience member and an idol grows so large that it becomes dehumanizing. Unfortunately, seeing how Korean netizens and international fans alike latch onto tiny things to criticize about the things idols do and say, this is still a very relevant topic. A pedestal that's too high can result in an approach that's entitled, cold, and often cruel. An idol becomes an imitation of a person, someone untouchable and unshakeable. Any words thrown their way, especially online, feel insignificant in comparison to their towering presence. For the people with an especially cruel streak, finding out their actions have a psychological impact on a public figure probably makes them feel like they regained some power in this uneven relationship. To them, it's nearly impossible to perceive an idol as someone with a right to receive empathy, because in their mind, the idol is too far removed from the humanity they observe in people who exist around them.

What's important here is that the lore shows us the full spectrum of who OOO are - they're idols, singers, performers, actors; they're people with fears, desires, intimate stories and hidden sides; people who have dopamine running through their bodies, people who need connection with others and people who have things they can't say. These things can't be separated from the members, because they make sure to take this message beyond the art itself. They don't filter themselves nearly as much as most idols have to - they swear, make dirty jokes, write songs about sex, casually talk about kissing men and offhandedly mention having a romantic life without apologizing for it. They're underground idols, and they intentionally distance themselves from the unforgiving audience members who would have a heart attack if their faves acted one tenth as relaxed as OOO do on a daily basis.

What I'm trying to get at here is that OnlyOneOf's art is created with the intention to create more empathy - for queer people, for mistreated lovers, for discarded muses, for people reconciling their faith with their sexuality, for one's own self despite having a lot of internalized issues. Through doing that, they override the loneliness inherent to the stories their songs tell and create possibilities for connection. They give us art that makes us feel less lonely by being a reflection of our messiest, most intimate feelings and experiences, and in turn they ask us to recognize them as a reflection of us and to not isolate them from the full human experience just because of the job they chose and its restrictions. When Jaden Jeong said they're the future of boy groups, I think he hoped they could influence audiences to humanize the figure of the idol.

I watched them between the professionally executed performances as they riffed off of each other, laughed and zoned out while looking at the audience. There were no cuts to a different, more flattering angle, no hand in the editing room controlling what footage sees the light of day. They look more beautiful in real life not because anything about their features looks different, but because the reality of being in the same space with them and finally getting to experience them just as any other human being, even with some distance still present, is a very special experience that holds beauty of its own. At that moment, I couldn’t remember why I was nervous before, and I began to wish I had sat down with them and shared a short conversation about any random thing. It would have been imperfect, but there was no reason to be afraid of that. They're just six guys of flesh and blood who clearly love what they do and whose work has given me happiness and purpose over the past two and a half years, and I would have cherished those six minutes of interaction.

On the train home, I discovered a more sentimental feeling while listening to them, especially the songs they performed, but not exclusively. There was something more personal and artistic I heard in their voices that made each song feel like more than just a recording, but a special moment in time shared by people who created something they wanted to share with others. This feeling fades the more the time distance grows between the current me and the me that attended the concert. Two hours weren’t enough.

I don't know how to end this post other than to say how fascinating it is that including imagery of fan/idol culture and technology within the lore so it mixes with all these deeply intimate stories makes everything OOO do a living piece of art. Simply existing as idols and people fuels the reason for the existence of their concept in the way that it currently exists, and I just think it's incredible.

#oh hey it's the post that took me two weeks to write #was it worth it? i mean i think so but you see for yourself #onlyoneof #onlyoneof dopamine tour #onlyoneof theory #personal #theorychoerim

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smolthealmighty · 24 days

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Spinaraki Week 4 Day 4: Cracks and Home

Old Hag Look at My Life (I'm a Lot Like You Were)

As Tomura’s world falls apart, his grandmother’s vestige comes to his unlikely rescue. It turns out they’re a bit more similar than he thought.

When Tomura Shigaraki came back to himself, his mind was achy from his mater’s reveal, his voice was hoarse from screaming, his body was scattered to the wind with barely any pieces left, and to his surprise the woman who everyone called his grandmother was holding him in her muscular arms. While he appreciated the sentiment, he couldn’t help but wish a certain someone he actually got along with (and who’s arms held the same strength) was comforting him, instead of this hero lady he’d never met but who dictated his fate in absentia.

“I know you’re not happy to see me,” Nana said, “But I hope you’re willing to put up with me long enough to keep you alive. One For All and All For One did quite the number on you, the quirk and the man I mean.”

“If you call getting smashed into bits and having my entire worldview torn into just as many pieces ‘having a number done on me’,” Tomura sarcastically threw back, “Then I’d hate to see what you’d consider to be worse!”

“No, no, I’m not sure anyone could’ve survived that combination. But you’re not just anyone, are you?” Tomura started at that, but his grandmother gently aimed his face to look at her sincere -and maybe proud?- expression as she continued.

“You’ve been through so much, you’re so very strong. And even with everything All For One has put you through, all the lies he spun and all the strings he pulled to mold you into what he wanted, you still managed to untether yourself enough to find your own goal and make your own connections. You found friends, and you dedicated your aspirations to them. You loved them, you helped them. It’s not what I’d call hero work, but in a vacuum I can’t deny it’s heroic. I only wish someone better could’ve been around to guide you, so you had the opportunity to try your brand of heroism, and for that I am sorry.”

Tomura was speechless at the apology that came two decades too late, but when he thought about it, he was -begrudgingly- at least a little bit glad someone had finally told him that not only could he be a hero after all this time, but that he was a hero for the people who mattered to him the most (and if it also flew in the face of everyone who wanted him to fail then that made it all the better).

“Wait,” Tomura asked, horror taking over as an idea of starting to dawn on him, “how the hell do you know any of that?”

“Well,” Nana squirmed, “we are currently in a vestige world residing in your mind, and you’ve got a lot stored up in here. What you’ve touched, what you feel, what you’ve destroyed, what you create, what you hate, what you love…”

“Oh no, please tell me you didn’t see anything weird.”

“Of course not,” Nana reassured, “Falling in love with a close friend isn’t weird at all.”

“Grandma!”

“I can see why you adore him, such a sweet and earnest boy.”

“Grandma!”

“And beautiful eyes and scales to boot.”

“Grandma!”

“Sorry, sorry, I can’t help it,” she snickered in a way that betrayed she wasn’t sorry at all, “It’s just that I can understand how you fell for him, after all I fell in love with your grandfather in very similar circumstances.”

“… Grandpa tied with you in Smash Bros after joining your criminal organization, then endeared himself to the point you didn’t think twice about wiping Mount Fuji off the map for him?”

“No not like that,” she corrected, “We started as friends too, but our shared love was astronomy instead of video games. One time he blind-folded me and had me use my quirk with him steering, and when the blind fold was off, I realized he floated me into an area of sky with zero light pollution, just in time to watch the nova explosion of T Coronae Borealis. My impulsive ass proposed to him on the spot, skipped the dating phase entirely.”

Tomura went bug-eyed at that, but didn’t interrupt as Nana continued to reminisce, “You know, even when we exchanged our vows and eventually had your father, I knew that marrying him automatically put a target on his back. It was only a matter of time before he would get caught in the crossfire of my line of work, and in the end, even all the safety measures we took didn’t keep him safe, but I entangled us anyway. I figured that a life with him in it, however tragic and brief, was worth living more than one where I never knew just how loved and cherished I could be. Especially if that meant I could give that same amount of love back to him.”

“…Grandma,” Tomura mused, “I feel like you’re trying to tell me something.”

“I think you might’ve inherited that outlook from me,” Nana suggested, “Seeing as you were initially on the fence about undergoing the shadiest surgery known to man for the sake of power, only to decide it was worth it literally moments after your sweetie confessed that he ‘loved those warped horizons you made’, thinking that a power upgrade was just what you needed to make him even happier! You’re just as impulsive and intense when it comes to love as I was!”

“Don’t call Spinner ‘my sweetie!’ We didn’t even get the chance to pick out pet names!” Tomura cringed, then cringed harder and pouted after realizing he outed himself.

“Well, maybe you’ll get that chance,” Nana supposed, surprising Tomura with her switch to a serious tone.

“My hands, my son’s hands, your family’s hands have been holding you back for so long. So please, let me use my hands properly this time,” she whispered, moving her arms to cradle him a bit more firmly now that he wasn’t falling apart at the seams, “Let me be the hands that hold you together, that push you forward, that guide you as you take your next steps, and support you now when you need help the most.”

As she spoke, Tomura felt multiple hands slightly nudging him. Looking down, he watched as the other vestiges of One For All pressed the gathered up pieces of him together. A man wearing goggles on his head held one leg, another with a high-collared jacket handled the other. He watched as arms were positioned by two men in similar-looking combat gear, his torso aligned with his head by someone with cracks running down his face.

Once every particle was in its place, a vestige that appeared remarkably similar to Tomura placed his hands over the cracks on his chest, and suddenly that crack began to heal. The cracks did not disappear, but instead were welded together, leaving golden scars in their place. As the other vestiges repeated the process on the rest of his body, Tomura noticed a golden, foggy vestige carefully fusing each finger of his destructive hands to his palms, thankfully without the telltale holes of All For One’s quirk, but also saw that vestige slowly grow dimmer with every piece he fixed.

“You’re not really making them all give up their souls and fade away just to keep my destructive ass alive…” Tomura joked as he turned to his grandmother, who he realized was also fading away as his peripheral vision took on more of a golden hue, “…are you?”

“It’s a shame you think destroying is all you can do, when you know that you’ve had a fair share of creating things too,” Nana remarked, “and I’m willing to bet that the bonds you created with your friends are something not even your hands can obliterate.”

Tomura knew he couldn’t say a thing to disprove that statement, he wouldn’t even dare to entertain the thought of purposefully getting rid of them. “I can’t promise I won’t start another fight when I wake up, especially not if my friends are the ones in trouble. Sorry grandma.”

“That’s alright,” Nana chuckled, the grin on her face identical to the maniacal one Tomura sometimes saw in the mirror, “What kind of Shimura’s would we be if we didn’t act intensely for the people we love, just as intensely as we love them in the first place? Can you promise me something else then?”

“Depends, what is it?”

Nana bent down to whisper in her grandson’s ear, and though her final request made his face erupt into a blush, he readily agreed as they faded into darkness and whatever lay beyond this realm.

“See if you can make that delightful Player 2 of yours my grandson-in-law.”

#spinarakiweek #spinarakiweek4 #spinarakiweek2024 #spinaraki #spinner #shuichi iguchi #shigaraki tomura #smol’s stuff #smol's stories #smol’s weird ass shit

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fluffycannibals · 2 months

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to be honest i quite like what lacey's flash games does with trauma. it all encapsulates my feelings in ways that other media just. can't

i'm a bit rusty since i haven't watched the series in a while, so take what i reference with a grain of salt

i've heard trauma being described as a cage. i've heard it, you've heard it, someone posting deep quotes on a tumblr blog. but what lacey does, when describing trauma and mental illness as a cage, is showing the victim's perspective (in this case, lacey).

"no one forced me back inside, but this pain just hurts so comfortably" -lacey's petshop

you kind of hear quotes similar to this a lot, stories of animals released from zoos still pacing in circles – as if they were still captive. what lacey's games however, does, makes lacey seem almost self aware in a strange way. she knows her uncle is dead, that she's not suffering under his abuse anymore. but she still acts like she does, as if the memory of his presence will always linger.

lacey even acknowledges how silly this notion is,

"oh, i found a key in the middle of my edgy moment. now it feels dumb" -lacey's petshop

and i think it's a sentiment many traumatized people share. going through episodes of intense flashbacks, or anger, or depression – only to feel fine at the end of it. and to even feel embarrassed that it even happened in the first place.

i think that's why lacey feels so real to me, she has all these different, conflicting emotions to her. fear, anger, depression... and then disconnection.

i think it's also interesting to think the house section of the petshop video as a representation of dissociation. blocking out the realities of her trauma and the things that remain are so terrifying and skewed that she can't make sense of it. blocking out trauma can appear in many different ways, and faces can be one of them. lacey doesn't remember her abuser's face, so she mentally replaces it with the head of a pig. it makes sense. pigs in media are usually depicted as greedy, or dirty. things that have no regard for others.

i wonder if having multiple pigs at the dinner table (8:25 of lacey's petshop) means that lacey has had more than one abuser? we know her uncle, and her stalker, but we haven't seen anyone else. i think lacey has had more than what we've been shown, as victims of abuse are more likely to get into more toxic/unhealthy relationships. lacey is a mentally unstable girl, prone to reckless behaviour in episodes of rage (as seen in lacey's diner, tampering with customer's food), but so desperate in wanting people to like her she becomes a pushover.

#ugghfhd im rambling sorry #this is what happens when i have thoughts #lacey’s flash games

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mulders-too-large-shirt · 2 months

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s2 episode 3 thoughts

here i am, once again. feeling lost, but now and then. i breathe it in. to let it go… and you don’t know where you are now, or what it will come to, if only somebody could hear

(it started with "here i am" to indicate i was once more taking my notes, but it spiraled into victorious lyrics. and then the song being stuck in my head all day. endless humming was done at the workplace)

and other such sentiments. let us jump in to this one.

first thing we see: a nice car. ARCADE!!!!! arcades are places of whimsy and i want to be at them. this is a mostly empty arcade. but someone stole this one dude’s game… i mean, it’s fair to lose your game when you leave the room, but this other dude in the pizza shirt is being rude about it

HOLY FUCK IS THAT JACK BLACK???????

jack black is watching while his friend gets beat up but knows his friend has an ace up his sleeve…. and that ace is…. controlling the radio? and then electrocuting the guy who stole his game. to death.

jack black and lightning guy go back to gaming after some murder

this is sooo funny... i can’t wait to see what scully and mulder and jack black get up to

we open to scully doing an autopsy in oklahoma and she is soooo pretty. she does not believe that lightning killed 5 people in the same small town. i would have to say that i agree with that conclusion. and four more have been killed, the sheriff walks in and announces!

this sheriff seems awful. “you know anything about lightning, agent scully?” do you know anything about being quiet?

he accuses her of not doing her homework because "they farm lightning there" (whatever the hell that even means) umm... okay so how did your farming kill 9 children you prick? do you not think that is, in itself, worthy of investigation? imagine if a cow farm all of a sudden had 9 murderous cows. would we not want to look into this, mister sheriff.

and why is mulder just watching all of this go down? just as i typed that she said “feel free to jump in anytime” “why? you were doing just fine”, he responds, and while i like his belief in her, he certainly could have lent a hand. he never is quiet and now he chooses to be... hmm. not mister quip all of a sudden taking a vow of silence.

(the credits confirm this is in fact jack black, as if i wouldn’t know him anywhere. i'd know him blind, by the sound of his footsteps, or however that one quote goes)

narrative shift! lightning boy, who is named "darin", is working at a car shop. and a woman customer is coming in. and oh, the way he is looking at her makes me want to explode. DISGUSTING MAN! he is saying he is sorry for what he said last night- now WHAT were you saying to her last night, young gentleman? had we not just seen him kill someone, i would still have found him scary and suspicious.

the agents are going to where the latest murder victim was struck. as scully reads a case file over the formerly very nice but now very fried car, mulder is squatting down on the ground in the parking lot. average strange man behavior. and while this is happening, scully has sunglasses on and she is serving.

jack black is counting coins at the arcade. scully asks to talk with him and says she’s from the FBI and he goes “alright!” and it was perfect line delivery. no notes.

he pretends to not know who the guy who was killed was and then pulls a "oh, THAT guy" moment... LMAOOOO

mulder is prowling about looking at video games. he uses the high score list to find clues, but i think he was just kinda wanting to play a little. or maybe he considers himself above such undignified pleasures. however, i do not, and think everyone should have a little arcade time.

they go off to the car shop to talk with darin, who has become suspect number one due to his many high scores set the same evening as the other fellow fried. darin gives mulder a mike and ike, which he takes, and offers another to scully, who refuses, likely using her doctorly knowledge to imagine that his hands have been in very dirty places. he denies knowing anything, and then makes mulder's phone blow up, as if that would detract from the suspicious aura about him. and that phone seems like it was expensive!!

darin is at home changing the tv channel. until jack black arrives. jack black has seemed to have entirely enough with this whole zapping thing, as he tries to get his friend to stop generating electricity, and begs him not to zap the cows again. the COWS? oh we need to do something about this kid NOW.

with all the muttering about zapping, i can see why it would make people not want to hang out with him, in addition to his many other unpleasant qualities. he strikes himself with lightning about 3 times, lays down in the grass, and then proclaims that he feels "excellent". at this point, i began to form a guess of what would happen to our dear friend jack black.

(and by the way, despite his friend's pleas not to, darin DID zap a ton of cows. truly a god-awful fellow)

the agents roll up to investigate the cow murder. and now that the sheriff has been established as a jerk, mulder is gonna get involved. talking about the frequency at which lightning can be detected and saying "see, i did my homework" yeah yeah it's impressive but you should have been there before.

the sheriff wants them to go away sooo bad omg. is he darin's dead beat dad or something? starting to think that is the only explanation for him behaving the way that he does. but a clue! they find a footprint at the lighting strike.

cut to scully making a plaster cast!!! i did not know this was a skill she was familiar with. she proclaims that it is a standard military boot, size 8 and a half. he seems really impressed she can tell the size of a shoe, until she tells him it’s right on the boot LMAOOO. he really thought she could just do that. why is that a skill she would have? great question!

she also finds antifreeze, which implicates darin. but how could he make lightning, she asks. girl idk.

oh this kid is a CREEP, even more evil than i had thought: he changes the lights on a stoplight to watch people get in accidents. what the HELL. can we do something about him?

jack black tries to talk him out of his weird doomer behavior, and says they should go to vegas, where he can manipulate the electricity to win big. and this seems to me a splendid idea! but darin says he won’t go anywhere without his teacher, who was the woman he was talking to earlier in a fashion that made my skin crawl.

oh! he wants to "prove his love". and his crush is married to HIS BOSS. when jack black points out the conflict of interest there, darin says maybe he'll fry his boss, and laughs as if this is a great joke, while his friend looks very scared.

the agents are in darin's bedroom now, a place no one has ever wanted to be.

mulder picks up a playboy and she says something about being surprised he hasn’t read it already and he’s like “oh i have” and then quotes T.S. Eliot: "april is the cruelest month".

hello. why is he like this. why is he looking at porn and quoting poetry. is there something i'm missing.

but he finds a picture of the teacher in there (in between the sections he describes in far too much detail for my liking). things are adding up... darin is in love with mrs. kiveat. whose husband owns kiveat’s autobody...

mr. kiveat is at the sight of the accident that darin has created due to his stoplight interference, looking as if he might blow up (holding his shoulder and wincing) but no! he does not blow up. instead, it seems he had some sort of heart attack, which is maybe something electricity can do, i don't know. luckily the paramedics are already on the scene, but unluckily when they get to the defibrillator, it is dead all of a sudden. until darin comes and turns it on with his electric powers, saying he learned it from TV. very believable. /s

mrs. kiveat is at the hospital after her husband is fried, and she spills her water, so mulder gets her a new cup. what a gentleman! if we ignore the earlier letting scully get yelled at by the sheriff and also detailed porn description. he tries to ask her some questions but she won’t answer.

so, they find this weird kid's medical records, and a few months ago he nearly died, and his blood is all weird. mulder does not know what that big medical word means, so she explains that it means he has too many electrolytes. haha another win for Doctor Mode enjoyers everywhere.

“i know it’s a leap, scully, but what if [darin's] electrolyte imbalance is somehow enabling him to generate electricity at levels much higher than normal?” <- well it is a leap. i'm glad he's self aware.

they once again try to ask him stuff, which he largely denies, but he asks if jack black had snitched on him. which he DID NOT do. they keep him in custody for a bit, and just need mrs. kiveat's testimony to maybe get him charged.

they're going to the teacher’s house, and for once, our duo waits to be told they can come in!!! i’m proud. they could tell this was an emotionally charged situation, with her husband being in the hospital and her being clearly traumatized from this evil teenage boy. he told his teacher he had “dangerous powers”- hence the earlier conversation about what he had said last night. well! if she testifies, they can certainly get him charged, right?

no. because the dumbass sheriff let the boy go. and now the teacher is gone. just after scully told her she was safe!!

jack black is turning off all the games at the arcade until darin turns them BACK on. he explains over and over again that he did not tell the FBI anything, but then Darin zaps him because he thinks he snitched. how the mighty fall…

(i just got a terrifying thought. did people think the creepy electricity kid was misunderstood and not actually evil, but rather sympathetic and hot? i pray this was not the case. nevertheless, i need to know. chime in if you're an expert on this fanbase)

back at the hospital, the power is going in and out, and a dead jack black is placed in the elevator. just to be really spooky, i suppose. it is time to secure the exits. i made a note that i felt mulder would be zapped here, but luckily he was not.

darin is prowling about the hospital, looking for the teacher, and scully has him at gun point. despite telling him not to move, he keeps moving, and i'm thinking, girl i know you don’t want to shoot a kid but he’s like Bakugo or something so we might have to make some hard calls here.

the teacher goes with him for some reason and scully is really horrified as he like. grabs her??? walks out holding her hand??? and he is talking about seeing through her dress and taking her anywhere she wants to go. somehow thinking that this is reciprocated and totally normal.

that is, until the sheriff pulls up, and she runs. mulder snatched her around the corner and keeps her safe. so darin's screaming about giving her anything she wanted.

he is STILL screaming, getting himself struck by lightning, and he knocked the sheriff out. so he’s laying in the ground and twitching while the agents roll up and somehow get him into a hospital??

where we learned HE KILLED THE SHERIFF???

so the tests came back and he had nothing unusual. behind the door at the hospital, he watches the screen and changes the channel.

um. okay.

i’m not particularly drawn to creepy men manipulating women and listening to songs about using the bathroom so. i didn’t find this fellow particularly compelling. in fact i rather despised him, for he reminded me of people i went to school with, in a certain manner. interesting follow-up to the last 3 episodes which felt so carefully woven together. yeah, the creepy kid fries people. get with the program.

i also don’t enjoy watching men like the sheriff be condescending to scully. i guess he got his comeuppance (died) but still. there was no real narrative reason for him to be as big of a loser as he was. i thought maybe darin was his flop son, but seems not.

overall, this episode was not my favorite. i didn't viscerally hate it like the past episodes i have found too jarring to even give a full walkthrough or anything, but it was a strange jump from how tight that last 3 episode arc felt. i hated darin. i normally find a few cute moments, but i'm drawing a blank on any today, beyond scully being able to identify a shoe size and mulder being impressed before learning it was literally on the bottom of the shoe. if that was intended as a sexual innuendo, it's much funnier to image otherwise. but i guess we did get scully in sunglasses, so i can't complain.

the real winner here is jack black.

#not much to add really this was just a weird episode #i watched the episode yesterday and edited the notes today which worked out quite nicely #might do that moving forward!!!!#it spaces things out and gives me more time to think but the downside is i don't watch an episode each night #but i'm busy now so that was bound to happen #anyway let me know what u think! maybe this episode has stans and i am upsetting them. you can tell me i won't be hurt #juni's x files liveblog #the x files #txf

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the-autistic-cat-queen · 7 days

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My thoughts and feelings. 17/08/2024

As an autistic person I sometimes find it difficult to know where my friends begin and where I end. What I mean by this is, sometimes I struggle to know what hobbies I like or if these hobbies are just what my friends like.

Take for example my best friend, she likes to collect blythe dolls. I see how she does their hair and dresses them up and I think to myself, oh wow they look amazing. And that's not wrong, because they really do. They are so adorable, and to be honest I really would like to own one.

Now here is where the problem is, let's say I save up and purchase one for myself, then what? Sure it will look adorable, but will I really spend time with it like my friend does? Or will it just sit there collecting dust?

The idea of it just sitting there collecting dust honestly makes me sad. You see, when I see my friend taking care of hers and taking hers out on trips and spending her time on dressing it up, I can see the excitement in her eyes and on her face, I can see how much joy having the doll brings to her, I can see the comfort to she gets.

Now I know the doll is not alive like in the movie "Toy Story", but I do believe that the things we own, the things that become sentimental to us do carry a little bit of our souls.

To be clear I'm not saying the doll is alive in any way shape or form or that they even truly have souls in the way that we perceive that people do. But there's just something about owning a plush toy or doll or any comfort item for that matter that we can become attached to, it just kind of seems to take on a little bit of our personality. In the same way we associate things with people we know. its the way we can relate to them as a form of comfort.

Take myself for example, I'm almost 45 yet I wear cat ears when ever I leave the house, they have become a comfort item of mine, when wearing them I just feel safer, I feel I'm better equipped to interact with the rest of the world.

If I didn't have them on of course I could still do all these things, however I would just feel more anxious and less likely to want to engage with others. Having comfort items for myself has allowed me to come out my shell a little when ever I'm in public. That and cat ears just look so darn cute.

Another example for you is, my partner wears 50s style dresses, and because she looks so beautiful in them, I myself have started buying 50s style dresses. I also look amazing in them (a little bit of self love for you there.) My point is, I don't really know what i truly like. I tend to just be a mixture of all my friends. So who really am I? What do I truly like? I'm currently in the process of saving up for a sewing machine, I'm doing this because I saw someone online making outfits for Sylvanian Families. (that was all it took). Now apparently I plan to sew.

Which by the way, on that topic, I have already collected over 50 different families. I plan to display them at some point, but we need to buy cabinets first. Otherwise my cats will just start testing gravity on them. (And I don't want to see them all over the livingroom floor).

My point is, will I even enjoy sewing? I honestly have no idea, as I honestly don't even know what I like, or even if I'll enjoy sewing. You see, I just tend to do things on autopilot without over thinking them.

Either way, these are just the thoughts I'm having at the moment, and to be honest I don't know how I feel about it all. I look at my best friend and she amazes me, she has so many different hobbies. Then I look at my partner and I think how wonderful she is and how she manages to play so many different video games. I on the other hand just seem to play the same video game for many years upon years. I currently have over 500 different games on my steam to choose from, (most of which I got on 75% off sales). The thing is, when I tend to buy games, I think to myself they look amazing I think that game would be lots of fun, but then I buy them and never play them.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I just wish I had more direction in my life, and maybe more understanding of who I am, and what I like.

Does anyone else who is autistic ever feel this way?

#blythe doll #plush toy #cat ears #thoughts and feelings #feeling lost #journal #actually autistic #cat queen

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b4mpyre-k1zz3s · 8 months

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can u make one about maybe telling bam you’re pregnant??😭🙏

Y/N Tells Bam She’s Pregnant HCs!

Bam Margera X Fem!Reader

Warnings: None!

An: Thank you for the request!! I’ve noticed a trend recently with a lot of baby related requests XD Bam has a tendency to get carried away with whatever he gets into, so I don’t think raising a child would be any different!

Bam doesn’t know what to say

I mean, what man does when his girlfriend tell him she’s pregnant?

“Wow. Wow. I mean…wow.”

He stumbles over his words for like a solid minute in disbelief before asking if you’re really sure it’s his

When you tell him that yes, not only is it his but you also want to keep it, the only thing he can can come up with is,

“A-awesome…?”

The thing is, despite his usual antics, Bam can be a pretty sentimental guy, especially when it comes to you, so even though you thought it was sorted and done, he was still processing it

Until that evening you caught him playing some skateboarding video game in the living room after all his buddies went home

He doesn’t notice you standing behind the corner, so it’s totally genuine when he passes the game and sits back with this sorta bewildered smile on his face.

And he murmurs to nobody in particular, “I’m gonna be a dad.”

The following months were filled with Bam tending to your every need

Sure, you liked it when he made sure the castle was stocked with your favorite foods or massaged your feet, but it was a little excessive

You waited until week three of breakfast in bed to say anything. Digging your fork into the fluffy French toast your boyfriend told you he made but you could obviously tell it was April’s cooking, you laughed, “You know, you could really ease up on it. I’m pregnant, not dying!”

Still, he wasn’t discouraged

One day, Bam surprised you with a custom baby inside he got made- black with a hot pink heartagram on it

He held it up proudly, “He’s gonna look so awesome in this!”

When you asked how he knew it would be a boy, he said it was just father’s intuition

“Plus, if it’s a girl, it’s got pink on it!” Well he had a point.

Don’t even get me started on names

You know he would suggest Ville, and there’s no way in hell you would benaming your baby after some Finnish rock star your boyfriend was obsessed with

And when you go shopping for baby stuff Bam insists on trying everything out

Even if they don’t offer samples of baby food, he will be asking for them because,

“Our kid deserves the best, Y/N! If I wouldn’t eat it, he’s not gonna eat it either.”

Evidently, he didn’t like anything he tried expect those puffed rice snacks so he bought as many as he could fit in his arms (and he will 100% eat them all before the baby is actually born)

The soon to arrive baby was giving Bam a bit of a crisis of conscious

You assumed the whole wearing a tie with his usual blazer and t-shirt combination was some Avril Lagvine fashion thing

And you didn’t mind him spending fewer nights out at the bar with his buddies and the decrease in trips to the ER

But when he brings up selling the lambo for a ‘more reasonable car’, you put your hands on his shoulders and took a deep breath

“Bam, I love you, but there is no way in hell I’m letting you sell that car.”

That’s when your boyfriend admits to you that he has no idea what he’s doing

You could tell

#jackass #bam margera #jackass fanfiction #jackass fanfic #fluff #jackass x reader #bam margera x reader #Those baby snacks go hard I eat those things like no tomorow

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biteghost · 1 year

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Hi, I have a question as a fellow OC haver and serial doodler : how do you get people involved in your OCs before beginning your Big Project with them ? Do you post character sheets ? Random tidbits of info now and then ? I do post art and doodles but I can't seem to get any interest...

Have a nice day !

Hi Anon! This is a sentiment I've seen and heard a lot over my years of being on the internet. I cannot give you tried-and-true, works-100%-of-the-time advice or anything, though. I can only share my own experience. Here's a list of some important ways to create original work on the internet:

1: Don't care if other people are interested in your original work. I know this is extremely hard on the modern day internet... but at the end of the day creative hobbies and careers rely on personal dedication and enthusiasm in order to thrive and be consistent. Relying on the feedback and enthusiasm of others is a slippery slope, because that enthusiasm can wane and you cannot control it. Being totally obsessed with your own work truly is the only way I've found that makes creating art fun, fulfilling, and exciting after years and years of doing it!

2: Draw whatever you want, when you want to. Invest your time into honing your craft, storytelling and draftsmanship. Your time is limited in life, and it becomes an incredibly valuable resource the older you get. Don't use your time stressing about how to gain an audience. Just make what you want to make and eventually your people will find you. Get so good at what you do that they can't ignore you!

3: If you only care about numbers getting bigger (followers, likes, shares): draw fanart. Characters and Intellectual Properties that are already familiar to an audience makes the barrier to entry extremely low (depending on how well known the IP is). Doctor's note: This approach may creatively drain you and leave you unfulfilled as the years grind on. Side-effects include one day waking up to find you resent the audience you courted by relegating yourself to a single interest for all your years... But hey, it's easier than putting in the work to become a master of your craft!

4: The Bait-and-Switch method. This is a less soul-crushing way to do #3. It goes like this: Draw fanart (or illustrations which don't require context and can be appreciated on their own) to attract an audience. Then share your original work in-between to get the audience that sticks around to care about your original ideas and characters. Classic bait-and-switch. (Note: This is what I do! It's not as calculated or sinister as it sounds, though. I'm an artist with lots of interests, and drawing is how I express my feelings about things that emotionally touch me. I create fanwork when I want to, then go back to drawing my silly little characters in their silly little scenarios when I have scratched the itch.)

5: Unfortunately, you have to make the dang thing. If creating characters is something you find fun and relaxing but you don't want to actually make a story with them, that's fine. Not every creation needs to have an epic tale that goes along with them. Not every character has to have their world put down on paper. There's nothing wrong with that. However, if you DO want to make a story with your characters, the best way I've found to get people interested in them is to actually make their story. Just as you are invested in characters as you read a book, watch a movie, tune in to weekly television programs, or play out their story in a video game so too will audiences find interest and intrigue by reading your stories. Context is the best hook, in my opinion!

6: I'm serious, stop looking at numbers and equating them with value. I've seen breathtaking artists with less than 10 followers, and I've seen artists whose work I would describe as 'schlock' raking in hundreds of thousands of hits. It doesn't mean anything. Just create in your space, and create it the way you want to create it.

7: Hey if you're making a webcomic send me a link so I can read it.

#asktime #not art #long post

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dearasteria · 4 months

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i am shaking your hand. after two management changes, at least three iterations / rewrites, laying off the 50 playtesters who joined a union, and three games and lots of supplemental material that never answered any of the core mysteries introduced in their main premise? it feels like the story is just going to keep circling itself.

i am going to get it like a month after release based on mutual feedback; but while i'm interested. i'm not excited. not like i was before.

Couldn't agree more, and after that yesterday's trailer...ooff. I still want to stay positive and give the game a chance. I think tomorrow's gamplay reveal will be decisive.

I have been in this fandom from the beginning, by no means were the DA games perfect but they ignite my love for video games and I have such fond memories of those days, the days here on tumblr when people shared their amazing fanarts, fics, edits and other works of this incredible franchise, it truely made me feel alive and full of inspiration and creativity ;d It may sound a bit strange, but I even have a few mutals from those times that I still think about from time to time, even though we only talked to each other via tags under posts or not at all :) It just breaks my heart to see this universe go down in flames, that's all.

Sorry, I'm starting to ramble. I'm just a sentimental, old fool who miss those early days and the exciment DA brought me ;)

I really really hope that the upcoming game will be good and I will be pleasantly surprised.

#dragon age #being a bit dramatic👉👈

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voorice-corp · 6 months

Text

The Vicquisition, Translated

so, I keep going on and on about how I'm going to do a new, and revised translation of Phantom Of The G4, given that I am fluently bilingual in both Chinese and English. well, today I had the urge to translate... a certain segment of the game, both to see what I'm getting myself into, and to confirm the things I've heard it means for a certain character. that, of course, being my dearly beloved, Victor. specifically, his only appearance in POTG4 where he asks Vincent and Vanora a series of questions in order to let them pass deeper into the Myers facility.

I don't have the game itself, yet. because I abide by the rules to play VTSOM first. instead, I found a video of someone's playthrough of it - the audio is in Chinese, and not all dialogue options are covered. but in the meantime, this is quite a lot...

without further ado, my translation, notes and other commentary below the cut. Victor's lines are in red, Vincent's in purple, and Vanora's in pink.

想要我讓開很簡單。你只需要回答一些我的問題。 If you want me to make way, it’s very easy. You just need to answer some of my questions.

the player is given a yes/no prompt, and selects yes

很好。 Very good.

我們上次見面是什麼時候了，文森？ When was the last time we met, Vincent?

你以為我會記得這種事？真是自作多情。 You think that I’d remember this sort of thing? What wishful thinking. (Note: The second sentence was a bit difficult to translate bc there’s several meanings to this phrase 自作多情 (literally "self-make-many-feelings"), from being overly sentimental to self-flattery/imagining yourself as everyone’s favourite person)

是這樣嗎？ Is that so?

難道你不記得你我引以為傲的那件事了？我們那時候到達的是任何人都無比渴求的巔峰。 Could it be that you don’t remember what we were so proud of? What we had reached then was a peak everyone had been longing for.

而你卻說過，財富、知識、榮耀… And still, you have said: wealth, knowledge, glory...

player is given 3 options to finish his sentence: 是每個人都渴求的。 "… are what everyone longs for." 都毫無意義。 "… are completely and utterly meaningless." 不過是權力幾種類型。 "… are just various forms of power."

the player picks the second option

你這句話就已經背叛了來這裡的初衷了。 What you said here goes against your original intention to come here.

我隱約記得，文森·埃奇沃思從來不會後悔。 From what I vaguely remember, Vincent Edgeworth never, ever regrets.

最可怕的敵人，就是沒有堅強的信念。而能夠被輕易擊敗的人根本不配存在於這個世界上。 The scariest enemy, is to lack strong belief. And people who can be easily defeated are not worthy of existing upon this world.

he kills you with one smack of his metal hand. game over, go back to previous save…

this time the player picks the third option of above

而我們已經擁有了這些，甚至更多。 And we already had these, if not even more.

我們？別開玩笑了。 "We?" Stop joking around.

財富、知識、榮耀。沒有我哪一個你能保住？ Wealth, knowledge, glory. Without me, which one could you have kept?

沒記錯的話，你還因為此時欠在下一瓶酒。 If I’m not remembering wrong, you still owe me the next bottle of alcohol for this. (Note: In Chinese, the word they use can both specifically refer to wine, and all kinds of alchohol in general.)

一如既往的自負，你還是嗜馬丁尼如命？ Conceited as always, and still so fond of/addicted to martini like your life depends on it? (Note: Is the "addiction" literal or metaphorical? Maybe both? Truly we will never know.)

這還需要在下解釋？ Do I still have to explain this further?

的確，好的基酒對一杯馬丁尼十分重要。 Indeed, a good base spirit is essential for a martini.

3 dialogue options for the player again, all with the following structure: 所以我當然不會放過到手的頂級⋯。 "And so, of course I will always have some top tier [option below] on hand." 杜松子酒 gin (Note: Literally "juniper berry wine" which I didn’t recognise at first bc usually I see it written as 琴酒 which reflects it phonetically) 白蘭地 brandy 伏特加 vodka

the player picks the third option

伏特加？你以為自己是在調製什麼？ Vodka? Just what do you think you are mixing here?

player gets two options to answer him with: 一杯血腥瑪麗。 A Bloody Mary. 一杯激情海岸。 A "Passion Coast". (Note: I've done some rudimentary research on cocktails, but have never heard of something with a name like this. If anyone knows what this is, I'd appreciate the help. EDIT: a friend of mine on discord has informed me that it's most likely referring to the cocktail called Sex On The Beach)

player picks first option

血腥瑪麗？人道，「惟有經歷諸多苦難才能懂的苦難賦予你的意義」。 Bloody Mary? People say, "only by experiencing much suffering can you understand the meaning the suffering bestowed upon you."

虛假的苦難，虛假的血腥。這和你的過去比起來算什麼？ False suffering, false blood. How does this even compare to your past?

我親愛的文森，你都已經忘記了你所承受的一切嗎？那你的存在就沒有意義了嗎？ My dear Vincent, have you forgotten all that you’ve had to go through? And now your existence no longer has meaning?

he kills you, game over, go back to previous save

player picks vodka again and then second option of above

激情海岸？一向只喜歡乾身酒的你，怎麼可能喝這些果汁飲品呢。 Passion Coast? You’ve always only liked dry cocktails, how could you drink this kind of fruity/juice based beverage?

and again, he kills you. bro, stop judging people's taste in drinks 😭

player picks gin for the original question

這個自然。等我們從這個鬼地方出去，我給你便是。 Naturally. Once we get out of this damn/accursed place, I’ll give you some.

慢著，那件事指的是什麼？ Wait a second, what do you mean by "that thing/event/incident" ? (Note: I take it she’s referring to the above "what we were so proud of" thing)

薇諾拉，「好奇心是大腦貪求的慾望」。慾念太強對身體可不好呢。 Vanora, curiosity is a desire the brain craves. And to desire for it too strongly is not good for the body.

看來你的這位同伴想知道的格外多呢。 Looks like this companion of yours knows quite a lot.

作為一名律師，我能做的僅僅只能讓人摒棄自己的信仰罷了。她的好奇心與我無關。 As a lawyer, all I can do is make people abandon their own beliefs. Her curiosity has nothing to do with me.

沒想到你也有無能為力的一天？ And you didn’t think you’d also have a day where you’d be powerless?

對方可是要以妨害執行公務的罪名將我逮捕呢，你說是吧，薇諾拉女士？ The other side/party wants to capture me for interfering with official duties. Isn’t that so, Miss/Lady Vanora?

哈哈哈。堂堂梅爾斯職業律師居然會因此害怕？ Hahaha. The dignified professional lawyer of Myers is scared of this?

再厲害也不過是一個俗人，出生起就已經被政府的一紙契約束縛著了。 No matter how mighty one is they are still a common person, already bound by a government contract at birth.

這麼說來，我突然想起你當年引用的一句話。不帶劍的契約不過是一紙空文… What you said, suddenly reminds me of something you said back then. A contract without a sword, is simply a blank paper.

player is given 3 options now, to respond: 而政府的職責，便是化身為此劍。 And the government’s duty is to manifest as this sword. 它毫無力量去保障任何人的安全。 It has absolutely no power to protect anyone’s safety. 只有突破這本不存在的枷鎖，才能真正跳出羊圈。 Only by breaking these nonexistent shackles can one truly jump out of the sheepfold.

player picks the third option

跳出羊圈？真是荒謬。 "Jump out of the sheepfold?" How ridiculous.

有一些人的存在，是註定不能被救贖的。 Some people’s existences are doomed to never be redeemed.

and again he kills you, because dragon cult ahh belief

player picks the first option

…真是有趣的答案。 … what an interesting/funny answer. (Note: Yes, in Chinese we use the same word for both of these)

不過我倒還記得一句話，地獄是太晚發覺的真相。那麼恭喜你獲得一張免費的地獄門票。 However, this reminds me of another saying, "hell is a truth/reality discovered too late." And so, congratulations on earning a free ticket to hell.

this time he isn't just killing you, he's SLAYING because holy shit if that isn't badass I don't know what is

player picks the remaining second option

話雖如此，你可是從來沒有怕過。 You say this, but you’ve never been afraid of it before.

我們都是遊走在劍鋒的人，這一點你沒資格說我。 We’re all people who walk on the point of a sword, you have no right to tell me this.

那你回到此地是為了什麼？ Then why did you come back to this place?

and again, 3 dialogue options for the player 任何東西都有一種特有的功能，某種工作或許只有它能做。 Everything has a unique function, and there are some jobs that only it can do. 無論這個漩渦有多令人絕望，我總是要走這一遭的。 No matter how hopeless this whirlpool/spiral/vortex will make me, I was always going to walk this path. 在下解釋過了是受人所迫。 I’ve explained that I was forced to do this.

player picks the third option

受人所迫？ "Forced?"

文森，任何人用這個藉口我都會半信半疑一下。至於你，我是絕對不會信的。 Vincent, everyone who uses this excuse, I will doubt (literally, "half-believe-half-suspect") for a moment. And in your case, I would never believe it.

and he kills you. we are so close to the end, yet so far…

player picks the first option, which becomes slightly modified for Vincent to say

任何東西都有一屬於它自己的功能。某種工作或許只有它能做，甚至比其他人更好。 Everything has its own function. There are some jobs that only it can do, sometimes better than other people, even.

真正的贏家只會讓這件東西為他所用，並讓他物超所值。弱肉強食，我只是不想看庸人螳臂擋車罷了。 True winners will only use this thing for their own ends, and give it an excellent value. The weak are meat and the strong eat, I just don’t want to see mediocre people biting off more than they can chew. (Note: The phrase they used here, 螳臂擋車, literally translates to "a mantis using its arm to block a cart", meaning to underestimate what you’re taking on)

所以，請問你問完了嗎？你已經浪費了我太多的時間了。 So, may I please ask if you’re done asking? You’ve already wasted far too much of my time.

確實。你做的很好，文森。我想，我也沒什麼好多說的了。 Indeed. You did very well, Vincent. I think I don’t have anything more to say either.

he moves out of Vincent and Vanora’s way

那就祝你們好運了。 Then I wish you two good luck.

#voorice translation #phantom of the g4 #potg4 #victor blake #vincent edgeworth #vanora

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amadeusgame · 6 months

Text

The World's Longest And Most Sentimental Development Log (Marketing Retrospective)

It's been a month since the demo release, and Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz has just reached 100 wishlists on Steam. I'm incredibly grateful for the support and interest.

Because this has been the month following a major release, most of my efforts have been focused on communications as opposed to development. I still want to discuss these efforts, both as a retrospective for my own reference, and in case anyone else finds it enlightening. This was meant to be a short and to-the-point marketing discussion, but it accidentally... and inevitably... transformed into something incredibly long and sentimental.

The long and short of it is that I've had an overwhelmingly successful month by my standards. Discussing marketing means I have been analyzing why that is. In doing so, I slowly became aware of just how much of my entire life has been building up to this.

I originally planned to mention other things in this update... discuss the recent demo livestream, announce an upcoming "100 wishlists" celebration... but those no longer really suit the tone of this update. I will post about them another time. I wasn't prepared to celebrate 100 wishlists this quickly, anyway! I had no idea I would get that much in the first month! I'm not ready to make that announcement! I would like to do something appropriate for this milestone, so please give me some more time to put proper thought into it.

You can reference here for the livestream video and other resources: https://linktr.ee/amadeusgame

I don't expect very many people to read the rest of this. But I am writing it anyway because it's important for me to express. And if you got anything out of the Amadeus demo, you probably got the fact that I am a bit of a long-winded and sentimental person. Bearing that in mind...

On Marketing Amadeus

Overall, I tried a lot of different things—many of which flopped—based on the question "what kind of communications would I like to see, as an audience?" Some combination of all of these somehow worked. I don't think it is particularly useful to try and pinpoint what specific individual things made Number Go Up the most, because the real takeaway was that I put enough messages out in enough places that over 100 real actual human beings came across them and were interested in what I am making. That number is probably tiny to people trying to earn a living in games, but as someone just hoping to get my art out there... the number 100 is significant and motivating.

I am happy to share the things that I've tried, and my impressions of how well they worked for my situation and purposes. Before that, though, I must stress that having assets to share in these communications in the first place was an invaluable step, especially since visuals and aesthetics are a very core part of my game.

Creating Marketing Assets

(When uploading a game to Steam, there are approximately 8 million different aspect ratios and dimensions you need to create branding assets for, so I chopped that source poster up into different pieces and spent about a week just making different combinations of them to suit various needs.)

Again: I was not thinking ahead to the Steam page when I drew this in October, not really. I was just drawing something that I wanted to draw, inspired by art that inspired me. If I hadn't indulged that desire and "procrastinated" a bit, I wouldn't have the assets to advertise the game when it came time for launch! This is something that I've experienced again and again throughout the process of development: making things for fun, doing things on impulse, taking breaks and indulging whims... many of these activities somehow end up being essential for the game. If I had refused that self-indulgence to focus on Important Development Stuff, I wouldn't have the cool piece of art I needed to successfully advertise the finished game on launch. Moreover, the final art in the game would not be as good, because I wouldn't have gotten ideas about art direction from making this poster.

(Also... I wouldn't have had as much fun making the game. Since this game's budget is $0 and all of my free time, it REALLY matters that I am having fun while making it.)

Even more important than these visual assets, though, was the trailer. How many games have I checked out just based on the trailer? I recently purchased Raging Loop on Steam, a game I have been considering for months, because I finally watched the trailer and realized "okay, this game is me-core." The trailer is so important. It's not about how pretty the trailer is; it's about whether the trailer shows me a game that I, in particular, want to play. I don't know who my audience is, but considering my goals and inspirations, I think it is something along the lines of "hipsters who love some combination of Umineko, werewolves, and unique aesthetics." So I needed a trailer that would connect with those people. A trailer that, if I watched it, would make me realize hey, this game is me-core.

Making a trailer is its own skillset, though! Completely separate from game development. Communicating something in video form is different than communicating it in another medium.

Fortunately... I have actually done a lot of just-for-fun video editing projects very recently! I edited together a "trilogy" out of roadtrip camcorder footage I took, and also put together the video for an audio-visual collab album. I already have tools and a workflow that I like to use.

I am developing a game, but it has helped me so much to have experience making a stupid trilogy of camcorder footage roadtrip videos.

I worked on those video editing projects because they were fun. I had absolutely no ulterior motive. In doing so, I still gained an important skill that transferred directly to marketing Amadeus. As someone who has always struggled to focus on just One Thing, it's incredibly affirming to realize that having done a lot of random stuff is actually really helping me as a solo game developer. I feel like I've finally found an art form where this is an important skill, and not a hindrance or distraction.

So... well, I suppose this means that I have no useful advice for other developers. I want to be honest about my experiences, and my experiences are that I only was able to prepare good marketing assets for Amadeus because I did a lot of for-fun art projects outside of game development. From my perspective, this is amazing news: it tells me that allowing myself space to be an artist and a person outside of this project has actually helped make the project itself better. It tells me that there are no downsides to being experimental and giving time to other projects too. But to anyone reading this hoping for some advice on putting together marketing assets, I'm sure it's the least helpful or relatable thing in the world. I'm sorry about that.

Getting the Word Out

Once the demo released, it became a matter of presenting the materials I had in the right ways, and in the right places. This is what I have been spending most of my waking hours doing this month. A non-exhaustive list of everything I've tried:

E-mailed all of my professors from grad school whose courses influenced my compositions for the game in some way. (This wasn't so much about the numbers, it was just motivating to get nice comments back. :D)

Joined a few Discord servers for communities dedicated to indie game developent; tried to engage in meaningful conversations there and check out other games while also sharing my own work. (I'm asking others for a favor, to take a look at my work, so I try to check out theirs too in return.)

Posted the trailer on the Visual Novels subreddit. (This flopped.)

Posted weekly* on Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and a few other places. (This has been the bulk of my ongoing communications; see below!)

Posted on a forum I joined last year to discuss music composition.

Found and followed a lot of other indie game devs making things that interested or excited me.

Shared it in a Discord server I moderate** as a "creative mod." (I host monthly art-focused events, curate spaces for sharing art, etc.; see below.)

Shared it with basically all of my friends! Especially friends who are also artists and creators!

To sum, I used every single available avenue to talk about it. But I really need to expand on the two points bolded and asterisked above. I have something additional to say about them, and I cannot overstate how much it matters.

*Weekly Posts

As indicated, ongoing weekly posts on various platforms are the meat of my marketing. I post regularly, but it's really important to me to not just post the same stuff all the time and annoy everybody. I try to highlight different aspects of the game each time, use different framing, and do a variety of weird and silly stuff. Some things perform unexpectedly well and others are complete flops. But I think it's been key to not be afraid of failure and just try things. That way it's still interesting to the people who already checked out the game, while hopefully reaching new eyes too!

(Full disclosure, however: sometimes I will do something that has 0 chance of doing numbers, just because I think it would be a fun thing to post. Since I am completely self-motivating on this project, I have to do things that are self-indulgent, or I will burn out. So, hypothetically, I might be compelled to, say, post a photo taken on an Instax analog camera of the game hooked up to a CRT TV.)

(Step 1 of marketing is to have fun and be yourself?)

BUT ALSO!

AND THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS POST!!

I only have any sort of audience on these platforms because of other, unrelated things I've been doing for years. I met a LOT of people on Twitter and Instagram through cosplay and Tales of Symphonia speedrunning, who stuck around somehow. I met some people on Tumblr from recent Ghost Trick ROMhacking, and others from Homestuck meetups in 2012. I met people on Discord from a forum about video games I joined in 2006. I was already connected with a lot of like-minded people to share my game with! I know—I KNOW—that this is something that is only easy to say in retrospect, but: doing stuff and meeting people over the course of a lifetime has added up. I hope that this will continue to be true, and maybe some people who find me through Amadeus will stick around for whatever comes after, once I've fully completed the 5-episode story I have to tell here. And I will see it through.

So, please bear this in mind when reading about how I promote my self-indulgent game every week on Instagram. I did not attend Anime Expo 2015 in order to build an audience for the visual novel I would make 9 years later. I was just meeting and connecting with other cosplayers, because I thought I would still be doing cosplay indefinitely. But many of those connections have persisted over the years, and some of those people are interested in my game. None of this seemingly-unrelated life experience is wasted. In the words of one of my teachers from grad school, "it's an accumulated life." I have ended up somewhere unexpected, and I did not plan to end up here, but all of those past experiences were still a part of getting me to where I currently am.

**Discord Server Mod

I want to highlight this particular place where I've promoted my game, because it's important in a way that connects with basically all of my rambling above. I want to make it clear that absolutely everything that went well this past month started so much longer ago than that.

In this point, I am not saying "step 1 of indie game promotion: simply have been a creative events moderator on a Discord server for years first!" as this is incredibly useless advice. Hear me out for a moment.

About 2 years ago, there was no "creative events" moderator on this particular Discord server. It was mostly a space to talk about video games with friends. You could also post art there if you wanted, and you might have gleaned a react or two.

Also about 2 years ago, I began to think very deeply about my relationship with art and the internet. When I was a tweenager, there was this video game forum—a forum that migrated to the Discord server in question recently—where you could post your art (usually video game fanart, but could be anything), and the moderator would always engage with it and provide meaningful, thoughtful feedback. That space is one of the biggest reasons I drew so much when I was younger, and worked so hard trying to learn how to draw and shade and color better, because I wanted to have my efforts praised, and I knew they would be.

2 years ago, I desperately needed a space like that again. Lacking one, I decided to pick up the torch left behind by the moderator from my tweenage years, and become the person who would always, always provide thoughtful engaging feedback when people posted their work there. Literally some "be the change you want to see in the world" shit. I knew that someone else doing that for me fundamentally altered the course of my life, so I wanted to try and be that for others if possible. More selfishly, I hoped that this would also create the much-needed space for me to share my work and get feedback and responses, too.

Now, about 2 years later, that channel is pretty active. People regularly share their creative works, and it is one of my favorite places to post my own stuff because people are really good about engaging with each other's stuff there. It's been one of the most important places for me to share progress on Amadeus, because that external motivation helps a lot. And once the demo came out, I have absolutely no doubt that this server was a significant proportion of the initial support and momentum it received on launch.

I did not even have so much as a delusion of being a game developer when I made these changes in the Discord server. I was working in IT and considering applying to music school. I just wanted to build a community around art.

So, why am I writing about my 2-year journey as a Discord mod in my development update about marketing? Hopefully it makes a bit more sense now. I'm really trying to emphasize that the marketing I did this past month didn't start last month. It started 2 years ago on this Discord server, it started in 2006 when I joined that video game forum. Really, my marketing efforts have gone as well as they have because—whoops, I am tearing up writing this—I have made a lot of incredible connections in a lot of communities over the years, and now that I have something very important to me that I want to share, they have really helped support it. I've had some friends go so far above and beyond what I would ever ask them to do in sharing my game, and that kind of support just... I can't put a number on it; it's invaluable.

In Conclusion

Go to conventions and meet cosplayers. Speedrun a 6-and-a-half-hour-long JRPG from 2003 on Twitch. Join a forum and when it migrates to Discord, organize art events and comment on other people's work. Draw self-indulgent stuff and make silly roadtrip videos scored with Logic Loops. Make 90% of a ROMhack of a Nintendo DS game. Get completely obsessed with other visual novels on itch.io and write essays in their comments.

My name is Leo, and my marketing advice is You Only Live Once. I hope this helps. Have a wonderful evening and I look forward to presenting you with a more coherent update next month.

#amadeus: a riddle for thee #indie game marketing #devlog #indie game dev #visual novel

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manorpunk · 1 year

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(part 2)

The Bible, the Vedas, the Daodejing - the universal truth towards which all these works grasp is neither god nor heaven, but rather, the state-structure. Humanity makes states the same way that ants make hills and bees make hives: unthinkingly, instinctively, irrepressibly. Family, culture, community - all of these are the different cells of the state-structure replicating themselves in our every experience. Let go of sentiment, become subsumed in the world around you, and you too will see the veins of the state-structure.

- Excerpt from Authoritarianism is Good when I Do It, by Maria von Zuckerberg-Lorraine

“Thank you! Xiexie! Multajn Dankojn! Thank you to all my voters and subscribers for your support, mwah!”

Sunny blew a kiss to the unfathomable audience watching her morning updates and affirmations from the other side of a screen.

“This is so exciting, and I couldn’t have done it without you. To celebrate, there’s a 25% off sale for the entire - that’s right, the entire merch store, and we’ve added three new body pillow designs to commemorate the occasion! If you’ve ever wanted to snuggle up close with your new president, now’s your chance. Okay, I have to go now, lots of presidential business to attend to, but don’t get up to trouble while I’m gone, mmkay? Love you! Byeeee!”

The live feed ended. Three thousand miles away, in a Bay Area penthouse apartment, Maria von Zuckerberg-Lorraine regarded what she had just seen. She turned to her bot-ler, a squat old model that she had nicknamed ‘Torgo.’

“Your gin, madam,” Torgo said through a speaker that crackled with age, carrying a bottle of gin and a chilled glass on the flat top of its frame.

“Thank you, Torgo.” Maria poured herself a drink and took a sip. “Can you believe it? Her first act as president is shilling her body pillows to lonely teenagers. I ought to hate it, but it’s so… American.” Maria tossed her hair back and took another sip.

Maria was tall, a hair over six feet, and broad in the shoulders and hips. She was a celebrated member of the Worshipful Order of Posters (more commonly referred to as the Poster’s Union), and the author of numerous lengthy treatises, including Good Things are Bad Actually, I am the Only Smart Person on This Bitch of an Earth, and of course her evergreen bestseller Authoritarianism is Good when I Do It. She was a controversial figure within the posting scene - her detractors claimed that her works are overly self-serving and her popularity is largely due to her evil milf aesthetics, while her supporters referred to her as ‘mommy.’

“Hello, Maria!” Sunny said.

“Hello, Sunny,” Maria replied. She started to take another sip of gin, then froze. There was Sunny, looming on her display screen where she had not been looming just a moment before.

“Fuck! How did you - I didn’t even hear you call,” Maria said, fumbling with her glass as she tried not to spill anything.

“So, funny story, I got access to the presidential broadcast system this morning. Gabe - he’s my tech guy - Gabe took a look at it. Turns out, the code hasn’t been updated in a while, so he was able to find an exploit that lets me force-start a call with anyone in the American League! Isn’t that cool?” Sunny grinned, clasping her hands and tilting back and forth with excitement. Colorful little hearts floated around her.

“So what you’re saying is that you hacked me.”

“No, no, no, I just accessed your connection without your knowledge or consent.”

“Literally that’s… never mind. Not like privacy law means anything nowadays,” Maria hid her frown behind another sip.

“Are you drinking?” Sunny asked.

Maria set her glass back on top of Torgo and laid back in her chair, as if pushed over a heavy existential weight. “The Global Logistics Network has automated away half the jobs in existence and gamified the other half. Aivrcade’s VR worlds are more popular than every other video game and most hard drugs combined. The whole world is turning into one big Skinner box. Why aren’t you drinking?”

“Because it’s like nine thirty in the morning. Listen, I was thinking about offering you a job, but you’re being kind of a bummer right now and it’s making me reconsider.”

Maria sat up. “A job? What job?”

“Oh, you know, Secretary of Education.”

Maria blinked. “As in, your Secretary of Education? As in, you’re offering me an executive cabinet position?”

Sunny nodded. “Why so surprised? You’re smart, you’re popular, and you’re an established name in the Poster’s Union. Sounds like a good candidate to me. That is, until I saw you being surly and drinking alone.”

“Wait. I…”

“Yes?” Sunny leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands.

"So you... hmm." Maria crossed her arms. She knew what Sunny wanted her to say, but her soul could tell that she was getting ready to sell it, and it wasn’t going to leave without a fight.

“Alright," she finally said, "how, may I ask, could I be less of a bummer?”

“Funny you should ask, you just have to answer some questions I have prepared for such an occasion. Question one: did you vote for me?”

Maria drummed her fingers. “I voted for the ghost of John Brown, as I have done for every presidential election. But you were my second.”

“Good enough, I appreciate the honesty. Question two: praise me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Praise me. Min laŭdu. Shake it for the camera so I know how bad you really want it.”

Maria’s fingers clenched around her biceps. “That’s not a question.”

“You’re right, it’s an order. Now get praising,” Sunny said, her smile still warm and bright.

“Alright, alright, fine. You’re… the least likely candidate to start world war three. Marcus believed his own bullshit, but you strike me as a plain and simple grifter.”

Sunny put a finger to her chin and glanced up in an exaggerated pondering gesture. “Hmm. That doesn’t really feel like a compliment. You’ll have to do better.”

“You’re… dedicated, and charismatic.”

“More. Keep going.”

“And… bespoke. You wear the zeitgeist like a glove.”

“And I’m cute.”

“And you’re cute,” Maria sighed.

“That wasn't very convincing. Say it again.”

Maria bit back a scowl. “You are cute.”

“Yay! That wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

“It was very hard and I feel dirty. Any more questions?"

“Nah, I'm satisfied now.”

“Then as long as I’ve got your attention, I have some new policy suggestions,” Maria brushed off the dirty feelings as snatched up her tabule, opened a document, and began reading aloud. “One: no more World War 2 movies.”

“That can wait until - sorry, what?”

“It’s been over a century!" Maria threw her hands up in exasperation, “It's time to move on, we drained that well dry, we should make movies about something else already. Two: if you’re talking about America you can’t cite de Tocqueville anymore. Same principal applies here, it’s overdone, please just read anyone else.”

“Ahem. You can just send me the list. I’ll be going soon, I have plenty of other people I need to call today,” Sunny said.

“Oh? Who’s the next person you’re going to ambush with a high-ranking job?”

“Oh, you know…” Sunny flashed a defensive smile, “JMR, to be my Secretary of Defense.”

Maria’s face went icy. “JMR? As in Jacob Martin Rider? That tiresome creep will be in charge of our defense? That manor-lord? That dracula?” Maria spat.

Sunny rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Maria. You can’t call him a dracula just because he’s gay and ostentatious.”

“The man wears jodhpurs, Sunny. He’s like a white Yukio Mishima.”

Sunny sighed. “I know he’s… like that, but I’m not exactly spoiled for choice here. Stopping Imperial Quebec was probably the only good thing America’s done this century, and when people think about the Quebec Wars, they think about JMR. I can’t afford to pass up that kind of reputation. And for the record, he’s half-Norteño.”

Maria scoffed. “Norteños are white now, it was in this year’s patch notes.”

#manorpunk #unreality #sunny roosevelt #maria von zuckerberg lorraine

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shdwtouch · 6 months

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While I absolutely agree with the sentiment and think oc positivity is sorely needed, comparing writing canon muses to fast fashion sounds a bit icky to me. I know you don't mean it in a bad way, but it does kinda sound like you're implying that people writing canon characters are putting less love, effort and creativity into their portrayals. Just because there are multiple people writing the same character doesn't cheapen their value, so I'd personally look for some other metaphor.

firstly, just want to say: I have so much anxiety about this message. like I know you're coming from a good place but its confrontation and alarm bells in my head so let me see if I can articulate. ; ; also, I'm posting this from mobile so I apologize for any weird formatting etc owo;

I'm going to stand by my statement (tho I deleted the tags [edit: I did take a screenshot for context sake]) honestly because I definitely was not implying that canon portrayals have less value, in fact I specifically stated that both canon and original characters have value, just like fast fashion and couture have their own values.

let me explain my thought process.

you walk into, say, Walmart and pick up a pair of Levi's. why ? because you've probably worn them before and like them, or heard of them from others and want to try them out. or because you're simply browsing and like the style and color and they're in the right size so why not ? canon muses have that ease of access, whether it be knowing the fandom or simply having a range of content and reviews to go off of as a "consumer".

original characters don't have that luxury; I don't know about other people, but for me sometimes engaging with original characters - and this is coming from someone who writes predominantly fandomless original characters and agonizes over how accessible their lore is - is, well, bottlenecked by my own energy and willingness to engage with the information and content the creator had provided. it's much easier for me, energy wise, to play a video game and then gravitate to muses from it because I'm already familiar with them, so I already have a foot in the door so to speak.

I fucking love reading original lore tho ! I also FUCKING LOVE canon divergence and headcanons ! but it isn't always easy to engage with or incorporate, and I think that's something that impacts a lot of people in how they view ocs compared to canons. original characters just often take more effort to engage with and understand, and that's not a bad thing ! but in a busy life it's understandable that folks want to go to what is comfortable and what they know, so they pick up a pair of Levi's instead of going to get a tailored pair of pants.

next, I should clarify that the characters are clothes, and we, as writers, are the ones who wear those clothes. which is to say, our own personal style and actions play into the overall appearance and feel of our portrayals. two people can take the same shirt and make completely different outfits with it ! maybe one of them decides to crop it, or bleach it, or cut it up and sew it into something new. and all of these things are valid ! and they all have value. you may be wearing the same shirt as someone else, but you still style it the way you want to. you still look different, still unique, still beautiful. there is nothing bad about liking fast fashion or canon characters. fast fashion is convenient, so are canon characters. some canon characters are poorly written and need to be dressed up or fixed to be worn, while others are quality and wonderfully made ! just like clothes ! and honestly, the same applies to original characters too !

the pants I'm wearing right now ? my favorite pair of pants. I've had them for like... four years. and they're still going strong. fast fashion isn't necessarily cheap, just like couture isn't necessarily haute. but again, it's about how you wear it. and everyone in the BG3 rpc wears their clothes, whether they be canon or original, in their own unique, beautiful way ! we all have our own style, and that style provides value to what we're trying to portray. neither canon nor original characters are better than the other, they BOTH have pros and cons. just like fast fashion and couture. they both have value, and their mode or means doesn't detract or add to the value of the final product.

I apologize if it seemed I was implying canon writers aren't as valuable as original writers, or somehow cheaper due to volume, in my tags. I definitely see where you are coming from and that's a valid perspective. However, that was not my intention and I hope I've managed to clarify my stance and explain myself a bit better. thank you for your message, I hope you're well ! sending lots of good vibes ♡

also, in case anyone was curious, my pants:

they are incredibly soft and flowy, very nice. I sleep in them and wear them out. I know they're winter themed but I think they're subtle enough to be worn outside the season, plus they have polar bears on them and I love polar bears !

also, if it's of any value, I have written my fair share of canon characters. I wrote extensively for assassins creed and marvel, in fact that's where I got my start in the rpc ! if I had to carry the metaphor, my "fast fashion" would be my (canon divergent) cli.nt bar.ton. I may have gotten him from marvel but I have since sliced him up and incorporated the pieces of my portrayal into my original projects ♡

#《 ° inbox 》 we just got a letter ! i wonder who its from ?#《 ° puffin.exe 》 im a puffin ! i dont do much #° mobile post !#and now ? now we hide. *scurries away* pls be gentle with me ; A ; i swear i have no bad intentions and never wanted to start discourse #ive just been watching crafting videos and the metaphor jumped out at me idk but yeah i love both oc and canons #i know how much love and effort goes into both writing canon and original characters ♡ they are both valuable #and if you ever feel devalued in the rpc because of what kind of character youre writing im sorry and you deserve better

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