#why did i visualize them that way

[heyitsrink]

Me using my own fan art to argue with Robin Hobb about the inherent queerness of her characters

[ectonurites]

SUPER DARK TIMES [THE FROST — MITSKI]

this movie's had my brain in a vice grip all week

[theladyyavilee]

do you ever think about how buck was able to pull and lift eddie to safety, while eddie wasn’t able to either pull or lift buck? like I know the physics were different and eddie would be able to pull and lift buck under the same circumstances that buck did it, it was just impossible to lift him up onto the ladder in contrast to doing the standing lift buck did to get him into the firetruck but still WHAT A FUCKED UP PARALLEL to incorporate both pulling and lifting again *screams into hands* (also to have both of those instances in the shooting be the only times eddie is making noises of pain, which while horrifying to hear were also indicators that eddie is still very much alive to feel it, while buck was just quiet and dead, but that’s another kind of fucked up)

[lord-shitbox]

I like how as the season goes on it's made more and more clear how Kirishima's shift from "demon" to "kind and reliable adult figure" isn't actually as unprecedented as some characters in the show feel it is. Like with him entertaining Yaeka when they were both younger, before Miyuki's accident, and how he went with Sugihara to apologize to the antique seller lady when theyd just met.....like I just. love how it shows he always had the seeds of kindness in him! even in his terrible youth! It's just that he's finally starting to grow them now

[the-everqueen]

aous was...fine, imho, it was fine, but it was fundamentally white, middle-class british and i could accept that but i couldn't forgive it

[adore-gregor]

study smart not hard (altough both is best actually) this saying is so true

[meatbricks]

so after i uploaded that one drawing i realized that i never actually uploaded any official reference image of the guys as they appear in this au so here ya go!!

alt version under the cut; no nsft or anything, i just didnt wanna make the post too long LOL

[the-way-astray]

it should be a crime for writers/creators to not make a crazy wall for their story that connects pictures representing the characters and plot points together with an obscene amount of yarn.

[abyssal-luka]

that reminds me, have you ever seen how weird they got about stimboards on tiktok? fucking wild

[wachi-delectrico]

Tbh i don't know what to think of AI art anymore. I don't find any utility, personally, in centring the discussion on law and copyright; there are far more interesting things to discuss on the topic beyond its use as a replacement for human artists/workforce by the upper class

[outeremissary]

Comfort Character Tag Game

Tagged by @bearvanhelsing. Thanks for thinking of me!

Tristian from Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I feel like I can put that down and just call it a day on the whole list. I’m dying here. At this point the serotonin hit I get from playing Kingmaker and interacting with this guy is fucking incomparable. Help.

Henry from Fire Emblem: Awakening

Goro Akechi from Persona 5

Harrowhark Nonagesimus from The Locked Tomb. This is really the peak “never known a day of comfort in her life” character here.

Suzuya Juzo from Tokyo Ghoul

I think the list of folks I regularly interact with and see do these has been swept and I’m a little sleepy and not very courageous tonight, so I won’t be passing this one forward... Sorry about that, I swear I am working on putting more effort into trying to do the social obligation thing.

[waywardsalt]

Hi! I hope you’re doing good in life! So it’s spooky season so I have an ask related to that. I don’t know if you play horror video games, watch horror movies/shows, or read horror books, but if you do, I have to ask: What is the most disturbing book, or video game or show/movie that you’ve played/watched/read? In my opinion, there is two types of horror: the ones that scare you, and the ones that traumatize you. If you can think of any book, movie, or game that really kind of fucked you up, I’m curious to know if you feel like answering. I hope you have a good day and a good life.

Hey, I’m doing good and I hope you are too!

the answer ended up being really long lol

Woof, this is honestly a pretty hard question, since I can't really name any horror (or otherwise) media that actually left me kind of fucked up for a bit, at least not to the degree where it affected me for a while. I probably haven't been really fucked up by anything since I was a kid, so I'll try and recall what a few things fucked me up back then...

Off the top of my head I know that two different spongebob episodes got me bad, the first being one with that tunnel of love thing (tho tbh i havent seen it in a while so it might still spook me today) and the one where i'm pretty sure for whatever reason squidward gets locked in some small locker and has some kind of fucked up dream, whatever that was. I remember there was an eagle in that one. the eagle terrified me. (i looked them up, and the first episode is titled 'tunnel of glove' and the second is 'squidward in clarinetland'. with how badly that second one got to me, i'm surprised i ended up learning to play the clarinet at all)

other than that, i think the courage the cowardly dog episode 'the house of discontent' got me pretty bad, too, but i think everyone who saw any amount of that series as a kid has at least one episode that got them fucked up.

there's probably a handful of scooby-doo stuff that got to me when i was a kid, but i could not name any specifics (asides from charlie the robot's original episode, christ) because i think i managed to see just about every bit of available scooby media around that time.

nowadays stuff still does kinda fuck me up, but it's usually only for brief bits of time. the most recent example I can think of is cowboy bebop's 20's episode, pierrot le fou, which is honestly some great horror, especially how it uses the show's typical format and flips it on it's head, but i wouldn't necessarily say it got to me because of it being scary, more because of the way the ending disturbed me for a bit. it was the only episode that had me stop afterwards and really look into it for anything other than clarifying a character's gender, lol.

the endings of both neon genesis evangelion and end of evangelion had me shaken, the latter more so than the former, but not really due to horror aspects, though. i did have to take a walk after finishing end of evangelion. i don't really watch horror movies, i just... read the wikipedia plot descriptions of them.

honestly, i think some of the more popular youtube analogue horror series have gotten to me worse (likely due to the fact that they can get a bit more fucked up than, say, a tv show or movie), specifically the walten files (which i did watch) and the mandela catalogue (which i just watched wendigoon's vids on), and those two and mostly because facial distortion is generally just an incredibly effective form of horror imo. a lot of the time (esp with the childhood examples) the way i was 'fucked up' was that id be in be visualizing the stuff that scared me, and both the mandela catalogue and the walten files had me doing that for a bit.

now that i remember it, i was really scared of fnaf when it first came out. i first learned of it second-hand from seeing some other kids looking into it, and the bits and pieces i put together about it really scared me.

honestly, it's usually straight-up disturbing sequences or imagery that gets to me the most, and i know my limits well enough to generally identify and avoid that stuff, which is probably why i don't have too many recent examples. i've got one or two examples of non-horror movies that fucked me up as a kid, but that's mostly because they were wildly inappropriate for someone of my age (at the time) to be witnessing, so that's a different sort of topic.

i mean, i think i generally have a decent tolerance for fucked up stuff in media, anyways, i mean, i enjoy berserk and haven't really been too upset or disturbed by what happens in it (look theres some nasty shit in there im not saying its not that bad) so there's definitionally some kind of line that media needs to cross to really get to me nowadays, or it just needs to be a specific kind of fucked up. books generally don't do that for me so i don't have any book examples. no games, either, though shadow mario and the haunted house segments in super mario 3d world scared me so much that i had to make my mom do the levels for me, and i'm pretty sure scooby doo: first frights scared me a bit when i first played it on ds.

other than that, though, I just think that, in pokemon x, the story that an npc tells you during your first trip to route 14 and then the strange office building encounter with the animation-less hex maniac creeped me out pretty bad.

yeah, it's kind of hard for me to think of anything (recent) that actually really fucked me up or anything. most stuff just scared me, never really fucked me up or figuratively traumatized me in recent years.

[whereisthedamndaddymanual]

The kid is looking strong though.

[nanaslutt]

oh my god please make another part of gojo teaching us that was so good holy shit

Gojo teaches you how to touch him<3

Pt. 1 here

contains: fem reader, guided jerking off, experienced gojo, size kink if you squint, so much dirty talk, corruption kink, overstimulation, first time making out, gojo walks you through everything, cum eating

MDNI

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔

“Wanna learn how to touch a dick?” his question rang in your ears like a flash grenade had gone off. He was referring to himself right? You had to remind yourself how to breathe at how anxious his question made you. Touching yourself had made you embarrassed and self aware enough as it is, so touching someone else? The thought made you feel mortified.

Gojo must’ve picked up on your anxiousness because he used his big hands to rub comfortingly up and down your forearms, “Hey, if you’re not comfortable we can always stop here, you’ve already done so good.” He comforted.

Gojo might be unserious 99% of the time, but when it came to making you feel safe, he really nailed it. You came to the right person in asking for help with this kind of thing.

"N-no, I think I want to its just.. I dont know what im doing." You confess, even though he already knew. Gojo giggled, making the weight on your shoulders lift a bit at the sound, "Baby, I know, thats why Im gonna teach you, if you’ll let me." He smiles, leaning his body forward so you could see his face-- the visual of him smiling eased your nerves slightly.

"Right.. but what if I'm still not any good?" You say, shyly. "I almost came in my pants just watching you cum so.. I'm pretty sure you will do juuust fine." He confessed, making you huff out a laugh. "O-okay, what should I do?" You asked, turning your body so you were facing him, reaching over to grab your previously discarded panties while you waited for him to answer.

"The first thing you can do is forget about these," Gojo took your soaked panties from your hand, making you scoff as he twirled them around his finger before pocketing the fabric as quick as he snatched them, "The view of your little pussy is so cute, don't want these to get in the way of this eye candy." He praised, making you blush and look away from his intimidating gaze.

He brought his hand up to your face after pulling his hand out of his pocket-- caressing the side of your cheek comfortingly, "Come here." He instructed, sliding down on the headboard so he was propped comfortingly against the pillows, "On my lap," He adds when you hesitate to move twords him.

You situated yourself comfortably on his thighs, right under his crotch, you placed your hands on his lower stomach, staring at his intimidating bulge while you waited for his words to come. "You wanna start by touching it over his pants, just like you did for yourself." He instructs, speaking generally.

You picked your hands up from his stomach, hovering them a couple inches over his crotch before taking a deep breath and biting your lip. "How should I.. touch it?" you ask uncertainty laced in your words. "Wrap your hand around it the best you can and rub," He tells you, placing his hands on your thighs and rubbing his thumb on your skin for comfort.

You held your breath before you made contact with him, making him hiss air into his lungs through his teeth at the feeling of properly being touched after so much tension. You softly rubbed him up and down, gulping at how big he felt in your hand. "You can rub a little harder, it's not gonna break," He laughed, making you blush and whisper out a quiet 'sorry' as you briefly made eye contact with him, quickly averting your gaze back down to his crotch.

You gripped him through his pants, stroking him rougher now but still slowly, up and down. You took a peek at his face from under your lashes, watching him lick his lips and blink rapidly, his eyes focused on your hand at work on him.

"Yeah, yeah, just like that." He praised, keeping his eyes glued down between the two of you. You felt your face heat up when his cock jumped against your hand, it felt so hot even through his pants. The thought of seeing a real dick, unobstructed by fabric was making your head spin.

The man underneath you truly thought he would've came the second you touched him, it was a miracle from the heavens that he had managed to hold back and not bust in his pants at the first contact.

Your inexperience turned him on to no extent. He just loved the idea of corrupting you, showing you all of the amazing things you could feel, everything that you've been missing out on. He swore he would ruin you for anyone else—make you addicted to him so you never even thought about doing this with anyone else.

"D-does this feel good?" You ask genuinely, you had noticed his expressions and reactions to your touch—and they seemed like good ones—but you had no idea how someone was supposed to react when you touched them like this, hence why you asked for his confirmation.

"Feels better than you know." He grinned, his body running warmer the longer you stroked him over his pants. "It feels so big." You confessed, unaware of how your words went straight to his head and dick.

"Yeah?" his smirk grew as he felt his own ego inflate at your words, not like he needed that. "Yeah.." You meekly replied, "It keeps twitching too," you told him like he was unaware. "I know baby, means you're doing a good job." He praised once more, making you pull your bottom lip between your teeth.

"Wanna see it?" He asked after he deemed that you had been touching him outside his pants for an adequate amount of time. You swallowed hard, stilling your hand on his cock as it continued to jump under the weight of your palm. "Yes, please." You answered, sliding your hands up his shirt and feeling his hard abs before you slid them back down to hold onto the hem of his pants. "Should I take your boxers off too, or?" You question, hesitating.

He smiled at you, giving you a short nod. You grabbed his pants and boxers alike, beginning to pull them down his body— gojo lifted his hips up to aid your efforts, jaw dropping in an open-mouthed smile when his hard cock sprung up and slapped against his abdomen.

Your mouth opened in a small o shape, running dry at the sheer size of his now unobstructed cock. There was a string of pre that had already dropped down against his abdomen, connecting the two.

It looked as thick as it felt, a nice upwards curve to it, and the tip was flushed a pretty pink color. It was the prettiest and only dick you’d ever seen.

“You like what you see, cutie?” he teased, making his cock jump as you stared between the appendage and his penetrating gaze. “Fuck.. y-yeah.” you confessed, feeling yourself start to throb between your legs at the new visual.

“Go ahead an touch it, the same as you did before.” Gojo instructed. You slowly reached out, wrapping your hand around his length, noticing that your fingers couldn’t wrap all the way around his girth.

The man underneath you couldn’t resist as he thrusted his hips up into your hand, biting his lip at the direct contact. “Your hand is so fucking soft” He praised, “Go ahead and spit on it for me, it doesn’t feel very good when it’s dry.” he told you.

The gears in your head were still turning at what you were actually doing right now. Without saying anything, you leaned down a bit, collecting the saliva in your mouth before you spit right onto his cockhead, making him gasp.

You brought your hand to his tip, rubbing it around in circles before sliding your hand down the length of his cock and coating it in your spit, easing the slide. “Fuuuck, just like that, shit-“ Gojo cursed, tipping his head back against the pillows and squeezing his eyes shut.

“S-squeeze harder at the tip,” he instructed, remembering he was supposed to be teaching you, so staying silent and moaning probably wouldn’t do you much good. “T-the tip is more sensitive than the rest of the cock, so make sure to pay more attention to it.” he tells you.

“Is it kinda like the clit?” You ask, which makes him giggle before he responds, “Sorta..” he answeres, staring at the ceiling in thought before he continues, “Yeah actually, pretty similar, but if you spend too much time on just the tip it can get a little too sensitive.” He explains.

“Sensitive how?” you ask, continuing your slow but heavy strokes on his cock, using the knowledge he just told you in squeezing harder against his tip. “Why don’t I show you?” he says.

“Take one hand and keep stroking me just like you’re doing, with the other, lay your palm flat- yeah just like that- then curl your hand over the entirety of my tip, and rotate your wrist in circles.” Gojo instructed, digging his nails into your thighs prematurely as he braced himself for the intense overstimulating pleasure that was about to come.

“This won’t hurt you right?” you ask, getting your hands into place but keeping them still as you awaited his answer. “You’re so sweet~” he cooed, “I’ll stop you if it’s too much.”

With that, you started, quickly jerking the length of his cock while rotating your wrist over his dick in quick circles. Immediately his body started reacting, back arching and abs clenching uncontrollably as he bit his lip and dug his nails deeper into your skin to keep himself grounded.

“K- haaah- keep g-going-“ he moaned out, his legs jerking and twitching underneath you as you kept up your antics. “Fuck! f-fuck-“ The white haired man squeezed his eyes shut as his body spasmed without his permission.

Your cunt was throbbing at how you were able to bring a man as strong as Gojo to this state. “Ngh~” he was whining and moaning against the sheets, head thrashing back and forth as he tried to keep his voice down.

You never wanted this to end, you finally understood what he meant when he said he was worked up from just watching you play with yourself, as you felt your cunt clench, slick dripping down your leg from your tight hole.

His large hand came down to stop your wrist, panting heavily he spoke, “O-okay, okay- fuck, that’s enough.” He groaned when the pleasure quickly became too much. "S-sorry, are you okay?" you choked, once again making him smile at how sweet you were. "I'm just fine baby, it's just a little overwhelming," He said, releasing your wrist and placing his hand back on your thighs.

"Did so fucking good though, listened just like I told you to." He smirked, gripping your thighs and making you look up at him through your lashes. You pouted out your bottom lip a bit in embarrassment, trying your best to not look away from his intimidating gaze. "Alright, class is back in session, go ahead and pick up where you left off." He continued.

You released your hand that was caressing his tip, going back to jerking him off steadily with the one hand. "Don't forget about the balls either, you just wanna massage them softly," he instructs after a couple seconds of your continued ministrations. You nod, acknowledging his words before you spit on your other hand, and bring it down to his warm balls.

"Oh shit- haha- didn't even have to tell you to spit." He says, amazement laced in his words, "You had n-nothing to worry about, you're doing so fucking good." He reassured when you started to expertly roll and massage his sack in your hand, timing your motions perfectly with the jerking of his cock.

"Cmere baby," He asked, growing needier and needier at the more stimulation you provided him with. You tilted your head at him, confused, making him laugh. "Come give me a kiss, pretty thing." He clarifies. You hesitate slightly, You've kissed one or two people before, but you've never made out with anyone per se, which is what you were assuming Gojo wanted right now.

"Follow my lead, I'll show you how to make kissing feel as good as sex." He boldly said, making you blush. You released your hold on his balls, opting to place your hand against his hard chest for stability as you leaned forward, not stopping your ministrations on his cock. He gave you a toothy grin, his big hands coming up to grab your waist before he opened his mouth, huffing out a small laugh before he pressed your lips together.

He immediately took the lead, moving his lips against your own, massaging his soft lips with his. He groaned into the kiss, which made you reciprocate the sound, whining into his mouth. Where you normally would've pulled away by now, Gojo instead opened his mouth against you and pressed another kiss to your lips, repeating the action, and continuing the kiss.

You unawarely squeezed his cock harder at the stimulation, you had no idea that kissing could feel so erotic. When Gojo felt your fist tighten up around him, he pulled back half an inch from the kiss, panting slightly against your lips before he spoke needily, "Faster baby, give it to me faster." He rushed before conjoining your lips once more, rougher this time.

You felt him poke his tongue out and lick against your lips, "Open your mouth for me, baby," He said to you between kisses, to which you complied. He took this new opportunity to lick his tongue into your mouth. You thought French kissing would feel gross and unpleasant, but this was nothing of the sort, it really felt like he was fucking your mouth. He expertly massaged the inside of your mouth with his warm appendage, making you throb between your legs.

You remembered his words; which had told you to follow his lead; as you reciprocated, darting your tongue out and intertwining it with his, and it felt even better. "Mmmmm" Gojo hummed against your lips when he felt your tongue join the fun. Hips lips suddenly attached to your bottom one, slowing down the kiss briefly as he sucked it into his mouth and bit it between his teeth, smirking before he let it go, chasing your lip as it bounced back to your face.

You had switched up your technique on his cock just seconds ago, rotating your wrist over his entire cock, and pulsing your grip to imitate your pussy walls, giving him harder strokes when you slid your hand down him; you were having fun with it, and it must've been working.

Gojo pulled away from the kiss, allowing you to sit back up as he panted heavily, his cock was steadily dripping more and more pre onto your fingers, easing the slide against his cock while you jerked him off. "Did you like that?" He asked, referring to the kiss. "Y-yeah, I didn't know kissing could feel so good," you replied honestly, making him smile.

"I know~ made your pussy feel all needy again, huh?" he said, having noticed the wetness that was coating your inner thighs, his words sending a wave of sudden awareness through you, making you want to cower away. "Aww, don't get shy on me baby, look at me," He started, "I'm the one getting my cock jerked off, about to fucking burst," The man giggled, "If anyone should be embarrassed it's me~"

"You're about to cum?" You asked, those words being the only ones that made it into your dizzy head. "Yeah, and it's all cos' of you, didn't even have to give you that much i-instruction, you're a pro." he praised, making you look away from his gaze and instead focus on his cock in your smaller hand. "You wanna make me cum?" He asked.

"Wanna watch you cum.." You replied, making him laugh breathlessly as he felt your words go straight to his balls, "Oh don't worry, you will," He informed you, tipping his head back once more against the pillows, and letting himself really feel as you stroked your fingertips along his lower abs, while keeping the steady and mind numbing pace on his cock.

"Fuck, wish I was cuming inside your pussy," He suddenly moaned, catching you off guard with his words as he gripped your hips with his large hands. "Would fill you up so fucking full." He babbled, inching closer and closer to his high with every stroke, slightly thrusting up into your warm hand.

proofread-----

"If I try hard enough, your little hand starts to feel like your perfect fucking cunt," He groaned through his teeth, "but I just know you would be so much warmer and wetter- fuck-." He moaned at his own words, working himself up as he dropped his chin forward to look at your hand on him, his jaw opened in a small o shape.

"You want that? Huh? Want me to split you open on my cock and fill you up with my cum?" His words had gotten so filthy and shameless, and so fast, it was giving you whiplash. You nodded meekly, not trusting your voice right now as his words alone made you feel like you were going to cum. But that wasn't good enough for Gojo. "Gotta hear you say it baby, need you to tell me you need it." He groaned through his teeth, making your body move above him as he thrust his hips upwards, helping you fuck his cock with your hand.

"Y-yes Satoru I want it." You said, meaning every word, "What do you want?" He rushed out, trying to hold back from cumming to hear you say those magic words. His balls and shaft alike were twitching so strongly against your hold, getting ready to release his seed. "W-want you to come inside me, please give it t-to me." You blushed at your own words, the embarrassment worsening when he groaned shamelessly at them. His pretty eyes rolled back in his head as his orgasm crashed down on him. "Fuck- coming-" he warned before you felt his warm seed start to cover your hand.

Long rope after rope of his cum coated your hard, making you moan with him at the erotic sight. His abs were clenching under your hand, body twitching and back arching slightly, similar to how your own did when you had cum, as you fucked him through his high. You kept jerking him off even after the spasms of his body ceased, and his cock started to soften in your hold.

His large hand shot up and gripped your wrist harshly. "C-careful," He laughed, heaving air into his lungs, "It's so fucking sensitive right after we cum." He said.

"Shit s-sorry," You blushed, releasing his dick from your soiled hand as you stared at his seed that covered it, amazed by how much there was. "Don't be sorry baby, I haven't cum that hard in my life, and all just from your hand" He laughed, rubbing his large hands up the length of your torso while he let himself catch his breath, his soft cock resting against his tummy.

An idea popped into your head, remembering how he had sucked off your cum from your own fingers after he made you finish, and it made you wonder what he tasted like too. Absentmindedly you brought your hand up to your mouth, not paying attention to the man below you as he watched your every movement with bated breath, knowing exactly what you were about to do.

You let your tongue poke out from your open mouth, licking up his seed at tasting him on your tongue. It was bitter, but not overwhelmingly so, there was something almost sweet about it, which made you suck your fingers completely into your mouth, swallowing his seed that coated them.

Gojo watched with a slack jaw at the show you were putting on, his cock twitched to life as he watched you eagerly lick up his cum. "Fuuuck." He drew, bringing your attention back to him as you popped your fingers out of your mouth, giving him a small smile that made his brain short-circuit.

"I have so much to teach you." He grinned, caressing the side of your face as you closed your eyes, and leaned your face into his hand.

pt.3

[waffled0g]

Everyone gets “The 90s” look wrong and I hate it

Couple years ago I saw these two board games at the store back to back. Well, not saw them per se, but ya know. Spied them out of the corner of my eye. And for a moment without reading the text, I couldn’t tell you which was which decade at first. Funny. Either they were in a rush to get these out the door or they wanted their throwback trivia game boxes to look uniform. I didn’t think too much of it.

Only, from then on I started seeing it MORE. Every time someone markets a 90s or 80s throwback...

Goddammit they’re identical! What??! How did we let this happen? As a 90s survivor and a designer, this drives me up a wall.

Look, I know I’m late to the party to complain about “the 90s look” when we’re just starting to get sick of the Y2K nostalgia train. But c’mon, the 90s were not The 80s: Part Two™ 

Trust me when I say that we weren’t all wearing neon trapezoids up until the year 2000. The 90s look being peddled is so specific to the tail end of the 80s and an early early part of the 90s - a part of the 90s when it wouldn’t stop being the 80s. This is Memphis design being conflated with the wrong decade.

Keep reading for a long ass graphic design history lesson and pictures of old soda and fast food.

Specifically, the look is Memphis Milano, self-named by the Italian design house Memphis Group. Starting in the early to mid 80s, they made all sorts of furniture, fabrics and sculptures that were like a Piet Mondrian grid painting under heavy radiation. Their whole deal was defying the standards of existing industrial design up to that point on purpose. Chairs had weird arches, bookcases would be in strange alien colors, unusual materials like plastic or elastic were used in place of metal or wood, that sorta thing.

Memphis quickly became the signature look for the decade. You can tell something’s influenced by Memphis design from it’s telltale trademarks:

Clashing, neon colors.

Use of diametric shapes.

Contrasting patterns like zebra print stripes, confetti squiggles and checkerboards.

It wasn’t long before Memphis Milano-inspired design was everywhere in 80s pop culture:

It was a special time, yes.

I was a kindergartener at the tail end of the 80s, so I knew Memphis mostly through the lens of kids media. Toys, clothes, games, tv shows used it like candy colored catnip. Cable channel Nickelodeon more or less adopted the Memphis aesthetic as their signature in-house style and practically built a monument to it at a Florida theme park:

I think this is why folks mistake what decade Memphis is representative of - 90s staples like Nick, Saved By The Bell, Fresh Prince - they all stayed around much longer than the design trend’s expiration date. 

Couple that notion with the fact that companies are slow followers to design trends. Something gets popular and they want to get on the bandwagon? Gotta wait for the ink to dry, gotta wait for the production molds to be made. It would take a few years for them to completely work Memphis outta their system.

Now, this is not to say Memphis is bad! Personally I’m a fan of the aesthetic, if my neon-drenched artwork wasn’t a tip-off already. But it is a trend, and trends never last forever.

So what took the Memphis Milano look down for good? This part’s up for debate, but I personally think it had something to do with this dude:

It’s that grunge music from Seattle that’s so popular with the kids these days dontchaknow.

Once Smells Like Teen Spirit hit in 1991, the Nirvana tone drove the rest of the decade. Clean geometry became weathered, grainy and organic. Bright neon pastels became more bold. Bubblegum pop music sounded fake and manufactured. Attitude and apathy was authentic. Whatever.

Things got grungy. Things got grimy. Olestra was invented.

I think the best way to visualize this transition is how Cherry Coke entered the decade and how it left it:

1992 Memphis on the left, 1998 grunge junkie on the right. Fitting that the 90s would end with a design that looked like Darth Maul’s lungs.

Okay, so what should 90s retro design look like?

Continue on to PART TWO! Spoilers: No VHS filters or vaporwave needed, but maybe bring an antacid.

[insertdisc5]

📚 A List Of Useful Websites When Making An RPG 📚

My timeloop RPG In Stars and Time is done! Which means I can clear all my ISAT gamedev related bookmarks. But I figured I would show them here, in case they can be useful to someone. These range from "useful to write a story/characters/world" to "these are SUPER rpgmaker focused and will help with the terrible math that comes with making a game".

This is what I used to make my RPG game, but it could be useful for writers, game devs of all genres, DMs, artists, what have you. YIPPEE

Writing (Names)

Behind The Name - Why don't you have this bookmarked already. Search for names and their meanings from all over the world!

Medieval Names Archive - Medieval names. Useful. For ME

City and Town Name Generator - Create "fake" names for cities, generated from datasets from any country you desire! I used those for the couple city names in ISAT. I say "fake" in quotes because some of them do end up being actual city names, especially for french generated ones. Don't forget to double check you're not 1. just taking a real city name or 2. using a word that's like, Very Bad, especially if you don't know the country you're taking inspiration from! Don't want to end up with Poopaville, USA

Writing (Words)

Onym - A website full of websites that are full of words. And by that I mean dictionaries, thesauruses, translators, glossaries, ways to mix up words, and way more. HIGHLY recommend checking this website out!!!

Moby Thesaurus - My thesaurus of choice!

Rhyme Zone - Find words that rhyme with others. Perfect for poets, lyricists, punmasters.

In Different Languages - Search for a word, have it translated in MANY different languages in one page.

ASSETS

In general, I will say: just look up what you want on itch.io. There are SO MANY assets for you to buy on itch.io. You want a font? You want a background? You want a sound effect? You want a plugin? A pixel base? An attack animation? A cool UI?!?!?! JUST GO ON ITCH.IO!!!!!!

Visual Assets (General)

Creative Market - Shop for all kinds of assets, from fonts to mockups to templates to brushes to WHATEVER YOU WANT

Velvetyne - Cool and weird fonts

Chevy Ray's Pixel Fonts - They're good fonts.

Contrast Checker - Stop making your text white when your background is lime green no one can read that shit babe!!!!!!

Visual Assets (Game Focused)

Interface In Game - Screenshots of UI (User Interfaces) from SO MANY GAMES. Shows you everything and you can just look at what every single menu in a game looks like. You can also sort them by game genre! GREAT reference!

Game UI Database - Same as above!

Sound Assets

Zapsplat, Freesound - There are many sound effect websites out there but those are the ones I saved. Royalty free!

Shapeforms - Paid packs for music and sounds and stuff.

Other

CloudConvert - Convert files into other files. MAKE THAT .AVI A .MOV

EZGifs - Make those gifs bigger. Smaller. Optimize them. Take a video and make it a gif. The Sky Is The Limit

Marketing

Press Kitty - Did not end up needing this- this will help with creating a press kit! Useful for ANY indie dev. Yes, even if you're making a tiny game, you should have a press kit. You never know!!!

presskit() - Same as above, but a different one.

Itch.io Page Image Guide and Templates - Make your project pages on itch.io look nice.

MOOMANiBE's IGF post - If you're making indie games, you might wanna try and submit your game to the Independent Game Festival at some point. Here are some tips on how, and why you should.

Game Design (General)

An insightful thread where game developers discuss hidden mechanics designed to make games feel more interesting - Title says it all. Check those comments too.

Game Design (RPGs)

Yanfly "Let's Make a Game" Comics - INCREDIBLY useful tips on how to make RPGs, going from dungeons to towns to enemy stats!!!!

Attack Patterns - A nice post on enemy attack patterns, and what attacks you should give your enemies to make them challenging (but not TOO challenging!) A very good starting point.

How To Balance An RPG - Twitter thread on how to balance player stats VS enemy stats.

Nobody Cares About It But It’s The Only Thing That Matters: Pacing And Level Design In JRPGs - a Good Post.

Game Design (Visual Novels)

Feniks Renpy Tutorials - They're good tutorials.

I played over 100 visual novels in one month and here’s my advice to devs. - General VN advice. Also highly recommend this whole blog for help on marketing your games.

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye