Pinned Post:

A tiny bit late into the month (I've had sort of a rough start to it) but to properly celebrate Spooky Season, I've added a little banner animation (that I made in Blender) and I even have a bit of a musical surpise for you to find ;3

Hint: You can download any song that is playing by going to music player and right-click>downloading the link that says to do so... You can even do this if didn't specifically select the song from the music player

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Something i forgot to say earlier: Thank you for 50,000 views! WOW!

Also, I updated the main page a bit, added a new media hub for non-video/soundless animations and/or tiny visual filmmaking experiments, figured it would be good to have a separate section just for short animations with no audio

I also added a "featured media" section to the Status widget on the Main Hub

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Most werewolf movies: What if you.... became a monster?

The Howling III: The Marsupials: *hits blunt laced with unknown substance* Y'know man, the real monster is... the military. Anyway... here's what a marsupial werewolf birth would look like in graphic detail

One of my famous jokes for like, 1-5 of my visitors

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My favorite thing on the social web is older famous people who are really good at shitposting, not because they're social chameleons or anything, but just because they're naturally really funny people with distinct senses of humor. Like Hideki Namayoka has been around the block, he's been making iconic game osts since the 90s, but every tweet of his is something like "Being horny is normal and boobs are good, only fools disagree" or "Sonic the Hedgehog would beat the fuck out a fascist". Like they all have a short and witty, yet completely insane kind of humor to them (he also just seems unfathomably based lol)

Side note: This guy sampled a freaking Malcom X speech on a Sonic The Hedgehog ost. It... wasn't the most well-aged Malcol X speech, it was focused on his Black Nationalism stuff, but it is just cool that he sampled a civil leader in a freaking sonic song (in case you're wondering/don't know, Black Nationalism was an understandable, but many would argue a bit short-sighted idea of his that PoC citizens should be given their own country, which ofc isn't a terrible idea on the surface, but it sort of ignores the fact that poor white ppl were idiots to think that their Black classmen were their enemies and not their mutual allies to stand together against the ruling class, who convinced them to be racist to divide the working class. Malcom X had other ideas though that were ofc very good, like fighting back when police started assaulting ppl. For the record though, bc some rightwingers like the whitewash him, MLK wasn't for quiet "protest". He advocate for being loud and looting, he was just against actual violence against, y'know, people, which is an understandabe viewpoint, even if i personally think there's some specific scenarios where i think it's nessessary, like self defense against state violence, but I'm not MLK, I'm just some woke but also white neurodivergent/queer anarcho-marxist, so my two cents honestly isn't super important in this discussion lol)

EDIT: Honestly, very on-brand fore to start with a comment on shitposts and then haphazardly segueway into a expository essay on political movements and their nuance in the 1960s, end that essay with a completely unrelated fact, and then instead lf a closing statement give my personal tamemon something while also clarifying (I'm not the person who's opinion is the most dire here given the context of how i brought it up" I'm straight AuDHDmaxxing here (im sorry.)

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Me: Skyrim players always be so politically moderate

Some crusty eugenicist dipshit on the other side of the Morrowind Horseshoe Effect™: Yeah you're so right dude

NOTE: y'know sometimes i forget that in places that aren't the American south, most people don't really use the word "be" like that, so if this is how you found out I'm from FL I'm very sorry. I'm not an alligator swinging methhead i swear, i only take the legal prescription meth my psychiatrist gives me to make my brain mostly normal. I am kinda desensitized to alligators though. And even more so hurricanes, i actually find hurricanes relaxing when the edges of them hit my house while I'm inside, which probably sounds deranged to anyone outside of the Tampa Bay Area

EDIT: For the record, i don't have a Southern accent, if anything i sound Midwestern (weirdly common for central Florida for aome reason) but i ofc picked up Southern dialect from people who do

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What's fascinating and terrifying about Misanthropy VS Humanism is that I don't think there is another political devide that has such a negligible middle-ground. As soon as you stop viewing humanity and human life as the most important thing in our world, you at the very least become indifferent to human importance, and from a philosophical and political perspective, indifference is functionally the same as hatred. It's such an easy pipeline to fall down, too, and, from my experience, it's much harder to become a humanist, because anti-humanism immediately gets into nihilism, and nihilism is, in fact, a very comforting ideaology, because it protects you from having to feel the weight of the world and the importance of fighting for good

TL;DR Humanism is good and anyone arguing that you should "challenge anthropocentrism" is at best a well-intentioned but misguided lunatic (Carl Segan. He had some very good ideas but he also has some fucking weird bad ones), or a very dangerous person with violent intentions (Fascists, just in general.)

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"everyone assumes maleness, even you" dear sir, madam, or whatever the fuck you are, you were but a genderless amorphous blob on my computer screen and you will continue to be until i learn otherwise. When i see a little cartoon guy my first instinct is to ask the artist for their pronouns, but then i usually don't because that would be kinda weird. When i hear someone named "Dr. Smith" I would only be surprised by their gender if they were nonbinary, because every doctor I've ever had has been a man or a woman and it's actually deadass kind of weird how few medical doctors are non-binary but i digress. Gender is a terrible game where we all lose, unlike the original Doom which is a very good game that i could recommend to anyone because it's gameplay is simple and intuitive but very fun and engaging. Doom is a game anyone can enjoy. What was I saying? Good day to you (sir/maam/comrade/motherfucker)*

*Comrade and motherfucker are ofc both gender neutral nouns

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Them: I like Greek philosophy...

Me: Oh god, you're one of those assholes

Them: ...but only Diogenes

Me: Oh, you're the good kind of asshole! You can hang

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So, uhh... I'm not gonna make any definite statements yet, but... Don't expect any art from me until i give further notice. I have a lot of complex feelings rn about something that'd probably sound stupid to anyone but me, but I'm going through some very complex grief rn. Idk when I'm gonna be enthusiastic about creating again

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Dude it's 12:22 rn. i thought it was like 4am. Wtf am i gonna do with this extra time? I'm not even tired yet???

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The marketing for that Digger movie was profoundly inept. All the ads were just like "Tom Cruise is Digger!" and it shows a bunch of out of context clips that give you next to no information about the movie, then you're like "what is this movie about?" and the ads are just like "It's a movie called Digger starring Tom Cruise as the title character. Watch it you peasent! :)"

I have to wonder if the studio just had no idea how to market it lol

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Finished that new Ekko model:

Looks a lot better than the old high-poly ekko model I made (which honestly looked weird and baby-faced), this one has the right kind of gothic charm

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I was watching a couple episodes of the old black and white Addams Family TV show, and it's very fun, but it's fascinating how it's ages

For a show made in, like, the 70s i think? It's oddly wholesome compared to other sitcoms from the 20th century. The typical family dynamic of old sitcoms, with the terrible father and the flat, boring nothingburger of the wife character isn't present. Morticia and Gomez are both well rounded characters who ofc clearly love each other, and even when they bicker it feels less like their bitter and more just that they're both just a bit wacky. The majority of the humor has aged great, bbecause it's Addams Family humor, it's timeless. But on the rare occasion something in it has aged poorly, it's weirdly more jarring than in most shows of it's time, because it feels really out of place and disconnected from the rest of the show (by today's standards specifically, you can see how it would have be seen as par for the course back then)

I definitely would recommend it though, it's a surprising good comfort show, weirdly enough

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My various OCs greeting some random guy they don't know

Mylo: Um, hi, don't be afraid or... whatever. I'm chill

Ekko: Why hello precious little wonderful huma- *ahem* my apologies sir, im quite endeared by your kind, humans are lovely and brilliant people... And absolutely adorab- S-Sorry, that just spilled out! I hope I didn't offend, friend

Lamp: Hey man, how's life? Huh? Yeah, I'm a moth-man femboy named Lamp. Yeah, ofc i know that's very silly. I asked you how your doing, buddy, stop dodging the question and talk about yourself ;3

Charlie: Soo... you into roleplay? Oh, yeah, either kind, mainly tabletop rpgs right now though, honestly! Speaking of which do you DM?

Raven: Do you ever wonder about the smoke, when you blow i joint, i mean? It travels through the air, but where does it go? Does someone else breath it in a million miles away? Should I feel bad for feeling less alone knowing it might. I don't know why I'm telling you this, sorry. I guess i just traumadump to whoever. So... hi, my name's Raven, and I'm a fucked up little weirdo

Jake: Hey I'm Jake how's it going

And now for some deep cuts

Meg: WATCH OUT IM GONNA TACKLE YA BRO

Susan: Uhh... yeah hey. I'm kinda busy right now ...

Emil Silverheart: Name's Emil Silverheart. Just point me to your chains and I'll break the shackle

Karlii Bullseye: Good to meet ya, Comrade

Byter (KILL KRYPTO! mascot): (holding a giant cartoonish mallet covered in blood over his shoulder) I watched a man die once... :)

Dessy "DB" Bell: What do you want, man? You got an actual problem you need me to fix or are ya just making small talk? I don't do small talk

I wanna finish this improved highpoly Ekko model but im so tired. idk why I've been tired... although now typing this i realize i am hungry. So maybe that's part of it lol

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Rock And A Hard Place, S2E3

Bill's (the laidback but loopy geologist) apartment. William, the tortured poet who's parents died in a skiiing accident when he was young, has crashed on his couch

Will: Have my delusions of the past returned? I have had paranoias plague me before, but never such vivid sensory hallucinations. My parents died so very long ago, in a tragedy of errors, but i swear i smell blood... their bloo-

Bill: Oh, nah, (Pulls back a curtain to reveal a shelf full of rocks of various shapes and sizes) that's just my impressive iron ore collection

Will looks at the camera with a comically disgruntled expression as a laugh track plays

Yeah this TV Show I Just Made Up didn't make it to season three.

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Horror: This masked man is indestructible and will always track you down. He's going to kill you with a big bloody axe

Me: Oh, that's sounds like a fun movie! Some lightweight thrills

Horror: Ok, maybe you'd need something crazier, huh? Well this is a game where you're persued by a grotesque monster. You have no gun, no means of defending yourself...

Me: Sounds like it'd get dull pretty fast

Horror: Ok Mx. Hardass, how about*shuffles paper frantically* THIS: At an abandoned barn there is a, uh, non-euclidian... horse, who's always looking at you no matter where it's head is facing, walks sideways, and can phase through walls- Oh! When it phases through walls it stains the wall with it's blood, and if it phases through you, then... you can see the 4th dimension for an hour, you now know the true name of the horse, the horse visits you in your dreams and then... does nothing, just looks at you. Ok nevermind this one is just kinda weir-

Me (visibly shaking): That's... that's... fucking terrifying. Is... is the horse, God, or at least something we believe to be God? Or does it just know terrible things about the universe that I can't understand?

Horror: I... it's just a 4D horse? why are you more afraid of a harmless interdimensional horse than something that kills you??

Me: Is the horse even intelligent? It's honestly far scarier if it isn't, if the horse doesn't have an agenda and is simply doing this because... well, nothing, there isn't any reason for it. Could everything humans understand about known universe be based on us trying to make sense of inconsistent chaos? Is... is everything I know just a lie i tell myself, to pretend time and the persistence of reality is something that has ever actually been real or could be relied upon? Is... is anything real? C-could reality just deconstruct and reconstruct itself into something alien for no rhyme or reason? O_O'

Horror: why the fuck are you like this

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Sad Nostalgic Adult: Ahh, i remember my old furry friend, super talented, would draw these amazing pictures of his OCs at waterparks, they'd be going down water slides and playing volley ball together. I never got into that fandom, but i always liked that kind of furry art, the characters looked like they were having fun and everyone seemed happy. Computer, look up "furry water sports"

Computer:

S.N.A.: I really should have worded that better

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(Historical scholars from the far-future) On the ancient Internet, it was common to use deeply ironic hyperboles in a non-comedic setting. These hyperboles were often nonsensical in nature, and used in various sorts of rituals. Mediocre movies were described as the "peak" of human artistic impression, cartoonish, candy-red artistic depiction blood was described as "hyper realistic" by budding young horror writers, menial celebrity drama would be described as "really important, guys" and unpopular but ultimately harmless things like uncommon takes on popular media, niche sexual fetishes and endearment towards fictional villains would be described as "literally the worst, vile and most disgusting things ever". In some cases, individuals would be severely harrassed or even doxxed for holding such things. This was likely a sort of "living human sacrifice" via character assassination as a sacrifice to the god known as the algorithm, which was believed to exist on the Internet during a period of time, and early netizens feared invoking it's wrath

"Yeahhhh none of us know what was up with the strange counterculture 'Indie Web;. It was like, the middle of the Digital Dark Age, some people were like 'No.' and just... did things in a way that's comparable to the rest of the internets history, before and after. And the quasi-religeous groups known as the Major Platforms just... let them do whatever they want. No one tried to stop them. Multiple fascist dictatorships present at the time didn't even see them as a threat. You'd think this smaller cult must've kept secrecy, but... No. They never hid. They just fell backwards into not being found out. I don't know how. This keeps me up at night."

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The SCPs that most ppl know: This is a scary monster that kills you

The vast majority of the other SCPs: This is a VHS recording of an existing episode of Bob The Builder, appearing completely unaltered from the non-anomolous version, only upon watching it in it's entirity, an entity who to be a construction worker appears, successfully convinces you that concrete is edible and delicious, and leaves. The afflicted will try to eat concrete, insist that concrete is their favorite food as well as "the most important food group", and will become agitated if you try to convince them that concrete is inedible. This effect is permanent, and persist even if they are given amnesics.

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Astrology Enjoyer: Guy A is a Leo, so you can trust him. You should be cautious Guy B, though, he's a Gemini, he has a dark side.

Me: Guy A stabbed me and then Guy B rushed me to the hospital when I couldn't afford an ambulance.

Astrology Enjoyer: ...

Me: ...

Astrology Enjoyer: No, I actually think Guy B stabbed you and blamed in on Guy A. A Leo would never stab someone.

Me: Oh my fucking god

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Some graphic design stuff I was doing in Blender today

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(corpse husband voice) And then Mario came out of the screen crying hyper-realistic blood. I asked him, "hey man, you don't look so good, do you need me to drive you to the ER?". Mario responded with, "Oh no! Yes, let's-a-go!". I could here the pain in his voice. Days later... i found out the horrible truth. Mario was diagnosed with severe hemolacrya caused by multiple fissures in his eye sockets. He had to have emergency surgery... but the doctor couldn't save him. Mario Mario was dead, and my childhood was ruined."

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my most toxically self-destructive trait is that i constantly feel like a piece of shit for being isolated and alone, not bc i actually want to be around other ppl, but bc society says i should feel bad for being isolated and solitary. this is compounded not only by the fact that it isn't safe for me to go out on my own for current political reasons, but also by the simple fact that i like everything about being alone except for societal stigma

I should feel like a bad person for only wanting to join a friend group to feel better about myself, bc i morally know i shouldn't use shallow relationships with other ppl to cover up ridiculous insecurities i have been taught, but my culture doesn't care about that, so instead I feel like a bad person bc I don't have any irl friends. When i think logically, that says more about American culture than it says about me, but unfortunately we all still run on caveman hardware so I'm mostly thinking emotionally

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ADVENTURES OF PHILOSOPHY MAN! S72E14:

Dr. Caveman: It's over for you, Philosophy Man! SICK HIM!

Philosophy Man: Sick Him? Could it be that God Himself has fallen ill? If He is truely omnipotent, how could He succumb to disease? Does the decay of the Lord represent the decay of our earth?

Henchman: Hmm... i think he's got a point, boss, maybe that's why climate change is going on

Dr.D: What? No! that's because all of the fossil fuels I've been burning to power my doomsday devices and mining operatio-

PM: Do you think, Henchman, that rather than a literal cause, the proposed pestilent decay of God is a metaphor for humanity tendencies to rally behind unfit leaders who strip the earth of resources until none is left, at the cost of the working class?

Henchman: Heh, oh yeah, that's like you boss!

Dr.D: SHUT UP

if this show was real and on when i was a kid, i would be the same person i am now, but worse and more

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me at 14: I like Dr. Who, Supernatural and Minecraft X3

me at 17: Wow, i was such a fucking loser at 14. I was so cringy. Thank god I'm cooler now đź’€

Me at 26: Wow, i was such a fucking loser at 17. I was so inauthentic and fake. Thank god I'm interesting and distinct now :3

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Made another tiny art film today, a 45 second short with a reflective, quiet take on 80s film aesthetics, called Melencholy Drive

Also on the Nano-Theater

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New music video for my song Hopepunk:

I put it up in the nanotheater as well, also I gave the minitheater a bit of a makeover, nothing huge, just a better background and I made the video centered and a little smaller (so it's not longer too big to see without fullscreening it lol, a pretty useful quality of life uprgrade)

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Just finished watching Bram Stoker's Dracula and it'll probably surprise literally no one that i loved it lol

Such incredible visual style, and the atmosphere created by the filmmaking prowess itself really elevates the story it's adapting

it's probably a 10/10 for me, the only negative thing i could say about it is that they use a slur for Romani ppl a couple times (not specifically target at any explicitly romani characters, it's just straight up misusing the G-slur) but if that's literally my only complaint in a movie made in 1992, you know it blew me away lol

Also rewatched Highlander recently, that's also an excellent film, albeit a sillier and less serious one

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Y'know, i went to a new dentist office today for a cleaning, and they had a pronouns thing on the form, so both the dentist and the hygienist know im nonbinary. It is really crazy how much more patient and gentle ppl are to you when they don't view you as strictly a man, I've experienced this before, but it never fails to surprise me, it's like the opposite of culture shock lol

On another note, unrelated to that but i don't wanna forget, i have two new pieces in the art blog under Media (the the drawing tablet icon in the media hub). I might copy them here later, but i wanted to share that they're there. They're a bit spooky, horror-oriented but nothing too bonechilling (very light horror, just a cryptid in a dark room being a creepy little grimlin) I'm excited for Halloween, which I'm sure will surprise no one given my general vibe and choice of fursona lol

EDIT: Btw, if the images weren't loading for you, but the titles were, it should work now. there was a weird bug with Internet Archive processing, i put the images directly to the neocities cloud. if the titles aren't showing up either, you probably just need to right click the artblog area and pick "reload frame", that'll update the iframe, sometimes iframe can get a bit wonky lol

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Weird little freak is done

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Had an awful idea for a website. It's called Ekko's Portal (or e451 for short), but instead of a porn site it's just like a shitty gamefaq's ripoff without a forum site. Terrible. I'm not making this. (conceptually it's funny though)

And all the guides are by me and there aren't that many bc I rarely finish games. :)

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Just been making weird high-poly freaks, recently

There's not even a reason for it. I guess it's good to practice creating VFX characters, but I've also just been making them for the hell of it

This guy's not *QUITE* finished yet btw, I still need to texture it and had the facial shapekeys and shit. He's like a little imp devil creature-person, i guess

EDIT: BTW, Blendkit (used to be called Blenderkit, they changed the name) has brushes now. I can't believe I waited this long to use an eye brush, these things are amazing. No one should ever have to sculpt an eye socket from scratch unless they're making a new eyebrush. Also, the retopology plugin QRemeshify is a godsend

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Another one of these

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Here's a neat little animation I did:

Made this character rig today, she's pretty cool. The character comes from an idea for a possible film i'd like to maybe make at some point, but it's merely an idea rn, not to mention Exodus in Outtabounds has been indefinitely delayed until I can make room for my greenscreen I got last year, plus the potential budget of this film, while lowered by my own labor, would just be too much for my broke-ass-on-disablity-check to afford rn lol. But I did back her up onto an SD card for safe keeping, until then

I like this animation, it's simple but evocative and I had fun setting up the shot and doing the subtle little animations and setting up to noise for the shakey camera (maybe I had a little too much fun and went overboard with the shakey cam lol, but it does give this piece a certain "unscripted" energy)

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Me, doing a home safety PSA: Every 26 seconds a break-in happe-

Home Intruder: *breaks-in*

Me: Dude you gotta stop that we're trying to do a PSA here

Home Intruder: Sorry I have a quota :(

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Y'all... why does the System Shock 2 remaster have such wretched movement, like the walking and jumping just straight up feels considerably worse than the original. What's weird is that the SS2 remaster is largely very good for what it is, it's very faithful to the art direction of the original, all the vibes and core mechanics are intact, it has some good quality of life features but doesn't go overboard with modifying the game design so much... but like, the movement in the remaster feels like ass, it's weird that they even felt the need to modify, the original has that really snappy 90s PC game movement, like similar-ish to Quake 2 and Half-Life, you can bunnyhop and shit. i guess it is a bit weightless, but that makes it responsive. Your jump is like, pitiful in the remaster, and moving feels like your dragging your feet, fid they sincerely retool the movement and thought it was an improvement? Ifk maybe they just ran iut of time

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My "favorite" kind of mental breakdown is one where i forget that I am, in fact, genderfluid, so i either start to briefly consider detransitioning, or i momentarily think im a trans woman rather than an enby, bc my Gender is Flowing to one side or the other and im in a really in the moment headspace and starting going to overdramatic mental extremes

Not sure if other genderfluid ppl experience this or if I'm just hella neurotic, the latter is at least true

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The hardest thing about being an optimistic realist is that I can easily inform ppl that "no, ppl aren't actually evil in nature, ppl are like this bc of the systems at play" but that doesn't mean ppl aren't terrible, it's just less nihilistic and more scientifically backed explanation for WHY ppl suck. Like if i ever make the mistake of going into a yt comments section, there could easily be one or more saying the most fucked up shit that's completely normalized

To make this vaguepost less vague, if you've ever said "that's so unemployed" that IS objectively ableist, and only a very terminally online person would struggle to understand why. please atone for you behavior, apologize to me or another disabled person directly, and become less of a piece of shit. no, im not even half joking.

EDIT: Obviously, i was a bit on edge when i wrote that, but the point still absolutely stands. If you still use social media sometimes, be very mindful of what "memespeak" you repeat, bc a lot of it has unfortunate origins, and some is more divorced from the origins than others. I would also like to add that the aforementioned social web buzzword is just as classist as it is ableist, either way rooted in some stuff that isnt great and isn't meaningfully divorced from that original context

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Bad sci-fi writers: Uhhh yeah the male alien look like this and the female aliens look the same but smaller and with boobs

Good sci-fi writers: The male Capravions have colorful plumage and large horns, and the female Capravions are more grey-ish feathers and their horns are comparatively a bit smaller than the males (though still quite large). The men are much shorter and much bulkier with muscle and fat, and the women are lanky, thin-limbed and quite tall

God-tier sci-fi writers: *Snorts their fifth line of coke* "Male" and "Female' are simply how biological sex evolved on earth. The Diomorphs have three biological sexes (not counting their multiple intersex biologies) with corrosponding sociological genders, in their native language: Skeipol ("Mind"), Borgon ("Cyber") and Ytros ("Prophet" or "Holy Person"). All three sexes are required for sexual reproduction, with the sex organ of biologically-Borgon acting as a "connector" for the Ytros and Skeipol. All three have a unique kind of reproduction cell that combine to create a larval newborn, which forms an eggshell around itself upon conception, hatching when gestation is complete. Culturally speaking, while no gender is put above another in Diomorphic culture, some gender stereotypes, similarly to human culture based on misinformation and misconceptions about sexual dysmorphia, exist. (It's worth noting that, unlike human sexual dysphoria, which is a binary spectrum between male and female, Diomorphic's biological sex can be imagined on triangle graph, since there are three sexes and thus many forms of intersex) Skeipol's are imagined as having more powerful psyonic powers and being better philosphers, Borgons are seen as scientifically and technologically minded, and Yrtos are seen as more spiritual and artistic. While there is some truth in the Skeipolian boost in psyonic powers, this is very minor and all Diomorphs are exceptionally psyonically gifted. Diomorphs mate for life, with a marriage-like rituals between three of them, and a history of Notroli ("queer", or more literally "Walking past borders of the flesh"). Diomorph couples, both heterosexual and Notroli exist, but are stigmatized in Diomorphic culture, since they are not a "complete" relation ship, accourding to gendered tradition. I will now explain the seven metamorphic growth stages of a Diomorphic from infancy to adolesence to adulthood. After the larval state th-

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I need to create a special "Never Heard of Me? Start here!" page bc as much as I like having catagories under the media section, it'd be nice to have a compliation of just the best things I made to start with if your new...

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(putting on The Cursed Power Scaler Mask) If I was the Slaughterhouse 5 guy i would just get the transmuldorians to give me a bunch of laser guns and then I'd kill all the nazis and win WWII and then I'd shoot the guy with the laser gun in the 70s with my laser gun and then I'd stop my dad's friend fro- (yanks its off forcefully) *Gasp* you're right this artifact needs to be salted and burned SPN-style

not even my most unhinged shitpost btw

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My trans "hot take" is that the least fortunate ppl in our community are trans men. What trans women have to go through is terrible, but what's so much worse than being hated is being ignored. To be seen as not the enemy's enemy, but a throwaway variable that supposedly doesn't matter. As an enby, you experience both of those things, your perceived non-existence as something outside the binary feels so insidious and inescapable that (for me at least) it's sometimes almost a bit validating when someone gets upset by your very existence, bc it means they no longer have the luxury of ignoring your presence, you become, if for a moment, inescapable to them. From what I've seen, trans men don't really get that luxury. The existence of enbies is inconvenient for the establishment, but it's loud and cannot be quieted permanently. Whenever i think about trans men, i kind of see myself in that aloneness, in a weird way, as an unknown artist, but i also feel guilty for feeling that way bc my social isolation doesn't even compare to what they probably have to go through every day. It's such a compromised form of privlege to recognize, that my gender identity can't be ignored all the time, that i get to have the catharsis of being seen as a monster instead of a ghost, and even then i still have to experience being invisible sometimes, but at least I'm not ignored forever. i honestly don't know how transmasc guys do it

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Leftists you find on the indie web: I've been really worrying about the normalization of black-and-white thinking. People in America have always struggled with understanding nuance, but it seems like social media echo chambers have really stigmatized having a nuanced stance on an issue, even in left-wing space people are discouraged from thinking for themselves, and that's definitely a cause for alarm, in terms of the larger cultural zeitgeist .-.

Leftists you see on social media*: Liking Star Wars makes you a fascist! Romantic gestures are inherently mysogynistic! Child abusive isn't as bad if the child is problematic!

Leftists you meet irl: I do not like it when corporations lobby the government and spy on us, no sir. That is very bad. Orange Man also bad.

*I swear to god this isn't a strawman. I've literally heard social web ppl say all of these at least once. Like, not as a joke, no irony, there are people who genuinely believe this is what leftism is... Some of them might have just been ragebaiting, though. The first and second one definitely feel like ragebait. The third is so common there must be people who are serious.

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negative constructive criticism feels like one gentlely consoling another and giving them advice. Positive constructive criticism feels like a mobster "suggesting" demands while combing their hair with a pocket knife

Negative constructive criticism: Hands might not be your strongest point as an artist, but that's because they are hard to draw. here's what helped me learn :3

Positive constructive criticism: The grappling hook mechanic... incredible. Probably one of the best grappling hooks in an indie game in the past couple month, very impressive. Now, if you were to lean into that mechanic, create more... opertunities for it to be useful, I would very much appreciate it. You would have my patronage, and those of others like me. You would like our patronage, wouldn't you? I'd hate to see your indie game be buried. Yeah, good talk. Ciao.

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(conservative US senator voice) The problem with these violent, immersive video games is they give kids an unrealistic expectation for how many weapons they can carry at once. In this "Skyrim" game my nephew played, he was able to carry a warhammer, an axe, a bow, 27 arrows and two swords all while still being able to carry seven cheesewheels and 12 healing potions for first aid, promoting WOKE LIES that spread misinformation about how to actually fight in a war. This must be propaganda by the woke left to promote socialist policies like free healthcare for the poor.

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I'll probably do a better post about this later, when I've had my ADHDs in a day or two from now, but I do, while I'm logged on to my computer, wanna reccomend a cool thing I've found

This is this really cool open-source tabletop RPG system I found called CRUX, by an indie tabletop dev called Ill Gotten Games. It's not really so much as a standalone game as it is a framework for creating any kind of tabletop game or campaign you wanna make, but it's a LOT better and easier to make your own than most other universal roleplaying system bc it's completely modular

It's open-source btw, so if you were screwed over my DnD removing it's open gaming license, this is the thing to use!

It's mainly for narrative TTRPGs, but it also works for dungeon crawlers and even miniture wargames, and it's made specifcally to use for homebrew and to be forked into any tabletop game you wanna make, ofc. The modularity of the system is also set up in a way where a character from one CRUX game will likely still function in a completely different one, even if one is a TTRPG or dungeon crawler and the other is a wargame

NYP, no minimum, I'm too broke to give the dev money, unforunately (once I'm in a better financial situations, which hopefully will happen someday, this is high on my list of ITCH.io devs to through a couple bucks to!), but I'd encourage you to if you can afford to do so, they've made something really incredible. Even if you just go straight to downloads, still check it out. This system is criminally underrated imo, I've become sort of hyperfixated on it lol

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I HATE it that "crunchy" just means you think like the earth is flat and won't take real medicine now. it used to mean:

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I feel like a really important thing that needs to be said more is bullshit bigoted "fandom discourse" is that no one actually hates furries, it's always a guise for either homophobia, transphobia or ableism, there isn't a non-queerphobic or non-ableist way to hate furries in general (as an entire fandom) for the same reason there isn't a non-homophobic way to hate drag queens, it's fundamentally a queer and neurodivergent space

The thing about this is, the nuance of this issues isn't really that "always" isn't always accurate, it is bc there's absolutely reason a person would hate furries that doesn't trace back to a bias about queerness or neurodiversity

The actual nuance is that this bias about queer or disabled ppl, masquerading as a sort of overzealous version of fandom drama, isn't always a conscious one. The concerning part about this is that the modern concept of the "antifur" comes from neo-fascist groups on 4chan. Furry culture is and was quirky and creative with outrageous cosplay, so it was an easy thing to misrepresent and demonize, which is perfect for recruiting new fascists, you can be like "Fandom is cringe" which turns into "this fandom is degenerate" which eventually is an easy was ro segway into "Furries are degenerate bc queers and autistics are degenerates". To maybe some ppl who are a bit younger or never really paid attention to certain kinds of old flamewars, this seems like a niche or fringe example of this type of "discourse", but i need you to understand that if you had a furry pfp in the early 2010s, everyone who responded with regression out of no where would start the flamewar with homophobic and ableist slurs immediately (sometimes just straight up calling you the R slur or f slur (sometimes as "furfag") and then if you trolled them for long enough they'd start saying eugenicist shit. Like as i literally bringing your genetics into question at times. this kind of far-right ideaology has been inherent to furry hate from the beginning (if the extreme modern variation, i mean, which started in the 2000s)

My point being: if you know someone who is really performatively grossed out by furries, you should keep distance from them, even if you aren't a furry, and not just bc they're annoying about it, the likelyhood of them harboring far-right beliefs isn't all that low. It could also be a warning sign that someone you care about could be heading down a really bad rabbithole. Stay safe

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What's deeply weird to me about Black ppl not being accepted enough or given enough of a spotlight in nerd spaces is, it's like... a real issue. Like it's not an imagined issue to wokewash ableism against the neurodivergent, like I've seen PoC voices be ignored and devalued in fandom spaces, it seems like its really hard for Black nerds to be taken seriously and given a voice

Like, you hear bullshit about nerd spaces supposedly being really homophobic and transphobic, but anyone who's actually been in real nerd spaces knows that it's only specific fandoms that are notoriously queerphobic, and for the most part queerness has really sculpted fandom and nerd culture in a ton of ways, so then you look to see what's inside the claim to the contrary, and it's just a bunch of meangirl gays who peaked in highschool being salty about not being the only common queer stereotype anymore or smth. You here some uninformed ppl saying that nerd spaces are universally misogynistic, but in reality not most nerds or even most cishet male nerds, it's mostly just a bunch of salty fringe gamergaters who like gaming as a weird cultural statement instead of a hobby, so like any true posers they project their fakeness and gatekeep gaming from ppl who actually enjoy the thing or have a newfound passion in it (which, side note, is kinda sad bc these specific kinds of weirdos were so fucking loud that they probably ruined gaming for many teen girls who just got some sort of console and were discovering video games for the first time, robbing those kids of a lot of fun. A small subsection of ppl can still seem bigger than they are and cause a lot of bullshit if they're loud enough), but in a broader sense femme nerds have existed since the concept of the nerd exists, cuz yeah a lot of women also obsess over media and probably have aome kind of undiagnosed mental disorder. My grandmother, who's undiagnosed, has a borderline-unheathy decades-old hyper fixation of LOTR for instance lol. But then you look behind the claims of racial bias in fandom spaces and your like, "Oh, no, this one is actually legit" like even in really overall progressive left wing fandoms there's this unconscious learned bias to not take note of what Black fandom members have to say about issues pertaining to their racial identity, and just in general. The furry fandom is a good example of this: Black furries absolutely exist, and most furries aren't at all consciously racist, but due to the biases society teaches and a lot of white ppl not being as aware of non-white ppl's struggles as we probably should be, mixed with the fact that white furries are more common, Black voices kind of get lost in the furry fandom a bit

Obviously i say this as a very much white person (I'm not pastey and I become a bit tan if i go outside enough - rare - but im still very much white) but i do find this interesting as a queer person and gender minority seeing how racial bias is far more tangible and universally real than a lot of other issues that ppl talk about with fandom culture. Especially since the issue of Black voices being lost in fandom discourse is a lot less talked about in comparison to other issues, even when the queer stuff is mostly bullshit from my experience (as a queer nerd, mind you) and in some cases it's not really an issue with the entire broad space so much as with specific type of extremely toxic fandom members like the gamergaters, the racism stuff just a problem in general (ofc the antiwoke ppl also hate Black ppl like they hate women, but I'm pretty sure they hate everyone, including secretly themselves lol. And again, their a bunch of obnoxious fringe assholes, not really indictive of the wider scope of fandom so much just the worst of the worst of it)

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Today i had an existential freakout about whether i only became nonbinary out of self loathing to escape who i was. then i had a whole philosophical debate about whether whether i don't want to be a cis man bc of gender dysphoria, or just bc I didn't enjoy being a man, and if it was the latter, if it was appropriation of identity to be nonbinary simply bc i didn't want to be a man anymore bc it was unpleasant. I still feel like I feel gender dysphoria a lot, but i also can't discount the fact that being seen as a man was just not fun for me and felt very limiting for me personally. I sort of came to the conclusion that, even if I only transitioned to escape manhood, that's, i hope at least, still probably fine bc it did end up making me much less unhappy with myself than i was prior, but there's still a part of me that wonders if others would consider that a douchey reason to be trans, even if a fair bit gender dysphoria is also mixed in with that

Bare in mind, at the same time I'm pondering the ethics of my identity and why i came to it, the fascist president of America is waging a criminal war with Iran, right-wing grifter Erica Kirk continues to milk her shitstain dead husband's false legacy to fatten her wallet even more, RFK's brain continues to be eaten by worms as he spouts ableist and anti-science dribble even he clearly knows is a load of bullshit, and Pete Hegseth is probably covering up more war crimes cuz that's seemingly is entire job, he's not really doing a good job of it since his senile boss (aforementioned) is literally saying he wants to bomb civilian territory.... So yeah i really need to be worried about the ethics of my reasoning for being trans. It's not like the bar is in the pit of hell, or anything.

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Technically did this drawing for Chronicles of Sanguia: Sorrowfell (Ekko exists in that universe as one of the seven sanguine saints, Ekkolocria) but i really, really liked this drawing of Ekko so i wanted to post it here. The big wings, their makeup, the pose, their potbelly, their gentle demeanor - it all makes me just happy to look at. i wanna hug this drawing of Ekko, they look like they'd offer their IRL counterpart comfort and understanding, which i need right now...

*Ahem* anyway yeah it's a good drawing, i also really like the lineart of this one. I mean, it's all lineart, just a line drawing over a red background. The composition is also good. I have more, of the other sanguine saints (Kastrado, Somni, Marsa, Gorka, Sca'yal and yours truely!), and the six races of Sanguia! (Humans, Moon Elves, Blood Elves, Wilde, Plagueites, and ofc Echolocrians, respectively!)

A bit of a lore dump:

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So, an update on how Sorrowfell (that game im working on) is going: there's enchanting now! Basically you can bind spells to weapons, depending on how high you're Enchant skill is. Instead of jewelry (like in Morrowind, the game that inspired Sorrowfell's game design) there's magic wands, which don't do any damage as weapons, but you can just use as a focus for a spell you bind to them. Enchanted weapons don't have charge to keep track off, and you don't need a soul gem or anything to enchant, but enchanted weapons break faster bc casting the spell also damages the weapon a little, and failing the skill check to enchant a weapon damages it, and failing to enchant a scroll destroys it. Also, unlike in Morrowind, scrolls aren't single-use, they teach you spells, meaning spellingmaking via the enchant system is now possible, if your skill is high enough. Spellingmaking from NPCs is still possible, but if you use Enchant, you'll save a fair bit of gold

BTW, if anyone is interested in playtesting this game (not professionally or obligatorily, only if you want to try the game way early) let me know via the "contact/chat" tab on the main page. I don't want to release a public demo yet, it isn't even polished enough for that, but if you're interested on a whim i could email you a build, and if you'd like to and get the chance, I'd then love to know if there were any bugs or issues you ran across or if there's anything you think needs to be in the game that isn't yet. Not nessessary, just letting anyone who wants to try it out know I'd totally accept playtester, even if (or even especially if) youre just kind of interesting in playinf it early

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I feel like the real problem with "cozy games" is that, while sometimes it's a perfectly valid "vibe descriptor" it's sometimes used as a wokewashed way of saying "girl games", which is still at the end of the day gendering certain aesthetics and gatekeeping games with darker or more "hardcore" gaming aesthetic from everyone who isn't a cishet man, which sucks bc everyone should be allowed to like what ever games they personally like, regardless of their gender or sexuality. Honestly i feel like if there's any game that pretty much anyone could enjoy, it's the original Doom. It's simple and fun, easy to pick up instantly, has a wide range of difficulty modes for all skill levels, and has a good mix of aesthetics that range from cartoonishly silly to stylishly cool to darkly melencholic, while keeping a pretty fun ton throughout the different chapters. Like, Doom, in theory, is the game for everyone to enjoy, but gamegater types wanna gatekeep it bc they think Doom's aesthetics are for "real men" bc they conflate Stuff That Is Cool with Stuff That Is Made For Them Only, which is like... so lame, dude. Everybody should try OG Doom, it's just good and it was ofc (even at the time) made for a wide audience while still having a clear focused vision from the devs, and it works

Anyway, i use Doom as an example bc it's a very classic game with a very classic PC gaming aesthetic, and I feel like misusing the term "cozy games" as a polite way to say "games for women and smol bean queers" is doing both a disservice to ppl who don't conform to gender roles (particularly queer ppl and women, although by extension non-conformist straight cis men who just like cute cozy farming and life sims, who to be clear are also completely valid in liking what they like!) but also just doing games like Doom or Half-Life or System Shock or whatever a disservice by boiling all their aesthetics down to a pile of gender stereotypes instead of appreciating these games on their own terms and aacknowledging their influences. Doom is influenced by metal aesthetics. Half-Life is a love letter to sci-fi B movies from the 1970s. System Shock 2 is a whole creative myasma of unapologetic scfi inspiration that also tell it's own story about authoritarianism and the balance between the individual and the collective. These games are doing stuff that's cool and inspired well-executed, that are distinct aesthetics, and when you strip away the vague idea of "target demographic" (smth that the ppl actually making these things rarely think about, they're just making something they want to make and think would be cool) it's just like... good ass art direction. Stardew Valley also has superb art direction. So does Cruelty Squad. And Ultrakill, and gorey boomer shooter made by a bisexual man who's fandom is seemingly mostly trans women. And the dev of Cruelty Squad's other game, Psycho Patrol R, features a overly macho protagonist who's doing a comedically bad job of disguising his very obviously gay crush on his boss as admiration, his performative hypermasculinity heavily implied to be a product of his internalized homophobia, and the game hammers this home in a hilariously unsubtle way. look at that my ramblings have come full circle :3

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I feel like a common thing that's sort of hard to communicate on the social web (and to even a lot of ppl in general) is that you can dislike a person, think what they do is kinda shit, but still not condone them being genuinely wronged

Like, i was thinking about this time a video essayist named Jessie Gender was banned from Bluesky for saying "I wish ill upon JK Rowlin". Now, i think Jessie is extremely insufferable and completely up her own ass, and has (imo) some god awful "Twitter Shitlib" political takes, but I was extremely horrified by a trans woman getting banned for having ill will towards a literal neo-fascist transphobe that it didn't matter if it was a trans woman i didn't like as a person or creator, bc banning her for saying that was just wrong on principle

I don't say this to act like im morally superior to anyone, I'm sure I've felt the opposite at some point about someone, especially if i was in a rotten mood, but if so i was caught up in my emotions, and i think that's where a lot of evil in this world comes from: Putting our feelings and emotions over empathy, morality, or pragmaticism

I'm also not saying you or I should nessessarily strive to be perfect. If humans were perfectly rational creatures, there would be no war, no corruption, no suffering, bc ofc we'd help each other, that is the pragmatic thing to do, causing harm to or abandoning other humans impedes on our survival and achieves nothing worthwhile. But we aren't rational creatures, we're very rash, emotional creatures, and while that causes all the evil in the world, it's also why we make art or tell stories or do anything recreational at all. But we could all strive to be kinder, even to ppl who we generally find kind of unpleasant or don't personally like when they're in need

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Top 10 Gibberish Words:

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Been polishing Sorrowfell a bit. It has a day/night cycle now. I also did a enemy model I'd been putting off, so that's good. Still need to fix some outdated resource refs...

this definitely better captures the atmosphere of the original dream

Also, none of these screenshots are edited, in case this wasn't obvious, not even the first one, it's just a very cool shot lol. The stylized look of some of these shots is just color grading and cranking up the contrast, which creates "retro psychedelic album cover" effect in certain lighting situations, though it also has a lot of points where it looks comparatively more normal for a lowpoly game. I think when I had the dream that inspired this world, my subconcious mind was channeling that one King Gizzard album Nonagon Infinity

Also, yes, I got rid of the dithering shader. It was just causing problems and I think this game looks better without it

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Ok... Here it is, here's what I've been working on for the past, like, two weeks:

I'm doing it. I'm making that mini-morrowind take of Sanguia that I've wanted to for so long. I was so afraid to start it but tbh this past two weeks, while admittedly very exhausting, have been quite fun

So... a bit of an update, just letting you know how its been going! I did take a break for a day bc i was getting burnt out, which was good, bc that much needed mental rest allowed me to declog my brain, and that helped me get freah eyes on my work, and helped me work more efficiently (taking breaks is good! it makes you get more done more quickly, allow yourself a day-long break once in awhile if you're a similarly obsessive artist and/or gamedev)

Anyway, since i uploaded this trailer, I've: