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genericpuff · 1 year

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Ladies and gentlemen... we got 'em.

Every now and then, Rachel will post a sketch to her IG story or her page, oftentimes accompanied with a caption that states how hard at work she is.

Now, some of my pals and I in the UnpopularLO Discord have been taking note of the time stamps of when these get posted, so we could keep an eye out for when they inevitably show up in an episode. Normally I wouldn't be hyperanalyzing a creator's posting habits like this, but there's been a unanimous suspicion among the LO community that Rachel's buffer for LO is only a couple weeks ahead at any given time. So, we waited. We kept our eyes peeled for these panels to show. And hoo boy, are the results of this little experiment pretty damning.

The sketch on the left was posted to Rachel's IG about 4 weeks ago. It showed up in Episode 219, posted last week on October 29th.

The sketch on the right was posted to Rachel's IG story on October 27th. It showed up in this week's episode, November 5th, just a little over a week later.

I'm not gonna pretend like we know all the facts from this evidence alone, but again, people have been suspicious over this for a while now so seeing these finished drawings show up in the new episodes anywhere from a week to a month later tells us a lot. To lay out some of the brunt of it:

Whatever buffer Rachel has is small and shrinking fast. There was a 2 week break at the start of the season to "rebuild LO's buffer", and from cross-referencing the HxP make-out sketch and when the episode went up, we know that the buffer at one point was around 4 weeks. Most Originals creators are encouraged to have a buffer of 9-15 episodes, not episodes in progress, but actual finished episodes that are ready for posting, so that the series can still update with new episodes even if the creator needs to take a break for a week or two or if an emergency arises in their life. With the proof of last week's sketches showing up in last night's episode, I think it's highly probable we'll be seeing another 2 week break by the time December rolls around, but it will likely be presented under the guise of a "holiday break".

Rachel does the roughs at the last minute and nothing more. It's basically been confirmed at this point that Rachel's only contribution to the comic is the roughs and script. From former interviews and Patreon chit chat posts that allude to this, to the fact that the only progress pics from Rachel that we ever see are roughs, to the credits in every episode that feature upwards of five separate assistants working on each episode but somehow the comic still manages to have incredibly inconsistent plot threads and art that looks like it's been rushed, Rachel is basically just doing the roughs for her comic, writing/drawing one panel at a time, and passing them along to her assistants to finish at the last minute. This would account for the art being so inconsistent (Rachel's roughs likely aren't very polished and don't feature any sort of referencing or direction for the team), every episode now being made up of mostly copy+pasted panels, as well as it feeling so rushed, because the assistants literally don't have time to draw different shots or put the episode through any rounds of clean-up before submitting it.

Considering there are ALSO sketches of HxP fluff that haven't made it into an episode yet*, Rachel may as well be working on fluff content before she works on anything else. Just because that H x P panel was drawn 4 weeks prior to it being uploaded doesn't mean that's the buffer. She could have just as well drawn it first because it's what she felt like drawing and either shoehorned it in somewhere or just saved the 'boring' stuff for last. So either her buffer was only a month ahead of time at one point and has since shrunk back down to 1-2 weeks, or she's working on new episodes a week at a time and saves the 'boring' stuff for last hence why each episode ends up with so many repeated copy+paste panels and drawn out dialogue. Both scenarios are terrible and indicative of a creator who is both clueless and doesn't give a shit.

Rachel spends an absurd amount of time on social media. Between her Instagram and Twitter (both of which are often chock full of re-shared fan content that has the Lore Olympus hashtag on it) her new Tiktok account, her VERY strictly moderated FastPass FB groups (that she is an administrator for so she can lock any thread that has a hint of criticism in it**) and her Discord, Rachel seems to spend the majority of her time stalking her favorite hashtags and retweeting them (I've literally had some of my own fanart pieces retweeted within SECONDS of me posting them). But she'll still put out Tiktok videos talking about how behind she is and how hard she's working - literally working on episodes the week they're due as we've proven - videos that she's clearly spending time away from her comic to make and that she's sticking around in afterwards to check the stats and respond to comments from her fans. It's great that she's sharing fanart from her readers, but not so great if she's doing it so much that it's eating into her time to develop the very comic they're creating fanart for.

Hot take, but I can't help but feel that Rachel can only afford to not give a shit about her workflow and how she manages her team because she's in the top 1% of creators. Believe me, I've seen the stress building up in the WT Originals community from creators who are being vastly underpaid and overworked. None of them can afford to be so lazy with their work, because a single week without an episode for them means not paying the rent that month. They don't get mid-season hiatuses, they don't get 2 week 'buffer build' breaks, it's a constant grind of 12-18 hour days because if their series doesn't perform well, not only will they not get renewed for another season, but they likely won't even receive any FastPass revenue due to not hitting the 'threshold' they need to hit to receive it. This is not a problem for Rachel who is someone with millions of subscribers and thousands of regular readers checking in each week but also someone who we speculate got in on the FP program before they introduced the Minimum Revenue Threshold around 2020. Hence, she likely does not need to hit that threshold in the first place to receive her earnings. Every other Originals creator who is subject to the MRT system has to work their ass off and hope that Webtoons will give them enough promotion to draw in traffic to hit that threshold and not get cancelled - but those beneficial front-facing slots are often given to Lore Olympus every time it updates, often for an entire weekend at a time, while its creator fucks around on Twitter, gets mad at 'haters', talks about how busy and 'behind' she is, while she visibly miffs around with non-comic-production-related-things like making memes or rigging Vtuber models.

Let's just say, there's a reason why whenever there are Webtoon controversies concerning the state of their working conditions, you never see Rachel say a word. She is simply not affected by WT's current state of affairs so does not feel the need to speak up against it. I'm willing to bet the only time we'll ever see Rachel talk 'bad' about Webtoons, it will be after she's inevitably driven her own image and comic into the ground.

Concerning *: Here are some sketches that haven't made it into any episodes yet. It's hard to tell if they will, I can assume the one on Twitter will show up but the other two could very well just be Rachel faffing about for fun. Either way, these exist and are still publically viewable, so if they DO show up in any future episodes, we can cross-reference them later.

Left: Oct 28th Middle: Nov 4th Right: Oct 29th

The following Hades panel will very likely show up in the upcoming November 12th FastPass episode. If it does, that not only tells us Rachel truly is only working on these episodes 1-2 weeks ahead at a time, but also that she's working on them out of order as this FINISHED drawing showed up BEFORE the UNFINISHED Persephone sketch from above showed up in her IG story - with its respective finished drawing showing up literally a week later.

Concerning **: Rachel is literally an administrator in the official LO FastPass group on Facebook, which wouldn't be an issue if she weren't so anal about any perceived slight against her work. She will literally lock any thread that doesn't make her look good.

And her own interactions with these fans posts may as well be borderline psychotic. She'll either immediately refute any amount of fan theories on the spot (destroying any semblance of discussion or fun theorizing to be had) or just... comment really messed up shit that says a lot about her and how she writes her precious cinnamon roll protagonist.

Fun fact, she got banned from a FB group that memes on LO because she tried to harass the administrators of the group to ban all criticism. The admins banned her instead. It's not really relevant to this post but I wanted to say it anyways because it's fucking hilarious.

***EDIT TO ADD: She didn't just get banned, she was so butthurt over it that she apparently bitched about it in her Patreon, which her cult accepted as permission to go after members of this same FB group. All just for not kissing the ground RS walked on. Literally psychotic cult behavior.

Let's Play creator mongie has done similar things, so this seems to just be a general attitude among the top-earning creators on WT (yikes), but that's another topic.

Concerning the actual topic at hand, the last thing I'll mention is, save for the credits at the end of each episode, Rachel barely ever gives her assistants credit when she goes on rants about how "busy" she is or how "successful" she's become. You'll never see her thank her assistants or give them credit for how easy they're making her life that she can get away with doing the roughs at the last minute and spend the rest of her time talking about her dog, showing off her new gel nails, or talking about how much of a workaholic she is. But she sure as shit will throw her assistants under the bus whenever she has to come up with an excuse for the sloppy inconsistent art.

TL ; DR: Rachel is not 'busy'. She's just incredibly bad at managing her deadlines and team of assistants and would literally rather whine about how behind she is to make it sound like she's pressed for time. Which, she absolutely is. But it's not because of Webtoons or because LO is a hard comic to put together, it's literally her own undoing. You know what they say - it takes way more work to pretend to look busy than it does to actually do your job.

Rant over.

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lore olympus #i literally bet you $50 that we're gonna see another 2 week break soon #this has been such a fun game for us lmao

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bikwin5 · 6 months

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"ELLY'S ADVENTURE" notes and retrospective

It's been almost a month since I released "ELLY'S ADVENTURE," my first finished game in quite a while. I kind of dropped it without any context so I want to talk about it a bit. This is going to be a long post.

If you haven't played it then GO DO THAT CLICK ON THIS NOW!!!!! Just now I uploaded a recent 1.2 version that fixes a couple more bugs. I highly recommend you read this after at least beating the main game.

THE ORIGINAL

The first thing I want to reveal about Elly's is that the characters and setting did not begin with this project. How scandalous!!! They were actually conceived for a different project that I started thinking of as early as the end of 2015. This was also a game maker project, but it was much larger in scope than what Elly's Adventure became. It was going to be a "METROID MANIA" type game that many indie devs love to make.

The characters themselves didn't change that much in terms of roles. Elly was still the protagonist with Natalie as a supporting role, and I even had the idea of a hard mode where you play as Natalie back then. The plot was that there was like a magical item that got stolen and Elly and Natalie accidentally end up in a situation where they get recruited by the military and sent to take it back from a factory being used as a front for a base of very evil operations. The tone was still kind of funny but a little more serious than Elly's Adventure.

These are the earliest digital drawings of Elly and Natalie from 2015 and they look like FUCKING DOGSHIT!!!!!! SOmehow worse than I remember. I'm glad I learned to draw a bit better if nothing else.

Chandra was also a part of this project but she was not the main villain, rather she would have been the main henchman you fight multiple times throughout the course of the game, getting new attacks each time. She was to work under a character who I called MINERVA, THE CYBER-QUEEN who was to be the main antagonist. Chandra was more of a funny character who displayed moments of incompetence while the Cyber-Queen was more serious. I never really settled on a finalized design for the queen and I didn't even really like her that much in retrospect so Chandra ended up being the main antagonist of Elly's Adventure due to its more lighthearted nature. The enemies were also always meant to be weird round robots with green eyes, and I reused some designs for Elly's Adventure.

Old sprite sheets of Elly and the enemies. Was never really satisfied with Elly's animations.

Yulie was also part of the original project but she was to not make any physical appearances. Rather she was to give hints and bits of lore from pieces of her writing you would find around the factory, from a time when she worked there and slowly discovered that something sinister was going on. Surprisingly Yulie was never actually intended to be Elly's mom from the start until I started thinking of her being a support character in Elly's Adventure and I was like wait why should she be helping these kids... well her and elly both have blonde hair so she's her mom now LOL

This project never had a proper name, I think I also considered calling it Elly's Adventure but I didn't want to exclude Natalie from it so I was thinking of names like "Sky Diamonds" but it doesn't take place in the sky so that's stupid. I got as far as laying out the whole game and getting basic controls and some of the opening area down but that was about it. Truthfully I was never really satisfied with how it controlled or the art direction I was going with and making a metroid type game that lasted several hours felt so daunting I didn't really want to work on it anymore after a point.

Here are some old gifs of what it looked like. The main gameplay idea was that Elly was going to have a propulsion as a double jump that could be upgraded, sort of like the booster 2.0 from Cave Story. That idea ended up working its way into Adventure as a powerup. There was to be other mechanics like shot upgrades and secondary items that would do fun things but I never got around to that.

THE INSPIRATIONS

Now that I've spent long enough talking about Elly origins I can get to the actual game that, if you are reading this, most likely played. While it uses the same characters and setting as the last project, Elly's Adventure has a much smaller scope and style of gameplay. I am not a huge fan of the word "inspiration" something about it pisses me off. But with everything there was stuff that Elly's was inspired by.

First off only the most keen of observers may have realized that Elly's Adventure very much emulates the look and feel of titles played on a certain handheld system. It is the GAME BOY and it's one of the greatest things ever made. It has TI-84 ass graphics and sold a hundred million. I think the Game Boy might be the most rudimentary electronic game device to ever be so popular and I love it for that.

What's really ironic is that I actually did not have a Game Boy growing up YES that's right my first system was the Game Boy Advance. I know it's backwards compatible but I didn't know that as a kid and the only way I knew about games was either seeing them directly in the store or the sears catalog. And I loved Yoshi so much that I wanted a GBA specifically for the Super Mario Advance games with Yoshi in them. I enjoyed my Yoshi's Island port very much. So any original Game Boy title I've played I was either a teen or older since that was when I discovered the magic of emulation.

Anyway this is getting too anecdotal so I should start talking about the specific games that actually did inspire Elly's: Mole Mania and Link's Awakening.

MOLE MANIA is a puzzle game released by Nintendo in 1996. No one bought it because the Game Boy was dying and Pokemon had yet to breathe life into it again. People like to call it "Miyamoto's forgotten masterpiece" and then not say anything else about it. But it is legitimately a very good puzzle game that manages to do so much with so little and it's surprisingly difficult too. Each level is a series of one screen puzzles where the mole has to get the big ball into the goal, like this:

I got this from a youtude video so it has the cool Super Game Boy border. Anyway Muddy Mole can go underground to get to places and push and pull the ball around and all sorts of stuff. It's all designed in a very competent and concise way and I love everything about it except for the bonus stages and final boss. It feels unique among Nintendo games because it feels like they almost never do pure puzzle games that aren't some sort of falling block variant.

Of course Elly's is not a puzzle game so you might be wondering why I'm even bringing this one up. I felt compelled enough by the concise puzzle design that I wanted to make a Game Boy styled thing myself, something that I was considering for a while. I thought the idea of moving from screen to screen and clearing everything out would be fun. So I ended up digging up the handful of characters I had hardly thought about in years and set out to make a game with them.

Funny enough, even back in the day I was considering making a Game Boy styled game with Elly as a sidescroller. The idea was that it would have been a primer before jumping into a big game. It would have been something really short, like only 20 minutes, and the only characters would have been Elly and the Queen. But I didn't really get into it, not even writing down any ideas. So I suppose I was itching to do something with the GB style all along.

LINK'S AWAKENING is a much less obscure Game Boy game, and is probably the most well cherished GB title ever that isn't Pokemon. I went and played it shortly after Mole Mania because I wanted ideas for Elly, which was to be a small funny game of action. It wasn't purely for research, I just realized it was one of the few Zelda titles I hadn't played yet and I figured now would be a good time.

Of course it's a very good game. It uses the Game Boy's capabilities to its fullest and the color version enhances it even more. The overworld is made to feel bigger than it really is and the dungeons are honestly a lot more elegant that what Link to the Past had to offer. But mainly the thing I took away from this was level design stuff that could translate to Elly's well. I think STAGE 10 with the waterfalls was a good example of stuff I took away from this. A lot of the background graphics were also inspired by Zelda, such as the cliffs and castle walls.

did you know between DX and the remake its impossible to find any good screenshots of the original GB link's awakening... anyway just imagine this screenshot in monochrome and that's pretty much everything the desert stages were referenced from.

The Kirby series ended up being another source of inspiration, despite not taking many gameplay influences but rather style influences. Kirby is a funny little guy with awesome power and Elly could be considered similar, maybe even a ripoff if you think about it. I took a lot of ideas from the GB games in particular but moreso the spinoffs than anything. I think Kirby's Block Ball is a neat little title that's probably the best you can get with Game Boy breakout. Stuff like the structure of the game and the concept of an Extra Game were also taken from Kirby.

There are a couple of other minor GB titles that served as inspiration. Painter Momopie is a Japan-exclusive game about a little witch that has to paint floors. It's not an amazing game but it's cute and small. Elly's sprite, which was the first thing I drew for the game, was in fact based off of Momopie, and that's how I set the graphical style in motion.

There's also a game called Out of Gas which has these full screen cutscenes with fucked up looking people in it, which I tweeted about once.

I don't remember how I found out about it. This pic stands out to me a lot because there is not a single other game on the Game Boy that looks like this. This was dated May 10th and the notepad file where I started writing ideas for Elly's Adventure was also May 10th. So it's very much possible that this somehow ended up pushing me to make the entire game LOL

Moving on to Elly's Adventure

As implied by the last section Elly's Adventure started development around May of last year. This was probably my fastest turnaround from concept to development ever for a game idea. Somehow I still have the first things I wrote in the notepad file here unchanged:

There is a LOT more to the file than this but also I want to show that my process of making big projects is stupid as shit. Just take a big notepad file and start putting things in it until it gets so big I have to make a separate one. It's not the best but it works for a one person team.

You might also notice I intended the game to be about 30 minutes long, which did not happen as now it's more than twice that length. This is something called "scope creep" and it happens with every video game ever made by an ambitious indie dev. Honestly not sure how I intended "20-25 stages" to only take 30 minutes. Regardless scoping as small as I did I expected this project to take maybe a year and it ended up only taking a year and five months!!!!! I probably could have done it sooner if other projects and real life things like moving didn't get in the way.

Regardless it was relatively smooth to get Elly's Adventure off the ground. Since earlier last year I was already playing around with making a prototype of a different top down game that was puzzle based (don't count on me picking it up again) it wasn't too hard to do something similar on a smaller screen size, with already existing characters. I had some ideas that I scrapped early on like a score counter and a timer and decided to make Elly's a simple action game where you are simply focused on destroying everything you see.

This video is the earliest footage of Elly's after only a couple of weeks. The music was added by me, it wasn't in the game yet.

There's only one other bit of gameplay that's different than usual and that's the bonus stages, those were added fairly late in devlopment. I had the idea because I realized that a handful of Yulie locations was a pretty slow way of gaining 1ups by itself. I kind of forget they're in the game until I play it myself.

Truthfully I made Elly's as small as I did because I really did want to have a whole game out there that felt complete and polished. My Kirby games of the past might be funny but they're derivative works and VERY unpolished. With Elly's I wanted to give myself as much time as possible to refine a smaller game and I think based on reception it turned out alright.

THE DEVELOPMENT

Elly's Adventure was made in Game Maker Studio 2, a platform that I used because I had prior experience. Is it the best platform for making games? Honestly not sure. It's ok but it's obviously built off of an old codebase, much to its detriment. But I think Game Maker is very good at making 2D games that you can compartmentalize into a series of rooms, and Elly's was perfect for that. So I ended up doing that instead of learning GB studio or something because I didn't want to deal with actual GB limitations.

The development timeline of Elly's Adventure I ended up splitting into three phases. The first phase was to send the game to a couple of friends in secret and see what they think, purely as a proof of concept. The only feedback I was looking for was confirmation it was a good idea for a game. This was about three months in development and it had stages 1-10 without the stage 10 boss or the bonus stages, something I hadn't even conceived of yet. I got enough feedback that I knew I wanted to continue with the project.

The second phase was the longest, spanning like nine more months. This was the bulk of creating the game's content, as well as stuff like me moving that got in the way. I was more open about the game at the end of this phase and I sent it to a number of friends who are listed as "Generous Playtesters" in the credits. Special thanks to them, again, for doing this. I had more people than I expected willing to give me feedback for free. It took them a while, I think because I ended up sending it out the same time that fucking Zelda came out.

The "demo" I sent out was in fact the full game in a less polished state. All 20 stages, the intro and ending, and even a less refined options menu was all in. I did this because I really wanted the whole game to be polished as much as possible, especially since the last big game I put out (PEKSCTG2) was a hellscape tested only by me. Most reception was actually pretty positive and I think the thing I ended up changing the most apart from bug fixes were the bosses. I think all of them had a bit of rework to adjust their difficulty. This build actually did not include the Extra Game you get from finishing the main story, so all those stages actually are an untested hellscape. Have fun!

The third phase went from May to now, taking longer than I expected. Pikmin 4 coming out in that time didn't help either. When making the extra game it turns out making 20 harder versions of the existing stages takes a while!!! It was that + refining pretty much everything else and getting it ready for release. Speaking of level design here is a little snippet of the MS Paint type stuff I did for that:

Later I would put the actual sprites in instead of these shitty placeholders. Note that some rooms are not the same as they are in the finished game, I made some changes on the fly. That's kind of a fun thing of working by yourself, you don't have to like tell a separate design person to do something if you want changes.

Sometimes I see sentiment that making a project is easiest at the start and really hard in the middle but for me it's the opposite, at least with game dev. Getting something off the ground beyond just an idea is hard but making the content is honestly pretty smooth sailing. Then you have the end where the last bit of the game is most of the work. It's a bit painful having to comb through such a big project multiple times to make sure everything is there and running. Despite this project taking way longer than expected I'm still glad to finally get something done and out there.

THE GWAPHICS

If there is something between 2015 and now I have done a lot it's drawing. I'm not exactly an accomplished artist but I think a lot of my stuff has improved in past years. Or at least that's what they say. Taste is subjective after all.

However I didn't do very much pixel art for a while. Especially not anything with a palette as limited as the Game Boy. So making all the graphics for Elly's was something of an exercise in trying to figure out how this pixle art shit works all over again.

Almost everything in Elly's is drawn by me. A few images are actual things shrunken and convered to 4 colors but otherwise it's all me. And as it turns out drawing all the assets for you own game takes a long freakin time even when they're this simple!!!! While no one sprite took very long apart from bigger ones like bosses it all adds up to a lot of hours.

Not all of those hours are on Elly's but still. I think doing the tilesets took up a lot of time, in particular the playroom area because I was insistent on including a bunch of funny easter eggs and references. I can't explain all of them here because it would take much too long, but let it be known that this thing before the third boss is called "The Fumpship" and has like 3 layers of inside joke to it.

As for the character designs they were simple enough that transcribing them into Game Boy sprite form was actually pretty simple. Elly and Natalie in particular I had to remove the symbols on their clothes since it wouldn't translate in sprites.

You already saw this at the start of the post. These are character sketches I did around the start of development. Note that Natalie's outfit color is different, later I made it lighter to make her more distinguishable from Elly in-game. There are very few "concept art" things for Elly's, most of it I started with doing the sprites.

As for the enemy sprites since the ones I already had (see sprite sheet 10 pages above) already worked pretty well in this setting so I used that as a base for other enemies. The "Big Boy" enemies in particular took a while to figure out their sprites but I do like how they turned out. My favourite enemies are the exploding dolls, so much that I even used them as the game's icon.

THE COADS

This section is very technical and vague so you can skip it if you want. I'm something of a programmer... I think. I don't talk about it that much. A lot of what I know is not exactly suited for game dev BUT I did have a lot of residual Game Maker Language knowledge from my past projects. And there was a lot to learn too, since this was my first time using GMS2 in particular.

Truthfully since Elly's is kind of simple there wasn't THAT much that was that difficult programming-wise... I think the hardest shit for me is doing collisions and stuff. Collisions for Elly weren't too bad but for certain enemies like the grinders it was a pain in the ASS!!!!! That's why getting any game off the ground is hard for me, trying to make the groundwork for everything is daunting because I'll worry if it's good enough to accomodate the rest of development.

I think a lot of the challenge was not from getting things to work but rather having everything neat and organized. When you're making a game there is a lot of stuff to keep track of and even sometimes with the way I organized things I get lost in the game maker asset browser. I also made sure to comment things a lot... If you ever decompile the game i'm sorry if my comments are weird and embarassing.

The reason why I'm even bringing this aspect up is because in my past projects, particularly Pik's Epic Kirby Sprite Comics 2 I didn't know SHIT about programming nicely or efficiently and a lot of it was brute force via if statements. I did not want that!!! So with Elly's I made it so that adding new things like powerups and enemies was as easy as possible and I think that ended up making the project bearable.

This was also my first time making certain things like an options menu which was kind of strange and daunting as Game Maker does not have anything build in for menus. You just kind of have to do it from scratch. I was really insistent on having remappable controls in particular because I feel like that's essential for PC games these days. Also I enjoyed making the map system a lot, which was something I only added late in development. It uses a very hacky method of finding hard-coded arrays for each stage and drawing boxes for them but it works.

THE BOSSES

I think bosses in video games are a very novel thing on how inefficient they are for such a capital-driven industry. You have these things that take up a lot of effort and development time and are usually a small part of gameplay but they get made anyway because they look cool and also maybe you can use them as marketing or something. Maybe "boss fights" can be viewed as a disruption of power making its way into the hands of the workers? Ok I'm just talking out of my ass here.

There are not a lot of bosses in Elly's and they don't last very long but I wanted to discuss them anyway because there are some fun things to say about them. The first thing is that I wasn't even sure if Elly's was going to have more than one boss at first. Then I came up with the idea for the first boss (Death Orb) and started getting ideas from there. Fun fact, the Death Orb is named and modeled after the enemy (obstacle?) from Warframe:

I honestly thought it was really obvious but no one, not even my Warframe-playing friends seemed to notice. Anyway I just wanted a very simple boss that doesn't move with one attack. For a long time it didn't have the beeping sounds that telegraph its moves and therefore was very difficult to avoid the second phase without getting hit at least once! It was a bit bulb shit once I realized so I did that.

The second boss is a fish and funny enough, the only surviving boss idea from the original project. The major bosses were planned to be massive weapons named "______ Guardian" and the fish is loosely based off of an underwater boss idea I had back then. Of course the current day Water Guardian fight is not anything like that, and instead likes to flop around. Fun fact, the boss was a lighter grey color for most of development until I decided to make it dark so the weak point was more visible. I also changed the second phase movement late in development so it would flop less, making the grenade powerup feel more useful against it. The way it acts in Extra Game is a lot closer to how it originally was.

The third boss is a hat and is largely based off of "WIZ" from Kirby and the Amazing Mirror. Wiz is just a clone of Paint Roller from Kirby's Adventure but I thought the design was neat enough I even based the intro animation off of it. I also really wanted to tie into the toy theme and the doll enemies so I figured why not a funny magician doll? This boss used to always spawn in the middle after a cycle but then people would spawncamp it so I made it appear in multiple spots instead.

^^^WIZ

The Pillar Knight boss is honestly not that hard for how late it is in the game but I made it to just be a surprise at the end of a boss rush. I don't have that much to say about it really, I based the name and greatshield off of the Tower Knight from Demon's Souls. The big stomp it does in the second phase used to summon a single bouncy and nothing else but that was kind of pathetic so I changed it to falling rubble instead.

The "Antlion" final boss was actually a boss idea I had early on, possibly for the second or third worlds. It's kind of similar to the "head and hands" type bosses you see in so many Nintendo games. It was moreso going to be based off of the "Giant Enemy Spider" from Jerma's car game video. Then I figured that having the biggest boss for last would be a good idea. Funny enough this was the boss I received the least feedback on, most people seemed to like it. It was also a bit of a pain to test because I had to ensure that all 5 powerups would be viable, but I'm pretty satisfied with the end result. The second phase where Chandra shows up in a pod is very much based off of Eggman fights from Sonic, I'm sure you can tell. Something about seeing a little round flying thing is very satisfying.

THE SOUNDS

The sounds and music in Elly's are not mine. It's why I released it for free on itch instead of bothing to publish it on Steam or anything. Why am I even writing about this? I think that there is some fun to be had from digging through existing sound or music libraries and picking the best ones.

The style of Elly's is very upbeat happy scrimblo type game as you can tell, so I went out of my way to pick songs that fit that. The first levels having Mole Mania's first world music is pretty emblematic of what I wanted. I wanted to pick songs that were not necessarily obscure but not too well known so I made an effort specifically to avoid Mario, Zelda, Pokemon. Then I broke the rule because I liked the Link's Awakening nightmare battle enough and that's not exactly a super recognizable iconic song. I think the style of the music is not always consistent, as you can tell with the Belmont's Revenge music in later levels, but I tried to keep to songs that I felt fit the game well enough.

The sounds were taken from various Kirby games mostly because those are the easiest to rip, as those games have individual sound tests. With everything being kind of Kirby inspired I also thought it was the best decision. I think if maybe I were to ever do a Steam release I would hire some bastard to do a GB soundtrack and play around with making sounds myself but I DIDNT FEEL LIKE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE LAST PART

There is so much more I could say about the old project and the finer details of development but I think this post is already long enough.

Elly's is not something that I think is ever going to go viral. It did get more attention than I expected for the first few days but it's petered out by now. Elly's is not meant to be anything groundbreaking or revolutionary. It's not going to turn heads all over the world. It's not going to make me the new Tony Box and that's OK. I wanted Elly's to evoke the sort of feeling of finding a weird cartridge in a Gamestop bargain bin of the past or maybe a thrift store of the present. The feeling of digging through an archive of every Game Boy ROM ever and finding something refreshingly decent after playing 10 crunchy janky sidescrollers in a row.

QUICK LAST MINUTE EDIT: Apparently Elly's Adventure was featured on a Hungarian news site??? Not what I expected but I'm still honored to be mentioned by a publication.

I don't really know what's next for game dev from me. I am not interested in breaking into the industry, I just do this for fun. I've considered doing more things with Elly, which may or may not be in the same style. I've also considered ideas with other characters, and even using things that aren't Game Maker. Maybe in another 8 years there will be something. Keep an eye out!

Overall I am satisfied with Elly's Adventure. I mostly enjoyed making it. I don't know if I would call it my magnum opus. It doesn't have the same sort of unfiltered eccentricity of my Kirby things and it's hardly character or story driven enough to leave much of a lasting discussion. To be honest I liked making a game with no dialogue because in the cases where I do have a more character driven game idea I think about the funny dialogue more than I do the actual game. Regardless I think we can all agree that Elly's Adventure is, and always will be, a small funny game of action.

if you bothered to scroll to the end of this post here is a FUN GAME TIP: on stage 1 from the starting position go one screen right and investigate the rightmost flower on that screen. this can be helpful for those wishing to see the 1CC screen.

#gamedev #elly's adventure

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tame-a-messenger · 2 months

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too long for comment so I am going into ask box again

I am kinda sad how the handled sword AF so far in general and are STILL handling it. Even if the answer is "hey, we are not sure when sword AF will return/we are uncertain about the future of it in general,". It would be so much better to get than just silence. Also, I get that it kind of underperformed, and it must be one of the most expansive things to produce. So yeah, it kind of underperformed slightly in a Smosh context, but it had SO FUCKING MUCH FANWORK. Like, fewer people cared about it, but the people that did care A LOT. Which, like, you can tap into that to finance it. For example, I feel like sword AF merch would perform really well.

We can't know, but if we are not getting Sword AF for financial reasons, that would be so stupid. Because I don't think it has to be that way.

This is all just wild speculating when it comes down to it, and the reasons are definitely more complicated that (time is very likely a BIG factor as well)

Typically, I am really not a fan of guessing and speculating based on so little, but because it is about a show, I give myself a pass haha

*Rattling at the gates of Smosh HQ, "WILL SWORD AF RETURN FROM THE WAR???"

(Additional thing: In a way it was kinda funny they announced that sword AF wasn't going to happen hours after it was supposed to drop. Like were they actually surprised people cared about it??? Haha. )

That's what I find so disrespectful about all this. They haven't said a peep about Sword AF since they delayed it.

I understand that the views didn't do SUPER amazingly well, but they didn't do worse than a lot of other content they've put out? The first ep of S1 got 1.4mil and over the whole 9 eps it got a total of 4.7mil views? (I'm including the "Movie"-comp of all the eps - it had 403k)

The least viewed video (weirdly) is the final ep. I think it's because a lot of people fell off watching it. Keep in mind, they uploaded episodes every two weeks, which I'm willing to bet is a big reason why a lot of people stopped watching.

I feel like most first seasons of D&D campaigns don't start out with crazy views, it's expected to gain traction the more it goes on? That's how I feel.

I agree that running a D&D campaign does take a lot of effort and (from what I've heard) takes a lot of world building and really is a huge time sucker, I can see how they would want need more time to work on it (giving only 3-4 months to write a whole season in-between doing voice over/other freelance work sounds like a lot) so wanting more time I understand. It's just that they haven't given any updates or talked about it AT ALL, that's what's really weird.

SO many people love Sword AF! There was so much fan art! and everyone was talking about it in fan spaces!

Like it was so loved! and I know a lot of table top/D&D people are LOADED, and they would 100% buy even the worst looking merch because of how much they liked the series! (I would by something with Rumpum on it! That sounds so fucking cute!) so I don't see there being any real reason not to do a S2 except either they don't have the time to write it/or are just generally really busy, or some totally unknown reason behind the scenes??

At the end of the day it is just really bizarre to me that they haven't mentioned it at all? like not a peep?

"(Additional thing: In a way it was kinda funny they announced that sword AF wasn't going to happen hours after it was supposed to drop. Like were they actually surprised people cared about it??? Haha. )"

(Was it not the exact time it was supposed to be uploaded? I remember waiting for it and seeing the community post notif at the exact time it was supposed to drop? or maybe 15mins after? either way-)

That was such a slap in the face. It hurts worse now that it's been enough time that I can be certain there was NO WAY it was even close to being finished (or maybe even started?) They really waited till the absolute last- no, PAST the last second to let us know it wasn't dropping. What a way to shit in the face of the people that cared.. (I literally cleared my schedule to be able to watch it and was waiting for the clock to hit 1pm (I live est) thinking I was gonna spend at least an hour watching the new ep.. I can only imagine how many other people had gotten stuff set up to watch, that got fucked with.)

I do want a S2, I want them to say something about it at least. And they BETTER apologize about how they handled it.

#Smoshblr #smosh #smosh games #sword af season 2 #sword af #sword af s2 #spit in my mouth and shit in it while youre at it #smosh... really I mean this #DO. BETTER.

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tam-ezrac · 8 months

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[The City is located on the Moon: An Addendum]

Hello! It's your resident neighborhood Idiot, Did you ever want to possess some extra knowledge that won’t be relevant for atleast another decade?? No?

Damn, too bad You never had a choice, get [DATA EXPUNGED]

This post is an Unofficial follow up to Reddit(ew) user u/Evening_Giraffe_2744: "The City is located on the Moon" theory. Which posits the aforementioned title being true(no duh)

This post will work under the presumption that said theory is true and will provide additional information related to it(I sound so repetitive).

If you HAVEN'T read the post yet or need a refresher, go do that, else you'll be lost, and for everyone else, let's hop into this pit!

Alright so this post will (try) to answer 2 questions:

1-Where is the City (specifically) located?

2-What is the Great Lake(and any other detail I can fit in)

Alright, starting with the first one, please {LOOK AT THESE 3 PHOTOGRAPHES}:

Alrighty, the first two are pretty self explanatory, the one in red(left) is found within [LIMBUS COMPANY], both within the files and the downloading screen. And the second image(right) comes from Distortion Detective's very own Ezra!(it is very crudely drawn)

As for big old number 3? Well she's named Mare Imbrium and it's where the City located obviously! Don't believe me? Well watch this!:

As we can see in these 2 pictures, which I super imposed upon n'3, they fit decently well(and when I mean they, I mean the left one(sorry not sorry Ezra)) the only caveat being that both of them had to be flipped, tho I can definitely see it as a intentional choice on PM's part.(Plus it makes a bit more sense in the second question of this essay)

As a fun little bonus I'll even add the size of of Imbrium and by extension the City here(just don't expect this to be correct):

With a Diameter of 1145km(and assuming a circle)

We get a Circumference of ~3597.12km

Or an Area of ~1,029,677km2

If we want to find Volume(km3) we would need height(5km deep and 7km high cause of mountains) which gives us 12km of height

Add these into a calculator for a cylinder and we get a Volume of ~12,356,119.53km3

(The Diameter, Depth and Mountain Heights were take straight from Wikipedia.)

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember, somewhere, where it was mentioned by PM that the City should be either as big as Colombia or Bolivia, both of which fall very close to the Area(km2) that I have calculated, so unless this is confirmation bias, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Now onto question numero Zwei! What is the Great Lake??

It's Oceanus Procellarum, like, it's not even a contest, PM would have to actively blind themselves not to make it O.P. Like, do you see the size that lad?? Do ya know how big it is? If you combined all the Mares on this image you would arrive at around ~4,4 million km2 which is 2.3 million short of how big O.P is, with a whopping 6.6 million km2 it is twice as big as India, needless to say, it is chunky.

Tl,dr; [The City on the Moon] theory as alot more ground(or sea) to stand on then you can even begin to fathom.

Fun facts:

1-Mare can be directly translated from Latin to English as [Sea].

2-Imbrium translates into [Rain] making it's full name [Sea of Showers].

3-there is a Mare called [Mare Cognitum] that is located above Mares Humorum and Nubium.

4-the reason why I didn't show my math for the rest of the Mares and O.P is because I simply repeated the same thing as when I calculated Mare Imbrium.

Afterword: Hello, hello, it's your lovable idiot here, sorry I haven't been uploading my art recently, I've been trying to figure out how to use Spine(the program and my normal one)+binged the first 3 novels of [Dungeon Dive: Aim for the Deepest Level] needless to say its fuking goooood, highly rec. My next NON-art related thing will probs be smt along the lines of [Re:conceptualizing LoR and LCB Systems] so, uh, stay turned for that? Apart from that, have a wonderful day!

#limbus company #project moon #library of ruina #lobotomy corporation #lore #theory #moon #the moon #I'm gonna piss on the Moon #math #too much math #essay #writing

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siiversans · 1 year

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Hey there! Maybe I will notify you that I just followed you, but in reality I have been seeing your AU of this blog for 3 or 4 days, with the undertale tag I was able to guide myself a bit and see your story completely.

And finally I was able to see EVERYTHING you posted regarding the story and the off-camera scenes, all thanks to the tags, bless them and you too for posting them QwQ you don't know how much it helped me. I have been looking from my cell phone, I had to go down in the history of the tag (which by the way, the #undertale one is the most ordered, I don't know why) looking for where I stayed. There are times when I got lost or closed by accident because I'm stupid XP, but here I am, happy to have met you and your lovely characters, I really hope you upload the official story of your AU one day, also the one of FALLEN I loved that one a lot!

In case you haven't noticed yet, I don't speak English, I speak Spanish. I am using the translator of my keyboard to write you this message. I was translating your content with that and Google Leans, Sometimes, since I am studying English and I know something to manage by myself. I just want you to know how much I love your story, What I love the most about your art is not only your characters but the background they have, in addition to those clothing designs you did, I must say that there is much more to Error than to Ink, You can see who you put more effort into, and that he doesn't appear much jsjsjsjsjs

Anyway, I know, a lot of text. You don't need to tell me. I know very well that my finger or pencil goes a lot. I will try to follow you as much as I can and see you grow while I support you in what I can, I know that you can do everything you set your mind to and I hope to see it ^^

And the truth... I would like to ask you a few questions but I don't want to ask you any longer, since there are things in the story and/or the characters that were not clear to me, so, I'll wait for you to tell me if I can ask you questions. Have a good morning/afternoon/night. Since I don't know what time you'll see this, but I already have to go to sleep, it's 4 a.m. X,D

Daiiiiiski daiio! Yanne~^3^

this is so sweet ;;_;;!!!!!!

don't be scared to ask me questions!! i love answering questioms about the characters that i can

i would love to make it clearer for anyone confused (bc the story is almost 7 years old now)

also!!!

i wish to make the story more accessible for anyone who doesnt speak english but im just not capable of translating by myself!

if anybody would like to translate the comic/story in their own language, feel free to dm me anytime you like!

#NOT hnme

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hiddenendings · 7 months

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i confuse instinct with desire - isn't bite also touch? (Blanktember Day 22)

A/N: This is meant for Day 22 of Blanktember and I just forgot when day I was supposed to upload it! I wrote this a very long time ago for @quicken-silver and I am now posting it here for you all to hopefully enjoy! If you haven't read "eat your heart out" yet then I HIGHLY recommend it. It's still a work-in-progress, but goddamn is it good. (As well as all of their other works. Go read them! Also, check out some art Ventigh did for this same AU for "eat your heart out" it's so good!! I took the title directly from their post, so, uh, hope you don't mind ventigh!!)

Summary: After a long separation, Ingo and Emmet, along with their deamons, have finally been reunited. Ingo wants Emmet to feel just how much they missed him.

[title and deamon names+AU inspired/taken from quickensilver's "eat your heart out"]

Notes: Post-PLA reuinon with the twins being in an established relationship before the separation. Deamons!AU

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50293963

Check out my writing commission info here!

***

[Setting: Quicken-Silver’s “eat your heart out” AU. Daemon!Blankshipping in Hisui with Emmet having found Ingo a few days ago and the two are now waiting for Akari/Rei to finish the Pokedex and go home. It is winter and Ingo, Emmet, and their Daemons are in Ingo's tent in the Highlands. It is night and a snowstorm has begun.]

Carefully shutting the door, Ingo made sure any seams were tightly sealed before he shook his head. "It looks like the storm might be worse than initially expected. It's possible we'll be here for a day or two until the cliffs are safe to travel again." Turning to look back at everyone, Ingo saw Sayoko and Jayla gleefully chasing each other around the tent and over furniture and causing a ruckus — not that Ingo could blame either of them. He hadn't seen Jayla so lively in years, although he supposed much could be said for himself as well.

Thankfully all of their pokemon were resting in their pokeballs, not willing to deal with the cold. Much of the same could be said of his brother, who was sitting on the bed and whining loudly, “Why is it so cold! You said this was the Highlands, not the Icelands. I am Emmet and it is cold.”

“I told you it was still cold up in the mountains,” Ingo said, more amused than frustrated. It was so nice to see his baby brother squirming around on his bed and whining and complaining, playing up the act of brat even with flushed cheeks and breathless little giggles that slipped out between words.

If he had any doubt of Emmet’s true good mood, they were wiped away as he saw Sayoko trill in delight, her and Jayla tumbling past in a mix of fur and feathers.

“Big brother doesn’t care anymore,” Emmet ‘huffed,’ trying to hide his grin behind the Pearl Clan hoodie Ingo had given him to stay warm. There was something overwhelmingly nice about Emmet tucked away in Ingo’s clothing and Ingo’s bed and looking at him with those flustered cheeks and dazzling eyes. “He’s going to leave us to freeze, Sayoko!”

As if to spite him, Sayoko wiggled her way under Jayla, poking out from under warm fur and purring loud enough to drown out the howling winds outside. Ingo felt as if the snow and wind could never touch him again as his baby brother collapsed into giggles and shouted about his ‘traitorous daemon.’

Shaking his head, Ingo moved to tend to the fire. As reluctant as he was to look away from Emmet’s warmth and joy, he’d rather his baby brother stay warm. It would only get colder as the night went on, after all, and Emmet deserved to be comfortable and frankly, in Ingo’s opinion, pampered, after all he had gone through.

Getting ready to stand back up, Ingo froze, almost literally, as two hands wiggled under his tunic and undershirt and pressed against the bare skin of his back. Really, they were less hands and more blocks of ice. “See! I told you it was cold, Ingo!” Oh, so baby brother wanted to play the brat, today, huh?

A quick tussle and Ingo managed to get Emmet pinned to the floor, unable to help the twitch of his lips as cackling laughs turned into a breathless whimper that sent Emmet’s cheeks flushing a beautiful pink. While Ingo had only intended to tease Emmet for just a while… it had been so long since he had seen Emmet pinned underneath him and squirming, cheeks flushed pink and giggles tumbling out of him as he cried up at him, “Big brother! You’re being verrry rude!”

“Am I, now?” Ingo’s lips twitched as Emmet quieted down with a small whine, still squirming, but only in a way that drew him in closer, everything about him open and soft and willing-

Ingo glanced up briefly to see Jayla had pinned Sayoko to the ground, paws on both of her wings and tongue lapping at the feathers around her neck. Sayoko was limp and content under her, trills as loud as Jayla’s purrs. At least he wasn’t the only one who had given in.

“Big brother?” Sitting back, and delighting in the whimper that earned him as he pulled away, Ingo let Emmet pout for only a few moments before he was scooping his brother into his arms. A quick readjustment and they were sitting in front of the fireplace, Emmet melting into his arms.

“My baby brother is cold, is he? I suppose I would be irresponsible if I didn’t correct the situation,” Ingo mused, tugging at Emmet’s arms and lifting them into the air until they were straight. Emmet made a questioning noise, starting to lower them before Ingo gripped him harder, something like a growl leaving his throat, “Stay.”

Emmet froze at the same time he went limp, his baby brother loose and willing in his arms, absolute trust in that gaze that looked up at him. “Good,” Ingo chuckled, grinning as Emmet shuddered. “Did baby brother miss hearing his big brother praise him and tell him how much of a good boy he is?”

Oh, it was still so easy to break Emmet down. Still, he had a plan he was intent on fulfilling before he went too far off the tracks. Working his hands under Emmet’s tunic and shirt, Ingo pushed them up until he was pulling them off completely, lowering Emmet’s arms after he did so. “You know, Emmet, there’s a very quick way to get warm. While these clothes can keep in heat, they don’t generate it.” As he spoke, Ingo ran his hands down pink skin that was quickly warming up thanks to the fire they sat in front of. “Fireplaces, however, are very good at warming a body up quickly.”

Ingo took both of their hats off and set them aside with the other clothing, not resisting for even a moment as he nuzzled his way close to Emmet’s scalp. A deep breath brought in the scent of his baby brother, still with that lingering scent of shampoo he always loved using. So long apart and his memories still so scattered and broken and yet that scent… It was so familiar. So good.

Emmet whimpered, Ingo directing himself back onto the tracks as placed a quick kiss to Emmet’s temple. “Of course, it’s no good if the body gets too warm too quickly.” Hands sliding back down Emmet’s body, Ingo lingered in every place he could, rubbing warmth into the shivering body and pausing at places where his sweet baby brother had grown so thin… He would definitely be fixing that.

“So first, we have to remove everything else.” Ingo took his time in divesting Emmet of the rest of his clothes, caressing each inch of skin revealed to him and lingering until he remembered each sensitive spot that turned his baby brother into a squirming, broken mess in his arms. “Big- Big brother please-!” Oh, he had missed that.

“No need to beg, baby brother,” Ingo chuckled, bending down to kiss at the side of Emmet’s neck, the whimper turning into a shocked moan when Ingo bit down. As he did so, he removed the last of the clothing, Emmet naked and warm and excited in his lap. “I’ll give you everything you need, after all.”

Catching a glimpse of Emmet’s hand dropping to touch himself, Ingo’s hands shot out to grab Emmet’s wrists and hold them still. “Relax, baby brother. You were cold, after all, weren’t you?” Ingo chuckled at the whimpering complaint, kissing at Emmet’s temple again.

“This is cruel!” Emmet whined, trying to squirm and move. Ingo didn’t let him, pressing down and curving over him to lock him further in place, tangling their legs together until Emmet’s were pushed down. “Ingo-!”

“I missed you, you know.” Emmet went still in his grasp and Ingo hummed appreciatively, pulling Emmet back into his grip fully, lowering their arms, but still keeping his grip on Emmet’s wrists. “Every day, trying so hard to remember anything about my life, and always feeling such an empty space to my side.”

Emmet managed to squirm enough to look at him properly, face cloaked in understanding and empathy. “I know.” Ah, but of course he knew. Emmet’s side had been empty too, after all. “I know, Ingo.”

“I know you do.” Ingo blew out a sigh, letting the dark feelings go with it. He nuzzled at the side of Emmet’s head, pressing kisses to the skin until he heard giggles. “Almighty Sinnoh I missed you,” Ingo muttered, trailing the kisses down until he was playing with Emmet’s neck, his sweet baby brother groaning and tilting his head to give him even more space. Dragons, he wanted to drive him to ruin.

Emmet had been so good for him, searching and working so hard to find him and tirelessly running forward just to get back to his big brother’s side. He wanted to pay all of that back. He wanted to spoil him. To pamper. To protect. To indulge. He wanted to devour.

“Emmet,” Ingo whispered, pulling Emmet in towards him, always closer, as close as he could get. His clothes were still in the way, but that could come later. To let go of Emmet now would be the end of him. “Emmet.”

“I missed you,” Emmet whimpered, shuddering in his grasp, still so warm and yielding, no defense at all against his big brother’s hungry grasp. He was as pinned beneath him as Sayoko was under Jayla, unable to move and yet there so voluntarily. “I missed you.”

Ingo wanted to tear his baby brother apart. To dig into him and devour every inch, claim him until every part of his sweet baby brother was his. He wanted him limp and crying and collapsed in his grip, dizzy with pleasure and filled with love. Ingo wanted to indulge and there was nothing to hold him back. After all they had been through, after how long Emmet had been kept from him, there was nothing to hold him back.

“I want to feel it.” As soon as Ingo said the words, the desire sunk in with claws and teeth. “I want to feel it,” Ingo repeated, nipping at Emmet’s skin and grinning at the startled whimper. “Let me feel you, darling.” Ingo didn’t bother to raise his voice, feeling the brush of warmth and fur against his back as he simply repeated, “Darling.”

They were both so hungry, and Ingo knew they had reached the very end of whatever patience and propriety they had left as Jayla fluidly twined through their arms and settled in Emmet’s lap.

Emmet gasped and jerked forward, Ingo holding him tightly in place and closing his eyes at the rush that flowed through him. This was no brief touch or loving reunion. This was Emmet squirming and moaning in his grip, euphoria flowing through him as he whimpered and whined and was filled with such love.

Ingo could feel every piece of him, overflowing with love and devotion and desire, a blazing heat that swept through him only to be followed by jolts of lightning, hot flashes of heat and lust and that resounding, echoing call of hunger. His baby brother’s soul was a predator as well, after all.

Ingo loosed his grip on Emmet’s wrists, groaning softly as Emmet shot forward to wrap himself around Jayla, hands burying themselves into her ruff and face burrowing against that warm fur.

His darling ocelot purred and chuckled, pressing closer to their sweet star and licking at the few tears that had rolled down his cheeks. “Oh, my sweet, how we missed you,” she cooed, nuzzling close and letting Ingo feel every scrap of his brother.

“Shall we show you?” Ingo asked, panting around the words and just barely registering how out of breath he was as Emmet only moaned, hands clutching closer at Ingo’s soul. “I want to show you, Emmet. Let me show you. I want you to feel me, baby brother.”

A whisper, the barest edges of a voice, almost lost in the distant howling winds that Ingo had all but forgotten. The softest please.

“Dearest,” Ingo crooned, placing a kiss against that flushed skin that was now so warm and soft. He spoke to both of him, shifting a leg only far enough away to provide a perch. Sayoko was there in a flash, Ingo wasting not even a second as his fingers dug through warm feathers, angelic and soft. He didn’t dare let go of Emmet, his shaking baby brother who was crying and gasping, but he moved enough to bring Sayoko closer. He moved enough to wrap an arm around her, clutching onto her feathers and placing a kiss between her eyes. “Oh dearest,” he whispered softly, just for her. “How we missed you.”

More, Ingo decided. He needed to give them more. Releasing angelic feathers and moving his hand away, Ingo shushed Emmet quickly at the sob that left him. “Just a moment, my love, just a second sweet thing, my dearest star, hold on just a moment.”

Even as he soothed his sweet baby brother down, Ingo was quick to rip off his own shirt and tunic, uncaring for once if anything teared, simply throwing it away before ushering Sayoko closer, letting the sweet thing hop and flap until her talons were braced on his shoulders, her body limp and melting against him, wings touching as much of his skin as she could. So much like her human, he mused.

As soon as she had pressed against him, Emmet had gone just as limp and melting, panting sharply and caught between him and his darling Jayla. “Do you see, baby brother?” Ingo asked, groaning softly at the emotions that flowed through them both, caught and lost equally between breathless purrs and melodic trills. “How much we missed you two? How much we wanted you back.”

He knew what Emmet would feel. He would feel his big brother’s obsession with him, that possessive, protective urge that made him want to lock Emmet away until the world could never find him again. Until he was Ingo’s and only Ingo’s. He knew by the way Jayla had pressed closer, teeth pressed around his neck like she so often did with Sakoyo, this time sharp enough to draw pinpricks of blood. He knew Emmet felt every part of those dark, hungry urges as he gasped and cried out, squirming between them and looking up at Ingo with an expression that was already wrecked. It was wrecked, but it was euphoric, filled with awe and want and the same consuming hunger.

He felt talons dig into his shoulder, piercing the skin and gripping to where it felt like he would never get away — as if he wanted to. The pain was nothing compared to the euphoria that was given to him. He never wanted to leave this spot.

“You found me, baby brother,” Ingo chuckled, hands returning to sliding across warm, flushed skin that now carried a sheen of sweat. He wanted. He wanted. He kissed lightly at the back of Emmet’s shoulder, holding him still as Jayla’s teeth dug in more, pulling out a wailing cry. “And now I won’t let you go.”

He was going to devour.

#blankshipping #blanktember #blanktember day 22 #i had a lot of fun with this when i first wrote it #showed it to silver eons ago and they also enjoyed it so hoping yall will too

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tamelee · 10 months

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Hii, when are you uploading your next art? It's been like ages lol. Also how's your progress on manga going? And can you suggest some other artists you know, artists like you? Since you also started from 0 followers at some point and your progress on your art is also very inspiring and i guess you know many different artists. I'm searching for inspiration and looking for some Low key artists from other fandoms. I'm slowing trying to improve on my digital painting skills. Still at level 1. Who do you look up to for your inspiration? Sorry, this became a pretty big ask hehe.

Hi~ 💕

Ages? Yeah, ... a little over a month now. I know that because I keep track on it. I pretty much keep track on most things. I do this thing where I plan a few weeks ahead and it is supposed to make sure I have more time left because of the planning but it doesn't account for roadblocks such as wrist pain, technical issues with tablets etc-, mental states, stress, health declines or others. So.. I haven't uploaded anything in a while but I never stopped creating ^^! In fact, I'm learning every single day so that I can create more, "better" (subjective) and build a skill-set that will help me be able to make what I want. I felt like I was making art aimlessly, but having a goal helps. Though, by chance, since you're wondering- this week for sure!

And within that planning is of course the Manga! The process is a lot of fun, but also there is science behind Storytelling and I'm using what I know and learning during my graduation process as well in order to create it. That's why I didn't start drawing until I am completely happy with the story (...and now don't mind so much that my previous draft got lost even thought that was so painful lol). I was so ignorant about it though, thinking I could just... create a Manga. Like c'mon. I knew so much time and dedication went into it and yet I thought I could just... do it 😆 but also, it is this dedication that made me able to do most crazy things in life so why not. If I'm going to spend idk how many hours on this then it better matter to me. I don't want Naruto and Sasuke to just drown in some plot, I want them to actively pursue something they care about and struggle, have dark moments and conflicts... heh.

When I first started drawing.. surprisingly I didn't have that many inspirations. I had no clue what I was doing and so what inspired me was the little art-community around me on Instagram because our goals were similar. My goal to finish Inktober, a wish to "someday create a webtoon" and seeing artists around me upload their art was what inspired me. Then, talking about art, each other's uploads, our obsessions- it was all a lot of fun and helped me improve and so did they! Of course you don't have to go there, you can find artists at any stage of their journey anywhere but really try to find artists and art that you like because your style will grow from that and eventually become your own.

I guess a few artists really stood out to me then, but they're literal gods and nothing like me 🥹..they're; wlop, Z ed, Ruan Jia, Zeen Chin, Guweiz and Dao Tong Le. I had a splash art phase where I fangirl'd (still do) so hard over Bo Chen, Sean Tay, Alex Flores, Cheng Du (crow god), Foritis Wang, but there's also Paul Nong, Ley Bowen, Inhyuk Lee... and for storytelling art there's Kan Liu which art I love and Toni Infante and ooooh Astri Lohne's brushwork is amazing as well. Song Nan Li has a few artworks that I've stared at for days and would love to study someday. Jaz Chiang too. Krenz Cushart has a course that I want to purchase because those colors are sublime... and oh, I'm probably forgetting SO MANY right now but I could go on forever tbh. Lemme talk about artists and their art and I won't be able to stop. There have been many Instagram artists that I've followed but I'm not currently active on there until I graduate so I don't really remember but if you're looking for Twitter/SNS/Naruto specifically then you can look through my following-list or my reblog account here @re-tamelee. Nsfw-warning on Twitter (@ tam_e_lee) though. I think currently a few that inspire me regarding story/expression are helenpeanut, velinxi, Kishimoto, Ramón Nuñez, Moryo, Ryo Yambe, Rias Coast, Yusuke Matsumoto, Bengal, Hong Soonsang, Horikoshi- and still a few others... I'm not sure what you mean by 'low-key' or if this is not what you're looking for but I hope you can find some inspiration from this post and have fun looking at these amazing artists' art! ^^ Thankyou for your lovely ask, have a nice day 🌷 Happy drawing!

#asktamelee #art ref #personal

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tbb-appreciation-week · 1 year

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Now that the prompts have been revealed, I thought of answering some questions some of you might find helpful about the event.

Please make sure to read the Event Info carefully first, as most of your questions will be answered there already. For everything else, check out the F.A.Q under the cut.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is [fill the blank] allowed?

When in doubt:

And how about…?

Yes, that, too. Give total freedom to your creativity, and don't worry about whether it's allowed or not. Most things are okay, barring anything inciting or glorifying harassment, hatred, or discrimination of any kind.

Do I have to post for all 7 days?

Participate as much or little as you like! Just be sure to tag your posts properly (e.g., #tbbaw2023 #dayX #character #warnings #prompts #medium #more tags). There are no repercussions if you don’t fill prompts for each day.

Can I post early/late?

You could, but I wouldn’t recommend posting early. Since this is an Appreciation Week event, it'd be more fun with everyone doing it at the same time. That being said, I’ll start reblogging works on September 2nd (thinking on the folks living on the other side of the world from me. You know, time zones and all that), but nothing earlier than that.

As for posting late, yes, that's totally fine; I understand that real life gets in the way sometimes. The only thing I ask is that you tag the for the day you should've posted on, not the day you're actually doing it. Example, if you missed Day 2 and are posting it on the Day 4, your tags must include #Day 2, NOT Day 4.

So, when should I start posting?

According to your time zone, during the day at the most convenient time for you, starting on September 3rd till the 9th. If you're super eager and can't wait, post when the clock hits midnight every day. Or if you're late, 11:59pm still counts as on time! 🤣

Will you reblog my post?

I'll do my best to reblog everyone's posts during the week. If it passes more than 2-3 days and I haven't reblogged your post, please let me know. If you tag your post properly and mention this blog, it’s less likely that I'll miss it.

However, I'm thinking that I might queue posts, so I don't drop them in bulk. If I do that, look for a like from @intrepidmare (my main blog), if you have it, that means I saw it and put it on the queue and eventually will be reblogged.

What if I don’t understand how to choose a prompt to work with?

Send me an ask! I'm happy to clarify it for you. But remember, the prompts are entirely up for interpretation. Don’t take them too literally. Prompts are suggestions, not mandates.

What kind of content can I make? Can it be NSFW?

Yes, that’s why NSFW prompts are included among the others for each day. And if you use the other safer prompts and turn it into something NSFW, that's okay too. In any case, you should tag your work accordingly, so that others participating in the event can curate their experience and be safe. HERE is a non-comprehensive list of tags you should use if they apply to your work.

Can I combine TBBAW prompts with other creation challenges?

Absolutely! If you have a bingo card to fill or another event to complete, go for it. That’s like shooting two mynocks with one bolt, using one of Crosshair's reflective disks!

Can I upload/repost my TBBAW content to other social media platforms?

Of course! You can post your own content wherever you like. Additionally, I’ve created an AO3 Collection to archive any work posted there. It can be accessed here.

If any of the prompts fits well for an existing fic/art I am currently working on, can I use it?

If you are actively working on this fic/art at the moment with the Appreciation Week prompts in mind, yes. In the case of using a work retroactively (meaning: already published and complete), then please, don’t. You can, however, add new chapters/pages/panels using one or more of the prompts.

For Day 7, what kind of characters can I create for?

You can create anything for canon characters that have made an appearance in the show or Original characters that interact with the Batch in your own universe/fic. Or simply do something for your favorite Batcher again.

If I’m not comfortable with this or that day’s prompts, can I use a prompt from a different day as a substitute and still count?

No, you can’t exchange prompts from different days (as in exchanging Day 3 prompts for Day 5 prompts). However, you come up with your own prompt, having the character of the day in mind. Also, there's also a short list of jokers/alternatives that you can use only one time each to replace any of the main prompts. There are 3 jokers in total (2 SFW + 1 NSFW), so that means you can replace up to 3 of the other prompts.

Where can I post my work?

Post where and how you want. You don’t have to cross-post it to Tumblr. Just keep in mind, if it’s not on Tumblr, I won't be able to add it to the blog archive. You can post a just link to anywhere else you've posted if you don't want to put the entire work in your blog.

Do I have to finish a fic I started? Can I post a work in progress?

Yes, you can post WIPs. And you’re not obligated to finish it. It'd make me happy that this event prompt you to create something longer. Let's appreciate the Bad Batch all year around!

Is co-creating allowed?

Yes, absolutely! Encouraged, even. Not just the usual writer-artist or co-writing collaborations, also any kind of medium combos: fic-podfic, fic-playlist, art-art, etc.

Do I have to create 7 standalone pieces, or can I make one continuous story?

Do whatever you want. One continuous story is fine. The challenge is to create something for 7 prompts. If that’s spread over 7 fics/art pieces/etc. or just one with 7 chapters/panels/parts, it's up to you.

Is there a min/max limit on word count?

None. If you want to write a 100-word drabble or a 50k fic or anything in between for each day, it's all up to you. You're the only one who knows how much time you can dedicate to it and how high/low your level of inspiration/energy is. You can even write a snippet for a fic you'll write later when you have the time/energy. Remember that this is lay-back-type of an event. Do as little or much as you want/can.

Can I combine prompts? Is there a limit on how many?

No limit, and you can combine as many prompts for a specific day as you like. If you want to use them all, do it.

If you want to use all the prompts individually, there's also the option to create several pieces for a single day. It depends on you, your time, and your motivation. This counts too if you do works in different mediums, e.g., write a fic and do art for it (or for a different prompt).

Can I start working on the prompts before September 3rd?

Of course! That’s the idea of posting the prompts so early. I know how difficult it can be to create something in “real time”, without mentioning real life complications, so feel free to start creating as soon as now!! You'll have over 3 months to work on your pieces.

How do I tag triggers?

Just tag the word/phrase, e.g., blood; main character death. (DO NOT add "tw" either at the beginning or the end. That makes it harder for readers to block the right tags). Here it's the list of the most common warning tags you should use when appropriate.

Also it would be prudent to add warnings in the body of the post, giving the readers another layer of protection before they do the actual reading.

Do I have to use your tags guidelines?

I'd appreciate it if you did. If you follow the guide I gave you in the tags post here, it'd make it easier for me to keep track of who posted on a determined day, and for anyone else to find and/or avoid the content of a specific tag.

Can we @ you?

Yes, please DO! I think it's the safest way for me not to miss your posts. I'll also be following the #tbbaw2023 tag, just for good measure.

Is there anything we are absolutely not allowed to write?

As I said before, anything goes, EXCEPT anything inciting or glorifying harassment, hatred, and discrimination of any kind against anything or anyone. THAT WON'T BE TOLERATED. For anything else, please make sure to properly tag your trigger warnings. And keep in mind Tumblr’s policies if you are posting it here (or the policies for whatever other site you use).

Can I cross post on other blogs?

Yes, sure. That's fine. You can also post different works to different accounts under different names, without posting them everywhere at once.

If you got another question that you didn't find the answer to here, please, send an ask through the inbox, and I'll do my best to clarify your doubts.

Thanks for reading, and happy creating!

#tbb appreciation week #tbb appreciation week 2023 #tbbaw2023 #tbbaw faq #faq post

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