Off to the meat packing factory...
First real blog post! It feels so good to have a website now, hee hee... Big thanks to Lily (girlfriend) for slaving away over this thing! I couldn't have asked for a prettier website.
Today (August 15th) is a very important day. I fly out to New York and will be in New York for a significant portion of time. I'll be living with completely new people, and commuting in a completely new city. I'm so stressed out that my stomach aches, and I already miss my friends and family, but I'm so excited that nothing feels painful.
In less bittersweet news, my Toxic Yuri Jam entry "Offsuit Pair" reached 400 downloads! I'm amazed that so many people really liked my work. I really have to thank my work partner Hamaonoverdrive for being not only insanely talented with Ren'py and pulling off the insane feat of implementing a poker minigame, but also putting up with my ridiculous tendency to do all of my work in a single night. For my own work, this is the first time I've really written something original. Until this point, my writing experience has been exclusively fanfiction (see: April 18st) and very much casual. Writing has never been something I was very confident in, since I have a lot of trouble commanding words to express what exactly I want them to say. Expressing the story with enough subtlety and across 5 whole routes was insanely challenging (though I'd happily do it again). My biggest regret is not challenging myself to do more art for the game. I think some of the scenes deserved some CGs, and I would've liked to draw all the backgrounds too so that the style was more consistent throughout. However, this game is 100% finished and published! No take backsies! I'm satisfied in the work I've put out.
Now, what comes after? I already started on another project, believe it or not. On one sidequest, I'm working again with the April 18st team to do a more serious, bonafide Video Game (the kind you have to fork some money over for). It's going to be a very taxing project, so don't expect any real news about it for at least half a year, but I'm happy to be working. On a smaller scale, I've done a little bit of drafting for another, single route original VN. I'm still wishy-washy about how it's going to play out, exactly, but it's more writing practice than anything. Since it's just gonna be me and my girlfriend on it for probably 0 dollars I'm inclined to be a little more loose-lipped about it.
Absolutely no one cares about this, but I'm very very excited for Marty Supreme & The Smashing Machine. I haven't really watched anything by the Safdie brothers, so I'll ironically be experiencing their work for the first time as a separate empty rather than as dual credits. I'm usually not one to watch biopics, but recently I've gotten a bit obsessed with them. I'm not sure why, but I'll blame it on Amadeus, since that movie really changed my brain chemistry. On the side of The Smashing Machine, the cinematography is very appealing, and I'm interested to see The Rock play a more serious role. Of the wrestler-turned-actors bunch, he's been the weakest link to me for a while, so I'm expecting this to be a sort of redemption arc. Besides, professional fighting is one of the most interesting things you can make a movie for, so it'll be fun regardless. Now, on the side of Marty Supreme... If you know me at all, you'll know I have a fatal case of "Chalamania" (or gender dysphoria. could be both) that doesn't seem to be coming down any time soon. Timmy could literally be a tree in a school play and I'd still book tickets. Luckily, Marty Supreme seems far more well produced than a middle school production of "The Wizard of Oz." What we've seen from the styling and design of this movie is to die for and completely within my tastes. I'm still kind of put off by Gwenyth Paltrow, mostly because of the whole GOOP business, but I still like Tom Cruise and he's literally in Scientology. I'll get over it quickly if she delivers a good performance, which I'm sure she will.
Final notes on this little ramble of a blog post-- I'm still halfway through Children of Dune... I needed to be done with this crazy thing MONTHS AGO. I have no idea how I blitzed through Dune & Dune Messiah in a matter of days... Maybe it's because those books had comparatively much more Paul Atreides. Not to say I dislike CoD, but I'm just not as attached to Leto and Ghanima yet... and I feel too sad about everything happening to Alia to get a good drama kick out of it. Well, hopefully I'll finish it by the next blog post.
Thank you for reading! Expect another one of these in a month or so.