This is gonna be the thread where we talk about stuff

I WAS OVERCHARGED THIS IS YOUR FAULT ED

Hey, at least you were not a next-to-enslaved worker on an iPhone factory in China, which is what I got from your first post!

Woah there was a shooting in new york in front of the empire state building. Several wounded, two dead (including shooter). With all these shootings happening in the last year MAYBE OUR GOVERNMENT SHOULD START FOCUSING ON THE WHOLE GUN CONTROL PROBLEM.

Woah there was a shooting in new york in front of the empire state building. Several wounded, two dead (including shooter). With all these shootings happening in the last year MAYBE OUR GOVERNMENT SHOULD START FOCUSING ON THE WHOLE GUN CONTROL PROBLEM.

I'm more concerned with why Ed hasn't made my cellular phone service an uninterrupted immaculate connection of bars, and why I'm still having to pay money for it.

I am equally concerned with the fact that the economy has prevented me from purchasing a xbox/ps3 combo. I have neither and I want both and it is my right to have them.

Also I fear that homosexuals will take away my right to not let them marry. Lets talk about that instead. These are the pertinent issues.

Ahhh stop torturing me i'll prolly have to get a similar job soon ;_;

MAYBE OUR GOVERNMENT SHOULD START FOCUSING ON THE WHOLE GUN CONTROL PROBLEM.

YOU DON'T FUCKING SAY

Ed, a number like that doesn't even register with me. It's like. A bunch of people. boo drugs.

the onion hits it

It's very depressing to re-read that last story.

At this point i just feel a strong pessimism about the whole thing.

Did i ever tell you guys that a 15-16 year old kid pointed a gun at me once? Sigh.

Mexico makes me sad.

Is it normal to feel like you are the only person on tumblr who actually produces original content and doesn't just feverishly reblog things.

That is the worst feature.

I joined the website to follow artists I admire and ended up doing my own stuff on it, and the majority of pages I have seen are all nothing but reblogs. So many reblogs it is a mystery as to how the content got there in the first place. It has always been there and always will be. Only visual artists seem to actually post their own work. Nobody seems to use it as a blog. Everyone else is a would-be tastemaker. Nevermind the fact that you can just like things you like and have that be easily browsable. Or that that is what sites like Pinterest are actually for. No. Regurgitate everything you see.

I am bothered by this. Not more than Mexico's problems, but I am bothered with how my generation treats technology. Everything is so frivolous, disposable and valueless. It doesn't matter what you tweeted yesterday because you can just make a new banal observation to clog up the internet today. Everyone has arbitrarily reduced themselves to blindly parroting or truncating complex thoughts and emotions into a few sentences. Social networking is slowly eroding our ability to communicate meaningfully. NOBODY EXPRESSES THEMSELVES ANYMORE

WHERE IS IT GOING TO END

WHERE

DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT, RATE AND SUBSCRIBE ON THIS POST

also drug cartels those are pretty shitty too

~btp reblogged this post

Actually some people I know keep separate blogs for their purposeful art and for reblogs and silly things. In fact, I do too.
I don't post a whole lot either way though.

There was a time when i used to wonder the same thing as you, Supe. But i've come to tolerate and understand that shallow urge of regurgitating junk and generate as much white noise as possible, because you can simply choose not to follow them and it makes me appreciate the few people that produce original content even more.

I like to think of this as extroversion and introversion in people, extroverted people like sharing every single detail of their lives, make as many new friends as possible and enjoy human interaction a lot, whereas introverted people like to share their thoughts with a selected group of friends, embrace solitude and reflection and care deeply about meaningful art.

There's nothing wrong with either of those, people are just different from one another.

Did you guys know that dex is running a forum now? That's all about the Daros universe?!
I feel like I should have known about this.. am I the only one?
EDIT:

SpoilerShow

Oh, okay I think I get it now. He has his own site where he posts multiple adventures and stuff, so he got his own forum for suggestions and things to keep it all in one place.
but wait that can't be right. I don't see even one suggestion box in that forum... I'm so confused.
..okay.. the forums aren't for suggestions. they're just a spin off of his site.. yeah that makes sense.. sorry for rambling. needed to get my thoughts straight.

I knew about it, I just don't so much like the feeling that I'm always walking on eggshells when I interact with the guy and that's going to happen even more often if I follow him away from the spaces he just happened to cohabit with me.
Also I'm just not generally a fan of Flash art, Lankie can pull it off but I don't know a lot of others done in that style that I appreciate that much.

He seems to have stopped updating the thing that was his main project last time I gave the place a look too, shame.

Dex is certainly an oddity to say the least. I get the feeling he was expecting to get super famous styles real quick, and when that didn't happen he gave up on his projects.

Lankie can pull it off

Much obliged, good sir.

Talking about people who aren't here, my favourite topic!

I've never been a fan of 'universes', they're so full of complicated rules and junk that i simply don't care about, i'd rather have humble characters that could fit into any situation.

Talking about people who aren't here, my favourite topic!

I've never been a fan of 'universes', they're so full of complicated rules and junk that i simply don't care about, i'd rather have humble characters that could fit into any situation.

If you hate The Universe then you can just GEEEEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTT OUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTT

While I was trying to fall asleep last night, I had a sort of tiny revelation.
I really like weird games like Rayman and Lyle in Cube Sector, and I kinda wish I could make a cast/setting as weird as those games. Wasn't too sure on what separated those kinda games from less weird ones that are still in the same sort of fantasy genre...
I think it at least partially depends on how much is explained.
Lyle in Cube Sector's "plot" is "Your cat was stolen, go explore this weird place to get it back". The setting is in this Cube Sector, which in some areas is a futuristic alien labyrinth, and in some areas what seems to be an abandoned neighborhood. There's no explanation for why the landscape changes so often and so abruptly, it's just the Cube Sector. And it's great.
Meanwhile, I haven't talked too much about this, but I reaaaalllly overthink everything about my stories. I kind of have answers for everything about ADR that anyone might ask questions about. Same for LuRoLoRu, which doesn't even exist yet and probably never will

Universes are... a bit grandiose for sure, but it is kinda fun to cultivate a setting, even if you never end up using it. I know I've thought more about the settings of my abandoned adventures since I last updated them than I ever did while I was working on them. This is because overthinking something is the blight of getting that thing done and I hate it but I can't stop and

uh

I'm not sure where I was going with that (nor do I know where I'm going with this next thing.)

I think part of the reason Cube Sector and Rayman work so well is that any explanation for these things that isn't "it just is" is going to end up with something unsatisfying. "Oh well you know 10,000 years ago there was uh, an ancient civilization that lived in gigantic, flying instruments because. They were like. Music or something? So yeah and that's why band land." If you try to come up with explanations for everything you might get too bogged down in cohesiveness that all your varied environments become samey because that's what the plot dictates. It becomes, you know, a Universe.

I don't think I ever got past Band Land. Rayman was fuckin' hard.

I love universes! Worldbuilding is a pleasure of mine to do...it does leave me with weaker characters, I think, but it's just not possible for me to make a character that doesn't have a backstory. And a backstory needs a setting. That setting will have conventions that allow the character to act the way they do or be able to shoot rainbows out their butt or swim through lava. By themselves, this wouldn't be a problem but I am /just too fond/ of the 'AND THIS UNIVERSE IS ACTUALLY THE SAME UNIVERSE AS THAT UNIVERSE!' Plus, I like a unified universe with possible interactions between my characters. I'd say I haaaave about three running universes at the moment? There's the universe that Ashley, Grace and Sam are from, which is actually the same universe that Aaron comes from but a different sectiony thing. Rachel might be from that universe as well.

Wait. I just have one running universe, then.

Oops.

I swing both ways. Sometimes I just make a character, think "bugger it their universe is close enough to ours to be relate-able, or it's "ours but with this one thing different" that explains away a few things. Bar a few kooky exceptions which I will abashedly admit are very much exercises in "world"building, I mostly stick to pretty standard stuff. "Fantasy", "Our universe but there are things alive on other planets," aaand that's probably about it for me.

When I do end up worldbuilding, it tends to be talking about a bunch of little specifics that aim to have some cohesion, rather than trying to figure out big picture stuff like nations and politics between them and governing systems and whatever else. I mean, sometimes that's interesting, but I prefer telling an actual story somehow as I go - which is why I have half a dozen ideas at any one point for assorted creation myths.

I am neither particularly versed in world or character building. I often focus on plot-building, to the detriment of my stories. Though a friend of mine has been very helpful in terms of encouraging me to focus more on my characters. The more I expose myself to these extravagant stories, or even simple stories in general, the more I find that the characters are what draw the people into the world, not the other way around.

World building and plot building are super fun of course, and its easy to make characters come out of them, but they won't get people into your story.

And Ed, I love what you said about creating "humble characters", when I look at your stories I really see how that characterizes much of your art.

I mean, come on, a hopeful cyclops waitress who is working part time with dreams of making it big as a translator? I dunno I just feel like your characters are loveable.

I am neither particularly versed in world or character building. I often focus on plot-building, to the detriment of my stories. Though a friend of mine has been very helpful in terms of encouraging me to focus more on my characters. The more I expose myself to these extravagant stories, or even simple stories in general, the more I find that the characters are what draw the people into the world, not the other way around.

I think universe and setting are different things, like you're saying here, universes feel like the characters are just there to advance the plot and develop the universe's rules and all that. A setting is the place or world where the characters develop themselves and have their adventures. For me, a story where the universe has priority over the characters feels cold, shallow and flat, whereas character driven stories are easier to relate to and have that "soul factor".

I wasn't talking about that kind of humble, bob. I meant humble as in simple, free-of-pretensions humble. The opposite of a Mary Sue, i guess.

Thanks for calling my characters loveable, though.

i have allergies to small particulates

it is coming into spring

my brain is permanently liquid

I hate spring. Hate spring almost as much as I hate summer.
Which is why I'm glad it's almost AUTUMN B)