Hi, I'm QU! I'm an animator cat who goes to animator school, and I live on the internet and also in California. I'm Brazilian and I never shut up about it. I also never shut up about cartoons, history, and whatever fandom I'm into at the time. I like to play videogames and write academic essays about memes. You can check out my arts on my art tag, or visit one of my art blogs: Fanart blog Traditional/sketches Digital art Youtube This isn't an art blog but you should check it out anyway! Latin@ representation blog Also, I'm a cancer survivor with a lot of brain problems. I usually tag my venting posts as "bad cancer feels".
In 2026, the chicest thing a gay actor can do is never explicitly come out as gay but also make it abundantly clear that he is. Coming out is too modern. Staying closeted is too old fashioned. But this method merges contemporary freedom with Old Hollywood glamour and allure, and it weeds out the dumbest people who truly don’t get it. I call it the Pascal Method.
You clearly don't go here or to queer history and signaling, or both, enough to have this conversation and I'm not going to explain it to you. You could have asked questions, you could have done even a modicum of research. You didn't and you made yourself look ignorant. Goodbye.
#I'm fucking crying#this is an instant classic#this is the next meme#i can't believe I'm here to see a baby copypasta nary two hours old#I can't#lol#i laughed way too hard#iconic
I went over Episode 2's development progress in a recent devlog, and there will be a bugfix patch for Episode 1 soon. But the biggest event from this past month was participating in FanimeCon 2026's Indie Games Showcase.
This was my first time tabling after actually releasing Episode 1, and it was a really fun and valuable experience! Thus, it merits a bigger write-up than the short-and-sweet photo dump from last week.
More below the cut!
Highlights included:
Being able to say "Episode 1 is out!" when people ask about a release timeline.*
Learning that my table neighbor, Gii, was in the same Homestuck fanclub as me at university over a decade ago?!
Meeting my audience face-to-face & talking to fellow big brain mystery VN fans!
Meeting fellow developers and, for the first time, being put in the very unfamiliar position of being asked for advice about finishing a project.**
Running out of business cards??
Seeing new people engage with my story & art.
Checking out other really cool games!
REALLY lovely entries & fanart in the Amadeus Guest Book!!!
On a personal note? Cosplaying and attending a convention for the first time in... 6-ish years.
In terms of metrics, it wasn't a very big "success," but it was very rewarding and I'd happily go back again. I know that a lot of my audience is willing to wait as long as it takes for all 5 episodes to drop before binge-ing the whole mystery, so it's really on me to finish more of that mystery before expecting bigger numbers. Conventions like this are a great motivation boost on the way there.
I will acknowledge some factors that made those metrics not huge, in case other indie devs want to use this as a reference:
I didn't really have a call-to-action. I was just there to show off my game. I sat back, let interested parties play, and encouraged them to take a business card and/or buy Episode 1 if they liked it.
I think that led to some confusion, as some people thought the demo I was tabling was the entirety of Episode 1. I had to clarify verbally that Episode 1 is 1-2 hours long and this was just the first part of it. Might need to clearly state that in signage...
I didn't offer any special incentive for people who attended in-person to buy the full game. No timed Steam sale, no keys to sell at a discount (although we were barred from doing that anyway), etc. If I wanted to push for Number Go Up I probably should've had an incentive. People want to feel rewarded; otherwise, there's no reason to not just wishlist and wait for a later sale on Steam!
At the end of the day, some people—myself included if I were my own audience—want to wait and binge a complete mystery. So I didn't really push hard for sales, knowing that some people are interested, but also happy to wait for Episode 5 to drop first.
I'm currently in a pretty interesting position, as someone trying to both sell a finished game and also build interest for an ongoing in-development game. None of the traditional "indie game marketing" advice fits perfectly, so I'm learning as I go. Pushing for wishlists pre-launch works for people who are waiting on Episode 2 after playing Episode 1; but for the audience who has played neither, what "funnel" makes the most sense for them? I'm figuring that out.
Most importantly, though, is gauging whether these tabling experiences are fun and rewarding... because as a solo developer, motivation is the most important thing!! And this was fun, so I'd happily come back next year. Since my game's audience is very small and the numbers are humble to begin with, seeing those "numbers" in person connecting with my work was a massive confidence boost.
Anyway, if you weren't at the convention, here are some other games that were tabling there that I'd like to shout out!
Impossible Cave—whoops, this game wasn't actually tabling at Fanime, but rather is being developed by my own tabling assistant S1x. Some of my music is in the game, too! If you're into indie roguelikes and games made by evil developers who want to end your run, definitely check it out.
Sugarplum Cafe—this game is PEAK cozy. The character designs are gorgeous and themed after the cute café snacks you make in the game. It's an aesthetic joy, entirely crafted and designed by one person, Gii. Join her mailing list to know when there's more news coming!
So, This Vampire Walks Into A Bar—the humor reminds me of Ace Attorney but if Ace Attorney was about you being a really bad (or possibly really good) bartender to werewolves and vampires and such. I've been excited about this game since we were table neighbors at MAGWest 2024, and they're looking to release in August! It's an all-female dev team, definitely take a look at what they're serving up here.
Backtrace: Mechanisms for Forgetting—YURI PUZZLE GAME THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I got the chance to speak with the developer on the last day and I am so here for what she's cooking. It sounds like there should be a public demo coming to the Steam page soon, and I highly encourage giving it a play when it drops because the puzzles and presentation were delightful.
Frog Fall—this game doesn't have a store page up just yet, but I was absolutely entranced by the visual style (it's really stunning, the current proof-of-concept demo on this website has definitely been iterated on a LOT). I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for more news on this one.
Price of Flight—this game's visual presentation is just delightful. They had a CRT at their booth, which is always an easy way to win me over. I really can't put it any better than they do: it's the "bird-based bloodsport of the future."
Heck, here's the whole list! There were so many fun games, please give them all a look through and support the ones that seem up your alley.
Again, huge and massive thank-you to everyone who stopped by the booth at Fanime. And of course, huge and massive thank-you to everyone who has expressed interest or support for Amadeus via any other avenues.
Back to development!
*I am more aware than anyone else in the universe that "Episodes 2-5 are not out, though" is an enormous asterisk here. Still, being able to prove that I have shipped a game is huge. I think with each subsequent episode I finish, more and more people will have faith that I will see the whole thing through.
**It turns out that I needed this conversation for myself, too. Remembering how I structured and scoped things to actually keep myself accountable and finish has helped me re-apply those tools to development of Episode 2. Thank you to everyone who asked me questions about my process!
You should take some time to read @3liza's post documenting the Phantom Report Bug (which she deserves praise for doing, thank you eliza) and see how fucking broken Tumblr's report tool is.
I also want to reiterate something she is once again correct about: no one files bug reports. I have first hand experience working at Tumblr and I remember having to tell web devs on Staff "i saw a post about someone talking about a bug" and they were unaware because no one followed through to file a bug. I have fixed bugs that I saw people posting about that were in my domain (I'm a mobile dev) but were not in the system.
No this is not an endorsement of "complain about it enough and eventually someone will see it", this is an endorsement of "file a bug report directly to computer companies and people will most likely read it and probably fix it". I mean it this is not a Tumblr-only thing. I've seen this at every company I've worked for. Just fucking file a bug report please I beg you, software gets complicated and the devs are just unaware that there's a bug until you bring it to your attention. And they want to fix the bug! I promise!
WHAT AM I ALWAYS SAYING TO YOU PEOPLE. COMPLAINING GETS THE GOODS. YOURE NOT ALLOWED TO GET MAD UNTIL YOUVE COMPLAINED ABOUT THE PROBLEM TO SOMEONE WHOSE JOB IT IS TO FIX IT
"Racialised" is much better than PoC but I've been leaning a lot on the concept of racial markedness. Because that allows us to make statements like "the name Jamal is racially marked in USA". Rather than saying something like "Jamal is a PoC name", a nonsense statement, saying it's racially marked in USA allows us to contrast with societies like Albania or the Arab countries where the name Jamal is ordinary, thus unmarked.
It's a concept I've kind of imported from linguistic analysis; saying a speech pattern is more or less marked does not really allow us to avoid the subject of who's doing the marking. A statement like "womens' speech is more marked in Lakota" necessitates that we understand that it's the Lakota who are marking womens' speech. A foreigner can't tell the difference and probably doesn't understand why it would thus be weird to see a man using speech patterns associated with women, in the same way an Albanian wouldn't understand why USA people would think Jamal is a Black name.
You! You get it. In my view, if someone is saying "racialised" or "racially marked" without acknowledgement of context, they are doing it in a way that is gramatically incorrect.
[Start ID: tumblr tags that read "#ohhh fuck that's a really good way of lookking at it #it forces the relative nature of it all to the forefront #it *makes* the listener pay attention to the fact that their context isn't THE context #and removes the assumption of Default]
ok sorry to double reblog BUT I just looked him up and he does these fantastic videos where he breaks down HOW he actually mimics the other artists’ styles. Like for ed Sheeran, he explains how he brings his voice forward in the mouth, while Adam Levine sings in the back of the mouth, stuff like that. It’s SO COOL, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone actually break down how to do this sort of thing, as a skill, instead of just treating it like a neat trick they just happen to be good at.
https://www.tiktok.com/@justinjmooremusic
happy pride month from sápmi! ❤️💚💛💙 I want to show you the sámi pride flag, it’s a rainbow version of the sámi flag (bottom left picture) and I think it’s really beautiful
This disrespects the characters, the story, the author, the entire point of the book, and every single trans Discworld fan.
Context, for my non Discworld followers: Monstrous Regiment is a book which plays with the trope of "girl dresses as not to join the army", in which the protagonist slowly realises she's not the only one; all the other new recruits of her squad are similarly disguising themselves. Shenanigans ensue, and at the end of the book it's revealed a lot of the military higher ups are actually women with a facade of maleness, putting on the part so they can do their duty.
Sergeant Jackrum is also one of the people who ran away as a girl to join the army, but unlike the others he doesn't wear a facade. It's entirely himself. He is canonically a trans man. He doesn't want to leave the military and return to civilian life, cos he doesn't want to re enter the closet and live as a woman, and his squad's like oi mate you're literally sergeant fuckin Jackrum, there ain't a kid in this kingdom who hasn't heard of you in all your decades of service. Return to the family you left behind, the kid you birthed doesn't need to know you're trans, you can just say you're the guy who fathered that kid. Go be a grandpa and be happy.
To misgender him in any way is spitting in the face of the author, fans, and story. It's upsetting.
I also noted when I listened to the most recent Monstrous Regiment audiobook that they used the misgendering version for the recording.
I just did some quick research, though, and it looks like they may have gone back and fixed it? I'll have to listen to the audiobook again to see if that is indeed the case.
EDIT: Nope, still the wrong pronouns. However, in my search I also came across something interesting: there's two versions up on Audible. One released 2/23/23, published by Transworld Digital and one released 9/25/23, published by Harper. Both exactly the same length, both with the same narrator/cast. The Harper edition is the one that I have. But I think, the Transworld Digital one is the correct one.
Simply because I had to use address trickery to purchase Nightwatch's audiobook back in 2023, and it, too, was published by Transworld Digital. I think I'm going to spend a little extra money soon and buy that version and see if it's correct.
EDIT 2: Yep. Transworld Digital does not misgender Jackrum, but you have to spoof the address to make Audible think you're living in the UK to buy it.
Okay, but the runs in her stockings! She starts out with beautiful, clearly new stockings, and then over the course of the video they get shredded, then there's a close up on a scrape on her leg that looks like it's from a wire - oh there's themes there!
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