FINALLY I can announce my one-shot comic Missed Connection :)
Comrades, in Neo Sarajevo you have a right to leisure. But when a group of friends meets at a goth club MORG to relax, the topic of work keeps coming up. Should KDP and Varya just ignore it when the Internet they work with gets stricken with more censorship?
You can read it at my own lovingly hand-crafted website or comicfury. Updates every Friday :) so starting TOMORROW!
My 3$+ patrons can also access the whole thing on my Patreon.
A bit longer synopsis posted on both websites:
Neo Sarajevo, X975. A group of friends meets at MORG: the Party-controlled Palace of Culture during the day and a goth club somehow surviving the censorship by night. Real world censorship is inescapable even on the Internet despite it still feeling new and exciting to many. Varya and KDP belong to the generation of young professionals moving such technology forward but there’s a feeling in the air that the Internet's initial idea to connect people is getting more out of reach.
remember jesset city? hey remember that guy? remember jesset city and kalvin brnine? do you remember them? remember the 2023/2024 bresset suicide olympics
"You're drunk, and this is a party, and when we die, people will remember the good things that we did."
transcript by robotchangeling below the cut!
Ali: I would like to text Jesset the face_with_spiral_eyes. [Keith chuckles] Face with spiral eyes.
Austin: Oh, damn. Right, the like, you're—
Keith: That’s actually the title of a Breka book. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yeah, yeah, that one. The one that you've now just posted. Yeah. Ooh, what’s the response here?
Keith: The Face With Spiral Eyes.
Austin: What’s the response? Uh, I'm looking at my emoji. I'm looking at my emoji. I should not just focus on these emoji. We can invent our own. We’re from the future.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: And maybe it’s just— it’s one of these, the face exhaling, you know?
Ali: [laughs] Yeah.
Austin: Like, phew.
Keith: Oh. I thought that was sad tired guy eating the rest of his cotton candy is what I thought that was.
Ali: No, you did not think that. Anyway.
Austin: You didn't think—
Sylvia: You didn't.
Austin: That’s a lie.
Sylvia: Come on. [Keith and Ali laugh]
Austin: That’s not true.
Ali: I think Brnine sees that and laughs and, like, [Austin: Mm-hmm.] looks up from their phone. [laughs]
Austin: Oh, right, because you're both at the party, right?
Keith: Yeah, like, looking around.
Ali: Just, like, to find Jesset.
Austin: Uh huh. Yeah. Are you still surrounded by people, or is that…like, what’s the…?
Ali: I mean, this is…this is…
Austin: Wind down.
Ali: This is hour four, hour five of the party.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ali: You know?
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think texts…I mean, are you still— you're not surrounded by people then, so yeah, I think maybe he just comes over then, finally, and just sits down and is like:
(as Jesset): Done holding court.
Ali (as Brnine): Yep.
Dre: Damn.
Austin (as Jesset): You got all that interview practice, and now you're using it on us.
Ali (as Brnine): [sighs] Ha ha ha ha. Yeah, what’s up?
Austin (as Jesset): How are you?
Ali (as Brnine): I'm chilling, man.
Austin (as Jesset): Bontive Valley.
Ali (as Brnine): Hear, hear, hear.
Austin (as Jesset): What’s next for Captain Brnine?
Ali (as Brnine): Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I gotta ask my crew, I guess. You good, man? I heard that you were, um… [Jesset sighs] I heard you kinda went through it while I was…
Austin (as Jesset): Yeah. Yeah. Uh, faced down Crusade a little early.
Ali (as Brnine): Oh, you softened them up for us.
Austin (as Jesset): [laughs softly] I'll take the W.
Ali (as Brnine): [laughs] Well, thank you.
Austin (as Jesset): Thank you for getting the, uh, that big Divine involved. I don't think we could have done it without them.
Ali (as Brnine): Oh, right, yeah, Fealty and them.
Austin (as Jesset): Yeah.
Ali (as Brnine): Gotta get some Ws.
Austin (as Jesset): Um, I did think I was going to die, though, and that made me think about some things.
Ali (as Brnine): Yeah. Yeah. Same, bro. [Ali laughs quietly]
Austin (as Jesset): Yeah. Pshh, I try not to think about the ones that— you know, we've lost some people over the years.
Ali (as Brnine): Mm-hmm.
Austin (as Jesset): What do you think people would say about me— ah, don't worry about it. Uh…
Ali (as Brnine): Wait.
Austin (as Jesset): Don't worry about it.
Ali (as Brnine): Like, if you died, or like…?
Austin (as Jesset): Yeah, if I died.
Ali (as Brnine): You can't ask somebody that. [muffled laughter] Why are you— come on, man. Don't think like that. What are you doing?
Austin (as Jesset): Sorry, I've had too much to drink.
Ali (as Brnine): Yeah.
Austin (as Jesset): I should just…
Ali (as Brnine): You’ve been doing this for a long time.
Austin (as Jesset): I might have been doing it for too long. I, uh…Partizan. Phew.
Ali (as Brnine): [laughs quietly] Yeah.
Austin (as Jesset): It seems so far away.
Ali (as Brnine): Yeah. Yeah. I've been, uh…it’s funny. I've been thinking that as well.
Austin (as Jesset): Do you— [cuts himself off] Good luck on the next mission.
Ali (as Brnine): No, what were you gonna say?
Austin (as Jesset): It’s fine. I should talk to you when I'm not drunk. [Ali laughs]
Ali (as Brnine): Okay. I think they still got some, uh…
Ali: I can't think of a food. [laughs]
Austin: Churros. Uh…
Keith: Cotton candy.
Dre: Shrimp.
Austin: Cotton candy. Shrimp. Ugh. These are all bad drunk foods. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Well, popcorn shrimp? I don't know.
Austin: Popcorn shrimp.
Janine: Cotton candied shrimp.
Dre: Ugh.
Austin: Cotton candied shrimp. Blech!
Keith: Cotton candied shrimp.
Austin: [laughs] I don't know about that.
Ali: Ugghhh.
Dre: Hey, I hate it.
Janine: It’s, like, furry and sweet.
Austin: Right.
Dre: No. [Austin and Keith laugh]
Ali (as Brnine): Go get some bread.
Austin: Bread is the thing.
Ali (as Brnine): Go get your bread up.
Austin (as Jesset): Go get my bread up. [laughs] You know I keep my bread up.
Janine: [laughs] What the fuck?
Ali (as Brnine): I know you keep your bread up.
Austin (as Jesset): Keep my bread up every day. Every day!
Ali (as Brnine): That’s what they would say.
Austin (as Jesset): That is what they would say. [Sylvia laughs]
Janine: Uh…
Ali (as Brnine): Jesset always kept his bread up.
Austin (as Jesset): That’s what they would say. [laughs] I always kept my bread up. Ugh, rise and grind.
Keith: Like the dough.
Dre: Sure.
Keith: Like the dough of the bread.
Austin: Like the dough.
Keith: Rise and grind.
Dre: The Millennium Break mindset. Rise and grind, baby.
Austin: Yeah, that’s right. Ugh.
Austin (as Jesset): [sighs] There are people we lost, and no one even says their names anymore. That’s what’s on my mind. And when it’s done, I don't know if anyone will remember any of us, and it might be our fault because we don't do a good enough job of remembering the people who brought us here. That’s what’s on my mind.
Ali (as Brnine): Well, you're drunk.
Austin (as Jesset): Also some other stuff, but yeah.
Ali (as Brnine): Um, you're drunk, and this is a party, and when we die, people will remember the good things that we did.
Austin (as Jesset): Mm-hmm.
Keith: Eventually we'll have Phrygian’s funeral. [Ali laughs]
Austin (as Jesset): Ah, fuck. We have to have Phrygian’s funeral.
Dre: Oh, man!
Austin (as Jesset): Oh.
Ali (as Brnine): I thought that that happened already, but we should have that.
Austin (as Jesset): We should have that. Do you— oh. There hasn't really been time for funerals. I don't know that I've been to one since Partizan.
Ali (as Brnine): [laughs] Oh, right. Ugh, god. No, I— we just— I just did that— [laughs] You want to hear something funny? [Dre laughs]
Ali (as Brnine): She threw a punch at her dad’s funeral.
Austin (as Jesset): She threw punch at her—? She threw a punch.
Ali (as Brnine): No, she punched somebody.
Austin (as Jesset): Who’d she punch?
Ali (as Brnine): I don't know.
Austin (as Jesset): Oh.
Ali (as Brnine): Some girl, I think.
Austin (as Jesset): Mm. [Sylvia laughs loudly]
Ali (as Brnine): You know, she might— [laughs] she might end up like me one day.
Austin (as Jesset): I could see it.
Ali (as Brnine): It’s a good start.
Austin (as Jesset): Her own ship?
Keith: Iridescent.
Austin (as Jesset): You don't need an engineer on board, do you?
Ali (as Brnine): Wait.
Austin (as Jesset): Ah…no, it’s…you know, I always told myself the Bontive Valley was the thing, and I guess we're gonna try for other stuff. Shale Belt, Carleon, Temple. I don't know what’s next, but it seems really far away, and I've been in the caves and the mountains for a few years now. You know, I should just stay. They probably need me, but…and you already have other things going on, but. [quiet conflicted laugh]
Ali (as Brnine): Um, you know, that’s a lot to consider.
Austin (as Jesset): It is.
Ali (as Brnine): Um…
Austin (as Jesset): I'm sorry. I'm gonna get bread.
Ali (as Brnine): No. Yeah, sure. I'll text you in the morning.
Austin (as Jesset): Yeah.
Ali (as Brnine): Okay.
Austin: Stands up, hands on knees. Hands on log. I've been picturing us sitting on a log around a bonfire. You know, like, you know, like a bonfire.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Push up. Little nod. Slow walk away. Later that night, texts you an emoji of bread.
Ali: [laughs] Cool.
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali: Oh how this relationship would be if they didn't talk to each other when they were drunk or sick all of the time.
Austin: Mm. Mm. Mm. Perfect. Love it. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Mm.
Sylvia: That’s what makes it the situationship.
Austin: Yep. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: Yeah. At least in my experience.
Ali: Hey, can I move in with you? Wait, nevermind. I gotta go.
Austin: Nevermind. I'm gonna go get some bread instead. [Ali laughs]
Sylvia: Oh my god.
Austin: It’s fine.
Dre: Man.
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali: We've all been there. [Austin laughs]
Sylvia: Yeah.
Dre: College, am I right? [laughter]
Austin: College, phew, yeah. [Dre laughs]
Keith: Jesset picks up some corn just to drop it.Austin: Yeah, that’s how it feels sometimes. [Ali laughs]
Actually fanart and fanfic are often compared but the funniest point of comparison is how you express that you like it. Like it's pretty common and welcome praise to tell a writer they get the voice of a character perfectly or whatever but if you told a fanartist "this is great I can really tell this is that character" you would sound insane
Fashionably late, I arrive with a lukewarm tea in one hand, and my Secret Samol gift in the other!
Allow me to present ECLECTIC ATTORNEY- a fan adventure!
My recipient (Biorenewologist/iamnotathing, platform unknown) asked for a Ace Attorney style case for Eclectic, and I did my best to deliver! This is a REAL visual novel game that YOU CAN PLAY!
You do NOT need to have listened to Palisade to solve the mystery, all clues are given to you in the game. However, there will be mild spoilers, like characters/appearances that appear later in the season. It is not canon compliant, Blue Channel crew that never met will be hanging out!
If you have never listened to Friends at the table or Palisade, the character interactions (and there's lots of those) might not be as entertaining for you.
You can play the game here: https://myrdrottningen.itch.io/eclectic-attorney
Warning! This is a MURDER mystery, and will include things like: Blood, death, mentions and depiction of the aftermath of gun violence, murder
Patreon. You can support me by subscribing to my patreon. The main feature of my patreon is making bi-monthly characters together :) I also post WIPs, art timelapses, fictional lore and exclusive/early look art. At 12$ you also can request monthly doodles from me!
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Commissions. My preferred payment method is through patreon. Contact: eteroutsider(at)gmail.com
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This is my main source of income so your support even in the form of a reblog would mean a lot to me!
I had to pay an unexpected 30$ fee, does anyone want to get an icon or a chibi/cartoon guy from me?
I'm also going to raise my prices this year (excluding icons, they will stay the same) so just in case right now i have one open slot. Would love to work on something simpler like an icon as I'm busy with a comic :)
Something that pops up in my notes from time to time is folks thinking I'm being excessively kind in my criticisms of Dungeons & Dragons, and I'm going to spin this off into a separate thread to address that without putting anyone on the spot.
First, if your own critique of Dungeons & Dragons is rooted in the idea that it's the Worst Game Ever, that speaks more to the limits of your experience than it does to anything else. Dungeons & Dragons in any of its iterations far from the worst the tabletop roleplaying hobby has to offer – like, you have no fucking idea!
Second, I tend to be even-handed in my discussion of D&D's rules because, fundamentally, the rules are not the problem – or, at least, not the principal cause of the problem.
In many ways, the indie RPG sphere has never escaped the spectre of Ron Edwards, sternly pronouncing that the mechanical process of playing traditional RPGs causes actual, physical brain damage, and that this brain damage is responsible for the bad behaviour we often observe at the table. We don't say it that way anymore, but on some level a lot of us indie RPG designers still kind of believe it.
This is understandable. As game designers, we're naturally inclined to think of problems at the table as game design problems. When we see a problematic culture of play, our impulse is to frame it as something which emerges from the text of the game, and which can therefore be mitigated by repairing the text of the game.
Confronted with the obvious toxicity of certain facets of D&D's culture of play, we go combing through its text, looking for something – some formalism, some structure, some piece of rules technology – which we can point to and say: "this is it; this is where the brain-worms live."
The trouble is, this is not in fact where the brain-worms live. Certainly, the text of a game, particularly a very popular one, can have some influence on the game's surrounding culture of play, but that text is in turn a reflection of the culture of play in which it was written. The Player's Handbook isn't an SCP object, spewing infectious infohazards everywhere when you crack open the cover – hell, I'd go so far as to say that many of the problems of D&D's culture of play operate in spite of the game's text, not because of it!
Basically, what I'm saying is that I don't see any contradiction between being the sort of pretentious knob who writes one-page indie RPGs about gay catgirls talking about their feelings (which I am), and speaking favourably about this or that piece of rules tech from whatever flavour of Dungeons & Dragons is in favour this week (which I do), because I recognise that you can't game-design your way out of a problem you didn't game-design your way into.
The fact that one of the biggest problems facing the tabletop roleplaying hobby is something that can't be repaired by fucking around with dice-rolling procedures is a bitter pill to swallow for a lot of indie game designers, and I won't say I wasn't resistant to it myself, but it's something that's both useful and necessary to accept.
(None of this means that the text of Dungeons & Dragons in any of its incarnations is beyond criticism on other grounds, of course, and I've never been shy about highlighting those criticisms where they're warranted. The only way you're gonna arrive at the conclusion that I'm some sort of D&D apologist is if you're starting from the presumption that The Real Problem Is The Rules.)
#I hold that a lot of the problems with D&D's play culture #are actually just artefacts of the scale of the playerbase #and the huge diversity in goals and knowledge of the people who partake in it #it is bad for any game for it to be as big as D&D currently is (via @galileosballs)
The scale of D&D's player base is definitely key to the problem, but not incidentally so.
A large portion of the issues with D&D's culture of play stem from the central problem that it's a culture of play which prioritises maximising the number of people playing Dungeons & Dragons at any cost.
We see this in the positioning of D&D as a universal entry-level game, necessarily accompanied by a refusal to acknowledge that game rules can be opinionated about how the game ought to be played, to the extent that a very large portion of DMing best practices consists of advice on how to work around the fact that the story the rules want to produce disagrees with the story the group wants to tell.
We see this in the way that basic differences of opinion regarding what playing a tabletop RPG actually entails are reframed as quirks of player temperament, to be managed like unruly children – or, when this fails, as bad behaviour to be punished; witness, for example, the strident condemnation of "metagaming" as a player's cardinal sin, in spite of the fact that no two groups can agree what metagaming is.
We see this in how DMs are expected to shoulder 100% of the actual work of making the game happen, even to the point of effectively playing disengaged players' characters for them, and how DMs who ask their players to learn and understand the rules are criticised for "gatekeeping" the hobby; and, when this has its inevitable consequences, in the treatment of DMs experiencing constant creative burnout as a normal and expected part of running a game.
Now, ask yourself: who actually benefits from a culture of play which prioritises maximising the number of people playing Dungeons & Dragons at any cost, even to the detriment of individual groups?
Do you play daily NY Times games like Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee, or Strands? The NYT Tech Guild workers who make those games possible are currently ON STRIKE and asking you to not cross the digital picket line.
Spread the word! For other ways to help, you can also contribute to their strike fund here.
