i played a couple of videogames today! i play the simpsons: hit and run, and shadow the hedgehog.. some reviews: I didn't really like the simpsons hit and runa! it made me kind of sad.. i feel like, if you're making a simpsons game,, the game mechanics should not allow for homer to beat up his wife until the police go after him. I felt kind of like how I imagine older gamers felt seeing grand theft auto for the first time. I think the fact that I was seeing a familiar character do these things made me go 'oh yeah... gta was kind of a mechanically fucked up game, huh?' it was kind of depressing! on the other hand, I actually enjoyed playing shadow the hedgehog! I had a good time with that one. I watched a long play recentlyish is that had me convinced that shadow was the series worst, but I honestly enjoyed myself when I actually played it! I went for the hero path, and by sheer coincidence, I ran into almost all the major memes from that game in my one playthrough (where's that damn fourth chaos emerald,, this is like taking candy from a baby which is fine by ne, the president's picture of sonic and shadiw (I guess taken after the events of sonic heroes?) he keeps on his desk). I evenn God help men I even liked the guns,, I thought they added a lot to the combat.. a good time was had by me. unrelated; I was going through some recent lizzie smithson pages, and I went 'how come lizzie and roby Ola is such an iconic duo but none of the other characters are?' and I realized,, Roby Ola is the only member of the cast that I've been allowing to be a friend to lizzie--most of the other characters barely talk to her and are more antagonistic (mark fifty and empty Susan barely talk at all and are openly antagonistic, Eliza talks like a computer and has kind of a strained relationship with lizzie)--i feel like this is kind of bad writing! I feel like this is bad writing I'm doing and I should change it, as soon as I figure out how. I feel like jak ii was the only game that really squared the circle of 'how to make a cartoons version of grand theft auto with characters that are popular with children?' because it is the only one (I think sly cooper and shadow the hedgehog fit inside the genre) that makes the cops unambiguously the bad guys.the crimson guards are some real bastards!!!!! finally just up and Uninstalled Instagram from my phone. nothing to do with the crypto thing (tho obviously that's terrible)--its more just the user interface has just been getting worse and worse these past few months. the breaking point was when I checked my favorite newspaper cartoon account, Mazetoons, and realized almost all his posts are selfies now. his actual cartoons, which I like, are completely buried under random selfies, which I don't care about. it's not 2012 any more, Joe! couple that with how bad instas been with ads lately, and I have to scroll waaay too much to find the posts I actually wanted to see! it sucks! that's on top of Instagram heavily pushing video content now, which I almost always scroll past. and you can't remove the stories tab from the home screen! who the fuck wants to see peoples' fucking stories?? we have twitter for that! we have tiktok for shorter videos! we don't need even one more app for that stupid shit! tiktok has a better selection even! it will ALWAYS have a better selection! Anyway I made a go comics account so I can get my daily Heathcliff fix, so that's good anyway. mazetoons unfortunately seems like it's quite a bit harder to get a hold of these days--i might just have to say goodbye to that one (cryface). well, thanks for nothing Mark Zuckerberg! more like Mark FUCKERberg!!! According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don't care what humans think is impossible. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. JUST KIDDING. Even I'm not a big enough jerk to actually post the entire Bee Movie script in this blog. I mean, that's such an old meme! Can you imagine? It would be ridiculous! Anyway, 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. There. You should DEFINITELY know your alphabet now (this post engineered to annoy people trying to read this using a screen reader--you're not supposed to read it man! Go away!) 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 26 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. There. You should DEFINITELY know your alphabet now (this post engineered to annoy people trying to read this using a screen reader--you're not supposed to read it man! Go away!) I feel pretty good about myself for finally having have come up with a solid extended cast for the Lizzie Smithson series. I'll apologize for spending so long not really knowing what kinds of recurring characters I wanted to appear, but in my defense: This shit's hard. X_x The deal with the extended cast, specificallly, isthat the original vision for Lizzie Smithson is that each 'product' in the series would focus on a different recurring cast besides Lizzie--this was back when the series was primarily a series of card games, and I wanted each game to be basically it's own little self contained miniseries. As a result, though, it took me a long time to work out what sorts of side-characters would bounce off of Lizzie well. I eventually settled on some characters from One Armed Robbery (for the crowd scenes, mainly) and the ENTIRE CAST of Rambling Roommates (for when Lizzie needs someone besides the reader to talk to). One specific detail that I'm proud of is that, in the early, EARLY vision for the series, Lizzie's recurring cast was going to consist of a series of characters also based off various videogame protagonists (there was going to be a character based on Ratchet and Clank (that character actually does appear in canon--she's Aliss Gunner from MegaCincinnati!), a character based on Sonic the Hedgehog, etc)(Lizzie herself is based on Sly Coooper, as I've said many times before but feel compelled to remind you) and they were all going to get their own spinoffs based on their respective inspirations (but in CARD GAME form!), but I rejected that idea after I decided I really only like Sly Cooper, not Ratchet or whatever--BUT....!!!! But! I've brought that idea back with the character of Eliza the Roommate (who appears in a zine I'm posting next week) who's deal is that she's based on various rudimentary AI programs, as well as being an annoying roommate--the reason for that is I designed several new cards for Rambling Roommates, that will appear in Round 5 (whenever I can finish it), that are intended as hyper-simple AI 'programs' that the 'player' can 'play' as 'games'--and that's a concept that doesn't really make sense for Lizzie as a protagnoist, but it DOES make sense for the roommate characters that were already in Rambling Roommates! So I did it. Now, the roommates are all named 'Eliza' and will appear in the Lizzie Smithson webcomic as well, and I have all these ideas on stuff that can be done with Lizzie interacting with an AI character and stuff that can be done game design wise with the concept of 'you're interacting with a character that thinks like a simple computer' and I'm just excited, man! I feel like I'm really onto something this time. Anyway, here's to the future of the Lizzie Smithson series! It's a gas!!!! furries rule. here's a fact if you want to se the most inspiring, emotionally fulfilling art made today, you HAVE to go to the artists alley at a furry convention. true facts I am so very proud to be participating i this space. END I recently reread all of the zines "webcomic" from the beginning--I had a mostly good time, though some stuff kind of jumps out at me. For example, during 2022 (and a little earlier, starting with Head Games 2 in 2021), there's an incredibly long sequence of comics that are all just minimalist illustrated TTRPGs. Now, I love making those things, and I've even pulled off two or three good ones, but boy. They are not done favors for being lumped in altogether like that, one after the other. It gets to be a bit much after a while. I got through Six Tiny Endless Games thinking "lol this rules" and then Pickpocket Games thinking "this is better than I remembered" but once I got to Games About Talkin, my mind was totally checked out and unable to concentrate. Maybe that's partly because, uh, Gamesw About Talkin isn't very good hahaha, but I also wasn't able to focus very easliy on Misc Crap 2, and those games are fine as near as I can recall. It's just too much! There are too many games! Meanwhile when I got to I'm Not Done Talkin (Not to be confused with games about talkin) I was worried I wasn't going to enjoy bmyself, but I had a way good time with that one. I think it's because that one's technically a "games" zine but the games are all jokes and you can kind of just let them wash over you and still have a good time. On top of that, between I'm not done talkin and misc crap 2, there are a bunch of story driven, not-games focused pages, as a palette cleanser, which I found helpful. I guess I've grown up to be the sort of person who appreciates filler arcs! Man. I remember Dragonball Z filler being the absoulute worst crap iomaginable (almost as bad as One Piece filler) but looking back on it, it hasn't aged so badly. Though I'll add that I recently tried rereading the Dragonball Manga, and I was justcompletely sick of the Frieza fight by the third STRAIGHT VOLUME of them just... fighting Frieza. It goes on way too long! I Remembere it being a meme back in the 2000s that the Frieza fight went too long, but that was the anime, and I'd assumed the manga would be better paced--turns out not! Though! Those god damned aliens just WILL NOT STOP fighting Frieza! I get it! He's a tough guy! Can.... can something ELSE happen? Please? The anime might actually be better off from what I can recall, since it has side stories during the Frieza fight where some of the other characters deal with the surviving Ginyu force members, and there's a bit where some of the long retired characters from the original Dragon Ball suit up to try to go to Namek and help out themselves. Never was a big fan of how often Dragon Ball would just... obsoletize memorable characters. Anyway. I recently watched Tim Roger's retrospective (for Patreon backers only) on his Boku No Natsuyasumi review--I really related to him talking about how he started to really hate Boku No Natsuyasumi by the end of the process of editing his review, and how it took some time away from it for him to come back around to thinking it's a good game. I had a very similar experience with the Sly Cooper series (in particular Sly 3) during the process of working on Lizzie Smithson (the project focused on by this very website!). I've told this story thousands of times before, but Lizzie Smithson was very much always intended as sort of *my* version of Sly Cooper, with a number of narrative changes to fix the parts of Sly Cooper I didn't really like (I don't like cops and I don't like that the series ends with Sly dating a cop), and at first I didn't really nail the stuff about Sly Cooper I liked, but, eventually, I did, with stuff like One Armed Robbery and Rambling Roommates and some of my one page TTRPGs. Even some of my one page TTRPGs are as good as everything I liked about Sly! And it really made me think less of Sly as a series, because the thrills it offered were so cheap that they could be easily replicated with a stone and a set of instructions. But you know what, though? I've come back around and I like the games again. They're good fidget toys (but less good fidget toys than the things I make) and they're very... stuffy. They're full of stuff. And I still think about them a lot, even though I feel that I've long surpassed them. One final thought: I was watching some footage of Sonic Adventure (1) and wow. Sonic Adventure is the absolute coolest game of all time, no question. Listen, Im' not a COMPLETE fool, I can think analytically and I can look at art for what it is, but I simply cannot look at Sonic Adventure as being, as some people described, "over-ambitious," "janky" etc... I'm still quite unable to look at it as anything but the biggest 3d platformer of its time, the ur game, the only game you need, an elaborate simulation of a whole world, a story so vast in scope it is impossible to completely understand it from any one angle... I just like it. I'm sorry if that makes me stupid. And I never liked reading articles that try to claim its a bad game (or a "kusoge") no matter how flowery their language... I just can't look at that game objectively, I guess. This is why I'm a creator and not a critic! Even though critics seem to make more money, at least on Youtube. Uh ,lol. 5-12-2022: Updating this blog for the first time in a little bit because I wanted to talk about Lizzie Smithson and I'd feel ridiculous posting what I'm about to say somewhere where people can see it. My original thought was that there was enough text on this blog where people would get the idea even if I stopped updating it, so I stopped updating it. But I guess the original intent of this blog was to satisfy my need to post embarassing things without being called out on it? So again I go. ANYWAY. So as of recently, I've begun doing serious research into how pickpockets work in real life, so as to better present the pickpocket scenes in Lizzie Smithson (the whole series was started because I like pickpockets--it's not a fetish thing, I just really like pickpocketing as a concept, and I wanted to make a series where that happened a lot (because I like Sly Cooper and the pickpkocket mechanic in Sly cooper, mostly). My research has revealed to me some pretty odd things, specifically: that Lizzie Smithson's status as a super duper talented pickpocket is very much a fantasy unique to works of fiction such as this. There aren't *really* many, or even any, people in real life that can steal as often and as openly as Lizzie without being noticed, even if they're stage pickpockets. The truth about stage pickpockets (if you didn't know, people who do pickpocketing as part of a magic act. Look it up on youtube, it's fun) is that they're generally working with accomplices, or at least people they've reached out to before their stage show begins, to let them know that they're going to invite them on stage to rob them, and to just let that happen. It's like the Steven Seagal thing--if Steven seagal grabs a guy by the wrist and flips him over, that's technically "real", yeah, but the trick is that the guy probably wanted to get flipped over (the same goes for stage hypnotism, though I think in that case it is at least partially a fetish thing.). There's also various theatrical flourishes in stage pickpocketing, such as giving the particpant back "stolen" items that the magician had actually had on stage before the theft began, and is giving back an item that wasn't actually stolen and that the "victim" didn't actually own. Or a less insidious example is to steal a phone in a phone case, take the phone out of the case, and give them back seperately, so as to again give the participant back more items than were actually stolen. The point being, that, as these things go, Lizzie Smithson is actually not *that* "unrealistic" by pickpocketing standards--she does in fact pickpocet mainly in heavily crowded areas (unless I have some story reason for that not to be the case) and her marks are *usually* visibly distracted at the moment the crime takes place (kind of big exception to this is when she robs her roommates in the Rambling Roommates cards (coming soon to itchio!) but maybe they're more akin to volunteers than Mark Fifty or her other victims, and kind of expect that she does that from time to time)--the pickpocketing in Lizie Smithson is, at the very least, much more "realistic" than the ones in Sly Cooper! Sly Cooper was Lizzie's primarilyi (initially, even practically the only) inspiration, so hey! Once again, I have provenb that Lizzie Smithson is a much better series than the thing that inspired it. Good for me I guess! Anyway, I hope this text helped yuou learn a little bit about stage pickpocketing. Now stop squinting at the screen, you're damaging your eyes. You're really not supposed to be reading this, yuou know. You are doing it against my wishes. You piece of shit. Gonna stay off instagram for a while, lol. I might even delete my account. It used to be my favorite social media, but if they're doing nfts, it's time to leave. I wish people wouldn't share so many anxiety-inducing posts about the entertainment industry--like, yeah, it's awful, but it also gains power the more we pay attention to it. I'm thinking specifically of stuff like the nepotism required to get like a deal as a movie director, and yeah that sucks, but if you have a dream project or a dream story you want to make, there's ways to do it! You can make it work! I guess somje people, naturally, are less interested in "making it work" than they are in making money off it--and I get it, times are hard, but very little art is actualy profitable in 2022... if you're not enjoying the work for it's own sake, there is little point in bothering. I forget what I was talking about. Well, fuck Hollywood I guess! Now as always, but remember, we never needed it. You've got to hand it to Elon Musk... with just one purchase, he made TWO sites unusable. END You know, what's really amazing to me about Jak and Daxter, and specifically Jakk II (and to a lesser extent Jak 3) is how impressive a sense of place it has. I've spent the better part of the last 5 years trying to recreate what I like about Sly Cooper from the ground up, so believe me when I tell you: Compared to Jak II, Sly Coooper's environments feel like theme park attractions. They feel grotesquely unreal. Whereas Jak II, feel sto me as much as a real place as the city the characters lived in in the ReBoot cartoon. I remember imagining myself, or having dreams about myself, exploring Mainframe from ReBoot, and I imagine if I'd been Just a *bit* younger when I'd encountered Jak II, I'd feel the same way about that. Just... such a sense of place. I think part of it is that you spend a lot of time in Jak II driving back and forth between mission markers in the city to actually play the platforming levels, which, yes, is annoying or was annoying to me the first time I'd played it, but on repeat playthroughs... I actually find it kind of charming? It's like, these are the segments where Jak and Daxter get to kind of just relax and chill and hang out, and you the player get to hang out with them! It's a very hangouty game, and I like it a lot. The ReBoot comparison also applies to the whole arc Jak goes through between Jak and Daxter and Jak II of course... refering to Enzo/Matrix, obviously. I remember really liking ReBoot as a kid, but I never went back to it as an adult. I should do that. Jak 3 strikes me as noticably less hangoutable than Jak II--part of it of course is that Jak 3 has a much more... dire state for its world to be in. There's war, etc. I find the wasteland less enjoyable to navigate than Jak II's Haven city, and also find Jak 3's version of Haven City less enjoyable than Jak II's version, despite Jak 3 technically having more going on in it's equivalent environments. I do like the sense of ownership you get over the vehicles in the game--like, you come to think of the hangar your cars are stored in as *your* cars, you know? Anyway, in conclusion: Jak II is better than any of the Sly Cooper games, despite me having *played* Sly 2 and 3 more. Jkak 3, incidentally, is exactly the kind of game I would make if I had an unlimited budget and the ability to make exactly the game I wanted to make, which I do not mean as a compliment. Jak 3 is a mess. I mean that the structure of Jak 3's world, and the different zones in it and the way they're connected, is very similar to what I personally would want in a videogame I was to myself make, and also I am very incompetent and I am not good at making big things. I can make small things okay, but if I had to make a whole fucking open world game by my lonesome, I guarantee I would completely fall on my face. Anyway, thank you for reading but I wish you weren't reading this. This blog is just for me, you fucker Get your smelly prying eyes away from my diary, asshole. END Getting into amateur witchcraft lately... I'll probably explain more in a zine later, but I wanted to put this out there immediately for now. END I just checked the quote unquote leak further info that sucker punch is making a new sly cooper game,, and the evidence is so thin on the ground it's ridiculous--the leak in this case being that sp put up a job offering for a MULTIPLAYER systems designer that "reads board game instructions as if they were spy thrillers. GET IT??? *SPY* THRILLERS????? I mean sly cooper isn't really a spy, but okay. also, the fact that their new game is apparently multi-player instantly kills any interest I would've had, sly or not. if it is a new sly game (and I don't think it is), I'll buy a physical copy, put it on my bookshelf, and *N E V E R* open it. ...because I don't own a ps5! rimshot. That seinfeld jpeg where the one guy is pointing at a picture and saying "I've had enough of this guy" but he's pointing at a picture of openai Oh shit, Lily Orchard used a post from my old tumblr in her video about stalkers (specifically in the context of me being weirded out how obsessive some of her haters are despite me not liking her--not a super negative depiction, really, it just surprised me). Kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel there, eh lily? This is why I use this unreadable neocities subppage for my posting needs now, it's not easily readable or searchable, so I don't have to worry about e-celebrities namesearching and seeing my tweets about them or whatever. Hey, e-celebrities! Don't name search! It's MEGA creepy!!! (As long as I'm on that note, I think Sarah Z actually has me blocked because I said her vocal inflection is annoying or something--good riddance, I don't need youtube videos regurgitating 10 year old tumblr posts) According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don't care what humans think is impossible. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Ooh, black and yellow! Let's shake it up a little. Barry! Breakfast is ready! Ooming! Hang on a second. Hello? - Barry? - Adam? - Oan you believe this is happening? - I can't. I'll pick you up. Looking sharp. Use the stairs. Got you again! You the reader, I mean. I'm just making fun, I'm not actually going to post the entire Bee Movie script. That would be ridiculous, only a complete jerk would do that. No, seriously, I promise I'm not going to do another twist on you and then make you scroll through the whole thing. I promise. Hopefully you'll trust me not to completely betray your trust, since you've come all this way through this blog. Boy that Elon Musk fellow is a real loser, huh? He's a faszcinating person in a way, but he's VERY transparent--I don't want to call him a narcissist since my understanding of real life narcissism is a little different from what he seems to have, but let's say he has a major ego problem, and, well, he certainly had a talent with personal branding! Or he did, before the twitter kerfuffle, anyway. I guess that comes from his being an engineer--he REALLY had some otherwise totally normal people convinced he was some genius engineer type, or Tony Stark boy genius, when there's no evidence he ever personally worked on any of the projects he put out, and some of his cars specifically seem to have been made by someone who doesn't understand why cars are made the way they are--for example, have you seen that clip of his new Tesla getting hit by a heavy object and not showing a dent? I'm sure he thinks it looks impressive, but it's quite easy to understand why most cars don't do that--they're literally designed to collapse around the people inside in the event of an accident, and not deliver all of the force from a collision TO its passengers (fatal, obviously)--and yet he doesn't seem to have performed that google search to learn that? What gives? I thought he was supposed to be smart? Well, that's business majors for you. A lot of the weirdness from the tech world clears up when you understand that the big tech 'entrepeneurs' are business majors, not engineers or scientists. And that's basically what there is to Elong Musk, as I've said, he's fascinating in a way, but there's not much to get about him once you've passed the smokescreen, as I believe now many people have. END I've been reading some old critical distance "critical compilations" these past few weeks (basically, collections of articles that supposedly represent the best writing done about gamed that week) and it's really striking which voices get centered by the curators, specifically, the LOUDEST voices get centered, the people who can write the most attention grabbing bylines, and yeah that's true of most media but it's jarring to see it still be the case in an enterprise that is posing as a space for intellectuals. What's more is that they have a pretty awful tendency to center the voices of abusers in their work, which, I think that follows from them centering the loudest voices. Look at writers in a lot of their five plus year old compilations (and even some recent stuff!) And its: abuser. Abuser. Harasser. Person everyone finds annoying but who won't go away. Abuser. Dogpile organizer. It's ridiculous. And that's not even going into the content of these articles, which I should share real fast. You see, I was looking for contemporary reviews of the famously racist/sexist/awful card game cards against humanity, because the only review I've ever read was the quite good negative review at shut up and sit down, and I was honestly shocked when I searched cards against humanity on critical distance that the top articles were actually positive reviews that LIKED the racist parts! What? This is a website that famously decried gamer gate, and they're celebrating one of the worst examples of gamer shittiness? One of the articles described cards against humanity as "a safe space to indulge in cultural taboos" as is cards against humanity was some sort of busy game for racism. Even critical distance curators don't seem to have much faith in the slush they were pushing, because in the articles they linked that are positive towards the game, they were also positive, whereas when they linked the aforementioned negative shut up and sit down review (credit to them for linking that one I guess) they were also negative, describing the game as "inmature", as if that's what led to cards against humanity's problems. (At the time, no one knew about the sexual assault allegations towards cah's creator) another problem with critical distance: the writers it centers don't seem to want to talk about anything that won't get them clicks? It's a God damned miracle when you see an article on critical distance about anything more obscure than an old ps1 game. I have this problem with some media analyst youtubers, too, where they'll just do video after video about how Disney or whoever is bad, but never look at any indie creator's or even smaller studio creators that produce good work who have fallen through the cracks. Do you just not watch things social media doesn't tell you to watch? That's bad criticism, and I don't want to hear about how that doesn't make money. You're a critic! You've got the most ridiculous job history has yet produced! Some of you are making *ABSURD* amounts of money doing this stuff! My feelings about criticism are: if you're not at least making an effort to guide people towards more obscure (not necessarily even indie!) Works of art, you are honestly wasting everyone's time and you should find a different job. One final thing I wanted to add that's been bothering me that's related to an article critical distance shared but isn't really related to critical distance itself: I remember this one article about the (fun) phone game Desert Golfing that described the game as "nihilistic" and got really mad at the game for that reason, tearing it down with the most aggressive language, and that's already weird, right? That's like the old weirdism that superheroes are "inherently" fascist despite a lot of the most famous superhero authors being Jewish. Directed towards a fairly harmless game! But additionally, the author of that article said that instead of playing desert golfing, you should play dark souls, and like, what? In one universe are those even comparable titles! "Instead of canabalt, you should play uncharted" those are two separate ideas! And you NOTICABLY cannot play dark souls on your phone? Why are you doing this? What's your problem? What is your fucking problem? Anyway critical distance sucks and if you donated to their donation drive a few months ago, I think you're a chump. I've been reading some old critical distance "critical compilations" these past few weeks (basically, collections of articles that supposedly represent the best writing done about gamed that week) and it's really striking which voices get centered by the curators, specifically, the LOUDEST voices get centered, the people who can write the most attention grabbing bylines, and yeah that's true of most media but it's jarring to see it still be the case in an enterprise that is posing as a space for intellectuals. What's more is that they have a pretty awful tendency to center the voices of abusers in their work, which, I think that follows from them centering the loudest voices. Look at writers in a lot of their five plus year old compilations (and even some recent stuff!) And its: abuser. Abuser. Harasser. Person everyone finds annoying but who won't go away. Abuser. Dogpile organizer. It's ridiculous. And that's not even going into the content of these articles, which I should share real fast. You see, I was looking for contemporary reviews of the famously racist/sexist/awful card game cards against humanity, because the only review I've ever read was the quite good negative review at shut up and sit down, and I was honestly shocked when I searched cards against humanity on critical distance that the top articles were actually positive reviews that LIKED the racist parts! What? This is a website that famously decried gamer gate, and they're celebrating one of the worst examples of gamer shittiness? One of the articles described cards against humanity as "a safe space to indulge in cultural taboos" as is cards against humanity was some sort of busy game for racism. Even critical distance curators don't seem to have much faith in the slush they were pushing, because in the articles they linked that are positive towards the game, they were also positive, whereas when they linked the aforementioned negative shut up and sit down review (credit to them for linking that one I guess) they were also negative, describing the game as "inmature", as if that's what led to cards against humanity's problems. (At the time, no one knew about the sexual assault allegations towards cah's creator) another problem with critical distance: the writers it centers don't seem to want to talk about anything that won't get them clicks? It's a God damned miracle when you see an article on critical distance about anything more obscure than an old ps1 game. I have this problem with some media analyst youtubers, too, where they'll just do video after video about how Disney or whoever is bad, but never look at any indie creator's or even smaller studio creators that produce good work who have fallen through the cracks. Do you just not watch things social media doesn't tell you to watch? That's bad criticism, and I don't want to hear about how that doesn't make money. You're a critic! You've got the most ridiculous job history has yet produced! Some of you are making *ABSURD* amounts of money doing this stuff! My feelings about criticism are: if you're not at least making an effort to guide people towards more obscure (not necessarily even indie!) Works of art, you are honestly wasting everyone's time and you should find a different job. One final thing I wanted to add that's been bothering me that's related to an article critical distance shared but isn't really related to critical distance itself: I remember this one article about the (fun) phone game Desert Golfing that described the game as "nihilistic" and got really mad at the game for that reason, tearing it down with the most aggressive language, and that's already weird, right? That's like the old weirdism that superheroes are "inherently" fascist despite a lot of the most famous superhero authors being Jewish. Directed towards a fairly harmless game! But additionally, the author of that article said that instead of playing desert golfing, you should play dark souls, and like, what? In one universe are those even comparable titles! "Instead of canabalt, you should play uncharted" those are two separate ideas! And you NOTICABLY cannot play dark souls on your phone? Why are you doing this? What's your problem? What is your fucking problem? Anyway critical distance sucks and if you donated to their donation drive a few months ago, I think you're a chump. Juggling a lot of projects now lol--I'm putting the final touches on a procedurally generated webcomic I first had the idea for MONTHS ago, and I'm also putting together another zine for the zine page--I'm justa busy little bee, huh!!! Anyway, looking forward to nobody seeing this news update. No joke, I DO NOT WANT anyone to fucking look at this page. If you're reading this, go away! Go the fuck away!!! God!!! man, people are having normal ones on Twitter today. here's some free advice: I dont know how to get people to check out small indie art instead of mega-popular blockbusters, but a good way to NOT do that is to guilt trip people for liking the popular stuff. like, God! Nobody likes that! what's wrong with you? thinking about it further, I suppose I probably should provide context for what I'm talking about real quick: basically, a moderately well known ttrpg author was having a meltdown the other day over being criticized for using AI art, and she guilt tripped people for not consuming small art and how that 'forces' small creators to use morally questionable tech like that.. which, uh, firs--actually you know what, I was going to type further about this, but I feel like I'm coming off as mean, and I'm sorry. for the record, I do find the author in questions work to be deeply inspirational! just, you know, she really needs to stay off twitter imo having finally completed one, I now much better understand Chris Hecker's objections to game jams, much as I must remind people that you absolutely must not spend as much time on one project as he did (So far!!!) on Spy Party, which has been in develoment since 2010, and has gotten as far as Steam Early Access, which it has been in for at least 4 years. Not to say that all projects need to be done quickly (I've been spending a pretty (for me) freaksishly long amount of time on one particular project lol) but if you're specifically making a competitive game (which by all accounts seems to be his goal), and you're not DEATHLY confident you'll have an audience when you're finally done, you really shouldn't be spending too much time on it. My two cents, anyway. END this might be a cold take, but damn jak ii is so much better than jak 3 it's kind of ridiculous. gonna say though, if you gave me a million dollars or however much jak 3's budget was, and somehow magicked my brain into being capable of managing a team developers (all my art projects so far have been solo work lol), and told me to make the best game I was capable of, I probably would make something similar to jak 3 XD--or at the least, I'd realize every ps2 platformer fan's dream and make a version of sly 3 where you could sail to all the other episodes from within episode 5's pirate ship mini game. that way the game would soooooooort of teeeeeeeeechnically be genuinely open world, which is something I've always wanted. why wasn't sly 4 open world? I've never really been on the thieves in time hate train (I think the game has some genuinely neat ideas and certainly is a better collectathon than yooka laylee) but that game was sort of a missed opportunity. very strange. end I've got to say, when you look at the facts as they stand, it sure does appear like Johnny Depp is an abuser. Maybe Amber Heard treated him badly too, but it hardly seems like he was an innocent small uwu bean in this situation. Anyway, we definitely didn't need to turn this trial into such a circus. I've been putting together a list of triple A videogames that, to me, feel like webcomics (specifically, webcomics from the 2000s)--So far I've got: Sly Cooper (basically a furry comic), Spore, The Sims (they just... feel cheap to me, in the same way that webcomics do), that's it off the top of my head. I guess I'd define the phrase "feels like a webcomic" as being... like, an experience that reaches far beyond it's means, or is more ambitious than it can really manage, created by a singularly strange vision, at least usually. There's lots of indie games that feel like this (Examples: Another World, Retro City Rampage), but when a major studio with hundreds of employees hits that mark, that's rare. That's special. After coming to the conclusion that Spore was a webcomiclike, I put some thought into whether similar creator Sid Meier's games qualify, and tbh I don't think so--Sid Meier's whole aesthetic is a little too... mainstream? Compared to Will Wright, who is working in much less dramatic "literary" "genres". Compare epic pirate stories to city building simulators... I know Spore has a huge scope, but it (,from the footage I've seen, I've never played it) feels small. Maybe not intimate, but it doesn't feel like a game that would've been as hyped up had people actually known what it was. Hey, it still has its fans, though, after all these years! Good for them! Anyway, bringing this back on subject, Sly Cooper is basically perfect. The end. End. I've been getting a lot of Jak and Daxter related videos on my YouTube recommendations feed lately, which is weird but I'm not complaining since I like those games. it's got me thinking though--i would actually like to take a Crack at making something similar to jak and Daxter someday, but the stuff I consider valuable about the series is quite far out of my reach at the moment. I'd need either a large team and an enormous (id also need to learn how to manage a team) or/and id need to be able to produce art at a much higher technical level than im currently doing. in the latter case, I could pull it off by doing something like James gurney Dinotopia, which I've had recommended to me a few times--because what I associate jak and Daxter with is less gameplay or plot and more like... lavishly produced and internally consistent alternate world's, I guess. that said, I suppose there are elements of Jak and Daxter in lizzie smithson--there's the whole Cypher alphabet some of the illustrations use, and it's kind of a vaguely unreal city she lives in--ultimately though, I view lizzie Smithson as being closer to the sly cooper end of the spectrum, where it's more... personal, I guess? and rooted more in actual reality, as opposed to being pure fantasy. it's like a webcomic, basically. (I consider sly cooper also to be "like a webcomic" but I don't get those vibes from jak, for whatever reason I can't put my finger on) wow are you STILL reading this thing? END The Gremlins Theme is a bop. END I looked through some more old Critical Distance articles because I hate myself, and I found myself searching for articles about anything Tamagotchi adjacent, because I've developed an interest in virtual pets as a result of making a zine with a virtual pet theme? I didn't find too many good ones about Tamagotchi specifically, but I DID find an interesting one about the Pocket Pikachu! It was written about ten years ago, I forget the author's name, but she talks about the Pocket Pikachu and what it meant to her as a child, and the thing that stuck out the most to me, and it's such a small thing, Is the line '[pikachu] had max happiness. I had max happiness.' And it's like, wow, that' gamers for you. Always chasing the good old days (she literally says as much when she compares the Pocket Pikachu to the more recentish Pokewalker, which I've been trying to get a hold of with little luck). I would love, however, for one day a grown up child to talk about one of my games (and I have a specific one in mind) with the same sense of wistful longing that author used in that article. That's the kind of reaction I want, lol, although I'm not exactly aiming my games towards children. Anyway, twist: In the same Critical Distance page that links the Pocket Pikachu article, the immediate next article listed after that is one by famous gamergater Ian Miles Cheong. Like, come on. Very embarassing, I'm embarrassed. I guess that's nostalgia for you, it can be fun to wade in, but stay too long, and you're likely to transform into some variety of horrible reactionary. Shit sucks. END