East Asian fanartists are starting to migrate back to Tumblr because Twitter is insane, toxic, and dying, and what we're NOT going to do is let the fucking exclusionists get them, do you hear me? We are not going to let a bunch of feral idiots try to apply the most myopic version of puritanism to foreign artists we're not we're not we're not. Form an armed brigade if you have to, do you hear me. We're not going to bully the artists who may or may not even speak English because we have our precious standards of moral purity. If we see art that makes us uncomfy we're going to block the artist and tumblr savior their name so we don't have to see them again AND WE'RE GONNA MOVE THE FUCK ON.
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So I'm leaving work and something darts in front of me, maybe 10ft away, too fast for me to see what it is. Peek around the tree blocking my path and I see this
Just like... a whole ass hawk. Dude's gotta be about 1.5ft tall. Massive fucking bird. And it's just staring me straight in my soul like this, even as I try to move ahead. It didn't budge. And there's only this path back to my car unless I want to walk on a busy highway. So I have the option of Death By Raptor or Death By Truck.
So I walk in the poison ivy filled patch off the sidewalk. Guy still isn't moving. Still staring me directly in the eyes. And I do this thing when animals are behaving strangely where I'll talk to them, so I'm just like, "Hey, man. I don't know you. You don't know me. This feels really threatening. I'm just trying to get to my car, dude. Can I get some space please? You're a big fucking bird. I see those claws. You could kill me right now, but I'd appreciate if you didn't, ok?"
It didn't move until I was about 2ft away. Again: I'm as far from it as I can be without walking into the street. It clearly wasn't going to budge. I walk past, thing flies up (silent, btw. Scary) and lands on a brick wall a little further ahead
Anyway. Weird guy. Nearly shit my pants when I noticed a bird big enough to carry off a fully grown cat was just... there, staring me in the face, unwilling to move away from me, a human, something it should see as a threat. I watched behind me the whole rest of the way to my car, just in case this bird decided to help me shed this mortal coil. 10/10 experience. Super cool guy.
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at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"
like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.
"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."
... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.
and i'd still keep writing.
i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.
i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley
"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"
and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.
it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.
you create because you're greedy.
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💖 Day 3.5 is now available! 💖
For the last couple of months, only Server Boosters had access to the 3.5 update... Buuuuut now it's available for everyone to play in the 14DWY Discord — and soon itch.io once I'm happy with the QA and state of the game — so please don't feel pressured to join unless you want to!!
The full devlog + even more screenshots are under the cut ^^
What's been added to the 3.5 version?
📺 Streamer Mode!
I've been told that it's difficult to stream and monetise age-restricted videos on YouTube and Twitch, so I added an option to remove the sexual content and strong language used in the demo.
Now y'all can invite Ren into your bed for cuddles without putting your streamer career on the line /silly /lh
This won't affect the 18+ rating or dark themes/elements of the game, however! Although Streamer Mode will prevent you from seeing any "gruesome" CGs in the future, most of the core elements of the game will still be tied to the choices and decisions you make. So you won't miss out on the overall experience by using streamer mode!!
⚙️ Custom Pronouns!
It only took me one entire year to get around to it, but you can finally choose your own preferred pronouns (or use a set of pronouns instead)... At the cost of being able to change them mid-game ^^;
Since the original pronoun screen wouldn't update until a new scene was displayed, I temporarily disabled the feature. But once I find a workaround, I'll bring it back!
💗 Choose how others perceive you!
You can now choose how the cast and narration perceive you! Originally, the narration was kept strictly gender-neutral (outside of pronouns and genitalia picked by the player), but this will soon change in future updates.
For more clarity: you don't get to choose the words specifically, but you can choose between masculine, feminine, and androgynous terms!
📋 Separate top and bottom genitalia!
You can now choose your tatas and pps separately! >:3
Alongside that, you can also choose your preferred body type!
I removed the "both" genitalia option because a few players still assumed it was an obscure version of "intersex". That wasn't my intention and I don't want to mislead anyone, so I took it out for now ^^;
I also didn't want to include a screenshot of the new genitalia choices in action (because it's NSFW), so y'all get the same character menu screen for the nth time instead lmao
📱 Relationship Screen Overhaul!
You can now change your own status for more immersion, and long-term Server Boosters will eventually be able to submit and use their own icon within the game as well!
Stalking finding your friends has now become easier by using "Buddy Maps"; a new app that allows you to see the location of all the cast members!
I want to offer players more incentive to check the relationship screen since they tend to miss the status updates, so hopefully this might help ;v;
It also says it "updates every few hours" so folks don't go overboard and check every 5 seconds to see where Ren is gdsghf (also keep in mind that he's a hacker lol)
🖤 Additional Scenes Update!
Day 2 received a brand new CG!!!!! Originally, I planned on only adding a few CGs sporadically throughout the game, but it didn't feel right to leave Day 2 so... empty... so I added a brand new CG to (hopefully) make things feel more balanced and natural!
If you decline Teo's offer on Day 3, Leon will now call and try to convince you to reconsider. However, players are still allowed to decline, and if they do, they'll reach a dead end.
After listening to feedback on itch, I changed some of the dialogue during Days 1-3 to make it seem more consistent! They're only small changes though, so it's honestly not worth looking for sdgjssga
🎶 Updated BGM and SFX!
I wanted to try out a different style of music to see if it fits the vibe of 14DWY more! The BGM features more acoustics to suit the "beachy" theme of Corland Bay, though I made a conscious effort to include piano elements as well to stay true to the original!!
I figured it'd be better to give players a live example before I make a poll (to see if they prefer the change or not) and publish it to Itch.
Some new SFX have also been added, though it's very minimal and honestly not that noticeable.
How to download and play the update?
(warning: clicking on the following links will open Discord!!)
To download the Day 3.5 update, simply join the 14DWY Discord server, verify your age, and visit the "14dwy-updates" channel!
Alternatively, you can also wait until the update is publicly released on Itch to play it as well!! (It normally gets released shortly after a round of QA testing/getting feedback from the server, though I may release it earlier if I feel like it hehe ^^)
Enjoy!!
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