Been replaying Hollow Knight as of late. Amazing how much easier it is when you already know what's happening!

I had a dream Silksong’s release date was announced, it was 2024, January 29.

No listen, hornet was designed to mirror my trauma perfectly.

She's from two different places, both of which she doesn't feel like she belongs to, now suddenly stuck in a foreign land so so far away from anything resembling "home" that is exploiting the people of one side of her heritage, that of deepnest.

And the only reason she's they haven't caught her is due to the other side of her heritage, that of hallownest, that of the pale king, a side of her heritage that completly rejected the other, feeling like the other was beneath them. And that is the side allowing her special treatment, just enough to allow her to escape pharloom's grasp.

Do you think hornet feels guilt that the wyrm blood she carries, knowing that it is the only reason she isn't farm stock. Knowing that she owes the Deepnest side of her heritage.

Do you think she's tired? She thought she repented for the wyrm blood she carries by protecting the seals, for overlooking the land (her land?) In her father's stead. But now the one side of her heritage that she thought safe, the people she thought escaped are trapped and she must take the vigil again.

But she's so tired.

She thought she was done seeing people like her being mistreated, growing up alongside the pure vessel knowing that neither of them would have existed if not for this Plauge, feeling like their father sees the pair of them as nothing but a bitter debt. But now seeing the way pharloom treats the Deepnest immigrants she's reminded yet again that the world around her sees her as lesser.

Yet like with the pure vessel that she is still in a position of privilege, that she has it so much better.

This lack of singular heritage protects her.

Had she's been purely the pale king's child she'd have been tossed in the abyss like all the others

Had she been purely Herrah's child she'd have been farmed for silk by pharloom or consumed by the Plauge.

She's like a pet bird, yes caged, but not slaughtered like a chicken would, that must fuck with her.

God she must be so tired. But she won't say so, because she doesn't believe herself deserving of exhaustion.

I can't actually delve much into pharloom and Deepnest yet since we don't know much about them, which is why I cut the "essay" in the OG post short.

But if I were to say anything I'd say that Pharloom feels very Christian to me, while Deepnest is very much not, though I can't say which culture they're coded as. Which is fascinating because pharloom clearly accepts immigrants, or pilgrims as we saw in the trailer. It suggests to me that Pharloom is only accepting immigration from nations they deem "civilised", aka bug Christian, or at least willing to assimilate.

However the weavers are not willing to assimilate, and even if they were they look so different to the average bug, which means they cannot. I may be projecting but it's like how if you're a brown middle Eastern guy you can't exactly assimilate into western culture even if you wanted to cause you're not white.

Because of this pharloom keeps the weavers only for their labour and away from the eyes of tourists and pilgrims, to continue this facade of a "civilized" nation, afraid that the "barbaric" (aka not bug Christian) reputation of the Deepnest immigrants would taint that.

It's similar to how if you were to be hired into a factory job here in Europe or any major labor intensive job that is away from the eyes of the public it's filled with immigrants, as if the company knows that they'll accept harsher conditions. No I'm not speaking from personal experience whatever gave you that idea, heh, but seriously it's fucked I hope hornet tears pharloom into shreds.

...

OP I AM FROTHING AT THE MOUTH THANK YOU FOR THIS MEAL. I think the only thing I disagree on is Hornet's reaction to the burden of her heritage- I think she would be deeply, bitterly angry about it, a sort of ice-cold anger that mingles with the exhaustion yet overwhelms all else- but mmmmm YES this is so good. Hornet being a person stuck between worlds is something that is both her greatest strength, and yet also incredibly isolating for her. She was Deepnest's strongest heir because she was born of Wyrm and Beast, and yet she is still half-mortal compared to her siblings, formed of God and Void. She is the heir to Deepnest, but she is known as the Daughter of Hallownest, and ends up being its protector in the entirety when the Radiance massacred all who were not strong enough to resist her. She's got so much strength, but that strength led to more burdens placed on her shoulders, and now she's trapped in a foreign land far from home, captured like the rest of her tribe, yet tasked with freeing them because her divine blood gives her that edge over the people of Pharloom that her Weavers do not. It must be exhausting, being Hornet, but I'm hoping that some of that lonlieness will be dispelled by meeting fellow outcasts. I sure as fuck can relate to her, as the son of an immigrant and someone disconnected from their family/culture- it's part of why she's one of my favorite characters. Even if she's beloved by one or the other, she'll never fully fit in to either

I also agree on Pharloom having very Christian vibes, what with the rosaries and rigid religious structure and all. It's an interesting contrast from the Radiance, actually, who also gives me strong Christian vibes, but more in the sense of the old testament, wrathful sort of divinity. Pharloom, on the other hand, reminds me more of the corruption wrought by the church; the bounds placed upon others seem to be institutional, and the system of exploitation also seems to be baked into the social power dynamic rather than what we saw in Hollow Knight, where two divine beings that could not comprehend the lives of mortals ended up killing everyone in the nuclear blast radius of squabbling over their worship. It was not institutional; it was animalistic. The fact that Pharloom has a gilded citadel with which immigrants or pilgrims must struggle from the bottom up feels like a metaphor for climing the social ladder, where each rung you jump to demands more of your previous life lost. Those who conform easily and/or are native to Pharloom get to navigate comfortably up the ladder, while those who stick to their own cultural traditions (like the Weavers) are enslaved and exploited. We've yet to see the God of Pharloom, if there even is one, but so far Pharloom really does give me 'extremely strong and corrupt religious political power' vibes from the brief glimpses we see of it. Maybe that's just bc its actually alive instead of the gods being the only ones kind of clinging on, but still. Pretty sure rosaries are a Catholic thing?? Which pairs pretty nicely lots of gilded extravagance and exploitation, lmfao

Either way though, its vibes are absolutely rancid. I sure as fuck hope we see Hornet tearing out its bloated underbelly in Silksong, or at least personally beating back whatever caused the problem. After who knows how many centuries guarding the corpse of a kingdom felled by the folly of gods, she deserves a little regicide. As a treat

I wish you guys would've warned me before I played Hollow Knight I don't like being sad :(

I think I'm tired with the concept of shipping at all, actually. Putting it on the shelf until allo people can behave. If you ship people and I can see it I'm going to bite and kill you like a rabid hound.

To those losers making bots accounts...

Since you have the time to waste, please go figure out a way to find out when Silksong will be released !!!

For the ask game: one of the BEST hollow knight artists and just all around talented!!

ANONYMOUSLY TELL ME YOUR HONEST OPINION ABOUT ME. I CAN’T REPLY, JUST PUBLISH.

i still hate the typical video game healthbar

It really is fucking telling how the same people who are mad at Phisnom for the shit that happened are also the same people genuinely wishing for him to go into poverty and making jokes about it. Like girl do you not hear yourself 😭 !!!!

the fact that totk drops 10 days before my birthday is literally a sign . i need it so bad

as gorgeous of a game Ori & The Will of the Wisps is, the fact that there are NO women as supporting characters in the Wellspring Glades is SO frustrating. the only female characters in that game are Ku (who is absent for like 80% of the game), Naru and Mora (both of which are mothers becuz of course female characters must be mothers), and Shriek who is an antagonist with a backstory but not a personality like the others in the Glades. This sorry few compared to Motay, Twillen, Tokk, Kwolok, Veral, Tuley, Opher, Lupo, Grom, Baur....... The game came out in 2020 whyyy would you nerf your cast like this 💀💀

I am on the verge of talking about old british history that I learned from a random ass train documentary that could possibly be linked to silksong and I - hhhhhhhhhhhh

Drawing Hornet everyday until Silksong comes out - Day 226

Request by @/one-lovely-little-idiot !

Yes! In fact I haven’t really shown that much in the grand scheme of things, especially because most of it was planned out to be written as a fanfic, with a fully complete outline I wrote a few months ago. Who knows I may even be able to translate it to a comic format instead?? If you guys are up for it lol

I figure the best thing I could draw for this today is probably the main characters/main perspectives of the story. Basically the whole story is centered around getting a happier ending where everybody lives, it just takes a really long time to get there amidst fighting several different foes (including some that were previously presumed dead or came back to life). I’ve only finished one and a half chapters fully. But who knows I may finish writing the full thing in the future? maybe????

I cleaned up some old artwork I did of Hornet in the false hope for silksong 🤡. I have to splash this big watermark because people keep stealing my art. Speaking of... I have a redbubble now! Where I will be slowly populating my art there. You can find some of my work at Undlark.redbubble.com

HEY ALL!!! If you haven't heard, Unity is gonna start charging devs 20 cents per download. Not per sale, but PER DOWNLOAD. This applies to not only big-name games like Hollow Knight and Ori, but also smaller projects that might be free. This includes mobile games made with Unity, Undertale fan games like Undertale Yellow and Deltatraveler, and also, get this: Murder of Sonic! It was made in Unity, and so far, it's still free, but Sega's gonna hafta start charging for it sooner or later- IF they don't decide to take it down completely.

So, on this note, I have 2 things to say:

Get your favorite games NOW. Some devs, like Team Cherry, are talking about "taking their games down" (so much for Silksong- thanks A LOT, Unity!!!). I don't know if that means you'll still be able to play these games- like on Steam, for instance- if you already have them downloaded.

Please, please, PLEASE, support those games that are made with Unity. 20 cents adds up when there's a million downloads, and if it's like a mobile game, where people don't necessarily have to pay for it, that's going to COST the devs money- a LOT of money. I know we all hate the paywalls and "pay-to-win" schemes in mobile games, but let's be real- crap like this Unity thing are the whole reason those paywalls exist! These devs aren't doing this for free, they're trying to make a living! Even if you only spend $1, only 1 time, that is STILL going to be an 80 cent profit over the new Unity costs, and maybe, just maybe, give some game devs enough incentive to keep the game around.

I know Unity has a bad rep because it's easy to use and allows devs to release games that control poorly because you don't have to be good at coding to do it (*cough* Guardian of Lore *cough*). That's why I haven't used Unity, despite having several game ideas in my head, because I don't know how to code (yet), and I didn't want to release a game like that- and now I never will use Unity. But games like all the ones I've mentioned are proof that Unity CAN be used for good games, in the right hands. So please, if you love a game made with Unity, please support it, so the game doesn't go away. Don't send the devs into bankruptcy just because Unity is a money-grubbing so-and-so.

(Oh, I should also mention, for browser-based games, apparently this "per download" thing also includes "per BROWSER REFRESH". So, yeah, please don't blame the devs, support the devs and blame Unity.)

EDIT: It's not quite as bad as I'd thought. I knew Unity had a threshold, but I thought it was an either/or thing- either a certain number of downloads, or a certain amount of money made from a game. And, it's not, it's both.

So free games (like Murder of Sonic) apparently won't be affected.

Here's their pricing schedule once the threshold is met:

It still adds up for the smaller projects, with Unity taking all or most of the revenue from smaller games.

And one thing that's still bothering me: the install threshold is "life to date" and Unity is charging per install over the threshold. So, if a game's been around for years and had a million downloads and has made 200,000 dollars in the last year, they're gonna end up paying that 200,000 all at once.

At least, that's what I'm reading.

So, ok, I was wrong. Free projects won't be affected. But this is still awful, especially when it's first starting out.

EDIT 2 (2023-09-23): They've lessened the fees:

I'm still not using them. They never had a good reputation- I mean, there's good Unity games, but there's also a lot of bad ones because people can just release games with Unity with no coding experience. I want to make games someday, but I want them to be a good quality, so I'm waiting until I can actually figure out C++ (heck, I'm still wading through HTML, I'm nowhere near real programming languages). As long as I have to learn coding to make something good, I might as well find an engine that I can trust. I hear a lot about Godot. I also think I'll want to look at Monogame, because Monogame was used to make Axiom Verge and Celeste, and it's apparently based on the defunct XNA that was used to make Stardew Valley. Or I'll find something else. But not Unity. I just don't trust them.

331% Funded | 15 days to go!

If you've been following me for a while you'll know I'm soon going to be releasing The Perilous Pear & Plum Pies of Pudwick, a 52 page full-colour, fully illustrated adventure for Melsonia where a group of plucky adventurers will shrink to insectoid size and adventure into the uncanny world that exists inside a sapient pear tree in a system agnostic weird fantasy bugcrawl.

If that interests you, you should absolutely check out Beetle Knight, which I hope to run TPPAPPOP with when I get my grubby palps on it!

Beetle Knight has got a cool contested rolls system, an emblems mechanic reminiscent of the medals in Bug Fables or charms in Hollow Knight, and it comes from a team embedded in the OSR/NSR design trajectory.

I'm not involved with Beetle Knight, but if luck is on our side both projects will release the same day Silksong comes out! If it sounds like your kind of game (and you know it is if you're following me) go check out the kickstarter page!