Just testing this out a little, seeing how much crap I can fill this in with. Looks like a lot, scoob. Go me for being a master coder!
1/3/23
1/3/23
If there's one way you can bypass algorithms and encourage interactivity, it's with a newsletter. I know many people have spam issues so they don't check their mail a ton, but since I'm not shoving a product in someone's face every day, it shouldn't be too spammy and encourage people to check their emails for Toveraverse stuff.
I used mailjet! It has a free service for a long ass time, and since I'm a nobody, it's perfect for starting out without paying a whipping $30 for a newsletter service.
I could've coded my own with enough googling around, but honestly, if someone has it done for you, just take the service. With enough googling, I was able to find a service doesn't gouge your wallet after 15-20 days. No headache required.
I'm hoping this idea helps me fix my social media reliance, and helps the site stand alone. Like, it won't fade into nothingness without the socials, and people have an incentive to go to it directly, skipping over my socials and just reading it through email announcements. This also helps me with not screeching over people liking my art and not checking out the novel (THEY'RE CONNECTED DAMMIT I DRAW SO THAT YOU CAN READ *SCREAMS*) because like. This way you see both. There is no picking and choosing which side of my creating you see if I use the newsletter. And that owns.
I MAY also use the newsletter to announce art I posted/streams, but. I don't wanna spam folks, like I said, so I'll lay off of that. I think I'll just use the site for that...I have to see if you can embed like, a streaming thing almost like Twitch? But for YT. I think YT is better for artists, since your VODs are up forever. Uhh, I'll test that out today and see if YT has that.
1/10/23
Insecurity is eating at meeeeee. I know i just started, techincally, since 3 months is really not a long time for getting anything going, but OOF. I think I'll keep my deeper thoughts to myself-I don't want to hurt the feelings of the people that have given me support already. I just need to stop comparing myself to others and understand that I'm right where I need to be! And that I can kill this isolation pretty fast if I just...keep at it. I want to make a Discord full of creators where we all chill and hang but...last time I did that, it ended super messy for me :/ I have the courage to try again, but I'm still really scared. Indie creators can be a little prickly-we have lots of pride for our hard work, and hey, that's 100% okay. But, I think sometimes our marginalization (as most of us are doing this because we don't see our stories getting published thanks to subject matter) has impacted our ways of relating, which leads to messy interpersonal relationships. This isn't to armchair diagnose all of us with CPTSD lol. I hate the pathologizing of normal human behavior. I just think...oof. There's always a risk of like...alienation, bullying, pretension, basically domination/control in a group if you aren't careful with who you let into a space and your life. This being said, everyone on neo has been a sweetheart, even the one person I ended up in a spat with, so I have faith in starting a Discord via Neocities before branching out.
1/10/23
Not sure why but pixiv doesn't...make me insecure? You'd think with all the gorgeous work on there I'd be insecure as hell, but I'm not. Even with a low like/follower count I feel fine. Maybe it's because it fits my niche? Like, y'know, I draw Japanese aligned stuff, so I'm in my element. Or maybe I'm just like, numb to the art I see because it isn't what I want to make? Idk. I think I'll hang there more though, since I don't feel like shit when scrolling through.
1/10/23
I finally took a break from insta+tumblr+twitter and I feel GREAT. Like I can take on the goddamn world. I'm ready to take creating into my own hands.
I joined these socials after a really bad event last October. Creatorgeddon. I fucked up, they fucked up, tons of shit happened and I lost connections. In construtive anger, I looked at my art, made my profiles, and started posting. Well uh, Twitter is like, ungrowable, insta stagnates at 40 followers, and Tumblr is very quiet. I'm keeping YT up because it has tons of potential, but for everything else? NOPE. Too much of my time goes into making myself advertisable. Fuck that. We're gonna hone in on my sites and get this party started.
Newsletters, this blog, the TC site, this site, all of it. I'm gonna go in deep and own my art, instead of making free content on a site that buries my voice. I think...tommorrow, I'll make a tutorial and post it. People praise my texture, so I wanna lean into it a bit. SO yeah. Fuck socials, full autism ahead, baby. We're gonna get consumed in the art sauce.
1/11/23
I befriended a stray cat, who has had kittens in our house, twice now. My current cat is actually from her, and this kitten is too. Unfortunately, I couldn't monitor them 24/7 and all died but this one (our dog us shittily trained and hostile to all living beings outside of us :/ he got to them while the mom would move them at night or when she left them alone-she'd make an opening big enough for the dog to get into :(((() but hey. He's here, and he's lived bitch. We call him Jacob and Joseph, but he's forever 'I lived bitch' in my head. He lived, bitch. And he's getting a home soon. I'll miss him very much-he's napped with me, sat with me, he sits on my shoulder while I work (he's doing it in these pics)...and has scratched my hands to oblivion. But I'll miss him all the same.
1/11/23
I found a YT vid where he claims that you can learn music theory in half an hour. And he wasn't lying. That video really can be teaching you music theory in half an hour. I have a bit of a music background, I did band in middle and high school. But y'know, school only takes you so far, and if you really wanna get into the thick of art, language learning, music, etc etc then you have to spend a lot of time outside of class.
As a kid and teen, I struggled in school/life balance due to many things, so yeah, no. I'm not doing a ton of extra work to understand music when my job is to read sheet music and play my flute. But I can't deny that even with my scant knowledge, knowing how to read sheet music and just playing has helped me subtly pick up the small, "extra" things, like knowing your treble, rhythm, major/minor chords click super easily, etc etc. So like, it's not right to say school is totally useless.
I want to buy a piano. I still have my flute from middle and high school, but its banged up from marching band and concert band back to back for years. Piano makes practicing/sketching music TONS faster. More effective. Since you can play and test ideas on the fly, where with flute, it's really one part of a whole band or song. Good for performing folk songs, or when you have a speaker playing a baseline or countermelody, but bad for trying to get the hang of music theory.
I'll link the vid below. It's really fucking good. Have fun.
1/15/23
I want to sketch out character themes and the like before I forget what I want it to sound like. So I made a jig.
We aren't IN Tovera proper yet, but it's like a mix of East Asia (Japan/China/Mongolia), Spain and South America (Columbia, Brazil, and Mexico especially), Britain/Ireland/Wales/Scotland, and a dash the Nordic countries. Which style goes where depends on which area of Tovera you're in, but I like to think I mixed them so well it makes the culture familiar, yet unique. Like, "Oh, I know that iconography, the tunic style, those frills, but it's so JRPG camp that it looks different" type of vibe. This also applies to the music, which I planned to commission, but now I want to do it myself, to own my voice in all things Tovera.
I wanted to drop a little sketch of the chorus I'm planning. The first two measures are the main melody, the last measure is uh...a countermelody, I think. This countermelody (this is probably wrong lol) plays as the main melody is going near the latter part of the chorus, which I haven't thought of yet-but I do want it to be my main leitmotif for the work. This will play (or uh, the novel will ASK you to, it doesn't have to) during a big scene in arc one. I think I captured the Japaneseish kinda sound, but the Latin esque beat will only show through once I include the other stuff.
1/15/23
FE, a franchise I adore and hate, is getting a new entry after years of discourse around if starting war, working with genocidal maniacs, killing off a genocide survivor and ignoring the blatant antisemitism of it all is based or not because it's done by an anime girl. Glad that shit's over! Here's a pic of one of the objetively good designs in the game, celebrating 2 days until release!
Of course, Mika already posted a Veyle for the countdown today, so it got no likes on Twitter or Insta. Yay, I guess. More than that, I'm sad that I'm gonna miss out on the OC art swap-my health has been fucky so I didn't sign up, I don't want to let someone down and tbh my refs for characters suck anyway. If there's one each month, then I'll do it next time :(((( sad to see a communal project slip through my fingers though.
1/18/23
My stylus for my tablet is gone, so I resorted to watercolors before I lost my goddamn mind. I wanted to hash out Luana's transformation visually, because right now we're in the prologue and I don't have the chance to show off her weirdness yet.
Spoilers incoming but: it's revealed pretty early that she's a changeling, and has lived in the fae plane for a spell. There's no way in the millions of hells in the world of Tovera that she hasn't been warped beyond looking like a black Tolkien elf now. This being said, if I revealed how all of her quirks look and work early on, that would be no fun-so for now, her blue hair and blue tipped limbs is all you get to see in story...and below (no limbs pictured, to lazy lol).
I would make this a HWTF, but I wanna keep those somewhat clean. And I'd like to reward people for indulging in my thoughts here in some way, so yeah, blog dwellers get to see messy sketches and the like. Once I make a companion worldbuilding PDF, these drawings will all go into it maybe, but for now, I'd like to just store them here and show them off to whoever visits.
1/20/23
Uh oh...someone's having an identity crisis, and that someone is me.
Every weeb wants to make a manga, but many underestimate how much work goes into it. I know I sure did. As a teen, I bought CSP, and tried to sketch it out, only to immediately short circut and put it away for a while.
I have health problems. I have brain problems. I have brain problems that cause health problems. I have little time as a college student. Blah blah blah. I give myself compassion, because these things do hinder even novel making-it's why I chose a serial format in general. It allows me to be my own boss and make my own rules without being wrung dry by a corporation. I like taking my time to write and hask things out, I like going slow, I like making art I'm proud of, and going indie allows me to do that.
HOWEVER. Someone I was once friends with made a good point-most people make novels when they legit have no choice but to. Not from the love of prose, but from a desparate attempt to hash out their story in ANY form, or it won't get done or be seen. And...yeah. That's exactly what Tovera in it's current form is right now. I wanted to make a comic, but back when my drive to do so was at it's peak, I realized how lacking I was and went to making a light novel. I mean, I like prose. But my visual communication is MUCH stronger.
Anyways, now, I feel a newfound vigor to try comic making. Where it came from is a little shallow, I suppose-light novels have little support, little widespread appeal, no publsihers willing to advertise it as OEL Japanese-inspired work (OEL manga has publishers willing to take it in-some publishers SPECIALIZE in OEL manga!) and my art is my biggest asset-I appeal to a Japanese niche, so a comic in that style will get me into Japanese creative circles no sweat, and all they'd have to do is wait for a translation, as opposed to my novel, which has an art style Westerners don't like but is written in English. I guess this is all to say, my poor little novel is hindering my creative potential, all because it's prose instead of a comic. It pains me to admit it, but it's true. So now I want to see if I can do justice to the original intended form of the work this way, through indie comics/OEL manga.
I admit, part of me had a fantasy of being a *super cool(tm)* animanga inspired artist that broke into the light novel scene and established OEL LNs as equal in importance and fun/entertainment value as OEL manga and manga in general...but light novels are never really big in western animanga circles until they get an anime or manga adaptation-if I knew Japanese prose, I'd still make my little darling a LN, since it has more of a potential audience in Japan (JP light novels are slowburn, slice of life, worldbuilding friendly)-but I am no expert in JP prose, and I think webnovels and reading in general is not like...IN anymore. People write, but don't read, I think.
Well, whatever. That's my little mini crisis right now, as someone stuck between worlds and finding (or has already found, but can't capitalize on/generate interest in) their niche. If Tovera becomes a manga, the main site's front page will be powered by rarebit, and will become more webcomic styled-though I will keep the navibar and other pages the same, they're way too cute to be changed.
2/14/23
I get brain worms when I don't draw for a while, so I decided to sketch out a character that hasn't appeared yet as of 5/7/23 in the comic, but HAS appeared in the novel version, though it was a brief introduction.
Kinda spoilery, but my writing philosophy is that I don't hide jack shit-many tropes have been done and will be done. My job is to get you asking why and how rather than "what."
This means nothing out of context though, since uhhh. The...uhhhh character? CHRIST, I don't know how to explain it-the character depicted hasn't had enough page time for this to mean anything. That's what I'm trying to say. BUT when the time comes, I think this art will have a new meaning. Or maybe it's just a pretty dude with a dong to you even after things are revealed. Either way, that's awesome. Enjoy the cock!
5/7/23
It's good to be back! So it turns out the whole manga thing was a bust. I love comics, but I think making them isn't for me. I underestimated the workload, the style I wanted, and how long it would take to get the story going.
Tovera is in dev hell in the sense that I keep underestimating or not liking the medium I chose. But not this time. I'm determined to get this shit on a ROLL. This WILL work, because if it doesn't, I'll explode. Anyways, to prove I'm not lollygagging around and that I AM getting shit done, here's a GUI preview!
Uh, I'll have a computer by the end of this week, but I made these...without plugging it into the software to see if it looks decent. So this may be outdated by the time I get my comp, which means I have to start over. I don't mind though, because I have the assets and making this stuff takes 1hr 30min at the longest. Of course, I'm hoping I nailed it on my first try, since I based these proportions on visual novels I've dug into and studied the gui of.
7/31/23
I'm hammering out the GUI, which is more fun than I thought it would be. I realized that thge GUI I posted before came out more green than I'd like, so I decided to actually deliver on the starry night theme.
To quote my post from Tumblr: "The motif for the prologue is stars/dawn/dusk/that kinda thing, as shown by my cover piece when it was a manga (which I think I'll redraw/repaint soon, it already looks old and weird). I was thinking this color scheme kinda brings to mind prayer, hope, newfound motivation, moving in silence/behind closed doors, and the mc, who wears a lot of blue."
...That was under the old GUI, which...mission failed, lol. I have no idea what I was thinking! But now, it looks much better.
"
And now that that is out of the way, today I focused on the Ace Attorney-esque buttons people'll press when they want to interact with the environment, and seeing how it all looks on a mock up screen:
Neat, isn't it? I'm excited for how it'll all come together in game! And tomorrow, I order my own computer, which means I can start plugging this stuff in and start development in full.
8/3/23
A short update today-the GUI looks AMAZING. I'm actually impressed with how good it looks despite the fact that I made this before I got this computer (which I got a few days ago!
In other news, I have to hire a programmer-or at least, commission some code. As it turns out, what I want to do in Ren'py isn't as simple as I thought, and I can't seem to understand how to pull it off myself, so I'm spending some time emailing folks and seeing if I can get someone to make the AA-esque buttons-i know how to set up point and click mechanics, and how to set up imagebuttons, but I can't seem to make say, the chat button pull up a few topics and make dialogue trees for the one you click. For now, all I can do is focus on the art side of things, like the writing and script.
8/11/23
This is a preview of the title screen! The BG isn't done yet, as I have to shade it, but this is basically how it's gonna look. It's super elegant, which is Tovera's main philosophy: each arc has a color associated with it, but overall, each VN will look as elegant as the last one.
(Please open in a new tab to watch!)
I'd like to keep things more hush hush, so from now on I'll be introducing characters and their bios-I will also update the site with their sprite upon completing their sprite.
8/14/23
It feels like once a month I have a new revelation about myself and the brainspace I find myself in. This month's revelation is simple: my art is self indulgent, has nothing to offer others, and thus, I can't exactly brand myself or make a storefront. Not when I'm making this stuff not for profit, but for myself and whoever wants to join the ride.
The more I look over my stories, and think on the feedback I've received, it's clear that I don't have what it takes to grab people. Time and time again, I realize just how niche the things I want to discuss are, how little space there is for me to take up, and how very few people would want to spend much of anything on what I make. This is fine-this blog isn't a depressing reflection, I've never created for profit, but I suppose that what I'm trying to say is I can't use a label or brand if I'm not selling things people want to see/buy. The intent was never to make it a company, but more like a store name of sorts, and uh...yeah. That's dumb to do when self indulgence is the name of the game.
Tovera, as well as everything else I have planned, is between YA and Adult hell. The magic, the species, the world is vibrant and E for Everyone, but the themes are bleak, the world can feel like a front for something interesting only to then reveal the social nature of the conflicts, which then turns many off based on what I've heard from friends. And at the end of the day, no one wants to read about fictional ethnicities being exploited, or read about a black woman going through institutional violence-not when they experience that every day, or when they read fantasy to escape and have a good time.
Very little in the worlds I make are blocked/explored solely with metaphors-Luana is black, heavily implied to be autistic, and heavily implied to be queer both sexually and later, gender wise. Her being a changeling is not a metaphor for these things, but instead enhances these features and how the world/Luana reacts to them as well. However, it is the monster metaphor that people would come for, not exactly the mundane parts of discrimination. It's too raw, too depressing, and too boring to read. Unfortunately, this is how all characters are written. This is how all conflict is explored. The fairy tale inspiration is just a way to further explore the feelings and social issues the characters already go through, as themselves-which is what fairy tales were made to do to begin with. Unfortuanately, I can't make a store out of that. A workshop that makes tools and art no one will use is just a mad scientists officeroom, and hey-I like the sound of that more than an atelier anyway!
Of course, I have story and game plans that are more adventure focused, and TLGoTH is not PURE social exploration and nothing else. There are a lot of action based battles to be had, against their inner selves, against the beings of the world, etc etc-but most of what I make has a large social component, as I am inspired a lot by historical fiction, gothic fiction, fiction that explores social issues and how we react to them (think Jane Eyre). And because I chose a weird genre to do this in, and because I don't think it's meta enough in the vein of Utena/Slay the Princess, I don't think I have the chops to make it something worth buying-especially since most people are more interested in the lore and world in and of itself. At that point, I might as well make work that's about the world's magic and beings and only that if I ever do want tp start up a store/brand of some kind-and that's a little far off, when I'm stable enough to make a Metroidvania or Zelda-like or whatever else.
Again, this isn't a depression post. I always knew that I'll be in a small niche, and that money wasn't on the table, and that this is all very self indulgent, a response to reading and watching things that refused to Go There. And I do admit that I often feel lonely despite having wonderful creative friends, since I feel that there is no place for me in the creative world, as I feel alienated from my peers, the things people my age (21, at the time of writing this) like to watch/read/draw, and fandom spaces. Often, you hear your peers imply that the things you make are not only boring, but grimdark and depressing and irresponsible, as if the things you want to discuss and explore and even think about solutions to are not something art should touch. However, I usually can ignore this and create anyway-the bigger factors obstructing my motivation are college, building a career, and my academic performance. It just hit me this Thanksgiving break that I'm delusional to use a label/store name when I'm not making something for everyone, if that makes any sense.
This is getting long, so I'll end it here. TLDR; no one wants to pay to read something that focuses on the world's social structures, and would much rather read about these things through metaphors, adventure, and battle. And I can't provide it, so RIP Fairydust Atelier, and hello Sidhedust's gremlin cave.
11/26/23
