My Variant Cover

Hey everybody, don’t forget! 

• Take your meds 

• Drink some water 

• Relax your shoulders 

• You’re beautiful 

• I love you

Yep. Now there’s a Patreon if you want to support this comic. Right now there’s only a $1 tier where you get to see the comic a week earlier and at a higher resolution. I plan to add more things and accompanying tiers as time goes on.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m really glad she’s a huge hit, it’s super exciting to see so many people love the character design and the gameplay, and know that I contributed directly and significantly to the behind-the-scenes engineering that makes it all work. It’s validating.

But it’s also so fucking melancholy to know I did so much work and put in so much time for such a shitty company, run by shitty people, and the reward I got for it was unemployment. 

I threw a lot into this character. I cried at work. I started getting panic attacks, which I’ve never gotten before. I developed persistent heart palpitations from the daily overwhelming stress and had to go to the hospital (this is true, seriously.) I basically dropped all my friends outside of work. My manager (and his manager!) lied to me constantly to keep me working. They said I was doing a great job but to keep it up. Don’t worry, it’s going to turn out great, and it’ll all be worth it in the end – recognition, a raise, probably a promotion in short order. They promised me the world. When she was finally finished, I didn’t even get to go to the release party, they just walked me out. 

I remember a quote from my last day, it sticks out in my mind: “I know you realize this is really hard for me,” my manager said. Yes, in the end, when he awkwardly informed me I didn’t have my dream job anymore – or any job at all – and then stared back at my shell-shocked face, my thousand-yard stare, the only thing he felt was sorry for himself.

She launched with no major bugs and was considered a technical success. Doesn’t matter. Get the fuck out.

Look, I get it. Akali is EXTREMELY my type. It’s obvious how much love and care was put into her development. But it makes me furious to see all the free advertising that Riot is getting from people who I thought would know better.  And now? One of the people who is arguably responsible for all that free advertising? Who’s work is undoubtedly making Riot hundreds of thousands of dollars a day? Who was overworked to the point of near breaking? They get nothing. WORSE than the scant bit of credit that most devs can get in a big company like Riot. They got let go.

me by 4 PM that afternoon:

guess what? this is flash!

this is also flash!

THIS is puppet animation:

the funniest part is that most puppet animation isn’t even done in flash anymore. people use after effects instead because it has MUCH more sophisticated and useful tools meant specifically for puppet animation.

the technique can be used well, however. my little pony does it so fluidly it looks practically seamless.

homestar runner doesn’t focus nearly as much on fluidity, but instead on constructing strong, expressive key poses and making every frame really count.

puppet animation isn’t even limited to digital mediums. in fact, it’s not new at all.

the adventures of prince achmed is the world’s oldest surviving feature-length animated film - that’s right, predating snow white by over 10 years - and it was done entirely using puppet animation; black paper cutouts atop illuminated backgrounds. and it’s truly fucking breathtaking.

My Pronouns Part 2!

Babes! Thank you so much for reading! If you want to keep track of me these days the best places to do that are my Patreon and my Instagram

Go gently down your paths my beauties! And remember I’m here for you!