Author Archives: playerprophet

[ROUNDUP] February, March, and April/May to Come

By playerprophet Posted in Comics, Fandom, Personal, Reviews Tagged

I hope you’re all doing well <3

I’ve been working on a few things and it’s tough because a lot of them are just behind the curtain and I can’t show them to you for a little while, but I’m very very excited for the moment when I can.

February

I feel like February was a lot of working on things that will be due to come out soon, and nothing that I can actually show off. I drew some stuff that I posted on social media and I will collect to post here at a later time! I would like to have all my fandom art in a pile, isolated for convenience.

March

Young Lady Albert is Courting Disaster Volume 2 is complete, and you can now buy the ebook!

Young Lady Albert is Courting Disaster Volume 3 is now being serialized!

I started taking driving lessons!

Beloved friend of the show Ashley Lauren Rogers has a play available for purchase at Next Stage Press. Check out and pick up Chasing the Ghost here! Ashley also has her own Patreon here!

Another beloved friend of the show, Kai, has been working hard on their comic, Ukiyo! They have a Patreon as well where you can support them, here!

April

Fujoshi Guide to Web Development Kickstarter launched. I helped!

Finding God in No Man’s Land—Christian Influence in Trigun: Essay posted on Easter 2023! Because I thought it was funny. I’ll be writing up a few elements that I didn’t get to work into the essay itself for Patreon that I also hope to make available on ko-fi.

More stuff to come?? Maybe??

May

Hideo Kojima’s Memes and Torquil Campbell’s DNA – Artists on Art as Genetics: Coming out on Unwinnable Exploits on May 1st. Might only be available for subscribers right away, so keep your eyes peeled. I’ll post it as soon as I see it!

Also on May 1st, playerprophet friend and supporter Mirth Turtle is having a very special livestream. Details to come.

I have another Author Spotlight Interview coming out soon with Nightmare Magazine. I believe it’s out in May but it could be June. They don’t tell me these things (but I also don’t ask).

I’ve signed up for a course to learn about making TTRPGs late in May: Designing Games that Matter with Avery Alder. I wanted to go last year, but full-time work left me very little room for fun. Looking forward to it this time! I bet I’ll have some fun things to share afterward. :)

I also now have a discord server that you can join with extra perks for patrons!

Also I’ll probably be working on a Trigun doujinshi (as short as possible) because the fandom is on fire and I have more stuff I want to say. Now’s as good a time as any, right?

ESSAY: Finding God in No Man’s Land — Christian Influence in Trigun on womenwriteaboutcomics.com

By playerprophet Posted in Comics Tagged , ,

I worked my butt off writing this essay in December/January and it’s finally here! Please enjoy it on wwac.com.

ESSAY: Finding God in No Man’s Land — Christian Influence in Trigun

Sixty billion double thanks to everyone who supported me with tips on ko-fi to buy these books, to wwac for hosting this piece, to Kat Overland for her editorial guidance and wisdom, and Lena LeRay for help with some translating. xoxo

20 Stories that Changed Me in 2022

By playerprophet Posted in Books, Games, Personal, Reviews, Shows, Stories

This is the last thing I write about 2022 I hope.

For Christmas I asked for and received (thanks to my mom and brother Jeff, thanks guys) Hideo Kojima’s The Creative Gene. The book (so far) is mostly Kojima’s account of stories that have influenced him, why they mattered to him, and sometimes how we can see their effects in his work.

I keep a yearly planner — a hobonichi techo — which has a “my 100” list in the back where you can chronicle 100 things. I never knew what to do with it, but in 2022 I kept a chronicle of media I consumed, whether I liked them or not, or other special memories of new places or things. So for the first time I had a reliable, localized collection of the things I read/watched/saw that were new to me. After starting The Creative Gene I thought it might be nice to share with you, like he shared with me, the things that I believe I learned something from that will help me go into the future.

So here are 20 of the stories that changed me in 2022, in no particular order.

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2022 List of Credits

By playerprophet Posted in Comics, Personal

Lots of people in the manga industry like to post collections of the year’s work, but it’s difficult when you do proofreading because the list gets pretty massive pretty quickly.

Here’s all the stuff I worked on this year, and it’s probably not comprehensive because it’s just based on what I wrote down in my planner. I’ve been thinking it would be good to collect all the titles I’ve worked on as a reference just for job searching, so this is just a start. This also doesn’t include volumes of series that I started working on in previous years.

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Yakuza Games Ranked by How Much I Liked Them

By playerprophet Posted in Games, Reviews Tagged ,

As I mentioned recently, 2022 was tough for me.  Some of my friends were excited about Like a Dragon, but I didn’t want to play it until I played all of the other Yakuza games because that’s what I’m like. I hate skipping things.

During this stressful year I found it easy to move from one Yakuza game to the next without having to apply new and unique brain power to an entirely new game. As such, I played almost only Yakuza series games. I’m afraid to find out how many hours I spent on them when I turn on my ps5 to install Like a Dragon. It’s going to be a lot.

Anyway here’s the list in reverse order to build suspense. This list is ordered to my own tastes and therefore you cannot judge me.

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Young Lady Albert is Courting Disaster

By playerprophet Posted in Books, Comics Tagged , ,

High on the list of “stuff I’ve been up to” is editing this fantastic manga for J-Novel Club, Young Lady Albert is Courting Disaster.

If you’re not familiar with J-Novel Club they have a very unique style of subscription service that gives you access to a chapter-by-chapter serialization of their manga and light novels. When the book is complete, they compile it into an ebook for purchase and (sometimes) make print versions. I’m a big fan of physical books so I’m hoping we’ll get a version for print.

There’s a popular trope in isekai for women/girls (josei) that involves a girl being reborn into an otome game as the villainess. The protagonist often tries to reorient her life to become a better person–but not in the case of Mary Albert. Mary decides that her future is set in stone so she might as well go ahead and drive this metaphorical train into a pit.

I’m not a huge fan of isekai, but I think I am a fan of otome isekai. There are some really delightful series out there that are all doing something a little different. As such I now feel as though Lady Albert is kind of my baby. It’s a great series with good characters, great jokes, and I’m going to do my damndest to do right by it as its editor.

If you’re interested in giving it a read, volume 1 is available now via J-Novel Club’s subscription service, and chapter 1 I believe is available for free. (It won’t be forever!) Volume 2 will be starting serialization early in January 2023.

You can read it on J-Novel Club here: https://j-novel.club/series/young-lady-albert-is-courting-disaster

Alternatively, you can also buy the ebook which will be released in full (with bonus content) on Amazon or on BookWalker.

The volume 1 ebook is coming out on December 28th! I’ll let you know when volume 2 is coming out, too.

Personal Post: 2022 Was the Worst Year of 2020 to Date

By playerprophet Posted in Personal Tagged ,

With the ongoing collapse of Twitter which they now say will soon have a character limit of 4000, I decided to bite the bullet and just use blogs as originally intended. Social media is for shitposting and blogging is for things I care to commit to history so I hope to update this blog with a lot of random nonsense from now on, some of which will be under lock and key via Patreon integration, so if you’re interested in having more of a conversation about me and my content, please find me there again.

I think I made a post here about moving to Gumroad and right after that Gumroad revealed that they’re also full of twats and since lots of people use Patreon (including myself, to funnel cash to people I like) I might as well stick with the same twats that everyone else is affiliated with. My Patreon will be reactivated at the end of December. Here’s my Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/playerprophet

This blog post is a bummer so far but I promise I’m doing well, I just hate living in late capitalism.

To brighten things up, here’s a photo of my current foster cat, Scruffy McFluffers (adoption pending). Maybe I’ll make a big blog post about him soon. And perhaps my other fosters?

a scruffy grey tabby cat scowls at the screen.

I am no longer working at Seven Seas so I have retreated to freelance work. This is fine. Now I have the time to get back to the projects I’ve abandoned since 2020, so your support on Patreon and elsewhere would be appreciated. I’m hoping to cut back on the number of contracts I’m juggling for January in order to write a novel (but please do contact me about work opportunities). When I got a full-time job in 2020 I had several ambitions I was trying to fulfill, and one of them was to spend that November working on this novel for NaNoWriMo. Instead, I got a job, and had no time for the novel. I feel like it would be better if I took the summer to slack off and write instead, but there are a few things in the world that seem to be telling me it’s a good time, so I’m going to get started in the new year. I’ll tell you all about it soon… and probably on Patreon first!

I’m looking forward to the holidays and ringing out this crappy year. For me it’s been a lot of disappointments and loss and stress, but a lot of learning too. I think we can ring in 2023 on a better note with blogs, Patreon, and really gay novels. Thank you all for being here. It means a lot.

Manga Recommendation: Pompo: The Cinéphile

By playerprophet Posted in Books, Comics, Reviews Tagged , ,

No fun screenshots of panels for this recco because I apparently didn’t save any of the PDFs.

I LOVE comics and zines that can entertain me while also teaching me stuff. A good diary comic like My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness can really scratch an itch of introspection, but my favorite are manga that go further in what an industry or hobby is like, such as Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star or the upcoming I’m a Terminal Cancer Patient, but I’m Fine. (I recommend both of these, by the way. I hope you’ll also join me in preordering Kate Beaton’s Ducks as well.)

Pompo: The Cinéphile isn’t a diary comic, but the amount of education involved in its creation is similarly as compelling. It’s a fictionalized tale that ruminates on an industry or culture from someone who clearly knows a thing or two about it. Similar recommendations for this kind of story from Seven Seas would be Blue Giant, BL Metamorphosis (both which will get their own post at a later date), Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games, or even My Brother’s Husband, Tokyo Revengers, or Bride’s Story. Either based in personal experience or thorough education, these books speak like a teacher, and it rules. (At least, I think so.)

If you are into any of the above titles, you might also enjoy Pompo: The Cinéphile, which is a story where the titular Pompo (a producer) starts her assistant, Gene (an aspiring director) on the road of his dreams. The story walks the journey of the creation of a film from casting actors, shooting on location, cutting trailers, and witnessing a complete film as the culmination of all the work done by everyone involved.

It helps that the adaptation of the manga was done by Jay Trust, who I’ve been told is a director in their own right… though it appears they may be doing their manga adaptations under a different pen name than their directorial ones, as I can’t find them anywhere.

If you’re a nerd about filmmaking, I recommend reading Pompo. There are two volumes of the manga released so far and a third one on its way. It’s a dense read, but a joy.

The manga takes place in Nyallywood, which is obviously a fictional stand-in for Hollywood, but there are a lot of funny little Japan things all over the story. This manga has also been made into an animated film, which I haven’t seen! But maybe that is more your speed.

Either way, this is a definite recommendation from me. These are books I’m proud to have in my collection. I hope you check them out.

Manga Spotlight: Level 1 Demon Lord & One-Room Hero

By playerprophet Posted in Books, Comics Tagged ,

Hello all! Long time no post. I started a new full-time job after 35 years of freelance in 2020, and I’m now a Senior Copy Editor at Seven Seas Entertainment! I read manga all day on the lookout for forgotten sound effects and other such things.

I love my job, but I have to read a lot of stuff I don’t like. But it also fires me up because there are a lot of comics I like a lot, and you will probably never read. So I’m going to make these Manga Spotlight posts now and then to highlight really special manga that I think you should check out. Some of these might be NSFW but this one is not. I need everyone to know about Level 1 Demon Lord & One-Room Hero.

I have to read a lot of isekai for work (and if you don’t know what isekai is, that’s a whole other blog post) so one of my favorite new tropes is “playful subversion of isekai and the fantasy genre.” Level 1 Demon Lord is one such book.

Ten years in the past, a classic RPG party went to save the world and killed the demon lord to save the day. The world settled into a comfortable peace, but demons have seven lives. The demon lord awakes ten years since his death, far too early and in an extremely weakened state. He runs off to find the hero that killed him years before to see what kind of future he’s made for himself. Instead, he finds a deadbeat who sleeps all day in his bachelor apartment, a man who has given up on life.

Our hero, Max, is living a regular life in what appears very similar to modern-day Japan, but is still the fantasy land that was saved ten years ago. Our demon lord asks questions and struggles to understand why the hero isn’t living large in the way that he deserves. Max is cagey about answers. It becomes clear before long that the media has taken advantage of Max for his fame, twisting all of his actions into a scandal. He does as little as possible so he can stay out of the spotlight, but with a demon lord in his company, trouble has come to find him again.

This manga is mostly a gross fanservice comedy, but Level 1 Demon Lord doesn’t shy away from inter-country politics, corruption, and the tempestuous relationships of shitty adults who once were friends. It’s a bit about how fame is a double-edged sword, a bit about wrangling with depression and disappointment, and a little bit about how your idols are real people.

Not only that, but there’s a weird little romance going on between the Level 1 Demon Lord & One-Room Hero. Is it gay? The demon lord, when pressed, won’t clarify whether or not he’s a man or not, though he proceeds to present as a woman more and more as the series goes on.

I feel like it’s difficult to express the charm of this series because I’m trying to spoil as little as possible. But I look forward to every volume that passes my desk. It’s one of my favorites. I find the artwork charming and the story funny, and this post-fantasy land is devolving into war and terrorism with neighboring countries. Old allies struggle to get Max to take a stand politically, but he avoids it while also keeping his new allegiance with demons a secret. If the public finds out about the new company he keeps, he will be seen as a traitor to humanity and kick Max while he’s already down.

The stakes are high and hilarious… until they aren’t! Please read Level 1 Demon Lord & One-Room Hero. It rules.

Agatha Christie to Ryukishi07: Linear Whodunits as Games (For NarraScope 2020)

By playerprophet Posted in Criticism, Games Tagged ,

Hello everyone!! Here’s my talk on processing linear books as interactive mediums especially in terms of whodunits and detective fiction, as taught to me through Umineko no naku koro ni. You can enjoy the video above, or read the script below, although the two aren’t word for word.

Also a lot of my pictures are missing from my blog due to some aggravating webhosting errors on my part. Hopefully I’ll have time to fix that at some point.

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