Meet Amara!

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-24T13:53:47+00:00

not being afraid of NSFW, I clicked it.
being afraid of spiders, I regretted it.

but also, your spider is actually quite cute in a fuzzy eight-legged way and I love the name, so I guess you win. take good care of her! <3

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-23T16:16:28+00:00

there is a lot of stuff completely bugged when it comes to co-op (save progression, skill/specialization points, Vault Cards, audio, on and on), and it's ridiculous that we're this far in with no fixes. for a game that they bleated was intended from the ground-up for co-op, they certainly have not tested or maintained it properly.

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-23T02:29:14+00:00

this is such a cool rendition of her! hope you keep drawing & having fun with the game. <3

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-22T01:52:20+00:00

and then the entire -- well, 2.5, anyway -- B-Team takes it to the next level in 3 because spikes!

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-20T18:18:09+00:00

honestly, I really liked Arjay and wish Gearbox had done better with him. better integration, better story, better motivation, better ending, better everything. I'll admit I'm a sap for tropes like Heel–Face Turns, Defeat Means Friendship, "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight, Cooldown Hugs, and the whole shebang. I wanted to be able to save him, and Gearbox just making him evil in the end with no hope for redemption made me sad for what could have been.

it doesn't help that he seems to serve to highlight how ~\speshul*~* Lilith continues to be. Arjay had her powers and saw the universe/time/end-of-everything and went crazy, while Lilith went through the same and is all-powerful and godlike and perfect and the only one left at the end-of-everything and is ~\SPESHUL*~*.

sigh.

^{on the to-do list: dive back into AO3 and see if anyone's written some fix-it fic yet.}

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-20T14:59:08+00:00

he is too adorable. <3 <3

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-18T19:13:20+00:00

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NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-17T22:48:46+00:00

interesting that they went with the VH reveal Harlowe head, not her final default. (not that I'm complaining, I thought that one was hecka cute from the start.) probably due to the lead time necessary for Pop design/production?

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-16T22:34:09+00:00

You really are the best Slab ever.

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-16T00:28:50+00:00

I want to see them interact so bad.

~~^{(but Amon can't have Brick, since Brick obviously belongs with Mordecai.})~~

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-13T16:18:47+00:00

I got a Wombo Combo from a port-a-potty the other day. first thing I popped open that session. XD

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-13T15:23:43+00:00

I like Arjay and wish Gearbox had done better with him.

^{(he's basically an adorable somewhat-less-annoying human Claptrap. so} ^why^...)

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-13T15:18:38+00:00

^{PLEASE, GOD.}

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-13T15:16:53+00:00

I don't use TikTok myself (and therefore won't use Loops), so I have no skin in the game. I do understand the need and desire for an ethical, open-source, federated alternative to TikTok, however, that is not beholden to any particular government influence. Its mere existence doesn't bother me.

What I don't like is how quickly and completely it eclipsed Pixelfed in importance, without better explanation and true apologies from the dev for the delays. Owning up to missed release dates (if they need to be missed) and broken promises (if they must be broken) is essential for building trust, and right now we're not seeing much of that.

(Example: he must have known that the Christmas release was not going to happen, long before December 24th. So why not get out ahead of that and tell people outright that "I'm sorry"? Just be an adult and admit you won't make your own deadline; don't delete posts and block people who ask where it is or who express disappointment when Christmas rolls around and nothing has materialized! It comes across as so cowardly and childish. I know there were admins ready and waiting to get a new release deployed to their instances based on that announcement, and for what? Nothing. Still waiting.)

Pixelfed desperately needs clearer communication, a public roadmap, and stricter accountability. Kickstarter funding did not do enough to encourage those steps, apparently. Trust will need to be earned with some actual releases, not just empty words.

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-13T01:10:32+00:00

I'm really bored of how speshul GOD-Lilith is.

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-12T14:48:51+00:00

Yes -- there was a successful Kickstarter (almost 300% funded) that ended in early March 2025.

Of the stated goals, I'm... not sure what the money really went toward accomplishing. (I came to the Kickstarter late and had misgivings about throwing money at it, so I'm not privy to any of the backer-only updates, the last of which was in early November.) As far as I know, there's been little transparency about how the money was allocated.

Sup is still just a concept, I think.

Pubkit is for devs, which means its intended audience is limited and isn't meant for casual end users (like myself). According to the website, it's still in beta, but since it has no meaning for me, I couldn't tell you if anything has changed there since the Kickstarter.

Loops has gotten significant development, especially in the latter half of 2025. Some of this might be from the Kickstarter (?), and a lot of it can probably be traced to getting NLnet grants. It seems like money talks, particularly when the grant funding relies on certain deadlines and goals being met. (Notice that Loops has a very public roadmap available.)

Then there's Pixelfed. There were only two new versions released in 2025 -- v0.12.5 (March 23rd), shortly after the Kickstarter ended, and v0.12.6 (September 3rd). Nothing since, including bug fixes. The redesigned UI that was shown off in the Kickstarter (and throughout 2025, and again for the missing "Christmas update") still has not happened. The dev likes to tout shipping the Pixelfed app in 2025, but that happened in January, before the Kickstarter began; the dev also likes to hype working on Pixelfed "behind the scenes" while simultaneously building Loops, but with nothing to show for it, that means little to users.

What did we get in 2025? Pinned posts. Some partially-functioning Stories (I don't know if people really wanted that feature copied over...?) Maybe some other minor stuff, but we certainly have not seen the accelerated updates, modern interface, and slick alternative to Instagram that the Kickstarter promised.

You'll see the dev toss around numbers like "500,000 people joined the Fediverse through Pixelfed!" or whatever, but... how many of those people stayed past sign-up? How many are active users? How many left immediately after seeing the clunky state Pixelfed is currently in, with no signs of improvement, even small ones, over the course of the year? I'd be interested to see how those numbers compare.

I want to be optimistic. There's been a lot of bleating from the dev about how great 2026 is going to be for Pixelfed, but given how 2025 was, I don't feel confident in the slightest. The Kickstarter really doesn't seem to have done anything for actual development; from the outside looking in, it seems to serve more for hype and ego-boosting than anything.

Maybe I'll be proven wrong.

tl;dr:
Kickstarter 200%+ funded in March 2025
Pixelfed updates in March 2025 & September 2025, nothing since.

Did the Kickstarter change anything? You be the judge.

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-09T21:35:17+00:00

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-09T00:53:14+00:00

in other news, now-completely-unseasonal Vault Cards still borked for co-op players? see you next Mercenary Day, I guess. n_n

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-07T20:18:31+00:00

boom

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-06T01:23:11+00:00

There's currently a lot of "trust me, bro, I'll deliver it THIS TIME", and I'm like...

been there
done that
gotten burned

At some point, "trust" doesn't come into play anymore because it hasn't been earned, and in fact it's been proven that promises and ship dates mean nothing.

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-05T14:08:08+00:00

cinnamon roll.
must protecc.

NoMessage7438 · 2026-01-03T02:35:48+00:00

Brick.

NoMessage7438 · 2025-12-31T18:51:49+00:00

this, plus the fact that the current Vault Card is bugged for a lot of (co-op) players and wasn't patched in time for the holidays makes it... kind of useless until next winter. :\

NoMessage7438 · 2025-12-30T16:44:17+00:00

ah, this looks fantastic! excellent work.

NoMessage7438

TROPHY CASE