Welcome back to my follower milestone party! This time we've got 52 more, with the total being 202 fans!

I'm really not sure what to do to celebrate - even the usual "inspirational" newspost seems a bit too dry - so how would you like to celebrate?

As always, be sure to check out my YouTube channel! Big stuff is coming!

-Cass

Hey everyone!

Due to having a lot of creative ideas that don’t work on NG for whatever reason, I have started a YouTube channel now to collect all of it.

Currently, I only have two videos up - they’re just a couple of short animations I made when I was learning Flash. Too short for the Movies Portal and too reliant on sound to be posted as gifs. But in the future, there’ll be meme animations, video edits, and more!

I keep the comments off because I’d prefer to use my channel as a portfolio for my work rather than another social media site to keep track of. So if you think something I did was cool, let me know here on NG! I’m happy to finally be put this stuff out there, and I’d appreciate you subscribing if you want to keep updated on my adventures!

Thanks!

-Cass

Hey!

I’ve been off and on thinking of doing the same thing as “I’ll make you an OC”, but with some kind of variation. This will have to be quite some time from now, because of my current art fatigue, but I’m still interested to hear your thoughts on what I could come up with.

The two ideas I can think of that I think are pretty solid are for fandom OCs and personas. I also have the idea of “give an OC, get an OC,” where people getting OCs from me must first make one for me, as a way of slowing down the flow of requests and getting some dopamine for me in the process.

Let me know if you’d be interested in any of these, or if you have more ideas!

Back in April, I made a news post when I got 50 followers. That amount has since tripled. (I missed the 100 follower milestone in the middle, but that’s okay.)

Look at us now. We’re not just a party anymore, we’re like a small local festival. And the more members we gather, the more likely it is that I’ll be able to start hosting my own events and they’ll get off the ground. So it’ll be good for you too! (Still sad about the laser tag thing, that would’ve been fun. This is part of the reason why I don’t feel up for doing an event for this milestone, the other being I’ve loaded myself with too many projects already and I’m just perpetually burnt out in general.)

There has been some stress and strife, but in the end, I’ve learned from my mistakes (I hope) and I’m still standing. I’ve got a different name from the one I started on NG with, I use skull emojis all the time now, and I spend way too much time on the BBS. But it’s me, and I’m here.

Thank you all for getting me here.

While you’re at it, feel free to join either of the clubs I’m trying to start!

Well, I’ve done it! I’m in @TaintedLogic’s NG Underdogs Audio Contest, or NGUAC! This’ll probably be the biggest crunch I’ve ever been in so far for music production deadlines - somehow I’ve never gotten a chance to participate in something like this before! So I’m not expecting to get that far, but it’ll be fun nonetheless!

Be sure to cheer on some of my friends and acquaintances who made it as well: @WingsOfAsh, @vater-roboter, @ZaneLittle, @KillerRATBand, and @Tangerine!

Better luck next year to acquaintances @Valbun, @JizzyJazz, @Seth, @CIEIRmusic, and @GlaceonDash! Go check out their stuff anyway!

Check out the submission that got me here: Clash of Cass!

Edit 8/13: The Knockout Round submission is out! Listen to The Night Is Still Young!

Hey!

So as far as I understand, I got some friends interested in the commemorative art activity I’d planned back when I’d thought it was going to be a contest, but as of changing it to a collab, I’ve only received one character (thanks @ABlueGhost). This is confusing.

Either way, it’s getting close to the end of the month, I’d said it was going to be only for the duration of July, so that it wouldn’t take too long or be extended indefinitely. At that point, I’ll see what the outcome is. I’d love to see some drawings!

-Cass (Thetageist)

Whew! Thank God. I will not be in the NG Audio Deathmatch this year. That’s a relief. To be honest, I kinda sprung that on myself and did not prepare at all for having to compose new pieces with that kind of frequency. Thanks anyway to @The-Great-One for scouting me on the Audio Portal to try to help my eligibility.

But look who did get in, it’s @ZaneLittle! Zane has 112 audio tracks submitted to NG, as well as movie collabs he wrote the music for, and he also does some of his own animation and art! Guaranteed you’ll find something to love with his work! So let’s get hyped for his progress through the brackets of the Deathmatch!

Go support my friend who didn’t make it in as well! @GlowBoyMusic wound up ranked higher than me, in fact, so take that as a sign that you need to check out their work.

Happy listening!

-Cass (Thetageist)

Hey there!

I'm not seeing any engagement with the background I made for the art collab I posted about earlier, so in case something got lost in translation, I wanted to explain.

This is the collab! You'll be drawing yourself on that background; the instructions for how to do so are in the description. Comment here with your laser tag team and where in the picture you want to be (you can even be walking upside down, thanks to the weird gravity in that arena!), and then use a Dump link to send me your drawing as a transparent image or a PSD file with your character separate from the background layer. Rasterize vector images, please, Procreate can't handle that.

I've also updated the deadline to make it the end of July, considering there's a bunch of other events going on and I don't want to step on them. Let me know if you think further extension would be wiser!

Hopefully this helps! Happy drawing!

-Cass (Thetageist)

So, thanks to @WendigoVDB’s July 1st post, I had a thought.

I believe that the best way to make a change is to create what you want to see in whatever area of your life you can. A lot of us here seem to agree that LGBT pride and support shouldn’t be reduced to a charade that people keep up for the duration of June, and are disgruntled that companies are doing just that.

Well, guess what? We’re on Newgrounds. We don’t depend on those companies for ad revenue, and we’re a small enough community that ideas can really spread throughout. We are in the perfect place to be the change we want to see.

So keep drawing pride art, keep your profile pics the same, keep your flags up, all that good stuff. Let’s see if we can keep going long enough to celebrate Prideoween, Pridemas, Pridesgiving. Valentine’s Day would be an especially great time to be confident in who you do or don’t love!

I told all this to a friend over text, and she added on that July is also Disability Pride Month, where we support individuals in the LGBT community who have disabilities of any kind. I haven’t said this to most people yet, as I don’t make a big deal out of either of these things, but I myself have autism and, thanks to my propensity for overanalysis, a terrible case of the questioning that doesn’t seem to be getting any clearer. So I’m going to try my best to love myself this month, for all of the weird ways my brain functions, and keep self-deprecation out of my mouth. (I hope I can deliver on that last one).

Here’s a comic she sent related to why Disability Pride Month is important.

Feel welcome to join in, or not, whatever suits you best. But I think it’ll be more fun if more Newgrounders get together and do something cool. How about you?

-Cass (Thetageist)

Welcome, everyone!

After some deliberation, I’ve picked up on some of the traits I liked from the usernames you suggested me and come up with one of my own. EscapistProductions is now the more punchy, more spooky, more concise, Thetageist!

This was a change that I’d been ramping up to for a while without knowing it - not only have I been drawing more dark and horror art, but my concept of self has changed quite a bit, and I’ve defined myself more beyond simply being someone who “escaped from” toxic platforms in the past. I’m not afraid of showing off a little weirdness anymore; I’m comfortable in my own skin. And now, with a gift of Supporter, I’ve taken on a new name to reflect that.

To commemorate this rebranding, I’m hosting a collab for my followers! Take a look here!

-Cass (Thetageist)