#45: The Post's New Home
A short, end-of-month post, with details on where to continue reading the Penflower Post.
Hello dear Readers & Patrons!
A short-but-sweet post to round off this month, with some important news. After much thought and deliberation - and seeing quite a few of my fellow TTRPG and Art creators make a similar move - I have decided to continue the Penflower Post newsletter elsewhere than Substack. That elsewhere is going to be Patreon.
Why Patreon?
I have written about this in my past few issues of the Post, but in a nutshell: after Substack owners decided they were quite happy to keep platforming literal nazis (not to mention their still unresolved erasure of many Trans and LGBT+ writers) I started looking for somewhere else to go. Alas, I investigated alternatives to Substack and none of them were right for me. Either their pricing scheme was unfeasible for me, or the creative options too limited, or a combination of both. Patreon is far from ideal - it's yet another big tech company who could on a whim decide to mess everything up for its users - but it has a pretty big pro: with free memberships, people can receive these posts in their email inbox just as they would with any other newsletter. So, for the foreseeable future, The Penflower Post will be published from my Patreon.
Easy-Peasy Instructions
If you are reading this as a free member of my Patreon, then hooray, you don't need to do anything!
For Substack subscribers:
As I am not able to import a mailing list into Patreon, if you want to keep receiving the Penflower Post it does mean you have to head over to my Patreon and join as a free member. Once you've done that, though, the Penflower Post experience should be pretty much exactly the same for you.
How I feel about it
In many ways I am sad to have to do this. Substack is a well designed platform, and I did honestly enjoy using it. I've discovered some lovely writers, journalists and fellow creatives through substack newsletters (which I obviously intend to keep following).
On the plus side, this does mean once again limiting the amount of platforms I'm on, and spreading myself less thin. As of now, for purely networking/updates purposes, I'll be using Patreon, YouTube and Discord, while my games and other TTRPG resources continue to be available via my website and itch.
What else have I been up to this week?
In business-y, professional, Penflower Ink terms... not a lot. I haven't been actively promoting or selling anything as a way to participate in this week's global strike in support of Palestine.
Creatively, I've been playing around with a couple of projects for my own enjoyment. In my last Substack post I mentioned how I've been inspired by Craig of the Creek and its in-show trading card game "Bring Out Your Beast", to start developing a card game of my own. Here is a picture of some card designs I put together earlier this week, despite (at the time) having no actual rules for the game written up.
Since making these, I have been jotting down ideas in my notebook and have the bare bones of a rules system. It is very simple and low-math, based on symbol matching and cooperative play. The theme I am currently considering for the game is as follows: The players are kids who have stumbled upon an arcane tome of summoning magicks. By playing around with it and reciting passages aloud, they unlock the power to make the products of their imagination corporeal... both the good, and the bad. They must work together combining the powers of their imaginary constructs to defeat or win over the physical manifestations of their fears.
Another project, inspired by some of my online friends, has been the creation of a small colouring-in zine. The idea behind this is to make a bunch of photocopies, glue them together into booklets (as seen in above picture) and then leave them around my local area for people to pick up.
I was thinking I might start putting these out into the world some time next week. I was also considering digitising them and making them available through Patreon/Itch/my website as printable goodies.
As for non-creative happenings? I've been practicing riding a bike again after maybe 15 years! I've been living in the Netherlands for almost 6 years now, you'd think I would have done this sooner. Better late than never though, hey?
That's all for this month!
As always, thank you so much for reading. One last reminder that if you feel like supporting my work, you can buy something from my website or itchio, join my Patreon as a paying member, or commission me.
Until next time,
- Penflower
Sad to see you go but I'll see you on Patreon 🫡