NADIA NOVA

toxic yuri vn jam is over naow.....

2025年10月02日

aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!sobusy!!busy busy BUSY!! BUSY!!!!!!!everything is happening so much!!!!! aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

okay im normal now. ive been hosting game jams for a while now. toxic yuri vn jam ended up being kinda BIG huh. over 200 entries. like even before we got to the gotta play all the entries part, this thing was a lotta work! moderating a server isnt easy. as much as a hands free approach feels like it should be fine, its a lot of effort to actually keep a community's vibes in align with your own values. its something ive picked up along the years from the numerous jam and dev discords ive hosted. some of which remain as inactive servers at the bottom of my discord list. jam graveyard.

i think the main thing that i immediately told teh other judges (and anyone else who wants to moderate a space) is that this is a vibes based economy. you can kick and ban anyone for any reason ever. stuff like that is just the way to go imo. you win some you lose some. in teh judge chat we had plenty awkward "ugh i dont wanan deal with this awkward situation" type call where technically nobody was doing anything wrong or bad or evil but the vibes were just not good. and for the betterment of the community someone needed a kick. its not fun when that type of stuff happens but it is what it is. sorry to everyone affected and hopefully nobody even noticed this happening. that would be the ideal moderation experience.



if something came up instead of putting them on the spot in the server and since not everyone has dms open we put them in time out in the scary gif room btw. which is. a yes. scary gif room. its a timeout room where you are locked out of every other channel from the server exept the scary gif room. only the grinched and the mods could talk in there. that was really funny. the record for most grinched goes to isahime. isa get grinched again lmaoooo you dork lmao. im grinching you as we speak. lmao. get grinched.


please go play Of Piers & Bays its amazing. a personal standout.

update:

still tho the server was incredibly fun and productive and fruitful. i loved seeing the encouragement. i loved seeing the progress shared. i loved seeing others helping others with issues. i loved seeing familiar faces from previous game jams and otherwise devs i consider peers even if we dont personally talk. its awesome to see people doing the type of shit you can relate to. im glad. its also a nice feeling to know that this is something that will keep happening in the future too.

a lot of people were posting some very heartfelt messages regarding teh fact that we have been upfront about closing down the discord server since moderating it is a pain in the ass. its reasonable people dont want the fun thing to stop and end and be over. but same way how people ask for sequels for a game that by no means should ever get one, i know better that what theyre after is just something else. not a continuation of a server that will die out over time anyway

which is why seeing people host their own servers and game jams to follow in the footsteps is exactly what i want to see. good job everyone. thats how i felt when i was enjoying my time with vncup community in second life conejo and enjoyed the time, but over time things shifted and the place died down (at least in the times i was able to be there due to my timezone) and i had to start doing other stuff. and in this case i knew i could put together a game jam and a community of amazing artists again and toxic yuri jam was about as amazing as it could have been. good job everyone


(i got no colours on my itchio dash cause i set my itch cut to 0% long before it was cool)

i love the joined to entries ratio. while its interesting to see these things grow over time, but specifically i love the dedication of how many people actually were able to put something out for this jam in particular. i trust and believe a lot of these people are some who played my games and have been convinced to try their hand at making their own visual novels by my prolonged years long mind control attempts. good job!

making a vn is so fukken doable! your biggest problem is just getting started! slay these grand ideas of what a video game or a visual novel should be and make something small and complete it! then you can scale up with more experience if you like! most important thing is to try and aim with the goal of being able to hit release on that thing you do. being an artist isnt about being good at something, its about being brave enough to try and get experience while doing it. sharing what you made is only a part of it all.

ending the jam with a bang:

goddd. when the idea of making a vn about the judge selects came up i was like no!!! im done!!! no more!! i want to get off this wild ride!!! but once thursday spearheaded the movement i did my best to help as much as i could from the background lmao.

open this thing in a new tab now! please watch it in full, its awesome. its informative about our judging process and why we picked what we did. also its just a fun vn at the same time. me and jill supported it, adjusting stuff while thursday was asleep. it was fun passing the project around like a blunt even if the deadline approaching in couple days kept me rather stressed lollll

some scattered thoughts about 'Toxic Yuri':

toxic yuri was actually a theme i already suggested for menhera jam so kyou being so awesome and being ready to sponsor it a year later was the best thing ever.

we hand picked some Certified Sickos and we all had our own vague idea of what toxic yuri meant to us. like we all knew that just because a story has violence or kink doest automatically make it toxic. we arent payment processers lol. its more about the layer beneath. aiming the spotlight at all the psychosexual trauma and emotional hangups that happen in and around this space is the interesting aspect. societal effects on the psyche of those of the marginalized identity and how it can manifest. and ultimately, how the genre to us and many more is a place to play with these taboo themes

https://killjill.itch.io/faithlessflagellant/devlog/1062269/ff-tyvnj-postmortem

this is a really good post. a lot of the dev but also the judging feelings mirror mine. highly recommend reading this. and the damn game if you already haven't. we weren't joking when we said we could have nominated the three judge games since they were all such toxic yuri bangers

https://deaddeaddeath.neocities.org/wishbleed

https://nadianova.neocities.org/snowromancy

https://killjill.itch.io/faithlessflagellant

money stuff:

mass itcho queer bundles are a big thing. to get visibility on the games but also to support the devs who make them. its important and hard work, but most also quite chaotic to arrange them. thats why the idea of "we should do our own" should be popping up in every doujin group.

we were just about to make our own That's VN Club! itchio bundle with the goal of makign some money for our friends who needed it the most. half of us had opted out of payments while hoping our combined clout would help get money and eyes on our friends. ...and then itchio sex games got nuked literally one day before our intended release date for the bundle. it was all a bit too well timed, unfortunately.

it was pretty funny in a tragic way. i feel proud to see the resilience of everyone. making their neocities and sharing links and torrents to jam entries when it all went down. its juts proof to me that things like these that we love will never die. keep being a sicko forever.

you should play through all those games. these are my friends and my peers i have all met through our love for the medium. its friends like these ive made by making games, joining jams and daring to dm people as an awkward introvert.



for a long time i was so fucking annoyed and stressed with how patreon originally was intending to remove the ability for the "per-project" payment plan which i quite love. i have little interest in charging people every month as much as i consider this thing a big ass tip jar. i just feel like especially those who live in america, your money is so much more valuable to you than it is to me. im not well off, i struggle with money, but im safe and secure. im privileged. i know that i live in a country with free healthcare and social systems set up that let me live despite my long list of mental and physical disabilities.

all the income from hopeless junction goes to my american girlfriends rent. all the patreon(adn itchio) money i get goes to food and necessities and sometimes a plushie. i know how to live frugal and feel like i dont need much more than a roof over my head and im grateful for that

with my itchio donation income going all the way down to a permanent zero, for the first time in years my savings have been in double digits. now that patreon went back on the promise to delete the per-project plan and lets me keep things as they are i do think i will use it every now and then for things that arent full game releases because patreon isnt going to remain and be reliable forever either

when itchio was suspending my games many quickly asked how can they now give me money. im incredibly grateful for that, and tried my best to find a way to say to give it to someone else. i can manage, and that means you should only be giving me money if you really think you dont need it more than i do. or alternatively, give it to some other queer dev who needs it more than i do. that will make me happy. i want to see the community help each other and as things are right now, even with my savings account empty, it never means i need to worry about becoming homeless

hopeless junction remake and future:

well the stuff said before this was the important part really. like idk ye my game is out. please play it. my gf needs the rent money and loves me more with every purchase. she has been my editor ever since doomsday dreamgirl, editing my english-second-language mess and teaching me grammar all the while. you have no idea the scrambled up nonsense she has to deal with sometimes lol. or maybe you do. given that i dont pass through text like this through her edits, i cant tell lmao. still its so important work that she does by polishing my rough diamonds

if anyone makes fanart please show me on bsky or email or whatever. if you still dont have the game by now, patrons can dm me for a steam key. especially with steam and its stupid region blocking shit

ive spent long remaking this vn and im proud of it. im never ever making a remake again tho. fucking hell. like its a different thing to make a story as opposed to polish one. making stuff is way more fun. polishing gets tedious fast lmao.

im excited to move onto new projects once i heal from this post moderation/dev/jam burnout. making art is so hard but so rewarding. i wish everyone could experience these same feelings i do. the more artists there are, the more joy and whimsy there is in the world

i have games planned out. ill host more jams in the future. ill keep doing stuff no matter what the world and the internet tries to change in to. ill be there. somewhere. youll find me. im more worried for the people who struggle to be seen

but we will remain. enjoy the things you enjoy and be loud about it. everything is fleeting and that makes it beautiful. everything disappears eventually just like the sun. but still its there, wanted it or not.

thanks for reading
(art by sloppy thank you forever)

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