Making this post to put more eyes on the collab I'm hosting.

@Flamadour had the idea to do a goth day collab in the NGAPCC [Link to Playlist] but unfortunately doesn't have the time to host, which is where I come in. The collab will be taking submissions until May 18th (Pico Day) and will be published on May 22nd which is World Goth Day.

If you're interested, here's the OG BSS Post with all the rules and how to submit your part! Can't wait to see what y'all come up with!

Thank you all for 200 Followers! :O

I know a lot of you are here because of the NG Mall Music Collab and the [adult swim] Art Collab which I participated in and I'm glad to have you onboard!

Prompt: CABIN

Word Count: 1,896

Jerry was a good man, a man that gave back to his community, a man who always put a smile on your face. I knew Jerry for a while, we go way back you see, we had been friends since we were kids. I remember the first day we met, it was in middle school band class. I was drawing in my sketchbook and he came up and asked “What are you drawing?”. “Oh, it’s me” I replied, he responded “Wow, that looks really good”. It was a stick figure with poorly drawn clothes on, I never said I was an artist. Ever since that brief iteration, I don’t know, we’ve been thick as thieves. The more we talked, the more we got to know each other and how alike we are. We had a long running joke that we were the same person from different dimensions, somedays I honestly believed it. 

Jerry was a good man, a good man I haven’t seen in 5 years.

The snow pelted the windshield of my car, as if it was trying to push me back, trying to deter me from searching again. I drove towards his last known location, the last place anyone had heard him going to, That Cabin. The mere thought, mention, or even hint of That Cabin could make fire freeze over. I had a tradition of staying there the day he went missing, December 22nd, and I've done this for 4 years now every year. I don’t even know why I keep doing it, do I really think Jerry is just going to appear one day? That’s the thing about tradition, it’s hard to break for the superstitious. I don’t like the connotation of that word, superstitious, but can you blame me for being so? My friend, my best friend got up and disappeared out of the blue, no note, no mention, no clues? I soon pulled up and parked in front of That Cabin. The dark wooden walls contrasting with the pure white snow, its asymmetrical rotting silhouette sticks out like a sore thumb. I could swear the air got colder, the snow pounding at my windshield begging me to turn back, but I couldn’t. That Cabin, The Cabin, knew where Jerry went. If you could see it too, you'd think it was alive.

I put on my coat, mittens, and hat, and got out of my car. I popped open the truck and got my sleeping bag, cooler, and my Pump-Action Shotgun. I made sure to lock the doors as I made my way up the rotting oak steps. I opened the door with 3 quick shoulder bashes like I’d had done before. I walk inside and didn’t bother to take off my winter clothes, the unventilated home meant no heat for tonight. What lay before me was a sight all too familiar, Holiday decorations strung about and dashed across the floor. A faded banner with one end draped onto the floor reading “Merry Christmas Smith Family!” stays left untouched. I don’t dare move a single thing yet, The Cabin would not like it and I need a moment of peace. I lay my sleeping bag out on the ground, not intending to use it, and drop the cooler next to it. This Cabin harbors an eerie aura to it, an odd sense of nostalgia that has been frozen in time. I haven’t been to This Cabin before Jerry disappeared, never even heard Jerry mention it until he said he’d be throwing a family party. What gets me is none of the Smiths showed up, said there was something off about Jerry’s invitation, like he didn’t write it. I read it myself, the words fumbled together in a messy dance of failed deception, it was like reading a scam email, didn't read like a human wrote it. The family didn’t know about This Cabin either, they said Jerry bought it but I know Jerry was broke so unless the seller was desperate, I don’t think that tracks.

The light from the windows shine onto the oak floor as I open my cooler, I grab a microwave burrito and heat it up in the microwave in the kitchen. The Cabin’s main area has no walls dividing it, the kitchen, living room, and dining room are all visible at once. There are other rooms, 4 to be exact, locked away from me for a long time. Superstitions have stopped me from entering before, but I’m getting desperate to find Jerry. The microwave beeps and flashes the word ‘finished’, the word is barely visible now as the light seems close to giving out. I take off my mittens, take the burrito out to cool and go to grab a drink from the cooler. When I saw the cooler, I froze, I got the feeling that something was off. I could’ve sworn the cooler was facing toward the door, but now it looks as if someone moved it ever so slightly away from it. It was subtle, but it was enough to roll a chill down my spin and make my head rush. There was a reason I had once for staying at This Cabin, I used to think Jerry would just show up again so I stayed. But my reason has changed, I believe This Cabin is alive. I know how that sounds and I know it might be crazy, but at night I could swear I saw the walls pulse like veins. Maybe it was because I wasn’t sleeping, but I can’t shake the possibility that maybe I just saw something I wasn’t supposed to. I grab a drink anyway, an energy drink, and take a long sip without keeping my eyes off the cooler. My body felt warm in the freezing climate, so I decided to make use of the fireplace in the living room. I started a fire in the poorly constructed fireplace located in the living room. After I had warmed up enough, I put out the fire and went to eat my dinner.   

I ate my burrito, parts still cold as ice, and picked up my shotgun. I was going into the rooms unexplored whether The Cabin wanted me to or not. I blew the lock off the first door to the left, the shot echoed through The Cabin as the door swung back. I was greeted to an old bathroom, mold comfortably lay on the walls that painted it a repugnant dark green. It was a small bathroom with the toilet a hands length away from the bathtub, a dusty rose rug lay on the untouched floor. I didn’t feel like going closer to this disgusting room so I went to the next door. The shotgun continues to prove to be the best ‘one use skeleton key’ as the old wood door blew open. Before me stood a bedroom, what seemed to be a kids bedroom actually. A night light illuminated a corner near a bookshelf filled with old children's books. On the bookshelf was a picture of a boy, a boy that seemed familiar, might be Jerry. The bed had covers with stars on it, above it hung a model replica of the Milky Way Solar System. It seemed more lived in then any part of The Cabin, no mold or anything clear indication of its age. While interesting, I needed to check the other rooms before searching so I moved to the next door. The same old gunshot leading to the same old door swinging, except I could’ve sworn I heard a low groan as if a giant had stubbed its toe. Could’ve been The Cabin settling or it could be The Cabin reaction to pain, I hope its the ladder. What stood before me was odd, an empty room free of any dust, with one small window at the far end. This Cabin has two at the front and one on the left side, I was facing the right side of the house and I remember no windows. Outside of the window I swear I could faintly make out a figure, no, a group of people, it almost looked like a Christmas Party. It was like looking at the back end of a projection, everything was out of focus and blurry. I moved on, the curiosity of the last door’s secrets overpowered any about the party. I went to aim, but the door was already cracked open so I opened it. 

The last room is quite like the last, an empty room with one thing of interest. This time it was not a window but a table, a table with a card on it. I ignored my gut and walked over to the desk, I opened the card. It was an invitation to a Christmas Party, it read so closely to Jerry’s letter except the signature at the end. It was my name, It was an invite to my family, an invite supposed to be from me. “What are you drawing?” A voice scratched the back of my neck, I whipped my head around. A boy stood behind me, The boy from the photo in the bedroom, Jerry? “I’m not drawing anything” I retorted, fear creeping up my throat and shaking my words. “What are you drawing?” the boy repeated, his eyes ever blank and soulless like staring at a statue. “I told you I’m not drawing anything” I said, my words less shaken and more annoyed. “What are you drawing?” He repeated while pointing at the desk, I turned my gaze back to my desk to see a crude illustration of me with The Cabin in the background, worse than what I could draw. I freeze, the wind outside calming down as if it was shocked by this revelation too. “It’s-It’s me?” I crocked, a pencil in hand that was never there but felt so familiar. “Wow, that looks really good” I turn back and my heart drops. The door is gone, the boy is gone, in their place lay scattered bones atop a pool of dried blood. I stumble over to where the door lay before, looking down at the rotting skull that lay before me. I found Jerry, the thought was always in the back of my mind that someone had got Jerry, I just didn’t want it to be true. I fired all my shells at the ancient oak wall, trying to carve my own door out of here, my own escape. The walls never fell, I could hear the wind outside taunting me. The snow was laughing at me, it tried to keep me away and I didn’t listen. The invitation is gone, the drawing is gone, the table is gone, just an empty room. All that’s left is me and Jerry, thick as thieves.

I would like to say I was a good person, while closed off I helped the people close to me. I never really was the social type, I enjoyed my own company even since I was a kid. I met a lot of good people, made a lot of good friends but made some enemies too. Can you blame me? People have their bad days and hey, I had a lot of them. I kept in touch with my family, hung out with my co-workers and offered to pay whenever someone couldn’t cover a tab. I wouldn’t say I was a saint, I don’t think anyone is, but I did my best.

I would like to say I was a good person, a good person no one has seen in 5 years.

At the beginning of the year, I made a blog post

This post was supposed to be a motivator for me, a way to get me to keep using Newgrounds. So I laid out what I was planning on doing this year, and proceeded to do none of it LMAO. So if I didn't make that shooter game, draw way more than last year, make that comic, or voice act more for free, What did I do? Audio Collabs! This post will be dedicated to looking back at the collabs I hosted, along with other notable times involving collabs on Newgrounds.

NG Audio Portal 20th Anniversary Collab

I saw the banner on Newgrounds frontpage and joined the associated discord on February 1st, I thought it would be a good time! I partnered up with lilyyan, I did the vocals while she did the backing track and submitted it to ThatJohnnyGuy. I didn't know it at the time but joining this collab would help me not only gain followers, but gain friends, confidence, and a new passion for hosting collabs on Newgrounds.

The Intergalactic Radio Collab

Shortly after the 20th anniversary collab went up, Johnny converted the discord into an audio collab server where anyone could have a platform to host their own collab. That got me thinking: What could be a fun collab theme to get a bunch of people to goof off and have fun? Answer: Aliens. I put an elevator pitch into the server and it got some decent engagement, enough to give me the confidence to get to organizing it. Originally I planned for the set up to be a group of fictional Newgrounds Scientists trying to find signs of alien life through radio frequencies, leading them to find the Intergalactic Radio Station. The plan was for it to end with the machines used to capture this frequency exploding, ending in static. I was pretty dead set on this being the story, until Johnny suggested it be hosted by two alien hosts in a spaceship and I was like "Hey, that's not a bad idea". So I wrote up a script for two alien hosts, had Johnny voice the co-host, put in the script that the alien's names would be improvised and then Kelvar and Floorgan were born.

While waiting for the deadline and putting together the submissions I was already given, I thought back to a crazy idea me and MH4 thought of: What if the collab debuted on the NG Radio? It would make sense thematically, only question is if we could make it happen. So I contacted Tom Fulp, "he made Newgrounds surely he controls the radio" I thought to myself, I was wrong I had to talk to Shal. So I messaged Shal on Newgrounds, waited a bit, remembered I'm in the NGP Discord and just dm'ed the same thing on Discord. We got to talking and the date was set: April 28th at 12pm EST, perfect! I sent him the final mix of the collab two days before the 28th and anxiously waited until that faithful day, The first collab to debut on radio! A niche landmark, but one none the less. But the collab didn't go up on April 28th, Tom put up a frontpage banner but no collab, uh oh! Turns out the automated debut Shal set up just didn't work randomly, so we set up a new date: May 7th at 12pm, the day after Pico Day.

Side Note: Speaking of Pico Day, I organized a collab for Pico Day: The Newgrounds Era Collab. It was fun, got two submissions for it because I did a poor job explaining what the theme was, and launched it.

Anyway, back to what I was saying:

May 7th came around, I was messaging Shal about the collab, double checking to make sure this was the first collab debuting on radio (It was). Then 12pm rolled by and I heard the all too familiar static followed by my gravely voice, it worked! I let out a sign of relief, then muted my computer, I was happy it was up I'd just heard it too many times while editing I was sick of it LMAO. Shal got it to loop a couple times to let more people hear it live, I posted it to the audio portal, and Shal sent me a discord message I should really get around to framing.

It was my first organized collab (Ng eras was my first released) and I think it went pretty well!

Pass the Mic Collab

Before I was finished with The Intergalactic Radio Collab, I was thinking about my next collab to host. I was putting in ideas in the server before, I just didn't know what I wanted to do next. That was, until I was listening to my playlist while driving and Doomsday by MF Doom came on. It just kinda clicked for me, I wanted to do a Hiphop collab and when Doom said "Pass the Mic like Pass the Peas like they used to say", I already knew what the name of it would be. One thing I was iffy about, I wanted this to be in the server but I also wanted it to be a mature collab. I didn't want the submissions sounding like they belong on 2K, I wanted it uncensored and M-rated. So I asked Johnny "Is it ok to host a M rated collab?" That became a lengthy formal discussion which created the Mature Collab Center part of the server, which led me to organizing Pass the Mic 5 days after Intergalactic Radio went live. At first, engagement was slow, so slow in fact that I pushed back the deadline for the collab. You see at the time, I was participating in DJ Chidow's Jack the Box collab and its deadline being far out helped me realize that my original deadline was too soon. After a bit of not many people engaging, I put out a Blog Post promoting it. Thankfully Tom saw the post and put Pass the Mic on the calendar, perfect! So I waited for the tracks to come in, and they were straight head bangers, except Aalasteirs, it made me laugh so hard when I first heard it (he literally sent it to me a day after I started Pass the Mic, what a legend). When I got everything edited together, I sent it over to Shal to have it debut on radio, and had a really fun time chatting with the contributors while listening to the collab.

Pass the Mic sits at my highest rated collab and it deserves it, I sometimes find myself humming the songs put on there. I'm very happy with the track list and how it all came out!

Shrieks and Screams

Pass the Mic debuted August 23th, so naturally I was thinking about what collab to do next. In the background, I had a project cooking up for the collab server that was put on the back burner because my schedule was getting kinda hectic. My special project is VERY involved so I needed a nice, simple collab to have some fun with. It was nearing September at the time and what's after that? Halloween, perfect, I could host a goofy little audio collab with silly songs and play a silly host to connect everything together. On August 27th, I made a post in the server about my idea and got 9 people reacting positively to it. So I made a thread in the server to host the rules and made a blog post advertising the collab two days later. The very same day, Tom put the collab on the calendar and a small swarm of people came to my post to join the collab. I was excited! This silly little collab was getting a lot of positive attention, even brought Thetageist to the server who I've seen everywhere on NG. I soon got my own channel after enough people showed support and had some fun talking to people and seeing them plan out their parts for the collab. We got a bombshell on September 13th, Thetageist told the chat that TeffyD got TOMAR to be apart of a submission, I. Was. Hyped! Unfortunately, 5 days later, another bombshell hit the server and not a good one.

September 18th 2023

I've mentioned ThatJohnnyGuy throughout this retrospective, that's because he was the admin of the server I was in to make all of these collabs a reality. He and I also collaborated at times, I can't say I knew the guy personally but when I woke up that day, I knew way more than I wanted to. I'll keep this brief since I want this post to be Rated E, just know that he was exposed for being a certain "discord stereotype", it's funnier when phrased like that but man that morning was a gut punch. He went offline that morning after vaguely apologizing without saying what he did, then he began the process of transferring ownership to Ahri (An mod of the server). Later in the morning, Ahri told the server that they need a new admin and more mods. So I applied as admin and ended up getting it 2 days later, along with Tritnew and Ahri herself, forming a nice little admin team. I remember there were talks about trashing the server and starting fresh, but that was short lived. That was an odd couple of days to say the least, but let's get back on track.

Shrieks and Screams Continued

I was in "Commander Mode" going back into hosting, I was admin now and weird day one discord accounts were dropping in to try and clear Johnny's name. "Commander Mode" is when I get weirdly focused on getting everything on track and under control, don't know if an ADHD thing, Anxiety thing, what have you, it happens and I give it a silly nickname. The next day I remember seeing Uriel talking to Monika about collabing together, Monika only took commissions (Her family wanted her too) and I offered to pay on behave of Uriel. I'm not really one to offer to pay, funds are tight as is, but I was in a mindset of "everybody getting on this" that I paid anyways (in the form of a steam game). The road leading up to the deadline was fairly smooth after that, the chat was filled with works in progress and Tomar memes, it was good vibes. I had little moments of helping people out, tagging different roles or calling on specific people to collab with others, it was fun and relaxed. When the deadline passed by and I got a few of the late submissions, I was blown away by the amazing tracks that were submitted, nothing but Home Runs. I loved it, you just know I had to bug Shal about it, THIS NEEDS TO BE ON THE RADIO! The date was set October 20th 3pm EST, I originally wanted this to be on Halloween night but decided against it because A) I didn't want the contributors to wait 10 days and B) I didn't want people to discover these spooky bangers AFTER Halloween, I wanted them to do what JoeSketch did

This was my longest collab to date, my most viewed collab to date, and the most amount of contributors I've had on a collab. I was so glad everyone had a good time, I even started seeing contributors post their parts and get front-paged, it was amazing!

What's Next?

We've reached the end of remembering the past, what's up with that future? Well I'm in the process of putting together that secret project I told you about, it's a murder mystery audio drama with a script, voice actors, and an original OST. It's coming a lot nicely, I am nervous about it but that's to be expected because it's a first for me, being a director that is. Other than that, I'm running the server, I'm drawing occasionally, and I'm doing my best to work on some games! I can see my focus in the future being on the NGAP Collab Center Discord and making it the best it could be, also I'm not the only one making collabs on there:

I suggest you all check them out! Give them a listen and support!

That's about enough outta me, crazy to see how far I've come from the beginning of the year! Like to Thank everyone reading, everyone whose contributed, everyone I followed, The NGAP Collab Center Server, Tom Fulp, Shal, Ahri, MH4, DJ Chidow, Tritnew, and everyone else, y'all are the best!

How'd y'all get here?! Thank you guys for the nice surprise today, it feels nice to have people appreciate my work and collabs enough to help me hit triple digits.

Little updates: I plan to make a dress up game for thetageist's Costume Jam and a comic for kittyhawkmontrose's Sweet Sixteen Comic Contest so look out for that; I am also now Co-Admin of the NGAP COLLAB DISCORD so if you want to collab in audio projects, watch them unfold before your eyes, or start one yourself, head on over!

This Collab Ends OCTOBER 15th

"Fools and Families beware, as the Shrieks and Screams of the monsters below carries tunes and tales not for the faintest of hearts! October brings the ghouls and goblins out of their eternal slumber and out into the red moonlight, and this collab brings them to the spotlight!"

The Shrieks and Screams collab will consist of spooky songs and scary stories from the Audio Community on Newgrounds. The tone will be the silly goofy kind of scary, think Disney's Haunted Mansion or The Addams Family. This collab’s focus will be having a fun time, this is the light-hearted type of horror and collaborators are allowed to be goofy.

RULES:

-This collab aims to be Rated E for all ages

-Submissions must be at least 1min 30sec to at most 4mins

-Stories must be paired with a backing track, something simple to loop and play in the background

-Everyone has a limit to working on 2 submissions only

-Submissions must be in WAV format

HOW TO SUBMIT:

-Export your project as a WAV File

-Rename the file to your Newgrounds username followed by Song/Story name

-Upload your file to Google Drive (or any other storage sharing service)

-Click the share button and make a link that can be “accessed by anyone”

-Dm me the link and list the Newgrounds usernames of everyone involved if it was a team effort (dm either on ng or discord)

NEED SOMEONE TO COLLAB WITH? -> Head to the NGAP COLLAB CENTER DISCORD and tag a role associated with who you need (ie. musician, singer, voice actor, etc) in the Shrieks and Screams collab chat!!!

Edit: You can listen to it here!:

Well this was definitely unexpected but this is my first time getting User of the Day so I gotta make a post about this. School's starting up again for me next week so this was a really great surprise to wake up to so thank you! That's about it, so sign up for Pass the Mic and keep an eye on my page because I've got some things cooking in the background I think y'all will like

I am hosting a hiphop audio collab, It's set to end on August 20th!

While I was putting together the Intergalactic Radio Collab, I was brainstorming on different audio collab ideas that I wanted to host. The one idea that I knew I had to do was this one, Pass the Mic, a hiphop collab album that celebrates the genre and its many sub genres. Lately the post hasn't been getting a lot of attention so I wanted to make this blog post to further promote it and reach people who'd like to make a song for it!

If you're at all interested, click HERE to go to the og post, it'll have all the rules and info necessary to contribute!

Banner made by yours truly

Hello to everyone that follows me or just found this,

I'm here to talk about my plans going into 2023 on Newgrounds.

Short intro for anyone who doesn't know me yet:

I'm AhWham but I go by Wham, I am an Artist, Game Dev, and Beginner VA. I've been drawing since I could remember, I spent 4 years learning the Game Design Process, and I have a background in Stage Acting with 5+ years experience.

PLANS FOR ART

At the moment I have a Ko-Fi set up for Commissions, but it's a little lack luster and not very appealing. Sometime in the near future I'd like to renovate my page to provide more options, more details for clients to fill out, and examples of my better work to showcase so that clients can get a better understanding of my art style and what the end product would look like.

Other plans would include making short comics in order to get over a personal hurdle I've had for a while now. It's hard for me to commit to a comic idea, I keep getting side tracked or I get too bored with the concept too quickly. I have an idea for a short comic story based in the DC universe so making that should be fun and a nice exercise in story telling and my own artistic abilities.

I want to keep drawing my own characters as well as environments and perspective shots to further sharpen those skills throughout 2023.

PLANS FOR VOICE ACTING

In 2022, I put out a collab post on Newgrounds saying I would VA in projects for free, that is still true and will most likely remain true though the new year. While I have 5+ years of experience with stage acting and playing minor or major roles, the field of Voice Acting is a new frontier that I am still learning. Voice Acting is more of a hobby rather than a job to me, so at this time I won't be charging a dime mainly because I don't know how much my voice is really worth.

I made a Voice Acting Pitch last year and it's kinda lack luster, it's a one take of me talking so it's nothing special. Here's the link of you want to hear that:

I plan to make a new one this year, this time more show showing off the voices I can do and you can use in your animation/game/whatever.

Like I said, I am still open to give my voice to any project you have in development so you can message me here if you have something. I've been in only one thing at the moment and the animation isn't finished to my knowledge.

PLANS ON GAME DEVELOPMENT

I've made and published 2 games so far on Newgrounds, one being apart of the Mobile Jam in 2022 called "Flyghtmare" and another being a short project made to familiarize myself with the Godot game engine called "Fling Cube". I have a bigger game in the works now, I'm chipping away at it bit by bit just trying to get the core game loop down before I make anything pretty. Right now it's a bunch of basic shapes and some targets but I plan to publish it here and to Itch.io for download.

The game is a FPS where you shoot 6 targets with 6 bullets, but every room you go to get progressively weirder like you're jumping through alternate realities. I haven't written up a story yet but I'd like to include a simple one to give that much more of an incentive to see it out to the end.

The game is under the project name "Six Shooter" so look out for updates on that

I'm not sure on a release date as I'm kinda tied up with College at the moment, just know I plan for a release this year and I'll give a more concrete date when I'm closer to being done.

Happy 2023