Welcoem to posts!!
in the future - u will be able to do some more stuff here,,,!! like pat catgirl- i mean um yeah... for now u can only see others's posts :c
Time for some updates!
First and foremost: I WILL BE AT ONI-CON 2024 IN GALVESTON, TEXAS ON OCTOBER 11-13! Oni-Con is in October this year because of scheduling conflicts in November for them, but I always have a good time there and I hope you will, too! Aside from my regular con merch, I'll also have Comicron One models, Robomats, and of course the newer stuff like the keychains and earrings.
If you're not going to be there, then I at least highly encourage you to check out the Atop the Fourth Wall Storenvy! The Comicron One model has been slightly redesigned for better print quality AND to fix the occasional issue we've had with the stand pegs. The symbol pins are now also available in multi-color instead of just gold, and as I said - we've got earrings and keycghains now available! Buying merch is one of the best, most direct ways of supporting the channel, so I greatly appreciate it! atop-the-fourth-wall.storenvy.com/
Consequently, work is proceeding on AT4W action figures! That was THE most requested item for merch, but it will take some time to develop. I'm hoping to have them ready for Christmas, though they'll need modifications done. I'll be using the EASY 13 open-source action figure design from Lucky 13 Toys (www.lucky13toys.com/home) for them and I've been stress-testing the test figure I made in the picture and so far so good! It's made from PETG and while the joints do loosen over time like any action figure, they've remained perfectly poseable and able to stay standing on their own. Plan is for the initial wave to be Linkara, Mechakara, and 90s Dude, though obviously the initial figures need plenty of modification to them to... you know... make them look like variations of me. I'm also open to hearing if people prefer them sold pre-assembled or on a runner like a model kit.
Today is the last day to submit to the Longbox of the Damned Bumper Contest! Obviously I don't expect people to rush out anything big in the last few hours, but hey, if you're got a simple idea you can whip up quickly and want to give it a shot, go right ahead!
I doubt given the workload I've got for the next week that I'll be able to get an October trailer out. Hey, I always remain hopeful but chances are not great. Otherwise, as always, join the $2+ Patreon tier to get early access to Longbox videos and participate in polls and whatnot. On the off-chance I manage to get an October trailer out, going to hold out on saying what franchise we're doing the next 3 years, but I think people will be happy with it.
Secret Origins Month, as suggested in the last update, will be pushed to January! November will be taken up by the remaining Patreon-sponsored episodes that were supposed to be done in the summer, which includes Power Rangers: Shattered Grid, a Justice League storyline, an episode of a soap opera, and the first few issues of Skybounds' Transformers comics! Look forward to those, but that also brings us to an important announcement for next year.
The schedule has been shit for YEARS now. And I'm tired of it. I'm definitely not going to make the 52--episode goal I had set for this year at the start, but something has to change if I ever hope to get anything close to it ever again. And the things that kick my ass more than anything else I do are the super-long episodes. History of Power Rangers is part of that, certainly, but hey - those are extra content and not the main thing for this channel. I'm going to be MUCH more strict about the length of Patreon episodes next year. I thought the provisions I had in place were good enough, but even I keep making exceptions and it needs to stop.
And that means that in 2025, I'm not doing a retrospective. Retrospectives are a crapton of work and I hope to go back to them someday, but they also end up hours and hours long and sometimes they are for niche things that don't get as many views as I hope for. And the next one that I had planned to do was not only niche, it was for a manga which runs an even greater risk of getting my channel taken down, so we'll be skipping it in 2025. What I don't know yet is if we'll come back to it for 2026 or if we'll just go to Event Comics Month 6. And yes, Event Comics Month WILL of course still continue. Long episodes they may be, but they are popular videos and it allows you guys to be more active participants in deciding it. And we still have soooooo many more events that DC and Marvel have made. Because they never stop.
That's all I've got for now. Thanks again for your continued support, please purchase some merch at the Storenvy, I hope to see a lot of you at Oni-Con, and look forward to Ashock the Fourth Wall this October!
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This is not TECHNICALLY a State of the Wall update, but it might as well be considering I'm giving info a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. Not counting it as one simply because no schedule available given things are kind of... in flux right now.
First and foremost: NEW MERCH DROP! I asked for opinions on Patreon and Youtube what people wanted to see in merch. Some are things I can do, some are things I really can't do, and some I can do but they'll take a while. The easiest ones to put together, though, were keychains and earrings! We'll be having magnets soon, as well (including an awesome one featuring the AT4W logo made by the ever-talented Magic Steve), we're just working out a few kinks in the design that are causing color-bleedthrough. Otherwise, if you want to have Comicron One or Pollo dangling from your ears, take a look at THIS: atop-the-fourth-wall.storenvy.com/products/3681630… !
Or, of course, if you'd like Pollo or the AT4W symbol on a keychain, you can look HERE: atop-the-fourth-wall.storenvy.com/products/3681665… ! And of course everything else in the store is still available for purchase, so if you want a Comicron One model, a Robomat, or some badge cards, get them!
On the subject of merchandise, though, there IS a (hopefully) temporary snag. Digital download copies of the DVDs are not going to be available for a bit. Finances have been tighter as of late and Vimeo charges $200 per year to host VOD purchases and downloads and that was $200 I couldn't spare this month. It's possible I'll bring them back on Vimeo sooner rather than later, but I'm open to exploring any ideas or options people have for other digital downloads of the DVDs (including Winter of '83) that people think might work. The physical copies are still available, of course.
Speaking of financial shifts, prices have gone up for my PO Box so that will also be closing... though definitely not permanently there. There will be a new location and address for the box and the old box will still be active until October 15th. I'll start advertising the new address as we get closer to the closing date and remind everyone several times as we come along to make sure that if you have any last-minute stuff you want to send there until then, you should do so (speaking of, there is a PO Unboxing we filmed a month or two ago we just haven't gotten to putting up yet - will try to do so soon). Remember that you have two more months with that box location and afterwards packages will be sent back to you if you try to send them to the old location!
For other financial stuff outside my control, we move on to Patreon. Patreon announced a couple days ago a shift - if you paid for your membership via the iOS Patreon app, there will be a 30% additional charge made on it. This one is actually not Patreon's fault - apparently Apple regularly does this with anything done via apps found on their store. It is ludicrous and monopolistic, but it's BS. This charge DOES not apply if you make your pledge via a web browser or on android or other non-iOS devices. I personally do not see a need for a Patreon app at all because all of its functionalities are the same via browser, but I wanted to let people know about this so you can make adjustments accordingly since I doubt you all want a 30% additional charge.
The other Patreon news, however, is definitely their fault and I'm not happy about it. Patreon offers a few different methods for creators to receive payment - primarily monthly or per-creation. For some video creators, that works out fine because they don't like charging people the same amount per month because of varying amounts of videos they put out per month. People like me, however, NEED that guaranteed income monthly to keep doing what we're doing. Patreon has announced that within 16 months, they will be discontinuing the per-creation model and switching strictly to monthly. Hopefully this can get pushed back and reversed for my friends and colleagues who are affected by this, but there's a second half of this which is much more harmful to me. The other thing they'll be switching with their subscriptions is changing when patrons get charged. In the current system, people get charged at the beginning of the month after the initial payment, meaning if you paid on the 2nd of the month, you'll get charged again at the 1st of the next month, same for if you initially paid at the 27th of the month.
Under the new model they wish to implement, you get charged again the next month on the same day, so you get charged on the 27th of one month, then the 27th of the next month. I understand why some people would prefer this model - both creators and patrons... but for me this is a problem. The majority of my bills are due at the end of the month or the beginning of the month, meaning that is the time frame I need the majority of my money. It consequently lets me plan out the month to know how much money I have available for those bills/payments in the middle or so-forth and budget accordingly. I'm sure people will try to push back on this and again, we have a little over a year to make accommodations and I'll do so if need be, but I may ask patrons in the future to end their patronage and then re-up at the beginning of the month to try to keep this consistent (obviously if that's not possible for you, I understand and won't hold that against you). We'll see how this goes, but that's what's going on.
Consequently, some creators are looking to change how they operate by doing more with Youtube memberships. I'll be honest - I've been resistant to this because I haven't seen much value in the Youtube memberships that isn't already available via my Patreon (especially since I think Youtube takes a bigger cut than Patreon), but I'd be open to hearing some possibilities and what people would want out of channel memberships, even if it's not any different than the stuff I already offer on Patreon.
And finally: the schedule. The plan had been to release the revised SPD video at the end of June, then have all of July for Event Comics Month, then leave August and September to do all the remaining Patreon-sponsored reviews, maybe even slip in an additional Mr. T review.
This did not end up happening. The SPD redo took longer than I thought it would, Secret Wars II THOROUGHLY kicked my ass with how much of a slog it was to write and edit it (especially since it ended up being an hour and 20 minutes long), and there's personal life stuff that went on that took me away from working on videos on top of everything else, so things are a bit more fluid. I want October for Halloween episodes PERIOD, so if need be, I'll push the remaining Patreon-sponsored reviews into November to finish them off. Where does that leave Secret Origins Month, then, since this was supposed to be its return after two years absent? Well, I'm down for pushing it to January or so if people are interested. Sure, there may be some more Patreon-sponsored reviews to do (since the slots will be reopening in September, as always), but at least some episodes focusing on origins will be available (although I admit, Secret Origins Month gets harder to plan each year simply due to us covering most major characters that anyone would care about or are not too recent). Or heck, maybe we just have some of those origins as scattered reviews instead of an official month?
Regardless of anything else, thank you for your continued support! I'll try to keep people updated on anything important and I'm loving all the entries so far into the Longbox Bumper Contest!
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Hey, everybody! So especially in light of the successful Makeship campaign, I want to hear from you guys what sort of merch you're looking for from Atop the Fourth Wall. Money's been tighter this year because of rising costs of living plus just general emergencies that have happened that drained funds. I don't feel right just asking for money directly - I want fans to GET something in return for their cash.
So what sort of things are you looking for for merch? 3D printed stuff is the best option for things I can produce for you guys (since I evidently have a farm of the dang things thanks to discounts, gifts, and deals). but I'm eager to hear any ideas, really, and I can see what I can do. One idea I've been thinking is about is action figures - there are open-source/royalty-free bases for 3-D printed figures and thus I could modify them to actually resemble the cast if you're looking for stuff like that, but I'm open to any ideas at this point. Thanks for your continued support and I hope you enjoy the next few months of videos regardless!
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Hey, everybody! Avengers: Disassembled review is processing now, should be available to watch in an hour or so. Current plan is to next have the redo of History of Power Rangers SPD done with before the month is out, July will be Event Comics Month 5, and then all the remaining Patreon-sponsored reviews for August-September.
I'm also going to try to put up some more compilations. First up is The Star Wars, and that creates a unique question that I wanted you guys' input on - the opening crawls. Each episode had a unique opening crawl (the music will have to be changed because the universe hates me, but hey, he have one that works). Should I just make a new one for the compilation, or keep all of the original opening crawls that were in each episode that complained about stuff like the copyright issues on music?
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Happy to report that as of a couple hours ago, THE MAKESHIP CAMPAIGN HAS BEEN A SUCCESS! At the time of this writing we're at 208 pledges and of course if you still want to preorder it, you can go right ahead here: www.makeship.com/petitions/linkara-plushie
From what I understand how this works now, Makeship is going to make the actual prototype now that I will of course show off to you all (been meaning to make a merchandise guide to the show since we have stuff from so many different sites) and there will be a three week window for anyone who wants to see the plushie before they buy it can then purchase it!
And of course I want to thank you all not only for this, but your continued support of the videos - watching and supporting me through your hard-earned cash - is what enables me to do it and you remain the best fans in the world! Take care and enjoy the marketable plushie once it ships out!
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In case you didn't hear from my social media, I'm doing a Makeship campaign! Makeship is a company that produces plushies of characters, vtubers, internet personalities, etc. Ever wanted to own your own plushie of Linkara? Well, you do now! How this works is that we need 200 people to pledge $2 as a down-payment, a commitment to purchase the full plushie at $30 once the campaign is successful (they will be charged upon the successful completion of the campaign, refunds of the $2 given if the campaign isn't successful). Once those 200 pledges are done, Makeship is committed to making it! For the next three weeks after, you'll still have a chance to order one but then you'll get to see the actual plushie and I'll be promoting it in videos and streams. What you see above is a concept sketch that Viga made of the plushie with me holding a little comic!
So please support this so everyone who wants one can have a tiny version of me to hug or throw against things to their heart's content!
CHECK OUT THE CAMPAIGN PAGE HERE: www.makeship.com/petitions/linkara-plushie
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Revised version of History of Power Rangers: Dino Thunder is now up for $2+ patrons! It'll be released publicly tomorrow!
www.patreon.com/posts/hopr-power-dino-104102522?ut…
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COMICRON ONE 3D PRINTED MODEL NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER!
Yes, after so much teasing and vlogging and talk about it, the 3D-printed model of Comicron One is now available to purchase from the Atop the Fourth Wall Storenvy! We're doing preorders because of how long it takes to print the models, but my printers are hard at work making a stock for them now! The preorders will ship no later than March 28th and then will be made properly available on the regular!
You can preorder it HERE: atop-the-fourth-wall.storenvy.com/products/3675725…
If somehow I run out of the allotted stock in the preorders, rest assured I will refill its availability as soon as possible!
BUT WAIT! There's more!
Don't want to wait for a preorder? Want to try to print this and any other AT4W Merch yourself from your own 3D printer? Well now you can! Available now are the Comicron One, Robomat, AT4W Symbol, and Mini Pollo files for you to purchase and print yourself if you have an FDM 3D printer! And just to share my madness, the Comicron One model includes the Blender file with all the hundreds of boxes used to shape the ship, plus probably some failed attempts that were hidden in there, too!
cults3d.com/en/users/linkara/3d-models
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Progress update since the vlog from a few days ago!
Reducing in size to 75% did the trick for speeding up the printing process. However, the last few days I've been spending on another issue - trying to get the "split into three pieces" idea to work properly. The top and bottom parts just would not sit flush with each other no matter how much I manipulated the space around it, so I decided to do a test print of it printing all in one while I was busy with that... and it actually turned out pretty damn good! Obviously I needed to make modifications to a few areas that were iffy quality, but after my continual failure to get it to be split into three, I'm settling for the all-in-one approach (save for the towers, the turrets, and the forward lance).
The only downside to printing it all in one is that it took 27 hours to print on my Ender 3 v1 (I also have an Ender 3 v2 and an S1). The S1 will be quicker and the V2 will also take 27 hours, but honestly that amount of time to print one I'm more forgiving of since it's the whole thing as opposed to just one PIECE taking a day, so I can print three per day (more if I can get some of the other printers I have in disrepair up and running, but doubt that's going to happen soon).
Right now as I type this I'm doing the test for the stand. As said in the vlog, with the towers on it you can't really just set it flat on a table, so having it on a stand makes a lot more sense - thus what you see in the picture (this is iteration three of the stand - bigger than the first two I made, test print in gold, and with a peg drilled into the test model and the top of the stand to prove it'll stay on there and so far it stays on fine! Currently printing a finished version with a peg already on it to make sure I have the hole's size right (Blender is fun - you can make a hole in something, but when printed there will be some slight shrinkage of everything so an exact fit hole won't actually fit it when you try to put it in, so you have to make the hole slightly bigger).
At this point, we'll have pre-orders available relatively soon! Going with a preorder system to see how many I need to make and time things out properly. Thanks again everyone for your advice and support, now while these are printing back to editing the Sonic/Mega Man crossover review!
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Some updates since I recorded this an hour ago:
-Forgot to explain why it's in three parts - for quality reasons, it's better if prints on a flat side, but as you can see from the detailing it's not really flat anywhere, so splitting it up will make it overall come together better. In addition, if we were to keep it at that larger size, the thing is just too big for any of my printers lengthwise.
-Printed a turret at 75%... and honestly it's still pretty sturdy! Might make it a bit bigger than normal just to be sure (plus I still need to test that for the forward lance and the towers) but it's looking good that it'll all still work.
-Because of the aforementioned revenue stuff, instead of just waiting until I have a stock ready, I may open these to pre-orders instead if people are up for that.
-Planning on selling them in two colors - all white and a dark grey. All white means you can paint it however you want like a regular model kit, dark grey to match closer to the one from the show and you can paint windows and etc. at your discretion. I would LIKE in the future to sell one already in its full colors, but a multicolor printer is going to be minimum $500 (and $1000 for the one I actually really want), so neither of those are currently in the cards because of the aforementioned revenue issues.
Thank you all for your patience and I hope you enjoy these once they're ready!
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Official Youtube channel of Linkara and Atop the Fourth Wall, where bad comics burn.
For more episodes, check out atopthefourthwall.com
Banner artwork by FontesMakua: fontesmakua.deviantart.com/