dang i was gonna say your icon looked so familiar! it's great to have you back. it looks like you've made some really solid progress so far too. i love the tilesets.
i'm not too familiar with gm unfortunately so i'm not sure how to solve the rotating issue--maybe if there's a way to set the origin on a sprite differently or something...? i did a quick google search but im not sure if this would be helpful: https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/attach-object-on-a-fix-rotation-po...
best of luck with your game!